#and then narrowing it down based on vibes and what catches my interest best at the moment

[jesuisgourde]

Attempting to decide which of these to read next

[wandringaesthetic]

Top 5 JRPGs

So in order to answer this question I had to have a few existential crises. First: what is a JRPG (we just don't know)? I'm going with the more purist answer here since we're narrowing it down to 5. So no action RPGs or tactical RPGs. Second: do I just put down my personal favorites here? because that's going to be 4 Final Fantasy games and idk Suikoden II, probably, and that's not very interesting. I don't really believe in objective quality, but at the moment I find it interesting to take a stab at it or at least name things I think are genuinely very good and polished and have relatively universal appeal. In the end, ugh, whatever, here's a list:

Final Fantasy VII - this is the one that made me fall in love with the genre. I don't have much to say about it that hasn't already been said. I will say, while I mostly like Remake/Rebirth there's something about the original they're never going to catch, and there's a lot to be said about being (relatively) more succinct and focused and leaving some things to the imagination.

Dragon Quest V - This is as good as the UrJRPG series gets. Charming and funny and bright and occasionally tragic. It's about growing up and family and perseverance. It did the monster recruitment thing before Pokemon. I played the Super Famicom version via fan translation and emulation, so I don't know if the remake(s?) of this have quite the same charm. It's helpful for older games to look their age so you can put them in the context of their time, I think. I feel like relatively few people in the west have played this one, which is a shame because it's the missing piece in the influences of Lufia, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, possibly even Pokemon. Really fun, really solid game that was genuinely touching and made me feel childlike wonder.

Suikoden II - I first played this one when I was in college and Going Through It, and I've been meaning to replay it ever since. So, my memories are a little muddled but I'm going to do my best. Two boys take diverging paths to the same end. A war story that takes on a human scale by developing a huge cast of characters and by having your base grow around you. It takes one of the most interesting middle chapter twists I can think of in a video game. It's one of the best looking and sounding sprite based games to exist. It has an iron chef cooking mini game.

Shadow Hearts Covenant - balances between horror and quirkiness. Atypical setting (in the shadows of IRL World War I). Atypical protagonist with many demons, literal and metaphorical. Really good gameplay. Takes the FFX conditional turn based thing, where you can see the turn order and where some skills alter it, and runs with it. Timed hits, but it's customizable so you can make the system more or less forgiving and balance risk/reward with precise inputs versus guaranteed, but lower, accuracy. Adds up to a really fun game. Vibes are immaculate. Cast is great. But I cannot speak to how good the plot is because I don't remember most of it. It and the rest of the series have never been ported or remade and likely never will be. Keep circulating the tapes.

Chrono Trigger - I mean if you're only going to play one JRPG this is the one. The love child of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, with the bright, fun adventure qualities of DQ and the scifi/fantasy fusion and existential angst of FF. Did gameplay stuff it took other games decades to do and did it better. One of the best looking SNES games. The music makes me feel feelings I can't name. I paradoxically think it's overrated even though I'm putting it on the list, because it's not a personal favorite and I don't think anything in the world lives up to the hype around this game. It is very good, however, and a distillation of the genre.

[taetaesbaebaepsae]

Lunar Violence (jjk)

Summary: You’re not a big fan of your best friend’s favorite band, Lunar Violence. Their werewolf gimmick makes you roll your eyes, even if the music isn’t too bad. When she drags you to a concert just as the blood moon rises, though, everything changes.

Warnings: werewolf sex, possessive behavior, choking, knotting, marking, heats and ruts so whatever consent issues you feel are within that realm, unrpotected sex, werewolf dick, abo dynamics

Word Count:7445

Rating: Explicit

You're not normally a fan of gimmicks, particularly with your music. So when your best friend begs you for a solid week to go with her to this concert, you're wary when you do a simple Google search.

Lunar Violence might be the dumbest fucking name for a band you've ever heard, but they certainly seem like they're going for a certain vibe. You'd definitely have been into it when you were a teen, the fake fangs, the facial piercings and torn leather pants, the howling they do at the ends of some of their songs.

The music itself isn't bad, the lead singer is stupid hot and has a smooth low tenor and bedroom eyes. 

You flip through only a few of the member pictures before making a decision based on the fact that they're good eye candy, at least.

Your friend Jia jumps up and down excitedly when you tell her and shows you the signs she's made. She's got a thing for the one they call Happy, a lean bassist who has a bright smile and a sexy glare.

"What are with these names? The seven dwarfs? I think they're mixing metaphors."

Jia snorts. "They call the drummer Baby because he's the youngest. It’s not that dumb and the music is really good, you’ll love it, I promise!"

"This is so dumb. You owe me."

"If I get close enough to Happy to make eye contact I'm gonna make him mine and then I'll give you anything you want." Jia says determinedly.

It’s a few weeks before the concert, so you find yourself listening to a few albums and actually getting pretty excited about it. It should be a fun time, get you away from the stress of your every day life, at the least.

You had no way of knowing that the night of the concert would complicate your life tenfold.

“Do we always have to schedule concerts around rutting season?” Namjoon whines after hitting yet another wrong chord on his guitar.

“It’s the best part about this job!” Hoseok grins.

“I can’t fucking concentrate being horny all the time, I agree with Joon,” Yoongi agrees, banging his forehead down on the keyboard.

“Should have called you Horny rather than Lucky,” Seokjin snorts, and Hoseok laughs so hard he nearly knocks over his bass guitar.

Jungkook watches them with a fond smile on his face, his brothers. Not by blood, of course but being the only werewolves in the city made them have an instant connection and camaraderie, and they’d created a pack pretty quickly. The music had come later, they’d all been interested in it, all had some talent and all been blessed with good looks, and after that it was only a matter of who did what and stage names.

Kim Seokjin, with his regal looks and sharp jaw: Prince.

Min Yoongi, with the scar over his left eye he’d gotten scrapping with a grey wolf in the woods behind his house in Daegu as a pup: Lucky.

Jung Hoseok with his easy smile and eager nature: Happy.

Kim Namjoon, always so serious and intelligent: Beethoven. 

Park Jimin, with his pretty face and sneaky smirk: Sly.

Kim Taehyung with his sweet nature and affectionate personality: Honey.

Finally, Jeon Jungkook, because he'd been barely old enough to breed when they'd met: Baby.

"Baby hasn't had his first rut yet, yeah?" It's Jimin, smirking, always giving Jungkook grief about something. 

Jungkook narrows his eyes and chucks a drumstick at him but it's no use, Jimin catching it in one band and twirling it like a goddamn baton. Jungkook would say Jimin was graceful if he hadn't seen him fall off about a dozen barstools and half a dozen stages, sober even for the latter.

“Kinda late, isn’t it?” Seokjin speaks up, and Jungkook knows he’s teasing but it stings a little, nonetheless. 

“He’s only just turned 23. You were two weeks from your 23rd before you ever popped a knot, hyung, or have you forgotten?” Namjoon snarks, and Jungkook snickers as Seokjin makes a face, that vein on his neck pulsing just a bit.

He shouldn’t laugh, they’re just as likely to come to blows during the beginning of a rut and in a full moon cycle, but he can’t help himself

Yoongi, as usual, manages to keep the peace by offering to order pizza and foot the bill, a truly saintlike act since they could go through a pizza each, as hot as their temperature would be running by now.

Jungkook doesn’t say that he’s had a knot for two years now, the very thought of his hyungs knowing that makes him blush so much he hides it by wiping his face with a towel, pretending to have been sweating. 

Truly, he should have had a rut by now, triggered by all the pheromones' from the shows they’d been doing, this tour had been particularly rough due to the upcoming blood moon, at least for all the other boys, and it isn’t as if Jungkook hasn’t mated, of course, but a full rut? Not even the hint of it. It worries him, but Namjoon keeps assuring him that everyone gets there in time, people are just different.

Taehyung had been a late bloomer himself, not starting his first rut until he met and fell in love with his girlfriend, a short feisty redhead he’d met after a hand injury from stringing his bass guitar and slicing his palm open. She’d been a nurse who scolded him for not coming in sooner and it’d been almost instant, her green eyes triggering every wolf thing about him, or at least that’s how he tells it, all wide eyed and dreamy.

She’s a near constant in Taehyung’s hotel rooms now, sometimes riding along on the tour bus, but he doesn’t let her into anymore of the concerts even when she pouts, because human mates around a group of wolves around rutting season can be a dangerous time.

Taehyung is one of the gentlest wolves Jungkook knows, but he’d seen him snarl when Yoongi so much as winked at the redhead near a rut, so it’s probably for the best.

Anyway, Jungkook wasn’t worried (much). He’d find his true mate eventually, but probably not at a concert. Maybe he’d start his rut there, at least, around the full moon. He’d never have imagined that he’d find both.

The crowd is nice enough, although they seem a little feral. Some of these girls have signs that should be x rated, but you're not one to judge, especially since you've never actually….done anything too x-rated. 

You feel a little strange when you enter the concert venue and you can’t quite put your finger on it. You shrug and blame it on the strong drink your friend had made you chug before you entered since she couldn’t finish it all herself.

It’s like there’s something living under your skin, some rush like heat, and it  makes you feel antsy, ready to dance along to the music or at least laugh at your friend losing her mind next to you.

There’s a lot of gimmick to the concert and it’s bright and dark at the same time near the stage. You’d swear you’d seen the guitarist strum with no pick, with a sharp claw instead, but you’re sure it’s makeup, part of the show. They’re wearing contacts, too, you’re pretty sure, and the music is good, your friend isn’t wrong.

The song you’d heard that you’d like is actually their encore song, heavy on the bass and drums, and the lead singer even makes your skin feel hot a little when he makes eye contact and winks at you. The last solo the lights come down on the drummer, he’s on the back stage so all you can see is his long hair bouncing, the flex of his admittedly impressive biceps as he finishes the song.

You’ve been jumping up and down and singing along so much that you’re sweating and feeling a bit dizzy, so you drag your friend out the back alley while she’s still swooning, having gotten a direct smile from her favorite bassist.

“Did you see him? He looked right at me! We’re in love, Y/n. Do you want to be my maid of honor?” She’s babbling when you hear the click of a lighter next to you.

There’s people milling about, it wasn’t exactly a sold out show but there was a decent crowd, and people are now piling into the bar next door.

“Did you like the show?” 

When you turn your head you’re shocked to see that it’s the lead singer, a couple strands of his silver hair falling over his eye as he smiles at you.

“Oh. Oh, yes, I liked it very...very much,” you stammer. He’s even more handsome up close. Those are some really good contacts, you can’t tell they aren’t real at all, even though surely no one’s eyes are a violet color like that.

“Sly!” Your friend screams, and you jolt forward, surprised.

The singer’s hand lights on your shoulder and you look down. You have time to think that they must make great money for these expensive special effects because they sure do look like claws before your friend rushes past you, yelling because Happy had come out the back with the rest of the band.

There’s no mob or anything, maybe a dozen people other than you and Jia, but it makes you a bit anxious nonetheless, especially since you’re still feeling just as antsy, hot and dizzy as you were before.

It might be worse, actually, as you stand outside in the moonlight.

“Sly’s just my stage name.” His voice sounds softer, closer to your ear as he leans in. “You can call me Jimin.”

“O-okay,” you stutter, unused to feeling this way. You’re usually more outgoing, talkative, but it feels so strange. You find yourself looking up at the sky as if looking for the moon.

It’s better, once you’re inside the bar, there’s not as much of a crowd and you’re sitting at a big table with Sly...Jimin, you remind yourself, and Jia and Happy, who seems to fit his name well, laughing open and loud with your best friend as if they’ve known each other forever.

After a few hours and a couple of drinks you’ve lost most of that antsy feeling since being indoors, and you and Jimin vibe well, becoming fast friends. You’re both flirty and talkative after getting to know each other, and your mood is lifted from the concert, the alcohol, and the socialization.

You even laugh about calling their gimmick dumb as they dodge questions about where they get their makeup and accessories. You assume it’s some kind of sponsorship situation or contract, not thinking much of it.

You manage to excuse yourself long enough to look for the bathroom, although Jia abandons you since she’s made her way into Happy’s lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and with a blissful smile you’re not sure you’ve ever seen on her.

There’s someone standing in the hall and it’s a narrow hallway and he’s pretty wide from the back so you stumble a little when you turn, placing a hand on the wall.

“Oh, excuse me!” You say, brightly, but when he turns you gasp, a little surprised by the bright red of his eyes before you realize it’s another member of Lunar Violence.

“Hello,” he says, quietly with a little smile and he has these prominent front teeth that are pretty cute, make him look a lot less intimidating, despite those contacts and an eyebrow piercing and his size.

“Oh, hello! You’re…”

“Baby,” he blurts, and it makes you giggle.

You feel a little tipsier than you’d realized, and you guess it must be since you’ve been sitting down for an hour or so and just gotten up.

He puts a hand over his face, embarrassed. “My name is Jungkook,” he explains. “I’m the drummer?”

It’s cute how his voice pitches up into a question, as if you wouldn’t recognize him. He’s definitely a bit more modest than the other two members you’d met, with Jimin and Happy (who you’d just learned also goes by Hoseoki), bragging about tours and performances. 

“Pretty big for a baby,” you tease, and he makes an embarrassed sound in the back of his throat.

“I keep trying to get them to let me change it,” he mutters.

You introduce yourself and he smiles again, and his eyes aren’t as red as you’d thought at first, anyway, maybe it’s just the light. You brush past him as you continue to the bathroom after excusing yourself, and it’s a little zing through you, like static electricity.

It takes you longer in the bathroom than it usually would, that last drink really must have packed a punch, and when you return to the table Jungkook is sitting there, too, next to your empty chair. Jimin looks a little sullen and pouty, but he smiles at you, those violet eyes crinkling up at the corners, and you give him a bright smile back.

Jungkook, on the other hand, is all energy, jiggling his leg and tapping his fingers on the table and Hoseok seems to be watching him intently.

The atmosphere in general seems to have changed, and after exchanging numbers with everyone with the urging of Jia, you two excuse yourself.

The three men walk you outside and Jimin is close while Jungkook hangs back. You imagine Jimin is so close since you mentioned feeling a bit dizzy and he asks you twice if he can call you a car but you tell him that the fresh air will do you good.

It’s funny, the moonlight seems to energize you a bit. When Jimin leans in to kiss you on the cheek, you jump a little at a sound behind you, something like a bark.

Jimin jolts back a little, eyes widening, and you both laugh at your nerves.

“Stray dog,” you remark, and Jimin snorts.

“Something like that.”

Namjoon pinches the bridge of his nose. “So what exactly the fuck happened after I left?”

Jimin is sullen on the couch, arms crossed over his chest with a busted lip and Jungkook is sitting next to Hoseok on the floor on the other side of the hotel room with tissue up his nose, Hoseok tilting his head back.

“Baby is about to go into rut,” Taehyung sings, laughing, his girlfriend draped over him on the bed drowsily, his teeth marks littering her neck and throat.

“Don’t,” Yoongi warns. “Everyone’s just wound up. Full moon is in two days, after all, cut him some slack.”

“Sees one girl he likes and suddenly no one else can talk to her,” Jimin complains, gingerly working his tongue across his lip ring to see if it’s torn.

“You tried to kiss her,” Jungkook growls, and Hoseok pushes on his chest to keep him from getting up.

Jungkook can’t explain why his wolf wanted to rip Jimin’s throat out when he leaned in to kiss you, he’d just met you, didn’t even know your last name, but it was visceral, sudden, something crawling up his throat. He’d almost moved forward to do it before Hoseok said his name, sharply.

“We all get a little possessive about potential mates around the full moon,” Namjoon reasons. “But that’s not the way to handle it, Jungkook.”

Jungkook hangs his head and removes the tissue from his nose with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry, hyung.” He looks over at Jimin but he means it for Namjoon. He’s still bitter, somehow, about Jimin’s hand on your lower back, his lips brushing your cheek. It makes his head feel fuzzy, his guts roll.

Namjoon, on the other hand, had been the one to “discover” Jungkook, back when he had no idea why his eyes were starting to change color with the moon cycles or why his nails grew out like claws. He’d started learning percussion just to get rid of some of the energy he had around those times, and he’d been 17 when Namjoon approached him in a music store when Jungkook was looking into buying cymbals. 

Jungkook had been abandoned when he was a baby, adopted at four years old and he had no idea about his wolf lineage, or even that they existed, until Namjoon explained it to him.

“Jungkook doesn’t know his lineage,” Namjoon reminds them all. “He might just be presenting as an alpha, that’s a lot around the full moon, Jimin, you remember.”

Jimin grumbles something under his breath and Jungkook has to take a deep breath through his nostrils, smelling iron from their scuffle earlier, in order not to lunge across the room and hit him again.

Eventually, Jungkook has to move to his own room despite usually bunking with Jimin, and he finds himself unable to sleep, staring at the ceiling. He keeps seeing your bright smile, your curls bouncing around as you talked and laughed, mostly at Jimin, and it makes him stiffen to think of how Jimin had met you first.

Why did it matter, anyway? You’re just a person, just like he is, just a girl, and he doesn’t have the best track record with talking to girls, anyway. You’d been in the front row, with your friend who Hoseok had gotten so smiley about, he’d seen you just before he started his set, his vision clearer around the full moon.

The others laughed at him for how he talked about “the wolf,” as if it wasn’t a part of him, as if it wasn’t who he was, but that’s how it had always felt. He just hadn’t had a name for it until he’d met Namjoon. It was like this thing, inside him, this beast, something that clawed and scratched to get out.

Seokjin keeps telling him that he’s fighting the wolf, that’s why he hasn’t gone into rut or popped his knot, that’s why he feels so achy and fidgety around the moon cycles, that’s why he hasn’t shifted. Namjoon would always respond there was no way to know that but Seokjin just rolled his eyes.

“Aish, I’m your hyung, listen to me. I fought mine, too, when I was young, and when I shifted I broke a few bones. You should give in, let it ride in the front seat once in a while.”

Jungkook had nodded at the time but now, he doesn’t know how to do that. Drumming helped, it was a lot of work and energy expelled and it felt like he could let him out, the wolf, just a little. It’s why he’d gotten so big, staying active and lifting weights was something the wolf liked.

The wolf came sometimes when he masturbated, too, when he’d feel particularly worked up around the full moon, after a concert, sweaty and rolling his hips into his hand.

When he tries it after meeting you, he can’t even finish, ending up panting and sore, the wolf still snarling over the memory of Jimin’s lips barely brushing across your cheek.

Surprisingly enough, it’s Jungkook who texts you first. Wanna go for a drink?

You’re not sure whether to say yes at first, you’ve been feeling so strange. You can barely sleep, your skin feeling hot, as if you’d burned yourself with a too hot shower. You think about that night at the concert a lot, Jimin’s violet eyes, Jungkook’s almost red ones, how odd you’d felt.

You would have talked to Jia about it but she’s been abducted by the werewolf band, apparently, you’ve barely seen her in a week and when you had she’d been littered with hickeys and with a big goofy smile.

Part of you wonders if this is all some sex ring cult but she seems happy, jubilant even, so you agree, meeting Jungkook at a downtown bar.

He’s there before you arrive, you can see him through the window sitting at a table, looking wide and a bit intimidating until he lifts his head and smiles at you with a little wave.

His eyes are a warm brown now, pretty and wide, you’re able to notice the shape more without the contacts.

Jungkook is still all energy, maybe that’s just how he is, talking to you more and more as the nights go on and you two share a pitcher of beer, scooting his chair closer. You find he flushes a pretty rose when you flirt with him and can’t stop laughing when he nearly falls out of his chair when you prop your legs up in his lap.

By the end of the night he can’t stop smiling at you and you’re intrigued, moreso than you’d imagined you would be when you’d first met him, smiling shyly at you at the bar near the concert. You start to feel funny again, your head fuzzy, probably from the alcohol.

When you tell him, he’s all wide eyed concern.

You giggle. “Now I know why they call you Baby.” 

He huffs a little. 

He walks you outside just as he did before but this time he doesn’t hang back, and when you reach the alleyway, he places a hand on the swell of your hip as you take a few deep breaths of the night air.

You’re surprised, laugh a little until you look up into his eyes. You’d swear they looked red tinged again, but surely it’s just the beer.

“Not a baby,” he murmurs, moving closer, pressing you up against the brick with his body, and you hitch in a breath.

“No?” You ask, boldly trailing your finger along his collarbone through the black tshirt he’s wearing.

He shakes his head, leaned down close enough to your face that his nose brushes yours.

“Prove it,” you tease, and he makes this rumbling sound in the back of his throat that makes goosebumps break out across your flesh.

He leans down further, nips at your lower lip, and you moan, body surging forward toward his as if it was made to fit it. You’re not sure if you kiss him or he kisses you, but his tongue is in your mouth, his hands on either side of your head, caging you in.

You feel hot all over, dizzy in the most pleasant way, at least until he pulls away, gasping.

You whine, a sound you don’t think you’ve ever made before, when he’s not touching you anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps. “I’m sorry. I should go.”

He’s gone before you can even gasp out another whine of his name, and the moonlight on your skin burns instead of cools.

Jungkook tells this story in a burst to his bandmates the next day, hungover with his head pounding.

“You just left her there?” Jimin says, his face shocked, and Jungkook feels the wolf make a growl start at the back of his throat.

Namjoon puts a hand on his shoulder and it turns into a whine instead. 

“I’ve never felt him that close, hyung. Right at the surface. I wanted to…”

Namjoon and Seokjin meet eyes above Jungkook’s lowered head.

Jimin catches it. Jimin catches everything, it’s one of the best and worst things about him.

“What? You think…” Jimin laughs. “No. She can’t be his.... She’s not a wolf, I would’ve smelled it when-”

Jungkook surges out of his seat, a deep growl rumbling from his chest. “When what, Jimin?”

Jimin’s eyes glow a pale violet as he snarls back, uncaring that Jungkook towers over him.

In the end, Namjoon and Seokjin have to separate them physically as they bark and snarl at each other.

Hoseok and Taehyung are missing, having holed up to ride out their ruts with their human mates instead of the house the seven share.

Yoongi huffs out a breath. “He’s definitely presenting as an alpha.”

“No shit,” Namjoon barks, unusually on edge. 

Yoongi, Seokjin, and Taehyung are the betas of the group, and until now there had only been a slight difference among the bandmates despite their different rankings.

Alpha pheromones were stronger and their senses were more heightened around rutting season, particularly for other mates. 

In the end, they have to completely change how they house themselves, with Jimin sharing a room with Yoongi, and Jungkook sharing with Seokjin.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” Jungkook says miserably, his wolf finally calmed as he sits down on the bed.

“It’s not your fault,” Seokjin says, voice much less harsh than Namjoon’s had been earlier when he’d scolded him. “I saw Namjoon during this time, and it wasn’t easy.”

Jungkook looks up at the elder with wide eyes. “Really?”

Seokjin snorts and nods. “Yeah, around the full moon he was unbearable, snarling at everything.”

“I just didn’t want to scare her or...or hurt her...I wanted to put her against the wall and…” Jungkook trails off, embarrassed.

Seokjin only smiles and ruffles Jungkook’s hair. “That’s normal too, Baby. You wouldn’t have hurt her, especially if it’s what we think it is.”

“What...what does that mean?”

Seokjin shakes his head. “Something you gotta work out on your own.”

Jungkook groans and flops down on the bed as Seokjin laughs, heading downstairs to make dinner while things are calm.

He has trouble sleeping again, but this time instead of wondering why, he knew, could almost feel the soft skin of your hip on his palm like it was still there, how you’d moaned into his mouth, whined for him.

Jungkook isn’t sure there’s a cold enough shower to help.

You can’t seem to sit still as the full moon nears, feeling like you might jump out of your skin. You can’t count the number of friends you’d called but no one seems up to going out. You bite your lip while looking at Jungkook’s contact on your phone screen.

If you think about it long enough, you can still feel the way he pressed against you, how the hair on the nape of your neck stood up when he nipped at your lip, how hot you’d felt, how wet…

You sigh and scroll up, seeing Jimin’s name instead. Jimin had been fun to be with the night you’d met, easy to talk to, less….intense. And he didn’t make you feel like you were about to crawl out of your skin, so you ask if he wants to meet up for a drink.

It’s late, by the time you decide, and the moon is out, waxing toward fullness. There’s only a tiny sliver remaining, big in the sky, and you can’t stop looking up at it as you walk to the bar near your house.

You’d chosen it because it’s close and not because it’s where hot drummer Jeon Jungkook, also known as Baby, had pressed you against an alley wall and made you almost…

Jimin jolts you out of your thoughts, calling your name and waving as you approach the door. He’s leaned against the doorjamb, giving you a smirk and you think now you understand why they call him Sly.

It makes you smile and again, you vibe well with him, you get along in the best way, conversation is easy and you don’t feel gooseflesh or your hair stand up when he brushes his fingers against yours.

Jimin knows he’s playing with fire when he replies to your text, but they don’t call him Sly for nothing, and you’re interesting, for a human. He’s only met one other female wolf, a tall and feisty woman with a sharp tongue and the most beautiful brown eyes, but she’d had a mate and well...things hadn’t ended well. 

Jungkook thinks of his wolf as this separate entity but Jimin disagrees, let’s his wolf do what it wants, so that all the bad things he feels have some kind of outlet. This was especially so after he’d lost his brown eyed wolf girl, so he invites you back to the house, knowing that Jungkook will be at the gym all night before the full moon tomorrow.

In fact, all of the others will be out, finding fun of their own, and why shouldn’t Jimin do the same? It isn’t as if Jungkook has marked you, or even can, since you’re human. 

Your eyes aren’t quite the same shade of hers, but he can pretend.

Jungkook works out until his muscles ache but nothing can shake this feeling he has, like something’s wrong. When he leaves the gym even the moon looks off, as if it’s dimmer than it should be, and something’s pulling him home, like this tug in his gut. It feels like it used to as a kid in his first foster home, when he’d get so anxious he’d climb onto the roof and stare up at it.

He’s almost running as he gets closer, feeling his skin prickle as he gets to the house, his wolf so close to the surface he can feel the fur that isn’t there yet standing up on the back of his neck.

He smells Jimin first, wrinkling his nose at the alpha pheromones, and when he walks upstairs it isn’t as if he decides to let the wolf take over, or struggles with it - it’s instant.

You’re standing in the hall, head tilted up, and Jimin is leaning against the wall, smiling down at you, and when you lean up to just softly brush your lips against Jimin’s, Jungkook’s heart nearly leaps out of his chest, and the wolf barks, loud and warning.

You turn, surprised, and Jungkook doesn’t think, doesn’t act, it’s all wolf. He grabs you by your waist, hefts you up over your shoulder, and begins to walk you to his room.

Jimin protests and Jungkook growls over his shoulder, daring him to try something. Later, Jungkook is glad his friend didn’t follow, because he isn’t sure that he could have held the wolf back.

You kick and yell and beat on his back and Jungkook doesn’t realize what he’s done until he’s plopped you down on his bed, crawling toward you.

You kick him in the chest and it barely registers. You stand up and that’s when he snaps back to himself, at least to a degree.

"Don't leave. You can't leave." It's panicked, his voice, higher pitched almost like a whine.

"I can do whatever I want," you snap.

He makes this sound between a whine and a snarl and it's startling, strange, and you stop at the door.

"I know that! I know, but he doesn't!" 

"He..." you turn to look at him and he's trembling, head down, and you step closer, worried. "Baby, what do you mean?"

Jungkook just stands there, still trembling, until you reach out to touch his hair, gently. "He thinks he owns you, that you're his, that no one else can touch you." He explains, almost in a whisper.

"Who is he?" You ask slowly.

He raises his head slow and you gasp when you look into his eyes, instead of a warm brown this burnt amber, red hued.

"The wolf."

You stand there, blinking in surprise, for a long moment before actively telling your feet to move to the door. Unfortunately, your brain seems to have some kind of disconnect to your limbs, because you just step even closer, lean in and inhale along his neck, this scent of sweat and the iron of the weights he’d been lifting washing over you.

Rationally, you know that you should be shocked, horrified, even, that werewolves are real and you’re apparently standing in a house full of them but all you can do is run your tongue along the vein in his throat and Jungkook is trembling all over, whimpering like a puppy.

“Y/n, please, don’t-” he chokes out.

“Why not?” You murmur against his skin, the scent of him making your body react like you’ve never felt before. There’s this ache between your thighs that you’ve only felt a hint of before and you want more, nipping at his skin, unable to think clearly.

“He wants to...wants you,” Jungkook stutters, balling his hands into fists to keep from touching you.

“He does? Or you do?” You ask, lifting your head to pout at him, and Jungkook groans.

“Both,” he whispers hoarsely. 

“Then take me,” you say, and you don’t even know where the words came from. Your head feels light on your shoulders, dizzy with the scent of him, how his skin tastes under your tongue, and you do what he did to you the last night you’d seen him, nipping at his lower lip. Your canine pierces the skin and you taste iron on your tongue

Jungkook growls and lifts you again, this time with his hands under your ass and thighs and your legs wrap around him instantly. He all but throws you down on the bed, this time, and you whimper when he grips one of your thighs with his big hand, squeezing the flesh there.

“Mine,” he snarls, that high pitched whine at the end, and it makes you arch your back, claw your nails across his shoulders.

Jungkook leans down to sniff at your neck and growls again, wrinkling his nose and when you open your eyes he’s staring down at you with those red/amber eyes. 

You look back defiantly but you’re rolling your hips against his, you can feel him hard against your core and even though you’d never gone all the way with anyone before you want him inside you, can’t think of anything else.

“You smell like him,” he accuses, voice hoarse, and his wide eyes fade back to brown, just slightly, the color dilating around his pupils.

“Jungkook,” you whisper, feeling something like guilt, even though nothing had happened, really, and even it if it had…

He rubs his nose against your throat, covers you with his body like he’s replacing any of Jimin’s scent with his own. He licks against your neck, bites down on your skin, making you yelp.

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook whines. “I’m sorry, I have to. You’re mine, I have to mark you, have to scent you anywhere he touched you,” he tries to explain, his hands skating down your ample curves.

“It’s okay,” you say, and somehow you mean it, you understand, the very thought of Jungkook smelling like anyone else makes your heart jump into your throat, something primal rise in your gut. “I know, baby.”

“You’re mine?” He says again, voice pitching up into a question just like when he’d introduced himself and it scares you, the way it makes your heart ache.

Instead of speaking you kiss him again, hard, moving your hands to his hair to get him closer. You had worn a skirt and halter out, it’s so warm even though it’s close to winter, your skin feeling so hot under the moonlight that you couldn’t wear much else.

Even as you kiss him he’s tearing at your clothes and you lean up to help him until you’re bare beneath him and panting, this whining noise coming from your throat that you can’t explain.

“God,” Jungkook groans, rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I-”

“You haven’t...haven’t done this before?” Your eyes widen.

Jungkook realizes what you mean and he blushes a bit. “I’ve...yeah, I’ve done this before but not...not like this. I feel like...the wolf feels like...he’s been crazy. Since the first moment I saw you.”

“Like you’re gonna jump out of your skin? Always feeling...hot?” You ask.

Jungkook nods slowly, eyes widening.

“Me too,” you admit. “I don’t...I don’t know what it means. That’s why I came out with Jimin, I-”

Jungkook cuts you off with a choked whine. “It means you’re supposed to be mine.”

He snuffles against your neck again, hands at your hips, still holding back, trembling. “It means he never should have touched you.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, even though you know you have nothing to apologize for. “I want you. I’ve never...I’ve never done this before but I want you so bad,” you admit, clutching at his tshirt, pulling it up until he gets on his knees and pulls it off, tossing it to the side. You spread your hands across his chest and he lets out a wrecked moan.

“You’re holding back,” you accuse.

He nods. “The wolf, he doesn’t….I don’t want to hurt you. Especially...fuck, no one’s touched you like this before?” His hands slide up and down your thighs as he stares down at your body, your breasts, the cleft of your cunt.

Jungkook knows that shouldn’t make him so hard, shouldn’t make his dick pulse in his sweats, shouldn’t make the wolf keen with pride. Mine mine mine, the first, the only is all his brain is chanting, he feels dizzy like he’s drank too much even though he hasn’t had a drop.

“Please, please, please,” you beg, but he can’t, can’t let the wolf out, he’s afraid he’ll rip you apart. You’re human and a virgin and he can’t risk hurting you.

The wolf won’t even let him say it, so he just shakes his head. 

You huff out a breath, your body aching all over, need making your arousal coat your thighs. You don’t know what you’re going to say until you say it.

“Should I ask Jimin to do it? I bet he can smell me,” you taunt, shocking yourself.

Jungkook freezes, his eyes bleeding to red again and one hand jolting out to wrap around your throat.

“Don’t,” he warns.

You know you should be cautious since you’re about to fuck an actual werewolf, but fuck, you’re so hot, you can’t think, you need something inside you and you drop your feet to the bed, spreading your legs wide.

“Jimin would mark me. He’d fuck me, fill me full like I want.” 

Jungkook feels something in him snap, and his heart hurts and his cock aches and the wolf is keening, clawing inside him and he can’t control it anymore, just like before.

“Never,” he growls, squeezes his fingers around your throat and you gasp, your stomach aching with need.

Finally, finally he slides his fingers along your pussy and you choke out a sob as his thumb slips across your clit but it’s not enough.

“Jungkook,” you whimper. “Make me yours.”

“Already mine,” he murmurs, and finally slides two fingers inside you, making you cry out. “You’re already mine but I’m gonna give you what you want, mark you, fuck you, make sure Park fucking Jimin never so much as sniffs at you again.”

“Yes,” you sigh. “Yes, please, please.”

Jungkook still worries somewhere in the back of his mind that he’ll hurt you, that the wolf will, and by now he understands they’re one and the same but you’re rolling your hips up and his cock feels heavy and full like he’s about to burst, somehow wider at the base and he rips down his sweats, fucking you with three fingers now. 

When his cock bounces against his stomach you gasp, and if you’d been in your right mind you might worry he’s too big but something inside you is crying out in pleasure just at the sight of it. You spread your legs wider and he releases your throat, leaning over to kiss you instead, biting your lip as he slowly works himself inside you.

It’s a tight fit even after three fingers and you’re whining into his mouth, wanting more.

Jungkook isn’t a virgin, far from it although a little less experienced than some of his band members (Hoseok had once bragged about fucking a house of sorority sisters during a rut), but the way you clench around him has his hips twitching, wanting to buck into you even if it would split you open. 

Despite his worry, neither he or the wolf wants to hurt you, though, so he waits for you to adjust even as you beg, waits until you can take all of him.

He’s barely realized that he’s popped his knot until he looks down to see where you’ve joined and he groans. He knows how to do this, has been talked to (endlessly, by Taehyung, about his human girlfriend and how she desperately wants to take his knot and they’re working on it but it will take time and training), knows that you can’t take his knot but the wolf is howling for it, wants to fuck you hard and then pop it inside you, spill a littler into your womb.

You whine and pulse around him, reaching up to tug at his hair. “Kookie,” you pout. “Baby. Want you inside me, fuck me harder, please-”

“I can’t-” he chokes out, but then you wrap your legs around his waist and pull him deeper and the wolf growls, leans down, mine mine mine chanting in his head. My mate.

You felt a tiny pop when Jungkook first entered you, nothing painful and then just need, you want more and more and you don’t even know how to say it. You look up at him, near tears, needing something that you feel he won’t give you.

“I’m not yours yet,” you slur, and he looks pained, his eyes dilating from warm brown to amber red again and again.

He rocks his hips against you slow, and you’ve orgasmed twice already, once from his fingers and one from his cock but it’s not enough and you whine, it comes out almost inhuman, like his.

“Fill me up,” you urge, and Jungkook tries to hold the wolf back, he really does, but he’s too far gone, this close to the full moon and in the start of his first rut. 

Jungkook groans, fucks you harder and faster and when you cry out his name his balls draw up and he thrusts forward harder than he’d meant to, popping his knot inside you.

You make a surprised sound and his eyes pop open, his hands cupping your face even as his hips twitch as he cums, spills inside you.

“Y/n. I’m so sorry,” he mourns. “I’m sorry, I love you, I’m sorry,” he babbles, kissing along your neck and throat, seeing that he’d already marked you twice, once on each side of your throat, and he barely remembers it.

You let out a happy sigh and wrap your arms around his neck, feeling finally sated, at least for the moment. “What are you sorry for, silly baby?”

“Doesn’t it hurt?” He asks, and you look up into his eyes and they’re heterochromatic, now, red hued amber and brown both.

“You’d never hurt me,” you mumble against his throat.

“Never,” he promises. “Never, I love you so much.” 

You’re half asleep, sated with him still inside you, planting soft kisses on your lips and face. You don’t know where you’d learned the word, but it feels right when you say it, right before you drift to sleep.

“I love you too, Alpha.”

It takes a while to understand, especially between Jungkook being barely able to leave his room since he’s in rut and you’re in heat, but eventually, you figure it out.

Your great grandmother had been an omega werewolf, and it’s a recessive gene so you’d been the lucky one to receive it. Since you had never shifted because your gene wasn’t activated by male wolves, you had no smell.

At least, not until the full moon, when you shifted into what Jungkook says is the prettiest wolf he’d ever seen.

After, when you’d near your heat, Jungkook would snap and snarl at the boys so much just for talking to you that it made you roll your eyes, but eventually you got the dates right (for the most part, there’d been one instance in which Jimin had made a snarky comment and Jungkook had lunged at him and they’d gone rolling down the stairs), and you holed up in your apartment, instead.

Jungkook was working with Seokjin to understand that the wolf is him instead of some seperate entity. You tell him you’ve always known that. From what you know now, if the wolf wasn’t, he would have taken you the very first night. True mates are rare, and you’d both known it the whole time, even when you hadn’t.

You and Jia went to every concert, her always telling you her neverending sexcapades with Hoseok to be able to take his knot, front row, waiting for your Alpha’s set. It’s cute, you think, that they call him Baby on stage but he’s your Alpha, especially since he’s both, always, to you.

[stargazingthenightaway]

See Something You Like? Part 2

Pairing: Rebels Rex x Reader

Word Count: 2.7K

Warning: NSFW 18+ Sexual tension, yearning, dirty thoughts, praise kink, size kink, Dom!Rex, slight predator/prey vibes

A/N:  Ahhhh! Thank you for all your lovely comments! ILYSM 💖 💖 🥰 🥰 Just a heads up, it might be a couple weeks before I get the next chapter up. Report card season is here, and I need to get those sorted. Let me know if you would like to be added to the taglist.  

Fuck.

Your heart stutters as you bolt upright, frantically wishing the panic away. The heat from your face alone could give the twin suns of Tatooine a run for their credits as  mortification sinks low in your chest. It’s a struggle to keep your breathing even, outwardly trying to appear calm when all you want to do is sink into the floor and disappear. Of all the times to be caught fantasizing about riding this man’s face! It was like your depraved thoughts had summoned him, taunting you with the object of your fantasies, dangling him just out of your reach. Look but don’t touch. 

You haven’t turned around yet, and judging by the silence, you can tell Rex is still waiting expectantly for your answer. Kriff, how were you to answer that. You can guess how well telling him the truth would go “Interrupting? Oh no sir, I was just imagining how you’d sound as you hold me down and make me cum on your tongue.” Pfft, you’d be written up for inappropriate conduct and get a one-way ticket to the Hoth base. Try getting yourself off when your fingers are stuck under your armpits trying to stay warm. Bye-bye happy times.

As these thoughts are going rabid fire through your head you don’t notice Rex has leaned up against the wall by the door, giving you a slow once-over, lingering on your ass and appreciating the way the fabric clings in all the right places. Lifting his eyes up he can see the flush making its way up the back of your neck. Rex chuckles quietly to himself, too quietly for you to hear, as he takes in your reaction to being caught bent in half, for anyone passing by to see. But lucky him, he got to see that tantalizing sight of you, face down-ass up, groaning quietly like you needed a good fuck. Rex had to hold himself back when you’d uttered “Fuuuuck me” in such a wrecked tone, wanting to fulfil your plea and fuck you like you asked, like you needed. If he played his cards right he’d be able to hear so many more of your sweet sounds, and they’d be all for him. 

Finally deciding to just get through this conversation as quickly as possible, you turn around and feel your knees go weak. Maker save you. The sight that greets you is like something from the holo novels that you keep hidden under your bed. Rex had decided to forgo his cuirass and spaulder, showing off his black undershirt, which left his arms on full display. All that beautiful, unobstructed muscle led down to his vambraces, fitted snuggly against his wrists. His hands were resting low on the holster belt slung around his hips while his legs were crossed over at the ankles. He looked deceptively at ease except for the way his eyes were focused on you. All sultry, and brooding and hungry. You can’t help but feel caught in his gaze and there’s a fleeting thought that if you were to run Rex would give chase until he had hunted you down, snared in the cage of his arms. That mental image makes your lower belly clench in anticipation, already eager to be caught.

You’re brought back to the present when Rex raises a questioning brow your way, still waiting for you answer, though he’s more amused by your reaction judging by the smile tugging on the corner of his lips. 

Frantically shaking your head, the answer you’ve been looking for finally shoves its way past your throat. “No Sir, no interruption at all.” You notice one of his hands twitch by his sides before going still again.

Rex tilts his head to the side, “Are you sure?” His eyes are tracking your movements, looking for any little tells that could help bring you closer to him. “You sounded pretty desperate there, cyar’ika.”

If only he knew. You try to send what looks like a reassuring smile his way “Absolutely! I was just lost in thought.”

He pushes himself off the wall, intrigued. “Now what could have caused your thoughts to stray?” He stalks closer, and for each step he takes, you take a step back. It’s not long until your back is pressed against the shelf and he’s standing in front of you.

The way he looks at you sends thrums of pleasure through your veins, his proximity sending your senses into high alert. You catch a whiff of his cologne, a subtle spice that has you leaning into him, only for you to quickly jerk back.

Nonono! Abort! Abort! In a sad effort to avoid the real reason for your wandering mind and to prevent your body from utterly betraying you and jumping Rex where he stood, you throw out the first excuse you could come up with.

“My friend Ria dared me to beat her high score on this particular sim,” you wave blindly behind you, “and I have until tonight to win.” You mentally cringe and are already planning on how to apologize to Ria. While she’s a sucker for drama, Ria prefers to hear about it then to live it. She dislikes being pulled into your schemes, especially recently, with your ideas of avoiding a certain Captain while you try to control your libido. 

Rex crosses his arms over his chest, shirt pulled tight across his biceps, and just making himself look bigger. Your eyes flicker down and back up to his face, trying not to get distracted.

“What are the stakes?” He asks

“Huh?” Is your eloquently response. Why was he still interested in this? Your answer was supposed to be enough that he’d let you scurry away, but here he was asking for more. 

“What happens if you lose your bet?” Rex patiently rephrases his question, looking like there was no where else he’d rather be at this moment. He enjoys how flustered you’re getting, especially when your eyes stray down his torso before rushing back to his face. 

Your hands flutter by your sides. “Oh, um,” you flounder, not thinking he’d press this hard for answers, “well, there wasn’t anything specific, just that I’d have to do something for her, however and whenever, she asks” Nailed it! “Sort of an IOU kinda thing.” You mentally give yourself a pat on the back. Surely he’d let you go now.

Rex rubs his hand along his chin, humming to himself as a grin starts to form on his face. This was the opening he was hoping for! He thinks it’s cute how you’ve started to relax, thinking you’re safe, that he’ll let you go. But he’s far from finished with you, not by a long shot. If he has his way this conversation will continue far into tomorrow morning, and every morning for as long as you will have him. His eyes find yours and you see a triumphant glint that causes your breath to hitch.

“So what you’re telling me is that she gets to do anything she wants to you, however she wants, when she wins” He practically purrs out the last part, a deep rumble coming from his chest. 

You don’t know why but the way he says that, paired with the smouldering look he’s giving you, sends a shiver all the way through your core. When he puts it like that it sounds like some sort of dirty rendezvous, in all the best ways. Something he said suddenly catches up to you and you narrow your eyes at him.

“What do you mean when she wins?” You step closer, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Do you think I can’t beat her score?!” Of all the nerve!

Rex looks down at the finger smushed into his chest then back up to you. Such a spitfire! He adores how innocent you look when you’re flustered, the rosiness of your cheeks and your fluttering hands, but this. Well, this version of you gets his blood singing, ready to prove he’s a worthy opponent for you. Indignation lights a spark in your eyes, and coupled with your battle ready stance to throw hands, has his cock ready to stand at attention. Rex knows he just needs to push just a little bit more to get you just where he wants.

He wraps his hand around yours, and moves it away from his chest. While furious, you still have enough coherency to feel how his palm completely engulfs your fist. Stars, is he this big all over? You almost miss how his thumb starts rubbing soothingly along your hand. “It may just be the soldier in me, but in order to beat a high score you actually need to shoot the targets in front of you, not just stare at them cyare.”

Force take you, he had been watching you longer than you thought! Your face burns in embarrassment and you make a move to take your hand back. Rex tightens his grip to prevent you from moving away and pulls you close enough that you can feel the heat from his body. You try and salvage some of your dignity. 

“That was a minor blip,” you mumble to his chest before looking up, staring defiantly into his eyes before you spit out “I bet I could hit more targets than you with my eyes closed.” 

There’s a strange gleam in Rex’s eyes when he hears your challenge, posture alert as he straightens up. “Oh ya?” The same challenging tone is in his voice. “You think you can take me on mesh’la? Let’s put a little wager on it.”

It’s too late to back down now, so you think for a moment before tossing out your wager. “Alright, if I win, you take me on your next mission with the Ghost.” 

Rex nods along, almost too quickly, as he agrees to your side of the wager. The gleam in his eyes is still there as he casually tosses out what he wants “I’ll take the same bet as your friend mesh’la. I get to do anything I want to you, however I want.”

Fuck you sideways in an X-wing. There’s no way Rex could possibly mean it like that, but with the way he’s looking at you right now, like the tooka that got the cream, you can’t help but wonder.

You afraid that if you speak now, all that will come out of your mouth will be an undignified squeak, so you settle for nodding your head.

Bingo. Rex’s grin turns downright feral. “Perfect, it’s settled.” He abruptly turns you so that you’re facing the shooting range. “If you win, you get a mission,” Rex places the blaster in your hands, “and when I win, I get you.” The all to myself goes unspoken, but you can feel it hanging in the air between the two of you.

You swallow the lump in your throat before replying, “If you win. I’m confident I can beat you.”

“We’ll see.” He takes a couple steps back. You’re about to turn around to ask him what he’s doing when he orders “Eyes forward, and get into position” and you hasten to obey.

You can feel a new flush start to crawl up your neck and you fight it down. Now was not the time to think about what other kinds of positions Rex wanted you to take. Of how he’d sound ordering you to suck his cock, or to keep your hands to yourself as he fucked you slow and deep, or how you can give him just one more. Stars, you desperately need to cum or get your head in the game, and since you can’t get to you bunk right now, the game it is.

You take your previous stance and settle in position. Rex is so quiet that you can’t help but quip coyly back at him “See something you like, Sir?”

The sound of your voice brings Rex back to the present, having found himself enjoying how quickly you moved to obey his order a little too much, needing to readjust himself. Your saucy little ‘Sir’ makes his hands clench by his sides, the leather of his gloves creaking slightly. Brat, he thinks fondly.

Looking at your stance, he decides it’s not quite right for what he has in mind. He hums, “Maybe, once I get your stance to my liking.” His boots barely make any sounds as he moves forward. “For one, it’s too wide.” Rex comes up behind you, moulding his body to your back, hands on your hips. You let out a little eep, hoping he didn’t hear. “You need to bring your feet in” and proceeds to bracket your legs with his own, using his feet to nudge yours closer to your centre. “You should feel snug in your position.”

Oh, I’m feeling snug alright. Rex had maneuvered you in such a way that you were pressed right up against his groin, hips nestles between his legs. There’s a dull throb building between your legs when you feel him push in, moving your hips to the side and you can feel him. It wouldn’t take much effort to grind back against him, create enough friction that he would have to bend you over and fill you up. You yelp as there’s a pinch to the sensitive skin on your side.

Rex lightly scolds you “Pay attention. If you want to beat me you need to listen to what I tell you.”

“Yes Sir” you automatically reply. There’s a subtle shift behind you before Rex takes one of his hand and covers your eyes. “Don’t have any blindfolds handy, so my hands will have to do.” He says gruffly, his voice a tad deeper.

Before you can ask if everything’s alright, you hear him hit the start button and you’re shooting as best you can. There are still too many thunks from misses for your liking, but you are confident enough that you can pull ahead. When you’ve finished, you turn to hand the blaster to Rex, moving past him to reset the simulation. When that’s done you lean against the wall. You try to relieve some of the pressure between your legs by clenching your thighs together, but it’s not nearly enough, so you suffer in silence. As you watch Rex get into position you decide to have a little fun with him. You wait until he closes his eyes to start the simulation. Just as he’s about to shoot you ask “Do you want me to help get you into position, just like you did for me?” Your question catches him unaware and you hear a thunk sound out. A small laugh escapes your lips. “Losing your touch old man?” You tease, a smirk kissing the side of your mouth. “I didn’t think you’d take what I gave you so easily.” You mimic his words from earlier. 

Rex whips his head around to look at you, mouth open in surprise before he closes it in a thin line. “Oh cyar’ika, you shouldn’t have done that.” Rex tsks, shaking his head. “Here I was, thinking that I’d go easy on you, only winning by a couple more shots, but if that’s the way you want to play it.” He trails off as he extends his arm out in front of him before turning his body to face you, away from the targets. You can feel the smirk start to fade from your face and reappear on Rex’s. “I guess I’ll just have to show you that your place is under me,” and proceeds to shoot. Each shot making a ting sound. Every. Single. One. All without breaking eye contact with you. When he’s finished he motions for you to look at the score board. A perfect score.

You turn back to Rex as he puts the safety back on the blaster. “So, uh, congrats. You win.” You say quietly, realizing how quickly your plan backfired. 

Rex looks far too please with himself. “Of course.”

You haven’t moved from your spot by the wall and Rex strides over, victory in his eyes. You don’t see as your looking at your boots. When he’s close enough he gently takes your chin between his finger and thumb, bringing your gaze to his.

“Don’t you know mesh’la? I always win.”

To be continued. 

Taglist: @samrubio @justanotherstarwarswhore @bvcketfvcker

[monstersandmaw]

Sleep paralysis demon/nightmare x reader (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

This was begun on a Twitch writing stream, with lots of input from the chat, and while I did say I would post it straight to Tumblr, I ended up adding another 3k words to it, and a tiny bit of plot, so I figured I'd put it up on Patreon first. Since Patreon supporters voted so highly for a ‘nightmare’ on the 'next monsters' poll (thank you!), I thought it should go up there first too.

Our reader has been experiencing anxiety and insomnia lately, and this draws something to us... There's a bit at the start that's got creepy vibes to it, but the creature means us no harm. Because of the sleep paralysis element, I'm going to say watch out for non-con vibes, but nothing really happens without our consent first time round. Just putting it here in case that's a major issue for anyone.

Ft. dapper mothman landlord Reggie, and gnoll best friend too.

“You’re living where now?” Francis practically barked into his whisky as you sat together after work. The gnoll’s enormous, dish-like ears flicked forwards, dark and fuzzy and full of concern. “Seriously, you do know how shitty that part of town is, right?”

“It’s not that bad,” you growled, taking a sip of your own drink and leaning back into the soft leather back of the chair. You stifled a yawn and blinked, the exhaustion of a week’s worth of broken sleep catching up to you in one brutal rush.

Francis flicked an ear and levelled you with a flat look, dark eyes serious for once. “You’re kidding…?”

“Ok, fine, it’s not amazing, but it’s really not the worst bit of town. Anyway, it’s all I can afford right now until I find a new job.” That seemed to shut him up on the subject, at least for now. He couldn't argue with your dwindling bank balance after all.

“When’s your first interview?” he asked, raising the whisky to his lips and sipping it with surprising elegance for someone with such big hands and such a powerful jaw.

Taking a deep breath, you forced the nerves down and muttered, “Monday. I’m not prepared, but at least it’s something.” You tried not to think about the inbox full of rejection letters which, in a mere two sentences and with surgical succinctness, told you that they were not hiring, nor looking to hire, nor to take on any new staff just at the moment. Thank you for your interest.

It wasn’t interest; it was sheer bloody desperation.

“You’re not going to be at all prepared if you get mugged to death on your way home tonight,” Francis grumbled.

“It’ll be fine.”

He looked at you again and took another final drink of his whisky, long tongue lapping out the remaining dregs before he set it down with a clonk on the circle-stained table. “Please text me when you get there?”

With a solemn promise to do just that, you stood and he followed you outside into the cool evening. A scuffle of dry leaves drew your attention to your right, and the fleeting shadow of a cat projected huge along a brick wall made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Francis’ concern had got you jumping at the smallest things, and as you separated from him with a warm hug and the reiterated promise that you’d be fine, you gritted your teeth and told yourself in no uncertain terms not to flinch at the slightest sound.

To be honest, the neighbourhood honestly wasn’t that bad. There had been a few break-ins, and the police had conducted a drug raid a few streets over last month, but other than that, it was mostly just… tired. Perhaps it would be the subject of the city council’s next ‘rejuvenation’ scheme, and some commerce and life could finally be injected back into this wallowing, languishing, crumbling part of town. Still, the mothman who had let you rent one of the apartments in his old, converted town house had been very pleasant when you’d met to discuss rent, and that had gone a long way towards heartening you. Without his offer, you might not have had anywhere at all.

You tried to keep that fact in mind as you passed by the closed grocery store, the lights inside low, the neon sign flickering and drawing moths to it like supplicants to a shrine. For a moment, you caught the rapid drumbeat of footsteps behind you and tensed. In under a minute, they disappeared down a side street, and you let out a shaky breath. “Get a grip,” you breathed, reaching into one pocket for your keys all the same.

After fifteen minutes of striding at a quicker pace than was cardiovascularly comfortable, the old, slightly shabby, turn-of-the-last-century building loomed out of the gathering night. At the pedestal-base of the antique, cast-iron street lamp, a narrow pool of golden light shimmered and flickered intermittently, illuminating cracks in the pavement that seemed larger and more treacherous than they had in full daylight. Your imagination conjured black, coiling shadows creeping up from those dark cracks in the earth like smoke on a stage set, and as you paused a moment beneath it to sort your keys out, a breath of wind stippled goosebumps across the nape of your neck.

Glancing once over your shoulder, half expecting to discover someone standing silently at your back, you found nothing at all out of place, swallowed, and scuttled up the uneven garden path to the main door of the converted apartments.

No sooner had you put the key in the lock than the door rattled and swung open from the other side. Reeling away in surprise, you stumbled half a pace backwards and gasped as your eyes registered nothing but blackness inside the hallway beyond. From within the swath of darkness, two points of crimson glowed, then tilted slightly to the side, and you would have shrieked, had the entity inside not murmured your name at that exact instant in his deep baritone.

“Reginald!” you practically whimpered in relief, body going slack as you encouraged your heart rate back to normal with steadying breaths, and then huffed an embarrassed laugh. “You scared me… sorry. I’m just super jumpy this evening.”

“No, no,” the mothman purred, stepping delicately out onto the path and holding the door open for you with his lower right arm. His black fur rippled and shimmered in the soft night breezes and he buzzed his wings once. The fur around his nose was beginning to turn silver, and on his hands and around his antennae too. “I apologise. I felt you coming and I should have announced myself. How are you settling in?”

“Fine,” you croaked, equilibrium mostly recovered. The cool night wafted across your clammy skin and calmed your racing heart while you stood there making polite conversation with him until you yawned conspicuously.  

“Thank you for indulging an old moth, but I shan’t keep you up any longer. You look as though you could use some sleep,” he said, inclining his head in an old-fashioned bow, antennae dipping too and making you think of a gentleman dipping his hat at you. As you headed inside, fumbling on the wall for the light switch, you heard the distant buzz of his wings, and closed the door with a soft click as Reginald took off into the night.

The decor of the main areas of the building left a bit to be desired, with the odd peeling corner and scuff on the antique dado rail, but it was clean, which had set it well apart in the list of other apartments you'd scouted in the last month or so, and as you traipsed up the stairs to your first floor flat, the boards creaked raucously beneath your feet. No one was sneaking in or out of here without making a huge racket, and that thought provided a little comfort.

The interview on Monday loomed in your mind, ticking your resting heart rate up higher than normal, but after you went through the motions before bed with a strange sense of detachment, you let the weariness building behind the anxiety creep over your limbs and draw your eyelids down. Reginald hadn’t been wrong when he’d remarked on your appearance; it had been a while since you’d slept really well. So, it was with a familiar sense of dread that you let your mind slide away into unconsciousness, praying that the nightmares that had plagued your sleeping mind would stay away that night.

With a jolt, your eyes flew open to find the room dark, the street lamp outside extinguished, and a familiar sense of crushing dread weighing on your chest. Lying there, motionless, you breathed slowly, trying to figure out what had woken you so suddenly. Nothing stirred, and as you strained your ears, you caught no whisper of autumn leaves in the reaching branches of the walnut tree outside.

No sooner had you closed your eyes again, hoping to slide back into dreamless sleep, something touched your hair with a spider-light touch and you tried to scream and flail. Finding yourself utterly unable to move, you could only lie there as adrenaline flooded your whole body, your throat went dry, your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth, and the sensation returned, stronger now.

Pinprick sharp claws - like a cat’s but much, much larger - raked through your hair, softly stroking your scalp, and you felt a silent scream tear itself from your chest. Something was there in the dark with you and you couldn’t move a muscle.

A shadow in the blackness of the room, a darker blur than the rest of the inky room, shifted along your bed from behind you in a coiling tendril, unfurling across the sheets and over your body like the root of a plant or the limb of an octopus, and your blood began to hammer in your ears. All you could do was lie there and gasp for breath.

Claws, long and glistening and dripping with darkness, scraped almost gently down your temple and as the entity moved into your limited field of vision, you felt another soundless yell rip itself from you. An involuntary trembling began in your limbs as a dark, black, skull-like face loomed over you, a wide maw stretching open to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth.

You were going to die. If this was a nightmare, you’d probably be found a few days later, dead of a heart attack, and if it were real… gods above - the thought of being mugged was abruptly shunted to the bottom of your list of things to fear in this neighbourhood. The last thing you’d said to Francis was ‘I’ll be fine.’

The creature opened its mouth wider and wider as if trying to draw out your soul from your body, teeth glistening, breath completely silent, leaning in close to your face. It looked veiled, somehow, as if a wet, gauzy material had been draped over a skeletal form, which then stuck to the emaciated body beneath. With a jolt, you realised it looked like a shrouded corpse, wrapped in black fabric. The ragged shreds of material that floated eerily, slowly, as if the creature were underwater and the wisps were nothing more than kelp, and the tips constantly dissolved into fine smoke that curled lazily around the figure.

Was this Death itself?

Please… you begged silently. Please… I don’t want to die.

To your surprise, the creature tilted its terrifying head to one side in a motion that reminded you of a cat; as though it was curious.

Oh please don’t be something that toys with your prey first…

Fractionally, the entity drew back a fraction, though its four-inch long, sickle-claws remained at the side of your face. As you stared at it, wide eyed and sweating with fear, you got the fleeting impression of an emaciated torso and two equally skeletal arms beneath the floating veil.

In a moment of oddly detached clarity, you wondered if it could understand you.

It nodded.

The fuck?

That grin stretched wider. It had teeth like an angler fish, and the moment you thought that, all you could imagine was it lunging for you out of the darkness like a sprung trap, teeth sinking in, blood pouring, ending in nothing but pain and fear…

The creature nudged its clawed hand against your lips, and for a horrible moment you thought it was going to slice open the skin of your mouth, but instead, like anaesthetic wearing off, your lips began to tingle. You could move them again. Swallowing, you rasped, “Can… you understand me?”

Again, the entity nodded and retreated a little further from the bed. Like an aura of shifting mist around it, the darkness of the room rippled and moved, and you realised it really was floating beside your bed, one hand tethered to the headboard, the other near your shoulder.

“Can you speak?”

The creature paused, going still, and the air in the room thrummed with a sudden tension. Your lungs squeezed and your ribs creaked under the pressure of it.

Eventually the strain on the atmosphere snapped, and a rasping, polyphonous voice from somewhere to your right hissed, “Yes.”

Stunned, you could only lie there as it remained beside you, suspended and shifting like waterweed in a lazy current.

“What do you want?” you managed to croak. You still couldn’t move anything else but your eyes and your mouth. “Are you going to hurt me?”

Again, the air seemed to vibrate, and a chill ran through you.

“Is that you?” you asked. “Are you doing that?”

This time it took longer for the creature to make a sound, but it nodded slowly first. Its claws returned to your body and you gasped as the muscles unlocked and you found you were able to move again. Scrabbling to sit up, you blinked, and the creature twitched, lurching backwards away from you like a skittish horse.

“You can’t be… You’re afraid of me?” you blurted, almost laughing. It didn’t seem like it wanted to hurt you or scare you any more, but the surreal vision beside your bed was enough to keep your heart pounding. “Are you Death?”

Its wide maw stretched open again, revealing its mouthful of deadly teeth, and you balked, fear leaping into your throat again as you clutched the sheets around you like a child. Those claws could slice a sheet - or a body - to ribbons, and yet you clung to them.

It reached out slowly for your ankle, latching its long fingers around the joint, and you choked out a whimpering yell. Knowing you were alone in the house, with Reginald out on his nightly business and the only other apartment in the building still unoccupied, your fear crescendoed to a peak and your words failed you.

With what appeared to be a gargantuan effort, the entity paused, then inhaled, and then chorused, “Not. Death. You… fear… me…”

No shit, you thought. “What do you want?”

“Fear… is… all I… know… Without it… I am… nothing.”

Was that sadness that tinged its many voices? Was there more than just one entity within those constantly-twisting shadows?

“Just… me,” the creature murmured, half-turning away and releasing its solid grip around your leg.

The emotion in those two words made something crack inside you. “You’re lonely…” you breathed, and the creature began to tremble, glitching like a badly aligned SCART connection.

In that instant, your fear drained out of you to be replaced by a wave of compassion, and the tension left your muscles. Whatever this was, it was alone as well.

The creature’s form continued to flicker, and as you blinked in confusion, the misty veil covering them seemed to boil off, leaving nothing but the emaciated, charred-looking skeletal figure beneath, strangely vulnerable for just a heartbeat before it seemed to evaporate away altogether.

The stillness in the room left your mind reeling as you sat there. Had you dreamed the whole thing?

Scrambling, your fingers found the light switch beside the bed, and you squinted and scowled as harsh, yellow light flooded the room at the click of a button. Nothing was out of place beyond, and no hint of creeping shadows drew your eye.

“Are you still there?” you whispered, but after waiting for what felt like hours, you got no answer.

If you returned to sleep at all that night, it would be a miracle, but still you tried. Lying in the dark a good while later, and curled on your side with your eyes screwed shut, you couldn’t help straining your hearing for the slightest hiss of claws on fabric, but nothing came, and eventually, you must have drifted off into an exhausted sleep. Remarkably, no nightmares plagued you that night, and when you woke the next morning, you felt oddly peaceful and well rested for a change.  

You stretched and yawned, and only remembered about the strange experience from the night before when the soft weave of the cotton sheet snagged across your ankle and a sharp prickle made you frown.

Upon investigation, you discovered a long, thin scratch in your skin, as if a cat had nicked you with its claws in passing.

You froze.

It had not been a dream after all.

For the next two nights, nothing unusual happened, unless you counted the fact that you actually slept well for the first time in weeks. You found it almost physically impossible to make it past midnight, whereas before you’d frequently seen midnight tick by and vanish into the past as you lay there with prickling eyes and an exhausted, restless body, anxiety tingling along your nerves, counting the minutes as time ticked closer to dawn.

Astonishingly, as you faced the interviewer on Monday morning, you felt alert and almost chipper.

The naga smiled and held out a hand to you as she wrapped the interview up. “Thank you so much for your time,” she said. “You’ll hear back from us tomorrow, most likely, but let me say now that I was extremely impressed.”

Your brows rose and she laughed kindly at your evident surprise. “Thank you,” you croaked, and left politely before you ruined anything.

That night, you lay back alone on your bed after celebrating with Francis again, spread-eagled and stared at the ceiling. The old-fashioned plaster moulding made it look like you were underwater, especially if the huge tree outside swayed in the wind and cast shifting, kaleidoscope patterns on it. A cold draft prickled over you and you shivered. “Is that you?” you asked almost hopefully, wondering if the nightmare creature was back.

Nothing.

With a huge sigh, you looked around without moving, nervous in case you spooked it. “Listen, if you’re the one that’s given me such amazing sleep lately, then… well… thank you. I think I might have got the job…”

A movement in the darkest corner of the room caught your attention, but when your gaze landed on it, all was as it should be.

“Seriously, if you’re there, please… let me know.”

Again, you experienced that strange pulling sensation, like some kind of energy was being drawn from the room, and as you sat up, your bedside lamp flickered. In front of the darker form of your dressing gown on the back of the door, something had begun manifesting into a tall, slender figure. Shrouded as before in shadow, the creature glided forwards, every bit like a nightmare, and your heart thudded.

“Afraid…” came a chanting, polyphonic voice, “And yet not…? How?”

“Have you seen yourself lately?” you hissed. “You’re kind of intimidating. What are you?”

“Nightmare…” it hissed.

You blinked. “You’re a literal nightmare?”

Its claws glinted in the half-light of your small bedside lamp as it just hung there, swaying softly like a corpse on a gallows. “Yes.”

“What are you doing here? Does Reginald know you live here?”

It turned away and you saw a ribcage jutting out like a mummy’s fragile body, though every inch of them was a soft, matte black, pock marked like volcanic stone.

It shook its head. “I found you…” it croaked in its struggling, faltering voice. “Your fear… drew me… to you.”

“You vanished when I stopped being afraid,” you said and again, the creature nodded.

“I was using your fear to… manifest. Without it… I could not stay.”

“But you’re not using my fear now, are you?” you were excited, your heart was pattering out a wild rhythm, but you weren’t afraid.

It shook its head.

“How?”

Turning towards you, it brought up one lethally clawed hand and let a tendril of wisping black smoke play through its dead-looking hand. The fingers were longer than a human’s, and tipped in those sickle claws. “You sleep… better now,” it said, as if that explained everything.

Sitting there on the bed, you frowned. “Yeah, the nightmares have gone and — wait, are you… are you feeding on other nightmares?”

Slowly, the creature nodded. “I fought one that night, for you…” it rumbled. “I won. Now… they fear me.”

“And me? Do I have to fear you?”

The nightmare shook its shrouded head, the fabric wafting slowly as it billowed around the skeletal body beneath.

“So why are you here? Why me?”

“May I… come closer?” it asked.

“So long as you’re not going to hurt me,” you said in a reedy, weak voice. “A bit closer is fine…”

Hovering, the nightmare seemed uncertain, but then made up its mind and loomed a fraction nearer. This close, the glow from your lamp gilded the empty sockets of its skull and showed the stretching maw, and while you might not have been terrified any longer, it certainly made you wary.

“Will not hurt you…” the creature snarled. “I swear it.”

“Ok, fine, but you can’t blame me for being a bit… you know… I’ve never met anything like you before, and you are technically in my apartment…”

“Should I leave?”

Probably, but you found you didn’t want that just yet. “No, not yet. Can you answer some more of my questions?”

It shrugged. “I will try. Remaining here is tiring though. I don’t have much time left.”

“Where do you go?”

“There are many realms beside yours… Nightmares exist… in the cracks between, belonging nowhere, lingering only a while…”

“Sounds lonely,” you muttered.

“It is. That is why I stayed. You… You spoke to me, even when you were afraid. I have never had that before.”

The mist moved like snakes between its fingers and you watched, half mesmerised. “Your claws… are they why I couldn’t move?”

It nodded. “Sleep paralysis causes… much fear. I’m sorry I had to… frighten you to show myself.”

You snorted and pulled your legs close to sit cross legged on the bed, staring at the hovering nightmare in your room. It was so surreal, you wondered if you’d hit your head on the way home. “You tried to reassure me at the same time as scaring me shitless didn’t you?”

It flashed its claws again and swung a close to you. “Soft,” it purred, now mere inches from your face.

This close up, you found yourself frightened again. The horror of its empty black eyes, its gaping maw full of black, pointed teeth, the coiling shadows around it, its skeletal hands with tipped with onyx scythes… and yet, they smelled like the very best of winter nights; slightly smoky with a coldness that, as you inhaled, stung the back of your throat.

“Afraid, and yet not,” it repeated.

“Can I touch you?”

The nightmare clearly had not been expecting that, but nodded. Trembling, you brought your fingertip to its cheek. The skin was cool and hard like leather, but a fine mist floated around them, and you realised that the shroud wasn’t cloth at all, but intangible and made simply of smoke and shadow. The creature shuddered and you pressed your whole palm to their face as they leaned into your touch.

A moment later, they began to flicker and let out a broken moan. “I cannot stay.”

“Come back?” you whispered.

The mouth that held the promise of death, with all those teeth, suddenly smiled and they nodded. After that, they vanished.

Another week went by, but as you faced the fears of starting a new job, and the nearer that your starting date drew, the better you slept.

“It’s you again, isn’t it?” you asked the empty, black room on the night before you started work. “Come on, come out. You’ve been trying to manifest all week. I can feel it.”

Rippling out of the darkness, the nightmare swayed towards your bed and hung in the space beside it, drifting.

“Thank you,” you smiled and stood up. The nightmare didn’t move as you walked towards it, and this time when you reached for it, the creature did anticipate it, wafting closer, apparently keen for the contact. “I actually missed you, you know?” you said as the creature’s whole body quivered.

It brought its hand up to your face in a mirror of your gesture and brushed the curved back of its claws against your cheek. It tingled but you were still able to talk.

“You can touch me,” you whispered, drawing it back towards your bed by taking its skeletal fingers in yours.

Having its permission, the nightmare raked those claws through your hair with a tenderness that left you breathless. “Let me take the fear from you…” it murmured.

Examining your feelings, you discovered a small knot of anxiety about tomorrow, and smiled. “Leave me a little bit, ok? Trust me, a bit of nerves helps.”

Nodding, it leaned close and inhaled.

Standing there beside the bed, your body ignited with what could only be described as a deep and yearning lust, and you gasped, knees going weak. The nightmare caught you as you swayed, head spinning, and laid you easily down on the bed, despite the fact that it hardly looked strong enough to withstand a slight draft.

“What…?” you gasped, core burning.

The creature looked at a loss as it hung in the space beside your bed.

“I’m assuming this has never happened to you before?” you snorted, feeling a little recovered. “How lonely do I have to be to get turned on by a literal nightmare?”

A chuffing laugh made you look back at them.

“You find that funny too?” you asked and they nodded. “Well, if I’m honest… now that I know you’re not going to hurt me, I think you’re kind of beautiful.”

A soft, broken, crooning sound escaped them and they floated nearer, hovering over your bed and extending a hand to stroke talon-tips down your cheek again. “You are beautiful,” it murmured in all its numerous, whispering voices.

“Touch me,” you breathed.

“It will paralyse you,” they snarled, leaning backwards. “I can only… control it for so long.”

“But you won’t hurt me, and it’ll wear off, right?”

They nodded.

“Then touch me… please… I… I want your touch,” and you did. In a way you’d never felt with anyone else, human or otherwise, you needed them.

Rearing closer to you, the creature hung in the air above you like a cloud. It raked its claws down your body, but instead of shearing your clothes open, they simply evaporated, reappearing on the floor nearby in a tangled, crumpled heap.

“Neat trick,” you muttered before gasping as their hands landed on your bare torso, spreading their fingers wide and inhaling again. “Magic?”

“In dreams, anything is possible. We are not bound by your laws.”

“Of course not, but you’re —” you cut off sharply as they opened their mouth and a long, black tongue slithered free and coiled around your hardening nipple. You lurched and your back arched before falling back onto the bed. A tingling spread rapidly all down your right side as their hands gripped you more strongly now.

Working steadily first down one side and then the other, the nightmare scraped its teeth over you in a hundred scratching lines that made you want to yelp and buck, but their paralysis had begun to sweep over you. Every almost-bite it chased with its soothing, teasing, paralysing tongue and fingertips until you could do nothing but tremble and twitch beneath its touch.

A voice hissed, “I will know if you want me to stop,” and you let the last of your fears slide away, giving into the intense pleasure that their mouth offered on your body.

Finally, breath heaving, you felt your release crashing towards you. Never before had you been utterly immobile like this. You wanted to thrash and buck, to squirm and writhe - the pleasure was so intense and visceral that you needed to scream, but the nightmare held you in its grasp and wrung your release from you with relentless focus. Before you could recover fully, it demanded a second orgasm hot on the heels of the first and you thought you might shear apart with the force of it.

Gasping for breath, you begged silently to be allowed to move again, and as it sat back, that long, clever tongue lapping up the last of your release, it touched you once again and your body went slack.

“Oh my god,” you panted. “I’ve never come like that…”

“Your… energy,” they whispered, touching their fingers and thumb together as if their skin was tingling too. Something cool and dark slid over your leg and you looked down to find black liquid dripping from their robes, all over your legs from where they were hovering above you.

You had to laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re switching careers to an incubus now?”

The nightmare looked at you. “It’s just you,” they said. “I want only you.”

“If you’re going to make me come like that, I think we could come to an arrangement…”

The creature grinned, showing all its deadly teeth, and you lay back and stared at the ceiling for a long time, drained and tired but deeply satisfied. You didn’t even notice yourself sliding into a blissful sleep.

When you woke with your alarm the next morning, there was no trace of the creature, but on the back of the door as you were preparing to leave, you found the words ‘good luck’ scraped into the surface of the wood.

“You’d better come back and fix that tonight,” you grumbled with a smile on your face as you spotted it. Even as you stared at it, the wood melted back into the shape it had always been before, and in its place, a simple, line-drawn heart appeared.

You snorted. “See you later,” you said as you grabbed your coat and headed out. “And… well… thank you.”

___

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[statticscribbles]

Pining

Summary: Sweet Pea/Reader- Sweet Pea wants an actual relationship, his friends see fit to interfere.

You turn back to Toni ignoring the sigh you can hear from Sweet Pea; you hate how much his wistfulness bothers you. When he sighs again you snap, turning to him, but Toni beats you to it. “Would it kill you to be discreet about it?” Toni laughs at Sweet Pea’s shocked face. “About what?” “How much you pine after Jones and Cooper, I get they’re like the perfect couple, but they’re a couple neither of them want anyone else. Drop it; your heartbroken pinning isn’t going to sway them.” She speaks and you laugh with her nodding as Sweet Pea tries to defend himself. “Well if you don’t love at least one of them, why do you sigh every time they do anything couple-y.” Fangs counters and Sweet Pea shrugs. “I want that. What they have, that closeness, what Toni and Cheryl have.” “You want a relationship? What happened to Vivian then?”

“No, I want a soulmate; and Vivian wasn’t into me; just the whole-“ “Scary Serpent vibe right? Was she disappointed when she found out you’re practically a teddy bear.” You smirk and Sweet Pea rolls his eyes. “Shut it Y/N I’m nothing of the sort. I am a serpent, therefore I’m terrifying and a bad boy.” “Mhm, but you’re also the guy who spend half of fifth grade saving the worms on the sidewalk.”

“You asked me to, so I had no choice.” He crosses his arms. “And you spend three days outside Fang’s house when he broke his arm.” Toni laughs. “Also you spent all last summer tutoring me in chemistry.” You add and he waves his hands, thumping them onto the table. “Enough! I have a neck tattoo, I’m a scary Serpent!” You smirk nodding, biting down another peal of laughter before you pitch your voice up and wiggle your fingers at him.

“I’m a scaryyyy serpennntttttt” you mock and he blanks his face. “When I kill you they won’t find the body.” “Like you could ever kill me.” You smile standing as the bell rings returning to class from lunch.

————————————————————————————–

You watch him more after that noting how the sighing, the longing looks are not directed at Betty, or Jughead, but their clasped hands, the moments they lean on each other. Whenever Jughead runs his hands over hers, or they stay a moment too long in a hug. You stay silent, content to watch him watching; to let him suffer in his own bubble; no sense in dragging an unrequited crush into the mix. No need to make him feel guilty on top of lonely. You soften after he confesses his want for a relationship, you feel no need to be jealous; not of something that has yet to exist. “So then, what do you want in a soulmate?”

“You trying to set me up then?” Sweet Pea narrows his eyes at Fangs and Toni. “Of course; we’re your best friends, we know you inside and out, plus we’re both in relationships; so Y/N doesn’t count cause she’s single.” Fang’s eyes light up and you can see Toni nod a fraction. You sigh nodding to them. “Alright, what am I doing to help then?” Toni smirks. “Cheryl’s going to ask you a few questions. After Sweet Pea answers them.” “Cheryl? You’re getting Cheryl involved?” Sweet Pea glares. “We were going to get Jones and Cooper in on it; but it seems better to not.” “Plus Cheryl doesn’t know you as well as us which could prove to be interesting when selecting potential soulmates.” Fangs smirks as Cheryl nods. “Alright then, let’s start with the basic’s; favourite colour?”

“Do you really think I’m shallow enough not to date someone based on their favourite colour?” Sweet pea scoffs. “It’s green.” “What shade?” Cheryl pulls a pen and notebook out. “Mint Green.” “You know you can’t lie; this won’t work if you don’t tell the truth.” Cheryl looks unimpressed and Sweet Pea groans. “I like pastel’s okay, they’re soothing.” He states as he flips her off. She laughs. “Just a few more then-“ You leave once Toni lets you know they’re not even halfway through with Sweet Pea’s questions and that she’ll call you later when they need your help.

—————————————————————————————– It takes two more days; in between classes for Sweet Pea to finish whatever soulmate questionnaire Cheryl and Toni had created. You laugh when he cheers as Cheryl folds the paper and puts it away. “Now we’ll just go around to everyone who’s single and then set you up on dates on the weekend.” “You’ll what now?” Sweet Pea stares at them and Toni laughs. “Don’t worry we’re funding the Pop’s meals and access into La Bonne Nuit.” Cheryl pats him on the shoulder. “So who’s up first?” “Well it wouldn’t be a blind date unless you didn’t know. Besides we have to actually ask everyone first.” “You’re wasting your time.”

“Really? You complain about being single every other day and it’s not like you have your eyes on anyone, otherwise you would have asked them out already.” Cheryl comments and both you and Fangs gasp. “Oh my god you do like someone!!! You have to tell us! We can set you up.” “It’s not like that; we can’t be together.” “Anything else cliché you wanna say?  No, good, you’ll meet your first date at pop’s eight pm this Friday.”

“So why wouldn’t you tell us who you’re crushing on?” You ask as you and Sweet Pea walk home to Sunnyside. “Well we can’t be together, she’s way outta my league and besides that she’d never want me.” He shrugs and gestures to himself. “Come on Pea you’re a catch to anyone; any of those Northsider’s would be lucky to have you.”

“We’re all Northsider’s now.” He laughs and you nod. “I mean the like ‘original Northsiders.’ You know they fawn over you cause you’re a ‘bad boy’ or whatever.” You roll your eyes; as he nods. “The most badass.” “You’ll scare them all off acting like that.” Cheryl appears and smirks handing him an envelope.

“The time, and location, also what you should wear. I’ve taken the liberty to match your clothes to her favourite colour, so hopefully it’s a positive association.” Sweet Pea opens the envelope scanning it. “I thought you were the only one allowed to wear red.” “I am, the red is just an accent colour.” “If you make me wear a tie to Pop’s..” “Relax Toni said you had a red plaid monstrosity of a shirt.” “You wear plaid..” Sweet pea fires back and Cheryl nods. “Yes, tastefully. Now go get ready.” “You said it was at eight pm!” “There was a change of plans!” She shouts after him as he shoves the letter into your hands.

“So who is it?” Cheryl smirks at your question. “Ginger; you know the Vixen who stares at him anytime he gets sent to find Toni for meetings.” You nod, you know Ginger, she’s nice; still you can’t help the jealousy that bubbles in the back of your throat. You crush it down as Toni and Fangs ask about them. “Ginger, apparently.” You silently cheer when Fangs scowls. “Didn’t he and Ginger break up cause she wanted to sleep with Jones?” Toni questions and you nod.

“Well she tried to sleep with him, when he and Betty had that fight remember?” They both nod and cringe. “Well tonight should be fun then. Cheryl booked us front row seats to watch what’s going to be a disaster.”

——————————————————————————- Sweet Pea glowers at the table as you sit with Toni and Fangs drinking the shake Fangs ordered for you. “Y/N how’s he holding up.”

“He’s been glaring for six whole minutes. I’m pretty sure he’d melting my shake with the heat from his anger. How much you wanna bet he scares Ginger off.” “You’re just saying that cause you want him to scare her off.” “Of course.” You know they know about your crush; even if you’ve never voiced it; Toni still had Cheryl question you. You remind yourself to ask how much you and Sweet Pea hand in common once he finds whoever he wants to be his soulmate.

He waves Ginger over and she smiles at him leaning over the table to give him a half hug. You’re too far away to hear anything, but when Toni casually decides to walk to the bathroom she returns laughs patting your back. “Nothing to worry about Ginger brought up him being higher in the Serpent’s now.” “That’s a lot to worry about;” Fangs slumps slightly and you look confused at him. “It means he’s going to whine to me about it now; I’ll have to listen to him complain over and over. I hate this plan.” You laugh looking up to Sweet Pea continuing to glare at your table. —————————————————————————

It takes five more disastrous dates before Sweet Pea vows to give up if the next one doesn’t work out. “Sweet Pea, no you can’t give up, we still have at least seven more after this and-“ “No, if this one doesn’t work out I’m done. I’ll just try to date on my own. I appreciate the help; I really do, but its obviously not working.” He slumps in his chair and Cheryl and Toni share some sort of coded look. “So what’s the plan this time? Maybe something where he doesn’t whine so much, Fangs complains to me about him complaining about your plans.” You eye Cheryl’s smile wearily.

“This was meant to be our sort of last ditch effort. A surefire match, both of them put down almost identical answers” You arch an eyebrow. “Wow, well why not put them first then?” “Had to give him something to look forward too. We have it set for six pm a Pop’s.” “Okay, so Toni, Fangs and I will be on lookout duty then?” You turn when they stay silent. “Fangs and I will.”

“No, there’s no way I’m going on a pity date.” “Did you miss the part where- “ Fangs hisses but Toni shouts over him “Hey Sweet Pea, just this one date, we swear! Everything is taken care of, all you have to do is show up.” Toni clasps her hands together as he walks back up. “Please Sweet Pea, just this last one.” He sighs shaking his head. “No I’m done.” “I’ll tell the girl you have a crush on you like her.” Fangs threatens. “Wait you know who he has a crush on?” Cheryl turns from Fangs to Sweet Pea.

“Yeah he told me ages ago. I’m not about to rat him out, but you already made reservations and everything so I would be a huge waste to not go.” He guilts Sweet Pea into a frustrated agreement as he walks away smirking. “Wait, Pop’s doesn’t do reservations!” Sweet Pea shouts after him. “No backing out, I already let her know the date’s on.” Toni laughs as Sweet Pea scowls. You keep your phone hidden knowing the text chime is from Toni most likely.

—————————————————————————————- You understand Sweet Pea’s annoyance when he went on the other dates that you and the others were watching; you’re pretty sure Fangs won’t make eye contact with you anymore with the amount you’ve been glaring. “Hey Y/N you hear to spy on me one last time? I’m sure you’ve been loving the free meals though.” He laughs and you nod. “Yeah it’s pretty nice, I’m surprised you don’t just play along more for the free meals.”

“Well having decent company helps, I’m praying this date isn’t as shit as the last ones. I get we’re supposed to have matched like all the questions or whatever but that could just be guessing and luck.” He shrugs and you nod. “It’s a good attempt, plus you were so whiny about finding a soulmate.” He laughs again nodding.

“Yeah but I’d much rather be spending the night with you or Fangs.” “Well Fangs is busy.” You laugh as you both look to see Fangs glaring back. “And you are I’d assume, stuck on babysitting duty to make sure I don’t screw up my last chance at pre-destined love.” He dramatically shakes your shoulders.

“Actually I have a date.” You look confused when his face falls for a second. “Oh, maybe you’d double with me, for moral support?” His laugh sounds almost sad but you brush it off. “Can’t really double date with just the two of us yeah?” You stand nervously as Sweet Pea moves towards Fangs. “You said you wouldn’t rat me out.” He hisses under his breath and Toni smirks. “I didn’t she just matched most of the questions.” He holds his hands up and Sweet Pea nods returning to your side.

“Well, shall we sit then, you can tell me things I already know about you, and I can tell you the same.” He smiles and you follow him to the booth. “Now since Cheryl is paying I vote we order he most expensive shit we can and bring it back to mine to eat for the next few days.”

“I don’ think burgers will keep in your trailer for days Pea. Besides we can just come back.” “We haven’t even finished out first date and you’re already gunning for a second one?” You beam at him as you both pretend not to notice the flush on each other’s faces when your hands brush at the menus.

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[marlahey]

(and I'm feeling like) it was only ever you

a little voice fic pairings/characters: bess/samuel, general ensemble, ella the pupper being loved the most warnings: language, excessive sexual tension episode tags: fills in some of many gaps between 1.08 sea change and 1.09 sing what I can’t say cause I got wine drunk instead of finishing this before the finale as planned. +post-finale rating/warnings: explicit. read: resolved sexual tension aka les sexy times.  lyrical title courtesy of: part of me – by the coast (watch their fanvid set to this song and prepare to cry)  notes: so @brilligbraelig told me there was no fluffy fic in the tag, which– sorry. we’ve been in sad time hours for WEEKS and I blame the writers for never giving bess a moment’s peace. I’ve never really been one for cavity-inducing sweetness, not because I don’t love some pure joy, but as a writer I’m always a little more interested in the messier moments that just enough longing brings. if the question is ‘how many times do bess and samuel need to share a bed?’ the answer is yes.   this is for the samuel and bess protection squad on twitter (join us!) for being the coolest group of people ever throughout this wild ride, and also for @missgoalie75 and her love of colton’s bedroom eyes.  p.s: sometimes I ignore capitalization rules at will because of the vibe. 

*

bess is tired.

saint c’s is quiet tonight; al shoos her away from the bar with a stern, surprisingly fatherly firmness and hands her a tray of shots. she blinks at him. there aren’t any parties of four left. he points at samuel, prisha, and benny loitering at the back of the club until she finishes. bess doesn’t follow. al sighs. “go have one with your friends on me, okay kid? i swear, watching you stress out sometimes is gonna give me an ulcer before my next birthday.”  bess stammers a thank you and walks off with the alcohol before he can change his mind. she should apologize, she thinks. he’s been nothing but kind to her despite all the ways in which bess is hardly employee of the month right now. she should start an apology tour at the table, where prisha’s head is thrown back with laughter at something benny is saying, his hands outspread. these people are too good to her and she doesn’t deserve it, sometimes.  samuel notices her first (like always it seems), tracking her progress across the room. he tilts his head, a silent okay? and she moves her mouth in an approximation of a smile. his own lips quirk, like he’s trying to smother a laugh. she should be annoyed; she’s just grateful they aren’t fighting anymore— or worse yet, that it’s weird.  they still haven’t talked about that night. samuel seems perfectly content to pretend it never happened, except for the way he touches her with so much more ease than before— like he no longer has to hesitate before he’s pulling her in, taking her hand, squeezing her shoulder or the bend of her elbow in a way that’s more reassuring than bess can really describe.  maybe there’s a song in there somewhere.  “special delivery,” she announces at the approach. “drink fast, before al regrets giving us these.”  “my man, my man,” benny croons. “we love you boss!” he calls, twisting to find al rolling his eyes from behind the register. the shots clink on the tabletop. bess hesitates, just a second, before leaning in to toast prisha. samuel’s eyes meet hers again over the rim of his glass. she tosses her head back before she can overthink any of it. “anyone want another?”  benny and prisha grin; samuel shakes his head. bess does the mental math back to her last meal. one more certainly wouldn’t tip her over, but she’d be a fool not to recognize her own unsettledness. she springs for second shelf tequila; al smacks her hand away from the limes she’d cut herself not two hours ago.  “no reaching over, you know that.” the closing porter pours and dishes lime and salt with disinterested, immaculate practice. bess presses an extra five into his hand and gets a silent tap on the inside of her wrist in thanks. she’s not normally into the whole process of tequila, but benny enjoys it. something silly in bess hopes that the bursting sting of lime will just wash all her chaos away. by the time she’s tilted her head back down a second time, samuel’s eyes are sliding away. her throat is curiously warmer than liquor normally manages. it feels like she’s caught him at something.  “earth to bess!”  “hmm?”  prisha looks amused, damn her. “you up for it?” “up for what?” benny’s smile is equally conspiratory.  “dancing?” her first instinct is god, no. she and prisha haven’t gone dancing in what feels like years— bess still has a fake ID from the one and only time they snuck into a club at 19 years old, skipping the bar entirely for the pulsing beat of the dance floor. but she deserves this, doesn’t she? after everything? everyone’s looking at her now, probably expecting her to say no (samuel’s definitely expecting her to say no), and maybe bess needs another shot after all because, “sure.” tumbles out of her mouth before she can stop it. prisha and benny high five. samuel’s muted surprise is oddly delightful; bess wants to keep pulling it out of him, suddenly. “you coming too?” she asks. it’s not supposed to be a challenge but he raises one eyebrow as though bess had just asked him to duel. “well i’d be lame if I said no now, wouldn’t i?” that settled, bess excuses herself to grab her things from the back room. when she returns, benny is chatting with their night porter as he divides tips. she has to swallow an anxious lump before she can walk over.  “hey.” “hey.” he returns her tentative smile and she hates herself. “ready to go?” “i’m sorry,” bess blurts. “about the other night. i was so awful to you and you were just—” “bess, hey.” benny’s hands land on her shoulders. “don’t worry about it, okay? i know you have a lot going on right now.” “that’s not an excuse,” she insists. “you’re just being a good friend and a great manager and i shouldn’t have bit your head off for...” for not letting me give up. shame locks the words in her throat. how is it that she was the first person to let go of her own dream? bess has to take a deep breath. “i’m just really sorry.” he just looks at her for a long moment.  “if i forgive you,” benny begins gently, “will you forgive yourself?” the question feels like a sucker punch.  “cause i do, bess.” she can’t remember the last time one of her dearest friends was so serious. “i forgive you, and you gotta forgive yourself now cause we got work to do, yeah?” good god, do not cry. “okay.”  “okay.” benny pulls her into a hug, squeezing tight. “we got you girl, alright? i told you, we’re in this together.” those are familiar words. bess lets them wash over her. how had she forgotten? where had she let herself fall that her friends couldn’t pull her back into the light?  “c’mon.” bess accepts her saint c’s envelope with a grateful smile and benny steers her out of the club, his arm around her shoulders. “there’s fun to be had tonight.” “let’s go, bess!”  she lets prisha drag her forward, laughing despite herself and looping her arm through her best friend’s as they head out into the warm night air.  “where the heck are those boys?” prisha asks at the next corner. benny and samuel of course, are following at a more sedated pace to her one track mind. bess catches samuel’s eye and he smiles in that crooked, amused sort of way she hasn’t seen in ages— not since they shot more love, it feels like. relief is such a strange feeling for the moment, but there it is.  * bess isn’t tired anymore. she has no idea when she became such a homebody (though louie’s social worker may thoughts) but her exhaustion from the day seems to disappear the moment the bass finds a home behind her ribs. prisha presses a tiny glass into her hand and bess doesn’t think.  the vodka sears on the way down. it makes her gasp a little, like a livewire shock to the system. bess can only look up to see samuel wave from the bar before benny’s dragging her onto the floor; she loses sight of him in the crush of bodies and the pulse of the music carries her away.  samuel’s still there, some two or three songs later. just before they lock eyes, bess notices something very serious in his expression, something she can’t put into words fast enough, that draws a strange shiver from the base of her spine.  then he smiles, familiar laugh lines and narrowed eyes, and it’s gone.  bess remembers the way he’d so easily coaxed her into a silly dance set to their own music. have things gotten so strange between them that they could never go back there? not if she has anything to say about it. “I’m not drunk enough yet,” he objects, but his fingers close around hers even as he says it and she knows she’s won. samuel follows her so easily back to benny and prisha– like he’d follow her anywhere maybe, if she asked, and then suddenly bess is the one not quite drunk enough—  and then the beat pulls them in again.  it’s silly at first, just like before. at one point samuel and benny do the chicken dance to a hip-hop song and bess thinks she might die with laughter. she presses against prisha, hips and shoulders. her best friend spins her out; bess nearly stumbles but samuel is there, catching her by the elbows, drawing her in with that same teasing smile that had eased her nerves on that warm summer afternoon. she can see the memory of it reflected in his eyes. bess wants to fall into it headfirst. she steps closer just as samuel pulls her in; her hand lands on the back of his neck; his fingertips slip under the hem of her top and brush the shy skin of her hip.  samuel pauses, like a silent question, until bess coaxes his body back into the swaying rhythm with her own. her head feels heady, her body overwarm almost, but bess doesn’t want to stop because there it is again, that serious look— bess wants— “dance, dance, dance is my lung—”  “fuck no!” the moment—or whatever that was—grinds to a halt. samuel laughs so hard that she can feel his shoulders shaking. for several seconds they just look at each other, then over at benny who’s having the time of his life, and then bess is doubling over too.  samuel leans close to be heard over the din. “drink?” his breath brushes her ear and bess tries not to shiver, nodding enthusiastically in a vain attempt to cover for herself. they’ve lost prisha and benny to the worst song ever, so samuel keeps a firm grip on her hand as they snake their way back to the bar.  there must be some kind of special on shots tonight. bess can only stare at a bartender pouring no less than twelve in a perfect row for a huge group of women. one is wearing a tiara and white sash. that trying not to laugh smile tilts samuel’s mouth while they wait their turn. the sardine pack of people presses them together from hip to shoulder but he doesn’t seem to mind. the bar curves around in a skinny oval, drinks being served on either side. as servers slide back and forth, bess notices a guy looking at her from across the way. staring, more like it. the glint in his eyes makes her stomach turn. before bess can glare, turn away, or even shudder, samuel’s arm slides around her. his fingertips trace the curves of her rings on the bartop— affectionate, possessive almost. bess turns her head and samuel winks before leaning forward to touch their foreheads together. “pretend i just told you something hilarious.” his mouth hovering over hers is almost too distracting— his free hand pinches her side to help her along and giggles jump out. bess doesn’t resist when samuel tightens his grip and pulls her closer against him. he presses his mouth to her temple just above her ear. “he’s gone.” bess does shudder now, though for a different reason altogether. “thanks.” samuel just squeezes her once before releasing her. their shots arrive finally, amber liquid glowing strangely in the light.  “still good?” he asks, and bess nods firmly. “still good.” she meets his eyes as she brings the shot to her mouth. samuel is still looking at her when she puts the glass back down. inside her, it seems. “c’mon.” he says. samuel looks almost fond now. bess blinks; a trick of the light? is she that tipsy already? “we’d better go find those two.” she just takes his hand and follows.  * bess is... well. she’s not sober.  benny had waved goodbye from an uber outside the club. they’d made it three quarters of the way to the subway station before ananya had called, quickly devolving into an impassioned conversation and prish too, vanished into a cab and promising to call when she got to her— girlfriend’s? house.  “have fun you two!”  and now: “i’m fine, sam.”  his mouth twitches. “don’t think so, b.”  yikes, she hates that. bess rolls her eyes, pointing at her station stairway. “you’re literally going in the opposite direction. it’s like...” she has to look at their cross streets and do the math. “eight stops. at the most.” samuel nods. “all about figure eights. love an even number. let’s go.”  bess knows she should just let this go and stop being so stubborn. but something in her just can’t be stopped. samuel sighs, dragging her by the elbow across the sidewalk, out of the way of a clearly aggrieved businessman who disappears down the steps.  “bess. just tell me something.” it’s hard to meet his eyes, intent as they are. “would you let prisha take the train home by herself tonight? if you were going... I dunno, home with me?”  her stomach flips, surprising, terrifying, thrillingly pleasant. it’s all the shots.  samuel’s ears go pink under the glow of the streetlight. “you know what i mean.” she’s stubbornly quiet; he ducks his head, refusing to be deterred. “bess.” “ugh, no. of course not!” “because you think she can’t take care of herself?” bess rolls her eyes. “she’s my best friend, you know that. it’s just what you do.” “right.” she hates the way samuel’s looking at her now, the way he had when he’d laid all her fears out bare in the close space of his apartment: so certain and so kind. “so why do you think i’d let you take the train home alone?” for a moment, she can only stare. maybe it’s the alcohol, but samuel has never quite looked so vulnerable. bess doesn’t have the right words (maybe there aren’t any) so she just drags him forward by the shoulders. samuel exhales sharply, a faint laugh in her ear, but he wraps both his arms tight around her— an embrace that somehow feels more intimate than their pretence from hours before. bess endeavours not to think about it too much. “c’mon bestie,” she says when she pulls back. samuel does laugh fully this time, wide enough to show his teeth. bess thinks back to the night of their first gig, the sound of his valerie chasing hers in echoes. it’s a wonder anyone’s more stubborn that she is.  samuel ushers her down the stairs with a sweep of his arm and bess laughs too. *   bess loves her dog. she’d convinced samuel he should probably come in for water, or tea, maybe an advil. ella had poked her head out from bess’ room and when she turns around from her perusal of the fridge, bess finds samuel fully sitting on the floor, ella laying between his legs, stroking her head. “who’s my sweetest girl?” he coos.  her heart something funny inside her chest. samuel looks up, his obvious joy so bright in the dim light of the kitchen and bess is nearly choked with the possibility that she’d nearly pushed him too far away to ever see it again.  “bess,” he says, his cheeks dimpling, “her ears are so soft. like, they’re the softest thing i’ve maybe ever felt in my life?”  wonder of wonders.  she can only nod in emphatic agreement. how many shots have they had?  “you’re lucky,” samuel continues, still making ella’s night by never stopping in his affection. bess’ eyes get stuck on his hands, the motion of his fingertips and the turns of his wrists. “my parents never let us have pets and my building doesn’t allow them either.”  “you know ella would love if you came over and pet her all the time.” she gets that muted surprise again, which melts into something bess isn’t sure how to name.  “would you like that, el? hmm?” he leans down to kiss the top of the dog’s head. “wanna spend more time with uncle samuel?” how is it that her most loyal companion is somehow more intimate with samuel than bess is? and why on earth would she ever have a thought like that? “so,” she says, maybe a bit too high-pitched for her own liking (ella looks up at her and bess wants to glare), “we have water, tea, popsicles, half a bottle of jack.” samuel laughs and shakes his head. “i thought we were sobering up?” bess shrugs. “so, popsicle?” he laughs again and it warms her inexplicably all the way to her toes.  they have water, following ella into bess’ room, toeing out of their shoes when she jumps onto the bed. the dog puts her head on samuel’s lap and stares balefully up at him until he resumes his gentle stroking. bess leans back against her wall. she’s looking at ella and pretending she can’t feel the heat of samuel’s gaze on her face. if she thinks too hard about it, bess remembers wishing she could share a moment like this with someone else. she doesn’t regret anything that lead her here, but something in her is too afraid to meet samuel’s eye, like he’d be able to read the truth of that in her face and that she’d have somehow ruined tonight, this quiet moment of warmth and contentment. she leans her head on his shoulder and he turns his cheek into her hair. when bess finally looks up, samuel’s face is vey close.  is he looking at her mouth? is she leaning?  “are you drunk, bess?” he asks softly. she stops. considers. “yes. you?” samuel’s smile is a little rueful. he nods. “i should go.” bess understands. it’s late. they’re tired and inebriated. he has to go all the way back to his. they almost... and yet she says, “stay.”  he blinks. “what?”  this might be a terrible idea. “stay.” “but—” she rolls her eyes. “what makes you think i’d let you go home alone either?” the surprise is plain now. he looks that almost-vulnerable again. bess is oddly satisfied. “are you sure?” it’s strangely hard to keep his eye even as she points out, “we’re fine, right?” he nods again, a little slower. “and it’s not like we’ve never shared a bed.” when bess finally manages it, samuel’s gaze is very soft. “true.” and just when she thinks he’s going to refuse her still, he says, “okay. thanks.” how do you tell someone out that you just don’t want to be alone out loud?  thankfully samuel doesn’t make her voice it. he just smiles as bess gathers something approximating pyjamas and crosses the room. “sorry i don’t have anything that would fit you,” (he snorts and she’s warmed) “but you know, make yourself comfortable however. come get a toothbrush from under the sink.” and so that’s how they end up side-by-side in the cramped bathroom of her and prisha’s apartment, brushing their teeth. samuel makes faces at her in the mirror and it should be strange, to be t-shirt and shorts/boxers open with him. but he’s seen down into the root of who she is, so isn’t all this less? he’s humming something familiar as she washes her face, catching her surprised reflection.  “it’s yours.” bess casts her mind back. “from–” “that first night, yeah.” she nearly drops her face towel. bess has never shown him that song. samuel shakes his head with a chuckle, a familiar you’re a weirdo. “it would be just like you to play something that gets eight bars stuck in my head for months and never sing it again.” “i...” bess can’t pinpoint a reason besides her own fear, like a karmic penance for one of the most humiliating nights of her life. “i can’t believe you remember.” there’s a truth in his eyes that neither of them are willing to admit they can see.  “wanna work on it?” she asks impulsively, determined now to redraw a better memory, “maybe tomorrow?” samuel’s grin is so wide it’s almost hard to take in all at once. “this mean you’re gonna actually do that open mic?” bess shrugs. she needs to escape this tiny room all of a sudden. “maybe.” he doesn’t push her further and she’s grateful. samuel hesitates at the edge of her bed as bess pulls up the cover.  “oh my god, just get in the bed samuel.” and he does. their knees touch. bess turns out the light but there’s still just enough to see him looking at her. drunkenness has made her warm and sleepy.  “what?” “for the record,” he says, “i know what i think of you.” it feels like they’re teetering on an edge. “cool grandpa?” they laugh so hard that ella jumps from the foot of the bed. samuel looks so fond that bess doesn’t know what to do with herself. “yeah. that’s it.” “night samuel,” she whispers.  “night bess.” * (she wakes up before the sun, tangled up in him.  for once, rather than overthink it, bess just closes her eyes and goes back to sleep.) * bess can’t stop smiling. before she could even look at samuel after getting offstage, benny had lifted her off her feet and proceeded to all but bulldoze everyone in the club to get her in front of jeremy’s record label contact. could he tell that she’d just been kissed within an inch of her life? it feels like it’s written all over her face. bess can barely remember what she said, but his personal contact card is currently burning a whole though her purse. al buys them a round. (she finds ethan lingering in the back. what he says to her is somehow a surprise and not both at once. what she says to him, in the end, feels long overdue.) prisha insists everyone come back to their place to celebrate, and they pile into ubers. louie exalts her as a true artist the entire ride and even phil seems impressed. true to form though, he’s a roledex of weather facts as bess and prisha frantically pull out every candle or flashlight in the apartment; their lights flicker ominiously every so often as the storm beats down their windows. benny puts a playlist together and tries to order pizza. by some miracle, it actually arrives; everyone pools together for a 150% tip. so it feels like ages before bess looks up to find samuel leaning against the alcove of her living room, watching as louie begins a spirited debate on the best numbers in hamilton.  bess nods her head toward the door of her bedroom. she’s expecting him to make a silly face with his eyebrows or hesitate, but samuel’s mouth just curves up on one side, like that’s all he’s allowing himself, and follows. “for the record,” he says as the sounds of the party fade a little behind them, “the answer will always be satisfied. no contest.” god, how had she never seen him before? her bedside lamp is still working. bess fishes out a pale white whale from childhood, one that changes colour as you tap. she grins at samuel, who’s leaning against her closed door and smiling like he’s not even sure what to make of her.  “you’re incredible, you know that?” her face heats, pride and embarrassment both at once. “so are you. i can’t believe we got through that song.” “all you, bess.”  she wants to roll her eyes, but refrains. “the electric was a great idea.” samuel’s eyes drop when he smiles; the familiar humility in it reminds bess of the reason she wanted to talk to him in the first place.  “i know what you did tonight. before you showed up.” he looks up then, a little sharply. samuel’s always had a good poker face but bess can see it still, that guarded look. “what did i do, bess?” saying it out loud makes her feel like she’s in a movie. bess steps forward. “you told ethan to come. for me.” “are you upset?” “no. i just want to understand why.” samuel’s gaze is as steady as it’s ever been. “i just want you to be happy.”  she feels unraveled, somehow.  “then why did you...” even in the poor light, he flushes. “why did you kiss me?” samuel looks at the floor, then back at bess. her heart beats in double time. “he didn’t show, or so I thought. and I didn’t want to...” he laughs lightly, almost at himself. “throw away my shot. I guess I wasn’t really expecting you to—” try to press him into the wall? “to kiss me back, or even what that might mean, but I wanted to show you, or tell you that—” she’s close enough to touch him now. samuel’s hands cup her elbows, very gently, like he needs to ground himself. but he looks bess right in the eye. “even if you didn’t want me, i’d choose you first. every time.”  her heart free-falls.  “bess.” he squeezes a little, catching her eyes. how long have they been standing in this moment of after? “please say something.” “i told him we couldn’t work,” she says in a rush. “and i don’t even know if it was really because you and I—” bess stumbles but samuel hangs on, his grip on her unwavering, “but i think part of me always knew it was just...like, a fantasy? we barely even knew each other and i always hated myself a little for being that girl trying to steal someone else’s partner and i wasn’t dealing with any of my shit until—” samuel just waits. the realization feels too big, but there’s no going back now. “until i met you.” he looks almost stricken. bess lets out a strange, wondrous kind of laugh. she puts her hand on samuel’s chest. she’s the one who needs steadying, now. he draws her closer without looking away from her face, like he’s helpless to it.  bess can’t remember the last time she felt so sure of anything. all those those expressions that always felt hidden in his eyes seem so plain, now: surprise, fear, hope. “i choose you, samuel. though i probably don’t even deserve to.”  she can see his adam’s apple bob as he swallows. samuel’s hand brushes her hair back away from her face, tracking the curve of her ear. just before she’s about to freak out, he asks, “are you drunk, bess?” she nearly laughs. “no. are you drunk, samuel?” he shakes his head. she understands that serious look, now. it’s wanting. he wants her.  samuel goes to pull her the rest of the way in— “bess!”  louie’s voice and a loud knock on the door springs them apart. the lights go out.  “bess, we’re going now. and the lights are out. do you have a source of light in there? are you coming to say goodbye?” samuel lets out a long, low “fuck.” she has to clap her hand over her mouth. his nearly silent laugh ghosts over her skin as he presses his face into the curve of her neck.  (samuel kisses her there, just once, but it’s enough that her knees tremble a little and she can feel the shape of his smile too.)  “i’ll be right out!” bess calls to her brother. his shadow moves away from the door. hysterical giggles shake her shoulders. samuel’s hands slide up to hold her face. “do you wanna—” “come home with me.” she can barely make out his features in the dark (except for the want) but bess’ stomach drops anyway. the irony of no electricity is funny when she feels like sparks might burst from beneath her skin.  “okay.” * bess is deliriously happy. samuel puts down his guitar and barely lets the door close before he’s pressing bess against it with both hands. his palms are heavy and warm on her hipbones; bess wants to rock up against him but there’s a certain thrill in it, how strong he seems.  she has no idea the last time she was kissed like this.  despite how fierce it feels, samuel lets her lead. he doesn’t open his mouth until she does, touches his tongue tentatively against hers at first pass, tugs so gently on her lip with his teeth until she makes a noise like a whimper.  she should tell him maybe, that samuel made her completely forget herself, back in the alcove at saint c’s. but then bess just lets her hands find their way back into his now slightly damp hair. she’ll just relive it instead. she scrapes her nails over his scalp and samuel’s breath comes up short; it returns in something that sounds like a groan, or a snarl, and oh.  bess has to take deep breaths of her own when he pulls back, a wide-eyed glance to her face to make sure she’s alright. she can only nod. samuel’s fingertips squeeze her waist as some of that urgency seems to fade from his eyes. he trails his mouth slowly from her lips to her jaw; she tilts her head instinctively to give him room and samuel finds that same spot on her neck from her own bedroom.  his teeth and tongue press a little harder than before; he gets a gasp for his efforts. her legs feel unsteady again. bess grabs at the open sides of his button-down until samuel shrugs out of it. it drops to their feet. he doesn’t protest when bess pushes him gently, walking backwards across the apartment with his arm tight around her.  he doesn’t let go when his legs meet the edge of his bed. bess would fall into him if not for samuel keeping them upright. he drops to sit, pulling them apart, and finally bess has to take stock of herself. samuel’s face is so open, his smile so wide in a way she’s never seen before.  “still good?” he asks. bess nods.  “still good?” samuel laughs lightly. “i’m great, bess.” he reaches for her hand, his thumb brushing each of her rings in turn. “we can stop whenever you want.” she’s the one standing but bess feels smaller, strangely. instead of replying, bess steps out of her shoes. samuel’s eyes seem to darken as she slides her jacket from her shoulders and lets it pool on the floor. bess leans down and brings one knee to the bed, by his hip, balancing herself with one hand on his shoulder. samuel’s inhale is impossibly loud as he instinctively supports her with a sliding grip up the back of her thigh. bess’ skirt isn’t that short but she’s glad she didn’t trade it for jeans before she left. samuel’s face betrays how pleased he seems by her choice.  once she’s finished effectively straddling him, bess looks down from her perch.  “hi.” samuel’s knuckles stroke up and down her leg. goosebumps ripple and he smiles. “hi.” bess takes his face in both her hands and leans down as samuel tilts his chin up to meet her. she’ll never tire of kissing him. it feels like she can’t get close enough; he must have the same idea because his arms wrap around her back until bess is sitting firmly in his lap, their hips slotted together.  “can i touch you?” samuel asks against her mouth. bess nods, maybe too quickly, but she can’t bring herself to be embarrassed.  guitar callused fingers slide beneath her top. samuel reaches the slim band of her lacy bralette. he pauses, but bess leans into his hand and then he’s tracing the curve of her breast. his thumb brushes a little roughly over her nipple; bess feels an abrupt ache between her legs. “that seems pretty,” samuel murmurs in her ear, like a casual observation. “it’s a matching set,” she replies, trying not to sound too breathless. “for luck.” he pulls back with wide eyes. bess wants to laugh but she’s too busy dealing with this rush of blood to her face. she sits up carefully so they don’t knock heads and reaches for the edges of samuel’s t shirt first; he drags it over his head in one smooth, practiced motion. shit, he’s hot.  he’s staring as bess unfolds herself to stand back on the floor (her legs are still unsteady but he doesn’t need to know that) and goes to pull off her own shirt. samuel’s eyes don’t leave her face until the fabric coming over her head pulls her from view. when bess blinks him back into focus, he’s gone a little slack-jawed. she nods at his jeans and the speed at which samuel divests himself of them has her biting back a giggle. bess’ face feels hot but there’s a frisson of pride that straightens her spine. she’s not even half an arm’s length away from him. samuel touches her stomach, just above the waistband of her skirt. “can I?” bess has to swallow before she can nod. just like before, samuel stares at her face until the last half of her outfit joins the rest of their clothes in a heap. samuel’s eyes trail from her eyes to her feet and back. it takes everything in bess not to fidget. she expects to see heat in his expression but there’s only wonderment and tenderness.  “fuck, you’re so beautiful.” she has no idea what to do with that. samuel tugs her into his lap this time, intent. his kiss is searing. bess rocks into him, just once, just a little. that grip on her thighs returns, tighter. bess can only gasp a laugh into his mouth when samuel stands, holding her up against him, and turns to lower her with a kind of breathtakingly slow care onto his bed.  bess lands on her back, samuel now the one leaning over her. desire coils low in her stomach. he gently shifts her hips so they’re both actually parallel with the long edges of the comforter.  she feels inexplicably, unbearably, fond of him.  then samuel looks away. he exhales, like he’s embarrassed.  bess frowns in concern. “what is it?” samuel shakes his head. “when you look at me like that, I can’t catch my breath.” oh. it feels so strange to be the steadier one. bess reaches for his cheek, drawing samuel’s eyes back to her. “guess you’ll just have to distract me, then.” he laughs, but then as he leans down, samuel’s smile fades and bess remembers. he wants her. she can feel it. his hand slides, pleasantly rough, over her skin, sliding beneath the band of her bralette. bess seizes samuel’s lip in her teeth as he strokes back over her breast. he teases her nipple and the moment bess manages to wriggle out of the garment and tosses it away, samuel’s swapped his hand with his tongue, her other breast now teased by his clever fingers. she gasps again and she can feel him smirking. samuel diverts his mouth’s attention to her other side. bess focuses on her breathing. the storm still lashes against the windows but it feels like nothing compared to the roaring in her blood. bess slides her fingers up the nape of samuel’s neck and a few things happen at once: samuel’s free hand finds the damp junction between her legs; bess pulls his hair a tiny bit harder than intended; his teeth catch her nipple with just enough firmness that bess’ back nearly arches off the bed, along with a keening noise she didn’t even realize she could make. samuel freezes immediately. he looks up and bess has no idea what her face looks like, but all she can say is, “do that again.” he leans back down, his teeth scraping over her other breast; when he tugs, bess does too, so hard that samuel hisses.  “sorry,” she pants, “sorry.” he shakes his head, a firm denial. it might be the dark, the lightning, or the fact that bess is so fucking turned on, but samuel’s expression has veered far past wanting— into hunger. he practically leaps back up to her mouth, a kiss so fierce that their teeth nearly clack together. “your hands,” he says, like it enrages him almost, “in my hair, holy fuck.”  oh was right. “you’re one to talk about hands,” bess retorts. “can you please just–” samuel leans back. “can i please just what?” he looks smug the bastard. it would be like them to bicker in the middle of sex, wouldn’t it? but his tone is so serious when he says, “tell me what you want, bess.” that she has to squeeze her thighs together.  “please touch me.” “where?”  bess is going to kill him. samuel touches her cheek with surprising gentleness, and kisses her there. “here?” he does the same to her neck. “here?” her shoulder. he marks the valley of her breasts, the slope of her navel, the jut of her pelvic bone. “samuel,” bess says. it sounds like a plea but she doesn’t care. she can only reach his shoulder now, the back of his neck. he may have shivered but she can’t tell because she’s too busy trying to keep it together.  he finally finds the elastic of her underwear.  “okay, bess?” this question isn’t a joke. bess makes sure to meet samuel’s eye; the mixture of that desire and care makes her dizzy. “yes. please.” when his fingers have finally slid inside her, bess says “samuel,” at a level of breathlessness she only ever gets when she sings. he touches her with the same care and confidence as he does any of their instruments, until her legs tremble; samuel finds a beat with his tongue against her clit that’s so good bess has to cover her mouth when she comes.  samuel crawls back up the bed towards her. he leaves a kiss on the inside of her knee, and her shoulder, just an inch or two from where he had the first night she’d stayed here. bess feels very safe, suddenly.  “still good?” samuel asks again, a more raw edge to the question this time. bess can only affirm silently as she leans up a little to kiss him. she can taste herself in his mouth, can feel the weight of his arousal against her. bess presses up and samuel groans.  heat pulses again between her legs. “do you want,” bess starts, putting her hands on him, straining against his boxers. samuel’s whole body seems to twitch. he pulls her wrists away though with a bruising kiss.  “i’m just dying to be inside you, if that’s cool.” her stomach flips.  “very cool.” samuel smiles and goes willingly when bess rolls them over. he reaches blindly into a bedside drawer. bess catches sight of a pair of glasses and makes a mental note to ask about them when her mind’s not currently so occupied.  “shit, are these even in date?” samuel squints at the packet in his hand. “god, have i not had sex in this long?” bess can’t help but laugh. they giggle their way through confirming the expiry date, getting rid of samuel’s boxers, and rolling on the condom in the dark. for a moment they just look at each other. bess hasn’t ached like this for anyone in a long time.  “tell me what you want, samuel.” his adam’s apple bobs as he sits up. “c’mere.”  samuel pulls her forward and bess lifts her hips to line them up. he swallows her tiny gasp as she sinks down onto him; it’s been a while for her, too. samuel anchors her with one hand splayed across her back, waiting silently until bess has adjusted to the stretch.  bess rocks down experimentally and he makes an almost strangled noise in the back of his throat. a soft kiss lands on her forehead, a starkly tender inverse to nearly everything that’s happened so far, and maybe even to what they’re about to do. it settles bess and breaks her open both at once.  “okay?” he asks carefully. she nods, wrapping both her arms around his neck. “you’re amazing, you know that?” samuel murmurs over her lips. his own hips swing up towards hers and wow. “bess.” she was right, before. he’s strong.  they get a rhythm going quickly enough, like another harmony that comes so easy. the angle has bess’ clit pressing with beautiful pressure against samuel’s pelvis; she clenches down just as he thrusts up. he curses and it just stokes that flame hotter inside of her. after a certain point bess can’t even speak anymore. she has both her hands in samuel’s hair and he’s latched back onto the curve between her neck and shoulder, teeth and tongue and words like, fuck and tight and good and bess— “samuel i—” he looks up at her face like he wants to commit it to memory.  “bess.” and she’s gone again. * when they’ve caught their breath and tidied up, bess and samuel find themselves side by side in his bathroom, a sweet reflection of that night from weeks ago. she’s glad she thought to bring her toothbrush. samuel keeps staring at her in the mirror.  “what?”  does she have toothpaste on her face? he just shakes his head, the way he does when he laughs to himself.  “nothing. you just look better in my t-shirts than i do.”  bess rolls her eyes but her face feels hot anyway. “weirdo.” it feels good not to have to wonder as they head back to his bed. samuel drags her immediately towards him beneath the covers, his cool hands greedy beneath her borrowed sleepwear as her back curves against his chest. he plants a minty kiss above her shoulder-blade where his shirt’s slipped down. bess shivers and he leaves another on the back of her neck. “sorry,” he murmurs, and bess flips around to look at him.  “for what?” the storm broke finally, and amber light of the street through his windows feels just as safe and warm as it had before. but samuel is the one who seems afraid, now.  “i don’t want to freak you out.” “you’re not freaking me out,” bess insists. “tell me.” samuel hesitates. bess reaches out to touch his face.  “hey. i don’t scare that easy either, you know.” he exhales a faint laugh. it’s so rare to see samuel seem unsure, or fragile. it makes bess feel thrillingly off-centre.  “i don’t think i’ll ever be able to stop wanting you.”  she’s falling.  “and not just—” samuel nods vaguely at their general closeness. “this. i mean all of it. the music, your family, everything. i know it’s probably a bad idea to start things with bandmates or whatever but i just—”  bess doesn’t let him finish. she can only pour all her affection for him into a kiss, taking samuel’s huff of surprise in her mouth even as he reaches for her waist to pull her closer, then on top of him.  when she pulls away he seems a little dazed.  “you make the bad days okay,” bess says firmly and samuel smiles with such near-adoration that she understands it now, that loss of air. “so we’ll figure it out, okay? one day at a time.” samuel nods. “okay.”  and he pulls her back down. * bess wakes up with words in her mind.  samuel’s grip is so tight that at first she doesn’t think he’ll let her go. but bess manages to slide away, picking up his hand gently and lifting his arm. she looks at his sleeping face and kisses his knuckles.  samuel’s lips curve a little and if she looks too hard she could be in love with him already.  she knows where he keeps blank sheet paper in his production area. bess finds a pen and a coffee table book about new york parks; she sits on the edge of the bed to scrawl, humming to herself.  she doesn’t realize he’s up until a familiar press of lips lands on her neck. bess will never stop shivering and samuel will apparently never stop smiling about it.  “hi,” he mumbles. his voice is low and gravely with sleep. bess files that away under the list of things that does something to her. samuel hooks his chin over her shoulder and bess lifts her work to accommodate his arms sliding around her waist. “new idea?” bess nods. “thinking about what you said to me.”  she’s circled can’t catch my breath at the top of the page. samuel goes very still. it feels like it could crush them, the weight of this kind of intimacy. but at least bess doesn’t have to carry it alone. “wanna write with me?”  she turns her head to look at him; samuel’s surprise will never not be thrilling.  “will you let me add a back beat?”  he’s already reaching for his guitar. bess laughs.  “i could maybe be persuaded.” the way his eyebrow lifts makes her stomach jump. “duly noted.” (they do finish the song, eventually.  the morning just gets away from them first.) 

[mostly-marvel-musings]

A Mere Mortal - Chapter Four

A/N: This story is based on the prompt : Vampires cannot enter a house without your permission, but what if your landlord’s a vampire? It’s his house, he’s just letting you live there. Part of the Landlord Vampire Fic Frenzy hosted by the amazing @just-the-hiddles​ . Feedback’s appreciated as always! :))

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Vampire! Bucky Barnes x Vampire! Loki x Human! Reader

Word count: 2298

Warnings: 18+ stuff. Kissing and make out scenes. Foul language.

Tags: @buckybarnesplumwhore​ @ladyacrasia​ @tcc-gizmachine​ @alexakeyloveloki​

Taglists open! Send me an ask if you wish to be tagged in future chapters.

...

It had been a while since you woke up before the alarm went off. Given the fact that you were up late writing and editing some initial drafts, this morning you felt surprisingly fresh.

Might as well go for a run.

Pulling out your trainers, a blue fleece jacket and a beanie that you found in your luggage you stepped out.

The weather was nippy, perfect for a jog through the little forest trail. Plugging your headphones you put on a ‘workout mix’ and started a slow jog following a narrow path that winded through the woods.

When the cabin came into view you leaned against a tree to catch your breath. Huffing, you pulled the earplugs out and looked around.

Faint whimpering sounds reached your ears from behind another tree to your right. You stepped around and a scared looking pup, not older than three weeks came into view. He was visibly shivering in the cold and you couldn’t help but pick him up.

“Where’s your mama little one?” you murmured looking around for any signs of an adult dog, but found none. “You hungry?” already walking inside with him tucked in your arms.  

Thankfully you had leftover steamed veggies in your fridge from last night which would have to suffice for now.

You mashed the carrots and broccoli and offered it to the puppy along with some water which he accepted with grateful wags of his tiny tail.

Letting him out in the harsh weather would be cruel, might as well find a box and some sheets to keep him warm.

The aroma of freshly made coffee still lingered in the air, after you took a quick shower and breakfast when your phone rang. It was a Face Time video from Sam.

“Sammie! How are you?”

“You seem awfully chipper (Y/N). I’m good. How’re things in creepy town?”

You rolled your eyes but laughed, you had missed him.

“For one stop calling it creepy town. Second, things couldn’t be better. I went for a run in the woods earlier today and came home with a puppy!”

“You did what?”

“Yeah well he looked so fragile and cold, I couldn’t leave him out there. Plus look how cute he is!” You said flipping the camera around so that Sam could see the pup who was now curled up into a ball on the rug, sleeping peacefully.

“Cute. Hey did you meet your landlord Mr. Bones was it?”

“It’s Barnes Sam, yes we met. Bucky is such a nice guy. Ah. A perfect gentleman. Like you wouldn’t believe.” you gushed excitedly. You recalled the meeting and he listened patiently, sneaking in a few teasing remarks in between. 

“I smell a crush (Y/N/N)”

“Oh stop, I’ve only met him twice, we had drinks the other day. Nothing happened” you spoke with a tad bit of disappointment. Something almost happened.

“So what? You can make a move. Guys dig that.” Sam insisted.

“I moved here to write my novel Sam. I can’t just randomly hook up with my landlord.”

You can do both, pun intended. Your horny alter ego spoke up.

You cut the call after filling him in on most of the details. You didn’t mention that weird sex dream with Loki, in fact didn’t mention the man at all. You hadn’t figured what to make of it, it was completely out of the blue.

Something you didn’t want to dwell on too much.

...

Mid-morning was spent trying get the pup to not pee next to the kitchen cabinet and to find a name for the little guy.

After a few tries he wagged his tiny tail when you said Bear, quite fitting, he was brown and shaggy.

You had lunch at the grill, when Bear had finally slept in his box and you were sure he wouldn’t get too lonely in your absence. You purchased kibbles, a leash and a few other things from Fred’s on your way home.

…

Bucky’s POV

I’ve been staring at this page for the longest time, reading the same sentence over and over again.

I managed to get my hands on (Y/N)’s latest book online and got it shipped here. An anthology of short stories, the title was enough to intrigue me, Mere Mortals.

She had a flair for writing thrillers, no wonder this was a best-seller.

This particular story caught my attention about a vampire falling madly in love with a human. A beautifully written tragedy with a line that struck me the most,

“Loving the monsters never ends well for the human.”

The book made me wonder how she might react if she finds out who I really am. Would she run away or be brave enough like one of her characters and stick around. Probably best to leave that topic for later.

Your book is fantastic (Y/N). You weren’t kidding when you said you love the supernatural. :P

How’s the new one coming along?

I didn’t want to seem too pushy but I couldn’t help myself. Something about her made it hard for me to stay away.

You read my book! I’m glad you found my obsession amusing. As far as the new one goes, I’ve been at it for days with very little progress. Starting to freak out. :(

The promptness of her reply made me smile. I quickly texted back and invited her over for dinner later today.

With that I walked inside to get a refill of my dinner for the night from the fridge.

…

Bear sat looking up at you with his head tilted to one side, as you explained you’d be leaving him alone for a few hours to go meet Bucky.

“And please don’t destroy the house, we’re here on lease. I’ll be back soon.” You placed a kiss on his nose and stood up to leave.

The walk to Bucky’s house was spent adjusting your hair every few minutes and making sure your breath was minty fresh. As trees cleared a huge cottage came into view which you could only guess was his ancestral home.

It looked surprisingly modern though with a few overgrown weeds around and English ivy covering most of the exterior walls. Stopping outside the front door, you checked your appearance one last time on your phone camera and knocked.

“Come on in, it’s open.” Bucky’s voice came through from a distance. You pushed the door open and stepped in the dimly lit house.

The wallpaper covered foyer reminded you of an old museum. Reaching the living room, you looked around to find most of the tables topped with antiques and artifacts. Old paintings that definitely belonged to the 18th century decorated the walls. All in all, the house looked like it belonged to someone who was stinking rich.

“Sorry for not opening the door, I almost lit my kitchen on fire.”

You turned around to see Bucky dressed in a button down tucked neatly in dark denims and the sleeves folded up to the elbow, hair in disarray but still freaking gorgeous walk in the living room. You looked around the room and said, “I didn’t know you lived in a museum.”

“Oh it’s our family home, almost been the same since my great grandfather built it. I’ll give you a tour later.”

“You’re rich.”

“No my parents were rich.” He chuckled.

“That is a typical rich person reply right there.” You shot back as you followed him into the kitchen.

The kitchen was bigger than your first apartment, very rustic looking with modern appliances to add contrast. The smell of Bolognese wafting through the closed pot on the stove made your stomach grumble.

“Hope you like Italian.” He gave you a smile and opened the lid to show off his work proudly.

“Is there anyone who doesn’t? It’s my favorite.” You walked closer and inhaled deeply before sighing rather dramatically.

“Come on. Let’s eat.”

You ate at the breakfast bar, though there was a dining room. Of course it was a twelve seat formal one complete with a fancy chandelier and everything.

“Are you like a prince or something hiding your true identity from me?” you asked eyeing him with mock suspicion.

He laughed, “I could be a mafia for all you know.” You got the latter part right, (Y/N)

“Nah don’t get that vibe from you.”

“Well my family owned a few properties around here including the cabin you’re living in, and the library, and now I look after it. My great grandfather was a part of the town council and everything, it’s boring.”

“Interesting would be the word I would use. Though a tiny part of me was hoping you’d say mafia and prove me wrong.”

You kept the conversation going through rest of the dinner and he seemed eager to know about your past as well. After a tour of the house, he offered you a nightcap as you settled on a plush couch in the living area. Comfortable silence that fell between you was broken as you heard soft music coming from an antique looking vinyl player.

“Care to dance?”

You couldn’t help but giggle as you took his outstretched hand and stood from your spot.

“See this is the kinda stuff that happens either in romantic movies or the beginnings of a serial killer movie.” You slid your arms around his neck as both of you gently swayed to the music.

The things you were feeling at that moment definitely were something you had only read about in those classic romantic novels you used to love so much in your growing years.

“Let’s just say it’s the former for now okay?” Bucky kept his arms around your waist and looked at your lips. You wasted no time in replying as you pulled him in for a kiss.

Lips brushed against each other softly at first, delicate like butterfly wings, he could feel the warmth of your skin and taste the wine you’d had earlier. 

Soon you lost yourself in the moment as instincts took over and your fingers weaved through his hair. One hand moved to the back of your head and the other stayed on your back as he pulled you even closer and the innocent kiss turned fervent.

The need to pull away for air became necessary as you broke the kiss and pressed your foreheads together, grinning ear to ear.

“The cooking, the wine and dance. You’re very old school in your ways Mr. Barnes.”

“I sure love it when you call me that doll.” 

With that he pressed his lips to yours once more and ravaged your mouth. Backing you up against a wall, his hands dropped down to your hips and he pressed himself closer to you, making his hard-on evident. A moan escaped you as he moved his mouth from your lips down to your neck where he found your sweet spot with ease.

All he could think about was the feel of your flushed skin, your heady scent and the smell of blood flowing through your carotid. He pressed his nose at the spot where your shoulder and neck met and inhaled deeply. This made your eyes flutter open.

“What’re you doing?” your voice came out weak as you tugged on his hair lightly, not understanding his actions but not really wanting him to move away.

“Stopping myself from going too far. I find you irresistible (Y/N).” he said slowly kissing his way back to your lips, eyes still closed.

“And you intrigue me. You’ll definitely end up as my protagonist if I ever write a romance novel.” you decided to lighten the sexually charged atmosphere with your dull sense of humor. You weren’t one of those who’d sleep with someone on their first date. Deciding it was time to leave you gently nudged him and he stepped away to give you space.

He walked you back to your home as always and stopped at the porch steps.

“Probably wise to not invite you in just now, Bear must’ve pooped in several places.”

“Bear?”

“Shit! I forgot to ask. I found a puppy this morning and decided to take him in. I hope its okay with you.” You silently prayed he wasn’t one of those ‘no pets allowed’ guy, considering his own house was so prim and proper, there wasn’t a stray fly around.  

“Who doesn’t like dogs?”

Vampires. Vampires don’t gel well with dogs.

But he couldn’t say no to you. You were probably safer with one in the house.

You stood on your tippy toes to give him a goodbye kiss which lasted a few seconds that had you reconsider going in alone.

…

Loki peered through from the shadows as you kissed Bucky outside your cabin. Fists clenched, eyes seeing red he stormed away through the woods searching for an outlet, a prey.

Rage turned into blood thirst, he spotted the lady who worked at the grill walking through the empty town square. Perfect.

Her wrist watch read 12:30, as Jenny made her way home after her shift ended at the grill. The area was deserted, illuminated only by the street lamps. She heard twigs snapping behind her and turned to locate the source of the noise.

There was no one.

Slightly alarmed, she turned back to see a tall dark figure standing right in front of her. Her initial shock wore off as she recognized the man. It was Loki.

“Mr. Laufeyson! You scared me.”

Loki stalked closer with eyes dark and an unreadable look on his face.

“Don’t mind me, I’m just out for a bite.”

He grabbed Jenny before she could run and sunk his fangs in her neck.

Her piercing scream echoed into the night, soon coming to a stop like her pulse.

…

[mindynichole]

Five reasons TWD/EPISODE 10x17 made me think Beth Greene is about to make a grand entrance sometime soon!

I added AMC Premiere to my online live streaming service a few months back so a family member could catch up on Season 10 of TWD. Well, I actually forgot I even had it until a couple of weeks ago and found out the 10C premier would be airing early on AMC+. Hearing this made me wonder if Premiere would also be getting the episode early. Imagine my delight when 10x17 did show up available to watch last Sunday morning after all! Even better, I also got TTD episode to be shown afterwards. 

After watching both episodes, I have come to the conclusion that Beth Greene is probably not only still alive but also about to pop up in the near future. I don’t know when or where in the universe that will be exactly - though I have some ideas you will most certainly hear about soon - but I do believe she is coming.

So after organizing some thoughts and discussions, I’ve narrowed down why I believe this way to five things in the episode that really stood out to me.

However, since most of us have yet to see the 10C Premiere: Home Sweet Home, I am deliberately only including the parts that directly have to do with Beth and am doing my best not to touch the overall plot of the story. There is A LOT I will be leaving out but regardless there will be some spoilers included (some quotes, scene descriptions, and some minor speculation of Daryl’s love life based on recent spoilers for the 10x18) nonetheless. 

Therefore, stop reading now if you don’t wish to be spoiled at all:

Okay, since your obviously fine with some minor spoilers, let’s just get into it then…

Here are the five reasons I feel Beth Greene will be coming back soon to a TWD Universe story somewhere near you:

1. Because after all these years, they actually said her name again and in doing so, it almost feels as if there has been some sort of awakening. 

  And all of this waking up has to do with the return of this lady!

It’s very hard to describe but it seemed like there was an undertone that somehow a sleeping giant had been awakened. Actually, for some reason the entire episode had that awakening vibe to me. I’m just not going into all of it now because this theory involves other characters and part of the overall story. Just know I truly feel these six episodes are really about ripping off scabs and opening up old wounds. I will be revisiting this later though after the episode airs for everyone. 

2. Better yet, they actually acknowledged their pain about finding Beth only to lose her again. 

                 So Daryl and Maggie are walking through the woods...

...and Mags asks if he really thinks Connie is alive. He says he hopes so and says he looked for her a lot but that sometimes people are just gone, you know? Maggie makes a comment that even if she is alive - and even when you do get people back - you can still lose them anyway. This was a direct reference to what happened with Beth. Daryl (visibly upset) quickly replies - almost in warning - that Kelly doesn’t need to know about any of that though. Maggie says well her daddy always said you can’t start to heal until the blood comes to the surface - or something else like that as I had a hard time hearing that line correctly. Daryl teases Maggie and says that isn’t true medically in which Mags says she knows but her Daddy always made it sound true anyway. Daryl gets visibly upset again and says he knows. 

3. Because the entire underlying context of the episode had to do with missing people and Beth was directly included in this. 

                      OMG Beth! Your name is no longer a dirty word!

I feel it’s important to note that not everyone they are missing are all dead either. 

The episode actually starts out with Maggie and Judith talking about sharing the same sky with those they are apart from. Judith is referring to Michonne and in Mag’s case, she is referencing those she left in VA while she and little Hershel were gone. I felt the obvious undertones of this included people we the viewers know about who are currently missing but still presumably alive such as Rick and Connie. 

This sets up the underlying vibe of the entire episode being about family members who are just gone - especially sisters. Throughout, Maggie talks with various characters (such as Judith, Daryl, and Kelly who is missing Connie) about these people - including referencing Beth and her being missing at one time. 

Then the conversation on TTD is about Maggie being able to empathize with Kelly because she went through such a similar thing with her own sister. That is the focus of the entire interaction that is drilled into us over and over not only throughout the episode and but later on TTD as well. 

I also found it quite interesting that in these conversations on TTD, Angel Theory (Kelly) keeps referring to Beth being missing in the present tense...so much so that at one point my personal opinion was that some of the other members of the panel kind of got visibly anxious. So keep an eye out for that along with the many other times cast and crew talk about Beth in TTD.

4. While Maggie does mentions that Beth died (which the characters absolutely believe at least at the moment), they STILL don’t mention her body or what they did with it. 

But for like the 1,253,651 time: What the f*&# happened to her body?

I find this absolutely incredible as this episode was the prime chance (and probably the only chance they will ever have again) to address the issue with the body. 

Trust me when I tell you, TPTB absolutely knows about Team Delusional. They absolutely know everyone’s biggest hang up is what they did with Beth Greene’s body. They know all they have to do is answer this one question and many people will understand that she indeed died back in Atlanta. 

Yet, they deliberately choose NOT to put any of it to bed. 

Maggie tells Daryl after Beth died, Glen and her talked about going to her Nana’s house on the beach. All they would have had to do is change that to “After we buried Beth beside the church or alongside the road, or in that patch of grass back at Grady or <insert literally any location you want>, Glen and I talked about going to my Nana’s cottage on the beach” and all of it would be put to rest. It literally would have been game over just like that. 

But again, for whatever reason, the writers choose not to do it. You would have thought this is what they would want if there is going to be some budding romance with Leah or eventually C*nnie, or even C*rol in the spinoff, right?

5. Because they not only mentioned Beth but also made many callbacks to her throughout the entire episode. 

                          Will the real Beth Greene please stand up?

On TTD, Angel Theory (Kelly) felt it was important and made it a point for the audience to know that Daryl was actually teaching her how to track while they were walking in the woods because it wasn’t very apparent. Apparently, this is what all the sign language between them was about. Kelly also uses his crossbow. There is also a burning cabin involved in the episode. Lydia does a voiceover in the beginning very similar to Beth’s Inmates opening. Connie is mentioned by Daryl  as “just gone” and everyone seems to be missing their sister. I’m sure if I watched closer, there would be even more direct Beth references I could spot.

Anyway, these are the things I took away from the episode. I can’t wait until everyone else sees it and we can discuss you guys’ thoughts as well!

[1989xtaylorsversion]

emma macdonald: is she worth watching or should you keep scrolling? my thoughts, opinions, and review.

i don’t know about a lot of you, but if you’re someone who watches a lot of youtube, you might’ve stumbled upon one of the most fascinating and interesting genres on the platform - lifestyle vlogs. there are countless people - mostly teen / young adult girls who document their lives and journeys of going through life, and sharing their daily or weekly celebrations, struggles, and experiences. most of them live a life that seems glamorous and fun, but it begs the question of who’s really telling the truth and who’s just putting on a show?

i’ve watched a lot of lifestyle gurus, and one person in particular i’ve stumbled upon a little over a year ago was miss emma macdonald (pictured below). in case you don’t know who she is, she’s a 19 year old vlogger from boston, massachusetts. according to her, her channel “is mostly around my daily life, fitness, health, fashion (if hoodies and sweatpants count). Mostly a place to make you happy and feel good about you!!” in this current moment, she has garnered 336k subscribers. something i find kind of unique about her is the fact that her older sister maggie also has a youtube channel with 327k subscribers, and she makes similar content, if her description is anything to go by.

now don’t get me wrong, two sisters making similar content isn’t that special, but it’s just a little interesting. based on their videos, you can tell they’re very close and often hang out together and make cameos in each other’s vlogs, which isn’t surprising since they live close together.

  EMMA’S CHANNEL - her likability

now, diving into emma’s channel, here’s my opinion. i can totally see her appeal. i mean, let’s not forget the society in which we live in. she’s a young, conventionally attractive, white, thin, and blonde woman living an incredibly privileged life in one of the best cities in america. with these factors it’s no surprise she has an audience. i will admit, there are times i’ve watched her channel and i find myself having this surge of sudden motivation, and i suddenly want to go and do something besides watch youtube videos all day. i think sometimes she gives off good vibes in her videos, and i enjoy watching her and her sister interact - they’re very sweet together.

   WHERE EMMA FALLS SHORT

if i’m being honest, my problem with emma lies in the fact that oftentimes she comes across as materialistic. don’t get me wrong, i know she must make a ton of money on youtube, and i’m not going to sit here and tell her how to spend her money. she can do whatever she wants with it, but the amount of times she uploads videos in which she talks about her clothes, sneakers, and sweats can't go unnoticed. i don’t want to come across as nitpicky, but this criticism is one i often read in her comment sections, and on tumblr blogs. it’s also a prevalent thing i find with a lot of young influencers these days. it gives off the vibe of all show, and no substance. i think emma is capable of making good content, but there are moments when she comes across as vapid and shallow. i’m not saying every vlog has to be some shakespearean masterpiece, but if you go through her catalogue from even the past few months, you’d see what i’m talking about.

on a related note, another opinion i’ve developed and read is that emma’s life just isn’t all too interesting. if we narrow down how many of her vlogs are centered around her talking about shopping, hanging out with her sister, working out, or just riding in her car, it’d probably add up to 95% of her content. i understand that’s what her content would revolve around according to her description, but i often wonder, if you took away the glitz and glamor, and she was a regular girl, would you be interested in her life? some content is exciting, but it’s really nothing special. i mean, how long can you show the same thing before people move on and grow out of it? i watched maggie’s videos to get a sense of these two, and sometimes i prefer maggie’s vlogs to emma’s. i think maggie’s older age and maturity givers her a certain appeal that i don’t always see from emma. the macdonald sisters make very similar content, so it’s not a huge contrast, but sometimes i feel like i prefer maggie’s videos to emma’s. it’s subjective, of course, but since i’ve caught myself having these thoughts, i feel like it’s worth noting.

    EMMA’S LIFE - who is she?

when we watch these people, it’s natural to want to know everything about them, including their personal life. sometimes the line between privacy and honesty gets blurred and youtubers overshare and reveal too much, or they share too little and their subscribers feel as if they know nothing about the person they’re watching. i feel like emma falls somewhere in the middle because she does open up about personal struggles, relationships, and journeys, but she also maintains a certain level of privacy that’s probably needed for the internet. however, one thing i always wonder is who are emma’s friends? if you watch her videos, you can see that her best friend is maggie. it’s common for your sibling to be your best friend, but is that all? emma has youtube friends, and her roommate, but she hardly talks about them. one of her public friendships is with paige lorenze, who’s not exactly the paragon of maturity and likability. the common consensus with paige is not a favorable one, and i can make a whole post dedicated to her and her foolishness. it’s not surprising these two paired up since they seem to be in the hockey scene, but that's another topic. something worth noting with these two is that months ago emma uploaded a grwm for a date night video, and she essentially promoted products in which all signs pointed to a pyramid scheme. she had hundreds of people telling her to be more cautious and judicious about what she promotes, but she held her belief that they were good, clean products since paige was a consultant for the company. this rubbed me and everyone else with a modicum of common sense the wrong way, because she clearly didn’t do her due diligence, and she didn’t realize that it’s probably not the smartest idea to promote a pyramid scheme. emma’s audience is likely made up of girls her age and younger who are impressionable. she has to be more aware of what she puts out there. it’s not a huge scandal, but it wasn't one of her brightest moments. if she keeps that up, i can totally see her carelessness getting her into more trouble later on.

additionally, i feel like she’s had fall outs with some of her friends, such as her high school best friend ella. i don’t know too much about her, but it’s obvious emma and ella have been best friends for a long time, and she even made a lot of appearances in emma’s earlier videos. however, clearly something went wrong at some point because i recall months ago ella made a tiktok calling emma out for trying to confess her love for ella’s boyfriend. i also recall emma clapping back in the comments, but then she talked about hanging out with ella in some of her recent vlogs, so who knows what even happened there. i just found this to be shady, and if it’s the truth, it could be indicative of emma’s character. but, since not much came of this, i guess there’s not much to tell.

  overall, what do i think of emma?

i think she’s an average girl who just got lucky with the platform she’s been given. you can find a hundred girls like her on any social media. she’s not reinventing the wheel or anything with her content. i can see the appeal at times, but her vlogs are nothing more than those videos you watch at night when you want to shut your brain off and unwind.

what i would love to see more of is her real personality. something that other people say about emma (when she’s with her sister or friends) is that she’s actually a funny person in real life and it doesn’t always come across that way in videos. i’d love for her to open up more about her true self and make more sit down videos, or more q&a’s. the q&a she did with paige recently was actually a pleasant change of pace, and i liked some of the things she had to say. when she vlogs her daily or weekly life, and all she talks about is working out, shopping, or hanging out with her sister, i don’t feel like i see her real self, and i certainly don’t see the humor everyone else raves about. if she showed her true personality a little bit more, then maybe people would see a different, less materialistic version of herself. she has the potential, but right now i’m not seeing anything incredibly special.

overall rating:

3/5

EDIT: JAN 11, 2O21

as i’m editing this, the macdonald sisters have decided to travel - AGAIN - during the PANDEMIC. i’m not sure if they understand this little concept, but a social media following doesn’t exempt them from catching corona. it’s really disappointing to see them traveling for the third time?? i’ve lost count because they keep doing it. like i stated in my conclusion, their videos aren’t anything spectacular, so i get going on a vacation spices your content up, but girls read the room. if influencers can’t be entertaining without traveling all the time, then why do they even have a youtube channel? the comments on maggie’s tiktok in which people rightfully called them out for their recent trip gives me some hope in humanity. at least some people know better. @ macdonald sisters, be smarter. do better. you guys have an influence. google the definition of the word if you have to, just stay home.

[elizabeethan]

My Hands, Your Hands

Chapter 1 / 2

Part 2

After being cheated on by her boyfriend, Emma Nolan moves in with her older brother David and his two stupid roommates, Will and Killian. After a night of drinking games and plenty of rum, Emma lands on the one rule that she'd rather avoid: "The Iron Curtain- player to your left."

Modern Captain Swan AU based on the New Girl episode where Nick and Jess go behind the Iron Curtain

Read on AO3

Killian got a new leather jacket in the mail and wouldn’t take it off. Like, he would not take it off. He keeps walking around in it saying stupid things like, “it really makes my hips pop,” and “I know it’s black, but it’s, like, a different kind of black. It brings out my eyes.” Emma is seriously about to lose it.  What makes matters worse is the fact that David and Will aren’t trying to stop him from acting as stupid as he is. They’re amping him up because they want to go out tonight, and it’s very un-fun going out with Killian when he’s down in the dumps about Milah. Still.

           Milah broke up with Killian months before Emma moved in. She had been cheated on by her long-term boyfriend Neal and needed a new place, and the only place with a room available happened to be her older brother’s loft, which happened to be filled with three grown men who act like children. Killian apparently took his breakup pretty hard, although she doubts he was as openly and embarrassingly emotional as she was. According to David, Milah was the one who got away. Evidently, she loved Kilian, but had to let him go. Her words, not Emma’s. Also evident was the fact that she very quickly moved into another’s man’s apartment after dumping his ass.

           So, while Emma had managed to get over Neal, she thinks rather successfully, Killian was still nursing that post-breakup hangover and hadn’t been out with the guys in several months. David usually doesn’t go out drinking, Emma assumes because he is in a long-term, committed relationship, so this is apparently momentous. Will is very excited to get out and get laid as he so eloquently put it. And now, with Killian’s new-found confidence thanks to a leather duster, he plans on getting laid as well.

           She has to admit, despite how obnoxious and childish he’s being, the black leather does work very well on him. His fair skin and dark hair compliment it, his muscular shoulders fit inside perfectly, and his ocean blue eyes truly do stand out.

           She immediately shakes that thought out of her head.

           Emma plans to stay home alone tonight; her current fling Walsh is working, and her best friend Ruby has a date. She could try and call Mary Margaret, David’s aforementioned girlfriend, but the two of them are more… daytime friends. Meaning, they get along great when they're doing adult things like having brunch or decorating the loft, but when it comes to Emma’s more childish side (read: drinking in excess) she sometimes feels as though Mary Margaret disapproves. Almost as if she’s the mom friend, but in a way that makes Emma feel like she could actually be her mother. This could be because she’s dating Emma’s older brother, or it could be because Mary Margaret has basically the purest soul of anyone Emma has ever met. Perhaps a combination of both.

           Honestly, Emma would totally go out with the guys tonight. But apparently that wouldn’t work in their favor.

           “I’m so down,” Emma exclaimed when Will announced their plans, jumping off the counter and imagining what outfit she would wear. She hasn’t been out in weeks and it wouldn’t kill her to act like a single lady for a night.

           “No way.” Killian practically jumped out of his own seat and stood directly in front of her, blocking her way to her bedroom. “You can’t come. I actually want to get laid tonight. You’d just get in the way.”

           “Excuse me!”

           “You would! Do you know how difficult it would be to get a woman to come home with me with you present? There’s no way you’re coming,” Killian says, rather rudely.

           “He’s right, Emma. It’d just make it harder for us guys if a lady was there,” Will added, shrugging and making the most insincerely apologetic face.

           “Maybe I can call Mary Margaret and see if she wants to hang out with you tonight?”

           So now she’s stuck at home. Emma spent the rest of the evening glaring at Killian before they left. She could also place equal blame on Will and David, but Killian is easier to glare at. Each time she looks over at him and narrowed her eyes, he shoots her a stupid, cocky grin and waggles his eyebrows.

           “Don’t wait up for us, Swan. Although, it may be difficult to sleep by the time we get home. We are right across the hall from one another, so if you think me and my lady friend are being too loud, well… just try and block it out.” Everything that Killian says to her is a joke, but that doesn’t make her glare any softer.

           “Shut up, Jones. You’d be lucky to get anyone to come home with you. Women will take one look at your stupid jacket and run for the hills,” she scoffs, pinching the fabric at his collar and dismissively flicking it away from her.

           “You said you liked my jacket!” His eyes grow twice their normal size and he feigns hurt, placing his right hand over his heart and gasping.

           “Just tell me you’re not actually going to wear it out tonight. It’s so long and flowy I feel like I could’ve worn it to prom.”

           “I’m sure it would look wonderful on you, love. But I think it will look better on my bedroom floor,” he says, another waggle in his thick brows. Emma glowers and groans.

           “You’re so stupid! Who says that?”

           “Oh, you love my sense of humor, Swan, don’t try and fight it,” he says in a low voice, leaning in closer to her and looking at her through his long lashes.

           “I’ve told you so many times to stop calling me that.” Emma rolls her eyes and turns around towards her bedroom, but his hand catches the crook of her elbow.

           “It’s funny. That’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Why wouldn’t you want me to continuously memorialize it?”

           “It’s not funny! I was attacked!”

           Killian chuckles and let’s go of her arm, a soft smile now decorating his face. “You’ll be alright here tonight, aye Swan? I didn’t mean to make you feel unwelcome.”

           Emma rolls her eyes again as she walks into her bedroom and Killian follows. “Yes, you did. And it’s fine, I get it. Wouldn’t want anyone to get in the way of Killian Jones’s great conquest,” she says sarcastically, waving jazz hands in front of his eyes.

           It was Killian’s turn to roll his eyes now, blue disappearing behind his lids as he scoffs and smirks. He shakes his head leaves his place in her threshold.

~~~

           Emma didn’t always like Killian. Okay, she doesn’t really like him that much now, but when she first moved in, she couldn’t stand him. He was completely cocky, which David explained was a symptom of his difficult breakup. Apparently, it was arduous for him to get over the love of his life without acting like an asshole. Emma’s not sure what Will’s excuse was; the youngest of the three, he seems to get into the most trouble. David’s the oldest of the group, and also the most mature. He takes on a caretaking role rather effortlessly, just as he always has with Emma.

           As she sits at home alone, she becomes so desperately bored that she considers organizing her closet. However, knowing that that would never happen, she chooses to put on a scary movie and make some popcorn.

           When it ends, she decides to call Walsh while she thinks he’s on his break. Lately, even though they’ve only been seeing each other casually for about a month, she’s been feeling as if he expects much more from her than she’s willing to give. It seems as if he wants a committed relationship, although he hasn’t come out and said it, and she’s been feeling pressure to act more like a girlfriend.

Of course, it’s only natural that the hot water pipes should clang loudly in this moment, causing her to scream and throw what’s left of her popcorn right as she finishes up her voicemail.  

           “Swan,” she hears from outside the door. “Swan?” Killian swings the door open with fervor; his brows twisted into a concerned arch. David and Will were behind him, along with one of the most beautiful women Emma has ever seen. She offhandedly wonders who she decided to go home with.

           “Hi,” she replies, reaching down to pick up some of the popcorn that went flying around her. “How was your night?”

           “It was great, Emma. I’d like you to meet Sabine,” Will cuts in and gestures towards the woman with a cheeky grin on his face. “Sabine, this is my totally platonic roommate, Emma.”

           “Nice to meet you,” Sabine says with a small wave and an oddly flirty smile. “This is a great place you guys have.”

           “Yeah, thanks.”

           “Killian tells me you created a great drinking game, and the vibe at the bar was totally off, so we thought we’d check it out. Mind if we play?” Emma finds it interesting that Will seems to think he brought Sabine home, but Sabine appears to be all over Killian. Killian starts towards Emma now, and miraculously takes off his stupid jacket before sitting on the arm of the chair she’s in, smirking. The asshole.

           “Sure, that’s fine. Everyone needs a drink and we need to find the dice and board though,” she turns her attention to Will. If he thinks she’s helping set this up, he’s got another thing coming. “I’ll take a rum and coke.”

           Killian’s looking down at her still, so she looks back at him and glares once again. “Can I help you with something?”

           “Aye,” he says softly, reaching his right hand towards her face. She thinks she almost feels her lashes fluttering at his soft touch, until she feels a slight pull of a few strands of hair at the top of her head.

           “Ow, what the hell?”

           “More popcorn, love. How’d that get there?” She rolls her eyes (yes, again), and takes the kernel from his hand, tempted to throw it at him.

           “I don’t know. Maybe I was saving it for later, and now you’ve just ruined my midnight snack.” Killian laughs- actually throws his head back and laughs, before raising his right arm over her shoulders and sliding himself into the chair she’s in, effectively squishing the both of them.

           “Again, what the hell,” she asks, her tone incredulous and hostile.

           “Not enough seats, love. Ruby’s on her way.”

           “How would you know that? And why wouldn’t I just share a seat with Ruby?”

           “We text from time to time, mostly about you,” he says, his brows switching places as he raises one and lowers the other.

           “Shup up, you idiot,” she says with an eye roll. Pretty soon, they’re going to get stuck up there. At least, she thinks that’s what Mary Margaret would tell her. Killian chuckles deeply in response and she thinks she feels him squeezing his arm tighter around her shoulder. She knows he put it there to annoy her, but she doesn’t particularly mind, what with her irrational scare a few minutes before. “So, what the hell are you doing home this early?”

           “It’s like Sabine said, Swan, the vibe at the bar was totally off,” he says sarcastically, clearly poking fun at Will’s new friend.

           “So off that you couldn’t get anyone to come home with you? With that jacket?” Emma feigns shock, putting her hands to her cheeks and raising her brows, painting herself with a concerned expression. “Sabine seems to think you guys make a great match.”

           “Wasn’t really interested, I suppose. She’s better suited for Will.”

           “Please,” she scoffs, “she’s hot as hell, and earlier you literally said, and I quote, ‘I actually want to get laid tonight.’” Her take on his accent is truly terrible.

           His response is minimal, simply a shrug of his right shoulder as he works his way out of the chair that he wedged the two of them into. “You know you aren’t getting that drink from Will. You want a lime?” She nods, looking at him incredulously. They’ve lived together for nine months and he still acts like he doesn’t know what she drinks. It’s not as if they don’t drink together nearly every weekend.

~~~

           The game started only once everyone finally got their shit together. It’s true, Emma did create an awesome drinking game. A poster board and Mary Margaret’s artistic abilities quickly allowed for the creation of a game somewhere in between Candy Land and Monopoly. Okay, not really, but the concept is similar. Emma’s game states that the player roles a die and moves their game piece the appropriate number of spaces, then completes the task in the square they land on. Many of the tasks are drinking related. The game was created while they were all drunk.

           Emma roles the die and moves five spaces, commanded to drink because she’s from out of state. Killian must drink as well, and so must Sabine. Killian roles next and drinks because he doesn’t have brown eyes. Emma and David drink here too. At some point, Ruby does show up and complains about her date with the doctor named Whale. Emma thinks that anyone named after an animal cannot be trusted. Then she stops herself, remembering the stupid name Killian gave her.

           The game goes on for many rounds, and each of them get drunker with each role of the die. Eventually, Sabine lands on Never Have I Ever, and the loser must finish their drink, while everyone also takes a sip for each finger they put down. Emma, Ruby, and David all have one finger left, and it’s Killian’s turn to call a rule. He stares her dead in the face and smirks, one brow raised higher than she even thought was possible.

           “Alright, never have I ever…” he pauses, moving his right hand up to pinch his bottom lip and jut his jaw forward, his tongue running along his lip. Fuck, Emma thinks. I must be drunk. “Never have I ever been attacked in a park by the local wildlife.”

           Emma freezes and glares in his direction while everyone else laughs. She was holding up her pointer finger, but she drops it and replaces it with her middle. Then, despite the fogginess in her brain, she picks up her glass and takes another swig of her third perfectly made rum and coke.

           Once she finishes what’s in her glass, it’s her turn to role, and she lands on the one square that only one other person has ever landed on: The Iron Curtain- player to your left.

           In her drunken state, Emma’s not sure how well she hid her horror. She does not want to go behind the Iron Curtain. Only once was this rule played out, and it was the night that sparked silence between Ruby and Will for two weeks afterwards.

           Ruby cheers and stands up excitedly, jumping for joy and spilling her wine in the process. David groans and says she doesn’t have to do this. Sabine looks at Will, clearly wondering what the hell is going on.

           Emma has to go behind the giant metal sliding door and kiss someone. Specifically, she has to kiss the person to her left.

           When she looks to her left, all she sees is a sea of blue covered by thick black brows. “No way,” he says.

           “It’s the rules!” Ruby has never looked more excited, and her wolfish grin is very off-putting.

           “No! I’m not kissing Killian!”

           “Well I’m not kissing you!”

           “Oh, come on, we’re all adults here! It’ll literally take a minute,” Ruby tries to reason unsuccessfully.

           “A minute? How long do you think we’re going to be kissing? I’m certainly not kissing my best friend’s sister for a full minute.” He looks over at her and shrugs.

           “That’s a great point, Killian,” David chimes in.

           “Nothing from you, pal,” Will pipes up. “The rules state that she must go behind the Iron Curtain with the person to her left. She should’ve sat next to Ruby and this whole thing could’ve been avoided.” His attempt at lightening the mood is truly upsetting.

           “Okay, fuck this. If it’s gonna get everyone off my back, I’ll go behind the stupid Iron Curtain with stupid Killian Jones. Let’s go, idiot.” She grabs his right hand and yanks, noticing that it isn’t all that difficult to get him to come with her. Behind her, everyone is whooping and chanting kiss kiss kiss! as they shut the sliding door behind them.

           Once they're behind the door, the chants become muffled and she’s finally able to comprehend what the hell she’s doing. She’s quite drunk, mainly because Killian is always very generous with the rum when he makes her drinks. She’s not so sure about him though.

           “We’re not actually doing this, are we Swan?”

           “You know, I made the game, and now I’m really mad at myself. Why did you have to sit on my left?”

           He scoffs, although she thinks she sees a smile in his eyes. “I always sit on your left, Swan. We literally always sit in the same seats when we play this.”

           She rolls her eyes once again. “It’s the rules, we have to just suck it up and do it.”

           “I don’t want to suck it up, Jesus. So crass.”

           “Why are you so against kissing me? Do you really think it’ll be that bad, Jones?” She’s raising her voice slightly, for which she blames the rum. “We’re both drunk, we can just do it and forget it happened tomorrow.”

           “I am not even close to being as drunk as you are right now, Swan. And did you forget that you have a boyfriend? Because I didn’t.”

           “I don’t have a boyfriend, Killian,” she scoffs, backing to the wall and sliding down into a sitting position. He cocks his head and turns his body so that he can copy what she did, sitting on her left side again.

           “Trouble in paradise, love?”

           “No… I don’t know. Walsh is fine, it’s just…” she trails off, not sure how to finish the statement. Things with Walsh are just that, fine. But lately, she can’t help the feeling that things between them just aren’t right.            “Fine doesn’t seem promising to me, Emma. Are you sure that’s enough?” She’s honestly caught off guard by the way he says her name. Not love, not Swan, Emma. As if he means what he says, and cares about her answer.

           “No,” she replies so softly she’s unsure if she even heard herself. “I think we want different things.” He hums in response, nodding his head slowly and bumping his shoulder into hers.

           “I’m not convinced kissing me would make that any better. Maybe we shouldn’t do this. I really don’t want to kiss you like this.” For some reason, Emma suddenly feels herself grappling with a strange sensation. I really don’t want to kiss you like this. A pit has formed in her stomach and it feels as though someone has reached in and grabbed her heart, squeezing as hard as they could. Rejection.

           Why on earth would Emma Nolan be upset that Killian Jones doesn’t want to kiss her? Hell, she doesn’t want to kiss him! So, what is it about these words that threaten to send her over the edge? These words that make her feel so much more sadness than she thought was possible?

           “It’s fine,” she breathes, refusing to lift her head in his direction.

           “Swan,” he says carefully. “Emma… What’s wrong, love?” She’s never heard his voice sound so smooth and velvety and caring. Part of her wants to lean into him and take comfort in his softness, but the other part of her continues to replay his words over in her head. I really don’t want to kiss you like this.

           Rude of him to assume that she’s too drunk and sloppy for a kiss, considering he’s the one who made her this way.

           “Stop calling me that,” she finally says dismissively, getting up too quickly and stumbling her way towards the door.

~~~

           “Emma?!” She hears the annoying voice before she sees the face it belongs to. Walsh is pounding on the door, and frankly, he’s the last person she wants to see right now.

           “Did you kiss?” Ruby asks her with her grin still plastered on her face, and Emma rolls her eyes. She sees David looking at her from the corner of her eye, then sees him get up and go towards the door.

           “Emma, are you alright? Oh, hey everyone,” Walsh says when the door finally opens and he sees the party of people in the loft. “Emma, I got your voicemail. Are you okay? You were screaming.”

           “Did you call Walsh while you were behind the curtain with Killian? Emma, that’s sneaky! But you can’t get out of this one!” Ruby’s brows waggle in a way that resembles Killian’s, and Emma’s eyes launch themselves into the back of her head with a roll.

           “What does that mean, behind the curtain? Are you okay?”

           “Walsh, I’m fine. We’re just playing a game. The pipes creaked while I was calling you and it startled me.” Emma’s mood is completely shot, and she isn’t even really sure why. Frankly, she’s pissed at herself for being upset right now.

           “Well, where’s Killian? I’d like to know what he was up to during this game.” She can hear the sarcasm dripping from his voice for whatever reason.

           “How should I know where he went,” She snaps. “I’m not his keeper, I don’t track his every move.”

           “Emma, calm down. Jesus. Do you know what it’s like to receive such a horrible message while I’m at work and then have to come over here and see everyone trashed out of their minds? Would it kill you to just chill out for a second rather than jumping down my throat for asking a simple question?”

           “Woah, mate,” she hears from behind Walsh. Killian has made his way out from behind the curtain and is wearing a look of astonishment on his face.

           “No one asked you, Jones.”

           “Shut up, Walsh,” Emma retorts. The room suddenly feels much quieter than it was just a few seconds ago. Will has turned the music down and everyone has stopped shout-talking.

           “Excuse me?”

           “I said shut up. Don’t talk to my friend like that. Don’t talk to me like that. I didn’t ask you to come over here. In fact, if you had given me a heads up, I would’ve told you not to come over here.”

           “Are you serious? You literally left me a voicemail as if you were in grave danger, and now you’re mad at me for checking on you?”

           “You checking on me isn’t the problem here! The problem is that you clearly don’t actually give a shit and you’re just here to keep up appearances!”

           “What does that even mean? That’s absurd.” He’s rolling his eyes this time, still standing close to the still-open door. David and Killian are both behind him, eyeing Emma carefully.

           “If you really cared about me potentially being in danger, you wouldn’t have come over here with a whole stick up your ass. And you certainly wouldn’t have gotten upset when you saw that I was fine!” Killian purses his lips and nods, and David shoots her a discreet grin.

           Walsh scoffs, backing towards the door some more. “You know what, I don’t need this.”

           “Good,” Emma retorts. “Neither do I. Go home, Walsh.”

           “Where do you think I’m going? Christ, I swear. Go have fun with Killian, I guess.”

           “Don’t bother coming back, and don’t call me! I don’t wanna hear from you!” She’s shouting at him, as if he’s too far away to hear her, even though he hasn’t crossed the threshold.

           “Why would I come back? It’s always been obvious that you don’t want me here, Emma! I don’t even know why I ever bothered! A slut like you could never settle down!”

           She feels like she’s been punched. What grounds could Walsh possibly have to call her a slut? In her entire adult life, she can count the number of guys she’s dated on one hand. Her six-year relationship took up a lot of her time, thank you very much.

           Emma may have felt like she was punched, but at least she wasn’t actually punched. At least she didn’t have Killian and David standing behind her, taking in her insult and rearing up to punch her in the face the second she turned towards them. At least she didn’t have David holding her in her place while Killian swung his right fist straight into her jaw.

           If she wasn’t so shocked by what just went down, she would’ve found it impressive to see Killian and David working together to beat up the guy who just insulted her character. Killian likely wouldn’t have been able to grab Walsh and hold him in place with his left hand while his right hand swung into his face, but with David there, he was able to deliver a firm hit that must’ve made Walsh dizzy.

           “Get the fuck out of our apartment,” Killian hisses, practically spitting in Walsh’s face while he holds his collar with his right hand. Then, Killian shoves Walsh to the ground outside the door and David slams it shut.

           “Alright, Swan?” Killian’s blue eyes are on her, along with everyone else’s. She nods and slowly turns around and walks back to the couch.

           “Emma…” Ruby starts, but she’s clearly not sure where to go from here. Neither is Emma. What the hell just happened?

           “I’m fine. I just- I need another drink,” she says pleadingly, eyes on Killian’s. His brows tighten together in concern, but he nods softly, making his way over towards the kitchen.

           Emma sits on the couch and draws her own brows together, trying to comprehend what just happened. Walsh busted in and started accusing her of making stuff up, or, at least, that’s how she interpreted things. She was already heated, so having him come at her like that must have just set her off. Did she really have to scream at him like that?

           Then she remembers what he said to her, what he called her. Emma has been dating a bit more lately, trying to get over Neal, but she certainly wouldn’t classify herself as a slut, and she definitely wouldn’t say she’s been sleeping around. Walsh just said that because he wanted a relationship and she didn’t… right?

           Then she thinks about what happened after he called her a slut. Everything happened so quickly that she’s not even sure if she remembers it correctly. As soon as Walsh said it, he turned around, as if he wanted to insult her and then promptly leave. However, Killian had just walked out from the other room, and David was the one who opened the door when he first arrived, so the two of them were waiting for him when he turned around. The second they saw his face, it seemed like the pounced. It was almost as if the two of them had rehearsed David holding Walsh in place and Killian hitting him square in the jaw. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him unconscious, but it was definitely a hard hit.

Then, Emma’s thinking about Killian’s knuckles and how they must be starting to ache, so she stands abruptly, stumbles a bit, and makes her way into the kitchen. She’s certain that at least David and Ruby are watching her, but she doesn’t care.

“I was on my way back out, love,” Killian says when she reaches the kitchen area. She nods, her eyebrows still screwed up in concern and confusion. “Would you like your drink here?” She nods again.

“Okay?” She’s looking him in the eye and then glancing down at his hand and pointing at it.

He chuckles softly, “are you asking if I’m okay, or are you saying okay to drinking out here?”

“You,” is all she can say back, eyes still fixed on his reddening knuckles. It’s as if she’s completely unable to focus on anything else.

“I’m fine, Swan. You should see the other guy,” he jokes with a cocky smile, but his eyes soften when her expression remains unchanged. She steps forward towards him, stumbles past his body, and heads towards the freezer, pulling out a box of popsicles. She thrusts the box towards him and nods her head. “Swan, really, I’m okay.”

“You need to ice it,” she says, pushing the box towards him again. She thinks this action through and ends up opening the box and taking one out before forcing him to take it from her. “You only have one good hand left, take care of it.”

His face falls slightly at the comment, and she immediately regrets saying it, but he takes the box from her anyway.

“I’m sorry,” she says, suddenly feeling a wave a guilt that’s likely to drown her, tears pricking her eyes. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way, I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head and walks towards her, steadying her wavering body with his arms and drawing her into an embrace. “It’s alright love, I’m not mad. Everything’s alright.”

She feels like crying, she thinks she is crying, in fact, but she can’t hardly focus on that anymore. Not when she’s also focused on the way Killian smells like the ocean and the way that the smell mixes with the scent of leather lingering on his tight black Henley. He’s squeezing her in a way that makes her almost forget the weirdly terrible turn the night took.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, although she’s not sure why.

“Don’t apologize, you didn’t do anything. I’m sorry he was such a dick to you.”

She shakes her head against his chest and continues to breathe deeply, warding off tears without even meaning to.

Suddenly, as they stand there with him holding her so tenderly, her thoughts draw back to where they were only minutes ago, and she feels that familiar sensation in the pit of her stomach. She moves from him, his embrace loosening, and drunkenly looks up at him with sadness stuck in her eyes. “You didn’t want to kiss me,” she states.

He hums lightly, sighing and nodding his head. “Perhaps we can talk about that tomorrow.”

“No,” she says, “I want to talk now. I won’t want to talk tomorrow.” What she means is, she won’t have the balls to talk about it tomorrow, without excessive liquid courage.

“I didn’t want to kiss you,” he confirms. “I didn’t want to make you kiss me because I thought you would feel bad about it afterwards. What with Walsh and everything,” he trails off. He clearly thought that they were in a better place than they were.

“Walsh is gone,” she says without thinking. “He was gonna be gone soon anyway.”

“Aye, love, I know that now. But I also,” he cuts himself off, sighing and pulling on his bottom lip with his right hand in a way that threatens to drive her insane. His left arm is still slung over her shoulders, but they’ve separated a bit. “I didn’t want to kiss you because of some game you were playing while you were drunk.”

“Oh,” she says, considering this. Perhaps her suspicions about her being too drunk to be kissable were accurate.

“What I mean is, if I were to kiss you, I’d want it to be more special than it would have been behind the Iron Curtain.”

“Oh.”

“Emma?” Ruby rounds the corner before Emma can comprehend what Killian said. “Are you okay, honey? Why are you holding a popsicle?”

She looks down at the melty mess within the white packaging. Killian chuckles and tosses it in the trash, then moves to put the box back in the freezer. While he’s in there, searching for room even though it was just pulled out, she leaves the kitchen and heads straight for the bathroom.  

           She feels slightly better now that she’s walking and not being suffocated by Killian’s muscular chest and intoxicating scent. At the same time, however, she also feels cold and alone.

She notes that it’s now completely quiet in the living room, as if the party died the second Walsh walked in. She feels guilty about being the root of the problem tonight, but honestly can’t really spend much time thinking about it.

           Once she makes it to the bathroom, she gets her cleanser and removes her makeup, then puts on her moisturizer. Throughout her adult life, if there was one thing she was good at, it was drunkenly taking off her makeup and completing her skincare routine.

           Once she gets to bed, she finds her thoughts migrating back to Killian. She thinks about the way his face tightened and his arm muscles rippled when he swung and hit Walsh. She thinks about the way his kind eyes stared at her and only her afterwards, as if he needed to make sure she was okay. She thinks about the way he smelled and how his soft warm chest felt against her face while he held her.

           Then, she thinks about what he said. If I were to kiss you, I’d want it to be more special than it would have been behind the Iron Curtain. What the hell does that mean?

           She would genuinely be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t thought about how it would feel to kiss him. His lips are luscious, anyone would have to admit it. And he’s always doing that thing where he pinches them between his fingers or runs his tongue along the bottom one. If it was anyone else, someone she didn’t live with and someone who wasn’t her brother’s best friend, she probably would have jumped on the opportunity to sleep with him months ago.

But thinking that he’s physically attractive and actually having feelings for him are completely different things. And lately, despite her constant annoyance, she also has feelings of longing and happiness whenever she sees him. Him saying that he would want their shared moment to be special is only adding fuel to the fire of him being crush-worthy. Her feeling rejected by him saying he didn’t want to kiss her also made her feel foolish for ever thinking that she didn’t have a crush on him.

The lights are off and she’s under her blankets, but she hears her door creak open and sees light flooding in the crack. She’s sure Ruby went home by now, so she’s not sure who would be breaking into her room. Rather than dealing with it, she pretends to be asleep until the culprit leaves. Once they do and she hears the door close tight, she rolls over and looks to her bedside table to see that whoever it was left some Advil and cold water for her, and grins, knowing it must have been Killian who dropped it off.

She’s fucked.

[nofacenocaseblog]

𝗗𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 #3:  NARCOPISOS Inc. /Barcelona narcopisos, a necessary evil

The 3rd episode of Dope Stories is the most in-depth investigation of the series, so much that it took me nearly 3 years to gain the trust and respect of my contacts and more importantly, to get relevant insights about the local drug market and its players to show, under a different angle than mainstream media, what’s happening behind the closed doors of the Ciutat Veilla’s narrow streets.

Playground 1 - Raval, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone 

“Drugs are ruining our neighborhood! “,  “Narcopisos are disrupting the real estate market!” ,  “ We don’t feel safe!”… 

Those are the slogans or headlines you see in the media or written on banners hanging from people’s balconies.  

“Narcopisos are filthy and dangerous!”

But are they though?

FOREWORD

Before getting started, I wanted to write a few words about Barcelona. After living more than a decade in New York, my wife and I moved to Catalan capital for about 4 years.  After reading this article you might think that I m not particularly fond of the town and its inhabitants.  I won’t lie, we didn’t receive the warmest welcome, especially from Catalans. This said, the town and its vibe are unique and galvanizing.  Very much like Marseille (my hometown), Barcelona is an harbor city with the port/marina right in the center, meaning: lots of traffics, smuggling, immigration, corruption, drugs etc… There is always “something going on”, if you catch my drift.  Shady, nasty, funny, ugly, beautiful, vulgar,  the cast of “pirate-like” characters gravitating around the city center is fascinating.

Occupied - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / Nikon 3200

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been drawn toward the forbidden,  the danger, the illicit, the hidden, the bad...  To my eyes, “ugly” has always been more interesting than “beautiful”.  Barcelona is not a dangerous city but you need to keep your guard up: pick pockets roaming the subway,  gypsies asking for money on La Rambla (the city’s most touristic avenue) while releasing your back pocket from your wallet, junkies selling stolen goods or begging for change for their next fix #nextfixandchill , black people selling fake airmax on the Barcelonetta marina, drunken street fights in the early hours of the morning... Tragicomic scenes are unravelling before your eyes in an surreal backdrop: Gaudi’s most beautiful “psychedelic” buildings (Sagrafa Familia, casa pedrera, Palau Guell...) in a jungle of gothic buildings ending on a fisherman village overseeing a beautiful beachfront promenade ending with the native “star’chitect” Bofill’s famous W... 

Poolside - Barcelonetta, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone

Ok, enough with the touristic tour, time to get real!

Stairway to Hell - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Embark on a descend to the heroin inferno that became Raval.  From the fields of Afghanistan to the bloodstreams of Spain...

La Ruta [Spanish for “the route”]

19,414 Pakistanis live in Barcelona, 6,600 of them are established in the neighborhood: El Raval (1) meaning more than 30% of the total community.  El Raval has always been my favorite barrio in town.  With 47% of immigrants (2) , the mosaic of faces, cultures and shops you encounter is dazzling .  Going back to the Pakistani population, I used the word “established” for a specific reason: they actually own many of the businesses in Raval: barbershop, cheap bars and restaurants, wholesale shops, import/export businesses, money transfer services (Western Union, Moneygram), food and grocery shops... I’m not accusing here the Pakistani business owners of backing the drug traffic but they basically created a web of small businesses in a tight net community with their own language, making it hard for the authorities to see through this social fabric potentially sheltering illegal activities. 

Why the Pakistani population is subject to speculation and doubt from the local authorities?  The answer is simple: Afghanistan.  Afghanistan  is by far the biggest producer of opium in the world. According to the US military, 90% of the world's heroin is made from opium grown in Afghanistan. It makes up 95% of the market in Europe (3).  The country has been the leader in opium poppy production since 2001.  Based on the 2014 report from the UNODC (United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime), Afghanistan not only grow opium but also process heroin in several laboratory as well as morphine (easier to produce from raw opium by adding calcium oxide and ammonium chloride).  From Afghanistan, several routes are used to smuggle their prime commodities: the Balkan route has been the primary route but things are changing and the Southern route has become more and more used.  Afghanistan share 2,400km of border with Pakistan and over 50% of illicit afghan opiates are trafficked through Pakistan which enjoys a a strategic location making it a perfect dispatch zone with readily accessible by land, sea (Gwadar and Karachi seaport) and air ways .  

The same UNODC report also indicates that the majority (37%) of the heroin seized in Pakistan was en-route for Europe..

*** Read and/or download the full report here ***

By the way, let’s not forget that Barcelona is also one of the Camorra’s stronghold.  And with Russians and Albanian mafias also present on the territory, Spain -where no powerful local crime syndicate operates and laws on prostitution and gambling are “blurred” to say the least-  has become one of organize crime’s favorite playgrounds for money laundering, drug smuggling, human trafficking, gambling and prostitution... Nothing really happens here without their “green light”, but that’s another story (5)

Back to our Southern route, once the product reaches Barcelona, it becomes very hard to pin point. Narcotics coming through the Balkan route also ends up in Barcelona but in different “retailers”’ hands:  Romanian family-based clans, based mostly in Besos (a run-down project in the heart of Poblenou) and  occupying one single narcopisos in Raval (they have moved 3 times over the 4-year period of my “investigation”) but known to have the purest and most processed Caballo sold in town. 

El Caballo [Spanish for “the horse”, street name of heroin ]

[WARNING]  Most of the photographs of this post are uncensored, quite graphic and… of poor quality…. my bad, I took them.  But I had circumstances: hidden cellphone, no flash, illegal activities going on, indoor, with very little to no light…  Shots are not the best (no pun intended) but you’ll step right into the infamous narcopisos you’ve heard of or read about. And not once they’ve been searched and trashed by the police like you’ve seen in the press but while they are in full operation. Raw, those images might be quite shocking to some of the readers, but take the emotion out of he equation and you’ll come to realized that, for lack a better choice, narcopisos are a necessary evil.   My intention here is not to start a polemic nor come out as a provocateur but to shed light on a real issue, still happening, involving real people, slowly dying, failed by a syste unable -or unwilling- to help them.

Gears - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

El Raval

1989,  US superstar Keith Harring is in Barcelona for his exhibition on La Rambla.  After speaking with an old friend of him from New York living here for awhile, he decided to paint a mural, his way to to show his love for and connection with the town. The next day, Harring chose the wall in Plaça de Salvador Segui in Raval.  He was warned that the area was one of the most dangerous areas in town. Back then, in the 80’s the Spanish government had the genius idea to decriminalize the use, but not the supply, of hard drugs and did not implement any proper treatments to sustain this measure...  Spaniards have ignored the issue and it sparked a heroin addiction epidemic that saw HIV rates soar (2a).The artist was attracted to the neighborhood and decided it would offer the perfect canvas for his message about the dangers of drugs and AIDS. At first it was supposed to be a temporary mural but in the end, up to this day, you can still enjoy Harring’s mural behind the MACBA museum. Below is a photograph I took of what became now hot-spot for skateboarder and cool bars

Tricks - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

Beside its bad reputation, Raval has always been a magnet for artists and “cool kids”, misfits and outcasts but more recently the new kid on the block is named gentrification… in other word: Fun is over.   Well… not quite yet.  In Barcelona, everything moves slowly, gentrification included. The result is a mix of fancy hotels, art galleries, designer boutiques... mixed with prostitutes and their lovely clientele, dealers, junkies, businessmen, families of tourists wandering the streets… a fascinating mix of characters with theatrical scenes playing before your eyes: hustlers trying to rip off tourists, white collars finding themselves buying bad cocaine from a kid in a narrow, sketchy alley… the show is in the street, but not only. 

The Narrows - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

What businesses, in Barcelona, are open 24/7, have no vacancy, a steady stream of customers and a product that sells itself? The answer: Narcopisos Inc.

The phenomenon of the Narcopisos emerged in 2016 (a year after I moved to Barcelona) following Spain’s property crash.  Foreclosed or unsold apartments, owned by banks and investment funds were left emptied, abandoned, in a country in full housing crisis...  It wasn’t long before the vacant spaces started being squatted: some by respectable families, in need of a place to live, some by drug dealers using them as selling point and shooting gallery.  A place where you can get a cheap fix in a relatively clean room.

Ritual - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Helped - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Thanks to my various contacts, I had access to different types of narcopisos, but from crack to dope houses, most of them were operating the same way: - a cctv video surveillance in place at the street level or someone looking out for the cops. - a room with junkies to confuse police upon arrival and make it look like they are actually squatting the place - 1 to 3 dealers serving customers one a the time. - An exit back door (if available) in case the police knocks on the front door. - One or two rooms for users. - Hourly cleaning of the premises to make the place look “decent” and “squatted” in case of a bust - Little quantity of drugs at the time, no more than 10 grams of each. - Open 24/7 - Re-up every hour or so - Single use paraphernalia available to the users - In some cases, Narcan at hand (medicine used to reverse the effect of an OD).

Cleaning Session - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

My connections in the Pakistani community took time to build but  strengthen throughout the years to reached a level of trust where we came to split the bread at several occasions… no seriously, we actually got invited in their Halal “canteen” in Raval where only Pakistanis could enjoy their local cuisine, a unique experience… They also gave me access to two of their stash houses: located in legit apartments, in proper buildings, on the outskirt of Raval, close to Sant-Antoni, less prone to police check.  No users there, only wholesalers, dispatching heroin to “representatives” of each narcopisos at below retail-price: between 20 and 40 euros the gram depending on the quantity purchased. 

Going back to the narcopisos, some were run by junkies (where the product was often cut from the bash they were getting from the stash houses), some by pakistani or afghan immigrants, with decent quality product, some by Catalan families, living there for decades under stabilized rent and with their own connection and product of fluctuant quality.  Last but not least, one narcopiso was occupied by the Romanian clan mentioned earlier.  Below are some photos of one of their spot at 22 Carrer d’en Roig, later busted and walled by the Mossos d’esquadra (Catalan police)

Romanian at work - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

Boss - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

If narcopisos was selling both crack and heroin, two rooms were at the disposal of users, one for smoking their bottles or pipes and the other room to shoot up or smoke heroin on tiny pieces of foil.

Sterile hospital-like garbage disposal were available for discarding the used paraphernalia.

Bloodstream Hunt - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

#NextFixandChill - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Everything is provided to avoid the spread of disease and the use of the drug in plain sight in the street therefore reduce public disorder.

Not that dealers became humanitarian all of a sudden, but kicking customers with their (illegal) purchase out in the street expose them to being ratted on or worst, having an overdose in plain sight attracting the police and paramedics... either way, it’s not good for business so narcopisos’ “managers” rather keep their clientele indoor until they’re done using and good to do.

Now, there is another type of business in Barcelona dealing with drug users and addiction: it’s called Centre de Dispensació de Metadona - Centre d'Atenció Primària Casc Antic (the methadone clinic in short....). 

* They’re not open 24/7 but rather in the morning only * It can take up to 2 weeks to see a doctor in order to enroll in a Methadone Maintenance Treatment -MMT (true story...when a single day can be the last one for a heroin addict living in the street) * Last but not least, since the doctors and nurses’ work schedule is way more important tthan their patients’ care, some centers give up 3 to 4 days worth of supply of methadone at once to heroin users so the health workers can have their days and weekends off. The result of this amazing system: the methadone is sold in the street by users so they can buy their heroin and/or in certain case, the methadone is saved up (for rainy days) and the patient keeps using heroin instead.  Yes, the patient: let’s not forget that those “filthy junkies” actually are patients (even if they’re hardly seen as such in those centers),  suffering from a disease called addiction, or substance abuse disorder if you prefer the american way of calling it, and in need of medical care but what can I say... old habits die hard (both way...). 

Patients taking methadone to treat opioid dependance must receive the medication under the supervision of a practitioner. After a period of stability (based on progress and proven, consistent compliance with the medication dosage) and only then, patients may be allowed to take methadone at home between program visits... but not in Barcelona.

Methadone substitution as a treatment of opioid addiction does not function as much to curb addiction as to redirect it and maintain dependency on legal channels. Methadone has been designed that way, as a lifetime treatment whereas alternative palliatives such as Buprenorphine are not even considered by doctors when those therapies would be more efficient in certain cases: with users who do not shoot the drug for example, or with users wishing to quiet and get sober... but let's be honest here, sobriety has never been the objective of those methadone programs.  The real goal of this public service is not to cure addiction, but to make sure junkies don’t use, steal, rob and/or commit act of violence in the streets to feed their habits

The patient here is not the users but the society.   Those centers aren’t trying to help the user quit his habit, but to make sure the society doesn’t suffer from it.  Good or bad, Narcopisos are curbing down the spread of diseases, cleaning up the streets from users as they offering temporary shelter to their customers and operate around the clock..  It seems to me that their function is almost... complementary if not necessary.

So before eradicating narcopisos from the face of Raval, let’s pause and look at the alternative: junkies buying and using drugs in the streets of the city center, in the worst sanitary condition possible with no regard for the residents around.

Mañana

So what’s next? Keeping those illegal activities going on? Certainly not.

But before jumping the gun and closing it all at once, better get ready for the alternative because drug addiction will not disappear with the narcopisos. In my last article, I speak about users stigmatization and how society still struggles to see addiction as a disease and not a will power issue, turning the blind eye to a sheer amount of studies and discoveries explaining how heroin addiction, over time, modify the pathway of your brain frontal lobe and affect your decisional power, making it hard -to not say impossible- to say “no”. 

Don’t take me wrong.  It would be naïve to think all users roaming the streets are here trying to quit and become their better self. Most of them have no intention to do so. I’m not here to judge nor take side.  But in order to find a solution to the narcopiso situation, I would like to introduce Barcelona to his neighbor: Portugal.

Portugal had one of the worst heroin epidemic in Europe back in the 90′s and after the failed many “US war on drug”-type of approaches. They finally shift approach and started treated drug addicts as patients who needed help, not as criminals” says Goulao, the architect of Portugal drug policy.  After the decriminalization and treatments, they planned to open “supervised drug consumption facilities” Naina Bajekal says in her 2018 article in the Time “where drug users can consume drugs in safer conditions with the assistance of trained staff. Such facilities have been running in Europe since 1986, when the first was opened in Berne, Switzerland.”(5)

The result? Evidence (6) shows these these type of sites save lives, reduce public disorder, and curb the spread of diseases.

Does that sound familiar? Yes, that's right, the first of the two businesses we spoke about: Narcopisos Inc.

Purgatory - Carrer d’en Roig 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

For No Face No Case: Dope Stories chapter 4, we’re going to Italy.  Don’t worry, it won’t be another mafia-related article explaining how the N’Drangheta and Camorra became the most powerful crime syndicates in the world, you can watch that on TV.  Called “Il Racconto dei Racconti”  (Tales of Tales in english), the article will keep it real, street style: short stories from North to South: Torino, Milano, Genoa, Roma, Napoli... Stay tuned for some dope stories on how drugs are sold, used and abused in the Renaissance country 

References (1) https://www.barcelona-metropolitan.com/featuresx/report-barcelona-pakistani-community/ (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Raval (3) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47861444 (4)https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/12/07/inenglish/1544171107_204329.html (5) https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/ (6) https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decriminalization/

[touchstarvedsam]

First, there’s the small matter of my finder’s fee...

Sam sits outside the bar, staring at the front door, thinking about Crowley’s ‘finder’s fee’. He doesn’t know when he’s planning on collecting, but he’s hoping he has time to get his strength up first.

There’s only three cars in the parking lot -- including the Ford he stole -- and one of them is the Impala. From here, she doesn’t look like she’s been taken care of, which just solidified that his brother is gone. His car was his one and only baby.

Patting his side, he makes sure he has the demon knife, and his gun tucked safe into the back of his pants. He won’t kill his brother, but he’ll hurt him if he has to. Dean has a major advantage on him, and Sam’s injured shoulder is only part of it. He just hopes he can get him in the cuffs before he gets too much hits on Sam.

* * *

After getting Dean into the backseat of the Impala, pissed off and cuffed, he shuts the door carefully so he doesn’t hit Dean’s elbow. His whole body hurts. He’s bruised in places he didn’t think he could be bruised. He wants a hot shower, maybe even a bath, but he can’t do that until this is over and Dean is cured.

Crowley appears as he walks around the front of the car.

“Hello, Moose.”

“Crowley.”

“I’m here to collect.”

Sam’s heart sinks, his stomach warming with discomfort. “Now?” he whispers, panicked. “Can’t I at least--”

“Sorry, darling,” Crowley says unapologetically. “I collect at my convenience.” He flicks his wrist and Sam’s pinned face first against the hood of the Impala. He hisses when the movement jars his injured shoulder, then makes the mistake of looking ahead. He locks eyes with his big brother’s cold eyes and he regrets making this deal to begin with now. He was hoping Crowley wouldn’t collect until they could be somewhere alone. Dean doesn’t need to see this. He doesn’t want Dean to see this.

“Crowley,” he tries, desperate, “Not here.”

“You mean not in front of your big brother, right?” Crowley laughs. “What better place to do it? After all, he had sex with a server in my bed.” He uses his powers to hold Sam still as he works on undoing the button and zipper of the younger Winchester’s jeans. “Getting my jollies off inside his little brother on top of his car is the perfect retribution. Now behave.”

Sam tries to squirm, uncomfortable, but when he realizes it’s no use, he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Dean’s indifferent face any longer.

As he’s stripped from the waist down, he bites his lip in wait. Crowley is taking his damn time when Sam just wants it over with.

“Have you ever been fucked, Moose?” he asks, not unkindly, a finger trailing down his back and towards the crack of his ass. “Are you untouched?” He looks up from Sam’s expansive back towards the seething demon in the backseat of the Impala and says, “Or did Dean fuck you? Has he tainted you before?” He shrugs a shoulder as he picks up Dean growling “I’m going to fucking kill you, Crowley” through the closed windows. “Love you too, Squirrel.”

A bottle of lube materializes and he sets it aside on top of the hood. “Well?”

“I- I’ve been fucked before,” he whispers, hoping Dean doesn’t catch it, but Dean’s acute demon hearing picks up on it and they both hear the growl that seems to vibrate the car beneath Sam. “Dean...”

“While I’m disappointed I won’t be the first, I’m glad that I’m apparently touching you before Dean.” He sends Dean a smug smirk as if to say ‘this is what you get for leaving’. “Now, I’m going to ask you to suck on my fingers. Get them nice and wet because they’re going right into your tight little arse, Moose. I have lube, but...” he teases a dry finger against the pucker, causing Sam to tense, “The lube is for the finale.”

Bringing his hand around, he tucks Sam’s hair behind his ear before pressing the tips of his index and middle fingers against Sam’s closed lips. “Open up, Sam,” he says, pushing harder, “Be a good boy.”

Sam’s eyes open and find Dean’s immediately. His brother is shaking in the backseat, mouth downturned into a twisted scowl, eyes narrowed dangerously. Sam doesn’t know if it’s towards him or Crowley and that scares him. I’m sorry, Dean, he thinks as he opens his mouth for the fingers pressing insistently.

“That’s a boy. Get them wet for me, good.” He leans over Sam, chest over back, and kisses his tense, plaid-covered shoulder blade. He pulls back, taking his wet fingers with him, and steps back to see the ass laid out before him.

His ass is pert and perky, primed to be fucked, and Crowley wishes he gave into his desire when he first met the Winchesters, if only just to piss off Dean. He’s always gotten the vibe that Sam belonged to Dean and Dean alone, but now a piece of Crowley will be inside Sam before Dean even got the opportunity; his second time inside Sam if he’s allowed to count demonic possession.

Tired of waiting, he finally presses the tip of his index finger against the pucker and pushes in, no warning. Sam draws in a hiss and Crowley realizes while Sam may have been fucked before, it couldn’t have been anytime recent. He presses the palm of his free hand against his groin to stave off his impending orgasm at the very thought. This is going to be his best lay, he can feel it.

“Crowley,” Sam grunts. “Just get it over with.”

Rolling his eyes, Crowley mutters, “Winchesters,” and presses his middle finger in alongside his index, pushing both in all the way. “Always out to steal my fun.”

He begins a rhythm, fucking Sam with two fingers, scissoring them inside him, twisting and turning and curling them at the knuckle until he finds what he’s looking for. Sam cries out, not entirely in pain, and Dean roars from the backseat, eyes burning black as he yanks on the door handle with his cuffed hands. Sam locked the door when he shut Dean in, Crowley thinks, because the handle won’t do anything when Dean pulls it angrily. “CROWLEY!”

“Hear that, Moose?” he taunts, eyes locked directly on Dean, smirk on his face. “I think your brother is a little mad.”

“Sto- stop taunting him, Crowley,” Sam pants, closing his eyes tight. Sweat pools on his brow, down his neck, saturates his face as Crowley adds a third finger to stretch him enough. “Just f-fuck me and get out of here. Let me take my brother home.”

“Like I said,” Crowley sighs. “Fun stealers, the both o’ you.” He pulls his fingers out and Sam hisses at the sudden emptiness. Crowley picks up the lube and coats his dick generously -- he has no interest in making the younger Winchester bleed, though Sam’s blood is delicious -- and presses it to the just barely stretched pucker. He pushes slow, guiding it so it opens Sam’s hole, the warmth engulfing him. “Hell, Moose, anyone ever told you how tight you are?”

He hisses in a breath when the head breaches the tight channel. If Sam’s this tight around just the head of his dick, squeezing greedily, Crowley knows Sam’s got to be in some measure of pain. “Moose?” It’s gone quiet. He looks up and sees Dean’s eyes are back to green, staring right at Sam’s face. He sees emotion for the first time in the demonic Winchester. “Sam.”

“I’m--” Sam chokes on a whine. “I’m fine just- just keep going.”

Crowley thinks, if Sam can’t handle the head, he’s not going to like the three extra inches he sold his soul for.

Now that his dick is inside enough, he’s able to let go of the base to grab Sam’s (really thin) hips and hold him still as he pushes in the whole way. First shot, he hits the spot inside Sam that his fingers took forever to find and Sam cries out, dropping his head until his forehead rests against the cool metal of the hood. Crowley takes it as a good sign and pulls out, quickly thrusting right back in. He sets a brutal rhythm, pounding in and out once Sam’s open enough for the pain to turn into pleasure. Crowley can’t remember the last time he fucked someone this tight. He doesn’t think he’s ever fucked anyone this tight.

“Oh, Dean,” Crowley taunts the older Winchester, “You’re really missing out on fucking Moose. He is. So. Fucking. Tight.” He punctuates each word with a brutal thrust, nailing Sam’s abused prostate every time. At ‘tight’, he does a rough grind, stimulating Sam’s prostate until Sam’s a shaking mess under him.

Sam’s crying out on every thrust, leaking precome all over the front of the car; Crowley thinks he can make him come untouched, thinks it will piss Dean off even more. He watches as Dean shakes in the backseat, trembling so much it looks like he’s close to combustion. Crowley smirks and thrusts harder. He’s a demon, he could fuck Sam to death if he wanted, then fuck him some more just to piss Dean off. But he’s grown too fond of the brothers Winchester, and doesn’t actually want harm to come to Sam.

But hell if he wants to give Sam up after this.

He’s close, can feel it in his jellies, and he knows Sam is too. He’s clenching impossibly tight around Crowley’s dick, almost like he’s trying to keep him inside forever. If Sam comes on his dick, he thinks he won’t ever want to come out again.

As if sensing the exact moment Sam’s going to come, he grabs Sam by the hair and tugs him roughly into a standing position, dick still thrusting inside his abused ass hole. Sam cries out in pain at both the harsh tug to his hair and at the way the movement jostles his injured shoulder. He chooses that exact moment to nail his prostate once more, and it sets Sam off like a firecracker. The younger Winchester comes completely untouched, shooting his load all over the front end, the hood, and the windshield of the Impala. He’s shaking and panting, gasping for breath as Crowley pulls out almost completely, then thrusts all the way back in, nailing the abused, sensitive prostate one last time before he comes hard, coating Sam’s insides with his demon spunk.

Sam whimpers as he’s laid back out onto the hood, right on top of his cooling come. Crowley pulls out after one last grind, Sam’s whine reaching both Crowley’s and Dean’s demon ears. “That’s it, darling,” he soothes, running a warm palm across Sam’s sweaty clothed back. “You did so good.” With a snap of his fingers, he cleans them both of come and sweat, but leaves his own come inside Sam as a reminder.

“This was my best deal yet, Moose.” He disappears as he normally does without a goodbye and Sam is left to shakily pull on his jeans.

Sam is still going to be sore, and come will no doubt be leaking from his ass for the few hours it’ll take for him to drive him and Dean back to the bunker, but it’s worth it because he got his brother back.

He’s going to cure him. He only hopes Dean forgets he ever saw this when he turns back into a human.

[bearfeathers]

“Take my bed tonight. I’ll sleep on the couch.” For whoever you're vibing with right now for that one. :3c

Prompt me! | Read on AO3

(I went with Kylux because of course I did lmao)

It’s not as though Hux had been asleep in the first place, but the late-night interruption isn’t any more appreciated for it. Snubbing out his cigarette with perhaps more force than necessary, he pushes away from his desk and quickly strides over to the door to his quarters. Punching in his personal code allows him to unlock the door to find… Kylo Ren. Although Snoke’s apprentice is wearing his ridiculous mask, Hux can still tell that Kylo had given him a quick once over.

“Nice robe,” he says.

“What do you want, Ren? Some of us are busy,” Hux says impatiently, ignoring the jab. “And since when did you get back from your training?”

After the destruction of Starkiller Base, Snoke had whisked Kylo away for some specialized training. Or punishment. Likely both, Hux suspects. Their Supreme Leader hadn’t even deigned to inform Hux where Kylo would be and how long he would be gone. Not that it was technically any of his business or all that important in his day-to-day work. Still, Hux had been… curious. That’s as much as he was willing to admit to.

“…I’ve only just returned,” Kylo says at last.

“And you’ve decided to drop in on me at such a convenient hour because…?” Hux queries, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

Kylo has remained eerily silent in response to Hux’s question. He simply hovers in the doorway, only the modulated sound of his breathing reaching Hux’s ears. The general waits for him to say something. Anything. When it becomes apparent that Kylo doesn’t intend on answering him—or perhaps can’t think of anything to say—Hux scoffs and steps aside, allowing him space to enter.

“You may as well come inside while you think of whatever it is you need to say,” Hux says. “I’m not getting any work done just standing here.”

He walks back into his quarters, hearing Kylo’s heavy footprints follow him. They stop somewhere in the center of the room as Hux resumes his seat at his desk.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Kylo asks.

“As I said, some of us are busy,” Hux says, laying out a set of blueprints. “If you’ll recall from our last meeting, you aren’t the only one our Supreme Leader was disappointed in following Starkiller Base.”

Kylo grunts and Hux hears the click and hiss that signifies his mask being removed. Good. Hux hates that thing. Kylo’s footsteps approach his desk and Hux does his best not to lose focus as the man’s towering frame looms over him. It’s a lot harder when Kylo’s hand comes crashing onto the desk beside him.

“What are you working on?” Kylo asks, leaning over his shoulder.

Hux tenses, startled by the sudden proximity, but clears his throat and squares his shoulders. “A hyperspace tracker.”

Kylo snorts in his ear. “It’s never been done. You think you’re going to be the one to do it?”

“As a matter of fact,” Hux says tersely, turning to meet his gaze, “I’m absolutely certain that I—”

Getting a good look at Kylo robs him of his words. The garish scar cutting up the right side of his face is nothing new. The dark smudges beneath his eyes and expression pinched with pain are.

“…am the only one capable,” Hux finishes lamely. “When was the last time you saw a bed?”

“Pretty sure it was when you were hovering over me because of troop morale or something,” Kylo quips.

His attitude may be as insufferable as ever, but Hux doesn’t allow it to cloud his vision. He can tell Kylo leaning on his desk was less of a choice and more of a necessity. He looks about half a minute from falling over, leaving Hux to make a decision he wouldn’t ordinarily make.

“Take my bed,” he says.

“What?” Kylo murmurs dumbly.

“I can’t have you passing out in my quarters. It would be highly inconvenient,” Hux informs him. “So, take my bed and get the sleep you obviously need. I’ll deal with laundering my sheets after you’ve left.”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be telling anyone to get some sleep,” Kylo says.

“If I need to sleep—which I won’t—I’ll take the couch,” Hux says dismissively.

It says something that Kylo doesn’t even try to argue with him. Hux watches as his hand lifts from the desk and feels a weight as it shifts to the back of his chair. The fact that he needs to prop himself up just to stand makes Hux wonder exactly what kind of “training” Snoke had put him through. He’s never understood what sort of training being a Force user entails but judging by the condition Kylo is in whenever he returns from this training, maybe he doesn’t want to know the details. Kylo’s body flopping onto his bed is audible and Hux nearly snaps at him for being the brute that he is, but it will only start an argument that he doesn’t have time for.

Kylo hadn’t been entirely off the mark, Hux muses as he returns to his work. A working hyperspace tracker… it’s something he’d dreamed about for years but had never been able to devote the time to the venture. Now he doesn’t have much choice. Achieving where even the likes of Galen Erso had failed is more than daunting but Hux has never been one to back down when met with adversity. He’ll do whatever it takes to ensure his survival, to claw his way up to the top. Even the impossible.

He’s not fool enough to think Snoke couldn’t snuff him out in an instant if he wished. The fact is, Hux’s continued existence is contingent upon his usefulness. But that’s not anything new. Sloane, his father, Snoke… they’re all the same. None of them were interested in him or his potential unless they had something to gain from it. It was the way of the Empire and the way of the First Order.

But that’s fine. He’ll make them see. Just as he’s done in the past, anyone who stands in his way, anyone who has wronged him, they’ll be lucky if they live long enough to regret it.

“Hey.”

Hux lifts his head from his work and glances behind him. Kylo hasn’t raised himself from where he’s lying atop the bed—the animal hasn’t even pulled the covers back or changed out of his disgusting clothes.

“I didn’t invite you to take my bed with the purpose of making conversation,” Hux tells him.

“You should sleep, too,” Kylo says.

“I don’t need sleep,” Hux says, “I need to work. Uninterrupted.”

“You’ve read the same thing four times now,” Kylo says.

“What have I told you about reading my mind?” Hux hisses.

“It’s hard to ignore,” Kylo informs him. “You have the loudest thoughts of anyone I know.”

“Regardless,” Hux says, “your input isn’t needed. Unlike you, I have everything under control.”

“Let’s not sit here and pretend that we both don’t know that’s a lie,” Kylo says.

“How dare you…!”

Hux is on his feet and storming towards the bed before he even realizes, his vision colored red by the other man’s words. He’s not going to sit here and be insulted by some barbarian. This is what he gets for his moment of weakness, for allowing Kylo to worm his way in like this.

“You presume to have me figured out,” Hux barks, “but you know nothing about me.”

“You wanted to work together,” Kylo says, cutting him off before he can get any more worked up. “How are we supposed to do that if you pass out on the bridge?”

“As if I would,” Hux sneers.

“You will,” Kylo assures him. “At the rate you’re going… Your body can’t sustain it forever. Caf and stims might work in the short-term but, mighty as you think you are, you’re still human. You need sleep. I need sleep. Let’s just… just sleep.”

If Hux is being completely honest with himself, he’s too tired to argue. He needs to work but it’s clear he’s not going to get any done with Kylo around. And though he may sleep less than the average officer, Hux still needs to sleep sometime. That much is true. Being interrupted like this grates on his nerves, but there’s little he can do to help it. With an indignant huff, he marches off to his bathroom to wash up for the night.

He thinks of Kylo while he brushes his teeth. About dragging him from the snowy landscape of Starkiller Base as it collapsed around him. About squirreling him away so no one could see him and proceeding to sit at his bedside like some ridiculous watchdog. About the fact that Kylo always managed to somehow see straight through him and had seen through him then, too.

There’s blood in the sink when he spits.

Now that he’s committed to the idea of sleep, his body seems to be making an attempt to shut down operations as quickly as possible. He suddenly feels heavy as he fetches a spare blanket and pillow for himself. They feel like lead in his hands.

“You should sleep in your bed,” Kylo says, watching him toss the pillow onto the sofa.

“I can’t. You’re in it,” Hux reminds him.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t be, too,” Kylo says.

Hux narrows his eyes as his sluggish thoughts catch up to Kylo’s words. Kylo doesn’t want him to sleep on the couch, but clearly has no intention of sleeping on it either.

“Are you quite mad?” Hux demands.

“No. Just tired,” Kylo says. “Bed’s big enough.”

“I could throw you out right now,” Hux warns him.

“You could,” Kylo agrees.

Hux stands beside the sofa, glaring back at him. Kylo’s eyes aren’t even open to see it, but he somehow knows the Force user is aware of it all the same. There’s just no winning with this man.

“You’re impossible,” Hux mutters as he marches over to the bed.

Kylo hums faintly in response, rolling to his side and away from Hux as he sheds his robe and slips beneath the covers. Admittedly, Hux had missed the feeling of a bed. He’s fallen asleep at his desk too many times as of late. And the weight of the other man in his bed is… oddly comforting. It’s strange, considering he usually can’t tolerate this sort of closeness. Perhaps there’s something wrong with him. Or perhaps he really is in such dire need of sleep that it’s altering his perception.

“I like this working together thing,” Kylo says, as though reading his thoughts.

He probably is. The bastard. Just the idea is enough to warm his cheeks—the last thing he needs is Kylo getting any ridiculous ideas about where they stand with one another. Hux pulls the covers over his head.

“Shut up.”

[stattic-writes]

Pining

https://statticscribbles.tumblr.com/post/639099629845233664/masterlist

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[goddammitstacey]

Hi so one of my patrons asked: “I would love it if you could write a sequel to/continuation of Finger Bangin'“ so HERE WE DIDDLY-DARN GO, MY PALS. It’s been a while so mind the mothballs!

The bar is hot, stuffy, crowded, and loud. Derek’s hating every goddamn moment of it, from the stink of alcohol to the patrons rubbing past him on the way to the bar.

There’s not a lot that would make him put up with this shit. Unfortunately, Stiles somehow slotted himself into top spot of that particular list without his noticing.

Stiles. Goddamn. Derek downs his drink and turns for another.

Tonight is Stiles’ first gig and the whole pack has turned out of the occasion. Erica’s dancing with Lydia somewhere both of them can be seen to the best effect. Jackson is trying to out drink Scott and failing. The only comradery Derek feels right now is with Allison, who looks about as comfortable as he does with so many exits blocked by drunk frivolity.

But this is Stiles. Stiles who buttered him up with two mind-blowing orgasms before asking him to attend his first show. As if Derek would have missed it. And not just because he still hasn’t gotten over his damn hand fixation.

This is a big deal for Stiles and Derek’s so fucked because that’s important to him now. Important enough he doesn’t even mind that he’ll have to shower twice to get the stink of strangers off him tonight. Mostly because he knows Stiles is likely to be in the shower with him.

10pm rolls around like a geriatric grandfather so Derek almost swears in thanks when the lights switch over to the stage. Stiles is the first out at least, greeted with a roar from the crowd mostly led by Lydia, Scott, Isaac, and Erica. He goes bright red at the attention even as he grins and waves. Derek knows enough about stage lighting that he can tell Stiles can’t see shit but it doesn’t seem to stop him from trying, eyes flicking around the bar until he seemingly gives up and drops down behind the drums.

The rest of the band takes their positions to similar fanfare, the lead singer stoking the flames of the crowd in a way that speaks to this not being her first gig at least. Heidi, Derek recalls her name. Stiles calls her the lesbian aunt he never had.

It’s interesting, actually, finally putting faces to names. Joel on base, Kelly and Jessie on guitar. Stiles talks so much about them Derek almost feels like he knows them himself.

Heidi expertly rides the crowd, smoothly transitioning the vibe into the first song. And Stiles . . .

Okay yeah, the bar is way too crowded. Because all of Stiles’ practice has paid off in the worst way. He’s owning the drums, shoulders rolling with the beat, fingers sure and steady around the sticks and . . . Derek’s never seen him play live.

Fuck.

Now is not the time to discover a competence kink, thanks very much. Only Derek’s apparently got no choice in the matter. Because Stiles is sure and practised and good. The whole band is actually.

Derek’s . . . not hating it.

The first song rolls smoothly into the second and the whole bar is like a live-wire. Derek’s not the only one enjoying the gig and he finds something in his chest swelling at the pride of it all. That’s his . . . his something. His Stiles up there.

They’re a rookie band so they’ve only secured a half set for the night. Derek doesn’t know whether to be glad or disappointed. Because on the one hand, Stiles is in his element, whole body rolling with the beat in a way that’s doing something animalistic to Derek’s gut. On the other . . . Derek really needs Stiles’ dick in his mouth. Yesterday.

The band finishes to roaring applause, the bar drowning out even Erica’s ear-rending wolf whistles. Derek downs his drink and makes an executive decision.

Stiles is the first one off the stage, launching himself bodily into Scott’s arms like he’s gonna fly away unless someone catches him. Erica’s next, using werewolf strength to lift Stiles and spin him around like they’re auditioning for Dirty Dancing.

It’s not just the pack congratulating him either. A group of excitable girls ask for a selfie which seems to baffle and delight Stiles in equal turns. And then there’s . . .

Derek narrows his eyes at the stranger. Dark hair, darker eyes, and a smirk that seems painted on as he greets Stiles and . . . yeah, no.

Derek makes his way through the crowd, appearing at Stiles’ side just as Stiles swerves out of reach of Smirk’s grab.

“Whoa, buddy,” Stiles is saying. “Bad touch.”

“Leave,” Derek says and it’s enough. Of course it is. Derek knows what he looks like even sans fangs.

Smirk beats it, holding up his hands in surrender as he melts back into the crowd.

“You have your murder eyebrows on,” Stiles says, reaching up to smooth one finger over Derek’s forehead. And fuck Derek’s life, he lets him.

“How long have you been here?” Stiles says, voice too casual to be anything but one thousand per cent invested in Derek’s answer.

“I watched the whole show, you idiot,” Derek says and Stiles lights up. “You were great.”

“I fucking know, right?” Stiles enthuses, fist pumping the air. “I am a drumming GOD.”

“You’re the god of something,” Derek says, dryly.

“Is it sex?” Stiles says. “Tell me it’s sex.”

“I hate you.”

“You want me.”

Derek sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Ugh, I do.”

Stiles grins like Derek’s handed him the keys to Christmas. “Wanna rim me in the bathrooms?”

In the disgusting, overcrowded, dingy club bathrooms. Lord help him. Derek waves Stiles on ahead and Stiles cackles delightedly as he leads Derek through the throng.

- - -

The toilet wall shudders with the force of Stile’s back hitting it but Derek can’t give two fucks about subtlety, not after that performance.

“I was- Ah! I was really okay?” Stiles says, voice going thready as Derek bites his neck.

“You were amazing,” Derek says. “Take off your damn pants.”

Stiles grunts and fumbles with his belt with one hand, using the other to get a grip on Derek’s hair to pull him back into a messy kiss.

Stiles kisses like he does everything else: slightly uncoordinated but somehow bafflingly adept. Derek’s lost many an afternoon to lengthy makeout sessions, drowning himself in the breathy slide of it all until he can’t focus on anything but the red of Stiles’ mouth.

But this isn’t one of their lazy afternoons.

Derek pries his mouth away from Stiles long enough to drop to his knees, a move that makes Stiles groan like he’s stuck a pin in him.

“Fuck, okay,” Stiles says, finally besting his buckle.

Derek wastes no time flipping him around because hell, this wasn’t his first plan, but Stiles had a better one. Always does, if Derek’s being brutally honest. It’s something he’s never, ever going to admit out loud.

Stiles’ hands slap down on the graffitied wall loud enough to be heard even over the beat of the music outside. The second band has started and they’re good but not as good as Stiles had been. The mood Derek’s in, Led Zeppelin would probably fall short at this point. But it’s fine. Stiles’ set is done and Derek’s determined to wring some different sounds out of him right now.

“Derek, you’re killing me here, just-“

The first swipe of Derek’s tongue earns him a drawn-out groan. From there, it’s easy – so easy.

They’ve only done this a handful of times because of what it does to Stiles. Impatient at the best of times, it’s the quickest way to string him out. When they have time, Stiles often prefers to drag things out, spend time wrecking Derek seven different ways before he allows Derek anywhere near one of his hair triggers. And most of the time Derek lets him – hands him the reins, so to speak, but there are times—times like this—where he needs the thrill of turning Stiles inside out. Because for all Stiles’ body instinctively races to the finish line, when it reaches it the result is nothing short of beautiful.

Derek doesn’t bother reaching for Stiles’ cock. He won’t have to. Not when Stiles is still so keyed up from the gig, not when Derek knows exactly what to do with his tongue to push him- Just. There.

“Fu- Derek!”

Stiles spills untouched, spend adding its own flair to the graffiti on the toilet wall. Derek doesn’t bother standing, just catches Stiles as his legs give out – can’t even care that he’s probably kneeling in god-knows-what right now. Because Stiles is warm and pliant and smells like . . . well, like them.

“I’m-“ Stiles swallows, still trying to catch his breath. “I’m gonna get you back for that.”

Derek just grins, pressing a kiss to Stiles’ neck. “Counting on it.”