#and then wondered what kind of playlists that search would turn up

[kling-akhlami-buhfik]

cos of that song in Good Omens 2, if you search Every Day on spotify, not only does it give you that song first, but also the first 4 playlists are Good Omens themed, followed by more on the second row

[hyukascampfire]

To: Someone From a Warm Climate

wc: 23.2k

genre: smut, angst, fantasy violence

pairings: faerie!taehyun x human!reader, faerie!yeonjun x human!reader

synopsis: a life lived as a human among the fae is one hard-earned. the folk are built of indescribable beauty, and of debauchery and mischief. for some, a life lived subservient to the folk is just fine; but to those who dream of something more, they would spend their lives clawing and biting to make it happen.

you, looking for a way to escape a life as a faerie’s human servant, put a new foot forward thinking that any life could be better than that. but, when your first assignment as a king’s spy is alongside a brooding, icy faerie man, you begin to wonder what your place in this foreign world really could be.

a/n: this part, i put my heart and soul into! i rewrote so many parts and agonized over following the path that i most wanted the story to go down—i hope it shows! xoxoxoxo, love ya! again, this is a long one, so pls let me know about spelling mistakes :,)

! warnings: angst, unprotected sex, voyeurism, orgasm denial, jealousy, angst again, dubious intentions of multiple main characters... poor mc has no idea who to believe

playlists: taehyun | yeonjun | series

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You had hoped that learning of Yeonjun’s relationship with the same crowd who have made attempts on your life would be enough to rattle your brittle heart into sense. You really had. As you watch Taehyun, bent over the war strategy table, though, you wish you had more time to sort it out in your head. You hate the thought of settling on half-baked answers and information all for the fact that time is not on your side. When had time ever really been kind to you, though? It had not made exceptions when you were small and innocent in your cradle, had not slowed down to allow you to at least cherish your final moments a normal child with her human parents. You can only fantasize who you would be if you had been given just enough time to know that gentle love. Even now, time makes your choices for you.  

Taehyun looks over those metal figurines as if searching for something in them. There are more of them stood and strewn out on the map. It reminds you how you are now faced with a plethora of newer, more powerful players.  

You miss when this had been a simple spying mission—when your path forward had been unobscured and clear. You envy that version of yourself: able to believe that bad things presented themselves as such. The world had been clean-cut. Evil had jagged teeth and foul breath, and good had soft edges and sweet smiles. You’re not sure where that distinction lies anymore.  

“How’s your shoulder?” you say, making your presence known. You’re sure he had been keen to your presence from the moment you’d entered the estate, though; not only thanks to his better hearing, but also because Taehyun is constantly assessing his surroundings. The smallest insect could hardly sneak up on him. You push off the doorframe and enter the room. 

He nods his head once in greeting, but he doesn’t tear his gaze away from the table’s ensemble. “It’s doing fine.” 

Sighing, you decide not to push it. The sight of that puncture had been ghastly, and it wreaks havoc in your belly every time you replay it, but the tick in his jaw when you mention it tells you enough of how he feels about disclosing whether or not anything might hurt him. How many times in the past few weeks had you forced him to do just that? It’s no wonder that the two of you butt heads so terribly. Allowing you to stitch him up must’ve been the extent of how far he’d let you see him in need of help. 

You gesture toward the table. “Have you decided when we leave?” 

Taehyun answers you with a strained sigh out through his nose: a testament to how he’d been mulling it over. He levies those figures a few more moments of his gaze as if they might speak an answer for him. They don’t. He concedes to their lack of direction and turns to you. “Every moment we spend here, we risk our identities further,” he starts, crossing his arms over his chest.  

You wince. He still believes that you’d at least contained some of your identity by taking out those three faeries. You know better. Even the bard in that tavern had known what had happened; it’s why Yeonjun ended up finding out in the first place. Even if not all of them had been a part of that rebellion, it’s reckless to assume that there were no more than that. 

Continuing, he says, “And judging by what we’ve picked up, we need to get it all back before the solstice.” He doesn’t pace as he thinks. Only the faraway look in his eyes betray the noise in his head. 

You hate the way it sounds like he’s going to demand that you leave immediately, and you hate how it sieges your tongue and makes it dance into a pitiful ploy to stay. To give yourself some credit, it’s better that Taehyun knows every bit of information you have. This moment is desperate for informed decisions. 

“I saw Yeonjun this morning,” you blurt. The words bubbled and bubbled behind your lips until they’d found the tipping point and spilled out. You’d agonized over what to make of it all for hours: that Yeonjun had been as deceitful with you as you’d been with him, that you are a sorry human girl that had wedged her way into the cross-firings of a war much beyond yourself, that you still have the gall to consider your own feelings despite its grandness... None of that worrying had led you to a conclusion that both your heart and mind would agree on.  

Taehyun’s gaze snaps to you, contained and remote aside from the twitching at the corners of his lips. The intensity of it makes you waver, but you have no time for wavering.  

“He’s... been made aware of our purpose here. He knows that we’re spies,” you say. As you watch him try to piece that together, you add, “He’s part of their rebellion.” 

Now he laughs, barbed and full of mock and disbelief. “The prince is rebelling against his father? He thinks he’ll find the throne like that? What’s his plan for when this falls through? For when his father hears of his mutiny? The prince will lose his head.” 

The thought makes you nauseous, despite how Yeonjun’s image has grown to be something murky. You don’t know what Yeonjun’s intentions are in aligning with the rebellion here. You hardly know anything about his relationship with his father and the High Court aside from the fact that he feels suffocated by his life back there. You’d assume that there’s a lot more to his reasoning, but you’ve learned your lesson about assuming that you know who people are. The inability to lie comes with the need for secrets. The thought that perhaps Yeonjun is only making a shady attempt for power crosses your mind, but either your own reasoning or your own stubbornness shoves it down. Nobody in faerie would hand their fealty to a prince who’d taken the throne of a long-standing king by those sorts of means. He’d be a king with no denizens to preside over. 

You interject Taehyun’s parade of scoffs. “He told me that war is coming, that it’s been coming.” 

His face drops, and he straightens up. “Of course it is. It’ll begin the moment we return with what we’ve found.” 

Your lips go a bit numb, and then your fingers follow. You know that this is your duty—it’d been this all along. It should come as no shock to you that he intends to relay this all to The King. But that was before you allowed your heart to make its home here. How simply he demands that you return to those lands with information that would kill Yeonjun... it has acid crawling a path up your throat. 

You make your best effort to ensure that your voice doesn’t falter as you speak. “He offered us protection as long as we stay here,” you say. “We don’t have to leave now.” You try to catch his gaze as you add, “We don’t have to leave at all.”  

You know that Yeonjun plays a part in the rebellion, but you don’t know how deep his devotion goes, and you also don’t know to what ends you can trust his intentions. How far do his loyalties to the rebellion go? And, where do his loyalties to you stand? The thought that he may have never loved you at all... it’s been a plague to your heart and mind from the very moment he’d revealed the truth to you this morning. Your guilt has chipped away at you without mercy—you’ve spent so many awful nights wishing you could unload your deceptions in front of him. How had it ended up so trivial in the grand scheme of things? How are you the one left feeling betrayed? 

You really, really cannot imagine having Yeonjun’s blood on your hands. He is one of them—a creature deception, and yet you still cannot shake those stolen nights from your bones. He had been your first. He’d made this place a home for you, where you had never had a home. It’s pitiful to search so deeply in someone else for your own strengths; even you can see that. Nevertheless, you do it. You suppose that a pair of warm arms and sweet words will do that to someone, no matter if you know that they could rot you like sweets do the tooth. It’s not unlike drunkards who find their day’s comfort in their drinks, even as it rots their body and mind away. Anything for a stretch of belonging and bliss. You're desperate for it. 

Taehyun’s sinewy words rattle your wandering mind back to reality. “He tells you that he is a member of the same group of people that have tried multiple times to kill you, and you believe him when he says he’s going to protect you? Still?” he spits, shaking his head. “What makes you so sure that he’s not just keeping us from running? That he isn’t handing us on a platter to his rebel friends? You’re going to get us fucking killed.” 

Blood roars like frothy-white rapids in your ears, warring with the echoes of his honey-glazed exclamations of love. To some capacity, he had to have meant those words. Faeries can’t lie, and he had said it so plainly. He loves you. 

“We can’t leave yet,” you say, stepping toward him on legs that you fear might collapse beneath you. “You said it yourself; we can’t return without the whole story. If we return now, we could be missing something.” You study the frosty set to his face and suck in a stabilizing breath. “Please, Taehyun. Please trust me on this.”  

You sound desperate and pleading, but you don’t reel it in at all. You are desperate and pleading. You have no intent of returning as some successful spy and continuing a life of deception and violence. It’s not who you are; it’ll never be who you are. Maybe this world tries to ask it of you, but you refuse to concede to it. 

“Part of our job is staying alive,” he says, his body rigid. He doesn’t like where you’re going with this, you can tell that much. 

“Is that what you want? To be a pawn of war? Isn’t that what we are if we bring this information back?” you challenge. “Don’t you think that if the prince of all people has turned against him, then serving at his hand is the wrong choice? I don’t know The King—I’ve never even seen him! Why should I be excited to serve him?” 

“The prince has more reason than anybody to want his father off his throne.” 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” you say, stepping further toward him. Though, it does make you revisit those thoughts. If vying for the crown is really Yeonjun’s intention, you suppose he’d have no problems pleading with you to stay in order to tie off loose ends. You wish you could see it all from somebody else’s untainted eyes. “What I’m saying is, do you want to be a spy? What has The King ever done for you to earn your loyalty?” 

Taehyun looks at you with disbelief, the corners of his mouth tilting down. “I don’t care about the damn king,” he snaps, and then gestures down at the table with all those figures. “The Queen operates on necessary evils. Where she can find a string to pull, she will pull it. My father was her general for a reason. Do you think she would keep him unless she approved of his violence? There is no good side to this war—just sides. If you’re suggesting that we stay here and try to forget that we came as spies, then you can forget it.” 

You glance over at the war table and wonder how you’ve become a moving piece in ancient faerie politics when all you’d set out for was a purpose. You’d been so warped by your bitterness with your upbringing that you’d failed to see how anything could be worse than that. You’d been so excited that you jumped willingly into dark water without knowing how deep it was, and now your feet can’t touch the ground. Is this the purpose you want? 

“Leave, then,” you say, stepping back. “You can leave. Just let me stay here. Please.” 

Something in Taehyun’s expression flips, so subtle that you can’t name it. It unsettles you, your hair standing on edge. There is something in his eyes that you do not like.  

“So, that’s it?” he says, his voice odd too. “That’s all it took for you to hand your future over on a leash to him?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you stammer. The only ones with a collar around your neck are the spies. They’re the ones who insisted on that geas—the ones who needed to compel you with their faerie magic.  

“It means that you got all the way here, uncovered a whole rebellion, and made a life for yourself, not handed to you by a prince, and you’re going to trade it in. It means that you’ve let him convince you that you are weak and need to be coddled.” 

Your fists curl tight and dig your nails into your palms. “I never wanted to be a spy,” you grit out. Yeonjun is not the reason you want to stay here. He may be part of it, but you’ve come to be utterly unwilling to return to that spy den like it’s your home, or something. It’s not. You’d slept there for one night. Beyond just your word and that geas, what reason do you have to return? 

“You didn’t? And yet, it’s what we are, isn’t it?” he says. “Do you think that I dreamed of being a spy? That I do it because I love it?” 

“Then, what do you do it for, Taehyun?” you say. “When will you begin living your life for you?” 

Taehyun seems to consider your words for a few long heartbeats, and then he seems to settle into something in his head. You allow yourself to let go of some of the tension in your shoulders as you watch his expression morph into something much less poisonous. 

You hadn’t expected him to react like that. 

“Do you have any weapons on you?” he says. 

Faltering, you sputter out, “What?” You look over the room. The last time you’d been in here, you’d sparred. Does he intend to properly fight you in here now? Had you pushed him too far? Shaking your head and feeling at all the places you usually tuck your blades away, you say, “No... I don’t.” 

“Get some. Where we’re about to go...” he trails off, as if reconsidering, but then he continues, “I’ll get you a hag stone.” 

You furrow your brows, not taking off to do so. “A hag stone?” you echo, thankful that he isn’t trying to duel you, but wary at the need for such a faerie ward. Hag stones are of the more serious class of wards used to protect humans from faerie enchantment or glamour. Most often, humans would string theirs up with a bit of thread through the hole of it and wear it around their necks as a pendant. Unlike turning one’s clothes inside out or taking red berries on your person, hag stones protect against the more devastating faerie magic. You shudder simply wondering what you might need a hag stone to protect yourself from. 

He nods a bit solemnly. “Kelpie do not let a meal or trick pass them by when they wait so long to have them.” 

You look at him with wild eyes, hoping to see him laugh or play his words off as a joke. He does not, but of course he doesn’t. Taehyun doesn’t waste his words on jokes. 

“Why... Why would we be going to a kelpie?” you ask him, laughing around the ball of fright in your chest. 

He lends you a wretched look. “I have old debts to call on.” 

❉

The forest in which Taehyun leads you is untamed. At some point, the sound of nature’s buzzing tapers off, and you know that you’ve entered a deeper forest than you ought to be sticking your nose in. When the forest goes silent, it’s only for one reason.  

You’d grown up here. Maybe you’d been born elsewhere, but that does not negate the fact that you had grown up scared every day of the powerful creatures that inhabit this world. Your fear has ruled you for your whole life, and you let it. You’d be a fool not to. It’s how you survive in this world. Your limbs tremble; they plead with you to listen to everything you’ve ever known—do not mess with what is bigger than you.  

You step around frost-capped puddles and dance between briars, careful not to snag yourself on their claws. It unsettles you further that this part of the forest is so untrodden and overgrown. With no folk coming through, you fear how the kelpie might behave when you make an audience before it. Will it climb straight from its frosty swamp and drag you back down with it? Is the hag stone you clutch at your chest enough to keep you safe? 

“I don’t understand why we’re doing this, Taehyun,” you say, delicately avoiding any tumbles as you speed up to gauge his feelings by his face. You’re not fond of the remote blankness in his eyes, nor the staunch determined set to his jaw. “That thing might kill us, and your shoulder is hurt. You shouldn’t be out here; you should be letting it heal.” 

“I know my limits,” he says. 

Grimacing, you return his curt tone. “Taehyun.” You grab at the material of his sleeve with urgency. When he stops to look at you, you continue. “I want you to actually listen to me. You’re being unreasonable. Yeonjun said he’d use his pull to protect us. Both of us. We have no reason to be out here, you’re just putting us in danger.” 

He lets your words stew in the air for a moment before saying, “I’m the one putting us in danger? Me?” He scoffs. “We are about as safe dealing with a kelpie as we are living off his promises. I’m doing what’s best for us. Trust me.” 

You’re winded by his choice of words. You’ve become wary of dealing out your trust so frivolously. Those two words ring alarm bells. 

“But where is this coming from? You didn’t want to stay.” Your breath furls out in a plume of white smoke in front of your face as you speak.  

He looks as if he doesn’t want to answer that. It only makes you more apprehensive. Your limbs fill with lead, planting you where you stand. “Taehyun, I’m scared,” you say. “Isn’t finding help from a solitary faerie a bit too far? How is trusting Yeonjun any more dangerous than that?” 

Taehyun steps toward you. “He is going to kill us. It’s not if, it’s when. That bastard is going to hurt you. This... This is for us. We are self-sufficient; we don’t need his protection shit.” A bitter tang colors his words. “I know that you’re scared. I won’t let it hurt you; I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise that you’ll be okay. You want to stay, don’t you?” 

You nod. You would even make deals with a kelpie for it.  

“Okay, then, let’s go,” he says, taking off with those words, effectively punctuating the conversation.  

You follow him. 

You grow more anxious the deeper you trudge into the forest without any consolation as the daylight begins creeping away. Following behind Taehyun, the wind whips at the perfect angle so that his form takes most of its terror, allowing you a respite from at least some of the brutal cold. You don’t feel any remorse using him as a shield against the elements—frost runs through his veins. He doesn’t shiver or wince at it. 

Taehyun stops a few feet before a wintry mire framed by crystallized cattails and reeds. Your heart stutters as he looks around to ensure that this is the right spot. The water is dark and deep. You stay a healthy distance away from it. You do not want to find out just how deep it is. 

“Where is it?” you say, keeping your voice low as if the beast might lunge from the water and snatch you up if you don’t. 

Taehyun surveys the forest surrounding you and then the body of water as he always does, and when he looks to you, you already know he’s calculated and planned. He doesn’t face a situation without thought—that notion soothes you, even if it’s to the slightest degree.  

“It won’t come until I call it,” he says, gesturing at those murky and horrible watery depths. Swallowing hard, you consider how close you stand to it. You take a shuffled step back. “When you see it, you need to stay calm. Don’t let it see your fear. It’ll find it amusing and latch onto you. Do you understand?” 

A rush of heavy dread spreads from your core and seizes your lungs at his words. You’ve made it this far. You want to stay. You want to stay, bad. If this thing outsmarts you, you will not go down without swinging this time. You have your daggers, and you know how to wield them. Bravery is most of the battle, isn’t it? 

You muster a nod, trying to give yourself a brave heart, but Taehyun shakes his head. Your eyes must betray how stricken you are. “Do you understand?” he repeats, his voice sharp and grave. 

“I do.” 

He accepts your words, pressing on. “It will try to trip you over your words and spin you into a trap with tricky words. Do not entertain it, even as it tries, okay?” 

You’ve been terrorized by faerie tricks your whole life. You can handle their schemes just fine. “Okay.” 

Taehyun frees a blade from its hiding place and brings it to his palm. He slides it there, slicing it open. Crimson creeps from the slit, running in between his fingers and trickling onto the snow. He’d cut pretty deep. 

“Why are you—Taehyun?” you say, stepping toward him as he curls his wounded hand into a fist over the water, shaking it so as to let the droplets down into the black water. You regret those steps you’d made toward him as something comes crashing through the surface. 

No, rather than emerging from under the surface, the beast is born from the water, manifesting from it as something gangly and wretched. From its pointed ears to its hooves, it pushes up from nothingness until it is standing there, real and terrible before you. Its skin glistens with a thickness like oil and its hair and tail hang in heavy, seaweed-like tendrils, plastered against its body. The scum floating on top of the water clung to its hair and pelt as it rose, twigs and the like poking from its withered body. A bridle cages its head, leather reins dangling down. Of all its awful things, you believe that its eyes are the worst—bone-white and piercing, they send a terror down your spine that solidifies in your bones. You know you will not soon forget the ancient soullessness that lives there. The folk do sometimes resemble the places in which they hail from; you suppose that the kelpie bares striking resemblance to the swirling water that sits at its feet. 

You try not to choke or gasp or react in any way at all, but it isn’t easy. You focus your adrenaline on keeping your breathing as even as you can manage. 

“It has been a long time since I’ve found a human at my doorstep,” the creature says, steam blowing from its nostrils as it snorts. How long might a long time mean to a faerie, especially one you know is so ancient? You hope that your presence does not intrigue the beast at all. 

Taehyun swoops in before you can speak, and you are boundlessly thankful for it. “I’ve come to call on the debt you owe me,” he says. He doesn’t leave any room for any familiarity or playfulness. 

“Is it that time?” the kelpie says, placing one hoof down onto the snow. It had looked so incorporeal and liquid that you half expect it to burst and turn to water as it does, but it climbs out just fine. Very real.  

Taehyun eyes the kelpie as it makes land, dribbling with water and its kelp hair swinging. You swallow hard as it disregards his presence to observe you. You’re used to the folk disregarding you, not this. How many years had you yearned for their attention? Right now, you scare under it.  

“For what do you need my help, boy?” it says, voice gurgled, “And why do you bring this human along? Is it for her? Or, rather, have you brought her as your peace offering?” 

Your legs tremble beneath you.  

“I don’t owe you any peace offering, kelpie,” Taehyun says, his head held righteously high. “You’ll offer me what I ask, or you’ll suffer for it.” 

Shifting under the tense atmosphere, you still don’t speak. In Faerie, debt is law. The folk live by a law that is, like many other things about them, foreign to you. Whatever natural laws by which they govern themselves are vastly lost on you—but of keeping promises and respecting debts, you are very aware. They hate to be indebted—you’re sure it’s why this kelpie is so peevish. You hope that the folk’s need to balance their debts is enough to keep it hospitable.  

The kelpie makes a rumbling and throaty sound that mimics that of a laugh. It rumbles the ground below your feet. “Just as rigid as the last time we met like this,” it says. “I wonder if it's because you’ve inherited your father’s stone heart, or because you fear me?” 

The kelpie remains playful with its intonation, but tension lies thick and dangerous beneath both of their words. You know well enough that the beast is not being light-hearted.  

Taehyun holds his face firm. He refuses to give an inch. “Do not try that with me. You have your word to upkeep for my help.” 

Shimmering under the moon’s light now, the beast treats us with a long moment of hostile silence. You can feel its malintent despite how hollow those eyes remain.  

“What do you ask of me?” it finally says, whipping its drooping tail behind it. 

“There is a rebellion here,” starts Taehyun, shoulders relaxing to the slightest degree as the kelpie defers, “The north is uneasy. I’m optimistic that you’ll lend us your protection and hand, whenever I call on it. Regardless of it being in my interest, I’m sure that you aim to keep your lands peaceful, no?” 

“Rebellion? For what would anything of the courts be in my interest? Of their rebellion or even just their ridiculousness, I do not care. I’ve left your gentry to you, leave me to mine.” 

Taehyun’s nostrils flare. “I’m not asking you to care about the courts, I’m asking you to lend me your help when I ask of it,” he grits out, “Or, rather, I’m not asking. I am informing you that I am expecting you to uphold your debt to me, and you’d better be ready to do so. This is just courtesy.” 

You feel the kelpie’s offense in the hollow quiet that follows Taehyun’s demands. Among many things, the fae are prideful creatures. Your stomach is in terrible knots. Taehyun is just trying to regain the power in the situation. You know that. It doesn’t make you any less scared for your life. With an ancient creature like a kelpie, it is paramount to earn its respect, or else it will push you around. 

Worse than that. It will drag you down into its waters and make your soul into a meal. 

“It’s a pity you think that hag stone will save you from me, human.” The kelpie turns its attention back on you. You bade your knees not to crumple. “It takes much more than that to protect you in places like these. Perhaps you’ll be safe from petty enchantment, though.”  

Taehyun shoves his words in before you can give the kelpie any sort of reaction. Not even a tremble. “Understood?” 

“You’ve made deals with our kind before. The magic reeks on you. It’s lousy enchantment, I could dissolve that geas for you. All you’d have to do is climb up on my back, and I’d grant you your freedom.”  

You can’t help but perk up. The prospect of ridding yourself of the geas placed over you is a painfully delicious one. 

Bristling, Taehyun steps between you and the kelpie. Whether he does it to fight off the beast should it lunge at you or to prevent you from approaching it, you’re unsure. “Do not,” he says. 

“Wasn’t going to.” You say it, and of course it’s true. The kelpie is poking around to see what will most entice you. Regardless, you can’t deny how awfully you wish that geas were gone. It’s the one thing that you fear will tether you to The King’s bidding. No matter how you armor yourselves from the rebellion here in the north, what’s to stop the spies from tugging on the enchanted leash? One command from Cricket, and your body would betray you and walk the whole way there itself. 

Though you don’t verbalize your interest, the kelpie no doubt sees the interest alight in your eyes. It pounces accordingly. “Unless you’d prefer that I give you a whole other enchantment. Protection against any of our kind’s glamours? Permanant true sight? A touch to my pelt would be all it would take for you to make yourself free.” 

Taehyun clicks just the hilt of his sword free from the sheathe. “Stop with the tricks. You can find your fun elsewhere.” 

Like the swampish water behind it, the kelpie stands there totally still, studying Taehyun. You really wish this altercation could wrap up at any pace faster than it currently is. You’re itching to escape those white eyes. They’re much more intimidating as night settles in. What sort of thing had Taehyun even done to indebt a creature like this to him? Once again, you’re left confronting how little you know of him and his past. By the time you’ve come to terms with the last thing, the next arrives to remind you that the folk lead much longer lives than you do. 

It finally speaks again. “Why have you brought this human with you, Lord?” Its furls out the term like a weapon. This bitter intonation that you’ve seen be used multiple times to speak of Taehyun’s title sticks with you. The title is a taunt. In this case, the you know it comes from the kelpie’s place of utter indifference and lack of obeisances toward whatever sovereignty the Courts may claim. The kelpie only answers to the land.  

“Because I needed you to know that your protection will extend to her. Know her face, learn it so that when I call on you, you’ll play your part correctly.” 

“I fail to see why you dote over her safety. Who is the human to you?” The kelpie takes a step forward, its powerful muscles rippling with the moon’s white light on its ink pelt. You mirror it with a step back. Taehyun stays put. “I owe her no help. That’s not how this works. I concede that I am bound to your help, but I do not repay double. You overestimate my generosity.” 

You watch as Taehyun takes on a posture that you’ve come to recognize as his offensive posture, potent adrenaline twisting up your stomach and sending your heart into a fit so fierce that you feel it in all your pulse points. You’re sure that swords are a laughable matter to the kelpie. Iron, though, you’re sure would still burn. Turning your hands to fists, you make a conscious effort not to find your iron weapons. If the kelpie were to see that, it may escalate things. You do not want to escalate.  

It’s only smart for you to consider your disadvantages: Taehyun is wounded. He had literally been struck by an arrow last night. You’re so far into the woods that running would consist of stumbling over roots and avoiding thorny bushes. Taehyun might know them, but you’re fully unfamiliar with a kelpie’s weaknesses, or if they even have any at all. You’re better off appeasing the beast.  

“Taehyun,” you warn. 

He pays it no mind. “I said,” he snarls, “stop with the tricks. You owe your very ability to draw breath to me, and beyond that. It was my neck on the line to grant you that. What I did for you was worth many debts. If you want to settle it all to even, you’ll do it. Don’t play this like a fool.” He doesn’t address the kelpie’s first question. 

Taehyun creeps toward the kelpie. You’re not sure where he sources all that fearlessness from inside himself. He’s way too close for your comfort. “What are you doing?” you hiss, quiet and meant for just him. There is no way he intends to fight this thing right now. You’d prefer taking the risk of trusting Yeonjun’s word over this any day. 

“Even the general”—the kelpie spits that word with a similar distaste as he had Taehyun’s title—“knew when he was in over his head. Ask a more respectable payment of me.” 

You suck in a breath. “Let’s just go,” you tell Taehyun. “We don’t need to do this; we didn’t need to in the first place.”  

As Taehyun takes one last step toward the kelpie, he reaches a sword’s distance from it.  

Really? Is this happening right now? 

“I’m giving you grace right now, kelpie,” he says, his voice pure warning, “My father is the one who landed you like that. It’s humorous that you’d even speak of him while we’re sorting out the debts that you incurred because of him. I suggest that you give up the sly act.” 

Once again, a charged and meaningful pause rings throughout the forest. The silence speaks volumes of how the kelpie takes his words.  

It’s a flash of movement, the two dark figures like blurs as Taehyun’s hand flies out to grab a hold of the reins that hang from its head and the kelpie rears back with a bone-piercing, harrowing whinny. He braces himself on its side and uses its flank to push off of. The creature bucks fast, but Taehyun is faster.  

The rage that it bellows with guts you. The forest ground trembles with its frantic clambering, hooves battering the snow.  

The kelpie’s frenzy ends as Taehyun takes the reins in both hands. It doesn’t make any more attempts to send him off, nor does it stumble about wildly. It settles. The kelpie bows its head. Your hands cover your mouth. They’re ready to muffle your scream. You wait for Taehyun to become one with the beast’s figure and for it to drag him down to the depths of its water that don’t see the sun’s light. Nothing happens. Instead, he slips off the back of the kelpie without any trouble, landing with a thud back on the ground.  

“Fix your appearance,” Taehyun commands.  

You allow a sound of surprise to slip as the beast melts down, shedding water to the ground and crumpling over. You watch it shrink all the way down until, where once the gangly beast had stood, the form of a faerie man stands. He unfurls from the forest floor to his full height, taller than Taehyun and reedy in his limbs. His hair cascades down from his head in shaggy, damp brown locks with twigs and leaves tangled in. Sharp faerie ears protrude from it. It confirms to you that this is just another form of the kelpie, not someone else entirely. 

“You’re a fool,” the man says, turning on Taehyun with wild eyes.  

You join his confrontation on Taehyun. “What the hell is going on?” you say. You’re still jittery with the urge to run. 

Taehyun entertains only you, saying, “I hoped that he’d just make things easy in the first place.” 

The man, dripping with water from his tattered, sopping rags for clothes, sneers. “I would not serve you if you fucking killed me. Of course you had to take my bridle.” 

You give Taehyun an expectant look. You’re in dire need of being filled in. 

“His bridle,” he says, grabbing the reins that still hang from the man’s face even in his human form and tugging him into a walk into the forest, “I grabbed it. He serves me, now. He can hate it all he wants, but he’ll do what I ask.” 

The thought makes you deeply uncomfortable, but you can’t pin exactly why. It lives somewhere around the place inside you that loathed the way the folk made your kind into their glamoured servants.  

“We’re just going to bring him back with us?” You trail them tentatively back through the woods that you had arrived from. “Like a prisoner, or something?” 

“Exactly like a prisoner,” the man says, excited to get a hit in on Taehyun. Of course, he’s unhappy.  

He stumbles as Taehyun tugs him forward by his bridle. “Shut your mouth,” Taehyun says. It’s more commanding than angry. “What’s your name?” he asks him.  

The man looks as though he wants to deny him that knowledge. Names are a powerful thing to a faerie. They spend their lives hiding them away—to give away their real name would make them totally vulnerable to the whims of whoever knows and uses it. However, you assume that whatever hold Taehyun has over him now works in a similar way, and his lips move despite his revolt.  

“Beomgyu,” he answers, eyes full of bite. 

You climb between a pair of close-resting, gnarled trees. “Does he have to keep that thing on, Taehyun?” you say, struggling with the sight of him being dragged along. It’s unsettling. “Like, does it work without that?” 

Stopping, Taehyun reaches up to pull the bridle off and around from Beomgyu’s head. He lets it fall to the snow. “You can use his name if you need to command him and I’m not around. He’ll have to do what you say.” Pushing Beomgyu into a walk, he says, “You’re going to protect us if in any case we need it. That includes her. You’re going to stay within my estate, unless one of us brings you somewhere. You won’t try your hand at any escape, and you won’t make any attempts to harm us either directly or by omitting something you are aware will do so.” 

You rub your hands together to generate heat as he lists his commands. Why would he even need those precautions, if Beomgyu is supposed to be his compulsory servant now? Would that not mean that he’d be unable to harm him? Either Taehyun is being extra precautious, or the command he has over him is weaker than you had thought at first. Beomgyu scowls the whole way through. Perhaps if Taehyun had not spoken those exact words, he would have lunged at him. 

As the kelpie stalls, Taehyun urges him forward once again with a shove. “Walk,” he snaps. “You did this to yourself. If you’d been a respectable man, I’d have only asked for your help when we needed. Now, you’re following us everywhere.” He allows him to stew on that for a little before saying, “You do your job well and I’ll let you return to your waters. I’ll forget I even made you my servant, and you’ll live knowing you’re no longer in my debt. You’ll not have to worry that someone might tame you again, because I already had, and I won’t even utilize it. We’ll never even make each other’s acquaintance again. You’ll be free to toil in your forest, and I will stay far away. All I need is for you to keep us alive and unharmed.” 

At least he doesn’t intend to keep him forever as an eternal servant. Most faeries that fall into debts work their long lives as living servants. Your years as Nut-hatch's worker taught you how that life whittles your soul down. Hundreds of years of just that is unfathomable. Maybe that is the cost of betraying honor here, though.

“So be it,” Beomgyu says, teeth gritted.  

You continue to trudge through the forest behind them. 

❉

Once you’re within the walls of the estate and Beomgyu is given a place to stay, you turn to Taehyun. “What part of that was safer than trusting Yeonjun?” you say.  

His eyes drop closed and he sighs. “It was worlds safer,” he grits out. “I knew what I was doing. You had that hag stone, and I’d have cut him down if he tried anything.” 

He stretches out his shoulders, shifting them uncomfortably under the fabric of his tunic. You know that his sewn-up wound bothers him. Could it be getting infected? You hope not—an infection this early on would most definitely mean it would be a nasty one. If only he weren’t insistent on pretending that it’s nothing. “I don’t think you could”—you gesture at your own shoulder—“you’re going to infect your shoulder. I don’t know how to treat an infected wound that big.” 

“I wouldn’t have even gone there if I thought I couldn’t handle it. I had a plan. I can protect us just fine.” 

Us. You’ve been wondering what your purpose here might become once you abandon returning to your duties. Would you be staying with Yeonjun? If he betrays you, and Taehyun were to push you out now that you’re no longer partners in duty, where would you go? Crawl to the doorstep of some random faerie to place yourself in their services, just to find yourself a warm place to stay? Taehyun now makes it clear that he still sees the two of you as a pair, but why? You still can’t understand why he’d suddenly switched up the moment you said you’d stay here even if he left. Realistically, he should’ve killed you for being a traitor to the king that he serves. You know that his intentions are more complex than that, but you fail to grasp where they lie. His actions and his words clash.  

“And when Yeonjun doesn’t betray us? What will all of this be for?” 

“This doesn’t stop at the prince,” he says, “there are more players than just him and The Queen. Any one of them could determine that we’re liabilities. Don’t you think that we should prepare for that? We came here as spies infiltrating their court from the very king that they rebel against; of course they’ll have plans for us. 

“It’s still best that you stay your distance from the prince from this point on, regardless, unless you bring the kelpie.” 

Your mouth drops open, brows pinching. You don’t like the thought of being chaperoned at all. If Yeonjun is to betray you, then it’ll be your own fault. You can take the consequences of your actions just fine. “I think I can make that decision for myself,” you say, voice low. “And I can protect myself, too. Are you saying my skills aren’t up to your standards? Well, I didn’t spend that time working on them for nothing, and I don’t plan on stopping. I know I’m not perfect, but I think I can at least use a dagger adequately, no?” 

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Taehyun says, eyes flat with frustration. “You can protect yourself well. I know that. What I mean is that you shouldn’t rest your life on his integrity. I have no doubts that you’d be able to protect yourself from him alone. He’s delicate. The King doesn’t pamper his children, but I have no doubt that the prince hasn’t wielded a sword anywhere other than in sparring. But you don’t know if you’ll ever truly be alone, and you don’t know whether or not he’s setting you up. I think you can at least agree that it’s best that you can acknowledge that and behave accordingly, no?” 

“I rested my life on your integrity today. Am I supposed to trust you blindly, too? What if you’re just stringing me along until you kill me for my treason to The King? You were his spy, no? How many years did you serve him? Why have you given it up so easily? Why are you staying here? None of it makes sense to me, but I still trusted you. Was I wrong for that? Are you a liar, Taehyun? Does your tongue tell lies?” 

His eyes crystallize, a few degrees colder than you’d seen them all day. “I can lie,” he says. “But would I have done what I did today if I intended to kill you? It’s time that you see that actions tell you so much more than words ever will.” 

Again, he treads around your questions about his intentions. “Why are you staying here?” you repeat, studying him with your suspicion.  

He’s quiet. 

“Answer me,” you demand. 

“Is this not my home?” he says. 

Unsatisfied, you press more. “I thought you hated this place. Why would you want to stay here? Don’t you have an awful reputation here?” 

His eyebrows shoot up, but his face stays hauntingly blank. You’re used to his blank mask, but this feels different. “If you think that I left here because of my reputation, then you’ve fooled yourself.” He begins making for his quarters. “I have obligations to fulfilling my father’s role as Lord of this estate,” he says before turning and ending the conversation on his terms. 

That leaves you just as confused. If he cared about his responsibilities here, he would’ve never left them in the first place to become a spy under The King. It makes no sense. Whether or not it’s true, you’re positive that you aren’t getting the whole story. You sigh and drag your feet bed-bound. You hope to never have another day as unending as today again. 

❉

You dodge Beomgyu for the entirety of the day, not sure what to make of a new presence around the estate, even if it’s an indebted servant beast of a presence. You’d half expected Taehyun to rope him up in the horse stalls outside, making that his permanent residence, but he’d given Beomgyu a place somewhere in the servant’s quarters. You’re glad of it—you may be wary of him, but you don’t wish anything like that for him. Now that he has a more human form, you find yourself able to empathize with him more than you were when he was a hulking, killer water horse. He doesn’t necessarily run around much—without a doubt because he’s not the happiest about being forced into Taehyun’s servitude. You don’t blame him. 

Despite your efforts, he enters the kitchens while you’re alternating between chomping on a slice of bread and a platter of dates. He eyes you. Though in this form his eyes are not as piercing, they’re still heavy.  

You offer him a slice of the bread and push the platter toward him. “Hungry?” 

He shakes his head. “I don’t eat the way you do.” 

Then why’d he come to the kitchens? Either he’s exploring, or he came looking for you. “Not even like this?” you ask, gesturing down to his form. 

“I eat when someone is foolish enough to come to my waters,” he says. “I thought I’d be eating yesterday, but the Lord subverted those plans, didn’t he?” 

You laugh a bit, though it’s absurd to laugh about being eaten with the same creature that had intended to do so.  

“I sometimes go for more years than the entire span of your human life without eating,” he says, tilting his head to one side. Shaggy locks of hair follow his head with it. It’s unkempt and in dire need of a washing to rid it of dirt. 

You gesture at his dirt-smudged cheek. “Do you want to clean up? I’m sure Taehyun has some clothes to spare for you. There are some pretty nice bathing quarters, here, too. The kind that makes you reluctant to get out.” 

A wry smile cracks across his face, a bit feral like the rest of him. “I’m not afraid of some dirt. These are my clothes. I’d go naked before dressing myself in his.” 

“Okay, then,” you snort, shrugging. “No baths.” You rip a bite out of the wrinkled fruit in your hand. “How did you even end up... in debt to Taehyun?” you ask, eager to fill yourself in. If Taehyun insists on not telling you anything, you’ll find it in other places. You’d picked up that it had something to do with his father, but you need to know more. The more you’re able to piece together, the better you’ll be able to make sense of Taehyun’s behaviors. You hope so, at least. He holds is truths very close to himself, and almost everybody else seems to harbor a poignant distaste for him. 

Beomgyu’s face sours up again. “I had a dispute with his father. The General was going to raze my forest and kill each one of us. I’d called on him and asked for his help. I’m not sure what he did, but The General never came. If I knew it’d land me like this, though...” He grimaces. “I’d have just let him make me history.” 

Reigning in the laugh that bubbles in your chest at his resentment, because you’re positive that you finding humor in his misfortunes would ruffle him, you nod and pocket that information. “Then, why didn’t you just agree to help when he tried to collect your debt in the first place?” 

“I was going to,” he snaps. “He’s just a prideful creature. No patience. If he’d waited a few moments, I’d have agreed.” 

Humming, you don’t tell him that he’s definitely the one who wound himself up like this. Taehyun had made it clear multiple times that Beomgyu needed to stop playing around.  

Taehyun’s voice comes from the doorway, cutting into the conversation with its matter-of-factness. “Speaking bad on my name while I’m away, kelpie? Should I amend your list of commands to include watch your mouth?” His tone is bare and humorless. 

Beomgyu bristles beside you, about to rebut him before you spy the weapon at Taehyun’s hip and interrupt before they can come to verbal blows. “Where are you going?” 

Taehyun rips his icy gaze from Beomgyu to you. “To Court,” he answers, plain and as if it were obvious. 

Furrowing your brows, you say, “Court? Why didn’t you tell me we’re going? I don’t want to get ready in a rush.” Your mind turns. You weren’t even sure what you’d be doing now that you’re no longer here as spies. There’s no need to infiltrate Court, now. Would you just be attending as revelers? Not to mention that Yeonjun no doubt has no clue that you’re even staying. You hadn’t seen him since you’d ran to him yesterday morning and had your world thrown for a loop as he revealed his truth. How had so much happened in one day?  

His mouth hardens. “You’re not attending with me,” he says, knuckles turning white over the pommel of his sword. “You’ll stay here with him today.” 

Your heart thrums in your chest; not with fear like it had been doing so much over the span of the last few days, but with anger. “What?” you say, voice strained with shock. “No. I’m getting ready; wait for me, or don’t. I don’t care.” You spin on your heels to do just that, gritting your teeth. He thinks he can tell you what to do? Is that it? You don’t care what he’s done for you, or what power he thinks he has over you because of it. You’d left your life of taking commands behind for a reason. This was supposed to be new beginnings, not just your past life under a new skin. 

He catches your upper arm frantically. Whipping your head to him, you rip yourself away from him and back off. “I said, no!” you say, lips twitching into a heavily emotional scowl. It’s not just that he’s telling you to stay back today. You know that what he’s doing is much bigger than that. It sends memories of a life in a seamstress’ cottage flooding back. You struggle to keep your head afloat, to keep yourself from drowning in it, but they’re old and deep wounds. 

“Oh, look at that,” Beomgyu croons. “You are just like him. Except, your father was a general, so at least he had some reason to believe that folk would obey him. You? Not so much.” 

Taehyun’s head snaps to him. He barks a command. “Leave.” 

His eyes flash and he reels against it, but Beomgyu’s body moves against his own will. There’s a spark of ravenous hate smeared across his lips and in the glare he gives Taehyun as he leaves. 

“So, you’re just going to hand out commands and expect them to be followed now, huh? Because you’re suddenly just... taking up this role as Lord? Well, you’re not my Lord. You’re not his, either.” 

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Stop that.” 

Laughing a bitter laugh, you spit, “Stop what? Oh, I’m sorry. I should just obey you like a good human does, huh? ‘Cause that’s what we’re for, right? My bad, I’ll get a head start on working around the estate—what would you like for dinner, my lord? Or, do you need me to press your clothes?” Your words are angry, but you choke toward the end around the lump of emotion in the back of your throat. 

He takes both your arms into his hands, his brow furrowed hard. “Stop it,” he snarls. “Stop it, damn it. Don’t do that. You’re not a servant here. Don’t you try to cry to me, I expect better than this from you. That’s not it at all.” 

You shove back on his chest, putting some distance between you. “I’m not crying,” you say. “And, so what if I was? There’s nothing wrong with it. I think it’d do you a little good to cry some time.” 

“It’s weak,” he says. “Pitying yourself just ends up making you a fool. If you just sit around and wallow, you’ll just stay where you are. The only thing you can do is act.”  

That sounds about right coming from his lips. “Is that what your father taught you?” you ask. “Well, he was wrong. You can cry and try and take care of things at the same time.” 

“I’m just asking you to stay back today,” he says. 

“Why?” you say, throwing your hands up in exasperation. “Tell me why? It’s not like we’re spying around or have some sort of mission to keep secret. Why can’t I just go enjoy it like that for once?” 

“Can you just do this for me?” Taehyun says, jaw tight. “I just need you to stay.” 

You’ve become sick of him not telling you things. Being in the dark never feels good, but it especially feels like shaky ground now. If he thinks you’ll be attacked, so what? You’re the one who wanted to stay here. Let you come. You’re better off being attacked as a group of three than he would be by himself, no? 

You decide to lean into his own concerns to appeal. “What if they’re waiting for you? Wouldn’t it be better that Beomgyu and I are there? Isn’t that why you did that whole thing yesterday?” 

He shakes his head. “If they are, then it’ll be easier for me to slip out if it’s just me.” 

Crossing your arms over your chest, you determine by the solemn lines to his face that he’s not going to give. “Fine,” you say. “I’ll stay here today. If it’s so necessary, I’ll stay here. Do you want me to stay inside the estate, too? Could I go see Yeonjun?” 

“I’d prefer that you stay here,” he says, slow and measured and veiling tension. 

You shake your head, pairing it with a tired laugh. “Yeah, right, I forgot. He’s a threat too. Well, you have fun then.” Turning and departing from the kitchens, you leave behind your bread and dates. So much for lunch. 

❉

Reaffirming Taehyun’s ability to lie, it was not just that one day. The next day, Taehyun slipped out for Court, sword on hip and pleading with you to stay in the estate on the terms that he believes they still might have an attack planned for you. It turned into a week that you were cooped up in the estate, and then two. The same walls you’d once looked at in wonder for their beauty became the ones you stared at mindlessly during the most boring of hours. 

You spend most of your time listening to Beomgyu drone on and on about the ways he’d tricked faeries and humans. He’s quite odd, but it’s not like you can blame him for it—most of the folk are odd to you, and he’s an ancient beast among them. You feel like that warrants a spunky personality like his. He’s nice company, anyway. Such a long life lends you an impressive wealth of stories. 

You can’t help but think about Yeonjun. He’s got to have seen Taehyun at Court by now. If there haven’t been any incidents at this point, doesn’t that mean that he doesn’t intend to betray you? The images of him thinking that you’re avoiding him makes you want to slip out to see him. You not sure why you don’t. Maybe the lies that sat between you affect you more than you thought they did. You’re quite the hypocrite, though. You’d kept secrets just as much as he had. 

You miss those stolen nights you two had shared. A knot, queasy and pessimistic, sits in your belly each time you lay in your bed and remember them and tells you that you’ll never see anything like that again. You’d allowed a girlish part of you to blossom beside him—a part of you that could throw caution to the wind and melt into the fun things in life.  

As you rot your days away in that estate that has become more like a dungeon than an estate, you allow yourself to miss him only a little. Once it begins transforming into a certain impending doom about how you’d thought that staying here would be everything you’d ever wanted, you find something else to do. If you aren’t toiling around by yourself or listening to Beomgyu drone, you’re practicing your combat skills. The times that Taehyun stops in to help you, it ends with you insisting that you’re fine to make appearances in Court by now, or at least see Yeonjun with Beomgyu in attendance. He never agrees. Each time, it’s the same awful excuse: Tensions are worse. He doesn’t know if they’re planning something. When you ask why he demands that he can attend, but you and Beomgyu can’t join: He’s a lord. It’s his duty to attend Court. 

The solstice is nearing, too. You’d looked forward to it, honestly. Hopefully Taehyun will let you attend by then. 

You sit crisscrossed on the hardwood flooring, running your fingers through your hair. Beomgyu is stood a couple feet away, and makes big gestures as he explains the one time he’d been called to attend Court as a solitary faerie. Moments like this have kept you grounded over the weeks. 

“And the stupid crone tried to say that I was wrong for catching him,” he exclaims, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head as if the ancient memory were still as fresh as day one.  

You laugh. “What did you even do to end up there, anyway?” you ask. You can hardly picture Beomgyu in the setting of Court, even more so meeting with The Queen and her council. Moreover, you’re intrigued to know what he’d said to talk himself out of trouble. You’re amazed that he managed to make a sufficient enough case to save his life. 

“They said that I’d been taking too many of their folk—hah! I must eat too, you know? Oh, the pretention! Do they expect me to starve? If a fool lands themselves on my pelt and then in my waters, it’s only natural that they’re eaten. I’m simply freeing them from one more mud-brained fool. The Courts are full of those, too. It’d take me a millennium to eat them all. What are they so worried for, I wonder? They do the very same to their own people.” 

“Aren’t they ridiculous?” you say. Like you, he’d been an outsider in Court. Though you’re sure that it’s just as, if not more, intricate to those well-versed in it, to the ones like you two... It’s odd to see. You had grown used to it in the time you spent there, but you still know what the first day had felt like. Anyway, you hadn’t spent as many days there as you feel you had. All that had happened had bloated that time in your memories. “To be quite honest with you, your kind are all so odd to me. I grew up among you, but still... my instincts are always kinda at odds with my surroundings, you know?” 

Beomgyu considers that for a moment, as if trying to view the fae from a human’s eyes. “Even when we look so similar?” he asks you, grabbing at a lock of his hair and making a round gesture over himself. 

You nod. “Even in this form, you just... I don’t feel like I’m looking into the face of another human. Maybe that’s because I watched you turn to this from a horse, though.” 

“A kelpie,” he corrects. “What gives it away?” 

“Sorry, a kelpie,” you snicker. You look over his face. It’s so close to right, but somewhere in your mind you can decipher that something is not right. Like all of the fae, though, there’s an unspeakable beauty there, beyond explanation. It demands your human attention. Even the most terrifying are beautiful. “Well, for starters, your ears. They’re pointy. All of you have that, and none of us do. And then... I guess”—you narrow your eyes—“your eyes? They’re just different. And your limbs are pretty lanky, too.” 

He frowns as if he’s unable to see it. “You don’t sound so sure,” he says, joining you on the floor. “I’ve had quite some time to look at myself in my life. I don’t think I ever saw any of that when I was in this form...” 

“I’m sure you did,” you say, lips turning up in a playful mock. A water creature no doubt has an eternity to stare into the water at themselves in its rippled reflection. “Did you do a lot of that?” 

Scowling, he huffs. “No. But I’m sure you would, if you looked like this, huh?” 

You roll your eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” His face morphs from dismay to careful concentration. Frowning, you look around and ask, “What?” 

“I hear somebody,” he answers, pushing off the floor. 

Your spine tingles, but you search for the logical explanation. “Like... Taehyun?” 

“No... the walk is definitely different.” He strains to listen. “He’s usually pretty quiet. This one... they don’t conceal their footsteps.” 

Neither of you can get to a window to scope anything out before there’s three heavy knocks from the door, the metal knocker ringing. You shoot him a wary look and tilt your head toward the door. You mouth the word, answer? 

He considers for a moment and then nods. Well, he’s the one able to hear their approach. You trust they’re at least not imminent danger. You pull the door open. A breeze of frost comes rushing in as you do, blowing your hair and as jarring as a hit to the face might be. You’ve been cooped up in here for so long you’ve forgotten how bitter the cold here is.  

Behind the door your eyes lock with a pair of inky ones, settled into a pinched and snooty face. “Letters from the palace I have for you, my lady,” she says, her voice mousy. She holds out a stack full of letters to you, all held together by some twine. 

An errand runner. You furrow your brows down at her and accept them. The little hob wrings out her long fingers. “From who?” you ask her.  

She bows her head to you hurriedly. “Oh, from the prince, my lady! He sends these for you!” 

You look down at the stack in your hands, and your heart begins to run amok in your chest. He’d sent to you? You thank her. She scurries off in the snow and you close the door, sharing a look with Beomgyu. 

“The prince?” he says, brows shot up. “Meaning, The King’s son? He’s sent letters for you?” 

Nodding, you hold the stack close to you. Your feet ache to find your quarters and to begin tearing into each one; you’re ravenous for any sort of word from him. Does he hate you? Does he miss you? At least he still thinks of you. You’d worried that he might’ve found another lady of the court to dote on in your absence... 

“Yeah,” you say over your shoulder, more interested in tearing the letters open than explaining to him why the prince would be sending you letters. Curiosity sits in his furrowed brow. You hadn’t exactly prattled on about Yeonjun to him. Had you even mentioned him at all? 

He tags along as you head to your room and plop onto your bed. You don’t tell him to leave you; opening these letters alone... You appreciate his presence in some odd way.  

Unstringing the pile, you pull the first one out and run a thumb over the wax seal that identifies it as definitely from the High Prince—a fine silver dusted over white wax and branded with the image of Yeonjun’s insignia, the fox. It’s uneven and dribbled, clearly sealed by Yeonjun himself with the insignia ring he often wears on his finger. You pry it open and then unfurl the parchment inside. 

Do you intend to return to Court? Perhaps we keep missing each other. Though, the Lord is always there. I wonder where you are. If my letter reaches you, please write me back. Or better, come see me. My doors are open to you.  

They always have been. 

Yeonjun 

Beomgyu’s gaze burns holes through you as you read this first one. You sigh, pressing your lips into a thin line as you reach for the next one. This one twists a hot knife of guilt into your belly and up into your heart. 

Have I done something wrong?  

The General’s son continues to attend Court, and though I seek your lovely face beside his, you’re never there. I’m under the impression that he wants you not seeing me. Although, perhaps that’s only because I loathe what your absence might mean otherwise. 

Is it because I learned of your identity? Is it that you think I hate you? 

Allow me to make it utmost clear: I do not. I doubt I could if I tried. You’re quite the heart stealer.  

I know I sound a bit ridiculous telling you I love you when we only knew each other for so long. I understand that. It’s that sort of love that ought to burn bright and short, right? But I won’t let it. Not us. 

Some might say that a love found so easily is fickle. That it doesn’t exist. I say it does, because I have felt it. 

Do you remember how it felt the first time our eyes met, too? How odd is it to feel something so deep inside you, but also so far beyond your reach that you cannot alter its course?  

Please write me, pretty. If I can’t see your face, at least allow me the pleasure of knowing that you’re okay. 

Yeonjun 

“What do they say?” Beomgyu asks, timbred voice whipping you apart from the words on paper that manage to send your heart hurting.  

You’re not entirely sure how to tell him that they’re desperate letters of the High Prince’s love for you, a worthless human girl that had avoided him on purpose. He probably wouldn't believe you, anyway. Leaving behind your old life, you had pleaded with the sky to make your life something worth note. It seems that it had answered. Life works in odd ways.  

“A lot,” you say, brushing him off. Your voice cracks with the word, though,  

Hearing the veiled emotion, he frowns, inching forward to take a peek. “Why are you upset?” he pries, and then gasps as a thought formulates in his head. “Have they called you to be tried by the council?” He considers his own suggestion for a long moment and then shakes his head. “You hardly have gone anywhere enough to cause that degree of trouble, though.”  

You let your face drop into your hands. Is the tremor in your chest from laughter, or from crying? You can’t tell. Maybe it’s both. 

The kelpie makes an unsure sound, clearing his throat. “I... uh, I jest...” 

Collecting yourself, you say, “No. I’m not being called in for trial.” You reach for the next letter.  

The next envelope has dried up rose petals that come falling out when you pull out the letter. The flower of love. 

Have you left the north? Could you not have at least lent me one last look at your face before doing so? I don’t mean to be so pathetic, but my heart is lonesome. I thought we’d have more time. Hadn’t you wanted to stay with me?  

If you still reside in his estate, I send these letters to you. I’m not sure if they’ll reach you, but I hope that they’ll move you. Don’t you know that I’d give you anything? 

Please come see me. I beg. Let’s talk. I just want to know what’s wrong. 

Yeonjun 

Why hadn’t you at least gone and told him that you’ve stayed? How had you allowed yourself to feel fear when you think of him? You don’t deserve his love.  

You don’t even know if you deserve love at all. All it would’ve taken was one night of slipping out. He deserved to know that you’re okay. You don’t remember being this selfish. When had this happened? Maybe this is just what happens when someone spends a lifetime not allowed to think of themselves before serving others. You don’t want to be selfish, though.  

The next one you open is more raw. Hurt. The paper, scrawled in writing that becomes less elegant and more frenzied as you read down it, crumples in your hand. 

If you think that I’m the sort of man that will easily forget what we’ve shared, I am not. I love you. I love you. I love you. Please return to my arms. They ache for you. They remember your weight, and they won’t soon forget it.  

Do I need to say it anymore?  

I love you, darling. It’s making me sick.  

Yeonjun 

You stuff the letters back in their envelopes and shove them into a box in your wardrobe. If you don’t, you’ll read them over until you’re ill. Once over was enough for you. 

❉

“The Lord would have my pelt if I let you leave,” Beomgyu, crossing his arms firmly over his chest, says. “Let alone by yourself.” Realizing that his words insinuate that Taehyun holds any true power over him, he backtracks. “If it weren’t for the harness, I’d be unconcerned with his anger, but... Of course, you know, I’m obligated by my imposition to his word, so...” 

Tugging your boots on, you say, “So, tell him I commanded you to stay. You’ll be fine.”  

You had waited for Taehyun to leave for Court, anyway. You have hours of the night to sly-foot your way around him. 

You’d moped around for a few more days, your gut heavy with stones each time you remember Yeonjun’s letters. Stuffing them into a box, no matter how deep into the corner of your wardrobe, still could not wipe those words from your mind. You’d turned them over and over until you couldn’t handle imagining him writing those letters with a hopeful heart any longer.  

The solstice is only a few days away now, too. You’d been bound to the estate for weeks. Although you’re unsure what Taehyun’s real intentions are in boarding you in, you can no longer even care if leaving will end up getting you attacked. You’ve become a bird with clipped wings.  

Even if your wings are out of order, you’ll walk your way to your freedom. Hell, you’d crawl there. It just so happens that Yeonjun’s doorway feels like freedom in this moment.  

Like he’d always said, the doors remain unbarred. You don’t even have to use the metal knocker; you just push through the doors of swirling white engravements. Just as if nothing had changed. He’d been waiting for you. 

Instead of Yeonjun in his quarters, you find a brownie diligently working on doing up Yeonjun’s bedding. When she turns to you, her hands continue their efforts. 

“The prince is not here right now, dear,” she says, snout twitching. Round eyes recognize you before you can introduce yourself. “He’s only just made for Court, though. You should catch him quite quickly, if you mean to.” 

It seems he hasn’t given up searching for you in Court, either. You offer her your gratitude and slip out from his room. Picking up the hems of your dress, you race to catch Yeonjun before he’s arrived at Court. Once he does, things get more sticky—if Taehyun spots you... Pushing down the anxiety that bubbles up at the thought, you cross your fingers. Let luck be on your side.  

Your Court dress, though heavy, feels nice on your skin. Although you often look down on court goers for their pompousness, you can’t deny how good it feels to fit in. That’s perhaps the reason you cling to Court the way you do; you’re beyond desperate for belonging. 

On the plush, snow-dusted bits of the forest’s floor, you spot a set of footsteps. They’re quickly being filled with the flurries. You clasp your hands in an overwhelming bout of gratitude—luck had listened, this time. Those tracks are as fresh as can be. You double your pace. 

Around a bend, you’re overjoyed to see his figure walking there. Finally hearing you coming over the roar of snowfall, he spins. His face pinches and then drops as he recognizes you. 

“You... You came?” he says. Disbelief flips his lips into a frown. “You got my letters?” 

“I did,” you answer, catching your breath. “I’m so sorry.” 

A few feet float between you, the space not yet closed but so magnetic. His cheeks are tinged pink with the cold. Yours must be too.  

“I’d thought you left. I thought I’d never see you again.” 

Your chest caves in a little at the hurt in his voice and the way it clashes with the longing in his eyes. He wants to be angry; he wants to yell at you. He can’t do either when he’s just thankful to see your face. You had missed his just as much. 

“I’m sorry,” you repeat. “It shouldn’t have happened.” 

Yeonjun approaches you and takes your face into his hands. His fingers are ice on your skin. He swallows in your face, soft black eyes darting from your eyes to your lips and around the rest of it; just like he’d begged you to let him do in his letters. 

“Why?” Yeonjun asks you, brushing your hair back with his fingers like he’s just testing the feel of it. 

You don’t know how to answer him. You could tell him a lot of things: Taehyun told me to stay away. He had told me that you’d hurt me. I’d started to believe him. I became scared of you. We had lied to each other. None of them feel adequate in this moment, so you shake your head. 

His eyes harden to a degree as you don’t answer. “Why wouldn’t you come talk to me, pretty?” he urges. “If something was wrong, why couldn’t you come to me? We can’t leave things broken. I sent you weeks of letters. Weeks.” 

Weeks? You’d only seen four.  

“Finally, I got smart enough to send them when he’s at Court. And then you show up here. Tell me, how am I to think that you’re okay? When he won’t even let you speak with me?” 

You blink once. Twice. Taehyun had been intercepting letters. A pit of anger flares in your belly. Whatever this protecting thing he’s doing really is, you’re sick of it. Since when had he become your keeper? He’d demanded that Yeonjun was trying to do just that, but here he is, and you have no clue why he’s doing it. 

“I didn’t know you’d sent letters until yesterday,” you tell him. “I should’ve come and seen you.” 

Running his thumb over your cheek, he murmurs, “You’re not going back there. Please, tell me you’ll stay with me. If you’re to stay here in the north forever, let it be with me. We can’t slip around like this forever.” 

Shaking your head in his hands, you pull back. You can’t decipher the dread that washes over you at his suggestion once again. Your heart is wary with the need to do just that—to not return to the estate where you’d become some sort of prisoner. Something washes over you and tells you that it won’t go the way you’d wanted, just as most things in your life hadn’t. 

Seeing the way you retract, Yeonjun becomes more desperate. “Please,” he says, hands finding your shoulders to hold you as if you’ll leave him there.  

“We’ll figure it out,” you say. “Just give me a few days to think about it, okay?” 

His face stays drawn as if he wants to argue it, but he relents. Taking your frozen hands into his own and wrapping them up in attempts to warm them, he says, “Okay. Okay, let’s get away from this blizzard, then. I’ll wait for you, love.” 

Your chest sizzles. The cold isn’t so bad, today. In a way, you’d missed it. You nod.  

Yeonjun brings you to his chambers and urges you to settle into a plush seat. You run your hands over the embroidered whorls of thread on the cushions as you watch him rummage through a chest. “What are you looking for?” you ask him, drinking in his figure. He’d switched his Court shirts for some more comfortable wear, but even in those he looks princely. He’s so pretty. Your heart flutters as he fishes out what he’d been searching for and turns to you with a smile. He settles beside you carrying a leatherbound book and a miniature wood sculpture of a girl. 

“These,” he says, setting them down on the cushion between you.  

You pick up the wood thing, looking over its painted pink cheeks and feeling the carvings that make its face. It’s fitted with a dress; one unlike any you’d ever seen. Your brow furrows. “What’s this thing?” you ask. 

“It’s called a doll,” he says explains. You feel his eyes on you, watching your reaction, not on the thing in your hands. “Human girls carry them around to play with. They change the dresses and stuff. They even make things for them to hold, but... I couldn’t get ahold of any of those.”  

Heart stuttering, you look at the wood-carved thing. “Human girls?” you ask, imagining a life where you too could have worried only about what dress your toy would wear. You revere the resilience your younger self had to have. At least you didn’t know any better; you didn’t know how you could’ve had it. That ignorance saved you. The painted eyes of the doll stare back at you. 

“Kinda cute, huh?” he says, smiling and scooting closer to fiddle with the thing’s hair. “They even do their hair up all pretty.” Looking back up to you, he says, “It’s a shame that no human who has ever grown up here knows of things like these. Simple joys.” 

You nod, a little choked up. “Yeah. I wish I had. It would have been nice to have something like this as a girl.”  

He tucks some hair behind your ear to get a better look at your face from the side. “How did you ever end up being a spy?” 

Tearing your gaze from the doll to meet his, you find a sadness there despite you not even having told him yet. It’s as if he knows it’ll hurt him already. You fiddle with the little doll’s dress as you recount. “I was a servant to a seamstress,” you start. “A royal seamstress, too. She was favored well by the gentry. She brought in hordes of clients and made dresses and Court clothes for them—but, really, her work mostly ended at being there to hear what they’d want and inlaying the dresses with her magic when they’d ask for it. The rest was my work. Taking their measurements, making their dresses... I worked her shop as soon as I became able to.” Memories of cruel and wicked faces that snickered at your expense or those who found it entertainment to scare you come back, as fresh as ever. Those memories never leave you; the ones so early on that they’d calcified into permanent parts of your personality. That terrified little girl will always be somewhere in your mind. She surfaces quite a lot, these days.  

“There was this one time...” you say, trailing off to trudge up a more awful memory. “A Lady had come in to have a dress made. She brought a guard along with her. He was this massive troll with grey skin like a toad.” You’d recall his details without any trouble for the rest of your life, you think. “I’d ran off to grab some fabric for the Lady, and he followed,” you say, voice wavering just how your little heart had wavered as you had turned around from the bolts of fabric to see the goblin stood there. “He yanked me around by my hair until I sobbed, and then he had me get on the floor and beg him to let me live.” You know now that of course he wasn’t going to kill you—he wouldn’t want problems with Nut-hatch—but you hadn’t known it then. You thought you were dead. “When he had enough of his fun, he let me go. When the other two saw how hysterical I was, all I got was being asked why I’d left them waiting so long.”  

Yeonjun asks, voice soft and tender, “The seamstress allowed that?” His eyes are heavy with a mixture of emotions. You see sadness and anger there, but also something a bit more. 

“Nut-hatch?” you say. “Of course.” They’d known what he was doing in there, of course. Even a human could have heard it. As long as you served your purpose, the folk could not care less. 

He looks taken aback at that, recognition turning his brows up. “Nut-hatch? You worked for Nut-hatch?” he asks. 

Nodding, you hum. You had no doubt he’d know her name. Her work was well-renowned in his father’s court and beyond. “I did.” 

His eyes rake over you for a long few beats before he turns your face up. “Their names?” he asks. 

“Huh?” 

“The goblin and the Lady. What are their names?” 

You try to tug at the threads of that old memory. “I don’t remember,” you say. Much of it is fresh, but you hadn’t committed their names to memory. Inconsequential in the grand scheme of it. “It’s okay. It’s passed now.” 

He doesn’t look very convinced, mind wheeling behind his eyes. You don’t want to stay on this memory for too long. Pushing it back into the dusty corner where it stays, you continue explaining. “I accepted that as my life for a long time, but... At some point, I just wanted more. I imagined all the ways I could find a new life as a human here. There are so many other things I’d preferred, but the only one I could manage was that. Even that, I was wrong about. I’m not really made for that, you know?” You lighten your tone in hopes that it’ll make your chest feel lighter as well.  

He listens intently and then leans forward to press a kiss to your forehead. Pulling you into his chest and keeping you notched under his chin, he says, his voice smooth to your ears, “I’m so happy you’re here now, pretty.” 

Letting out the weight in your lungs in a long, meaningful sigh, you melt into his touch. It’s difficult not to when his body is so warm against yours. You revel in it for some time, just letting him smooth over your hair and rub your back. You try your best not to let any old, sad emotions pour out through your eyes; this is a happy moment. You’ve made it. Perhaps things had been harder than you imagined they’d be, but you knew it’d be a long journey when you escaped that sewing cottage anyway. 

Peppering a few last kisses to the top of your head, he releases you to pick up the book he had also grabbed from that chest. On the front it reads: Pride & Prejudice.  

“A book?” you say, looking over the brown leather and gold printing. It’s an unfamiliar name to you, but you never read much anyway.  

He nods and pries it open. The spine crackles with age. “It’s also from the human world.” Thumbing through the pages, he adds, “It’s a story. I read it often, it’s quite a nice one. I want to give it to you so that you can read it too; it’s a beautiful love story.” 

You lean in to take a look at the words, too perfect to be handwritten. “Where do you get all this stuff?” you say. It reminds you of he’d brought you to that market for human goods. He seems to be interested in things that are human. Perhaps that includes you. Either that or he continues to show you these kinds of things for your sake. 

“I lived in their world for some years,” he says, flipping through the pages. “It’s quite different. Though... I found myself not wanting to leave. When the time came, I brought these back with me to remind me of that time.” 

Lived? Not just visited, but Yeonjun had lived in the human realm? Your heart flurries with a lifetime of wondering what your true home was like. How ironic is it that he knew more of humans than you? That you’re the one asking him questions about your kind? “How long?” you ask first. “And why were you living there?” 

“Just for something my father wanted me to do,” he answers, “Somewhere around a decade, I believe.” 

He’d spent ten years there. Multiple things click into place—no wonder he’s so able to understand your human emotions. No wonder it feels as though you’ve been seen to a different degree by him than you’d ever known before. He’d spent years with your kind. “What is it like?” you say, not sure where to begin with your questions. 

He smiles fondly. “You wouldn’t even be able to believe me, pretty. You’ll just have to see it.” 

See it. “You’d take me there?” you say.  

“Of course,” Yeonjun says, frowning. He takes one of your hands into his, pressing a kiss to it. “You deserve to see it.” He presses another kiss to your skin, now at your wrist. The hair on your skin raises at the contact. His eyes find yours as he begins a slow ascent of kisses up your arm. Each is warm and sends your spine blazing. Once he reaches your shoulder, he slows down, leaving a long moment between kisses. He continues this pace—one that both makes you wish he’d slow down and that he’d hurry and quell your want—right up the juncture of your neck and up the column, too. His controlled breaths puff out like fire on your skin where his mouth lingers. You let your head back to help his path up. He places one final kiss at your jawline before his lips land on yours, drunken and in no rush at all.  

You can’t help the visceral urge to run your hands over his soft skin, to check if the warmth there was real or if you’d manifested it in your longing. Yeonjun breaks this lethargic kiss just to laugh, but he’s quick to recapture your lips. He meets your hand and brings it under his silken shirt, guiding you up the soft planes of his abdomen. 

Pushing you back, he whispers into your mouth, “I missed you so much, pretty.” 

You rememorize the gentle muscles of his stomach beneath your palm. “It was only so many days,” you tease, “you’re just horny.” 

He lets go of your hand to begin slipping down your dress from the shoulders. “Yeah?” he hums, gobbling up each inch of skin that he reveals. “I suppose I am. It’s a gift to be able to love you in this way.” Once the fabric is clear of your hips and he’s tugging it down your legs, his face turns sly. He studies your wettened core. “I think you missed me too, though, love.” 

You drag your bottom lip into your teeth. You had. Your chest thumps rhythmically in your chest, syncing like symphony with the throb between your thighs. 

Blood sings in your veins when he places his palm right on the boundary between your lower belly and your cunt. Your stomach soars, too, so excited by his touch so near where your body craves it. He runs it up, feeling the curves of your body, up to your breast. You expect him to stop and pay attention to your chest, but he presses his hand down right over your heart and feels its beating against his palm. His eyes flutter to a shut, and he leaves his hand there for a few moments, relishing in it.  

“What other purer form of love can I show you?” he says, tapping on your hip. “On your hands and knees, baby.” 

You flip, your limbs a bit clumsy in anticipation. Once you’ve found your way there, he dances his fingertips on the small of your spine. 

“Did you think of my touches while we were apart?” 

“Mhm,” you hum. Especially on the nights when the estate seemed the emptiest. Some nights, your fingers were just not enough to save you, and you’d contemplate making a big escape to find him.  

“Well, I shouldn’t make you wait too much longer then, huh?” he coos, running that hand down to ghost touches over your slit. Though minimal, you jolt. You’d been so ravenous for this. He’d worked his shirt off so that when he leans forward to meld his chest to your back, it’s his skin that touches yours, not fabric. His hand stays ghosting touches that leave you softly gasping. 

He teasingly pinches your clit, laughing in your hair at the sharp hiss it draws from you. “So reactive,” Yeonjun muses. His fingers find their way to your hole. He dips the middle two in. “Just like the first time we made love like this. Your lovely face is burned into my mind, pretty. You have such hungry eyes.” As he pushes his fingers in, he uses his free hand to tilt your face against the cushion so that he can better see your eyes. 

You sigh, shuddering and breathy, as he begins to curl his fingers. It only takes him a few curls to rediscover that spot that has sparks flying behind your eyes. 

“There?” he asks, chin on your shoulder. “That feel good, darling?” 

Your muscles tremble at their own accord, rendering your huffs trembled as well. “Yes,” you answer. Each meaningful curl hits its mark, knees unsteady pillars that dig into the cushions. “So—so good. Please don’t stop.”  

He maintains a sickening pace—your muscles twitch around his giving fingers, just enough so that your entire body buzzes and your stomach twists, but not enough to send you shaking yet. You collapse down from your elbows, chest in the cushions. He brushes back the hair that obscures your face with the movement, adamant to see your face.  

He eggs you on by curling deeper; faster. Your answering groan is shaky and tense—you can’t get enough of the knot he curates in your belly, but at the same time, it’s daunting. He sits back, but his fingers don’t falter. His free hand explores, feeling your body up for all the time he couldn’t.  

Stomach taut and brimming on your peak, you suck in a breath. Your orgasm sits so close, running a line of electricity from between your legs up to your spine, raising goosebumps on your skin.  

Your eyes fly open, mouth ready to scold, as Yeonjun pulls his fingers from you. Your chest bubbles up with frustration, your orgasm drifting off to somewhere else. “Why?” you ask, cheeks burning. It slips and slips away from you, hole twitching around nothing as if seeking out just enough stimulus to bring it crashing back. “I was so close.” 

His hand soothes the loss ever so slightly by circling your cunt, but he does not make the mistake of offering you any touch where you most need it. It only prolongs the float down, keeping you suspended. You abhor it.  

“Please,” you whine. 

He doesn’t entertain your whines. He only continues to deliver just enough to torment you until he’s sure that you’re not so wound up that you’ll cum the moment he touches you, and then he slides his fingers back in and begins building up a more tense knot with pointed curls. Your insides delight in the return of attention, falling almost instantly back into a brutal climb. Yeonjun doesn’t bother with languid, teasing strokes now. He aims for your ruining. 

You writhe against the cushions. Your heart is a fluttering bird in your chest, trilling at the prospect of your release. It’s so close—so close that you might be able to just touch it. It tastes like honey on your tongue, painting your words sweet. “Love you,” you tell him. “Love you so much.” 

Yeonjun rewards your sweetness with his free hand on your throbbing clit, sending your hands gripping at the cushions. You wiggle your hips helplessly in search of just the right amount of friction that it’ll finally give you want you’ve been wanting. “Yes,” you mewl. “Yes, so close—” 

“Wait, baby,” he commands from behind you. “It’ll feel so much better. I promise. Hold it back.” 

He reins in his touches once again, not stopping like last time. It’s not enough to put a stop to the orgasm rippling right under your skin, right at the edge of ripping through you. You can’t hold it back; it’s right there. 

“No,” he says, once again ripping his touch from you. It doesn’t stop anything—you go rigid just before it crashes over you, and then you’re shaking without his hands even on you. You cum with a vengeance—body reclaiming twofold what he had denied you.  

“Holy shit.” Yeonjun groans watching you come unraveled without his help. “So riled up that you’re cumming by yourself, pretty,” he says, running a hand around to feel your belly muscles twitching and the way they roll along with the twitches of your hips. He eggs on your orgasm with gentle touches at your clit, sending you jolting, until you’re a panting mess and he can tell that you’ve had enough. 

You attempt to push yourself off your chest, but he gently guides you back down with a palm against your back. “Stay there, pretty. You can handle a little more, right? You did so well, I know you can. Let me make love to you, darling.” 

The cushions are awfully warm against your skin and you’re still dealing with the waves of pleasure that drift up from your cunt, but you nod your head for him. “’Kay,” you say. 

The rustling behind you tells of how he’s slipping out of the rest of his attire. You lay boneless as he does, focusing on the waves running down your thighs. It’s ecstasy in its purest form. It floats through your veins, addling any consciousness and breaking you down into what you are at your core. 

The familiar prod at your entrance jolts you back to life. As he presses in, he presses a hand to your flushed cheek. It’s a welcome temperature difference—you feel set ablaze in some sort of languid flame, one that takes its time to consume you. He laughs softly. “You’re burning up,” he says as he bottoms out, as if the feeling of him filling you up isn’t rendering you jittery in anticipation. “Ready for me, pretty?” he teases, taking your hips into his hands. “I need you to make those pretty sounds for me. I want to know that they’re just as sweet as I remember them.” He punctuates his sentence with deep rolls of his hips, aiming where he knows will have you singing. 

You’re helpless to the chorus of ‘Oh's and ‘Yes’s that he draws from you, the smacking of his hips and your sweet moans much too loud for you. You dread the thought of his servants hearing you and push your face into the cushions, muffling the array of sounds that bubble over. It’s all you can do—you could hardly contain your sounds. 

Your scalp strains as he tugs your head back, tugging your face from the cushion. “None of that, love. I waited too long for that. Don’t hide your pretty voice.”  

You shake your head. “Too loud,” you pant. “They’re gonna hear.” 

“I don’t care who hears you. Let me hear how good I’m making you feel, or I’m going to stop. Do you want me to stop?” His fingers cling to your soft hips, betraying how much this is affecting him. You know that he hardly wants to stop. 

You’re turned to mush, though. In this moment, being heard feels nowhere near as awful as Yeonjun ceasing those dizzying thrusts. You shake your head, scalp aching against the movement. “No,” you say, breathless.  

“That’s what I thought,” Yeonjun taunts, letting your cheek drop back into the fabric. “Let them hear our love. Let them hear how real it is, darling. Louder.”  

You tentatively let your sounds out into the thick air, but he decides that it’s not enough for him. Taking his hand off your hip to brace himself on the seat’s plush armrest, he doubles down his thrusts, feverish and desperate to guide you both to a beautifully explosive end. Your mouth drops open, unfiltered words and sounds spilling out from your chest as you grab at the cushions for help. With the hand that he doesn’t use to deliver those wild thrusts, he encases your hand in his own, threading his fingers between yours.  

For a few more incandescent moments, Yeonjun’s room only consists of your unabashed cries, his alternating grunts and whines, the rhythmic and hollow smacks of his hips to your skin, and the musk of your passion. Frantic bodies dance against each other, skin against skin in the purest way. Your thighs tremble pathetically, his cock brushing against your sweet spot until you squeeze your eyes shut and ride out the quivering of your cunt around him. You squeeze his hand as you shake. 

“Yes,” his pretty voice whines, “Just like that.”  

Picking up his pace, he chases to join you in your orgasm. He pants behind you, desperately fucking into you until his hips stutter and he stills, falling into your shoulder to deliver needy rolls and shooting warm spurts of his release into you.  

You two stay like this for some unhurried moments. You focus on his heartbeat; feeling it thudding against your back reminds you that he is real, and he is love. You hold his hand in yours a little tighter. 

❉

“I doubt that this will go exactly as you believe it will,” Beomgyu says, watching you do your hair up. Your eyes meet his in the vanity’s mirror.  

Arms burning as your hold them over your head, your words come out clipped with the ache. “It worked yesterday, didn’t it?” you say. You push a filigree comb into your hair to secure it up. “I got back hours before he did.” 

“I’m not saying that Taehyun is right,” he says, “but I think that it would do us both a favor if you practice a bit more precaution.” 

“What, are you afraid of Taehyun?” you ask, raising your brows at him in the reflection.  

Your taunt hits its mark, Beomgyu shifting in your bed and scowling. “Of Taehyun, never,” he parries, “of the fact that he could ask me to do anything and I’d do it, yes.” He shakes out his lightly matted tresses, a habit you’ve noticed over the passing weeks. “I played a little too closely to the fire with him once, and it landed me like this: no longer the owner of my being. I’d sooner chew off my own fingers than become his obedient dog, but I believe you also know that it’s best to soar low with this, no? Are we not together in this?” 

You press your lips into a thin line. In a way, you’d come to an alliance of sorts with Beomgyu. Despite his being a kelpie, the two of you are not so different now. Both confined to these walls, listening to Taehyun when he commands it. You don’t want any of your actions to snap back on Beomgyu, though. With you attending Court today, it’s almost definite that Taehyun will see you. You turn to face him. “Why don’t you join us, then?” you offer. “I’ll tell him myself that I commanded you to come with me. I’m sure he’ll be less upset if I have you there with me.” 

He gives it a thought, his eyes looking as tired and sunken as they always do. “I’m not one for Court,” he says. 

“But I’ll be there,” you plead, unable to help the twitching of smirk on your lips. “If we do it together, it can’t be so bad.” 

He frowns, but you can see that you’ve won. “I grieve for how the forest left me to my own,” Beomgyu grumbles. 

You surge up from your seat, eyes bright. “You’ll go?” you say, giddy to return to the thrill of faerie revelry and also to see the strange kelpie in the center of it. 

Grimacing, he answers, “I will join you.” 

You take his hands into yours and press a cheeky kiss to his forehead. “You’re not so scary as you try to paint yourself,” you tell him, watching as he catches bait. You laugh as he glowers. 

“Don’t push it.” He climbs off your bed. “I’m scarier than you should imagine, girl. I do this for my own reasons.” 

You pull a patronizing frown and nod. “Of course, I know.” 

You don’t have to wait for him to get ready to any capacity; he tells you that he has no intentions of making any impressions, and you’ve seen faeries in far more drastic states of disarray. Many show up for their reveling in just their skin. 

Beomgyu drones on about how he detests the audaciousness of the gentry folk while you make for the hall. The forest around you is as quiet as you remember it being when you’d first met him. It reminds you that, no matter how used you become to him, he is a creature to be feared. The little folk are right to hide away. For you, though, his might is a relief: should Taehyun be right, you’ll be safe. He moves at your beck and call. Though, the thought of forcing the kelpie to carry out your will is an uneasy one that you do not strive to fulfill. 

Once the buzzing of Court comes into earshot, wonderful faerie music along with it, you breathe it in. “First time in... how long since you’ve shown your face here?” 

“Perhaps four-hundred-something years,” he answers, looking over the scene with as much distaste in his face as his voice. “We solitary folk don’t make ourselves known here unless to bow to a crown. I do not bow to any crown.” 

Itching to find your prince, you gesture toward it. He should be fine—Court is supposed to be an insouciant place. “Don’t they host anybody who decides to come? Faerie hospitality, and all that? You’ll be fine.” 

“It’s all hospitality until you step foot from those trees,” he says. “And even hospitality is sometimes betrayed. You know how capricious we can be, I’m sure.”  

You approach the warm lights, but his words remain with you. It beckons you to remember that their minds are fickle and fundamentally different from yours. However you think they may act, they might act in the complete opposite way. You should at least let that guide how you conduct your actions a little bit. 

As you breach the pillars of trees and are finally surrounded once again by their pinched faces and gangly limbs, you search for both Taehyun and Yeonjun. You see neither, and so you make your way to the tables to seek snacks. You scour them for something sweet to chew over as you wait for him to appear. He’d said he’d be coming around this time, right? You surely hadn’t mistaken the time he’d told you? 

Beomgyu speaks from beside you, observing a hag that loiters nearby. “Is he not here?” he asks. 

Shrugging, you say, “He’ll be here soon.”  

You watch the hag inching closer, bent over with age; though, you assume that’s she’s been old for the entirety of her life. Her pointed ears droop from her thin tresses of silver, cuffed with gold.  

Turning from her, you gesture over the cavorting crowds, more frantically chasing their merriments than ever before. The solstice arrives tomorrow; they welcome its presence with their excitement. “This is all for the solstice?” 

He offers you an affirmative nod. “Just some excuse to entertain themselves like this,” he explains, “the solstice will arrive whether they encourage its coming or not. I believe that they just enjoy this debauchery too much.” His hollow eyes rake over the throngs. “Anyway, many of them are just here because it’s the only time that they’ll see Court. Otherwise, only the gentry gather here.” 

“What makes you any different than them?” you ask. “What makes you so averse to offering your allegiance to the High Courts? Would it not be nice to have their protection, and to keep them off your back?” You seek Yeonjun once more in the crowds, but still, he doesn’t appear. “You know, so they don’t call you in for things like eating too much?” 

“I do not surrender my sovereignty to any. Come they to my doorstep and demand that I do, I could not care. I’m content with the way I make my life.”  

His refusal to do just that must be why Taehyun’s father had come to claim his life. You’re sure that it’s also why the coming of the General’s son to steal his autonomy must’ve made him so angry. You don’t blame him.  

Why would The Queen demand fealty from the solitary folk? You’d thought that, like the High King, she’d leave them to their forests. If they’re all as adamant as Beomgyu, it seems like a lost cause. 

“Well,” you say, “I’m glad that—” 

A gnarled hand, fingers knobbed against your skin and skin about as soft as tree bark, tugs your arm. You spin to find who owns it.  

The hag’s eyes remind you of Beomgyu’s, piercing and dull with the weight of a long life. Though, hers are much more unsightly than his mud-brown ones, saggy eyelids drooping over a pair of eyes with ink-black where the whites of her eyes should be. She pulls you toward her by your skirts.  

You tug yourself back, pinching your brows. “Who are you?” 

She points her clawed, grey hand out at you, bangles of gold and chunky beads jingling as she does. “You, girl,” the hag says, urgent. Her voice is harsh and it crackles as she speaks. She reaches inside of her furry robes and produces a wood trinket from it. In her palm that she shoves at you lays a bit of wood carved into the shape of a wolf, painted in black. Its shaggy black fur reminds you of the kind Taehyun would sometimes wear over his shoulder.  

“I don’t need that,” you say, rejecting her hand. Nothing in faerie comes for free—the hag just sees a human girl that she can offer free things to in hopes that you’ll know no better and take. Then, you’d be in her debt, and she’d demand something from you. You do know better, though. 

“Oh,” she says, shaking her head as she draws out the word. “You do, girl. Take it, take it. You need it, I know it. Take it, I won’t hold it to you, girl, just have it.” Razor teeth appear behind her curled lips. “It is dormant with me. But, in your hands... Take it.” She shakes her jousted hand out at you each time she demands that you take it. “It offers you protection. It would do no good in my possession. It beckons me to give it to you, its pleas are so loud—loud, loud, loud! Take it off my hand, won’t you?” 

Her urging unsettles you, but so do her words. You assume that it’s inlaid with some sort of protective enchantment. Why would you need protection? Although, she could also just be fooling you. She could be holding a perfectly plain hunk of carved wood in her palm for all you know. You shoot a look at Beomgyu. If she were any trouble, he’d tell you. 

He looks about as lost as you do, shrugging. 

“Oh, sakes!” the hag grumbles, clutching her robes to her body. She takes Beomgyu’s hands and places the thing there. “There. I have no reasons to be here fooling humans. Useless debts, what could you give me? Nothing I need.” She points a sturdy, twiggy finger at you. “Keep it on you, girl, else it won’t do its work.” 

With those final ill-boding words, the hag hobbles off, her curved back disappearing between the gaps in the crowd. 

“Here,” Beomgyu says, regarding the trinket with his observation. “That hag really wanted this to be yours, so I think it ought to be in your hands.” He tries pushing it off to you. 

Laughing, you don’t reach out to take it, darting his hand with your whole body. You hang your hands in the air. “I’m not taking that thing,” you say. “She handed it to you, so I really think it ought to be in your hands.” 

He deadpans. “I’ve just been collecting myself a heap of debts, haven’t I?” He closes it into his fist for his lack of pockets. “What’s this one to add?” 

“Does it... feel like it has anything bad on it?” you ask, remembering how he’d identified your geas. “Like a curse, or a bad enchantment, or something?” 

Shaking his head, he says, “No. I feel it does have a protective purpose, but the magic there is... odd. Hard for me to decipher. Probably that hag’s.”  

You purse your lips, nodding. Regardless, whatever protection that thing might have offered you, you’ll be fine without it. 

Shaking off the odd interaction, you resume perusing the snack platters in your wait. You skip over glazed pinecones. Those would be terrible on your human stomach and teeth. You can only imagine how they’d jab at your gums. You opt for a helping of braised fiddlehead ferns. Chewing on the furled thing, you entertain yourself with the revelers. Littler folk dart in and out of legs. Long-limbed gentryfolk with flowers in their hair spin with interlocked hands at the center of the clamor. Sharp-eyed faeries with even sharper mouths speak in clusters, no doubt scheming. In all its oddness, you’d missed it.  

 A silk-smooth voice steals your attention. “A kelpie?” Yeonjun says, regarding Beomgyu beside you. “Now, how did you manage to befriend a kelpie? Even better, how did you drag it here?” 

Your chest lights up. “Long story,” you say, brushing his curiosity off. “What took you so long?”  

He’s dressed in his Courtly best—cuffs made of ruffle and an array of rings decorating his fingers. They catch light as he brings his hand up to run a hand along the expanse of your collarbone. He hesitates to answer for a split second. “I ran into Kai on my way,” he explains. “He’s performing here today and for tomorrow's solstice.” 

Accepting his answer, you go to tell Beomgyu that you’re going off, but he’s not even there as you turn. He must’ve wandered off as Yeonjun had arrived. 

“Want to join them?” he asks, tilting his head toward the dancing bodies. Soft black strands drift over his eyes.  

Shaking your head, you offer him some of the sweets you’d been eyeing, knowing that he’s got a knack for sweets. “Not today. I think I want to remember all of tonight, and, well...” Memories of the way you’d danced uncontrollably until it’d fade to black lick at your mind. You want to revel in your return to normalcy fully, not with a buzzing mind. You can’t deny the allure of that tingling in your bones as you hear the faerie music, though. It curls a wild finger at you, beckoning. 

An uncomfortable look passes through his eyes, gone as fast as it had come. “All right, darling,” he hums, accepting the sweets. “Does the Lord know you’re here?” 

Lips tugging into a faint frown, you say, “Not yet, I think.” The quick expression doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Unlike the ice the Taehyun offers you, Yeonjun wears his feelings all over himself. It’s just one way that they are fundamentally different. “Is something wrong?” 

Yeonjun looks taken aback at your asking. “I’m doing just fine,” he says. “Why do you ask?” 

He does not say nothing wrong. You know it is because he cannot lie. You look him over. What had happened? And, why is he averse to telling you the truth? “Just thought you looked a bit upset.” You shrug. “Did you want to dance?” 

His nose crinkles with a laugh. “No, pretty. I’d be in your presence doing nothing and still be content.” He takes your hands into his, the metal on his fingers biting cold against your skin. “How about we go listen to Kai play?” 

He leads you to where the musicians work at concocting their works, claiming a chalice of some drink from a table on the way. Kai, of course, stands away from the rest, back to a tree while his fingers dance on the strings. You look around for Taehyun from here, but still, you don’t see his face. 

Yeonjun holds the chalice’s neck between his middle two fingers, sipping from it. “It’s nice to know that even as this season ends, I won’t be forced to go back there.” 

His pretty lips wrap over the edge of the chalice as he drinks from it. “Won’t your father know something is up when you return?” 

Nodding slowly, he grimaces. “I suppose that time has finally come.” 

You squeeze his hand in yours. “We both sacrificed things to be here, huh?” you say. You don’t know a lot of what Yeonjun’s life back in his home court was like, but you know that it would be hard to revolt against your own family for anybody. Even for the prince of Faerie. 

He captures your eyes, his soft brown ones making crescents with his gentle smile. “We did,” he muses. 

“Remember our first night in Court?” you say. You’d been so uneasy, searching for a place to fit in. Then, from the crowds of overwhelming faces, he’d appeared, all charm and welcoming smiles. How couldn’t you have let your heart fall? 

Another flash of disconcertment flashes, his smile faltering. He hides it behind another sip of his drink. Swallowing, he nods, laughing off-kilter. “I do. I think watching you dance that time was the best thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Odd, but you don’t push the issue. If he says that he’s fine, it must just be something to little effect. “What made you come up to me that night?” you say, remembering how confused you’d been when such a pretty gentry boy had taken interest in you. You’d agonized over why he’d done so for long, and sometimes you still, but you’ve made some peace with it by now.  

His lips are tight. “I... It’s hard to explain.” 

You accept that answer at face-value and let your head fall into his shoulder while you watch Kai dutifully work at his songmaking. Among those making the music for Court, his contributions stand out as the most enthralling. Faerie music is too elusive for you to decipher why, but perhaps it’s just his lazed passion. “I understand,” you say. His shoulder is tight and less cushy than you expect it to be. Looking up to him, you frown to see how he’s looking down at you, eyes stormy. He looks like he’s sick to his stomach. You go to ask if he’s going to be okay, but he speaks before you can. 

“Pretty, I... I have to tell you something.” He pulls you off of him to look into your eyes. He’s always been so steadfast and sure, but now his gaze wavers. “I’m so sorry.” 

Your stomach drops. You don’t like the way he’s looking at you. “What?” you say, a tingle in your spine telling you that something isn’t right; that you’re not going to like what he’s going to say. “Yeonjun, you’re making me nervous. Is something wrong?” 

You know it’s awful and you’re not sure why you do it, but for a split second, you inspect the hall for possible attackers. A terrible bout of potent adrenaline makes you want to run or cry. Beomgyu is here, right? 

He swallows hard, face a ghostly pallor. “I can’t keep doing this,” he says, voice trembling. “I need to tell you the truth, it’s... it’s been eating me alive. I can’t look into your sweet face and know...” 

Acid climbs up your throat. Your heart joins it, thick in your throat and choking you. “What? Know what Yeonjun?” you ask, lips trembling. Your skin prickles, hair raising. You may throw up. He looks stricken in place, not answering you. “What?” you demand. 

“I didn’t come up to you for no reason that day.” 

Your heart, still caught in your throat, bursts. It’s a horrifying, bloody affair. “No,” you say, shaking your head. You feel so removed from your body that you can almost envision how your blood-drained face might match his. 

“I knew that you were the spies the moment I saw you. It was....” He sucks in a breath. Your world spins around you as you wait. “I was supposed to determine who the spies were. I was supposed to have them killed, but pretty, I knew I couldn’t do that the moment I saw you. I thought it was just going to be some... some random faerie that I’d...” 

If your world was spinning before, it’s now flipped upside down and inverted. “No,” you repeat, a guttural plea that you know won’t change anything. It’s the only word that your mouth will make for right now, though. 

You’re hurt. You’re scared. You’re angry. You’re frozen. 

Yeonjun grabs for your hands, but you rip yourself away from him, your glaring eyes so at odds with your wobbling lips. “It doesn’t change anything,” he says. “It doesn’t change how I love you now. You know I love you. You know I love you, right? I’m so sorry. I would never hurt you. I did my best to protect you. Please, I never wanted to hurt you,” he rambles, frantically grabbing for your arms as he falls down to his knees before you. 

A few faeries around you gasp, and a blur of their commotion forms around you. The crowned prince of Faerie just went to his knees. Your eyes dart wildly around their guffawing faces, and between a space you spot a familiar face: cold eyes and a cracked mask of indifference. He looks right at you. 

What on earth is going on? How is this life right now? You snap back to Yeonjun in front of you. 

“Please, don’t look at me like that, pretty,” he pleads. “Please.” His voice cracks, eyes frantic. “Slap me. Tell me you hate me for it. But please, don’t look at me like you’re scared of me.” 

Tears scald your cheeks. 

“I know that it’s selfish of me to ask you that; I know, I know it—but please, I can’t handle it, love. I was never going to let anything happen to you, I knew it the moment I saw you. I felt it right here”—he gestures to his beating heart, the one your hand had felt and cherished so only last night—“I knew that no matter how big my ambitions were, they would never be bigger than that.” 

You can’t listen to any more. His words pour out onto your skin, but they all slip off like rain upon a beast’s winter pelt. None can penetrate the ringing in your ears. 

Yeonjun sees how retracted you’ve become. “Pretty, please,” he says, slower and more dire now. “Say something." 

You don’t know what to do. Your feet are rooted fast to the ground, but you know that you have to leave, or else you’ll start creating excuses for him. You know yourself too well to let that happen. 

Picking up your skirts, you manage only a few words to part him with. “Though your kind can’t lie,” you say, “you have been the biggest liar I have ever known. You said you loved me.” 

“I do,” he says, shaking his head, eyes twinkling. “I do.” 

Maybe love is a different thing to a faerie. 

You take off. He calls for you, but it’s muffled by the restlessness of the folk around you and the still-playing music. You dart between openings and bounce off bodies, lights and angry faces a blur in your frenzy. Most folk don’t spare you even a glance; nothing could pull them from their merriment. But others gawk at you like you put on a performance, greedy eyes drinking in any amount of fanfare. Their eyes itch under your skin. Crossing the expanse of the hall has never felt so arduous.  

You’ve become their spectacle. 

Breaking into the cold night air, you don’t run home or collapse to your knees in a sob. You hold your dress hard in your hands, the one he’d gifted you among so many others, its fabric bunching in your fists, and stand there as if frozen staring into the tree line ahead. You don’t move and you don’t think; both would remind you that this is real and that you are a fool. You just allow the bitter air to swaddle your skin. 

You don’t even know if you doubt that he loves you. You don’t even know if he actually never intended to hurt you. Had there been times where all you’d done was look at him with starry eyes, and he’d look at you deciding whether or not to have you killed? 

Why are you even here? There is nothing left for you. Whatever simple joys you thought you’d found, they’re gone. You’re so far away from home, and you’ve nobody to call home. You’d left behind your beginnings of a purpose, and now the only purpose you serve is to rot away in Taehyun’s estate because you demanded that you stay here. 

All that time you’d spent worrying, and still, you walked yourself into this. You’re a joke. 

White breaths unfurl into the night air before you, floating off to join the snowflakes and heavy fog. You just watch those fluffy flakes fall for a while. 

Snow creaks under a few footsteps behind you, someone letting you know that they’re there. “You’ve gotten awfully good at sneaking around,” Taehyun says. 

You let your head fall back, sighing slowly out through your nose. Turning to him, you spit, “I understand. You were right. I got it, okay? I don’t need you to come here and rub it in.” 

Beomgyu approaches from behind Taehyun. 

Taehyun doesn’t say anything for a bit, ice-hard eyes darting all over your face. “Take her back to the estate,” he tells Beomgyu. 

Glad to escape him, you begin your way on your own. You know that he’s only looking at your break down as pathetic. Perhaps it is, but recognizing that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Wind lapping at your wet cheeks have them stinging as you walk. 

Beomgyu awkwardly trails behind you as you follow the path that had become trodden in the time that you and Taehyun have been here, foliage and shrubbery broken down to make somewhat of a path. 

He doesn’t speak; you don’t expect him to. Instead, you break the quiet yourself, unable to stand only the sound of wind twirling between trees. “I should’ve taken that ridiculous charm thing,” you say, laughing through your tears. That hag had absolutely been able to feel what was coming with you with whatever intuition that the magic in her bones lends her. 

“But then,” Beomgyu says, “you wouldn’t know the truth.” 

That’s true. Not knowing the truth doesn’t make it untrue, but at least it spares your fragile heart. “I don’t know if I’d mind that,” you tell him. “I think I’d prefer it.” 

Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes. 

❉

You don’t remember falling asleep. You remember climbing into your bed, dreading that you’ll be in your head all night, but to some mercy, you’d found sleep not long after that. 

You’d pulled yourself from bed, no matter how it had grown a gravitational pull and insisted that it’d hold you warm while you weep. If you hadn’t, you might not have gotten up at all. As a girl, you’d force yourself into the day’s routine when you had your worst days. It’s the only way that you live through it. You’d also made an effort to walk past your wardrobe. It carries so much of him: the lovely things he’d gifted you, his letters, and that book he’d lent you. It’s not that you don’t want any of these things; to wither away in your bed, to go through his things and wonder how someone who’d showered you so had meant to be your killer, to drag your feet... It’s that you can’t. 

You poke your needle through the fabric. On the cut of white fabric stretched inside the embroidery hoop, you’ve embroidered a dozen woven wheel stitch flowers of different colors and types. Your bottom aches against the hardwood flooring and your lower spine strains, but you don’t pay any mind to their complaining. You just continue to embroider the little flowers. Some are poppy, some rose, and some you’d made up just to have more to stitch. 

A knock resounds through the war room from the doorway. You look to see Taehyun there. He’s dressed in his Court attire. 

“You should get dressed,” he says. “It’s almost midnight. If you want to make it in time, you’ve got to get ready now.” 

Since when had he decided that you’re okay to go? It’s as if this elusive threat that’d he’d been so careful has up and disappeared. “You can go. It’ll take me too long to get ready.” 

Truth be told, you’d go sick seeing Yeonjun’s face, and you know without a doubt that you would. 

“It’s the solstice,” Taehyun says, stepping into the room. He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. 

Despite how much you had wanted to see it, your heart is too apathetic for it to be worth anything now. Returning to the same faces that had seen your demonstration and no doubt now talk of it... You’d rather finish your fifth rose. “I know.” 

He hesitates, studying you while gears turn in his head. “Hadn’t you thought that something would happen on the solstice?” he says. “Come on. It’s worth seeing how this unfolds.” 

“Why? We aren’t spies anymore. I don’t care what happens in their conflict. It’s well beyond my control as a human here.” 

He grimaces, but you don’t recognize the look there to be anger, more a rigidness. He rests his hand on his sword as he always does. “Then we’ll stay here.” 

You furrow your brows. “Huh?” 

“We can celebrate the solstice here,” he elaborates. “We don’t need to do it there. Plenty of folk celebrate on their own.” 

It dawns upon you that this is his stilted attempt at comforting you. It’s the only way he knows how. You push off the ground. You couldn’t ignore this sliver, however little, of tenderness. You’re not sure if you’d ever see it again if you did. You’ll take anything to distract your mind, as well. You can’t escape the image of Yeonjun’s eyes as he’d pleaded with you from the ground. “I’m not sure Beomgyu will join us, though. He doesn’t believe in the need to celebrate the solstices.” 

“He will if I command it,” he says.  

“What, you’re going to command the poor kelpie to sit and watch a bonfire with us?” you say, imagining how he’d brood. 

The north is wickedly cold at all times, but it’s especially so after night falls. You shuffle closer to the bonfire that Taehyun had built. It’s multitudes smaller than the bonfire you’d sat around with Yeonjun, but it’s warm enough for just the two of you. You quickly shove down those tainted memories before they sting. A lump of emotion forms in your throat before you can, though. You clear it. “Is there anything special that you’re supposed to do?” 

Feeding one last log into the flame, he watches it catch. “We started this really early,” he says. “The fire is supposed to keep you warm and represent the sun’s warmth until sunrise...” He trails off, sliding the cuffs of his shirt that he’d slid up to his elbows to tend to the fire down and sucking in an awkward breath. He looks between the fire and you as though he’d not fully thought out his offer when he’d made it. 

You face your palms to the orange flame, letting the roiling waves of heat warm them. “It’s nice like this.” 

The flame sizzles and pops, spewing sparks and eating up the wood, for a few long moments. You’re not in a talky mood, and Taehyun doesn’t seem to know where to begin on conversation with you that isn't functional. No snow falls around you, and any wind is cut by the estate. This—a place to lose yourself to your mind—is both the thing you need and what you most should not have. 

Taehyun stands watching the fire twirling, his arms over his chest.  

“Is your shoulder healing fine?” you ask, once the air starts feeling a bit heavy with the weight of the prolonged quiet. “Are my stitches holding up fine? No infection, or anything?” 

His gaze flicks up to you. “You stitched it up pretty well,” he answers. “I saw the flowers you were making. You’ve got a good hand.” 

Frowning, you say, “You didn’t say it’s not infected...” 

“It’s not infected,” he says. 

That could be a lie or the truth, you know. But... this sort of deception, you’re more comfortable with. Your human mind can pick up on these subtleties, can catch the careful intonation of somebody trying to hide something behind a lie. “Could I see it?” you ask him. 

He hesitates, expression flat as his eyes convey the extent of his consideration. “You can.” He grabs at his tunic, the fabric the only thing his frost blood even needs to wear out in the cold, and pulls it over his head. 

You swallow hard and fight the flush to your cheeks at the sight of his scar-flecked flesh, his muscled abdomen disappearing as he turns around to show you his back. When you’d last seen his bare skin, you’d been so high on your fear and adrenaline that you’d barely flinched.  

Blinking, you focus on the arrow puncture at his shoulder blade. It’s done some healing, but tinged by an angry red and visibly swollen around the stitches. You curse. 

Of course, he’d rather let his shoulder rot away than admit that he needs any more of your help than he’d been forced to allow. That would require admitting that he’s not just an impenetrable wall of ice. “That is definitely infected,” you say. “Were you just going to let that kill you? Infections like that are beyond help once they get in your bloodstream.” 

“I’ve had infected wounds before,” he says, preparing to put his shirt back on. “This one is nothing. It’ll take a bit longer, but... It’ll heal up fine.” 

You grab his arm. “Just let me clean it a bit,” you insist. “It’s not that big of a deal. You’re not scared that it’s gonna hurt, are you?” 

Sighing, Taehyun says, “I thought you wanted to enjoy the solstice.” 

The hopeful girl you’d been had wanted that, but now it’s just a reminder of everything you don’t want to remember. You wave your hair in the air dismissively. “We did. Come on.” 

You find a bucket to fill with water and cloth along with some stash of ancient spirits in the kitchens, their containers lined with a layer of dust so thick that you know they’re left over from Taehyun’s father. He watches you gather it all. 

You beckon him to turn and show you his shoulder again. He does, bracing his arms on a counter and letting his head hang. You spill out some of that strong liquor into the wound. You’re not really sure if it’ll work as a disinfectant, but as a girl you’d seen an older woman pour it over her wound once, and it’s all you know. 

Gently dabbing at his shoulder now with the water-soaked rag, swollen except for where the stitches sinch it, you say, “You should’ve been going gentle on this thing.” 

Taehyun doesn’t make any fuss as you prod at the wound. “I had more important things to concern myself with,” he says plainly. You press the wet rag to the wound and hold it there, and he begins to try and redirect the conversation to anything other than about himself. “What did the prince say to you at Court?” 

Your stomach drops. “It was nothing.” 

“I know that’s not the truth,” he says, picking up his head to try and look over his shoulder at you. “Tell me the truth.” 

You take the long, torn strips of cloth and begin wrapping it around the expanse of his broad shoulders in a sloppy and amateurish wrap. As long as it shields the wound, it’ll work. “That’s rich coming from you,” you say. “There’s plenty that you lie to me about. You even lied about this.” You tap his shoulder. 

Turning now that you’re done, Taehyun eyes you. You don’t know if he’d been able to hear anything over the sounds of Court or if he’d heard it all with his better hearing ears. You can’t tell which it is.  

“I’ll hear it from some Court gossiper anyway. I think you’d prefer to tell me it yourself.” 

The thought of that scene being a topic of Court gossip makes you ill, but you know that it’s true. The folk love the show, especially one that includes a prince of Faerie on his knees in front of a human. Red-hot embarrassment takes a leisurely stroll up your spine. Your biggest fear has taken flesh in the cruelest way possible.  

Well, if he’s going to end up knowing anyway... You’d prefer it’s from your mouth. You don’t know what sort of conflated half-truths the folk might come up with, since they have no more idea what happened than what they saw. “He was supposed to kill us,” you say, chest too tight to explain it in any depth. “Or, at least, find out who we are, so that we could be killed.” 

Taehyun doesn’t look shocked. He nods. “So, they anticipated our arrival, then. The odds had been stacked against us from the beginning.” 

You nod. Would you have been able to escape? If things had never become entangled between you and Yeonjun, would you and Taehyun lived beyond the first day? Taehyun is strong and you know that he’s no doubt survived plenty in his life, but you’d have been caught completely unaware. “Yeah.” 

“I told you that he’d show you his colors eventually.” 

You want to fight him on that, but you can’t. You have nothing to say. He’d been right. 

What’s left for you now that he has?  

END PART 4

a/n: RAHHH! like i said, this part gave me a bit of grief because part 3 was left so open ended—i had so many options and paths i could follow, but ultimately, i chose this one! how do we feel?

taglist: @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @sanshiningstarhwa , @hyucktapes ,

[alatusprinz]

trivial things they do that make you fall in love all over again

genre : fluff ( modern au, committed relationships? )

characters : xiao , cyno, kaedehara kazuha , tighnari , scaramouche x f!reader

albedo takes care of you in ways you never knew you needed. your powerbank, airpods or phone is never out of battery because he charges them when you're in the shower or sleeping. he can guess what you want for dinner from the way you're texting, and often has exactly what you've been craving for before you ever told him what you wanted to eat. he restocks everything in your home before anything ever runs out. takes and edits THE BEST insta-worthy pictures of you, everyone wonders if you hired a professional now. brings you your favorite snack and/or drink every time he goes to the convenience store because he is just so smitten he can't spend a minute without thinking about you. remembers your birthday, the date of the day you two first held hands, kissed and everything, the dates are engraved into his memory and he does mini-celebrations every single year no matter how much time has passed. sometimes, he comes behind you when you're busy with work and starts brushing your hair, and maybe braid them if you'd let him. he's amazingly good at styling your hair, then when he's done, he'll kiss you on the top of your head and whisper how beautiful you are, the most breathtaking person to walk this world.

tighnari, after being with you for a while, can read you like an open book. just as you're about to leave the house, he'll remind you something you were about to forget just now. he knows when you've had a bad day from the way you close the door, so he's bringing you a cup of tea and pulling you in a gentle hug without a single word needed. he knows exactly what you're thinking, too much to the point where you two say so many words at the same time. the longer he spends time with you, the more he finds himself syncing to your mannerisms- and frankly, he loves it. when you accidentally fall asleep while waiting for him to finalize his work, he'll gently cover you with a blanket (and if you wear glasses, he'll take them off gently and put them next to you with a kiss on your forehead.) he may not verbalize it often but you have him completely wrapped around your finger, he can't go through his day without searching for your presence every corner he turns. also, he would never let you go to sleep with tears in your eyes, no. over his dead body. no matter how bad the argument would be, tighnari would make sure you two were at least on surface-level understanding before comforting and apologizing to you before going to sleep with a gentle promise of discussing it again when you're both more rational tomorrow. grows different types of flowers and names them after you. tugs them behind your ear when they grow and bloom.

kazuha spoils you without explicitly meaning it. always lets you have the aux in his car and if he's playing music, always has your new favorite songs saved in his playlist so you two can both enjoy. he carries an extra set of mittens and scarf for you in case you're cold every single time you two go out on a date in winter. brings you peeled/sliced fruit when you're working and sometimes feeds them to you if you're too busy. when he's waking you up from your nap, he kneels next to the bed and kisses your cheeks and forehead while gently whispering sweet nothings until you're awake instead of leaning over. on a snowy winter day, he'll draw a heart in front of your window by his footprints on the fresh snow and call you over to make you see the giant (kind of unshapely) heart. still opens every single door for you after years and years of being together. buys you flowers and heartfelt gifts without ever needing a reason to because you being in his life is the greatest joy he has ever experienced. and if marriage is something you want, even after marriage, kazuha will never stop calling you endearments, saying i love you every day, and take you out on a date once a week at the very least. will gladly freeze for the night if you hog the blanket accidentally, and when you fall asleep while hugging his arm, he'd adore how cute you look while sleeping and gladly ignore/forget about his arm going numb because he doesn't have the heart to move you while you're sleeping.

scaramouche's affection is so lowkey that you need to pay attention if you want to notice. he always lets you walk on the inside of the sidewalk. he covers sharp corners of the table when you lean down. he gets you that concert ticket that's sold out within seconds somehow and leaves them in one of your lecture notes for you to find out yourself ( and has one for himself too, half to annoy you and half because he secretly loves seeing how happy you look at that concert). flicks your forehead every time when you start talking bad things about yourself in attempt to soothe your insecurities. argues with you about you "stealing his hoodies/sweatshirts" all the time but it's him who leaves them in your room secretly when you aren't looking, then claim he "forgot it" just because he loves seeing you in his clothes. once fought a guy who was trying to buy the last piece of snack you liked at a convenience store and successfully brought you the snacks- you never found out what happened to the other dude. he pauses the netflix whenever you leave the room even for 2 seconds. steals your jewelry sometimes (because it reminds him of you throughout the day), and dresses so well to the point he looks better in it than you do.

xiao, if you pay enough attention, shows every second of the day how smitten he is for you already. he texts you good morning the second he wakes up, and the last one to say good night. sends you random memes and cute pictures of animals and tag you with "looks like you" or if there's a picture of a cute animal couple, sometimes with "us." if you text him "my head kinda hurts ugh", he'll leave you on read for 20 minutes and by the time you're wondering what he's doing, you'll see him knocking at your door with painkillers, homemade stew, and a slice of cake he knows you like. extremely light sleeper so when you sleep together and you can't sleep or you're having a nightmare, he wakes up immediately and comforts you, shushing your tears away and hugging you, playing with your hair until you fall asleep. every time when he's coming over to your house, he has something he knows you like (a drink from your favorite cafe, your favorite desert, book or maybe a spare hoodie of his). brings you random pretty rocks and small stuffed dolls, pretty much everything he sees and reminds him of you- he will buy and give it as a present to you. knows you have like half his closet already but doesn't have the heart to ask for his clothes back because you seem so happy wearing them. sometimes calls you at midnight and takes you for a spontaneous motorcycle ride, and take you where the night view is the prettiest. wears that promise ring you got for him 3 years ago religiously every single day. talks to you how much he loves you and how much he wishes you'll stay by his side forever when he thinks you're sleeping (ps. you're not).

cyno, while he doesn't look like it, is the biggest simp if you see through his stoic exterior. he worships the ground you walk on, is willing to do nearly anything just to see you happy and healthy. he will listen to you talk and rant about things he has no idea about for hours or days if needed- not just listen passing-by, he never takes his eyes off you, and listens to every single word with great attention. he's also a living heater so he always warms up your freezing hands and feet without a single complaint. gives the best hugs, and he smells so good too, he will always be the comfort person you needed when you had nobody else to turn to. gives you his jacket even if it's minus 30 celsius outside and INSISTS he isn't cold, even if his nose is clearly turning red. carries the shopping bags for you even if you insist he doesn't need to, he really doesn't want to make you lift anything heavy. if you two order at a restaurant and you don't like your food, he'll gladly switch with yours with no complaints. instead, he'll have a soft, adoring smile when you have another bite from his dish and your eyes sparkle in excitement when you clearly like it better than yours. if you have any scars on your body, that's where he likes to kiss you the most. and he truly thinks the scar, or your entire body and soul is the most beautiful one he's ever encountered. will watch your comfort movie/series with you thousand times over without a single complaint just to see the smile on your face. has a custom-made hoodie that has the ugliest embroidery with a print that says "i love (y/n)" unironically and wears it around the house. not afraid to kiss and cuddle you even when you're sick and try to keep him away in case he catches it but he never listens, instead cuddles in even closer. when you two share a piece of food, he'll purposefully split it in like 6.5/3.5 and give you the bigger piece. oh and he says he'll love you even if you turn into a worm so, that's that.

[felicitysmoaksx]

Some Kind of Haunted, Some Kind of Haunted.

“Okay Jubal,” Brian Lang folded his arms, looking at the assistant special agent in charge of the New York field office, “Why does my brother think the bureau took his girlfriend?” Instead of answering him, the other man turned to look at the blonde by Lang’s side. “What’s your interest in this Hailey?” “Sarah Reese is a friend, as is Connor, his brother.” They hadn’t let his twin brother go any farther than the glass wall you met before you entered the bullpen. But they had allowed her to continue in step with Lang. The woman mirrored Brian’s stance. “I had the contact so I thought I’d tag along as backup. So I called in a favor from O.A. Although I’m wondering why he sent his partner instead of coming himself.” “Because he’s not here. He’s searching for Sarah.” Jubal sighed before he bent over a computer. They heard him type, and then he flipped the screen so they could see an inactive agent file. Sarah Reese’s inactive agent file.  “She was one of ours a long long time ago. Deputy Director Estrellas actually recruited her straight out of high school.” Jubal Valentine told them. He stroked his chin and added, “Before she left the bureau to go to medical school, she was one of our most talented agents. We reinstated her to full credentials because an old case was being linked to a new overseas one.”  “Reese is always an overachiever. Of course, she’d be an agent and then decide to go to medical school and become a doctor.” Hailey’s tone was fond, if a little exasperated before she broke off and shook her head. Her arms were folded tighter around her. Like her arms were a shield and she was tightening them up to defend against blows that were about to come. Lang glanced up to see his face, worried and desperate for any kind of answers.  “She’s missing?” He questioned the older man quietly. When Jubal nodded, Brian’s grim expression deepened. This was just getting better and better, “For how long?” “At least twenty-four, working on forty-eight. The fly team from Budapest and O.A. is working on finding her.”   “What kind of case would pull her back in? She’s been inactive for over six years.” the police detective asked, shaking her head. “One of those cases that leaves you haunted when you think about it,” a new voice answered quietly. Lang looked up and saw a thin man with a sweater vest striding in and standing beside Jubal.  “Only in Sarah’s case. She thought this case was safely behind bars till they weren’t.” He added before he introduced himself, “Spencer Reid. BAU fly team unit. Sarah was a part of my unit and my partner for her last few years in the field.”

Or an excerpt from the One Chicago x Criminal Minds x CBS FBI International crossover moodboard that's lowkey been in my head for a while.

If you want to ask me about this universe or look at the playlist

[jake-g-lockley]

hi there! I'd love to request prompt 4 and/or 7 with Frankie Morales, please, I would actually start screaming, hope you're having a lovely day <3

Chocolate Eyes (Frankie Morales x reader) Masterlist | Spotify Playlist | Want to be tagged?

Prompts: The hand behind their nape when they’re embarrassed, Almost kissing but someone walks in 0_0 A/N: Hi there!! Thanks for the ask <3! I hope you’re having a lovely day too. Frankie fluff is like a drug to me, so I hope you like this hehe Word Count: 1.6k

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Your best friend waddled around the room, looking for a dress that she had been begging you to try on. She moved particularly quickly for someone so heavily pregnant and it made you very anxious.

“Slow down Jess, you’re going to push that baby out of you.” you chastised her with a small chuckle.

Jessica yanks the white and blue sundress from her closet with a “Tada!”. You stare at it, wondering whether you could look even remotely pretty from something so beautiful. It had a low neckline, puffy sleeves and screamed summer but you shook your head, feeling that you could not pull it off.

“Oh come on, honey, you’ll look great. Trust me, you’ll definitely turn some heads.” she said, kissing your forehead and wiggling her eyebrows.

You rolled her eyes at her comment. She didn’t mean “some heads”, she was talking about one specific head that you’d pick out of the 7.8 billion heads on the planet. It had been a few years since you saw him, with you going to university. You had given up on him after he didn’t show up to Jessica’s wedding to William Miller, willing yourself to forget about him.

But here you are, a small sad frog playing on your broken heartstrings, trying to piece back together the feelings that you had for Frankie Morales. You missed his curly brown hair that was hidden under his cap and his beautiful smile that was accentuated by a perfect little dimple on his right cheek. You missed his eyes, the beautiful eyes that were the colour of freshly melted chocolate and were full of so much kindness.

You gave Jessica a small smile as she rubbed your shoulder sympathetically.

“Look, this is your chance to get to know all of the cute young bachelors that are going to be at the baby shower. I’m not letting you go without dolling you up. After all, this can just be my practice round before this little princess grows up.” she says, rubbing her tummy.

“Fine, as long as you don’t make me look like a clown.”

“Aye, aye, captain!”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Jessica kept her word and you gasped at your reflection when she turned the makeup chair around. Soft makeup adorned your face, accentuating your features and your hair fell around your head in magnificent curls. A jewelled headband adorned your head and the dress fit perfectly. You gave Jessica a big hug before holding her hand and leading her downstairs for her baby shower that you had been preparing for all day. At the bottom of the stairs you were met with Santiago who gave you the biggest smile and hugged you tightly.

“¡Ay, chica! When did you take your nose out from your books and decided to visit us?” He chuckled as you pout and punched him playfully in the stomach.

“Oh I’d save that punch for someone else if I were you, if you know what I mean.” he said almost immediately and you frowned further, administering another punch, making him groan. “Leave her alone Pope, how’ve you been, sweetheart.” Benny pulled you out of Santiago’s arms and into his, making you squeal.

“All good, Benny, still being a menace?” you smile sweetly up at the 6 feet tall man.

“As always.” he replied with a small smile playing on his lips.

You couldn’t help but look around for Frankie, your eyes searching hopefully willing for them to meet his sweet brown ones, but to no avail. You sigh and help Jessica to her seat, when the front door opens and the atmosphere of the room changes. Your heart stilled the moment Frankie waltzed through the door, every cell in your body screaming for oxygen as you conveniently forgot how to breathe.

He looked different, a little older with a few grey hairs decorating his crown of brown curls. He had ditched his usual hat and casual shirts for a more formal button down and slacks. The crows feet were more prominent at his eyes when he grinned, but they framed the same beautiful eyes that you had been looking for all these years.

He stopped in his tracks when he looked at you but he didn’t look surprised at your presence, but more of your appearance. He took a second to look you up and down and you blushed, a smile creeping up your face as Jessica tapped your hand. William shoved Frankie’s shoulder with his, nudging him forward. It was then when you noticed he was holding two bouquets.

He knelt down in front of Jessica and kissed her forehead, handing her a bouquet of beautiful pink roses which she cooed at. He then slowly stood up and turned to you, his eyes big and wide as he took in your appearance from up close. You wanted to scream at him, hit him and walk away but you were held captive by his matured beauty. His hand found yours and he brought it up to his lips, kissing it gently, sending an array of butterflies to attack your insides.

“Hi.” he whispered and you didn’t realise how much you missed the sound of his voice.

“Hi.” you said back as you clutched the hand that he kissed close to your heart.

He handed you a bouquet of blue dyed Gardenias and you took a second to glare down at Jessica who was busy sipping on her juice and grinning at her husband.

“They’re beautiful, Francisco, thanks.” you whispered and he raised a hand to the nape of his neck and blushed.

You couldn’t help but grin at his bashfulness, letting him stir you aside as guests started to pile into the house with gifts and well wishes for Jessica. He plucked a flower from your bouquet and tucked it behind your ear, letting his hand slide down to graze your jaw and tip your chin up to meet his eyes.

“You look heavenly.” he breathed.

“You don’t look too bad yourself.” you say, feeling yourself get dizzy from all of the attention he was giving you.

Your sweet dream was broken when Santiago yelled, “Catfish, you simp, come here we gotta toast!”

You rolled your eyes at your boys and smiled down at the beautiful bouquet, your heart feeling content for the first time in a long time.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You busied yourself with carrying the gifts up to the nursery, arranging them in piles so that the Millers could have a proper look at them once the party was over. A soft knock sounded at the door and before you could say anything, Frankie opened the door and slipped inside. You smiled at him and he carefully approached you, sitting cross legged beside you.

“Sorting the gifts, huh? Anything good in here?” his first full sentence to you in years made you look up from your work instantly.

“Other than burp clothes and tons of nappies, nothing that we could use.” you chuckled.

Frankie reached out and grabbed a big teddy bear, observing its face before hugging it close to his chest. The action made your heart yearn bad and you stifled a smile as you watched him snuggle his nose into the bear’s head.

“How’ve you been, miel?” he asked, tilting his head so that his eyes met yours again.

“Could have been better, you?”

“About the same as you.” he replied, sighing into the teddy.

“Feels like I’m missing something.” you decided to casually take a leap.

“Me too, miel.”

Frankie straightened his back and scooted closer to you, the smell of his cologne enveloping you in sweet memories. You bit your lip and furrowed your eyebrows, almost as if you were pleading with him to do something about the gap that was between the both of you. Slowly, he got closer and closer, until you could count every single one of his eyelashes that framed his eyes perfectly.

If you tipped your head slightly to the right, your lips would have been on his and you would have felt complete but the door swings open for a second time, causing the both of you to jump away from each other. Benny Miller stood there holding a bottle of wine in one hand and his tie in the other and you mentally cursed him for his perfect timing. His eyes were wide as saucers as he noted the way your hand magically clutched onto Frankie’s thigh.

“Andddd that's another moment ruined by Benjamin Miller. You’re welcome folks.” he said, giving you both a two fingered salute and scurrying away before Frankie could come to his senses and beat the living daylights out of his best friend.

You found yourself giggling, remembering the other moment ruined by Benny that included his brother and your best friend attempting to get some alone time together.

“Oh that bastard, I’m going to kill-” Frankie attempted to stand up but you pulled him down, tired of waiting any longer.

“Shut up, Frankie.” You breathed before letting yourself fall onto the carpet and pulling Frankie down with you, causing his lips to come crashing down against yours with a shocked groan getting caught in his throat. He immediately took hold of the reins and kissed you back, years of tension easing from the way his lips moved against yours in a slow dance.

He pulled away only when he started to suffocate, refusing to leave the safe sanctuary of your soft breaths against your face. He kissed your forehead, nose and cheeks before lying down beside you and staring at the impressive mural that William had painted on the ceiling of the nursery. He laced his fingers with yours and kissed the back of your hand again, before clutching it close to his heart as his breathing slowed.

“We should do that more often.” you whisper into the air.

“We really should.” he whispered back, a smile gracing his face. 

Reblogs are appreciated ~~~~~

[accioprocrastination]

His girls

Jake hangman seresin x reader

A/N: Pure fluff; he has such girl dad energy

TW: slight reference to abuse

You've got your headphones on cooking while your daughters sleep upstairs, too distracted by your Spotify playlist to hear your husband unlock the door. Jake immediately takes off his jacket, hanging it on the back of the door as he throws his bag on the ground - too tired to think about putting it away properly.

"Sweets?" He asks hesitantly, wondering where you are. He expects you to whisper shout your response as per normal but is instead met with silence. He peers his head into the living room to see whether you've fallen asleep waiting for him. No not in there.

But he sees drawing on the coffee table which draws him into the room. A smile blossoms on his face as he looks down at the paintings his youngest has clearly made while he was at work. It's you three on a hill and a little stick figure in a plane that he knows is him.

He instantly heads to the kitchen - momentarily abandoning his search for you as he goes to stick the painting on the fridge.

"Here you are!" Jake exclaims at your presence as he glides past you to the magnets. You jump out of your skin only just registering that he's home.

You slide off one ear of your headphones. "Hi Princess." you tease giving him a smile which he instantly reciprocates before his arms find your waist. He squeezes you into a tight hug as you turn to give him a kiss hello.

"Dinner smells amazing." he comments peering over your shoulder to see what it is. "What did the girls have?" he smirks knowing they're still the world's fussiest eaters. "Thing one had chicken nuggets." You roll your eyes, that's the only thing your youngest will eat at the moment. You have both introduced her to countless foods trying to combat her fixation, but it's a losing battle.

"What about Abbie?" He nuzzles your shoulder. "She's been a little off today. Came home from school and demanded cereal, has not been back downstairs since taking it to bed." You inform him and Jake's smile falters. "Is she awake?" He asks. "Her light is off so I think she's gone to sleep." You shake your head.

"Since when did we have a teenager?" You remark thinking back to when she was your little angel. "I know." He smiles. "I kind of love it though-" You cut him off by saying, "she is such a little you." Jake smiles wider but does not open his mouth to deny that claim.

"She is isn't she?" He giggles reaching to take a swig out of your wine glass. He winces as he does so. "Are you cooking with that?" He looks to you for confirmation. You nod. "Yeah, why, does it taste bad?" You ask instantly. He nods grabbing a glass to fill up with water. You take a sip and confirm he is just being overly dramatic. "All wine tastes the same. I don't know what you're on about." You state. He shakes his head at the sentiment.

"I'll go check on Abs quickly before dinner." Jake says arms untangling from your body. "Some genius allowed her to get a lock on her door so I can't go check on her" You cross your arms and turn towards your husband. He kisses your forehead, the closest thing you'll get to an apology on that front before he turns on his heel and sprints near silently up the stairs.

Jake has experienced an abusive home growing up and will do anything to make sure your kids are happy. Including giving Abbie a lock on her door. Theoretically you thought it would be nice to give her privacy, now you just worry about her more because you can't check in on her anymore. You check the lock every night before bed to see whether you can make sure she's alright before sleeping. It is beyond rare for her to leave it open.

*

The morning is as crazy hectic as normal. You're woken up to your youngest jumping on the bed before Jake's seven thousand alarms begin. You had Abbie so young you forgot how tiring this stage is: kids have so much energy that no matter how hard either of you try you cannot match.

Jake groans sitting up and wrapping Ivy into his arms to get her to stop jumping on the bed. "Five more minutes then I'll get up" He whispers into her hair. You smile into your pillow at the sound of his tired voice.

"Daddy can you do my hair today?" She asks eyes wide with excitement. He cannot say no to that face, not that he would ever deny your kids anything. You'll always be bad cop out of the two of you. Ivy wiggles so much you cannot fall back asleep as she is singlehandedly rocking the entire mattress. "Of course I can." he responds smiling at her request. "How do you want it today?" she asks. "I don't know." she hesitates.

"Okay, let's go get your hair done then I'll make breakfast?" he says to her looking for clarification that she does not want food first. She nods eagerly running ahead of him to your vanity which is now covered in her hair accessories as this has become a routine. Jake helps her up onto the stool and begins braiding her hair.

Within the same millisecond she sits down, Ivy starts moving impatiently. "Can you try and hold still baby girl, I'm almost done. You're going to love it." he says quickly braiding the other side before trying them together into a pony tail. She claps in excitement at her reflection. "You look so pretty!" Jake exclaims kissing her cheek. She smiles and outstretches her arms to be picked up. "I look like a princess." she toys with the pink bow in her hair.

Jake obliges and takes her downstairs to hang out with him while he cooks breakfast.

"Breakfast!" Jake shouts from downstairs. You finally peel yourself out of bed and go to check Abbie has heard him. Her door is still locked so you knock. "Abbie, breakfast." You repeat in case she didn't hear.

You reach the kitchen and Jake instantly pounces on you wrapping his arms around your waist and kissing you deeply. "Morning." He says. You're interrupted by Abbie vocalising her disgust as she enters. "Ew. You two are too old to be doing that." She says making you laugh. "Would you rather we argue all the time and get divorced?" You ask your daughter having experienced that type of household growing up. She sighs and rolls her eyes. She tries to just grab an apple and head out.

"Sit down and eat with everyone Abs." Jake instructs her and she listens to him. "I'm going to be late." She talks into the bagel Jake has already made for her. "Eat up and I'll give you a lift on my way to work." Jake says and you watch her visibly relax slightly. Is that just because she thinks she'll get to school on time or is that because she didn't want to take the bus?

They both get up to go almost as soon as they've sat down. "Wait!" you call after them, launching up towards the fridge and grabbing what you prepared yesterday. "I made you both lunch." you say handing them their respective lunch bags. "Thank you sweetheart." Jake kisses your cheek. "Ugh PDA." Abbie says. You smile at her. "Have a great day Abs, text me if you need anything." You say to her as she's already walking to the passenger side of Jake's truck.

[canmom]

music in sign languages

was thinking about how music is probably the closest thing to a truly human-universal art form, given as far as I know every culture has some kind of music, and it probably predates e.g. ceramics, textiles and painting, since you really only need your own body to make music. (i think the only earlier candidate I can think of is sex. does that count? depends how you define art form but I think it does.)

the obvious possible exception for music is... well, some proportion of d/Deaf people. certainly not all; many d/Deaf people enjoy music, both because it's a category that encompasses a pretty wide range of hearing, and also because the tactile sensation of vibrations can still be felt - especially at live music events and such where the bass is really strong.

still, this kind of thought led me to wondering if there is a sign language analogue to singing or rap. and... there is! in the UK at least it seems to be known as 'signsong'. there's one artist called fletch@ who performs covers of pop songs in BSL...

and there's SignKid, a London-based rapper who also performs in BSL as well as doing music production, using tech like the vibration board in this video to sync it all up...

so now I'm really curious like, what features signsong shares with singing. obviously it is like dance in that it involves rhythmic motion to music - but unlike dance, each motion is conveying like, specific semantic/grammatical meaning within a larger language. as well as rhythm, is there an analogue to pitch - signing 'high' or 'low'? dynamics? could you sign in harmony with someone? what are the differences between signsong influenced by rap and by pop music? i bet there's so much linguistic nuance, but I'm not sure where to find out more.

the above performers sign in BSL. I did a search for ASL rap and mostly found videos about sign language interpreters at rap concerts, or covers, for example interpreter Amber G covering Eminem...

...or this video in which three interpreters take turns covering Wiz Khalifa. (The host doesn't seem to be taking it too seriously, which is a shame, because a sign language rap battle is legit a great concept?)

Amber G has a whole lot of ASL song covers it turns out, including most of the entries in this playlist of ASL songs.

I also found a channel that does ASL covers of Jonathan Coulton songs, for example:

This one is interesting because it has two backing signers, who seem to repeat the same couple of words to support the main signer.

So far I've only found covers, and not yet original songs in ASL of the kind that Signkid is composing in BSL. I feel like there must be some - there are surely many more ASL signers out there - so I'm probably just not using the right search terms. (The term 'signsong' seems to be British only as far as I can tell, or at least I haven't found examples of Americans using it.)

I wonder how music would develop if humans didn't have a sense of hearing and instead communicated largely by signing? I feel like we would still have an appreciation of rhythm, that seems somehow more fundamental than sound even if hearing people mostly encounter it through sound. What sort of instruments would we make if we were focusing on the feeling of vibration in the body rather than tonal sound?

Or would a better analogue be something like a visual instrument, something kind of like wotagei (a japanese dance form using glowsticks associated with idol culture)...

I'd fucking love to see how a purely visual/tactile musical performance, with sign languages and whatever other tools to 'harmonise' visually, could work.

[btsgotjams27]

this is us ~ jjk | 20

✨ title: this is us | (sequel to all grown up) ✨ pairing: jungkook x f!reader | ✨ rating: m/18+ | minors dni ✨ genre/au: drama, romance, angst, fluff, smut | est!relationship, age gap, best friend’s brother ✨ playlist | ✨if you haven’t read the prequel to this, please do so here! :) ✨ a/n: I'm not crying, you are. if you must know, I've been dreading this chapter because it means we're one step closer to the end 😭 but I do have some things up my sleeve hehehehe and you'll find out what it is after the epilogue 💖 we've come so far and thank you everyone for coming alongside their journey. i wouldn't be here without your questions, lovely comments and reviews. i owe so much to all my readers. one last thing, thank you to @erica2283 for helping with this chapter. we all owe her a big hug. ✨ a/n 2: remember, we have our little TIU celebration as well! i hope you'll all be around for it. and as always, i'd love to hear your thoughts, keyboard smashes, anything 💖 hehe we've made it!!

[ SERIES MASTERLIST ] | next ✨ epilogue ~ us

chapter 20 ~ ending credits | wc: 9.2k warnings: language, drinking, someone is preggo (can you guess who?), oc is a supportive girlfriend, jk is such a romantic and oc gets easily embarrassed, references to 10 things i hate about you and inception (ofc), grumpy grandpa yoongi, also yoongi is just the sweetest friend, jk and yoongi finally meet, do i hear some kind of bells???, jk and oc are so in love it’s satisfying to see after all this time (we’ve come so far!), and also lots of fluff cause hello there is a 💍💒⚭🎉, be prepared for all the cheesy, romantic shi--💖, they're overly gross with their use of pet names smut warnings: slight exhibitionism?, oral (m & f receiving), fingering, spitting, cum swallowing

~ 2 months since moving in together ~

Light sounds of piano and saxophone filled the air as you had been laying on this bed for an hour, moaning and groaning, and not because of Jeon Jungkook.

Your masseuse was hitting all the right spots, getting every knot and kink in your wound-up body, and for that, you'd blame your boyfie.

Hyunie and Yuna wanted a girl's day without husbands, boyfriends, kids, or distractions. And who would say no to that?

"I don't know why we don't treat ourselves out more often," you said, turning to Yuna as she sipped her wine.

"It's been too long since we've all had a self-care day," Hyunie commented. You and Yuna agreed. "Oh my gosh! Your nails are perfect!" She pointed out your neutral beige nails topped off with lavender French tips and tiny jewels perfectly placed on each nail.

You wavered your fingers, letting your new manicure sparkle and glisten in the sunlight. Pastels and neutrals were your go-to. You were too much of a chicken to step out of your comfort zone.

“I think we need to do this once a month,” Yuna said, staring at her nails, which reminded you of Tiffany’s robin-egg blue.

“You both deserve it, mamas.”

Hyunie giggled, placing a hand on her growing belly. She was still in the early stages of pregnancy. At the start of this self-care day, she texted a sonogram photo to you as you were undressing for your massage. You screamed and started crying, practically scaring your masseuse.

“What are you and Jungkook up to this weekend?” Yuna asked before swirling the pasta with her fork.

“He wants to go to this gaming convention or something. It’s being held at this big arena.” You didn’t know anything about video games. You searched the internet to see what they even did at gaming conventions.

“Boring!” Hyunie cried out.

You rubbed your temple. “He wants to go, so I’ll go to support him.”

“You’re gonna be such a good wife—” Hyunie remarked before Yuna kicked her under the table. “Ow,” she muttered. “I mean, you’re such a good sport! Supporting your man like that.”

You blinked at your friends, wondering what was up with them today. You gave them the bombastic side-eye as they were pretty giggly and tightlipped.

Hyunie laughed off her comment, trying to play it cool. “Don’t mind me and my pregnancy brain. Also, remind me to kick my husband’s butt for knocking me up! I mean, there are some nice benefits.” She looks down at her chest. “But everything hurts already.”

“Welcome to the pregnant life, my friend,” Yuna jokes.

You chuckled. “I can’t believe Kim Taehyung is gonna be a dad.”

“Right? No, but I think he will be a good dad.” Hyunie hummed softly, rubbing her belly.

“He’ll be great, and I’m sure he can always ask Namjoon questions,” you said.

“Namjoon still doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time–actually, both of us,” Yuna laughed. “But that’s just parenting 101. There’s no guidebook or anything; you just google everything and hope your kid doesn’t turn out to be a turd.”

“Yuna—” You rolled your eyes.

“What? I’m not saying Indie will be, but I just want my kid to be a good human.”

“Well, you’re doing a great job raising your little human,” you say to Yuna, then turn to Hyunie. “You and Taehyung are going to do great, too. You have us if you need anything.”

You gripped Jungkook’s hand as he led you through the sea of people. The commotion of excited fans buzzed in the arena. Booth after booth of fan-made merch, the newest games, and sponsored goods were lined up like a maze. Your eyes wandered, scanning to see if anything interesting caught your eye.

Jungkook was in deep conversation with an old colleague from Netmarble, who was working on a new game set to be released. Your lips turned into a pout, and you turned around to see what could keep you busy as you let Jungkook do his thing.

“So, you’re telling me that this virtual reality game is like Inception? The movie?” You narrowed your eyes at the young man trying to sell you on this new game. Anything could be turned into a game, you supposed.

“The possibilities are endless,” he shrugged, continuing to go in-depth with this game.

You had been in conversation with this young man for twenty minutes and turned to find your boyfriend had disappeared. You sighed, “Great.” How were you supposed to find him now?

Checking your phone, which only had 5% left, you knew you should’ve grabbed the portable charger. Maybe you could somehow find Jungkook in this sea of fanboys.

A sudden screeching, humming noise made everyone grimace, covering their ears. The sound of someone thumping a microphone, followed by an ‘ah, ah, ah,’ went through the speakers.

“Everyone, we have an extraordinary presentation today. Would you please turn your attention to the screen?”

The lights dimmed, the crowd quieted, and everyone’s eyes were focused on the illuminated screen.

“You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you.”

You froze, your heart thumping, and your stomach fluttered at the angelic voice. Hearing the song made you weak in the knees, wanting to crumble down to the ground. This scene from 10 Things I Hate About You was your second favorite to Kat’s monologue.

Jungkook is shown on the screen. He has a mic in hand and a grin plastered on his face. He’s putting everything into this little performance like it’s one of his late-night karaoke sessions, except this time, he was performing in front of thousands of people and a live broadcast instead of just you and Bamie.

“You’d be like heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much.”

The screen splits in half, and now your face is also shown in front of thousands of people; then you notice the space around you, along with the camera pointed directly at you.

You didn’t think Jeon Jungkook was one for grand gestures, but maybe you were wrong. Suppressing your smile, you closed your eyes and hid your face in your hands.

He continued singing, making his way over to you. The grin he’s sporting never leaves as he finally stands before you.

All eyes are on you and him.

You leaned forward and whispered, “What are you doing?”

Jungkook sets the mic beside you, and the music dies down. He wiggled his eyebrows, pulling out a blue velvet box.

He got down on one knee, staring up at you. “It is an honor and a privilege to love you, and I want to love you every day till I die. I can't promise there won't be difficult moments, but I wouldn't want to go through life with anybody except you.”

You sucked in your lips and licked them to keep your excitement at bay.

“If you allow me to, I want to choose you every second, every minute, and every hour. I’ll show you what devotion is and how it’s deeper than the ocean.”

Your eyes twinkled as you lovingly stared at your romantic boyfriend. “Yes–” you interrupted him, furiously nodding your head.

He knitted his eyebrows and pouted. “You didn’t let me finish.”

“Don’t need you to–”

He opened his mouth and closed it again. “Just–let me ask you,” he whined.

You huffed, giving him a deadpan expression. You figured he would only get to do this once in a lifetime. Maybe you shouldn’t take away his thunder.

Jungkook took the oval Alexandrite ring from its box. He rose to his feet. “Will you marry me?”

At this moment, you needed someone to pinch you and wake you up from this dream. Could this be a virtual reality like the Inception game from earlier? Would your totem fall over or keep spinning?

“Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!” You cupped his face, eagerly kissing him, forgetting about the thousands of people watching you.

His bunny smile and dimple are on display for the world to see, and his starry eyes shined brighter than the gem on your finger. It’s the happiest you’ve ever seen him.

Cheers and screams echoed throughout the arena as you kissed him again. Your lips entwined, his hands threaded through your hair, pulling you as close as he could. The smell of his cherry chapstick filled your nostrils, becoming intoxicating.

Jungkook pulled away, peppering kisses on your face as you let out soft chuckles. “I can’t wait to spend forever with you.”

The first person you texted was none other than Min Yoongi. Since Hyunie and Yuna were in on the whole ‘pamper/self-care day,’ they already knew what was happening. Hence the secrecy throughout the day.

You 10:27 PM [ image attached of engagement ring ]

Grumpy Grandpa 10:30 PM 👍

You 10:31 PM That’s it? All I get is a thumbs up.

He knew how much you despised the thumbs-up emoji, but he told you it was the highest compliment anyone could ever get from him.

Grumpy Grandpa 10:35 PM 🎉

You 10:36 PM 😑

Grumpy Grandpa 10:40 PM Okay fine. 👍👍👍👍👍👍 Happy?

You 10:41 PM 😐 I guess

You 10:45 PM Anyway, will you come to our engagement party?

Grumpy Grandpa 10:50 PM You’re already getting married. Why spend more money on an engagement party?

You huffed and clenched your jaw as you sat in bed, staring at his message.

You 10:52 PM Because we’re in love and need to celebrate it a million times over and over until everyone is sick of us. 🥰💖🥰💖🥰💖

Grumpy Grandpa 10:54 PM I think I'd rather die a slow death…

You didn’t bother to text anything back. Instead, you tucked your phone underneath your pillow as Jungkook crawled into bed. You inched toward him, your back against his chest. He draped his arm around you, kissing your head.

“Hi, soon-to-be-wifey,” he chuckled, pressing himself into you.

“Hi, soon-to-be-hubby.” You wiggled back toward him.

“Who were you texting?”

“I was texting Yoongi to see if he’d come to our engagement party.”

“What’d he say?”

“That he’d rather die a slow death.”

Jungkook laughed, kissing your shoulder. “Oof–I like him.”

You turned around to face Jungkook. “You’d be okay, right? If Yoongi came to our party?”

His lips thinned, and his brows drew together. “Yeah, of course. He’s your friend. If you want him there, then I want him there.”

You hummed. “I love you.”

“Love you more.”

If there was one person you wanted Jungkook to meet, it was Yoongi. Honestly, you’d miss the banter and bickering relationship between you. But maybe Yoongi would be willing to accept Jungkook and possibly become friends. One could hope, right?

You 9:01 AM I don’t know if you planned to come, but we had to cancel the engagement party.

Grumpy Grandpa 9:15 AM Damn, he doesn’t wanna marry you already? I get it, though. I wouldn’t wanna marry you either.

You 9:16 AM 👊👊 Min Yoongi, I’m gonna pummel you!

You 9:17 AM If you must know, the place we wanted was overbooked, so we’re gonna cancel and save money for the wedding.

You don’t hear from Yoongi for another hour or so. He must be busy with an upcoming film or something.

Grumpy Grandpa 10:02 AM Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.

You 10:36 AM 🤨

Grumpy Grandpa 10:55 AM My friend has a place you can use for your engagement party if you want.

You 10:56 AM You don't have to do that.

Grumpy Grandpa 10:57 AM The offer is expiring in 3…..2….

You 10:57 AM Ok! Ok! Where's the place?

Strolling through the home, you wonder what you did in your past life to have a friend like Min Yoongi. You crept through every corner of the house but couldn’t find him.

There was one last place you hadn’t checked: the terrace. Making your way through the kitchen, you saw him standing outside. The view was incredible, overlooking the ocean. This place was a few ways away but worth the drive.

The corners of your lips curved into a smile as you closed the sliding door behind you. You observed the grumpy grandpa in a fuzzy yellow cardigan looking at the scenery before you.

“Hey.” You stood, nudging his arm.

He turned and hummed, acknowledging your presence.

“Thanks for letting us use this place. It’s amazing. Better than anything I imagined.”

“It’s my friend’s place,” he quickly corrected you, sipping his iced coffee.

You leaned against the glass, looking at him, nudging him again. “Can you just accept my gratitude?” you pouted, sporting your best puppy eyes.

“Fine. You’re welcome.”

You giggled because you got your way. “Come on, I want you to meet Jungkook.”

He grunted, not moving an inch.

Tugging on his yellow sweater a few times made him give in. “Let’s go, grumpy.”

Jungkook and Taehyung were busy bringing decor and food in, and Yoongi had somehow disappeared from the terrace to the kitchen. You blame being the bride-to-be because everyone needs your input on where to place everything.

“You okay?” Jungkook asked, scanning your face.

You hummed, nodding your head, and broke out into a warm smile. “I’m good. Better than good, great actually.”

He raised his eyebrow, sporting a thin smile. “Okay,” his tone is hesitant, but he trusts you. “I’m gonna help Taehyung finish bringing everything in; then we can start the party, hmm?” He kissed your cheek before running off.

An arm wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you in for a hug. You turned to see a friend from your most recent TV show.

“Hi, Minji.”

She squealed, pulling you into a tighter embrace. “I can’t believe you’re getting married!”

You beamed a grin from ear to ear, enjoying the buzzing excitement. You watched as Yoongi appeared from one of the bedrooms, strolling toward the terrace again. You’d have to grab him to introduce him and Jungkook when you could.

“Let me see the ring,” Minji said, holding her hand for yours. “Oh my god. This is such a pretty gemstone. Does it change colors?” The ring sparkled and gleamed with every twist and turn. 

“Sometimes it can be a deep green to blue, sometimes even purple or a deep red depending on the lighting and angle,” you explained. It was one of the reasons why you preferred this stone over a diamond.

When you were looking through rings, you told Jungkook that if your wedding/engagement ring didn’t look like he went through a crazy journey and a cursed lake to get it, then you didn’t want it. It is a bit dramatic, but you wanted your ring to be special and unique.

“It’s so pretty and, honestly, so perfect for you.” She hugged you again. “When’s the wedding?”

“Soon—in a month or so.”

Minji’s eyes widened.

“Yeah—don’t ask me how wedding planning is going,” you let out a light-hearted laugh.

You and Jungkook didn’t see the point in waiting. You loved each other and couldn’t wait to spend the rest of your lives together. Plus, neither of you wanted a big wedding. You just wanted to celebrate with family and friends.

Throughout the night’s festivities, Yoongi opted for something stronger, a classic glass of whiskey, to be exact. He sipped on the drink with a hand in his pocket, watching the sky become painted with hues of coral and lavender. This was one of his favorite spots in this house.

“Hey, man.”

Yoongi turned to see the groom-to-be. He nodded, sporting a thin smile, before taking another sip of his whiskey.

“I’m Jungkook, by the way. I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said, holding his hand.

Yoongi suppressed a smile. He thought it was funny how you’d spoken about him to your soon-to-be husband. “So, you’re the famous Jungkook, hm?” Yoongi switched the glass to his other hand to shake Jungkook’s.

He shies away from Yoongi’s comment. “Ah, I hope she didn’t bore you too much talking about me.”

Yoongi softly chuckled and wanted to respond but held his tongue. He’d be a good friend and keep your pain a secret.

Jungkook cleared his throat. “But I just wanted to say thank you.”

“For?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Letting us use this place. It means a lot to the both of us,” Jungkook paused, stuffing his hands in his pants pocket as he looked off into the horizon. “And thank you for being there for her in a way I couldn’t.”

He knew how important Yoongi had become in your journey when you and him weren’t together. And if Yoongi weren’t there to support you, maybe you and him wouldn’t be together right now. He wished there was a better way to show his gratitude.

“I didn't really do anything. I just listened to her ramble, watched her cry, eat, and drink a lot.”

Jungkook softly chuckled. “You did more for her than you think. Thanks again.” He held his hand out for Yoongi to shake once more. Yoongi stared for a moment before reciprocating.

Yoongi couldn't hate the guy you were about to marry despite the pain Jungkook had caused you. He was nice, handsome, and had a stupid death grip. Could probably beat him up. He even surprised Yoongi by taking the initiative to introduce himself first. Well, if that wasn’t the mark of a man who truly loved you.

He watched Jungkook walk over to you, hugging you from behind and kissing your shoulder. You wrapped your arm up to his neck, turning to kiss his cheek. You were happy, and that’s all Yoongi wanted for you.

The guests begin to dwindle, and you have some room to breathe. And you make it a point to talk to Yoongi before you leave. You felt like you hardly saw him the entire night. He was doing his own thing. Was he always like this in a social setting? You guessed you hadn’t seen him much outside of hanging out with Hyunie and Taehyung.

“Are you ready to go?”Jungkook asked.

“You go ahead. I’m just going to find Yoongi and thank him again. Is that okay?”

He nods. “Yeah, of course. I’ll be in the car.” He kisses you before leaving.

You wandered throughout the house, peering through each room. Yoongi was sitting in a darkened room, sipping on what you assumed was another glass of whiskey.

Standing in the threshold, you knock on the frame, getting his attention. “Hey, stranger. You’re not much of a party-goer, are you?” You chuckled, taking a few steps forward.

Both hands are holding his glass while he’s leaning forward in his chair. “Are you guys heading out?”

“Yeah, just packing everything up.”

He hummed. “Have a good night.”

You don’t move from your spot. Your hands are entwined, thumbs twiddling with one another.

Yoongi knits his eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

You flash a small smile. “Thanks for letting us use your place tonight.” Yoongi perked up. “You know how I knew?” You pointed at the cat figurines on the bookshelves and the desk. “You had the same ones in Phuket.”

He made a disgruntled noise, scanning the room at his little porcelain collectibles.

You chuckled. “You don’t have to lie to me, Yoongi, saying it was someone else’s place, but thank you again. You’re a good friend.”

Yoongi has always been the supportive one. He was there for you when you were at your lowest of lows, and you’d be forever grateful. And even if he would never outright announce to the world all the things he’s done, he cared for you in such a delicate, subtle way that was completely different from everyone else.

“You ready to go home?” Jungkook brought your palm up to his lips, pressing a kiss against it.

You hummed and smiled. “Home. I like the sound of that.”

~ one month later ~ ~ a week before the wedding ~

Bam sat at your feet while you were finalizing the seating chart. Jungkook passed out on the couch, lightly snoring away. He had been staying late because of all the late-night karaoke and cooking sessions.

You 11:56 AM Hey, I’m going through RSVPs, and I haven’t gotten yours. Can you let me know if you’re coming to the wedding?

You don’t hear a response from Yoongi for the rest of the day until a phone call comes in after dinner.

Grumpy Grandpa Incoming Call

“Hey.”

Hey, sorry, I just saw your text. My new film is shooting the next day after your wedding, so I might have to leave early depending on what flight I can book. But yeah, count me in.

“Okay, awesome. Are you bringing a plus one?”

He scoffed. “Yeah, no.”

“Okay, I’ll sit next to Taehyung and Hyunie so you won’t feel lonely or awkward.”

“‘Kay, sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

Jungkook walked in with Bam after their nightly stroll around the neighborhood as you checked off that Yoongi was coming on your planning app.

Bam wandered over to the pen, drinking water from his bowl, and Jungkook greeted you with a kiss.

“Whatcha doing?” He plopped right beside you, laying his head on your lap.

You card your fingers through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp. “I was just talking to Yoongi. He was confirming that he’s coming to the wedding.”

“He’s a cool guy. I like him.”

Flashing a small smile, you continued running your fingers through his hair. “Yeah, he is.”

“He didn’t say much when we were at his place, but he just seems like the type of guy who quietly cares for his friends.”

You chuckled because that encompassed everything Min Yoongi was as a friend.

“He seems very open-minded and knowledgeable, probably about the most random things.”

“Have you been studying him or something?” you asked, continuing to play with his hair.

“No, I just—want him to like me.”

You chuckled at his comment. “You’re cute.”

Jungkook rolled his eyes, pinching your arm. He sat up, shoulder to shoulder with you, nudging you.

“Yes?”

“I know we said we wouldn’t get any gifts for each other, but I couldn’t resist.”

You turn to him, narrowing your eyes. “Kook—”

“I know!” He lowers his head. “So, do you want it now or later?”

You closed your eyes, holding out your hands.

“Okay, okay! Hold on!”

Jungkook sprinted toward the bedroom, holding a box when he returned. Bam was passed out on his blanket, not caring what his parents were up to. 

He placed the box in your hands. “Open your eyes.”

You peek with one eye, and it’s a beautifully wrapped gift. It reminded you of the one that Hyunie wrapped your boudoir album in. Jungkook watches as you shake it from side to side.

“I’ll just—leave you alone.”

You purse your lips, raising an eyebrow at your soon-to-be-husband. He kisses you before leaving you alone with the gift.

You undo the twine and carefully remove the kraft paper. Lifting the top cover, there’s a photo album identical to the boudoir one you have.

Did Jeon Jungkook take risque photos for you?

Carefully, you take the album out, moving the box beside you. Your fingers ghost over the front cover before having the courage to open it.

The noise you made awoken Bam, but he ignored you and went back to sleep. You raced to the bedroom, shutting the door behind you.

“What is this?” you questioned, blinking at Jungkook. You held the album open to him, dressed in a tight white tee and leather pants. He looked like a 90s heartthrob, and you were scared to look through the rest, but you may have seen him shirtless in a blazer and jeans.

“You don’t like your present?”

You shook your head. “No, I didn’t say that.”

Jungkook giggled. He propped his arms on the bed, legs spread, a cocky smirk on display.

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

He showed off his pearly whites and wiggled his eyebrows. “Is it working?”

You wandered over between his legs and nodded. “Yes.”

You wondered how it was your wedding, and you were still running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Hyunie and Yuna helped when they could, and you even recruited Minji to be your day-of coordinator so that you wouldn’t have to make all these decisions on your wedding day.

But after a hectic day, you were glad to finally rest and lay your head on the comfy pillow and fluffy duvet. The bed you laid in bore too many memories of you and Jungkook—the two of you getting high, being horny as fuck, and him getting it in the wrong hole. This cabin held many fun memories, and you were excited to add more.

You tugged on the string lamp, turning off the light. Digging deeper into the bed and pillow, you breathed a sigh of relief, ready to go to dreamland.

Just as you were drifting off, a buzzing from your phone awakened you, and when you lifted it to see who it could be—it was none other than your soon-to-be-husband.

You answered the video call but didn’t care to turn on the lights because he broke the rules you had placed for the wedding.

“Kook, what are you doing? You’re not supposed to be calling.”

He’s not wearing a shirt through the screen as the fluffy, white duvet covers him. “Says who?” His elbow props up his head while he’s staring at you.

“Says tradition.”

“Who cares about tradition—Come on, baby,” he pouts, causing a frown and puppy eyes.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s just for one night.”

“Let me talk to my girlfriend before she becomes my wife,” he pouted.

You chuckled. “It’s just a title.”

Jungkook’s offended and scoffs. “Oh, it’s so much more than just a title.”

“You’re going to call me your wife instead of your girlfriend. No big deal.”

“It’s a big deal, alright! I’m honored to be your husband.”

You rolled over on your stomach, propping the phone against the pillow. “Okay, hubby,” you cleared your throat. “Everyone—this is my husband.” You giggled. “You’re right. It has a nice ring to it.”

“See! What did I tell you?”

The both of you quiet down.

“We’ve come a long way, hmm?”

“Yeah, and you’re worth every single step.”

Rolling onto your back, you pick up the phone, then dramatically fan yourself. “Kook, save some words for your vows tomorrow.”

“I have a never-ending list of things I could say.”

“Are you just a boy filled with pure fluff and love?”

He shies away, covering his face with the duvet. “Why, yes, I am.”

You chuckled, furrowing your head further into your pillow. “It’s late, and we have an early day tomorrow. We’re getting married, remember?”

“How could I forget? I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, hubby.”

“Night, wifey.”

The hustle of decorating the cabin was finished the night before, and with Minji, Jimin, and his girlfriend’s help, everything was coming together. The only thing you had on your agenda today was getting married to the love of your life.

Your hair and makeup were in full swing as your makeup artist put the finishing touches on lipstick. You didn’t want anything too glam. Simple and minimal was your mantra for this joyous occasion.

Soft clicks from a camera could be heard from behind as Yuna helped tie your silk top. You and Jungkook opted to capture the wedding on film and digital. It would give it a nice touch of vintage vibes.

Hyunie whistled as she got a close-up of Yuna tying your top. “Wait until Jungkook sees you in this!”

“Stop–it’s just a dress.”

Hyunie shook her head no. “It’s not just any dress. It’s your wedding dress. Trust me. It hits differently.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “And it’s a two-piece, so whenever you wear these pieces separately, you’ll always have some wedding feels.”

You looked at yourself in the mirror, smoothing your silk skirt with the thigh-high slit. You wanted to be practical with your wedding dress. You didn’t want it wasting away in the back of the closet, never to be worn again, so you opted for classic pieces that you can wear again.

Yuna sets the veil’s comb into your hair, letting the tulle drape down. She stood beside you, tilting her head with a smile beaming from ear to ear. She took your hand, making you look at her. “Hey, sis.”

“God—Yuna. Don’t make me cry right now! We just finished my makeup.” The back of your neck began to warm up, and you could feel the tears forming behind your eyes. You fanned yourself, hoping it would stop them from falling.

“I can’t believe this day is finally here.” She dabbed the corner of her eyes, gently wiping away her mascara. “Okay—I need to go check on Indie. Make sure she’s all set. I’ll see you two later.” Yuna tightly embraced you before leaving.

Hyunie takes your hand. “Are you ready, my beautiful bride?”

You faced outward to the breathtaking landscape. The sun is shining, warming up your exposed skin. Closing your eyes, you inhale a deep breath, not taking this moment for granted. You want to savor it, keep it locked up to revisit.

Unbeknownst to you, Jungkook had been watching you from afar, enjoying this moment. Like you, he wishes he could put the world on pause so it could just be the two of you—a point in time where nothing else mattered but you and him.

Jungkook takes his time and chuckles when he sees you tired of standing, waiting for him.

He approaches, wrapping his arms around your waist, removing your veil to kiss your shoulder. He whispers a ‘hi,’ rocking you from side to side.

You leaned back, pressing into him. “Hi,” you repeat as Jungkook kisses your temple.

His kiss sends chills throughout your body. You close your eyes again, and your relationship with Jungkook flashes before you. An overwhelming sensation overtakes every fiber of your being. Your home wasn’t just four walls and a fridge. Instead, it was four limbs and lips to kiss. Jungkook was your home.

“Can we just stay like this for a little while?” He squeezed you tighter. “Before all the chaos?”

You giggled and hummed, turning around to kiss him. “I love you so much.”

It felt like an eternity to finally be standing before him, but the two of you made it–nothing was standing in your way, save for Namjoon, who was performing the ceremony.

Everyone had their turn down the aisle: Yuna walking with Jimin and Taehyung, and even Bam and Indie made the crowd laugh as the flower girl and ring bearer. Bam kept trying to eat the petals as Indie threw them. Yuna had to entice Indie with chocolates as she stood at the end of the aisle.

You were patiently waiting inside, your arm linked with Jin.

“This is your last chance to run,” he teases as you nudge your hip into his.

“I didn’t go through hell and back not to marry Jeon Jungkook.”

Jin chuckles. “Well, come on. Your groom is waiting.”

The acoustic guitar starts playing, ‘Everything’ by Kina Grannis through the speakers. Everyone turns toward you, watching as you descend the aisle with Jin. Camera clicks are heard in front of you as Hyunie snaps away.

You’re donning a silk two-piece, an open-back top with a tie, and a skirt with a thigh-high split. You opted for a dried flower bouquet of lavender and baby’s breath, and Jungkook had a matching boutonniere.

Your eyes focus on none other than Jungkook. He looks dashing in his classic suit. His soft curls frame his pretty face, and his hands are folded as he patiently waits for you. The corner of his mouth curved up into a grin. He shyly looks to the ground before flicking back up, dimple and bunny smile on display.

When you reach the end, Jin hugs you and whispers, ‘Go get ‘em, tiger.’ You chuckle and turn to Yuna, handing her your bouquet. Jungkook takes your hands, and you stand facing each other in front of Namjoon.

It’s like you have tunnel vision; no one else matters but you and him. You can see Jungkook’s eyes glistening as Namjoon continues his wedding script. Jungkook squeezed your hand a few times before you realized Namjoon was talking to you.

All eyes were on the two of you, ready to exchange vows.

You turn to Yuna to retrieve the vows you had prepared. “I was not expecting you. I was not even looking, but somehow, you came to me as if you knew what I needed. I used to believe that finding someone who would love me would be difficult. I know I’m not the easiest person to love. I’m an over-thinker and don’t convey my wants and needs well, but I’ve found someone who thinks they can take on the challenge.”

There’s light laughter among the guests. Jungkook grins, looking at the ground before flicking back to you.

“There may be times when I’m insecure and spiral into the abyss, but if you’re by my side, I know you’ll always be in my corner, fighting with me and helping me every step of the way.” 

You paused and flashed a soft smile, trying to hide your tears. “Jeon Jungkook, you are my dream come true, my world, the joy in my heart. Thank you for loving and accepting me for who I am, my flaws and all.”

You stopped again to dab the tears falling from the corner of your eyes. “And I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life falling in love with you over and over again.”

A stillness remains after you finish your vows. Your eyes quickly glance at the crowd. There are smiles and tears of joy among them.

Namjoon takes the microphone from you, handing it over to Jungkook. He sniffles before clearing his throat and grabbing a piece of paper from his jacket pocket.

He unfolds it in his hands, and you can’t help but notice a slight tremble. “It’s easy for me to love you, which scares me. I’ve never wanted anything so much as I want to hold you every waking minute and every night while I sleep. The question I used to ask myself was ‘How do I love you?’ and now it has become ‘How do I ever stop?’”

“I’ll choose you again and again from start to finish. I’ll choose you when my heart is full, and I’ll choose you even when the days are hard. Maybe I’ve already loved you in a million different ways and through different timelines, but I’m so glad that we’re here now, and I get to love you in this lifetime.”

“There are no more what ifs, what could have been. It’s just you and me saying yes to each other forever. We deserve our happy ending.”

Jungkook looks up to see you holding a tissue, patting your cheeks from the tears. He sees past you and Yuna, also in tears. He lightly chuckles to himself.

The two of you have gone through enough, and Jungkook was right. You didn’t have to live with the what-ifs and the what could have been. This timeline brought you back to him. You could think of many things that could’ve happened—you not taking that meeting in LA, being unable to pick yourself back up, you and Jungkook not breaking up and trying to make it work. But ultimately, you knew you needed to grow, mature, and figure things out before you could be standing here today saying, ‘I do.’

Namjoon proceeds through the rest of his ceremony script by exchanging the rings and, finally, the last thing on the agenda.

“Jungkook, you may kiss the bride,” Namjoon announces.

Jungkook takes a few steps forward, cupping your face and staring into your eyes. “Finally.” He leans forward, closing his eyes. His lips find yours like a magnet.

Cheers from family and friends are boisterous, along with the music that cues up as the two of you are ready to walk down the aisle.

You stand with Jungkook hand in hand. He looks over to you and kisses you again. He lifts your arm, shaking it, yelling a ‘yes’ as the crowd cheers again.

Minji ushered you and Jungkook to a private bedroom, telling the two of you to eat before the reception festivities. But, of course, Jungkook had other plans.

He locked the door and eagerly pressed you against the wall, making you yelp. “Five minutes, that’s all I need.”

“You’re pretty confident, hmm?”

"I can't let this moment go to waste."

"Kook," you whine into his mouth. "Someone's gonna come looking for us."

"Good. I'll tell them we're coming," he grins before kissing you again.

Your hands are flushed against his chest as he trails kisses along your jawline and neck. His hand on the small of your back, pressing you into his growing bulge.

Your fingers tug on his jacket lapels. You're tempted to take off his blazer, but you're in the middle of your wedding celebration. You couldn't get carried away.

He kisses back up your neck, finding your lips again. Shifting your skirt to the side, his hand finds warmth between your legs. He palms against your clit, rubbing circles. He catches your moans with his kisses.

"We can't be so loud, baby."

You unbuckle his belt and pop the button on his dress pants, undoing his zipper. You cup your hand around his hard, clothed erection, stroking him. He gently grabs your hand, making you withdraw from him.

"You first."

He moves your panties to the side, his finger sliding between your folds, spreading your arousal.

"Are you ready for me?"

You loll your head back, jaw slack, making some kind of noise in agreement. He inserts a finger, his palm pressed on your clit again. He starts pumping in and out before adding a second finger. Your walls clench around him when he speeds up.

He squeezes your breast, then pinches your nipple. You're already crumbling, and it's been mere minutes, but your desire for him started long before this.

Jungkook drops to his knees. He gathers your skirt for you to hold. He pulls down your panties, making you step out of them. He flings it off to the side before relishing in you again. He attaches his mouth to your clit, licking and sucking, tugging your legs closer to him. He hurries down further, trying to get to your entrance.

Your hands thread through his hair as he reinserts his fingers. He looks up at you, eyebrows knitted, a stray hair falling as you bite down on your lip, holding in whimpers. Saliva is running down his chin as he continues lapping, trying his best to consume all of you. He pulls away, kissing your clit, nudging his nose into it. At the same time, he's curling his fingers, hitting the sweet spot. He lifts your leg onto his shoulder so he can get better access. He kisses your thigh before attaching his lips to clit again.

You're aching for a sweet release. Your heart is racing, and the fear of someone coming to look for you heightens, and you start rolling your hips, desperate to reach your climax.

"Mm, right here, Kook. Just like that."

His eyes meet yours, and he smiles, knowing he could make you cum quickly. He continues lapping and flicking, finger fucking you. The sensation is too much to handle, and you need to stabilize yourself. He sets your leg down, and his hand grabs the flesh of your ass.

Your skin heats up, hands curl tighter into his hair, the building pleasure causes your legs to shake, and your thighs are closing in on Jungkook. You're biting down on your lip, holding back the moan, desperately trying to escape. You're losing all composure when the tension finally snaps, and you reach your release.

He doesn't let go when you cum. He continues to overstimulate you until you have to push him away. You lean down to kiss him, your slick lingers all over him, and you have to clean him up before he goes back out.

"Fuck–you're so sexy," he says between kisses.

"Your turn."

Jungkook hums. "I'm not gonna last long."

"Then it'll be just like our first time again," you tease, remembering when you sucked him off on your couch.

"Baby–do you have to bring that up right now?"

You giggled and let go of your skirt, reaching to put your panties back on. You nodded, smirking at him. "You can never last long when you’re excited."

"Baby," he whines, letting out a huff.

You kiss him. "I love making you feel that way."

You play with the elastic on his underwear, tugging them down. Jungkook watches as you grin and grip his cock. It involuntarily twitches in your grasp. You have no time to waste. People are waiting for you both.

Kneeling before him, you wrap your hand around his shaft, pumping and twisting his length. Your thumb rubs the pre-cum dripping from him, and then he lets out a sharp hiss when you flick your tongue at his tip. Spitting on his cock, you spread your saliva up and down his shaft with both hands, stroking him.

You peer up at him, and his eyes never leave yours. He’s captivated by this pretty view. You take him in your mouth, swirling your tongue, moaning against him. Laying your tongue flat, it runs along the underside of his cock, following the prominent vein. Your lips are slick and swollen, trying to take more of him in.

“You’re doing so good, baby,” Jungkook bites his lip, gently thrusting forward.

Your lips part around his cock, only taking in the head. Your hand wraps the rest of his shaft, stroking him, and your free hand gently plays with his balls.

A breath is hitched in Jungkook’s throat, his eyes half-lidded, almost rolling back when you take him in inch by inch until your nose is pushed into him. 

There’s a knock on the door, and someone tries to open it. “Hey, are you guys almost finished eating?” Minji asked through the door.

The two of you look toward the door. You’re busy gagging on Jungkook’s dick, and he answers, “We’ll be right there.”

You return to sucking and stroking, more frantic than before.

“Fuck,” Jungkook curses a few more times, bucking into you. He cups your face, making you look at him. “Where do you want me to come?”

You quickly pop off, “Mouth.”

He visibly gulps, his cheeks burning at the thought of you swallowing his cum during your wedding. The muscles in his abdomen tighten, the building pleasure ready to explode. Lightning ripples through him, sending shockwaves throughout his body as he finally cums in your mouth. Jungkook groans when you continue to milk him for all he’s worth. The sweat forming on his head trickles down his face.

You wipe off the trailing saliva and swallow his cum. As you fix your skirt and top, Jungkook stuffs himself back in his underwear and pants. The two of you look at each other, smiling like idiots.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” you said, inching closer to kiss him.

Jungkook smirked, wrapping his arms around you. “I can.”

You cleared your throat. “We should scarf down our food and return to our wedding, hmm?”

Wedding festivities were in full swing—smiles, laughter, and chattering filled the outdoor patio. Delicious food in your bellies and mixed drinks coursing through your veins.

Jin walked to the area where the band was playing, his fingers tinkering on the glass to get everyone’s attention.

“Why, hello, beautiful people—and by beautiful people, I mean me.”

You and Jungkook make a face at each other.

“I’m kidding! Everyone here is dressed to impress, and ladies, if any of you is single, come find me afterward.” He looks at Jungkook, and he’s glaring back at his friend.

Jin clears his throat, “Anyway, I’ve seen the highs and lows of your relationship, and I’m honored to be standing here, witnessing how love can withstand so much as long as two people continue to fight for and fiercely love one another. I promise I’ll always be there to support the two of you as best as possible. And remember me when you need a god-parent for your kids.”

You and Jungkook look at each other, shaking your head.

Jin holds up his glass, proposing a toast. “To the bride and groom, may you continue to show us what true love is.”

Everyone raises their glasses, saying “Cheers,” clinking their glasses with one another at their tables.

Yuna stands, walks to Jin, and retrieves the microphone from him. “Hello, everyone. I’m Yuna, the bride's best friend and the groom's big sister. I’m sure some of you are wondering if I was okay with their relationship, and at first, it came as a shock, but as their relationship progressed, I realized how pure their love was for each other. They’ve even taught me a thing or two about love, and if you’ve seen them from the start until now, you’ll see how far they’ve come, and I can’t wait to see what their future holds. I love you both so much.”

Jungkook nudges you, handing you another tissue. Even though this relationship was hard for Yuna to accept, you’re glad she never gave up on you, on Jungkook. If she never trusted the two of you and cheered you on, it would’ve been another relationship you’d have to grieve. But you’re so glad it worked out.

Jin returns, speaking into the mic, “Now—there’s been enough crying for the night. It’s time for the first dance of the bride and groom.

Jungkook stands, holding out his hand for you. He leads you to the dance floor; you let the train of your skirt drape behind you. The piano intro of the chosen song comes on. His hand sits on the small of your back, pressing you closer to him, his other hand holding yours. You press your cheek against his, close your eyes, and breathe everything in—you and him now.

You love holding his hand. The softness of his fingers electrifies every nerve in your body. You love listening to him breathe; it’s a calm reminder for you to slow things down. You love the warmth radiating off his body and onto yours. You love looking into his starry doe eyes and feeling like everything will be okay.

Entwined, all that we are is defined By each others shipwrecked hearts and I Shiver to think what would have been if I wouldn’t have seen you in time Would we pass by?

“I love you,” Jungkook whispers, kissing your cheek.

A warm smile eases onto your face. “How long will you keep telling me that, hmm?”

He gazes into your eyes. “Forever and ever.”

You giggle. “I like the sound of that.”

Like parachutes and air balloons Or satellites and lonely moons We’d still be drifting far apart But thank the stars we are entwined

The two of you continue to sway to the song until it ends, and the next song comes on, and you just know that Kim Taehyung requested it. The full-on blaring horns and cymbal percussion filled the speakers on blast.

Yes (whoo, ow) It's so crazy right now Most incredibly, it's ya girl, B (yes) It's ya boy, Young You ready?

And the first person on the dance floor, dragging Park Jimin to the floor? None other than Kim Taehyung. 

You and Jungkook look at each other, bursting out into laughter. He had pre-gamed before the wedding even started.

“You wanna sit this one out?” Jungkook asked, raising his eyebrows, and you nodded, letting the rest of the crowd have a turn enjoying the reception.

You’re mingling through the tables and greeting friends. Jungkook has Indie in his arms; she’s giggling and squealing at the top of her lungs as she twirls around, and Bam circles and barks at the two. You love watching Jungkook with Indie, and it makes you wonder if you’ll get to have that with Jungkook one day. You’re hopeful and believing for the best.

Namjoon, Jin, Taehyung, and Jimin all take turns whisking you away from your mingling to dance with you. Throughout the night, you’ve been preoccupied with guests, and then you see the one person who hadn’t greeted you and Jungkook yet.

You walk over to Min Yoongi, who’s in a black suit and tucked in a white tee. This is the most you’ve ever seen him dressed up. He’s kept his hair long but put in some effort to style it.

Like clockwork, there’s a glass of alcohol in his hands. He’s looking elsewhere when he notices you. He’s focused on your eyes; then you see him explore your face and flash a gentle smile.

You hold out your hand. “May I have this dance?”

“I don’t dance,” he grumbles.

“Oh, you’re such a liar! I’ve seen you dance.”

“Yeah—when I’m drunk and I’m not drunk enough yet,” he whines.

“Come on. It’s my wedding day. You can’t say no to me.”

He blinks. “No.”

You roll your eyes and drag him by the hand. He leaves his glass on the table, fumbling after you.

“Just one dance, and then you’ll be a free man.”

Yoongi groans as he stands before you. Your hands are on his shoulders, and his hands are on your waist, and you’re both at a respectable distance from one another.

“See, it’s not that bad, is it?”

“It’s horrible actually. Think I’m allergic to dancing,” he teases.

“Shut up, stupid.”

“You shut up,” he spits back.

“You can’t tell me to shut up. I’m the bride.”

“Have you been using that excuse all day?” He narrows his eyes at you.

You show off a cheeky smile. “Yep!”

Yoongi shakes his head, and he beams his gummy-toothed smile.

“Did I get a smile out of Min Yoongi?” You gasp dramatically.

“Consider it your wedding gift.”

You roll your eyes again, and you smack him on the shoulder.

“Yah—” he frowns. “I was going to give you your actual wedding gift, but I’m taking it back now.”

“What?” Your eyes widen. “No, no, no! What is it?”

Yoongi steps back, reaching for something in his pocket. He pulls out a small rectangular box and hands it to you.

The music continues as you flip open the box, and in it, you see a silver titanium spinning top and a silver bishop chess piece, but just like in the movie, it’s hollowed out.

“There’s debate on Cobb’s totem being his ring, but considering you and Jungkook have wedding rings, it seems redundant.”

You chuckled to yourself at the gift. Only Yoongi would get you something like this. “What does it mean?”

Yoongi looks around, and your eyes follow him. His gaze returns to you, along with a soft smile. “This—you and Jungkook—it’s not a dream. It’s real.”

You turn away from him, your heart aching gravely, your eyes glistening from the silly but not-so-silly gift.

“Are you,” Yoongi pauses, “crying?”

You tut, still turned away, quickly wiping your tears. “No, I’m not crying.”

He tilts his head, waiting for you to turn to him. “Hey, what do I always say?”

“It’s okay to cry, just don’t cry alone,” you say monotonously.

He laughs. “Well, at least you remember something I’ve told you.”

You looked at him, your eyebrows knitted. “I listen,” you retort.

The song ends, and the DJ lets guests know only a few songs are left.

“Well, I have to head out. Early roll call tomorrow—you know the drill,” Yoongi says, stuffing his hands into his pants pocket.

You nod. “Thanks for coming. You don’t know how much it meant to me.”

“I wish you and Jungkook all the best,” he flashes a thin smile, and then he pulls you in for a hug, his cheek pressed against yours.

The unexpected display of affection catches you off guard. He’s not known to express affection, but you soften, giving into his embrace.

Yoongi withdraws from the hug, locking eyes with Jungkook as he waits for the two of you to finish. Yoongi gives a small smile, as does Jungkook.

“I’ll see you when I see you?”

The corner of your eyes crinkle as you smile, bidding him farewell.

Jungkook wraps his arms around you from behind, inhaling your scent. “Ready to go home?”

You hummed, nuzzling into him. “Let’s go home, hubby.”

A deep groan escaped your lips when you rolled onto your side, but Jungkook blocked the way, and you couldn’t move further. Your body ached in every nook and cranny. Jungkook did not go easy on you last night.

You sat up with weary eyes, staring at your husband, who was sound asleep, snoring away as if you had nothing to do today, but that was far from the case.

The two of you were setting off to the Maldives later tonight. Jin had taken Bam home after the wedding to dog sit while the two of you are off on your honeymoon.

You shoved Jungkook a few times, and his only response was grunts. “Kook, we need to get up,” you whined, kicking him a few times.

“Mm? Kook is not my name,” he said in a muffled tone as he faced you.

You huffed, clenching your jaw. “Husband, hubby, the love of my life.”

His eyes are closed, and he beams from ear to ear. “Yes, wifey?” He peeked an eye open before shifting into an upright position beside you. He opened his arm up for you to cuddle right in.

You shake your head at your silly husband, kissing his chest. He’s never going to grow old of you calling him that, is he?

“I love you.”

He giggled. “Is that it?”

You hummed.

“I love you more.”

Throughout your wedding day, you couldn't help but think of your relationship with Jungkook. You never expected to fall in love with your best friend's younger brother. You were on the rebound; he had just moved back from LA. It seemed like a lifetime ago that the two of you were sneaking around, getting caught by Yuna. It's strange how life works, how everyone gathers at life events, and this time, instead of a family reunion—like the one where you saw Jungkook again—everyone gathered for a more cheerful occasion, celebrating the two of you.

Chapter One of your life was never-ending, full of life and love. It was messy and complicated, but you felt like it was finally coming to a close, and Chapter Two would be the beginning of something much more beautiful for you and Jungkook.

✨ epilogue ~ us

[barrenclan]

Given that you’re a fan of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, do you have any ideas for a song/songs that would fit any character/s?

OH BOY! Absolutely! :D Here's a few;

"You Stupid Bitch" is obviously a perfect Slugpelt song; that kind of self-deprecation, especially the kind of sardonic hatred that it personifies. With the lyrics about Josh I can also imagine it taking place directly post-Cashew abandoning her.

"You ruined everything You stupid bitch You ruined everything You stupid, stupid bitch"

"Yes, Josh completes me, but how can that be When there's no me left to complete"

Hilariously, I can kinda imagine "After Everything I've Done For You" as a Ranger to Rainhaze song? Although not all of the lyrics fit I really like the tone of Ranger singing 'how dare you be so ungrateful, for me ruining your life'. It'd also pretty Dustfeather pretty well.

"After everything I've done for you (That I didn't ask for) Do you have any idea The work you're undoing?"

"What's that look on your face? You're horrified You think I'm a monster For doing your dirty work You think love is stainless and pure But beneath all the fantasy There's filth and there's gore"

And then as a complete joke how about "Let's Have Intercourse" with Deepdark. What a charmer! He's so early-season Nathanielcore.

I'm not adding lyrics... just listen to the song.

Yes, The Nowhere King is already on the PATFW playlist!

I do appreciate a good FNAF song, especially since Pizzaria is my second favorite game. (SL is first.) Hm, this one is interesting! I can see it fitting Rainhaze pretty well...

"It's a bright new day, and it's your time to shine Time to take your career into your own hands Spend all your money and the stars, they will align"

"Wait, I hear voices on every side And I wonder where And I wonder why Where do they hide?"

"I'm sorry, you've been misinformed This is just a never-ending labyrinth and nothing more Endless circles of fear Chasing cries of children that seem so near Out of reach, you will never find them Don't you see? This is where your story ends"

I can see it!

"Can't pick them out Can't press them in I'll never hide my scars"

"One unsheathed knife must glint In an alternate timeline's light One rust-ridden blade juts out Of a friendly moonstruck shape" <- I love this turn of phrase

We got a sleep motif reference boys! Pack it in!

Oh yeah! I've seen this song used for good PMVs before. I like this kind of music with Rainhaze, too; that stomp-clamp indie kind of sound.

"If they find the body in the basement In the very house that she was raised in" <- ohh......

"So when we get the sign From God I'll be the first to call them I'm taking back the number of the beast"

"Should I choose a noble occupation? If I did I'd only show up late and sick And they would stare at me with hatred"

Oh gosh yeah I do remember being a little confused by that ask. So ominous! But I agree, it's fitting for him.

"I roam these halls, search the night In hopes that I may see A remnant trace, a glimpse of you"

"There and then, I should have known It was me all along Nevermore to leave here Nevermore to leave here My love is the killing kind"

Rainhaze has this wonderful effect on people's brains where instead of Thoughts there is Rainhaze. Definitely adding "Her Sinking Sun" to the playlist.

"Torn apart from everyone Her sinking sun I watch it die"

"Animals begging to eat They can't survive Not meant to be"

"Flowers of skin and bone We're all alone Waiting to die"

"Water rushes through my heart It's torn apart By yr trusting eyes"

That's a cute idea, I like it! Well, not cute all the way, but you know what I mean. Or in another way... Pinepaw looking for Asphodelpaw after she disappears. A shorter timeline, but maybe more accurate to the song.

"Have you seen my sister, Evelyn? Dang, she's gone and wandered off again! I've been lookin' high and low Where oh where'd my sister go?"

"Is she studyin' Kabala? Did she win a million dollars? Or is she dead in a ditch somewhere?"

Boooo I ran out of links fuck you tumblr

[daymxre]

i wanna be yours

suna rintarou x reader

“Y/N, BABE!! GUESS WHAT!!” he shouted the moment he enters the room, and it is rare of him to shout about something unless he is excited about it.

“WHAT??!” you shouted back, putting down your phone because his energy radiated to you to get excited about something as well.

“ARCTIC MONKEYS IS COMING TO JAPAN!” he announced.

“SUNA RINTAROU, ARE YOU SLASH S R S OR SLASH J?!?!”

“I AM SLASH S R S, SUNA Y/N!” he replied.

“OH MY GOD- THEN WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR? LET’S GET THE TICKETS!”

what’s with arctic monkeys? what makes the two of you so excited to go to arctic monkeys concert?

well, that band is the reason the two of you got together.

— flashback —

suna’s pov

we were classmates and we lived beside each other, so we were neighbours too. this might sound creepy but I’ve been wondering what kind of songs do you listen to? you always have headphones which is your signature appearance. there was once I asked you the reason you have your headphones all the time at school during lunctime.

“to block unnecessary noises. I hate loudness and I love listening to songs,” was your answer.

‘I guess you can’t handle atsumu’s loudness,’ I thought to myself as I know that blonde miya’s personality.

you walked away when you answered my question — which I didn’t even notice that you did. I don’t know how you caught my attention. at first, I was curious but that curiosity only took another step that I couldn’t control.

one day, your headphones was broken and you came to school with your earphones instead. somehow, someone had the audacity to cut the wires of your earphones. you didn’t show your anger but I could tell your vibe changed real quick.

“perhaps fuck off might be too kind,” was your answer towards the person that ruined your earphones. I overheard it your voice that time and how I wished I could have done something for you. the only thing I did was threatening to blackmail them so they would leave you alone. yet, you told me that it would be a waste of time to pick a fight with them. well, the next day, I bought new headphones for you. I remembered I had to search up good quality headphones too.

that was also the moment, I knew which line that was from. it was from ‘do me a favour’ by arctic monkeys. the one you said to those idiots when they ruined your earphones.

it’s because I’m not much of a talkative person, and how you would ignore my presence because of your headphones on, we never really talked. we were never friends, to begin with. even though I managed to exchange our numbers but I was a coward to start a conversation. I prefer spending time with you actually instead of virtually. yet, I only observed you. this went on for months and the only thing I learned about you is that you listen to arctic monkeys.

which is also my favourite band. I even put it on while practising in the gym.

the team noticed my change and pointed it out. I was in denial but it got quite obvious when you were looking for me in the gym. I was stunned, enchanted and flustered at that moment because you didn’t have your headphones on, just to talk to me. I had to keep my cool but failed successfully when atsumu pointed out the redness on my cheeks and ears.

well, I cherished that short conversation though.

just by that, I went on spotify and made a playlist for the both of us. I sent you the link of the collaborative playlist which was a lame move.

the two of us listened to the playlist at the same time but I didn’t want to confess yet. well, I had a plan in mind, I just didn’t know when. the songs from the playlist went on — until ‘I wanna be yours’ started to play. that song had me unable to describe my own feelings. alexithymia, I must say. I was the one that added the song. I checked the collaborative playlist again and turned out you, l/n y/n added a song from arctic monkeys, ‘Baby I’m Yours.’

I was shocked, obviously. ‘SHIT- I WAS GONNA CONFESS TO YOU WITH THAT SONG, Y/N! BUT NOT THIS WAY. I WANTED TO CONFESS IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE! NOT HERE-! AAAAAAAA’ my mental was screaming and shouting as I was punching the air at the same time.

at that moment, I went to your house even though it was midnight. I came up unannounced. this is so not me. yet, there I was, standing in front of your door, knocking and rang the bell. the sound might have disturbed the neighbours but I didn’t care.

apparently, you opened the door, “can’t you at least text me first that you’re coming over especially at this time? what if I had my earphones on? I couldn’t listen to the bell, otherwise,” you said.

“yeah, I know. wait- you weren’t on your headphones?” I asked.

“mhm. I connected my phone with the speaker so I can listen to songs better. to be honest, you’re the first person for me to collaborate a playlist on spotify.”

“in that case, I’m honoured.”

“and what’s up with you? do you wanna come in?” you offered but I shook my head to decline the offer.

‘you can do this,’ I mentally said to myself.

“secrets I have held in my heart.. are harder to hide than I thought,” I started, my voice suddenly turned out like a singsong voice when I wanted it to be a normal speaking voice. I noticed your reaction was surprised that I sang out of nowhere. “maybe I just wanna be yours.. I wanna be yours,” I added. at this point, it feels like I’m embarassing myself but it’s worth the shot to try, I supposed.

“I wanna be yours,” I affirmly said, assuring you that I truly, madly, deeply want to be yours.

you chuckled at my attempt, “baby I’m yours.. and I’ll be yours until the stars fall from the sky, yours until the rivers all run dry, in other words, until I die,” it was your turn to reply and you took the first verse in ‘Baby I’m Yours.’

I pulled you into a hug, kissed your forehead. I still can’t believe I confessed to you with a song. you got the hint and replied with a song too.

“I got the hint from the playlist so I had to add the reply to the song too,” you said and I pulled the hug away to look into your e/c eyes.

“you’re smart huh..” I muttered.

that was how the two of us finally officially together and started to learn more about each other as the time goes on.

— present time —

21st december 2022

“I hate waiting but for arctic monkeys, I have to!” you chimed and he only laughed. thankfully, gladly and fortunately, the two of you managed to buy the tickets online. the concert will be held at Osaka - Zepp Osaka Bayside.

“the concert will be on march 15th 2023 and you know what day that is?” he pointed it out.

“our 10th year anniversary,” you answered, decided to play the playlist that lasts for 9 years already.

“don’t shuffle play it. I want the songs to be in order.”

“because the songs are replying to each other?”

“mhm,” he answered and proceed to bury his face in your neck.

“I’m finally yours,” he muttered and finally dozed off to sleep but you could hear there was a tone of relief when he said it and you’re over the moon. you smiled to yourself and hums the melody of the songs instead.

a/n :

im jealous that arctic monkeys wont visit my country.. *sighs*

ive had this scenario in my head for quite some time and the fact that arctic monkeys announced they’re going to japan made it better.

i’d love to vibe arctic monkeys with suna tbh..

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph, hope you are doing great. I sent you a request for internalized homophobia John ficrecs a while ago, accidentally as anon because it had been years since I last used Tumblr and clearly I have a hard time keeping up haha.

Anyways, while I patiently wait for your answer, I just wanted to send you some love because I got back into the fandom last December after years of pushing it aside, and it's been a wonderful experience of coming to terms with what fanfiction meant for me when it was a part of my life as a teenager. Your blog, which I found so quickly googling "johnlock fic recs", really facilitated the whole process of finding fics that could speak to me, and that reminded me why I used to love fanfiction so much.

I was just listening to "Probably Me" by Sting on the subway and thoughts it was such a Johnlock coded song and might be a great fit for your playlist. (I think this was the original intention for my message, and it kind of turned into something else haha.)

In other words, thank you :)

[Verse 1: Sting] If the night turned cold and the stars looked down And you hug yourself on the cold cold ground You wake the morning in a stranger's coat No one would you see You ask yourself, who's watched for me My only friend, who could it be It's hard to say it I hate to say it, but it's probably me

[Verse 2: Sting] When your belly's empty and the hunger's so real And you're too proud to beg and too dumb to steal You search the city for your only friend No one would you see You ask yourself, who's watched for me A solitary voice to speak out and set me free I had to say it I hate to say it, but it's probably me

[Bridge: Sting] You're not the easiest person I ever got to know And it's hard for us both to let our feelings show Some would say I should let you go your way You'll only make me cry If there's one guy, just one guy Who'd lay down his life for you and die I Hate to say It I hate to say it, but it's probably me

[Verse 3: Sting] When the world's gone crazy and it makes no sense There's only one voice that comes to your defense And the jury's out and your eyes search the room And one friendly face is all you need to see If there's one guy, just one guy Who'd lay down his life for you and die I Hate to say it I hate to say it, but it's probably me

[Outro: Sting] I hate to say it I hate to say it, but it's probably me I hate to say it I hate to say it, but it's probably me I hate to say it I hate to say it, but it's probably me

[Lyrics from Genius.com]

=====

Hi Lovely!

First of all, thank you so much for your lovely ask! I really am SO honoured you think so highly of my blog, and that it is a source of great enjoyment for you!

Secondly, I DID get your ask, and I have enough for a new list, so it is being saved for a Sunday posting! I ADORE when people give me asks I've already got lists for, so thank you!

And finally, THANK YOU for this playlist suggestion!! It's a great song for them for sure! *HUGS* Cheers!!

🎶 LISTEN TO THE JOHNLOCK PLAYLIST ON [SPOTIFY] & [YOUTUBE] 🎶

[ellethespaceunicorn]

Bright Like The Moon: Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Such A Funny Thing For Me To Try To Explain

Rating: Explicit, 18+, Minors - DNI

Fandom: Night Hunter

Pairing: Walter Marshall x Black!OFC 

Word count: 3.1K

Summary: Kamaria Mansfield is hired at the Minnesota Police Department as an intern. Detective Walter Marshall is overworked and unsatisfied. Takes place post-film.

Chapter Summary: Kamaria deals with some hard truths about herself, while Walter tells Kamaria how he really feels.

Chapter warnings: uncomfortable conversations, Daddy kink, non-barrier contraception (no condom usage), creampie, breeding kink, the itis

A/N: This chapter takes place directly after Chapter 5. Call it a continuation, if you will. Also, the last chapter was very Walter-centric and this chapter is about 33% Kamaria POV and 67% Walter POV. Un-beta’d, we die like people who tried their best.

Dividers: @firefly-graphics

Support/Reblog banner by me

Cover Art by me

Cross-posted on AO3

~*~Spotify Playlist~*~

Series Masterlist

My Masterlist

Kamaria’s POV

Early Saturday Morning

I am awakened by Walter’s strong arms wrapped around me, gently shaking me. Fuck.

“Kam, baby, wake up!” his voice quakes, as he turns my face to look at him. 

“I’m awake,” I mumble, my body still trembling.

“You were having an awful nightmare. I’ve been trying to wake you for some time now,” he began wiping a cold compress across my sweaty forehead, “You don’t have to tell me what the nightmare was about, but please know I only want to help you, baby.”

Well, here goes everything, I guess.

“My heart and my brain have begun a war between each other. My heart knows you care about me, but my mind is trying its hardest to figure out the how and the why. It is struggling to find the logic in how a man like you could like a girl like me. It leaves me in the middle straining to be heard,” I sniffle, letting him take my hands in his own, “I’ve had so many people in my life that have either left me or given me reasons to leave. My mother, my ex-lovers, and my friends. I have felt for so long that I am the one that gets left behind. I’m not allowed to have happiness and love. And then I met you and my world sort of imploded.”

“Imploded in a positive way, I presume?” he wonders.

“A very positive way, Walter. So positive, my psyche can’t understand it. And you literally said to me last night that you weren’t going anywhere and it was like a breath of fresh air. Almost like you knew what I needed to hear and you just said it. And I missed you so much all week but I didn’t want to bug you while you were spending time with Faye. I want you to have the relationship with Faye that I wish I had with my Dad,” I whimper, wiping at my unshed tears. 

“Please know that if you ever need me while I am with Faye, get in touch with me, baby. You are important to me, Angel. You can’t possibly interrupt my relationship with Faye, so stop thinking you are doing so, please. How did therapy go?” he questions.

“In yesterday’s therapy session, I kept bringing up our usual after-work hang-out time and how it has become kind of routine to me. And I think maybe I experienced a kind of sub-drop as a result of it not happening this week. So by Friday, I needed your company and I jumped at the first opportunity to have you near me.”

“I need to ask you something, baby,” he says, his hand moving to my chin to turn my face toward his, “Is sub-drop the reason we had sex last night? Would you have waited longer?”

As he searches my eyes for the answer, my hand comes up to hold onto his wrist. “The reason we had sex last night is that I was ready. I was ready to experience that with you. I will say that sub-drop allowed me not to feel anxious about asking for what I needed though. I was so nervous that you wouldn’t want to have sex this soon.”

“If I had my way, I would’ve had you our first weekend together but that would have been too soon. I just knew I wanted you. So I didn’t force you last night, then?”

“Not at all, Walter. You had multiple check-ins with me and you made sure I felt comfortable and safe and cared for. You were perfect.”

“Thank fuck, I got worried there for a minute,” he lets out a nervous laugh, “You can always talk to me about these things, love. That’s why I’m here. To help shoulder the burden of what that brain decides to throw at you.”

“I know, but I-”

“No buts. Come to me the next time you are feeling unsure about something. Especially when it is to do with me. I want nothing more than to put you at ease, Angel.”

I climb up into his lap and wrap my arms around him. “Thank you. I promise I will come to you the next time I feel off.”

“That’s my good girl,” he soothes, giving my lips a quick peck, “Now, I have a question for you, Angel. I wanted to ask last night but I was too busy in a post-orgasmic haze.”

“Oh, my goodness. What is your question?” I send a prayer up to the heavens that I can handle his next words.

He smiles at me, and it has this hint of flirtation and domination within it. I love it when he smiles like that at me. Just knowing he has that power over me, but also that he wants me to know I’m safe with him.

“So, does my baby girl have a breeding kink?” Oh, that old chestnut?

I shift in his lap and start to look down and he lifts my head back up so we are eye-to-eye. “I mean, I didn’t really have it before you. Just with how much you cum, and how good you felt inside me…I just, in that moment, needed to feel you filling me up. And then I thought if I told you what I fantasize about, you would give it to me. Not give me a baby, because that would be way too soon. But, at least, give me a creampie. And you came so fucking hard, and I was beyond turned on. It was so hot, feeling you explode inside me. Even now, I can still feel it.” I shift in his lap again, trying to find any kind of friction until he stills my hips.

“As much as I wanna go for another round, it actually hasn’t been that long. It’s only a bit past 2 in the morning, and I don’t wanna hurt this little pussy. Well, I do wanna beat it up but it needs rest. As do we, Angel. Come on, let’s get some more sleep, and when we wake up, I’ll make sure and fill you up, ok?”

“Yaaaaaaaaas. Thank you, thank you, thank you! The sooner we get to sleep, the sooner you can turn me into a creme-filled treat.” I laugh, making him chuckle behind me as he cuddles into me.

Walter’s POV

Mid-Saturday Morning

I wake up to the sounds of light snores in my ear. Needless to say, I arise with a smile on my face. I attempt to snuggle closer and embrace her a bit but in my morning daze, I just squeeze her and wake her up by accident.

Her little whimper as she wakes is possibly the cutest sound I have ever heard. I’m tempted to have her make that sound again but I decide against it.

“How long have you been awake, baby?” she slurs a bit, rubbing her eyes.

“Not long. Promise I didn’t even have time to watch you sleep all creepy-like,” I laugh, leaning back when she turns around to face me.

“Awww, you weren’t my favorite kind of creep? Rats. Next time, then.”

“You’re terrible, you know that right?” 

“Can’t be that terrible. You’re in my bed. I’m in your arms. That spells romance to me,” she leans in and nuzzles my nose with hers. Why do I feel feral over that gesture?

“Right, you got me there,” I smile down at her, “How romantic is it that all I’m thinking about is filling that pretty pussy with my cum? I mean, I did promise you I would do that when we woke up.”

I have never seen her move quicker as she climbs atop me. With that movement, I and my dick are fully awake.

“I’d say that is the most romantic thing I have ever heard, Daddy,” she moans in my ear and cards her fingers through my hair. I take the opportunity to grab her hips and push her back onto me, reveling in the noises coming from her as she adjusts to the size.

“Fuck, Princess. So hot and tight for me. Take what you need from me, baby. Daddy wants you to ride for a while,” I groan, drinking in her sexiness like a fine wine.

She places her hands on my chest and lifts and lowers her hips until she can get a good rhythm going. And when she does, I am in heaven. The feeling of the motion of her hips is unlike anything I’ve ever had. Like she’s dancing on my dick and I’m not in control. 

She has all of the control and I couldn’t be more pleased. The way she works those hips, the way she looks down at me. I could not have imagined that the girl I helped not to fall that day would be above me, writhing and moaning herself to an orgasm. I could not have imagined that I would be in love this soon. But that’s what they say right? When it’s right, it’s right.

With her, it’s so fucking right. I reach up and caress her cheek, locking eyes with her. When she smiles at me, her eyes sparkle and it’s like she can see all my flaws and she just runs with them. She knows I want to care for her, and she lets me. For the most part, that is. There are still moments that I wish she would come to me, but I’m a patient man.

It looks like my Angel isn’t as patient.

“Mmm, Daddy, please may I cum?” she pleads, swiveling her hips.

I can’t deny her anything and she fucking knows it. “Yes. Cum with me, Angel,” I say, grabbing her hips and planting my feet so I can pound into her. Not even a moment later, I can feel her walls squeezing me like a vice. I tumble after her, spilling inside her and fulfilling my promise. I pull her down to entangle our moans in a searing kiss.

We part to catch our breath, foreheads together and eyes closed. There is nothing better than moments like this, I find. When one or both of us are spent, all we can do is breathe and clutch each other. We melt into each other and become one. 

I need to tell her how I feel, that’s a given. But first, I want to show her how I feel. And the first step is to care for her, as usual. Especially as it looks like her bones have left the building, and so has her brain as she has gone quiet. 

I scoop her up in my arms and leave the bedroom for the bathroom, setting her on the toilet before turning on her shower. I can tell she barely registers what is going on but she allows herself to be maneuvered into the spray after I put her shower cap over her hair. I let her get adjusted to the water while she is still basking in her afterglow.

I finally see that fruity and fragrant body wash she always smells like and lather it into her with a loofah. If I spend a little extra time massaging in the lather over her breasts and ass, she doesn’t seem to mind. I rinse her body under the stream and can’t help but leave kisses across her espresso skin. 

I turn off the water and get out of the shower first and grab her towel, holding it out for her to exit. She allows me to dry her off from top to bottom, letting me kneel at her feet to dry them. Taking off her shower cap, I leave it on its hook. Wrapping her towel around her, I lead her back to the bedroom. Wordlessly, she points to her lotion and I pick it up before coming back to her. I tell her to hold it momentarily as I walk to get my phone from my pocket and queue up ‘Angel’ by FINNEAS.

I take the lotion back from her and let the towel fall to the ground as the song starts. As I massage lotion into her perfect skin, I tell her, “This song has been on my mind for a while now. Actually, I heard Faye listening to it this week and now it’s just part of my memory banks now.” I chuckle, she joins in soon enough.

‘Nothing good lasts forever

But nights with you are better

So go slow

I never knew I needed you

Before I found you for the first time, hmm

I'm out of step, I'm off my feet

I'm waking up inside a dream

Teach me how to fly’

As the song goes on, I moisturize her skin. It is as soothing to me as it is to her. Almost like a love language. Wait, are acts of service a part of my love language? We’ll come back to that later.

I kneel down at her feet to get her lower half and the song reaches its crescendo. I caress her skin and look up at her face. She looks so perfect as she smiles down at me. Her hands fall into my hair, something I’ve noticed is a bit of an antsy habit with her. She does it when I stare at her for a beat longer than I usually would, or when she doesn’t know what to say. I just love it so much, I never want her to stop.

“I love it when you play with my hair, Angel,” I close my eyes, leaning into her. Wrapping my arms around her, I kiss her belly. It is one of my favorite things about her. I could kiss and caress it all day long if she would let me. I’m sure she would. I would just have to ask.

“Well good because I love playing in your hair. I mean, these curls are like my Kryptonite,” she giggles sonorously.

“Angel, there’s something else I love,” I say, returning to my full height, “Take a guess.”

“Oh, that’s easy. You love me, right?” she throws her head back and laughs, and I can tell that she is joking and she has no clue just how right she actually is. I take her chin between my thumb and forefinger, tilting her head up so she can see the sincere smile on my face.

“I love you, Kamaria,” I search her eyes until she gets it and when she does, her eyes twinkle with unshed tears. And it breaks my fucking heart. I can tell she is questioning how and why I love her and I have to put a stop to that line of thinking. “I love you because you let me care for you. You allow me to be myself and not have to be grumpy and standoffish all the fucking time. I love your smile. I love your personality. I love the way you look at me as if I hung the moon. Let me love you, please?”

She’s nodding quickly as a single tear falls. “I love you too, Walter.”

I lean down and capture her lips. It is only then that I realize that we are both naked still. Being naked is being vulnerable. And we just took a giant leap in our relationship. I have to make sure she feels comfortable.

“Why don’t we get you into some comfy clothing and I take you out for brunch, yeah? We can hold hands and make annoying romantic faces at each other the whole time.”

She looks as though she breathes a sigh of relief before she smiles up at me. “Goodness, you really do love me. How else would you know I wanted some pancakes right now?”

“Well, I did hear your stomach grumble a bit while I was down there. But I know we’ve had sex twice in about twelve hours with no nourishment in between so it’s only right that I feed you more than my cum, ya know?”

“Oh, my God! I fucking love you for that one,” she walks away to her dresser.

“Say it again.”

“I love fucking you, I mean, I fucking love you.” she winks at me and before I can even think to punish her for that, I sputter into a laughing fit and have to put my hands on my knees to calm down.

“Damn, that was a good one. I can’t top that so I’m gonna put on my clothes and admit defeat right now.”

“Don’t worry, Daddy. I take the L so often. It was only right that I get a W at some point. Kinda funny it happens while naked during expressions of looo-ooove,” she sing-songs, pulling out a comfy sweater from her closet.

“Does the W stand for Win or Walter?” I wink as she rolls her eyes at me.

“Ya know what? I will dignify that with a response. The W does stand for Walter. I deserve you. I fucking deserve love and happiness and cheesy romantic moments! Now, put some pants on, and let’s go get pancakes and whatever the fuck a full English breakfast is.”

“We’re not getting an English breakfast that’s anywhere near as good as what I can make at home. Trust me. Let’s stick to pancakes and bacon and like, grits or something. Have you ever had grits?”

“Oh, hun. Yeah, I’ve had grits. I’ve had, like, so many types of grits too. Shrimp grits, cheese grits, creamy grits. Damnit, now I want something savory.”

“No one is saying you can’t have whatever you want, Angel.” I offer, pulling up my trousers and looking at her.

I see her catch herself before she speaks. “You know what? You’re so fucking right. I’m putting on my stretchy pants today. I am gonna eat to my heart’s content. Eat grease and butter until I need a nap. That is my ideal way to spend the rest of the day if you don’t mind?”

“I fucking love that idea. Get those stretchy pants on. And maybe pack an overnight bag? I have an idea for tomorrow and I want you there for it. Unless you have plans?” I suggest as I pull my shirt over my head.

“No plans for me. I’d love to stay the night and see what this idea of yours is,” she agrees, pulling out her overnight bag from her closet.

After she packs up her bag, we head to a diner on the way back to my house. We eat to our heart’s content and it is true. As soon as we get back to my house, we take a long nap. The itis, as Kam called it, had surely beaten us, and we were happy to lose. And I was happy to be holding the woman I loved, and who loved me, in my arms.

I am so fucking lucky.

Chapter 7

A/N: The chapter title is taken from ‘Crazy In Love’, the Sofia Karlberg version is on the Spotify playlist. I feel the need to apologize to not only Beyonce but to the Beyhive. I needed the slowed-down version, but I kinda hate the version Bey did. I’ll die on the hill that Sofia’s slow version is better. If this stops you from reading the story further, I completely underst-Call your dad, you're in a cult!

**Tag List**

@brattymum96 @ambinxe @avengersfan25 @kebabgirl67

@enchantedbytomandhenry @astheskycries 

@geralts-yenn @deandoesthingstome @liveoncoffeeandflowersss @foxyjwls007 @rosiesluv7 @livisss

Let me know if you wanna be added and for what plz  😁

[General Fanfiction (Everything), Henry Fanfiction, August Walker, Bright Like The Moon]

[gretavangroupie]

Wilt (Chapter 5)

Chapter 4

Wilt Playlist

A/N: This chapter could be triggering for some readers.

THIS FIC RELIES HEAVILY ON THE PLAYLIST LINKED ABOVE. TO FULLY UNDERSTAND THE STORY YOU MUST PLAY THE SONGS WHEN YOU SEE THE LYRICS.

WARNINGS: Angst, Smut, Sexual Assault, Drugs, Alcohol 18+ as always.

You spend a lot of the day sleeping and Jake never leaves your side, his hand intertwined with yours at every moment. The remnants of everything leaving your body has you feeling unstable and weak a large majority of the day. You battle your feelings trying to process what happened and pin point an underlying feeling that you just can't shake. You watch movies, and cuddle and just enjoy each others company into the early evening.

Jake gets up from the bed and walks out of the now dark bedroom, returning with a guitar. He comes back over to the the bed and sits down next to you and begins to lightly play. 

The melody, one you have never heard him play before.

“What is that?” You ask.

“It’s something new, I just thought of…needed to feel it out real quick. What do you think?” He replies.

“It sounds… sad.” You reply.

“I guess, in a way it kind of is…” he replies as he continues to play. Trying different variations of notes together until he settles on it. He pulls out his phone and opens his voice memos, and hits the record button, and he plays the song, recording the small snippet.

“How many of those recordings do you have?” You ask playful when he finishes.

“Way too many, and out of all of them only 2 or 3 will actually make the cut and turn into a real song.” He says putting his phone on the side table.

“Will you play me a song? One that I would know?” You ask.

He begins to strum the strings and you recognize it immediately and smile.

He is playing 'That’s the Way’ by Led Zeppelin.

“You seem to be fond of this album in particular…I’ve noticed…” he says smiling.

“This is the one I remember the most from my childhood. I think I know the words to every song on the album. This one is actually one of my favorites.” You reply.

“Sing it for me…” he says.

You sing along to his soft playing and take in the moment. It’s been a crazy 24 hours. You went from being so excited to get home and see Jake, finally seeing him and having one of the best nights, to having the worst night of your life in a matter of hours. Finally pin pointing the feeling you’ve been chasing all day, you realize that what you’re feeling is anger. You’re mad at yourself for allowing this to happen. You’re mad you couldn’t do anything to stop it. You’re mad you were even in the situation. Disgusted by what transpired. A part of you is mad at Jake, too. He left you inside that party, and you wonder if maybe it wouldn’t have happened if he had just stayed put like he said he would. Why didn’t he come find you sooner? Why did he leave the spot after he said he wouldn't? The more you think about that fact, the more your stomach starts to sour and you realize that you are mad at him, really mad.

“Jake, I think I need to go home.” You say.

He turns to you concerned, “Are you okay darlin? I mean, I know you’re not okay, and I don’t expect you to be, but…you seem upset suddenly…” He asks.

“I don’t know Jake. I need to process everything that happened and I feel like I need to do it alone.” you reply getting up from the bed, your tone turning harsh. 

“I just… need to be alone.”

His eyes search yours looking for answers to what you’re thinking. You begin to hastily shove clothes into your bag and you can feel all of the pent up emotions begging to come out. You are choking back tears, frustration, anger, guilt…

“Babe please, I… I don’t know what to do. What do you want me to do? What can I do? Do you want me to drive you home? I can….” Jake pleads desperately.

“No!” You yell. “Just stop!"

“I’m just trying to help you... Fuck!” He says back, insulted.

“Why didn’t you help me last night Jake!? Why didn’t you come find me? I needed you! I needed you and you were gone! Why didn’t you look for me sooner!” You say turning on him, almost yelling.

“I DID look for you, I told you I did! We all did! We looked everywhere for you! I was panicking searching everywhere for you as soon as I could!” He yells. 

“You LEFT the spot. You weren’t there Jake! You told me you would be there!” You begin to cry as you throw your bag over your shoulder.

“I fucking know! Trust me, this shit is eating me alive! Do you even know how fucking bad I feel? This is all my fault! This is something I can’t fix! Do you know how I felt when I saw you laying on that floor? Do you have any fucking clue? I fucking failed you and I will never forgive myself!” He yells… “I know you’re mad, I would be mad at me too! Fuck, honestly I would have dumped my ass as soon as I figured out what happened! But you didn’t and I thought you understood! Apparently I was wrong!” He says full on yelling at you from across the room.

You throw the bedroom door open, and walk down the hallway, him hot on your heels.

“I get that you looked for me Jake! Its the fact that I came back and you were gone! I couldn’t find you and you knew that! You left me there!” You reply.

“God this is just going around in circles isn’t it? But let’s make one thing real clear darlin, YOU left me to go to the bathroom. Yes, I should have gone with you, but how was I supposed to know you’d get into such a mess!” He says.

Wow…You can’t believe this is the same man who told you he loved you just a few hours earlier.

“Do you want me to leave you, Jake? Is that what you want? Will that make things easier for you?! Because I’ll fucking do it, you’re making it really easy for me, right now!” You say harshly with your hand on the doorknob.

“I can’t make you do anything! This is your decision, but you better think about it really fuckin hard, because once you’re gone, I won’t chase after you.” He replies firmly picking up your guitar case to hand to you.

“Keep it. I don’t want it.” You say as harshly as you can muster, tears threatening to fall from your eyes. 

You see the pain flash in his eyes and his throat move as he swallows. His jaw hardens and he turns his head to the side for a moment before looking back at you.

“Anything else?” He asks coldly. You can tell his demeanor has changed.

You look at him and shake your head as the tears begin to fall down your face freely.

“No. That’s it.” You reply blinking away the tears.

You turn the knob and walk out the door, shutting it forcefully behind you. You stand there for a minute wiping the tears from your face and you hear the electronic lock click behind you, which only makes you cry harder. He's done.

You get into your car and sit behind the wheel and just let everything go. Every single emotion that you’ve been holding back for the past 24 hours free falls out of you. You can’t believe this happened to you. You can’t believe that you could be so stupid, especially after he warned you. You can’t believe that you just left him. You can’t believe he let you.

The drive back to your house seems to take forever, you can hardly see through the tears in your eyes. As you pull into your drive way you immediately shut off the car, grab your things and run straight for the door, fumbling with your keys to unlock it. Screaming a frustrated scream, you finally get in, and drop everything on the floor and lock the door behind you. You run down the hallway and into your room launching yourself onto your bed continuing to sob. You have never cried this much in your life. The trauma from the past 24 hours catching up with you as you lay there thinking about all of it until you eventually fall asleep in puddle of your tear soaked sheets.

It hurts, everything hurts. Your body is so sore. Your head is pounding from all the crying and your chest is sore from all of the hyperventilating. But nothing hurts more than thinking about Jake, so you decide not to. 

You drag yourself out of bed and search the house for your purse that you threw on the floor on your way in last night. 

Sitting slumped against the wall you find it and dig out your cell phone. You know it has to be close to dead, and you can relate with that. 

Clicking the screen on you see it is on 3%. You also see 2 missed calls from Jake and 3 texts that all came in after you left him.

Jake 8:50pm: I’m having the guitar sent to your house in the morning. It’s yours.

Jake 11:08pm: Keep practicing. Don’t give up yet.

Jake 3:37am: I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am. For everything.

Your phone dies before you can do anything, so you immediately plug it in. Your mind races with those messages all day. You remember his harsh words of ‘I won’t chase after you’ and your heart drops into your stomach. Did you make a mistake? Was this really what you wanted, and needed? You thought time away from Jake would help but he is the only thing you can think about. Around 4:00 your doorbell rings and you open the door to see the guitar case sitting on your door step. You pick it up and bring it inside, setting it by the door and paying it no attention anymore. 

7 days pass agonizingly slow. You haven’t picked up your guitar once. The thought too painful. There is too much good tied to it for your state of mind, so you leave it. Every single day is filled with thoughts of him. You miss him, you know you made the wrong decision. You weren’t thinking clearly in the moment, but it’s too late. You loved him and you ruined everything. You just wish he would give you a sign that he still wants you too. But he won’t. 

Another two weeks pass. You are feeling better, and more like yourself. You miss Jake terribly but you haven’t heard from him and you knew you wouldn’t. He told you that he wouldn’t. You have forced yourself to not think about him and it hurts worse than anything. You have made the decision to return the guitar to Carter Vintage Exchange as a credit on his account. You can’t even look at it, and it’s being wasted sitting in the case by the door. To prepare it for its new home you decide to wipe it clean and neatly arrange everything in the case. You unlock the case and open it up only to find a small envelope gently placed inside the strings. Your heart constricts when you see your name written on it in Jake's handwriting. You open the envelope and inside is a piece of paper folded in half. A note. 

‘Thinking how it used to be. Does she still remember times like these? 

To think of us again? And I do.’

When you’re ready, I’ll be waiting. I love you.

You burst into tears. It’s been here the whole time, you were just too stubborn to look. It’s been three weeks. You’re positive that he has moved on. You clutch the note to your heart and sob as the pain of your mistake makes itself known. After you pull yourself together you place the note on your fridge with shaky hands. You sit on your couch and stare at it from across the room for a long time. You aren’t even sure how long its been. Your phone in your hand begging you to make the call. But you decide on something else. You go to the bathroom and get yourself cleaned up, putting on a little make up and fixing your hair. You put on a pair of jeans and a vintage teeshirt, your favorite vans and you grab your purse and head out the door. 

You get in your car and turn on your favorite playlist hoping it will bring you the courage that you need. You pull up to his house, unsure if he will even be home but are happy to see his car in the drive way.  You swallow down the lump in your throat and you walk to the door. Taking a deep breath you knock on the door. You can hear music playing on the other side.

After a minute or two of waiting the nerves set in and you start to shake a bit. 

The door opens, and it’s a girl. Someone you don’t recognize. She is blonde and gorgeous and you instantly feel small. Your heart sinks into your stomach.

“Hi, is Jake here?” You ask, nervous to hear her answer. 

“Um, yeah but he is a little busy? Is he expecting you?” She asks.

“No. He isn’t….” You reply almost turning to leave as you see Josh approach behind her.

“Oh my god, thank god.” He says stepping in front of her. 

Your eyes flash to his. “Is he here?” You ask.

“Yes, he is here.” He replies.

“He… has company?” You ask quietly, hoping she doesn’t hear you.

“No, she’s my guest…oh god you thought…? No.” He replies adamantly. “Come in.”

You walk into the house, emotions running rampantly through your chest, the anxiety sitting in your stomach making you feel sick. Josh points to the music room nodding his head. 

You gather all of the courage you have and walk down the hallway, your hands shoved into the pockets of your jeans. You stop just before you reach the door and peer in. 

Jake is sitting at the desk, deep in concentration with big over the ear headphones in, clicking away on the computer screen. You notice the shiny piece of metal on his arm. His bracelet. He never took it off. Your eyes fill with tears. You watch on for a minute before turning to look over your shoulder at Josh who is gesturing you to go in. 

With a deep breath you remove your hand from your pocket and gently knock on the slightly open door. His head turns and he sees you standing at the door. His concentrated gaze softens and he slowly removes his headphones and sets them on the desk, before sliding the chair back and standing up, walking to meet you. 

His eyes meet yours and they look just as sad as the ones that have been staring back at you in the mirror for the past three weeks. His fingers reach out and gently skim the surface of your arm. “I didn’t think you were coming.” He says softly.

“I’m so sorry Jake, I didn’t know. I only found it today.” You reply, your fingers lightly touching the cool metal of the bracelet resting on his arm. 

“I was going to take it back and make them credit your account. I saw the note today. I saw it, and I came straight here.” A single tear falling from your eye.

“Take it back?” He asks sadly.

“I couldn’t even look at it without thinking of you. It hurt so bad. I was going to pack it all up an I saw the note… I came straight here instead.” You say as your fingers touch his. 

“I waited up every single day to see if you would come.” He says.

“Why didn’t you just call me?” You ask.

“I couldn’t. I told you I wouldn’t. I needed it to be your decision. I wanted you to have time.” He replies.

“But, what if I never found it?” 

“I texted you, I told you to keep practicing. I told you don’t give up. But you did, until now. I knew you would find it eventually and I would still be here waiting for you.” He says as his hand comes up to cup the back of your neck. 

“I’m sorry I left Jake. I made the wrong decision. I wasn’t in my right mind. I was scared and hurt and confused. You did everything you could. I know that now. I just needed someone to blame for everything. I don’t know how I couldn’t see that. When I left I thought you didn’t want me anymore and that just made it worse. Please please forgive me.” You say. 

He pulls your head to meet his, foreheads touching. “I forgave you the minute you walked out that door. I knew. But I had to let you go. I have just been waiting for you to know, too. Now you do. ” He says gently pressing his lips to yours as another tear falls from your eye, landing on his thumb resting on your cheek. 

“I’m so sorry Jake.” You cry.

“I’m sorry too baby. I am so sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. I’m sorry that I couldn’t find you and I’m sorry that you ever believed that I didn’t want you, because I have wanted you every single second since the moment I saw you in that guitar store, and I have never looked back.” He says before kissing your lips again and again. You wrap your arms around his head and hold him close to you. 

“I love you, Jake. Always have.”

“I love you too, my girl. Always will. Stay here with me, tonight?” He asks.

“I didn’t bring anything with me, I wasn’t sure what was going to… happen.” You reply.

“You can just wear my stuff. You know, like old times…” He laughs as he pulls you in for a long hug, inhaling the scent of you, and you him. His face leans down and he connects his lips with yours. His kiss is urgent and wet and warm. His tongue asks permission to enter your mouth and seeks out yours. The swirl of love in your chest blooming as they dance together. You missed him, his kiss. His touch in general. You kiss him hard and slide your hands under his shirt to grip your fingers to the soft skin of his waist. Your lips break free as his lips begin to trail down your neck and plant kisses on your jaw line down to your throat. Your need for him is growing by the second. The flame you’ve always had for him never went out, and now the fire is blazing.

“Jake…” you say panting, wanting more from him.

“Yes…” he asks in a dark voice.

“I missed you.” You whisper.

“I missed you too baby. So much. Not even… this. Just, you being here, with me.” He says pushing the hair from your face. “I really care about you, so much. I thought about you every single day.”

“I thought about you too. I wish I opened that guitar case sooner.” You reply kissing his neck. 

Jake shuts the music room door, and locks it. He walks back over to you grabbing the hem of your shirt, pulling it over your head with ease. You shiver with anticipation. You grab his shirt and do the same before unbuckling the belt on his jeans.

“Are you sure baby?” He asks unbuttoning your jeans.

“Yes…” you whisper into his mouth connecting your lips with his.

You slide your jeans off and he does the same. Jake drops to his knees, leaving kisses trailing the length of your torso as he reaches the top of your panties. His hands cup your ass bringing you closer to him as his nose burries itself into your core. His lips place a gentle kiss on the thin fabric. He hooks two fingers into the top of the panties gently pulling them down to your ankles. Stepping out, his hands run up the length of your legs as he places another soft kiss on your now naked center.

“You are so beautiful, I’m never letting you leave again.” He says between kisses.

His tongue darts out and licks up your center as your hands grip the hair on his scalp. This is the contact that you have craved for weeks, the real thing being better than what you imagined. His lips suction to your clit as a finger slowly enters you, pulsing slowly in and out. You want him. All of him. Stepping back and kneeling down to meet his face you look into his eyes. 

“Jake, I can’t wait anymore. Please…” you beg. 

Your lips find each other, the taste of your arousal on his, fueling your desire for him. 

He gently lays you back on the beautiful vintage rug, his hand guiding your head to the floor. 

He centers himself with you and leans down to your mouth, stopping before connecting.

“I wanna go slow tonight, show you how much you mean to me.” He says slowly entering you.

“Ahhh, you’re so tight darlin… ” He says as you adjust to him.

He begins to pull in and out of you in a fluid motion, in such a way that you can tell he is savoring every single moment. He is gentle and reverent. This is so different than any sex you have had with him. He is going slow and making sure that he is hitting every spot just right, kissing you and caressing every inch of your body. His eyes never leaving yours, silently telling you everything he feels. 

“Please harder…” you beg

“No, you feel so good like this. Wanna cum just like this, looking at your beautiful face.” He says starting to groan.

Your insides clench around him, begging for more. 

“Oh, baby don’t squeeze me like that I will blow right now.” He says.

You do it again, noticing his pace picks up slightly.

“Darlin, I’m serious. I want you to cum first.” He says.

“Then you’re going to have to go a little faster. As much as I love this, I need you to fuck me a little bit. Lovingly of course.” You laugh.

“God damn I love you.” He says as he lifts your leg over his shoulder, beginning to pick up his pace, hitting that spot just right, now.

“God, Jake yes that is it, right there please keep going.” You beg.

“Ah, baby cum for me, I’m trying to wait for you but I don’t think I can.” He says grunting.

“Harder, I will cum… I will cum so hard for you...”

He thrusts into you as hard as he can hitting that spot and sending you into the beautiful orgasm that you have dreamed of for weeks. 

“Jake, oh god….” You cry out.

“Fuck” he says as you feel him cumming inside of you. "I love you so much, darlin.”

“I love you too, Jake.”

He pulls out of you, kissing your forehead rolling over to lay next to you. 

“Do you think Josh heard that?” You ask.

“Oh 100 percent. No question.” He replies laughing.

You lay there for a while longer, just laughing and talking about any and everything. You missed each other. You yawn, you don’t even realize that is 1 in the morning until you see the clock near the door.

“Do you want to get in bed? I have some clothes for you to wear.” He says rubbing your arm.

“Yes but can I make a request?” You ask.

“Anything.” He says.

“Can I wear your hoodie? I have missed stealing it when I get cold.” You ask.

“Of course baby, consider it yours.” He replies kissing you, then standing up offering you a hand. You both quickly redress and make your way to his bedroom. As you open the door you see 2 suitcases lined up against the wall and your heart sinks. You just got him back…

“You’re leaving….” You say, eyes searching his.

“Yeah, darlin…we are leaving to go play some shows in India. We will be gone for a few weeks.”

“I didn’t know.” You say looking at the floor.

“I was going to tell you the night of the party so that we would have plenty of time together before I left, but then I just couldn’t after everything happened. Then the next day you left, I didn’t know if I was going to see you again, and now… you’re here and I’m leaving. It’s shit timing.” He says walking into the closet, and throwing you his hoodie.

“When, Jake? How long until you go?” You ask, undressing, sliding it on. 

He runs his hand through his hair and down his face, “Tomorrow darlin. Tomorrow night.”

You sit down on the end of the bed. “If I had just opened that guitar case sooner…” you say.

“No, don’t say that. Everything is happening how its supposed to. We did this once and it was fine. I mean it was only a week but, I promise I will call you, text you, even FaceTime you when I can. I hate that I leave tomorrow but I think that this is exactly what was supposed to happen.” He says kissing your hands.

“Is that why you wanted me to spend the night?” You ask.

“Yes. I just wanted one night with you before I go. Just want to hold you while you fall asleep, and be there when you wake up in the morning. You’re so beautiful first thing in the morning. I just, need you here.” He says.

You take your jeans off and slide into the fluffy duvet that you love so much.

“So you’re telling me that I don’t get to sleep in this comfy bed for a whole month?” You ask playfully.

“No. You can stay here whenever you want. You know I will always unlock the door for you.” He says as he climbs into bed next to you. He turns off the lamp and you snuggle into his side, everything feels exactly as it should. As you trace the outlines on his necklace, like you would so often do, you feel his hand catch yours and he brings it to his lips.

“I am so glad you came back. I am never letting you go, again.” He says.

You kiss his chest in response, and you both fall asleep in each others arms, dreading tomorrows goodbye.

[mycelium-menace]

Happy holidays @yoshiintheweb !!! This is my gift to you for the @mcytblrholidayexchange. I hope you enjoy!

I saw Vampire Fwhip in your requests and got very excited, because I have been obsessed with Dracula this year. I hope you enjoy this Roseblings/Wither Rose Alliance vampire au! The playlist has songs that are vampire-coded (to me), as well as songs that just fit the vibe. The fic is epistolary like the original Dracula novel. It's sometimes serious, sometimes silly, and hopefully a lot of fun to read. Fic under the cut :)

Fwhip’s Diary, Sept. 17

So, my teeth are definitely getting sharper.

That shouldn’t be a surprise, but it’s definitely going to take some getting used to. You don’t just wake up to your teeth being different and say “Oh yeah, that’s not weird at all. Totally fine. Already adjusted to it.” Like, you don’t realize how well you know your teeth until they’re wrong. Ugh.

It is fine though… I think. We still have time before the transformation is irreversible. Between Gem and I, we’ll figure it out soon. That’s what we’ve always done.

It’ll be fine.

Right?

Gem’s Diary, Sept. 22

I finally got my hands on that book on vampire lore! Who knew the occult section of our local library would be so popular? (And to that, who even knew our local library even had an occult section??)

It has the best recipe I’ve found for a blood replacement meal for Fwhip, and this one doesn’t even need any sheep’s blood or expensive coconut water! Fwhip seems to like it pretty well too, which is an added bonus.

The rest of the book was pretty useful, beyond the basics (avoid sunlight, garlic, wolfsbane, silver, giant stakes in the heart, you name it.) It had some pretty good tips on how to slow the transformation, and of course what to do when we find the vampire who started all this.

We still don’t have any leads on said vampire, but I’m optimistic. It’s most likely they’re in this town or the next town over since they usually have to rest in their original grave during the day. Honestly it’s not surprising, all things about our local history considered...

Fwhip’s Diary, Sept. 30

We finally told Sausage. He wasn’t really buying my “sudden garlic allergy” story to begin with, and he was asking a lot of questions, so we figured we might as well let him on it instead of keeping secrets from him. And he’s taking the news pretty well actually! It turns out one of his cousins is a werewolf, which is… not quite the same thing? But his heart is in the right place.

He’s really enthusiastic about helping us with all this, which is helpful because he’s the only friend we know with a car. We want to drive to Dogwood Grove to investigate one of their graveyards. It’s the oldest one in the county, with a proper mausoleum and everything. Maybe we’ll find that vampire’s hideout and get him to turn me back. Maybe we won’t even have to use the crossbow I’m building.

Gem’s Diary, Oct. 2

This isn’t strictly related to our research, but I thought it was interesting. The author of that vampire lore compendium, X. Thorn, also wrote a book on demonology, and I was curious enough to check it out too.

Apparently Thorn was an expert on all things occult, but also just a little… weird. I suppose that comes with the territory. He wanted to summon a demon army and conquer the world. Or maybe become a demon? It wasn’t super clear by the end of the book to be perfectly honest. He was kind of obsessed with some demon called Xornoth that he wanted to summon (or maybe it was his demon-sona? it’s not really clear which of those it was, and he published these books like a hundred years ago so we can’t exactly ask him.) Incidentally, Thorn was from right here in Rivendell. I wonder if we’ll come across his name any more during our search.

Fwhip’s Diary, Oct. 3

Well, Sausage was the only friend we knew with a car. Now we’re all out of luck.

Last night we were coming back from a research trip to Dogwood Grove when a white fox ran out onto the road in front of us. Sausage swerved and luckily missed it, and his car wound up in the ditch. We’re all safe, if a bit shaken, but his car is totaled.

It’s weird… I didn’t know we had many foxes in these parts, much less arctic-looking foxes? I mean, I guess that’s not the absolute weirdest thing about this town (I’m literally turning into a vampire right now), but it’s still unusual.

In any case, we need to figure out a new ride soon. The recipe Gem found for substitute blood is fine, but I’m starting to get thirstier. A lot thirstier...

Gem’s Diary, Oct. 5

I’ve noticed Fwhip isn’t sleeping much anymore.

He stays up most of the day when we’re doing our research, although he can’t go outside without SPF 1000 and my old floppy beach hat. At night I usually find him in the garage working on his inventions. He’s always been a gearhead, but he only ever throws himself into his work to this extent when something is seriously bothering him. When I ask him how he’s taking all this he insists he’s fine, but… well, I’ve known him my whole life. I know when he’s lying.

There have been a couple recent incidents at night when I wake up in the small hours to find him standing at the bedroom window just staring. I call out to him, but he doesn’t hear me. It seems like he’s sleepwalking, which is something he’s never done our whole lives. After a few minutes he turns, looks at me with eyes that look right through me, and silently goes back downstairs. I ask him about it in the morning but he doesn’t remember any of it.

Fwhip’s Diary, Oct. 9

Good news, we found someone with a car who’s willing to help us get around! Bad news, it’s Sausage’s cousin… the werewolf.

Gem’s Diary, Oct. 9

Don’t get me wrong, Pearl seems really nice, and I’d probably get along with her great in any other circumstance. The problem is, well, the circumstance. I guess vampires and werewolves don’t exactly get along? It’s hard to describe the feeling I get around her, but I’m just so uneasy. I mean, for her part she’s polite to me, even if she might feel the same as I do.

I guess it’s good to have her on the team, and anyone to help us fight the vampire who turned me is good to have along. I just don’t want to have her around any more than we need to for right now. I’ll talk to Gem about that in the morning when she wakes up, hopefully she’s on the same page as me.

Pearl is the coolest person I think I’ve ever met. She has a van called Gilda that’s covered in sunflowers, she lives on a farm, she’s a classically-trained fencer, and she’s a werewolf?! I love her. I want her to join our group and also stay forever.

Fwhip’s Diary, Oct. 13

Gem found something in one of the books about hypnotism, and we decided to give it a try. It’s supposed to help slow the transformation process, which would be good because I feel less and less like myself every day.

The thing is, when I was in the trance I kept getting these visions. There were shapes I couldn’t make out at first, and a smell of somewhere damp and musty, and the sound of stone on stone. But then I saw myself standing in a cemetery, right in front of an old mausoleum. There was an angel statue next to it which was pointing at the doorway, and a great big oak tree behind it. I really get the feeling that I’ve seen this before. I just can’t remember where.

I’m not really sure if the hypnotism is working to hold off the transformation. My teeth – fangs, really – are sharper than ever before. And last night I dreamed I was flying through the night sky on dark wings. At least, I hope it was a dream.

Gem’s Diary, Oct. 18

We found the mausoleum from Fwhip’s vision! And get this, the family it belongs to? The Thorn family. That’s right, the same X. Thorn who wrote all those occult books. Somehow I knew he would come back up.

I did some more reading, and it looks like Thorn had a half-brother named Scott. Scott was actually one of Rivendell’s mayors, and he and his brother had a couple of public clashes that led to him stepping down from his mayoral seat. Then a few years later, he just apparently disappeared without a trace. In one of his last journal entries before his disappearance, he lists a bunch of symptoms eerily similar to vampirism: aversion to sunlight, sudden allergies to nightshade-family plants, and he couldn’t bring himself to enter the cathedral he had once attended regularly. If I’m right that Thorn was behind those incidents, we may have a solid lead. I’m going to see if I can find a picture of him to show Fwhip. That may help to confirm it.

I think we’re getting very close. I just hope we’re quick enough.

Fwhip’s Diary, Oct. 18

As soon as Gem showed me a portrait of X. Thorn, I knew that was who we’re after. It was just an old painting, but it sent a chill down my entire body. I would know that face anywhere. That’s the face that keeps me up at night. Those were the eyes I saw that night. The eyes of Xornoth, Dark Lord of the Night.

I know what we have to do now. Even if it destroys me, which the books say is about a 50/50 chance, we have to stop Xornoth for good.

I won’t let this happen to anyone else.

Gem’s Diary, Oct. 27

I’m starting to agree with Fwhip about garlic to be honest. We just had to buy, like so much. Garlic cloves, garlic flowers, garlic salt, garlic powder. It’s all for the binding ritual, which will hopefully go off without a hitch and get Fwhip back to normal without complications.

With the garlic, we have everything we should need now. Fwhip has his contraptions, I have the charged crystals, and Sausage got us some holy water. The only thing now is to wait for the next full moon.

Fwhip’s Diary, Nov. 6

Tonight was the night. It took a while for us to prepare everything, but we finished right before dusk. We all waited just outside the mausoleum door until we heard the scraping of stone against stone. Not long after, we heard an unearthly growl. That was our cue.

We found him trapped in the binding circle, spitting and hissing. When he saw us there, he got quiet for a second, and then started to laugh. This is the part I’d like to say that we were super cool and didn’t cower at all… and you know what? This is MY diary, and I want to keep my cool image. So yeah, we were like, “Hey Xornoth, turn me back into a human NOW or else we’ll send you back to your grave.” And he was like, “Oh no, please spare me! You’re too cool and that crossbow is super sick and-”

Gem’s Diary, Nov. 6

That’s not what happened.

Fwhip’s Diary

Yes, it totally is!

Gem’s Diary

Oh my god.

Fwhip’s Diary

Alright then, how would you tell it?

Gem’s Diary

Sausage screamed and your voice cracked when you were trying to confront Xornoth. And then he laughed at you. Pearl had to be the one to force him into starting the ritual to turn you back.

Fwhip’s Diary

Well, you also screamed.

Gem’s Diary

I’m not denying that! I’m just trying to keep you to the facts. Geez.

Fwhip’s Diary

In any case, the process worked! I have a reflection in the mirror again, and my teeth are slowly going back to normal. And we managed to banish Xornoth, or Thorn, or whatever you want to call him, back to his grave for good. A win all around, I’d say!

The one thing left that’s bothering me is, I think we’re missing one of the vials of blood replacement from the fridge. Gem was meticulous when she made those, with a date labeled on each vial so we could track my intake. The only other people who knew about those are Sausage and Pearl, and both of them swore they didn’t touch it. I just hope no one drank it. It has nasty consequences if you’re not already a vampire.

Well, that’s a problem for another day. At least we know none of our friends were dumb enough to drink it, right?

...

...

Sausage’s Diary, Nov. 7

I’M A VAMPIRE NOW??? THIS IS SO AWESOME!!!!1!! I CAN’T WAIT TO SHOW PEARL!!! :D

[rrcenic]

ineffable husbands playlist - post-season two (an angsty list with the lyrics that remind me of them)

STORY OF US - taylor swift (i used to think one day we'd tell the story of us // how we met and the sparks flew instantly // and people would say, "theyre the lucky ones" // i used to know my place was a spot next to you // now im searching the room for an empty seat // cause lately i don't even know what page you're on // oh, a simple complication // miscommunications lead to fall out // so many things that i wish you knew // so many walls up i can't break through)

ITS OVER, ISNT IT? - from steven universe (it’s over, isn’t it, isn’t it, isn’t it over? // you won, and she chose you, and she loved you and she’s gone // it’s over, isn’t it, why can’t i move on?)

SAY YES TO HEAVAN - lana del ray (if you go, i’ll stay // you come back, i’ll be right here // like a barge at sea // in the storm, i stay clear // cause i’ve got my mind on you // i’ve got my mind on you // say yes to heaven // say yes to me // say yes to heaven // say yes to me)

FLOWERS - original broadway cast of hadestown (dreams are sweet until they're not // men are kind until they aren't // flowers bloom until they rot and fall apart // is anybody listening? // i open my mouth and nothing comes out // nothing, nothing gonna wake me now // flowers, i remember fields of flowers, soft beneath my heels // walking in the sun // i remember someone, someone by my side // turned his face to mine // and then i turned away // into the shade)

DRIVERS LICENSE - olivia rodrigo (red lights, stop signs // i still see your face in the white cars, front yards // can’t drive past the places we used to go to // cause i still fuckin' love you, babe // sidewalks we crossed // i still hear your voice in the traffic, we're laughing // over all the noise // god, im so blue, know we're through // but i still fuckin' love you, babe)

TV - billie eilish (i don't wanna talk right now // i just wanna watch tv // i’ll stay in the pool and drown // so i don't have to watch you leave)

TAKE ME TO CHURCH - hozier (take me to church // i’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies // i’ll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife // offer me that deathless death // good god, let me give you my life)

STAY WITH ME - sam smith (oh won’t you stay with me // cause you’re all i need // this ain’t love, it’s clear to see // but darlin stay with me)

SOMEONE LIKE YOU - adele (never mind, i’ll find someone like you // i wish nothing but the best for you, too // don’t forget me, i beg // i remember you said, sometimes it lasts in love, sometimes hurts instead)

WHEN SHE LOVED ME - sarah mclachlan (when somebody loved me // everything was beautiful // every hour we spent together // lives within my heart // and when she was lonely // i was there to comfort her // and i knew that she loved me // so the years went by // i stayed the same // but she began to drift away // i was left alone // still, i waited for the day // when she'd say, i will always love you)

HIDDEN IN THE SAND - tally hall (when you had to bid adieu // said you’d never love anew // i wondered if i could hold it and fall in love with it too // you told me to buy a pony but all i wanted was you)

I CANT HANDLE CHANGE - roar (nothing i do is ever good // nothing i do is ever good enough // nothing i do is ever good // i can’t help but repeat myself// i know it’s not your fault // but lately i begin to shake for no reason at all)

TALKING TO THE MOON - bruno mars (i know you’re somewhere out there, somewhere far away // i want you back // i want you back // cause every night, im talking to the moon // still trying to get to you // in hopes you're on the other side talking to me too // or am i a fool who sits alone talking to the moon?)

LOVE OF MY LIFE - queen (because what kind of ineffable husbands playlist would it be without queen?) (love of my life, you've hurt me // you’ve broken my heart, and now you leave me // love of my life, can't you see? // bring it back, bring it back, don't take it away from me // because you don't know what it means to me)

[snekthedemonnoodle]

okay guys, i said i would post the first few bits of the story im working on. it doesnt have a name for now, but rb with suggestions ig

enjoy!

March 3rd

My mom insisted on picking me up today, but she said that she would be late, so I waited outside after school. I sat on one of the benches that no one really uses and listened to music while studying for about an hour and a half. A couple minutes before my mom pulled in, she walked out. She looks at me in weird ways that I can’t seem to figure out. And every time I catch her looking, she smiles crookedly and looks away.

I wonder what she sees when she looks at me.

March 7th

I could feel them looking at me in science like my presence makes them uncomfortable. I felt their eyes from behind me and the tension when we tried to go into the classroom at the same time. 

I just need to forget about them. They’re the past. They didn’t like me for me. They were manipulative and toxic.

I’m pretty sure the universe decided that our friendship was doomed to fail. 

March 13th

She’s beautiful. Short, fluffy brown hair. She loves music- she wears a band hoodie almost every day.  Her friends like her a lot, and I can see why. She’s always with them, laughing at some joke that she made. But she doesn’t know that she’s a little too loud when she laughs. 

From afar, anyone can tell that she’s super close with her inner circle. 

I wish I was part of it.

March 21st

I knew that they were gonna try to get me back one day. They caught me washing my hands in the bathroom. They started with an apology- obviously. When I walked away, towards my locker, they followed me all the way there, trying to make me forgive them.

I’m not that gullible.

Our friendship only benefited them, not me. They kept me around for nothing and any time I tried to bring up the fact that they didn’t talk or text me for two months they blamed me. 

Eventually, I got mad at their begging. I looked them in the eye and said no for the last time. I pushed past them, storming out the front doors and speed walking home in fear that they were following.

Knowing them, it's not the last time they’ll try to get me back.

March 25th

After school today, I went out into town. My family’s favorite ice cream shop opened today and we’re always there the day it opens. I walked down the sidewalk, listening to my playlist on shuffle.

I stopped at the crosswalk and press the cross button. Then, her and her two closest friends came walking down the sidewalk. They stopped at the crosswalk. Her friends were laughing about something on their phone, but she looked up at me. She smiled that same crooked smile that I’ve gotten to know too well these last few weeks. 

As she opened her mouth to speak, the light switched from stop to go. Her friends grab her arm and walk across. I followed after a second, jogging when the light started counting down. One of her friends said something, and she doubled down with laughter. 

I don’t know why she acknowledges my existence.

But.

It kind of feels nice.

April 2nd

My last class is with her, but they’re there too. I sit in front of her, and I can feel her eyes. Not in a creepy way. Unlike a certain someone who sits two seats away from me to the right. I know they’re not staring at me directly, but I can feel the tension coming from their direction. 

Now they’re both staring at me. Great.

After class, I walked to my locker to grab some math notes I had forgotten. Their locker is in the same hallway as mine, and I felt their eyes on me as I searched my backpack for my notebook. I felt their eyes on me as I slammed my locker door and turned away. As I walked out of the building.