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hoodoo12 · 3 years

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The Ties That Bind (And How to Follow Them) 2/?

@bunnys-beetlejuice-blog @werwulfy @mel-time @rainingpaint @heresathreebee @infptarius @turtlepated @sweetcat-666 @fireflower1015 @go-whovian-universe @genderless-cryptid @monsterlovinghours @strange-n-unbluusual @love-pony13-blog

Pate never did fall back asleep properly, but she was content to doze lightly in Beetlejuice’s arms for a few more hours. It wasn’t deep enough to dream, but in between snoozes she did her best to commit what she had seen in the nightmare to memory. The better to understand it, she hoped.

Even Lillian was of two minds as to whether or not the dreams meant anything at all but Pate couldn’t shake the notion that they meant something important. Maybe they were warnings. Her first thought was Rigel, trying to claw his way back into their lives. Just the thought was enough to make her shudder and Beetlejuice’s arms tightened around her, sensing her unease.

They spent the weekend in, lazing together on the couch and rewatching The Mandalorian. Pate felt bad that she was really too tired these days to take him out to do anything, but he never seemed to mind. She recorded her dreams in the journal to take to Lillian’s for the next session, slept fitfully Saturday and Sunday night, and all too soon it was Monday again.

Showering woke her up a bit more, chasing away the last of the feelings of dread from her nightmares and she readied herself for work. As he usually did, Beej saw her off at the door. Pate wound her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his in a lingering kiss.

“I’ll see you tonight,” she said, pecking him on the nose before departing.

⁂

Pate always seemed to get better rest closer to dawn. He hated that she had to then be woken just when she was comfortable; Mondays really did suck. Beetlejuice hoisted himself up on the sink in the bathroom while she showered, wishing he could join her under the spray like he’d done in Las Vegas, but she was already behind schedule and a distraction wasn’t going to be appreciated.

He stayed out of her way even though he followed her around through the apartment as she made to leave. Promising to be good but knowing there was no way for her to possibly think of every single thing that could be construed as “bad”, he pressed against her to steal some of her body heat and then watched her leave. He went to the front window to look down at her as she made it to her car, and blew a kiss when she saw him in the window. He watched till she was gone out of the parking lot.

Another day alone in the apartment. At least he had the freedom to smoke inside with Pate gone, so he lit a cigarette and stared forlornly at the empty room. Pate had suggested he take up a hobby to fill the time, but put her foot down when he believed raising a baby Sandworm would be a good idea.

“Whatever a “Sandworm” is,” she’d included at the end of the conversation.

She didn’t leave her dream journal behind; her mentor had told her to keep it with her so she could jot things down if they came to her, but Beej had read through it when she was dozing beside him. That wasn’t invading her privacy, not really, he justified, because she just left it right beside the bed--

--Lillian Borden.

He could go visit Lillian Borden and talk to her about Pate’s progress or lack thereof.

The thought sprung on him so quickly the cigarette fell out of his mouth. He crushed it into the carpet, vowing to himself he’d clean it up before Pate got back and saw it, and stepped into the ether to visit the antique shop Pate spent so much time in.

⁂

The store was closed, of course. It was early in the morning for the antique crowd. But Pate had mentioned the old woman lived above the store, so he simply spirited through the door. Good thing he wasn’t a vampire, he chuckled to himself.

Making his way through the aisles towards the staircase he could see, a few of the items he passed had some tendrils of energy that either moved towards him like he was a magnet, or away from him like they were repelled. All of them were wispy and easily avoided. On a wall hung a old, ratty taxidermied deer head that slowly turned to look at him, but he was pretty sure whatever that was wouldn’t be able to move any further. Its glass eyes lit with inner fire and if there was some way to make friends with that thing, it would make a very creepy Halloween decoration.

Beetlejuice made a mental note to talk to it later.

Reaching the stairs, there was a slight resistance as he put his foot on the first step. Bulling his way through it, it popped like he’d broken bubblewrap and he skipped the rest of the way up. If it was a ward, there was no sense in knocking on the door at the top, so he simply opened it and went inside.

There, he found a small, clean apartment. Plants surrounded the windows, and old tin type photographs and decorative mirrors were hung on the walls. Someone was in the kitchen.

Straightening his jacket and running a hand through his hair--which did nothing to tame it--Beetlejuice walked to the door separating the living space from the kitchen and found the older woman standing at her stove, stirring something in a pot. A tea kettle was also on, with steam rising from the spout. She was muttering something half under her breath.

“Hi!” he said, without preamble. “You’re Lillian Borden, right? Pate’s been coming to see you, and I want to talk.”

He could never remember that people needed some warning when he appeared and started talking. Typically he was met with screams.

This woman didn’t scream. She turned towards him, eyes narrowed, with a knife in her hand he hadn’t noticed on her far side. There was more of that strange repellent energy wafting from the knife, and he held his hands up even though his natural instinct was to meet force with force.

“I just want to talk, lady--”

She didn’t look like she wanted to talk, really.

⁂

In all her years, Lillian had never expected to find herself with a pupil.

But then this young woman had come into her shop one day, and it was like getting hit in the chest with a sledgehammer when she got closer. Lillian had met others in her time with… gifts, but none like this girl. Whatever she had, it was potent, close to the surface, and raw as wet clay just waiting to be shaped. She must have sensed something about Lillian because in no time she was showing up regularly, asking for Lillian to teach her, to show her how to handle this power inside her.

At first Lillian had been reluctant to go poking around something so volatile, but eventually she conceded that the younger woman was in need of guidance. What with the strange, terrible dreams that disturbed her sleep and the almost miasmic aura that seemed to accompany her. It didn’t emanate from her, it just hung around her like a cloud of smoke from a cigarette. There was something haunting her, something Lillian urged her to purge as quickly as possible.

For whatever reason, Lillian could tell that Pate hadn’t done it, that she actively lied about it when asked. Why she should want some dark spectral energy floating around her all the time was beyond Lillian’s ability to comprehend, but she felt sure that it had something to do with the girl’s nightmares, or even her abilities themselves.

It was Monday, not quite time to open up the shop, so she muddled about in the kitchen. Lillian didn’t consider herself a witch or a Wiccan or any such thing, but there were certain practices that she had found beneficial in her particular way of life. The tea was almost ready to come off the stove, the talismanic elixir she’d been preparing nearly finished when she felt it: the ward on her stairs dissipated like a puff of breath on a frigid day.

She paused momentarily in what she was doing, opening the drawer by the stove and withdrawing a black-handled athame from it’s sheath, keeping it concealed by her body as she continued to putter around the stove, mumbling a protective charm against whatever was entering her apartment.

He greeted her genially enough, mentioning Pate by name and Lillian knew at once that who or whatever this garishly bedecked man with his green hair and striped suit and mischievous aura was, it was the entity she sensed around her student.

Turning toward him, gripping the athame tightly and feeling the thrum of energy in the instrument, Lillian maintained her cool despite the intrusion.

“Don’t imagine you and I would have much to talk about,” she said not impolitely.

⁂

“Well, Pate’s a common denominator,” Beej replied snappishly, despite trying to keep his voice in more the pleasant range. He wasn’t exactly sure what his hair was doing color-wise at the moment; that knife in her hand put him on edge.

He moved towards her to help her understand his sincerity about the situation, although he dispensed with pleasantries.

“I watch what’s been happening to her. I see the nightmares she has. She came to you for help and it isn’t getting any better, so you and me, we’re gonna talk--”

⁂

The tea kettle’s shrill whistle sounded behind her as the thing that looked like a man but wasn’t a man stepped closer. Without pausing another moment Lillian pointed the athame at his chest and traced a sigil in the air, murmuring in rapid Latin as she repeated the movements of the consecrated instrument again and again.

She reached down within herself, feeling for the well of power that resided inside and tapped into it, pouring her will and intent into the drawing of the sigil and the recitation of the incantation. He froze in place as if his shoes were stuck to the scuffed hardwood floor, looking first down at his own feet and then back up at her as she continued to chant and trace with the athame. His form began to blur and then to disintegrate around the edges, spreading inward as a stiff breeze from nowhere blew his coat and tie and hair around until they were no more.

Lillian didn’t relax even when she was once again alone in the kitchen, nothing remaining of the entity that had stood before her. Keeping a tight hold on the athame, she strode slowly but purposefully towards the decorative mirrors hanging on her living room wall. Inside the glass she saw, not her own reflection, but the man who had broken her ward and entered her home uninvited.

After verifying that her temporal displacement had succeeded, only then did she breathe a sigh of relief.

“There,” she said in a grim, satisfied tone. “That ought to hold you. And keep you away from that girl.”

The figure in the glass raised both fists, hammering against the surface of the mirror but made no sound. Turning away, Lillian returned to her kitchen and took the kettle off the stove.

⁂

Coming at him with that dark-handled knife wasn’t good. Beetlejuice bit off his own sentence and raised his hands to show he was no threat, but whatever this old lady was doing he felt a combination of bound and dizzy. She was going to stab him, and he most definitely did not want that to happen; instinctively he knew that blade meant bad news.

But she didn’t stab him, only the air in an intricate design. Her Latin was whispered and hurried, and he only caught some of it, “Entrapment . . . reflection . . .” as an unearthly breeze caught him. Glancing at his feet, they seemed to fly away as if dust on the wind. It didn’t hurt, it didn’t feel like anything, but he didn’t like it and opened his mouth to protest, to say they got off on the wrong foot. Before any words could leave his mouth he was no longer in her kitchen.

Now he was looking out at her living room from an odd angle. He didn’t know what had happened, and defensively black tentacles erupted around him, but there was nothing here to fight against. Just a white endless plain, except for the window he was looking out of. Beetlejuice willed his tentacles away.

A movement in his periphery caught his eye and he leaned forward to see it better. His forehead hit something. Brow furrowed, he raised his hands and they were stopped by something unseen as well.

Lillian came into full view in front of him, peering at him like a bug under a magnifying glass. When she stepped closer, what he could see of her changed--only her shoulders and head were visible. He tried to wrap his head around what he was seeing.

He had no problem hearing her and her proclamation that he’d be ‘held’, and kept away from Pate.

Beetlejuice pounded on the glass, shouting that there was a mistake, that she better let him out, he was going to rain terror down on her the likes of which she’d never imagined--

Lillian smiled sweetly and walked away, back out of his range of vision. The kettle stopped whistling.

The whole thing had only taken three minutes, tops.

⁂

It took him some time to figure out where she’d imprisoned him. He hadn’t paid much attention to her living room since he had immediately heard her in the kitchen, but after some thought--because what else was there to do in an endless white space of nothingness?--and her returning, giving him a smile, and sitting down to watch TV (it was some Hallmark movie that was possibly more torturous than being wherever he was), he realized he could only see the windows opposite the wall that separated the kitchen and living room. That, and where she was sitting he could only see the top of Lillian’s head.

She’d put him in one of her mirrors.

“FUCK,” Beej shrieked into the void. There was no echo, which was creepy.

This old woman was going to keep him down in her antique store of horrors! He wondered how many of the presences he felt walking through the first floor of the place were people like him--misunderstood, just wanting to talk, and she was like some self-appointed Pinkerton agent, cleaning up potential problems.

Beetlejuice slammed the back of his head, hard, on the glass. Lillian didn’t react. He let the tentacles come out again, and used their strength to attack it. Nothing. Brute force wasn’t the way out. Cleverness was.

If he sat with his back below the glass, he was fairly sure he was unseen. Maybe she had some fancy-schmancy wards on the glass, but maybe there was another way out. He let his tentacles explore the space. There wasn’t much, just endless white. There was no way for him to call for help. No way to let Pate know what had happened. He’d be stuck here for an undetermined amount of time--

--a tentacle found a seam.

Not a seam per se, but some break. Crack. He didn’t know what, because it was white too. Scooting over to it, Beetlejuice couldn’t even see it, but he could feel it beneath his fingertips. He dug a nail under it, not caring that it became ragged, only wanting to widen it and see what might be beyond. When it was more than just a crack, a tentacle snaked in and broke it open more. Pieces fell away like plaster, and shoving his face against the hole he could see another window.

Another mirror!

Tenaciously, Beetlejuice tore apart the crack until he could squeeze through. He had no idea how much a maze it might be, with nothing to guide him. He’d just keep going until he could find Pate’s bathroom mirror, as long as it took.

tbc . . .

#writing #fanfiction #Beetlejuice #Ties that bind

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kitsunesakii · 3 years

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I don't bite - part one

I walked down the street, my hands in my pockets and my headphones on. It was well past midnight and the moon was at its peak. I fiddled with the placement of my headphones resting against my ears, having just got off the bus they were jostled out of position. Normally I didn't ride the bus, instead flying over the city. But, my mission's house was a little past my favorite park, and I had time on my hands. Shoving my hands in my pocket I heaved a sigh. I wasn't really fond of my mission. I hated biting if there wasn't consent. And there wouldn't be in this instance. I dragged my feet, skipping over the cracks in the sidewalk like a child.

I arrived at his apartment complex a little after one. But I knew he wouldn't be home, it was Saturday, and every Saturday he wasn't home until around three. Hence the headphones. I sat down at the bus stop, he wouldn't be arriving from the bus, amusingly he walked home from wherever he left. But I didn't plan to stand for a whole hour. So sitting down, I waited.

My eyes met movement, and I felt him come up. I sucked in a breath, I can do this, I can do this. I got up and nonchalantly walked behind him. The tap on my shoulder is what made me whip around, my headphones clattering to the ground. Making my mission turn as well.

"Hey sweetheart, didn't mean to scare ya, just wanted to ask why you were out here all alone? "

I stared at him kind of dumbfoundedly, he was clearly homeless, and by the smell wafting off of him I would say he was drunk.

"Who said she's alone? " the voice was small but firm, as my mission, a guy who's name I wasn't given, walked up besides me, I stilled. both his hands in his pockets. "I told you to keep up, " he handed me my headphones "you know you slow down when wearing these" he made a disappointed frown.

I looked from him, to the homeless man, then back to him. My brain slowly catching on to what he was doing. He's protecting me, a stranger I forced out a laugh, "haha, gosh I was falling behind, sorry bout that! " I gave him a smile, weary to keep my mouth shut. The homeless man looked at us for a moment, before turning and walking away. Leaving us alone on the sidewalk.

I turned to fully face the guy. In pictures I had always thought he would be taller, instead, he was only a half an inch taller than me. "Thank you" I sputtered, my brain still catching up to the events that had just transpired. He just stared at me, his face resting in a rather relaxed posture. Neither frowning or smiling.

"I noticed you were behind me, do you also live in that apartment complex? " his voice was low, like the gentle hum of a cat. His eyes locked with mine, they were a tainted blue with gold lining. This is your chance, no ones around. I clenched my headphones, my mind spinning a million miles a minute.

"Ah- no, I don't"

"Oh, " he responded cooley, "well, then, lead the way" it was probably rude to just stare at the boy that basically saved me from someone, but my mouth wouldn't work and my hands were hurting from the plastic rim of the headphones biting into my fingers.

I gave him a quick smile before forcing my legs forward. Walking aimlessly. He walked beside me quietly, glancing at me every couple minutes. After a while we hit a cafe, and I walked up to the door, once again turning to face my mission. "Thank you,this is my stop, may I ask you your name? "

"Matthew" he stated.

"Well then, thank you Matthew" I gave him another small smile. He nodded, his eyes flickering up and down me before he simply walked away. I watched him, my heart beat rapidly increasing with every second. You could still finish your mission, it would be quick, painless I took in another breath. I couldn't do it. He protected me, looked at me like a person. His eyes, blue golden. I felt a small dash of heat nest itself on my cheeks. The anger came second. What was I supposed to do now? I couldn't go back empty handed, could I? I failed, I couldn't kill him. Why did it have to be him. A good person with a lax life. I gritted my teeth, there wasn't anything else to do besides head back home. It wont be home much longer. Leaving the coffee shop I headed back to the bus stop, no longer feeling up to walking.

"What do you mean you couldn't kill him!? " I winced at the tone of voice he used, looking at the wooden floor, unable to make his gaze. The room in question was small, but I felt smaller. It was musty and you breathed smoke with every grab at air. I had spent most of the night into the early hours of the day waiting for him to return. 'Initiation' you could have a home, safety, love and more with a stupid test. I'm an idiot my brain screamed, drilling the words harder then the cutting edge of his own.

"I-"

he grabbed my chin with his long nails, cutting into my skin easily.

"Such a simple task," he growled, "this should of been easy for you, such a waste of energy" this wasn't the first time I had seen him this mad, last week, another lonely vampire seeked refuge with him, and they too couldn't do what was asked. using the hand gripping my chin he yanked me to the floor. I recovered quickly, standing to my feat instantly, taking a small step back. Focusing my attention on his words instead of the burning sensation the cuts caused.

"You can stay here until sunset, but then, consider yourself cut off" he growled, with that he used his other hand to scratch from my cheek to the length of my neck, leaving a scar. I waited until he left my small room before patching myself up.

What was I getting myself into? Hot tears trickled down my face, collecting bits of blood on it's way down. I should of never accepted his offer. Idiot, it was stupid to rely on others. All it did was end in pain. It didn't help that I had insomnia. Stupid night Terrors that left me trembling. He had said he could help. Instead he stepped all over me, and I let him. I wiped away the tears. I was fine, I was able to handle myself before and I could do it again.

I tried to sleep, getting only a few merciful hours before I couldn't stop fidgeting. Thankfully it was a pretty cloudy day, and I didn't own much. Shoving the clothes I did own, and a few other belonging into a bag, I forced myself to leave. Going back to the park, under the shade of a great willow. I breathed in the fresh air, so much better than the musty air of the shady apartment I was forced to stay in. I pulled out my book, enjoying the quiet.

A small shuffle got my attention, I looked up, wincing at the pain the quick movement pierced into my neck. Only to see Matthew sitting besides me, looking up at the sky. He glanced at me, and once again I was peering into his blue gold eyes. Sparkling in the sunlight. I couldn't help but smile, cautiously keeping my fangs out of sight. "Fancy seeing you here" I stated.

His eyes swam, tracinging my scar wordlessly. "Hi" he said flatly, his features neutral. I felt my fingers absentmindedly play with the corner of my book. "Your bleeding"

My hands emediatly grazed my scar, my eyes still locked with his. "Oh, yah, fell-" I muttered, without a moment to process I felt his hand come up and trace the length of the wound. Moving his hand gingerly, his eyes fixated on the scar. I held my breath, his fingers sent ripples that danced over my cheek down to my neck. It was almost soothing, the gentle carressing made my scar itch. I stared at him, his face was like stone, not even paying attention to the surprised expression that was slowly melting from my face, replaced with a tint of scarlet.

"Does it hurt? "

I almost didn't register his words, being he practically whispered them. I caught his wrist, holding it before it left my neck, "no" I whispered back. He opened his mouth, then closed it, removing his hand and shoving them back into his sweater pockets. Then, as if nothing happened, he once again tilted his head towards the sky, and I back down to my book. Some time passed, I felt him look back over to me, quietly watching me read. It was hard to ignore, and after a few minutes I matched his gaze. He looked lost in thought, not even registering that I caught him staring. Instead, he looked trapped in deep conversation with himself.

"Do you come here often? " I asked, ripping him from his thoughts.

"Not really, Do you?" his voice had such a nice hum, almost like an accent.

"Not really, but it's been a rough day and I didn't have anywhere else to go and I quite enjoy reading-" I felt myself start to ramble, and quickly shut up. My sharp loud voice a stark contrast to his. His brow folded slightly, barley making a dent on his neutral expression.

"Did someone- Do you need somewhere to stay?"

"No" yes, I watched him nod before slowly turning his gaze back to the sky. I looked up as well. The clouds were striking. Each had a unique shape and the sun created shadows that bounced on the tips of some and on the body of others, adding to the depth of the cloud cluster. In total it looked like I was staring at a painting, perfectly mastered to fit the atmosphere. Each cluster was like an island, floating in the blue sea, each containing it's own form. I admired the brilliant picture of white on blue, getting lost in it, feeling time slowly slip away. My eyes closed, lost in my own sea, I didn't even hear him leave.

I watched the clouds, the day slowly passing over me, fading into the shadows of dusk. I slung my backpack over my shoulders and adjusted my headphones on my head, choosing a playlist before heading out into the night. I walked the same road I had just yesterday, when an idiot decided to look out for me. I bit my lip, a little too hard. Ah, I stopped, abruptly wiping away the bit of blood with my sleeve. "Just another scar to add to my growing collection" I grumbled into the breeze. I found myself walking up to the same cafe I had seen last night. I decided to go in, since I had no real destination.

Pulling of my headphones and Opening the door I was greeted with the late night song of a coffee shop. in total, there was about 6 people. Not including the barista and myself. There were two girls at a table, looking over a laptop. And a boy flirting with the barista, who wasn't giving him the time of day. Over by the tv was a couch, empty besides a guy with his back to me. And in another table was another girl and boy, talking lightly. I walked over to the couch, listening to the music that echoed quietly throughout the room. The couch was awfully comfortable, like a warm hug it beckoned me into the soft safety it had to offer. I closed my eyes, hugging my backpack to my chest as I let myself drowned in the beconing noises of the coffee shop.

My brain sank into the small specks of sleep, pulling me just enough to be jolted awake. Mently cursing at pain it caused in my stomach. I adjusted to the striking colors surrounding me, rubbing the last flecks of sleep out of me. I was me with a pair of eyes, blue with gold lining. "Hi" I gasped, still recovering from the violent awaking.

He stared at me a moment, and I got the feeling he had been staring before. I straitened in the cushions, fighting against the stiffness of my body. Sleeping in a sitting position wasn't in the least bit comfortable. "How long you been there" I joked, trying again to shift myself into a more polite position.

"Are you sure you don't need a place to stay? " his voice carried the same low hum as before, but I noticed the concern. Feeling the tips of my cheeks get red. I did need a place to stay.... But I had no money whatsoever, except for a few bucks for the bus. I looked down, why was he being so annoyingly nice??

"I-im" for the first time, I truly didn't know what to say, he was being so calm, it was driving me mad.

Without warning, he stood up picking up a coffee that I hadn't noticed before. "Follow me" he said

We walked out of the coffee shop and into his apartment complex, I fidgeted with the handle of my backpack, forcing myself to keep my mouth shut. A million excuses flooding my thoughts. We entered an apartment room, well, more like two room, one small and one large. The kitchen seeped into a nice living room, equipped with a cute couch and coffee table. A little to the left was a separate room that I could only assume was the bedroom. There was a tv on the wall, and a couple shelves to the side, adding a touch of comfort. As I looked around, he walked into the kitchen and placed his coffee on the counter.

"The couch folds into a bed, and I have spare blankets, oh-" he walked over to a cupboard and pulled out some medical supplies. Quickly walking over to me, "here, sit" without process I stumbled into the couch, barely catching myself, bracing into the fluff of the fabric.

"What-" before I could finish my thought my breath hitched as his hand cupped my chin, gently tilting my head, looking at my scar. He glanced at his supplies, picking up a Q tip and dipping it in a thickly coated gel. He put it on my scar, I gasped, the gel felt cold against my skin. He pulled back, his eyes widening

"Did I hurt you?"

"No, no, you just startled me, that's all" I gave him a reassuring smile. After a hint of hesitation he carefully glided the Q tip on the length of my scar, only stopping to add more gel. His fingers pressed lightly on my cheek, being carful to not be rough. His gaze set on my scar, his eyes shining in the light on the ceiling. "So pretty" I mumbled, blinking at the fact that I said that aloud. His eyes flickered to mine and I emediatly went beet red. A small smirk rested on his face.

"Thank you" he mumbled back, his face a light shade of red. He finished quickly, and soon he just sat there, stroking my cheek with his thumb. Not bringing himself to move away, his face back to its same stone look. I yawned, it had been a while since I had gotten even a few hours of sleep, and I was weak. He caught on emediatly and let go, muttering something about blankets while he headed off into his room.

I rubbed my eyes, setting my backpack down on the floor next to the couch. He came back and opened the couch, creating a cozy looking bed, a perfect fit for me. He placed down the pillow and blanket, and wordlessly I climbed into it. Letting my body relax, barley feeling the blanket being pulled up over my shoulders, or the lights being turned off.

No, no no no, I wimpered, the shadow looming over me. "Your dreaming, wake up" the shadow took a step towards me, I let out a low wine, unable to back up, "your dreaming, it's ok, I got you, it's ok"

I felt a tight gripped hand pull me against something, ripping me almost completely out of my nightmare. My eyes still closed, I bared my teeth at the shadow. I tried to pull my legs up to my head, trying to cower from it. My stomach tightening in knots. Something gripped me close, I felt breath on my ear. "Hay hay, it's alright, nothing can hurt you, your safe, your safe." I felt my body relax, the voice louder than the shadow. I let the invisible thing pull me closer, laying my head on something rhythmic. Slowly sending me back to sleep, my eyes still closed, I felt somthing brush against the top of my head, already to far asleep to notice.

When I woke up it must of been early because the sun was still well behind the horizon. I sat up, yawning and baring my teeth. There was a clatter in the kitchen, I looked around, the lights were off, but there was Matthew, cooking something over the stove. The smell wafting over. I couldn't help but smile, I didn't know why, but I had slept through the entire night without waking, and I felt very relaxed. I stood up, careful not to disturb Matthew, who was deep in thought. I walked over, leaning against the island and just staring. He was smiling. It was quite a sight, making his eyes shine even more. I wondered what he was smiling about, what was causing his face to show such emotion. I looked over his shoulder, in a pan was two eggs. They crackled and popped.

"Good morning," I said finally, unable to keep myself quiet. He look over and his smile faded slightly, going back to its stone look. But the light in his eyes only got bigger. "Oh please, don't stop smiling for me" I teased, watching his face go bright red.

"Good morning" he said back, watching my movements closely. "Did you sleep good?"

"Yes actually! I sleep wonderful, your couch is super comfortable" I said, his eyes searched mine, as if looking for a clue. I cocked my head to the side, giving a playful frown to his reaction. "Everything ok?" I asked, the tense silence growing too much for me.

His features relaxed, "yah, just making sure" he said, turning his attention back to the pan of eggs. After a moment he skillfully slid them on two separate plates and handed a plate to me. Opening a drawer and pulling out two forks. We sat down over at a small table that bordered the kitchen. It was in front of a window, outside I could see the sun peeking out. I shuffled nervously, taking a bite of my eggs.

"These are really good" I said, my mouth full of egg. His blue gold eyes brighteded, and he glanced at the window, noticing the rising sun. Then, he stood up and pulled the shutters closed, making sure no light got in before proceeding to continue making work on his eggs. Without any words said. My brow folded, confusion and slight paranoia lapping at my senses.

"What was that about?" I asked innocently, my eyes narrowing.

"He looked at me a moment, his fork still fiddling with his breakfast. "The sun is too bright in the morning" he said flatly, averting his eyes.

"Ok...."

We went back to eating in silence, after I was done, and noticed he was also done. I stood and took his plate, quick enough so that he didn't have the chance to argue. "Thank you for breakfast" I said again, placing the two plates in the dishwasher. "And... Thank you for letting me stay the night, but..." I made myself state what had been bugging me for the past few minutes. "I don't have enough money to pay you for your hospitality. I don't want to invade on your privacy, and you probably don't want someone like me hanging around your apartment and-" I was cut short in my rambling by the small smirk that was slowly growing on his face. I had expected him to be disappointed, maybe even mad. But he looked, amused. "What? Why are you smiling" I said, embarrassment flickering in my words.

"I wasn't expecting payment. I enjoy the company." He explained, trying but failing at forcing his smirk off his face. "You can stay as long as you want" he finished. Standing to his feet he walked over to a drawer and pulled out a spare key, handing it to me. "Just make sure to lock up before you leave" he hummed, his voice back to its low sing song like melody. Leaving me flabbergasted.

I cleaned up the couch, folding it back to a sitting position and placing the blanket and pillow on it neatly. When I finished I sat down, he had left shortly after our conversation. Mumbling something about work. He had tossed me the remote before leaving. I skipped through the channels, the news wasn't ever really interesting, it was all the same now. Talk about the politics of vampires and humans, vampire rights and freedoms. Stupid. Ten years now, people have lived with them peacefully. The news was grasping at strings. Still, it was better than nothing, and I settled for a channel on cooking. It wasn't long before I got fidgety, and had to pace around the room for a while. It was too bright to risk going outside, so I opened the fridge to drink something instead. There wasn't much, but orange juice sounded good, so I drank that. Slowly but surely, as the day carried on, the sun started to settle behind the horizon, kissing the mountain tops.

I fiddled with my headphones, when the door opened and in he came. "Hay!" I shouted, giving him a closed lipped grin.

"Hi" he breathed back, clearly exasperated from whatever he was getting back from. He made a beeline to his room, closing it behind him. It didn't take long before he had came back out in a new more comfortable outfit. His hands in his pockets. "Are you hungry, I know a really good place over a ways" he asked, his blue gold eyes locking with mine.

"Yes! I would love that!" Jumping off the couch giddily, I needed to get out into the fresh air. We walked out of the apartment and into the night air, softly lit with the last remaining glow the sun had to offer. There was a slight breeze, and the trees danced to its rhythm. I smiled, unable to contain the happiness stirring inside of me. Like any vampire, I absolutely loved the nighttime. The shadows that played in the corners of your vision, mixed with the hum of others basking in the night air. Bats gliding gracefully in the air, silent as the darkness around them. Pulling myself from my thoughts, I caught Matthew staring at me. His eyes full of awestruck wonder.

We made our way over to a cute little restaurant and ordered food, sitting in the outside seats. Per his request.

"How was work?" I asked, nibbling On the sandwich placed in front of me.

"It was fine"

We ate quietly, silently enjoying each other's presence. When I finished, I closed my eyes. A gust of wind crashing into me, it felt amazing. And I itched to be up in the sky, feeling the rush of the flight. The high it gave. I opened my eyes, his soft gaze peiring into mine.

"Your so beautiful when you get lost in thought"

His abrupt complement left me red and speechless, "ah," I averted my eyes, my gaze faultering towards the floor. "Thanks" I mumbled, unable to meet his blue gold eyes. My stomach stirred with the same weird feeling I felt the day before. We walked home, too flustered to speak. I noticed him watching me in the corner of my eye, his face in its calm stone stare. I could get used to that, I pondered to myself.

We got home and I once again got ready for bed, this time entering the bathroom and changing into pj's. I layed back down into the comfy blankets and drifted into sleep, the events of the day still lingering in my thoughts.

@vigilantetendencies

#vampire #romance #writing snippet #long reads

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yandere-wishes · 4 years

Text

La Belle Au Bois Dormant // Yandere! Malleus Draconia X Reader//

A continuation form A Rose By Any Other Name Would Still Be As Sweet

===========================================================

From this slumber, you shall wake, when true love's kiss, the spell shall break.

"I don't want to go" Malleus mumbled as he reached his pale hand to gently caress your smooth face. His intoxicating green eyes held a form of hesitance as they bore into your (e/c) ones. Your fingers gently entwined in his raven locks, pulling them back to see just how long they were. Occasionally your long nails would brush against the base of his horns, earning you a delightful little chirp from the dark fae.

You tried to push your lips into a heartfelt smile in hopes that it would grant him some peace of mind. "I'll be alright my love, go about your day you have classes to attend." Jealousy pumped through your veins as the final phrase left your mouth. Classes, they seemed like such a distant thing. You could barely remember the wooden desks in which you sat at or the thin pencils that you once held in your grasp. Everything was so blurry, so far away, your life before you met with the Malleus always seemed so distant, so abstract. Now your life was planned out in such a way that there was nothing to remember but your raven-haired lover. Every moment you were awake was spent by his side, in his embrace. It was always him, him, him...

Malleus groaned as he pushed himself up, the early morning sunlight reflected off his face causing him to resemble a mystical porcelain doll. He leaned over pressing his lips to your forehead in a lengthy kiss. "I love you" he muttered. "Love you too" you replied almost too automatically. That just how thing where you said what he wanted to hear, did want he wanted you to do. The concept of "free will" was something you had lost over the last few months.

"It's time" Malleus stood in front of you black wand in hand. It was time to sleep, it was time to fall into a listless slumber for god knows how many endless hours until he got back. Slumber had become the prison Malleus bound you in. He needed no chains or shackles, no fancy locks to bar the doors. No all he had to do was wave that a cursed wand...

The emerald jewel embedded in the hilt began to glow, a green mist began to ooze out from the gemstone, gradually floating over to you. This had -like may other things- become a sort of day to day routine. You would sit as still as can be as the green mist infiltrated your senses. The second you smelt its lavender like aroma, your eye lips began to get heavy, your limbs started feeling numb resting. Your body would slowly recline into the soft mattress...and that was it, time would fly by as remained trapped in a dreamless sleep. That's how things had been for so long and that's how you feared things would remain forever.

But unlike the lovable fairy tales we are told as children, real life has a way to demolish the notion of "forever".

It had been a total of four months since (y/n) had gone missing. 120 days since his closest friend had vanished without a trace. The headmaster and professors had stopped looking for her on the four days of her disappearance By the second week the student body as a whole had forgotten her. By the first month, all traces of her had been wiped clean. And four long months later Phil Auroria still hadn't stopped searching for his best friend.

The week leading up to (y/n)'s disappearance would forever be burnt into his mind. She'd walked into class every day that week looking dazed and confused, she constantly got lost in the stone hall, fall asleep during lessons. At some point, she'd stopped eating and started to spontaneously burst into laughter. Phil had tried to talk to her, reason with her even. But she'd always brush him off, that was until she stopped talking to him in general. It had been by Wednesday or maybe Thursdays that the young girl had lost her tongue. Every word that Phil had spoken to her had been meeting with an icy cold glare from eyes that where that had lost the ability to focus on one thing for too long. By the time Saturday had rolled around Phil had decided enough was enough. He'd marched over to the Ramshackle dorm barged in ready to drag her to the nurse's office, practically demanding she gets treatment for her peculiar behavior...when he found her room abandoned, vases knocked over, postures ripped from the walls and the window wide open.

Kidnapped! The word rang in Phil's head as he's rushed around campus trying to convince any teacher he found that his best friend had been Kidnapped! But no teacher paid him any mind they all brushed it off as if he was going crazy. Until finally the headmaster had agreed to do a "thorough investigation". Said investigation had lasted hardly a day. Crowley had to look around her room, allegedly "talked" some of her other friends and done, that had been that. Never again did the mask-wearing director talk about the lost girl again, never did the teachers call her name during the morning attendance, never was her name heard on campus again.

Phil too had begun to lose all hope. His mind had written her off as dead, corpses probably buried on some hill my a serial murderer. (Y/n) was gone, never to be heard of again...

that was until just the other day. One miserable day before the anniversary of (y/n)'s four-month disappearance. Walking down the grim, eerie halls one his way to alchemy class, Phil had heard the misremembered, lonesome name being whispered. At, first he thought it was his grieving mind play tricks on him, telling him he had heard her name, telling him she would be right around the corner awaiting him...she hadn't been both to Phil's dismay and expectation. Instead, he'd seen his deputy dorm director Lilia Vanrough talking to Diasminia's royal guard Silver. They had been whispering about something, their voices so low that Phil had only made out the occasional word...but that had been more than enough. From their vague hushed conversation, Phil had learned all he needed to learn. (Y/n) was very much alive and well, she was being held against her will in the dorm leader of Diasminia's room. The poor girl, who knew what horrible deeds that monster had done to her! He just had to save her! There wasn't a moment to spare!

And that was how Phil found himself staring at the hulking noir door. Adrenaline pumping through his veins as his fingers nimbly tried picking the lock. She had to be there! She just had to! He'd searched every other nook and cranny of the school, he'd searched from the hot sands of Scarabia down to the depths of Octavinelle. There was nowhere else you could possibly be! The lock gave way with a loud "click". Phil held his breath as he pressed on the wooden door. For a second he stopped, heart, pounding violently against his rib cage. He closed his eyes, easing his mind into a state of comfort before fully opening the door and stepping through the thresh hold.

....

A warm feeling flooded his body, blood ran up to his face, his heart sped up. His eyes had grown to the size of the gem pinned to his coat. They say if you dream a more then once it's sure to come true...

There she was in all the glory, arms crossed over her rising and falling stomach. She looked so peaceful, so tranquil

A true sleeping beauty.

Phil walked closer to his slumbering friend, eyes never leaving her serene face. When he reached the side of the bed he kneeled down, his fingers swept a few stray locks of hair behind your ear. "(y/n)" he whispered. "(y/n) it's me" when she didn't reply, Phil, wrapped his fingers around one of her hands, giving it a gentle squeeze, still nothing. That when he saw it. The faint green glow that circulated your body. A sleeping curse Phil realized. The dark Fae had you trapped in a sleeping curse how....oddly typical of him. Still despite how common they were one of the strongest spells known to man, Fae and all other creatures that roamed the earth. There were only two known ways to break a sleeping curse and those methods varied from curse to curse.

The quickest method was for the caster to break it or in a sense "take back". The second method was the ever-popular "True love's kiss" but well...those weren't the most reliable sources. Yet at that moment Phil couldn't stop looking at her lips. There was something about them, something about that just made him want to kiss her...

Before his brain could fully process what was happening, he was pushing his lips onto hers. His head felt dizzy, cold sweat broke over his body. When he pulled away his lungs heaved for air, an emptiness loomed over him as he waited for any remote reaction from the dormant girl.

...

"Five more minutes Malleus" the voice was laced in sleep and sloth, the young girl's eyes cracked open glaring at whoever had just awoken her...No this wasn't Malleus, this was someone else, someone she knew! Someone she thought she would never see again! "Phil!" (y/n) instantly pushed her self into a sitting position, swinging her legs off the edge of the bed and pushing herself into her longtime friend's arms. Tears of happiness flew out of her eyes staining her cheeks as well as his uniform. "(y/n)?" oh, his voice, his gorgeous stunning not monotone or seemingly dead inside voice! It was blissful music to her ears! The sound of something that wasn't Malleus' formal tone! Phil shifted holding on to one of her hands in his larger one. "H-How! H-how are you awake, I-I just kissed you and..and suddenly you..." Realization shown face, his eyes flashed with a vivid outwardly happiness. "I..I love you" the both of them spoke wt the same time large smiles plastered on both their faces. This was the perfect fairy tale moment, the moment the prince saves the princess and falls in love! This was that one true formidable moment!"

....Except such moments can never exist in Night Raven College...

"Oh, you poor simple fools" an anonymous voice chided. the "heroes" looked around frantically trying to locate the imposture. Deep down they knew who it was, they knew that their moment was gone, lost never to be found again. The room filled with a thick emerald fog, shocking the air out of both Phil and (y/n)'s lungs. In the haze, a tall black figure appeared, stomping angrily towards the pair. Gloved hands grasped (y/n)'s shoulder pushing her harshly against Malleus' chest. The dark fae was inraged. Betrayal dancing in his sad, heartbroken eyes. "I trusted you" he mouthed before turning his rage towards Phil, Malleus' chest heaved, his hands balled into fists.

"Silver!" His voice echoed off the walls, reverberating inside the skulls of the two humans in the room. In mere moments, there was the noise of shuffling boots, followed by the creaking of the old door. "Yes, Malleus-sama!" Silver marched inside, lavender eyes fixed on Phil from the moment he entered the room.

"Dispose of this wretched human at once! Throw him in occidendum domum I'm pretty sure It's savanclaw's day...so they'll enjoy the little treat."

What scared (y/n) the most about that phrase was just how cold and uncaring Malleus' voice was. He didn't care about the life of another living creatuer...no he never cared about anything other than himself and his obsession. In the endless span of time, you had spent with him you had forgotten just how insensitive the dark fae was. He'd tricked you into giving up your name, he'd stole you away from the life you had loved and now he was going to kill the man that was meant to be your one true love... Yet still, a part of you wanted to snuggle closer in his embrace, to have him hug you tightly and whisper that everything will be okay. You really were going insane.

You trashed around in Malleus' grip, trying to reach out for Phil's hand. Hoping that by some miracle you could prevent a determined Silver from taking away Phil. As the two men departed the room you turned your attention to Malleus with tear-filled eyes. "Malleus please" you begged, voice cracking as you sobbed uncontrollably "He was able to wake me from your sleeping curse! He's supposed to be my one true love!"

Malleus' poison lives eyes darkened. Forcefully he pushed your face closer to his chest. His thin fingers twisted around your hair. Casually he placed a kiss on top your forehead as he finally spoke directly to you.

"Darling I am your one true love as you are mine! It matters not what foolish mortal awakes you from your slumber, it only matters that I am the one who cast the curse over you! That makes you mine! That makes you my sleeping beauty!"

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xbunnybunz · 4 years

Text

Flowers Between Ribs [Sans x Reader]

Summary: Papyrus is cooking downstairs and Sans is asleep. Of course, you would take this opportunity to stick flowers in his ribs... You did not know he was sensitive there.

Genre: Fluff

Date: July 21, 2016

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It was an unusually peaceful day. A comfortable yet rare silence had settled in the humble abode of two skeleton brothers, which was usually bustling with noise and strange misendeavours. The sun was just starting to set, and the hues in the sky cast their light into the house. Gradients of the fading twilight slipped past the curtains and washed over the room, bathing it in it’s palette of orange, pink and purple watercolor.

You would soon attribute the odd spell of quiet with the absence of a certain boisterous skeleton-

“SANS, WE HAVE RETURNED WITH THE INGREDIENTS FOR DINNER!” Papyrus kicked the door open, almost sending it off of its hinges.

The door bounced off of the wall with a splintering ‘CRACK,’ and would’ve slammed back into Papyrus’s armful of groceries if you hadn’t jammed it open with your foot.

Whew, that was a close one. There were eggs in there.

“AND I BROUGHT A GUEST! (Y/N) IS STAYING FOR DINNER AGAIN TONIGHT!”

You poked a head around Papyrus’s towering frame and peeked inside the familiar house. As always, it was relatively clean, leave for a sock in the corner. (Which was bombarded with sticky-notes.) You visited Papyrus and Sans on a regular basis, and knew this place better than the back of your hand. Scanning the room, you realized that something was missing- or, to be specific, someone.

“Hey Papyrus, do you know where Sans is?” You ask as you shift the brown bags in your arms, and walk towards the kitchen. Papyrus follows close behind, scanning the room as well.

“WELL, IF HE ISN’T IN THE LIVINGROOM, HE MUST BE SLEEPING UPSTAIRS.” Papyrus set the bags down on the counter and placed his hands on his hips, “THAT PILE OF LAZYBONES.”

You chuckled and plopped your share of groceries on the counter as well, snatching a particularly light paper bag off the table. “I’ll go wake him up, then! You better get started on cooking Pappy!”

“AH , YES. I SHALL BEGIN CREATING MY WONDROUS SPAGHETTI! HM, SHALL I USE GLITTER GLUE OR PUFFY STICKERS TODAY?” Papyrus thought out loud to himself.

As you slipped out the door, you couldn’t help but shudder at the skeleton’s strange sense of taste.

Sure, Papyrus may be sweet, but unfortunately that didn’t make his cooking any more palatable than a third grader’s macaroni-and-glitter art project.

Still, you were kind of thankful he sucked at cooking- it was what strengthened your bond with the brothers so much. Whenever you were free, you’d come by their place and give Papyrus some cooking tips (“GEE (Y/N), THAT MAKES QUITE A LOT OF SENSE. I THOUGHT THAT WHEN PASTA CAUGHT ON FIRE, IT MEANT IT WAS SPICY; ISN’T THAT WHAT THE COMMERCIALS MEAN BY ‘FIERY HOT?’”) while also preparing nice meal for the three of you. Of course, you’d leave room for one or two bites of Papyrus’s self-proclaimed “MASTERPIECE SPAGHETTI, NYEHEHEH!” which seemed to satisfy everyone.

With the bag delicately pressed to your chest, you tiptoed quietly upstairs toward Sans’s room, faintly hearing the telltale signs of light snoring. Luckily, he had left his bedroom door slightly ajar and unlocked, making your job a lot easier. (You knew Sans couldn’t be awakened by the mere sounds of knocking, and you didn’t have the adequate tools to lockpick.

(NOT THAT YOU LOCKPICKED.))

You shouldered his door open quietly and were greeted with the sight of his room- something people could politely describe as… organized chaos. It wasn’t often that you came up to Sans’s room. Perhaps you’ve been in and out of here once or twice when you were sleeping over and needed extra pillows, but that was done rather quickly.

You never really paid attention to anything (except for the odd flashlight-lamp-contraption on his dresser.) Taking a closer look at the room now, you notice many odds and ends you're surprised you didn't spot before. A dusty treadmill, heaps of clothes and stray socks littering the floor- and… A hurricane of a mess. Literally.

Typical Sans.

Stepping over the oddities strewn across the bedroom floor, you make your way over to a sleeping Sans, peacefully snoozing away while sprawled on his back. The corner of your lips quirk up a bit further upon hearing the faint clanging of pots and pans downstairs, along with the occasional “NYEHEHEH!”and you figure Papyrus is entertaining himself: you'd let Sans catch z’s for just a little longer.

You plop down next to Sans’s bed and rest an arm on the edge of the mattress, propping your head up on it. Your eyes latch onto his chest, rising up and down at a slow and steady pace. No nightmares this time, huh? You let out a small exhale and give the sleeping monster a small lopsided smile.

Despite his endless slew of lame jokes and easygoing attitude, you knew Sans always had a torrential wave of thoughts consuming his mind- in both sleep and his waking hours. At one point, you had gotten worried enough about his worsening eyebags and asked if he was alright, only to receive a broad and somewhat conventional reply. You begrudgingly changed topics, taking the hint- but pressed him for answers once Papyrus called you up begging for help at 7AM on a Saturday.

You had dashed over there with a bad case of bedhead and mismatching socks, assuming the worst- only to arrive and find Papyrus in desperate need to use the only bathroom in the house- which Sans had fallen asleep in while brushing his teeth. “no need to get so pee-ved, can’t a guy get some bath-room to himself for a bit, heh?” “Sans,” You huffed “Look, we can tell something is bothering you- and it must be pretty bad, to lose sleep over.” He shifted from one slipper-clad foot to another, eyes darting away from you.

No response.

You sigh and place a hand gently on his arm, furrowing your brows at him. “You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to, but take care of yourself, okay? We can’t have you injured for small things that could’ve been helped, yaknow?” Sans chuckled and lightened up considerably as Papyrus came out of the bathroom, looking much more calm.

“hey, eye’m bagging you to let this go, (Y/N).”

“SANS!“

And that concluded your semi-serious conversation about Sans’s health. You knew Sans was only avoiding a direct answer to save you and Papyrus the trouble of being worried, but there was a nagging feeling in your mind that there was something more than that. Something that he was… Protecting you two from?

Your eyes travel from his rising chest to his ivory face, completely relaxed despite the constant grin that was plastered from cheek to cheek.

From afar the bony surface seemed flawless and smooth, but up close you could spot small imperfections. Chips on the surface, tiny indentations, ridges and occasional scratches decorated his face, and you found yourself struggling to keep your hands to yourself. It was strange how these small markings could be argued to be unattractive- but to you, be so entrancingly unique and beautiful.

It made Sans who he was.

Your stare catches on parts of his exposed lower ribs, a result of his white shirt and unzipped blue jacket riding up during his tossing and turning.

Your cheeks betray you and flush a deep red rivaling Papyrus’s cape, and you hurriedly avert your gaze elsewhere. It was then that you remembered what you had brought into the room with you, and an idea popped into your mind.

Smiling coyly, you pick your head up and dig a hand into the brown paper bag, careful to subdue any obnoxious crinkling. You pull out your hand. In between your pointer finger and your thumb was a dainty little flower with vibrantly colored petals and a thick, robust stem.

After you had gone grocery shopping with Papyrus, you spotted a flower vending cart next to the park you two passed to go home, covered from wheel to canopy with beautiful, multicolored flowers of all variety.

“GO AHEAD, HUMAN. I SEE YOU HAVE TAKEN A LIKING TO THE PRETTY WEEDS.”

Papyrus gestured for you to go with a wide and genuine smile, but you were too busy cringing at the unintentional jab to really notice.

“I SHALL WAIT FOR YOU HERE UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED LOOKING! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM EXCELLENT AT WAITING! AMONG OTHER THINGS OF COURSE.” You wondered if bringing up the incident where he could barely wait for the bathroom would be appropriate, but bit your tongue.

Instead, you tossed him a grateful smile and went to pick out a handful of snipped daisies, bluebells, bleeding hearts and carnations.

Chuckling at the memory, you twirled the powder pink carnation between your fingers and eye Sans’s uncovered ribs. You honestly had no idea what to do with the snippets of flowers, and had only bought them in the spur of the moment. But now, you had an idea Would he feel it? He was asleep… This could be payback for that time he stacked ritz crackers on your forehead as you napped on the couch- needless to say you got a faceful of saltine cookies once you awoke. (“aw, come’on (Y/N), don’t be mad! I’m crackerin’ up over here!”)

Carefully, you slipped the smooth, dark green stem of the carnation between his second to last rib. Seeing that it stayed put, you felt a burst of happiness and immediately worked to place as many as you could in the exposed expanse of his bones.

Selecting a line of deep red bleeding hearts, you nestled those on the innermost part of his fourth to last rib. A cute daisy followed, placed snugly next to the bleeding hearts. You decorate his outer false ribs with baby blue bluebells and tuck some red carnations comfortably against the tip of his Xiphoid Process, grinning to yourself. Lines of fresh white daises and bleeding hearts dangle from his floating ribs, and you can’t help but admire your handiwork. The vividly colored flora somehow both complimented and contrasted perfectly against Sans’s milky white bones, framing the already strong and alluring structure with a collection of complimentary daisies and bluebells, gradiented red and pink carnations, and elegant yet sharply colored bleeding hearts.

After a few moments, you catch yourself staring and shake yourself out of your stupor. Glancing inside the brown paper bag, you are confronted with one more healthy-looking daisy sitting alone at the bottom. Removing it from its confines, you stare blankly at the garden in Sans’s ribs, wondering where to put the final flower.

Finally, you decide to place it with the other daises, but- Accidentally, your fingertips brush along Sans’s costal cartilage, and static shoots up your arm.

Oh, geez.

He was unexpectedly warm for a skeleton, and insanely smooth.

Your hand instinctively draws back as you sharply inhale, eyes darting up to Sans’s face. Fortunately, he was still asleep- although a strange bluish hue had dusted his cheeks. There was no way...

Was he… Enjoying that?

A shiver travels up your spine as you hear him give an almost inaudible but throaty groan, and you press your fingers to your lips. You didn’t ever really have a chance to find out what monster anatomy was like- but it was rather odd to you that ribs of all places could be a potential erogenous zone. Slowly, you lower them back onto the same spot and wrap the pads of your fingers around the bone, giving a longer, harder rub.

The response is immediate. Phalanges curl into the bedcovers and metacarpals twist into bedsheets.

Sans arches his back with a whimper and brings his ribs into your palms, reminding you of lesser dog and his keening.

Except this one moans.

Sans unconsciously bucks into your hand and gives a crescendo of a guttural moan, sending your heartbeat sailing and skin crawling. Your head whips towards the bedroom door to make sure Papyrus hadn’t heard and come up to check on you, and once you were in the clear, you yanked your hand away despite the tingling in your fingertips that urged you on.

Well, attempted to. Your eyes widened into saucers when you feel boney fingers- the same ones that were grappling at the bed a few seconds earlier- wrap themselves around your wrist and hold you in place- if not pulling you closer.

Sans gazed at you with one half lidded eye, a lazy but knowing smile licking at his usual cheesy grin. “mornin’.” You gulped and flushed red. Caught. “I-It’s more night than morning, but…” Your eyes followed his gaze to the small flower show in his ribs, and when you glanced back at you with a grin and a raised eyebrow, your blush reached the tip of your ears.

“I-“ You rushed to explain yourself, but found yourself tripping over your own words, “T-The flowers looked pretty and- and your bones were there and i thought it'd look good and alsobeacuseoftheritzcrackersthing-“ You visibly deflate with complete and utter embarrassment, wishing you could either turn sink between the wooden floor boards or turn into one of the many heaps of clothing on his floor.

“it’s kind of like a garden.” Sans smiled at you, his long fingers still wrapped firmly around your wrist.

You mutely nodded, avoiding his gaze.

“the only thing im missing are butterflies in my stomach, but you already give me those.”

Your breath catches in your throat at the comment, and your pupils rapidly dart to-and-fro, intensely staring at anything BUT Sans. Ohgoshthiswasembarassingwhydidyouthinkitwouldbeagoodideaatall-

“hey”

You feel the metacarpals around your arm pull you forward so you were practically on the bed with Sans. Before you could part your lips to protest, another set of fingers brushed along the breadth of your jawline and firmly but gently grasped your chin and turned you to face him.

“look at me.”

He was so close- maybe just a little more and- Sans plucked the daisy you forgot you were holding from your hands, tucking it into your hair.

“don’t think I don’t know what you were doing, kid.” Sans chuckled mischeviously, the laughter coming from deep within his chest. Maybe it was just your imagination, but was his left eye glowing cyan…?

“I, uh-“

“(Y/N)!” A loud voice called from downstairs, “THE PASTA WAS COOKING TOO SLOWLY SO I PUT CANDLES IN THE POT TO MAKE MORE FIRE INSIDE.” Silence follows. “THE CANDLES HAVE DISAPPEARED.” More silence. “I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL MAKE ANOTHER BATCH!”

As you opened your mouth to respond, Sans stopped you with a finger to your lips. “let’s finish what you started, hm? you might wanna keep quiet."

His eye flared

"my room's right above the kitchen."

#undertale #fanfiction #sans x reader #reader insert #old story

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seb-owns-these-tatas · 4 years

Text

Witcher of the Night (Chapter 16)

THIS IS MODERN ERA READER WHO WOKE UP IN THE DIMENSION OF THE WITCHER.

UPDATES FOR WITCHER OF THE NIGHT WILL BE PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY NOW IN MY TIME (GMT +8)

CHAPTER 15.1

WITCHER OF THE NIGHT MASTERLIST

Characters: Geralt of Rivia x small!Naive!Reader

Summary: A horny and insecure witcher decided to talk what his mind has been keeping; making you see how much of a man he was that was worth to choose and be chosen.

Warnings: NSFW 18+. (Yep. Again. Love it while it lasts, bb’s. Hehehe.) Some witcher in a rut. Finger sucking. Cream pie. Smut. Size kink. (I meant Geralt’s body build. LMAO *I base this story on the show. Not the game or books.*) an irritated bard? Ahehehehe. Nakedness? Geralt being soft and honest? (*screams*)

A/N: I was drained from the last chapter and I’ve taken a break. I was supposed to not update today due to it. I hope you can lend at least a minute to reblog or give me feedback, ghost readers out there! 💟 There ain’t no moments like this anymore because the plot will take its place on the next chapters! ENJOY WHILE IT LASTS!

TAGLIST IS STILL OPEN FOR THIS ONE! Heehee! Don’t forget to REBLOG, COMMENT OR GIVE FEEDBACK IF YOU DID LOVE THIS CHAPTER! IT’LL MAKE ME SMILE! Sorry for the grammatical errors and such because English isn’t my mother tongue!

Disclaimer: PNG’s and pictures used in edits are not mine even the GIF’s too. However, the edits and oneshots are definitely from moi (GIF credits: littlechinesedoll)

MY WORKS ARE NOT NOT NOT NOT NOOOOOOT TO BE POSTED ON ANY OTHER WEBSITES. My official username in Wattpad is “TATATHEPOTATO” and that’s the only other site I have for writing aside from Tumblr. Thank you, Tater tots!

GERALT OF RIVIA WAS IN A RUT.

You were sure he was after being fucked into oblivion by the witcher for countless of times already; taking a lot of orgasms in just about eight hours? He was lucky that he was a mutant. However, in your side? It was unfortunate because your stamina was weaker than his.

Your poor punani has been overworked and wrecked again. Lungs seem to be incapacitated, dangerously reaching the critical level for accepting Geralt's wishes; another round of ceaseless bliss in which you certainly didn't defy. Pants and wheezes were muddled against the mattress as you shoved your face on it, vigorously being burrowed from behind.

Here you thought; feeling mighty and confident that you could take and last for how long his enhanced self would.

Technically, you were wrong. Utterly wrong.

Was it round twenty-five already? Thirty? You may never know because every time Geralt finishes, his girth somehow magically becomes stone hard again like he never spilled himself inside you. If only he wasn't sterile, you were probably about to get pregnant with little witchers somehow based on how he always milks you in; like you were his pet, letting you take it good.

The white wolf's libido was overly developed as well. As you were told by the man, himself. He could go on for hours, days and even weeks, nailing you repeatedly until you have no energy to comprehend what was happening, and you were sure that his enhancement with the desires he had was a perk and also a disadvantage for your weak self who had her virginity taken just days ago.

Your sexual experiences are being expanded and learned by Geralt, not knowing before that you had a size kink of being choked in his own weight above yours, baptizing every nook and space in their home like animals in heat and being treated like you were such a fragile little thing before being corrupted; tainting your once chastised soul.

The witcher was a person who had given you a different outlook in life. Bringing you to a wonderland in the midst of being railed repeatedly; consistent with his rigorous, shameless pounding from the back. Brusque. Sharp. Perfect for the angle that hits the perfect spot, polishing your hole that has sent you ripples and waves of glory.

Geralt's moans were withdrawn, holding back those sounds of pleasure from ponderously watching his girth push and slither inside your heat. His mouth tightly shut and thick eyebrows scrunched in rapture. Aureate eyes intensely concentrated on his hard cock slowly drilling back, keeping his bulbous head in before slowly drawling back like he like watching you be filled with his girth; admiring how you were stretched around his hardened cock.

He'd felt your body intensely tremble beneath his.

Your knees were quivering with every plunge. Warm drizzles of your cunt leaking with a mixture of his fluid and yours together; like art combined with a color that creates a new one. The room smelled like sex and sweat with a scent of fresh grass because of how the windows were wide opened.

Nobody would see you both in such a debauched position, right? you've thought that when Geralt has lowered you down against the mattress, his weight crushing and pinning you down, quickly getting to his job; sticking his girth inside of you like he never would get tired of doing so after basically baptizing the hallway through the second floor.

Elbows began to feel sore. A desperate whine began to gurgle from your dry throat. Hand tightly grabbing onto one of his that laid on the curvatures of your hips, dragging you back to his swollen girth with every shove; filling you over and over like how you deserved because you've been a good girl. Every time he did, Geralt never misses the spot that could bring you into another restless, writhing orgasm.

The filthy sound of skin slapping on skin came with icherous slimy caresses of your nectar coating each other's carnal greed. Noise came with his bedpost hitting the wall like a maddened gorilla raging out of its cage, when all of a sudden; you've heard Kolby's strange bark that seem to come from the first floor, alarming you both that his family has already came back. Yet, here you were, splayed below the witcher and still getting driven to his extremes.

Geralt pulled his hand away from the bed post, leaving a print and a crack of his hand against the wood. His fingers slid through your dangling breasts, palms groping your teat as he began to knead onto it like a cat trying to suckle from his mother; claws out as he tweaked your sensitive nipple in one breast to the other. Simultaneously changing hands as he continued to reach you both to the edge of Nirvana.

Then, you've heard laughter and complaining downstairs.

"Geralt," you started with a mewl, your body being rocked from behind, the sheets thoroughly disheveled from your tiring day activities. His hand that fondled your teat trailed up your body; while the other glided down for what throbbing nub that was needed attention for another release.

His palm gently met your mouth when you've began to moan from his fingers touching your clit, rubbing and circling it the right, pleasuring way while he went on with his ceaseless ramming.

"Hnnng," you whimpered, voice muffled from his large, calloused hand that covered your mouth; hushing you from any noise that could echo out of the room.

The way he was manhandling you does it. From the moment he tried shushing you up, your heat began to clench around him. Your body squirming and thrashing under his skin. Weakened from the sudden action as it made you tremble; feeling the coil beginning to snap with just a few more jabs.

More thuds and unfathomable complaints echoed outside the room. With Jaskier finally knowing what caused the commotion that he somehow managed to be in. Geralt didn't seem to be bothered about the fact that their table has been wrecked; though, the bard might say otherwise.

His plowing slackened when you’ve felt him breath heavily from behind,

"Shhhh. Quiet down, midget." he clasped his palms tighter on your mewling mouth; hearing his breathless grunts above you was making you squirm in his hold. It didn't take you another lewd moan when Geralt's thick index and middle finger skid in between the pillows of your lips, an act of pacifying your noise down which has gotten an elicit of your juices flowing down your thighs, soaking you more than ever. But, you never did deliberate to suck on those fingers like how your mind has told you.

The smutty action was enough for him to briefly glance down at you, engrossed and captivated by a never expected bustles from his naive, greenhorn of a woman.

Another weakened moan was muffled beneath the palm that clasped your mouth. Your fingers trying to wrench his own away from slightly pinching on your sensitive clit, dragging you to where you wanted.

Neverland. Nirvana. Heaven. Where ever you could experience bliss.

Or basically Geralt's bed because you were currently being brought to the edge of the rainbows.

He was persistent and continued rubbing on your nub, his thick, long fingers thoroughly drenched from your arousal.

"Ugh---Hmm. fuck." the white haired witcher deeply grunted and moaned, his jutting hips bottoming out as he continued his desperate, urgent drives. Thrusts turning reckless. Panting breaths like dogs in heat; embracing every bit of his urgency to reach the floating clouds.

Your real name has slipped out of his tongue, sounding so lewd which has taken you over the edge. Knees began to shake as the high took over. Muscles clenching and also your cunt tightly choking his girth to spill his seed, urging him to thoroughly coat your insides. Another loud breathless grunt left his ajar lips; the sweat dripping down his temples as it also drenched his chest from all the activities. His heartbeat was running miles after miles, chasing to catch yours.

"G-Geralt, Geralt, Geralt!" you've salaciously cried out with every sloppy thrusts in the midst of having a muscle spasm; choking in the blast of euphoria when he'd took his hand off your mouth, grabbing onto yours which has been holding onto the headboards for dear life. Hence, as the witcher pulled your hand away; he'd done the unexpected.

Geralt of Rivia has sweetly peppered the back of your hands with honeyed kisses to soothe your convulsion; treating you like he wasn't fucking you to oblivion nor corrupting you from behind.

You've heard his breath hitch. The way he'd dropped his large hand on the mattress over your small ones, gripping onto it hard; you knew he came. He'd panted heavily above you, the new position being surrounded by his gigantic warmth. Your juices soaking your inner thighs as his load shot inside you. All warm and cozy; giving you a fuzzy feeling inside your chest that you couldn't explain.

He never pulled out until he was finished. You were so full of him, his seed dripping out of your cunt when his semi-flaccid cock dragged out of your overused pussy, telling him how he’d filled you more than he planned to. Your knees eventually buckled and lost its will to be useful for you; your face down on the pillow, running short of breath as you planted over the tousled sheets.

Geralt laid on the bed beside you, his large body built turned to you with an arm tucked below his head. Basking in all his glory and sweat with amber eyes solely worried for your weary form. You sounded like you were wheezing as he hovered over to pull the blankets over your waist, shielding you over the cold, crisp wind of the afternoon dew. Your whole body coated in the satiny sliver of your sweat combined with his and the witcher couldn't help but take in the view that he longed to be habituated once again before you came along.

Did he...actually break you while being drilled? he silently thought at the back of his tousled, half tied chalky white hair.

"Midget?" He softly muttered, using an elbow to peer down before you. Aureate eyes lingering a little bit longer. His fingers extending to graze along the line of sweat that covered your spine before reconsidering, hands ought to brush your disheveled hair away from your face, taking his time as he glided his fingers down through the side of your face.

He doted on the spent image of your sprawled body in the middle of his bed. Your heart turning more warmer than it ever could when you've felt him watching you over, the blankets glazing atop of your skin as you've closed your eyes, trying to steady back your breathing.

"I'm...fine. Just...spent. Let me...breathe," you breathlessly whispered.

"Hmm."

His faint, vibrating hum slowly calmed the fluttering butterflies flapping their wings inside your stomach. He earnestly cast his eyes over you. The thick pad of his fingers tracing along the hairs of your arm; giving you a shiver, padding down till the tips of yours before strikingly filling in the gaps of your fingers with his. Such a simple action making your heart feel snug with a hint of palpitation from the sudden, unusual gesture from the white wolf.

Well, he was certainly learning.

You've taken a peek from under the flat fuzz of your pillows; seeing amiable, tired, tender eyes. Rough, large palms delicately scraping through your soft ones, entwined amongst the unkempt silk of sheets from the result of your passionate tupping.

With your eyes still shut, a jaded admission was sent to the latter; assuming things from your negative state of mind. This always happens in the movies, right? the small voice in the back of your mind stated. After all the blissful moments, complication and problems tries to hinder over the blithe that wanted you to believe that this was a much of a miracle to happen.

It was subtly telling you that your presence in their world had a time limit because you didn't belong to their world in the first place. Salt came pinching down your heart at the sudden realization of that; getting a gist of feeling by choosing to live in their world forever, there were instances that would get you coming back from your dimension. Every felicitious moment feeling like it was all temporary and a fleeting scene in your mind.

The idea struck like a lightning. You didn't belong to their world; nor do you fit in.

Such a change of heart that you wanted to scurry home since the first day you've arrived; thinking that everything was just a dream or a nightmare that couldn't wake you up. But, in this exact moment; you felt like not wanting to go home.

"Why do I feel like you wouldn't come back after your hunt?" you weakly muttered; brushing off the infectious thought that could bring the felicity down; pulling yourself closer to him. You've tossed the bad shadows trying to lure you in as you've focused on the golden light that Geralt could let you see through. His warm breath fanned your face as you heavily sighed out the worry crippling out of your chest.

"You're overthinking." he deeply rasped, hearing him breath steady; sounding like his declaration had a double meaning. His thumbs brushed over your knuckles as he continued to reassure your troubled self, "---I never leave nor would I plan to. My family is my home,"

Geralt collected his thoughts, breaking through the spell you've always had to cast him in. Only your exquisite scent being the fire to thaw his walls down. It took him seconds before bluntly saying his next words, making you flutter your eyes open to see him softly smiling back at you. His tone warm, comforting and nesh for your sensitive, soft heart soul.

"---you are also my home. I'll always come back to you---always will find you,"

Those words that he stunningly said made your heart skip a beat. The cicatrix glowing beneath the sheets without you knowing, ecstatic of what has come out from his lips as a burst of bliss spread right through your chest.

You've felt the adrenaline rush from his sudden admission and change of aura; abruptly making you nail your elbows on the table, repeatedly blinking back at the witcher when you've felt the balmy cloud of warmth spread around your eyes; close enough for you to cry and you languidly leaned down to his very peaceful face to softly give him a kiss on the lips in which he gladly reciprocated.

No. This wasn't sweet nothings where he tries to win over your heart. His words was a declaration of breaking those walls down for you. It was a key for you to come hopping in, an invitation of seeing the real him; his vulnerable side that nobody ever sees.

Hence, this was the first time you've had someone showing you what it felt to be important, needed and cared for. A person with real intentions. Sensations which you never knew it existed or believed that you would ever get to experience such.

Nevertheless, it took you a trip to another dimension just to have it.

Your mouth left his with a euphonious twang. There was no rush to the kiss or any type of greed. Just a succulent sharing of what you wanted him to feel from your quiet response of what he said. It needed no words of approval or even a shedding of your tears; erasing the worries away if you started bawling your eyes out from his secrets that he whispered. His thick brows furrowed in a questionable expression, intently eyeing your dewy peepers staring back at him. Utterly fond. The witcher feeling as if there was profound affection deep within your eyes as you tried to shield them over with that twinkling gaze of yours.

He knew what he was seeing or feeling from you. But, he chose to ignore as of the moment.

"Jaskier's fond of you," he abruptly admitted, downright apathetic; his gravel tone expressing a mixture of interest and a little bit of doubt, not for you but for himself.

That simple display of what you've visibly felt made your heart soften a lot more than it ever could. Finding it hard to believe that this person slash mutant in front of you also had his own issues, sounding diffident with just conferring about this surprising fact he noticed from his friend who seemed to be catching feelings for you that certainly was quite difficult to believe.

You were biting the tips of your tongue from saying anything further more, pulling back from driving too fast that maybe Geralt was falling behind.

"Jaskier? Your Jaskier? The bard who always tries to ruin my day? you’re hallucinating, Geralt." you wanted to snort from his accusation.

Geralt has given you a dirty look, appearing to look like he has issues with you that he didn't want to expand as he kept his silence and continued to send a grimace. Was he hallucinating? Were he hallucinating when he'd read those words upon your lips hours ago? Was your endearment just a slip of your tongue? A simple caught up in the heat of the moment?

Was he also just hallucinating when you’ve called him ‘love’?

"Am I, really?" the witcher stated flat, sending a displeased hum as he subtly played with the softness of your fingers clutched to his bigger ones.

Your eyes turned wide from his deadpan, "What did I do? That banter sounded sarcastic, kitty!"

The latter slowly blinked, dragging a sigh as his baritone timbre turned stern and also meek no matter how hard he tried to cover it up from the roughness that he wanted it to sound like, you could read between the lines and sure enough, he was self-effacing from his friend who was also fond of you.

"Do...you like the bard?" he hesitatingly trailed off. The question ending with a pause as it sounded completely unforthright. You've given him a tender beam; child like and masking with nothing but innocence, affection and understanding, "Go on. I'm listening. Tell me what's on your mind," you started, seeing his tight lipped mouth shut. Those amber eyes briefly looking away from you,

"---Come on, please? Let me understand and see through the good heart that I've always believed in,"

Geralt gave it a moment. Exactly a minute as you've accepted the tranquil silence with him. Such silence that you have never imagined to be so comforting because back in your apartment, the stillness was eerie and cold; imagining hands trying to take your soul away from surviving a life by working in another country where you had no one but you.

"You're...significant to me." his glowing amber eyes turned heartfelt, shooting warmth through your skin and chest, "---you are a lot to handle. An unorthodox in my dimension. Yet, despite that, you're the havoc I didn't know I needed,"

"You're calling me chaotic. How sweet of you," you deadpanned, snorting from his metaphors that got you successfully rolling your eyes back at him.

"Your existence brought me sheer confusion about you. But, I'd rather have that befuddlement than to not be with you,"

Destiny brought you to him. Those assumptions he'd taken into consideration was now taken into account. Thus, destiny just needed this to not fuck it up. It shouldn't because he much rather not imagine how it would happen nor how he would be able to accept such fate laid before him.

"Jaskier's...a friend---he's important to me," he continued, feeling your other hand fall onto the side of his face; soft fingers tracing along the scar on his forehead and cheekbones with that glimmer in your eyes that make him want to give you another kiss; readable in your peepers was the acceptance he never knew he needed so badly, "---No matter how annoying he is. He's still my companion. A real...friend. I've seen how comfortable you are with him, saw how compatible you were with the bard,"

You've stopped brushing your fingers along his marks. Your free hand sluggishly propping below your chin as you've peered down. A small grin curling your lips, "When have you been a love guru? Does this version of you come up with a graphic chart that tells how many percentages do I seem to be compatible with Jaskier?"

He kept silent, staring straight into your eyes with a lukewarm expression; not understanding your references.

You've given him a faint raise of your brow, skeptically looking at him with an amused flicker of your peepers, "You've seen us that night. Explains why Jaskier was ranting about the door you've broken,"

Geralt kept his mouth tightly shut, shortly looking away before giving you a pensive response, "I've already fixed it---and you know it was not just about that,"

Pulling your closed fist under your chin, you've tilted your head to the side. Pleased by his tamed reaction as you've leaned closer to his face, adoring Geralt's sublime features that never fails to charm you everyday. His charisma totally knocking your wits out as you could finally see more of his true self.

You started, your words smoothly dancing per word; sounding utmost sincere and in wonder, "People in your world say witchers don't feel emotions," even being disregarded like they weren't humans, you silently added much more to yourself when you paused to talk, "---Well, my witcher is exactly the opposite because you're full of it even though you sound unenthusiastic all the time---comes with the mutations, I guess?"

The soft look in his eyes warmed your soul. Attentive of the stars that seem to float inside those amber pair; looking like he'd caught them for you. He stayed silent, never breaking his gaze away from you nor planning to move away from your body close to his.

"Do you want me to be with the bard?" your question caught him off guard, keenly reading through what your eyes wanted to say. The query sounding like it was just a quip.

"Will that make you happy?"

Geralt warily asked, completely earnest of what he said that made you bite the inner plump of your lips. There was a long amount of silence, contemplating what made him think that way, even considering the idea of never getting in the way when you'll choose another person than him. Was he even real?

Your smile fell a little at the question, swiftly unwrapping your hands entwined with his which ignited a tight frown from the witcher when he miscalculated the sudden gesture. But, those dreadful thoughts ceased when you've poked his muscular chest, the part where his heart loudly beat beneath the pad of your index finger.

"Will that make...YOU happy?" you slowly emphasized and returned the question, intently gazing above him. When he never answered and stayed quiet, it was the right time to say words that couldn't be kept to yourself. You've forgotten to bite your tongue from saying anything further less.

"---But, YOU make me happy, Geralt of Rivia. Isn't that enough reason to choose you?"

Keen golden eyes deeply gazed into yours, as genuine than it has ever been before; sucking you in and having no chance to escape from the resplendent color of his hues. Geralt moved beneath to help himself by using his elbow, his sudden elevation making you tilt your head back to see him deeply staring, mouth turning into a tight straight line as he rasped.

"Even if it takes for your life back in your world to be taken away from you---fuck." he abruptly stopped in the middle of his sentence, briskly taking a glimpse of the door behind you when he could hear stealthy padded footsteps hiking up the stairs.

Jaskier.

Geralt sharply sat his back on the headboard. His silvery, unkempt half-tied hair moving as he does so, the white sheets pooling just below his torso. He looked bedraggled and utterly sweaty which made it feel so fulfilling to have him in your presence looking like that. A miraculous snack. You could never have this opportunity back in earth.

You bit your lips from keeping yourself from grinning, curiously eyeing him as you mused. He deliberately scanned your exposed back, "What? What's happening?"

The latter took no questions and quickly pulled the covers over your shoulders as you laid on your front, slightly elevated with the help of your arms tucked under. He loudly sighed, sitting back on the wooden board. Recognizable footfall thumping louder and closer before a wind up bard barged in the room without knocking or announcing his presence.

"You two!" Jaskier exclaimed, ceasing midway in the middle of the room; looking lost and piqued. His pretty face morphed into a tight frown to find you and Geralt utterly rumpled under the sheets. You tossed a look over your shoulder to see the bard straight up crashing inside like there has been no lock or whatsoever.

Geralt motioned with his hands, palms on either side to show how taken aback he was from his friend who came trudging in like he owned the place. His face hinting with displeasure. Wordlessly gesturing towards the bard with a 'What the fuck?' face.

You skeptically hushed whispers beside the witcher, timidly pulling the covers over your wild head, looking stunned as you exclaimed, "I thought you locked the room? I told you to lock it!---What if it was Cirilla?!---Don't you know what a lock is, Geralt?!"

Despite of your panicking and embarrassed state, he was entirely the opposite as he sounded lackadaisical, going on by glaring at the bard who has his face scrunched in utmost displeasure, "I didn't expect them to arrive home this early." the witcher rolled his eyes from his galled self and sent a scowl towards the bard.

Jaskier raised his brow in disbelief, "Early? We've been gone for 8 hours, Geralt!"

"Well, I thought you'll be gone for at least a day and not barge in our room after we had a 'moment', Bard. A knock would’ve suffice."

Another set of padded footsteps, this time it sounded like this person was merrily hopping through the hallway. Until a ball of Ashen hair peeked through the opened doorway with a short Hirikka standing in the middle of the threshold.

"I'm here---woah!" Cirilla seemed to be knocked out of her boots when she saw you emerging from under the covers, bashfully covering your chest with the sheets, looking mortified by everyone seeing you in that kind of state. You were glaring at the witcher who tossed your off the side for a while as he dealt with his scandalous and crazy family.

"---I knew it!" the princess of Cintra loudly clapped and jumped on her feet. Her excitement immediately dying down when she noticed that you both weren't actually clothed beneath the white blankets. She firmly crossed her arms, her nose scrunching in disgust, "---Also, gross! Please do lock the doors next time!"

She whistled at the flabbergasted Hirikka who was sniffing the whole room in bewilderment; stout stopping before the bard as he sniffed him loudly enough for Jaskier to wave his face off away from his face. Cirilla whistled another, catching the beast's attention and making Geralt wince due to his heightened hearing, "Kolby, let's go! I'm giving you a nice warm bath!" before she shut the door closed behind them when he'd run off towards the princess.

Geralt and Jasker were giving each other stern glares; seeming to be in a challenge where one shouldn't back down despite of how mean it appeared to be like.

Jaskier was the first to talk, beginning his interrogation, "Who ruined the dining table?"

You swallowed the butterflies wanting to fly out of your throat, lifting a shaky finger to point at the witcher who was still as he sat on his side of the bed, "I’m definitely not the person who has superpowers here---It's him," but, Geralt seemed to answer in the same time with you.

"No one."

Jaskier didn't seem to want and take everyone's bullshit as he crossed his arms in front of you both. Geralt's clothes on one hand and yours in the other that made a blush go straight up your whole face, burning the dignity that was left. You wanted to yell from how irresponsible you were for leaving your clothes all around the house when you promised yourself that it'll be fixed after your activity.

You didn't expect Geralt to take eight hours---or you did?----and actually forgot what was needed to remember.

"Oh, no one, Geralt? I suppose this shirt is also owned by no one, considering how unclad you are right now? Hmm. Would this tunic come from the Hirikka then?" the toubadour raised his hand where Geralt's black under tunic has been balled up.

Jaskier dramatically puffed out a sigh, sounding like it was the end of the world for what has welcomed them when they came back from their weekly visit for Cuthbert. He held forth about your sudden shenanigans around the house like a father delivering a tirade.

"We leave for eight hours and this is what you both welcomed us in," pause. "---A broken bloody table where we dine!" Another pause as he threw Geralt's clothes at his face in which he caught it perfectly, "---your clothes everywhere in the house like snakes who shed their skins anywhere they go!"

Lastly, his foot fidgeted on the wooden floors, tapping in anxiety as he remembered that tiny scratch he had seen on his beloved musical instrument, entirely galled from the wound it received like it was his baby.

"---and also my lute---my beloved lute falling on the floors! You've hurt her!"

"We didn't touch your lute," Geralt's response was tepid, lazily blinking back at the enraged bard who stood in the middle of the room.

Jaskier's raised his hands to his hips, raising a finger and opening his mouth, expression wild and ready to send another harangue before back paddling inside his train of thoughts.

He briefly shut his mouth, tilting his head to the side as he wondered out loud, "Oh, maybe the air pushed it to fall. I remembered how I left the windows opened too. However---!"

Geralt cut his verbal onslaught, his gaze narrowing at Jaskier who also didn't back down at sending a nasty lour at the entertained witcher.

"I'll fix whatever is needed to fix, bard. Stop your whining," you've felt the bed squeak and bounce. Geralt slipped his legs out of the sheets, feet plopping down the floors as he heavily sighed. It needed power; manpower for Jaskier to leave the room and Geralt knew he wouldn't leave until he pushes him out of the threshold.

The witcher stood tall and firm, completely au naturel from head to foot like how he have been when he was a baby, stark naked without being moved by the idea that Jaskier was in the same room as you. His bare ass never shaking him off and so does the bard.

"Leave. Out of my chambers, Jaskier."

Geralt sauntered to where he is. Your eyebrows raising in amusement as you've marveled over the witcher in the nude. His beautiful, rugged bare back on show with that A+ rating of his derriere in which you freely tried to memorize inside your head.

Though, you couldn't help but take a glimpse of Jaskier who seemed unfazed by this whole nakedness he was seeing; like he was familiar of the whole thing and the white wolf's dangly bits hanging and it has peaked your curiosity.

Do they bathe together then?

The bard has seen your amused smile with a skeptical brow raised to what you were witnessing. Thus, he peeked around Geralt to acknowledge your curiosity; pointing at you with a roguish grin, "That face tells that you have been swimming deep inside the vast depths of the sea, wondering why I am not bothered by the witcher's nudity---"

"Jaskier," Geralt sent a tired warning and held his slim shoulders, forcefully turning him around as he pushed him forward, towards the door.

"---It's because I have rubbed chamomile onto his lovely bottom before! It was true! I never lied! It was a part of the rules in becoming the rightful travel companion until you came along and began rubbing it for himself! Though, I doubt you did it to join our adventures!---"

You couldn't help but stifle your tee-hee from his admission. Finding their friendship amazing to the point that he does it for Geralt; receiving nothing but his altruism and adventures that the witcher has shared together with him.

Geralt loudly closed the door behind Jaskier; his mouth running on and on about how such a change of habits it has been when you came in their life. He'd knock a lot of times, calling out for the both of you and trying to want and barge in your moment but your white wolf finally knew what a lock is and slid the wooden block over the hook to lock his chambers.

"He seriously rubs chamomile on your butt?"

The skyclad man turned on his heel, raising a skeptical brow as you tried to focus hard on his face and not his body that stood before you.

"I guess that silence means yes, then. Oof, such bromance! Don't you think I'm the one who's actually becoming a hindrance between your platonic relationship with your bard?"

"Ridiculous." He took several steps closer, making you turn your head from becoming too flustered over his glorious, scarred body that he certainly isn't afraid or diffident about his imperfections anymore after you've treated them like it was a part of him that you will always accept. Geralt sat on your side, reaching over the bedside table to look beneath the drawers.

The latter placed a small, transparent bottle on your hand. A clear yellowish tone of liquid inside as you stared at it, thoroughly intrigued, "What's this? Is it another one of your witcher potions?"

Geralt hummed in negation, lifting his calloused hand to take your chin in between his fingers, turning your head to look at his ardent, shining amber, "Eucalyptus Oil. Took it from Cirilla's chambers. For you---For later. Perhaps, our recent activities had you feeling utterly spent,"

You've blinked, taken aback from his plans for whatever it is he wanted. Though, it didn't take you to put two on two together to know where his plans would take you, "Why are you---Oh. I know. I definitely know what you want." pause. "---you are insatiable, Geralt."

Geralt gently nudged your chin, tilting it up to his advantage as he leaned down to press a soft buss to your lips. Once again, he'd took your breath away by how tender he was handling you. The mere opposite of what people see and expected from because they never had the chance to walk through him; they didn’t have the courage to know who he really was.

His thumb that rested upon your chin were easily replaced with his lips, kissing you on the spot before gliding the dimples of his nose to yours, subtly giving you an Eskimo kiss.

"My overly developed lechery certainly comes from the mutation,"

Geralt's mouth lifted into a small, unusual beam, fluttering his eyes closed as he concentrated on you and that specific comfort he found. Questions came hitting him like stones, breaking the mirthful bubble that he was brought in.

He didn't want you to go home anymore because he'd found home in you.

But, what if fate had move mountains and threw his happiness away again? Leaving him no choice but to watch you go?

Taglist for WOTN: (Strikethrough means I can’t tag you, bb’s! 💖) @alyxkbrl @himarisolace @barkingbullfrog @ayamenimthiriel @hellodevilslittlesister @vania-marie @spookypeachx @grungelovebug @fangirl-inthe-us @nympeth @amirahiddleston @gabethelobster @dreaming-about-starfleet @uncoolcloudyhead @melaninstylezz @psychosupernatural @missjenniferb @dance-dreamer @marvelousell @kingniazx @angelias134 @tapismyforte @chook007 @covid-donotenter @winter-moons @cheesecakeisapie @silverkitten547 @angelofthor @carrieannewaywardson, @plantingmum, @stuckupstucky, @shesthelastjedi, @a--1--1--3, @gutfucks,

Overall witcher taglist: @pizza-eater-i-ate-the-pizza

General taglist for Henry: @agniavateira, @iloveyouyen, @rahdaleigh,

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sunsetcurbed · 4 years

Text

every piece of you (it just fits perfectly)

Words: 4,139 Rating: G Warnings: none read on AO3

Summary: Ray Molina doesn’t really think much can catch him off guard.

Correction: he didn’t think much could catch him off guard.

When Julie’s hidden away in the studio, ignoring texts from him trying to get her to come in for dinner, he figures out quickly that he’s going to have to go out and pull her away from her writing. Except, well, when he does go out there, she’s not writing. She’s sleeping.

And see, that wouldn’t be an issue, but she’s—

Ray rubs his eyes and squints into the fading light of the room.

Yeah, his daughter is floating.

(*)

(or: 5+1 of Ray slowly coming to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, carlos was on to something with that whole ‘ghost’ thing.)

(1)

Ray Molina is a calm, collected person. He prides himself on that. He knows that it makes him a better parent, and when Rose was alive, it made him a better husband. His patience makes him better at his job, both in capturing and editing, and his gentleness gave him skills to handle every subject. He's levelheaded and thinks he's pretty adaptable, and he's flexible with what life throws him. It's how he was able to make so many adjustments for his daughter once Rose passed away, and how he was able to keep his emotions in check as he did so.

So, Ray Molina doesn't really think much can catch him off guard.

Correction: he didn't think much could catch him off guard.

When Julie's hidden away in the studio, ignoring texts from him trying to get her to come in for dinner, he figures out quickly that he's going to have to go out and pull her away from her writing. Except, well, when he does go out there, she's not writing. She's sleeping.

And see, that wouldn't be an issue, but she's—

Ray rubs his eyes and squints into the fading light of the room.

Yeah, his daughter is floating.

She's laying down, but she's hovering several inches above the couch, simply suspended in air.

And, well. That definitely catches him off guard.

He walks over to the couch skeptically and then sticks his hand beneath his daughter's body and—

Nothing.

He steps back, tilting his head at the couch and his daughter, ready to call her name when she startles awake, shoving off of the air that she's floating on to lift her torso. She blinks down at the pillow and her hand slips on—Ray's not sure what it slips on, but she goes tumbling back down to the same position she was in before and gasps. "Oh, my god, I'm so sorry, are you okay?" Julie says in a rush, looking at the bare space between her and the couch. She turns and curls her legs up and shifts so she's sitting now, still staring at the pillow in concern.

"Is who okay?" Ray asks.

Julie's head snaps to him and she drops her jaw. "Dad! I—what are you doing out here?"

"You weren't answering your phone," he tells her. He looks at how she's sitting now, and she's still floating. "Can you tell me why you're not touching the couch?"

"Uh—" Julie's eyes widen and she scrambles forward so quickly that she goes tumbling to the floor. "Oh," she says, reaching back to rub at her tailbone. She's quiet for a moment and then she shakes her head. "I'm fine, Lu—dad. Not that you asked, but I assumed you were going to, and I'm fine."

"That was quite a tumble," he says, ready to get back on point, about how she was literally hanging in mid air less than a minute ago, but she's hopping up and walking towards the door before he can even get a word out.

"So what's for dinner?"

Ray sends one more look to the couch before following his daughter from the room. They can talk about it later.

(2)

They still haven't talked about it the next time something… different… happens.

It's almost a week later when Ray gets home. He calls out a hello and hears Carlos call back, but there's silence on Julie's end. The lights in the studio had been out, though, so she must be inside. He climbs the stairs after setting his camera bag down. He stops first at Carlos' room, waving in at his son who's playing a video game on his Switch, and then he carries on further down the hall until he's at Julie's door. The door is wide open, resting against her back wall, so it's easy to peak in and see her lying on her bed, facing him. That's totally normal, but—well.

She's laying on her side with her arm tossed around… something. The air. Her arm is curled around the empty air to her right, and her fist is curled, looking like she's holding on to something. But she's not. Even with the spaces between her fingers, he can tell that there's nothing in her hand, even though it clearly looks like she's clutching someone's hand.

"Julie?" he calls into the room, hoping to prevent her from falling off her bed like she had the couch. "Mija?"

"Mmm?" Julie mumbles in her sleep. She curls tighter into the air and brings her hand closer to her face, still holding on to nothing.

"Julie," he says again, louder.

"Yeah, Dad?" she says back, and then stiffens. Her hand uncurls itself from around the air and she shoots up into a seated position. "Sorry," she gasps. "I know I was supposed to be watching Carlos, but I was up late studying—"

"It's fine, mija," Ray tells her. "He's about old enough to watch himself sometimes."

"Right," she nods, looking over at her pillow. Ray looks back to and—it moves.

Her pillow shifted on its own, right in front of his eyes. Her entire bed is shifting, as if there's someone else in it changing their position. "Julie—"

"How was the wedding?" she cuts him off. Her eyes flick to her left, shooting a glare at open air, before settling back on him with an open expression.

Ray sighs. There's that opportunity gone. "It was great. Very beautiful, the grooms were both more than happy to follow all my directions, so better than the last one I was at where the bride thought she knew better than me."

"That's great!" Julie says. "Tía brought over some chicken earlier, so that's down in the fridge if you want to heat it up."

"I'll… go do that," Ray nods. He turns on his heel and starts down the hall when he hears a harsh whisper from Julie's room. He can't hear a word that she says, but he can tell that it's meant to be a scolding. He freezes and turns back to her room. "Sorry, did you say something?"

"Oh! No, I was just yelling at my phone," she lies quickly, and he knows it's a lie because her phone is sitting three feet away from her on the edge of her bed.

"Alright," Ray says. "I'll be down stairs if you need me."

(3)

It keeps happening, and he keeps not being able to bring it up before Julie completely changes the subject. It's clearly something that she's not ready to talk about so he's trying to respect it, or maybe she isn't even aware that it's happening. She's hardly in control of her body when she's asleep, maybe it's—

He doesn't know what it could be. He doesn't even have a clue.

He remembers watching horror movies with Rose when they were younger, and all he can think about is the random possession that would cause a person or object to randomly float on its own. That's thrown out the window though because a) there's no such thing as possession and b) even if there were, his daughter is not possessed. But there's genuinely no other explanation that he can think of for how Julie managed to float.

About a month out from the first occurrence, he's starting to calm down. It hasn't happened again, not that he's seen at least, and he's starting to think that maybe it was all his imagination. Of course he vividly remembers the feeling of wrongness he got when he had waved his hand under Julie when she had been sleeping on—well, above—the couch, but. Stress could do that to a person, right?

So, it's all okay. Ray has just been dealing with excess amounts of stress and that's led to… hallucinations? Or something along those lines, anyways.

He's sure of that until he comes down stairs at two am one Saturday night and sees flashes of light from the TV in the living room. Thinking that Julie must have left it on before she went up to bed by accident, he holds out for his glass of water and turns to the living room. He freezes in the entryway.

Julie is fast asleep on the couch, facing the backrest, which, could be normal if it weren't for the fact that she's half way off the couch and some how not falling off. It's like she's got a hook connecting her to the back of the couch, holding her in place as she sleeps.

He makes his way over to her, reaching for the remote that's sitting on the coffee table. He hesitates turning it off, needing the light to see what exactly is going on. He bends over and studies the area between Julie and the back of the couch. Again, Julie's hand is resting in midair, but this time it's not curled around anything. Her hand is just laying flat on the air in front of her. Curious, he reaches out to poke it, but it doesn't budge, instead stays floating in the exact same space it had been.

Okay, not what he was expecting.

He's not exactly sure what he's supposed to do in this situation. It's too hard to ignore now that something is going on, but he has absolutely zero guesses as to what it might be. There's something solid there for Julie, but—

Double checking, Ray waves his hand behind Julie's hand. It passes through the air easily.

—it doesn't exist to Ray or, he suspects, anyone else.

Is her unconscious mind that powerful that it's controlling her muscles and keeping them in one place even against an outside force? Is—he can't believe he's thinking this—is it something supernatural? Carlos has been going on about ghosts, and even Julie had said she'd seen a ghost in the studio.

He blinks.

The studio. That's where it happened the first time.

Could ghosts move that easily? He always thought they were stuck haunting the place they died. But there hadn't been any deaths in the studio, not that he knew of. It's not like there's concrete rules to ghosts, as everything before has just been made up. Even these thoughts are ridiculous because it's all been made up, he's sure of it. There's a plenty reasonable explanation waiting for him.

Just… in the morning.

He turns away from his daughter and clicks the TV off and goes to get his glass of water.

He'll talk to her about it in the morning.

(4)

They don't talk about it in the morning, and Ray isn't even sure why he's surprised. This subject seems to be evading him in every way possible and while they need to discuss it, he's not entirely sure how to even bring it up, not unless it's actively happening.

So, that's his plan.

Wait for it to happen again and then confront her immediately. Don't give her the opportunity to change the subject or brush it off, but actually have a sit down conversation and discuss why his daughter can lay on air. And cuddle air. And hold air. And be held by air, too, really.

So, that is his plan. It just… doesn't go according to plan.

The next time something happens, he's looking out the window at Julie walking up the walkway from the studio. It's dinnertime and he was debating going to get her after he got no response to his text, but then out of the window he saw the studio door open and shut. He watches her make her way up the driveway and then the walkway, just taking the opportunity to see his daughter, calm and content. The only thing is, she's not calm. She's bouncing around, talking to the air and grabbing at it, too. On the middle step, she turns and laughs at something, and then—

She's floating again.

Her arms are wrapped around nothing, almost like she's hugging someone, but that someone isn't there. Her feet are dangling off the ground, hanging down like someone is holding her up.

Ray blinks, looks back to make sure Carlos isn't near, and then looks back out the window. She's swaying side to side in midair now, and he'd think this is an excited hug from someone who can't contain themselves from swinging her around if there was anyone there. But there's not. There's definitely not, and there's still no one there even as Julie is lowered back to the ground slowly. She stands there for a moment before she starts laughing again, head thrown back in joy. He's missed seeing her laugh like that, missed seeing her so full of mirth and contentment.

It's just—listen, it's really unsettling, okay?

Of course he's happy that she's happy, but he doesn't know what she's happy about. And she definitely wasn't asleep this time, so clearly she knows about this… thing that's happening. She had appeared to have known about it the first time as well, what with the staring at the pillow. The second time, too, with the annoyed glare at nothing and then the furious whispering after he left. He's willing to bet she knew about the third instance as well, even if he didn't get any proof of that.

This, however… there's no denying that something is going on.

Before he can decide what he's going to do, Carlos comes running down the stairs and into the kitchen, and Ray has to turn away from the window to keep his son's curiosity from piquing. "Hey, you," Ray says, snapping his fingers at Carlos. "Silverware, please."

"Got it!" he cries, and when Ray looks back out the window, Julie is gone from sight. He hears the front door opening moments later, and busies himself with setting their plates down.

Tomorrow, for sure.

(5)

Ray gets home from work, set on talking to Julie about the occurrences, only to be met with yet another. She's yelling when he opens the door, clearly not having heard him. Carlos is with Victoria at baseball practice, so Julie has had the house to herself since she got home from school almost two hours ago. Of course it makes sense that she'd mess around, but this—

"Luke, stop!" she yells, a twinge of frustration there, but that's mostly drown out by the laughter in her voice. "Reggie, Alex, make him stop!"

There's no reply, but as Ray rounds the corner, he can see his daughter's feet off the ground again, her back curled into something behind her. It looks like someone is lifting her up from behind.

"I did give it to you!" she laughs, hands reaching down to pry at the air around her waist. Her feet meet the floor again and she spins around, smacking the air. Another moment and she whirls back around. "Shut up, at least you can see both of us—I have to listen to you moon over Willie when I can't even see him," she says, and it sounds like she's complaining. "Besides, we all have to listen to Reggie flirt with everyone who crosses his path." More silence. "I know, we still love you, Reg."

Ray blinks.

He stands there for a long minute, listening to Julie bicker with the air, until—

"No, I don't think—what?" Julie freezes and spins around to face him, finally. "Dad!"

Ray tries to smile, but he thinks it comes out as more of a grimace than anything else. "Hi," he says.

"How long have you been here?"

"I see you learned how to levitate."

"Oh my god," Julie breathes out. "I can—I can… explain?"

"I sure hope you can because I'm not letting you get away without an answer again," he nods, setting his bag down finally. "So—care to explain?"

It's silent for a long moment, and then Julie looks up over her shoulder, as if someone is standing right behind her and talking into her ear. "Right, you're right," she sighs. "Dad, can we do this in the studio? It'll make a lot more sense out there."

He narrows his eyes. "Fine. But as soon as we get out there, you're talking."

(+1)

Ray Molina is calm, collected, patient, gentle, levelheaded, and adaptable, yes.

But he feels none of those things right now.

Not as he follows his daughter out to the studio where he'd first caught this phenomenon. Certainly not as she opens one door but doesn't touch the other, yet the door swings open on its own. Definitely not as she bursts into laughter at nothing, and turns to her right to make a snippy comment of "you really think he'll appreciate that?"

"Appreciate what?" Ray demands.

"Right," Julie says, walking over to her keyboard. "Dad, look around the room."

"Why am I doing that?"

"To see that there's no projectors in here."

That's not what he was expecting her to say. "What do projectors—"

"Dad," she says, voice firm. "Look around the room."

So he does, looking in every corner of the ceiling and along every wall to see that there's no projector. "Okay," he nods. "There's no projector."

"Now," she says, sitting down at her keyboard and turning it on, "just know that I didn't tell you because I was worried you'd send me back to Dr. Turner."

"Tell me what exactly?"

Julie sighs, and looks over at the empty space in the studio. She nods once at the air, and then plays a chord on her keyboard.

"Julie, I don't know what you think you're doing—"

He doesn't get to say anything further as her entire band materializes in the middle of the studio, instruments and all. He drops his jaw and looks frantically around for where the projector is hidden, coming up short no matter where his eyes land.

"You're not going to find it," the guitarist says. "It's why Julie asked you to look before she started playing."

Right. Ray doesn't think the holograms are supposed to be able to interact with him. There's no way they'd be able to see him, let alone know what he was going to do, so—

"Julie?" he says, voice edging into a panic.

"Meet the band," she says. She nods at the guitarist. "That's Luke." Then to the drummer. "Alex." And then the bassist. "And Reggie is your bud."

"Hi, Ray!" Reggie grins excitedly, and Ray imagines he'd be waving if it weren't for the fact that he was still playing bass.

"They're my phantoms," Julie finishes.

"Yes, Julie, I know," Ray says. "But how are they—"

"Dad," she cuts him off. "They're my phantoms."

"She means her ghosts," Alex says from behind his drums. "But 'Julie and the Ghosts' didn't sound as catchy."

"Is Carlos in on this, too?" Ray demands, looking at Julie.

Julie frowns. "You mean does he know about them? Yeah, that's what he wanted to talk to me about after the Orpheum."

"I think he still doesn't believe us," Luke tells her.

"I don't," Ray immediately jumps in. "There's no such thing as—"

Luke takes a step forward and drops his guitar. He bends down and picks up the coffee cup that's sitting on the coffee table in front of Ray. "Would a hologram be able to do that?"

"Luke," Reggie huffs as Luke sets the glass back down and picks his guitar back up to start playing again, "give the man some time, this is a very stressful situation to be in. We all remember how Julie reacted."

"Hey!" Julie frowns. "You promised not to bring that up again."

Reggie's eyes go wide. "I mean—we all remember how Flynn reacted."

"Flynn?" Ray asks. "What does she have to do with this?"

"Oh, she totally freaked when Julie showed her who we actually were," Alex says.

"Goggle Sunset Curve," Reggie calls.

"It's Google," Julie rolls her eyes. "But yeah, that's not a bad idea. Dad, do you have your phone?"

Hesitantly, Ray reaches for his pocket. He unlocks his phone and swipes over to find the internet app, and then opens Google. He types in 'sunset curve' to the search bar and frowns at the title of the first link. Sunset Curve: A Hollywood Tragedy. He clicks on it before he can think better of it, and after the page loads, he finds four boys staring at him from his screen. Three of which are also staring at him from ten feet away. He frowns. "Julie?"

"Before you and mom bought this house, the people that lived her let Sunset Curve use the studio as theirs. They're connected to this place. After twenty-five years of being stuck between the living world and the dead, they showed up here the night I first came in to clean it out. I wasn't lying to you when I said I'd seen a something. People can hear them when they play, but they can only see them when they play with me."

"It's rad," Luke says, "but Julie can see us all the time. And as of a few months ago, she can actually touch us, too."

"Ay, dios mío," Ray murmurs, looking back down and staring at his phone screen once more. "Ghosts."

"Yeah, it's pretty sick," Reggie grins.

"So—you're not cuddling air, you're cuddling a ghost?"

Julie's jaw drops, and her eyes flick to Luke in panic. Luke looks back at her and shrugs helplessly. She stares him down for another few seconds and quirks an eyebrow. Luke nods. It's an entire language that they'd developed together, being able to speak without speaking. Ray thinks he knows what she's going to say before she says it.

"I know this isn't exactly traditional, but Dad… meet my boyfriend?"

"I should have saved that 'ay, dios mío' for this," Ray murmurs. He crouches forward and rests his elbows on his knees, hiding his face in his hands. "You're dating a ghost?"

"So is Alex!" she throws in, her voice defensive.

"I am a ghost!" Alex throws back. "It makes sense for me."

"I mean, it makes sense for Jules and Luke, too," Reggie points out. "They oo—"

"Don't say it," Alex glares.

"—ze chemistry," Reggie finishes with a triumphant look at his drummer.

"Guys," Julie huffs. All of them straighten up and look to her. She shakes her head at Reggie and Alex. Luke moves nearer to the piano as he plays and she looks to him with a soft look in her eye. He murmurs something to her and she breaks into a toothy smile. She shakes her head at him but doesn't lose the affection in her eyes. Ray feels uncomfortable watching, and shifts in his seat and looks away.

"Yeah, we feel the same," Reggie says. "And we have to see them all the time. They're good together, though."

He thinks they must be. Julie hasn't been this happy since before Rose's diagnosis, maybe even longer. He can tell that she's safe with Luke, and that she feels safe with him. With all of the guys, really. She looks at all of them like they're the best thing she's ever seen, like they're the reason she still gets up every day. And, well, they are, he realizes. The timing, he's worked out, is that she played the morning after she met them. Something about these boys pushed his daughter back to her passion and they're the reason that she got back into the music program. They're the reason for a lot of things, he assumes.

He doesn't understand it. He can't fathom it right now, even with all the proof sitting in front of him, but he knows once he processes this, his world will be changed for good. It already is, even though he hasn't full accepted this new reality. But he's not upset about it. How could he be? This was out of Julie's control, everything from their presence to her relationship with Luke. He knows she didn't plan on any of this, but it's here and happening, and the only thing he can do now is adjust.

He looks over to Julie, where she's looking at him with hope in her eyes, and he can't do anything but smile. This earns him a beaming smile in return, one that lights up her eyes in a way he hasn't seen off the stage for… years, probably. He wants nothing more than to keep that smile on her face, so he looks around the room once more and nods at each boy individually.

"Welcome to the family."

(+1.5)

When he finds Julie asleep, hovering over the down stairs couch the next day, he smiles.

"Thank you, Luke."

A cup on the table lifts and raises, tilting in acknowledgement.

He'll get used to it.

#juke fic #jatp fic #juke fanfic #luke patterson x julie molina #juke #palina #my writing

51 notes · View notes

guccybangtan · 4 years

Text

keep going - jung hoseok x reader x park jimin

pairing; hoseok x reader x jimin

genre; smut, college au, frat au;

rating; 18+

disclaimers; threesome (hickies/neck kissing, palming, mxm kissing, penetrative sex, blow job/dick sucking, face fucking (its pretty mild), nipple play, hoseok gives off dom vibes but its subtle, hoseok fucks y/n and she's dating jimin (totally consensual Jimin’s there its a vibe) Let me know if somethings missing;

word count; 2.6k

a/n; this was commissioned by an anonymous donor through ChangesWithLuv in support of the Black Lives Matter movement

listen to: whatever sexy song you want, I listened to daddy issues (slowed w reverb) on repeat solely bc I liked the vibes;

“Just come with me to the party this one time! Please, baby girl,” Jimin begged you. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

His words were punctuated by a wiggle of his eyebrows, signature toothy smirk on full display as his eyes formed mini crescents.

You had been in a relationship with Jimin for the better part of two years, having originally met during Intro to Chemistry. It had been the first day of the semester and you, regretfully, were placed in the 8 am class.

You were taken aback when Jimin and all his energy plopped into the seat next to you, slamming his books and coffee onto the table, effectively deeming himself your lab partner for the entirety of the first semester.

While you dreaded attending Intro to Chem in the beginning, you found yourself looking more and more forward to it as time went by, beginning to enjoy the time spent with your new friend.

Jimin may have been a bit strange, but he was actually quite endearing.

He started bringing you coffee from the campus cafe when he stopped for his own, swearing you looked like the walking dead every time he saw you. He also looked at you like you held the stars in your eyes when you explained molar calculations to him, claiming ‘’no matter how hard I try Professor Robertson just doesn’t make any sense!’’

You knew something was up when Jimin walked into class empty-handed one morning, but all of the pieces clicked into place when he held you back after class was dismissed.

“I know things were a little weird in the beginning, but I really enjoy your company,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Would you maybe, I dunno, wanna come grab a coffee with me? Get to know each other outside of chemistry?”

Of course you’d agreed, and the two of you walked hand in hand down to the cafe, giggling like teenagers as you stared at each other over the lips of your cups.

That one date turned into two, which turned into four, which turned into Jimin asking you to be his girlfriend a few weeks later.

Even though you said yes, you’d had your reservations. Early on in your courtship, you’d learned Jimin was a part of Bangtan, the fraternity known to throw the most crazy rager parties. How this fact had escaped you the first 8 weeks of you knowing him, you weren’t sure why, but now that you did know it made you nervous.

“Why does me being in Bangtan make you nervous?” Jimin asked you over coffee one morning after class.

“It’s just- the reputation your frat holds.” You shrugged like that explained everything.

“Care to enlighten me?” Jimin was perched on the edge of his seat, acting as if you were about to tell him the juiciest bit of drama all year.

“That you all fuck anything with legs just to get your dick wet.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Is that why you think I’m after you?” Tongue in cheek, Jimin cocked his eyebrow, looking almost bored as you threw these accusations at him.

“Well... No. Not you.” You shivered under his intense gaze. You’d never brought this up in conversation before, afraid of the possible repercussions.

“What makes me different, then?” Your only response was to stare at him.

What did make him different? You didn’t really have an answer, but you trusted Jimin.

He hadn’t attended any of the parties since the two of you got together, totally understanding of your apprehension.

This party was a special occasion, though, which is why he wanted you to attend so badly.

Hoseok was one of the members of Bangtan, and the party was for his birthday.

The fraternity was notorious for going all out in regards to their members, so this was expected to be one of the best parties of the year, considering how popular Hoseok was.

This party would be no different. You’d seen the info floating around on Snapchat, meaning anyone and everyone was invited, something unusual for Bangtan, because usually you had to know someone to get in the door.

“You know how I feel about parties, Jimin,” you replied from your seated position on the couch.

Jimin had been persistent on your attendance since he’d heard about the party, but he’d been especially antsy since he returned home from his last class.

“I know, Y/N, but think about it! It’s Hoseok’s birthday!” Jimin made his way around the couch and sat on the coffee table in front of you.

He took the book you were reading out of your hands and set it on the table next to him.

“He’s your friend, Min, not mine.’’ You shook your head, reaching back out for your book.

Jimin was quick to grab your hand, pressing a kiss to your palm as he gave you the best puppy dog eyes he could muster.

“Pleaasseee!’’ he whined.

“Only for like, two hours,’’ you rolled your eyes.

“It’s a deal!” Jimin exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

He quickly scurried off to your shared bedroom, muttering about how he was going to let the others know you would, in fact, be in attendance.

The day of the party arrived sooner than you would have liked. Considering the rest of your week following the conversation with Jimin had been filled with tests and essay revisions, it was really no surprise that it was Saturday already.

The weather was warm enough that you opted for a spaghetti-strapped dress with delicate flowers scattered across the white fabric.

It was sheer and silken, like something you’d see in the middle of summer. It rested against the middle of your thighs, providing enough coverage to be modest, but not so much you felt swamped in fabric. It seemed perfect for the occasion (even though it appeared you’d have to prevent Jimin from ripping it from your body).

Even though you and Jimin arrived fairly early, it seemed as if the party was already in full swing.

You made it inside, albeit difficultly, and began the hunt for the birthday boy to offer him your congratulations.

Somewhere along the way you had been handed a solo cup filled with a mysterious liquid that smelled an awful lot like fireball and coke. If you were anywhere else you would have questioned the drink, but considering the fact that Seokjin had been the one to hand it to you, you weren’t too worried.

After searching for Hoseok and not finding him, you and Jimin settled onto the couch with Jimin’s best friends, Jungkook and Taehyung, who were also a part of the frat.

Conversation flowed easily between the four of you, and time was passing by quickly. You found yourself enjoying the party more than you originally thought you would.

“You still wanting to leave?” Jimin’s words were whispered directly into your ear, plush lips gently brushing against the outer shell.

“I don’t mind staying,’’ you shrugged.

“Well, uh- I don’t mind either but, there’s a bit of a problem.’’ He glanced down to his lap where a bulge was beginning to form.

Without even having to look, you rolled your eyes. “What!” Jimin exclaimed, glancing at his friends to make sure they were still oblivious to your conversation, “You look so hot in that dress, baby girl.’’

“So? You can’t wait until we get home?” “Please, Y/N,’’ Jimin purred, “humor me.’’

Sighing again, you stood up, bidding farewell to the others and tugging Jimin down the hall.

“Where to, loverboy?” You asked.

Jimin swung the first door open and pulled you inside, slamming it shut and flicking the lock.

“Where were we?” Jimin turned to you with a smirk.

“My bedroom,’’ another voice rang out.

You nearly jumped out of your skin at the sudden sound.

Hoseok was lounging on the bed shirtless, his feet kicked up.

“To what do I owe your lovely presence?”

“We were just-’’

“Gonna fuck in my bed?” Hoseok cocked his eyebrow.

“Well-’’

“I could’ve at least gotten an invite,’’ Hoseok tsked, “it is my birthday, after all.’’

“Invitation sent.’’ you said.

“Bring it on.’’ Jimin smirked.

“Remember you asked for this.’’ Hoseok snickered as he stood up, looking amused at your lover's words.

“Kneel. There,’’ he barked at Jimin, pointing to the patch of carpet near the foot of the bed.

The blond was quick to follow orders without hesitation. Who knew your lovely boyfriend would submit so easily?

“Not so mouthy now, are we?” Jimin rolled his eyes, causing Hoseok to scoff.

“Pretty dress,’’ Hoseok cooed as he sauntered over to you, lips brushing the edge of your jaw, “It’d look better off, though.’’

He wasted no time and ripped the garment from your body, exposing your soft skin to the chill air of his bedroom.

Hoseok smashed his lips to yours, mouths sliding fervently against each other.

He feathered kisses across your jaw, working his way down the column of your neck and down your chest, finally reaching your breasts.

‘’Hoseok,’’ you gasped as his mouth latched onto one of your hardening nipples, fingers winding their way into his soft red locks.

He laved his tongue over the rosy bud, while he massaged the other with his deft fingers.

After a moment he switched, offering equal attention to both mounds.

“Hobi… mm- want more. Please. Touch me,’’ you whined as he sat up.

He stared at you as you squirmed on the bed, lips parted as pants fell from his mouth.

“I won't touch you unless you beg.”

You spared a glance at Jimin.

Seeing him on his knees next to the bed, pupils blown wide as he palmed himself through his jeans was enough to send another gush of wetness into your panties. It was obvious he was just as into this as you were.

“Please, Hoseok!’’ You mewled, ”I’ve been good,’’

“Hm,’’ Hoseok hummed as he caught you staring at Jimin, “not good enough.’’

Your eyes widened, ready to plead more when any words you had died in your throat.

Hoseok had turned his back to you, moving all of his attention towards Jimin.

“Baby boy’s been a bit neglected, hasn’t he?”

You watched on with labored breaths, enthralled by the scene unfolding in front of you.

You couldn’t hear what Hoseok muttered to Jimin over your own breathing, but Hoseok pulled Jimin to his feet and immediately locked his lips with the blond, tongue swiping gently over his lips.

Jimin’s hands gripped the loops on Hoseok’s pants, pulling the older male flush against his body while he began to mouth at his neck, letting his hands move to caress Hoseok’s hardening dick through his shorts.

You were sure your panties were saturated with your arousal by this point, feeling the fabric stick uncomfortably to your dripping cunt.

“Not fair,’’ you whined, sitting up, ”you’re hogging.’’

You nudged Jimin, attaching your lips to the side of Hoseok’s neck, painting blossoms of red and purple across his supple skin, while Jimin made similar moves on the other side.

As you moved more toward the center of his throat, you found yourself knocking heads with Jimin.

“Now who’s hogging?” Jimin mocked you as he nuzzled his nose against your own.

You momentarily turned your attention from Hoseok to Jimin, letting your lips meet. No matter how many times you had kissed Jimin, his hot lips always made you weak in the knees.

You moaned as he pulled away, wanting nothing more than to ravish him right then.

Hoseok’s hand on your waist brought you back to reality, turning your attention back to him.

“It won’t be long before someone comes looking. If we really wanna have fun we should hurry a bit.

You and Jimin both nodded dumbly, entranced by Hoseok.

“How do we wanna do this?” Hoseok asked as he pulled off Jimin’s shirt, nipping at his jaw.

“You can fuck her if you want, long as you’ve got a condom.’’

Hoseok quickly rummaged through his nightstand, proudly whipping out the foiled package.

“You okay with that?” Jimin turned to you, taking his time to run his hands over your curves, fingers sliding against your soaked panties.

“Please. Hurry.’’ You nodded, grinding onto Jimin’s palm.

“Eager, aren’t we?” Hoseok laughed as he stepped out of his shorts, tearing the wrapper open and rolling it down his thick length.

Jimin made his way around the bed, kneeling next to your head.

You reached up and wrapped your hand around his cock, giving him a few strokes while you waited for Hoseok to line up with your entrance.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime,’’ Hoseok breathed as he began to push into you. “Wanna taste you next time.’’

“Oh, god.’’ You cried as he bottomed out.

He stilled inside of you, giving you a few moments to adjust to his size before he was pulling out and rocking back into you again.

Hoseok was longer than Jimin, but not as girthy. Still, he managed to reach places inside of you that had your toes curling as you felt the familiar knot already tightening in your stomach.

You felt the tip of Jimin’s cock nudge your lips and without hesitation you opened for him.

Jimin began thrusting into your mouth in tandem with Hoseok.

“Hng- Fuck, Y/N.’’ Jimin moaned, “ 'm close. God, your mouth.’’

You relaxed your throat, allowing Jimin deeper access to fuck into you.

It wasn’t long before you felt his warm cum coating the inside of your throat.

He pulled out gently, and you turned your attention back to Hoseok who had begun working your clit as he continued to thrust into you at a steady pace.

“ 'm not gonna last long,” Hoseok grunted, “wanna feel you milk my cock.’’

Hoseok's words were enough to throw you over the edge into ecstasy, walls clenching around his cock as he stilled inside of you, spilling his seed into the condom.

The two of you laid there, catching your breaths before Hoseok pulled out, discarding the used condom in the wastebin.

“Thank you for that,’’ Hoseok smiled as he pulled his shirt back over his head.

“Not a problem,’’ Jimin said, helping you redress.

“It was fun,’’ you added.

Reaching out, you pulled Hoseok into your arms, trapping him in a hug.

He tensed, but returned the gesture nevertheless.

“You just had your dick in me, a hug won’t kill you.’’ You giggled, releasing the man whose face was now as red as his hair.

He shook his head at you, giving Jimin a bro hug before following you to the door.

“Talk soon?” Jimin said to his frat-mate.

“For sure, let me know when you get home. I’ve got more party things to attend to.’’ He rolled his eyes.

You and Jimin left soon after, beginning the short journey home.

“Is it bad I want to do that again?” Jimin broke the silence.

“No, I want to too.’’

“I never took Hobi as a Dom,’’ Jimin pondered out loud.

“Have you seen the man? He screams dom,’’ you disagreed.

“Maybe we can call him for your birthday.’’

“I’m down.’’ You reached out to Jimin for the door key.

Wordlessly, he handed it over.

The silence remained until the two of you were settled into bed.

“Y/N?” Jimin asked.

“Hm?”

“Do you like Hoseok?”

You looked at Jimin with uncertainty.

“Of course I do, he’s your friend.’’

“Yeah but… nevermind.’’ He shook his head.

“O-okay?” You responded.

“We’ll talk in the morning, baby. Get some rest.’’

Rest didn’t come easy, and when it did, you dreamt of all the possibilities the morning held.

#changeswithluv #ficswithluv #bangtanarmynet #bangtanfairygarden #kwritersworldnet #thekpopnetwork #jung hoseok imagine #jung Hoseok smut #bts smut #bts imagine #park jimin imagine #park jimin smut #park jimin x reader #jung Hoseok x reader #commissions

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warmau · 5 years

Text

☆ post breakups with 127 | way v. ver

taeyong throws his head back, the lights of the club cascade over his skin and for a second he really thinks he can forget about everything. forget about you. he hopes the swirls of purples and greens blind him and when he opens his eyes those apparitions of you are gone for good. withdrawal from your love is a hell of an experience and he doesn’t know if he’s going to come out of this hating you. parts of him itch, parts of him where your touch still lingers. he watches the bodies flood by around him, tries to take in their movements and words, any kind of distraction welcome. finally pulling himself up from his seat, he floats into the center of the dance floor and throws himself into the music. erratic, frantic jolts of electricity edging him toward something that isn’t the pain of losing you. but then, just when he thinks it’s working for the first time, he turns around and he swears he sees you again. hands move through the flickering ghost of your outline, people push and pull through your image. the sweat trickling down taeyong’s back burns. he reaches out and you disappear. but somehow he still feels the heaviness in his shoulders. he’s going to be stuck like this forever.

johnny listens to the waves of his friends laughter, his head resting against the window of the car. usually he’s the center of such a vivid and bright energy. he’s also usually in the drivers seat. and you - you’re supposed to be sitting up there beside him, holding his free hand. the two of you are supposed to be turning around and watching his friends enjoy themselves. the car is supposed to be warm and inviting. you’re supposed to squeeze his thumb a little and remind him to keep his eyes on the road. but right now it feels like the bottom of a hole. without you, everything has been feeling like that. yuta shakes his shoulders to startle him from his thoughts and johnny insists with a fake passing smile that he just thought he saw something out the window - he’s fine. he’s really fine. he knows how hard his friends are working to make him happy again. he also knows nothing but having you back is going to work.

jaehyun really wishes he had stayed in on this stupid fucking saturday night, instead he’s holding this bottle of beer in one hand and coming to the realization that the minute he stepped into this strangers apartment he messed up. “sorry, i didn’t know they’d be here.” mark apologizes and jaehyun tells him not to worry about it. you’re in the corner with some guy who looks vaguely like jaehyun, or at least that’s what jaehyun is telling himself to calm some ugly festering feeling in his stomach. your hands wrap around this dudes neck and jaehyun holds down the urge to vomit because why the hell can he feel the heat of your palms on him instead. does that guy even know what you like? does he know about the spot behind your ear? does he know where to put his hand when you arch up against him like that? jaehyun just knows that this loser isn’t going to make you feel anything close to what he made you feel. how could he, he probably just met you. there’s years between you and jaehyun - there’s experiences and mistakes and breakthroughs and - “are you sure you’re ok? you look like you’re about to break the bottle man?” mark’s voice is drowning out over the red that’s fogging up jaehyun’s mind. when you catch his gaze, just for a second, the bottle falls from his hand and crashes to the carpet. you don’t even notice. jaehyun really really really wishes he had just stayed in on this horrible fucking saturday night.

doyoung taps his fingers against the screen of his phone - i think you should change your mind about that. you don’t really mean it. the message sent almost a week ago, read and probably forgotten by now. he starts typing out another one - i just want to talk about it? no he thinks, he doesn’t just want to talk about it. that’s a lie. he deletes it and tries again - what did i do wrong? no he thinks, he can’t seem like he’s blaming you. you’ve always hated that. he deletes it and tries it again, but the only thing he can bring himself is to type anymore is the real burning question. the one that’s kept him awake for almost seven nights straight, staring up at the cold and bleak ceiling. the curve of your back and soft sounds of your breathing replaced with a haunting silence. his hand starts to tremble again and he hushes at himself to please stop being so weak, but everything has felt like its been falling apart since you up and left him. a stinging pinches at his eyes and he doesn’t want to cry again. each letter types out slowly and slowly and when he’s finished with the sentence he can’t bring himself to send it because the wetness on his cheeks is even more unbearable. he puts the phone down and the words stare as he drops his head into his hands - do you seriously not love me anymore?

yuta sits up and watches the figure in the corner of his bedroom clumsily pull on their jacket. he manages a tired smile as they make up an excuse he’s heard before and has been expecting about why they can’t stay the night. he waves them off and doesn’t care if they leave a number or a name or anything. he hears the door to his apartment shut and he closes his eyes, lulling himself into trying to believe that the momentary warmth he’d felt actually meant something to him - to his body - to his soul. but in the darkness, he opens his eyes and hates that he’s already forgotten the sensations. he vaguely remembers a pretty face with nice hands in the cafe. it’s pathetic, that the cafe of all things is what remains so vivid. it’s a place you showed him, promising him that the coffee there was the best he’d ever have. you were right, though he half chalks up loving the taste because he loved so much that he was drinking it while looking at you. the kisses of winter snowflakes in your hair, the small curl of your pinkie around the mugs handle. now when he drinks the coffee, it’s just coffee - bitter. his eyes travel past all the potential one time lovers scattered in the seats and at the counter. but he knows that every time he walks into that place now, he’s really looking for you - even though he also knows he won’t ever be bringing you back to his place again.

taeil presses skip on the song that starts playing through his headphones. and then he presses skip on the next one, and the one after that, and then again, until he realizes he’s exhausted the entire playlist and is back at the start. he stares at the name of the playlist. it’s your name. every song has meant so much to him. one was the song he’d heard right after dropping you off after your first date - it had been playing outside of a small shop and he had moved his shoulders to the beat, the softness of your lips still ghosting on his. another song is the one you’d always put on when you were cooking, he’d lean against the door frame and watch you dance with the pan in your hands - ignorant of his presence and existing in this beautiful bubble of your own. there’s even a song he had recorded for you as a gift on your last anniversary together, the lyrics had taken him almost a month to write and you’d been so touched you had thrown yourself in his arms and cried against his neck. he jerks back and puts a palm over his skin, thinking for a moment that he can feel the wetness from your crying there a gain. of course, that’s impossible and taeil rips his headphones off - those songs, that he’d cherished for so long, are just driving him crazy now.

jungwoo twirls the pen between his fingers as he listens to the lecturer drown on. his mind sways between empty and sad - but everyone says that’s normal after a breakup so jungwoo tries not to take it to heart. he thinks he’s been taking all the right steps, deleting your number and photos. avoiding you in public spaces. returning or throwing away any sentimental gifts. he’s doing it all by the textbook and he’s sure that he’ll get to a point where the sharp sudden reminders of how much you mean to him will slowly dull into nothings. he could even lie a little and say he’s proud of how he’s handling it. but then the bell rings and the class ends, jungwoo pushes back another mental reminder that around this time you’d be running up to him in the hall and asking him where to go to lunch - hand light on his elbow, soft kiss on his cheek. but then someone from behind him calls out, they call out a nickname - the nickname you had called him throughout your relationship - it wrings in his ears and jungwoo chokes back because he’s about to answer this stranger. instead, another person prances by him and into the arms of their beloved. jungwoo is frozen - hearing the nickname repeated over and over and over until the voice is unmistakably yours. all that progress he’s been trying to flaunt have really just been empty placeholders for the fact that he won’t ever get over you.

mark outlines the spine of the bible in his bag and tucks it back safely into the pocket. he feels comfort in the words and so for a moment he can wrap himself in the security that all things happen because they must. because there is a power that has a plan for him and he can’t spend time revealing in why or why not things work out. his heart has always been big and inviting, but its always been forgiving too. so even though you’d said those things to him and ran away from a love he thought might as well just be eternal - he can bring himself to understand. or at least - he prays for that certainty to dawn on him. because in this moment it still does not make sense. the puzzle pieces don’t fit and the timeline is spotty. there is no answer to his question - why? why did you decide he wasn’t enough? why did you leave him and say so cruelly that none of it ever mattered? mark tries to calm himself before he goes back into another frenzy, clutching his head - on his knees and looking up for some kind of divine intervention that doesn’t come. he reminds himself that there is a reason, he may never know it, but the force that moves along his life does and that should be enough. but then why does the ache in his heart feel so heavy, why does he go by each day with a pain that he didn’t cause? he opens his bag again and pulls out the book, he picks a passage and he mouths the words as he reads. forget, forgive, and just please - for the love of god - move on!

haechan looks at himself in the mirror, turning his face from left to right. analyzing every inch that reflects back at him. then he smiles, big and bright. he laughs. he says “hello”. he still looks himself, the handsome and gentle features he’s had all his life. so why does he feel so different? he puts a hand over his cheek and suddenly remembers how it felt when you’d pull it playfully. you had so many ways of showing affection - but you were just like him - teasing and touching and showing affirmation with gestures and actions instead of words. everyone used to say he had met his match, a person who needed just as much contact as he did. he can’t recall a memory of you two where he isn’t smiling and holding you close - by the hand or by the waist. he shakes his head and stares into the mirror again, his curls haven’t gotten any longer - and when he runs a hand through them he remembers that touch of yours too. “im still me, even without them, im still me.” he affirms - but the words sink because they don’t actually mean anything. he remembers what his mother had said to him after she first saw him the day after you two had broken up, her lips had thinned and she had said: “this pain has changed you baby, i can see it.”

#nct 127 #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 au

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spinedog · 4 years

Note

Married Bee Banter ft. Blake being a tease, if you would so very kindly.

Fun fact - domestic couple situations are actually a shaky area for me, so this is good for forcing myself out of my comfort zone a bit! That said, apparently my inspiration ended up being a video that a former coworker had literally just sent me. (Honestly, I don’t feel much shame in that - it was a pretty funexercise and gave me a rough template to work off of)

EDIT: apparently had to go back and fix formatting issues??? I have no idea what tumblr’s deal is today.

—

“Bumblebee, what have you done?”

The bright yellow eyes blinked at her as the fat calico stretched out across the hallway, barely lit by the dawn’s light streaming through the window above their back door. Behind her, placed neatly beside her shoes, was a heap of dark feathers and the realization that any only hope of a peaceful Saturday with her wife and kids had flown out the window.

“How is it that you-” Blake’s voice faltered as her mind whirled with endless questions, but only the largest and most confounding escaped her lips. “How did you kill a duck?!”

“Don’t wake girls, they’ll freak out if they see this.” The hoarse whisper echoed down the hallway from where Yang had peeked around the corner. “Is it alive?”

“I don’t think so.” Blake lowered her voice as slowly reached towards the light switch, and flicked it with a loud click. The duck – a female mallard, the back of her mind unhelpfully added – was laying sideways, its neck extended, wings and feet neatly tucked. It was in shockingly good shape, no blood, no unnaturally bent limbs, not even so much as a mussed feather. But it was still as a rock. Bumblebee rolled onto her back beside it, exposing the vast expanse of vibrating tummy as she purred, and Blake let out her breath. “No. No it’s not.”

“Goddammit.” She heard the rustle of Yang rubbing her head. “How’d she get it through the cat flap?”

It was a valid question, considering the cat flap was barely wide enough for the cat that they’d added to the family a few months ago. But the question reminded her of a different mystery. Blake glanced backwards. “Why was it unlocked in the first place?” Sleep and annoyance blunted her tone.

She didn’t really have to answer – the uncomfortable wince spoke for her.

“Yang-”

“She wanted out!” Yang threw her hands up as she hissed back in as low of a tone as she could manage. “It was four in the morning! She’s crazy about breakfast, I figured she wouldn’t go far!”

Blake bit down on what would have been the thirteenth repetition of the ‘indoor cat’ lecture, and turned back to the sad, limp form of the bird. Didn’t matter why the bird was dead, only that they had to deal with it now.

Yang must have arrived at the same thought, as a much quieter and more guilty question floated past her. “…what should we do?”

“I don’t know. Ah…” Blake forced herself to think as she carefully knelt down next to the dead bird. “Can you get me a blanket? Or a towel, I’ll cover it up. I’ll bury it if you keep the girls busy.”

A brown eye that didn’t really look dead at all stared back at her, and she could hear the guilt and regret in Yang’s voice as she turned towards the closet. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll-”

Blake’s fingers brushed feathers, the duck’s pupil constricted, and whatever Yang intended to do would remain a mystery.

The duck took flight in an explosion of flapping and insulted quacking, and a string of startled profanity escaped as Blake involuntarily jerked backwards. Yang yelped, but to Blake’s surprise, jumped in front of the bird in an attempt to stop it from going any further into the house. The ball of chaotically flapping wings and little orange feet barely managed to hang a right turn before hitting her, and flew straight through the doorway to their bedroom.

Triumph lit up Yang’s face – and immediately fell as she looked sideways. “Oh God it’s on the BED!”

Something about her wife’s sudden dismay was enough to push her over the edge, and Blake’s breathing dissolved into hysterical laughter. Yang’s hands covered her face, but she’d already broken into relieved laughter as well.

“Right. Okay.” Blake managed as she stood. There was absolutely no way the girls had slept through that. Well, at least Mari couldn’t have, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Ash had. “Okay. I’ll – I’ll go open the window, you go and -”

“Mom?” Right on cue, a half-asleep voice and footsteps echoed down the hallway.

Yang quickly turned towards the sound of the older and far more anxious of their two daughters, and Blake slipped through the doorway.

The incredibly lucky duck was indeed standing square in the middle of their bed, ruffling its feathers and staring at her. “All right.” Blake inhaled to quiet the last of her giggles as she pulled the door shut. “I’m shutting the door. No more cat. Okay stay-“

Apparently, ducks owed no man or woman any loyalty, and the brown bird shot off the side of the bed to land on the far side of the bed with a loud rush of wingbeats. “Oh sit DOWN duck.” Blake snapped, accidentally slipping into the ‘Mom’ tone that Yang insisted was far more effective than hers.

At least the duck, now quietly sitting on the other side of the bed and eyeing her reproachfully, seemed to agree. Blake exhaled as she carefully navigated around the bed towards the window. “Right, stay there.”

“Quack.”

“Yes, I know, not an ideal start to the day.” She could faintly hear their daughter interrogating Yang as she maneuvered the screen out of the window. The duck let out another loud complaint, and Blake replied absent-mindedly. “Yes, quack-quack.” The window squeaked open and Blake turned to the annoyed waterfowl behind the bed. “Okay, ma’am, away you go.”

Of course, herding the duck out of the narrow space wasn’t quite as easy. Blake grunted as she climbed onto the bed, dropping her hand to shoo the duck towards the window.

Yang’s voice filtered through the door. “You doing okay in there?”

“Oh, yeah, we’re just having a chat.” Maybe it was just the mild delirium of relief, but Blake’s response was out of her mouth before she could even process her own sarcasm. “Actually, she’s talking about pressing charges. Something about ‘reckless endangerment’.”

“Oh dear.” The mock concern brought a smile to Blake’s face. “Didn’t know you spoke duck.”

“Fluently.” Blake let out a loud sigh of relief as the duck waddled out from between the bed and wall, peering up at the early morning light outside. “Okay, there’s freedom, go on.”

The door creaked, drawing Blake’s gaze. Three pairs of eyes peering into the room – one lavender with dark circles below them and laughter in them, one warm and brown and wide with worry, and one glaring gold from Yang’s arm. Yang raised her hand in a sheepish wave at the duck. “I’m really sorry, I hope you have a long life and a lot of children, ma’am.”

As if it had been waiting for an apology, the female mallard turned back to the window and launched herself out with a clumsy running start.

Blake quickly jumped forwards and cranked the window shut. Yang let out a triumphant, relieved cackle, lowering Bumblebee to the ground with an annoyed ‘mrrp’. “Okay, ladies, I think it’s time we all had breakfast. Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Blake felt a tired smile pull across her face as the radiant light that her wife always seemed to emanate filled the room. “I think that sounds perfect.”

“Um…” Mari hesitantly broke the silence, slowly blinking and pushing her blonde hair out of her face. “…what about the charges?” She asked in a quiet, nervous voice.

Yang nearly choked, whirling away to hide the hysterical laughter. Blake on the other hand, gave her daughter an easy smile. “No charges, honey. We came to an agreement.”

#bumbleby #rwby fanfiction #rwby tumblr prompts #spinedog writes #PSA for the day keep your cats inside gang #My thought is that Blake is a lawyer and Yang is a cop but that doesn't really factor into this one

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 5 years

Text

kiss me in the d-a-r-k .1.

saturday

Warnings: non/dub con sex

This is dark!(dad)Steve and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: The reader's vacation doesn’t go as planned.

Note: Okay, so my dad!Steve fic turned into a gd series, but it’s gonna be short (six/seven parts) and it’s gonna be posted all this week (exception for wednesday for obvious reasons). The fic takes places over a week and so each chapter is a day.

We get a sexy dad!Steve who’s a bit more devious than dark and well...I’ll let you guys figure it out for yourselves! I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think!

...

One week. That was your summer, truly. The rest you would spend working at the banquet hall, serving drunken guests at birthdays, weddings, and anniversaries. At the end, you would return to the sleepy lectures and all-nighters which defined university living.

Six hours in the car and a pit stop or two and you were on official vacation. Kylie was waiting. A pool, too. That was the real attraction. The moment she mentioned that, you were sold. It was surely preferable to spending your only week off alone in the town you grew up in.

Google led you to a long driveway. At the end stood a house three times as big as yours. By the look of it, the pool must have been massive. You couldn’t wait.

There were two other cars in the driveway. The cherry red Mercedes Kylie had bragged about but her dad hadn’t let he take with her to uni, and a Range Rover in pristine white. Both sat outside the double-door garage just off the side of the cobbled walkway.

You pulled up behind the Mercedes and climbed out with a groan. Your legs were cramped and you were sorely in need of relief. Your bladder was full from the ginger ale you gulped after the last rest stop. You grabbed your purse from the passenger’s seat and the compact luggage from the trunk.

The small suitcase rolled over the bumpy cobbles and you lifted it up the steps. The wooden door was wide enough for two to go through at once and the wrought iron hinges gave it a vintage feel. You raised a fist to knock but paused. You supposed the doorbell in the middle of the ornamental sun was a more effective route.

You rang and waited. You gripped the handle of your suitcase and pulled out your phone. A whole two minutes and you pushed it again. Still, nothing. You swiped up and began to type out a message to Kylie. She was probably already floating in the pool, sunglasses on, the world blotted out from her mind.

You jumped before you hit send. The garage door jerked and the electric motor slowly lifted the folding door. The sound of a radio came faint from within. A man peeked around and you were ready to kick yourself. Google had taken you to the wrong house. Fuck.

“I thought I heard something,” He said above the radio hosts as they announced the weekend top ten throwbacks. “You must be Kylie’s friend. I told her to wait, but…”

“Stubborn,” You finished awkwardly. You gave him your name and looked around. “Um, so she told you about me?”

“A little. Mentioned a friend.” He shrugged. “I’m Steve...her father.”

His greying blonde hair caught the sun as he smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkled and he reached to his belt to loose the rag there, wiping the grime from his hand. Kylie’s dad was suppose to be out of town, or so she said. It seemed, however, he was very much in town. So much for a vacation.

“Door’s unlocked,” He shaded his eyes, his bicep bulged. He was in good shape for his age. Good shape for any. “Pool’s right through. Past the foyer and into the kitchen. Sliding doors are right there.” He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes glued to the unseen interior of the garage. “Drag her out and get her to give you the tour.”

You nodded and he disappeared back into the garage. He left the door open. You pushed down the lever and stepped inside. You slipped off your sneakers, afraid to mess the sparkling floors, and left your bags beside the mat. Just past the large curved staircase was the door to the kitchen.

This wasn’t just a house, it was a mansion. Kylie seemed the well-to-do type but you hadn’t expected this. The kitchen was just as grand. Pale checkered floors, marble counters, glass cabinets and fridge. Sleek but classic.

Kylie didn’t notice the door as it slid open. Didn’t notice as you approached the pool, the mosaic of dark blues, teals, and white formed swirled waves around the edge. Beach loungers lined the side and a round table with tanning lotion and an empty glass stood between two cushioned lawn chairs.

“Hey,” You neared the edge. She lazed by in a floatie, pointed sunglasses over her eyes, a skinny red bikini betrayed her confidence. “Thought you’re dad was gone for the week.”

“He got cancelled on,” She didn’t move, didn’t even open her eyes beneath the shades. “He’s cool with it though. Says he’ll give us our space.”

“Great, I’m sure he won’t mind the sixer in my bag if he’s at a distance,” You said dryly.

“Pfft, he’d rather I drink here than somewhere else.” She replied, “He’s always offering his beer but you know me, I don’t do beer.”

“Oh,” You wouldn’t guess a man like him with a house like this would be anything but strict. “It does preclude us from our little midnight trip to the beach. Mercedes has to be parked and polished by ten.”

“I told you, I’m not skinny dipping,” You grumbled, “I don’t care how dark it is.”

“Well, now it’s not an argument because we can’t go,” She stopped herself with a hand on the edge as she floated close to the ladder. “Tell me he wasn’t an ass.” She climbed out with a splash. “He didn’t tell one of his jokes, did he?”

“He was...nice,” You answered vaguely, “Why didn’t you tell me you lived in a palace?”

“Whatever, dunno why dad kept the house,” She grabbed the towel from over the closest chair, “Him and my mom built it but I don’t think it’s so much sentiment as spite now.”

“Your mom?” You wondered.

“She lives a state over now. Bigger house actually.” She wrapped the towel around her as she led you back to the sliding doors. “Richer man.”

“Sounds like the life,” You kidded. She laughed.

“Trust me, I know,” She guided you through the kitchen and to the base of the staircase. “Once I’m out of school, I’m gonna find me a good daddy. Maybe in L.A.” You giggled and she climbed the stairs lazily. “As you can see, this place is massive. “Not to hard to guess that upstairs are the bedrooms and downstairs the rest. Living room, dining room, kitchen, office, gym.” She listed, “My dad’s room is just down there,” She pointed to the end of the east hall. “Mine’s complete opposite. Thank god.”

“You can stay in the nice guest room.” She led you to the door two from her own. “The rest look like my grandma decorated them and this one has a full bath.”

“I’d sleep on your porch and be comfortable,” You scoffed and she rolled her eyes. “Better grab your stuff and get changed. Vacation starts now.”

“Sure,” You turned back down the hall. It wouldn’t be very relaxing with the unexpected third wheel. Or were you the third wheel?

You floated around the edge of the pool. Kylie had found a second floatie but it took ages to blow it up. She didn’t help. She went back to her own and swiped through instagram. Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers.

In your flowered one-piece you even looked like you didn’t belong. Of course Kylie was tall, blond, and perfect and made anyone seem the opposite. You read the novel your sister had lent you but found yourself closing your eyes beneath your round shades. She hadn’t warned you it was a romance.

It was getting late. The air cooled and the sun was on its decline. You dipped your fingers in the water. Even with the heater on, it made you shiver. Of course, you'd been baking for hours now.

You paddled yourself to the side of the pool. You tossed your book up and carefully pulled yourself close. You hooked a leg over and were halfway onto solid ground when the floatie began to stray. In your struggle to keep aground, your lost the floatie and found yourself plunging into the pool.

You came up for air with a gasp. You were surprised by the two sets of laughter that greeted you. Kylie was at the ladder, holding her own floatie steady as she giggled. You turned as her dad stood just outside the open sliding doors. He had seen everything.

“Girls,” He cleared his throat, “I was just coming out to ask what you wanted on your pizza?”

“Pizza,” Kylie repeated. “I’d prefer sushi.”

“You’d prefer the world,” He returned. Kylie climbed up the ladder without a splash and you waded over to it. “Or you guys can fend for yourselves. I was just trying to set a good impression for your friend, but--”

“You know what I like, dad,” Kylie whined.

“Ah, only children,” Steve sighed and looked to you as you climbed out of the pool.

The water dripped from your suit as it clung to your figure. You quickly crossed to the beach chair and pulled a towel around you. You nearly slipped as you came to a stop.

“Careful,” He warned. You could feel him watching; was it concern? Amusement? “So, any preferences?”

“Um, not really. Don’t really like meat on my pizza but I’m not picky,” You tried to smile as you wiped your face dry. “Always considered myself lucky to get a slice with my siblings.”

“Alright,” He said, “I’ll go order. Kylie, close the pool up before you come in.”

“Yes, Dad,” She huffed and he pulled shut the door behind him. “You know he was supposed to go see some friend in the city but he’s out here making my life miserable.”

“Oh?” You didn’t wanna be ungracious to the man who had so far been rather nice. You also didn’t want to feed her only child syndrome. “He’s all paranoid because I had Taylor over without telling him and he walked in on us making out.”

“I’m sure it could’ve been worse,” You mused.

“Yeah, he could’ve walked in a few minutes later,” She shrugged and took the key from the glass table. She crossed to the end of the pool and knelt to open the lid of a box set into the stone. She shoved the key in and turned. The pool cover slowly whirred and unfolded across the pool. “I don’t think he believed you were real, to be honest.”

The pool cover finished its journey to the other end and she snapped the lid shut. She strode around the pool and slipped on her sandals as she grabbed her phone from the table. You hugged your own towel to you as she carelessly rubbed dry her body with one hand. She led you inside and barely acknowledged her dad as she walked through the kitchen.

You glanced over at Steve and he smiled. Caught, you tried to smile back and carried on. He didn’t seem the type to put up with Kylie’s attitude but he also seemed to have a way with her. She was snarky but she did as he said.

“Pizza’s due in twenty minutes,” He called after Kylie. “I’m not gonna wait for you.”

“Sure, Dad,” She shrugged and started up the staircase. You followed and resisted the urge to look over to the kitchen door. You swore a shadow filled it as you began your ascent.

You changed and followed Kylie down to the dining room. The table was more appropriate for a dozen than the meagre three who sat along it. The pizza had already shown up and Steve had stacked plates beside the boxes. He had taken two slices for himself. You sat beside Kylie and she took a single slice. You did the same and her dad chuckled.

“Come on, it’s a vacation, help yourself,” He caught the lid before it could close. “Take a second. Hell, a third.”

“Dad,” Kylie scowled, “We’re adults. We can feed ourselves.”

“I know, I know, but you should enjoy yourself,” He countered, “You’re not on another cleanse are you?”

“No, I learned my lesson,” She nibbled at her slice.

“An unpleasant one,” He laughed and took a bite. He swallowed as his blue eyes wandered over to you hiding behind your slice. “So, Kylie said you two are in the same program.”

“Yeah, uh,” You took a napkin from the pile and wiped your mouth. “For now, at least.”

“For now?” He asked.

“I’m trying to transfer. I don’t think Lit is for me,” You explained and watched the drops of grease trickle along the cheese. “I’m waiting for an answer from the head of the journalism program but...well, deadline’s well and passed and I thought I’d know by now.”

“I’m sure you’ll get it. If it’s what you really want, I can’t see why they’d turn a smart girl like you away.” He took another bite.

“Smart? How do you know that?” You raised a brow.

“Kylie mentioned something about honours. Also a little study session that saved her from a summer semester.” He chided and Kylie rolled her eyes.

“To be fair, that was a hard course. I barely eked out a low A and the drop rate was almost sixty percent,” You tried to help as best you could. You wouldn’t mention that Kylie had been hungover during the exam or that you hadn’t even been in that course. “And, well, I’ll at least know before we return to campus...I guess.”

“Looking forward to it?” He asked. “I know Kylie is. What’s not to miss in the city? All those boys.”

“Dad,” You chewed your pizza as Kylie cringed. “Don’t start on that.”

You hid your discomfort and focused on swallowing. Unlike Kylie, boys had not been the best part of your undergrad experience. In fact, they had been more stressful than classes. University had turned out little better than high school on that front.

“You’re young. This is the time to get your kicks in,” Steve laughed.

“Stop it, Dad!” Kylie griped.

“Don’t act like you’re not with that Taylor boy,” He jabbed. “No judgment, just be safe.”

“Please stop before I lose my appetite,” Kylie stared at her pizza in disgust.

“Alright, alright, you don’t have to tell me about all your illicit lovers,” Steve turned back to you, “Just one.”

“Dad!” Kylie dropped her crust. “Keep it up and she’s going to leave.”

You giggled nervously. You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t want to admit that you weren’t very experienced, though Kylie already knew. It was almost flattering that he would think you were more than a clueless girl.

“Only if you tell me yours,” You kidded and finished your crust. You reached for another and Steve opened the box for you.

“Don’t encourage him,” Kylie grumbled, “He will, you know? He’s not subtle.”

Steve chuckled at his daughter and met your eyes. He lifted his brows before he looked away. He lifted his second piece of pizza and chewed. You did the same. You always over-thought these things.

Surely he had only been joking. Had to be. Afterall, you were entirely ignorant of the other sex. You were quick to read into every word and gesture. This was English Lit. There was no symbolism here.

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solarune · 5 years

Text

so this is love

pairing: na jaemin x fem!reader, (implied) lee jeno x na jaemin

genre: cinderella au, sort of but not really a greek mythology au (the fairy godmother is based off of both the character in the movie/fairytale as well as calypso), fluff, angst

warnings: very vague allusions to abuse (family treats jaemin horribly like in the fairytale, that’s it), unrequited love, uh angst lol

word count: 12,978

summary: as the years go by and you watch jaemin grow up, you begin to forget what your job as his fairy godmother really is: to help him find true happiness.

a/n: this is my first time ever writing a fic this long and i’m honestly very proud of myself. i didn’t think it would be as long as it is but here we are. shoutout to my girl kelly @mingyoongles for editing this monstrosity for me ily. this took me so long so i really hope you enjoy it!

You feel a tear slip down your cheek as you fade from view, Jaehyun’s eyes opening just as you vanish from your spot in front of him—along with your spot in his memories. You hear a woman call out his name, feeling your heart pang in your chest when you see the wide smile that instantly appears on his face at the sight of her. She takes his hand in hers and they continue to walk down the busy street, their figures disappearing amongst the crowd in a second.

You hear Jaehyun’s laughter clear as day. The sound makes you smile but causes your heart to break at the same moment. Another person that you’re destined to help and fall in love with but not destined to be loved by in return. You rub at the tattoo of a dolphin on your wrist, wondering again why the Fates had made you a descendent of Calypso and thereby cursed to be unloved forever.

The world around you becomes blurry as you’re transported somewhere else, only having a few moments to take a deep, shuddering breath in an attempt to calm down before you materialize in a large bedroom. You see women gathered around a bed and a man kneeling at the head of the bed, clutching what must be his wife’s hand. Your eyes move to his wife just as she opens her mouth and an ear-piercing scream is the first thing that welcomes you to your new assignment.

The first time you meet Jaemin is when he’s exiting the womb.

“One last push, miss, you’re almost there,” a midwife encourages the woman as she grabs a blanket from another midwife beside her, the mother groaning in response as she goes through the last few grueling minutes of labor.

You watch as the child is welcomed into the world, thick hair already sitting atop its head as it cries loudly and flails its arms around. Nurses bustle around the mother as they attempt to clean her up, but the mother only has eyes for her child, immediately reaching her arms out as the midwife walks up to her. She places the child into her arms and the father rushes to her side, the two of them staring down at their beautiful baby. Her hair is matted to her forehead, skin pale, and breathing still shallow from the amount of strain she put in, but her eyes seemed to hold all of the love in the world. “Hello Jaemin,” she whispers as she kisses her baby’s head, her eyes closing as she holds him tighter to her.

The first time you formally meet Jaemin, he’s 4 years old.

Jaemin’s laugh can be heard echoing through the garden as he chases a butterfly around, a wide smile on his face as he clenches and unclenches his chubby hands into fists. You’re seated up on the branches of a tree in the farthest corner of the garden, your legs swinging as a breeze ruffles your blue robe. Jaemin’s parents had left to go out into the town a few minutes ago and had left him under the care of one of their maids. Usually you would never take it upon yourself to babysit him, but something in you told you to keep a close eye on him, and you had learned to trust your gut in the 4 years that you’ve been here.

Never before had you been assigned as someone’s fairy godmother and been forced to watch them grow up. You had always come into their lives at the time that they most needed it, your job being to help them find true happiness. But Jaemin was just born when you had come into his life, so what was there for him to truly need? So for 4 years you kept yourself hidden, watching his mother and father raise him in the estate that you’ve now come to call home (not like they knew though). You had been there during his first steps, his first words, his first snowfall, his first everything—you had been there for it all, invisible but always close at hand.

You’re drawn out of your thoughts by a dull thump, looking down at Jaemin and smiling when you see him playing with the ball that his father had given to him just last week. He’s throwing the ball around as he animatedly talks to his imaginary friend, Joonyoung, encouraging him to catch the ball as he throws it higher and higher. Jaemin runs closer to the tree that you’re perched on and you can’t help but laugh at how excited he is. That is, until he throws the ball far too high and it ends up getting stuck between the branches right below your feet. You watch the panic flit across his face as he gazes up at the tall tree in front of him, his whole body spinning around as he searches for anyone to help him retrieve his ball. Slowly, the young boy turns back around to gaze sadly at the ball, his lower lip quivering at the fact that there was nothing he could do.

You feel your heart ache as you watch the first few tears roll down his cheeks and you can’t resist standing up on the branch to help him. You pull your wand out to get rid of the invisibility spell and help you float down to the ground, your feet touching the grass as you think, I’m gonna have to introduce myself eventually. Jaemin watches you with wide eyes as you land in front of him, not even taking notice of his ball as he goes from staring at your face to your blue robe to the white wand in your hand.

“Hello,” you greet him softly, a wide smile on your face as you hold out the ball to him. “Is this yours?” Jaemin nods, slowly taking the ball from your hands as he continues to stare at you in awe. “My name is (Y/N). What’s yours?”

“Jaemin,” he whispers shyly, his ears turning red as he fidgets with his toy.

“Well Jaemin, you should be more careful with your toys,” you gently reprimand him, walking forward to spin him around and urge him back to where he was playing before. “You don’t want to lose them, do you?” The boy walks forward without question but turns around when he doesn’t hear you following him. When he looks back, his eyebrows furrow because you’re nowhere to be found. He glances around the garden, even looking up at the branches of the tree for good measure, but Jaemin can’t seem to find the nice lady that gave him his ball back.

“Jaemin, it’s time to come inside! Your mother and father are home!” one of the maids calls from inside. You watch from your spot against the tree as he runs back inside the estate, shouting excitedly for his parents while the ball lies forgotten in the middle of the garden.

The next time you meet Jaemin, he’s 7. And this time, he realizes you aren’t just a dream.

After the fateful first encounter, Jaemin had convinced himself that it hadn’t actually happened.

Fairy godmothers aren’t real and he definitely knows that magic doesn’t exist, so whoever that woman in the blue robe was was just a figment of his imagination. So his life continues as normal; his parents continue to dote on him the way that loving parents do, he makes friends with the other kids in the town, picks up gardening as a hobby and starts doing it with his mother, and he creates his own little hideout in the tree in the farthest corner of the garden (the same spot that you were sitting in 3 years ago, unbeknownst to him).

Every Saturday, Jaemin and his mother go out into the town’s square to walk through the market. And today, much to Jaemin’s excitement, is Saturday. The sky is bright blue, the birds are chirping, and Jaemin takes a deep breath as he steps out of the estate holding his mother’s hand. You take a deep breath at the same time as him, savoring the sweet smell of the first day of spring. The sun feels delightfully warm on your skin and your magic feels stronger, your senses heightened due to the spring equinox, allowing you to detect even the slightest shift in the magic flowing through the earth. During every solstice and every equinox, your magic is at its peak and you can’t help but be excited every time it happens. You’re not particularly sure why this happens, nobody had ever explained it to you, but it just felt good to know just how connected you are with the earth below you.

You trail behind Jaemin and his mother as they walk to the market, the boy animatedly telling his mother about the squirrel that sat next to him yesterday in the garden. He’s waving his arms every which way, his eyes sparkling while the smile never leaves his face, and in that moment, you can see the uncanny resemblance between mother and son as she smiles down at him.

As his mother looks through a stall’s vegetables, a group of kids calls out to Jaemin, asking him to play with them. The boy turns to his mother, barely opening his mouth before she urges him forward with a, “Go play with your friends, darling. Just don’t be home too late.” He parts from her with a tight hug, a wide smile on his face as he runs towards his friends, the group of boys getting lost in the bustling crowd as you simply stand and watch. You decide to leave Jaemin be for now, allowing yourself some alone time as you wander the streets and browse through the various things that people are selling.

When the sun is at its highest point in the sky, the day finds you in the town square, sitting on the edge of a fountain as you bite into an apple. You tilt your face upwards as you chew, closing your eyes to let all of the sounds and smells wash over you. The beginnings of drowsiness begin to creep up on your body, but when you hear the loud voices of a group of boys, your ears perk up, eyes opening to see what all the commotion is about.

“I can’t believe Jaemin would really just leave us like that, we were in the middle of a game!” a dark-haired boy, whose name you think is Hyunjin, exclaims.

The 3 other boys with him shrug their shoulders, one of them saying, “Maybe his mother wanted him home early.

You jump up from your seat on the fountain, the apple in your hand falling to the ground as you pull out your wand from your sleeve. Jaemin always came back home by going through the town square because he loved to stop by the bakery to get something sweet to eat. You hadn’t sensed him near you or seen him walk by and you feel your stomach tighten at your worry. Trusting your gut, you wave your wand to transport yourself to wherever Jaemin is.

Leaves crunch underneath your feet when you materialize, the air around you a bit cooler due to the shade that was provided by the forest that you suddenly find yourself in. You can sense Jaemin near you and follow your gut once more, stumbling upon a small clearing and seeing him sitting on a tree stump in the middle. A small, white daisy is pinched between his thumb and forefinger, the boy subconsciously twirling it as he looks around him. Feeling a sense of déjà vu, you rid yourself of the invisibility spell and slowly walk towards the boy, a soft smile appearing on your face when his head whips towards you and the two of you make eye contact.

At your appearance, Jaemin’s eyes widen and you can practically hear the gears turning in his head. You can’t help but smile wider at his expression, stopping halfway between the edge of the clearing and where Jaemin is seated. “Hello, Jaemin,” you greet him. “Are you lost?”

Jaemin’s mouth opens and closes for a few seconds, the boy at a loss for words as he stares at you with a mix of shock and wariness. “I-It’s you,” he whispers hoarsely. He clears his throat and continues, “You were the woman in the tree. From before.”

You nod at his words with your hands clasped loosely in front of you, the breeze ruffling your robe around your ankles. “I’m not just a dream like you told yourself,” you chuckle, taking a few steps closer when you see his body relax, though you notice a flush creeping up his neck from your words. “I’m-“

“My fairy godmother.” You look at Jaemin in surprise, the boy flushing an even darker red when he realizes that he interrupted you. You continue walking towards him as he continues talking. “Sorry. But that’s who you are, right? (Y/N), my fairy godmother? My mother would always tell me stories about them when I was younger, but I never really believed her. You’re really real?”

“As real as the trees around us,” you respond, patting the tree stump that he’s sitting on to emphasize your point. “I’ve been watching over you ever since you were born.” Albeit a bit unwillingly, you think to yourself, but he doesn’t have to know that. He scoots over and you sit beside him, looking up at him with a small smile. Whatever it takes to get Jaemin to trust you, right? You are the one responsible for helping him find true happiness after all. You take the white flower from his hand and place it in his hair, and you’re reminded of when Taeyong would do that to you. You spent every day in that florist’s shop, and every day he would place a flower in your hair and your cheeks would turn as red as a tomato, just like Jaemin’s are doing right now. Your chest tightens as you remember Taeyong, but you shake the memories away in favor of staying in the moment. You can’t afford to get distracted right now.

Jaemin continues to stare at you in awe and you can feel your cheeks heat up a bit at all of the attention. “So,” you say after clearing your throat, wanting to keep the conversation going to fill up the awkward silence. “How about we get out of here, hm?”

Jaemin is only 10 years old when his mother dies.

Standing invisible next to the boy as he holds her hand, you can’t help but shed a few tears for the woman who has strangely come to feel like family to you. She was the spot of sunshine in Jaemin’s life; he would greet her with a bone-crushing hug and sloppy kiss when she came home and would hold her hand every chance he got. His mother meant absolutely everything to him, and you would feel your heart swell at how happy the two would look together. And now their time together, as short as it was in the grand scheme of things, is coming to an end.

You place a hand on Jaemin’s shoulder, the boy barely acknowledging the invisible touch that he knows is from you as your thumb rubs circles into the fabric of his shirt in an attempt to soothe him. You can practically hear his heart break when his mother gives him a weak smile, the sorrow in her eyes telling you that she knows that she only has a few moments left with her son. Her hand shakes as she reaches out to place something in his hand. There’s a flash of gold and then it’s gone, Jaemin’s mother curling his fingers over the object as tears slide down both of their cheeks.

“We’ll meet again soon, I promise,” she rasps out, wiping away her son’s tears as he looks on with a pained expression. “But until that day comes, just know that I will always be with you. And should you need a reminder, you can always open that.”

Jaemin looks down at his hand and opens it, his breath catching in his throat when he sees his mother’s gold locket in his hand—the same locket that his father had given to her for their first wedding anniversary. With her encouragement, he opens it to reveal a piece of paper with the words I love you in her handwriting.

That same night, Jaemin’s mother dies and the note in the locket has an additional line: I miss you.

At the age of 12, Jaemin’s father tells his son that he’s met someone.

“Is she nice?” is definitely not what he or you expect Jaemin’s initial reaction to be. But then again, he is his wife’s son. Jaemin knew that one day, his father would move on and so would he, and so he accepted the fact that their small family would grow again some day.

His father tells him that she’s a widow with 2 sons, both of them the same age as him. She had married into nobility but when her husband died of a heart attack, she suddenly stopped receiving financial support from her family. Jaemin feels his heart sink at that; family is family, no matter what. Who could be so cruel as to cut off their loved ones completely like that? Unlike Jaemin, you’re a bit wary of this stranger and her 2 children who are suddenly coming into Jaemin’s life, having felt more and more protective of him as the years went by and especially after his mother died. But for his benefit, you decide to remain positive; after all, he had been raised as an only child for so long, so it would be good for him to finally have company in the large estate.

Days turn into weeks which turn into months, and one year later, you find yourself watching Jaemin lug the last of his stepmother’s trunks into the foyer. You try to keep a scowl off your face as he does so, your distaste in the new members of his family already having been discussed with him previously. You had tried to tell him that they aren’t who they say they are, that you had seen her sons stealing in the marketplace while she turns a blind eye, had seen his stepmother flirting with the widowed butcher for some extra meat, and had seen those boys ruining his mother’s flower garden in the front yard by running through it. But he didn’t listen, always coming up with excuses for them: “You must have been mistaken, the marketplace is always busy so it could’ve been anyone!”, “Perhaps she was just being nice, did you even hear their conversation?”, “The soil needed to be turned anyways, so if anything, they helped!”

The last excuse had surprised you, probably even himself as well, because you had seen a flash of hurt cross Jaemin’s face when you mentioned the flowers. Gardening was something he only ever did with his mother, always offering to carry the bags of soil or the heaviest flower pots. The two would work tirelessly to create the most beautiful plots, their clothes soaked-through with sweat and Jaemin’s entire body covered in dirt by the time they were done.You had hoped that he would get back into it after a while, but after seeing him burst into tears whenever he tried, you suppose it’s better that he stopped.

He looks over at Donghyuck and Renjun (his new brothers, he reminds himself) lounging around in the living room, brushing it off when he sees them throwing a ball back and forth—they were probably tired from all of the packing and the journey to their new house. Meanwhile, you’re narrowing your eyes at the two boys because something is telling you that their exhaustion is just an act.

“That’s the last of them, stepmother,” Jaemin says cheerily as he turns to the woman in question. She gets up from where she was sitting on the grand staircase, warm smile on her face as she approaches him. Your eyes follow her figure as you sit on the railing of the stairs, legs swinging in tandem with the swish of her hips.

“Thank you very much for your help, Jaemin,” she says while pulling him into a one-armed hug, the other preoccupied with holding her rather mean-looking cat. “We’re all very tired from the move, as you can imagine. Even poor Woong-ie is exhausted.” She holds up the cat in front of Jaemin’s face and he reaches out to pet him, but jumps back when the feline hisses and tries to scratch him.

“I don’t think he likes me very much,” Jaemin says sheepishly, glancing at the cat once more and shocked to find it glaring at him. You shoot daggers at the animal, smirking when you see its fur beginning to stand; even though it can’t see you, it can still sense you.

Just then, Jaemin’s father comes down from upstairs, announcing, “Your mother and I are going out tonight so that you boys can get to know one another without the adults around.” He smiles at his son, ruffling his hair as his new wife links arms with him. “We won’t be home late. Be good.”

“Always,” Jaemin replies after giggling and pushing his father’s hand away. He closes the door behind his parents before entering the living room. “So what do you guys want to do first?”

“Jaemin, Renjun and I are very tired,” Donghyuck sighs as he catches the ball that his brother throws to him without even looking, you rolling your eyes at how dramatic the boy sounds. “Would you mind taking our things up to our rooms? We can get to know one another after.

“Of course!” Jaemin exclaims, and you could tell that he was mentally berating himself for asking his brothers to play when he already knew how tired they were (though he didn’t actually know, much to your disdain).

He picks up two of the trunks and begins his trek up the stairs, eyes widening and head shaking back and forth frantically when you materialize. The trunks float out of his hands and up the stairs and Jaemin has to stop himself from squeaking, scrambling up the stairs and grabbing them before his brothers could see. “(Y/N), have you gone mad?” he hisses at you as he takes the stairs two at a time. “What if they suddenly come out and see you?”

With a sigh, you slip your wand back into your sleeve, quietly lowering the remaining suitcases back on to the ground before he could notice. “Jaemin, you’re tired too,” you chastise him as you follow him to their bedrooms. “You already carried all of their things into the house, I don’t see why they can’t take their things up to their rooms.”

Jaemin waves off your grumbling, bounding down the stairs to grab another two trunks. “I need the exercise anyways,” he says with a wide smile. “I haven’t been getting as much since I stopped gardening.”

Your shoulders sag when he says that, eyes following him wordlessly as he continues. He lugs the six trunks to their respective rooms after denying your help, and you wonder just how much stuff they own as he makes his way down the stairs once the last one was placed in Renjun’s room. He stands in front of the stairs with his hands on his hips, panting from the effort as he looks around at the finally empty foyer. With a satisfied sigh, he makes his way back towards the living room, almost tripping over Woong in the process, only to find his brothers gone and the front door ajar.

Another year passes, and Jaemin faces nothing but open doors and empty rooms; nothing has changed. Jaemin is still kind as ever to his stepmother and siblings, blissfully unaware at the fact that he’s constantly being taken advantage of. His father doesn’t take notice of these things because he spends almost all of his time at work now to make ends meet for his 2 new sons, wanting nothing more than to eat dinner and go to bed when he comes home. But then all of a sudden, everything changes.

At the age of 14, Jaemin’s father dies. And you are the only person that Jaemin has left.

At the sound of the first bell chime, you appear in Jaemin’s room perched on the windowsill, the sun warm on your back. At the third bell chime, you sigh because you know you’re going to have to force him out of bed again. At the final seventh bell chime, you wave your hand and the blankets are ripped off of him, the boy groaning the second his body is exposed to the chilly morning air. You watch in amusement as he blindly fumbles around for the blanket, huffing out a laugh when he sits up to glare at you with his hair sticking up in different directions. “Can’t you just let me sleep in for once? It’s been 5 years, I deserve at least 10 more minutes.” He squints against the morning sunlight, hands coming up and running through his hair in an attempt to flatten it down.

The way his hair is sticking up and his tired grumbling remind you of Jaehyun and how difficult it was to get him up in the mornings, but you quickly push those memories down. Jaehyun was the past, you have to focus on Jaemin now. No use in thinking about what could’ve been with him; what could’ve been with any of them had you not been cursed. “Excuse me, I seem to recall that you are the one that asked me to wake you up every day if you weren’t up by the seventh bell,” you retort, flicking your wrist so that the blanket is thrown in his face. “I’m just doing what you told me to.”

“Yeah well, maybe the reason I’m not truly happy yet is because I have to wake up so early,” Jaemin jokes, his natural good mood already starting to appear. “Let me wash up and then I’ll get started.”

You nod at that, leaving his room in the tower quietly to allow him to get ready for the day. At this early in the morning, you knew that no one else would be awake so you take the time to walk through the deteriorating estate. With a wave of your wand, the windows, curtains, and carpet in the corridor are cleaned, the remaining bits of lingering magic leaving a soapy scent in the air. You try not to interfere with Jaemin’s chores too much, per his request, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. You stop in front of a large portrait of his father and sigh, your mind wandering back to the early days of Jaemin’s father’s death.

You remember how absolutely heartbroken he was to go through the death of his other parent, knowing that although he still had a family, his true family was gone. But just as always, he pushed through. He did everything he could to help around the house, and as money continuously got tight, more and more of the staff left until it was just Jaemin. And you knew the truth; you knew that his stepmother and step-brothers were just squirreling it away for themselves, only providing the bare minimum to put food on the table and to buy new clothes. You knew the truth and you told him, but Jaemin refused to let that stop him because if he did, who would do all of the work that needed to get done? So for the past 5 years, Jaemin has essentially been a servant for his family, cooking and cleaning and taking care of the animals in his family’s huge estate because there’s no one else. And you have hated every minute of it.

“(Y/N), what did I tell you about doing my chores for me,” Jaemin chastises you, stopping to stare at the portrait of his father next to you with a smile on his face.

“It was just the corridor this time, I didn’t do anything else,” you huff as you cross your arms, your heart jumping in your chest when you look up to see Jaemin smiling down at you. Out of all of the people you’ve been sent to help, Jaemin is definitely your favorite. With a heart of gold, bright smile, and sparkling eyes, it’s hard not to fall in love with him.

For the rest of the day, you follow Jaemin around as he does his various tasks around the house, talking to him and keeping him company while you watch. You don’t even bother to try to help him secretly because you know he’ll just end up catching you anyways (he somehow always knows, and part of you wonders if he’s able to detect magic). A drop of sweat slides down the side of his face as he scatters food along the ground for the chickens and you walk over with a towel to wipe it away. He smiles at you gratefully and you falter, the towel lingering against his face as you stare up at him. He’s certainly not the same quiet little 4 year old that got his ball stuck in a tree, you think to yourself as you appreciate the angles of his face, face flushing as the two of you continue to stare at each other. Jaemin opens his mouth to say something and you can feel yourself leaning closer to him, but the moment is interrupted by the ringing of 3 bells.

“Jaemin!” 3 voices yell simultaneously, and you sigh as Jaemin rushes inside, scrambling to balance the 3 trays in his hands to bring to his family for their morning tea.

“Open in the name of the King!” a gruff voice yells from outside following 3 loud knocks. Your back straightens as Jaemin scrambles to get up from where he was sat on the floor, rag and bucket of soapy water abandoned as he opens the door. He reveals a man dressed in uniform, various medals decorating his chest as he exclaims, “An urgent message from His Imperial Majesty!” He pulls out an envelope from inside his jacket and hands it to Jaemin, bowing deeply while the boy stutters out his thanks, and Jaemin watches as he scurries back into his carriage, presumably to deliver more letters.

You stand on your toes to try to peer at the letter from behind him, calves straining as you struggle you get higher. You don’t notice the way you’re leaning on him and holding on to his arm for a better look until your eyes flick up and are staring directly into his. You almost choke at the close proximity and immediately take a small step back, tucking your hair behind your ear as you keep your eyes on the envelope in his hands. The curse, you remind yourself. Remember the curse. But it’s no use; you love him, there’s no denying that. “W-What does it say?” you stutter, a frown appearing on your face when Jaemin suddenly turns and begins to make his way upstairs. “Where are you going?”

He stops on the stairs to smile at you, waiting for you to catch up as he runs his thumb over the ink on the envelope. “You know that stepmother will have my head on a plate if I dared to open this before her.” He shakes his head at you before continuing up the stairs, the strumming of a guitar becoming clearer as you walked. “Besides, I think it’s time for their music lesson to have a break, don’t you think?” You laugh at that, Renjun’s incorrect guitar chords and Donghyuck’s unstable vocals making the both of you wince as you get closer to the study.

At the sound of Jaemin’s knock, Donghyuck stops singing and you hear the bang of piano keys before his mother lets out a sharp, “Yes?”

Jaemin opens the door slowly, face sheepish as his gaze meets the smug ones of his siblings. “I’m sorry to interrupt-“

“Then you shouldn’t have in the first place,” Donghyuck sneers, he and Renjun laughing to themselves as their mother shushes them with a smile on her face.

“B-But this letter just arrived from the palace,” Jaemin stutters out, and you swear that you could hear his heart racing in his chest from Donghyuck’s teasing. Your hands tighten into fists at your side but you urge yourself to calm down, knowing that there’s unfortunately nothing you can do.

“From the palace?” Renjun repeats, him and his brother rushing over to rip the letter from Jaemin’s hands. “Give it to me!” He and his brother fight over who gets to open the envelope, their mother grabbing it from the both of them before they could ruin it.

“Boys, calm yourselves,” she scolds them softly, the both of them rolling their eyes before urging her to read it. “There’s to be a ball,” she gasps, looking up at her sons with wide eyes.

“A ball?” they repeat, equally as shocked.

“In honor of Her Highness, the princess,” their mother continues.

“The princess?” the boys repeat once again. You’re starting to wonder if this family has more than 3 collective brain cells, 2 of which belong to their mother.

“And,” she finishes, pausing for what you guess is dramatic effect. “By royal command, every eligible gentleman is to attend.”

“That’s us!” Renjun exclaims, grasping his brother’s shoulder tightly as he looks at him excitedly.

“And I am much more than eligible,” Donghyuck smirks, a hand coming up to run through his hair to sweep it back.

“That means I can go too!” Jaemin gasps as he steps forward to glance at the letter. He steps back when his family looks up at him, and you take a protective stance in front of him, invisibly glaring at his step-siblings as they laugh at him. “Why are you laughing? I’m still part of the family. And besides, it said ‘by royal command, every eligible gentleman is to attend’. I have to go!”

“Just imagine you dancing with the princess?” Renjun guffaws, he and his brother falling over each other from how hard they were laughing. “Oh, I would be honored, Your Highness! And might I say that my dish rag goes very well with your dress!” The two of them dance in a circle to mock Jaemin even more, Jaemin’s shoulders sagging at their words.

“The dirt underneath the princess’s shoes is worth more than the dirt on your face,” Donghyuck sneers, letting out a laugh when Jaemin subconsciously rubs at his cheek. “Face it, Jaemin, you’re just going to embarrass us.”

“Boys, that’s enough,” their mother finally says, effectively quieting them. “Now I see no reason for Jaemin to not attend the ball as well.” Jaemin’s eyes, as well as yours, widen at her words; where had this sudden change of heart come from? “That is,” she says, turning her eyes directly on him and raising an eyebrow. “If you get your chores done. And of course, if you’re able to find something suitable to wear.”

Jaemin reveals his outfit to you with a flourish, grinning from ear to ear as he holds it in front of his body and admires himself in the mirror. “It was my father’s,” Jaemin says softly. “He outgrew it and knew that I would grow into it. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

You will admit, it is quite beautiful. The jacket and vest are a deep red color with gold trimming and gold vines around the wrist and upper chest area. There are gold buttons on each side of the opening, and the back is longer than the front. The pants had a similar design with the vines running down the side of the legs. But you just couldn’t get over the number of ruffles and dangly bits around every single edge of clothing possible. “It is beautiful,” you agree. “But perhaps a bit… Outdated.”

He chuckles softly at that, looking down at the floor before looking back up at you. “The ruffles and things are a bit much, aren’t they?” he asks, wrinkling his nose in response to you wrinkling your own and nodding. “Well that’s no matter. I’ve actually been planning out how I want to fix this up for a few years now.” He crouches down and begins searching for something at the bottom of his wardrobe, his voice muffled as he continues, “I drew it out in the back of an old design book that mother had… If only I could find it…” Just before Jaemin can begin his search in the very back of his closet, the shrill shriek of his stepmother’s voice calling for him makes him jump. He lets out a sigh as he stands up, squeezing his eyes shut as you brush the dust out of his hair. He smiles at you gratefully and then runs towards the door, casting one more glance back at you and his father’s suit before running down the stairs.

“He’s never going to be able to fix this if that wench keeps calling him down for useless chores,” you mutter to yourself, rubbing the fabric of the sleeve between your thumb and forefinger as you get lost in thought. You know that Jaemin’s stepmother has every intention of keeping him busy until the ball, but maybe…

Your posture straightens when Donghyuck’s voice floats up from downstairs, complaining about his black trousers having a stain on them and “how am I supposed to marry the princess with a stain on my trousers, mother?” The gears in your brain begin to turn when Renjun’s voice immediately follows with a “I’ve had this shirt for nearly two years now, I have nothing new to wear!” After a slam and a thud, you’re bounding down the tower stairs so fast that it feels as if the winds of Zephyr himself were carrying you down. Lying on the floor of the foyer is a pile of clothes deemed unworthy by Renjun and Donghyuck’s standards but considered a luxury in Jaemin’s eyes. You pick out the pants with the stain and Renjun’s “old” shirt, rifling through the pile for anything else that could be of use. You hear a door open behind you and immediately turn around, the breath that you had unknowingly been holding exiting your mouth in a soft sigh when you see that it’s just Woong. The feline regards you with narrowed eyes and lets out a hiss at your presence, scurrying out of the room when you narrow your eyes in response.

“Evil cat,” you mumble, gaze still following him as he enters a different room in the house. You gather your things and make your way back up to Jaemin’s room, careful to turn yourself invisible this time in case any of his family was walking around. Once you’re back in his room, you lay out the pants on his bed and place the jacket and shirt beside it. You pull out your wand from your sleeve and get to work, the tip glowing a bright orange as you drag it along the edges of the jacket to remove the fringe and ruffles. It changes to a bright blue color when you move to the dirty clothes and tap your wand on the stains, watching with a satisfied smile as they disappear. You get rid of the design on the buttons of the jacket and vest so that they’re a plain gold and get Jaemin’s nicest pair of shoes from his closet to place them on the floor. With a wave of your hand, the outfit is hung up against the door of the wardrobe and hidden away, waiting to be revealed once Jaemin comes back.

You fall asleep on Jaemin’s bed while waiting for him to finish his chores, your dreams filled with the people that you’ve fallen in love with while helping them find their true happiness. You dream about Jaehyun and his bride-to-be, Sooyoung and her husband in her newly opened bakery, Taeyong and the first time he sets eyes on his lover in his flower shop. Your memories swirl around you in a haze of heartbreak and reluctance, the anger that you feel towards the gods only temporary because you know that no matter what you do, nothing will convince them to lift the curse of Calypso. Jaemin materializes in front of you and you reach out to him, your fingers just brushing against his when he disappears, only to reappear a few feet away from you, smiling at a figure next to him. You can’t make out any features but even in your dream state, you know what this means. His true happiness will reveal itself to him soon.

Your eyes flutter open just as Jaemin’s bedroom door opens, his shoulders slumped as he drags his feet towards the window. “You’re back,” you croak, voice thick with sleep. Jaemin merely hums in response, gaze refusing to leave the night sky above him. You feel sad as you look at him, the feelings from your dream still lingering, but you can feel something else; his own sadness as he looks up at the stars. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the ball?”

Jaemin turns around to reveal his sad smile to you, fingers drumming against the wooden window frame as he shakes his head at you. “My chores took a lot longer than I thought,” he shrugs, and you can tell that he’s trying his best to not look too upset. “Stepmother, Hyuck, and Renjun will be leaving soon and I don’t have enough time to fix father’s suit.”

“About that…” you trail off as you suppress the smile threatening to appear on your face. You wave your wand to open his wardrobe door, revealing to him his outfit of the night. “Ta-da!”

“(Y/N), you… You did this for me?” Jaemin asks in awe, one hand coming up to touch the jacket but withdrawing a second later, as if the clothing would disappear if he were to touch it.

“No, I actually made this for me to wear,” you tease him as you get up from the bed. “Of course I did it for you, silly. Now hurry up and put it on, the carriage will be here soon.”

You and Jaemin run down the grand staircase just as his family is beginning to head out the door, Jaemin’s shouts of “Wait! Wait for me!” stopping them in their tracks. Renjun’s and Donghyuck’s jaws drop as he runs up to them, his hands smoothing over the jacket as he beams at them. “Isn’t it stunning? Do you like it?” At his words, his stepbrothers immediately begin to protest to their mother, and you can’t help but smirk at them invisibly from behind Jaemin.

“Boys, that’s enough,” their mother scolds them, stepping forward towards Jaemin while her sons pout from behind her. “The pants suit you well, Jaemin. Don’t you agree, Hyuckie?” She turns to raise an eyebrow at him as she pinches at the fabric, and you feel yourself stiffen at her question.

“I guess,” Donghyuck replies with dismissive wave, eyes widening when he sees what his mother wants him to see. “Wait, those are my pants! Take them off!” He runs forward and grabs at the waist of Jaemin’s pants, tugging on the fabric harshly while demanding that he take them off.

“And that shirt, that’s my shirt!” Renjun shrieks, running forward to rip Jaemin’s jacket off to get at his shirt.

Jaemin’s protests are drowned out by their shrieks, their hands fluttering around him as they pinch and pull at his outfit until all that’s left is shreds of clothing, his father’s jacket lying torn at his feet. Your eyes don’t know where to look as they flick from Jaemin to his step-brothers to his stepmother. You see Jaemin’s resolve cracking with each hand they lay on him, the irritation and power radiating off of Donghyuck and Renjun as they tear their brother down, and the satisfaction and smugness in the form of a smirk and raised eyebrows on Jaemin’s stepmother. All of this is happening and you can’t do anything but watch, forced to keep yourself hidden from his family rather than stepping in to protect the boy you’ve come to love.

“Boys, boys!” their mother yells, her voice making all of you freeze in place and immediately getting her sons to stop and return to her side. “That’s quite enough. Let’s go, the carriage is waiting.” The three of them make their way towards the front door looking very satisfied with themselves, and all you and Jaemin can do is watch as they get farther away. “Goodnight,” she says with a smile before shutting the door with a dull thud. And that’s when it all comes crashing down.

You turn to Jaemin with wide eyes, your hands shaking with rage when you see him beginning to tremble. “Jaemin,” you say, unsure of what you could possibly say to make him feel better in this situation. He lets out a pained sob and you feel your heart break at just how sad he sounds. “Jaemin, I-”

Before you can get any closer, he runs. And you let him run past you, allowing him a few moments to himself before beginning your search. You let the sound of his cries guide you to him, gaze softening when you see him at the tree in the corner of the garden. His head is buried in his arms as he sobs on a stone bench, and you’re able to make out a faint “It’s not fair,” as you approach him. You sit on the bench beside his head, your hand coming up to stroke his hair as he continues to cry. “It’s not fair, (Y/N), it just isn’t fair,” he cries, his emotions so strong that they cause your own tears to form. “I’ve tried so hard for so long to believe. Believe that you could help me, believe that I could help myself. But maybe this is just how it’s going to be. Maybe this is where I’m meant to be.”

As he continues to cry beside you, an aura of magic begins to glow around the two of you. It becomes brighter and brighter and the raw power that it exudes becomes stronger and stronger, and you know that your time with Jaemin is coming to an end soon. “Don’t be ridiculous,” you chide. “Everyone deserves to be happy, especially you.” You push his hair away from his face and coax him to look up at you, wiping at his tear-stained cheeks as you smile down at him. “It’s time, Jaemin. It’s time for you to find your true happiness.” You pull him with you as you stand up, giving him your widest smile as you try to hide just how bittersweet this really is for you. “You’re going to Princess Chaeyoung’s ball tonight, I’m making sure of it.”

“But how?” he sniffles, hands squeezing yours as his eyes water once more. “Father’s suit is ruined and I have no way of getting to the palace.”

“Have you forgotten who I am?” you tease as you reveal your wand to him. “Your stepmother may have had a few tricks up her sleeve, but I have a magic wand up mine.” Your heart skips a beat when Jaemin beams at you, hands balling into fists in excitement. “Now close your eyes and count to 20.”

As Jaemin begins counting, the tattered clothes on his body begin to shimmer and transform. The tree behind him uproots itself and bends and twists into the shape of a carriage while 7 chickens are summoned from the barn, 6 to be turned into horses while the last is turned into a coachmen. You look down and see a golden glow around your entire body as the magic does its work, and you can’t help but grimace at the sight. All of this power flowing through your veins and for what? The gods will allow you to use your magic to help people find true happiness but they have forbidden you from using it to find your own. You’ve tried fighting back against your destiny, against this curse, for so long, but they are always watching.

“Open your eyes,” you say to him when he finishes counting. Behind you sits his horse-drawn carriage, its proud coachmen standing beside it. And in front of you stands the boy you’ve fallen in love with, looking handsome as ever and one step closer to getting his happy ending. You smile softly as he looks at his new outfit, the dark blue velvet of his jacket making the silver detailing stand out nicely. “I kept the original design of your father’s jacket, just made a few changes,” you explain. “I think blue suits you better.”

With a wave of your wand, you produce a mirror for Jaemin to look at himself in, moving so that you can stand behind him as he analyzes your work. He first fiddles with the jacket, his fingers running over the vines at his chest and the ones running down his sleeves. He then turns every which way to look at the black trousers you’ve created, the silver vines once again running down the sides. Jaemin makes eye contact with you through the mirror and beams brightly at you. “You’ve truly outdone yourself,” he compliments you, spinning around and opening his arms to pull you into a bone-crushing hug. “Thank you, (Y/N), this really means a lot to me.”

He pulls away from you to stare into your eyes, his own sparkling as he continues to smile down at you. You clear your throat and take a step back from him, willing your heart to stop beating so fast as you explain, “The spell will only last until midnight-”

“That long? Oh, that’s more than enough time,” Jaemin interrupts you out of excitement.

You give him a pointed look, which quiets him down, and continue. “So make sure you’re home by then. I’ll be more specific: at the first stroke of midnight, the spell will begin to wear off. If you are still at the ball by the twelfth stroke, you will be stuck at the palace in your tattered clothes. Make sure you’re home before then.”

Jaemin nods along with your words with wide eyes, walking with you as you lead him to the carriage. “I’ll be home by midnight, I promise.”

You nod and open the door for him, watching as he looks at the lush interior and then back at you, excitement dancing in his eyes. “Go,” you urge him softly. “You have a ball to get to.”

You close the door behind him and watch as the carriage gets smaller and smaller, your stomach feeling like it’s going to turn itself inside out the farther it gets from you—the farther Jaemin gets from you. Before the rational part of your brain can stop you, you wave your wand, and suddenly you’re sitting next to the coachmen. Invisible to all, even Jaemin, you close your eyes as the wind whips your hair back, mentally preparing yourself for the heartbreak that you know will eventually come.

Jaemin is very careful as he walks around the castle towards the grand ballroom, the only sound he hears being the music and muffled chatter from the party getting louder the closer he gets. You’ve never been in a castle yourself so the both of you are taking your time as you walk up the staircase, your eyes wide as you try to take everything in. From the plush carpet underneath your feet to the marble columns on either side of you to the molding and artwork on the ceiling above you, you had never seen anything like it before.

The two of you enter the ballroom, invisible to everyone (but you more so) because their eyes were drawn to Princess Chaeyoung at the front of the room who was greeting every gentleman of every family that has come to seek her hand in marriage. A few steps behind her is her brother, Prince Jeno, and behind him sits their parents, the king and queen. Jeno looks rather bored from what you can tell from the expression on his face, and you can’t help but chuckle when you see him stifle a yawn. The prince’s eyes wander around the room as his sister continues to greet their guests, landing on something that piques his interest and causes his eyebrows to furrow. You follow his gaze and your eyes land on Jaemin, who’s wandering around the edge of the room and peering at the long velvet curtains and the windows that they cover.

After the princess is done greeting all of her guests, 2 of whom were unfortunately Jaemin’s step-brothers (the both of you had to suppress a grimace at just how hard they tried to impress her in those 10 seconds they had her attention), the king requests a waltz. You hear suppressed groans when all of the young boys around you see that Princess Chaeyoung is dancing with her father for the first dance, and you struggle to not bump into anyone as they all scramble to find a dancing partner. From the corner of your eye, you can see Jaemin also doing the same but he ends up getting pushed in the process, and you begin to rush over to help him when you realize that he doesn’t even know you’re there. And besides, someone had already beat you to it.

Your eyes follow the hand that’s offered to Jaemin, and you feel your heart sink a bit when they’re met with Jeno’s smiling face. Jaemin takes it with a smile, and you watch as the two boys continue to stare at each other. “Hello,” Jeno greets him, and that’s when Jaemin realizes that his hand is still in his, causing him to take a step back as he lets go and bump into the balcony doors behind him as he tries to stutter out a response. “My name is Jeno.”

“Y-Your Majesty,” Jaemin responds, bowing lowly which causes Jeno’s mouth to open and close in surprise, resembling a fish. “Th-Thank you for the help.”

“Oh, you don’t need to call me that,” Jeno says as he rubs at the back of his neck, face flushing red from embarrassment. “Just Jeno is fine.” The two stare at the floor as they stand in front of each other, both of their faces red as the awkward silence stretches over them. “Do you… want to go outside for a bit?”

Jaemin nods quickly. Anything to get out of this busy crowd. Jeno shuffles behind him and opens the balcony doors, the two of them taking deep breaths of fresh air the second they step outside. You seat yourself on the railing as they stare out into the distance, Jaemin’s eyes sparkling as he gazes out at the town below him. His head turns in your direction and you freeze when his eyes land on you—or well, through you, looking at his family’s estate.

“Beautiful,” he whispers, tearing his eyes away from you to look back out at the view right in front of him, the lights down below making his face glow a dull orange.

Yeah, you think to yourself softly. You are.

Jaemin and Jeno continue to enjoy the view and each other’s company in silence, glad to be away from the bustling crowd and all of the boys vying for the princess’s attention. You block out their conversation as Jaemin asks Jeno about life in the palace and Jeno asks Jaemin about life outside of the palace. With each smile that appears on Jaemin’s face and each laugh that Jeno lets out, your heart sinks further and further. You get up from your spot on the rail and drift down into the palace gardens, no longer in the mood to be at the ball.

You know what’s coming.

“Jaemin?” you call out, approaching him from behind. He slowly turns to face you, his mother’s locket clenched in his hands. “Are you okay?”

“This was the best night of my life,” he says softly, a fond smile on his face as he looks up at the star-filled night sky. He had just watched his carriage turn back into the tree in the corner of the garden that it originally was, and he can’t help but feel like there’s magic all around him still. “I’m more than okay. But I guess not everything is meant to go as planned.”

“What happened?” you ask, steeling yourself for anything. What could have gone wrong tonight?

He walks forward and shows you the locket, his mother’s face smiling up at you as you look down. There wasn’t a scratch on it. But something felt...wrong. “The note from my mother,” he explains, answering your unasked question. “It’s gone. I stopped outside the palace before leaving and I opened it, just to talk to her for a second, but the knights were catching up to me so I had to run and-” Jaemin pauses, laughing at the confusion on your face. He forgot that you weren’t with him at the ball tonight. “I’ll explain it later. But I guess the wind must have blown it away.”

“W-We can go to the palace and look for it, I’m sure it’s still near wherever you opened the locket,” you reassure him frantically, trying to calm your own rising panic because you know how much that locket and note mean to Jaemin. “We can-”

“It’s okay,” he cuts you off with a hand on your shoulder, soft smile still on his face. “I don’t need a note to keep her close. I know that she’s always with me.” You feel your lower lip wobble at his words, tears brimming in your eyes as you think back to the 10 year old boy who could barely step outside without crying. With a sniffle, you wrap your arms around his middle and shove your face into his chest, your tears soaking his white shirt. He pulls you back and his eyes look over you frantically, trying to figure out why you’re suddenly crying. “(Y/N), what’s wrong?”

After a few deep breaths and a few seconds to clear your throat, you finally look up at him with watery eyes. “I have been watching over you since the moment you were born, Na Jaemin. I heard your first cry, watched your first steps, heard your first word. I held you close when your mother died, wiped your tears when your father died, and stayed by your side every day. You’ve been through and have grown so much and yet somehow, you’re still the same little boy with a heart of gold that I first met. And I am so so proud of you. It’s truly an honor to know you.” You close your mouth before you can continue, knowing that if you do, you would say the three words you’ve been hiding for so long—the three words that could ruin everything.

“(Y/N),” he breathes out, his own eyes watering from just how moved he is by your words. “Wh-What’s gotten into you, why are you saying all of this? You’ve never-”

His words are cut off when he hears the faint crunch of gravel in the distance, letting him know that his family is coming home. The two of you rush back into the house and up the stairs, the loud voices of his stepmother and step-siblings drifting all the way up to his bedroom where Jaemin lays with a smile on his face. He made a new friend tonight and his best friend just told him she’s proud of him. Life is good.

It’s the next day and Jaemin couldn’t be happier. The two of you are currently in the music room and you’re watching Jaemin sweep while his brothers fool around on the other side of the room, waiting for their mother to come home and start their lesson. You’re perched on top of the grand piano, legs swinging, and you keep shooting funny faces at Jaemin while he does his chores, smiling when you see him try his best to stifle his laughter.

“I wonder who that boy was,” Renjun speculates to Hyuck as they sprawl out on the chairs in the corner of the room. “That one with the blue jacket that Prince Jeno went up to during the waltz. I heard everyone around me saying that they had never seen him before.”

You feel your stomach drop at Renjun’s words, doing your best to mask your fear but keep the shock on your face as you look over at Jaemin. His back is turned to all of you but you can tell from his slow movements that he’s listening to their conversation now.

“Mother said the same thing too,” Hyuck responds as he picks the dirt out of his nails. “Maybe the prince went out to look for a suitor for the princess but they ended up becoming friends. Apparently, they stayed out on the balcony the whole night, just talking. I even heard the king say that he’s never seen Prince Jeno that friendly with a stranger before.”

Suddenly, his stepmother bursts into the room, causing all four of you to freeze and look at her. “The king,” she gasps, waving Jaemin over and handing him her coat as she tries to control her breathing. “The king has issued a proclamation. Prince Jeno is looking for the boy from last night, the one in the blue jacket. He wants this boy to train alongside him as a knight and the king is willing to appoint him as the prince’s groom of the bedchamber. The Duke has been searching the whole kingdom all night and will be arriving here soon.”

Her sons slump in their seats at her words, not understanding why she’s so worked up about this. “If the prince is looking for that boy, then why should we care? We’re not him,” Hyuck whines.

She takes a few steps forward and points at them. “Nobody knows who this boy is. The only clue that they have is a note that was found lying at the bottom of the stairs where the boy was last seen.” She lets out a sigh of frustration when she’s met with nothing but silence from them. “This means that the boy will get to live in the palace and has the possibility of marrying Princess Chaeyoung since he will already be acquainted with the royal family.”

At that, the two boys shoot out of their seats and run out of the room, only to quickly rush back in and throw piles of clothes at Jaemin. They shout demand after demand at him, telling him to wash their clothes and shine their shoes, but they’re only met with silence and a dreamy look on his face. During their mother’s explanation, you had watched as the wheels in Jaemin’s head began to turn and he understood exactly what this could mean for him; a life in the palace, a life with his new friend, a life away from his cruel family. Here is the chance he’s been waiting for, ready for him to take it.

“Mother, something’s wrong with Jaemin,” Renjun snickers, pointing at the glazed over look in his eyes to her.

“Pay attention, stupid,” Hyuck says loudly as he snaps in front of Jaemin’s face. “The Duke is going to be here soon and we need to get ready.”

Jaemin snaps out of his reverie with a shake of his head, dropping the clothes in his hands to smooth over his own clothes on his body. “Yes, we need to get ready,” he mumbles to himself, much to the confusion of the rest of his family. “We have to look nice for the Duke.” He begins to hum the waltz from last night as he walks out of the room, and you don’t miss the narrowing of his stepmother’s eyes before you exit as well.

You begin to follow him up to his room when he suddenly stops before going up the stairs, causing you to almost run face-first into his chest. “Would you mind making me a cup of tea while I get ready?” he asks you. “I just… I feel too excited right now so I need something to calm me down.”

You laugh at his explanation and nod, watching him as he makes his way to his tower before leaving your line of sight. Just as you’re about to enter the kitchen, you see his stepmother making her way up the stairs, and you feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up. You grab the jar of tea leaves from the shelf and begin to boil some water, mulling over what she could possibly be up to this time. Suddenly, you hear Jaemin let out a distressed cry which makes you jump, and you take the kettle off the fire before running up to his room.

“Jaemin!” you shout as you bound up the stairs, breathing hard as you run. “What’s wrong?” You turn the handle but find yourself unable to, so you begin to pound on the door. “Jaemin, let me in!”

“Stepmother!” he cries out, and you can hear as well as feel him shaking the door handle in the hopes that it will somehow break and unlock. “She locked me in here! She knows, (Y/N), she somehow knows that I was the boy with Jeno last night. She’s not going to let me leave. Please, (Y/N), use your wand and get me out of here.”

You begin patting down your robe and you feel a chill run through your spine when you don’t feel your wand hidden amongst the fabric. You take it off and shake it out, thinking it’ll just fall to the floor, but you hear nothing. “Jaemin,” you say quietly, but you know that he can still hear you. “I can’t find my wand.” The both of you are silent at your confession, neither knowing what to do but not wanting to discourage the other. “I-It’s fine,” you reassure him. “I’ll just go find it, it has to be somewhere in the house.” Without waiting for a response, you run back down the stairs as you try to remember the last place you put it.

Running as fast as you can without missing anything, you check the foyer, the staircase, and the kitchen but come up empty. The last place you can think of is the music room and you pray to every single god you know that it’s there. And funnily enough, they answered your prayers. Except unfortunately, you’re still cursed because the wand is in Woong’s mouth. He’s sat at his owner’s feet, who’s asleep on one of the armchairs in the corner of the room, and is gnawing at your wand hard enough to cause sparks to fly out.

“Good kitty,” you say to him calmly as you slowly approach him. You reach your hands out towards the cat and push down a wave of irritation when the cat scoots away from you. “It’s okay, I just want what’s in your mouth.” And it’s like Woong can understand you because he bites down on it and growls lowly, glaring at you through narrowed eyes. You take a step closer and bite back a groan when he gets up and runs away from you.

It’s going to take ages to chase that damn cat around, you grumble to yourself in your head. You’re just about to go after him when you spot it: a key about to fall out of Jaemin’s stepmother’s pocket. You wave your hand in front of her sleeping face, making sure that she can’t see you and hoping that she won’t wake up from any movement, before walking closer to her. Slowly, you reach out and slide the key out from underneath her hand, almost jumping out of your skin when you hear a knock from the front door. His stepmother jumps out of her seat and you scramble to get out of her way, her dress fluttering around your ankles as she frantically fixes herself before opening the door. You quickly run back to the tower as you hear her greet the Duke and introduce her sons to him, praying that you make it in time.

You’re out of breath by the time you’re at the top of the stairs, and you’re just about to call out to Jaemin when your words die in your throat as your eyes are once again met with the demon cat. Your wand is still between his teeth and he growls at you, as if threatening to use your own wand against you. Annoyed and tired from running around, you pull back your lips and hiss at him, stunned when he lets out a yowl that causes him to drop your wand before running down the stairs. With shaking hands, you unlock the door while picking up your wand at the same time, urgently saying, “Go, Jaemin, quickly! Before he leaves!”

Jaemin whips past you and bounds down the stairs, not even bothering to check if you’re following him because he knows that you will. You can hear his family saying their goodbyes to the Duke and wishing him well, so with a wave of your wand, you give Jaemin a little push, one that puts him in the sights of the Duke at the very last second.

“Wait, Your Grace!” Jaemin exclaims from the top of the grand staircase as he waves his hands at him. “I’d like to try, if you’ll let me!”

Jaemin’s family’s eyes widen at his sudden appearance, his stepmother patting her now-empty pocket on her dress as all of them stutter out excuses as to why Jaemin shouldn’t have a chance to prove himself. Their protests fall on deaf ears though as the Duke walks forward and gestures for Jaemin to take a seat. He hands him a pen and paper and says, “This note has 2 lines of writing on it. The first says I love you, what does the second one say?”

You feel your heart clench when Jaemin lets out a soft chuckle and writes down the words he wrote all those years ago: I miss you.

You and Jaemin collapse on to his bed, the both of you tired out from packing up all of Jaemin’s things and moving them to the palace. You look around at the room and then turn your head to look at him, a fond smile appearing when you see his wide eyes staring up at the ceiling above him. His room was big, as big as his stepmother’s bedroom at his old home, and you know that it’s going to take a while for him to get used to this kind of lifestyle. Your stare lingers a little too long and you’re forced to meet his gaze when he turns to look at you with a wide smile.

“True happiness looks good on you,” you tease him, though both of you know that you really mean it. There’s no one that you’ve met that deserves to live the rest of his days in happiness more than Jaemin.

Jaemin sits up and lets out a content sigh, looking around the room once more before turning back to you. “Jeno should be here soon. Do you think it’s a good idea to tell him about you?” he asks and your breath catches in your throat at his words. He takes your silence as shock and continues, “Because I think we should get you your own room. Not that I don’t like sharing a room with you! But also I think it’ll be hard keeping you a secret because I’ll always be around people and it’ll be a bit strange if they see me talking to no one.”

You get up from his bed and stand in front of him, placing your hands on your shoulders as you look down at him with sad eyes. “I don’t need my own room-”

“Oh good, because I actually do like sharing a room with you, and I feel like this big one will make me feel lonely. Maybe-”

“Jaemin,” you cut him off. “I’m not staying here. My job is done, you don’t need me anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Jaemin asks, not understanding what you’re saying. Don’t need you anymore? You’re his best friend, of course he needs you; he’ll always need you. “You’re my best friend! We just moved into the palace, you can’t leave!”

“I helped you find true happiness,” you explain as you take a step back and draw your hands away from him. “It’s time for us to go our separate ways.”

He grabs your wrist to prevent you from moving back, his gaze fierce as he stands up. You’ve never noticed before but he towers over you now; he really has grown up. “No,” he protests. “You can’t leave. If you do, then I won’t be truly happy. You’ve been a part of my life for 19 years, (Y/N), and you expect me to accept the fact that just because my life is better now then that means I can never see you again?”

“Please,” you plead weakly, lightly tugging at your arm in an attempt to get him to let go. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be-”

“Don’t make it hard at all then,” Jaemin argues, his brow furrowed as he looks down at you. Tears begin to form in his eyes and he wipes them away angrily. Why are you so insistent on leaving him? “Just stay.”

You hear thunder rumbling in the distance, and a quick glance at the window behind Jaemin shows you that it’s still a beautiful day outside. The gods are calling you. “I’m sorry, Jaemin,” you apologize, forcefully separating yourself from him with a watery smile. “I wish there was another way, but there’s nothing I can do.” You draw your wand out from your sleeve and raise it up with a shaky hand to point it at him. “It’s going to be alright,” you reassure him. “You’re not going to remember me anyways.”

His eyes widen and they flicker from your wand back to your face. “(Y/N)...” he trails off breathily. There are tears running down your face but your gaze is hard. Jaemin knows that there’s nothing he can do.

You want to tell him, to say those 3 little words so badly. But you can’t ruin this more than you already have. You weren’t even supposed to tell him that you’re leaving in the first place. “I’m proud of you, Jaemin, and I wish you the best. It was an honor to be by your side all these years, and you will always be my best friend.”

With a wave of your wand, a mist covers his whole body, and when he opens his eyes, he finds himself standing beside his bed. What was he doing again? Standing invisibile in front of him, you watch him look around in confusion and you can’t help but reach out a hand towards him, letting it hover over his arm. You really will miss him.

The door opens and you both look up to see Jeno standing there, concern in his gaze when he sees his friend’s confused expression. “Jaemin? Are you okay?”

Their eyes meet and Jaemin smiles widely at him, exiting the room and closing the door behind him as he reassures Jeno, “I’m fine, just had a moment of déjà vu.”

The room around you fades until there’s nothing left but a white mist floating around you. You wipe away the last of your tears as you wonder where you are. Usually you would already be meeting your new assignment by now. A glowing orb drifts down and lands in front of you, its light pulsing as it radiates warmth. “The gods have decided to be merciful,” a voice says, it’s tone soothing and low, and you wonder if it’s coming from the ball of light. “The curse shall end with you. You’ve done well, child, and it is time for you to move on.”

The orb begins to grow brighter and brighter, causing you to shield your eyes. Your ears begin to pop, as if pressure is building, and is that a faint ringing you hear? Black spots begin to dance in front of your vision and you feel yourself becoming lightheaded. What’s happening? What or who even was that? Your heart begins to race from panic and you reach out blindly as your knees give out beneath you. “Move on”? Am I becoming mortal? You open your mouth to call out to Jaemin for help, only a whispered yell leaving your lips when you remember. No… I’m dying. You remember that he’s not there, that he doesn’t even know who you are now. And that, you think, is a fate worse than death. You close your eyes. And then… nothingness.

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