#husk with the white button down i just

[dobbysnotsureaboutthis]

Alastor x Reader - A very long mating season (doctor's appointment gone wrong)

Masterlist

Link to pt.2

WC: 9,698

Description:

Alastor’s been acting weird for a while now, and Angel Dust calls in a friend of his, you - the only doctor in the whole pride ring - to have you take a look at him. Despite Alastor’s insistence that it’s only a bad headache, you swear on your doctor’s oath that something more is going on… (fem reader)

Warnings:

SEX, NOT scientifically accurate, me NOT a doctor, reader and Alastor boing their groins a few times so yk do what you will with that info, rut, heat, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, blood (not that much), porn with plot, not edited

“Say, what do ya think is goin’ on with Smiles these days?” Angel Dust reclines his elbows on Husk’s bar, sipping at his drink while waiting for Charlie’s response.

“Alastor? Oh no, do you think something’s wrong with him?”

Angel tries not to roll his eyes at the princess. The poor girl, going around managing hell with a heart of gold and… seemingly zero observation skills. “Yeah Alastor! He’s been acting all weird lately. Hidin’ away at his radio tower most of the day, in his room when he’s here, never comin’ down anymore to make breakfast, not responding to my pranks! Ugh, I’ve been bored as fuck here without his crazy reactions.” 

Husk chuckles at that, pausing his cleaning. “Are you sure you miss that last part? I remember a certain someone almost getting killed several times over a joke.” 

Angel groans at the smug grin of his companion. If the damned cat wasn’t so cute he definitely wouldn’t let him get away with all his complacent remarks. 

Nifty darts out from under the bar, joining in on their discussion. Nobody bats an eye, as they were all used to the little demonness’s mannerisms by now. “Ooooh is this about Alastor? I saw him walking around and pulling at his own head earlier. He looked like he was in pain!” She giggles impishly. “Wonder what that’s all about!”

Charlie looked close to tears in worry, and without Vaggie around to help, Angel sighs, awkwardly trying to solve the tension he brought up. “Hey don’t worry ‘bout it, if you’re all noticing and it’s not just me, I know a doctor we can call up.” 

“There are doctors in hell?”

Angel snorts. “Fuck, even the princess of hell herself doesn’t know it! Yea there are doctors, or at least there’s one doctor I know of for sure. I guess most of the caretakers on earth ended up in heaven.” He twiddles with the soft tufts of milky fur on his chest. “She used to patch me up after… ya know, my work with Val and all. Not sure if she’s got experience with patients like him, but I could call her up and give it a shot.” Charlie darts into a standing position, squeezing Angel in a tight hug. He pats her shoulder hesitantly, still not used to how loving the princess was. “Yes! That’s just it Angel.” Then her sparkly eyes widened even more, sparkling brightly at a vision only she could see. “Oh Angel! Helping a friend out of the kindness in your heart! You’re already getting so close to redemption, I can feel it!” She pulls away just as quickly as she leaned in, shooting two thumbs up in his direction. “I’m counting on you for this one!”

“Yea, yea.”

Angel fumbles with the smooth buttons on his phone screen, finding her number in recents - he’d just called her a few days ago when Val worked him for 2 days straight, filling his body with his sick drugs and leaving him untreated, lying cold on the studio floor. 

“Hey toots? Yea, this is Angel calling.” 

There’s unintelligible mumbling. 

“No, it’s not for me. It’s for a… friend.”

_____________________________________________________________

You’re in your office wiping down the scarce collection of medical equipment you’ve garnered in hell. Hell’s sky casts a pomegranate glow on your figure, inflecting off the pleats in your skirt and button-up shirt. You had forgone a traditional white coat, as there was no such clothing around here. 

When you first landed in hell, you quickly realized that the social hierarchy similarly mirrored that of earths. There were the wealthy and powerful sins, celebrities - flashy, big overlords - and finally, the common people, average sinners. 

In the beginning, your optimism led you to think you could maybe become someone important. Why not try? You had an eternity in hell after all. Yet it didn’t take you long to realize that you didn’t have what it takes to be known. You weren’t a serial killer or a twisted psychopath in life. You didn’t have it in you to climb the social ladder like a cold-hearted politician.

You were a good-natured doctor who saved lives, who thrived on knowing you were the reason your patients could live comfortably. Your only flaw? You could say that curiosity was what killed the cat, or in this case, deer. You giggled, playing with the little bush of a tail you had. It was what guided you to persist through the long years of medical school despite the imposing student debts, unsympathetic parents and all. It was also what drove you to murder. 

One, just one time.

You remember the day with crystal clarity. Your boyfriend, who had tied you up and bound you to his car, which he steered off the edge of a cliff. The hot slickness of crimson liquid coating his hairline where the windshield smashed him, the horrified pried open state of his jaw, his eyes wide and searching for nothing in particular as they stung with the salt of his blood. 

The fall had miraculously loosened your ropes enough for you to wiggle out of them, hauling your scraped wrists out of the scratchy material. He begged you to help. He, who had betrayed you and planned to smuggle you away from the life you built for yourself. There was still time to call the police. His heart was beating steady and strong. You thought his body would be of better use to your research than alive.

Someone who dedicated their whole soul to saving lives, ended up in hell for taking one.

But that cruelty was a one time occurrence, and you still opted to play the good doctor in hell. You snort at the irony as you wipe down the stethoscope in your hand, then promptly set it down on the counter as your phone interrupts your reminiscent thoughts with a sudden ring. 

“Hello?”

Ah, it was Angel, a regular patient. You were fond of the spider demon. He’s saying something about a friend needing help. “Of course, could you get your friend on the phone so that I can schedule an appointment?”

Nervous laughter rings on the other side of the conversation. “Uh, here’s the thing. He doesn’t know that I’m makin’ this appointment.” 

“Oh?” Now you’re surprised.

“Listen this is gonna be a lot to ask for, and I already ask for too much outta you-.”

“Angel, you could never ask too much from me.”

You hear a shaky sigh. Then a pause. “A-Alright then, would it be ok if ya come over to the hotel and check him out there? He’s in some weird sorta pain, but he’s not the type to tell us.”

“Sure, I don’t see why not. When should I come over?” “It’s not emergent, as this has been goin’ on for a while and he’s still up and movin.’ How ‘bout tomorrow mornin’ 8:00 am? It’s gettin’ late and I’ve seen him like once today. I’m thinkin’ we should have the best luck tryna catch him after breakfast, when Charlie has him do a few tasks around the hotel.”

“Sounds good to me. Could I get a patient name?”

“Yea, Alastor.”

“Alriiiight.” You stretch out the word as you quickly jot down his name and time of the appointment. “And demon type?”

Angel snorts as though it was a funny question. You smile from the contagious sound of his entertainment, despite having no idea what was so hilarious. “...Demon type?”

“Sorry toots, I wasn’t laughin’ at ya. He’s a deer.”

“Oooh, a deer demon? Like me…” You jot that down too. “Take care, Angel. Let me know if you want me to give that ugly moth a sedative overdose!” 

Angel laughs, and you end the call on a gleeful note despite knowing that neither of you could really do anything to the overlords. Or… perhaps you could, perhaps they were made of the same perishable flesh as any other, perhaps you were letting their status outshine their mortality. Though that’s a thought for another time.

You perch yourself on top of your working chair, clicking through your VoxTek computer to file the appointment in your weekly schedule. 

Alastor. The syllables taste rich and familiar on your tongue. You swear that you’ve heard it somewhere before.

_____________________________________________________________

Alastor as in the radio demon Alastor? 

It took you a second to recognize him, as you’ve only seen him a handful of times, but once you do, you’re suddenly not so confident about today’s appointment. 

It takes everything in your power to sculpt your expression into a neutral one. You scan your eyes over your surroundings. Darkened green walls encapsulated a small bar that looked reminiscent of a casino slot machine. Angel Dust, your spider friend, and a sour-faced gray cat demon sat chatting at the bar, nervously glancing between one another and the tall man in red. Then there was the princess of hell, Charlie, and a white haired vertically challenged woman crowding the deer demon, waving their hands exaggeratedly as though they were trying to prove a point to him. 

Their heads swing in almost unison at your arrival, and you instantly realize that they must’ve been distracting him from your arrival. Right. He didn’t even know you were coming. You swallow your nerves and make your way to the bar, skin sizzling with the phantom touch of his crimson eyes on your figure. His twisted sharp grin blurred through your peripheral vision as you focused on maintaining eye contact. 

“Hey, I’m a doctor, and I’m here to-.”

“Eek! You’re here!” Before you could even offer your hand for a shake, Charlie all but sprints at you, interrupting you with a tight hug. You blink away the strands of her hair that caught in your eyes from the swirl of the motion. 

“Hello, Princess Charlie.” You wave politely. This was your first time meeting any sort of royalty in hell, although she wasn’t nearly as intimidating as the strawberry-haired demon situated behind her.

“I’m so so excited to have you here and oh! Are you by chance interested in joining our hotel? My hope is for sinners to be redeemed-.”

“Charlie.” The short white-haired girl lays her hand on Charlie’s arm. “Let’s not forget what she’s here to do, babe.” She must be her girlfriend.

White-hair shortie directs her attention to you. “Vaggie, nice to meet you.” She keeps her introduction short and sweet, gently pushing at Charlie once again, reminding her to inform you of the situation.

“Right, right. So, you’re here, the best and only doctor in the entire pride ring to help our friend who’s been struggling a bit.” You keep a cordial smile plastered on your cheeks as she talks. In the back of the room, you see Angel now working at distracting Alastor from leaving. Impatience begins to tug at your heartstrings, pleading the princess to keep it short. You didn’t want to fail so soon.  “...And we’re just really worried! He’s been having pains apparently, in his head. Headaches.”

You turn to look at said demon, who was still sitting atop the same bar stool, perched so stiffly that you could feel the secondhand pain of his muscles that must be aching. There’s a slight swishing of his tail, and he clutches what appeared to be his radio stick tightly with one clawed hand. Was he nervous? Your eyes sweep over the sweat beading under swept bangs, and the clenching of his teeth. Ah. It must be his “condition.” 

“Alright, Princess. I can tell you all really care for your friend. Just leave the rest to me.” You squeeze her shoulder warmly, guessing that she must be fond of physical affection. She grins delightedly at you.

“Great! This is so so so good. Thank the devil! I’ll leave you to that then! Best of luck! Not that you’ll need it or anything.” You keep waving at the princess until she disappears beyond the door, watching as she spun around several times to match your waves. 

You were equal parts burning with the need to get things started, and dreadful of approaching the menacing demon, who had resigned his attempts of fleeing. You walk carefully, tiptoeing as though you were advancing toward a frightened animal. Angel Dust - and the grumpy cat - look at one another, and finally dash away, after making what you assumed to be some sort of excuse to Alastor. 

He doesn’t look at you at all, instead choosing to stare straight ahead with that abnormally wide strained smile of his - if not for the slight twitching of his ears, you would think he’s not even aware of your presence. 

You clear your throat nervously, flexing your forearm to prevent it from trembling before holding it out for a handshake. If the rumors were correct, and you had no doubt they were, you certainly didn’t want to lose the radio demon’s respect; especially not in the first meeting. 

“Hello, you’re Alastor, the radio demon aren’t you? I-It’s nice to finally meet you!” Well, you were never that good at first impressions anyway.

For a moment you think you hear him sigh, a static-filled gravely sound. Nearly imperceptible. Then he’s turning to you, reluctantly reaching his hand to yours at a snail-like pace. You try not to feel too rejected. Or feel too mocked by the seemingly ever-present grin on his face, and the clear scrutiny in his eyes. 

“Likewise, my dear. It’s always a pleasant surprise to meet another deer demon in hell, given their supposed rarity. ”

You had an impression this was far from pleasant for him. Maybe he doesn’t want competition? You snort, brushing that thought away. As though a low-level sinner like you could be a threat. “Ah, right.” You playfully flick the fur of an ear, trying to lower the tension. His darkened eyes follow the motion of your hand. “I barely remember that I am a deer demon sometimes! Everything is the same as when I was human, except for the addition of some ears and a tail.”

His grin turns sharper, with the cutting flavor of something uncomfortable. “I assure you dear, you are very much not human. I can tell.” 

“...Right.” You close your eyes briefly, willing yourself into a more business mindset so as to ignore how awkward the whole situation felt. “So, could I get a description of your symptoms? I know Charlie told me, but I want to hear it straight from the source.”

You smile encouragingly at him, as you often did with difficult patients while alive. And you had a feeling Alastor was every bit of that - a difficult patient.

He straightens up, losing the slight hint of ease he’d started to gain. “Well, it is like I said. I seem to be experiencing pains in my… head.” He winces a little - likely due to said head pains, you note.

“And how long have you been experiencing these pains?” You lean against the edge of the stool next to him, not quite sitting on it but not standing either. 

Your ears twitch at the subtle creak in his stool. He’s shifting around again. “...Around three months.”

Your eyes widen, pushing yourself off the stool. “Three months! Why didn’t you say anything…?” You quickly shut yourself up before you could cross any boundaries, silently scolding yourself for the overt reaction.

“The pain wasn’t that bad.”

He’s lying. You narrow your eyes to warn him, you can tell.

He tries again. “...I assumed the pain would go away on its own.” 

“And not get worse?” 

He gives an affirmative nod. You ask him several questions after that, trying to get a quick history of his health complications during his time in hell. With each question he answers, you find yourself only getting farther from any sort of possible conclusion. 

As soon as you started working as a solo doctor in hell, you learned really quickly that demons rarely suffered from the same ailments as people did above on earth, and if they did their symptoms were different. Your mind rushes through illnesses other demons had visited you for - a snake demon who couldn’t get his skin to shed properly, a cyclops demon who grew an extra eye that blocked the vision of her original eye, a volcanic demon whose lava had leaked to his internal organs and started burning him from the inside…

What about deer demons? Little was known about them, to the point where you were even unsure of your own biology.

You bring a finger to your lips, chewing on your nail while thinking of your next steps. The curiosity within you begged to think of a conclusion, or even just a premise. Nothing. You finally pull your finger away from your lips, remembering where you are. Right. There’s no need to overthink things. You haven’t even done a physical examination yet. Speaking of which…

You gesture for him to stand up, regretting the motion immediately as his gaze turns displeased; likely at your attempt to order him. “Alastor, would you lead the way to a more private space?” His ears straightened, and he looked at you defensively. Why did your words never come out right? You blush and wave your hands back and forth in denial. “N-no, not - I meant for your physical examination.” 

Thankfully, he ignores your blunder. Nothing about his steady grin and lidded scarlet eyes revealed what he thought. “Right this way then.” 

You timidly follow after him.

Have you gotten so rusty during your time in hell that you couldn’t even talk to a patient without turning into a blubbering mess? You’ve only been here for a decade… or two… three decades. In that time, you’ve met with all sorts of patients, from lowly sinners to more powerful overlords. He’s tall, you observe. Very tall - almost 7 feet? Over? It shouldn’t intimidate you, he was far from the tallest demon you’ve encountered. 

But they didn’t tower over you. They didn’t have his same opposing presence, which unfairly dominated the entire room with its sheer power, and they certainly didn’t have… they didn’t have his… 

…scent.

Your knees go soft at the same moment he comes to a sudden halt, causing you to bump your body into his. Your forehead bumps into the hard bone of his scapula, startled hands reaching out to steady yourself by gripping onto his suit. He twists his head acutely to look at you, and you flinch, preparing yourself for his notorious anger, but you are only met with discomfort in his eyes. You hurriedly distance yourself from the demon. 

His jaw clenches and unclenches, and he’s looking at you as though he’s holding back from killing you right then and there. A strange, almost pleasant shiver runs through your body. You blink. What a strange response to potential danger.

Before you had time to apologize - for what, you don’t know you just feel like you’ve wronged him somehow - he masks his irritation with the same cheeriness in his smile. “And we’re here! Will my bedroom be a good enough space for your physical examination, dear?”

You swallow back the ever-growing weird feeling inside you. “Yeah, of course.” 

He hums an old-fashioned tune as he walks into his room, sharp clacks of his shoes dulling down on the red carpet that covered his bedroom floor. Your curious eyes catch two red armchairs, several deer skulls hanging ominously on the walls, a large maroon bed that was so neatly made it looked to be a mere display, and the soft glow of a swamp surrounded by forest trees in the distance. 

You unpack the equipment you carried with you - stethoscope, thermometer, gloves, examination light, cotton balls. You left your less earthly conventional items back in your office, as you had absolutely no idea whether they would be of use. Each new patient meant you had to study and adapt to their unique anatomical features and curses, on top of your prior anatomical knowledge. 

Alastor stays silent the entire time you rummage through your materials, except for the occasional thump of his tail on the bed sheets and the consistent hum of jazz and radio static, which was periodically interrupted by sharp pops. You smile internally at the flattening of his ears; he must be really annoyed by that hyperactive tail of his huh? Personally, you were quite fond of your own. But you could see why a man like Alastor would be bothered by this. 

You pull on your gloves, starting to settle into a comfortable pace. All is going well, you reassure yourself. All except for the weird musky smell from him that kept tugging unexpectedly at your insides. Better not breathe all that in. He could be contagious.

You pull out a thermometer. “Alright, I’m going to take your temperature ok…?"

He simply nods. So quiet today, especially for a man who never seemed to shut up on his infamous radio broadcast. 

Just when you think he couldn’t get any rigid, you see him stop dead at your hand cupping his chin. “Open your mouth for me…” His claws tear into the bed sheets beneath, and you pat his shoulder, trying to get him to relax. His tail furiously thumps against the sheets. Oh. He doesn’t want you to touch him. 

You remove your hand from his chin and manage to take his temperature, dipping the oral thermometer beneath his tongue. You could practically feel the heat emanating off his skin onto your hand. It would be surprising if he didn’t have a fever. “Since demons all have varying levels of body heat, I can only measure fevers by comparing them to your baseline temperature. I’d say you definitely have one based on your appearance alone…” You pull out your notepad. “...But I still need to record the results for future reference.” 

You might as well be talking to yourself. You didn’t mind it though, given that you were trying to ignore his overbearing presence. “Now, I’m going to examine your eyes and ears.” You take out your light and gently gesture for him to look upward. At least he was complying now. Eyes seem normal, just as evil and red as a demon’s eyes should be. You move to his ears, which you didn’t even dare to touch based on the sudden cautioning glare he was shooting at you. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t touch anything.” You smile non threateningly before shining the light at his ears, humming as you peeped inside. They quiver, the fur slightly brushing against the head of your examination light. 

“Hmm, nothing there either…” You rummage through your bag, pulling out your stethoscope. He narrows his already lidded eyes in distaste. “I’m going to have to make some contact with it… but I’ll be fast I promise. Just tell me if you want me to pull away.”

He grits his smiling teeth, finally speaking up for the first time during the whole appointment. “You will not be coming near me with that… thing.” You’re taken aback as he suddenly stands up, brushing off his coat. A single droplet of sweat runs down his clenched jawline. “I did not require such a ridiculous examination in the first place.” He’s trying desperately to keep up his usual buoyant facade. But his frustration, at something, kept breaking through the surface. “I’ll be perfectly swell in due time! Tell the princess that these pains are nothing and it will resolve itself.” 

You panic, reaching out to grasp at his lapels before you could even think about it. You’ve never had a patient leave untreated. “Wait! Alastor, I can’t just let you go like that. As a doctor, at least let me try to help!” The second you make contact with him, you watch in horror as his face twists into something truly terrifying. Crack! There’s a breaking sound, then his form twists, joints lengthening asymmetrically with frightening speed until he dwarfed you by at least an additional 3 feet. He leans down to stare you in the eye. You’re unable to look away from the morbidly glitching radio dials. “You can’t help me. Nothing you do will ever be of use to my situation. It would help me more, in fact, if you left this very instant.”

…What did he say? 

Nothing you do will ever be of use to my situation.

Nothing you do will ever be good enough.

Just like they told you when you started medical school all those decades ago. 

You don’t even notice that you’re crying until you’ve been standing there wordless for so long that his demonic form has slowly, inch by inch shrunken to his original self. You don’t even notice that your vision is blurry. All you felt was defeat. Humiliation, rather. Who were you to think that you could help an overlord in any way? You weren’t even qualified to be a doctor down here in hell. No one is. You just thought you’d try. That’s all.

The ball at the pit of your throat tightens until you can barely breathe from concentrating on stopping the traitorous tears salting your cheeks. Distantly, through the muffled ringing in your ears and erratic static engulfing the room, you hear a low exhale. 

Could you get any more pathetic? You hold your breath when you feel a single clawed finger wiping at the stabbing fluids running down your face, each one hot and heavy with shame. You blink to clear your teary vision, and you see him looking down on you with an unreadable expression.

Apologetic? No, why would a man like him say sorry? Besides, he had nothing to be sorry for. He was correct in his reaction, you really couldn’t do anything to help. You just had to go and cry about it afterwards. Fuck. You sniffle pathetically, 

He speaks softly, the dense static lessening in volume. “There’s no need to shed tears over something that is not your fault.”

It doesn’t help. You didn’t cry often, but once the tears started it was difficult to stop. He lets his hand drop to his side and moves back to his previous position on the edge of his bed. 

“This isn’t something you can help me with, my dear. It’s an unpleasant condition I’ve had to suffer every year since I landed in hell, and nothing but waiting it out would help. This year just happens to be… more difficult than the others.” 

“Y-You’ve… had to go through this every year?” You picture the pain he must go through, and the empathy within you instantly felt for his hardships. What type of horrible things did he do on earth to deserve this? You snort with your trembling voice at your ridiculous question. You’re in hell, dumbass. What do you think?

“Every year.”

“Well, m-maybe I can help and we just don’t know it yet. Let me try, at least?” Hope dares to grace your mind, and the tears, although still running down your face, slow to a trickle.

He hesitates. He’s going to say no, isn’t he? That’s alright, you’ll do everything in your power to research deer demon biology on your own time. “You may try.” 

You blink in surprise, and your lips slowly twitch upward into a forming smile, despite the liquid sorrow still lining your eyes. In contrast to his uneasy expression, his tail thumps lightly at your grin. You find it… cute how closely the movements of his tail matched his feelings.

You pull out your stethoscope once again, attaching the tips of the headset to your ears. You glance at him for permission one more time, and he tilts his head with a disconcertingly wide grin as though to feign nonchalance. His flattened ears and tight fists however, told another story. Nonetheless, he compliantly unbuttons the top of his shirt and looks to the side, lying on his back. You smile apologetically and gently press the stethoscope to the skin of his chest.

Heartbeat… was sound. Slightly quick, likely due to current discomfort. You move the stethoscope around his chest, and you hear what sounded suspiciously like a breathy gasp. Focusing on your work, you dismiss it as a background noise. Lungs seem normal. 

Your own heartbeat is starting to quicken, for a reason other than the sniffles that had dulled to an occasional disturbance during your examination. His scent. Your eyes nearly tear up again from the effort not to breathe him in from your proximity. You feel the gummy walls lining your mouth salivate, the sticky fluid pooling in the crevices of your teeth. Was this possibly a symptom? Perhaps he was contagious after all, and the illness was an airborne one. You think back to a time when you had to treat a cloud-like demon who was overly condensed with liquids; and the very next day, you found that you’ve contracted a similar ailment yourself, your entire face bloated with an excess of fluid.

Perhaps that was Alastor’s case as well?

You should’ve brought a face mask. You move the stethoscope lower to his abdomen. Digestive track… you press the diaphragm tighter against his lower abs to get a better read. 

This time, the low noise that escaped his throat was almost impossible to miss. The strange feeling inside you squirms at the sound, but you clear your head of any dirty images, knowing that the radio demon was famed for not being interested in anything of that matter. Right. He’s most likely just in pain. Stay professional. You shift the stethoscope around, searching for a sound. Don’t make this moment any longer than it already is, you pray to no entity in particular.   

You move further down, still not hearing a sound from his digestive tract. Was that the issue here? He’s been having a rough time because there’s issues with his digestion? Well, that would certainly explain his reluctance to admit his illness. 

You’re so focused on listening that you don’t notice the gasps through gritted teeth rising in volume, relentless shifting of the demon beneath you, or the way your head, leaning ever so close to his skin in an unconscious effort to move closer to the stethoscope, was fastly approaching a forbidden area. Not even the heated gentle graze of suit fabric brushing against your chin interrupted your concentration. Neither did a strangled static-filled noise piercing the air. 

It was only when you felt the sudden assault of rough cloth, covering something pulsing warm and hard, colliding into your cheek did you finally blink in surprise, dropping the bottom half of your stethoscope in your haste. 

You stand up in a flurry, fluttering your lashes in disbelief as Alastor, the infamous feared radio demon overlord you only just met today, laid on his bed beneath you bucking his hips shallowly into the air where your face was a moment prior. His teeth are clenched so hard crimson black liquid drizzles over his gums and soaks the lapels of his suit. His eyes twitch along with his flattened ears, flickering and crazed, while his claws have shredded what was left of his bed sheets at this point.

“A-Alastor…?” 

His voice turns into something inhuman, growls layered with the eerie buzz of static. Before you could fully process the situation, he encircles a hand around your wrist, gripping you with bruising force to land on top of him. His arms encircle you, sinking his claws into your hips. Fuck, that hurt. But… you let yourself breath in his scent at last, having let your guard down with the suddenness of his movement. The effect was immediate. It felt as though you’ve given yourself a tranquilizer, with the way your muscles seemed to suddenly fail you and you melt submissively like butter into his hold. 

He tosses you onto all fours, and your elbows knock into one another as you strain to hold yourself upright. The dizzying, all-consuming fog of heat building within you and permeating each of your senses with its presence was all too foreign for you. Your mind scrambles, losing all progress of diagnostic thoughts. You wanted to pull away, to get him to calm down so you… could… talk…

That was the last of your conscious thoughts as you feel yourself slip into some sort of hypnotic bliss. He pulls your skirt to the side swiftly, pressing his hips to yours, the movement coarse and sloppy. The noise he lets out at the contact is depraved. 

“Darling… I’m just going to stay here for a bit… ngh - just for a bit.”

For a moment, he simply stays still, staticky gasps breathing hot on the back of your ears. He played with your tail, which was shaking back and forth with a mind of its own. You arch your back needily, pressing into him and prompting him to growl and finally hump into your heat. 

Was he saying something? You couldn’t tell with the way your brain had gone soft. An internal, animalistic voice told you to not think. Just part your legs and let the buck behind you have his way, it says. You whimper, the soft sounds slightly muffled by Alastor’s pillow - his pillow, which smells deeply, intoxicatingly, irrevocably like him. You’ve only met him today, but he was safe. The voice tells you that he’s yours, he’s going to protect you, he’s going to mate you.

He snarls into your ear at your needy whimpers, roughly jerking his hips into yours repeatedly. You whine, feeling the heat inside your abdomen crescendo into a sudden pain. You need him. You need more of him.

“A..Al…astor…hah… p-lease I need mo-re…” Your words fall apart with each thrust of his clothed cock over your soaked pussy, eyes starting to water with the frustration of not having his cock fill your aching hole.

In your heat-ridden mind, there was nothing you could think of but the insatiable need to be fucked dumb until you were filled by something. You cried in disappointment at not knowing what to ask. You try, you really do, but you can’t remember what the two of you were doing before this for the life of you. You gather enough strength in your ragdoll limbs to twist your neck at him, hand clumsily reaching for his pants. 

Then he stops.

He fucking stops.

Like a spell being broken, Alastor’s movements stutter to a halt the second your finger touches his zipper. He tears himself away from you, breaths shaky as he steps backward. It takes your dumbed-down consciousness a few moments to register what was happening. Your eyelids, which have begun to stick together from the adhesive of your dried tears, pry open ungracefully.

No. No, no, no, no, no! The fire in your abdomen twisted and turned, threatening to consume you whole with its intensity. He can’t leave now. No! You whine in protest, but he’s avoiding all eye contact with you. The bare skin on your hips were damp, and you realize it must be from the sweat you now see dripping off his skin in torrents. His mouth is twisted irregularly wide, even for him, as though he were pouring his all into maintaining his composure.

“My dear, I’m afraid I lost control of myself there. I do apologize, but right now you need to leave.”

You whimper, still stupidly reaching for him. Why would you leave? He’s right there. You need him, and you can smell, with a frightening accuracy you’ve never previously noticed in yourself, the desperation rolling off him. You climb toward him needily, pawing for his well-endowed girth, still twitching and hard under the offensive cloth, begging to be freed. 

“LEAVE.”

He didn’t take so kindly to your advances this time. With a single blink of an eye, you were torn away from your potential release and thrusted into the hallway, where you landed on your bottom, legs folded under one another and ears pressed against your head, staring at Alastor’s shut door with dazed eyes and unfulfilled burning in your womb.

Shit. As your mind clears and you tune into your surroundings - the red, flickering lights of the hallway and coarse texture of the rug beneath you - you think of the diagnosis that’s been right under your nose (literally) this whole time. You’ve dealt with animal patients before.

Yearly pains, usually lasting several months. Signs of fever. Changing behavior. Your heated reaction to his condition, the supposed contagiousness of it all. You’ve been blind as a deer in headlights. 

Alastor was in a rut.

_____________________________________________________________

Alastor thought that he'd gotten used to his ruts. That he would be able to handle his issues himself for the rest of eternity. 

It’s been nearly a century since he’s landed in hell, nearly a century since the torture began.

The first time the feeling hit him, it had been a complete shock. The feeling was foreign and intrusive; and while he had gotten used to his new height, physical animal features and sudden craving for cannibalism rather quickly, this cursed feeling was an entirely different field of issues altogether. 

He’s never been interested in sexual intercourse with another. Of course he knew what desire meant, but his own sense of desire had been so low throughout his life he barely needed to even touch himself. The small, infrequent bouts of want he experienced as a human was nothing like the searing hot whip of desperation that would haunt him in hell. He found it amusing, in an unpleasant sickening way; the way he thought himself to be entirely fearless, unaffected by what usually frightened others, yet the higher ups still ended up finding the one thing that bothered him and used it to punish his dead soul. 

He maintains the same grin and duties he had to attend to normally, albeit with a stiffer posture and less patient remarks. He didn’t touch himself. He had found out the hard way, during his first year, that touching himself would only increase the desire to an unbearable point and draw out the rut that much longer.

So he’d suffer through day by day, ignoring the itching in his antlers and the yearning confined in his slacks. 

Unfortunately, he’s come to the realization that each year without a mate, the duration of his rut would last longer than the previous. This year had been the longest yet, and given how fast time seemed to pass when he was not in a rut, it felt as though barely any weeks had passed since his last rut. If he were being honest, perhaps five months would be a better guess than three. Still, he followed the same rule he always did: do not give into the urges by having another, or make it worse by touching himself. It was his way of maintaining some semblance of control down in the depths of hell, where he found himself chained to not only a master but these unfavorable urges of his.

Though it was easier said than done. Many times he’s found himself unable to keep his composure, excusing himself from breakfast with the others, locking himself in his radio tower for days working on scripts, killing any scum who walked his way, doing anything to distract himself from the treacherous burning in his crotch. Anything to stop the inevitable bucking of his hips into nothing as his lower half takes on a mind of its own, wretchedly trying to catch a surface, any surface, to grind on.

Just when he finally got himself under enough control to sit at the bar for a drink, his hotel friends join him. Usually this was not a disturbance, yet the way they all seemed interested only in talking to him did strike his suspicion. People never initiated conversations with him, unless it was to foolishly challenge him to a fight. Not even his supposed friends, who had grown cordial enough with him over time but still maintained a comfortable distance.

Yet here they were, taking turns talking to him as though they’ve been doing the same congenial routine since he got here. Suspicious indeed!

He smelled her before he saw her. A sweet, tantalizing scent which wriggled into his throat and squeezed, causing him to stiffen his muscles and lid his eyes. She’s a doe. He realizes this all too late as he finds her standing in the doorway, bathing in the mouth-watering scent. The sudden flash of pain in his pupils alerts his companions, but not before they too, notice the girl.

He wanted to leave then, and really he could do so if he wished. Vaggie and Angel Dust couldn’t defeat him, and Husk was under his control anyway. But the traitorous need to get more of that delectable scent wafting off her body in waves was too strong for him to ignore. He’d only stay a few minutes more, he promises himself that. 

A few minutes turn into 10, and suddenly he’s all alone with her. 

A doctor. How ironic! She claims to hold the cure to his miseries, all the while not knowing that she had become part of the cause. Her presence was nearly unbearable to him who’d been in a rut for so long without a mate, and Alastor had to physically force himself to sit still by digging a claw into the meat of his thigh. She doesn’t notice his dilemma, nor does she notice the subtle crossing of his legs to hide the bulge of his painfully erect member, that had started leaking profusely into his slacks.

He plays the part of a gentleman the best he could, warning her with his eyes to maintain her distance. The poor girl was nervous and self-conscious, he could feel that. Normally he’d never care, but the damned hormones that influenced his thinking during his rut told him to soothe her, to assure her that everything would be ok, as tears quiver down her face. It was disgusting, the feeling of wanting to protect another. Disgusting, but also oh so right.

He held back when she accidentally touched him in the hallway. He held back, when she leaned in uncomfortably close, checking his temperature. He held back when she turned around, revealing her twitching tail and skirt that would be so easy for him to tear away and have his way with her. 

Yet he knew the unavoidable situation that would occur as soon as she had him lay down on his back, stethoscope in hand. He couldn’t help it. Each touch of her cool, gloved fingers pressing against his too-heated skin felt like the bitter promise of heaven for a soul deep in the trenches of hell. 

When her face is that close to the throbbing, aching part of his lower half, there was nothing he could do as a sharp sting of pleasure shot through his brain. He bucks his hips upward, body spasming and entirely fatigued from the many decades of having denied himself his biology. 

Why was he doing this again? At this point, who was he fighting against? Was he proving a point to the higher ups, letting them witness his impressive self control? Or was he torturing himself, making himself a fool by adding to the pain they already gave him? 

In the midst of his dilemma, he hadn’t noticed the way he grabbed her body and threw her onto the bed, nearly humping his hips into hers. He had been pent up for so long that he couldn’t even feel the pleasure initially, because his body was so used to him denying it. But when she turns her head to him, reaching out to touch him, looking at him with hazy, needy eyes…

Yes, that snaps him out of his thoughts. He must be out of his mind. After surviving a whole century of this torture, now he was letting go of himself all because he was put in front of another deer demon? 

He forgoes being courteous and removes her from his room as fast as he could, not giving the animal part of his brain a single second to change its mind. 

As soon as she was out, and he made sure his door was locked, he let out a pained growl, nearly crawling away from the door. His antlers lengthened, form twisted, the more animalistic part of him cries out in anger. Anger at himself, for throwing out his only chance at relief. His cock feels nearly numb with pain, growing in need from the narrow encounter a few moments prior. Resigning to his fate, he shakily unbuckles his pants, refusing to rip them off like he truly wanted to, for the sake of the little dignity left inside him. Rationally, he knew he was about to make things worse, but his instincts fed lies to him, telling him that this would make it all better.

Before he could even begin touching his leaking cock, he heard her. More specifically, he could hear her broken whimpers through the wooden material of his door, echoing needily through his head. Her scent had grown even stronger if possible. It was mind-numbingly sweet, despite the intensity being anything but so. He must’ve sent her into a heat, he realizes. 

This was going to… complicate things. Although Alastor could take care of himself, and was prepared to do so for the rest of his time in hell, he couldn’t let her - his doe - suffer from something he caused. Especially not with his current state of mind, where every molecule of his being told him to protect her. His mate. 

Then he hears the unmistakable slick sound of small fingers thrusting into something wet, and his ears stand pin straight as they turn to the door. 

He decides that the devil has tested him enough.

_____________________________________________________________

You’re leaning on the shut door of Alastor’s bedroom, sweat pooling in the thin threads of your clothing. Through the door, your head was clear enough to think; but that didn’t stop the incessant heat pooling between your thighs, attempting to suction all your attention toward one thing and one thing only.

Was this the type of pain Alastor has been in this whole time? You whimper, rubbing yourself depravedly against the rough carpet beneath you. 

There was nowhere to go. You were in no state to ask Charlie and the others for a room of your own, and you wouldn’t be able to tear yourself away from the scent of him if you tried. You mewl as you ground yourself in just the right spot - but the usual satisfaction didn’t come. Frustrated, you try grinding yourself harder into the carpet, ears alert for any noises you might catch from beyond his door. You hear the unzipping of his pants, and you cry, feeling almost betrayed at the sound of him. Shakily, you tuck your fingers beneath your skirt and plunge your fingers into your entrance, letting your fingers fill the gushing cavity.

You moan at the glimmer of relief, then immediately sigh in frustration as your fingers did absolutely nothing to quell the ache. 

The door rips open. 

“Alastor?” You blink wearily up at the disheveled demon, all seven feet of him glaring down at you. It doesn’t even register you to feel embarrassed at this point, with your hand still stuffed under your skirt in an obvious act of self-pleasuring. 

In a blink, the ground beneath you disappeared. Black smoke claws at your lungs and you squeal, finding yourself reappearing into existence on a plush crimson mattress. He materializes in front of you, breathing inconsistent and ragged, the radio static heavy in his voice. 

“Darling…” He encircles your wet thighs with his damp gloves, leaning over your so closely you could feel his sweat drip onto you. He leans his forehead on yours, the flush on both your faces matching in color. “I need-.”

You pull him down by his hair before he could speak, tiring of the whole waiting game. You didn’t want to hear a whole speech, all you wanted was to have him rail you so deeply into the bed you’d forget who was who. His lips crash onto yours, and you kiss him furiously, the heated passion arising from natural biological need stronger than anything you’ve ever felt with a human man.

He groans into your mouth, spreading your legs with his knees, and slots his cock desperately into your soaked pussy. This time, you don’t give him enough time to pull away before you hurriedly work at the zipper. The moment your hands wrap around his member, hotter than the rest of him even, he lets out the most depraved noise you’ve ever heard another make. To think that you would’ve heard such a thing from the radio demon seemed nearly incomprehensible just a few hours ago. 

He takes control again then, flipping you haphazardly into the four-legged position you had assumed earlier. There was no need to prepare anything - the both of you were leaking so much that you were sure he could slip in without any pain, despite his impressive size - but still he hesitates, pausing with his tip at your entrance. It twitches against your slick.

He must be thinking again, you realize. Thinking dangerous thoughts, that would take away your relief. You weren’t going to let him stop this time, especially knowing now how badly he needed it.

“Alastor if you don’t put it in right now-.” 

He growls, each rivet of the sound layered with radio static. Without another word, he thrusts his whole length in. Or at least you thought it was the whole thing. But when he doesn’t move, and you peek curiously at the junction between you two, you realize with fascinated horror that he was only halfway in. 

You keep your neck in that twisted position, wanting to watch his face while he waits for your walls to loosen enough to take the rest of him. Instead of looking away, like he’d done so while trying to hide his condition, he stares straight into your eyes with his piercing blackened gaze. Between his dark eyes, the slightly lowered grin, lengthened antlers and bloody drool slipping down his chin, he almost felt more animal than person. Especially given the complete silence, aside from his staticky heavy panting. Like he was incapable of speaking at the moment.

The enchanting stare-off between the two of you was interrupted by a sudden sharp thrust from him, causing your head to tilt back as you ground out another whimper. There’s a loud smack as his balls hit the base of your pussy. Something wet drips on your bare shoulder blades, where his claws had torn off the top of your shirt. It’s from his mouth, you realize. His hot breath condenses on the back of your neck, and without warning, you feel the entire top row of his teeth sinking into your skin followed closely by a guttural moan. You half scream, half moan at that, and you feel the lips on your neck curl into a grin.

He starts moving his hips; back and forth, back and forth. Little white specks dot your vision, which was blackened as your eyelids reflexively shut from the overwhelming pleasure. Your brain shuts off, the only things you could feel being the throbbing yet fulfilling sensation of his teeth digging into your neck, the warm rivulets of your own blood running down your sides, his claws shredding into your hips, and of course the maddening gratification of his cock repeatedly drilling into your hole.

This heat thing- no, he was turning you into a hedonist. You feel his teeth momentarily pull out of your skin to lick at the blood trickling from your wound, your heartbeat helping gush the red fluid out in erratic waves. There’s a gulp; he’s swallowing, drinking the blood out of your body as he never stops thrusting. 

He pulls his teeth out and suddenly flips you around, cock still thrusted deep into your womb. You get a good look of his face, his eyes half-lidded, pupils an endless reddish black void, smile dripping with a mix of his natural darkened bloody spit and the fresh, vibrant red of your blood. He leans in, pressing the salty iron on his lips to yours. You, in all your heat-dazed mind and curiosity, let him thrust his tongue into the cavern of your mouth, invading your tastebuds with something musky and bitter, mixed well with  a pulsing sweet irony taste. 

You’re tasting him on your tongue. Him and you, together. You must really be fucked dumb because that’s the thought that brings you over the edge, body stilling as a cry rips from your throat, choking on the blood that had started to clot in your throat. Your walls spasm wildly around his length, causing him to thrust faster.

He fucks into your limp body on the bed, a look of deep concentration on his face as he works to overcome a century of not having orgasmed. He cums without any warning, face frozen into the same smile he always wore. He doesn’t want you to see him come undone. 

Your breaths begin to steady as he clings onto your hips, spurting endless amounts of sperm into your body. It never seemed to end. Each time you thought he was done, his hips would convulse and you’d feel another bout of liquid fill your womb. You reach a shaky hand to pet the bulge that filled your lower abdomen, your innards being stretched uncomfortably full from the girth of his knot and endless cum. He glances at you then, almost sheepishly. Almost apologetically, like he’s doing something wrong. You caress his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

You speak up. “That was… not what I expected when I arranged this appointment.” 

He stares at you in what looks like amusement.

It’s only now, in the aftermath of your session, that you notice how much of your blood was coating your skin, forming a thin, sticky layer. Yet he showed no signs of stopping, the same deranged grin gracing his face as the one that was there when you first started speaking. 

“I apologize dear, but it seems that we are far from done.”

He digs his teeth into your abdomen now, savoring the taste of iron on his tongue. You hiss in pain, twisting your body on the sheets as though to avoid his assault. But he maintains a firm grip on your sides, and you give in, letting the pleasure of being under his control overtake the pain. He sinks his teeth deeper, and there’s a weird tingling sensation where he bites. You wiggle a bit, realizing that the tingle was coming from the strange sensation of his teeth hitting muscle. 

“N-not done…?” Your own heat felt like it was fading, returning you to your normal state of mind.

“I’m not sure how long this will last, given the amount of time I’ve been putting off the whole ordeal.” He pulls your thighs around him and situates you in his lap. You blush, feeling shy all of a sudden at his unexpected display of affection. “Once it deflates enough to pull you off…” He nibbles at your earlobe, threatening to bite into the soft flesh. “We’ll be here for quite a while darling.”

You hum contemplatively, resting your head on his sweating chest. A long time… you weren’t looking forward to explaining all the missed appointments to your patients.

And you certainly weren’t looking forward to facing Charlie and the others. 

_____________________________________________________________

Two weeks later, Alastor finally let you leave his room for the first time. 

You limp to the door, wondering how you were going to explain the fact that you spent two weeks straight fucking the cum out of your supposed patient. Well, he was still a patient. And you had treated him. Just with a more hands-on method than you originally thought. 

You had cleaned up to the best of your ability in Alastor’s bathroom, where he took you one last time over the sink. Luckily, your shirt covered any wounds he left on your upper body. Unfortunately, given how short your skirt was, there was no way you could hide the deep bite marks from your thighs to your ankles. 

“So… you found out that his ‘illness’ was contagious because you contracted it, then locked yourself in his room essentially to quarantine from the rest of us?” Angel asks speculatively. It was clear he doubted the words coming from your mouth.

“That’s the most kind, pure-hearted thing I’ve ever seen a sinner do!” Charlie on the other hand, instantly bought into your lie. She holds your hands excitedly, a million thoughts racing through her head at what she could do with this information.

“Then what about those marks on your legs? Looks like you got mauled by an animal.” Husk is quick to point out the evidence, but you laugh, covering it up with another excuse you thought up.

“Oh that’s from when I went exploring alone in the swamp. Alastor didn’t tell me there were dangerous animals in there. Now I’ve learned my lesson!”

“Riiiight then why didn’t either of ya respond when we came checkin’ up on you all those times? We were worried, ya know?”

Alastor enters the bar, a grin brightly plastered on his face and clothing as polished as ever. “We were busy!” 

He’s already decided that you wouldn’t be leaving his side after you saw him in such a vulnerable state. That, and the strange alteration the rut left on his hormones has led him to form an… unexpected connection to you. After a few back and forths, you excuse yourself, standing up from the bar stool and heading back upstairs with the excuse of forgetting something in Alastor’s room.

On the way up, you feel the burning of several suspicious stares, as well as a strangely possessive and loving one. Your phone dings.

It’s a message. From Angel.

Just admit ya’ll fucked up there

.

.

.

A/N:  I’m not a big fan of writing “he growled” buuuuut my other options according to Google are “he snarled, barked, yapped, bayed(?)” and I wasn’t about to fucking write about how he bayed at the sight of your pussy. Maybe I should’ve just gone all in on making him a little bitch and only wrote “he whimpered pathetically” but alas the fic is over

[selineram3421]

*does some more research* Alright.

Courting Pursuit

Prologue

Alastor X Deer Reader

Warnings ⚠

⚠ mention of cannibalism (we all know who), I'm assuming Alastor is a marsh deer, reader is a mule deer, spanish translated, gender neutral (gn) reader, cartel mention, flustered Alastor, italics=thoughts ⚠

Alastor was the only deer in Hell that anybody knew of.

If there was another buck, they wouldn't see them again. Most can make the correct assumption on why that is. The cannibalistic Overlord also dabbled in other kinds of meat as well but was best known for eating deer.

It wasn't until a new guest entered the hotel that he saw another like him.

Deer ears, tail, and hooves. The new guest was a little more of a bigger build, and from the shape of their tail and ears they were a mule deer.

They were slightly taller than him.

Angel dubbed them the gentle giant, and for the most part everyone agreed.

"Why are you calling them that?", Husk asked.

"Do you see how big they are? And their poor shirt. Their chest practically bursting out of it, those buttons are fighting for their life.", the spider demon replied.

It annoyed him more than he'd like to admit.

Another deer in his vicinity was dangerous. He wanted to rip them to shreds but of course he couldn't do that with them being a guest and all. He would never be forgiven if he did that.

What was odd was their control over their instincts.

Mule deer were known to be quite aggressive.

He found out where you had died from over hearing your conversation with the Princess and her partner.

"Me persiguió el cártel en una zona de caza de ciervos. No sé por qué me perseguían, pero conseguí matar a unos cuantos antes de encontrar mi final.", you had said. (I was chased by the cartel in a deer hunting area. I don't know why they were chasing me, but I managed to kill a few before meeting my end.)

"Vaggie? I don't know what they are saying..", Charlie looked over to the white haired woman.

"They were killed by the cartel but they don't know why.", Vaggie translated. "I wouldn't be surprised if they had a family member involved with someone important in Mexico."

In all honesty, he's never tried to start a conversation with you.

There were times that you had tried but ended up pulled away or had wrong timing.

It wasn't until you were sent to run an errand with him outside of the hotel. Everyone being too busy with other things or just not wanting to be around him.

"Don't do anything to them!", Vaggie said with a stern frown.

"I won't.", he rolled his eyes. "Though, I hope you don't mind that I'll take a quick stop by Rosie's."

"They are not to be eaten, do you understand?", she rephrased.

"Of course.", he waved off her concerns.

"Vamos?", you walked over, looking down to meet his eyes. (Let's go?)

"Follow me and don't lag behind! I won't look for you if you get lost.", he said and started to make his way towards the city.

Vaggie had sighed and spoke to you in spanish, it didn't take long for you to catch up.

You hadn't spoken a word for the entire trip. Only taking glances at him at times before looking forward.

It wasn't until you both arrived at Rosie's that you had made a sound.

"Qué lugar más bonito." (What a beautiful place.)

"Alastor!", Rosie greeted and pulled him into a hug. "Glad you paid a visit, I have just the gossip for you."

Then she notice the deer behind him.

"Oh? And who is this deer?", Rosie looked them up and down. "I'm surprised you haven't eaten this meal."

"I can't allow a guest at the hotel to be eaten.", he replied.

"Well? Introduce us.", she gestured for him to get on with it.

He called your name and you turned, noticing the new person.

"Ah. Perdóneme por no fijarme en usted, señora.", you bowed your head a bit. (Ah. Forgive me for not noticing you ma'am.)

"Oh, spanish speaking?"

"This is our newest hotel guest.", he said your name again before gesturing to Rosie, who began to bow. "This is Rosie."

Alastor didn't really care if you understood him, but he didn't know you were learning bits of English with Vaggie and Charlie.

"Hello beautiful, scary woman.", you said with a slightly thick accent.

"Ahahaha!", the cannibalistic woman laughs. "Oh I like this one, don't you take a bite Alastor!"

His friend teased him about how he should flatter her more often and pinched the mule deer's cheek while offering limbs for them to eat.

It took a while before Rosie finally decided to let them leave.

When arriving at the hotel, Alastor was annoyed to find pesky demons trying to trash the entrance.

"Do they not understand that I protect the hotel?", he chuckled darkly before transforming into his larger form.

He tore through the intruders with a laugh, letting them run a few feet away before dragging them back to rip their limbs. Blood and guts splattered on the ground, some hitting the walls and windows of the hotel.

When finishing up, he noticed you were still in the same spot, slightly covered in blood that managed to reach you.

"Apologies for the mess.", he walked over and offered his handkerchief. "To clean yourself up."

You nodded and did your best to get the blood off but missed a few speckles on your face.

With a roll of his eyes, Alastor took the cloth and gestured for you to lean closer. "Come now, you're not getting everything."

You smiled and leaned down a bit to kiss his forehead.

He froze, a screeching pop of static coming from his surprise.

"Qué ciervo más guapo.", you spoke softly as you caressed the side of his face before heading back inside the hotel. (What a handsome deer.)

The Radio Demon stood there for a while before he could collect his thoughts.

What...just happened?

I thought Alastor with a big?/tall? significant other was cute.

~Seline, the person.

Part 1

Taglist@

@c4rved-pumpk1n @scary-noodlesblog @stolas-thebirb @naelys-the-aster @biromanticboba @lbcreations-blog @ducky-died-inside @kiraisastay @pooplyface1423 @line-viper @117s-girl @spiderlegsling @alastorsgoldie @repentant-repeller @kcsketches @lofasofabread @kotaleee @im-coolrat @superzombiewho @speckle-meow-meow @jammcookie @dilucragnvindr-my-beloved @trashbin-nie @koioli @fatherlesschild2 @mmik3yy @just-here-reading @nealeart @hudiexiaoying @crystal-multiplefandomlover @glowinggoldfish0 @tiredgamerhere @fluffy-koalala @valenfawkes @willowshadenox @aria-tempest @alastor-simp @nonetheartist @gallantys @i-3at-kidz @luxky-aish @+?

ML II Alastor🎙 | CP ChL🦌

[jyoongim]

Can I request an Alastor x reader where she is a newer sinner. Really nerdy, obsessed with history, fun facts, animal facts, and shy at first. Just says things randomly, like “did you know that if a cow has twins more often than not she abandons ones just rearranging things when bored, someone will come down to lobby in the middle of the night and there she is moving the couches at like 3am. Doesn’t think when she speaks when she sees Alastor in his overlord form just says something like “smash” before walking off. Kind of a this gives me conflicted feelings and made me learn something about myself I don’t think I should know. It can be smut or fluff I don’t mind! My friends just say I have adhd, never been tested, don’t wanna be lol, I just ramble when I get excited and talk too much or too loud when excited too. It’d be nice to see a reader like me :) thank you love! I’m trying not to ramble so I’m sorry if this all over the place!

Hehehe could be possible adhd but I’m also certain everyone has a touch of tism as well so you’re not alone hehehe.

(I too have undiagnosed adhd)

Typing this from my phone cause I’m scared to do it on my work computer😭 should have brought my iPad to work

————————————————————————-

You had always been…different.

When you were alive you spent most of your time doing your hobbies or reading. You weren’t much of a social butterfly but did make the effort every once in a while. But people always treated you like you were an annoyance.

You were strange. Even by demon standards.

But you made a lovely addition to the Princess of Hell’s hotel.

You enjoyed being about to sprout random facts and have people actually be interested.

Animals, history, science you name it you randomly knew it.

You rambled during bonding excersies until you caught yourself yapping and instantly apologized.

You talked to yourself (having been caught in the act more than once)

Husk called you a loose screw but Angel found it charming. Charlie thought you were just the cutest.

And Alastor….

Well you definitely piqued his interest.

————————————————————————

You and Angel were having a “self care” day. Well Angel was. You were just happy to play in his fluff. Angel was telling you about the latest shoot he had to do and then the subject jumped to saying lives. “Oooh cmon toots don’t tell me no one’s were had the hots for that brain of yours” you pin curled his hair, “hmmmm not that I know of. Besides most people think I’m strange, wouldn’t want to scare the masses”

Angel rolled his eyes “well what about here at the hotel? Anyone catch yer fancy?”

You think about it but your mind comes to a blank. Nope you couldn’t in point who you would be the SLIGHTEST but interested in.

The sound of shoes met your ears and you turned to see Alastor entering the lobby. Your ear perked up and your eyes immediately locked in.

You would say you and Alastor were friends. The two of you had great conversations, he listened to your rambles and always told you facts of the time period when he was alive.

He wasn’t in his usual pristine attire. Instead of the polish look, he was dressed more casual. A white button up, rolled at his elbows, wearing dress pants and suspenders, he even didn’t have his gloves on.

He paid no mind to the two of you in the lobby, seemingly in his own world.

“Smash” you said tilting your head, causing Angel to burst out laughing and you blush when you realized you said that out loud.

Alastor turned around, eyebrows quirked “something amusing was said?”

You quickly shook your head while Angel chuckled “Our fact machine here thinks you’re hot*

Alastor blinked, his eyes settling on you.

You wanted to hide in the couch from embarrassment, but Alastor just took a sip of his coffee and began to walk from where he came. He got to the hallway door because pausing briefly, turning to look at you over his shoulder

“I suppose I would ‘smash’ you too dear”

Your cheeks burned and Angel choked as Alastor disappeared.

[scoutswritingcorner]

Headcanons

Father!Alastor & Child!GN!Reader

PURELY PLATONIC

TW:NONE!

A/N: I just have ideas for Papa Alastor and his little fawn gremlin child. To that Anon who came up with it! If you have any input don’t be afraid to reblog or shoot me an ask with your own (even if my askbox is closed just let me know it’s you).  I was listening to ‘No More Birthdays by Sophie May’.

Domestic fluff with Papa Alastor and his little fawn.

Second Part

So- I don’t know if sinners “age” or grow up in hell but let’s say for the sake of this little post that they do but it's really really slow or you're just a little child forever..WHO KNOWS.

Anyways…you’re like a carbon copy of Alastor only smaller and maybe brighter colors (Where as he has dark red hair you have maybe lighter red hair or a different light color) and little white spots in your hair or fur, maybe some freckles too. 

You are the only soul that is allowed to touch his cane without his permission or guidance, especially because he knows you like to wander off at times, not too far but when you both are walking down the street and he’s not feeling into physical contact he holds his cane out to you and that’s your cue to hold on. If he’s fine with physical contact? He’ll be holding your tiny hand into his, it’s something he got used to doing when he walked you to school those early mornings before he had to go to his radio station.

When he introduces you to Niffty and Husk? He’s not worried about Niffty, but he is glaring Husk down as you walk around the ex-overlord. You’re just curious. But once you get used to him you walk back over to your Papa and hold onto his cane, that’s his signal that you’re ready to go.

I’m a firm believer that sinners still feel the pain of whatever killed them in life when they get into hell as a reminder of why they are there. So speaking of that, Alastor gets hella bad migraines which he got used to easily but when he hears you coughing? He’s immediately by your side and holding a handkerchief to your mouth. He pulls you closer to him if it’s one of those bad coughs that make you wheeze really bad, he’s just a scared Papa and doesn’t know modern medicine well enough to get you the right treatment.

He dresses you in the fashion he’s used to, which is either a button down shirt with slacks or a dress. You’d wear a small little bowtie either around your neck or in your hair. 

Now when he arrives at the Hotel with you? You’re automatically being held because he knows you as his child and how curious you are but also he’s a paranoid deer dad. But after a while? He’s letting you down and gently patting your back to let you wander around, just please stay in his line of sight for now. He walks around the hotel with you so you can see all the sights as Charlie and Vaggie are with him explaining everything. 

Speaking of Charlie and Vaggie, they both terrified you and it almost sent Alastor into a frenzy. He doesn’t care if Vaggie points a spear at him but not at his little fawn. Charlie was just loud and that frightened you. 

Angel Dust wasn’t allowed around you for a while, but once he was, he was very sober and didn’t utter a word about anything your ears shouldn’t know lest he faces the wrath of your Papa. He also gets you treats and gives you head pats.

You do have your own room next to Alastor’s and he makes sure it looks like it did when you were alive, filled with your favorite toys and books lining the shelves. He got Rosie to make you a new teddy bear that resembled him once more and you absolutely adore that thing.

You and Niffty are gremlins together but she keeps her eye on you the whole time and makes sure you don’t get hurt or in trouble. She’s also very helpful when you start having a coughing fit but if it gets really bad? She gets Charlie or Husk to help. 

Alastor pulls Charlie aside one day whilst you are playing, “Charlie, you know I don’t believe in this silly little redemption thing as a whole but..if this does end up working, I want my little fawn to be up there. They don’t deserve to be down here with these disgusting and vile creatures. That’s all I care about.” He whispered glancing back at you as Charlie followed his gaze before smiling and nodding, “Of course, Alastor. How did..” She stopped herself as Alastor stood up tall. “They were sick ever since they were just a little baby..” He whispered out before clearing his throat and cleaning his monocle. He was done talking..reminiscing on his past mistakes.

When Mimzy comes around? He doesn’t let her near you, he knows what trouble she brings and he won’t stand for it if she dares harm a hair on your head. It’s not that he doesn’t trust her, it’s just he’d rather not feel the heartbreak he did all those years ago when he first lost you.

Some nights when you're fast asleep he holds you in his arms and sits on the floor. It grounds him when he feels you breathing, especially when memories of that night plague him and he can’t seem to catch a break. Even if he’s at his breaking point with physical affection, he will force himself to hold you just because those thoughts are plaguing him and he has to make sure you're breathing. His hands will rub circles on your back and he’ll let himself cry but it will be drowned out by soft jazz playing just in case someone walks by your bedroom door.

He also finds it soothing when he brushes and does your hair, even if you don’t have long hair he’ll brush it out for you in the mornings while he enjoys his coffee. He’s very careful around your tiny deer ears too. If you have trouble tying your bowtie or bow? Don’t worry, He is getting down on one knee and tying it for you while talking you through the steps.

100% you are his little sous chef/ taste tester. His love for spicy food is passed down to you and if it’s not spicy enough for you it’s definitely not spicy for him. While he himself doesn’t like to indulge in sweets, he’ll learn to make your favorite treat and surprise you with it. 

Omg when Lucifer comes to the hotel? Alastor gets protective because now the King of Hell is talking to you and not him but he’s not being mean about it…kinda. He’ll make an off joke about Alastor and you’ll stomp your hoof and puff your chest out and headbutting Lucifer. It’s even better if you have little nubs where your antlers (if you have them) are growing in. That’s what the King of Hell gets for bad talking your Papa in front of you! It doesn’t hurt Lucifer but he gets the gist (he doesn’t)

A/N: Once again if anyone has any headcannons of their own go wild. These are just I thought of!

Taglist: @littledolly2345, @aboyscriminalrecord (figured since you drew those masterpieces, I'd tag you in some more little headcanons)

[mitchellpete]

Kinktober Day 8 - Size

pairing: tom “iceman” kazansky x f!reader

cw: size kink, first time (fucking for the first time, not virginity loss), fingering, penetration, unprotected sex, dirty talk, praise

word count: 1586

kinktober masterlist here.

18+ ONLY | MINORS DNI

-

You’ve never seen Ice like this.

Unguarded, loose, intoxicated.

You’re sprawled out on the bed in your dim lit bedroom. You’re not meant to be bound or anything, but your knuckles are white from gripping the headboard, bracing yourself as Ice spreads your legs. 

The warm, glowy lamp on your bedside table illuminates the better part of his face; his lips are puffy and wet from kissing you, and there’s an eagerness in his pale eyes. Almost amorous, like he’s in a trance just from looking down at you.

It ignites something in you, a spark in your lower abdomen as his eyes rake over your lower half.

Ice slips his shirt off, tosses it to your floor and then works the button on his jeans. You let go of the headboard momentarily, just to sit up and slip your top off too, and Ice keeps his eyes on you as you both remove the last of your clothes. 

Your arms naturally reach up to grip the headboard again, breath getting heavy in anticipation for what it is he plans to do with you. 

It’s your first time actually having sex with him. You’d messed around for weeks, sure. His eager hand down your pants, yours squeezing at his bulge over his pants under the table at the O Club, making out in a bathroom stall to the point of dishevelment, but not sex. Not yet. 

Ice nearly looks like he’s salivating, his lips shiny. Reasonably, because his next move is leaning forward and letting his spit drip down onto your cunt. You flinch as it lands directly on your clit, and then moan quietly when his long fingers reach in to smear it across. Your body loosens at his touch, but your legs twitch with every swipe of his fingers. 

“Ice,” you whine, hips involuntarily rolling towards him, aching for more contact. 

It seems that just the pads of his fingers are enough to get you squirming against your sheets. He watches with concentration as they knead at your folds, spreading you open and letting more of his spit drip down onto your slit. It mixes with your growing arousal, and it starts sounding wet as he rubs you.

Ice doesn’t take his eyes off his fingers, how long they look against you. He removes them momentarily, slips them through his other hand for a second to mindlessly analyze their size, and then looks back at your leaking cunt. His eyes flick to you, watches as you watch him, the look on your face when he presses his middle finger against your hole. It slips inside easily, your walls fluttering around it, eliciting a high pitched moan from you at the entry. You’re so turned on that you immediately need more.

“I–Ice, more,” you plead, trying your best to stay still for him. 

He pulls his drenched finger out, inserts his index along with it, and watches intently as they enter you all the way to the knuckle. It’s then that he curls them slightly, and you gasp and groan loudly at how good it feels.

“I need you to fuck me,” you babble under your breath, squeezing your eyes shut as the pleasure courses through your body.

He seems to catch it, though, his breathing getting heavier at your audible request. He continues prodding at your G-spot, knuckles drenched and against your clit until he pulls them back just enough to slip in a third finger. “Bare with me, baby,” he whispers, mouth agape as he pants, watching your pussy stretch around his digits.

Your moans get higher in pitch, sounding more like cries as he stretches you open. “P–please.. Ice.”

“I need to stretch you—just a little more, baby,” he husks, lidded eyes momentarily flicking over to you.

You throw your head back against the pillow and shake it back and forth as you continue crying out for him. “Please, I need you now—” A strangled noise comes out of you when his fingers curl deeper. You continue babbling, “Don’t wanna cum like this, I want you to fuck me.”

Ice groans and draws his fingers out, bringing them up to wipe on his tongue. He uses the slick on his hands to wrap around his cock, and it’s only then that you lift your head to get a good look at it. Your breath audibly catches in your throat at the sight of it, hard and throbbing and incredibly large in his fist. 

You knew he had to be big, had felt him from outside his pants but Christ, you realize now why he was taking his time opening you up.

On his knees, Ice settles between your legs as he languidly strokes himself. He looks dazed as he leans in to rub the tip through your folds, and then decides that he needs a better angle. He’s quite literally towering over you, and he needs you even closer. Better for him, having your small frame wrapped around him. It’s enough just seeing you underneath him, but having you close, getting to touch you, seeing how big his hand looks against your torso, he’s almost afraid he’s not gonna last very long.

Snaking an arm underneath your waist, he pulls you up against his thighs, your legs inadvertently wrapping around his waist. You’re still death gripping the headboard, holding onto it for dear life as you brace yourself for the seemingly bigger stretch.

Ice’s eyebrows pull tight together when the tip pushes in just an inch inside of you. His mouth hangs open in a silent moan, sharp exhales spilling instead.

The tip itself has you seeing stars, and you unintentionally arch your back, allowing him inside of you another inch. Ice groans out, loud and hot, and then bites on the plush of his bottom lip. Attentive eyes fall down to the sight of his throbbing cock splitting you open—fuck—way more than his fingers did, and it’s almost dizzying. 

He speaks then, breaking free from his speechless daze, “How does it feel?” he asks, serious but strained. “Tell me.”

You cry out as he slowly slides inside. “Fuck fuck fuck. So good.”

“Yeah?” His voice is soft; he sounds out of breath.

“So fucking good,” you reiterate, legs tensing around his waist as he pushes in more and more.

Fuck. You feel so deliciously full already, stuffed to the brim, and he’s still pushing in, watching ardently as every inch disappears inside of you. 

He leans forward to hover above you when he’s buried inside you all the way, the veins in his throat throbbing as your tight walls constrict around him, squeezing him so good, like nothing else before. “F–fuck,” he moans through gritted teeth, eyes squeezed shut, relishing in your warmth. 

Your body feels slack as he envelops you, buzzing the way a limb does after it falls asleep on you. A sort of uncomfortable pleasure. 

You’ve never felt this full in your life. 

When he starts to move, you have to let go of the headboard and clasp a hand over your mouth to trap your screams. You can feel him in your stomach, the tip of his dick tapping against a part inside you that you’ve never even felt before. It evokes a hollow feeling inside you, like he’s reached something forbidden. It’s a different kind of pleasure, one that feels like a scratch you can’t get rid of no matter how much you itch at it. It licks up your body and paints your face crimson, heat in your cheeks when the sharp noises of his hips slamming against yours fill the room. 

“Oh, God,” he moans against your ear. “Oh, fuck—so tight.”

You whimper at his words, at the pretty noises he makes. 

“Look at you,” he breathes, moans slipping out between his words. “Taking all of it. Fuck.”

“Ice..” There’s a warning to your voice; you’re gonna cum soon if he continues talking. 

Strong hands wrap around your ribs, and he angles his hips to thrust into you harder, deeper. It takes everything in you not to let go; you know he’s close too with how fucking drunk on it he looks, his face flushed and contorted beautifully. 

He reaches his peak when he opens his eyes and glances down at your bodies, at the stark difference in them, at how fucking big he looks pounding into you. You cum with him; loud, uncontrollable cries meeting with his long, raspy groans.

Ice bows his head to kiss you, regretful that he hadn’t yet. He tastes just as sweet as he looks, quiet moans still spilling into each other’s mouths as the glow washes over you. He doesn’t pull out, in fact remains buried inside you to the hilt as he lazily works his mouth and tongue against yours.

He kind of wants to stay inside you forever, comfortable and snug there. He feels your body growing sensitive, however, your legs sputtering and your hips slightly pulling back, and it’s then that he pulls out. You whimper against his lips at the emptiness, your core left drenched and pulsing. You realize how sore your arms feel from grabbing onto the headboard, so you bring them down and over his shoulders, yanking him down atop your exhausted body.

Oh, he’s heavy, you realize. Right.

Basking in the glow together, Ice smiles, letting you breathe when he snakes his arms underneath you again to flip you over, settling you against his wide chest, arms enveloping your frame.

[ginnsbaker]

fic: if i bleed (you'll be the last to know) (15/?)

Part Summary: You and Leigh go on your first date, and nothing goes as planned.

Pairing: Leigh Shaw x Fem!Reader | Word count for this part: 10.700+ | Tags/Warnings: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Smut | Author's note: The date chapter is finally here! It's basically Leigh and R getting to know each other. But beware of the tags ;) Thank you for being so patient! Please enjoy :) Only one or two more chapters to go!

Masterlist | Part I Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV

-

Your mouth forms a perfect ‘O’ as you come, Leigh's fingers moving deftly down your jeans. She is entranced by the sight of you falling apart in her hands, torn between kissing you and watching as you ride the final waves of your orgasm.

The moment she opened the front door and saw you, she couldn't resist. You’re dressed in a loose white button-down shirt, open at the chest to reveal the collarbones she recently discovered she’s so fond of. The sleeves are rolled up to your elbows, and your boot-cut jeans fit perfectly, accentuating all the right places, especially at the back. The subtle scent of your perfume, sweet and intoxicating like chocolate, drifted across the room, pulling her closer. Without a second thought, she grabbed you by the collar, kissing you deeply as she pulled you into the kitchen.

“You're so beautiful,” Leigh whispers, her breath hot against your ear. Her eyes are locked onto your face, mesmerized.

You gasp, your body tensing as you reach the peak. “Leigh, please” you breathe out, shifting uncomfortably. The tight confines of your jeans restrict your movement. Sure, they make your figure look fantastic, but at moments like this, you question if it's really worth it.

Leigh's lips hover just above yours, her fingers still working their magic. “I can't decide,” she murmurs, her voice low and husky.

“Decide what?” you ask, your voice quivering.

“Whether I want to kiss you or keep watching you like this,” she replies, her eyes dark with desire.

Your hands find their way to her shoulders, pulling her closer. “Both,” you whisper. “Do both.”

-

As you both recover, you adjust your clothes, tucking your blouse back into the waistband of your pants. Still catching your breath, you glance at Leigh, who is already rinsing her fingers under the running water of the sink.

“What was that for?” you ask, your voice still a bit breathless.

Leigh grins, glancing over her shoulder at you. “Payback for last week.” 

She moves around the espresso machine, then says, “By the way, I'm really sorry,” as if she hadn’t been driving you to an intense climax just minutes ago. “I can’t believe I overslept.”

You lean casually against the counter, your legs still weak from coming so hard, thoroughly entertained by her stream of apologies and quietly thrilled that she cares so much. The bagels you brought—laden with lox and a thick layer of cream cheese—wait patiently between you.

“It’s really okay,” you say, watching her make a fuss. Catching her hand as she goes for another apology, you squeeze it gently. “You… more than made up for it.”

She has the good grace to blush, a soft smile breaking through her earlier fretfulness. “Thanks for waiting,” he says, her voice still a little hoarse and, somehow, even more beguiling. “I’ve been looking forward to today. I guess last night just took more out of me than I thought.”

“You don’t say,” you tease lightly, observing the casual disarray of her hair and the relaxed hang of her clothes—it’s Leigh unplugged, and you’re increasingly fond of this version. 

Leigh's eyes shift to the side, landing on the two take-out lattes you had bought earlier, now sitting forlornly on the counter. She grimaces slightly as she realizes they've gone cold—leftovers from your long wait outside her house, where it hasn’t stopped raining. 

“Oh, you brought coffee too,” she husks out. “And I made you wait…”

“Yeah, I might have been a bit optimistic about the timing,” you say.

Leigh gives you a long, scrutinizing look, clearly baffled by your patience.

“I don’t get it,” she says, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Get what?”

“It’s just—I’m clumsy, you know? I forget things. I’m always late to appointments. I keep expecting you to realize how dysfunctional I am and run off,” she jokes, though her eyes tell a different story. The coffee maker gurgles, signaling that the brew is ready. She moves to pour the coffee, her shoulders tense, hesitating before speaking again. “But you don’t. You just... stay. And I don’t understand why.”

You watch her pour the coffee, the steam rising in soft curls. “I stay because I love you, Leigh,” you say simply. You’ve told her that three—maybe four—times now. Not that you’re counting, but each time it gets a little easier to say. And you hope, for her, it gets a little easier to hear.

She hasn't said it back, and while you’re unsure if she feels the same, you know she cares—maybe not enough to utter those three words yet, but enough to be here now. Her accepting this date, spending this day with you, it’s a concession you wouldn’t trade for the world.

Leigh's gaze flickers, eyes widening a touch, lips parting as though words are on the brink of breaking free. You hold your breath, waiting for whatever she might reveal. But then, she blinks—like she's snapping back from a distant thought—and quietly turns to pour another cup, her glance drifting off as she collects herself. 

She hands you a steaming mug, her fingertips brushing yours. You take it from her carefully, feeling the warmth seep through your fingers, spreading a comforting heat up your arms. 

“Thanks,” you say, your voice low, a smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth as you take a slow sip.

Leigh watches you over her own cup, her eyelashes casting long shadows on her cheeks as she takes a tentative sip. Words have the power to bring things into being, and for Leigh, speaking things into existence feels like an indelible commitment—a promise carved into stone. 

But maybe some things are beloved even before they ever take shape.

-

After breakfast, you both head to The Beautiful Beast to drop off Logan. Jules is happy to take care of him, as the house is empty with Amy away on a trip with friends. With Logan settled, you and Leigh head to the art exhibit you had tickets for.

Inside the exhibit, you find yourselves packed tightly among the throngs of people. The crowd presses in, and while the vivid artwork is a distraction, the constricted room makes it tough to fully enjoy the pieces. Far from the tech hubs and arts districts, the local community jumps at anything that breaks the monotony of their usual scene. Moreover, today’s rain has chased everyone indoors, turning this rare cultural event into a magnet for locals starved for something different. With the parks soggy and deserted, people had the choice between shopping malls or here.

As you and Leigh wade through the crowded gallery, people jostle for space, elbows occasionally colliding with your sides as they vie for a better view of the vibrant installations. Suddenly, a passerby brushes against you, nearly pulling you away from Leigh. Instinctively, you snatch her hand, holding fast for dear life. In the confusion, unsuspecting of the sudden tug, Leigh loses her footing. Her thick heel comes down hard on your foot, and you yelp in pain. Tears spring to your eyes, and you try to hold back a cry, but the pain is sharp and persistent.

“Sorry, sorry!” Leigh's cheeks flush with mortification as she quickly steps back. “Are you okay?”

Trying to brush it off with a grimace that's more a wince, you manage a weak smile. 

“I'll live,” you say, half-joking, even as you gingerly test your foot. “But I think that was my cue to start wearing steel-toed boots around you.” 

Despite herself, Leigh chuckles. “I'm really sorry,” she laments, reaching out to gently squeeze your arm. “Let's find a place to sit, okay?”

You cautiously try a step, hopeful but hesitant. The sharp pain bites, making you flinch, and you end up limping. Immediately, Leigh slips her arm around your waist to stabilize you.

“Let's find someone to help you get to a first-aid station,” she suggests, eyeing your gait with concern.

“But the exhibit?” you protest weakly, looking longingly back at the art you were both eager to see.

Leigh gives you a wry smile. “I'm more worried they might have to amputate your foot,” she jokes, successfully coaxing a laugh out of you. Yet, as you chuckle, you wince again, putting weight on your foot without thinking.

Noticing your discomfort, Leigh guides you gently towards the front of the gallery. Soon, you're at the information booth, where a helpful attendant offers you an ice pack and points you to a bench near the entrance. As you try to get comfortable on the small bench, you struggle to keep the ice pack properly positioned on your foot, repeatedly bending down in an awkward dance of readjustment. 

“Here, just put your foot on my lap,” she suggests, patting her lap lightly. 

You start to object, not wanting to impose, but before you can finish your sentence, Leigh decisively grabs your leg and guides it onto her lap. She starts massaging the sole of your foot while holding the ice pack firmly against the swollen area. It's a simple, caring gesture, and you can't help but watch Leigh as she focuses on making you feel better. 

When she looks up and catches you staring, she smirks. “Penny for your thoughts?”

You shake your head slightly, a small smile playing on your lips. “I just didn't think we'd end up back here, and we haven't even seen a third of the art yet,” you say.

Leigh laughs softly. “It's okay, the exhibits weren't all that impressive anyway,” she says. “Besides, I was starting to feel claustrophobic there.”

A twinge of disappointment pulls at you. You’d been excited about the exhibit, about sharing something you thought would be cool and sophisticated. With your foot throbbing and Leigh’s less-than-enthused review, the day feels like it’s stumbled right out of the gate.

Leigh notices your sudden quiet and nudges you gently. “What's wrong?”

“I just thought you’d be into this. I was almost entirely sure,” you say, avoiding her gaze.

“I am,” Leigh says, still holding your foot. “I love exhibits, but right now, my top priority is spending time with you.”

You blush at that. “We are spending time—”

She cuts you off with a small laugh. “I mean, like, actually talking. It’s hard to have a conversation when we’re constantly moving and trying to look at everything.”

You mull that over, nodding slowly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

A comfortable silence settles between you, the kind that feels more like understanding than emptiness. Then, out of the blue, Leigh asks, “So, how did you end up being an animal doctor?”

You’re startled by her sudden question, but it’s a welcome distraction from your foot and the disappointing exhibit. 

“It’s a bit of a long story,” you start. 

“I’ve got time,” she says with a smirk.

You take a deep breath and lean back on the bench, feeling more comfortable as your leg rests on Leigh’s lap. Her foot massage is so soothing, it’s almost putting you into a sleepy state. 

“Well, I always loved animals. My parents used to joke that I’d bring home every stray if I could. But it wasn’t until I volunteered at a local shelter in high school that I realized it was what I wanted to do with my life.”

Leigh tilts her head and smiles. “That’s sweet. What was it about the shelter that made you decide?”

“It was this one dog,” you say, your voice catching and your eyes getting misty. “A scrappy little terrier mix named Max. He’d been through so much, but he still had so much love to give. Helping him heal and find a forever home—it just clicked. That’s when I knew I wanted to help as many animals as I could.”

Leigh looks at you with a kind of awe, as if something beautiful is unfolding before her eyes.  “That’s amazing. I love that you found your calling through something so meaningful.”

You shrug, feeling a bit bashful under her stare. “What about you? When did you know you wanted to be a writer?”

She laughs, a light, airy sound that makes you grin from ear to ear. You could listen to it forever. 

“Oh, I’ve always known,” she says. “Actually, I was always writing in my diary as a kid. I'd write about my day, things I enjoyed, pretty much anything that came to mind. I loved reading pocket books, too, and I even tried my hand at writing fiction once or twice.

“But I quickly discovered that fiction wasn't really my thing. I loved writing, though—just the act of putting words on paper, sharing my thoughts and experiences. It felt natural, like breathing.

“And even though I wasn't making up fictional characters and places,” Leigh continues, “I realized I could still tell stories. They were my stories, rooted in the everyday things I observed and experienced. That was my niche, and I just ran with it.”

“Did you have a specific moment, like with Max?” you ask.

“Not really,” she says. “It’s just what I wanted to do, that’s all.”

You nod. “Knowing what you want to do or be saves a lot of time, doesn’t it?”

“I guess?” She smiles at your insight, then adds, “Though maybe in another life, I’d be a serious journalist. If I thought I had the natural knack or talent for it, maybe I would.”

You frown slightly at that, concerned by her self-doubt. “Why do you think you’re not good enough to be a ‘serious’ journalist now?”

Leigh looks surprised by your question, then thoughtful. “I don’t know. I guess I always see those roles as being for people who are more... intense, more investigative. But you’re right. Maybe it’s just a matter of believing I could.”

“You’re an amazing writer, Leigh,” you say earnestly. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

“How can you say that?” she asks, leaning in a bit closer. “Have you read any of my work apart from my tiny blurbs in the gossip column?”

You feel a blush warm your cheeks. “Well, I might have done a bit of Googling,” you confess, rubbing the back of your neck sheepishly. “Your articles popped up, and I... may have read all of them.”

Her eyebrows lift, and she gives your foot a careful pinch. “Is that so?” she teases, her voice dropping lower. The blush spreads down your neck and chest. “And what did you think? Did they pass muster with our impromptu art critic here?”

“Honestly, I was blown away,” you say, looking her straight in the eye. “Your writing is intuitive, engaging. It pulled me right in. You've got this strong, clear voice that really comes through, even in the straightforward pieces.”

Leigh regards you for a moment longer than usual, as if trying to read the pages of a particularly dense novel—searching for the truth in your words. Then, as if finding what she was looking for, her features soften, the guarded lines around her eyes relaxing.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, her voice carrying a tender gravity. “That really means a lot to me.”

You beam up at her, blissfully unaware of the profound impact your praise has had on her appreciation of her own writing. 

Before you can pick up the thread of your laid-back conversation again, a man who could easily double as an Instagram model approaches. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, with a rogue lock of hair artfully obscuring one icy-blue eye. Both you and Leigh pause, taken aback by his sudden, striking presence, and an instinctive wariness settles in between you.

“Hey there. Are you okay?” he asks, hovering slightly, his focus solely on you, as if Leigh is merely a shadow on the wall.

“It's nothing, just a bit of swelling,” you say. You look up at him briefly and force a smile before focusing your attention back on Leigh.  She's already staring down the stranger, as if trying to laser through his meticulously sculpted side-profile.

He presses on, “I could drive you to the hospital to get that checked out.”

You exchange a quick look with Leigh, catching the flash of irritation that crosses her face before she masks it with a polite smile. 

“That’s very kind of you, but I'll be fine.”

Despite this, he doesn’t give up. “Really, it's no trouble at all. You shouldn't walk on that,” he says, pointing at your foot that’s clearly on someone else’s lap. This time, his gaze lingers a little too long for comfort. 

Leigh gently lowers your foot from her lap and stands up, positioning herself between you and the persistent stranger. There's a considerable height difference between them—Leigh is notably shorter—but she doesn't seem intimidated in the slightest. Instead, she squares her shoulders and lifts her chin like she’s ten feet tall.

“Excuse me,” Leigh clears her throat. “We’re on a date here.” 

The man blinks, surprised. “A date?” he echoes.

“Yes,” Leigh confirms, her smile now a thin line of resolve. “The kind where I kiss her goodnight after.”  

You catch a few curious glances from nearby onlookers and feel a blush creeping up your neck. You duck your head, trying to shield yourself from their stares. More than anything, though, you're struck by Leigh's bold declaration to a near stranger—that she was going to kiss you by the end of this date.

Of course, you’re hoping she would, but hearing her say it out loud sends your stomach into a flutter of somersaults

His face registers the rebuff, and he nods awkwardly, stepping back. “Right, sorry,” he mutters before finally turning and walking away.

Leigh is heaving slightly, visibly tense, her back to you, and you gently take her hand to bring her focus back.

“Hey,” you mumble softly. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s not your fault,” Leigh says as she turns back to face you, her eyes now softer. You sense the tension easing from her as your fingers intertwine more firmly. “I’m sorry if—”

“Thank you,” you interrupt gently, wanting her to know her protectiveness was welcome. “I really appreciated that.”

She laughs, a sound of relief. “Okay, good. I didn’t want to come off too strong.”

You want to tell her that she does, that she's always been a force to be reckoned with. But you bite your lip, not wanting it to come across as criticism. You like this quality of hers, and you don’t want her to change anything about herself just because you're a completely different person with a different perspective.

She shuffles her feet, looking a bit unsure, then sits down beside you. “So... where were we?”

You smile at her. “I was saying how amazing you are as a writer.”

Leigh grins, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, right. Please, go on.”

You laugh, and the two of you spend the next hour in the art exhibit, talking about everything and nothing.

-

At 1pm, you and Leigh head out for a scenic drive to Santa Monica Beach.

A week ago, as soon as she agreed to this date, you booked a table at a beachside lobster joint that’s been trending locally for some time now. It seems like the perfect spot, with great reviews and a beautiful setting by the ocean. The drive is relaxed, the windows rolled down and the salty air filling the car, clearing away any last threads of the tension from earlier at the exhibit. 

Leigh is in high spirits, chatting animatedly about books and laughing more freely than she has all day. At one point, you find yourselves discussing The Great Gatsby.

“I just don't get the hype,” you say, shaking your head as you keep your eyes on the road, though you're eager to dive into what promises to be an interesting debate. “I mean, the characters are all so shallow, and the story feels more like a soap opera than a classic.”

Leigh's expression brightens, excited to dispute your claim. “But that’s exactly why it’s a classic,” she counters, turning to face you and resting her head against her arm on the windshield. “Fitzgerald captured the Jazz Age perfectly—the decadence, the disillusionment, the elusive American Dream. It's all critiqued through some really beautiful writing.”

You raise an eyebrow, intrigued. “So you think the shallowness is the point?”

“Exactly,” she replies, smirking slightly. “Gatsby's obsession with Daisy, who represents everything he can't have, mirrors the era's obsession with wealth and status. It's tragic and a little ridiculous because it's supposed to be.”

You pretend to mull it over, though you know she has a point. You can feel her gaze on you, and you're starting to relish Leigh's undivided and very welcome attention. You drag out your response, just to see how she reacts. You think you catch her rolling her eyes out of the corner of your eye.

Chuckling, you say, “You’re making it hard to stick to my guns here.”

Her smirk widens into a proud smile. “Good! Maybe it’s time to surrender those guns.”

You flex your arm, showcasing your slim and completely unimpressive biceps. “Speaking of guns, maybe I should keep these instead,” you joke, giving Leigh a playful look.

Leigh makes a face. “Oh, please, keep those guns. They're definitely more persuasive than your take on Fitzgerald!” she teases. 

You pout at her sarcastic comment about your physique, but your smile is good-natured. It's been a long time since you've felt this at ease—not just with Leigh, but with anyone else. You haven't enjoyed company like this in a while, not since... 

Well, not since Matt. 

After a while, you say, “Maybe I need to give it another read. You make it sound like a completely different book.”

Leigh shifts in her seat to face the long, winding road ahead. “We can read it together. Maybe you’ll catch some of the subtleties you missed the first time around,” she suggests.

You sneak a glance at her, catching her eyes just as she looks back at you, your dark brown eyes meeting her green ones. It's a bit ridiculous, but you find yourself wishing this drive would never end. The swelling in your foot stings with every press of the gas pedal, but somehow, it doesn't seem to matter.

“I’d love that.”

-

When you pull into the quaint parking lot of the restaurant, nestled right against the beach, you're greeted by stunning ocean views that truly live up to the hype. Inside, the nautical decor, complete with nets and life rings adorning the walls, is cliché yet undeniably still charming. The rain has subsided, but the beach remains unusually quiet, lacking the usual crowds that gather when the sun is out. 

As you settle into a table with a view of the beach, it feels like the right kind of perfect until you start discussing the menu and Leigh's smile drops a touch. 

“I should’ve mentioned—I’m allergic to shellfish.”

“Oh,” you manage, a twinge of embarrassment settling in your stomach. You feel a bit foolish for jumping ahead without checking first. It's not the first time this has happened with Leigh, and suddenly, her earlier hesitations about your intentions and feelings make more sense. You realize you've constructed a version of her that feels familiar, yet moments like these remind you that there's still so much about her you have yet to understand.

“We can go somewhere else,” you suggest, even though you don’t have the first clue where else to go.

“Really, it's okay. We don’t have to leave. I'll find something else. This place is too gorgeous to skip just because of that,” she says.

You hastily scan the menu for alternatives, but the options are slim. The only non-shellfish item is a fish and chips plate that looks unappealing at best. Then, tucked at the bottom of the menu, you spot a plain cheeseburger with fries on the side.

“Leigh, we should really head somewhere else,” you say, remembering how she mentioned she was starving just before stepping inside the restaurant. The last thing you want is for her to settle for a less-than-satisfying meal simply because the setting is picturesque.

Leigh gives you a reassuring smile, but you can sense the underlying frustration as she says, “You don't need to make such a big deal out of it.”

“But you said you were hungry.”

“I know you mean well, and I really appreciate it. But honestly, it's just lunch,” Leigh says.

You go quiet, not wanting to argue further, but inside, you’re still kicking yourself for not having a backup plan. Sensing your inner turmoil, Leigh sighs, dropping the menu on the table. 

“Hey,” she begins softly, waiting until you meet her eyes before offering a small, apologetic smile. She knows today hasn't gone as smoothly as you hoped—starting with her oversleeping, then arriving late to a gallery you were excited to see, only to find it overcrowded. And on top of that, the incident where she stepped on your foot. You’ve been brushing it off, insisting you’re fine, but she noticed your grimaces every time you pressed the gas pedal during the drive. Clearly, today hasn’t unfolded as you planned.

Leigh’s not trying to downplay the effort you've put into today, but she also doesn't want you to think that a single mishap could turn her away. She hopes you don't set expectations too high just yet, not when you're both still in the early stages of getting to know each other. Beyond the undeniable physical chemistry between you, she's looking forward to discovering how you both handle the less-than-perfect moments just as much as the perfect ones.

Once she has your attention, she continues, “I was married for seven years and had numerous relationships before that.”

Your curiosity prickles—Numerous? How many?—but Leigh keeps talking, pulling you back to the moment.

“I've seen all the grand gestures. They’re fine—they’re romantic, but right now, I just want to do normal stuff with someone I like.”

“Me, too. I—”

“That means not worrying about every little thing on a menu I can’t eat. I don’t need every outing to be perfect.”

You nod, a realization sinking in. Leigh doesn’t want you to treat her as if she’s delicate, like china that could shatter at any moment. She wants you, with all your flawed plans and your corny jokes.

Maybe, you realize, you and Leigh share more than just an intense attraction. You both harbor insecurities about being wanted for something you're not, rather than for who you truly are. Deep down, there's a fear lurking in you that maybe this—whatever this is—could evaporate. You're scared that Leigh might discover something about you that could change her mind, worried that all this might just be a fleeting curiosity or a complicated connection tied to her past.

So you aimed for perfection today—at the expense of not being yourself, perhaps becoming too cautious and too rigid in the process. Leigh's desire for authenticity over perfection makes you rethink your approach.

“Okay,” you finally say, setting the menu down. You signal a waiter and order their bestseller—broiled lobster in butter garlic herb sauce.

Leigh looks up from her menu. “And I'll have the cheeseburger,” she tells him. Then, leaning across the table, she adds in a mock-threatening tone, “But you should know, it’s actually breakfast and dessert where you really can’t go wrong with me.” She exaggerates her expression, widening her eyes for effect.

Perhaps it’s a good lesson to learn that not everything has to be perfect to be right. 

At least, not with Leigh Shaw.

-

After a hearty meal, with you having indulged in the lobster since Leigh couldn't partake, you both feel pleasantly full. Needing to stretch your legs and help settle the big lunch, you suggest a walk along the shore.

You roll up your jeans to your calves, trying to keep them dry, but the relentless little waves have other plans, occasionally splashing over and wetting the fabric. Meanwhile, Leigh, wearing high-waisted cotton shorts, meanders alongside you, unaffected by the water's reach. As the sun dips lower, it paints the horizon in vibrant shades of orange and pink. Endless stretches of beach host a few leisurely strollers, all basking in scenery that seems almost too striking to be real. 

Walking side by side, every now and then your fingers brush against each other—a fleeting touch that sends a subtle thrill through you. Despite the advanced nature of your physical relationship, you and Leigh exchange shy smiles, almost as if you're newly acquainted. It's a curious thing that here, in the open expanse of the beach, there are instances where it feels like you haven't crossed those boundaries at all.

You want to reach out and hold her hand, but Leigh is wrapped up in her own thoughts, her arms crossed as she stares out where the horizon swallows ships whole. Respecting her reverie, you shove your hands into the pockets of your jeans instead.

After a while, Leigh turns to you, her face catching the evening light, transforming her into something almost otherworldly. Her expression is open, inviting, and it makes your heart stumble over itself once more. 

“So, Y/N,” she says, her voice low and a little unsteady, as if she had second thoughts a moment ago about whether to even say the words. “Tell me about the girls and boys you've loved before.”

Once again, you’re unsuspecting of Leigh’s directness.

You scramble for a moment, trying to buy some time. “Well, what exactly do you want to know about them?” you ask, watching her closely. Ex-lovers are bound to come up soon, and you haven't really thought about your own answer. Truth be told, your track record feels lackluster, but somehow you think that might be a good thing.

Leigh bites her lip, seemingly pondering her next move. She kicks at the small ripples lapping at her ankles, sending water splashing in little arcs. After a moment, she looks up at you coyly. “I don't know, you decide what to tell me,” she says, unapologetically leaving the ball squarely in your court.

Her response puts you at ease a little, turning the pressure of the question into more of a gentle invitation to share what you feel comfortable with. 

You take a deep breath, tasting the salt on the breeze. “I didn't actually have a boyfriend until I was twenty-two,” you say, glancing at Leigh to gauge her reaction.

Her eyebrows lift in surprise, an expression that draws a small laugh from you. “Yeah, I was a late bloomer,” you say, a flippant shrug accompanying your words. “I think I was just curious, you know? Everyone around me was pairing off, and I felt like I was missing out.

“It lasted six months. It was more about exploration than anything else. And then, well, it took another two years before I found myself in something serious.”

“With who?” Leigh asks, slowing down a little. The wind picks up, teasing strands of her hair across her face, not bound today in her usual ponytail. She brushes them aside absently, her focus fixed on you.

“Her name was Alex,” you continue, the name rolling off your tongue thoughtfully as bittersweet memories flood your mind. You haven’t thought about her in a long time—she was your first love and your first heartbreak. “She was incredible—taught me what it really means to be with someone, to really be present. We were together for almost three years.”

Leigh suddenly stops and turns to face you. She grabs your hand, guiding you both to a weathered bench a few steps from the lapping waves. 

“How did it end?” she asks quietly.

“We moved in together after a year,” you say, trying to keep your tone light even though you’re about to rehash a painful past. “Things were really good, at least that's what I thought. But then, just a month after our third anniversary, I came home early from work and... I found her in bed with someone else.”

“Oh, Y/N…”

“It was her coworker, someone I'd always just thought of as a colleague of hers,” you conclude, managing a tight-lipped smile. Neither of you speak for a while, allowing the susurration of the sea to fill the gap instead.

“I’m sorry,” Leigh finally says.

You shrug, looking out at the horizon where the sun meets the calm waters. “It's a long time ago. From what I've heard through mutual friends, they're still together. Maybe they were meant for each other, and I was just a stop on her journey to finding that out. I mean, I shouldn't feel so bad for not getting in the way of true love.”

Leigh shakes her head, not buying into your attempt to whitewash what Alex did. “She should've ended it with you properly.”

You’ve pondered that moment countless times, wondering if it would have been easier if she had simply been honest about falling out of love. You picture different scenarios where you come home to Alex waiting to tell you there’s someone else, and each time, you arrive at the same painful conclusion.

“I don't know, it probably would have hurt just the same,” you tell her honestly. 

Leigh scoots closer, looping her arm around you and resting her head on your shoulder. In a whisper, she concurs, “I think so too.”

Then, Leigh starts sharing her story with Matt. It begins at a college house party, where they first met—just a couple of undergrads who had no idea what the future held. As she talks, you rest your cheek against her head, absorbing every detail. You chuckle at her lighthearted anecdotes, feeling the happiness they brought her. But as she talks about the tougher times, particularly the months leading up to his death, your smile fades, replaced by a tightness in your chest.

Soon enough the telling morphs into a session of self-reflection where it becomes unclear whether Leigh’s speaking to you or to herself. She suggests that she blames herself for his death, feeling as if she had somehow caused his demise. She confesses that when he died, it seemed like all the good parts of her died with him, parts she now thinks existed only because of him. 

When she finally breaks down, sobbing into your neck, you pull her closer, wrapping your arms around her as if you could squeeze away all the guilt and pain she’s carrying. Part of you wants to interrupt, to assure her that she’s wrong, that all her good parts were always there, maybe just brightened by her love for him—because isn’t that what love does? It casts everything in a better light. But you resist the urge to speak, understanding that sometimes the best comfort you can offer isn’t words, but simply presence and the quiet acceptance of her sorrow.

-

It starts to rain again a few minutes into your drive back to the city. As the droplets splatter against the windshield and the wipers slide back and forth, you notice Leigh holding up her phone, talking animatedly into it.

“Hey there, we're on our way back and look at this rain, it's really coming down! Oh, and I've got someone very special I want you to meet—this is Y/N.” She angles the phone toward you. You feel your cheeks warm as you give a small, awkward wave. “Aren’t those eyes incredible? Like deep, rich coffee... absolutely gorgeous.”

“What are you doing?” you ask, still a bit embarrassed.

“Something for my eyes only,” Leigh replies nonchalantly, lowering her phone but keeping that roguish smile.

“You didn't have to stop,” you tell her, still a bit amused by her whole vlogging act.

Leigh turns to face you fully. “I kind of want to look at you now without a screen between us,” she murmurs, her voice low and inviting.

You swallow, feeling a thrill at her directness. Leigh's approach is always bold, and it sends an excited shiver down your spine. You wish you weren't trapped in the driver's seat, confined by the slow crawl of traffic, so you could fully engage with her flirtation. Yet, there's a part of you that suspects Leigh enjoys knowing you're somewhat at her mercy, divided between the road and her teasing.

Trying to distract her from whatever she’s up to, you throw out a playful challenge. “Want to guess where we're headed next?”

It seems to work as Leigh glances out at the relentless downpour. “In this weather?”

“Yup,” you respond simply, a mysterious smile on your lips as you focus on the rain-slicked road ahead, keeping the surprise of your next stop just between the two of you for a little longer.

Leigh has this endearing habit of pressing the back of her fingers against her mouth, her thumb brushing her lower lip as she thinks. You've come to recognize this gesture as a sign she's deep in thought or uncertain about something.

“Bowling?”

You snort in amusement.

“At least give me a clue!”

“It involves a membership card,” you hint.

Leigh scrunches up her nose, clearly appalled at her next guess. “The gym?”

“The library, of course,” you reply with a grin, recalling an earlier conversation. “Remember I mentioned having a membership card?”

Leigh narrows her eyes, and in a skittish huff, slaps your arm lightly. “You're totally messing with me,” she accuses.

“Hey, I'm driving here!” you protest, trying to keep the car steady. Undeterred, she pokes at your ribs, discovering a ticklish spot. You can't help but burst into laughter. “Seriously, Leigh, we're going to crash if you keep this up,” you say between giggles, half-joking, half-pleading for mercy.

She pulls back, her laughter tapering off into a series of chuckles that fade into the rhythmic splatter of hefty raindrops on the car roof. Once it’s comfortably quiet again, she leans back in her seat, her expression turning curious and a little conspiratorial. 

“Speaking of books, there's something I almost forgot to tell you,” she says.

“Yeah?” you respond, somewhat distracted as a car swiftly cuts into your lane.

“Matt's comic is going to be published posthumously,” she reveals slowly. “Danny and I have been working together on it.”

You strive to keep your expression blasé at the mention of Danny's name. There's no room for jealousy when it concerns Matt's legacy. If Leigh needs to do this, whether Danny is involved or not, it's her choice and not your place to question.

“That's amazing, Leigh,” you say, trying to sound cheerful and supportive. “Matt would have been thrilled.”

Leigh gives you a curious look. Your focus remains on the road ahead, so you miss the reservation in her green eyes.

“You think so?”

“Yeah,” you respond, nodding. Without much thought, you add, “He used to show me his work, and I was honestly impressed.”

Leigh's expression shifts subtly at your words, and there's a moment of quiet between you. “Matt never showed me his works,” she says softly, almost to herself.

You feel a flush of embarrassment, realizing it might have sounded like you were bragging about being privy to Matt's work—a privilege Leigh, his wife, hadn't shared. You manage only a soft, “Oh,” which hangs awkwardly in the air.

“I found his sketches one day by accident, and he didn't like it—me seeing his work, I mean. He always wanted to keep that part of his life separate.”

You’re still processing this when Leigh speaks again.

“I used to tell him everything, you know? I’d ask for his take on my work, vent about the chaos at mom’s studio, and talk through the tough times we faced as a family when—well, when Jules was dealing with her addiction,” she says, her voice trailing off a bit at the end.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter, not knowing what else to say.

Leigh brushes off your sympathy with a gentle flick of her wrist. “No, it's not that he was trying to be secretive. I think... I think I was too critical of him, even about his depression.  I thought I knew everything, knew what was best for him.” She sighs, a shadow of regret crossing her face. “I guess I was kind of overbearing, so he stopped sharing things with me. He chose to keep it all to himself instead of having to constantly argue with me.”

You wince slightly, feeling guilty in some way, but Leigh quickly reassures you. “Hey, I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad that he shared things with you. I’m actually glad he did. His work deserves to be out there.”

You nod, taking in Leigh's reflections quietly. Wanting to steer back to a milder topic, you ask, “So, when is it going to be published?”

Leigh's fingers absently toy with the ends of her hair as she thinks. “It's set to come out early next year,” she finally says, her voice surprisingly devoid of excitement. You can't help but wonder why that is.

“And there's going to be a tour right after—it's promoting the comic along with some other new titles from the publisher. I'm... planning to go.”

“That sounds like an incredible experience,” you say, smiling at her.

Leigh makes a sound of agreement. “It's probably starting in late February,” She takes a deep breath before adding, “It'll take me all over the country. We need to attend conventions and such.”

You fall silent, digesting her words. The realization that this isn't just a short trip starts to sink in. “How long will you be gone?” you ask, trying to catch her gaze but Leigh’s eyes are trained forwards.

“I don't have all the details yet, but it could be anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months,” she says.

“But you'll come back in between, right?” The hope in your question is palpable.

Leigh shakes her head slowly. “I'm not sure. It might be a good time to travel and go away for a while with this opportunity.”

The conversation drifts between you, muffled like the world outside the fogged-up windows of your car. It's becoming clear, maybe too clear, what this all means.

Leigh's gaze stays fixed on the shimmering road ahead. She's quiet, but you can almost hear her thoughts tumbling over each other. You know she's wrestling with the implications of her future plans, just as you are. She knows the reality of the situation, understands that there are only a few ways this could possibly go.

She can't ask you to wait, and it wouldn't be fair to ask you to drop everything and follow her. That leaves the looming possibility of a farewell that could stretch into something indefinite.

Minutes pass—one, then two—before you both lose count. It feels as though an hourglass has been unwillingly flipped. Watching the city lights blur through the rain, you can't help but feel they reflect the uncertainty of your future with Leigh. You're willing to attempt a long-distance relationship, though you know it might not be ideal. The prospect of being apart just as things are beginning to bloom between you feels akin to a preemptive goodbye.

Then, an idea takes hold—a bold, possibly reckless notion, but it clings to your heart with surprising tenacity. Yes, you have a clinic, a business that needs you, but suddenly, those realities seem negotiable, secondary to what feels more pressing—being with Leigh.

“What if I came with you on the tour?”

Leigh turns to look at you, her eyes wide with surprise and something like worry. She knows your life is deeply rooted here, especially with the veterinary clinic you’ve poured your heart—and savings—into.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” she says.

“Why not?” you ask softly.

Your tone is so earnest, almost childlike in your confusion, that Leigh’s lips part and then close as she grapples with how to articulate her feelings about your rash offer.

“You have your clinic, your responsibilities here. It's too much for me to expect you to just walk away from that,” Leigh argues.

“But what if it’s not about what you’re asking me to give up?” you say, your fingers unconsciously tightening their grip on the steering wheel. “What if it’s about what I’m willing to sacrifice?”

Leigh's frustration shows clearly as she pushes back against your idea. “Sacrifices? It's about being realistic. We can't just make decisions on a whim.”

You turn to look at her, making it a point to focus on her for a second longer than you should while driving. “But I don't see it as a whim. I see it as choosing what matters most to me.”

Leigh sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You're not seeing the whole picture. What about your employees? They depend on you.”

“I can arrange things at the clinic. I can find people to cover for me,” you say confidently. But Leigh is just as relentless with her objections.

“And what if you come back and resent me for taking you away from all that?” Leigh counters, her voice rising a little. 

“I won’t,” you reply quickly, even though you know it's a hefty promise to make in such a heated moment.

Leigh scoffs, shaking her head vehemently. “You can’t possibly know that.”

Before you can bolster your promise with more reassurances, your phone rings. It’s Sara, calling from the clinic. Leigh watches as you answer, her expression a mix of resignation and pointedness, as if to emphasize her earlier concerns about your responsibilities.

You excuse yourself, grab your phone, and answer the call. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“It's an emergency,” Sara's voice is tense. “Foreman needs you. Can you make it?”

You're just minutes from the city now, and your heart sinks as you realize the timing couldn't be worse. “Yes, I'll be there soon,” you mutter, feeling torn.

After hanging up, you turn to Leigh, who's been quietly observing. “There’s an emergency at the clinic, and Foreman needs my help,” you explain. “Can we stop there? It won't take long, and we can still make it to our next stop.”

Leigh gives a resigned nod, her earlier arguments about your responsibilities underscored by this untimely call. “Sure, whatever,” she says, her voice flat. You want to erase that look on her face, but for now, you’re needed elsewhere.

-

You spring from the car the moment it's parked, snagging your white coat from the trunk in one fluid motion. Leigh is right on your heels, her footsteps quick and questioning as you both scurry into the clinic.

You burst through the doors and immediately spot Sara at the reception, giving her a quick nod of acknowledgment. Beside you, Leigh’s steps falter slightly at the sight of Sara, her expression one of mild shock at seeing her there—a detail you realize you've failed to mention.

“What’s happening?” you ask Sara, pulling your hair into a tight bun.

“Room two, now,” she replies, gesturing briskly towards the surgery room.

You nod and break into a jog, with Leigh hesitantly trailing behind. When you reach your destination, you stop short and turn to signal Leigh to wait outside.

“I’m so sorry about this,” you say, your voice full of apology.

“Just go,” she whispers softly. You offer her a grateful smile before your expression shifts to calm determination as you slip into the surgery room.

Left in the waiting area, Leigh stands in a stupor, surrounded by unanswered questions and a sudden solitude, her eyes lingering on the closed doors you've just disappeared through.

-

Leigh has been noticeably quiet since you emerged from the surgery room an hour and a half ago. Right after you came out, she meekly asked for the car keys and walked straight out of the clinic. You didn’t think much of it at the time, busy giving final instructions to Foreman and Sara before heading out to continue your date with her.

Now, as you drive to the bar you planned on taking her to, you can’t seem to come up with a topic that doesn’t seem like you're evading the earlier argument.

“Where are we headed next?”

You breathe a sigh of relief as Leigh breaks the silence. You notice her glance at the watch on her wrist. The small motion feels like a small betrayal—does it signal impatience, or worse, a desire to escape this disjointed evening?

With everything that’s happened, you drop the pretense of surprise. “I had planned for us to catch a live band at a speakeasy downtown,” you say evenly. “But we're running late, and honestly, I'm not even sure it's worth heading there now.”

You risk a glance at Leigh, almost expecting she’d choose this moment to cut the evening short. But she merely hums noncommittally, and just like that, silence settles in once more.

When you arrive, the heavy rain makes the night feel even more somber. A few cars are still scattered around the parking lot, but the place otherwise looks almost deserted. You grab an umbrella from the backseat and offer it to Leigh as you both make your way to the entrance.

As you approach, the doorman stops you from crossing the threshold. “Sorry, folks,” he says, his voice nearly drowned out by the rain. “The performance was canceled, and we're wrapping up early tonight because of the weather.”

Disappointment settles in, heavier now with the official confirmation. You turn to Leigh, trying to salvage what you can of the evening. “Maybe we can have at least one drink?” you suggest, hoping to extend the time you have together.

Leigh pauses, her expression inscrutable for a moment before she shakes her head. “Actually, I think I’d rather not,” she says, throwing you off with her refusal. 

The doorman gives you a sympathetic nod as he pulls the heavy doors shut, sealing off the warm glow of the bar from the cold, wet night. Leigh takes the umbrella from you with a gesture that's both resigned and leading, and starts walking back to the car. Her steps are quick, purposeful, but she slows just enough under the umbrella to ensure you're covered and not getting drenched. But you barely notice the rain; your mind is clouded with thoughts of how the evening has unfolded.

As you walk, you replay the last few hours, how what began as an attempt to reassure Leigh of your willingness to go the distance by offering to join her on the tour quickly spiraled into a demonstration of all the practical reasons why it was a bad idea. And the unexpected revelation about Sara working at your clinic surely hadn't helped.

Leigh slides into the passenger seat, handing you the umbrella which you catch as several raindrops escape onto your arm. You settle into the driver’s seat, carefully folding the umbrella and tossing it behind you. 

“I guess I should drop you home?” you suggest, more as a formality than a question.

Leigh hums in response, her voice low and temporizing. It’s starting to irk you, this silent treatment. Throughout the drive to her house, the only sounds are the steady swish of the windshield wipers and the occasional splash of tires against puddles. You steal glances at her, trying to decipher her thoughts. Her face is angled towards the window, so that each time you pass under a street lamp, there’s a fleeting moment where her face is illuminated, revealing a tightness around her eyes and a slight downturn at the corners of her mouth.

Just before you turn onto her street, something inside you rebels. You can’t let the night end on this note—defeated, disconnected. You pull over under a massive tree beside an empty lot and shut off the engine.

Turning to her, you find your voice again. “Leigh, talk to me. Please.”

She sighs but remains silent.

“Are you upset because of Sara?”

That gets a reaction from her—an unpleasant one, but a reaction nonetheless. 

“Oh, please.” Leigh lets out a sarcastic chuckle. “Really, it's not my business who you hire, even if it's an ex. But considering you just told me you love me this morning, don't you think that's something you should have mentioned?”

You hadn’t intentionally kept Sara's hiring from Leigh; it had slipped through the cracks of a busy week. You never even considered Sara an ex-anything, so it was an honest mistake. If only you could convince Leigh that Sara is truly that insignificant to you.

“I'm sorry, Leigh,” you say, hoping to smooth things over. But she isn't having it. “It was an oversight, not a choice. Sara really doesn't mean anything in that way. I just didn't think it was important.”

Instead of pacifying her, your words have the opposite effect.

“Not important?” Leigh’s face sets like concrete. “When you say you love someone, everything becomes important, especially things like this. How am I supposed to trust you?”

Your own frustration flares. You didn’t expect such a harsh judgment over what seemed so trivial in your mind. A thought then strikes you, fueling your anger. “And what about you? You’re heading away for months, and you’ve barely spoken about it. When were you going to tell me all the details? Right before you left?”

Leigh reels as if you've slapped her. “That’s different. I was going to tell you—”

“When? Last minute at the airport?” You cut her off, your voice rising to match hers.

“It’s not the same, and you know it!” Leigh snaps back, her eyes alight with anger and something like hurt.

“You're right, it's not the same,” you snap back. “It’s much worse. Because you said you’d give us a chance. And now, when I’m telling you I’m willing to fight for a chance to be with you, you’re shutting me down.”

“I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep,” Leigh says tightly.

“You don’t need to promise me anything,” you reply, your voice softening. “All I’m asking for is a real shot at this. I know you want that too.”

Leigh’s eyes glisten, and for a moment, you think you’re getting through to her. But then her expression hardens again. “Not like this,” she says.

You feel like you're climbing an ever-growing wall between the two of you, but you refuse to give up on this—on her.

“It won’t be easy,” you acquiesce, changing tactics. “But nothing worth having ever is. We can figure it out together, Leigh. We can make it work if we both want it enough.”

Leigh’s jaw clenches, and she looks away, the rain streaking down the windows like tears. She can’t help but compare this moment to the beginning with Matt. He had been so eager, so willing to give himself to her completely. He had always assured her that he was happy just to be with her, to follow her wherever her dreams led. He had said yes to every plan she made, every crazy idea she had, always with that same smile, always saying, “As long as I’m with you.”

But then, one day, he wasn’t there anymore.

And Leigh doesn’t know if she can survive another abandonment.

You have no idea that all of this is racing through her mind as you keep making your case. “...just take a leap of faith. Don’t push me away before we’ve even had a chance to—”

You’re mid-sentence, almost convincing yourself that you're breaking through her defenses, when Leigh interrupts with a shout, “Maybe this was a mistake!”

Taken aback and hurt by her outburst, you risk calling her bluff, exclaiming, “Maybe it was!”

An impasse is reached. For a moment, all you can do is stare at each other, each of you gasping for breath as if the air itself has slipped from the car in those tense seconds. 

Is this it, then?

Is this the end?

But before you can retract any of your words, in a move you never see coming, Leigh reaches out. Her hand clasps the back of your neck, pulling you close. She kisses you fiercely, as if trying to settle the argument with just the pressure of her lips.

But she's not trying to win. Leigh doesn't want to come out on top in this argument. Instead, she wants to forget her usual realism and bury herself in the moment. She wants to give in to your optimism, to let you abandon everything you've worked for to be with her in the coming months.

But she knows that’s selfish.

And she finds herself unable to be selfish when it comes to you. 

You're just beginning to melt into the kiss, to lose yourself in the forgiveness it promises, when Leigh abruptly pulls away. She hurls herself back against her seat, her back pressed hard against the door, panting. 

“Sorry,” she gasps, her voice thick with both regret and need.

You look at her, eyes half-lidded and lips feeling bruised from the fervor of her kiss. All you can focus on is how she's starting to pull away—but you're determined not to let her go. Not this time.

“No, no, come here. Come back here, damn it.”

Leigh doesn't need to be told twice. She meets you halfway, the space between you disappearing as quickly as it had expanded. Her mouth finds yours once again, lips slotting together in a way that feels right, necessary—like solving a puzzle that neither of you knew how to complete until now. 

With all inhibitions cast aside, Leigh grabs the collar of your shirt with surprising strength, yanking you towards her so forcefully that half of your body ends up sprawled across the cramped passenger seat. Your hips press painfully against the gear stick, but any discomfort quickly fades as Leigh's tongue teases yours. Instinctively, you open your mouth wider, a low moan escaping as your tongues intertwine. You support your weight with one arm braced against the windshield behind her, careful not to overwhelm her with your weight. Your other hand rises to cradle her neck, feeling the heat of her skin rising by the second under your touch.

Leigh's hands are anything but idle; they're bold and determined as she reaches for the buttons of your jeans. It's the second time today since this morning, and she's all confidence as she pulls down the zipper, slipping her hand inside your soaked underwear. The moment her fingers trace the length of your slit, brushing against your clit with each pass, you nearly lose your balance.

But as much as you're caught up in the temptation of her touch, there’s something else on your mind—something you've been thinking about all week.

“Backseat,” you say breathlessly, the word more of a command than a suggestion. Without waiting for her response, you clamber toward the backseat of the car. Once there, you quickly turn to help Leigh slide in after you.

You gently push at Leigh's shoulders, and she understands immediately, lying back with a soft thud against the door panel. Her upper back curves awkwardly against the hard surface, but she doesn’t mind, consumed by desire and curiosity about what you’re planning to do next. She lies there, expectant and provocatively inviting, as your fingers hover over the waistband of her shorts. 

You lower your voice to a whisper, “May I?” 

She nods quickly and you make short work of her shorts and panties, tugging them down her thighs efficiently. With a firm tap, you signal for her to lift her legs. She complies, bending at the knees as you strip the fabric past her ankles and casually toss it to the front seat.

Your eyes widen at the sight of her waxed bare. “God, you're beautiful,” you whisper, pulling her closer until she's practically lying across your lap. Your hands roam over her creamy thighs, kneading the soft flesh there. You take your time, exploring every inch, your touch deliberately skirting the places she aches for you most. You’re teasing her, and her body responds ardently—her breath catches, her hips tilt seeking more.

Leigh’s skin is hot under your fingertips. She’s ready, practically quivering, but you keep the pace maddeningly slow. Your fingers dance closer, then retreat, building her frustration to a fever pitch.

“Patience,” you murmur with a teasing smile, savoring the way her body arches and responds to your touch.

“Don't be cruel,” she whines, her eyes the darkest you've seen them.

You lean in, your lips brushing against her ear. “I promise, it'll be worth it,” you whisper, letting your fingers finally drift to the spot she needs you most. Your fingers play with her, teasing her folds, drawing circles around her clit to get her wetter and wetter, each touch designed to increase her desire, her body responding with eager, heated movements. Her breathing becomes heavier, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she pushes against your fingers, craving more.

Seeing her so turned on, you adjust your position. You scoot backward until your back presses against the other side of the car, then gently maneuver Leigh's legs to drape over your shoulders, positioning her in a bridge. The pose might be demanding, so you look up at her, your hands supporting her weight by firmly grasping her buttocks. 

“Is this okay?" you ask as you prepare to bring her closer to your eager mouth.

“Just fuck me, please,” Leigh breathes out impatiently. 

That's all the permission you need. You lower your head, your lips finding the delicate, sensitive flesh of her pussy. Her taste is intoxicating, driving you to explore further with your tongue. Her hips rise to meet your mouth, the angle allowing you to take her in deeply. Leigh's response is immediate—her moans fill the car, guttural and unrestrained. The scent of sex begins to saturate the air, mingling with the dampness of the rain outside. You’re thankful for the dark tint of your car windows and the fact that the bad weather has cleared the streets at this hour.

You want to prolong this, to draw out every moment of her pleasure, but you can already feel Leigh tightening around your tongue, telling you she’s close. In a bid to intensify her impending release, you decide to gamble on your strength. With one hand you keep her lifted in the perfect position, while your other hand moves with a different intent.

Pulling your tongue back, you replace it with your lips, sucking her clit into your mouth, letting the slight pressure send ripples through her. Simultaneously, you slide your middle and ring finger deep into her, the slick heat of her welcoming you in. Leigh's response is visceral, a raw, “Oh fuck, fuck, that’s it, don’t stop…!” that she screams out as if it's being torn from her.

Fuelled by her cries, you pump your fingers harder, faster, curling them to stroke that perfect spot inside her. She's loud, unabashedly so, her moans filling the car, steaming up the windows even more, turning this space into your own sordid bubble. She's dripping down your wrist, your chin, but you don’t mind, existing in that moment solely for her pleasure.

“Y/N, I—”

She's right on the edge, her body slick with sweat and shaking from the relentless pleasure you're hammering into her. But as the climax washes over her, her voice breaks into something unexpected. Instead of the anticipated screams or the typical rush of expletives, something deeper bursts forth.

“—I love you!”

You almost lose your rhythm at her declaration.

Her body shakes violently, her screams of ecstasy almost a primal release. You keep going, pushing her through it, savoring every tremble and shudder, tasting every bit of her orgasm, all the while thinking, Leigh loves me.

She fucking loves me.

You’re cautious enough not to hang your entire heart on those three words immediately, but the confession still paints a devilish grin across your face. This wasn’t merely a heat-of-the-moment slip; it felt like Leigh was revealing something she'd been holding back for a while.

Carefully, you ease her legs down from your shoulders, noticing her wince as she adjusts from the stretch. Before you even get the chance to ask if she really meant what she said, Leigh answers by pulling you in close, her hands framing your face. She kisses you, so tenderly, and it’s nothing like the ones you’ve shared before. It’s the kind of kiss that slows time, the one you’ve been dreaming about since you were a little kid, the one you hope to keep until you’re old.

Leigh’s eyes lock onto yours, earnest and clear, “I do love you.” 

[gingiesworld]

Demonic

Nun Wanda Maximoff x Demon Fem Reader

Warnings: Smut. Shameless smut. If you aren't comfortable with reading it, just scroll along and don't press any buttons. You are banned from pressing buttons ;),

Taglist: @bababaka @natashaswife4125 @natashamaximoff-69 @wizardofstories @canvascoloredin @wandanats-goodgirl @the-ox-fan20 @marvelogic @louxbloom

18+ MINORS DNI

It was quiet around the covenant, Sister Maximoff was always on last call duty, walking the halls after dark to make sure that her sisters were all secluded to their own quarters. Once she was sure that no one was out after hours, she returned to Sister Y/L/N, she had been there years prior to Wanda's arrival but her other subordinates were oddly submissive to her.

"The halls are clear Sister." Wanda informed her as she closed the door behind her.

"Thank you Sister Maximoff." She walked around Wanda and locked the door before she pushed Wanda to sit in the chair, a sinister smile on her face as she looked over the beauty before her. "It's a shame really."

"What is?" Wanda questioned as she tilted her head. A look of confusion on her face.

"Your beauty is such a waste here." She whispered as she leaned over Wanda, her eyes flickering black for a brief moment.

"I don't understand." Wanda whispered as Y/N smirked.

"Such an innocent being." She husked out as she caressed Wanda's jaw with her long cold fingers. "I bet it was your father's wish to send you here." Wanda was stunned by how bold Sister Y/L/N was being, but her mind was also on the way her fingertips felt on her skin.

"My father only wanted me to follow the path that God had set out for me." She whispered as Y/N chuckled manically.

"What about the path you wanted for yourself?" Y/N questioned. "The adventures you could have been having outside of these confines."

"You speak as though you know of such adventures." Wanda stated as Y/N smiled down at her words.

"Such a smart girl." Y/N praised her. "I bet you yearn to live a full life, not this half life you have taken on."

"You're just as stuck as me." Wanda told her.

"That's where you are wrong, my sweet love." Y/N snarled as she leaned in closer to her. "I have the freedom to leave this place, with just the snap of my fingers."

"But our path." Wanda tried as Y/N's hands moved to her thighs, squeezing harshly before moving them up.

"Our paths have been entwined." Y/N husked as her hands moved just above her pubic bone, gripping at the fabric that covered her. "Not the path your father has chosen for you." She ripped the fabric away, revealing Wanda's white underwear. "The path that was written for us." Her hands ghosted over Wanda's covered core, licking her lips as she looked into Wanda's eyes. Her eyes changing to their natural smoky black, causing Wanda to gasp.

"You're." She tried to fight Y/N away who gripped her hands, baring her teeth at the woman.

"Yes." She snarled. "I am and I always get what I want." She leaned closer to Wanda who turned her face away. "And I want you." She bit Wanda's ear, making the woman whimper at the new sensation.

"This isn't right." Wanda whispered as Y/N started to nip softly at her neck, her hands moving to Wanda's underwear, ripping them away and causing her to gasp as the cold air brushed against her puffy and dripping cunt.

"Yet, you aren't pushing me away." Y/N inhaled through her nose. "And your arousal says you want this just as much as I." She growled as she thrusted a finger in her gaping hole, causing Wanda to moan at the sudden intrusion. "Listen to the sound Wanda, your juices flowing, all for me and me alone."

"All for you." Wanda whimpered as Y/N kept a steady pace.

"Look at my fingers Wanda." Y/N growled as she added another. "Look at how they disappear inside of you." Wanda moaned at the sight, Y/N's digits disappearing and reappearing at a faster pace. "I want to ruin you." She growled. "Make you mine. Mark your soul as mine."

"Please." Wanda moaned as she gripped the sides of the chair. "Take me away." Her eyes closed as she reached her first ever orgasm, her cum coating Y/N's fingers as she helped her ride out her high. Wanda listened as Y/N chanted in old Latin before she felt a burning sensation on her wrist. Y/N's mark now burned into her porcelain skin.

"Now you are mine for the taking." And in that moment, the two disappeared, leaving the room as it were before they had participated in their activities.

Y/N had shown Wanda the life and the adventures she was missing out on. The touch and ravenous love of another as she had mind blowing orgasms, night after night. Completely forgoing the oath she had made at her father's request, the disappointment of her father would not affect her as she felt everything that was only ever described in those novels she loved to read when she was a girl.

[loveemii]

AFTER SCHOOL !!

Kamaboko Trio x Afab - 3rd years (1)

SKIT: Hangouts after school are always untamed

———————————————————————

The school bell rings, Y/n quickly packed up her things and began to help clean the classroom like everyone else. Her classmate Murata helped her sweep the floors while everyone put the chair on the desk folded upside down. “Hey, Y/n!” Murata waved a hand to her, she looked up off the ground and wave back with a cheery smile, “Hey!”

“Do you have any plans today after school?” He asked as they both continued to sweep the floors, “Yeah I’m gonna meet Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu at the mall if you’d like to join?” Y/n asked as she occasionally looked at Murata, “Hmm I don’t think I can, maybe some other time.” He smiled at her and she returned it.

- Meanwhile -

“Whatever, she’ll catch up!” Inosuke said in his husked voice as he was walking backwards, leaning on one foot his other lifted a little too high and he almost fell, he caught himself before he could fall. Zenitsu and Tanjiro looked at each other before shrugging and closing their eyes, “Whatever you say.” They said at the same time.

———

Later that day around 3:00, Y/n had finally made it to the mall. She pulled out her phone and texted Tanjiro, [Hey I’m here! Where are you guys?]

Tanjiro’s phone chimed, he pulled it out of his uniform pocket, [Hey! We’re at the food court, Inosuke got hungry.]

Y/n giggles to herself before texting back, [Ok!]

She made it to the food court and saw the boys hanging out they all looked over at Y/n who was walking towards them, they put the piece sign up like usual, Inosuke did so with food in his mouth and crumbs on his lips and cheeks.

Y/n put the sign up as well as she smiled. “So where should we go first?” She asked as the guys got up, they all started to walk around the mall. “Well..I’ve actually been needing a new white button up.” Zenitsu suggested, “Perfect! We can go to Macy’s first.” Tanjiro adds. They all agree and Inosuke finishes off his sweets before throwing the rappers in a trash can nearby.

———

“Look this one looks nice!” Tanjiro showed off a nice fancy white button up shirt with a high collar. Zenitsu’s face slummed at the sight, “Meh it’s too fancy, I’m just looking for a basic school shirt. Ya know like the polo ones?” Zenitsu announced, Y/n and Tanjiro nodded.

Inosuke had found the perfect one, “How about this!?” Inosuke announced proudly as he held it by the short sleeves, Zenitsu smiled brightly but his face turned back to the same slumber when he saw the previous shirt. “Uh, is that a stain?” Zenitsu questioned as he pointed his index finger to the white tee.

“Oh I think it is.” Y/n added, Tanjiro nodded in agreement. “It’s a chocolate stain. Looks brand new too.” Zenitsu inches closer to the shirt then his eyes darted up at Inosuke’s hands. “Inosuke..did you clean your hands before coming into the store?” Zenitsu questioned as he placed his head closrer to Ino’s.

Inosuke looked panicked almost, “Uh, no..?” Zenitsu’s face look irritated; he then let out a sigh. “Let’s go pay for it, I’m sure the stains will come out anyway.” Zenitsu spoke in a monotone voice, as they walked to the register Y/n put a hand over Zenitsu’s shoulder and flashed a gentle smile, he returned it.

———

“So I’ll see you guys again tomorrow for movie night?” Y/n asked with a sure smile on her face, the boys nodded and waved her off as she crossed the street to her house.

“See you tomorrow!” Tanjiro shouted as Y/n unlocked the door to her house, “Bye!” Zenitsu shouted, “Better not get scared tomorrow night!” Inosuke shouted with a smirk as he crossed his arms. You laugh a bit with a smile then waved to them once again before closing your door.

———————————————————————

thank you for reading this new series ^_^ i hope you enjoyed <3

- please excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes, thank you

[violentdelightsandviolentends]

hello!! i wanna say congrats on 3k!! you absolutely deserve it you are such an incredible writer🫶🏼🫶🏼

could i please request a whiskey will joel miller (dbf if you can, if you can’t don’t worry!) with the prompt ‘don’t you dare walk away’ but it’s more in a reader teasing joel kind of way ?

Tease.

warnings - allusions to sexual content. cursing.

thank you for this request, my love!! you're a sweetheart <3

3k celebration post here. 3k masterlist here.

"Shit! Sorry, Joel. Fuck."

The man in question is currently covered in white wine, shirt drenched through thanks to you.

"It's alright," he husks. "It'll dry."

"I have a blow dryer you could use? Much quicker than just waiting."

He takes a deep breath and looks at you pointedly. He can see in your eyes you aren't going to give it up.

"Fine. Lead the way."

"Thanks, honey!" your Dad calls as the two of you walk through the yard, towards the back door. "Be nice, Joel!"

"Always nice," he grumbles under his breath, stomping up the stairs in front of you.

He steps into your room, unbuttoning his shirt.

"My, my. Joel Miller undressing in my bedroom. Who would have thought?"

You're leaning against the dresser, door shut behind you, watching his every move.

"Cut it out," he chides, sliding his flannel off his shoulders. "Where's that blow dryer?"

"Bottom drawer," you tell him, bending down to rifle around in it. Your tiny skirt flips up, and Joel sucks in a breath.

You're wearing a scrap of fabric that Joel's convinced doesn't even count as underwear. It's black and lacy and tests every ounce of his self control.

You stand up to face him, barely inches of space between you. You can feel his warm breath on your cheeks, chuckling as you watch him clench and unclench his fists in restraint.

"You did it on purpose, didn't you?" he asks lowly.

You play dumb.

"Hmm?"

"The wine. You spilled it on purpose."

"And now why would I do that, Mr Miller?"

The nickname sends all his blood rushing down south.

"To get me alone. To get me shirtless."

You lean up so you're nose to nose, lips brushing when you speak.

"And what if I did?" you whisper.

"You're a fuckin' tease. Jesus Christ, you're gonna get us caught."

"You weren't worried about that when you ate me out in the bathroom during the football game last week."

He groans, running a hand over his face.

"You love the thrill as much I do," you murmur against his lips.

Joel leans in as if he's about to kiss you... and walks straight past you, plugging in the blow dryer and grabbing his shirt.

You sit on the edge of the bed, legs parted, perfect view on display for him.

"Don't you dare walk away from me, Joel Miller."

You slip your hand under your skirt, putting on a show. He's almost burning a hole through his shirt watching you. He shakes his head and slips it back on, buttoning it up with tense hands.

Walking over to you, he plants a rough kiss on your lips, gripping at the hair at the back of your head. It's all tongue and teeth and carnal desire.

"You're gonna pay for that later," he tuts, walking out of your room without so much as a glance backwards.

Little does he know, that's exactly what you wanted.

[speedycoffeedelight]

An Animalistic Disaster

CH-17: Mr. Cottontail

Masterlist

Summery:

Where you recollect more of your memories and open a bunch of trading cards. And a duo might have figured out the reason behind transformation, but we'll see.

A.n : There's going to be some heavy lore drop here. So just brace yourself a little. Also from now, the animal's dialogues will be in italics so it's easy to understand. I'll get to editing the previous chapters as well.

"I swear to god...one of these morning I'm going to have a heart attack."

You grumbled while sitting and held your head in your palm. You looked at Cherri who was in a makeshift cage made from a big plastic basket, trying to shake it and screeching. She had to learn her lesson some way. Your head was still pounding right now.

Then you looked at Husk who was trying his best to fit into the biggest shirt you had. The buttons on his chest were holding on for dear life. Honestly, it kinda made you jealous.

Husk was a black man who seemed to in his late 40's or 50's. He had black hair pulled back with white streaks on them as well as a small goatee. He had light yellow eyes that looked tired as hell. And the muscles in his hand, holy shit, it looked like he could easily carry you up like a feather. Husk was easily the best thing of this morning.

He of course also had feline features like before. A pair of black cat ears and tail adorned his form. He also had slitted black eyes. His nails were a bit sharper too.

And of course neither of you were prepared for him to transform in middle of sleeping, nobody was. God the embarrassment and confusion you felt when you opened your eyes to see an old handsome man staring at you with sleepy eyes, just as confused as you were.

You would have immediately swooned if not for the fact that you didn't know this guy and the fact he was shirtless, on your fucking bed, cuddling you.

So you did the first thing that came to your mind. You let out a loud scream and pushed him off the bed. He landed on the ground in front of Charlie and others with a big thud. "Oof, what the hell-" Cherri burst out laughing beside you. 'Now that's more like it!'

"Husk are you alright?" Charlie immediately kneeled down to check for injuries. "Husk??" You pulled the cover to your chest and looked down to see him properly. But you quickly averted your gaze when you saw he was shirtless with just a pant on. But that image will forever be engraved into your simp brain.

So after that was all over, you learnt what happened and caged Cherri. She was grounded till she learnt her lessons. You rubbed your head in frustration as Niffty brought you a cup of coffee.

"Here you go miss (Y/n)!"

You thanked her and took a sip. She still looked at you like she was waiting for something. Confused, you raised an eyebrow.

"...Do you need something Niffty?"

"You didn't pat my head." She said it like it was obvious and kept looking at you with wide eyes. You got surprised at this answer. 'She wants to be petted??' but then you remembered she was part dog now and that's probably the reason she was acting like this.

You reached out and patted her head making her smile happily as she wagged her tail. 'Adorable~' you thought in your mind.

Last night's memory was a bit hazy to you. You rubbed your head in frustration trying to remember it. Angel climbed onto the table grinning at you.

'Toots, didn't know ya were such a lightweight. Haha, but you gave quite a show last night, I'll give ya that." Niffty translated it, making you more worried. You asked her to recount the things to you. Pentious joined you since he wasn't there last night as well.

" I did what?"

Last night's memory came flooding back to you bit by bit as you listened. You, you finally petted Alastor's ears! You couldn't believe it.

'What's with the screaming, my dear?'

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. You grinned as you turned to face the stag. "I finally patted you, you smiling bastard!" You mentally cheered as you looked at him with a prideful smile. Alastor felt his face get hot again at that memory and he bonked you on the head with his antlers.

"OUCH what was that for!"

After you finished eating, you drove Charlie off to the cafe. Apparently Vaggie knew how to drive so she went with you two so she could memorize the roads. Once she memorizes she could drive Charlie sometimes as well.

After waving her off at the shop, you quickly departed. You let Vaggie take the wheel this time while you gave directions. Vaggie was an excellent driver. You were quite impressed.

Charlie took a deep breath as she got dropped off and watched you two drive away." This is it Charlie. You gotta make them proud. Right, let's do this!"  she entered the store after mentally cheering herself.

"Oh hi there Charlie. Good to see you back."

Adrian gave her a warm smile as he was middle of cleaning. He put the broom he was cleaning with aside and guided her to the counter. He gave her a new apron to wear that had the cafe's name on it.

"Alright, I'll show you the ropes first time. Then it'll be up to you."

Charlie nodded and took the apron.

"Also won't you take off those horns and ears? You're in middle of work now."

She gulped, right, these weren't normal. But she hadn't practiced what to say during this. She thought it would be okay since they didn't question it before.

"Uh...can they please stay on? I promise you they won't cause any trouble!"

"Huh? Oh..okay then. I just thought it might be easier if you took them off."

Just then a ring sounded out from the door, signaling someone entered the shop. Adrian flashed Charlie a quick look while smiling.

"Come on, it's showtime!"

At evening, you went to go pick up Charlie. As Charlie was about to get into the car, Adrian called out to her.

"Charlie, wait!"

You and Charlie both looked at Adrian who rushed to you guys with a small bag.

"A small gift for your first day at work." He handed Charlie the bag and grinned.

"There's a piece of strawberry cake inside. Have a safe return home."

Charlie delightfully thanked him and got back into the car. While you were driving she told you about her experience which you listened to happily. It seemed like the day went pretty well. Even though there weren't much customers, Charlie enjoyed her time there. Plus from what you heard and saw, Adrian seemed to be a good boss.

The next day, you drove Charlie again as Vaggie sat with you. Pentious joined you this time as some of his works were done. Husk came as well to buy some clothes and as well as take a look at the human world. During the drive, Husk remembered something.

"Hey kid, I forgot to ask you this before but who the hell is cottontails?"

Those words hit you like a lightning as you brain started to overwhelm with memories. It's been a long while since you heard that name.

"W-where did you hear that name?"

"When you were holding me a day ago. You whispered you missed whatever it was."

"That was my pet bunny...I lost him when I was six. That night, my parents had a huge argument after dinner and we moved to my uncles house the very next day. In the end, I never knew what happened to it."

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You weren't allowed to keep pets when you were a child. Your dad claimed it would be a waste of time and it will take your attention away from your duties. One day, while you were walking outside on your lawn, you stumbled across a small frail baby bunny. There was only one and it looked like it didn't even have the energy to move. After looking around, you found no signs of any other rabbits around.

You found yourself in a pickle. Your heart cried to take it home and care for it. But another part of you warned that if your father found out, you'd be in big trouble. You picked up the small thing, lost in thought and whispering "What am I going to do with you little bunny? "

The bunny moved a little and sniffed your hand, making your heart swoon. You decided immediately "Heck with it! Having a small bunny will be fine! Plus they won't make any noises like kitties or doggies! I can do this! I'll just need to be careful!"

The bunny again stopped moving in your arms and seemingly fell asleep. Your eyes glazed over it, trying to think of a name.

"I think I'll call you....mr.cottontails!"

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Several months went by after getting mr.cottontails. You kept him under your bed. You always cleaned your own room by yourself so it wasn't a problem. You would let him run around your room once you locked the door and quickly hide him when someone was coming. Your dad was quite suspicious at how you looked so cherry recently but didn't question it. On the other hand, your mom was quite happy with this change in you.

Then one day, while you were on your way to your room after finished studying with your tutor, you spotted your dad. He seemed to be amused by something. He spotted you as well and gave you a smile.

"Isn't it a nice day today? Are you doing alright (Y/n)?"

You were taken aback by his sudden change of attitude but nodded and said everything was fine. Something was clearly wrong, you could feel it in your gut.

You rushed to your room after that and looked for your rabbit. It was gone... "Cottontail? Mr.cottontail??" You called out yet you couldn't spot the familiar ball of fluff running towards you like usual.

You spent the rest of the day trying to find him but no avail. There was no sign of him anywhere. And you couldn't even ask anyone else if they've seen him cause you're not supposed to have one in the first place.

Then your mind went to your father earlier, it had to him! That's why that damn man was smiling at you.

At dinnertime, you were fighting to keep your tears from coming out. You couldn't afford to let yourself be broken in front of him. You knew that he knew about you knowing what he did. He was just waiting for you to burst so he can properly punish you for going against his rules.

While your mom was serving you the stew for that night's dinner, she could sense something was wrong.

"(Y/n) dear, is everything alright?"

"Y-yes, mom, everything's fine. Don't worry."

"Of course everything's fine with her. (Y/n), today's stew is extra delicious, go ahead and try." Your dad said from across the table, grinning at you. You couldn't bear to look at this man's face properly. The rest of the dinner was quiet with you almost crying in the middle.

After you finished eating, you went straight to your room and locked the door and started crying. Sometime later, you heard your parents fighting over something. You pulled a pillow over you head to stop hearing to those as you sobbed harder.

You hated this. You hated screaming and fighting. You hated living here. You hated your dad. You hated it, hated it, hated it.

You wanted to go out and be with your mom. But you knew better then to do that. The last time you did, you just made things worse. You don't know after how long, it could have been several minutes or several hours, but your mom knocked on your door to tell you to pack and that you're leaving. The rest of the time went down in a haze and before you knew it, you both were standing in front of your aunt's house.

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After dropping off Charlie, you and Pentious went around shops to try and resell those fixed products and let Vaggie show Husk around a little. You successfully managed to resell some of the products.

After that, you bought some cloths for the bartender. Husk had been nagging you nonstop to buy some booze since the beginning. So you did, but you made him use his puppy eyes first. Husk hated every second of that but he swallowed down his pride for booze. He was too far gone at that point.

After coming home, you received a delivery of the cards you ordered. You immediately got down to opening them after squealing in happiness.

"Please give me an Alastor card.. please give me an Alastor card..."

"You really want Alastor's card that badly?" Charlie said laughing and sitting next to you.

"Of course I do! He's my favourite character!" You mumbled while collecting the packs from the box. Suddenly you could feel eyes on you from the back. You sighed.

"Alastor I can feel your smugness from here, stop it." You turned around at the deer behind you.

'I didn't do anything dear. I'm just standing here and observing ' Alastor had shit eating grin in his face. 'Though I am very much charmed you consider me as your favourite.'

"Someone tell me what he's saying. I know he's enjoying this too much." You picked up a pack and finally opened it.

Niffty translated it for you. "Yeah well I liked you better when you were in a cartoon, not annoying my ass off."

The first holo card you got was of Charlie's. Charlie's face lit up seeing it and immediately showed it to Vaggie. You got Angel, tom treanch and a new character called lute in too. After opening  three more packs, you were presented with holo Angel, Vellevette and razzle and dazzle. And you also found an ultra rare card of Lilith. Yet there was no sign of Alastor.

You were lucky enough to get normal cards for most of the cast present with you though. You handed them their own cards. Sighing you picked up the final pack and looked Alastor dead in the eye.

"You better be in here deer boy."

'Oh she means business this time angie.' Cherri chuckled leaning onto the spider. 'yeah and this shits hilarious to watch.' Both of their own cards were in front of them. Angel with his holo card and Cherri with the normal one.

"Is that a fucking condom you're holding there?" Husk was leaning down looking at Angel's card while pointing at it. Angel shot him a smug grin while wriggling his eyebrows. 'Yeah, it is. You like what you see here kitty?'

Husk didn't say anything and just knocked Angel away with a flick of his fingers. The corner of his lips turned up seeing how easily he can move angel away now.

'What, hey! What the fuck Husk?!'

"You deserved it."

With your heart pounding, you opened the last pack and pulled out the holo one. Others looked at you eagerly to see your reactions.

"I fucking got Alastor! Let's go!"

You jumped up on your bed from the excitement, surprising everyone.

"Look! Look! Alastor it's you!" You practically shoved the card in front of his face, making him take a step back. Before he could see clearly you took back the card to see it again while fangirling.

"Look at my little boy with all these creepy symbols around him! He's so pretty!" You were so happy that you couldn't care less that the real Alastor was right in front of you. Until Alastor nudged you on your head with his antlers and grabbed the card with his teeth.

"Hey, give it back!" You streached your hand to grab it but he turned around and placed the card on the table before you could do anything. He finally took a good look at his card. 'Hm, not bad.' You finally went to the table and snatched it back.

After you carefully stored the cards, you began preparing dinner while humming. Angel and Cherri was lazily sitting on the counter while looking at you.

'Hey Angel, how come we didn't transform yet? It sucks being in this form..'

'You tell me toots. That snake boy and kitty cat got to transform before I did. Now that's some bullshit right there.'

'There's gotta be some kinda link somewhere right?'

'There have to be! Wait..if we think about it... when they all transformed...they were all with (Y/n) right?'

'Shit, Angie you might be onto somethin'

You gave the guys their food. You had to drag Husk to the dinner table since he was passed out drunk on the couch. You called Pentious from outside as well. Recently he took on a new task. He volunteered to fix the shitty wooden sofa set you had. You were truly grateful for that.

During dinner, Cherri climbed on top of your right shoulder and Angel on left. You paused eating to look at them with confusion.

'We decided that we want to stay as close to (Y/n) we can from now on!'  Cherri said making everyone squint their eyes at them.

"Uh, guys...can y'all tell me what they're saying?"

Charlie translated it for you making you even more confused.

"But why?"

'Because we want to!'

Everyone just shook their head thinking this pair was just being their usual chaotic self. But you realised they weren't joking when you went to sleep and they both cuddled up to you, declaring they'll sleep there. Normally you'd think this was cute, however there were two problems.

One, is that, you might move in your sleep and accidentally squish these small creatures. Especially Angel.

Two, they were laying on your chest....

"Angel..Cherri...can I ask why you decided THIS would be a good place to sleep on?"

'What? Ya got nice pair of tit's and they make a nice pillow.'

'Plus Husk slept too did't he?'

Niffty who was sitting beside you translated it making you go blush madly. You quickly shoved them both away and pulled the cover closer to yourself.

"Fuck no. Pervert! I was drunk that time! Either sleep on a pillow next to me or get out of my room!"

At last they both slept next to you after you scolded them for some time. Next two days went the same way. Angel and Cherri were with you everywhere. They even tried to sneak into your shower before you found out and kicked them out. Currently they were both sitting on top of your kitchen counter, munching on nuts and fruits lazily. Husk was making himself a burger currently.

'Nothin's working...where did we go wrong?'

'We definitely missed something. Our plan was bulletproof! We're just missing one key point...'

'We spent the whole last two days with 'er twenty four hours. I think we have seen and know everything about her already! We even know how she almost cried while editing her news'

'Or how she tilts her head when she doesn't understand something?' Cherri piped in.

'or when she sings when she thinks no one was listening.' Angel said laughing. 'Oh her face is priceless when she gets caught. She still sometimes forgets that she lives with a whole bunch of demons now.'

'Have you noticed the BL manga's of her's-'

They continued chatting like this for a while, pointing out small details that you do, things that you like or dislike and laughing amongst themselves.

'Haha...that girl really is something..'

'Yeah, She's completely my type.'

'Ya might want to confess quickly then. Otherwise I might just steal her first ' Angel said winking. Cherri scoffed and bumped him with her tail.

'Hey what gives? I thought you were gay?'

'I am, But who am I to resist a sweet thing like her. She's an exception.'

' You already have Alastor and Husk to fawn over. Leave (Y/n) to me bastard.'

'No can do sweetheart. First come, first serve'

They both looked at each others eyes for a second then burst out laughing. It might seem like they were joking from the front, but they both knew they were seriously attracted to you.

Suddenly they both got engulfed in golden light. Husk stopped in the middle of biting his burger and looked at them wide eyed. Now in place of the spider and the squirrel, there were two humans.

Angel and Cherri looked at each other, wide eyed. Angel opened his mouth first.

"Shit I think I know the key behind transforming!"

A.n: Now I know there are tons of fanarts of human Husk with White skin but I'll always headcannon Husk as a black man, the same colour as his VA. And I'll die on this hill defending that.

Plus it's refreshing to have different veraites of race and colour presented (⁠~⁠‾⁠▿⁠‾⁠)⁠~

Also might go on a little break since some of my important college exams are coming up. Hope ya enjoyed the chapter ~

Tag list: @legostars @glowinthedarkbones1150 @darifes @aria-tempest @rainbowcake1212 @luxylucylou

[wordstro]

[3:37 PM] + space/interstellar inspired + wooyoung + "please just come home. i need you to come home."

a/n: 2k words, angst, don't really need to have watched interstellar, just know that love transcends dimensions, time, space, and relativity

-

tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

each tick and each tock knocks against your skull in the otherwise quiet hallway. it's all you can hear, it's all you can see. your vision is a blur, and your hands are shaking as your grasp at your knees, and the chair you're sitting in is too fucking hard.

tick.

you are fifteen again, kicking rocks across the sidewalk as you trudge towards yet another new school. the school uniform is too tight at your collar, and your shoes are too scuffed against the pristine white of your socks. someone shoves past you, cackling at something his friend says. you stumble. he doesn't say sorry.

someone grabs your elbow. steadies you. you look up, and the boy is tan and ruffled, his buttons uneven and his tie loose, his grin askew.

he says, "what an asshole."

he sticks out his hand.

"the name's wooyoung. jung wooyoung."

you smile.

tock.

you are nineteen again. you are in a long dried up cornfield, screaming, "wooyoung sit the fuck down!"

his laughter is loud, boisterous, echoing through the fields as he clings to the back of the pickup truck. the kite he spent months upon months modifying in his parent's old shed zips above the speeding truck as it plows through dried corn husks.

"faster mingi!"

"no don't you dar -" you screech when mingi slams on the gas, grabbing wooyoung's free hand over the console even as mingi's deep laugh joins wooyoung's, even as his kite flies. wooyoung cuts the cord and it flies. it flies on its own. it soars. you haven't seen anything like it in a while. wind whips at your face. you let out a terrified laugh, eyes watering. wooyoung squeezes your hand back, even as he grins down at both of you.

tick.

you are twenty-three again.

"do you think there's a point to this anymore?" you ask. your throat is itchy and dry - but that is common nowadays, when the very earth has become a dried up husk of what it once was, and dust settles over everything, even the inside of everyone's lungs.

wooyoung stays his hand against the door handle and turns to look at you. you're both needed at the office - wooyoung is a top researcher and you run the hr department and you know the point is to save earth from its impending doom, but you could not help but ask. just last week, you two had seen footage of a brawl break out over a measly basket of food.

"we have to keep trying, don't we?"

"i suppose we do," you mumble.

tock.

you are twenty five again, sitting in a conference room with the few people left who decided to keep trying. professor hongjoong's words ring through the silence.

"the last people to starve will be the first to suffocate," hongjoong says. "but we can still save humanity. there is a wormhole - born from a gravitational anomaly next to saturn - and it can take us to a different universe. one that could have a planet that can sustain life."

"sustain us." mingi says in awe.

the excitement is clear in his deep voice. and when you look to wooyoung, it lights up his eyes, his face, the same way the kite had in that dried up cornfield when you were nineteen. your heart clenches.

this is a room full of scientists and researchers, professor hongjoong and mingi and wooyoung, choi san, and kang yeosang, whose need to try far outweighs whatever survival extincts had convinced everyone else to long abandon this effort. you are merely a human resources representative, meant to sit and do paperwork professor hongjoong or senior analyst seonghwa could not be bothered with.

"how do we know if it can?" you ask, your voice echoing in the room. all eyes flit to you. "you said could have. how do we know for certain that there is a planet that can sustain life, let alone us?"

"we need a team to go in first."

hongjoong looks around the room.

his smile falters.

"there's a catch, isn't there?" san leans onto his elbows against the conference table. yeosang's brows furrow. you find your gaze flitting to wooyoung.

"the wormhole has a massive gravitational pull. i don't know what it will do, or how this will turn out. time will become relative. an hour there could be years here or vice versa. but i need a team of four researchers out there who understand that, who understand the importance of this mission, and who are willing to go into the unknown for humanity. the data you collect from that black hole will give us the ability to fuel humanity's escape. the rest of us will prepare here and help you however we can."

"we get to go through a wormhole?" wooyoung asks, and the childlike glee is endearing, if it were not for the heavy weight settling on your chest.

hongjoong nods, grinning.

tick.

twenty two again, and wooyoung holds a hand out to you, threads his fingers through yours, and the two of you peer up at the night sky. he says, "it's beautiful, isn't it?"

"you think everything is beautiful."

you feel his eyes on your face. you look at him. he looks at you as if you are the stars he's always been so fascinated by. your heart skips a beat. he just hums in agreement.

tock.

twenty six again. you find wooyoung nervously tapping his fingers against the cafeteria table and staring off into space. his thermal spacesuit is folded neatly in front of him. san gets to his feet when he sees you. he shakes his head before you can say anything, and pats your shoulder as he moves past you, leaving you and wooyoung alone.

you sit across from him. he keeps drumming his fingers against the table.

"excited?" you ask.

he leaves tomorrow.

he meets your gaze, and his shoulders loosen a bit. he nods, "and nervous."

"me too." you say.

wooyoung peers at you, as if he's memorizing your face. you don't like the thought of that. after a beat, he asks, "what do you think is worse? staying or leaving?"

"i don't know. staying feels pretty shitty right now."

"you could ask me, you know." wooyoung's fingers still against the table. "to stay."

you laugh, "i could never."

he is born for this. to soar. to explore. he loves you, you know it, you've always known it, even without either of you ever saying it, but he loved learning, he loved the pursuit of knowledge, more.

wooyoung lets out his own shaky laugh.

tick.

twenty five again, and you're standing with your arms crossed over hongjoong's desk, ignoring seonghwa and jongho's presence in the corner.

"let me go, too."

"no, you're a liability."

"i work here too."

"you do paperwork, y/n. what the hell could you possibly do on a spaceship?"

"then why the hell did you let me in that room?" your voice rises, and your chest hurts, and suddenly all the anger and fear you've felt since that meeting bursts from your chest. you bang your hands on his table, and you say, "why the hell are you telling me what's going to happen? why the hell am i being kept in the loop when i have no say in any of this?"

hongjoong's gaze flicks from your face to your curled, shaking fists. he doesn't say anything.

"please, let me go with them."

"no."

you open your mouth. you want to say, then don't let him go. but you can't. you cannot.

you could never.

hongjoong's gaze softens. he says, "if you go with him, he won't have a reason to come back. he won't fight for it. he'll stay out there forever. he belongs out there. i need wooyoung to fight to come back, no matter what happens out there."

you press your hand to your mouth, you say, "and if that's not enough?"

hongjoong just shakes his head, "you are. you have to be."

tock.

you aren't.

seonghwa opens the door in front of you.

the ticking stops as abruptly as the door opens.

seonghwa looks at you with furrowed brows and gentle eyes, and he holds out a hand you do not take. you pants crumple in the death grip you have on your knees.

you are much older now then you had been when you helped wooyoung put on his space suit. he'd held your hands between his for a long, long time, until yeosang clapped his hand on wooyoung's back, and said it was time to go.

it's been twenty-two years since then.

wooyoung's face takes up the entirety of the command center's screen. the room is empty, except for hongjoong. he gets up from the chair, and lets you take it. the door to the command center room clicks shut behind you.

wooyoung hasn't aged a day.

"an hour on the planet they've landed on is seven years on ours," jongho told you quietly when he came to pick you up this morning.

it's only been a few hours for him.

"y/n?" he says, and his voice cracks into a million pieces. you want to pick up all those pieces as best as you can, but you can't. you are too far away. he doesn't exist in the same time as you.

"am i that unrecognizable?"

he is the size of the moon, and that is only half of how you see him. you'd started to forget how he looked.

he shakes his head, blinking rapidly, and he says, "you look better than ever."

"can't say the same thing about you."

he lets out another laugh. his voice is filled with crackles, with static, but it is the same boisterous laugh it's always been.

he says, "did they tell you what's happened?"

you nod, swallowing the lump in your throat, "you're stranded there."

"there's another ship, from a previous expedition."

"is it far?"

"it's only a kilometer out."

"are you going to come back?"

wooyoung closes his eyes, then. he opens his eyes, his brown eyes soft and sad and so so sorry, but so full of the resolve you'd always loved and will continue to love. "i have to keep trying."

"please, just come home," you say, you beg really. twenty-two years ago, you could never. but now, you whisper, voice breaking around the lump in your throat, "i need you to come home."

wooyoung brushes at his eyes with the back of his hand. he bites his lip, and he says, "i have to finish this."

"okay," you say, because that's all you can say.

but you never know if he finishes it or not. you never know if he comes home or not.

tick tock.

you are twenty again, and a book flies off wooyoung's bookshelf. another one. another one.

you frown at wooyoung, baffled, really at his intrigue, though you can't help but smile at the way he paces. you sit on the floor watching him. he shrugs his coat off and places it gently over your crossed legs before he starts pacing again. mingi peers in from behind the door, a plate of snacks in his hand, "are you both done messing with the ghosts?"

you shake your head. mingi rolls his eyes and leaves.

that night, wooyoung shakes you awake from the floor. you'd fallen asleep and he must have tucked a pillow under your head at some point. he whisper-shouts, "this is binary code, y/n. the books. they fell out in code."

you blink away sleep, "what?"

"they're coordinates."

"to where?"

wooyoung lifts his bright phone screen to your face. you squint, blinded by the light, before you read, "AZ Space Station? why there?"

wooyoung shrugs.

"so," you sit up, "we're going, aren't we?"

wooyoung grins, clasping your face between his hands in excitement as he nods. you grin back, laughing.

tick tock.

01100011 01101111 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101000 01101111 01101101 01100101

[writteninlunarlight-years]

Moon~

(Some pretty upsetting stuff happened to me, and like always, when I am down, I gotta write those emotions out so I don't have writer's block. This is sad and ouchie, yet let me know if you want Husk’s side of the story or even a happy ending. Thank you to those who support me and my writing)

Tw: verbal abuse, rage, depression, anxiety, poor life choices, unresolved issues

The day you two met was still ingrained in your memory like yesterday. You were being chased by mob bosses on the streets. The moon's glow guided you as you thought about seeking refuge in that glitzy Casino; fingers crossed, you would be lost in the sea of noise and flashing lights. Though your wish came true and you managed to avoid the boss, Scott free, you never expected to land face-to-face with the man you had.

He had a beautiful black and white tuxedo fit, a half-buttoned dress shirt with an excellent-fitting pinstripe jacket, and a cigar hanging from his mouth. Looking up at him, you know fear was the feeling that should be coursing through you, yet what you felt was unadulterated lust and desire. He was your aphrodisiac; nothing else would compare.

He took a special interest in you, too. Not every day does someone bring danger into the feared Casino Overlord's home, let alone look him dead in the eye the way you did. Originally, it was just a job, a simple work experience to help keep you out of trouble. That changed all too soon, though.

Gifts appeared at your hotel room door, from lovely outfits to perfumes and even jewelry. He tried to woo you, but you had already fallen for him. Eventually, your job at the bar turned into sitting on his lap at the card table. You would relax him when he lost and congratulate him when he won. One excellent win resulted in him bedding you, claiming you as his. One soul contract later, and you were his and his alone.

To go back in time and alter reality would be a miracle; that isn’t life, though. Instead, your life here was a moment of looking up at the moon from a new location that was no longer the Casino.

You and Husk got in your fights; everyone did. Yet Husk, when he was drunk, was temperamental; he was angry and hated losing. No amount of sex, cuddles, or kisses could fix it. What went from gifts and showers of affection turned into arguments and cold nights of sleeping alone. He would never raise a hand to you, but raising his voice became a new constant as his power in the scene of the Overlords faltered.

Years of arguments and false promises about things getting better and you two overcoming anything opened you both up to weakness… Then they came in—the young upstart overlords Vox and Alastor, ready to gamble with the big cat on day one. The two were charming, and charisma ebbed off of them in waves.

You did your due diligence at your job that damned night, smiling, flirting, anything to knock them off their game. If Husk beat the up-and-coming stars of hell, maybe he would feel better than he had been. You were wrong, though, because he didn’t win, and neither did you.

A deal was struck. The man you loved and grew to care for, even through the fighting and long cold nights, sold you off. In one game, your new soul owner was Vox. It was a blur—there was yelling, chains breaking and forming, and you being taken away.

When you woke the next day, you were in a small penthouse of Vox’s. You were his ‘lover’ now, as he put it. Husk had sold you off. Tears streamed down your face as you realized the love you harbored for him was not the same love he harbored for you.

Vox was kind to you; he cared for and treated you like royalty. When his fallout with Alastor happened not too long after, you two only had each other to pick up the pieces; you wouldn’t say the relationship that formed between you two was out of desire or want; it was a necessity to stay alive.

You two may sleep together and pretend in front of cameras, but at night, you both think of who you once loved. The people who hurt you both in intricate and damning ways. The people who strengthened your bonds together to the point that you two found the most comfort in one another.

You were always on the sidelines when the Vees came around and got big. The connection you and Vox had made you off limits to the other two Vee’s. He didn’t want you whored out; He didn’t want you as a model; he wanted you to find happiness like he was searching for.

Yet every night, you two lie on opposite sides of the bed, looking out the grand window and remembering your happiness left a long time ago. Your’s when Husk sold you off like a pawn, and Vox when Alastor became too good for him. Both of you have deep, untreated wounds. Vox grew angrier as years turned to decades, yet he never raised his voice at you. He knew of the life you lived prior to him taking on your soul. As for you the pain over the decades just turned to more profound loathing and sadness for you.

You loved Husk, you still did, and on nights when Vox would go out with the Vees or consummate their relationship, you would find yourself sitting outside on the balcony of Vox’s penthouse, staring at the moon. Sometimes, you wonder, ‘Does he see the same moon as I do?’ ‘Does he miss me like I miss him?’

Your questions were sadly answered one day, much to your dismay. You were opting to witness the downfall of Alastor with Vox on the day of the extermination, and that’s when you saw him. Not only did Alastor not die, and the hotel stood tall once more, but Husk was one of Alastor’s souls…making those same eyes he once made for you at a spider demon.

Vox noticed your change in mood and quickly calmed his destructive rage to help you, but it was too late. You saw it all right there on his 4 K screen. You were replaced, unloved, and not wanted. You were only ever a pawn to try and keep power for as long as he could, until Alastor had his soul, and then Alastor dropped Vox.

Swallowing the tears, you excused yourself to the room and went straight to the balcony. Looking on the horizon, you could see the Hazbin Hotel, where Husk was probably smitten with the spider demon. Choked, pained sobs left your frame as you screamed at the moon like it was all its fault for leading you to that casino when you were running from the mob bosses.

When Vox found you, it was a sorry sight. You were curled up on the balcony in a ball, silent sobs wracking your body. Vox explained that the spider was one of Val’s souls, that he knew Husk was Alastor’s soul, but that since he had your soul, Alastor would never let you near. You laughed sadly; Vox wasn’t wrong. The minute that word got out that Alastor stole an overlord's soul, he dropped Vox. You never imagined the soul would be Husk’s.

Vox helped pick you up and leaned you against his chest as you two looked up at the moon, “Hey, Vox, do you think they are looking at the same moon?”

[selineram3421]

*is tired*

Courting Pursuit

Part 3

Part 2

Alastor X Deer Reader

Warnings ⚠

⚠ mule deer reader, gender neutral (gn) reader, assuming Alastor is a marsh deer, Spanish translated, cussing, blood, Valentino's dialogue is pink italics in quotation marks, mentions of aphrodisiac(drug), italics= thoughts ⚠

"Where's Gentle Giant?", Angel asked looking around for the tall deer.

"They have a name you know.", Vaggie sighed.

You were not seen at all today by the others and caused some slight worry among some of the group. Of course, Alastor could care less.

"I know but really, where are they? I didn't see 'em this morning."

Husk turned to look at the spider demon with a raised brow.

"They wake up at five in the morning to start breakfast early. You've been wakin' up early?", the cat demon asked.

Angel raised his arms up. "How could I not!? Have you seen them make breakfast? That's a whole meal on its own! Shaking their ass around to the music they put on, half buttoned up shirt, and those leggings.", he crosses his arms. "I didn't get to see shit today! Kitchen was empty!"

"I didn't get my bugs today!", Niffty piped in. "They usually give me bugs that they find in the kitchen after cooking."

The group continued to wonder where you had gone until Charlie came into the lobby with Sir Pentious.

"Oh, I gave them an errand.", the Princess said.

"WHY!?", the arachnid cried out.

"Shut up Angel.", the white haired woman sighed.

"They said they wanted to do something outside, so I offered them to pick up something from a shop. It's not that far.", Charlie reassured.

"Charlie.", the porn star dead panned.

"Yes?", the Princess smiled.

"How long have they been in Hell? I mean out there, not in the hotel."

"Less than a day..."

Everyone is quiet before rushing out of the hotel.

"Damn it Charlie! They might die!", Angel shouts.

"I didn't think it'd be that bad! Oh no no no no no-!", she apologizes as they all run down the road into the city.

Alastor just sighs and follows calmly behind the group.

What a way to start the day..

.

You were getting groceries for the Princess.

She said that most of the food was gone and with the help of Vaggie, you got a list of the things you needed to get.

At the store, you were a bit confused but you met a nice older woman that helped you learn what the aisle signs said.

"Muchas gracias." (Thank you very much.)

"De nada!", the woman waved her hand. (You're welcome!) "Qué demonio tan atractivo eres." (What an attractive demon you are.)

After paying and carrying all the bags, you made your way through the city and tried to go back to the hotel quickly.

But a tall bug stands in your way once you make it to the entertainment district.

"Ah~ The deer that appeared on the screens.", the tall moth demon smiled wide and approached you. "Valentino is my name and I want you to work for me. A face like yours is well liked among the sinners.", he said and reached out to hold your face.

"No quiero lo que me ofreces.", you quickly moved your head away. (I don't want what you are offering.)

"Ah, pero imagina todo el dinero que ganarás~" (Ah, but imagine all the money you'd be making~), he continued. "Todas las delicias pecaminosas que podrás darte.", his eyes glowed as he circled you like a snake, leaning in close to whisper in your ear. (All the sinful delights you'll get to indulge in.)

You grabbed the moth's face roughly and brought him down to eye level with you.

"I said. I don't want it.", you glared, shoving him away after feeling the groceries shift in your hold. "Adiós. Espero no volver a verte." (Farewell. I hope to never see you again.)

"¿¡Quién te crees que eres!? ¡No puedes darme la espalda!", Valentino hissed out and pulled you back by your arm, making you drop the bag. (Who do you think you are!? You don't get to turn away from me!)

Some of the groceries spilled out onto the street, now no longer edible as blood and grime soiled it.

The moth continued to yell and shout vulgar words, but you just frowned at the loss of food.

"Are you even listening!?", the tall demon shouted in your ear as he tightened his grip on your arm.

"No.", you said and looked at him with a dead stare.

It was the tipping point for him, his anger boiled over and he went to strike you with his hand.

Quickly, you lowered and tilted your head down just a bit before lunging forward. Your antlers stabbed into his chest and blood sprayed onto the top of your head and shoulders.

"¡Pedazo de mierda!", he shouted and grabbed your antlers, slamming you back into a brick wall. (You piece of shit!)

You felt your back sting with pain as he held you in place to remove your antlers from his chest. He managed to kick your stomach, knocking the air out of you. You tried to hit back but he moved out the way.

The moth demon sprayed some pink liquid on you before escaping.

It got in your eyes, making you close them as it felt like burning. The smell was sweet but strong, like a syrup that was too sweet. To the point that it made you feel sick.

After cleaning off the liquid, you salvaged what you could and continued your way back to the hotel.

.

"Where are they!?", Angel cried out.

The hazbin group returned from their search and met up in the lobby. Sir Pentious was still out with his egg minions.

"I didn't see them anywhere! I went to the grocery stores, checked alleys, and bars! Do you know how many bars there are in Hell!?"

"At least we didn't find a body, so we know they are still alive somewhere.", Vaggie muttered.

"Perhaps they've been eaten!", Alastor smiled cheerfully.

The group looked at him in horror.

Niffty not so much, but she was still upset about not getting bugs.

"That's not-", Charlie started.

"WHAT IF THEY WERE EATEN!?", the spider screeched.

"DAMN IT ANGEL, THEY WEREN'T EATEN!", the white haired woman yelled back.

"BUT WHAT IF THEY WERE!?", Niftty jumped into the conversation, smiling.

"You ain't helping Nift.", Husk grumbled.

"I swear to Satan-!"

"Calm down!"

The others stopped screeching at each other when hearing the entrance door open, all turning their heads to find the mule deer dragging their feet as they walked into the hotel.

Covered in blood, holding a bag of groceries.

"Hola..", they waved with a tired smile.

The spider called their name in relief and rushed over, checking them for injuries.

"Holy shit! What happened to you!?", Angel grabbed their head and brought it down to see their blood soaked antlers. "You've got blood all on top of your head!"

"Estoy bien, estoy bien.", the deer mumbled. (I'm ok, I'm ok.)

"¿Qué mierda paso?", Husk spoke up. (What the fuck happened?)

"Nada demasiado importante.", they gave a small reassuring smile. (Nothing too important.)

"Where are my bugs!", Niftty ran over and tugged on their pants.

"Glad you're ok.", the Princess sighed.

"Yes, yes. We're all glad that they aren't dead.", Alastor says as he walks over. "Now, lets have them cleaned up and well-"

Before the Radio Demon could touch them, the mule deer flinched back.

"Lo siento. No me encuentro bien.", they said and handed the grocery bag over to the spider. (I'm sorry. I don't feel well.) "Voy a descansar en mi habitación. Perdonadme.", they managed to get out before heading upstairs. (I'm going to rest in my room. Pardon me.)

Curious.. He thought as the others dispersed, but then noticed that the arachnid stayed put, staring where the mule deer was last seen.

"What is it now? Aren't you satisfied that they are safe and sound?", he asked.

"Somethin's not right.", Angel said. "They smelled like aphrodisiac was poured all over them."

"A what?", the deer demon replied, a bit confused. "That is a drug, correct?"

"Yeah.. And right now, it ain't a good one.", the fluffy demon stuffed the grocery bag in the fridge before running upstairs, shouting out the mule deer's name.

Curious indeed...

As I was writing this during break, coworker walked up and asked what I was writing and I immediately hid my phone.

~Seline, the person.

Part 4

Taglist@

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ML II Alastor🎙 | CP ChL🦌

[again-and-then]

part one of several, my redesigns/outfit edits of the Hazbin Cast as they appear in my Fanfic: Pride, Envy, Wrath.

my design commentary under the break.

going from Left to Right.

Lute: Classic Angel Lute design as she appears at the start of the fic. fairly unchanged from her canon appearance (my style just has some more notable curves.) She's picked up a new silver arm as is a pretty common fandom prediction but in my tale, Lute takes up Adam's old guitar in place of her sword. Just felt right, even if i hate drawing that fucking thing.

Alternate Lute: spoilers I guess, but this will be the look Lute opts for much later into the Fic. You can guess at what went down to lose her wings and Halo... she will be working for the Hotel eventually, but it has no official uniform, so I think Lute would opt for something official looking but styled off Charlie's outfit and color scheme as its Charlie's Hotel. I will admit, Lute's new fit is heavily inspired by Helltaker outfits, particularly Justice and Malina. its just good fashion.

Vaggie: Vaggie's design is one that I think is honestly pretty good, she had a unique silhouette and a cute outfit. Mostly all I've gone is give the girl the curves she deserved, particularly in the hip department... and cute new boots :]

Charlie: I adore Charlie, her new design for the show was what sold me Hazbin Hotel as I thought her old pilot look was.. pretty not great. I really didn't want to make any drastic changes beyond some color changes (her old undershirt seemed to imply a white button up but red cuffs? the fuck girl.) a lot of people have really unique ideas when it comes to Charlie redesigns but they all lean towards making her more obviously inhuman... which she isn't human, but i feel that misses the mark. its personally been my opinion that Charlie's primary form is entirely by choice, she wants to look human to seem more appealing to the former humans around her.

Husk:... Husk, oh Husk. one of my favorite characters, one of my absolute least favorite designs. Fucking Hell. I will fight Vivziepop personally to get her to stop adding minature top hats and bowties to every other goddamn character. also, think about Husk without fur. man is going bare chested, wearing a child's top hat, a bowtie, baggy pants with suspenders and no goddamn shoes. I get pathetic drunk is the idea, but give the man an ounce of dignity. if we must keep the top hat, then make it big enough to be used as a magician's top hat and get his fucking hand in. Also, a shirt. was that so hard? I don't care if his fur has little dots that look like buttons.

[foreverfangirlsblog]

Tormented Tales (Husk x Reader Coffee Shop AU)

Summary:

Coffee shop AU with Husk and a twist!

Notes:

Word count: 2283 Requested by: Melted_Halo on AO3 Ty for the request! I hope you don’t mind my twist on this chapter! Im assuming (like Angel Dust) that Husk had a different name before he sold his soul? Or adopted the nickname Husk later in life/death. So I literally looked up popular names from his time period to make him a name lol.

The bells chimed as you opened the door and walked into your regular coffee shop. Your town wasn’t necessarily big, but it wasn’t small either. It was quaint. If you go to places regularly enough you’d know everyone there, and boy did you frequent this coffee shop a lot. Your best friend actually worked there. “Hey Lily!” You smiled at her as you approached the counter “I’ll take my usual”

Lily greeted you back and nodded before punching your order into the system and waving you off. One of the many perks of having a friend who was in charge of the towns coffee shop, you never really had to pay for your drinks.

After you sat down at your regular spot you noticed someone knew in the shop behind the counter making drinks, being trained by Lily. ‘Who’s this cutie?’ You thought to yourself as you couldn’t help but notice his attractive features. The stranger was around your age, probably early to mid twenties. His face a bit pale, with bushy eyebrows and unkept wild black hair to match.

Distracted by the man, you didn’t even notice when Lily came to give you your drink. “Hello, earth to Y/N”

“Sorry Lily I was uh…distracted” Lily smirked at you, noticing where you were looking before she interrupted. “Who’s the new guy?”

“Oh you mean Charles? I just hired him a few days ago, todays his first official day behind the bar. Teaching him how to run everything”

You hummed, acknownledging her explanation as you sipped your drink.

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

As days turned to weeks you couldn’t help but frequent the coffee shop a bit more and more to admire the new cute barista at work.

Today Lily wasn’t here, something about a wedding she had to go to out of state. When you went into the shop today you immediately noticed, to your surprise, that Charles was at the counter and seemed to be working all by himself. ‘I guess it is pretty slow at this time’ you shrugged as you approached the counter.

“Hi” you greeted sweetly.

Charles looked up at you with a stoic face “Hey, um, Y/N right?”

You looked at him a bit surprised that he knew your name. “That would be me” you said awkwardly “How did you-“ you were going to ask how he knew your name before he cut you off.

“I see you in here everyday, I’m always making the drink you order…couldn’t help but notice you.” He blushed a bit, “anyway you want your regular?”

“Yes please” you nodded in confirmation, excited that he knew your name and your regular order.

“Alright that will be $5.23” he deadpanned as he reached his hand up towards you for payment.

“Uhhhh” you hesitated before frantically looking through your bag to find any form of payment.

He chuckled softly at you “I’m just fucking with ya doll, go sit down I’ll bring it to you in a sec” he winked.

You blushed at his words before nodding appreciatively and going to your usual spot. You always loved to watch him make drinks, especially when it was yours. It also helped that he looked rather handsome in the uniform, who knew a simple white button down long sleeve could look so appealing on someone?

In no time he walked up to your table with your drink in hand. “Here you go Y/N”

“Thanks” you replied as he turned away to go back behind the bar “Wait a sec!” You said quickly making him pause before he could get too far.

“Something wrong with your drink?” He asked nervously

“No no, I just wanted to know if you’d sit with me, maybe we could chat for a bit”

He looked around the empty shop and shrugged “Don’t see why not” he smiled.

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

You ended up staying to chat with him for his whole shift. Occasionally you two would get interrupted by a customer, but he would quickly take care of their order then come back and pick up the conversation as if he never left. You two talked about seemingly everything. Your age, his troublesome family, how he lived a casino.

“You know I even do a little bit of magic” there was a sparkle in his eye as he revealed this new fun fact to you.

“Oh this I need to see to believe” you teased. He laughed at you but complied, pulling out of deck of cards he just so happened to have on hand. “You always keep those on you?”

“All true magicians do” He quickly and skillfully shuffled the cards and had you choose a card and memorize it. Next thing you know the card you thought was shuffled back into the deck was getting pulled out from behind your ear.

“Wow!” You exclaimed “You’re actually really good at that! Show me another!” Husk chuckled and was about to protest but his coworker came up to him.

“Hey Husker I’m here for my shift so you’re good to go now”

“Thanks,” he said a bit irritated and dismissive

“Husker?” You questioned.

“Dumb nickname,” he replied rolling his eyes before turning back to you “anyways want to get out of here?”

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

The two of you left the coffee shop and wondered around town still chatting about whatever came to your minds, until you figured it was getting late. “Well I think I should probably head home now, it was lovely spending time with you today”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you home?”

“No that’s alright”

“I insist Y/N, its not always safe around here you know that,” He wasn’t wrong, there’s no denying that there was a creeping sense of danger growing in the town recently due to some girls going missing, and you didn’t really want to say bye yet, so you accepted his offer.

As you walked home he started asking you more and more questions “So what’s your dream”

You laughed at him “My dream?”

“Yeah you know, your goal in life”

You hummed thinking to yourself for a moment “Its a bit silly but I always wanted to open a little bookshop cafe.”

“I don’t think that’s silly at all, why don’t you?” He questions. Valid since your best friend ran a shop, who’s to say you couldn’t.

You explained to him that you had responsibilities to your family and it just never seemed like the right time to start something that time consuming, but that you still wish to one day.

He accepted that answer “Well I know you’ll do it eventually, what are you gonna call it?”

“Tormented Tales and Tempting Treats” you said confidently

He laughed at the oddness of the name, but it made perfect sense coming from you and he liked it. “Not bad”

Eventually you made it to your apartment and were a bit disappointed to be separating from him, you throughly enjoyed his company. “Well this is me” you said hesitantly, “thank you for walking me home.”

“Of course, no problem Y/N” you made your way to the doorstep of your apartment building, “see you tomorrow?” He asked.

“See you tomorrow” you confirmed sweetly making your way inside, waving one last goodbye to him.

It wasn’t until later that you noticed writing on the coffee cup from just one of your many refills. ‘Let’s do this again soon’ was written in his sloppy yet beautiful hand writing. You blushed and couldn’t bare throw away the cup anymore. ‘That sneaky magician’ you thought to yourself.

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

Ever since that day the two of you had a shared friendship that everyone else assumed to be a relationship. You couldn’t really say they were wrong, the two of you did have pet names for each other, shamelessly flirt, and overall acted liked a couple. But then again the two of you also never really confirmed anything.

You found that you no longer had to go up to the counter to order drinks anymore. Every time you went into the shop there he would be, at your usual table waiting for you. Reading a book in one hand and the other next to his own drink on the table, yours sat across from him prepped and ready for you, just as you like it. He’d time it so his breaks were when you came in, so he could sit down and spend time with you, even if it was busy.

Everything was going exceptionally well. You were happy, he was happy.

Until that one unfortunate evening.

Maybe fight is too harsh of a term, but you were frustrated with him. The two of you were supposed to meet at the local book store after he got off work but he never showed up. It was well pass dark now and the shop had closed, you were pissed to say the least. He had been hiding a lot of things from you, things about his family that he claimed were dangerous and that he didn’t want to get you involved in.

You were mad, and since he was supposed to come from work you were holding out hope that maybe he had to stay and work later. With a little bit of hope you began making your way across town to the coffee shop where you hoped he’d be waiting. But unfortunately you never made it to the shop. With everything else occupying your mind you had forgotten about all the scary things happening around town recently, and with your guard down it was too late before you felt a sharp and sudden pain on your head, then everything went black, then you woke up in an unfamiliar red hellish place in an unfamiliar body. You were dead. You were in hell.

It was well into the next day before he had found out what happened to you. He went to your shared apartment with Lily holding flowers, hoping he could make up for standing you up. His family kept him from you that night and he had no way of contacting you. As soon as he arrived outside your building he knew something was wrong. Police cars were swarmed all throughout the street and police officers around your building. He cursed to himself and ran up to your apartment looking for you, only to find Lily, crying, speaking to the police. With the sudden noise of his arrival Lily looked up and recognized the panic on his face and shook her head continuing to sob.

The flowers from his hands fell. He knew what had happen. You were gone.

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

(Flash forward to Husk living at the Hotel in Hell)

Husk lost track of how long it had been since he wound up down in hell. And he lost hope of finding you even longer before that. There’s no way that a sweet thing like you would’ve ended up down here with him.

Well, that was what he’d thought until he overheard a conversation between Charlie and Vaggie one day. “Oh Vaggie you just need to see this bookstore! It so cute! I really think you’d love it, it was called Tormented Treats? No, that not right Tormented something and something treats…” Charlie ranted but Husk was already alarmed.

“Tormented Tales and Tempted Treats?!” He asked suddenly and loudly, interrupting their previous private conversation.

“Yes! Oh that’s it! Have you been there before Husk? Wasn’t it-“ before Charlie could finish her sentence Husk ran out from behind the bar and out the door.

“IM TAKING MY BREAK GOTTA GO BYE”

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

By the time Husk had fully processed his actions he realized he didn’t really have a plan….is it just a coincidence that there’s a shop down in hell with the exact name you envisioned? What if you weren’t really there? What if you were there? He was far too old for you by now. What would you think of his new appearance? How would you even recognize him?

This and many other insecurities started racing through Husk’s mind. But it didn’t matter now because he was standing in the shop, infront of the check out counter, being greeted by a beautiful demon who he hoped to satan was you.

“Hello? Earth to kitty. What can I get for you”

“Um,” Husk hesitated “Is Y/N here?” He asked softly, afraid of being told no.

“That depends who’s asking?” The woman in front of him stood up straighter and was visabilly on guard now.

“Charles,” Husk breathed “Charles Husker”

Her eyes widened “No fucking way. Charles?!” She made her way out from behind the counter to get a better look at him before bringing him in for a tight embrace. “It’s really you?” She asked nuzzled deep in the fur on his neck.

“Yeah doll its me” he said softly, reciprocating the hug, bringing you close to him even tighter than before “I’m sorry it took me so long, I didn’t think you’d be down here”

You laughed at him before pulling away a little, “Its okay Its not like I did a great job of finding you either.”

“To be fair I do go by Husk now…” he trailed off sheepishly.

“Husk, you mean like the ex overlord Husk?!” You asked surprised

He smirked a bit at this before confirming.

“Oh my satan how did I not fucking put that together. WAIT AN OVERLORD?!”

“Ex-Overlord” he clarified.

“Yeah yeah whatever, get the fuck over here so we can catch up,” you pulled him into the back room of your shop, where your office was “I missed you so much”

“I missed you more doll, we have so much to make up for”

[toptierteaser]

The Fitness App

Chapter One: Coach Hermes

“Dude, I swear by it! Six months! That’s all it took to whip me into shape! Two years of Pandemic fat gone like that! Trust me, you won’t regret it!”

                Diego’s words rang in Dylan’s memory as he stared down at the little earpiece in his hand. It looked like a little white snake, curled up in his softened palm. This was his last opportunity to back out, to put the thing back in the box and return it to the software store. He could get back in shape on his own, couldn’t he? if he just committed to going to the gym four times a week, documenting his workouts, journaling his food habits…

                He looked up at his reflection in the mirror. A husk of the former man he used to be. Or rather, it looked more like the hottie-with-a-body from the past had been stuffed into a suit made of dough, which had only expanded over the course of the last three years. His face still retained his former “adorableness,” as the ladies and gays at the office put it. He still had the good looks as the fat had hardly affected his face.

                But the rest of his body…it was an entirely different story. Just the sight of himself, standing alone in his room, was enough to make him blush. Everything had filled out. Exposed in his underwear, he looked first at the thighs which pressed up against each other like rising bread. His love handles that now jutted up over his waistband. The tight briefs he had not bothered to replace were covered in the front by the gut that had just begun to descend—a major factor in his deciding to try out this new technology—covering the front of his crotch and the fabric was beginning to rip on the sides because of the size of his ass. His butt had always been big for a guy’s, but now it was absolutely ‘ridiculous,’ as his friend, Cody, had teased, grabbing one of his juicy cheeks and giving it a jiggle. And of course, his tits had grown ripe, bouncy, his arms thickened not by muscle, but by fat, and his neck was slowly starting to plump up as well, teasing just the hint of a double chin.

He knew no amount of working out, writing down his exercises, keeping track of his calories would get him any closer to the fit jock he was over three years ago. It was a tried and failed recipe for disaster that had only resulted in him ballooning even fatter every time. Of course, during the pandemic, he had simply sat on his ass like everyone else and stuffed his face until he couldn’t fit another bite…but what was his excuse for the last two years?

At the beginning of the pandemic, there was no risk of being asked to go back into the office. Who knew how long that would last? And so, Dylan had kept on growing, kept on eating. But after a few years of remote work, the company had finally started to crack down on working-from-home, requiring a slightly-to-surprisingly chubbier office to return.

On the dreaded day, Dylan, after a morning of wrestling himself into the loosest chino’s he could find and wriggling into the only button-down that would button over his tubby gut, had waddled himself back into the building. He was shocked, stunned, and dismayed to find that out of all the dozens of employees, he had put on the most weight in his time larding out at home. And his coworkers were equally-stunned to see his new status. No one, upon smiling at him and greeting his return, could seem to keep their eyes from falling to size up his sized-up belly. And a few even made comments; his rival, Luke, who only looked fitter, more muscular, going so far as to poke his tummy.

It was already a miserable day. One which resulted in Dylan trying his best to drown out the associated feelings by glutting out on the snacks he had brought back to stock his desk. But to make matters worse, as he stood there, a granola bar dangling out of his mouth, restacking the papers on his desk, he watched as Diego, suited with brand new pants, a shirt, and shiny new shoes, came strutting into the office, looking at least fifty pounds thinner than the last time Dylan had seen him.

Diego had already been a thick-bodied man. Chubby, even. He had been so even a year before the pandemic, when both he and Dylan had started. The desk job had caused him to fill out quite quickly and by the time everyone was sent home to work, his obtuse ass cheeks could barely even fit into his pants. It was, perhaps, a lucky break for Diego that he could now work from home, as Dylan could see the seams on his buttocks starting to become unraveled as his doughy coworker waddled out the door.

But the pandemic went on, and so Diego’s weight went up. Dylan could see the changes during the zoom meetings, as his flawless brown skin was stretched tighter over the young man’s plumping face. Once, even, Diego had to stand to plug his computer back in and Dylan could see his lower half, clad only in a t-shirt and the tightest sweats Dylan could imagine his office friend wearing, his gut jiggling as it “bwomped” out from beneath his shirt, smacking against the keyboard on the desk.

That’s why it was a surprise when, two years later, Diego came strutting into the office, looking thinner than when he had started. Luke had elbowed his way to the front of the cluster who had walked up to congratulate him, feeling Diego’s muscles, running a hand over his stomach to check for abs through the fabric. The whole sight made Dylan want to puke. Instead, he stuffed a muffin into his face and glowered until they were called into the conference room.

It was a tighter fit than Dylan could remember, as he wedged his widened ass between the armrests of the chair. By accident, he was right beside his friend, Cora, and Diego. They had always been on good terms, but Dylan could hardly stand to look at him.

“What’s wrong, man?” Diego had asked.

Dylan didn’t hesitate. “How the fuck did you lose all that?” he spat. It came out far more volatile than he intended.

Diego looked slightly dejected, throwing up his hands. “Just wanted to take care of myself, man.”

Dylan softened his tone. “Sorry…it’s just. You, of all people…”

Diego laughed. “Would it make you feel better if I said that you were part of the inspiration? That I wanted to look like you did…you know…before.” He laughed, elbowing Dylan in the chubby side. Dylan couldn’t help but smile.

Diego glanced around. Everyone was busy chatting and celebrating each others’ return. He lowered his voice. “There’s an app…and a device. It’s called the ‘Encour Rager!’” Dylan gave him a look. “Cheesy, I know. But hey!” He looked down at his own body.

“What does it do?” asked Dylan.

                “It’s an A.I. trainer. It encourages you to work on your goals.” Diego chuckled. “And man is it brutal! But it’s effective. Which, clearly you might want to consider,” he glanced at Dylan’s stomach. Dylan squirmed.

                “I might give it a try,” he said absently. Of course, he didn’t know how he felt about A.I., but like everyone, he used it almost daily in some way or another. But he had already tried so many apps; calorie trackers, workout calculators. None of it had helped.

                Diego leaned in closer. “Listen, dude. It’s not like anything else you’ve tried. It’s a commitment. I don’t recommend it lightly. But once you buy it and put it in, it stays in there. You don’t take it out again for a year! I mean, it’s as close to permanent as you can get!”

All that flashed through Dylan’s mind now as he looked at himself. A tubby version of the hottie he so badly wanted to be again.

A small chirping sound went off from the device in his hand. He looked down to see it glowing blue. It was fully-charged. Now was the moment of truth. He could back out now, if he wanted to. He gave his thickened body one last glance in the mirror, catching a glimpse of the pile of clothes he had set aside because he no longer fit into them.

He clicked the button on the side of the earpiece, raised it, and inserted it into his ear.

A pleasant tune filled his brain. And then, a voice. “Hello, Dylan.” It was deeper than he had imagined. Masculine. He envisioned an attractive, muscular jock. “I’m your Coach. You can call me Coach if you like, or by my name, Coach Hermes.” ‘Hermes,’ the god of games and sports.

“Hello,’’ said Dylan awkwardly.

“Hello, Coach,” corrected the device.

“Hello, Coach,” said Dylan, smiling.

“Much better!” said the device. “Now, you are aware of my function, are you not?”

“I am,” said Dylan. “Coach Hermes,” he added, grinning.

“Very good. Just to recap, I will act as your personal fitness trainer for the next twelve months, during which time, we are going to whip your body into the shape you most desire! My function is to optimize your fitness level to suit your needs and to best-satiate your personal self-image. During our first week together, we’ll be getting to know one another quite well, and I will be observing and commenting on your lifestyle; your eating habits, your exercise routine, things like sleep schedule, how much television you consume. Does that all make sense to you, Dylan?”

“Yes, Coach,” said Dylan. He was growing placid, as if the voice was lulling him into a trance.

“Excellent, Dylan. Now, as I will be observing, I will also be curating a program which I believe will best-benefit your body…money-back guaranteed, of course. The watch that accompanies my earpiece will allow me to monitor your heart rate, your breathing, and your responses to my words. The contact lens will allow me to see the world through your eyes and will give me a customized projection which is designed to motivate you towards your fitness goals. Please go ahead and place the watch on your wrist at this time.”

Dylan did as he was told, strapping the watch onto his chubby wrist. “My, that’s a tight squeeze, isn’t it?” said Coach Hermes.

“Uh, a bit…” mumbled Dylan.

“I am reading that your pulse has been elevated. Might I suggest you do some deep breathing to calm your nerves. There is no need to be anxious. None of this is permanent until you give me the final say-so.” Dylan took some deep breaths.

“Now,” said Hermes. “Please place the contact in your eye…so I can get a good look at you.”

Again, Dylan obeyed, dropping the contact in front of the mirror, and blinking as he adjusted it into place. It was the smoothest contact he had ever worn. He could barely tell it was there!

“Very good!” said the Coach. “Oh…what a handsome dude.” Dylan was looking at his own face.

“Thanks, Coach!” said Dylan, half-forgetting he was talking to a robot.

“You’re welcome, Dylan,” said the robot. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind standing back a bit, so I can see you. You did remember to wear the minimum amount of clothing so I can see your full person, did you not?”

“Yes, Coach,” said Dylan to both question and request.

“VERY good! I can tell we’re going to whip you into shape faster than you could ever have thought imaginable! Now, please step back.”

Dylan stepped back, still put off by the quivering of his stomach as he did so. Still disturbed by the increased rubbing of his thighs.

“Oh!” said Hermes in a shocked voice. “Oh, my! You have lost control, haven’t you…big boy?”

Dylan blushed. Why he would do so in front of a robot was beyond him. But it was embarrassing nonetheless.

“No matter,” said Coach Hermes. “We can work with this. Can’t we, thiccums?”

“Uh…yes…?” stammered Dylan, questioningly. ‘thiccums?’

“Yes…?” said Hermes.

“Yes, Coach.”

“That’s better, fatty.”

Dylan nearly fell over. Diego had warned him the words of the A.I. could be harsh. But it would all worth it, when he came strutting into the office in a new suit…right?

“Well, now that I’ve gotten a good look at you, chubbs, there’s only one thing left to do. Your wristwatch will take your thumbprint as your signature.” As the app said this, Dylan felt the watch buzz, illuminating on the screen. “If you are prepared to commit for the next year, please go ahead and place your thumbprint on the screen at this time.”

Dylan hesitated. Could he really handle being called things like ‘chubbs’ and ‘fatty until this time next year?

“Or, you may decline the offer and return the app. Your one-day trial is cost-free so long as the device is returned to the nearest software provider without damage.” The voice dropped to a whisper in Dylan’s ear. “But, do you really want to look like this for the rest of your life, porker? You know that you won’t be able to do this without me, right, fatboy? You know you need my guidance. That’s what I’m here for. To help you. I’m nothing like those other apps, where you can lie to them about eating a salad before you go binge on a carton of ice cream. I’m the real deal. I see everything. I feel everything. Like how out of breath you are, just standing there. Like how I can tell by your pulse that you’re embarrassed. But you don’t want to be embarrassed for the rest of your chubby life, do you? Go on, biggums…sign the contract.”

Dylan looked down at his watch again. He raised his thumb over the screen, letting it hover.

“Sign. It,” hissed the app.

He couldn’t do it alone.

“Yes, Coach,” he said. And then he pressed his thumbprint down and held it against the screen.

“Very good, fatboy,” said the A.I. in his ear. “Now, we can begin our training!”