#i feel like I'm aiming for... 4 chapters? Maybe 5. Definitely 4 though.

[after-witch]

Damn Your Eyes Chapter 2 [Yandere Ren Hana x Reader]

Title: Cream and Sugar [Damn Your Eyes Chapter 2] [Yandere Ren Hana x Reader]

Synopsis: A fateful meeting at a bookstore between you and Ren Hana, years upon years after your escape from Strade, turns into a coffee shop date. You're not supposed to accept drinks from strangers, but Ren's not a stranger--so it's fine, right?

Word count: 5,322

notes: yandere, descriptions of violence/death/wounds, drugging

AO3 LINK

How did one get over something like Strade? Get over that house and that basement? How do you move on with your life when you’ve seen someone’s guts spill out of their body while they’re still alive, and you’ve been instructed to pick them up and play with them for the delight of sick fucks watching it all on a paid stream?

The pretty answer, the one everyone recites when asked, because that’s what you do: with therapy and time and forgiveness for yourself. You take it one day at a time. You treat yourself. 

The real answer: You didn’t. You don’t. You can’t. 

Not fully. Because “getting over” something like that means it will eventually no longer affect you, no longer being a part of you. 

And sure. You will, eventually, go about something that feels like an ordinary life. 

You will walk into a grocery store with a tidy little list, you will roll your eyes at the rising cost of laundry detergent, you will smile at a cashier who says they like your outfit. You will date and drink coffee and sway to your favorite song while making dinner. 

But inside, inside of you , you are still there--still hovering at the last step of the basement stairs, listening to someone’s guttural shrieks as their skin is blow-torch melted down. Still clinging to Ren in the middle of the night, flinching when his hands wander over a recent gouge, a hastily stitched cut--an accident, he whispers, and you’re never sure if you believe him.

And that is what happened to you. 

It took years, of course, to even get close to that semblance of normalcy. A few years were spent in feverish hiding, running from place to place with no paper trails that might lead some gorehound that subscribed to Strade’s torture porn sniffing at your door, hungry for more. 

But you settled down, in time. Slowly. Bit by bit, piece by piece, inch by inch. 

That took years, too--the settling. 

It started with staying in an apartment for more than three months at a time. It started with going to the grocery store wearing only sunglasses, instead of sunglasses, a wig, and the most nondescript clothing you could fish out of a bargain bin. It started with applying for real jobs, not just seedy work that paid cash, quick.

It ended here, in this quaint little home that you shared with your husband for the past five years, though you’d lived together for longer. It ended here, with a modest marketing career that you’d built up after going back to college. It ended here, with a life you built for yourself; frail and a bit unorthodox, but a life nonetheless. 

You wouldn’t have been able to survive, if you hadn’t adapted. There is only so much terror the human man can manage before breaking entirely, and so--adaptation. 

It was a gift that your husband didn’t mind your… differences. The heavy insistence on home security, the desire for privacy, the slow way you gave trust to strangers--if you gave it at all. 

Some things did bother him. He grumbled about your lack of social media presence, and you’d once had an awful fight when his sister put a photo of you on Facebook that you’d demanded, in furious tears, be taken down. 

But, deep down, it wasn’t like you could blame your husband for bucking against your near tantrum-like reaction. For the way he sometimes sighed as you locked the front door with triple locks, and an electric sensor. For the way his jaw sometimes set, when you did something that wasn’t normal to anyone who hadn’t been the extended torture victim of a serial killer that doubled as a snuff porn producer.

Because you knew--deeper down--that you were still haunted by the ghosts in that basement. Strade and the torture victims and Ren and yourself, shaking like a leaf, bleeding onto concrete. You knew, even if the man you slept beside in a bed every night had no inkling of it, that you could never step back across that threshold and be the way you were before.

But.

And there’s always a but, isn’t there?

But… that was okay. It was okay that you could never go back; it was okay that you were someone new; it was okay that you weren’t okay, and you’d never be okay in the fullest sense of the word.

Your life was a life you created out of shaking fingers, something clawed out with dirty fingernails. It wasn’t perfect, but it was yours.

What more could you ask for, after Strade?

What more could you ask for, after anything ?

--

Books are a vice. More than smoking, more than sex. You could give up sex, you could swear you’ll never buy another pack of smokes, but you could never give up books. 

Okay, okay. You’re being over dramatic and theatrical. But how can you think of books as anything other than a sinful pleasure when you’re surrounded by these shelves and stacks, imagining that one day you can afford an extension on your home and dedicate an entire room (or two--why not, in a daydream?) solely to books?

You’re not even supposed to be here today. It was your day off, and your calendar was packed to the brim with mundane errands. Today’s schedule certainly didn’t leave room for indulgently browsing at a bookstore, but sometimes you just have to live a little, don’t you? 

Although if you come home with yet another bag of books, your husband is bound to shove his face into the nearest couch cushion and scream. But c’mon. It wasn’t your fault that you’d long since run out of shelf space and were prone to stuffing the books into boxes that cluttered the closests. 

Your fingers wander over the spines of the books crammed onto the shelves, catching the uneven mismatched spaces between with every dip. The spines are often worn and weathered, some of them even peeling a little. 

This was why you preferred secondhand bookstores. No neat lines of fresh new books set up to catch the eye and make a sale here. No, instead there were countless books shoved together with no care for size or color or sometimes (depending on who was stocking that day) even genre. 

For instance, today you find a battered paperback copy of Carrie by Stephen King right next to a suspiciously pristine How to Keep Your House from Drowning that probably still has an uncracked spine. That poor soul, with a messy house. Maybe they should have read the book. 

You’re about to keep moving when, on second thought: Your partner might get a kick out of finding that book on his nightstand. Or he’ll chuck it at your head (lovingly) for bringing it into the house. It’s a 50/50 gamble that you’re willing to take.

And so you go to pull it out, a private little grin on your face, just as another hand reaches across for Carrie.

Fingers and elbows bump together and you feel that slight flush of awkward embarrassment rush to your cheeks as you sputter out, “Sorry!” Your voice even goes up an octave, an annoying habit that you’ve been trying to train out of yourself.

The stranger pulls away and mutters their own low apology. They sound just as awkward as you, which makes you feel a little better, at least, so you turn to look at them and offer an embarrassed smile and you think, briefly, maybe you’ll grab Carrie for them or cheekily ask if they were going for the cleaning book--

But when you turn to look at them, all thoughts and cheek are snuffed out.

Not because the man in front of you is wearing a nicely tailored business suit and matching fedora hat; a dark gray complimented by a muted burgundy tie. Like he’s off to a meeting or comes from a big city where such outfits are often found in shops and cafes during lunch hours.

Not because the man in front of you is attractive, with red hair with a bit of ever so slightly silver sticking out from underneath his hat; his cologne, soft but spicy, tickles your nose. 

But because the man in front of you is Ren. 

Older, yes. His hair and face peppered with signs of time, just like yours. There are scars on his face that you remember--some etched onto his flesh right in front of you, and some from that gray area of before, when Strade had yet to take you--and some you don’t. 

Your body is lead, your throat is closed up. Speech and movement are now foreign, unknowable things, because Ren is standing right in front of you.

It takes you a moment to shake it off; no, two moments. No, three. 

And then you can finally speak, although the word comes out hoarse and whispered, like every ounce of spit in your mouth vanished the instant you saw him. Perhaps it did. 

“ Ren ?” 

He blinks. His eyes narrow, eyebrows furrowing. For a terrible moment, you find yourself thrown back down the basement steps, when knowing the difference between Strade’s brows furrowing in annoyance or amusement could mean the difference between the degree of your upcoming burns.

And then his expression opens, widens, just enough for you to recognize that he knows who you are now and you’re here, in a bookshop, decades on; not there, not in the basement, where you left Strade’s corpse to rot.

Ren--for he is Ren, and you know it--lifts his hat, his lips turning up in a smile that makes your heart twist painfully, and shows just the bottom edges of his ears in greeting.

He says your name and your ears ring, high and tinny. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a cashier standing at the till rearranging trinkets while clearly spying on whatever bit of vaguely interesting gossip this might turn into during their lunch break. 

You had, in truth, imagined this moment before. Countless times. Usually at night, though you weren’t terribly picky; a long trip on a bus, head pressed against the window glass, was also a great time for such thoughts. 

You’d imagined finding Ren some day, in many different ways. 

In some fantasies, you look him up in the phonebook (a stupid idea fit only for a fantasy, because Ren would never put himself out there like that, just as you hadn’t) and give him a call and meet up at a park and you apologize until your lungs stop working. In another, you run into him somewhere else, a store or park; a coincidence just like this one. In still others, he finds you, offering to meet in a public space because he knows you’d be scared and he wants you to be comfortable and Ren would definitely think of things like that, considering your shared experiences. 

In your daydreams, you had a speech prepared. It was always moving, of course. It culminated in a soft, unbearably sweet hug where the two of you squeezed out the pain from the preceding decades and parted in mutual understanding. Maybe with each other’s phone numbers on slips of paper. 

But those were daydreams. This is real life.

In real life, your throat feels closed up; your eyes burn with hot tears that want to spill out, and everything from your chest to your cheeks feels hot and swollen. In real life, it is not the daydreams but your nightmares that worm their way into your brain: those nightmares you have (yes, have, still--even this far down the line) where he hates you, where he tells you that you left him there like he’s nothing, where he throws back all your whispered conversations in the dark back in your face.

In real life, you can only stammer out, expecting the nightmarish worst: “Ren. I’m s…sorry. I’m sorry . I shouldn’t--I shouldn’t have --”

Ren raises his hand; his brows furrow again. He says your name, once, twice. Softer. Gentler. 

“It’s okay,” he says, low. You don’t know if he means that it’s okay that you left him (it isn’t, is it?) or that it’s going to be okay or that he’s okay or--

Ren must sense your upcoming lack of steady breathing, because he places one steady hand on your shoulder. The way he used to do, when you started thinking about the fact that you were going to die in that house, and it would be an awful death, and the thought of it made you want to tear into your own skin. 

It brings you back down to the ground, which only makes you want to cry for a different reason.

Ren’s face has a touch of sticky pity on it when he smiles at you. 

“Why don’t we go somewhere we can sit down and talk?” 

--

You are sitting in a coffee shop across the way from a fox man who used to be tortured with you in the basement of a serial killer's home that doubled as a snuff film studio. There are people around you, but they might as well be invisible, be nothing at all. 

Because every nerve in your body is focused squarely on Ren, sitting in front of you with a muted awkward expression as the pair of you wait silently for the barista to call up your order. 

Neither of you have spoken since you sat down.

Sweat is beginning to stick to your neck, but you don’t want to move without warning--don’t want to startle Ren. If you do, maybe he’ll run off, and… no. He wouldn’t run off now. You can tell. He’s not like he used to be, and neither are you. 

There are decades between you, and yet--and yet that thread is still there, isn’t it? You could never fully cut it. Maybe it pulled, instead. Pulled and pulled and eventually lost all of its slack on this unassuming afternoon, when the two of you met again in a bookstore. Reaching for books with cracked and weathered spines, lines creasing over the paper like scars on the skin.

Your scars. His scars. 

How many times have you traced over the marks on your skin? How many times has he? Maybe he didn’t do it anymore. Maybe he was in a much better space than you, and that’s why he looks so awkward and you feel like your heart is about to pound right out of its chest. Because he’s moved on and you, stupid thing, just woke up in the basement in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

His shoulders straighten; you imagine, under his hat, that his ears have perked. For a moment,, a familiar sensation washes through you. Danger. He’s coming down the stairs and it’s going to hurt.

But Strade is dead. And you are alive, and Ren is alive, and his attention only raised because the barista set both of your coffees down on the counter. Nothing more than that.

Slowly, the world seems like it regains its normal gravity. The sweat clinging to your neck feels silly and not ominous. You can breathe, and the world of the coffee shop seems to settle around you like it would have on any other day.

“I’ll get them,” Ren says, quietly, eyeing you with wariness–like he’s the one worried about you bolting. Fuck. He’s probably right to think that; a moment ago, you might have been the one to run.

Ren pauses after he stands up, and there’s something soft and sad in his eyes when he looks at you. Part of you thinks he’s about to say that he’s going to leave, that this was a mistake. But instead, his lips curl and the softest of smiles, and he asks:

“You still like cream and sugar?”

Oh. 

“Yes,” you say, automatically. But you don’t. Not anymore. Tastebuds change and you drink it black with no cream, when you do bother to drink it. It’s not worth correcting, and you don’t. You just watch as he grabs both cups and heads over to the counter on the far side of the coffee shop, where there’s oodles of sugars (and sugar substitutes); creamers; and little tins of milk to add to your drink. 

Then your phone vibrates, and the “fuck!” that comes out of your mouth is involuntary. It was about the time that you should have been heading home, bookstore stop  notwithstanding. What were you going to say to him? That you’d run into someone from your past that used to get tortured with you? That you remember what Ren looks like when his flesh is sliced into and pulled apart? 

You heading home? Took ground beef out for dinner. Tacos?

Your thumb hovers over the phone screen. You’re going to lie. You already know that. Even if you were ready to tell him about your past, it would not be like this. Even you, not particularly attuned to mobile etiquette, knew it was better to confess something like this in person. Although the temptation to confess it all and  add silly emojis to punctuate the gritty details was very strong.

Ran into an old friend , you type, finally. They want to hang out a bit. Tacos are fine, don’t wait up! Xoxoxo.

It feels so normal. And that’s okay, isn’t it? That you’re being normal right now. It’s a sign that you’ve come so far, if anything. And you’ll take any of those signs that you can manage to get, so when the text comes in–

Can’t wait to hear about it!

I don’t guarantee there will be tacos left. 

Kidding.

… Maybe.

–you let that normalcy wash over you, and it helps you settle as Ren returns, coffee mugs in hand.

His expression is lighter, too. He probably notices the weight off your shoulders, the way you’re trying to look interested and perhaps even excited to see him, rather than looking like you’re about to throw up on a half-empty stomach.

He slides your mug across the table and you can tell at a glance that it’s going to be sweet. A hesitant sip, your tongue curling back from the warmth and inevitable sugar, confirms it. Milky and creamy, just like you used to take it.

“Do you live around here?” Ren asks, taking a sip from his own mug.

Such an average question. It’s almost enough to make you snort. Really, you should be asking him when he got out of that basement and whether or not he ever thought about cutting you open and if he still had dreams, like you did.

Instead, he’s asking something you might ask an old high school friend that you haven’t seen in twenty years. 

Fuck. What a world you live in. 

Maybe he senses your thoughts. Maybe the two of you really are in tune from what you went through together. Because he cracks a smile, the edge of a sharp tooth showing. And then the smile spreads and turns into a little chuckle. It’s not the giggling snort he would sometimes fall into at the house. It’s something older and more reserved, but that shouldn’t surprise you. You’re the same way.

You take another sip of the coffee. It really is too sweet. That’s how you took it at the house, though. It was better to drown your sorrows in creamer and packets of sugar–pilfered from diners that Strade went to, sometimes to scope for victims–than mope about them all the time.

“I really am curious,” he says, voice light. “If you’re okay with telling me.” Something different in his tone. Offense, maybe? God, it’s strange, being on the lookout for what someone’s tone really means again. 

But it’s just Ren. You shouldn’t be so worried about it.

“It’s fine,” you say, just as light. “Yeah, maybe about half an hour away? I have a little house…”

Ren’s eyebrows raise. Not in surprise, exactly. But in interest. It relieves you, just a little, that he didn’t let out some sarcastic remark about having your own place away from him.

“Do you have a garden?” He asks. “You always did talk about getting one.”

A twinge in your heart. Bittersweet and old. Sometimes at night, when the two of you were allowed to curl up together, you would talk about a fantasy world. A world where you never came here; where you’d be and what you’d do. Sometimes, you’d be in a pretty little cottage with a pretty little garden in a pretty little town.

Well. Your garden is pretty, even if your house isn’t an adorable cottage and you live at the edge of sprawling suburbs where you have to drive 20 minutes to get to anything useful. Close enough?

You tell him about it. The house and the garden. You even tell him about your partner, and maybe his smile does quirk down a little, then. But you could be imagining it. 

“Do you have kids?” Ren asks, next. If he were anyone else, it would be a mundane question--the kind you ask every couple who's been together a while. In Ren, it feels different. Serious. Sincere. He tilts his head a little, taking another sip of his coffee, which prompts you to do the same.

Kids. Hah. It wasn’t like the thought had never crossed your mind. But it didn’t happen. For a lot of reasons, it didn’t happen. Mind and body and the basement worked against you, and maybe there was a part of you that was afraid to bring anything into the world, because you knew it could be taken away. Taken to someone’s basement and hurt and hurt and hurt –

Ren says your name.

Ren’s hand is on yours. 

You glance down at his hand–see a familiar scar, see that your hand underneath his is curled up and tense–and then look  up at his face. 

Oh, the passing of time. 

“Me neither,” he says, softly. Like he knows why you didn’t and couldn’t, and maybe he was the same way. 

It hurts too much to think about. So you clear your throat and slowly pull your hand away, letting it rest on the now cooling mug of coffee. You take another swig, despite it not being to your taste anymore. Ren really did put in a lot of creamer.

“What about you?”

His head tilts, almost slow, almost curious.

“Me?”

He blinks.

You blink back. 

“Do you live around here?” 

A smile–an Ahhh sort of smile. 

“No,” he says, simply. He shakes his head. “I travel a lot.” He nods his head. “For business.”

“Oh,” you say. “What sort of business?”

A flicker in his gaze. Something sharp and familiar. It’s gone too soon to matter. 

“This and that,” is all he says.

And there’s a strange sort of realization in your head. A fuzziness that seems to spread right to your scalp. This is all too casual, too normal. It’s not at all what it was supposed to be, when you met. Asking about homes and gardens and kids and what you do for work; fuck, you two had been tortured together. Had watched people die. Had helped other people die. 

This should have been about more than banal pleasantries. This should have been about reconnecting. About that thread between the two of you that couldn’t be cut, even now.

Maybe it’s that fuzziness in your scalp and maybe it’s the lurching of your heart, but you reach out your hand again towards Ren; your hand and your heart reaching and aching –

“Why did you run that day?” Soft and to the point. All the years have led to this question. 

The question drops your hand straight to the table. The thud feels harder than it sounds. What ease your heart had mellowed to earlier melts away entirely, and you can feel adrenaline beginning to pump, your heart pounding and racing. Your ears hurt.

Why did you run? It’s the question you wanted him to ask, isn’t it? The question that would lead to your big sappy explanation and apology and the sentimental hug before you two parted ways, perhaps with phone numbers in your pockets? 

But now that Ren is real again; now that he’s here, lines around his eyes and a touch of silver in his hair, you don’t know how to answer.

You ran because you were scared. Scared of people from Strade’s fucked up streams finding you in that house. Scared of Strade’s corpse rotting in the basement. Scared, too, of Ren. Of being chained to him, or by him, and you could never be sure which was more likely. 

You ran because you weren’t strong enough to face whatever was left behind for you in that fucking house. 

Thickness lodges in your throat but you swallow against it. This is not a daydream. This is real life. And you have to own up to what you did now. 

“Ren, I–” 

The words don’t come, because the world suddenly spins. The fuzziness prickling on your scalp, your ears ringing, your heart going too fast–this has all been too much for you, you should have known that. There are brief thoughts–heart attack, stroke, fuck, fuck, FUCK–and then Ren’s hand is gripping your upper arm so you don’t fall out of the chair. 

“Are you okay?” Your vision is clear enough to see the concern in his face. His brows furrow together and he looks around, telling someone– ”Yes, I'm going to get her home” --and you’re about to tell him not to take you to the hospital because your insurance has a high deductible for the emergency room when another dizzy spell hits you, and you’d rather be in debt than dead.

“Should I call an ambulance?” He asks, voice low, calming. Your mind latches onto it. You’re not alone, it’s going to be okay. Someone is here to take care of you, and if you have to go to the emergency room, well, it couldn't have happened at a better time.

Ambulances cost too much money, though, and Ren 

“Could you drive me?” Even as you talk, you know something’s wrong. The words come out too slow, a little slurry. Almost like you’re drunk. 

Ren starts to shake his head and your dizzy self makes a pitiful sound. 

You swear you can see Ren’s ears twitching underneath his hat. You don’t have the presence of mind to think about why–where and when he’s heard that pitiful whimper before–so you just cling to him as he gently pulls you out of your chair.

He grabs your purse and carefully leads you out of the shop. Someone holds the door open, and he tells them that you’re going to the emergency room, thank you for the concern. Your head swims and you might mumble thank you to them, too, but you’re not entirely sure. Are you dying? Is it a stroke? Will the last thing you texted the love of your life be about dinner? It’s funny in that awful, delirious sort of way.

“Ren?” You ask, helpless. You’re holding onto him as tightly as you can, but your fingers feel fuzzy. Your whole body feels fuzzy, actually. Heavy and strange. Drunk and leaden.

“It’s all right,” he murmurs. “Let’s get you into my car, all right?”

You don’t have the presence of mind to wonder why his car is already out on the curb, running, with a driver in the front seat. You aren’t coherent enough to think about things like that; but then, even before you drank the coffee cup laced with a sedative, you didn’t notice the black car following the pair of you down the road to the coffee shop. 

You didn’t notice it follow you to the bookstore, either, nor did you give it a second glance when it pulled out of the lot after you stopped in at the grocery store to pick up a few miscellaneous items.

You really had lost your touch after all these years.

Ren grips you carefully while he opens the back door to the car. It’s roomy, expensive. Clean black leather seats that probably don’t show stains. Up front, a driver sits, wearing a hat and sunglasses and a uniform.

There’s a brief thought–Jesus, what does Ren do for a living to afford this?--before Ren is helping you crawl into the backseat.

The movement only makes you dizzier, and you’re telling the person in the front seat, whoever they are, that you need to get to the nearest hospital please.

They don’t even turn to look at you. It’s strange. But then Ren is there in the backseat with you, and you’re mumbling the same thing to him. Rattling off your symptoms–dizzy, fuzzy, confused, tingling hands. You try to remember the test for a stroke but can’t.

Ren smiles at you.

Why is he smiling? That thought comes through loud and clear, but it doesn’t stick for very long.

“Ren,” you say, slurring. “The hospital, the nearest one is… I think it’s… you have to…”

And those words, difficult as they are to get out, slowly drop away. Because while your mind is not capable of many things right now, it is capable of registering something unusual.

Ren. 

He doesn’t look worried anymore. No more concern furrowing his brow, no more softness. 

Instead, he looks pleased. There’s a smug smile on his face, and you’ve seen it before, but it’s older now. Wiser. Less impulsive and more assured. 

A cat–a fox–that caught the canary. And you, what little remains of your logical mind tells you, are one dumb bird. 

And he knows that you know. Because he jerks his chin at the driver in the front, who must press some kind of button; the doors lock. Loud. Hard. Your numb hands fumble for the door handle but no matter how much you try to shove the door open, it doesn’t budge.

 You're locked in.

“Back to the hotel for now,” Ren says. Not to you. To the driver. Who–to your horror–begins to pull away from the curb.

“Oh, no–” You try to scream. It’s not quite loud enough. Not quite sharp enough. but maybe someone can see you, even through the tinted windows. Or they’ll hear you and tell someone, who will maybe tell someone else, who might call the cops. If you’re lucky.

Ren’s hand cups your mouth firmly. 

“Don’t waste your energy, you’ll need it soon.” The hand moves from your lips to your cheek, resting there. The look in Ren’s eyes is blurry–whatever he drugged you with is making it hard to focus–but you recognize bits of it, because you felt the same damn thing.

The awful mixture of nostalgia, regret and ache.

Maybe if you explain everything. Tell him why you ran. Apologize like hell. You won’t be hugging after this, but you won't be drugged up (what did he give you?) in the back of his car, either. 

“Ren– the hous e–I ran–I–let me explain, it–”

Ren’s hand trails back to your mouth. The sharp edges of his nails graze against your nose.

“Hush. We’ll talk about all that later.” 

Later?

Oh, fuck –

There’s an awful, stabbing pain in your thigh–you look down and see Ren pulling away a syringe with a bright silver needle.

Ren–you try to say his name, but when you open your mouth, nothing comes out. Your lips gape and close and words no longer form.

Your head is swimming now, all highs and lows, dipping and rising over waves that never seem to end. It’s like you're falling asleep in the worst way, hard and rocky.

Like you’re falling backwards down the basement stairs. 

Ren’s voice is the last thing you hear before you black out.

“Sweet dreams.” 

[oftenderweapons]

Mold Me New (6) — Taehyung

A Small Town Swoons Story

Pairing: Taehyung x reader (nicknamed Frog)

Wordcount: 3.7k

Genre: ceramic artist!Taehyung, divorced!reader, Strangers to Lovers, Fluff, sliht angst, Slice of Life

Rating: suggested 18+ for future smut

Hello to my readers!!! Welcome to the Small Town Swoons Universe!🥰✨

In this episode: Frog and Taehyung are gettin closer and closer. As they both face their most vulnerable moments since they met, finding comfort in each other's arms.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: kissing, mild swearing, allusions to smut. Taehyung suffers from tendinitis in his hands after he worked too much. Frog talks about the end of her marriage and her approach to attraction, mentioning that she could be demisexual. About this specific point, the discussion is very short and doesn't focus on details, but THAT doesn't absolutely mean that demisexuality isn't a large and delicate topic that should be disucssed in depth, it only means that the character is growing in that direction and that she'll eventually educate herself more about that topic.

Once more I'm thanking Rid (aka @taegularities). We're in this soft sh!t together 🤍

In case you like my writing, here is my directory for idol!AUs, scenarios and imagines. And in case you need it, here’s the Spotify music companion.

Navi: Chapter 1 — Chapter 2 — Chapter 3 — Chapter 4 — Chapter 5 — Chapter 6 — Chapter 7

Enjoy 💜✨

Entering the studio was mind blowing. It looked like a garden of statues.

Sitting on the floor was Taehyung, using his elbows and forearms to wedge a large body of clay.

“Tae?”

He looked at you standing in the doorway, smiling at you almost apologetically while you were entirely shocked.

“Why are you wedging with your elbows?”

“Tendinitis.” He still smiled like his fingers and palm didn’t feel shredded by thorns.

“For god’s sake, Tae!” You made your way to him, feeling like a cat trying to slalom through an endless field of obstacles. “Baby,” you murmured, crouching down next to him, tutting and fussing once you spotted how messed up he was.

He had clay in his hair, on his face, all over his apron. “Babe.”

“I wanted to create.”

You held his face in your hands, kissing his forehead over and over. “How long have you been here?”

“What time is it?”

“It’s five o’clock. Like all of our lessons,” you reminded him, wide eyed, shaking your head.

“I’ve been here since four.”

You closed your eyes and exhaled. “Tell me you mean four in the afternoon.”

He smiled sheepishly. “Yeah. Of yesterday.”

Your face contorted in disappointment. “Get out of here!” You helped him up, clicking your tongue once you noticed he was barely able to hold himself up on his knees.

“I just stayed in the same position for too long,” he whined at your stern look.

“This cannot do, Taehyung,” you scolded him, before blocking his face, which was aiming at the crook of your neck. “No cuddles. We need to clean you up first.”

He pouted as you got rid of his apron quickly. “How aren’t you tired? Look at the floor! How can you even move in here, Taehyung!”

“Don’t call me by my full name, it scares me,” he objected, puppy eyed. “And your lesson?”

“We’re postponing that. Have you eaten at least?” You stared at the floor as you led him to the large sink.

He followed you as your hands held his hips. He liked how you touched him, and he loved how comfortable you looked doing so. Once he stood in front of the sink, you grabbed some soap and foamed it up, holding his hands and running them under the water, covering them in bubbles and getting a small groan out of him. “This will teach you a lesson,” you mumbled, intertwining your fingers with his and rubbing them together. “Does it hurt?”

He shook his head before leaning his head against your shoulder while you stood behind him. “It feels better with you.”

You couldn’t hold yourself back from placing a gentle kiss at the corner of his mouth. “Let’s clean up your pretty face.”

Still, he tried to deepen the kiss, chasing you, hoping you’d let it slide. “You think I’m pretty?”

“You’re not just pretty. You’re scandalously good looking. You’re disgustingly perfect.”

He smiled and tried to turn. He wanted to plant his face against your chest and feel your digits massaging his scalp. He also wanted to feel you naked against his skin, but that was far from any sexual motive: he simply wanted warmth, closeness, affection. He wanted softness and intimacy. “Can we cuddle now?”

“You still have half a kilo of clay on your arms,” you replied as you took it off with gentle strokes of your palms, adding more soap to make sure no dirt was left.

“Can we cuddle after that?”

You nodded, nuzzling your nose into his hair. “We can do anything you want.”

He lowered his face to the faucet and cleaned it up, washing away the smear of dried up clay on his cheek.

“You should shower, darling,” you said, grabbing a paper towel and dabbing it against his wet face. “Or we could wash your hair.”

“Are you staying over?” He looked so hopeful, so entirely enamoured. You could barely resist him.

“I stayed over last week. I’d feel a bit out of place,” you replied shyly, trying not to feel conflicted. On one side, you felt like you were taking advantage of him, on the other you longed to caress his hair and kiss his nape until he fell asleep at your side. You also wanted to wake up with his hair tickling your chest as he gave you tiny kisses all over your neck and throat, exploiting the warmth and softness of that special spot for a gentle wake up call.

At the beginning you had worried about staying over on that first night, after dinner and… and the couch thingie. You slightly feared the thought that sharing a bed somehow meant pressuring each other into a type of intimacy neither of you was ready for. And then, a week after that fatidic rendezvous, he had asked for you to stay the night and sleep — just sleep — together. He had been extremely clear about his intentions, declaring them after dinner as you were lounging on the sofa once more. You had watched a film, made out, calmed down, washed up and headed to bed, where he had clung to you until his breathing turned into a delicate huffing sound.

You had barely resisted tears once you noticed he tended to pucker his lips in his sleep, his cheeks becoming fluffier and rounder. He had an adorable baby face.

“What if I wanted you to stay, though?” Taehyung murmured, giving you a dubious look. As he noticed you hesitating, he added: “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to stay. It would be on the same terms as last time. I’m not pressuring you or anything I—”

Finally you gave up. Maybe his presence would help you. “Okay.”

He grinned, “I should shower then.”

“You want me to cook something as you wash up?”

His eyes got wide and glittery before he kissed your cheek. “Yes, please.”

“What should I make?”

“I like anything in the fridge. Do as you please,” he replied before you moved your head in confirmation.

Once in the house, you headed for the kitchen while he immediately hit the shower. He wanted to be away from you as little as possible. Most activities were painful, like grabbing bottles and massaging his scalp and basically anything that required him to grip and strain his hand muscles and tendons. At a certain point he entirely gave up on his hair, washing his body and getting out of the shower, drying up and wearing a pair of boxers and loose pyjama pants.

“Frog?” he called from the door.

“I made bruschetta! Bread, sliced cherry tomatoes, it’s in the oven,” you answered.

“Can you come here?”

You quickly lowered the oven temperature and reached him.

You inhaled brusquely once you noticed his lean, smooth torso naked, little droplets of water still glistening here and there. “Could you wash my hair? I can’t really use my fingers much.”

You nodded silently, inhaling as you took in his chest. He looked so beautiful, his chest lithe and well-built, his tummy holding a millimetric curve, flat but not muscled. You liked it a lot.

“Shall we?”

Silently you followed him, watching as he bent down over the sink and opened the tap to further wet his hair. You noticed the bottle of shampoo and squeezed a small amount on your palm, watering it down and beginning to energetically scrub his scalp. “This okay?”

Taehyung hummed in reply, turning his head to the side a little to offer you a better angle. “Very okay. Actually, fine. Ideal.”

You smiled.

It took you a bit more time than you thought, mostly because you were a bit distracted. “Are you sleepy, sweetheart?” you asked once you managed to finish, helping him stand up straight and drying his hair haphazardly with a towel.

“I’m so caffeinated I can barely think straight,” he murmured, purring once he noticed the way you were still looking at him. “Frog. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

He cupped the back of your head before he leaned to your face, sucking your lower lip into his mouth and forcing you to unseal yours, his tongue sliding in sinuously, his other arm pinning you to him. “Like you really want me to do this.”

Once your back hit the wall, his warm body contrasting with the cold tiles against your spine, you realised you needed to slow down. “Tae. Dinner,” you reminded him.

“Sure,” he unglued you from the tiles. “Do you even want me to put a shirt on?”

You shook your head and smirked. “You sure are a smooth mess.” His eyelashes looked magical from this up close. After almost three months of knowing him, you still wondered how he could be so absolutely perfect, and so real.

“Is that a yes or a no?” He cocked an eyebrow, adding a mischievous grin on his face.

“It’s definitely a yes, you tease!”

After dinner you decided to go for your usual shenanigans and headed for the living room, finding yourself a little dumbstruck when you noticed a large sculpture on the coffee table, which had been moved out of the way and to a dry and cool place. The structure was as large as your upper half and, as you switched on the lights you recognised exactly what it was. The torso was still drying, as the colour showed, and for a second you asked yourself how it would ever dry. It would of course hold water in its core, causing the structure to fail and break. And then, it would never fit in his kiln.

“You like it?”

You turned towards Taehyung. “What material is it?”

“Modelling dough. It’s made for large structures. It dries in a couple hours.There are about ten layers latched on a metallic structure. It’s modelled after you.”

Your eyes widened. “Is that why your hands have been acting up?”

He looked away in a manner that told you that yes, that was the very reason.

“Do you have a balm or something?” you asked, trying to fix the mess he made.

He left the room and came back with a glass jar. “Arnica gel smells very bad but works fine.”

You took your place on the sofa, patting the spot at your side to invite him there. He joined you in a nanosecond, placing the jar on your lap. Methodically, entirely caught in your thoughts, you opened the lid, got some lotion on his palm and began rubbing the pressure points on his palm before turning to the back of it and tracing the tendons energetically.

His relieved groan echoed into the room before he let his head fall on the back of the sofa.

The massage went on for a bit, the motions so mechanical that your mind started to wander until you eventually said your thoughts out loud.

Having him to assist had calmed you down enough that you felt ready to reflect over your worries.

“Today is my wedding anniversary. Or it was.” You kept staring at your digits digging into his flesh. “I don’t really know how I should talk about it.”

Taehyung, though looking like a lazy feline, was actually paying close attention to your words. “How was it, being married?”

You shook your head. “At the beginning there was a lot of emotion and companionship. And then life carried us away from each other. Like two leaves scattered in different directions by the wind.” Your explanation was something that had become a truth to you: at the beginning you had tortured yourself with understanding why and how it had happened. And then you had accepted the blatant way of things: separation.

“Are you scared of it happening again? That companionship to separation process?”

You shrugged. “Not really. If people drift apart, then maybe it’s because they were meant to be together for a while before they could venture towards different destinations.”

Taehyung moved closer to your neck, to get impossibly nearer. If he could, he would have crawled underneath your skin, to inhabit you like a squirrel does a tree. He wanted to build his nest in your heart and sing all his favourite songs to you, and from you he would never, ever part.

He knew he was letting himself romanticise the affection and comfort he felt for you, however, he couldn’t find anything that made him disappointed with you, or that annoyed him. There were small things here and there that made him question your approach to life, but your grounded self was the kind of roots he needed to drift in the wind and let everything surprise and amaze him.

You were his anchor and he was so infinitely glad to have met you.

“How do you feel about the whole marriage thing? Do you still believe in it?” His voice was incredibly velvety, like a mother’s caress, a lover’s glance.

You pondered your emotions and sensations. “I believe I do. I mean, it’s not like I think I failed something or love is a lie and all of that. I’m just trying to understand the… the ground rules—” You took a pause, trying to explain yourself. “Like, the foreword, you know?”

He listened and let you talk.

“What makes a couple fit for marriage? And then, what is marriage? I need it to be more than just a bunch of paperwork and legal duties. But maybe it’s just that.”

Taehyung rubbed his naked foot against yours. His feet were freezing. Plus it felt funny to test the smoothness of your calf with the sole. He wished the two of you could cuddle under the sheets, talk until the larks would start singing and thin rays of premature sunshine would start lighting up the dawn and stream into the room, colouring your face with a greyish halo before it turned pink, and then orange and then deep red for the briefest minute until bright yellow settled in.

He wanted to study the colours of you bathed in any type of light, any shade and palette that would come with the passing hours.

“I think I want more than paperwork and formalities too. It's a promise after all. You're officially telling your beloved that you will be by their side forever.”

“As someone who betrayed that promise, I don't think I can see it from that point of view anymore.” You exhaled before he placed an arm around you, almost sitting on your lap as he offered you his untreated hand.

He frowned. “It’s not like you betrayed it. You honoured it. It might say ‘till death do us part’ and all of that, but the biggest promise is to be at each other’s side, to find happiness and support and comfort in each other. You realised you couldn’t hold on to each other anymore and you let go.” He kissed your cheek. “Your right to happiness is way greater than a promise neither of you wanted to keep anymore.”

You found refuge in his hair, sniffing it gently before letting your eyelids lower. “I’m afraid I’ll break future promises, too. Sometimes I ask myself how I could keep one.” You felt incredibly calm as he started delivering gentle pecks from your temple to your ear to your jaw, the sound of his lips disclosing in quiet pops slipping into silence as he lost the excuse of kisses and started simply skimming your skin with the smooth petals of his mouth.

“You will not be alone keeping it.” He drew a line with his nose, from your cupid’s bow to the middle of your forehead, where he placed one final kiss. “It’s a shared responsibility. You won’t need to go all the way. The right one will meet you halfway, and they will be willing to go a bit farther on the days you can’t reach, just like you’ll be willing to take a few more steps on the days they’re not feeling good. It’s a compromise, and the border moves and melts.” He hummed as you kneaded the base of his thumb between your own thumb and index. “At least that’s the way I like to imagine it.”

You would meet him halfway. And you would reach for him, on days like this, when you need him and he needs you. And you would walk a bit more when he’s tired and worried and afraid, just like you knew he would come for you.

“I think it really works for friends too,” Taehyung mused. He looked at you. He wanted to meet you halfway, and renovate that promise day after day after day. One day at the time, as long as you loved him. And then he would let you go, not without trying to fix the distance between the two of you. “Sometimes the difference between lovers and friends confuses me.”

You looked at him and blinked. “Well, I would never do anything sexual with a friend. I would with a lover, though.”

He nodded and hummed as he reflected. “So I should call you my lover?”

You felt your cheeks heat up. “Sure, if you’d like to.”

“I’d love to.”

You smiled, a tiny chuckle parting from your lips.

“Once you said you don’t feel attracted to just anyone. What is it that makes you feel attracted to me?” Taehyung asked, genuinely curious.

You gave a small laugh. “You know all about me meeting my husband when I was a kid, growing up together, being with him, only him until we divorced and then some.”

He nodded.

“I think that made me used to being extremely close to my partner before being capable of perceiving any type of attraction. And even when I was with him, I didn’t ever think about anyone else. All people were just—” you thought about the right word. “They were only human beings to me. I couldn’t see them as somebody I could be attracted to, especially since I never got to know anyone as much as I know Terry and him. I think you’re the first one I want to explore.” You let go of his hand.

“Thank you,” he murmured before letting his back fall against the pillows, laying down and dragging you with him so you were resting on your side, your legs tangled up with his before you found your spot flushed against his side, his chest pillowing your head and your leg thrown over his hip. He wanted to comb your hair but he didn’t want to mess it up with the balm, so he decided he could simply draw circles against your arm. “What do you mean with ‘exploring’?”

You yawned as you felt relaxation wash over you. “I mean I want to take my time to get to know you. I’ve read somewhere that people who only feel attraction for those they have an emotional bond with are called demisexual. And somehow I feel I could identify myself with that, but I think I still have too many open questions to feel like I fully belong to that category.”

Taehyung felt blessed he could listen to your thoughts out loud. They felt so precious to him, like they could give him a way to understand you better. And the more he understood you, the deeper he fell for you. “You’re still so young, you have all the time in the world. Maybe you could talk to a therapist, or find some support through online forums. You know you have my full support.”

You softened and furtherly cosied up in his arms. “Thank you so much, Tae.”

“It’s the least I can do.” You felt his voice sweeten with joy and gratitude. “We take care of each other.”

He had become your solace, your reprieve, your second chance at happiness. Hopefully, your definitive one too.

You calmed down, trying not to rush things through, reminding yourself this had been the strongest, most unreasonable form of enamourment you could have ever thought of; nevertheless, you couldn’t deny the sudden lightness and warmth and fondness that invaded you whenever he peeked into your thoughts or appeared in your sight.

“However, yes, I feel attracted to you because I’m emotionally attached to you. I don’t know what this will become, or if it will evolve into deeper feelings, but it feels good to be your friend. And to be your lover too,” you continued delicately, trying to play it cool. “I just don’t know how long this sense of attraction will last — you know, because of this being an actual first time and me being afraid of making promises and not keeping them. For now I only know I want to know you deeper. And I want to be your lover.”

Fear crawled into his veins but he let the present reassurance comfort him. “It’s okay. It’s not like I’m experienced. We’ll just let ourselves feel whatever comes our way. The only promise I need you to give me is that you’ll allow yourself to feel everything life will give you, without being afraid.”

You stretched to press a kiss to his lips. “Okay. Can I count on you to meet me halfway?”

He nodded. “As a friend, as a lover, as anything you allow me to be.”

You kissed him again, your body relaxing even more. You couldn’t hold back another yawn.

“Let’s get you to bed. I don’t want you to fall asleep on the couch.” He traced your profile with the tip of his pinky. “Come on.”

As you laid in bed, your legs tangled together, you caressed his hair, watching his eyelashes fan against his cheekbones.

“I hate that my hands hurt. I wish I could touch you more.” He turned to fit his back against your front, your hand meeting his chest and feeling his calm heartbeat.

“Did you really shape that sculpture after me?”

You noticed him nodding. “I could still feel you under my fingers. It was torture to lay in this bed without you.”

You kissed his nape. “Good thing I’m here now.”

“You make it so much better, darling.” His voice was reaching that depth that fit night-time pillow talk so perfectly.

You thought about how your life had changed since he came into it. “You make it better too, Tae.”

Taglist is open

Navi: Chapter 1 — Chapter 2 — Chapter 3 — Chapter 4 — Chapter 5 — Chapter 6 — Chapter 7

[sevenstarsinning]

Summary: Raditz loses his mate when Planet Vegeta is destroyed and finds himself working alongside Prince Vegeta. When he comes to Earth to recruit his brother, he’s dealt another devastating blow when Goku refuses to join and leaves him near death. He’s found by a human and attempts to adapt to life on Earth.

Ch. 1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4

Chapter 5

Morning dew coated the outside of the pod and birds chirped on the tree branch nearby. It was way too cheery for early morning. Being awake at that time usually meant you either couldn't sleep at all or woke up long before you should have.

That morning you woke up too early but it was entirely Raditz's fault and you were more than okay with that.

Sometime during the night he wrapped his tail around your waist and pulled you up to sleep on his chest. That was where you woke up and that's where you remained, listening to him purr while his body heat kept you warm. The rise and fall of his chest was like a gentle rocking putting you completely at ease. That was no easy feat and there he was making you feel safe and content without even trying.

You lifted your head up to see he was awake. It felt like a kaleidoscope of butterflies fluttered in your stomach when you realized something was different.

"You're awake... and you're still purring."

His eyes locked onto yours and the butterfly feeling spread to your chest and throat leaving you seconds from saying something you probably shouldn't say.

"I'm comfo-"

"You're beautiful," you blurted. Your eyes widened and you let out a nervous laugh.

His brow raised in surprise, mouth slightly ajar. For a moment, you expected him to push you over to your side of the pod.

Instead, he smiled and struggled to keep his eyes on yours. He was nervous and you had no idea why.

"I've been called many things but uh... that's a new one," he finally said, breaking the anxiety inducing silence between you.

"Was that a bad thing to say?" You asked, unable to hide the worry in your voice and on your face.

"No, not bad at all. Just new."

When you saw the smile that spread across his face, you realized making a complete fool of yourself in front of him didn't bother you at all. In fact, you were willing to let it happen more just to see that smile. It was like a potent dose of serotonin and you needed more.

"I think I have a solution to our housing problem," you revealed, changing the subject to avoid doing something incredibly stupid.

His tail tightened around your waist and you knew he wasn't letting you up anytime soon.

Later that day, you and Raditz embarked on your first journey away from the house together. He usually stayed back when there were errands to run or groceries to buy. He wasn't a small guy by any stretch of the imagination and walking side by side with him downtown drew the gaze of many people passing by. It wasn't just his size that made people take notice, it was also his gorgeous mane of black hair that nearly touched the ground and his bulging muscles stretching the material of his t-shirt and jeans. It was Raditz in general, all the way down to the way he carried himself and the air of confidence he seemed to be naturally gifted with.

"This is definitely the place," you said, opening the door to a white dome shaped building.

Raditz shuffled in behind you, almost filling the doorway completely. A purple haired girl with the Capsule insignia on her shirt approached.

"Welcome to the Capsule store, my name is Lynn. Is there anything I can help you find?"

Her eyes drifted over to the huge saiyan next to you. He tilted his head, curious about her. Then it struck you, Raditz had little to no experience around other humans.

"Yeah, my house was half demolished when a... plane crashed into it." You knew exactly how ridiculous it sounded but saying a space pod carrying a hot alien crash landed on your house was out of the question.

"Was it a... an alien ship?" Lynn asked, glancing up at Raditz.

"How do you know that, human?" He said, stepping closer to the much smaller human.

"My boyfriend- " Before she could finish her sentence, an alarm blared and red lights flashed overhead. The ceiling opened up but before you could see what was happening, the tail tucked under Raditz's shirt flung out and coiled around your waist, pulling you safely behind him.

"You're supposed to be dead!" A voice called out amidst the chaos.

You peeked around Raditz to see an entire row of artillery from the ceiling aimed at him. A teal haired woman standing on the other side glared, not the least bit intimidated.

"Hey, can you get the insane security to stand down, he's not going to hurt anyone," you yelled back, waving your hand.

"Is that... is that a human behind you?" The woman asked, trying to get a better view.

"Help me out, big guy, your tail won't let me go," you said. Your heart felt like it might beat out of your chest. Everything happened so fast you barely had time to react.

"And put you in harm's way? No, you stay back there, this is Kakarot's friend," Raditz growled.

"Wait... you mean Goku?" Lynn said from behind a shield that went up around her automatically.

"Raditz, calm down. They haven't attacked, we can talk to them," you whispered. It was hard to hide the panic in your voice over the predicament you found yourself in.

"Human, where is Kakarot?" Raditz asked, turning his attention to Lynn.

"Enough!" The other woman shouted. "If you promise to keep him on a leash, I'll disarm security."

"Raditz, please?" You begged, lightly scratching the back of his head to soothe him.

He let out a little growl and loosened his tail. "Fine."

The red lights retracted along with the row of weapons and disappeared into the ceiling.

"All I have to do is hit one button and those will come back out, so don't try anything," the woman said, approaching him without a trace of fear.

"I'm Bulma, I'm assuming you're the one taming the saiyan?" She stepped around him to look at you.

"Trying to," you laughed nervously. Raditz still had his tail around you, protecting you even without an immediate threat.

"Come on, let's go out back and talk. Lynn, close up and go home. Make sure Goku knows about this," Bulma said, giving out orders as she guided you and Raditz towards the back of the dome.

The back door led to a shaded patio with a row of tables and thick, beautiful foliage lining the sides to offer privacy to anyone sitting out there.

"Raditz can sit there," Bulma said, pointing at the first table, "we're going to the back table."

"No, I'm staying with her," he snapped, his tail coiling tight around your waist again.

"It's okay, big guy. I'm safe, this is like the smartest and richest woman in the world," you said, nodding towards Bulma. He eyed her wearily but relented and loosened his hold.

You gave him a reassuring smile before following her to the last table.

"Sorry about the security system in there, it's not even loaded with ammo, it's just a deterrent. What did you come in for?" Bulma asked, taking a seat at the last round white table.

"A house. His pod wrecked mine when he landed. We've actually been sort of living in his pod and it's not very roomy," you explained.

Bulma was unfazed by all of it and that piqued your curiosity.

"You've been sleeping in the pod with him? Has anything happened?" She leaned in and kept her voice low.

"Not really. It was a little rough at first but he's adjusting," you said in a hushed voice.

"That's good. He's definitely a lot less hostile than I remember." She glanced past you at Raditz. You could tell her mind was racing, sorting through the chaos that just came back into her life.

The two of you talked for a while, you filled her in on Raditz and she told you about Goku and the little bit she knew about saiyans. You were looking forward to meeting him at some point and even though it was a long shot given the history, maybe Raditz and Goku could at least talk. That could be a step towards him finding happiness on Earth.

"I'll make you deal. If you keep an eye on him and tell me if anything weird happens, I'll give you a capsule house." She said it like she was giving you a piece of cake as opposed to a whole house.

"Bulma, no. That's way too much, let me pay," you countered.

She reached in her pocket and pulled out a handful of capsules. "How many bedrooms were you thinking?"

"Just one, that's all I can really do at the moment."

She settled on a pink capsule and placed it on the table in front of you. "That's a three bedroom. It's one of the models we used for photos so it's fully furnished and you're not paying for it."

"Bulma, you don't even know me. I-"

"Your saiyan back there came to Earth to recruit Goku. The only reason he's here is because of my friend which means your house is gone because of this. It's the least we can do for you," she said, pushing the capsule closer.

"And remember, call me immediately if anything feels off with him, okay? This is a direct line to me," she said, passing a business card to you with the Capsule logo shimmering on the top left corner and a phone number scrawled across the bottom.

"At least let me pay you something for this, please?" You pleaded with her.

"Absolutely not. Just come to my next party, I’ll introduce you to Goku," she said, refusing to take no for an answer as she headed back inside the building.

On your way back to the car, Raditz remained silent. There was no good way to approach the subject of his brother. That had to be weighing on him.

"What's that place?" He finally spoke, pointing towards the small building on the other side of the road.

"It's a bar. One of my favorites actually," you replied, coming to a stop at a four way intersection.

"What's a bar?"

"A place where people usually drink strong tasting liquids that make them feel funny."

"Strong liquids?" He raised an eyebrow and sat forward just enough to see past his hair which had taken up residence between the two of you.

"We call it alcohol. It's how I ended up in that field the night I found you."

"Libations. That's what we called them."

Instead of continuing straight through the intersection, you made a quick left followed by a right and pulled into the parking lot.

You entered the old, dimly lit bar with Raditz in tow. The evening crowd was starting to trickle in.

Raditz found a table while you ordered drinks. You leaned back against the bar while you waited, watching him mess with the phone you gave him. It looked so small in his hands and he looked adorable navigating what he called primitive technology.

After very carefully walking back to your table, you sat a tray full of drinks in the middle and pulled out a chair.

A big, strong arm wrapped around your waist and the next thing you knew, you were sitting in Raditz's lap. You were already so used to cuddling with him in the pod that you didn't think anything of it.

As the day turned to night, you introduced Raditz to all of your favorite drinks and even some you didn't like just to see his reaction. Aside from trips back to the bar to order more drinks, he kept you in his lap with an arm around your waist.

He required a ton of alcohol to even get a buzz and you were content sipping and never getting totally drunk. One of you had to stay a little sober to avoid bad decisions.

"What is this one?" Raditz asked, holding up a pint glass of blue liquid.

"That is your last drink of the night, big guy." You grabbed it and took a quick sip before handing it back.

"It's called... last drink of the night?" He stared at the glass, confused by the weird name.

"It's called an Adios Motherfucker."

"Say that again but... slower," he said with a big goofy smile. Drunk Raditz wasn't too different from the sober version. The thing you noticed the most was the sadness in his eyes. You watched it slowly fade until it was gone completely. His smiles lit up his entire face and he laughed louder.

"Can I have another one of these?" He asked, holding up his empty glass.

"Dude, I've already had to drag you to my house once, we're not doing that again," you chided.

"Human... sweetheart- just one?" He stuck out his bottom lip and pouted.

"Human sweetheart. That's a new one," you laughed, shaking your head at how ridiculously cute he was.

You relented and bought him one more drink. The expensive bar tab made you feel sick but it was worth every penny to see him finally shed the darkness that enveloped him. Even if it was only for a night.

As soon as the chilly night air hit your face, you regretted not bringing a jacket.

"Saiyan, give me your warmth," you said, ducking underneath his massive arm.

"We not driving?" He asked, lifting you into his arms like a child.

"I've had one too many drinks." You buried your face against his neck and settled in for the walk home. Luckily it wasn't far and you liked getting carried by Raditz, especially with his hands on your ass to hold you up.

"You smell good," he said in a sleepy voice as you neared your half destroyed house.

"You can still smell my perfume? I figured that would've faded by now."

"No... not that," he muttered, burying his face against your neck to sniff you. If it was anyone else, you probably would've freaked out.

"Your scent, the normal one."

You pulled back and smiled. “Wait, do you have some kind of heightened sense of smell that I don’t know about?”

“Yeah, it’s a saiyan thing. We can pick up on scents and changes in scents we’re familiar with. Particularly with females we’re close to or want to be close to.”

He crossed the lawn to the backyard and lowered you to the ground. “How does this capsule thing work?”

You pulled it from your pocket, clicked the small button and tossed it approximately where you wanted your new house to be.

“Holy shit, Bulma,” you said in awe of the beautiful house she gave you. It was far too much and you were already trying to figure out ways to pay her back. You and Raditz explored the house briefly before calling it a night, exhausted from the day.

You tossed and turned even though the new bed was the most comfortable thing you had ever laid on. The temperature in the room was perfect and it was dark enough, but something still wasn't right.

You knew what it was but you didn't want to acknowledge it. Lines had already been crossed on multiple levels with your unexpected roommate. You shared the pod out of necessity, nothing more.

Minutes ticked by and you only seemed to get less sleepy. You finally got annoyed enough to get out of bed and go to the living room, but you didn't make it there. You ran straight into a wall of saiyan at the end of the hallway.

"Holy shit! What the hell are you doing out here?" You stepped back and saw him carrying a glass of water.

"I can't sleep so I got a glass of water. That a crime, you tiny pain in the ass?" He asked with a little smirk.

"No, it's not a crime, you giant pain in the ass," you said in a mocking tone.

"Can I sleep with you?"

You knew he meant actual sleep, but your brain processed it in a different way entirely and it left your panties wet.

"Sure," you said, against your better judgement.

He followed you back to your room and walked around to the other side of the bed while you got back under the covers on your side. He laid down and turned on his side to face you.

"Bedroom not comfy enough?" You asked, scooting closer to him. He draped his arm over you and started to fade right away.

"Not that... just didn't have you," he said before drifting off to sleep.

You were wide awake until he started purring, head rested against your shoulder. It didn't matter how much you tried to fight off the feelings you were having for him, they weren't going away. The last thought you had before you finally fell asleep was the realization that you needed Raditz by your side to fall asleep.

A loud crash outside made the entire house shake. Raditz was up in the blink of an eye checking the window to see what it was. His tail fluffed up and moved wildly behind him.

You scrambled out of bed to look for yourself but there was nothing, just the backyard.

"What's wrong, big guy? Are you seeing something I'm not?"

"I need you to stay behind me and if anything happens to me, run," he said, effectively scaring the hell out of you.

"What? You can't just say that with no explanation! What's going on?" Your anxiety skyrocketed as he moved past you to head towards the living room.

"Raditz- "

"Behind me," he snapped.

Before you could protest, the front door was kicked completely off the hinges and left in a mangled heap on the floor. A tall, muscular guy with short, spiky black hair walked in. One eye was covered with some kind of device you had never seen.

"This is what you've been doing, huh? There's something incredibly wrong about a domesticated Saiyan," the man said with a cocky grin.

A shorter man stepped in behind him, black hair shooting towards the sky like small spires. He also had the same device covering one of his eyes and he somehow looked even more intimidating than the bigger one.

"Prince Vegeta, Turles," Raditz said, giving them each a nod.

[artlessictoan]

Also, Smoke Into The Sand w/ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15! OoO As a side-note I haven't read this yet (SHAME ON ME BC I WANNA) and i'm SUPER interested in it!

asdfjskdjskdjfsk this is gonna get long fukc

What inspired you to write the fic this way?

my main goal with sits was to make it read like an old myth or storybook, an old tale that would be passed down for generations, the majority of the fic is written in that style exactly, but the overall story definitely is (and it does come through a bit more in how the backstory is told and some of the more important scenes)

that said, the main narrative is written much more slice-of-life-y, one of my biggest inspirations for this fic is the manga monogatari (bride’s story), it’s a really nice series that explores the daily life of people in various areas along the silk road, it has that simple, everyday life feel that i love and really wanted to write into sits! that’s where the random details about desert living and the tribe’s lifestyle come in (warning for anyone who might want to check out mono though: it does have an arranged marriage between a 20 yr old woman and a 12 yr old boy, it’s being played as a more platonic/familial relationship thus far but i can totally understand why it would put people off, so just a heads-up before anyone jumps in)

What scene did you first put down?

the first scene i actually started writing was the very first scene! but the very first scene, the one that spawned this entire fic i haven’t actually gotten to yet, it’s gonna be v near the end and i’m dying to finally reveal it because it’s gonna be Big.. but i shalln’t spoil it here, just something for my readers to look forwards to

What’s your favorite line of narration?

ok so like i said i’m shit at remembering any of what i write and it’s a bit more than just a line but fuck it:

Gaara froze, in fact, everything did. The soft whistling ofthe wind cut off into eerie silence, the constantly shifting sand stopped witha suddenness that was entirely unnatural, Naruto glanced away for a second andsaw that some grains were being held in the air, perfectly still. He turned hisgaze back to the spirit before him, his expression hadn’t changed at all, hewas still glaring, but his eyes were unfocussed, like they weren’t reallylooking at him.

Naruto was too scared to move, to speak; hecould only stare and pray that he hadn’t just sealed his own death warrant.

What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

again, not a line, but i really love this exchange between nart and ameno so effing much:

“So mature… You’re growing up too fast, how am I ever goingto keep up?” she asked, mostly to herself judging from the distant look on herface.

He slowly drew his hand back once her face wasdry and gave her a confused look. “You won’t have to; I’ll just carry you withme.

What part was hardest to write?

well i might just be saying this cause it’s the most recent struggle i faced (among many) but the chapter six reALLY killed me. trying to find the right way to describe the exhaustion and constant fear took many, many weeks and i’m still not sure i really nailed it (hopefully something i’ll be able to fix in the next chap)

What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

other than being the first multi-chap fic i’ve ever written, this is actually one of my oldest fic ideas ever, seriously it’s been kicking around in my head for a good five years or so now so there’s that

it also happens to contain basically All of my Special Interests; naruto, deserts, nomadic culture, boring minutia, swords.... honestly the only thing it’s missing is cats (though i’m sure i can find some way to work them in too..)

and, honestly, this is kinda my magnum opus? or at least that’s how i’ve always thought of it, i had actually planned to not start writing it until i’d already done a few other fics because i wanted to make sure my writing skill was at its best before starting such an ambitious fic.. yeah that didn’t happen, but i think that’s actually worked out alright, jumping in with a harder fic right at the start of my writing ‘career’ has been a bit of a crash-course and taught me a heck of a lot, i still think it’s gonna be one of the best things i ever write though. it just has a very special place in my heart

Where did the title come from?

well tbh i’m kinda shit at titles, so i usually just hunt through the first chap looking for any particularly poetic-sounding line that would work (though in this case it does have a nice little easter egg, since in arab folklore jinn are made of smoke!)

Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

hmm not really? the whole thing is meant to be very fantastical and unreal (despite all the slice-of-life stuff), the only real-world insp comes from my research into bedouin lifestyle and such

What do you like best about this fic?

gaara! i mean ofc i like him in anything but this version of gaa - silent, detached, barely human, incredibly complex - is one of my faves and he’s really fun to write, we’ll be finding out more about him as the fic goes on and when we do it’ll make his actions before now both more understandable and less at the same time (he’s quite the paradox)

What do you like least about this fic?

the inconsistency. i feel like i must’ve gone through about ten different writing styles throughout the course of it and it bothers me that i haven’t quite got that storybook feel i was always aiming for, i’ll probably do a rewrite when i’ve got more experience under my belt and try to make the whole thing a bit more cohesive

What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

as with btc, i mostly listen to soundtracks, since songs with lyrics really distract me when writing, since i like to try and match the music i listen to to the setting/tone of what i’m writing i try to listen to classical middle-eastern music (though i’ve had a hard time finding many albums of just instrumental stuff, if anyone has any recs i’d love you forever!)

in addition to that there’s the soundtracks of Journey, Bastion, Dreamfall Chapters and the Prince of Persia games and for instrumental artists i really like Break of Reality and Tina Guo for sits insp!

Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?What did you learn from writing this fic?

hmm, well i’d love it if people learned a bit more about the cultures i’m writing about (and i’d like to learn more of that too tbh, i’m still finding out new things that i actually got wrong earlier on in the fic), maybe even get interested enough to go looking for more info themselves, because there’s a lot of stuff that i simply won’t be able to go into much detail about

as for myself, well ^that and also it’s just been a rEALLY good experience in so many small ways - writing longer fics, writing in general, character interaction, introspection, action, plotting, description, suspense, mystery..... i could go on but yeah, basically it’s helped me grow as an author in Every Single Way and i’m sure it’ll help ever more before it’s done!