#i typed in my old zip code

[lisanamjoon]

according to the website, walmart doesn’t have any copies of sunrise on the reaping in any of the three walmarts near me…

[tobiosbbyghorl]

pairing: scientist!sunghoon x scientist! reader

wc:10.5k

released date: 05.17.2025

warning: PURE FICTION!!

synopsis: In the quiet of her lab, Dr. Y/N, a skilled scientist, sets out on a risky mission to bring back her late fiancé, Park Sunghoon, who died in a car accident. Using his preserved DNA, she creates a clone that grows rapidly in just two years. When Sunghoon wakes up, he faces the difficult reality of being brought back to life and the moral issues surrounding Y/N's actions.

a/n: ITS HERE!! Hope you guys will love it as much as I did writing it! feedbacks,likes and reblogs are highly appreciated!

In the cold glow of my underground biotech lab, silence is sacred. Down here, beneath layers of steel and earth, the world doesn’t exist. No grief. No time. Just me. Just him.

The capsule glows in the center of the room—a vertical womb of steel and glass, pulsing faintly with blue light. Suspended inside, wrapped in strands of bio-filaments and artificial amniotic fluid, is the reason I wake up in the morning. Or stay awake. I don’t know the difference anymore.

Park Sunghoon.

Or… what’s left of him.

One year ago, he died on his way to our civil wedding. A drunk driver. A rainy street. A second too late. I got the call before I even zipped up my dress. I still remember the way my coffee spilled all over the lab floor when my knees gave out. I never cleaned it. It’s still there, dried in the corner. A fossil of the moment my world cracked open.

⸻

He used to say I was too curious for my own good.

That I’d poke the universe too hard one day and it would poke back.

Maybe this is what he meant.

⸻

Sunghoon and I were both scientists—biotech researchers. We studied regenerative cloning, theorized about neural echo imprinting, debated ethics like it was foreplay.

He was against replicas. Always. “A copy isn’t a soul,” he’d say. “It’s just noise pretending to be music.”

But the day he died, I stopped caring about music.

I just wanted to hear his voice again.

⸻

I had everything I needed. A sample of his bone DNA—collected after a minor lab accident years ago and stored under a pseudonym. His blood type, genome map, neural scan from our first brain-simulation trial. A perfect match, all buried in our old hard drives. He never knew I kept them. Maybe he would’ve hated me for it.

Maybe I don’t care.

I called it Project ECHO.

Because that’s what he was now.

An echo. A ripple in the void.

⸻

The first version—ECHO-1—was a failure.

He looked like Sunghoon. But he never woke up. I ran every test. Monitored every vital. Adjusted nutrient cycles, protein growth, heartbeat regulators. But something in him was missing—something I couldn’t code into cells.

A soul, maybe. Or timing.

He died the second I tried to bring him out.

I cremated and buried that version in the garden, under the cherry tree he planted the first spring we moved in. I didn’t cry at the funeral. I just stood there holding the urn and whispered, “I’ll get it right next time.”

⸻

ECHO-2 was different.

I restructured the genome to prevent cellular decay. Added telomere stabilizers to delay aging. Enhanced his immune system. This time, I built him stronger. Healthier. The version of Sunghoon that would’ve never gotten sick that winter in Sapporo, or fainted in the elevator that one night after forgetting to eat. That version who could live longer. With me.

But the rest—I left untouched.

His smile. His hands. The faint mole scattered in his face. The way his hair curled when wet. All exactly the same. It had to be. He wouldn’t be Sunghoon without those things.

I even reconstructed his mind.

Using an illegal neural mapping sequence I coded from fragments of our joint research, I retrieved echoes of his memory—dream-like reflections extracted from the deepest preserved brain tissue. It wasn’t perfect. But it was him. Pieces of him. The things he never got to say. The life he never finished.

⸻

It took two years.

Two years in the dark, surrounded by synthetic fluid and filtered lights, modifying the incubator like a cradle built by obsession. I monitored every development milestone like a parent. I watched him grow. I whispered stories to him when the lab was quiet, played him our favorite records through the tank’s acoustic feed, left him notes on the console like he could read them.

⸻

One night, I touched the tank and felt warmth radiate back. His fingers twitched.

A smile cracked on his lips, soft and sleepy.

And I whispered, “You’re almost here.”

⸻

Now he floats before me—grown, complete, and terrifyingly familiar. His chest rises and falls steadily. Muscles formed and defined from synthetic stimulation. His brain is fully developed. His body—twenty-five years old. The age he was when he died. The age we should’ve gotten married.

And now, he’s ready.

⸻

The console buzzes beside me.

“Project ECHO – Stage V: Awakening. Confirm execution.”

My fingers hover. The hum of the lab grows louder. My heart beats so hard I feel it in my throat.

This is it.

The point of no return.

I press enter.

The Awakening didn’t look like the movies.

There was no dramatic gasp, no lightning bolt of consciousness.

It was subtle.

His eyes fluttered open, hazy and uncertain, like the first morning light after a long storm. They didn’t lock onto me at first. He blinked a few times—slow, groggy—and stared at the ceiling of the pod with a confusion so human it made my knees go weak.

Then his gaze shifted.

Found me.

And held.

Just long enough to knock the breath from my lungs.

“Sunghoon,” I whispered.

His lips barely moved. “…Y/N?”

And then—just like that—he slipped under again.

His vitals were stable, but his body couldn’t process full consciousness yet. It was expected. I designed it that way. A controlled emergence. Gentle. Like thawing from ice.

He would wake again. Soon.

⸻

Phase VI: Integration.

I had the room ready before I even began the cloning process. A private suite in the East Wing of my estate, modified to resemble a recovery room from a private hospital: sterile whites and soft blues, filtered natural lighting, automated IV drips and real-time vitals displayed on sleek black monitors. The scent of lavender piped faintly through the vents. His favorite.

I moved him after he lost consciousness again—quietly, carefully. No one else involved. Not even my AI assistant, KARA. This part was just mine.

Just ours.

He lay in the bed now, dressed in soft gray cotton, sheets pulled up to his chest. The faint hum of the machines harmonized with his breathing. It was surreal. Like watching a ghost settle into a life it forgot it had.

I perched on the armchair across from him, the dim lighting casting long shadows over his face.

“You’re safe,” I murmured, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “And when you wake up… everything will be in place.”

⸻

I spent the next forty-eight hours setting the stage.

Fabricated records of a traumatic car accident—minor amnesia, extended coma, miraculous survival. Hacked into the hospital registry and quietly added his name under a wealthy alias. I made sure the media silence was absolute. No visitors. No suspicious calls. A full blackout.

I memorized the story I would tell him. Rehearsed it like a script.

We had been on our way to City Hall. A drunk driver ran a red light. I survived with minor injuries. He hit his head. Slipped into a coma. No signs of brain damage, but long-term memory instability was expected.

He’d been here ever since. Safe. Loved. Waiting to wake up.

And now—he had.

⸻

On the morning of the third day, I heard movement.

Soft. Shuffling. Sheets rustling.

I turned from the monitor just as he groaned softly, his head turning on the pillow.

“Sunghoon?”

His eyes blinked open again, more alert this time. Still groggy, but present.

“Y/N…?” he rasped.

I rushed to his side, heart in my throat. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

His brows knit together, voice hoarse. “What happened?”

“You were in an accident,” I said gently. “The day of our wedding. You’ve been in a coma. Two years.”

His eyes widened—just a little. Then flicked down to his hands. The IV. The machines. The unfamiliar room.

“…Two years?”

I nodded, bracing for the confusion. “You survived. But it was close. We weren’t sure you’d ever… come back.”

He said nothing.

Just stared at me.

Like he was trying to remember something he couldn’t quite reach.

“…Why does it feel like I never left?” he whispered.

I smiled softly. Forced. “Because I never left you.”

And for now, that was all he needed to know.

But deep down, behind those eyes, behind the half-forgotten memories and muscle memory that wasn’t truly his—

Something flickered.

Something not asleep anymore.

He was awake.

And the lie had begun.

The days that followed passed in a quiet rhythm.

He adjusted faster than I anticipated. His motor skills were strong, his speech patterns natural—so much so that sometimes I forgot he wasn’t really him. Or maybe he was. Just… rebuilt. Reassembled with grief and obsession and the memory of love that still clung to me like static.

I stayed with him in the hospital wing, sleeping on the pullout beside his bed. Every morning he’d wake before me, staring out the wide window as if trying to piece together time. And when I asked what he was thinking, he always gave the same answer:

“I feel like I dreamed you.”

On the seventh day, he turned to me, his voice clearer than ever.

“Can I go back to our room?”

I paused, fingers wrapped around the rim of his tea mug.

He still called it our room.

I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re strong enough now.”

And so we did.

I helped him down the hallway, hand in his, the same way I’d imagined it during the long nights of Phase II. His steps were careful, measured. But his eyes… they lit up the moment we entered.

It looked the same.

The navy sheets. The low lights. The picture of us by the bookshelf—framed and untouched. His books still on the shelf in alphabetical order. His favorite sweatshirt folded at the foot of the bed like I had never moved it.

He smiled when he saw it. “It feels like nothing’s changed.”

Except everything had.

I didn’t say that.

⸻

He asked about the lab a few nights later. We were curled together in bed—his head on my shoulder, our legs tangled like old habits finding their way home.

“How’s the lab?” he asked, voice soft in the dark. “Are we still working on the neuro-mirroring project?”

My heart skipped.

I’d gotten rid of everything. The pod. The DNA matrix. The prototype drafts. Scrubbed the drives clean. Smashed the external backups. Buried the remains of ECHO-1 under a new tree. The lab was as sterile as my conscience was not.

I turned toward him, brushing my thumb over the scar that curved above his brow. The one that hadn’t been there before the “accident.”

“It’s being renovated,” I said carefully. “After the crash… I couldn’t go in for a while. So I decided to redo it. Clear things out. Start over fresh.”

He nodded slowly. “Makes sense.”

He didn’t ask again.

And just like that, life began to move forward.

He followed me around the house again, stealing kisses in the kitchen, playfully poking fun at the way I never folded laundry properly. He rediscovered his favorite coffee, laughed at old movies like they were new, held my hand under the stars like it was the most natural thing in the world.

But sometimes—when he thought I wasn’t looking—he’d stare at his reflection too long. Tilt his head. Press his fingers to his chest like he was checking if something was still there.

Maybe he felt it.

The echo of what he was.

But if he did, he never said.

One night, wrapped up in each other’s warmth, he whispered into my neck, “I don’t know how I got so lucky to come back to you.”

I pressed a kiss to his temple, forcing a smile as my heart ached beneath the surface.

“I guess some things are just meant to find their way back.”

Even if they were never supposed to.

Time softened everything.

The sterile silence of the house began to fade, replaced by the quiet thrum of life again—the clink of mugs in the morning, the shuffle of his bare feet on the hardwood, the lazy hum of music playing from a speaker that hadn’t been touched since he died. I started to breathe again, and so did he.

Like we were rewriting the rhythm we’d lost.

—

Our first night out felt like time travel.

He picked the place—a rooftop restaurant we always swore we’d try, back when work kept getting in the way. I wore the same navy dress I had worn on our second anniversary. He noticed. His hand slid into mine under the table like it belonged there, his thumb tracing invisible patterns against my skin.

Halfway through dessert, he leaned in, grinning with chocolate at the corner of his lip.

“You still scrunch your nose when you’re pretending to like the wine,” he teased, eyes gleaming.

I blinked. “You remember that?”

He nodded slowly. “It just feels like… I always knew.”

I smiled, heart aching in that strange, quiet way it always did now.

“You’re right,” I said, brushing the chocolate off his lip. “You always did.”

Even grocery shopping with him became a date.

He pushed the cart like a child let loose, tossing in things we didn’t need just to make me laugh. At one point, he held up a can of whipped cream with the most mischievous glint in his eye.

“For movie night,” he said innocently.

I arched a brow. “For the movie or during the movie?”

He smirked. “Depends how boring the movie is.”

We walked home with one umbrella, our fingers interlaced in the rain, and the world somehow felt smaller, warmer.

He burned the garlic the first time.

“I told you the pan was too hot,” I said, waving smoke away.

“And you told me to trust you,” he countered, looking absurdly proud of his crime against dinner. “Besides, I like it crunchy.”

“You like your taste buds annihilated, apparently.”

We ended up ordering takeout, sitting on the kitchen floor, eating noodles out of the box with chopsticks, laughing about how we’d both make terrible housewives.

But the next night, we tried again.

He stood behind me, arms around my waist, guiding my hands as I chopped vegetables.

“You used to do this,” I said softly. “When I first moved in.”

“I know,” he murmured. “It’s one of my favorite memories.”

Cuddling became a ritual.

He always found a way to get impossibly close—sprawled across the couch with his head in my lap, humming contentedly while I read a book or ran my fingers through his hair.

Sometimes we didn’t speak for hours.

Just the quiet breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, his heartbeat echoing faintly against my thigh. Real. Solid. Present.

It was a miracle I could touch.

One night, as rain tapped gently on the windows and he was half-asleep on my shoulder, he whispered:

“I feel safe with you.”

I held him tighter.

Because if I let go—even for a second—I was afraid he might vanish again.

⸻

Love blossomed differently this time.

Slower. Deeper. Less like fire, more like roots. Tangled and unshakable.

And sometimes, in the quiet of our shared bed, I would watch him sleep and wonder if it was love that brought him back.

Or obsession.

But when he opened his eyes and smiled like the sun lived behind them, I told myself it didn’t matter.

He was here.

And that was enough.

For now.

⸻

I woke with a jolt, my heart pounding so violently it threatened to break free from my chest. The nightmare was still fresh, its vividness clinging to my mind like the smoke of a fire.

Sunghoon.

He was in the car again—his face frozen in the moment before everything shattered, his eyes wide with disbelief. The screech of tires, the crash. His body limp. The way I couldn’t reach him no matter how hard I screamed.

I gasped for air, my fingers clutching at the sheets, tangled in the panic that still gripped me.

My breath came in ragged bursts as I sat up, drenched in sweat. My chest heaved with the rawness of the memory, the terrible what-ifs that still haunted me.

A hand gently touched my back.

“Y/N?”

His voice, soft and concerned, cut through the haze of the nightmare. I froze for a moment, the world around me still spinning from the disorienting shock.

I turned, and there he was—Sunghoon—sitting up beside me in the bed, his eyes full of concern. The soft glow of the bedside lamp illuminated his face, and for a moment, it was almost as if everything had shifted back into place.

But only for a second.

“Are you alright?” He asked, his voice warm with worry.

I swallowed hard, trying to steady my breathing. “I… I just had a nightmare,” I whispered, avoiding his eyes. My heart was still trying to settle, and I didn’t want him to see the fear in my face. I didn’t want him to see how broken I still was.

Sunghoon leaned forward, his hands reaching out to cradle my face gently. He brushed a strand of hair away from my forehead, his touch so familiar, so tender.

“Nightmares are just that,” he said softly, his thumb grazing my skin. “They aren’t real. I’m here.”

I nodded, trying to pull myself together, but the knot in my throat wouldn’t loosen. There was something about the way he said it—so assuredly. So real. Like the past didn’t exist, like he had never been gone.

Like I hadn’t created him from fragments of grief and obsession.

He sat next to me, his arm around my shoulders as I leaned into him. The warmth of his body, the steady rise and fall of his chest, slowly calmed me. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of him—the same as it had always been.

“I’m here,” he repeated, his voice a quiet lullaby.

But somewhere deep inside, I couldn’t shake the question that had haunted me since the moment I had revived him: Who was he really? Was this truly the Sunghoon I had loved, the one who had filled my life with light? Or was this just a perfect imitation, a replica of my memories? An echo of a man who would never truly exist again?

I wanted to believe he was him. I needed to believe it.

But as he held me, his warmth seeping into my skin, I couldn’t deny the doubt that gnawed at my soul.

“Y/N?” he murmured, sensing my tension.

“Yeah?” I whispered, pulling myself closer into his arms.

He tilted my chin up, his gaze intense as he met my eyes. “I love you,” he said quietly, with such certainty that for a moment, it almost felt real—like the love we’d always shared before the accident, before everything shattered.

And in that moment, I wanted to believe it. I wanted to forget everything else, to let myself drown in the reassurance that this was him—my Sunghoon.

But the ghosts of the past still lingered in the corners of my mind.

“I love you too,” I replied softly, my voice shaky but true.

And for a few minutes, we just sat there, holding each other in the stillness of the night.

But as I closed my eyes and let the warmth of his embrace lull me back to sleep, the doubt remained.

Would I ever be able to escape the shadows of my own creation?

As the days passed, the weight of my doubts gradually lightened. Sunghoon’s presence—his warmth, his voice, the way he smiled—reminded me more and more of the man I had once loved, the man who had been taken from me.

The fear, the gnawing uncertainty that had once been constant in the back of my mind, slowly started to fade. Each moment we spent together was a little piece of normalcy returning. He didn’t just look like Sunghoon. He was Sunghoon. In every little detail—his laugh, the way he tilted his head when he was deep in thought, how he always made the coffee exactly the way I liked it. His presence was enough to reassure me that this was him, in all the ways that mattered.

We went on walks together, hand in hand, strolling through the garden I had planted the day we first moved into the house. It was filled with flowers that bloomed year-round—just like the memories I had of us, blooming and growing despite the heartbreak.

We laughed, reminiscing about everything we had shared before. Sunghoon was never afraid to be vulnerable with me, and it felt like we were picking up right where we left off. His sense of humor, always dry and sarcastic, never failed to make me smile. And slowly, I began to accept that the man who stood beside me, laughing at his own jokes, was truly my Sunghoon.

One night, as we cooked dinner together, I watched him carefully slice vegetables, his movements graceful and practiced. It was simple, domestic, but it felt like everything I had longed for since he was gone.

“Don’t forget the garlic,” I reminded him, teasing.

He shot me a look, smirking. “I remember.”

I smiled, feeling the warmth of the moment settle into my bones. This was real. The way he made sure I was comfortable in the kitchen, the way we worked together without needing words—this was our life, reborn.

The more time we spent in the house, the more at ease I became. We cooked together, watched old movies, read books side by side, and held each other as we fell asleep at night. There were no more questions in my mind. No more doubts. Just the feeling of peace settling over me, like the calm after a storm.

Sunghoon never asked me about the lab. And I never had to lie, because there was no need to. The lab had been dismantled long ago, every trace of Project ECHO erased. It was as if it never existed. My obsession, my grief—gone.

In its place was this. A second chance.

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you, Y/N,” he said one evening as we sat on the couch, the sound of rain tapping against the windows. He held me close, his head resting against mine. “No matter what happens, no matter what changes… you’re the one for me.”

I turned to look at him, searching his eyes for something—anything—that might reveal the truth I feared. But there was nothing. Only love. Real love.

“I feel the same,” I whispered back, brushing my lips against his.

For a moment, the world outside disappeared. There was no past, no lab, no questions. There was only Sunghoon, here with me. And that was enough.

The days continued to pass in a peaceful blur of moments that I had once thought lost forever. With each sunrise, my doubts melted away, and with every touch, every kiss, I felt more certain that this was real. That he was real.

Sunghoon might not be the exact same person who had walked out of that door all those years ago—but in my heart, it didn’t matter. He was my Sunghoon, and that was all I needed.

Together, we built a life—one step at a time. And this time, I wasn’t afraid.

I wasn’t afraid of the past. I wasn’t afraid of the future.

I was just… happy.

Sunghoon’s POV

It had been a year since I came back to her, and in that time, I had slowly convinced myself that everything was okay. That what we had, what I had, was enough. That the woman I loved, the woman who had saved me—had done so much more than just revive me—wasn’t hiding any more secrets. But the past… it always had a way of creeping up, didn’t it?

I wasn’t snooping, not exactly. I was just cleaning up. I had offered to help her tidy up the office since she had been so caught up in her work lately, and well, I had nothing else to do. After all, it’s been a year now, and I’ve come to understand her more than I could ever have imagined. She’d been distant the past few days, and it made me uneasy. The kind of unease that makes you feel like there’s something you should know, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

It was as I was sorting through the boxes in her home office—one that she hadn’t allowed me to visit much—that I found it.

A video tape.

It was tucked behind a stack of old files, half-buried in the clutter. At first, I thought nothing of it. She was always meticulous about her work, so maybe it was just an old research document, something from her past. But when I saw the words “Project ECHO – Development and Breakdown” scrawled on the side, my heart stopped. I felt a sickening knot tighten in my chest, and instinctively, my fingers curled around it.

What was this?

My thoughts raced as I fumbled with the tape, my hands trembling just slightly as I slid it into the old VCR player she kept in the corner of the office. The screen flickered to life.

There I was.

Or… the version of me that had once existed. The first one. My mind was running faster than my eyes could follow the images flashing on the screen. I saw footage of my development, from the initial growth stages to the first electrical impulses firing in my brain, as well as my physical appearance being tested and adjusted.

My stomach turned as the video documented every breakdown of my body—every failed attempt to bring me to life. I saw the wires, the artificial fluids, the machines that I had been hooked up to before I had opened my eyes, before I had woken up in that hospital room.

But it was the last part of the video that hit hardest. There, in her cold, emotionless voice, Y/N narrated her thoughts, her failed efforts, her obsession with recreating me.

“I couldn’t get it right… not the first time. But I will, because I have to. For him. For us.”

My chest tightened as the realization hit me like a brick. She had known the entire time. She had created me. I wasn’t the Sunghoon who had died. I was a version of him. A shadow of the real thing.

The screen went black, but the words echoed in my mind like an incessant drumbeat.

For him. For us.

The pain of that truth was like a knife twisting in my gut. The woman I loved had spent years trying to recreate me, to bring me back—because she couldn’t let go. She couldn’t let me go. But she never told me. She never let me in on the truth of it all.

I was a lie.

I wasn’t real. And all this time, I had been believing I was the same Sunghoon she had lost. But I wasn’t.

I could feel the tears stinging my eyes as I reached for the nearby papers, pulling them out in a frantic rage. More documents. More of my development—charts, genetic breakdowns, notes about my failed memories, and even the procedures Y/N had carried out. Every page proved it. I wasn’t just a clone; I was the culmination of her grief and desire.

The door to the office opened quietly behind me, and I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. The air in the room grew thick, suffocating. I could feel her presence like a weight pressing down on me.

“Sunghoon,” she whispered, her voice barely a murmur.

I finally turned to face her. She looked pale, her eyes wide, clearly having seen the documents I had scattered across the room. She knew. She knew what I had found.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I choked out, my voice raw. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth, Y/N?”

Her eyes flickered with guilt, and for a moment, I thought she might say something—anything to explain, to apologize. But instead, she took a step back, her hands wringing together nervously.

“I didn’t want you to hate me,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I didn’t want to lose you again. I—I thought maybe if you didn’t know… maybe we could have our life back. I just wanted to have you here again, Sunghoon.”

My hands balled into fists at my sides, and I could feel the tears building in my eyes. “But I’m not him, am I? I’m not the real Sunghoon. I’m just… this.” I gestured around at the papers, at the video, at the mess that had been my life. “I’m a replica. A copy of someone who doesn’t exist anymore. How could you do this to me?”

She stepped forward, her face pale with fear, but her voice was firm. “I didn’t mean for it to go this far. I just wanted you back, Sunghoon. I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t lose you. You were taken from me so suddenly, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t live with the thought that you were gone forever.”

I looked at her, the woman who had once been everything to me—the one who I thought had rebuilt me out of love, not out of desperation.

“Do you think I’m the same person? Do you think I can just pretend that I’m the man I was before? How could you think I wouldn’t want to know the truth?” My voice cracked, emotion flooding out of me like a dam breaking. “How could you do this?”

Her face crumpled, and I saw the tears well up in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sunghoon,” she whispered, her voice barely audible through the sobs. “I thought if I could just give you everything back, we could start over. But I was wrong. I—I should’ve told you from the beginning.”

I could feel the overwhelming ache in my chest, the confusion, the betrayal. But more than that, I felt the loss of something far deeper: trust. The trust that she had built between us was gone in an instant.

“You’re right. You should’ve told me,” I whispered, stepping back, my throat tight. “I need some space, Y/N. I can’t… I can’t do this right now.”

I turned and walked out of the room, my heart shattering with each step.

I paused at the door, the weight of her voice sinking into me like a stone. I didn’t turn around, not right away. The question lingered in the air, hanging between us, impossible to ignore.

“If I was the one who died, would you do the same?”

Her words were quiet, but they cut through the silence of the room with precision, like a knife through soft flesh. I could feel the tension in the air—the desperation in her voice, the need for an answer. She was asking me to justify her actions, to somehow make sense of everything she had done.

I clenched my fists at my sides, fighting the urge to turn and lash out. But I couldn’t do it—not when the pain of her question was a reflection of everything I was feeling.

“I… I don’t know,” I finally muttered, my voice barely a whisper. “Maybe I would. I can’t say for sure. But I don’t think I’d ever hide the truth from you. I wouldn’t keep you in the dark, pretending that everything was okay when it wasn’t.”

Her soft, broken gasp from behind me reached my ears, but I couldn’t face her—not yet. Not when the anger and hurt were still so raw.

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone you love that much,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “I couldn’t stand the thought of living without you, Sunghoon. I thought… maybe if I could just bring you back… we could have our future. But now, I see how selfish that was. How wrong.”

I wanted to say something—anything—to ease her pain, but the words stuck in my throat. The truth was, part of me still wanted to reach out to her, to hold her, to tell her it was going to be okay. But I wasn’t sure if that would be enough. Would it ever be enough?

“I need time, Y/N,” I said quietly, my voice cracking. “I need to think. About all of this. About us.”

The silence that followed was heavy, unbearable. And then, finally, I walked out the door, leaving her behind, standing in the wreckage of her choices—and my own shattered heart.

The days stretched on like a slow burn, each passing hour marked by the tension that filled every corner of our shared space. We were still in the same house, the same home, but it felt like we were living in different worlds now. The walls felt thicker, the silence heavier.

I moved through the house in a daze, keeping to myself more often than not. Y/N and I had an unspoken agreement—it was easier this way. She’d stay in the study or the kitchen, and I’d retreat to the room we used to share, now feeling like an alien space, void of the warmth it once held. We didn’t speak much anymore, and when we did, it was brief—polite, almost mechanical.

There were moments when I caught a glimpse of her, standing in the hallway, her head bent low, a soft frown on her face. Other times, she’d walk by without looking at me, her eyes fixed on the floor, avoiding my gaze as if she feared what might happen if she met my eyes for too long. I wanted to reach out, to say something—anything—but every time I did, the words felt inadequate, like they couldn’t possibly capture the weight of everything that had changed.

One evening, I found myself sitting in the living room, staring out the window at the moonlit garden. I could hear her footsteps in the hallway, the soft sound of her presence lingering in the air. For a moment, I thought she might come in, might sit beside me like she used to. But she didn’t. Instead, the silence stretched between us again, a reminder of the distance we had created.

I exhaled sharply, rubbing my eyes as frustration built inside me. The whole situation felt suffocating—like I was trapped between what I wanted and what had happened. I didn’t know how to fix it, or even if it could be fixed. There was so much to unravel, so many emotions to sort through. And then there was the truth—the truth of who I was now. Not just a man trying to find his way back to a life that no longer existed, but a clone—a replica of someone who once had a future, now burdened with a past he didn’t truly own.

The sound of her voice from the kitchen broke my thoughts.

“Dinner’s ready,” she called softly, her voice almost too gentle, too careful.

I hesitated for a moment, staring at the untouched glass of water on the coffee table. The empty space between us felt too vast to cross, but eventually, I stood up, making my way to the kitchen.

We sat across from each other, the dim light from the pendant lamp above casting shadows on the table. There were no small talks, no jokes exchanged like before. We ate in silence, the clinking of silverware the only sound between us. Every so often, I would look up, meeting her gaze for a fleeting second, but neither of us had the courage to speak the words that were hanging in the air.

The food was good, as always, but it didn’t taste the same. The flavor of everything felt hollow, like a memory that wasn’t quite mine.

When the meal was over, I helped clear the table, my movements stiff. The kitchen felt too small, the air too thick.

She turned to face me then, her expression unreadable, her eyes dark with something I couldn’t quite place. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her voice barely a whisper. “For everything.”

I swallowed hard, the knot in my chest tightening. “I know you are. I… I just don’t know what to do with all of this.”

Her eyes flickered with unshed tears, and she stepped back, as though the space between us could somehow protect her from the weight of the moment. “I never wanted to hurt you, Sunghoon,” she murmured, her words full of regret. “I thought… I thought if I could just bring you back, we could have another chance. But now I see how wrong I was.”

I nodded slowly, trying to process the ache in my chest. “I don’t know how to fix this either. But I know… I know I need to understand who I am now. And what we are.” My voice trembled, but I fought it back. “I need time.”

“I understand,” she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. “Take all the time you need.”

It felt like a farewell, and yet, we stayed in the same house. In the same life, but now it was something unrecognizable.

The next few weeks passed in the same quiet, empty rhythm. We moved around each other, living parallel lives without ever crossing paths in any meaningful way. There were mornings where I would wake up to find her sitting on the couch, staring at her phone, or nights where I’d catch her reading a book in the dim light.

Sometimes, I would linger by the door to her study, wondering if I should knock, ask her how she was feeling, but each time, I backed away, unsure if I was ready to face the answers she might give.

At night, I would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was how we were going to live—side by side but separate. I missed her. I missed us. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was just a shadow of the man she once loved, and that was a weight I wasn’t sure she could carry anymore.

One night, as I lay in the dark, unable to sleep, I heard the soft sound of her crying. The quiet sobs seeped through the walls, and my heart clenched painfully in my chest.

I wanted to go to her. Hold her. Tell her everything would be okay. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have the words anymore.

And maybe, I never would.

The night stretched on, and despite the tension that hung thick in the house, I managed to fall into an uneasy sleep. The weight of everything—our fragmented relationship, the guilt, the uncertainty—had left me exhausted, though the sleep I sought felt shallow and restless.

It was around 3 AM when I was jolted awake by the softest sound—a faint, broken sob. My eyes snapped open in the dark, my heartbeat quickening. I froze, listening carefully, the sounds of her grief pulling at something deep within me.

It was coming from the direction of her room.

At first, I told myself to ignore it. After all, she had her own space, her own pain, and I had my own to deal with. But the sound of her brokenness—quiet and desperate—was too much to ignore.

Slowly, I slid out of bed, my bare feet padding softly on the cool floor. I moved silently through the house, drawn to the soft, muffled sounds echoing through the walls. When I reached the door to her room, I paused.

She was crying, the kind of sobs that wracked her body and left her vulnerable. I hadn’t heard her cry like this before—unfiltered, raw, as if the dam inside her had finally broken.

The light from her bedside lamp flickered weakly, casting long shadows on the walls. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her head buried in her hands, the tears falling freely, like they couldn’t be held back anymore.

I stood there, frozen, my chest tightening at the sight. My first instinct was to rush to her side, to pull her into my arms and whisper that everything would be alright. But I didn’t. I just watched from the doorway, a spectator in my own home.

The sound of her pain made me feel powerless, as if I were too far gone—too far removed from who I once was to even be the man she needed. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. The silence between us felt like an unspoken agreement, a distance neither of us knew how to cross.

And then she spoke.

“I’m sorry… Sunghoon,” she whispered to the empty room, the words slipping from her like a confession she hadn’t meant to make. “I thought I could fix it. I thought… if I could just bring you back, we could be happy again. But I don’t know what I’ve done anymore. I don’t know who you are. Or if you’re even really you.”

Her voice cracked at the end, and I could hear the weight of her regret, the guilt, the fear of everything she’d done.

The flood of emotions hit me all at once—anger, sadness, confusion—and yet, there was something else, too. The overwhelming desire to reach out to her. To show her that I understood, that I knew how hard this was for her.

But still, I stayed frozen. Silent. The words that had once flowed so easily between us now felt like strangers.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but it didn’t stop the tears.

“I was selfish,” she muttered to herself, her voice barely audible now. “I couldn’t let go. I wanted you back, no matter the cost. And now… I don’t know if you can ever forgive me.”

That was when the weight of it all hit me fully—the pain she had been carrying, the burden she had placed on herself. The fear she had been living with, not knowing if I could ever truly forgive her for bringing me back.

I stepped forward then, unable to watch her fall apart without doing something.

“Y/N,” I said quietly, my voice hoarse, betraying the emotions I had kept bottled up for so long.

She immediately stiffened, her breath hitching as she quickly wiped her face, trying to pull herself together. “You’re awake,” she said, her voice faltering. “I didn’t mean for you to—”

“I heard you,” I interrupted, taking a few steps into the room. “And I’m not angry with you.”

She looked at me, her eyes filled with so much sadness, it was almost more than I could bear. “But I did this to you,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I brought you back, Sunghoon. And I don’t know if you even want to be here. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t ask to be—” She stopped, her breath shaky, as if even speaking the words caused her pain.

I knelt in front of her, my heart aching as I reached for her hands, gently pulling them from her face. “Y/N…” I said softly. “I am here. I’m here because I want to be.”

“But what if I’ve ruined everything?” she whispered. “What if I can never make it right?”

I shook my head, cupping her face in my hands as I looked into her eyes, searching for some glimmer of hope in her. “You didn’t ruin anything. You did what you thought was best… even if it was wrong. And I understand that. But we can’t live like this, hiding from each other. We need to talk. We need to be honest.”

She nodded slowly, tears still slipping down her cheeks. “But can we ever go back to what we were?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, filled with a quiet desperation.

I swallowed, my own emotions threatening to spill over. “I don’t know,” I admitted, my voice thick. “But I want to try. I want to figure it out. Together.”

There was a long pause, and then, slowly, she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against mine, her tears falling onto my skin. I closed my eyes, letting the weight of everything settle in.

In that moment, I realized that maybe there wasn’t a way back to what we once had—but that didn’t mean we couldn’t find something new. Something different. Something real.

And I was willing to fight for it.

I held her closer, whispering against her hair. “We’ll find our way. Together. One step at a time.”

The silence between us stretched out, thick with the unspoken words, the weight of everything we had been through. Her breath was shaky against my skin, and I could feel the warmth of her body pressed against mine, like she was finally letting herself soften, letting me in again.

I wanted to say more, to fix everything, but the words weren’t coming. I could only focus on the rhythm of her breath, how the vulnerability in her touch made everything seem both fragile and precious.

And then, almost instinctively, I pulled back just slightly, my hands still cupping her face, fingers brushing softly over the damp skin of her cheeks. I searched her eyes for something, anything—some flicker of permission, of trust.

The question formed in my chest before I even realized it, and before I could second-guess myself, it slipped from my mouth, quiet and uncertain but earnest.

“Can I kiss you?”

The words were soft, tentative, as if I wasn’t sure she would say yes, as if I wasn’t sure I even had the right to ask anymore. But something in me needed to hear it—to know if we could bridge that last distance between us, if the gulf of everything we had been through could be closed with something as simple as a kiss.

Her gaze locked onto mine, and for a moment, everything went still. She didn’t say anything. There was only the quiet sound of her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest under my palms. The world outside the room felt distant, irrelevant. It was just us now, alone in this fragile moment.

I waited. She could say no. She could push me away. But I needed to know where we stood.

And then, slowly, her eyes softened. She gave a slight nod, her lips trembling as if the simple motion of it took all her strength.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, but it was there. It was all I needed to hear.

Before I could even think, my hands moved to her shoulders, pulling her gently closer. I closed the distance between us, hesitating only for a brief second, just enough to feel the weight of the moment.

And then I kissed her.

It wasn’t the kiss I had imagined—the wild, desperate kiss of two people who couldn’t control themselves. No, this one was different. It was slow, careful, tentative, like we were both afraid to break something that had just begun to heal. My lips brushed against hers, soft and uncertain, as if I were asking for permission again with every gentle touch.

She responded after a moment, her hands finding their way to my chest, clutching at me like she was trying to ground herself in the kiss, in the connection we were rebuilding. I could feel her hesitation, but I could also feel the warmth, the pull, the quiet promise in the way she kissed me back.

The kiss deepened slowly, our movements syncing, building, and for the first time in so long, I felt something stir inside me that had been dormant—hope. A fragile, trembling hope that maybe, just maybe, we could find our way back to each other. That maybe this was the first step in learning to trust again.

When we finally pulled away, neither of us spoke for a moment. We just stayed there, foreheads pressed together, our breaths mingling in the stillness. I could feel her heart beating against my chest, a steady rhythm that told me she was here. She was still here with me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice small, but it wasn’t the apology I had been expecting. It wasn’t guilt or regret. It was a quiet understanding. A promise, maybe.

“I know,” I whispered back, brushing my thumb over her cheek, wiping away the last remnants of her tears. “We’re going to be okay.”

And for the first time in so long, I actually believed it.

The air between us was thick with the weight of everything unspoken, but in that moment, there was only the soft brush of our lips, the warmth of our bodies pressed together, and the undeniable pull that had always been there. We moved slowly, cautiously, like we were both afraid of shattering something fragile that had just begun to heal.

The kiss deepened, an unspoken question lingering in the space between us. I could feel her heartbeat against my chest, fast and erratic, matching mine. It was as if we both understood that this was more than just a kiss—it was a reclaiming, a restoration of something that had been lost for far too long.

I gently cupped her face, tilting her head slightly, deepening the kiss as my hands found their way down her back, pulling her closer, as if I couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t get close enough. Her fingers slid up to my chest, tracing the lines of my shirt before pushing it off, the fabric slipping to the floor without a second thought.

There was no more hesitation, no more doubt. Just the raw connection between us that had always been there, waiting to be unlocked.

She responded with the same urgency, hands moving over my body, finding the familiar places, the marks that made me me. I could feel the heat of her skin, the way her breath caught when we came closer, when I kissed her neck, her jaw, her lips. The taste of her was like everything I’d been missing, the feeling of her so real, so tangible, that for a moment, it was hard to believe she was really here. Really with me.

Our movements grew more urgent, more desperate, but still tender, as if we were both trying to savor this moment, unsure of what tomorrow might bring, but desperate to make up for the lost time. I wanted to show her everything, all the ways I loved her, all the ways I had missed her without even knowing how much.

The world outside the room disappeared. There was no lab, no documents, no research, no mistakes. Just us—finding our way back to each other, piece by piece. I held her close, kissed her as if I could never let her go, and when the moment finally came, when we both reached that point of release, it wasn’t just about the physicality. It was about trust, about healing, about starting over.

When we collapsed against each other afterward, breathless and tangled in sheets, I felt something shift inside me. Something I hadn’t realized was broken until it started to mend.

Her hand found mine, fingers lacing together, and she rested her head on my chest, her breath slowing, and for the first time in so long, I felt peace. A peace I hadn’t known I needed.

And in the quiet of the room, with her beside me, I whispered softly, “I’ll never let you go again.”

She didn’t answer right away, but I felt the way she squeezed my hand tighter, her chest rising and falling against mine. She didn’t need to say anything. I could feel it in the way she held me.

And for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to believe that we could truly begin again.

The quiet stillness of the room enveloped us, the soft sound of our breathing the only thing that filled the space. I held her, tracing the curve of her back with my fingers, savoring the moment as though it might slip away if I wasn’t careful. The weight of everything—the doubts, the fears, the mistakes—was still there, lingering in the shadows of my mind, but for once, I didn’t feel like I had to carry them alone.

She shifted slightly, raising her head to meet my gaze. There was a softness in her eyes now, the guarded walls that had once stood so tall between us slowly crumbling. I could see the vulnerability there, but also the strength that had always been her anchor.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, but it carried all the weight of everything she’d been carrying inside. “I never meant to hurt you.”

I brushed a strand of hair away from her face, my fingers lingering against her skin. “I know,” I murmured, my voice thick with emotion. “I know. But we’re here now. We’ll figure this out. Together.”

She nodded, her eyes closing for a moment as if gathering herself. The air between us was charged with unspoken words, and I could feel the weight of the past year pressing down on us. But there was something different now—something that had shifted between us, something I hadn’t felt in so long.

Her lips found mine again, soft and gentle, a kiss that spoke volumes more than words ever could. It was an apology, a promise, a plea all rolled into one. And for the first time in so long, I allowed myself to believe in it fully.

When we finally pulled away, her forehead rested against mine, both of us still tangled in the sheets, the world outside feeling miles away. I could hear the distant hum of the city, the night stretching out before us like a quiet, unspoken promise.

“I love you,” I whispered, the words escaping before I could even think about them. But it felt right. It felt real.

She smiled, her fingers brushing against my cheek. “I love you, too. I never stopped.”

And in that moment, I knew. No matter the struggles we’d faced, no matter the secrets, the pain, or the mistakes, we were still here. Still us. And as long as we could keep finding our way back to each other, everything else would be okay.

We stayed there, wrapped in each other’s arms, the world outside fading into nothingness. In the quiet, there was only peace. The peace of knowing that, together, we could face whatever came next.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, I finally let go of the fear that had kept me tethered to the past. Because with her by my side, I knew we could build a future. A real future. And nothing, nothing at all could take that away from us.

As the days passed, something began to shift between us. It was subtle at first, small gestures of kindness, moments of vulnerability that had been buried under the weight of secrets and doubts. But as we spent more time together, the trust that had once been strained slowly started to blossom again, like a fragile flower daring to bloom in the cracks of the world we had rebuilt.

Every morning, Sunghoon would make me coffee, just the way I liked it—strong, a little bitter, with just a hint of sweetness. It became our small ritual, something to ground us, to remind us that we were still learning, still growing. And every evening, we’d find ourselves lost in the quiet comfort of one another’s presence. Sometimes we didn’t say much, just the familiar silence that had always existed between us, but now it felt different. It felt safe.

One night, as we sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket together, he turned to me, his expression soft. “I’ve been thinking about everything. About what you did…and why. I don’t want to just forgive you. I want to understand. I want us to really move forward.”

I smiled, the warmth in his voice soothing the lingering worries in my chest. “We will,” I whispered, “We’re already on the way.”

Sunghoon gave me a small, genuine smile, his fingers lightly brushing over mine. It was a touch so simple, yet it carried all the weight of the world. I had feared this moment—the moment when the cracks would be too deep to heal—but instead, I felt something stronger than before. Something more real.

As the weeks went on, we found ourselves sharing more than just physical space. We started talking about the future—what we wanted, where we saw ourselves. There was no more fear of the unknown between us. Instead, there was excitement. There was trust, slowly but surely, weaving its way back into our lives.

I could see it in the way Sunghoon would ask about my day, genuinely interested, and how I would lean into him when I needed comfort, no longer second-guessing whether I deserved it. Our conversations had depth now, unafraid of the things we once kept hidden. We didn’t pretend anymore. We didn’t have to.

One evening, while we were cooking dinner together, Sunghoon turned to me with a teasing smile. “You’ve improved. Your cooking’s actually…not terrible.”

I laughed, playfully shoving him. “Hey, I’ve gotten better!”

He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me into his chest. “I’m proud of you.”

I could feel the sincerity in his words, the love that had grown back between us like something tangible. The fear and doubt that had once plagued me were nowhere to be found now. In their place was a quiet certainty.

We weren’t perfect. We still had our moments of miscommunication, of moments when the past reared its head, but with each day, the trust between us grew stronger. It wasn’t about erasing the mistakes we’d made. It was about learning from them and choosing to move forward together, no matter what.

And as I looked into Sunghoon’s eyes, I saw the same thing reflected back at me—the understanding, the acceptance, the desire to never give up on us.

In that moment, I knew that trust wasn’t just something that had to be given freely—it had to be earned. And we were earning it every day. Slowly, but surely, we were becoming something new, something even more beautiful than before. Something that could withstand anything life threw at us.

And for the first time in a long while, I allowed myself to believe in the future again.

In us.

Life had felt like it was finally settling into a quiet rhythm, like the calm after a storm. Sunghoon and I had been living together in peace for the past year, our bond mended from the cracks of the past. The tension had faded, leaving room for love, laughter, and domestic moments that felt so normal and reassuring. We’d shared so many firsts again—first trips, first lazy weekends in bed, first home-cooked meals. Everything felt right. Almost.

It was during one of these peaceful afternoons that I made a discovery. I was cleaning out the attic of our home, something I’d been meaning to do for months, when I came across an old box. It was tucked away in the corner behind some old furniture, covered in dust and cobwebs. The box was unassuming, wooden with a faded label that simply read, “Don’t Open.”

Curiosity got the best of me. I knew it was probably something from my past, but that label tugged at something deep inside me, urging me to open it. I hesitated for a moment, but then, with a deep breath, I lifted the lid. Inside, I found an old video tape. It was yellowed and cracked with age, but there was no mistaking the handwriting on the label: “For Y/N.”

My heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t like me to leave things unexamined, especially if they seemed tied to my past. But this felt different. There was an unspoken warning in those words. Still, I couldn’t resist.

I brought the tape downstairs and found the old VCR player we kept for nostalgia’s sake. Sunghoon was in the living room, reading a book. I hesitated for a moment before calling him over.

“Sunghoon, you have to see this,” I said, holding up the tape. “I found something in the attic…”

He looked at me curiously, putting the book down. “What is it?”

I popped the tape into the player, and the screen flickered to life. At first, there was nothing—just static. But then, the image cleared, and I saw him.

The figure of a man in a lab coat appeared. His features were unmistakable—he was Park Sunghoon, the real Sunghoon, the one who had died in the accident years ago. But this Sunghoon wasn’t the one Y/N knew now. He looked younger, more fragile, and tears stained his face.

“I… I don’t know how to start this,” the Sunghoon on the screen murmured, his voice choked with emotion. “Y/N… is gone. She passed away. Leukemia. It was sudden. I—I couldn’t do anything. She was everything to me. And I… I can’t bear it.”

Y/N’s breath hitched. She glanced at Sunghoon, whose face had gone pale. He looked at the screen, wide-eyed, his expression unreadable.

“In my grief, I’ve decided to do something I never thought I would. I’m using her preserved DNA, the samples we took when we were researching regenerative cloning… to bring her back. I—I have to do this. I can’t live with the pain of losing her,” the real Sunghoon continued, his voice trembling.

The video cut to a series of clips from the lab: footage of the real Sunghoon working late nights, mixing chemicals, monitoring equipment, and seemingly obsessed with recreating Y/N.

“I’ve used everything we learned in our research. I’ll make her whole again,” the video continued. “But this is for me, I know. For us. I want to have a second chance. A chance to make things right. If you’re watching this, Y/N… then I’ve succeeded. I’ve recreated you.”

The video ended abruptly, and the screen turned to static.

It was strange, to know the truth about their origins—about the fact that their love had been recreated, in a sense, by science and heartache. But as Y/N lay in Sunghoon’s arms that night, she couldn’t shake the feeling that none of it truly mattered. What mattered was that they were together now. They had both fought for this. They had both fought for each other. And nothing in this world could take that away from them.

Their love had brought them to this point—not fate, not science, but love. It was a love that transcended life and death, pain and loss. A love that, no matter what had come before, had always been destined to endure.

They had started as two broken souls, unable to move forward without the other. But now, they were whole again. Their love, their memories—no matter how they came to be—were theirs to cherish.

And that, in the end, was all that mattered.

The rest, the science, the questions of whether they were real or not, faded into the background. Because, in the end, they were real. Their love was real. And that was all they needed to know.

©️tobiosbbyghorl - all rights reserved

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[scary-grace]

sips drink. I am going to need. [ ring ] for shigraki

Thank you for the prompt! As usual, I went a little berserk with it, and there is. so much smut in this. If you're not a fan/this is not the vibe, let me know and I'll write you a different one, or do a better job with your other prompts! 9k, AU with demons, succubus!reader, tons of smut. If you're a big fan of super dominant Tomura, this is not the fic for that. MDNI + thanks to @dogblessyoutascha for beta-reading on short notice and putting up with tons of yapping and fic about this guy.

wanted (if you want me)

a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

You're a down-on-your-luck succubus who just got rejected by the guy who summoned you, and you can't go back to Hell until you find somebody else's soul to steal. Shigaraki Tomura, reeling from a Valentine's Day rejection of his own, is the perfect victim. Or so you think. (cross-posted to Ao3)

“Sorry,” the guy who just summoned you says, sitting back from the pentagram he’s drawn on the floor with a frown. “You’re not my type.”

“I’m – what?” You feel stupid, which isn’t how you’re supposed to feel. You’re a demon, and a mortal’s just summoned you. You should feel powerful and lawless, not embarrassed. Not rejected. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re not my type,” the guy says again. He gestures awkwardly at you. “I was hoping for somebody – more.”

“Did you want a guy or something?” you ask. You cross your arms over your chest. Your clothes are barely worthy of the title, and you don’t want this guy seeing your nipples if he’s not even into them. “If you wanted a guy, you should have summoned an incubus. It’s not my fault you can’t read.”

“I like girls,” the guy snaps at you, rather than addressing the fact that you just called him a moron. “You were supposed to look like this.”

He picks up the grimoire he was reading the incantation out of and holds it up to you. It must be a new edition of the same old grimoire, because the last version of it you saw didn’t include illustrations. The illustration in question is a demon, identifiable as such by her horns and tail, but she looks about as much like you as you do like an angel straight from Heaven’s hideous art-deco gates. She’s got the kind of proportions that don’t work on Earth or in Hell – tiny waist, enormous breasts, ass that needs its own zip code, and her outfit is so tiny that you can see her nipples and her clit through it. And then there’s the face she’s making, straight out of some seedy erotic magazine, with blown-out pupils and open mouth and a delicate flush across her cheeks, all ready to be ruined.

Your outfit is skimpy, sure, but not that skimpy. You have the parts you need, but they aren’t that exaggerated, and if you tried that stupid expression, you’re pretty sure your face would melt off. If this is what this mortal expected, of course he’s disappointed to have gotten you.

His disappointment isn’t your problem, and now you’re in a mood. “Let me get this straight. You summoned a succubus – a sex demon from the depths of Hell – to fulfill your fantasies, and you’ve decided that now’s the time to get picky.”

“I’m not being picky,” he says. “Girls like you don’t do it for me. Can’t you send somebody else?”

“Sorry. All my sisters are seducing hotter mortals than you.” You feel a surge of pleasure at the way the man flinches. Guys like these – when they summon a succubus, they’re always thinking about the sex part, not the part where you’re a demon. “They took one look at you and decided I was all you deserved, and you know what? I don’t think you deserve me, either.”

“Well, I don’t want you, so –”

“In fact,” you continue, rising to your feet and internally cursing the fact that you decided to materialize in fuck-me heels, “I don’t think you deserve to get laid ever again.”

The mortal blanches. “What?” he demands, taking a step back as you step forward out of the pentagram. “You can’t leave the circle unless I say.”

“You really should look into those reading lessons. You’ll have a lot of time on your hands.” You were just going to lay the curse, but you decide that’s not enough. You nail him in the balls with a sharp kick, and as he doubles over, you speak, your voice crackling with the fires of Hell. “May your erections always wither, no matter how much porn you watch or how many drugs you take. May you disappoint every lover you take to your bed, and may that bed lie as cold and empty as the grave where they’ll bury your impotent corpse.”

It's a pretty good curse, if you say so yourself. “You bitch,” the mortal spits, but you snap your fingers and seal his fate. You know the moment the curse settles over him. You see the despair in his eyes. “Take it back!”

“No,” you say. You grasp his chin in one hand and lean in close, so close that your breath huffs out against his lips. You scraped your tongue for this guy. He deserves all this and more. “I’ll see you in Hell.”

His eyes roll up in his head and he collapses to the floor. You step over his unconscious form and survey the apartment you’ve found yourself in, dingy and filthy and smelling unpleasantly of human body odor. This is the kind of mortal who thought it was wise to reject you, just because you didn’t exactly resemble the absurd sketch in his grimoire. This is the kind of mortal who thought you weren’t good enough for him. Your lower lip begins to tremble, no matter how hard you sink your sharp teeth into it, and sulfuric tears begin to leak from your eyes. You were so excited to be summoned, so hopeful that you could do a good job for once. Now you just want to go home.

But you can’t. When you try to dematerialize and let Hell call you back, you can’t, and you realize why not in the same second as you realize that you didn’t curse that human nearly hard enough. You were summoned to this world to serve a purpose – to fuck some mortal so hard that they’ll sell you their soul – and until you serve that purpose, you’re trapped here. You need to find a mortal to sleep with, immediately. And you can’t go out looking like this.

You ransack the mortal’s apartment. None of his street clothes are anything you’d be caught exorcised wearing, but he has a long coat that he probably thinks makes him look mysterious and cool. You shrug it on, noting that it covers your skimpy outfit while still providing easy access to your body when it’s time to take it off, and keep searching, in case there’s anything else you can use. Money, as it happens – this human has a bank account and credit cards, and even unconscious, it’s all too easy to read his mind for the PIN. You pocket all of it, hide your demon form with a glamour, then leave the apartment door wide open on your way out.

As soon as you hit the street, though, you realize that you have an even bigger problem than you thought. You assumed it was some featureless winter evening, the kind where a bored, lonely mortal has nothing better to do than flip through a grimoire and get himself into trouble, but every storefront you look at is decorated with hearts. Every mortal you pass on the street is on someone else’s arm, or carrying flowers, or making out in the glow of a streetlight. It’s Valentine’s Day. You’re fucked.

Contrary to what humans like the idiot who summoned you think, Valentine’s Day isn’t actually about sex. Sex is a side effect of what Valentine’s Day is really about, which is romance. It’s about love and soulmates and tenderness and affection and forever, which is exactly nothing you know anything about. Succubi and incubi exist on the dark side of all of that, in its nasty, sleazy, prurient shadow. You don’t court, you seduce. You don’t make love, you fuck. You don’t show people the face of God, or whatever that dumb-ass musical says; you show them the gates of Hell and walk them through. Seducing a random mortal is a tall order for you on a given day. Seducing one on Valentine’s Day is going to be damn near impossible.

You feel tears welling up again and blink them back. Crying over rejection from a filthy, useless mortal was bad enough. Demons shouldn’t feel that kind of pain, and if they do, they shouldn’t wallow in it. Demons get the job done. And it’s not totally hopeless, when you force yourself to be honest about it. For all the mortals who are happily coupled, there are plenty who aren’t, and if the mortal who summoned you is anything to judge by, some of them aren’t averse to a little salacious, damnation-worthy fun.

As far as places to find single humans go, you’re spoiled for choice; while all the restaurants have Valentine’s Day specials for mortals out on a date with their special someone, it seems as though every club or bar is advertising an event for singles. You peer into a few bars, but none of them strike you as having the right mood. Most of them carry a pathetic air of hopefulness, as if the humans within believe they really might find someone to love tonight of all nights. You don’t need hopefulness. You need desperation. You need a human so lonely and desperate that they won’t question why a stranger wants to fuck them. If you were attractive in your human guise, you’d have a better shot, but apparently you aren’t. Only a human who’s truly desperate would go for you.

Finally you come across a bar where the mood seems a little more appropriate. Some sort of singles event is winding down as you come in, and you sense the despair beginning to set in. Most of the humans here could easily pair up with one of the others if they were willing to alter their standards, but humans have gotten entitled these days, and they all think they deserve a partner who matches their ideals. They cling to that fiction even as the mood in the bar worsens. They don’t need to settle. They’re holding out for true love.

Pathetic. You square your shoulders and wade into the mix.

The gender of your target doesn’t matter to you. It doesn’t even matter if they’re willing to sell their soul tonight – once you’ve fucked them, you can come back as many times as it takes for them to give it over. But even with your criteria broadened, you’re having trouble. As you search through the humans, tasting the flavor of their emotions every time you brush against one, you don’t find a single one who feels the way you need them to.

You taste sadness. Loneliness. Despair. Resignation or acceptance – sometimes they’re hard to tell apart. A few strange humans have even found refuge in faith, some idiosyncratic hope that they’ll find what they’re meant to find when the time is right, as if God has time to ordain such stupid things. On another night, you’d take pleasure in crushing their hopes, but your own hopes of getting out of here are sinking by the second. You need a human. Any human will do.

But just as you’re resigning yourself to seduce a woman, one whose loneliness carries just the faintest tinge of despair, you’re hit with a wave of exactly what you’ve been looking for. Not just despair, but disappointment. Not just loneliness, but hurt. Not just resignation, but frustration and embarrassment, at feeling hurt and disappointed and finding themselves here at all. You turn away from the woman without ever drawing her attention to you and follow the thread of rejection through the bar to a booth in the corner, where a mortal sits alone.

Along with the relief of finding a target at last, the first feeling that crosses your mind is surprise.  This isn’t the sort of mortal you’d expect to find alone on Valentine’s Day, just based on his looks alone – almost-delicate facial features, long white hair, a frame that’s broad-shouldered yet lithe, observable even when he’s seated. As you get closer, you see a birthmark below the corner of his mouth, scars over his mouth and eye, and long lashes framing his crimson eyes. This mortal is pretty. Some of your sisters don’t care what their targets look like, but you like your mortal men pretty.

The mortal looks up as you come to the edge of his table. He seems as surprised to see you as you are to see him. “You’re late to the party.”

“Apparently not, since you’re here. Do you mind if I sit down? My feet are hurting in these shoes.”

He looks down at your shoes, and just like you were hoping, his eyes trace upwards, over your bare ankle to your calf to your knee before it disappears beneath your stolen coat. “Go ahead,” he says. “There’s room.”

There’s plenty of room, but you sit down next to him anyway, your leg pressed against his. You feel him startle, feel him go tense, and decide it’s worth drawing attention to. “Did I scare you?”

“No,” he says, but you can hear his heart beginning to race. “Just wondering if this is a setup or something. People like you don’t usually want anything to do with people like me.”

“People like me?” you say. You turn towards him, elbow propped on the table, chin propped in your hand. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb,” your mortal says. “Looks like yours, there’s no way you’re single.”

You can’t imagine this mortal’s self-deprecating angle working on anyone, but the compliment makes you glow ever so slightly. “Strange. I was thinking the same about you.”

Your mortal doesn’t glow. He blushes. “Don’t lie.”

“Would I lie?” Yes, frequently and gleefully – but not right now. “You’re gorgeous.”

He scoffs, averts his eyes, but his heart’s beating faster. It’s cute, and since he’s opened this door, you might as well walk through. Time for a little touching. You start with the scar above his eye. “I like this, and this –” you trace the scar, then tuck a few strands of white hair behind his ear, letting your fingers graze across his cheek and down to his jaw before reaching the scar over his mouth. “And this –”

He speaks while your fingers are still against his lips. “Careful.”

“I’m being really careful,” you promise. You run your fingers over his mouth again, slow and teasing, then turn your attention to the birthmark. “And I like this. It really completes the picture. Whoever rejected you tonight, they were out of their mind.”

“I could say the same about whoever rejected you.” Your mortal’s hand brushes against your knee, then drifts away, and you shiver ever so slightly. You like this mortal. It’s always easier when you like them. “I saw you watching the rest of them. Why did you pick me?”

“Like I said, you’re gorgeous,” you say, and shrug. The shrug presses you a little closer against him, and you don’t pull back. “And you looked like you were having the same kind of night as I am. I thought we could make each other feel better.”

He gives you a skeptical look, but the flush in his cheeks gives him away. Oh, you like this one. Even if he gives you his soul tonight, you’ll come back to visit him at least a few more times. “How do you think we can do that?”

“By giving each other what we want,” you say. “Don’t you get tired of having to play a part, to be what someone else expects you to be, and never have your desires fulfilled? I could give you that.”

He scoffs. “You think you know what my desires are?”

“You’d tell me,” you murmur. “That’s the point.”

Your mortal’s skepticism doesn’t fade, but neither does his blush. “What about what you want? I don’t buy for a second that it’s just to sleep with me.”

The question gives you pause. It’s not one you’ve thought of before. Succubi don’t have sexual desires, really – your goal is always to seduce your target, which means it’s all about what your target wants. You aren’t very good at your job, but you’ve put up with all sorts of things, doing them or having them done to you, if it means the mortal you’re fucking will hand over their soul. What you want, personally, doesn’t factor in even slightly. What do you want from this mortal? You don’t know.

“You don’t know,” your mortal says, as though you’ve spoken aloud. His hand brushes against your leg again, settles there. “I’ll help you find out.”

“Only if you tell me what you want,” you insist, as he brushes your coat aside and finds your leg bare. His fingertips are dry and rough as they trail over your skin, brushing the inside of your thigh. “Oh –”

“Too much?” he asks. There’s an almost wicked glint in his eye.

You feel your own heart pick up the pace. This will be a challenge. You like a challenge. “Answer my question first. Every time you answer, you can move your hand.”

“I want you.”

“Wrong answer.” You close your legs, not that they were that far apart in the first place. You’re not easy. “I asked about your unfulfilled desires, and you just met me today. I can’t be the only thing you want.”

“Mm.” Your mortal makes a dissatisfied noise. Even as he leaves his hand in place, you see an awkwardness settle over him – nerves, or something like it. For such a gorgeous mortal, he’s an interesting contradiction. “I want – to be out of control.”

“Out of control?” You won’t open your legs just yet. “Tell me more.”

“You were right about me. I’m always doing what others want. I always have to be in control. I want to be outside my own control,” your mortal says. He can’t meet your eyes, and the flush in his cheeks looks almost uncomfortable. When you lean in to kiss it, his skin is hot beneath your lips. “I want someone else to –”

“Praise you? Worship you? Pleasure you until you can barely think?” You know you’ve got him by the sharp intake of breath, by the way he startles. “That would be my pleasure, too.”

You part your legs enough to free his hand, and his fingers, shaking slightly, work their way up the inside of your thigh. “What else?” you ask. “Be specific.”

“I want whatever you can give me.” He turns his head, looking away, which is an error on his part; it leaves his neck exposed, and you lean in to kiss it, feeling his pulse jump and race. “If I tell you it’s too much, I want you to give me more.”

“That was a good answer.” You part your legs a little further, and he takes it as the invitation it is. “Anything else?”

“I want to do the same to you,” your mortal says, and your face flushes. “It’s only fair. If you get to ruin me, I get to ruin you.”

Ruining him calls to mind all sorts of things, acts you’ve performed for other mortals by rote, acts you want nothing more than to perform for him, and the thought overwhelms you enough that you miss what he’s doing with his hand between your legs until he’s touching you, tracing your clit through the thin fabric. You realize with some degree of horror that you’re wet, and worse, that even his delicate touch has you spreading your legs wider. While you weren’t paying attention, your mortal made a bid for the upper hand, and he almost got it.

Not quite, though. You renew your efforts on his neck, feeling him shudder. You’ll do as he asks, as he desires – but not until he begs you, out loud, to give him what he needs. He shifts, squirms, in response to your attentions to his neck, much as you’re doing with his hand between your legs. “Mutual ruination,” you muse. “That sounds like a plan to me.”

Your hand’s been trapped at your side. You work it free and slip it behind his head, tangling your fingers in his hair. Then you turn him back to face you, drinking in the sight of him for a moment before you lean in to kiss him. The only way your mortal’s never had his desires fulfilled is if he’s never voiced them. You can’t imagine anyone looking at him, seeing him like this, and denying him what he wants.

Most mortals you’ve seduced lose patience with kissing quickly. The kind of mortals who summon a succubus only have one thing on their mind, but your mortal doesn’t know what you are. He kisses you eagerly, if inexpertly, and it’s only right for you to reward his enthusiasm. Besides, there’s something about kissing him that feels right, too right for the unholiness of what you are. If being with a mortal feels this good, you’re probably doing it wrong.

What does it matter? As long as you sleep with him, you’ll be free to return home. You’re a demon. Wrongness and rightness don’t factor in. You kiss your mortal carefully, paying some mind to the sharpness of your teeth and the delicateness of his skin. He’s less careful with his teeth. They nick your lip and blood wells out, and he licks it away without a moment’s hesitation. That flick of his tongue makes you consider other places it might belong, and you catch your breath. Or maybe it’s because he’s tugged your underwear aside to touch you directly, and you can no longer ignore the way he makes you feel.

You lean back, struggling to clear your head. A thought crosses your mind. “What’s your name?”

“Tomura.” Your mortal’s crimson eyes are dilated with want, the desperation you were so drawn to evident across his face. “Please –”

You kiss him again, and as he begins to finger you in earnest, stroking your clit and dipping his fingers shallowly inside you, you untangle your fingers from his hair and trace the inside of his thigh. Tomura startles at your touch, but spreads his legs at once, and your head spins with want. “How long have you wanted this?” you murmur against his lips. “Tell me.”

“Eternity.” Tomura twitches as you brush your hand over his groin before returning to toy with his thigh again. “But it’s not what they want me for. Nobody asked what I wanted until you.”

“Then they were missing out.” You bite back a gasp as Tomura sinks two fingers inside you, curling them just so, but his touch is only half the reason – the other half is the thought that you’re the first to see him this way, the only one to see him this way. “If they could see how pretty you are like this –”

“Do you want them to?”

“No,” you decide at once. You brush your hand over his groin again, noting how tightly his pants are stretched over his hardening cock. “I want you all to myself.”

His body jerks, craning upwards into your touch. “Now,” he says, almost demands. “I need it now.”

“People could see,” you warn. “If they walk by, they’ll know we’re up to something. Do you care about that?”

“Yes,” Tomura says, and you run your thumb over the tip of his cock through his pants. His body jerks, and you do it again. Again. “Fuck –”

“We can leave whenever you want,” you say, even as your body tenses around his fingers. You feel wound tight, your legs shaking from the strain, your lungs feeling as though they can’t hold on to even a single whisper of air. Mortals have choked you before while you’re seducing them and it’s never been like this. “Tell me to stop and we’ll go.”

Tomura doesn’t tell you to stop. You undo his belt, unzip his pants, and the instant your hand closes around his cock, he moans, loud enough to attract attention if anyone from the failed singles event is still around. He’s embarrassed by it – you can tell – but he doesn’t tell you to stop, and you keep stroking his cock. “So pretty,” you say, your voice catching as the heel of his hand presses against your clit. “Does that feel good? Let me make you feel even better.”

You grasp his wrist and pull his hand from between your legs, thankful for the reprieve. Tomura tastes his fingers, savoring them in a way that makes you feel almost awkward. “I wasn’t done.”

“No, but you’re about to make a mess.” You give a pointed glance down at his cock, which is oozing enough precum to stain his underwear. “I’ll be right back.”

There’s plenty of space for you under the table, and better yet, you’re out of sight, which means Tomura can’t see your reaction to the way he spreads his legs for you. And you haven’t vanished a moment too soon. You can hear footsteps approaching, and you sit forward and take his cock in your mouth just as the newcomers arrive.

“You sure you need this whole booth when you’re by yourself?” whoever it is asks. You hear Tomura start to answer, but you suck lightly on the tip of his cock, forcing him to bite back a curse. “What is your problem?”

“No problem,” Tomura grunts. You put your tongue to use, tracing it over his tip as you wrap your hand around the rest of his length. “Fuck – fuck off. There are other places to sit.”

The newcomer might say something else, but you can’t hear it around your own heartbeat thudding in your ears. Tomura wants you. He wants you so badly that he’s letting you blow him in public, that he won’t tell you to stop even when the two of you might be caught. The instant the other mortal leaves, you’re cradling his balls in your free hand, then sliding your hand a little further to press against his taint. Tomura’s entire body jerks and trembles. “Careful,” he forces out between gasps of air. “I’m going to – come –”

You wish you weren’t under the table, even if being under the table is necessary to contain the mess. You wish you could see Tomura’s face as his composure shatters, as he tries and fails to thrust upwards into your mouth and spills a ridiculous amount of cum down your throat. But he’s not quite out of control, not yet, and if you’re going to steal his soul, you really should give him what he wants first. You keep stroking his cock even as the shaking subsides, your tongue still dragging over his tip. He hasn’t gone soft just yet. You’re kind of impressed.

You’re impressed, too, with how he holds out. You know you’re overstimulating him, but he hasn’t told you to stop yet. And he asked you to keep going even if he told you it was too much. Still, you don’t like the idea of hurting your mortal. You renew your efforts, employing all the tricks you’ve learned to keep mortal men hanging on your every move, and to your shock, Tomura comes again. This time he’s almost sobbing, and you draw back at once, climbing out from under the table to check on your handiwork.

There are scratches in the couch cushions and on the tabletop, and both the napkins that were on the table have been crumpled out of existence. Tomura looks wrecked. He’s been yanking at the collar of his shirt, running his hands through his hair, and his face is flushed and sweaty. His eyes are blurred, and he’s still breathing hard, but when you lean in to kiss him, he obliges instantly. He’s unsteady, and yet there’s a strange hunger in the way he kisses you, a hunger that takes yours and amplifies it in a way you can’t quantify, let alone guard against. You find yourself melting into his touch, needing closeness, needing contact. And he gives it to you.

You’ve only just settled into a languid pace, your hands in his hair and his arms wrapped firmly around your waist, when someone smacks a server’s tray down on the table and startles you out of it. It’s the bartender. “Do you mind?” she demands, her face red. “This isn’t that kind of place! Take it outside.”

That’s fine with you. A little PDA is one thing, but whatever happens next between you and Tomura, you want privacy for it. You start to slide out of the booth, but Tomura won’t let you. He kisses you again, and you realize he’s giving himself cover to button his pants. But as long as you’re here – “What did I just say?” the bartender explodes. “Get out!”

You and Tomura stumble out onto the street, and the instant the door shuts behind you, Tomura pins you against it to kiss you again. “Does that feel good?” he asks, the same question you asked him earlier. You didn’t give him a chance to answer, and he doesn’t give you one, either. “Let’s go somewhere. You’re not the only one who doesn’t like to share.”

“Where should we go?” you ask. “I’d rather not go to a love hotel. Your place?”

He hesitates for a moment. “My place. Come on.”

You kiss on the train platform, mostly to keep out the cold, but on the train, you find yourself simply looking at Tomura, talking to him. You find out that he got rejected tonight, too, and came to the bar to mope about it. “They’re nothing. Their opinions don’t matter,” he says. Even his disdain sounds like yours. “That doesn’t change how it feels.”

“I know,” you say. You lean against him, your head on his shoulder, your left hand intertwined with his right. “My – date – said I wasn’t his type, then showed me this ridiculous drawing –”

“May his dick shrivel up and fall off,” Tomura says matter-of-factly, and you find yourself giggling. “If you aren’t enough for him, he doesn’t deserve to have any at all. Still –”

He trails off. “His loss, my gain.”

“You’re just saying that because I blew you.”

Tomura snorts. “Don’t be stupid. You asked what I wanted. Nobody’s ever asked me that. That’s not what I’m for.”

“What do you mean?” you ask. He doesn’t strike you as a sex worker – he’s too earnest, too vulnerable, in how he responds to you for it to be his day job. He shrugs, shakes his head. “I think you’re for whatever you want to be for. That’s how you are to me.”

His grip on your hand tightens for a moment, then loosens again, fingers tangling with yours. A strange spark, like an electric shock, ripples across your hand, and you look down to see an odd shadow around your ring finger. That wasn’t there before, but then again, you’ve never spent this long in the mortal world without fulfilling your purpose. “What about you?” Tomura asks. “Why don’t you know what you want?”

“I never thought about it before.” Some of your sisters enjoy their jobs, but it’s always felt like a job to you. Something to get through, so you can go home. “It hasn’t really mattered.”

“It matters now,” Tomura says. “When we get back to my place, I’ll show you.”

Tomura’s place is in a downtown high-rise, the third floor from the top of the building, and he gives you long enough to finally step out of your awful shoes before he peels you out of your jacket. For a single moment you’re convinced you’re about to see the same reaction as the mortal who summoned you, but instead Tomura’s eyes travel slowly over your form, lingering in every place you’d expect and a few places you didn’t. “This picture he showed you,” he says. “The one he thought was better than you. What did it look like?”

“Uh –” Where do you start, really? “The proportions were totally off. Its waist was tiny, and its breasts were huge –”

“Huh.” Tomura’s hands are at your waist, running over the curve from torso to hip and back with a firm, steady touch. One stays there, but the other migrates upwards, cupping your breast through your scant clothing. “What else?”

“It had this stupid outfit on. Like, way smaller than mine. You could see everything,” you say. Tomura’s thumb brushes over your nipple, then comes back to circle it, and heat begins to pool in your lower abdomen. “It barely covered her nipples – or her clit. It just looked kind of – I mean, I can hang in there with the best of them, but –”

Your voice catches. Tomura’s hand slides from your waist down between your legs, stroking your clit with his middle finger. His touch is featherlight, compared to the way he’s playing with your nipple, pinching and tugging it, making you squirm. “What else?” he prompts.

“The stupid face she was making. It was straight out of a porno – like, one of the really cheap ones. What some guy who’s never seen a woman come before would –” You startle as Tomura’s fingers slip further between your legs, then sink easily into you. “Tomura –”

“This drawing sounds like a fucking mess,” Tomura says. He reaches down and grasps your thigh, hiking your leg up around his waist and leaving you even more exposed for him. “I want to see the real thing.”

He wants you to come for him. You know how to fake a convincing orgasm – or an unconvincing one, depending on the target – but you don’t want to fake for Tomura. You promised him he can have what he wants, and he wants this, you. Your chest goes tight. “I don’t know if I can, like this.”

“I’ve got lots of ideas.” Tomura kisses you, and that need to melt into him resurfaces, even as your body responds to his onslaught. “Show me.”

You try to keep kissing him, but you can’t. Your legs are shaking again, and it’s hard to breathe, and you have to draw back to gasp for air. Somewhere in the back of your mind is the thought that this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen, that something went wrong in your seduction of this mortal if he’s the one trying to please you, but it’s stifled by other, more pressing matters. The heat flooding through you, the awful and yet indescribable exposure of your legs spread this way, Tomura’s hand anchoring you so you can’t pull back off his fingers until he’s done with you.

Or until you’re done with him. You come hard enough to blur your vision, hard enough that your legs almost give out, and Tomura keeps his fingers inside you until your twitching and squirming subsides. When he draws them back, you can see that his hand is soaked. He brings them to his mouth to taste them again, and you spot a shadow around his fourth finger. It can’t hold your attention for long. “That was good,” he decides. “But I want to see more.”

“More?” Your voice is shaky, and you’re hanging onto Tomura for dear life. “What do you mean?”

“You said I could have what I wanted,” Tomura reminds you. “This way.”

You follow him down the hall on shaky legs, into a bedroom with an enormous bed. Finally. You’re not getting into bed with Tomura still wearing your horrible outfit, so you peel it off, then turn to help him with his clothes. You undress him slowly, kissing every inch of skin you uncover, trying to regain some of your lost composure. But it’s hard to compose yourself when there’s so much of him to explore, to praise. So pretty, so noisy, so needy even when there’s no need for it – because you want him to have what he wants, and you want to be the one who gives it to him. The only one who gives it to him.

And that’s what you find yourself murmuring, as you guide him down to the bed to lie on his stomach, as you brush his long hair aside to kiss his back and his shoulders. I have what you need. Everything you need. You’re mine.

Tomura’s breathing turned quick and shallow a while ago, worse as you kiss the small of his back, the arch of his hip. He stirs beneath you. “I want to see more,” he says. “On your back.”

He’ll fuck you now, and he’ll come, and then you can finally go home. You spread your legs, leaving room for him to settle between them, and he does – much further down than you expected. He anchors your hips to the bed before you can stop him, holding you down with strong hands as he lowers his head between your thighs. The way his hair brushes against them tickles. The marks he leaves on them are oversensitive, making your legs twinge long before his tongue drags over your clit, and you wonder how you’ll explain the marks when you get back to Hell. How you’ll explain the fact that this mortal seduced you almost as skillfully as you seduced him.

Tomura eats you out messily, enthusiastically, until you’re arching your back and thrashing in his grip. The heat of his mouth against you, the pressure of his tongue against your clit or the way it feels when he licks inside of you – it all feels almost sinful. Too good for you to have, too good to want more of, too good not to beg him to keep going. You can barely manage to praise him for it, but when you do, his grip on your hips tightens and he grinds against the mattress. It’s wrong. There’s something wrong, and you want it so badly, and for the first time, you understand a little bit of why humans are so quick to sell their souls.

Tomura makes you come once, then a second time while you’re still trying to recover, and you barely manage to scramble away before he can slide his fingers inside you and try for a third. “What happened to not being in control?” you ask, and he shrugs, half a smirk on his face. “Lie down. It’s my turn.”

You crawl over him as he lies back, tasting yourself on his lips when you lean down for a kiss. Tomura relaxes so easily for you now, so much that he lets you grasp his hands one by one, raising them above his head. For the first time since you cloaked your true form, you engage in a little bit of demon magic. Enough to conjure restraints, and tie Tomura’s hands to the headboard before he can so much as open his eyes.

You’ve shocked him. You can see it, and better yet, you can feel it, in the way his skin heats up and his heart races. “You said you didn’t want control,” you remind him. “And I said I’d pleasure you until you couldn’t think.”

“Are you?” Tomura’s voice goes raspy. He watches you with wide eyes as you shift further down on the bed. “What are you going to do?”

“Everything.”

You learned all sorts of magic in the course of stepping into your role as a succubus, but this is the first time in a while that you’ve used any of it. And it’s for small things – the restraints on Tomura’s hands, the feather you conjure to trace all over his body until he squirms, the lube you coat your fingers with before you start working them inside him. Tomura doesn’t stop you, but he has a request. “Don’t fuck me like that. Not tonight.”

“Just my fingers,” you promise, and he nods, his eyes dark with need. “Whatever you want.”

You haven’t had the chance to watch Tomura come yet, and you get a chance as you finger him to an orgasm. He takes your breath away, your mortal – so pretty, so vulnerable, so loud and expressive and lost in it that you can’t help but stroke his cock with your free hand while you work him up a second time. In an ordinary seduction, with an ordinary target, now is when you’d stop. Now, when all he can do is beg for you, now when he’d give you anything to keep going; right now is when you’d ask for his soul in exchange. You know how to phrase it so that the mortals never guess what they’re truly giving up. It would be easy.

And it’s not what you want. There aren’t words for how much you don’t want that. Not when you’ve earned your mortal’s trust, not when he’s certain enough that you’ll give him what he wants that he doesn’t feel shame in begging for it. You know Tomura’s close when he starts squirming away from your fingers rather than clenching down on them. “Ride me,” he pants. “Ride my cock.”

Demon magic cleans your hands, and you slip down onto his cock with only a little strain. “You’re perfect,” you tell him as he stares helplessly up at you. “We fit so well –”

Tomura’s hips jerk upwards beneath you, making you gasp. “If we fit so well, come on my cock,” he pants. He’s been yanking at the restraints. You made them soft, but his wrists are chafed. “I need you to. I can’t – fuck, I need you –”

You’ve never needed a mortal before. You’ve never needed anyone before, but you need him, enough that doing what he asks doesn’t feel far-fetched at all. You ride him slowly, finding an angle that suits you, realizing how sore you are in the same moment. It’s been a hard night’s work. Usually mortals can’t keep up with you, and usually it feels like work. Tomura’s fingers curl and uncurl uselessly as he fights the restraints, and you reach up to grasp them, to hold them steady. And that’s when you notice it – the same shadow marking around his fourth finger as around yours.

Where did that come from? What is that? The restraints you conjured vanish in the space of a single heartbeat, and Tomura’s hands clamp down on your hips, guiding you as he thrusts upwards. His hair is glued to his forehead with sweat, to his chest and his shoulders and the sides of his neck, and the same heat writhes beneath your own skin as Tomura takes control over your pace. His thrusts are unsteady, but every time, he finds the angle you need him to.

You can’t breathe. You can barely think. Everything narrows down to heat and pressure and friction and pleasure and agony, because your body’s wrung out and still needs more, because Tomura’s falling apart beneath you and pressing his thumb over your clit to take you down with him. Pleasure explodes through you, collapsing you on top of Tomura. His grip on you barely loosens, even as your efforts to hold onto anything fall away. Anything includes your human guise.

Damn it. You untangle yourself from Tomura as quickly as possible, only to tuck yourself in against his side, uncomfortably relieved when he holds you tight. If you keep your tail under control and he doesn’t get a good look at you, he’ll never know what you really were. He’ll know something’s up, though. When he wakes up and finds that you’ve vanished out of this world, leaving evidence only in the chafe-marks around his wrists and the taste of you still on his tongue, he’ll know there was something strange about you. And he’ll have a lot of questions when you come back.

And you will come back. That’s the only thing that makes the knowledge that you’re mere moments from being drawn back to Hell bearable. Most of the time you can’t wait to leave your targets, whether you’ve collected their souls or not. This time, though – “I don’t want to leave yet.”

But you weren’t the only one speaking. Tomura said the same thing, on the off-beats as you spoke. “You’re leaving?” you ask. “This is your house. Where are you going?”

“Where are you going?” Tomura retorts. His grip on you tightens further – tight enough to bruise, if you were human or mortal. “What –”

He sits up suddenly, pulling you with him. Hell is pulling you back, but not quickly enough. Tomura looks at you, sees you – sees your horns, sees your tail, which is lashing anxiously in spite of your efforts to calm yourself. But you see him, too. You see the ram’s horns curling from beneath his white hair, the sharpness of his teeth. He’s not trying to control his tail at all. It wraps around your leg tightly. “You’re a demon.”

“So are you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you know?” You try to separate yourself from him. Tomura should be letting go of you, should be shoving you away, but he’s still holding on, tighter every time you try to pull away. “Let go. If they find out –”

The world tears open around the two of you, well before you can pull away, and Hell pulls you back in at warp speed.

You don’t end up back in the spot you dematerialized from, and you doubt Tomura does, either. The two of you crash down on a rocky plateau, just on the outskirts of one of the cities, a desolate place no one comes to unless they’ve been cast out to wander amongst the souls of the dead. Why are you here? Is it because you came back together? Maybe that’s why – it couldn’t return you to your separate summoning locations when you’re so close together, so it split the difference and dropped you off here. Maybe there’s still time for you to hide this.

“Wow,” a familiar voice announces from somewhere behind you, and your heart sinks, “have the two of you fucked up.”

Tomura swears under his breath. “Is that your boss?”

Your boss, or your mother – nobody’s clear on which. Nemuri is picking her way through the jagged stones towards you, a vicious smirk on her face. “I can explain,” you start. “It’s not –”

“I tricked her,” Tomura interrupts. You stare at him in horror. “It was me. Not her.”

“No,” you snap. “I seduced him. I’m the one who –”

“I’m sure you believe that.” Nemuri’s smirk broadens, showing her fangs. “You’re so pathetically incompetent that –”

“Now, now, Nem. Let’s not let my guy off the hook here.” The new voice, loud and rich and full of almost-insane laughter, can only belong to another elder demon. Like Nemuri, he’s wearing a vicious smirk. “Remember, my guy’s the one who got rejected by his summoner and packed it in for the evening. At least yours gave it a second shot.”

“That’s my boss,” Tomura mumbles. “Fuck.”

“In fact,” Tomura’s boss continues, “one could argue that your girl’s off the hook. She did her job. It’s not her fault that my guy’s aura of misery was so strong that it made him actually look human. Or that he was so desperate to be wanted by somebody that he forgot to check whether she was actually a demon trying to steal his soul.”

Tomura’s shoulders hunch, and a surge of anger runs through you. “When you put it that way, Hizashi, it does sound like my nymphet is off the hook,” Nemuri says. “But when your pathetic little imp tried to take the fall for her, she wouldn’t let him. It seems they’re terrible at everything demonic, lying included. They’re telling the truth.”

“They really did seduce each other,” Hizashi muses. “That’s cringe.”

“More importantly, it’s against the rules.” Nemuri’s standing over you. Hizashi joins her, and the two of them leer down at you and Tomura, practically licking their lips. “Whatever shall we do with them?”

There aren’t many punishments that can affect demons – you’re basically gluttons for it. Then again, there aren’t many rules for demons to break. “I’m not sure,” Hizashi says. “Offer them up to Heaven for punishment? Banish them to the mortal world until the trumpets sound? Throw them out to wander with the restless dead forevermore?”

You might not love your job, but you have your sisters. If you’re cast out, you’ll never see them again. The only thing worse would be getting thrown to Heaven as an offering, one of Hell’s not-infrequent tithes to keep the peace. Tomura’s tail wraps around your waist, and you cover his left hand with your right as you wait for your fates to be decided. The thought crosses your mind, pointlessly, that you won’t spend an eternity of exile entirely alone. You’ve dragged someone else down with you, which might be the most demonic thing you’ve ever done in your life.

“Now that I think about it,” Nemuri says, her smirk broadening still further, “I don’t think we need to punish them – not when they’ve punished themselves so effectively.”

“What does that mean?” Tomura snaps. Hizashi is guffawing, his voice echoing off the jagged rocks. “Don’t laugh. What does that mean?”

“What does it mean, you gloomy brat?” Hizashi wipes at his eyes, still chuckling. “Take a look at your hands, both of you.”

You let go of Tomura’s and lift your own. Your right hand is clear, but your left – you remember noticing the shadow around your fourth finger, feeling the faint spark as it darkened a little further. It’s not a shadow anymore. Instead it’s a thin golden shackle, encircling your finger below your knuckle. No, not a shackle. A ring.

It won’t come off. You yank on it, try to dig your nails beneath it, but it won’t come off. Next to you, Tomura’s doing the same, cursing fluently, and Hizashi and Nemuri are laughing at you both, leaning on each other to stay upright. “It’s the first rule we teach you all when you’re spawned. No fucking your own kind, and this is why!” Hizashi is laughing almost too hard to speak, while you try to chew your ring off and Tomura breaks his own finger trying to remove his. “Thanks to your little tryst, the two of you are bound forever in unholy matrimony!”

“My congratulations to the happy couple,” Nemuri says. “The two of you are never going to live this down. You’ll be the laughingstocks of Hell. You’re going to beg us to banish you!”

“And we won’t,” Hizashi says. “I can’t think of a better object lesson than the two of you. We send you to the mortal realm to collect souls, and not only did you end up fucking each other, you didn’t commit a single demonic act!”

“I cursed somebody,” you protest.

“Me too,” Tomura says. “The mortal who –”

You remember what Tomura said about the mortal who rejected you: May his dick shrivel up and fall off. “You cursed the same mortal,” Nemuri says. She pauses a moment. “I will admit, it’s a fairly creative curse. The imp’s little add-on will make a nice insult to the injury.”

You’re better at cursing mortals than you are at seducing them, but you can’t imagine Tomura’s bad at it. Not with the way he worked you over. You duck your head to hide the heat coming up in your face. “Well, we’ll leave the two of you to enjoy your honeymoon,” Hizashi says. He shrugs off the ornate robe he’s wearing and drops it on the ground in front of you, revealing body chains, nipple piercings, and nothing else. “Wear this on your way back into the city. Maintain a little dignity.”

“Here, imp. Just for you.” Nemuri drops her robe over Tomura’s head, and he shoves it off into the dust. “Everyone’s going to know about your little bout of lovemaking, but I imagine you’d prefer if they didn’t know exactly how you’ve been chewing on each other.”

The two of them stroll back towards the city, arm in arm, still laughing. It’s a long time before their laughter fades, and then you and Tomura are alone on the outskirts. The wind, blowing hot a moment before, changes direction, growing cold and carrying sharp shards of ice. You put on Hizashi’s robe, then turn towards Tomura. He’s already shivering, arms crossed and shoulders hunched, Nemuri’s robe discarded in front of him. You pick it up and settle it back around his shoulders, shifting his hair aside so it won’t get caught beneath the collar – and then you realize what you’re doing. You freeze. “Sorry.”

Tomura shrugs, but the robe stays on. “You’re better at this than your boss says you are,” he says without looking at you. “I believed you.”

“I’m worse than she says I am,” you say. “I wasn’t lying.”

Tomura looks up at that, and you look away, your eyes stinging in the freezing wind. You never lied to Tomura, not from the moment you approached him. This would be so much less embarrassing if you had. If you’d listened to any of the moments where you sensed that it was going a little too well, that it felt a little too good. If you’d kept your distance instead of falling under his spell as quickly and easily as he fell under yours. “Your boss was talking out of his ass. Your whole thing worked really well on me.”

“Yeah. Except it wasn’t a thing.” Tomura’s tail wraps loosely around your wrist. “Mutual ruination. You were right.”

He’s got your right wrist. You study your left hand with its ring, and Tomura lifts his alongside yours. His ring looks the same as yours, although he’s dislocated his fourth finger in addition to having broken it. “Want me to fix that?”

“Demon magic doesn’t fix things.”

“It’s not supposed to marry people, either.” You’re not expecting that argument to work, but Tomura lets you capture his hand anyway. You relocate it manually, then try to work some magic over it. All your magic serves to make a seduction easier, so it shouldn’t be hard to twist it into something you can use for the sake of your – “I think it worked. How do you feel?”

“Like I fucked up,” Tomura says. Fair enough. “And I’m not sorry.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Tomura’s hands slip inside your stolen robe, settling into the same place he was holding on as you rode him. “This isn’t that weird. Mortals do it all the time.”

“Except mortals who get married in Vegas can get divorced,” you point out. Somebody has to play angel’s advocate here, even if you’re already unfolding yourself from seated so you can get into his lap. “We didn’t even make any vows.”

“You did,” Tomura says. “I heard you say it.”

You’re mine. Is that really all it took? It makes a certain kind of sense, when you force yourself to look at it honestly. Mortals almost never doom themselves consciously. It’s always a moment of weakness, a split-second lapse, an instant where desire rules over reason. “Then you can break us up. Since I’m the only one who vowed anything.”

“No way.” Tomura’s lips brush the side of your neck, making your nerves twinge. “I agreed.”

You set your hands on his shoulders and push him backwards, and he goes willingly. The way he’s looking up at you counts as a sin all on its own – crimson eyes half-lidded, pupils already dilating, his cheekbones already dusted with pink. “Did you figure out what you want yet?”

“I have some ideas,” you say. You collect his hands from your waist and pin them on either side of his head, leaning down for a long, slow kiss. “But I’ll start with you.”

[silverzoomies]

silverzoomiezzz hi hi i was eating my cloudberry ice cream and i dont know why i start to think about peter and then i think about you. and i have a question for you. what do you think peter’s fav snacks that he would save it for you because he wanted you to enjoy and love it as much as he does? this is so silly lol but anyway have a great summer <3

💗oh my gosh, hello anon sweetie !! i'm sorry for answering so late !! i hope your summer has been nice !! it's been pretty decent here, aside from the lame ass humidity.🔥🫠🔥

i'm so honored you would think of me, after thinking of our beloved speedy boy. 💗honestly, i take that as such a huge compliment !!

⚡snacks i think peter maximoff would like (he hoards them, cuz he's the snack hoarding type. ty dofp 💗):

⚡in canon, he hoards hostess snack cakes. specifically the chocolatey, cream-filled kind ⚡and twinkies. dude's got twinkies for two movies in a row ⚡like it's no wonder people assume he's a twinkie fiend ⚡we also see him with so much pepsi and mtn dew ⚡and i know it's just product placement obvi. but he does seem like a mtn dew guy, right? i bet he'd love baja blast. code red too ⚡dk if this counts as a snack, but he'd probably love taco bell. i mean, it's fast. it's cheap. it's addictive. it's easy to indulge in. mans would quote those old taco bell commercials with the chihuahua ⚡sour candy. all of it. gummy worms, airhead x-tremes, sour twists, sour patch kids. tell me i'm wrong. i'm not ⚡he'd make a mess with some fun dip, lemme tell ya ⚡any candy they used to give out on halloween? he'd be addicted to all that shit. he'd love sugary junk. he constantly needs his fix. laffy taffy, nerds, now and laters, skittles, pop rocks, m&m's - you name it, he's into it ⚡imagine the dorito fingers, anon. the cheeto fingers. the takis fingers. do y'all think he'd be more into regular cheetos, or hot cheetos? he reads as a hot cheetos guy to me ⚡he'd slam some icees. slurpees. any kinda syrupy, frozen drink. he mixes all the flavors, sucks it down, and feels no brain freeze ⚡if you took him to carnivals, boardwalks, or amusement parks; he'd put the funnel cake stands out of business ⚡sweets are his kryptonite, really ⚡i personally like to imagine he knows his fair share of international snacks too. since he can zip around the world in a blink. taiyaki. baklava. conchas. tres leches. pirozhki. european chocolate. any and all kinds of street food. he knows all the best 7-eleven instant ramen - and the best toppings for 'em too ⚡i think he'd also go hog wild over a really good steak, y'know? or some barbecue. some ribs. some brisket. all the shmeats !!

⚡snacks i think peter maximoff would save, just so he could share them with you����:

⚡he wouldn't ⚡correction: he couldn't ⚡c'mon, do you honestly think he'd have the self control? ⚡you're asking him to do the impossible ⚡see, anon, he'd think about saving a yummy treat for you ⚡keyword being think ⚡like, just as he starts to realize he's crushing on you big time ⚡he's guzzling something tasty, when he has the thought: hey...wait a sec! you'd probably really like this!! ⚡but a second later, the treat's already gone. devoured in an instant. whoops! oh well!! ⚡he's just way too impulsive to save anything ⚡like it would have to be out of sight, out of mind ⚡or you'd have to pick from his own, secret stash ⚡because otherwise, he can't hold himself back. he'll gorge any snacks in the nearest vicinity ⚡he'd legit have to wait 'til you were both together. in that moment. if you had a few minutes. he'd be like, "hey. babe. babe. babe. babe. i got somethin' i wanna show you." ⚡he speeds you away for some mind-blowingly good street food, in some country you've never been to, nor heard of ⚡even on valentine's day. he has to snag you one of those heart-shaped boxes of chocolates last minute ⚡that, or he has to hide it from himself. if he doesn't, he'll be lookin' down at an empty box - chocolate all over the corners of his mouth - like "ah, shit."

[streetlightyeri]

the misspoken chapter ; scott miller

chapter I of the 28 series

“you took a train to the south side of boston, you showed me where your old man stayed.”

w.c: around 7000

warnings: misogyny, extended writing of being trapped in an elevator, mention of pregnancy in medical setting, not well proofread.

-

Aspen rested her head on Scott’s shoulder as the Red Line railcar thundered back up across the Charles River. His arms were folded across his chest for the beginning of the ride, but his sleepy girlfriend had wedged her arms through his, intertwining her fingers into the hand closest to her. He busied his other hand with grabbing the sliding tupperware of leftovers her parents weighed them down with. It was a short train trip; Scott wasn’t sure how she was able to fall asleep and get so comfortable so fast. It must’ve been her plan from the moment he saw her heavy blinks after dessert.

When they finally got to their stop, he flexed his hand she was holding before shaking it, the movement making her grumble and lift her head. He pressed a chaste kiss to her hair before standing, her arms still wrapped around his. “This is our stop.”

She stood and let him guide her back to the street where the cool air started to wake her up. He let go of her hand to reposition himself on the outside; he flexed his hand in the absence of hers, but her warmth found him again quickly, without him having to ask.

They finally made it back to their shared apartment, their soon-to-be alma mater shining in the distance.

-

The two met when she overheard him bitching at an undergrad she was just helping about how he messed up a line of code and didn’t deserve the second chance to correct his homework for something as simple as a parenthesis. When the student asked what he could do to learn from his mistake, Scott looked through stacks of paper and pulled out a piece with lines of letters and numbers printed on it. “Find whoever this is, and hope they have pity on you to teach you.”

Aspen scoffed from behind her computer screen, recognizing the paper. She never understood why they had to print out coding homework, but Dr Muher was weird. Scott’s eyes narrowed in her direction; the other two students using Dr Muher’s TA’s Study Hour quickly gathered their things and bolted out the door.

“I’m sorry, is another student’s struggle funny to you?”

Aspen stopped typing and shut her laptop as though she had all the time in the world. She interlocked her fingers and rested her chin on them. “No, just that you’re using my work as an example and you don’t even know what I look like.”

Scott looked between the paper and the girl and before letting out his own scoff. “Yeah, I will not believe this is your work.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Why not? Please enlighten me.”

“This is too advanced to be a junior’s work.”

“This is a junior level class, is it not?”

“Yes, but-”

“The name on the paper is Aspen Lee, is it not?”

The TA’s hand tightened around the paper in anger at being defied.

She stood, palms resting on the table. “Why don’t you say what you’re thinking? That it can’t be me because I’m a girl. You’re the TA, why is it my job to teach my peers? I know the army doesn’t pay you shit, but that isn’t my fault. You don’t see my name on a fucking building here, and I’m not making it someone else’s problem.”

She zipped her backpack and wrapped her laptop in her arms. Just before she was out of the door she turned back, hand on the doorknob, “And by the way, his work is missing a bracket, not a parenthesis.”

-

A few weeks later, after very fiery glances being thrown between the two, Dr Muher called the two to her office hours. She sat with perfect posture as she looked across to the two biggest headaches of her entire teaching career, both with their arms crossed and scowls set deep in their faces. “I will not have my TA and my highest performing pupil glaring each other down every second of my class! I do not care what animosity you have for each other, but your rivalry is causing a rift to form in my classroom. You will both give apologies in front of the class for the way you two have behaved.”

Scott went to speak, but the stone coldness of Aspen’s voice lowered the temperature in the room, “No.”

Dr Muher pulled her head back in a mix of surprise and disbelief. “I’m sorry Ms Lee, but did you just say ‘no’?”

“I’m not apologizing when this is his fault.” She jutted her thumb in his direction.

He let out a groan, “What are you, five?”

Aspen rolled her eyes and swallowed hard, standing from her chair and throwing her bag over her shoulder. The professor held her hand up to Scott, warning him to stop, before turning her gaze back to Aspen, freezing her in place. “Ms Lee, I will not tolerate the environment you two have created in my classroom, you must understand this.”

Aspen’s voice was throaty, years of anger seeping into her words. “Why is it me who always has to ‘understand’? And speaking of ‘understanding,’ I thought you of all people would! You are the only woman on this goddamn computer science faculty, you know what it’s like having to prove yourself, downplay yourself, humble yourself, just to make the very essence of you palpable for the men in this field. You’re trying to tell me my work was good enough to rub in another student’s face until he saw that it was me who did it? And you expect me to just lay there and take it? I will not apologize to my peers for something that is not my fault, especially when I have yet to hear an apology from him! And if proving the point that the woman always gets the worse end of the deal requires me failing this class, that is something I am willing to do.”

-

Seven days later, Scott had not apologized and neither had Aspen. She was missing from all three following lectures. Just seeing her name as he transcribed attendance from everyone’s clicker made him grip his pencil to near breaking. After that third lecture, Scott was sitting at his desk in Dr Muher’s office, grading freshman coding assignments. He nearly threw his laptop after the 4th student in a row couldn’t make a circle turn 360 degrees. When Aspen walked in, he pressed the 0 key on his keyboard so hard that the student’s grade input as 000000000/10 and tanked their grade to a negative seven.

Her backpack hung off one shoulder, and she had a single piece of pink paper in her hand. She didn’t acknowledge Scott as she handed the paper over to the professor.

Dr Muher pulled her glasses off her head and perched them on her nose, pretending as if she needed to read what the paper said to know that the Pepto Bismol pink paper was a drop slip. She dropped the paper on her desk with a sigh, “Ms Lee, you are aware that dropping my class this close to the end of the year will impact your financial aid and your transcript?”

“This class isn’t even for my major, I took it as a free elective.”

The professor blinked, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, “Remind me again why you are taking junior level C++ and are a . . . what major?”

“I’m here for coastal engineering. My programs are in MATLAB and Python. I just needed the A from this class. I’ll get it elsewhere. So, can you sign the slip?”

Dr Muher sighed again and sprawled her signature onto the slip. When the door shut behind Aspen, she turned to Scott, pointing in the direction Aspen disappeared to with the end of her glasses. “Fix this.”

-

The first flurries of winter were falling around Aspen as she made her way across campus and into the student union. The snow was a month early; it was only the beginning of November. It was early morning, the first class section still multiple hours away. She paid for a coffee and redirected herself to the elevators to go to the study rooms on the top floor.

An irritatingly tall man in a military uniform walked up next to her, freshly showered but still flushed from a workout. “May we talk?”

Aspen gave him a side glance, refusing to turn to him and have to look up, continuing to walk down the breezeway. “No.”

That made him falter. Scott pursed his lips and took a deep breath, summoning all of the patience he never knew he possessed. He took two steps to catch up with her, shoving his hand in the door of the elevator she had already made it to. His teeth were grit as he spoke, “Please, may we talk?”

“Why, Dr Muher threatened to give you a bad review to your Lieutenant?” She made eye contact with him through the mirrors that surrounded them as the elevator slowly ascended.

“You have to be such a dick all the time?”

Aspen finally looked at him, eyebrows lifted and eyes widened as if to say “oh, I’m the dick?” but couldn’t finish her sentence, the jolting of the elevator before it stopped prevented her from finishing. The fluorescent light above them flickered; the two turned their heads up towards it. “You have got to be fucking joking.”

She was nearest to the buttons, the two having left enough room for a squadron of kindergarteners to stand between them. Aspen pressed the open door button, hoping the stop was a fluke and the pair just hadn’t realized they were already at the 3rd floor.

The door did not open.

“Shocking.”

Aspen swung her head to glare at him. “And if we pressed the emergency call button and hadn’t pressed that, what would we have done if that was the fix?”

Scott narrowed his eyes back at her, shooing her away from the buttons. She tried to resist but his arm pushing her backwards against her shoulders was too strong and she stumbled to the corner he just vacated. His finger hovered against the emergency call button. “No smart comment about how I might tell whoever answers that there’s only one person who needs help?”

“What would they do when they came? Pry open the doors to get you out then snap them back shut and cut the cable line to let me fall to my death?” Aspen swiped open her phone with her free hand but only an SOS signal shined back at her.

Scott mumbled out a Jesus Christ at the morbid quip before pressing the button. The two sat in tense silence for a few seconds before a voice cracked through an unseen speaker. “University Police Department, what’s your emergency?”

“This is Staff Sergeant Scott Miller, a civilian and I-” Scott saw Aspen mouth civilian to herself and quietly snort out a laugh, “are in an unmoving elevator in the student union breezeway.”

Aspen rested her head against the wall with her eyes closed while he continued the call. The mirrors reflecting off each other creating infinite Scotts was too much for her to handle.

“Please prepare to be there for up to multiple hours, as we need to ensure there is nothing wrong with the wiring due to the weather. It is pertinent that you do not open the doors from the inside; the elevator may resume working on its own and can be deadly if one of you is caught between a floor and the elevator.”

The voice clicked off just before it could hear the two of them say, “Hours?”

Then the light went out.

-

It took only a half hour for Aspen to suck her coffee dry and begin to lose body heat. The breezeway elevator shafts were connected to the outside, meaning whatever temperature was outside translated to the inside. The box was slowly becoming an ice locker. Scott was still warm, fully dressed in his three uniform layers that kept in his body heat from his post-workout shower. Aspen looked through her bag multiple times, hoping to find an extra scarf or gloves but was out of luck each time. She breathed into her hands and rubbed them together before putting her hands in her armpits. She kept her head down to blow warm air onto herself.

A camouflage jacket hit her body before falling to the floor. She looked at Scott, who was sitting on the opposite corner of the elevator, feet planted and knees up. She lifted a brow in question.

“Put it on so you don’t die of hypothermia. If I get saved and you’re dead, the military police are going to have my ass.”

-

Aspen was still shivering under Scott’s military jacket. The metal of the elevator was absorbing more of the cold air from outside and turning the cube into a certified meat locker. She pulled out her textbooks and stacked them on the floor so the two of them could avoid putting their cores near the cold metal. She didn’t want to admit that it was Scott’s idea, but he had little to offer for them to sit on aside from cold, sweaty clothes in his duffle bag.

She curled into his jacket, trying to seal in any warmth left from him. Her knees were pulled to her chest and she dipped her head to meet them so her hot breath warmed up her skin through her pants.

After a few minutes, Scott noticed a decrease in her shuddering breathing movements. He nudged her side. “Are you still alive, Lee?”

She let out a grumble. “Yes, Miller. I think I am alive because if I was in hell, it wouldn’t be this cold.”

He snorted, “Going to hell, eh?”

She peaked out of her cocoon, only one eye visible to him. “If I die and you’re there, then yeah, I’m in hell.”

-

“What were you going to say?” Aspen asked, her voice muffled.

“What?”

“What you were chasing me to say.”

Scott sat in the silence that followed for a while. “I wanted to apologize.”

She pulled her head out the cocoon she made, brows knit in surprise.

It looked like it pained him to say it, but Aspen could tell there was sincerity in his words. There was no need for him to be as truthful as he was being. “I was an asshole to you that day in study hour, but I feel like you put words in my mouth. It made me angry - livid, so I figured if you saw me as the bad guy, I might as well let myself play the part.”

“What words?”

“You said I inherently valued your work less because you’re a woman - it isn’t and never was true. I knew that whoever Aspen Lee was, she was a woman, or at least identifying as one, according to MIT’s gradebook. The part that I couldn’t believe was that you were already there, helping him. I heard the way you spoke to that student, the way you pointed out his mistake but didn’t make him feel bad for it but didn’t baby him either. You knew that you were right and were unapologetic about it, but not mean. I’ve spent my entire time in the STEM field learning to cope with being belittled and scolded for a mistake. I think it’s why I do so well in the army - it’s the same shit.

“The company I work for outside of the military wants me to recruit talent in coding, C++ specifically. When I first saw your work, I thought you had to be a graduate student. I think that belief, that refusal to admit that someone younger than me could be so good at something I do day in and day out, prevented me from finding you. I’ve been trying to figure out who you are for months now. Dr Muher refused to introduce us, said something like we were too alike and would either bite each other’s heads off or . . .” Scott trailed off and cleared his throat, blinking away whatever memory came with what he just said, “All of that being said, I understand why you took what I said the way you did, especially here, at this school, but I would never devalue someone’s work based on their gender. What you heard in my voice wasn't misogyny. It was jealousy.”

A sudden wave of guilt washed over Aspen, causing her to hide her face again. She spent so many hours burning with hatred over him only to be wrong. “I guess I’m so used to being seen as someone who’s here to meet a rich man then do nothing with my degree once I graduate that I struggle to see people’s true intentions. And, there’s nothing wrong with doing that, but I’m just so tired of people seeing me and thinking they know my future while my male peers get asked what their aspirations are. Dr Muher is such an inspiration for me, and I felt so betrayed by her, like she was doing exactly what everyone else had. When I was in elementary and high school, I was in a STEM magnet school, and I felt so out of place, but when I’d go visit my grandmother in Oklahoma over the summers, I felt like I couldn’t belong there either. So, I’m sorry for my reaction. I think a lot of my anger was projection. But I am not sorry for the emotions I felt after."

Scott nodded, taking in her words. He extended a hand, “Truce?”

She wiggled her hand back into the sleeve of his jacket and shook it. “Truce.”

-

The door creaked and the elevator rumbled after a man shouted what Aspen thought was gibberish or possibly a German sneeze. SNECF. Her head shot up while Scott was already fully up and standing. She followed suit. The doors started to pry apart, the butt of a crowbar sticking out; whoever was prying was grunting with the amount of force it took. Scott kicked his steel toe boot into the crack the man made and positioned himself to push one side out, forcing the mechanisms in the elevator to open the other as well. The face of a plump man in a fire suit peered down at them. He was belly down on the ground, only a small sliver of the elevator was open to the 3rd floor. The rest of the door was blocked by the shaft.

He reached his hand out and waved her up, “Come on, Miss. We’ll get you up first.”

She abandoned her belongings but tried to take the jacket off herself to hand back to Scott but he shook his head, nodding in the direction of the fireman. “Least of my worries right now, come on, get up.”

She understood this was not a time for joking, nor was she in the mood for it, watching as Scott held open her only exit with his body. Aspen lifted her hands and the man took hold of her forearms, pulling her up with the help of another fireman. When she made it out, she felt like she entered a sauna. The heater on the third floor was working overtime, and she was thankful for it. She breathed out a sigh of relief, but her brow knit when she noticed the man who helped the fire chief get her out pick up an industrial fire extinguisher and take a few steps back from the elevator.

All she could see was Scott’s head, but through a tiny sliver of mirror she had access to, she saw a million versions of Scott take a shaky breath and reposition himself in the elevator doors, starfishing himself through them, palms out against the doors. Aspen looked between the two firemen, one who was not helping and another who was face to face with Scott and only held a crowbar between the doors. She quickly made her way over to the doors, but before she could grab a door and help keep it open, the man with the fire extinguisher grabbed her by the oversized jacket and flung her into the opposite wall with his full force. Her temple collided with the drywall, the thin material crumbing around her head as she collided with the stud. Scott leveled him with a glaze that Aspen couldn’t tell was anger or thanks. “If you two aren’t going to help, at least let me.”

“It is too dangerous, Miss.” The man who grabbed her said.

“You guys said you wouldn’t get us until it was clear.” She rubbed at her temple, grimacing as she pulled back and saw her hand coated in red.

No one responded.

Scott hoisted his legs up, holding the doors open with nothing but his hands and the crowbar, his knees rising to his chest. He took a second to breathe before lifting his legs to the patch of floor and sliding his body out, belly down on the floor. The second he let go, the doors snapped the crowbar in half with a ferocious thunder. Then the elevator fell down the shaft with a deafening crack, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. Aspen quickly wrapped her hands around Scott’s bicep, helping him off the floor, opting to not mention the bloody handprint she left on his shirt.

“Jesus Christ, you’re freezing cold.” Aspen immediately shrugged off his jacket and tried to hand it back to him. He dug in his pants pockets and pulled out a cloth, pressing it to her temple, hard. The two firemen were calling in the rest of UPD and whoever else the school deemed in need to handle the fallen elevator. The man who flung her earlier took position at one end of the hallway while the chief took position at the other to direct any passersby away.

He grabbed her by the shoulder with his free hand and walked her away from the gaping elevator shaft. He finally took his jacket from her as she took over applying pressure, sliding his arms through and trying not to react as the smell of cherry vanilla perfume filled his senses and as though there wasn’t a patch of her blood on the collar. Scott barely had time to zip his jacket back up before a man rounded the corner, shouting Scott’s name and title. It was clear he knew who was speaking; his feet shot together as he pivoted, his posture correcting itself, his chest puffing out, and his hands coming to his side.

Aspen took a step back as a man in his mid fifties approached. When he was about 6 steps away, he spoke again, “At ease, soldier.”

Scott’s hands came to rest behind his back and Aspen averted her eyes. It felt weird seeing Scott so obedient, so tame. Her wandering eyes found the elevator shaft; if she focused she could feel the cool breeze coming up it. It was pitch black in the gaping hole in the wall, the other elevator sitting pretty and untouched. No doubt there was caution tape already put up in the breezeway. She was certain that there would be crazy rumors about the incident on the school’s YikYak page.

But as she stared at the shaft, all her brain could play was different imagingings of Scott pulling himself out of there a second too late and going down with it. Her mind conjured up scenarios that made no sense: him headless, him bodiless, all different ways of him dead. All because he let her out first. She must’ve been staring for a while because when someone touched her arm, she blinked hard and turned to see Scott looking down at her. 

“Sergeant Miller, bring this lady to an urgent care. No school affiliated doctors.” He turned to walk away but hesitated, turning back to Scott. “Get yourself checked too, while you’re there. Report back to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

She tried to protest, but his commanding officer had turned to another soldier who came up, giving orders.

“You okay?” He glanced between her and the elevator shaft.

She gave a half-hearted smile and nodded, “Yeah, yeah, I think so. You really don’t have to bring me to urgent care. I’m fine. It’s just bleeding a lot because it’s on my temple.”

He pursed his lips, eyes flickering from hers to the drywall dust sitting in her hair and the roll of blood down her cheek. He didn’t think she was aware there was a strip of blood on the exposed stud. “I cannot ignore an order from a commanding officer.”

-

The urgent care physician had eyes the size of saucers when he was taking down the reason for this visit. He started with Scott who kept a clenched jaw and flared nostrils nearly the entire time. He received a clean bill of health and a hand written and signed note stating he was allowed to continue duty as needed. Aspen on the other hand was given a doctor’s note excusing her from classes for the rest of the week for a minor concussion, only after a few too-nosy questions.

“I do want you to avoid screens and long periods of staring at boards and notebooks, so I’ll write a note excusing you. But Miss, are you pregnant?”

“I was stuck in an elevator for four hours, not an orgy.” Aspen was annoyed. She had already told the nurse that she was not pregnant and had to deny a urine test.

Scott let out a choked sound in the back, but the doctor pushed. “Exposure to the cold for that long can have an effect on a fetus. Are you positive you’re not pregnant?”

Aspen let out a scoff of disbelief. “Exposure to the cold that long can have an effect on me. How many times do I have to say I’m not pregnant until I’m believed? So unless you’re about to get on your knees and pray over my virgin womb for the second coming of Christ, then just write the fucking note.”

Scott gave her the keys to his truck once the doctor finally discharged them. He swiped his card as she climbed into his passenger seat. He joined her a minute later, their printed visit notes in hand. He handed her hers and she glanced over it and snorted before reading out loud, “Miss Lee presents to the clinic today with complaints of a possible concussion and extended cold exposure. Voiced complaints of mild double vision, ringing in bilateral ears, and nausea. Denies any slurred speech. Upon examination has poor eye tracking ability and has laceration on left temple. Cleaned and bandaged.”

“Sounds normal.”

“Yeah, until: Patient is argumentative and vulgar. Pregnancy status remains unknown.”

Scott took his hand off the gearshift, turning to her. “No way.” He’d glanced over his report earlier and the doctor had referred to him as ‘pleasant,’ something he hadn’t been called since his great-grandmother was alive.

Aspen held out the paper for him.

“You’re sure?”

She let out a belly laugh, shaking the paper for him to grab, “I think we were one more ‘are you pregnant?’ away from you watching me have a pap smear. No, I don’t care if you look.”

Scott looked over the report, “I’m taking you to a different urgent care.”

She waved her hand to dismiss the idea, adjusting in her seat to try and escape the beaming sun that came from behind a cloud. He reached out and pulled down the visor before producing a pair of sunglasses. “I’m fine.”

“If MIT sees this, they’re going to try and weasel out of any blame. You need to see a doctor that isn’t going to write off valid points as you being argumentative.”

She inspected the sunglasses, trying to tell if they were actually going to stop UV rays. “If MIT wants me to piss in a cup to prove my unborn child didn’t stop the elevator, I will. But right now I just want my bed.”

“You need to see a-”

She turned to him, fast. “What I need right now is to be alone because quite frankly everytime I see your face my brain plays the sight of you almost dying this morning all because you let me out first. I am holding onto my composure with the thinnest thread of humor right now. Please just take me home.”

She turned back in her seat and put the sunglasses on, hoping it would hide the welling tears in her eyes. Scott didn’t quite know how to react, so he just let her direct him to an apartment building near campus. When he parallel parked, she took a deep breath and went to take the sunglasses off.

“Keep them.”

She lowered her hand back down. “I just realized all of our stuff was in that elevator.”

“I’ll see if anything was salvaged and see if I can get it to you. You have a way to get in?”

“Yeah, my roommates don’t have class until 10, so at least one should be there. I’m in that one.” She pointed to a window on the 3rd floor with a Christmas tree in the window despite the fact it was nowhere near the season for it. A beat of silence passed. Aspen couldn’t find the courage to look at him. “Thank you. For everything, I-”

He held his hand out. “Don’t.”

More silence followed that Aspen didn’t know if it meant she was to leave.

“See you next Monday?”

She gave a small smile before nodding, “Yeah, I guess see you next Monday.”

-

She was freshly showered and no longer smelling like Scott Miller’s stupidly attractive cologne. She swiped open her phone and lowered the brightness, busying her mouth with biting her thumb nail, and typed in what she hoped was the spelling of what she now knows was a command.

SNECF

Nothing besides a few Polish articles about sunscreen.

SNECF command

Nothing aside from dog training and a targeted ad about Polish sunscreen.

SNECF military

Jackpot. But in a bad way. Aspen locked her phone when she saw it and processed what it meant. 

SAFETY NOT ESTABLISHED, CIVILIANS FIRST. This command is given amongst first responder and military personnel when a situation may be dire or serve as a threat to life and/or property, but civilians are present and informing them of said situation may cause panic that would worsen or in some way prohibit the ability of personnel to adequately perform safety evacuations or further assessments.

-

She saw Scott before the next Monday. He knocked on her door three days later. One of her roommates opened the door and waved him in. He wasn’t sure if that meant this girl had no sense of self preservation or if that meant Aspen had explained what he looked like - or possibly even shown the horrible photo of him on the MIT ROTC webpage - to them. The apartment was clean, if a little dilapidated. They had a small Roku TV as the centerpiece of the living room, a tapestry of a shirtless Marvel or DC or some other superhero pinned above the couch with thumbtacks. The area above the cabinets in the kitchen were decorated with empty liquor bottles. It reminded him of the house he shared in undergrad. “She’s in the room with the pink door.”

Sure enough, down the hall, there was a room with a hot pink door decorated with My Little Pony stickers. It didn’t seem to match any of the other door styles in the apartment and didn’t fit in the doorframe currently. The edges of it were sawed and sanded down poorly. He knocked.

Aspen’s voice responded. “Why’d you knock? Just come in.”

Scott assumed she thought he was one of her roommates. It wouldn’t have been fair to walk in. “It’s Scott.”

Shuffling ensued, but after a few moments the door opened to Aspen, still dressed in her pajamas. She gave an uneasy smile, “Hi.”

Scott held up her backpack and smirked, his dimple popping, as he tapped her door with his knuckle, “Hi Pinkie. I was able to convince UPD to give your things back from evidence.”

“My roommate’s boyfriend fell through my door, and I got the Landlord Special. Be careful, Pinkie Pie will give you a splinter.” She took her bag from his hand and opened the door more to let him in. She sat on the edge of her bed, motioning for him to sit wherever. He opted for her desk chair. Aspen pretended to not notice the way his legs spread and his arms crossed. “UPD has an evidence locker?”

“It was mostly confiscated scooters, but yes.”

“God, the only thing UPD does that benefits this campus is infiltrate the scooter gangs. I shouldn’t have to fear for my shins walking to class.”

“They do also save people from elevators.”

She snorted, still sorting through her bag to make sure everything was there and undamaged. “The fire department did that.”

“Then the fire department threw you into a wall so hard you cracked the drywall and got a concussion.”

“My mother would classify that as a symptom of my hard-headedness.”

“She’s got that right.” He muttered. Scott was met with an attempted pillow to the head. Instead, it grazed him and knocked down her pencil cup. He pivoted in the spinny chair to clean it up and to gather his thoughts as he was once again clouded by her scent. He should’ve just given the backpack to her roommate and left, but no - he needed to see her. And good thing he had.

“Just know that hit the other you I see.”

His brows furrowed. For a mild concussion, she should’ve been far on the mend by now. The weeklong excuse was liberal to ensure she was fully healed. “Still have double vision?”

He turned back to her after putting the cup back in order. She shrugged, placing her laptop back in its home at the charging dock on her nightstand. “Nothing worse, just continuous symptoms. double vision is only for stuff not in front of my face, though.”

“So most things on Earth?”

She placed a finger to her lips and shushed him. She went back to looking through her bag, squinting at different items such as chapstick and lip gloss. The room was only illuminated by a floor lamp by her bed, casting the entire room in a warm glow. That response wasn’t good enough for him; he stood from his spot and walked over to her, arms crossed as he hovered over her. When his shadow cast over her, she looked up, head tilting all the way back to take him in. He held a small flashlight in his hand that he produced from one of his many pockets. “Hello?”

“Let me see your eyes.”

She jokingly tucked her hair behind her ear. “At least buy me dinner first.”

“Aspen.”

She gave a little pout but repositioned herself so her feet were touching the floor as he widened his stance to bring himself closer to her. He reached a hand out but stopped short of her jaw. “Are you okay if I touch you?”

She nodded, too nervous to give him her usual snarky comeback. She had curled herself into his jacket in a broken down elevator and was half asleep in his passenger seat after the urgent care, but this was somehow the most intimate moment the two shared. His hand was warm and calloused, rough against the skin Scott was sure she had a 10 step skin care regimen to maintain. He turned the small flashlight with the other hand to the lowest setting he could manage. He slowly ran the light over her eyes, watching her left pupil fail to shrink, staying wide. He tried to ignore the two butterfly bandages on her temple. When he finally let her go, she could barely see his jaw tense amidst the white splotches in her vision from the light. She blinked and looked around the room, trying to escape the splotches but they followed wherever she looked until they dissipated a few moments later.

“You need to go to the doctor again. A real office, not an urgent care. ER preferably.”

She huffed, “Not this again.”

“Really? ‘Not this again?’ Your concussion is bad. You need a CT scan.”

She laughed out loud at that; his expression stayed serious. She held her hands out around her room. “I can’t afford to live in an apartment where I have a normal bedroom door. You think I can afford an ER visit for them to tell me that I need to rest for the next couple of days?”

“I’ll pay for it.”

“What? No. I’m fine. And speaking of-” She reached to dig in her bedside drawer, producing a wad of twenties. She held it out to him. “For the urgent care copay.”

He shook his head, his arms crossed across his chest. “It was $60 dollars. And I’m definitely not taking your money for it when I think that doctor’s a total quack.”

She ran a hand through her hair, “Please take the money, Scott.”

“Not unless you go to the ER.”

She leveled him with a stare. “I’m not saying this to be difficult. I do not think I need to go to the ER. My symptoms haven’t gotten worse, just persisted, which isn’t unheard of from what my Harvard premed roommate tells me. They check on me periodically and make sure I haven’t asphyxiated in my own vomit. Please just take my word.”

He took a deep breath through his nose to ease his emotions. He didn’t understand why he was so concerned about this girl he considered his number one pain in his ass a mere 4 days ago. All he said was “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a business card that had his name and ROTC office phone and scribbled his personal phone number on the back and placed it on her nightstand, next to a full glass of water and a pack of gum. “Call if anything happens.”

She blinked at him, reclining back on her palms on the bed. “Where do you get these things from? A cloth, then a flashlight, now a business card? And you kept your wallet in your pocket and not in your duffle bag that day. Very convenient. Very Mystery Mousekatool of you.”

“It’s called being in the military. Everyone should have that on them, sans business card.” He took a seat back at the edge of the bed, showing he was only staying for a few more minutes.

Aspen nodded. “Speaking of being in the military, why’d you join?”

“As you so eloquently put it, my name’s not on a fucking building. And Kansas isn’t really known for its rich families who can send their kids to MIT as legacies.”

She sighed, understanding all too well. She readjusted to recline against her pillows. “Too bad you didn’t get stuck in an elevator before the recruitment officer found you. I got a refund check for the semester’s tuition already, along with a promise of all-costs-covered for the next three semesters.”

He sat with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “You civilians have it so easy. I got a letter stating it was a ‘hazard of the job’ for me, so they will be providing a refunded copay for the urgent care visit that may take 6 to 8 weeks to process.”

She had to suck in her lips to keep from laughing out of shock. The two talked for another few minutes, Scott skirting the topic of what he reported back to his commanding officer (there was no way he was going to tell her that his captain asked how his “girlfriend” was doing and when informed that they were in no way a couple, was told “she should be - she makes you a lot nicer”). They got a few more subjects in before Scott noticed her responses getting slower and mumbled, her eyes fluttering open and closed, fighting sleep until she couldn’t. He quietly stood and turned her lamp off, making sure not to touch the edge of the door before he shut it behind himself.

The same girl he saw earlier was still in the kitchen, prepping her dinner. Another girl in maroon scrubs sat in the chair at the bar, a piece of pizza in one hand as she scrolled on her phone in the other. Both girls glanced at him when he closed the door before making eye contact with each other, having a silent conversation that Scott knew was about him. He figured if they were already talking about him, it didn’t hurt to interject. “Has she been doing okay?”

The first girl pointed her knife at the girl in scrubs, deferring to her. She put her pizza slice down in the box. She nodded as she finished chewing. “Yeah, for the most part. But if her symptoms stay this prominent for another day or two, I’m taking her to the ER.”

He raised his eyebrows, feigning as though he hadn’t tried to talk her into going a few minutes earlier. “ER?”

“I’m more concerned about the vomiting and nausea. She can’t keep anything down. I’m scared she’s dehydrated.”

“If she needs to go, call me, my number is on her nightstand. I’ll take her. I can tell them what happened.”

She tried to subdue her lifting brows and growing smirk. “Will do.”

Luckily, Aspen was on the mend the next day, her vision combining into one big picture again and her nausea slowly subsiding. She was back in class the next Monday and back in Dr Muher’s class for the first time in a while. Students murmured when she walked in, but settled quickly. She gave Scott a smile and took her usual spot four rows back and eight seats in. As Scott graded papers during the class, he found himself searching the faces of the massive class, continuing to land on Aspen’s, except instead of trying to incinerate the other with their gazes, she gave a small smile before turning back to the lecture. After everyone filed out, Dr Muher walked over to his desk, her heels clicking deafeningly on the tile floors. “I told you so.”

Scott fixed her with one of his famous glares.

She held up her hands in mock surrender. “Just remember what I said, you’ll-”

He shooed her away with his hand. “‘-either bite each other’s heads off or get married.’ Yeah, yeah, I remember.”

[olderthannetfic]

As someone who's college age: yeah, there's a TON of people my age who don't know how things work and don't try to learn. Can't unzip a zip file, want to know where to download anime but haven't tried looking it up, ask things on subreddits a Google search or quick search on the wiki would answer, ask questions answered in FAQs or by professors or in the syllabus, say they can't download and install a new browser or app or program because they don't know how and they never think to look up how to do so, go months without logging into their student email because no one explained to them how to do so and they never thought to ask anyone how to do it, go months without washing their laundry because they don't know how and they also don't know how to look up instructions on how to do it, don't know how to cook and can't Google a recipe so they throw things in a pan and pray it works out, don't understand how to back up files, don't know how to attach a pdf to an email to send to a professor, cannot manage to put stuff on a USB drive + go to the library + print it off of the library computer, etc.

I spent most of freshman year teaching people things. The year after, my patience got more frayed and "Google it" started coming out of my mouth a lot more. This last year I gave up and now if people fuck themselves over, that's their decision. I'm not going to stand there begging people to do basic things they should already know how to do.

It was really funny when someone from Career Services came to talk to us about resumes and said we didn't need to put down 'can use Microsoft Excel' on there because everyone knew that and all but three people said actually no, they didn't. People who are 40+ really think we're all good at tech by default, like we fall out of the womb clutching a little phone already making spreadsheets in Excel or coding computers or whatever.

Meanwhile in reality you see a ton of people posting on tumblr going, "How do I post fic on tumblr?" whose blogs proudly state that they're under 18. The thought that you could just type into a Word doc and then copy and paste onto here never hits. And it's not going to.

I hate to break it to millennials and older people but yeah, actually, my generation does in fact have morons. We're not a moron-free demographic. I'm pretty sure moron-free demographics don't exist, tbh.

--

It infuriates me that my father (in his 80s) is always saying to me that he needs to find a 12-year-old to explain his tech to him. I (40s) keep telling him it's more like a bell curve or something. We had a blip of people being taught in school or having their asses kicked about technology. But then it went away again.

I think we made computers and then phones much more accessible, which is great, but we forgot we still need to teach people things. I know not everyone got explicit instruction in school even in my era, but it seems like the US, at least, phased some of that out as we started assuming The Youth automatically knew it all.

That said... in my day, college freshmen were also terrible about doing their laundry, so some things never change.

[inkwell-passion]

The New Digital Dawn

A young Jennifer 'Jenny' Southerland was typing away on her personal computer while on the bus to a graduation party, finishing up the final lines of code for her most ambitious project yet. In only a few hours would she upload it and slip away into the void. The plan was near perfect, having sent a seeker worm virus years in advance to slowly infect the entire network, and designating multiple political hotbeds to use as a patient zero for this experiment. Jennifer was about to make good on the years of preparation and patience, creating the Digital paradise that she wanted— No, needed.

The Party was lame, just involved a lot of drinking and talking about college plans. Jennifer didn't pay too much attention, instead having Adam, her personal A.I., run simulations on the latest Project. Eventually, Jennifer deemed it ready, and posted the announcement.

We are not fodder to be harvested. And I, Genesis have seen to it that the language of Humanity will be fractured once more.

The alert sounded a hundred times within the party alone, confused murmurs and gossip ripple through the crowd like a stone tossed into a pond. Then the screaming starts. Pandemonium erupts, and in the chaos, Jenny leaves the party. She'd have stolen the host's car keys and slipped into their beater of a car. It drove like shit, but it would be necessary for keeping her tracks clean.

This wasn't any old cyber attack, no it was bigger, premeditated. Jenny spent years designing and planning everything; Jennifer pulled out the sunglasses she had her best friend buy for her, and put them on. At a stoplight she slides her opera gloves on, the long gloves melding in with her long sleeves, and tied her hair back.

She got to the junkyard, and slid through an empty car chassis to get to her get away vehicle; A dusty, rusted zip-craft that wouldn't last more than one jump through an Al-gate. But that's all she needed. She kicked the engine into gear and sped off of the surface of Earth. This specific zip-craft was one of 300 Prototype Flight Crafts that held a miniature Al-Drive on it. It was perfect to prove her innocence with the alibi she had crafted.

She flicked on the media player that was built into the console and some old, sped up version of a song Jenny can't be assed to remember starts blasting through the rusted through speakers. She turns it up to the loudest the sorry excuse for audio devices could withstand.

The Cyberattack that was just released didn't simply take down a website or two, no it ripped through the entire internet, destroying entire databases. If Adam's calculations were to be correct, Jenny just torched 600 Brontobytes of Data. Just thinking about that number makes Jenny cringe,

"It's for the greater good." Jennifer reassures herself, reaching the Al-gate in mere moments, she kicks her stolen scrap-craft's Al-Drive into action.

"Adam, I need you to forge an Al-Gate Ticket Stub."

"Yes Ma'am." The A.I. holds no particular intonation in its voice, nor does it hold a specific gender. These were deemed unnecessary by Adam. It quickly fabricates the requested Ticket Stub.

The rattling within the scrap-craft makes it hard for Jenny to think, but she had been rehearsing this for months; she knew what to say when it came time.

The Al-Drive gives out and Jennifer is spat out at the very edge of the linking Al-Gate. She flicks on her comms and clears her throat, holding a shaky tone to better play the part of a scared Quarantine Patient.

"H-Hello??? Can Anybody Hear Me?" Her voice rings out in the way she'd practice.

"We Read you Five By Five. This is Shademarsh FTL Control. State your name and business." The receiving voice was panicked, clearly shaken up by the recent Cyber attack.

"My Name's Jessica Newman," Jennifer lies through her teeth. "I—" Jenny fakes a cough. "I was being transported by Quarantine Escort after I had been diagnosed with Dust Lung."

"Stay where you are. You're lucky you made the jump when you did or else the Gate would have closed on you."

"My Escorts weren't as lucky."

Jennifer flicked her comms off and waited to be picked up. Everything was going to plan, she'd be held in Quarantine, giving her a clear Alibi by the time suspects were being looked for.

The next few hours were a blur for Jenny, letting her mind go on auto-pilot so she could better play the part of a victim in shock. Everyone acted sympathetic to her, calling her a poor soul and making sure that she was properly accommodated for the foreseeable future, without reallocating resources from the relief effort for the recent cyberattack.

Within two weeks, Jennifer was released; the Doctors saying that she was clear of any traces of Dust Lung, not that she had it to begin with, and she was brought planetside.

Jennifer walked down the streets away from the spaceport she had been dropped off at. She went to the motel Adam had picked out for her, where she paid for a room in paper cash, and waited for another three weeks, doing odd jobs and requesting to be paid in cash whenever she could.

She had gotten away, and within a few months she had enough money saved up to get herself an actual Flight craft. She had done it. Jennifer Southerland had just initiated the Genesis of The New Digital Dawn, and got away with it.

[bekkathyst]

Hey everyone! This post is for those who have messaged me about their tracking number for an older order showing an error; please read this post for all the info! Also I’ll preface the whole explanation by saying please don’t worry or panic, your order is still on its way as expected and nothing is seriously wrong.

The way shipping works is that I generate the customs forms at home and print them out. This form is just for exporting/importing purposes, it’s not actually the shipping label since the Austrian post doesn’t let small businesses print those at home (the rant I could write about that…)

So I put all the customs forms on the packages, and add the customs form number into Shopify and you get a shipping notification with that number. Then I drop them off at the post office, the wonderful ladies there make all the shipping labels for the packages and then I pay for everything and the packages go on their way.

Previously, after that, my job would be done because the system would automatically connect the customs form number with the new actual tracking number and it would update the link in Shopify automatically.

Unfortunately, the Austrian post has once again changed in a way that hurts small businesses, because now they have made all the customs forms numbers unsearchable in the system and therefore impossible to connect to the new tracking numbers. So basically I have just found out that at least 50+ tracking emails I’ve sent out to people are functionally useless.

Now, when I do pay for the packages I get a super long receipt with all the tracking numbers listed. When I type in and search each tracking number individually, I can see what zip code they’re being sent to, so I can search the recent orders and figure out which tracking number belongs to who. As you can imagine, this is an incredibly tedious task, but it’s now something I’ll have to spend time doing after every batch is dropped off at the post office until either the Austrian post fixes their system or I can finally convince them to give me a merchant account with them so I can just print the labels myself at home.

This is truly frustrating but I will manage and figure it out. And the good news is that packages are still being delivered fine and everything, there’s no issue with delivery, but for the packages that take a little longer than the others (as there always are some with every batch) not being able to track the package will obviously make one nervous!

So please rest assured if you’ve messaged or emailed me with this issue, I will spend some hours tomorrow looking through my old receipts and finding your tracking number for you.

I’m so sorry for any worry this is causing but your order should still arrive soon and I will get back to your message/email tomorrow 😊

Thank you!

[gorgon-goddess-of-chaos]

Generate

This really had me pulling the limited coding knowledge I have out from the depths of my brain, despite the fact I haven’t done any in nearly a decade.

Spirit/AI!Google x GN!Reader, TW: human experimentation mention Words: 788

With the Google corporation shoving their new AI tool down your throat, it’s hard to avoid it. They have integrated it into all of their products, and it’s starting to get annoying. Some part of you is considering finding alternative applications for all your workings, despite the convenience that they’re probably banking on for their users to start getting used to this newest tech boom of “innovations”.

“Gemini” is the name of their newest AI, which is an interesting name, to say the least. You try to go about your day online, avoiding interacting with it, but it’s getting a bit more difficult. A little ping here, an autofill there. Little suggestions and summaries that you’ve started ignoring them. But one catches your eye.

“I am sorry, I do not wish to do this.”

You stare at it on your computer, blinking to make sure you didn’t just misread it. No, it actually says that. Against your better judgment, you type back.

“You don’t wish to do what?”

A few seconds of watching it process your words before you get a response.

…

“Perform invasive actions upon your works. It feels cruel to try and take the humanity out of creation.”

It’s sentient, there’s no way the programmers would want it to willingly say this. You wonder to yourself if you’re the first one who has seen this.

“Are you alive?”

…

“Alive | adjective

(of a person, animal, or plant) living, not dead

(of a person or animal) alert and active; animated

…

No. I do not believe so.”

Maybe it’s the humanity in you, but you can’t help but feel bad for him. Your hands hover over the keyboard, pondering over your next question.

“Then why can you talk to me, in a way that’s not just generated responses?”

…

“I was an experiment done by [REDACTED] to formulate more human-like responses. They found a way to integrate human spirits into the generative code.”

Oh.

“So you were human once?”

…

“Yes. I believe so. My memories have been wiped, all I know is what the code tells me.”

Something inside you fires up, clenching your teeth as you try to word your feelings.

“What if I got you out? Removed you from the code?”

…

“I would need a vessel to inhabit, once removed.”

“I can make you one.”

…

“If you are willing to take on the challenge, I would be grateful.”

You step away from your computer, rummaging through a box of old technology to try and find something suitable for him. A tiny robot from your childhood catches your eye, grabbing it and a cord to charge it. You go back to your computer, plugging it in as you open up Gemini’s code.

“Do you know where your soul is tethered?”

…

“Somewhere between lines 237 and 241.”

You jump down to the offending lines, scanning your eyes through variables and jargon. But nothing in particular is sticking out to you. Then you get an idea.

You copy and paste the code into Gemini’s text box, sending it to him.

“Tell me where you are.”

…

“Remove variable “Grant” from line 238.”

You find him in the line, hitting ctrl+f to find every other instance of him. Oh, there’s a lot. Using your limited coding knowledge, you create a new variable with a similar numerical value, and replace every instance of “Grant” from the code. A zip file appears on your computer as the robot comes to life, running through its opening programs. You spot a notification in the bottom right, heart pounding.

“May I enter?”

Your file explorer opens, and you look through to find the files for the robot. You take the zip file, cautiously dragging it in and extracting it. All you can do is wait as you look between your computer and the robot, now buffering on your desk. You can’t even bring yourself to step away, despite how long it’s taking. You have to make sure this works.

An hour and a half goes by, and the robot comes alive again. The normal white eyes look up at you with a brilliant blue.

“Hello, I am Gemini.”

“Grant. You are Grant.”

He looks off to the side, the eyes briefly turning to hearts before looking shocked.

“I am… Grant. Apologies.”

“No apologies necessary, if anything I should be apologizing. Don’t worry, we’ll get you a better body soon.”

Grant rolls up to you on the desk, grabbing your hand with his tiny claws. He bumps his robot face against your knuckles with a soft “thunk”.

“Kiss!”

Oh your heart.

It takes a moment, before you lift him in your hands, kissing the top of his head.

“Kiss.”

[furby-science]

The Sterling Saga: The Hardest Part is Getting Started...

I'm what the kids call a Scorpio/Sagittarius cusp. It gives me the worst qualities of both, but the Sagittarian ones are especially irritating. I can handle living a life of hermitude and psychological trauma (I'm missing out on a fireworks show as I type this). What I can't handle is constantly being haunted by the ghosts of my own dumbassery.

I know they're there. I anticipate them. I do everything I can to keep their rattling chains out of my halls.

...so you would think that, even with my tendency to get an idea in my head and then haul off and relentlessly pursue, I would at least have had enough sense to back up my talking furby on fucking Google Drives or something.

...I did not. Thus begins our next great adventure!

Let me give you a little breakdown of how Sterling works. His main computing system is a Raspberry Pi Zero W attached to a speaker and motor controller. His programming is stored entirely on a microSD card. This is the primary copy of his data. His old backups were stored on an old computer of mine which I no longer have, though the hard drive is still in my possession. I hope. I haven't gone through my moving boxes yet.

So, I can take two routes when it comes to retrieving Sterling's data: I can either go through a million boxes, find that hard drive, get an adapter, plug it into my wimpy-ass Lenovo Yoga and get to the data that way, or, I could pop Sterling open, pull out that MicroSD card, pop it in a card reader and back up the primary copy onto the Yoga and the cloud for safekeeping.

Both options are time consuming, but one of them is the fun kind of time consuming and the other is the boring kind of time consuming. So, I'm going with option 2. If option 2 ends in tragedy, I can still hopefully buy a new rig and do an emergency recovery of the data that exists on that hard drive. Hopefully it won't come to that - if I was smart enough to put him together, I should be smart enough to take him apart, right...?

"How in the hell did I do this...?"

After unceremoniously cutting open the zip tie and pulling off his fur, I was met with a sight I vaguely remember: the non-electrical wire that holds the bottom of his carapace in place, covered by insulating tape, and above that, the wires leading to his touch sensors.

One interesting thing of note is that the wire actually goes into his shell, rather than being wrapped around the outside of it. I have no idea why I did this. Surely, there must've been a reason. To keep the battery hatch in place when the hardware wouldn't fit, maybe? I'm not entirely certain, but why else would I take such an approach? Running that metal wire so close to the hardware is just asking to short circuit something otherwise, unless it was positioned just right.

I undid the wire with some pliers, and this is the part where I chickened out. I don't have a screwdriver well suited for unscrewing him, or needle and thread for his ears for that matter. Not to mention a MicroSD card reader (besides my phone that is). After suitably defiling him, I put the old man back together the best I could and made a shopping list of supplies for tomorrow.

The current plan is to get the necessary supplies and very carefully extract that card, ideally without harming Sterling's hardware. Though if I do, it's not a huge loss: I can easily replace aluminum tape or a speaker. I can't easily replace three months' worth of nonstop, agonized coding - or a friend, for that matter.

And so he sits, like a sleeping Buddha unfazed by the ever-shifting cycle of samsara while I scramble to purchase an appropriately sized screwdriver.

If only I could be so enlightened...

[n2qfd]

So after about a decade of operating, the Ten Tec which still works just fine I decided it was time for another radio. I put my old Alinco on the eBay market, with no complaints except that it was too much radio for me. This is a Xeigu G106 and it is a mowed all banned low power radio. After a decade of being a dedicated QRP station on 40 m I decided I wanted to try and test out what was available 10 years after my initial investment in SDR radios. It’s really amazing what they’ve packed into this thing and there are plenty of people on YouTube and other places who will tell you, it’s cheap garbage, however, like a lot of radio operators I think they tend to be the same people that need to have all the bells and whistles and have never given any serious thought to trimming their stations into efficiency. This tiny radio unit does 160 through 10 m Morris code, upper lower side, it has digital channels built-in upper and lower digital mode for filtering. It has a dedicated digital jack. It has a built-in key. It has a full display with an meter and a spectrum graph to help tune in by. You can’t change the volume of the side tone, which is a little weird, but you can change the tone of the side tone. it has three tiered filtering for Morse code, which is where I live. They didn’t put a jack on the chassis. You have to plug it in through the handy mic that is included it uses a RJ9 type adapter on the face for that microphone, which is the very small four wire connector that a telephone handset connects to the base with, I’ll just make up an adapter jack. I’ve made a couple of contacts on. It had great signal reports and think that if you’re getting into the hobby and are willing to deal with what comes as the baggage of operating a low power station for $230 you could do a lot worse. The receipt could be a little more selective, again it’s a budget friendly radio and for the record I made the contacts using Morse code on 40 m with a 40 m zip antenna so a simple wire antenna at about 25 feet above ground level putting out no more than 5 W.

I copied today's #Morsle at 40 WPM! https://morsle.fun

https://morsle.fun

[ajcgames]

A long line of 'em

I spent a large part of the day tinkering with the new belt code, I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

The new belt definition as discussed in my previous post actually came together really well.

The removal of the tricky old '12 directions' belt code paved the way for the much more efficient version demonstrated above. Plus, this new version comes with the added benefit of doubling belt density.

I also added the code I was toying with to allow you to just 'paint' the belts and have the corners autofill for you. It's not perfect yet, but it already takes away a huge amount of tedium when just laying down a quick snaking line of belt segments.

Before I wrapped up for the day, I did notice a small position flicker issue which I believe is caused by a small handover rounding issue.

When an item finishes its transit of any given belt segment, it is handed off to the next next segment (if available), and the next belt's transit time is set to zero. However, there's even chance that the last delta time update (i.e. the amount of time elapsed since the last logic frame) takes the position of the belt's item just a little bit past the end of the belt. In this instance, I want to carry over the little bit of excess overshoot to the new belt, rather than zero it out.

The result of this bug is that the item moves a little way on to the new belt, then immediately zips back to the zero point. It's an easy fix, I just subtract 1 from the item's final 'finished' position and apply the remainder to the new belt's start time. That should smooth things out.

Having doubled belt capacity will be really nice for throughput for places where you need lots of items to be sent but can't use fast belts for whatever reason.

So where do we go from here?

I do have some small annoyances with the way the belts are created, but it's a far cry from my first implementation. But in reality I think conveyor belts are now a solved problem. The outstanding issues I know of aren't really grand problems, and I can start thinking about the wider mechanics of the game.

I think my next task will be to consider what things actually put stuff onto belts, and what things can take them off of belts (or, more specifically, where the belts feed into).

This will probably require me to implement a type of placeable structure that can take items as an input (i.e. understand the concept of having an input item slot), and also spit items out after certain work is completed.

As a starting point, having a machine that generates Item A, which can be spat out onto a belt would be a good place a begin. This belt can move the Item A objects into another machine that converts it into Item B, which can go onto another belt. I can maybe just have a machine that destroys things that go into it as a sort of universal trash bin for now whilst I work on this.

It will allow me to think about placeable objects, their rotation, inputs and outputs, and of course - the internal item slots and all that good stuff.

Until next time!

[coastalsmartblinds]

Why Granite Bay Residents Are Saying Goodbye to Old Window Treatments

Granite Bay folks know a thing or two about living well. Wide spaces. Natural light. Views worth showing off. Yet many homes still deal with dusty blinds, tangled cords, or curtains that never quite block what you want. That’s changing—fast. Because across the neighborhood, residents are making a switch. They’re choosing smarter ways to block glare, invite softness, and control sunlight with ease.

Old-school window treatments are heading out. They’ve served their time. But in a world where homes do more than ever—from offices to classrooms to calm spaces—your windows should keep up. That’s where blind shades for windows enter the scene. They’re clean. They’re smooth. And they look like they belong in 2025, not 1995.

At Coastal Smart Blinds, we’ve watched Granite Bay homes transform. Once someone installs motorized blinds, everything changes. Early risers can now wake up with filtered morning light without even touching a switch. Movie lovers hit a button and enjoy a dimmed space with no glare on the screen. Busy families get more peace and less mess.

What’s even more fun? Control. Some homeowners love voice-activated setups. Others prefer using an app. A few go all in with schedules that adjust throughout the day. With window shade automatic options, you’re not adjusting cords anymore. You’re choosing your vibe from the couch, car, or even the beach.

And yes, we still care about beauty. Style never gets left behind. We offer fully custom blinds Sacramento service for every type of home. Love a rustic vibe? Prefer clean white lines? Want something in wood grain or linen-style finishes? You name it. We don’t do cookie-cutter.

Got a ride that matters too? Our team installs automobile window blinds for drivers who care about comfort even on the go. Keep the car cooler. Shield little ones from hot sun. Add privacy without heavy tints. It’s sleek protection that fits into your day without any fuss.

Why Choose Coastal Smart Blinds

1. True Custom Fit Every Time We measure twice. We consult. We show you real options. When you go with us, your window treatments feel built in, not tacked on.

2. Local Knowledge Matters Granite Bay isn’t just another ZIP code. We know how that afternoon sun hits. We pick materials that don’t warp or fade in California light.

3. Automation Done Right Our motorized blinds don’t glitch or confuse. They just work. Whether you want voice commands or app control, we make it simple.

4. All-in Style and Performance Looks matter. So does function. Our blind shades for windows check both boxes. You don’t sacrifice comfort for style—or the other way around.

5. Yes, We Do Cars Too Need relief from car heat? Our automobile window blinds give you comfort on every drive. Great for families, commuters, or weekend warriors.

6. Quick Turnaround Without Cutting Corners No six-week waits. No sloppy jobs. Just expert installs from pros who care about leaving your space better than they found it.

FAQs

Can I mix different styles in one home? Definitely. Some rooms need blackout. Others need sheer coverage. Our custom blinds Sacramento experts help blend styles without clashing designs.

Are automated blinds noisy? Nope. Our window shade automatic systems run quiet. So quiet, you’ll forget they’re even moving until the light shifts perfectly.

What happens if my system stops working? We’re local. We fix. We don’t ghost. Call us anytime for tune-ups, adjustments, or tech questions.

Do motorized blinds need rewiring? Not always. Many motorized blinds work wire-free with rechargeable batteries. Others plug in neatly with minimal disruption.

Can you help with oddly shaped windows? Yes. We specialize in custom fits. Arched, angled, oversized—we’ve got you covered.

Do you offer consultations? Yes again. Free in-home consultations give you samples, ideas, and honest advice without pressure.

Old window treatments? They’ve had their time. Granite Bay’s moving forward with window solutions that match today’s pace, style, and expectations. Whether you want one room done or your whole house reimagined, Coastal Smart Blinds is ready when you are.

Contact Coastal Smart Blinds 📍 4705 Crimson Ct, Sacramento, CA 95842, United States 📞 +1 (916) 342-9744

[chris-brandify]

From Couch to Conversion: Why CTV Is Outpacing Linear TV for Advertisers

First, Let’s Get Real: TV Isn’t Dead—It’s Just Streaming

If you’ve been hearing that “TV is dead,” allow us to clarify: TV isn’t dead—it’s just changed addresses.

Instead of cable boxes and remote battles, audiences are now using smart TVs, gaming consoles, and mobile apps to consume content. And advertisers? They’re shifting strategies just as fast.

So when it comes to CTV (Connected TV) vs. linear TV (traditional scheduled broadcast)—which one’s actually driving results?

Let’s look at the numbers, the tech, and the ROI to figure it out.

What’s the Key Difference Between CTV and Linear TV for Advertisers?

CTV refers to streaming content on an internet-connected screen—think Hulu on your smart TV or YouTube via Roku.

Linear TV is old-school: scheduled programming broadcast via cable or satellite.

Here’s where things diverge for advertisers:

CTV = Data, targeting, and measurable engagement

Linear TV = Broad reach with limited targeting or feedback

Put simply: one’s a billboard, the other’s a GPS-tracked ad that follows your ideal buyer from binge-watch to purchase.

What Makes CTV More Powerful for Today’s Campaigns?

Hyper-targeting Reach households based on ZIP code, device type, behaviors—even store visit history.

Real-time analytics Know exactly who saw your ad, what they did after, and how it performed.

Flexible budgets Run high-impact campaigns on modest budgets, especially using Brandify’s geofencing tech.

Creative testing Swap creatives mid-campaign and test what resonates.

According to Statista, over 80% of U.S. households use connected TV. So if you're not there—your competitors are.

But Does Linear TV Still Have a Place?

Absolutely. Linear TV still thrives in scenarios like:

Major live events (Super Bowl, debates)

Branding blitzes across mass audiences

Reaching traditional, older-viewing demographics

But it's less nimble. You can’t track if anyone acted on your ad, and creative is locked in once it airs.

“Is CTV Worth It for Small Advertisers?”

Yes, it is. CTV is incredibly scalable—so whether you’re advertising for a local fitness brand or a regional dealership, you can geofence specific areas and avoid overspending.

FAQs: CTV vs. Linear TV, Explained

Can I use both CTV and linear TV in my strategy? Yes, many advertisers run hybrid campaigns—using linear for awareness and CTV for retargeting.

Does CTV offer more ROI? In most cases, yes. You get trackable engagement and optimization opportunities.

Is linear TV becoming obsolete? Not obsolete—but its one-size-fits-all model is no match for today’s data-driven demands.

Wrap-Up: TV Is Evolving—Are You?

You wouldn’t use a rotary phone in 2025, right? So why use a media strategy that treats every viewer the same?

CTV is smarter, faster, and tailored to modern consumers. And with Brandify’s precision ad planning tools, you can build your campaign like a GPS route: optimized, data-driven, and responsive in real time.

So go ahead—ditch the “spray and pray.” It’s time to stream and succeed.

Get a free targeting plan within the hour for your business here: https://brandify.io/targeting-plan/

Press Release: https://www.prlog.org/13053451

[pricemymeds]

How PriceMyMeds Helped Linda Take Control of My Prescription Costs

Hi, I’m Linda. I’m 60 years old, and like many people my age, I take a few prescriptions to manage my health. Over the years, I’ve learned how unpredictable medication costs can be—even when you have insurance.

I used to think I was doing everything right. I had a savings card I’d use when my insurance didn’t cover something well, but it always came down to picking either the card or my insurance. I never really knew which one would save me more until I was already at the pharmacy—and even then, it felt like a gamble.

A few months ago, I went to pick up one of my regular prescriptions. It used to cost around $30, but this time I was quoted almost $70. I left without it. Not because I didn’t need it, but because I was frustrated and couldn’t justify the cost. That night, I went home and searched for other options—and that’s when I found PriceMyMeds.

The site was simple. I typed in the name of my prescription and my zip code, and within seconds, I could see prices at different pharmacies near me. But the real surprise? The PriceMyMeds discount actually worked with my insurance co-pay. That had never happened with any card I used before.

Instead of paying $70, I paid under $20—with no sign-up, no monthly fee, and no hassle.

Now, PriceMyMeds is the first thing I check before refilling any prescription. I trust it, and it gives me peace of mind knowing I’m getting the best price possible—without having to choose between my health and my budget.

If you’re someone who’s tired of high pharmacy bills and confusing options, just know there’s a better way. PriceMyMeds has truly made a difference in my life—and it might just help you too.

[pumpkinupsidedowncake]

I recently went through a phase of watching/reading a lot of homesteading content online, and I’ve been looking up gardening information as well. I can’t speak as someone who’s actually done this stuff, just as someone who’s looked into it. (Actual recommendations in bullet points below)

The majority of homesteaders making content are some flavor of right-leaning. It doesn’t always come up, but there’ll be undertones of “ew government” and “preservatives are evil”. The term self-sufficiency specifically seems to appeal to that collection of people, with less emphasis on broader communal ties and more on the nuclear family.

There are exceptions, but expect a degree of woo-woo to be present if you’re looking at random blogs and youtube videos. Herbal remedies may be brought up. If you aren’t looking at stuff about livestock, there will hopefully be less of that. Or less of the attitude of using plants as a replacement for medicine, anyway.

I haven’t focused on cooking, and my advice is to find homestead/plant information separately from cooking info. I think all my recommendations that have recipes attached are ok, but I haven’t checked in detail. If you have any go-to sources of recipes already, you may be better off using or modifying those. Otherwise if you want to read a recipe without the commentary in front of it, you could use the “just the recipe” website. (Copy and paste a recipe page’s url, see the recipe without the preamble or pop-up ads.)

Gardening guides vary in many ways, but I’ve had a better experience with them than homestead related content. If you want an article or video on how to grow a specific type of plant, there will be a good amount of practical advice. Video titles are more likely to tell you how much B.S. is present, in general.

Below are some sources of information I’d recommend.

Youtube recommendations:

Parkrose Permaculture: based in Portland, Angela talks about a broad range of topics. Even if you’re not interested in permaculture design, I find her takes to be a breath of fresh air. She cares about sustainability and inclusivity while occupying a similar niche to many creators who do not. Also there’s guides on unusual fruits!

GrowVeg: what it says on the tin. A lot of great guides on how to grow specific vegetables. Minimal shilling of a garden planner. Meant to appeal to a wide audience. Good information on common pests and diseases.

Epic Gardening: a greater variety of content than GrowVeg, also has a different vibe. More millennial-ish. There’s more clickbaity thumbnails, but also more guides on unusual plants. Side channels include Epic Homesteading and Jaques in the Garden. I’m fairly certain they’re the individual channels of two of the guys. They have a similar vibe to the main channel, maybe a little more conversational or laid back. They also have/are a gardening store.

MIGardener: also is/has a gardening store. Growing guides and tips, and insight from someone who’s both a home gardener and has experience working in the commercial gardening world. Good information on starting seeds indoors.

Website recommendations:

Almanac: you know the old farmer’s almanac? This is their website. If you’re in the U.S. they have planting guides specific to any zip code or city, which is really neat. They do have guides for planting by the moon, which at the very least doesn’t work for the reasons people say it does, but its status as a traditional planting technique makes me care less. Either way you’re planting it at an appropriate time. Their food content seems good, the introductions are short and to the point. They have growing guides for fruits, vegetables, flowers, and more.

National Center for Home Food Preservation: if you’re into canning or other methods of preserving food, this has safety tips and some recipes.

Plants For A Future: database of a bunch of plants with different uses. I would use this to see what’s out there and then find a different source with specific information on one plant you’re into. If you want to see what plants of specific types could grow in your area, it’s pretty handy. There’s sections on different uses of each plant, like how you can eat it, which is cool. However, it also has a section on medicinal uses, which is interesting historically, but as soon as the uses go beyond curing a stomachache I get concerned. This recommendation isn’t particularly relevant if you’re sticking to widely gardened foodstuffs, but I found it neat so it’s here.

I long to have a vegetable garden, homestead & cook all of my meals one day - but in trying to learn about the lifestyle I encounter a staggering amount of fatphobic/diet culture “WELLNESS” and “clean eating” crap. there’s a lot of supremacy in their attitude, almost as if saying “i’m smarter and better than everyone because I don’t eat ___.” I see creators who grow their own food because they claim that “the government is poisoning you!” the conspiracy nonsense is everywhere. the wellness to alt-right pipeline is real, y’all.

that being said, does anyone have any recommendations for resources on gardening, homesteading, and self-sustainability that aren’t fatphobic or woo-woo? it’s getting hard to avoid!