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dilatorywriting · 1 year

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Monster Mayhem: Lion's Pride [Part 3]

Gender Neutral Reader x Leona Kingscholar Word Count: 6.2k

Summary: Your new job as a Full Time Royal Therapist does not pay nearly as well as you'd like. Or, Leona is more of a problem child than he would ever admit, but you're surprisingly okay at dealing with that.

[PART 1][PART 2] [PART 3]

Sometimes you felt like you hardly knew what it meant to be a functional person, living a comfortable life on the fringes of society. So in comparison, trying to think of what it meant to be an actual prince, ruling over all of said society was something you literally could not comprehend no matter how hard you tried to wrap your head around it.

“If you’re a Prince, what were you doing in a hole?” you asked, because you had far too many questions and concerns, and this one at least seemed easy enough to address. And also because you were genuinely pretty curious.

The newly dubbed ‘Leona’ twitched against your back and you felt the low rumble of his snarl work its way from the depths of his gut all the way up through his chest and out his mouth.

“Holy shit,” Ace wheezed. “Screw this. I’m getting out of here before I wind up implicated as an accessory in your murder.”

And so your trusty friend abandoned you to the wolves lions?—darting away so quickly he always forget his bag, shoes, and everything else in the process.

You waved after him as he departed, knowing full well that he’d wind up stumbling back within the week, maybe two at most. He always did, no matter how much he complained about your Present Company. Plain old ‘murder’ was actually one of his more polite accusations. When he’d run into your Hunter friend the first time, Ace had gone on a wildly incoherent rant about how he was going to find your corpse strung up in a tree like some weird, ritual, sacrifice. And then that had devolved into something-something cannibalism or other. The visiting Hunter had just thrown his head back and laughed, positively enamored with the grisliness of it all. Ace had vanished for almost an entire month after that encounter, but he did come back—glaring up at you with a miserable pout like you were the one who’d gone and fucked off for thirty whole days.

Leona snorted and you felt the puff of breath against the back of your neck.

“Coward,” he grumbled, though he didn’t sound particularly displeased about your friend’s sudden departure.

“Fear lets us be brave,” you responded, wise as a sage. Or maybe an old frog in a puddle.

“Yeah?” he intoned, rolling his eyes. “And when’s that little rat ever been brave?”

“There’s always tomorrow,” you chirped, and that snort turned into something dangerously close to a chuckle. Which—gasp!—how dare such a pleasant sound fall from the lips of someone so obstinately determined to be otherwise! You grinned at the low tones of it, only for the snickering to cut off sharply in his throat once he’d realized what he was doing. And then of course he shoved you forward and out of his lap with a great amount of indignant snarling.

You laid there for a few minutes—face down in the sun-warmed grass and laughing quietly about just how ridiculous this stupid Lion was, before finally sitting up with a pleasant stretch. He could put on airs all he liked, you knew there was kernel of something far less angsty and murderous buried at the heart of him.

“So,” you hummed, lazily making your way back to your feet. “What exactly have I done to draw the realm’s Prince to my doorstep?” You squinted at him suspiciously. “You’re not here about the fairy gate thing, are you? Because that was actually an accident.”

“The what?” he frowned, brow pinched in confusion.

You waved him off. “Ah, nothing, nothing.”

Something in his jaw twitched, like now he was going to push the subject out of principle of you being shifty. But he just sighed and brought a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

“I need your help,” he said finally. Just as crabby as the first time he’d asked, if perhaps just a touch less imperious.

You arched a brow. “I think you’ve mentioned that already, yes.”

Silence.

The Lion stared you down with a slowly deepening scowl, and you stared back with a smile as placid and unmoved as the shallow pond you’d nearly drowned Ace in not an hour before.

“If I apologize, you’ll help me?” he asked after a long moment, the question turning sharp at the end on a bitten of growl.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” you hummed back and he crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said, with all the pleasantry of someone undergoing a root canal. And all the sincerity of Ace swearing that this was the last time he’d get caught evading the tax man, promise.

You sighed, feeling a bit cheated. But you hadn’t really stipulated anything beyond those two little words leaving his mouth, so if anything, that was on you.

“Alright,” you huffed. “What is it you need help with?”

The Lion glared at you suspiciously for a long moment—glowing eyes narrowed into slits and tail twitching back and forth like he was swatting flies. Finally, he sighed and lifted his hands out in front of him with a pointed flex.

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” he frowned sourly, wrists twisting to display the pointed claws tipping his fingers. “I’m not supposed to get stuck in between.”

Your eyes traced the fluffy tufts of his round ears, the black-tipped tail swishing irritably at his hind, and allowed yourself a melancholy sort of huff.

“But you look good like this,” you pointed out sadly. Because he really, truly, did. Leona without his squishy lion ears would just be… grumpy. Miserable, and angular, and angry. Nothing soft worth coddling at all.

“That’s not the point!” he snapped, baring his overlarge canines at you. There was a darker cast along his cheekbones that seemed to be making a valiant effort to crawl all the way up into his fringe. “And don’t fucking say that!”

You frowned. One second this stupid dick wanted to be praised to the Heavens and back! Practically swanning about, demanding you bow down and acknowledge his blatant superiority. But, oh no. Apparently your meager half-sentence masquerading as a compliment was too much for his delicate, princely, sensibilities.

“Fine,” you griped. “You’re ugly.”

He growled—low and rumbling—and if he was anymore of a cat you’d say you could see his hackles raising in indignation. But before he could launch into another vicious, verbal, evisceration of your person, you cleared your throat loudly in an attempt to get him back on track.

“What do you mean by ‘stuck in between?’”

He sneered down at you testily for a moment before reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose again and letting out a put-upon sort of sigh that was not at all indicative of the fact that he was the one asking you for help.

“The Shift. When you found me in that pit, I should have been able to Shift between that form and this one without issue,” he frowned, brow tugging down tight with something a bit more disquieted than his usual, flat, annoyance. “The iron was a problem, but once I was out of the trap, it should have been fine. I’ve dealt with cursed snares like this before, and the effects have never lingered as long as this one has.”

You blinked owlishly. That did sound… fairly unpleasant. And honestly, if you were in his position you’d also be at least a little concerned that something else was at play. But, still, all that being said—

“I’m sorry,” you frowned, more or less genuine. Perhaps leaning a bit harder into less.“But I don’t understand how that has anything to do with me.”

“You were down there with me,” he argued. “You dismantled the trap.”

Uh, yeah. By messing with bits that looked breakable until they broke. Not exactly a high-level intellectual pursuit.

You didn’t say that, of course. Because after a few days watching you scuttle about your homestead like a particularly vocal lizard in the dirt, you were sure he already thought you were stupid enough without you outright admitting to it. Nevertheless, the Lion observed your zip-lipped silence with an ever-deepening scowl.

“You took it apart,” he tried again, nearly a growl.

“Yes,” you said with a nod.

“You know how you did it,” he continued, firm. At your lack of affirmative, he pushed again. “You know. I watched you do it!”

You raised your hand nervously and made a little so-so tilting motion.

Anyone less refined would no doubt have had their head in their hands at this point, but Leona just curled his lip at you and looked like he was fighting valiantly not to put your own very silly head through a wall.

“It was charmed,” he spat. “Bound up with talismans, and cursed down to its very moldings. That isn’t something any random farmer could walk up and break.”

“Oh,” you blinked, taken aback, and struggled to recall if there had been anything so obviously enchanted about the trap you’d fiddled into bits. “Was it?”

And head had officially met hands. He ground his clawed fingers into his temples like you were a headache that with enough determination and massaging he may somehow be able to will away.

“Couldn’t you go just home if this is such a big problem?” you asked, still genuinely baffled at it all. “Get help from your family? I mean, you’re a Prin—”

“No,” he interrupted, emerald eyes gone glacier cold.

You frowned, as unimpressed by his prickliness as you usually were. But something in you was hesitant to prod at whatever it was that had managed to tug a feral rage so tightly across his face—like drawing a shade over a window until the entire home was cloaked in shadow, or slipping away behind a carved mask too heavy to ever wear comfortably. It was an expression so sharp and so bitter that if you hadn’t only just yesterday watched this stubborn man lounge about in the sun as your chickens hopped all over him like he was the world’s most carnivorous jungle gym, you wouldn’t ever have known that they could be the same person at all.

“Alright,” you shrugged, and some of that angry, hunched, defensiveness eased into confusion.

“Hah?” he frowned.

“Alright,” you said again. “We’ll figure it out here.” He glared over at you balefully, and you waved off the obvious retort on the tip of his tongue about something-something-you have no idea what you’re doing-something-something-dangerous risks and lifelong consequences-blablabla. “I have a friend who would know a lot more about those kinds of traps and talismans that I do. He could help, probably.”

“Probably?” he scoffed. Though when he rolled his eyes, they weren’t quite so hate filled—lids hooded with a familiar, begrudging sort of irritation rather than outright malice.

“He’s a bit of an enigma,” you explained—wiggling your fingers in a little, sparkly, dance to emphasize the, well, enigmatic part.

Another huff. But amidst that grumpy bellyaching, you watched those fluffy ears of his slowly perk back up atop his head, and his tail swish leisurely behind him. The Lion certainly didn’t look happy (but did he ever? So was that really a fair comparison?), but he definitely seemed like he’d thawed into something less ‘frigid dead of winter’ and more ‘unpleasantly nippy spring morning.’

“Weirder than you, herbivore?” he sniffed, looking down his nose at you and crossing his arms loosely over his chest. “I find that hard to believe.”

Normally you would too. But, well…

“He’s charming,” you chirped pleasantly, and Leona’s face twisted up like you’d served him a bowl of rancid yogurt.

That night you composed a letter to your dearest Hunter friend. You thanked him for bringing you the White Moor Stag, elaborated a bit on the new marinade you’d been experimenting with, and then ended the whole thing with a polite plea for his aid in deconstructing the mechanisms of a magical trap you’d encountered. You bribed one of your two carrier pigeons with some snacks and watched it fly off into the unknown with a little, cream-colored envelope tied to its foot. Message talismans were much simpler and far more convenient, but the Hunter always seemed to appreciate the personal touch of postal birds.

Leona glared at you from the window, and made some dramatic swipe at your pigeon like he meant to knock it out of the air. The poor bird tottered about like an overfilled water balloon—jiggling and wriggling in its roundness before eventually righting itself and continuing on into the sky with a warbled coo coo.

“Don’t be rude,” you huffed at him.

“I can’t believe you still won’t let me in,” he sneered from beneath the fluff of that blanket you’d gifted him. “I apologized.”

“Yes, but you actually have to mean it,” you explained, not unkindly, as he prowled just beyond the glass. “But we’re making progress!” you beamed. “That’s something! Maybe you’ll make it in here within the next five years, hmm?”

“Or I could just wipe out the entirety of your ridiculous dirt farm now,” he threatened, a bit of that sandy magic swirling sinisterly along his fingers.

“You certainly could, your highness,” you agreed easily. His lip curled unpleasantly, but that glowing, gritty, arcana faded away and he didn’t move from where he’d tucked himself up under the duvet.

After another solid fifteen minutes of his pissy glowering and barbed insults, you pointedly unclipped the ties on your curtains and let them fall shut so that his ridiculous pouting was hidden away behind the thin, cotton, mess of poorly stitched flowers and herbs.

(You did leave a nice dinner plate on the ledge before that, with extra portions of meat and a neatly frosted cookie for dessert. Because as much as your day had been a bit rough, you had a feeling his melancholy extended far beyond being left out in the dark for another evening.)

The next morning, your doddering pigeon returned with an elegantly bound scroll—all embellished with golden filagree and tied up in a neat, crimson, bow.

“Why does this freak call you ‘mon cher ami,’” Leona sniffed, tongue curling awkwardly over the unfamiliar words.

You sighed and debated snatching the letter back, but all that would probably culminate in was the paper in tatters and a smug beastman lording his superior letter-wrangling skills over your head like a trophy.

“It’s just one of his little ticks,” you explained with a shrug. “I told you—he’s charming.”

“Ah, yes,” Leona drawled, tracing a claw along the parchment’s edge with a soft shhhhhft. A raised, white, line cut across the paper’s surface like the beginnings of a wound. “Waxing poetic nonsense in a foreign language. Rambling on about all kinds of useless fucking garbage. Charming.”

“You,” you snipped, reaching out to smack at his tightening grip before he could rend the poor correspondence to bits, “are not one to talk about ‘charming.’”

“Oh?” he scoffed. He maneuvered around your tutting to hold the letter over your head. Typical. When you leaned forward to try and wrangle it back, Leona leaned in closer—eyes going hooded and lips curling into a smug little smirk that promised all sorts of trouble. “Haven’t had any complaints about that before. Who’d be saying otherwise?”

“The person you left stranded at the bottom of a pit, you inglorious oaf,” you griped. His ears immediately swiveled to pin flat against the top of his head, and you used the distraction of his indignation to finally snatch back your prize. “Besides,” you huffed, straightening out some of the new wrinkles. “Not very Prince-like, is it? A real prince would have swept in to save the idiot in distress. Sword drawn, banners flying,” you sighed, a bit too besotted with your own imaginings. “Why did you have to be such a dick, huh? Ruined my fantasies for the rest of my life.”

“And what?” Leona snapped. “Some rogue bastard sending you cursive garbage does it for you?”

“Better than being left for dead in a hole after saving their life,” you smiled—perfectly, poisonously, pleasant.

Leona rumbled something indiscernible under his breath and turned to glare petulantly off across your garden.

“Besides,” you hummed, looking over the letter. “There’s more important things. Like this—right here. Do you know what a self-bored stone is? He’s thinking maybe there was a process like that with the iron shackles. Or maybe something to do with seeping the components in herbs… Hmm…”

“Whatever,” Leona scoffed. “I’ll try whatever it takes to fix this shit.”

You clapped him amiably on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit, tête de noeud!”

“The fuck did you just call me?!”

“Poetic nonsense,” you chirped, and Leona looked half ready to drop you back into the hole where he’d found you.

The first attempt to aid the Lion Prince in his conundrum didn’t go particularly well.

You’d tried to work off of the whole ‘overlap with a self-bored stone’ theory, but all that really amounted to was you gesturing like an over-serious crossing guard for him to walk under every low hanging branch, every arch, beneath the stunted beams of the chicken coop. You dangled rocks from strings and waved around your little creations like slightly more dangerous pompoms.

Penelope clucked irritably when one of the pebbles fell with a plunk into her nest, and Leona frowned up at you from where the wayward chicken had firmly situated herself in his lap.

“How was any of that supposed to help?”

You drew a blank and promised to try something new tomorrow.

The next day you tried herbs. The Hunter had listed off quite a few that were known to cause lingering issues with magical creatures, and you harvested the lot of them from your garden with ease. You held them up to Leona’s face one by one, brow furrowed in concentration, as you waited for… something.

“How is this any better than the rocks?” he complained.

You pushed the bright, butter-yellow, blossoms of some Saint John’s Wort under his nose until he sneezed and shoved you away with a slew of indignant threats to your person.

The following few days were spent perusing your meager library. You carted every book you owned on magic, and binding rituals, and rune smithing out into the yard. Leona looked over at the slowly growing pile of tomes with a truly unimpressed scowl.

“You could have just invited me inside,” he griped, rolling his eyes. He was splayed out in the grass at your side, his head tossed lazily across your lap after he’d complained that he needed at least some leverage to see what you were trying to read.

“Nice try,” you hummed, reaching for your page of hastily scribbled notes. “But you’re not getting off without a genuine apology that easy.”

A week passed in this fashion, with you attempting to string together more and more ludicrous ideas—throwing everything you had at the wall and hoping something, anything, would stick. But Leona’s ears stayed tufted and round. That tail seemed to only grow more twitchy, his claws longer and sharper.

You sent the Hunter another letter and waited anxiously for a reply. When it arrived the next morning, Leona snatched it from your pigeon before you’d even made it out your front door. It was a miserable sort of day—pouring rain and with nothing but the grey cloud cover overhead to color the world.

He read it over once, twice, before dropping it to the ground. You could see the tendons twitching along his jaw, could practically hear his molars grinding in his frustration.

You plucked the note from the grass and looked it over carefully.

‘Mon ami, while I am loathe to address this, perhaps it is not the make of this trap at all that is causing such a vexation? Is there any chance that rather than this being a lingering malady, that this friend of yours was simply unable to overcome the initial curse in the first place?’

You glanced back up at Leona, who was intermittently clenching his fists at his sides. You could see the harsh indentations from where his claws were digging into the skin of his palms.

‘Sometimes such things just happen, je crains. The flesh may be willing, but often the spirit is weak. You mentioned this Roi du Leon has a powerful family he may turn to for assistance. Certainly one of them may be strong enough to overcome this curse for him, even if he perhaps is not.’

“Of course it’s all because I’m a fuck up,” Leona snarled. Some of that spitting, sandy, magic of his seeped into the air. It bit at the rain like an overeager dog. You could see it dancing along his skin—fighting to pull his features one way or another.

“He didn’t say that,” you pointed out gently. “And even if you were, there’s nothing wrong with needing help sometimes. Your family—"

“—Would rather I keeled over dead and stopped sullying my brother’s perfect fucking reputation!” he snapped. “Heir to the King’s Roar,” he scoffed. “Stupid. I was never going to be a king to begin with. And even if I had been born first, they would have deposed me to put their flawless, favorite, golden boy on the throne anyways.”

That... That was a lot. You stared at the pacing Lion with wide eyes—unsure how to help, unsure if any attempts to do so would only make this worse. This was—this was so above your ‘happy, homey, hermit’ paygrade.

“Of course this is all because of me,” he hissed, that roiling, angry, arcana coiling around him like curdled milk. The pupils in his eyes flickered oddly from round to thin-cut, hard, lines. Beastly. “Of course it was because I wasn’t good enough.”

“Leona,” you tried, as gentle as you could be.

The Prince threw his head back and laughed. And laughed, and laughed.

“I should have known!” he cackled, borderline hysterical. “I should have fucking known!”

“Leona—” you tried again, reaching out a hand.

Only to be immediately knocked on your ass by an explosion of magic.

You’d heard of self-destruction—of implosion. The arcane wonders of the world were a wily and unyielding mistress. While creatures like Leona who were so naturally steeped in ancient magics and sorcery could control that beast more adeptly than some little mortal like you, it didn’t make them any less susceptible to its dangers. If anything, they had it worse. It was like sitting in a shallow stream versus wading out into a roaring ocean. So much more opportunity, such a higher aptitude for greatness, but far too easy to drown beneath the churning tides of it all.

The inky, geometric, swirls along his arms pulsed like a heartbeat. They crawled along his skin and traced black patterns into his veins. Even you could feel the horrible, dark, stickiness of it—as the magic ate him alive. His face twisted back and forth between human and animal, and you watched him contort and snarl under the weight of it before turning on you with a vicious roar.

Uh oh.

The first wave of magic seared the ground, leaving nothing but strange, grey, sand in its wake. The more he snapped and clawed wildly at anything and everything, the more that dusty desert spread. You managed to hop out of the way of most of it—sparing a single, sad, thought for all the poor plants you’d worked so hard to cultivate dying a miserable, grainy, death.

The next arc of magic shot straight from his clawed fingers, and it managed to catch the flesh of your forearm. It was sharper than any dagger or sword that you’d ever had the pleasure of accidentally nicking yourself with, and it tore its way down your arm like a raging beast, leaving an eerie, tacky, bubbling mess in its wake. And ouch did it hurt—like someone was taking a fistful of coarse sand and rubbing it into the open wound. You ground your teeth against the strange, gnawing, sensation and hastily wrapped a bit of torn fabric around the weeping gash to keep it a bit more contained. You waited for the worst of it to pass, for that initial bite to fade into a more manageable throb. But it didn’t. It just got sharper and tighter, hotter and hotter. For a moment it felt like your skin was crackling—like firewood popping and splitting beneath the weight of a blaze. From across the field, Leona made a noise like a hurricane given voice, and you bit back a groan.

‘Oh come on,’ you hissed to yourself. ‘Not now, please.’

And while you’d been mostly referring to the Lion losing another brick of his sanity fort, your wound seemed to pulse at the command—a sensation not unlike the soft drone of the wards carved deep into the support beams of your dilapidated home, and an impression of words tingling along your nerves without any real shape or form. ‘Alright. Later then.’ Like a breath of wind along your fingertips. That pulsing doubled back, and the wrap you’d hurriedly tied around your forearm hummed low with gentle arcana.

And then the cracking stopped. Just like that. Like it’d given up on eating you alive and decided to head home early for the day.

Huh, you though a bit dazedly, before hurriedly ducking out of the way of another swipe.

You clutched your still smarting but at least now functional arm to your chest, and Leona turned on you and your ethereal booboo with a raging snarl. But then that glowing glare caught on the blood trailing down towards your wrist in too dark, too thick, rivulets and his eyes went wide. It wasn’t much, but the strange bought of shock rocketing through him gave you a handful of seconds of ceasefire. You reached into your pocket with your uninjured hand and pulled out a thick bit of cardstock. This was supposed to be for emergencies, goddamn it! And you’d spent so much money on this stupid little thing! And—

You shook off the mildly delusional complaints bogging down your brain and unfolded the paper between your fingers. The sigils inked into it hummed against your skin, and the rain sluffed off its face like the cold and the damp were no bother at all.

“Fucking—” you flung the talisman at your ridiculous, rampaging, guest. It fluttered like the beat of a hawk’s wings and dove towards him with just as much vicious precision. “GO TO SLEEP!”

The enchantment smacked into his face with an echoing THUNK and you watched those too-bright eyes of his roll up into his head as he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

With the main source of all the Magical Warfare knocked unconscious, most of the miasma began to disperse—like dust caught up in a gale. The rain washed away the rest. It slid into the mud and seeped back into the earth. The plants and animals seemed to give a collective sigh, and some of your more courageous chickens even started to venture in close to peck at the leftover destruction.

You approached the felled Prince hesitantly. The talisman had been meant for subduing an enemy with a more human constitution, so you doubted it would keep him down for very long.

“Hey,” you grouched, poking his side. He twitched a bit but didn’t move otherwise. “Hey, asshole,” you tried again. Still, nothing. Uh oh.

You reached down to wedge an arm under him and hoist him upright. The singed skin of your forearm brushed along his jaw as you attempted to maneuver his bulk, and his nose twitched sharply at whatever scent was trapped in the dark, cracking, gash there. His brow scrunched up like you’d just doused him in spoiled milk, so naturally you went about waving your wounded flesh beneath his nostrils like the world’s strangest smelling salts.

After a moment he blinked back awake, face twisted up into the most properly disgruntled mien of distaste that you’d ever seen on a person who’d only just barely managed to claw their way back into the world of the living.

“Herbivore,” he rumbled, still looking more than a bit dazed.

Good enough.

You manhandled him back onto his feet as best you could—turning yourself into an impromptu crutch to try and get him mobile again. The sand shifted and sank beneath your heels, making dragging his ridiculous, dramatic, ass even more of a challenge. As you hauled him towards your cottage, you complained to him in earnest. Every little irritation under the sun. Half because you’d probably never have another opportunity to bitch at him so thoroughly without getting your own earful of grievances in return, half to keep him conscious—keep him focused on staying here. With you. And not… Wherever it was he’d gone in those moments of delirium.

“I still don’t get why you call me that,” you griped, readjusting your grip on him when he’d started to slide down to the point his nose had buried itself against your collarbone. “Herbivore. I’ve cooked so much meat for you since you decided to crash here. Talked about how I prepare it, and the flavors I experiment with—I literally gave you some from my own sandwich when we first met! That I ate the rest of! In front of you!—”

When you finally herded him over the threshold and into your little cottage, the wards and their protection slipped around him like the soft current of a stream. You hardly even noticed the way the old magics ruffled his hair—and that was only because you were actively looking, half convinced the house was still about to toss up an invisible barrier and send him sprawling back into the dirt.

Leona wobbled on his feet, and his eyes were still too far away and grey.

You grabbed him by the ear and maneuvered his too-tall self into one of your rickety kitchen chairs. The wood groaned under the sudden press of his dead weight, but it didn’t collapse beneath him so it wasn’t worth fussing over. Once you were certain he wasn’t about to fold over sideways and crumple to the ground (or at least, that he was angled enough over a rug that he wasn’t going to crack his head on the stone floor), you rushed off to your bookcases and shelves and began hurriedly rumaging through your collection of nonsense.

The charms, the charms. Where were your emergency charms?! You’d thought you left them right there on the—Ah! There we go.

You pulled the raggedy binder from its place on the shelf, blew away the coating of dust that had settled over the top of it, and returned to your patient.

You flipped open the worn leather hooks and began sorting through the dozens upon dozens of sheets of enchanted parchment within. They were unimpressive—just small, rectangular, bits of faded paper inlaid with the softest kinds of magic. Not meant for much more than coaxing warmth into chilly limbs or placing a soft kiss over a scraped knee. But medicines were medicines—whether arcane in origin or otherwise. If you—if you just doused him in the things, that would probably work. Right? Of course it would. That made perfect sense.

So you slapped the first talisman square in the middle of his forehead. Leona swayed at the wet SMACK of the paper gluing itself to his soaked-through skin, but aside from the faintest, startled, widening of his eyes, he didn’t do anything else to complain. So you stuck the next charm to his cheek, and then another on the opposite one too.

“Magic overuse is dangerous,” you chastised as you went about layering a veritable novel’s worth of pasty, paper, enchantments up his arms. The soft spells worked their way into his skin, and you watched those twisting, black, shapes skitter back up towards where they’d once sat peacefully curled around his bicep. “Are you trying to kill yourself, hah?!”

Instead of snapping back at you like normal, he just sort of… sat there. Accepting your angry accusations in frosty silence. He absolutely looked like a cat that you’d fished out of a bag in the river. Pathetic, and sad, and droopy. And… quiet. So, very, quiet. You frowned, because as much as you didn’t particularly enjoy being insulted every minute of the day, the Lion’s biting little remarks had become… familiar, at the very least. Even if they weren’t entirely pleasant. Even if he was far from pleasant.

The dampness on his skin was starting to curl the edges of your talismans, and you reached forward with a huff to at least pull the freezing, soaked-through, vest off his shoulders. The leather jacket landed with a wet plap on the stone floor, a cold puddle already pooling around all its stupidly intricate, embroidered, edges. Something fluttered out of one of the open pockets—small, and off white, and crinkled. You stepped over the whole mess to retrieve a pile of towels and didn’t give it a second thought.

“Make a mess of my home, why don’t you,” you complained, dropping one of the towels over the entirety of his head before reaching forward to start drying him off with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. “Drip all over the floors I just mopped, why don’t you. Be emotionally constipated and almost turn my whole yard into a sand pit, why don’t you—”

A hand reached out to snag your wrist, and you let him pull you away from your attempts to rub all that stupidly thick hair straight off his head.

From beneath the curtain of the cotton towel, you could see Leona glaring at the long, dark, scratch curling along your forearm. It certainly wasn’t… nice to look at. The gymnastics of getting him into your cottage had managed to displace the impromptu bandage, so the whole of it was just there. Bruised, and dark, and odd looking. But ugly or not, it was hardly bleeding or anything anymore! And he was the one who had almost just self-destructed in your front yard!

‘Think of the accusations!’ you wanted to wail. ‘Can you imagine the garbage I would have to deal with if I wound up with a dead royal fertilizing my garden?! No thank you!’

But before you could complain about his fussing, his claws flexed against the soft skin of your palm and you saw the muscles along his forearm tense—like he was fighting to keep still.

“You should be dead,” he muttered, terse.

You huffed. “Look, I know you think humans are all sorts of pathetic, but I’m not that—”

“You should be dead,” he repeated, sounding as if the words had to tear their way out of his throat—scraping like shards of glass all the way up.

You stared at his dark eyes and dripping bangs—the shadows playing across his cheeks and the strange, hollow, wrongness that had settled over all of him. With a heavy sigh you plopped yourself down into the chair across from his and dragged a handful of the leftover charms your way. Pointedly, you took one and slapped it over the wound. And then another.

“See?” you said, flexing your wrist in his grip to put the creeping, black, cut on display. The talismans glowed softly against your skin and the lingering whisps of darkness licking at the the injury began to fade. “All better. Not something a dead person would say at all.”

Leona frowned, but at least it looked a bit more annoyed than outright bleak. And besides, frowns were better than whatever that stoic, expressionless, numbness had been.

“Though I appreciate your concern,” you grinned, pointedly sharp and prodding. Like a toddler standing by with a stick, hoping to poke out a reaction. “Truly, whatever would I do without the Great Lord Lion there to fret over me?”

But instead of the acidic ‘I wasn’t fucking worried,’ that you were expecting, or even a more muted grumble of dissent, Leona’s brow just pinched in displeasure and your awkward attempts at teasing faded into terse silence.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, almost too quiet to hear—his head low and eyes lower.

You sighed and twisted your wrist around to pat at his hand. There was the faintest tremor in his fingers and you tangled your own between them to give him something to squeeze, something to hide the shiver of lingering malaise that he would no doubt deny with his dying breath. You observed the stern, tight, expression warping his otherwise handsome face—the miserable, puckered, angle of his mouth and the way the emerald of his eyes was cut through with a shadow of genuine remorse. You reached out with your other hand to pet at his soft, round ears. They squished flat beneath your palm and your lips twitched up into a fond, little smile. Leona tipped his chin just enough to glower at you from beneath his bangs with no real heat, and you sighed and gave him one more pat for good measure.

“You’re forgiven.”

TAG LIST [CLOSED]

@marvelous-maxi, @ilikefanfics4, @jackalope08, @crocwork-clockodile, @cosmicobubisi, @buttplugs-stuff, @pomefleur, @decemebercircus, @ailynyan, @genzombie, @meliade-ot, @sunlightocean, @theofficialantitherapist, @hermiona18, @sailorenthusiast, @fantasy-dating-sim-trash, @thefiasco-onyourblock, @insideous-beez, @its-clockwork-princess

@novaloptr, @imlost-sendhelp, @matcha-berry @preciosayorgullosa @whoretaglia, @kookygirlwholikescookiesandcoke, @nanauedorian, @trixeraptops, @voxnipop, @starkling25, @thedum1, @horcrux-alchemist, @sleepykitty21, @apathicace, @instantregret101, @nekanecorvus, @looney-mori, @re-ducing, @my2phetaliaheadcanons, @naughtybodypillow, @rendy-a, @carmen-404, @candy284, @thealiennamedterry, @their-name-is-fake, @huetolog, @glacticrose, @seraphinariddle, @rabioa, @sn00zl4x, @dreasimping, @jeidoreech, @ai-dev, @galaxyshine24-7, @fatally-incorrect, @juulranch, @camrastuff, @nocteetdie, @stargaryengirl, @hxjikonn, @bloomsapphire

#twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #Monster Mayhem #My Writing #Twst Fantasy AU #Leona Kingscholar x Reader #Leona x Reader #Leona x Yuu #Skin-Changer Leona #Ace Trappola #Rook Hunt #Monster Mayhem Leona Part 3

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petrichor-han · 2 months

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ALSO WAIT I HAVE ANOTHER IDEA i'm curious to know ur softest soft thots about coryo bc i feel like that'll be a challenge and i wanna see what you come up with. like he'd be so subtle with it you'd barely notice if you weren't paying attention but i am delusional enough to believe i could fix him (or make him worse) 💋

WC | 1.7k

WARNINGS | explicit language, kissing, (slightly) toxic relationship

A/N | OHOHO OKAY I HAVE THOUGHTS!! this kinda turned into “soft (and sorta angsty thoughts bc he has trauma) in a relationship with coryo” my bad :/ (but nothing too sad there’s happy endings) and this is also broken up into 3 sections because i think he’d react kinda differently depending on which era he’s in (academy, peacekeeper, president) <33 tysm for sending in requests bae, working on the other ones now!! (and as for everyone else seeing this, my requests are open until JULY 16!! please send one in if you're interested <3)

REQUEST! | EVENT MASTERLIST

ACADEMY

academy!coryo is still quite shy and hesitant (in comparison to his other eras), especially when it comes to something like romance—something he doesn’t have much experience in at all.

he likes to act all coy and smug, especially in the beginning of the relationship. this is a front that he puts up to hide his insecurities; from his lack of romantic experience to the secrets hidden inside the walls of his penthouse.

in the beginning, you’d come to him. after all, he’s your boyfriend. even if he wasn’t much for PDA, he’d never turn down a hand hold or push you away if you stood to close to him—though that was about his limit.

in private however, he’d let you do whatever you wanted. he secretly loved all of the kisses and cuddles even if he’d never admit it—even if he’d never show it. every time you tried to be affectionate with him, he’d stiffen slightly and stop any sort of reciprocation immediately.

naturally, this hurt your feelings, so you stopped. he noticed immediately, realizing that instead of sitting in his lap and playing with his hair you elected to simply sit beside him, with a few inches of space between the two of you.

he’d feel fear creeping into his veins almost immediately, thinking that this means you’re going to leave him, and it’d all be his fault for being unable to receive affection.

however, coriolanus is also a stubborn man. he doesn’t want to budge, he doesn’t want to be the one reaching out to you, even if that’s how a healthy relationship works—mutual communication.

instead, he starts doing little things for you, trying to show you affection through ways other than more traditional ones like physical touch or words of affirmation—the ones that you tended to resort to when it came to him.

he starts bringing you little gifts, little things that he could just place in your hands with a hesitant kiss to the forehead. a tiny folded paper crane, a four leaf clover, a shiny hair clip—the last one you’re almost sure once belonged to tigris or grandma’am.

the gifts are never cheap; they’re simple. after all, you’re a girl that deserves the best, and even though coriolanus can’t afford the most luxurious trinkets for you, he makes sure that the ones he does gift you are up to par. he’d never let his lover be spotted wearing something cheap, tacky, or meaningless.

he’s also very adept at picking up on your emotions, and he uses this to time his gifts to you precisely. for example, when you’re having a bad day, he’ll surprise you with a gift, trying to make you feel better. he might not be the best at comforting you or offering kind advice, but he lends a listening ear, a shoulder to lean on, and a little extra something that he knows you’ll love.

once you start showing him affection again, he allows himself to enjoy it. instead of pulling away when you kiss him on the cheek, he leans closer. when you drape your legs over his lap, he places a hand on your thigh instead of stiffening up and avoiding eye contact.

it might be subtle, but you can tell that he really means it—and he really cares about you, despite his aloof exterior.

PEACEKEEPER

peacekeeper!coryo is still quite similar to academy!coryo in the sense that he tries to make things up with simple little gifts instead of talking things out or expressing his emotions more outwardly, but the biggest difference is his attitude about it.

while academy!coryo might have come off as cold, he really didn’t mean it—really, his aloofness was due to his fear and lack of experience. however, peacekeeper!coryo is cold—and he means it.

he doesn’t have time for anything completely serious, so he keeps you on the side. however, you’re well aware of this, and this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t treat you well—he’s still a gentleman, after all. he wasn’t raised to disrespect women like that.

your time together mainly consists of wandering around the forest together (the only place in the district that you can get any privacy) or the barracks, when the other peacekeepers are out. the time in the barracks is rare, as he has to sneak away from training or whatever activity they have planned in order to come see you, so a majority of your rendezvous take place in the forest.

this doesn’t stop him from making the most of the situation, however. the two of you could sit in a field bordering the forest and just talk for hours. no one understands him the way you do, and you feel similarly.

he never tells you the truth about his past, but he doesn’t lie either—he settles for something in between, something that makes him appear better than he really is. he wants you to think highly of him, and the bitter truth gnaws at him as long as the two of you are together.

in return, you’re so honest with him that it almost hurts his heart. you tell him about your family, your friends, how scared you are every time the hunger games come around again, not only for yourself but for everyone around you. you might not be a perfect person, but you don’t want to see unnecessary suffering either—something that sets you quite far apart from coriolanus.

often, he’ll lay your head in your lap as you tell him a story or talk about something mundane in your everyday life—he finds your “boring” stories just as fascinating as the fairy tales that you can recite by heart—and listen quietly as his hands search the dewy grass below for four leaf clovers, which he will place in the palm of your hand gently with a rare shy smile.

the smile will disappear every time there’s the threat of someone else seeing the two of you, and it won’t appear again for days.

there’s nothing he fears more than being caught with the exact kind of person that he claims to hate.

every now and then he’ll drop by your place, making sure to peek around the corner and check for any nosy fellow peacekeepers. he never stays for long and never accepts a cup of tea, but will begrudgingly take a small box of baked goods from you on the way out, even though he insists he could get “something way better” at the bakery down the road.

the next time you see him again after give him the baked goods, he will tell you that they were really good through a mumbled, sheepish voice.

PRESIDENT

president!coryo has it all—power, riches, fame, and you. you’re a picture perfect spouse for him, and you definitely appear as so in the media, which he admires deeply.

even if the marriage were arranged, he has to admit to himself that there’s no better candidate for his spouse. your performance has enticed him, and he’s beginning to truly feel things for you. it’s changed him—and now he has the resources to spoil you as much as he wants to.

he gives you any and everything you want, but he takes it away as soon as you upset him. this doesn’t happen often, but whenever you do something that he finds to be less than acceptable, your lovely things disappear as soon as you get them.

he insists that this is how he shows affection, by training you to be better. not for him, but for yourself.

in reality, it’s very obvious to you that this is some sort of power play—not his real affection.

his real affection comes out once in a blue moon, when he’s feeling especially vulnerable. he’s yet to truly open up to you about his past, rather, electing to be vague about certain things so that you can’t piece everything together.

when he’s in such a mood, he won’t beg for attention from you, but the signs are there. you can feel his intense, icy stare from across the room, burning into you as he wordlessly begs for you to come to him, to coddle him and treat him kinder than he deserves.

he’s slightly more touchy, his hands lingering on you every chance he gets. his fingers will brush against yours as you hand him a teacup and saucer, and he’ll immediately meet your gaze, his brow furrowed as if he were incredibly desperate. then he’ll look away, clearing his throat and pulling away. he’ll act like you didn’t see his slip-up, his moment of weakness—his humanness.

when you pick up on the little things, you can’t help but stare at him with your heart aching—how dreadful it must be to have so much weighing on you. perhaps he isn’t the perfect husband, but he’s far from the worst. you feel the urge to comfort him, so you do. you gently lay beside him in bed, wrapping your arms around him and pressing your lips to the soft skin of his neck. he won’t say anything, but he’ll lean into your touch, letting out the softest, quietest sigh of relief and pleasure as your lips dance across his skin.

alternatively, when you’re having a bad day is when he likes to shower you with gifts. he uses them to reward your good behavior as well as to comfort you when you’re down. anything you mention is there within your grasp with a snap of his fingers.

he doesn’t say anything too heartfelt, choosing a more subtle “you mentioned this, so I got it for you. hope you feel better” kind of vibe instead.

but this is still touching, as it means that he’s really listening to you whenever you’re sitting with him and talking his ear off about whatever fun new thing you’ve seen that you want to try.

coriolanus has never been one to show his emotions outwardly. he’s not much for long love letters or proclamations of love. but he knows how to find alternatives to show that he cares about you, in small ways that you almost take for granted until they’re taken from you.

#coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow smut #coryo x reader #coriolanus fanfiction #coriolanus snow #the hunger games #thg fanfiction #thg smut #coriolanus x reader

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incorrect-fnaf-quotes · 5 months

Text

A bunch of things being thrown around involving the Game AU that I wanted to mention? Yes. Yes indeed. :) @universewolfpup

RXQ/Shadow Bonnie is basically like... a character that one of the villains/bosses made at some point, hoping that they would help with their plans.

...Though the villain/boss was quickly proven wrong. Very quickly. Because RXQ was genuinely just like: “No.” and left, and eventually joined the team (Freddy, Crimson, etc).

Earlier, I was basically like: “What would Jack-O-Bonnie sound like?” and right now, I’ve just kind of settled on King Andrias’s VA from Amphibia. Might change, might not.

Jack-O was the first one who actually happened to find Crimson once she arrived. No matter if he actually had been or not, though, Crimson still becomes attached to him quite quickly.

There’s... just so many father-daughter things that I’m imagining with these two. And just little things here and there. He’s a decent singer, and will occasionally sing her lullabies.

Crimson just... absolutely doesn’t know how she’s supposed to get out of the game. She assumes, for a short time, that it’ll happen when she wins... but she has no idea.

And, even then, as she spends more time there, she honestly doesn’t really want to leave all that much, and is kind of starting to dread the eventual day. But, she knows she has to go.

Speaking of her being in and out of the game: In a previous post, I (think) I mentioned how her consciousness gets sent into the Game Avatar, while her body remains, and is simply unconscious/in a coma.

By the very end of it—when she does go back, her body has basically been like that for a couple of months at that point.

There would be game-overs that could be experienced—but they technically aren’t death ones. So it’s not like Crimson would repeatedly deal with that happening.

Instead, if she and the others were in a fight, and they all lost, they’d basically faint, and wake back up somewhere else (like Pokemon? There’s other comparisons.)

It doesn’t stop her from being anxious during battles, though. As also mentioned before, Crimson can see a lot of the stuff—text boxes, health, etc. So, when one keeps getting low... she keeps getting scared.

Mangle wasn’t torn apart by kids here or anything. But, for quite some time, she’s still sort of hesitant around Crimson—it just takes some time.

Crimson likes to get piggyback rides from Jack-O.

Whenever she does eventually leave, I keep comparing it to the endings of the Mystery Dungeon games—it’s angsty, but there’s still way more to it. She never returns.

Except for a smaller AU of this AU—where she does, and there’s less angst. She just sticks around 👍. Happy times, I guess.

While the other characters, in battle and everything, do have moves to use, Crimson doesn’t. At least, not immediately. So, she focuses on healing them with the items she has.

She does eventually start calling Jack-O “Dad.”

...This was a lot—anyways, I think that’s it. It’s late.

#Not a quote #Game AU #FNaF AU #Crimson #FNaF OC #There’s still a lot more though #I probably will eventually start doing fics for this—there’s a ton of ideas in my brain #The first time Jack-O goes down in a sort of battle (after not being healed/etc). She PANICS #Save tag #Jack-O-Bonnie #Mangle #RXQ/Shadow Bonnie #I imagine that she has her *own* text boxes and stuff that she can see as well #Eventually she gets used to it all or just continues trying to ignore it all #But for a while she’s definitely constantly messing with the stuff—poking at the text boxes/etc #And nobody else understands what she’s doing since they can’t see it #FNaF #I can answer anything

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a-dauntless-daffodil · 4 months

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I curse you for this angsty thought but

Combining spear baby AU and Mortal Vaggie AU. When an exorcist is killed, they die like normal. But when they die of old age...they change back into whatever weapon they were, ready to start the cycle over.

Even more painful if that weapon would always look like vaggie, but...none of the memories.

ok FINALLY i can get this out of my head, strap in-

Spear child AU Vaggie finds out that even if SHE can't hold her kid without cursing them with memories of blood and every time she used them to kill- at least her kid can hug HER (after a lot of coaching for both them from Charlie) without any murder memories for the kid...

but Vaggie remembers, suddenly, being the weapon of the Exorcist her spear was before that heaven born woman hit the end of her lifespan

Vaggie remembers the kill that turned HER, Vaggie, from a weapon to person, her wielder's final words, an old Exorcist proudly using the last of her strength for one last Extermination day, refusing to fade out quietly up in heaven- struggling to hit that unspoken quota- enough Sinner's killed and enough demonic energy soaked up and purified into a NEW soldier of heaven, a soldier to replace the her as she crumbles into ash and that first moment of life as new born Vaggie instinctively caught the spear as it fell-

in the Mortal Vaggie AU, imagine her horror realizing she will BE a weapon again after death-

(no matter how much she wanted to be Charlie's armor in life. She's an Exorcist. She was made to kill)

unless she's killed before then, violently, while she's still herself.

And she can't ask anyone to do that- Charlie, her friends- (her spear kid??) she doesn't WANT one SECEOND less time with them than she can get, will NEVER stop fighting for her life with them

but it's terrifying, thinking how someone ELSE might pick her up afterwards... the husk she came from (no personality traits are passed down between incarnations) (the only memories an new Exorcist is born with are the deaths that fanned the fames of their new battle forged lives) an inert tool, unable to stop herself from being used to hurt people

the weapon left behind by her natural death will still be PART of her. And she doesn't want any part of her to go back to being what she was. She never wants to be a weapon like that again, blindly used to hurt and kill and wipe souls from existence while they run screaming

she has to keep telling Charlie- No. She doesn't remember anything from the incarnations before her

no there isn't... isn't any chance of her coming back. Not as herself.

Charlie and that hopeless desperate wish-

(what are a few more thousand dead, really? In the timescale of heaven and hell and all creation, in comparison how many have already died, when weighed against all the GOOD Vaggie has done and still wants to do-)

(all the pain Charlie doesn't want to face in losing her)

Vaggie asks for her weapon form to be destroyed after her time runs out

she begs Charlie to promise her-

Destroy her, it, melt it with hellfire, or re-forge her weapon self into something harmless- she wouldn't mind being a shield, if there's enough metal in her weapon form for that. She would love the thought of still being able to protect the people she loves

that might be to hard (emotionally) or not practical, physically speaking, and that's fine too. Just. Don't let her stay a weapon

Vaggie, getting older, feeling her age long before the other Exorcists will because she refuses to go back to heaven, can't stomach the idea of wasting one moment of her life up there or worse- fading out there far away from Charlie

She makes Charlie SWEAR to unmake whatever's left of her. So NO part of her can EVER be used as a mindless weapon again

and Charlie promises.... and Charlie....

breaks the promise

(her one worst sin will always be reckless Hope, all consuming Love) she incorporates Vaggie's weapon into her own trident instead, and sure she doesn't go OUT of her way to kill with it-

she doesn't hold back either, whenever the time comes

their daughter was born from a mix of sinners deaths, mixed, balanced, purified by the angels Vaggie killed later

Their daughter is getting older too- not as fast as Vaggie was- more divine energy stored up in her, gotten direct from the source instead of just used to to transform the power of hell into something heaven could use- but she IS still aging, and faster than Charlie is

if this is just "how things work" then Charlie going to have to watch her daughter die too someday. If she isn't killed, she'll outlive her child.

She can't.

She can't hide behind a shield apologizing anymore, Vaggie's not here to be the one who stabs attacking angels so they stay DOWN- Vaggie is dead and if it's forever then their daughter will follow her

Charlie has to do it, for both of them. And the hotel. She has to kill. It's just practical, just self defense, just a little not-quite lie about what she did with Vaggie's weapon-

(it was damaged. Chipped in a small but noticeable way)

(her missing eye-?)

And if part of Charlie keeps count while this desperate little hope flutters at the back of her mind, wondering if maybe... just maybe....

no, though

One day she finds herself suddenly holding the hand of a confused and bloody but ready to fight Exorcist in the middle of a battle, and it's not. Vaggie.

They know how to kill. They don't know who to be killing

(hellborn and sinners and angels, Charlie's had to stop so many people, wondering- worrying- if that would help or hurt the chances of Vaggie ever-)

The new Exorcist attacks everything in sight

Charlie's friends, the other Exorcists, Sinners, it's all she can remember, blood in red and glowing gold-

not Charlie, Charlie is familiar (no but not like THAT) the hand she woke holding and caught her when she staggered, band new to being able to move on her own, arms and legs and wings and one eye missing

Charlie's the one who grabs her mid attack and stops her with a hug that'd break a sinner's back-

Charlie, wiping away the blood on this stranger's confused face, tracing that scarred and empty eye she knows SO well and whispering a name with so much HOPE

(not seeing the horror on her friend's faces, the devastated shock from her daughter)

It's not Vaggie.

Even if she looks exactly like her, the answering twist of her face is new and she does something Vaggie never did- she pulls away, looks away, looks at the Exorcists all stopped and grinning (people like her, the same wings, black and white and powerful with every feather clearly marked with purpose)

a bell tolls and the Exorcists retreat back towards a gate in the sky like a burning wheel of light, matching the far off spheres of heaven, and the new Exorcist flares her wings to follow them-

Charlie stops her, that first time. Desperate. Still hopeful. Maybe Vaggie just needs time to remember...?

Charlie doesn't stop her later

it's the best option, really, even if it means being as alone as she was before meeting Vaggie

more alone than that, even. back then she didn't have so many friends avoiding her and her... "thing"... she didn't have a daughter moving out of the pride ring altogether to get away from her. Back then she could tell herself it was only her parents separation that left alienated her dad from her, instead of Lucifer being torn between his daughter and his grandchild. She hadn't known what it was like to have a partner, before Vaggie, and now without her she doesn't know how to live without one

she knows she shouldn't have done this. She shouldn't call the woman by her dead wife's name or keep showing her bits of a life that'd never been hers

so Charlie makes a promise, again. And keeps it this time. She talks to heaven, finds a way to get the new Exorcist up there-

(SHE PROMISED VAGGIE SHE PROMISED HER)

-even though Vaggie wouldn't want that. Not a weapon. Not again.

(vaggie would have asked her to kill the new exorcist instead)

Charlie knows it even a she lets the Exorcist with Vaggie's face and voice and missing eye fly away, off through the portal to a life Vaggie wouldn't have wanted any part in....

but if it's not Vaggie, then it's the stranger's life now. Hers to choose

(a nice thought to hide behind. In no world can Charlie destroy any part of what was once the woman she loved)

And if maybe this stranger IS in some small way Vaggie... maybe... maybe THIS will help her remember. Maybe pain will do what Charlie's soft words and hands couldn't do

Up in heaven though...

a scarred Exorcist is a damaged weapon, is a weaken one. This Exorcist has killed sinners and hellborn and ANGELS, she knows the taste of divine blood

She looks at the angels around her the way her sisters look at demons down in hell. As prey

Lute notices

Lute doesn't trust her with a weapon, doesn't trust her down in hell. Lute remembers the feel of the spear at her throat- and that woman is GONE, but- this one came from hell. Came from the Morningstar demon bitch. Can't be trusted not to be tainted by all that

The new exorcist gets put on spy duty instead. Go work for Emily, supposedly. Watch over "reformed" sinners up in heaven

(Sir Pentious, flinching every time he sees her) (reminiscing about a friend he knew back down in hell while casting her nervous, painful glances)

Watch and report back to Lute, pretend to be the bodyguard of the souls who got a second unfair bite at the apple-

ACTUALLY be their bodyguard, when the moment comes

When Lute hits her breaking point and Sera is swayed by fear of a threat from within, a new line drawn, when the Exorcists turn on the angels who don't REALLY belong in heaven, who will never REALLY have earned after failing once- trying to kill them again

and the instinct kicking in

the woman with Vaggie's face and how RIGHT it feels to fight angels- finally that sense of purpose coursing through her, the golden blood, someone cowering behind her and she spreads her wings and-

PROTECTS

(Charlie killed with her so many times. Never out of hate. Always a last resort. Always trying to save more people than she hurt)

(a sideways, unknowing way that Charlie kept the same promise she broke- that part of her Vaggie loved and wanted to share in, the urge to help, to defend, even in a world that demands killing as a price of stopping more death)

The woman with Vaggie's face isnt and will never BE her

but she and Emily are the reason the reformed souls aren't slaughtered up in heaven

Charlie's hotel (no, always "their" hotel to her) is suddenly full of old friends and their friends, their families from up in heaven, angels leaving in disgust through the same portal as the truth of heaven's lie is exposed to ALL of heaven now, not just a court of those who made it what it is

and it's. Maybe something Vaggie would love, if she could see it

It's Charlie's one last time reaching out to the new Exorcist, offering her a place in the hotel too...

and it's Charlie taking it in, what it means, when the woman with Vaggie's face chooses to stay up in heaven

the woman who isn't Vaggie- (Vaggie never would have left) (NEVER would chose heaven over hell)- explains heaven is where most angels are, after all. And she likes it quite a lot- making angels bleed

(she's a weapon)

(Vaggie worked hard to make herself into something else. and she did. and now Vaggie's-) (Dead)

Charlie hopes Vaggie would be okay with this, somehow.

Or maybe it would have made Vaggie sick, watching Charlie get left behind (left alone again) by someone wearing her own face

...SO!

*slotting this in deliciously with the spear baby au stuff*

alright what we've got so far is...

Exorcist weapons soak up the demonic energy of the sinners they kill, carrying it back up to heaven with them where divine ointment or whatever is used to clean them afterwards, turning the demonic energy into something they can slowly convert into actual divine energy

Once they get enough kills and power, the weapon incarnates as a new heavenly soldier, specifically suited for visiting and fighting in hell

Their current Exorcist form lasts a set amount of time, and would start wearing down if they weren't given halos to supplement their slowly dwindling power

the halos keep them "young" up until the moment they fade away into ashes and weaponry again

they ALSO finish converting the Exorcist's demonic energy back into it's base form as divine power or the "force of creation" used by the higher ranking angels like the Seraphim

Basically redistributing power from hell to heaven AS WELL AS reducing the population of sinners

without the halo the demonic power just slowly bleeds out on it's own and gets absorbed by whatever's around

(AU NOTE: this would mean a bit of Vaggie's power probably got incorporated into the things and people she spent the most time around- Charlie, her spear which later turned into her kid, the hotel, her friends)

The SHAPE of the Exorcist continues with the weapon they're born from, but they lack souls, and no personal memories get passed down between incarnations

Since they are being built up from the kills they're used for though, THOSE memories are the only ones the new Exorcist is born with

Damage done to an Exorcist with heavenly steel carries over into the weapon they come from, and the next incarnation they take

Weapons that get damaged before they take enough lives to spawn into a new Exorcist are probably melted down to make a new weapon instead

That didn't used to happen very often though, because Adam encouraged abandoning any weapon that gets so much as scratched or tweeked down in hell- he didn't like the idea of his girls being less than exactly how he wanted them

Lute stops that after his death and the revelation that heavenly weapons can kill angels

Normally the Exorcist weapons incarnate as fully grown women, ready for action just like the weapons they come from

Spear! baby had a gap of several years with NO new kills powering them, and Vaggie wasn't trying to fill any quotas afterwards, so the energy build up was erratic and kill counts lessened bc of fighting next to Charlie. Being around Charlie in and out of battle, and near her half-seraphim power, also meant some of that was slurrped up, resulting in a form that WASN'T ready for battle but COULD absorb more power even after incarnating, letting the Spear! baby grow up as she gathered more passive energy (and later her own kills)

If she killed angels regularly enough or moved to heaven she could probably stay young for her entire life. But she isn't so she won't.

The other weapons abandoned in hell didn't get any divine cleansing to convert the demonic energy into something their heavenly steel could use, so they all stayed inert until killing angels started to be a thing.

Vaggie's was the first to rack up enough angel kills for the rest of the demonic energy to get mixed and changed to the point of spontaneous spear baby creation

Carmilla Carmine discovers that the other weapons can ALSO do this tho

She is slightly less than amused that chaggie failed to warn her

#hazbin hotel #vaggie #charlie morningstar #chaggie #spear baby au thing #vaggie aging wings au #angst #character death #BLARGH #au world building mainly tho i guess...

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xxwritemeastoryxx · 2 years

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Hiii can you write a part 2 for this? Maybe like he snaps out of it and realized what happened. And he remembers what reader siad and just angst

Darkness

Author: xxwritemeastoryxx

Pairings: Elijah Mikaelson x Fem!reader

Word Count: 4.2K

Warnings: Angst, death, blood, mentions of ripped out hearts. Red door Elijah.

Author’s Note: Hey! Look! I'm finally posting something! There's been so many things happening and I'm just glad something is being posted. I'm slowly but surely working on the Make It Angsty Celebration requests. They're coming along with other things as well. I promise. Please note that you NEED to read Demons Within to understand what is going on with this fic. Thank you so much Anon for this request and thank you for participating in the Make it Angsty Celebration.

I do not and will not ever give permission for my fics to be copied and posted on other sites. Don’t do it. Don’t be that person that ruins it for me and everyone else.

Feedback gives me life and motivation for future things. While likes are appreciated, reblogs are gold. Seriously, if you enjoyed this in the slightest, please reblog ♥

Demons Within || TVDU Masterlist

If there was one thing Elijah learned during his existence it was that magic could have a vice grip upon its target depending on the spell. Hexs sucked the light and life out of the person they were put upon. Immortality had its consequences that proved time and time again that even an original vampire could be bested with the simplest of spells.

Many forms of magic had been witnessed through the centuries. And while Elijah had his fair share of receiving spells, there was nothing in comparison to the witchcraft his mother had put upon him. Forcing Elijah to completely experience the darkness that laid and waited just beyond the red door locked within his mind.

Since he had awoken, the moments of darkness would come unexpectedly. The monster that lay dormant for so long was eager to play. To sink his teeth into the beauty that surrounded him. To destroy the glimpses of perfect moments that hid who he truly was. A creature that enjoyed the hunt as a sport and the blood that was tasted was the prize.

Elijah had been able to keep his darker self at bay many times. Even with his mother’s spell intact, there was always a way to come out of it before he had done something he regretted. One thing was always for certain, his family had remained protected at all times. At least that was until the darkness consumed him.

The simplest of conversations had triggered the monster within. He and Y/N had been talking about the safety of their family. A plan being put into motion to stop Esther once and for all. But the dormant monster’s interest had been piqued by the blood Elijah’s wife had been cleaning off of her shirt, blood from the last person she pulled a heart from. The clean up triggered the monster that she shouldn’t be hiding who she really was.

The more Y/N spoke to Elijah about her plan, her eyes had been on the towel in her hand as she wiped the last of the blood off. She had missed the way Elijah was beginning to lose his hold on the present. She had missed the way the darkness was so eager to consume him. And when she finally noticed it, it had been too late.

The last thing Elijah had remembered was the way Y/N slowly reached her hand up to his face. His name left her lips softly as she attempted to call him back to her. The same maneuver she had done several times to keep him there with her. But this time it didn't work. It wasn’t long before Elijah had completely lost control of himself.

Screams filled his ears even in the darkness. The part of Elijah that fought for control could only listen to the destruction that his body was creating. The cries for help may have brought pleasure to the monster currently at play, but to Elijah, he couldn’t even bring himself to begin to think about the damage.

‘Lijah. It’s me. You know me. You’ve known me for centuries.

The familiarity of the voice that played through his ears should have helped. The very voice that had brought him peace was there trying to break through to him. The voice that had been embedded in his mind for centuries. During his times of being daggered it was that voice that helped him through the darkness. Yet at this very moment, he couldn’t grasp onto the hope that the voice held.

You know me, Elijah. I can show you.

The voice was breathless. As if the person speaking was having trouble breathing. And in the darkness that surrounded Elijah, he knew he should be worried. He knew that what was happening wasn’t good. That every fiber of his being should have been fighting to stop what was happening, but nothing he did to gain control worked.

The darkness kept him under. Held him down while he was forced to listen to the sounds that entered through his ears. Even his brain refused to let in the familiarity of the voice that he was currently listening to. The magic within him taunting him.

You should have taken Esther's offer.

I-it’s okay. The sweet voice played through his ears once more. The words cracked slightly and it caused an ache to fill Elijah. One that the monster didn’t or would ever understand. I’m not scared. I promise. It’s n-not your fault if you do this. It’s going to be okay. Just know that I love you.

NO!

It was the first thought that Elijah had been able to force out of the abyss. The one and only thought that begged and pleaded his body not to do this. To not do anything to the voice that had brought him comfort in the darkness. No matter how hard Elijah tried to pull himself out of the darkness, nothing worked. Nothing he tried to keep the voice safe worked.

It wasn’t until the satisfaction of subduing a threat washed over him that he knew he failed. The ache that he felt moments before had lingered, if not grew more with each passing moment. The silence had proved he had lost the comfort of that voice.

Elijah?

The echo of his name registered in his mind some time later. How much time had passed, he was unsure. He had no idea how long he had been held under in the darkness. But he knew that was his name. He knew the familiarity of that voice. He just had to push himself out.

“What happened Elijah?” His sister’s voice. He knew that. He knew Rebekah’s voice. He could hear the panic in her words as he pulled himself closer to the surface.

“It’s Esther’s spell.” Klaus’s voice filled his ears. “I’ve seen this look on him before.”

“Where’s Y/N?” Rebekah asked. Elijah could only assume that Rebekah had been asking Klaus. But the question had brought Elijah closer to the surface than he had been in hours.

“Y/N.” Her name came out as a whisper but it was enough for him to gain the necessary control over his body once more.

He blinked his eyes a few times before the darkness that held onto him so tightly finally let go. The blurred edges of his vision finally clearing and allowed him to focus on his siblings. Klaus had been standing to his left and Rebekah to his right. Both of them had the same worried expressions displayed on their faces.

“Are you and Y/N okay?” Rebekah’s voice was soft. She was trying to keep her voice calm. If Klaus was sure this was the spell, she didn’t need her older brother being triggered once more.

Confusion filled Elijah at her question. He and Y/N had been fine moments ago. They simply had been discussing what steps to take to help get rid of Esther. What could possibly have happened in the last few minutes that would have caused his siblings to worry as they were?

That was when he caught sight of his blood drenched sleeve. It rested on the arm rest of the chair in the courtyard. He had no memory of ever sitting in that chair let alone how the blood had gotten on him. Dried blood covered his arm and was even caked on his fingers.

The more Elijah had a grip on reality, the more he noticed the smallest of details about himself. Besides the blood that lingered on his sleeve and hand, his face felt dry. No doubt from the blood that currently covered his lips and chin. While his suit may have been dark, a shade of crimson had taken front and center. The white button up ruined by a victim he was unaware of.

“What happened?” Rebekah asked once more.

Elijah shook his head. “I have no idea.”

As he moved to stand, his siblings allowed him the space he needed to do so. Elijah took in his surroundings, looking for any clarification as to what happened. His eyes moved from one place to another, trying to piece the last thing he remembered.

The rest of the courtyard had been left untouched. There was no evidence that there was an altercation of some kind. There were no bodies lingering on the floor somewhere. There was no scent of fresh blood filling his nose to indicate the death he caused had been there.

“Where’s Y/N?” Elijah asked, looking towards his siblings. “She may be able to explain what I cannot.”

Elijah knew that this had been his mother’s doing. He had known that there was something that had caused his mind to blank. But he had no idea how long he had been under or what had caused it. Everything deep within him was telling him something horrible had happened.

“She’s not here.” Klaus noted. “When we arrived, it had just been you.”

“I tried calling her phone.” Rebekah added. “But she left it here. I know she wouldn’t leave you while you were fighting this.” A flash of a memory passed through Elijah’s mind at her words.

“Stay with me.” Y/N’s said as she brought her thumbs up to Elijah’s cheeks. Her thumbs moved over the veins that were forming underneath his eyes. “Elijah.”

Elijah had been fighting it off. He was trying his hardest to stay there with her. To fight the darkness that wanted to consume him. He watched as her hands moved down to his neck in a comforting touch. But the only thing the darkness registered was a threat.

His hand quickly grabbed a hold of her arm and twisted it. As he had done so, a sickening crack played through the air and Y/N cried out in pain before she pulled herself free. He watched as she took a few steps away from him.

In return, Elijah took several steps towards her. The only thing registering in his brain was to get rid of the threat that stood in front of him. Y/N’s eyes filled with fear for the briefest of moments before she turned and ran with him following right behind her.

A gasp left Elijah’s lips as the memory left his mind. The details left him shaking his head in disbelief. He wouldn’t do that to her. Never in his wildest dreams would he ever hurt his wife like that.

“What is it?” Rebekah asked, watching her brother’s face change with his emotions.

“I hurt her.” His voice carried his disbelief and he hadn’t missed the look of shock on his siblings as the words settled within him. He shook his head once more trying to get things straight. “I broke her arm before she ran. She couldn’t get through to me."

An indescribable feeling began to form within Elijah. It was a feeling Elijah had never felt before. It was almost a deep satisfaction mixed in with grief that he knew he shouldn’t be experiencing. Yet it was there in the pit of his chest.

“She got away.” Rebekah was hopeful. “She managed to get away and she’s waiting until you came back to your senses to come home.”

I-it’s okay. I’m not scared. I promise.

The ache in his chest grew as he shook his head. The voice that rang within his ears was part of a memory that he couldn’t force himself out of. He could only hear her voice but not see what happened to her.

“I need to find my wife.” He said before turning and began leaving. Klaus and Rebekah were right on his heels in hopes to find Y/N and to find her completely fine.

It wasn’t long before the Mikaelsons had found themselves in the woods just outside of town. The familiarity of the area alerting Elijah that he had been there earlier that day. Klaus and Rebekah watched their brother as he tried to piece his memory together. Their mother’s spell was doing a number on him in the worst possible way.

The further they ventured into the woods, Klaus tried his best to be hopeful. But he was slowly picking up on how things had gone. Klaus knew what it was like to thrive with the darker sides of vampirism unlike his brother. As thrilling as the kill was, the hunt had been part of the fun.

If Elijah’s darker side had been hunting, Klaus knew there was only so far that Y/N could run before she found herself within his grasp. His sister in law may have been a vampire for centuries and stronger than most, she wasn’t an original. Even she could be killed easily if he or any of his siblings got a hold of her.

The sound of a twig snapping right under Elijah’s foot had snapped another memory through his mind.

With every step Y/N took as she ran, Elijah hadn’t been far from her. He could see the way she ran through the woods. Every fiber of the monster within him enjoying the hunt. But even while a hunter could find the hunt exciting, eventually there needed to be a time where the hunted needed to be caught.

He watched as Y/N steered towards her right before he moved himself to lead her to turn in a different direction. The game plan to keep moving her in the direction he wanted her. Her attempts at running from him would soon be pointless and he’d have her right where he wanted her.

He watched as she occasionally brushed by the branches close to her. Some of them broke while others bent to the force of her passing. He slowed his steps a bit, knowing it would give the moment of peace before he’d pounce.

That was until the slightest tug of a smirk played at his lips the moment he heard voices close by.

The soft late afternoon breeze picked up, allowing the scent of blood to fill the air. It alerted all of them to the strong scent that had been close by. It caused them to turn their attention in the direction of the wind.

“Blood.” Rebekah said out loud. Even though they knew what the scent was before the clarification, it needed to be heard to make sure they were all on the same page.

“Not her’s.” Elijah noted as he looked back towards the direction he had been going moments before. “Two hikers if it is needed to be known. They never saw it coming.”

Klaus looked down at the ground before looking towards his sister. A silent look shared between the two of them. One meant that this may not have the outcome they were hoping for. While Klaus wasn’t by any means hoping for Y/N’s death, that was all his mind settled on. If the bodies in the distance were any indication his brother had been pulled deep into the darkness that there was no telling what he could have done.

All it took was for Elijah to take a few more steps further into the woods before dread completely filled him. His chest became tight as the ache filled him. His heart knew well before his brain had registered the dark memories that were kept at bay. And with one more step his world had come to a complete stop.

Not too far in front of where he currently stood, his eyes fell to the base of a tree. Just peeking from behind it laid a hand, resting. One that currently rested palm down with the sun catching the ring that took residence on the fourth finger. A ring he had spent months perfecting the band the stone that Y/N loved sat in.

“No.” Elijah’s head shook as he took another step toward the hand. And with every step he took, his mind took the opportunity to torment him with the memories that he couldn't grasp onto until now.

Y/N had been looking just past the tree she had been hiding behind. Her attempts at being still to try and locate him had been pointless. The moment she had stopped, Elijah had her. The brief moments he had with hikers didn’t stop him keeping Y/N exactly where he wanted her.

Her moment of distraction allowed for his opening. Elijah grabbed a hold of her arm and spun her around to face him, pinning her to the tree. Her startled yelp filled his ears and the monster within him had chuckled.

He could see the way her eyes had been taking him in. No doubt taking in the creature that was reveling in death it was causing. He could see the way her eyes held worry for what was happening to him. But the creature within him could see the spark of fear that played within them as well.

“‘Lijah.” He watched as she shook her head slightly. “It’s me. You know me. You’ve known me for centuries.”

From the moment Elijah noticed Y/N’s hand, there was hope that she was okay. While he may not have known what happened to her, he had hoped that she was only knocked out. He hoped he hadn’t hurt her too much and that he would send a lot of time trying to make up for what he may have done to hurt her. But once he reached her, he fell to his knees in front of her.

Her skin had been ashen gray. The dark colored veins that covered her body had been every indication that she wasn’t going to wake up. Y/N hadn’t been like him or his siblings. There wasn’t the possibility of waking up from an attempt at her life. And if that hadn’t been proof enough, her heart laid close by.

Tears filled Elijah’s eyes as he reached for her. His hand gently ran along her cheek as he took in her face. The life and color in her eyes that he loved so much had been gone. Even as he lifted her body into his lap, there was disbelief that even his darker self had been capable of killing the one woman he would never stop fighting for. Yet, she laid lifeless in his hold.

A sob passed his lips as he leaned down and pressed his forehead to her face. There were several emotions playing through him. Guilt, grief, anger at himself and at the monster that laid within him. Anger at his mother for the spell she had placed on him that forced that monster to the surface when he spent centuries trying to keep him at bay.

A gasp left Rebekah’s lips as she and Klaus had come to Elijah’s side. They both had taken in the scene just as Elijah had moments before. grief had instantly flooded the siblings as they watched their brother hold onto his wife.

When Rebekah tried to take a step towards Elijah and Y/N, Klaus pulled her towards him and wrapped his arms around her in a comforting hug. While he knew that Rebekah meant well in wanting to be by their brother’s side, Klaus knew that Elijah needed a moment with his wife without anyone else interfering.

A loud cry of pain rang in Elijah’s ears as it left Y/N’s lips causing her hands to fall to her side. He watched as she looked down to find that he removed his hand from her neck, his other had been shoved into her chest. Her heart was within his grasp as he watched her take in her current situation.

He could feel the way her heart beat within his grasp. How fragile she had become the moment he had his hand in her chest. He had been holding her literal life in his hand and only one movement would bring the threat in his eyes to death.

He watched as Y/N's eyes had filled with tears before they began flowing down her cheeks. He had been studying her reactions. Taking them in as if for a moment as he was fighting himself on what he was doing. But the magic rooted deep within the monster would never allow the man out of the deep to save his beloved. With the simple action of squeezing his hand, another scream filled his ears at the action.

Elijah watched as even though Y/N had been struggling to fight against his hold, the tears that had once been streaming down her face had slowed. The fear that once was in her eyes, vanished almost completely. Her reactions went from surviving to accepting of what was to come.

Elijah shook his head as the memories flooded in. The details that poured into his mind did nothing but fuel the guilt and anger that filled him. Y/N tried everything she could to break through to him. Everything that worked beforehand, she had tried once more.

It was when Elijah had watched as her features changed in his memories that he understood how deep he had been under his mother’s spell. And as the memories continued to play, his hold on Y/N’s body became a little tighter.

Elijah watched as Y/N struggled for a moment more as she tried to gain some control over herself. Her eyes met his as she took a shaky breath.

“I-it’s okay.” Her voice cracked slightly before she groaned from the pain from the slightest movement of his hand. “I’m not scared. I promise. It’s n-not your fault if you do this. It’s going to be okay. Just know that I love you.”

Elijah may have received the message Y/N had been trying to get to him, but that didn’t change what happened. Y/N had known she couldn’t break through to him to get him to stop. The only thing she could do was speak to the man that would come out of the darkness eventually.

“Forgive me.” Elijah said as he looked down at Y/N. Tears had fallen from his cheek and several tear drops had landed on Y/N’s face.

His mother had been hell bent to prove to her children that there was a way to get away from the creatures they had become. She offered each of them a way to start over and each of her children refused, content with their life even if there were centuries of heartache and darkness. None of them would be willing to trade their lives to live within an innocent’s body.

With that refusal, Esther played dirty and Y/N was the necessary means to the witch in order to drive her words home to her children. While it hadn't been directly her doing, it was her spell that left Elijah holding his wife’s body as he cried uncontrollably at what he did.

No amount of apologies that passed his lips could take back the actions he had done. No amount of begging to anything that would listen to bring her back would force life into her. No shaky touch of his fingers along her face or press of his lips to her skin would change the actions the creature within had done.

His blood stained hand held her ashen gray cheek as his thumb ran along the veins that littered her face. “Please forgive me.”

The words had been repeated several times in hopes that some way she’d be able to hear them. He said them more times in the last several minutes than he ever had said them within his existence. Yet, she’d never be able to say the words that he needed to hear.

His heart ached at the thought that she wouldn’t be able to give him the forgiveness that he seeked. Even though she accepted and went into her death with no fear, all while promising it hadn’t been his fault, he felt otherwise. Her blood, and others, were literally on his hands.

With her gone, Elijah knew nothing would be the same. The woman he spent a majority of his existence with had been taken from him. The woman that pulled him from the edge of darkness time and time again would no longer be able to. And that thought alone scared him more than anything.

His eyes moved over his face once more. His mind was trying to picture her in any form other than the ashen gray that took a hold of her. Anything to bring life into her. A way to hold on to her for as long as he can mentally do so. Physically, Elijah knew he could sit there for hours holding on to her, begging for the events to be different, begging for her forgiveness for killing her.

It was what would come after, that scared him. His light within the darkness had been snuffed out. The one person that could always bring him back would no longer be able to. The further into the spell he went, there would be no telling what would happen next.

As his hold on Y/N tightened, clinging onto what he had left, the creature within taunted him. Taunted him with the memories that he wished never happened in the first place. And with each fresh wave of guilt, Elijah was faced with the undeniable truth.

The next time he fell into darkness, there would be no coming back.

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xreaderbooks · 1 year

Text

The Great War

Pair: JJ Maybank x Reader

Warnings: language, underage drinking, arguments

Based on THIS request

Word Count: 1.8k

a/n: This is a bit short and probably not as angsty as you might've wanted I hope you still like it...

Links: Wattpad and AO3

Navigation - JJ Maybank Masterlist

You didn’t mean to- you didn’t mean to do alot of what had already passed.

You had grown up around JJ and the pogues, you were neighbors, went to the same school, and had most of the same classes. It was inevitable that you and JJ would become close. So close in fact, your parents had set restrictions to how much time you could spend with the boy. They insisted that you could do better, be better, and have a better life when you graduated.

They even saved up enough money and coerced you into doing an essay that will grant you a scholarship to the Kook school that Sarah Cameron and the rest go to. The school you have been going to for a couple of months now.

Not much has changed, you still hung out with your usual friends, JJ was still attached to your hip but you did spare a little bit of your time for the friends you’ve made on the other side of the island.

Your best friend had not been too thrilled about this new development. Admittedly, you had lied to him about it, JJ had always been a bit dramatic when it came to Kooks. Rightfully so, they’d done him wrong too many times in the past that it was understandable where his anger came from but his anger surpassed your patience.

The moment you stepped into his house, he had a glare and a frown that you didn’t know

“So what now Y/n?” You’ve been having this conversation for almost an hour now, Luke was out on another bender, JJ was home by the sound of raging music coming from his window. “You’re one of them just like that?”

You scoff, “No, J. I’m not one of them, I’m just doing what’s best for my future. I wasn’t doing any better in public school.”

He wasn’t in a good mood when you came through the unlocked front door, the door hinges were a little loose, he must have gotten into it with his dad. You can imagine the way Luke must’ve slammed it on the way out for the millionth time. You stood in the middle of his messy room that JJ didn’t bother to clean as he was never here.

“You’re better now that you're in a fancy private school full of those dickheads, really?,” He tongue pokes through his cheek. He let out a bitter laugh, “That’s rich, Y/n. Pretending to be someone you’re not.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you are no better than me and the pogues and you playing dress up every week, going to their school- isn’t going to change that.”

“You’re trying to insult me by saying that i’m not one of them and it isn’t working JJ, I don’t want to be one of them.”

His eyes took you in from head-to-toe, “Have you looked in the mirror lately, Princess.”

“I’m trying JJ,” I exhale. “I’m trying my best not to fucking drown while i’m there, I can dress up all I want while i’m there and they still look at me the same but i’m also not gonna lie and say that part of me doesn’t enjoy it. And so what if I do? Fucking sue me.”

“Then fucking leave!” He shouted in your face, “Leave and enjoy you’re new life cause i’m not gonna be in it.”

You stared at him wide-eyed, he never spoke to you like this, ever. JJ was always cheery and joked whenever things got too tense, he never acted out of turn.

“You know what JJ, you’re really starting to sound like your dad,” Your voice was slightly above a whisper. You were teary eyed and hurt, you regretted the words the moment they left your lips but you were angry and in shock at the way he spoke to you.

He looked as if he had been slapped, he flinched as you made the comparison. You stuttered in your steps as you gave him one last glance before leaving.

~~~

You didn’t see him for days after the argument, whenever you were at the Chateau he was somewhere else and when he was around, he didn’t utter a single word in your direction. You felt guilty, you didn’t truly think he was like Luke at all, but in that moment your mouth ran faster than your brain.

Days turned into weeks, Weeks turned into months, and soon you were graduating. You hung around the Pogues often still, but without JJ you had more time to spend with your private school friends, you divided your time equally between both groups despite the on going beef.

You missed JJ, he had been an integral part of your life, you never went a day without talking to him before the argument. Now you’d become strangers, strangers and yet you knew everything that went on in his life. You lived right next to him, you heard him and his dad, you shared the same friends so you were never left out of anything. Everything you knew now just didn’t come from him, which stung.

You were both in the wrong, you knew and accepted that but JJ was set on avoiding you. You weren’t going to corner him, if he wanted to talk to you, he would come to you as he had many times before.

Summer just started, that meant another annual boneyard party.

Kie had ran up to you and gave you a hug, “You’re here!”

“Of course, did you doubt i’d come?” You giggled at her excitement.

“Well, no but your public enemy number 1 is here,” She motioned over to where JJ was shotgunning a beer.

You rolled your eyes shaking your head, “When has he ever stopped me from being around you guys?”

She walked with you to grab a drink and from there everything was a blur of dancing, talking, and drinking. You had become so inebriated to the point where John B had pointed out your slurred speech, you insisted that you were fine and took several steps back to prove that you had not taken the effects of the several cups of alcohol you consumed. On the last step you back had bumped into someone, that someone had held you by your waist to steady you.

You turned around to apologize but shut your mouth before anything could come out. It was the blond boy you had missed, at the sight of him you felt a familiar sting come from the back of your eyes.

“Can we talk?” He didn’t remove his hand from your side, you didn’t want him to.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” You murmured. You didn’t trust yourself to talk to him, seeing him made you realize you weren’t as sober as you thought. Your head spun as you looked into his blue eyes, who knew what would spill out of you, you could confess to a murder you didn’t commit if you were alone with him in this state.

“Please?” His tone was soft, it made your knees weak. You tore your gaze away from his and you nodded.

Your heart pounded rapidly, you felt like you were about to throw up, you weren’t sure if it was how much you had drank or a sign of how nervous you were. You trusted JJ to be this vulnerable- in this state- with him even after all this time. There was no doubt about it, you just didn’t trust yourself. You had been around him drunk too many times to count but there was so much time between you now and you had shed yourself of any care you might have in sharing your feelings for him.

He brought you over to the middle of where the cars were parked and the beach, trees surrounding you both.

He swallowed before he spoke, “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. You transferred out of school, we never went to separate schools and you were always around during the day, then you weren’t and you got new friends- their all still dickheads by the way- but you’re my best friend and I didn’t want that to end.”

That brought you out of your thoughts, your gaze met his and he continued. “I didn’t want us to stop being friends after that fight- I just- I was scared,” He cleared his throat. It wasn’t easy for him to share his feelings. “I missed you Y/n, more than missed you actually. I can’t even explain how weird it was not having you around me and that’s completely my fault for being such an asshole, ignoring you and shit. I was pissed at the moment, I needed time and space but not that much time and space-”

He was rambling now, hearing how much he missed you felt like a weight being lifted off your chest, you weren’t the only one that felt the absence of your friendship. Now that he started talking, he wouldn’t stop overexplaing how much he missed you.

He looked so cute when he was talking you couldn’t stop yourself, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Y/n,” His eyes furrowed as he stopped his rant.

“No, JJ,” You grabbed his shoulders, taking a step into his space. “I love you. I’m sorry too, I didn’t mean to compare you to him, you could never be like him, ever. I was just as scared of losing and I did for a time but that doesn’t matter now because you’re here- talking to me finally. I’ll probably regret this as much as I did when I said what I said to you that day, I love you.”

His face spread into a bright grin, he let out a laugh and you almost questioned whether he thought you were joking or if he was laughing at you. You released your hold on him and took a step back only to be pulled into his chest, one of his hands on your waist, the other on your cheek as he pulled you into a kiss.

For a moment you couldn’t process what was happening, the next, your hands had tugged him closer by tangling in his hair and neck making the kiss go deeper.

You heard cheers coming from the crowded side of the party, you had pulled away from JJ with a smile and looked to where John B, Kiara, and Pope were howling at the two of you.

“The great war is over!” John B had called out. He and the others had taken to calling the fight you and JJ had ‘The Great War’ over time when he and the rest of them realized that this wasn’t just some petty fight you guys had and would eventually get over. They hated it almost as much as you two did.

JJ wrapped his arm around your shoulders looking over at your friends and gave you sweet kisses on your forehead.

“I love you.”

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myfirstnameisagent · 6 months

Text

FALLING

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Angsty, Harm if you squint, I'm sorry y'all I'm going through it, cringey ending but we love angst in this garden

Summary: Bucky's struggle to cope finally catches up with him and costs him the thing he loves most; you.

Word Count: 646

Bucky Barnes had been known as many equally great and terrible things over the span of his overextended life time. He was the charming young man that all his mothers’ friends praised and adored, and now a murderer. He’d been the starring captain of the neighborhood baseball team, now a cold blooded monster. The former best friend to the dazzling captain america, now his greatest burden. Okay, so maybe they weren’t equal. Regardless, he would of taken any one of those titles tattooed in bright red ink on his skin rather than the crumpled form seated on the floor and against the wall. His fingers almost scratching at the flesh covering his chest in an attempt to ease the throbbing within. Breaths were short, eyes squeezed shut. Arguably, he usually only was brought to such a weakened state by nightmares or those terrible moments that a memory from his HYDRA days.

However, he would of taken any single one of those in comparison to the look on your face, the one permanently etched into his brain. Every emotion shimmering through large tears might as well have been large pieces of shattered glass straight into his chest, driven all the way through until it reached the aching organ behind a bone cage.

The former soldier had taken many approaches to slowly piece his life back together (well, what he thought was a life, his therapist had very different ideas), and to his fatal flaw, he’d used your kind heart as his foundation. He’d always had a habit of doing it, whether it was before the war rooting his whole life and building his life around taking care of Steve, or now by only trusting you to be the one good thing he had in his life. But as the usual pattern unfolded, the cruelties of the fates had taken his parents, his sister, Steve, and what seemed to be anyone else who mattered.

“I can’t do this anymore James.” Shaky breaths rattled your form and equally shaky hands formed clenched fists at your sides. “I am a grown woman, I don’t need you deciding where I go and who I spend my time with, like some fucking dictator!”

His head hit the wood behind him, the throbbing from how hard he’d done so almost a welcome relief from how his insides were turning inside out. Mismatched hands ran up his face and through his hair, abdomen clenching with the strength of his sobs, and he really wasn’t sure when he’d started crying.

You really had done your best, and he couldn’t fault you for that. You’d taken every single broken piece in your hand, carefully examining each one. However, you were tired of cutting your pretty fingers on such jagged edges.

It wasn’t like he’d made it easy for you either, with how what his therapist had reasoned was HYDRA still continuing to make a mess of his life. His inability to let you be anywhere by yourself, distrusting almost anybody that even tried to come near you. He’d seen the terrors the world had to offer, hell he has been said terrors, and he’d be damned if he let any of them reach out and put out the only bright flame in a very dark and cold life. However, in doing so he’d managed to smother it out himself. Somewhere in it all, his love for you had in turn become shackles for you, not being able to turn around for a single moment without him standing right there.

Claws of shame dug themselves further into his chest, knowing he was pathetic mess for having such a reaction to a woman walk out of his life. But you weren’t ever just a woman, were you? No you’d found a way to become his hope, his lifeline, his home. Now he had none of the above, just a collection of broken fragments that no longer really belonged together.

Bucky Barnes had been known for a lot of things in his life, but his favorite had been being yours.

#bucky imagine #bucky barnes x reader #james bucky barnes #marvel #marvel x reader #avengers #bucky barnes #winter soldier x reader #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #marvel comics #earth 616

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johnlennonswifey · 1 year

Note

Can you do a fic with John in 1965 ish maybe earlier where he just needs a little comfort or something fluffy but also a bit angsty. Love your work so far!

Thank you!! Idk how to feel about this one but I hope you enjoy!! 🙌🙌

‘I love you the way you are.’

John Lennon x Reader

Summary: John has been oddly quiet, so you pay him a visit to cheer him up.

Warnings: John being sad

—————————————

John had been quiet recently. He had started distancing himself from the band, and you. Which everyone found strange. Every time you approached him he would simply shrug his shoulders. You, along with everyone else, began to worry. His usual upbeat funny attitude was gone. You needed to talk to him.

Which is where you find yourself now, standing nervously by the door to his flat.

“John?” You called out. No answer. You had already knocked four times. Running low on patience, you eyed the doorbell before deciding to ring it.

Relief washed over you when the door locks began to make noises. The door swung open, revealing a disheveled John in a pair of sweats and an old T-shirt. You smiled.

“Mind if I come in?” You hesitantly asked. “I’ve been wanting to speak to you.” John hummed and moved aside. You walked in staying at the entrance as he closed to door. “You can have a seat on the couch.” He said. You nodded, following him over to his little living area.

You sat down opposite from him. He remained facing forward while you turned to look at him.

“John,” you started “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” He sat there, motionless and quiet. “John-“

“Do you think I’m fat?” He asked suddenly. You have him a confused look. “What- why would you think something like that?” He reached for a newspaper sitting on the side table before tossing it to you. It was flipped to a page in which the header read, ‘The fat Beatle?’. The entire article was people criticizing John's weight in comparison to the others.

You looked up sadly. “John, you’re not fat.” You stated quietly. He finally turned to look at you, his eyes sad. “You have to admit I’ve put on a little weight. Haven’t I?” He questioned. You frowned. “So? Even if you have that doesn’t make you fat. You’re perfectly healthy John.”

He stared at you. Quiet again. “And handsome.” You added after a surge of courage washed through you. His cheeks faintly turned pink and he turned away. You two sat in silence for what felt like hours. Deciding your visit was up, you stood, heading for the door. Before you could leave though, you felt something grab your wrist. You turned to see John, his eyes wide as he stared at you. He let go and straightened his posture.

“Do you actually think I’m handsome?” He asked. His voice now back to its normal volume. It was your turn to blush now as you nodded. He smiled. “Well, I think you’re very pretty.” He said matter-of-factly. The blush on your cheeks darkened as you took a step closer to John. “Yeah?” You asked. “Yeah.” He smiled. You gently pressed a kiss to his cheek. You finally turned to the door, opened it, and stepped out. “Feel free to visit anytime!” John called after you.

You smiled as you shut the door. “I will.” You said to yourself.

—————————

I have been waiting for a John request I love writing for him 🙌🙌 just an fyi I might close my requests soon so I can work on some longer works of my own 🙌🙌

#john lennon #john lennon x reader #the beatles imagine #the beatles #the beatles x reader

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cheesus-doodles · 2 years

Text

Rindo Out of Juvie HCs

Yandere BFF Rindo

Masterlist

‎

Recommended Readings: Yan BFF Rindo HCs ; In Juvie HCs

A/N: I did say September but in my defense its only one day off and it wouldn't be if Sep had 31 days... Also I have a Ko-Fi store now to sell off my excess merch! :) as usual, its super late now, will edit any errors and more info on shop tmr!

the day Rindo walked free from juvie was easily the best day of his life by a long mile

this baby boy have been counting down every day till his release day

having you check in with him just once or twice a week (with Ran's help, much to Rindo's distaste) pales in comparison with him being able to check in on you any time he wants to, which is generally multiple times a day

have kept notes on everything that you tell him (and that he drills you on), frantically scribbles down whatever he can remember after every meeting you have with him either on notebooks that you bring him

even made Ran do the same as well after every meeting you held with the older Haitani, much to the amusement of his older brother

visitation time was hardly long enough to drill you about everything and anything

reviews the information again and again to make sure he doesn't miss anything

and if he did, he could question you at the next visitation session

being separate from you after becoming your bestfriend and having to trust you to take care of yourself (the horror!!) was the worst part of juvie if you asked him

or second worse rather

the absolute worse being having to sit by and watch everyone else from the newly-formed Tenjiku (all threats) leave before him - the dread settling in his stomach every time they disappear behind the external walls of juvie before Rindo can go out and protect you from them that is

even if the Tenjiku executives didn't know about you now, they sure would sooner or later

they were all the worst kind of delinquents (him not included though cough)

and you were the stupidest, most naive, and blurrest person alive in his eyes

you would probably trust a stranger holding a knife to your neck if he said to, not to say Izana who had already helped you previously

plus the fact that Kakucho had been regaling you with the tales and adventures of him and Izana, which is as good as brainwashing with you

didn't help that Izana's release date was a week or so before Rindo's, which the boy absolutely knew Izana would use the opportunity to meet you alone against his pleas

okay maybe not pleas - Rindo didn't 'plea' with anyone, not even for you (maybe with you though) - but definitely not threats, not with the ease that Izana could beat his and Ran's ass

but the Tenjiku leader had been oddly fascinated with you ever since Rindo had very hesitantly begged for help to take care of you while he was in juvie

and he didn't trust that white-haired boy as far as he could throw him

they were going to eat you alive without your bestfriend there to watch over you, Rindo just knew it

the closer the Haitaini brothers' release date came, the more angsty and irritable Rindo became - you were so close yet so far away

Ran even let Rindo go first in the outward processing queue so that he could get out just that bit earlier and stop with that amusing anxiety tap dance routine

he knew his younger brother well

Rindo nearly ran you down with how fast he was racing out to meet you outside the day he was released

of course you would be outside waiting for him, but this boy wouldn't tell you how relieved he was to see you still alive

did boink you on the head when you were a bit too happy to see Ran as well

you even remembered to bring him a clean set of clothes and his favorite snacks like he had requested

that's good news, means you're still listening to him

hopefully that also meant that you had been listening to him telling you not to talk to anyone more than necessary, and that applied especially to Kakucho and Izana

drags you straight back to his house, because as far as this boy was concerned, you ain't ever leaving his sight again

yes, maybe bathroom matters, but he was going to sit outside and call to you every few minutes just to make sure you were okay

sit tight, because Rindo is going over every last bit of detail in his notebook with you, like those parts involving you interacting with any outside of him and Ran

but especially about any time you spent with Izana

or at least he tries to, sternly telling you to concentrate on answering the questions he's asking, but you don't seem as serious about the topic as he is, more ecstatic about having your bestfriend back

asked him about what juvie was like on the inside, what kind of food he ate, whether there were stores inside that he could buy things at, whether he made any new friends

the last part had Rindo stare bewildered at you for a bit - did you think juvie was some sort of childcare center?

his interrogation session somehow turned into a homework session where he helped you through the last few topics you had been struggling with

only realized later when you had fallen asleep at the table, but all Rindo could do know was sigh and carry you up to bed and tuck you in

didn't want you to catch a cold or wake up with a dead arm

at least he managed to go through all your papers, books and files and look for any signs of written correspondence that you failed to get round to telling him about

because this boy knew you well - if you didn't tell him about you being penpals with someone while he was in juvie, its about a thousand times more likely that you simply forgot about it or got distracted by another talking point rather than you trying to hide information from him

decided to call it a day as well - Rindo was exhausted from the rollercoaster of emotions he had on top of dealing with being released from juvie in just one day

would never admit to it, but decides to snuggle in with you for the night since he hadn't the time to prepare another bed for you and you were currently snoozing away

wakes up before you but gets caught by Ran anyway, fiercely denies anything and everything before Ran could even ask

the older Haitani knew better though

this baby boy even followed you all the way to class the next day, though he did get particularly irate when people stared openly at you (more like the reappearance of him)

regular beatings will resume until behavior improves

Rindo also arranges to meet with and thank Kakucho, who had been watching out of you all this time, for his help

arranges it at night well after you had fallen asleep and he had triple checked that his bedroom door was locked (Ran was asleep, and Rindo didn't want to risk you wandering off and getting into who knows what kind of trouble)

Rindo did ask you several times about Izana and what he wanted with you, but as usual, you didn't have the answers he were looking for

apparently Izana only wanted to hear about you and Rindo, and asked you to tell him about the relationship the two of you had

and that sounded alright to Rindo at the beginning, but the more he prodded your accounts of your meetings and the details that slowly leaked out, the more his unease grew

he was sure there was more to this then surface level curiosity, given Izana went to all the trouble to arrange for a bodyguard for you

but from your side, you could only tell him what you knew, and not any deeper analysis

takes the opportunity to have a chat with the Kakucho to try and find out if he tried to talk you into doing things Rindo didn't approve of, and if he knew what Izana wanted with you

your bestfriend quickly realized that he had no beef with Kakucho though - he was a very respectful boy who kept you at an arm's length even while he followed you pretty much everywhere

Kakucho refused to divulge anything that happened between you and Izana, only confirming that the meeting did happen

which Rindo could respect, given Izana was Kakucho's (and his) boss and good friend but still

and then the more worrying signs started to appear

you started to sneak away during the time when you should have been class, when you knew Rindo wasn't looking out for you

or at least you thought that Rindo wasn't watching, but he was - be it directly or indirectly with Ran's and a few more coerced classmates help

secretly followed you one of those days, only to find out that you weren't going far - you were just headed up to the roof of the school building to take a call

but when confronted about your little excursions, you tried to lie to him

keyword being tried, since you failed spectacularly at too - instead of telling the lie (that was most likely fed you) about who you were calling, you told Rindo it was a salesperson calling, immediately followed by telling him that Izana was asking you to skip out to meet him before you slapped your mouth

he could have facepalmed

and you were also still too naive, spilling everything Izana had asked you to do when Rindo asked, despite you saying that you were supposed to keep it a secret

the younger Haitani felt faint when you said Izana had held your hand before, but at least the tiniest bit of relief came when you told him that he didn't do any more than that

your phone was confiscated by Rindo on the spot for an indefinite period of time - you could still use it for very limited amounts of time every day, but only when closely supervised by him and never alone

and you were moved into his bedroom for the forseeable future until he could determine just how bad the situation was

you thought you were having a long sleepover, and Rindo didn't correct you

you weren't allowed to leave his room without him there, let alone the house

not even to school - there was no way Rindo would risk that now

made sure to punish you for trying to lie to him though - no late night snacks for a week

and he wasn't going to walk you to the bathroom at night no matter how scared you were

okay he will if you're scared

wanted to do something worse such as whipping your hands, but the thought of you crying was too much for him to bear

instead, Rindo took his anger out on your poor classmates and random rival delinquents he found around Roppongi again

breaking bones especially viciously and pummeling anyone that pissed him off even slightly

and of course brought you along to watch - Rindo wasn't going to leave you alone at home by yourself and hearing you cheer for him like you always did before juvie helped him feel better

he didn't know too much at the moment - how much for Izana's bidding have you been doing behind his back?

were you listening to Izana over him, your bestfriend?

reluctantly asked Ran for advice, but for the first time, even his older brother had nothing for him

just reminded Rindo to keep out of the way of Izana, and that even the two of them couldn't beat the Tenjiku boss

and that was before you very proudly told him that you had "cheated" on your test because Izana had asked you to

though your cheating was more rolling a dice then actual cheating

but what if he started asking you to do more serious things? and why were you even listening to what Izana asked you to do?

you should only be listening to him - Rindo, your first and bestfriend

Izana wasn't your friend, no one else was, and he reminded you of that frequently, though his words seem to flow over you like water, as it always did

Izana' influence was starting to seep into every aspect of your life, infecting you like a virus, and Rindo was a very unhappy boy

he just wanted to go back to like how life was before juvie, was that impossible?

‎‎

Rindo could feel the beginnings of a headache starting to throb in the front of his mind. Letting out a groan, your bestfriend proceeded to repeatedly banged his head into the table of your favorite cafe as you watch on owlishly, carefully sipping away at your hot tea. It baffled him that you could just sit there and pretend everything was all right when nothing was - everything in his world and yours was clearly wrong. How did you not see this?

But then again, Rindo comforted himself as he finally pulled himself upright once more, you were you. Hand grasping at his own iced drink and taking a long gulp, the blond-and-blue haired boy begin to speak again. It had been a week since he was freed from that awful juvenile detention center where he was locked away from you, yet he still couldn't quite understand. "Start from the top again. How long have you been writing to Izana?"

Ran had already long wandered off somewhere after a filling lunch, uninterested in hearing Rindo grill you about the same question for the umpteenth time.

"Since he sent that letter to Kakucho," you blurted out, nearly spilling the tea on yourself.

"Put that down before you hurt yourself again," Rindo chided. "How many times did you write to him?"

You carefully set your cup back down on the table. "Once a week, that's what Kakucho told me to do! He never wrote back though."

That meant that he was most likely using your letters as a report or test of some kind, the younger Haitani concluded as he jotted the new information down mentally, recalling the sudden increase in letters that Izana received after sending out that initial letter to Kakucho. Were your letters included in those as well? But then again, letters were so much more benign compared to the problem he had on hand. "Alright. How many times has Izana called to talk to you?"

He watched as you counted out the times on your fingers, before holding it up to show him. "About five times!"

"And how many times have you met him?"

Your gaze dropped almost immediately, your hand coming up to scratch sheepishly at the nape of your neck. "Ahh..."

"And you can't lie to me," the blond-and-blue haired boy interrupted before you could begin. This had to be one of those topics that Izana told you to keep from him, but Rindo needed to know. "You can lie to everyone else except me, you understand?"

You nodded furiously. "I met him about three times," you replied sincerely, as you leaned forward to whisper, though it seemed that lowering your voice did little to keep your words from being overheard.

"Is there a problem with that?" Murmured that absolutely abhorrent voice that Rindo had grown to despise yet couldn't help respect from behind him, the boy whirling around only for his eyes to confirm his worst nightmare.

"Izzy!" You perked up, waving at him. Izzy?! Your bestfriend felt like hurling - it was quite the task just to keep his face stern and stop himself from collapsing straight into despair right there and then. How much had he missed? How did Izana know they were here?

But the Tenjiku boss barely acknowledged Rindo's presence, instead moving to take the chair to the right of you, pressing a familiar red jacket into your arms. "A gift for you."

And the boy instantly recognized that. "Absolutely not!" You were not going to own a Tenjiku gang jacket, and you were definitely not going to wear one. No way in hell.

"And what are you going to do about it?"

Rindo rustled as Izana threw one arm carelessly around you, smugly quirking one eyebrow back at him, armed with the full knowledge the younger Haitani brother could do little against him. But you shook off Izana's arm, turning to lightly slap his shoulder instead. "Izzy! Don't bully Rindo!"

But before said Haitani even had time to pale (did you even know what you had done??), your attention was drawn away by the entrance of yet another Tenjiku executive, this one a lot more familiar to your irate yet anxious bestfriend. "Kakucho! Come come, sit here!" You patted the chair next to you, which the black-haired boy obliged.

"Izana, Rindo," Kakucho greeted, as he slipped into the creaky wooden chair, careful to avoid clipping your arm.

"Are you still not feeling well?" You questioned, raising one hand to press against the other's completely reddened face, to which Kakucho quickly dodged from, throwing both hands up in surrender. Was he...blushing?

"Oh no you don't. Don't you even dare to think about it," Rindo hissed, making to stand. So this shit he thought was on your side, watching out for you in his stead, was a two-faced traitor. His day was getting bad to worse, and there was no sign of relief at the end of the tunnel.

Kakucho only looked bewildered at the reaction, seemingly understanding what he was saying but not why, instead turning to throw Izana a look that Rindo knew well. Weren't you Izana's girl?

"It seems me and Rindo have quite a bit to catch up on," Izana announced, reaching into his pocket to pull out a few notes to pass you. "Why not you and Kakucho go get some ice cream? It'll make him feel better."

Leaping to your feet excitedly at the thought of the sweet treat, you paused, turning your doe eyes on Izana. "Don't hurt Rindo," you reminded the white-haired boy, as if you held any power over him, before you yanked Kakucho to his feet. "Come on, let's go!"

"A companion for Kakucho for one. And an experiment." Izana admitted, those unblinking eyes of his trailing you as you all but dragged Kakucho out the door of the cafe by his hand, eagerly chattering about god-knows-what to a burning Kakucho, that red jacket tucked neatly under one arm. Rindo kept silent, willing the tanned boy to continue.

And mercifully, he did, leaning back in his chair as he started to speak again, turning that wretched gaze on him. From Rindo's initial request, Izana had deduced that you were an innocent thing: a bunny in a wolf's world. A new plaything for him that he wanted to experiment on - would you listen to the instructions from a complete stranger? How far would you go for him? Could he make you do things against your will?

But you were such a cute thing, so pliable to his words and so obedient, yet so resistant when it came to Rindo. You would never do anything to hurt Rindo. "But my cute little Kakucho fell first it seemed," Izana finally looked away. "I suppose I could share."

Rindo took the breath he didn't know he had been holding, slumping back into his seat as the pressure left his shoulders. "And is that the truth?"

Izana shrugged, picking up your once-hot cup of tea and downing the remaining tea before standing. "I'll be round tonight. Make sure your door's unlocked." To pick you up. It wasn't a request.

Rindo sank his face into his hands as soon as the other departed. What the fuck did you get yourself into? What the fuck was he going to do now?

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saturnine-saturneight · 2 months

Text

Writerly Questionnaire

@davycoquette posted this up and it looks fun :)

About You

When did you start writing?

I started writing poetry somewhere in my early teens, then expanded to short snippets when my school had a creative writing workshop as part of a week long retreat. I did some minor roleplaying on the [Country redacted] version of Facebook, then started roleplaying on a fandom specific forum at 17... Started running with a group on Discord and Tumblr and learned how to write well with a dictionary always open in another tab. It's how I learned the majority of both my conversational and my writing English!

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

There are themes I really don't like to watch or read, but love to write, for example medical horror and body horror. I get squicked out when I'm not in control of those. I also adore detective fiction, especially Poirot, but don't have an interest in putting together a murder mystery myself.

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you’re often compared?

I think the way I write is very conversational and very stream of consciousness. I'm a child of the internet, and you could make an easy comparison to other people writing indie online, but I'm not sure the comparison is as easy when you're looking at bigger, traditionally published authors. I think about the way I write in comparison to the Realism art movement sometimes. I want to emulate how people really talk, and I want to get deep into the nitty gritty of a psyche.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

Laying down ✌️

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Daydreaming! Dozing, napping, taking a walk, doing the dishes; anything that lets my mind wander.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

Not really. See above, child of the internet, but I'm also not sure I can capture what my country is really like. I never feel all that informed or all that "with it" here.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Come back with a warrant, lmfao.

Your Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character? (Current WIP, past WIP, never used, etc.)

This is hard for me to decide because I really do love most of my characters equally when I just spend enough time with them. Of course it's Ron right now, I'm writing his story and he's living in a bigger corner of my brain than usual. I never really figured out what he had to say until pretty recently, he's always been a very taciturn narrator and loathe to talk about his feelings in dialogue. Throwing him into a fully moving plot and inflicting The Horrors on him really makes him react, and it's endearing him to me a lot.

Which of your characters do you think you’d be friends with in real life?

Matcha! She's goofy and sweet and she has a lot of things to talk about. We'd just need to set boundaries early because I'm not a fan of being flirted with. I also think I could get along with most of the rest, at least on friendly terms.

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

Nat is an amalgamation of the worst traits and tendencies that I see in other people and myself. They're also a bully, which is something that personally makes me see red. They can go be a sympathetic villain somewhere else.

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

So the very first one of the bunch was Teo. He was originally a pirate, and I made him to be weird and angsty and complex, but also kind of a liar who'd just boast about things unfounded. I thought this was easy to figure out, but I started noticing people taking him at his word, so I made Haru to call him out on his shit. These two were good foils, but didn't talk that much, so I made Rabbit who can never shut up to deliver some exposition.

When I make a character, they fill a niche in a dynamic, and/or have behaviors and beliefs that I want to write about. The rest is vibes.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

I try to make them pretty diverse from each other, but there's always a general sense of overcoming and survival that I think is fascinating and write a lot about.

How do you picture them? (As real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc.)

I don't have 20/20 vision in my imagination, things are pretty fuzzy. Real people, but stylized, I think.

Your Writing

What’s your reason for writing?

To create a space where I can really dig into the things I like and the things that are on my mind. I'm also pretty competitive towards myself. I always want to be better at something than I have been so far.

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

I love comments that really pinpoint which moments or beats a reader enjoyed...

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (For example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who “gets” the human condition; as a talented worldbuilder, as a role model, etc.)

Just some guy, please.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Character depth and dialogue.

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

Dialogue also, and a certain sense of... chaos? Urgency? My longer form stuff has been described as 'one long rollercoaster'.

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

Eh. I'm happy when it turns out well.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Oh that's a mean question. I do have a little bit of a "what's going to be my legacy" thing going on. Yeah, I think I would still write, though. I really do it for the fun of it as well. It's just a lot less fun when I can't bounce it off other people and see what it turns into where it meets their lives and their experiences.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence

On a line by line basis, I have an issue of trying to write to a worst faith reader that I'm trying to work through, but the larger picture is completely just what I enjoy and not written to a specific genre, reader, or market.

I am tagging @marlowethelibrarian @fortunatetragedy @paeliae-occasionally @lychhiker-writes @rotting-moon-writes and YOU 🫵

#tag games #about the author

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cannibalgoldfish · 2 years

Text

Unavoidable (Part two)

Paring: Price X Trans male reader

Summary: Price and reader get back from the what occurred at a safe house, however the outcome becomes more hostile than it should have. The rest of the team senses the unease and agitation but are unable to help. Reader having enough of Price's avoidance confronts him about it.

Part one

Word count: 1,764

Warnings: Angsty for most of it until the near the end then fluff stuff. Nothing else unless you count swearing (but come on? THAT's the thing you're worried about?)

This is my first x reader set so let me know how I did lmao

It had been days since the incident, weeks would be more truthful to use but time felt different around the others. Soap, Ghost, and Gaz are a sped up whirlwind in comparison to the cold sludge of Price that had formed overnight. The sense of regret increasingly morphed into a near bitter "indifference" that Price had enforced since that night. It was as if you had been simultaneously turned invisible and into a mosquito that was constantly buzzing next to his ear.

No orders. No eye contact. Nothing.

It was as if you hadn't ever existed. The rest of the unit felt the strain but had no knowledge of what happened, from the overheard whispers you walked in on, you could tell they thought that something went down during the mission.

Soap after several failed attempts to get any information out of you, gave up after he saw the damage the punching bag took one night after tensions got to high. Ghost would occasionally drop by bringing in paperwork to fill out or entering with tea, his own silent version of support. Gaz and Soap on the other hand, took a less subtle route, immediately began planning movie nights and sneaking in board games as a temporary buffer for the agitation.

Recently, the irritability had plateaued while still being at an all time high. You had figured out Price's schedule, which lead you to spending your mornings in your room to evade him as he went in and out for meetings. (Afternoons he was shut up in his office for hours at a time, allowing you to be free to do whatever with the others in the common area.)

Unfortunately for you, it was what the unit called "briefing day", the monthly meeting of Laswell keeping the unit informed of general legal stuff in case you all need to get shipped off somewhere and didn't have time for a full preparation. The conference was held in her office building since you where all in the country, meaning there was no hiding out from Price.

In a small effort to procrastinate, after getting ready, you where unpacking and repacking your travel duffle. There was a light knock at the door as Soap peeked in, "Hey me and Ghost are gonna head off if you wanna join?".

You stood up and did a faked a stretch, pretending to still be waking up, "Nah you go on ahead, I still need my morning coffee." Soap nodded but stood there for a moment, a look of worry that was unable to hide flashed on his face before closing the door. Waiting for the footsteps to fully fade, you walked out into the kitchen. The quiet stillness of the room created a small sense of security in you before leaving.

The weight in your stomach gained more and more weight the closer you got to the door, swiftly opening the door and stepping inside you stood next to Gaz. Not looking up from the floor until the screen lit up with various information. Laswell's presentation quicky blended into background noise, partially from being boring legal jargon and from the anxiety of being near him.

A gentle nudge of Gaz's foot brought everything back into focus. "-I'll send over the files tomorrow morning. That's all for today.", Laswell finishing up, began gathering her things presumably for her next meeting. You turned to leave, following Ghost and Soap out, when Laswell called for you to stop. Gaz passing by you threw you a silent good luck and joined the others.

Price, in your peripheral vision, shuffled from foot to foot. His nervousness gave some relief to the ever growing anxiety, it couldn't have been an ambush if he didn't know or plan it. She huffed and slapped down papers onto the table switching from Chief Laswell to Kate, "You're both adults. I am not sending anyone any where until this team stops being.......Compromised. ". She shot a look at price before regaining composure, "Off the record- Get your shit together."

Laswell motioned toward to door for you both to leave, moving to the door you immediately headed back to the base. It wasn't a question of if she knew, of course she knew Kate would have been the first and probably only person that Price would have gone to after it happened. The real issue was what Price had done to make her so aggravated, had he tried to get a transfer? And if he did, who did he want gone? You or Him?

The wave of anger over the thought of Price trying you get you kicked off the unit sent you reeling. You slammed the door to the base open, cutting off Gaz who had opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, "Not now Gaz, just-" You yelled walking into your room closing the door behind you. Sitting on the bed you stared at the wall, trying to push down the seething rage before it caused you to do anything stupid. (You had already had several infractions in your file that nearly caused you to get discharged, making the issue with Price even worse if he chose to file a complaint or give a reason for you to leave.)

Feeling guilty over taking it out in Gaz, you leave to go apologize but freeze when you hear voices in the common area. Standing in the doorway of your room you listen, the hallway blocking your eyeline to the kitchen where they sat.

"Have you tried the earl grey Ghost brought? It's got lavender in it."

"Not yet."

It goes silent except for the shuffling of papers and the scratching of a pen.

"Price, sir?"

"Hmm"

"You've been a little.... off since you gotten back, it's been a while and we're all-......... Have you thought about maybe talking to someone?"

"I've got it handled Gaz."

"With all due respect sir you shouldn't keep it in if-"

"ENOUGH GARRICK."

You flinched at the scraping of a chair, anger bubbling up at Price's reaction. Was he really that disgusted? If he had regretted it, he could have forgotten about it and moved on. You hadn't even brought it up, if anything it was Price that ruined it. It wasn't his anger that hurt, it was the reason behind it that did. Was being with you, in any capacity, really that bad?

You where exhausted, exhausted of the pity looks from the rest of the unit every time they thought you weren't looking. Done with everyone walking on eggshells around you and him, tired of being treated like a infant whose about to cry at any moment. You where done with dealing with everything that was caused by him.

Having enough you turn around and walk back out, marching directly to Price's room. Raising your hand to knock, you stop. What the fuck am I even going to sa-

Midway through your thought, the door to the room swings open. All the anger fueled confidence vanishing the moment he came into view, "I'm.......-If you where going to do something I could come back later.".

Price looks at you for a moment, face clear of emotion, he steps to the side allowing you entry "I was actually coming to talk to you.", he stated closing the door behind you. You turned to him, he stood there arms crossed and in a wide stance. It was the most professional you've seen him be in weeks. Anger rising again as the silence continued, Price not bothering to further explain himself destroyed any patience you had left.

"No. You know what, I'm tired of this shit!" The rant you've attempted to shove down for multiple weeks blurts out, whisper yelling at him you let it out. "I'm tired of walking into a room and having to watch out for.......you! Having to make sure that I don't set you off, having to make sure that 2 seconds worth of eye contact isn't going to ruin BOTH of our days!" Afraid to raise your voice even a decibel higher for fear of your voice cracking and ruining the false confidence, you pause to take a breath trying to keep tears from forming.

"Yea it was stupid and I'm sorry I initiated it, but it does not give YOU THE RIGHT TO THROW A FUCKING FIT OVER IT AND TAKE IT OUT ON EVERYONE WITHIN A MILE RADIUS NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU REGRETTED OR IT WAS REPULSED BY-" Realizing you had slowly moving closer to him, inches separating your faces, you back up until you hit the wall behind you. The rage being sucked out by cold concrete against your back. "I really liked you, hell I even loved you. I knew it was just a fuck and I wasn't expecting anything after it but you don't have to be a giant dick about it. "

Silence again.

Price, just as before, was motionless. Only slightly taller than you, his face was angled down keeping the unwavering eye contact he kept since you got there. Refusing to continue until he gave any inclination of comprehension, you stared right back.

Finally, after what was hours shoved into seconds, he moved. Sighing and wiping a hand over his face he spoke, "You're right, I was angry. I was angry that I broke boundaries. I was angry at myself for allowing me to ruin- " He paused. The hard exterior melting away, shoulders falling from previous tension, "I was afraid to even touch you, because I knew that if did I wouldn't be able to go back, - have it go back to being like it was before.".

He steps forward, creating the same distance just as you had earlier. Inhaling at the ghosting of his hand over the skin of your neck, he brought his eyes back to you. Holding your face in his hands, feeling the burning heat he giving off in comparison to the wall that you are pressing yourself into.

You just look at him.

"I was doing so well for so long," he whispers, his eyes searching your face for any reaction, "you don't know how hard I was trying to stay away." Price stops again, waiting for permission as his thumb grazes your cheek. A tear slips through as the realization blooms. He wasn't disgusted, or repulsed, or regretful. Grabbing his face and closing the space between you, his pulse beating against your hands as you kiss him. Breaking it off after your air had been depleted, his forehead resting against yours, you smiled, "You know you're really cheesey right?".

"That's your take away from all this?"

Tag list:

@tapioca-marzipan

I was debating about making a part three but idk yet (not enough of a plot for whole third part)

Also seriously let me know if there are any mistakes or if the spacing is weird, dont want my shit looking like a mess lmao

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casablancarossa · 7 months

Text

Stolen Night.

<<an [Angsty] taemin x reader scenario>>

Synopsis: You and Taemin had history, and not all history is rainbows and roses and now, you two are going deal with that history whether you two liked it or not.

Pairings : taemin x female!reader

Genre : Angst

Content Warning : Language, Alcohol, Implied Sex

Author's Note: I love a good angsty moment, only time I get to imagine Taemin as anything but baby cheese.

This is a long one so get comfy and..

Enjoy your stay♥️

In the long series of desks, placed side by side with little nightlight for the students who preferred an evening study session, your hunched frame sat somewhere in the middle close to the nearest working water machine that would dispense hot water for your tea. Surround you was; Onew, who had his head down, resting on his arms, half asleep, placed on your right; Kibum who was perched on a seat, on the other side of Onew, knees pressed up to his chest, reading the latest Vogue magazine; Minho, who has focused on rewatching last night's football match with earphones on, sitting right in front of Kibum, and of course your 'boyfriend', but not, Taemin, who has sat in front of you doing nothing but practically throwing daggers with his eyes.

You could barely make an audible sigh to catch their attention, quietly mumbling to yourself that you shouldn't have told them where you were. It was fortunate that despite how noticeable the boys are, none of the other students in the library have made a fuss. That or they have been really discreet and you'll probably wake up tomorrow seeing photos plastered with the headline. 'Ex-SM Trainee supported by boyfriend and group'. You iterate to yourself once more, a little louder this time, they shouldn't have bothered visiting you, feeling more like a burden than usual.

"Yeah, but who else is going to tell you to chill and take a break..", Onew's voice was slightly slurred and barely the hum of a whisper, but you manage to pick up on every word, rolling your eyes at the fact that he was correct.

You pondered in silence, pursing your lips and smiling as you lean to ruffle Onew's hair, thanking him and by extension the rest of the guys for making time to see you.

When you boldly made the choice to pursue further education in Japan, you'd think that it would be your your parents, who would be sad and pleading you that you can pursue the same course in Seoul, or your younger siblings crying that they would be lost without you, but those experiences paled in comparison to how the men, sitting in the library with you now, reacted. At first, they thought it was a joke, but when suddenly you needed Kibum to simplify an application form so you could properly fill it up, the news suddenly hit them like a wall, which ensued an elaborate 3-month plan to find ways to make you stay.

You could only laugh at the stupidity of it all. It wasn't like you were travelling halfway across the world. You were essentially a small pond away and if anything the boys could visit you anytime them wanted when they had a long period of promotions in Japan.

"I appreciate you guys coming, but Taemin looks like he is regretting not using his maknae privilege to go back to the dorm, instead he is staring at me like he wants to kill me", you whisper harshly while spinning your head to see if your comment was loud enough to disturb the other students in the area.

His eyes darkened with every glare, tucking his legs further into the table so that he could throw his leg out, kicking you at the shins which elicited a yelp out of you followed by dead silence at the other library goers look at you. How could he not be so annoyed, when you barely greeted him and have been talking to him informally and seem to dote extra hard on the other but not him.

Your face scrunches, throwing an annoyed look at Taemin before casting a pleading one towards Minho, who sighed and reached to flick Taemin at the back of the head. Taemin in response tried to lunge towards Minho with a fake taunt, fist pulled back and he would have tried to push the fake out if it weren't for Key who finally raised his head from what he was reading, ripping out a hiss through his teeth, the look of annoyance on his face. It was enough to placate Minho and Taemin from turning a fake out to an actual hissy fight but Key had ulterior motives, leaving his seat to take the spare one beside you, resting his arm on the backrest of your chair and leaning in close to you.

"Look, no one has been more supportive than I have in you leaving the company, but going to Tokyo for a fine arts course is a bit of a left field"

"Get to your point oppa", you groan, throwing your head back to look at him.

The sudden closeness between the two of you irritated the dark haired male sitting across you, folding his arms and looking at any direction but in front of him.

"I'm just saying, you're a talented person, you ran rings around idols who have been around for much longer and you're a triple threat..." Key further spoke, his eyes soften as if memories just played in his head in one big reel.

"And if it weren't for Taemin and the company, I would have been under the label... but I didn't and now I can't even work on the stuff I worked on" your voice dropped before looking away, stealing a glance to see that Taemin had heard your statement and responded with a clenched jaw after hearing his name so specifically mentioned.

The reason why Taemin was your boyfriend, but technically not, was because it was all just for show to save face.

Almost a year ago, a set of photos released by Dispatch from an anon source, caused waves with netizens. Said photos were primarily photos of Taemin at a nightclub in Spain, with one one in particular was a photo of Taemin engaging in intimate relations with a random girl on the dancefloor. The photo was blurry at best and most people had doubts if it even was Taemin. Normally, this would have been swept under a rug, especially since a lot of people thought it wasn't him and for the people who did think it was Taemin, were hellbent on finding out who the girl was as nasty comments flied in, cursing the innocent party, calling them a whore for ruining Taemin's image.

However, if SM controlled the press by saying it was a photo of Taemin and his girlfriend, then maybe fans would be more forgiving. Coincidentally, it wasn't just Taemin, but you and the rest of the SHINee members were spotted at that club in Spain.

That's where you come into the picture. You had been waiting to be debuted under SM and debut a rebranded image of yourself. Originally starting as a self-produced indie artist, your sporadic attendance in music shows and the rumours of your debut with SM, meant that you could be very well acquainted with SHINee.

If SM could spin that you and Taemin had just begun a relationship prior to the photo, then maybe netizens wouldn't call their 'ace' a sudden playboy, making out with random girls when he is drunk.

It took about 2 months after the official statement was released before the knives were suddenly turned towards you. People were calling you a sell-out for signing with a company. People were saying that you were using your relationship with Taemin to launch your music career. They know nothing, you thought to yourself. Meanwhile Taemin, came out of it unscathed, being a private person, meant he didn't have to worry about posting about you constantly and if you were in his posts, usually it is with other SHINee members.

By default, SM had put your debut on standby, stating that debuting you so soon after your scandal might not generate good PR, while Taemin only had his comeback pushed back by 2 months.

After almost a year wait after the incident, you gave up waiting being in the good graces of the company and just left for Japan. Now that you think about it, you technically weren't out of your contract, but you haven't been home in 2 months and yet you and Taemin were still pretending to be a couple in public. Your consistent closeness with SHINee would raise questions if you and Taemin ever 'broke up' and malicious rumour could pop out again.

Your train was thoughts was rudely cut off with Key leaning in to blow air onto your cheeks, causing a shock in your system before suppressing your giggle and smacking him in the arm. "Earth to Y/N, I was asking if you just want to rent out the book and I promise I will help you study in the dorm with wine"

"What? She's staying the night?" Taemin rejected the thought of you entering the dorm, which broke your heart slightly.

"She's your girlfriend, and also she's our friend, of course she can.." Minho whispered, flicking his wrist to smack Taemin on the shoulders with a sly grin.

"She's not my ---"

"She's not your girlfriend.. we get it.. jeeze Taem, you'd think you hate the poor girl" Onew interjects in Taemin's rebuttal, finally sitting up and stretching his arms out before resting one over your shoulder, tussling your hair gently.

Seeing his hyungs so close to you, practically hit a nerve in Taemin, although as much as he wants to deny it doesn't, it does. His chest rises with a deep breath in before controlling his breath out, trying to calm himself, rolling his eyes before turning his head to look at Minho who was now playing with the pages of Kibum's magazine.

"Alright okay, fine, we can go for dinner --" you began, raising your wrist to look at your watch, but noticing that it had gotten pretty late, "-- or midnight snack. But Tokyo never sleeps so... I'll pick up the book next time"

You began closing various books on historical art and started piling them to a stack. You shoo'd away Key or Onew's hands whenever they tried to help you pack your bag, insisting that you can manage by yourself, giggling whenever Onew would pout saying that 'SHINee's Princess' should be spoiled even when she is studying. Your eyes could only roll at the statement, scoffing at how ridiculous it sounded but you basically have been adopted by majority of the SHINee members, often doting on you since they met you at the recording studio.

"Go on, you guys can wait outside, I'll just return these then I'll head out. Bummie oppa, can you take my bag please?"

Key nodded and waved you off as the boys stand up, getting themselves ready, picking up any loose items and placing them in your bag before collectively leaving the library.

As you navigated what felt like a maze, you began muttering curses. Particularly, curses about Taemin. In your eyes the man was complete idiot, but so were you. Your suddenly vocalized monologue of being annoyed, made your blood boil, expressing your disbelief that you even liked him, still like him, hell he never left your thoughts for more than minute, you sighed to yourself, that only if you knew what he was like outside of his idol image, you wouldn't have picked him as your bias.

Your ramblings had manifested physically, every time you voiced out something that Taemin did that annoyed you, you would grab one of the more sturdier book and lightly bang it against your head, or a surge of energy would cause you to jump up and down, punching the air violently before letting out a barely there scream.

"You're an idiot Lee Taemin... so fucking drunk, you forgot it was me that night.." you sighed in defeat while placing a book on one of the shelves.

Seeing the book you had just placed, suddenly get taken away, definitely spooked you, but you were ill prepared to see a face pop into view. Taemin's face, looking at you with curious eyes. "Hm. For someone who had a lot to say about me, you're pretty silent now", his voice felt flat, cold, unnatural.

"You'd be silent too if you got scared like I did" you scoffed, walking away, continuing to look for the sections the remaining books in your arm would go.

"So... you still like me huh?" Taemin smirks, following you and grabbing a random book from a shelf to inspect it, brushing his finger against the pages before returning it.

"I'm surprised that's what you got amongst all the other shit I've said.."

You stop in an aisle and tried to appropriately place a book on the shelf, making sure it didn't accidently push out another book or accidentally smash and crimping the pages. "Why are you here Taemin?", you paused but your head refused to look at his direction.

Taemin's frame casually leans against the bookcase, folding his arms and bit his lips a few times, an obvious sign that he was hesitant in speaking out his thoughts. He carefully brushed his dark locks back and sighed, turning his head away as he tries to form sentences in his head before speaking out of turn. "Look Y/N, I know we really haven't seen eye to eye recently and yeah I know, you blame me for not debuting..."

"Look at that. The great SM ace, Lee Taemin is self aware after all", the dryness in your voice, mixed with sarcasm, didn't seem to faze him at all.

"I didn't tell SM to use your name. Frankly I would have been happy to say it was a secret girlfriend and then make a 'breakup' announcement a few months later" Taemin tried to defend himself..

"Oh for crying out loud Taemin...." you groan softly, rolling your eyes, but your words had stopped, trapped in between your tongue. An aggravated sigh left your lips before pushing past him and turning a corner to place your last book in its spot.

"Look, I said I'm sorry! I'm sorry I stalled your plans..." he sighs defeatedly, his head following your movement

"Taemin.. ", you take a deep breath before continuing ".. do I look like I give a flying fuck about my plans or debuting?" you tone controlled but loud enough that it was met with a few hushes from lurking students who were also trying to check out a few books.

"Should I not assume so? You looked miserable studying. You looked like you'd rather be anywhere else but here" he retorts, pacing up closer to you and grabbing your arms to pull you to a more secluded part of the library, ending up near the door of an emergency stairwell.

The strength in which he dragged you, should be something you could easily counter, but you felt weak in his hold, like something in you wanted to see where this could lead, then again, you are not the happiest towards him, so you have to actively try and push him away.

"Let me go Taemin...you're wrong. I'd rather be anywhere else but beside you" you grunted, prying his hands away from your arms, turning on your heels to walk away.

But before you even thought about taking a step, Taemin, grabbed you by the arms again, pulling you towards him and pinning you against the bookcases with a solid thud. His arms placed on either side of your head, gripping onto the shelves, almost leaning down to look at you.

"So what are you so annoyed about then?" his soft voice interlaced with intrigue, he almost sings the question to your ear.

You remained to stand firm, refusing to buckle underneath him, but your eyes met and you couldn't help but soften your gaze the minute you saw those sweet pools, drowning you out. It was tough, but you finally were able to break eye contact, lowering your head , almost pressing down onto his shoulders.

Taemin remained in silence, keeping his position still, only to turn and weave his head whenever to try to observe your face and to gauge your expressions. After a while, he tried to pursue a question he tried to avoid asking since you caught him following you. "Why are you still thinking about that night?"

He was met with your head, shaking, refusing to answer. Taemin presses the question once more, this time, his voice was so sweet to your ear it was almost tempting. Your eyes close and your head throws back, banging the back slightly against the shelving, in a rhythmic pulse. "Y/N?"

"That night in Spain? The photos? Taemin, that wasn't some random girl. It was me", your eyes open to see his face so close to yours.

Taemin remained silent, nothing on his countenance could help you gauge his thoughts and feelings as you speak. Does he remember? Why is he not reacting at all? Maybe he doesn't like the fact it was me.

"Then you left the next morning and by the afternoon.. you didn't even remember it was me that you were with...", your voice quivered, trying to remain calm.

"So you know something after all..."

A dry chuckle left Taemin's throat, and you stared at him, puzzled and worried. For the longest time since the photo leak and days prior to it, you assumed that Taemin had no recollection of that night or who he was with. To the same extent, Taemin had made similar assumptions towards you.

Now both of you are faced with the dilemma and knowledge, that you two remember a little bit more than you two would like to reveal. The memories did puzzle themselves back together with rough timeline of that night.

SHINee have often holidayed in Spain and took notions to fly out there during their spare time. They can roam around somewhat anonymously and usually you would be tagged along with them.

The last trip you accompanied them with, they were finally able to do the trip without any 'company' chaperone. That means, it was just the 5 of you, with no managers, no on-site Korean local translators, no supervision and no nightly check-ups.

Through tactical socializing and a few friendly handshakes and offers for drinks, you managed to get you and the boy a last minute reservation for a booth in a club that you had heard about from another indie artist. It was esentially the group's first night of freedom and the boys could be messy as long as it didn't generate enough buzz back home.

So it was no surprise that Minho had turned into a sporty frat boy for the duration of the trip, Key pushed the limits of his alcoholism , Onew, being the great leader that he is, was reserved, dabbling into drinking and re-exploring the world of cigarettes and cigars. Taemin on the other hand, had no qualms of suppressing his need to flirt, to seduce and to casually bang girls for the duration of the trip. If it weren't for you and Key returning back to the AirBnB, you wouldn't have caught Taemin trying to eat out a girl on the dining table.

A stark difference to the Taemin, who only a few weeks up to that point, could barely have enough of you. He was flirty, attached to the hip and endlessly sought out ways to catch your attention. To only have himself in your eyes and he was well aware that you liked him back. But after a heart-breaking rejection from your end, Taemin's attitude had somewhat flipped and next thing you know you were cast aside. Still friendly, but somewhat off.

It shouldn't hurt the way it should have, and god knows you were madly into Taemin, but with your career on the line, at the time, rejecting him felt like it was the only right thing to do.

So when it came to that night in the club, it was almost weird to have Taemin cling onto you. He stuck close by and eventually when Key, Minho and Onew were basically trapped in their own bubble, partying with the locals on opposite sides of the place, Taemin was practically inseparable from you.

The way he mewled your name, how he sat close you, resting his arms over your shoulder, his spare hand resting on your lap, and how he'd pull you in, so you could hear his ramblings through the loud music. All of it, along with your trusted wingman, alcohol, made the night one giant dream.

That night, Taemin would passively comment how you broke his heart and now he had to find you through other girls. How none of them carried the weight your smile did for him. How he could never get lost in their eyes. How he never felt the need to protect their smiles. Eventually, Taemin blamed himself for his actions. He knew better, he knew what it was like to debut and the price that came with that; he understood why you had to reject him in the first place.

At some point, you were convinced the the boy didn't know what he was on about. You heavily doubted he'd remember all of this and you'd find out the next morning that you'd be right.

Equally, you too delved into the deepest parts of your heart, affirming Taemin that you also liked him back, how you've always had a crush in him and in the turbulent world of the industry, more than SHINee, more than anyone else, Taemin had been the most supportive. He was the only one who saw you sparkle the way you wanted to. You both know, you were madly obsessed with each other, but there was never the right time. Pouring your heart out came easy with alcohol, but you remained coy, almost demure, despite your choice of clothing, and Taemin loved all of it and he admits to you that he has to come into terms of letting the idea of you go.

But he followed you to the dancefloor that night, amongst the crowd, his hands barely left your waist, moving and grinding against your body. As the climactic beat drops, his head would also lower, softly grazing his lips along your neck, peppering it with kisses until you succumb and sink back into his frame, rolling your head to the side, giving him more access to drown you in affection. Suddenly you two were lost in the buzz and the music and by the time you had spun around to face Taemin, all sense of thought just left your head.

You grabbed him by his shirt and him pulling you closer than possible, the vague memory of whispering, unsure who said what.. It was barely audible and you could barely remembered what you said to him and what his response was, but it must have been something insane because immediately, Taemin has pulled you closer, hand on your neck and waist as he plants a heavy and heated kiss. Instinctively, you pushed into the kiss, lapping up his lips and softly nibbling on the bottom one before letting out a soft moan as his teeth grazes on your tongue, one of his hand sneakily reaching down to squeeze your ass through your dress.

Then it was a blur. Amongst your memories was the heavy make-out sessions in the bathroom in the club, the make-out in the hallway on the way out of the club, getting in trouble with the taxi driver as you two could barely keep your hands off each other.

The next thing you remember is waking up in your bed, naked, feeling a bit sore, but also alone. As you crawl over to the edge of the bed, you see your discarded clothes, but no evidence of the man you brought to your bed last night.

By lunch time as you came to the dining table late, despite being severely hungover, Onew and Minho teased you as a large bruised mark encompassed the side of your neck, Key was busy making brunch and Taemin who was sitting opposite you, was claiming, he truly had minor recollection of last night but vividly remember making out with a random 'bitch'. That was the term he used and it was stuck in your brain like glue. He probably didn't mean it as maliciously as he intended, but it still stung you, confused on the exact events, but you were damn near certain, it was you and Taemin who were in bed, but maybe not. Maybe it wasn't Taemin I was with. You try to convince yourself that it really wasn't Taemin because we would never cross the line like that.

So you also claim that you had no memory, claiming the last thing you remembered was convincing Key to do shots with you, before flirting with some dancer who was up on makeshift stages. Taemin's face contorts in confusion before remaining silent, internally questioning whether you truly forgot, because you spoke so confidently not even throwing a glance at him.

By the look on his face now, and his words earlier on that you could tell the memory wasn't too blurred for him, in fact he appears to remember all of it, down to the last detail, while you only have a vague recollection of it. A memory that you only remembered clearer access to, months after the fact. After the photo leak, after the PR announcement, after several months of posed "photo-ops". By that point, you almost seemed certain it was him and to you, it seemed like you were the only one to remember. How wrong you were now.

Now that you two are standing so close to each other in the back corner of some library, the tense intimacy of hearing the shift of one's breathing or the slight double beat of their pulse.

"Even if I only remember some bits..." you hissed lowly, slightly pushing Taemin back with your hands to create a gap. "To you, I was just another girl in your endless quest and I'm not going to stand here pretending I'm okay with that" the was a quiver in your voice, eyes glistening, as you duck under his arms, attempting to leave, pushing the door of the emergency exit stairwell, rushing down the stairs

"What? Hold on y/n, what?", puzzled, Taemin chases after you, slamming the fire door shut.

Taemin was almost too stunned, yes, he may have tried to suppress the memories of that night but it was apparent to him and only him that he remembered that night distinctively different from you. His eyes cast over, as you starts rushing down the set of stairs, before turning back to look at him, ready to scream.

"For fuck's sake Taemin, you took advantage of the fact that I had feelings for you.! Then the next day, you thought you had been with a random girl, when it was me! Turns out you knew all along and yet you have been nothing but an asshole to me. I lost my chance at a good career trying to protect you!" your voice croaked loudly, feeling the pain in your chest swell.

The blur of sadness and rage seeped into you and seeing the shocked look on his face, made it impossible for you to know how you truly wanted to vent out but you at least wanted to make yourself heard.

"Take advantage? Of your feelings?!"

"Yes, you did!"

"Y/N, you know damn well, I have always been interested in you, you knew how much I wanted to be with you. You knew that I would never use you like that. I would never hurt you like that"

"Never hurt me? You left me in the morning like I'm just your average one night stand. You made me believe, you didn't even care enough to remember me after I gave myself to you that night. After I poured my heart and soul out to you. And in the last year, you made me think, I was the most despicable person in earth to you... "

Your words struck like ice to Taemin, internally questioning how wrong you have been about it all. He angrily kicks the wall and paces trying to control the hot air that filled his lungs.

"Tell me I'm wrong!" you push a little bit, taking one step up to face the man above you.

"You are wrong.." he whispers lowly, but enough for you to catch it.

"Why?"

"I...I can't.." the groan that escapes him almost sounds beastly.

"Taemin, if you can't tell me that I was wrong, then can you consider that I am right? Instead of resisting it, can't you just admit to me that it's your fault we are in this mess" you were practically pleading, maybe because internally you wish that something was different like something was missing on your part and maybe Taemin could finally answer it.

"No, you're wrong."

"Then tell me wh -- "

"--because it was you who begged from the very beginning, y/n! You're the one who told me to never mention it", he yells back, aggravated that he was suddenly being turned to a bad guy. "You told me, no matter what, that night was a dream, to draw a line over it. Had I known that it would affect you this much, I would have said something" Taemin blurts out. "I spent the last year, trying to make it easier for you."

"Wh-what? Easier?!", you were taken aback, a little breathless but mildly insulted, nothing about your life in the last year has been easy.

"At the dancefloor, you told me that you wished that we weren't who we were, so we could experience the sensation and thrill of being obsessed with each other.. " Taemin suddenly paused, trying to control his facial expression as he wracks his brain to continue speaking. "... then at home, after... after we fucked..", cementing the action in his brain after struggling for ways to phrase it. "After that, you cried Y/N. As we passed out, you wished that this was all a dream and asked that we should forget about it, because then it wouldn't be as hard to fool ourselves, that there was no sparks, no chemistry, no connection, between us. "

Taemin continues to elaborate the year long pain that struck his heart. The morning after, he doubled down on your wishes, claiming he was with another girl instead. How, back in Korea, when the photos leaked, he intended to reject the idea of using your name to cover his actions, but you had already agreed before he could contest it and the company rolled with it. He even feigned innocence and honest worry, when he got the rest of SHINee to ask you about that night but the more they asked, the more you replied that nothing happened and probably just had a steamy makeout session in a hallway with a dancer or a random club goer.

He felt like the facade of acting like a couple, was a knife to both of your hearts. To be so dishonest in the shared affection between you two whether it was in public or on camera and it broke him. So in effort to spare the both of you from the illusion of what might have been, he actively distanced himself even more since the night you two shared, but he also actively stopped sleeping around and threw himself into work because all he wanted was you, but to him it seemed like you no longer saw him the same way.

"I spent the last few months, wishing that we didn't need to avoid it. To talk about it. Maybe.. if we were a little honest with each other, then we wouldn't be in this shit show" he sighs, stepping down the stairs so he was just one step above you, looking down at you.

His forehead was on a tightly knit, eyes desperately looking into yours as if he was searching for the answers to his problems.

You, on the other hand was left speechless, looking at him unravel and pour his heart out made you shake your head as you continue down the stairwell, trying to control your breathing as the impeding breakdown creeps in your chest.

There was a cold unfathomable tension as the silence got longer, you could barely string sentences trying to see the good in the misguided flaw of Taemin's plans. As you reach the fire exit door that leads to a small hallway where another exit of the library is, you look back to see Taemin was not too far off, just one flight of stairs behind you before he sits on the top step, looking at you with pitiful eyes.

"Please say something, y/n.."

Your hands tried to push the door open, trying to ignore the situation, but you had more questions than answers and you were unsure what state your heart was. "If you had known after all... you could have something, because I spent months thinking, you didn't remember. I spent months trying to hate you, even when my career went down and I couldn't"

"I gathered as much. I wished you had said something too, because it was so damn believable. I genuinely thought you regretted that night so hard, it was out of your memory. Even Key hyung, asked you about it repeatedly" his soft voice lowered along with his head.

He was right, You did find Key's behaviour odd, but you also assumed Key was just looking out for you, making sure nothing terrible happened that night. As you look at Taemin, you couldn't bear the last year being one giant misunderstanding. You bit your lip, grunting in annoyance before pushing the door open, attempting to leave the building with Taemin not too far behind you. The soft whimper he lets out as you walk away, catches your ear.

There's the Taemin you know. Determined, warm and willing to do anything to make it right between the two of you. This Taemin would always be one step behind you at all times. He calls your name repeatedly despite you ignoring it. What can you say to him? I'm sorry? I take it all back. Let's start over again? No. You shook your head, nothing was right and suddenly the sight of the rest of SHINee, looking at you put a harder strain in your chest.

As Taemin tries to catch up, Key holds back Minho and Onew from approaching the two of you after seeing the distraught look on your face, barely keeping it together from breaking down crying. Key knew, he had to let Taemin handle this on his own.

"Y/N, please talk to me!" Taemin calls out, almost screaming once you two were outside.

Your steps halted to a pause. You wanted to run to the rest of them, to hug them and distract yourself, but with Taemin behind you, you were pitted in the middle. Deal with Taemin or tell the rest what happened. Your feet shuffles, turning to the dark haired boy, slowly walking towards him. "What is there to talk about Taemin?"

"Everything..."

"There's nothing to talk about.."

"Yes there is. Where are we Y/N?"

"Nowhere, there's nothing between us. Apparently we don't hate each other and we are bad at talking to each other." a defeated laugh escapes your throat as a tear decorates your cheek, the weight of the last year suddenly feeling much more lighter. "We were both in the wrong.. "

"So what now? A-are we good...? What do we do now?" Taemin fumbles, seeing you cry brought him back to that moment, wanting nothing more than to hug you.

"I guess... we're good?" nodding your head with a soft smile. "We definitely need to share everything that we know.."

"What happens next?", there was glimmer in Taemin's eyes, for the first time in a while he rarely saw a genuine smile from you that was meant for him.

Pensively, you sucked your bottom lip in, biting on it gently as you ponder his words, before nodding your head, almost bowing. Your feet itched to start walking towards the rest of the guys, as you leave Taemin behind. As soon as you knew, you were within an earshot of Taemin and the rest, you quickly spin to face his direction.

"Yah! Lee Taemin, how about we try being friends again!" you yelled out to him with a grin. "You'll end up trying to win me over again right? I'll be expecting you in the future!"

"Oh? I'll hold you to that! If you fall in love with me again, you can't say no this time!" Taemin yells back, laughing as he chases after you before hopping to hook an arm around your shoulder and his spare hand ruffle your hair.

Meanwhile, the rest of the guys smile to each other, seeing that peace has been brokered between you and Taemin. They chuckle as they expect you two barrelling towards them, quickly ruffling Taemin's hair before hugging you.

"I won't miss the chance to win you over in the future." Taemin began sighing as he takes a step in front of you and holds his hand out. "I'll do it right this time. But we only have now, tonight. So.. hello, I'm Lee Taemin"

You smile sweetly, bowing before you take his hand and shake it agreeably. "Hello, I'm Y/N. Please look after me!", you bow once more.

For the first time in a long time, its like the world had given you a second chance to reset. A gift for the two lives to connect again. That was you and Taemin, it was a turbulent year indeed, but now the shackles of your mistakes will just be a memory, a learning anecdote. Maybe this time, you will finally give him a chance and maybe this time, Taemin would communicate a bit better.

As the five of you walk towards the main square outside the library to catch a taxi to the closest open restaurant, just ever so slightly, you and Taemin were just a half step behind the rest. Throwing soft glances at each other, slowly communicating that it will be all okay eventually. Yes there is so much more to handle and talk about, but right now at this moment, you two were okay, there was no animosity, no angry tensions, it was just a bittersweet happiness and right now that was enough. Both of you stepped on the bridge at the same time and hopefully one day, you two would meet in the middle with a more happier situation that you two wanted.

"So, would now be a bad time to tell yous that I knew you two banged?" Minho quickly interjects as the group waits by the road.

The groups looks at the tall male in shock, almost ready to jump him.

"What? I literally saw you walk out of her room shirtless with your back covered in scratches. Had to wipe it from my memory. I know Taemin was a playboy, but didn't want to imagine that Y/N was a freak in bed too" Minho gestures towards Taemin and you with a slight disgusted look on his face

"Hyung!"

"Oppa!"

You and Taemin whined as Minho chuckles to himself earning a slap on the shoulder from Key. In the midst of the chaos, Taemin had instinctively wrapped his arm around your shoulder, almost shielding you from the embarassment, but also reaffirming that both of you are suffering together in said embarassment.

"What? Too soon? They'll eventually need to laugh about it!" Minho looks defensively as Key curses him out for his tactlessness.

Then that's when it happened. You were laughing, stark red in the face and you take a stealing glance at the man who still had his arm around you, but you looked a little longer than expected and Taemin had turned his head enough to lock eyes with you. The world almost paused in that moment and the bubble had formed. The both of you knew there was still pain in your hearts, but you two could finally talk about it now. That's when it happened. The spark that never wavered. The chemistry that never died. The knowledge that this could be something great as long as you two worked on it together.

Taemin flashes a weak smile, like he was still burdened, mouthing, It's okay. We'll be okay. He tries hard to not get so teary eyes as he ruffles your hair, before guiding your head so he could plant a kiss on your forhead. His breathing hitched trying not to full on bawl in front of everyone. He realized and so did you, that you two have wasted a year in this madness and the only step forward is to learn and heal and not look back. You found your arm also hooking around his torso, to pull him tighter for a hug.

"We'll be okay.."

"I know.."

"Promise me something right now Taemin.." you quickly state as the taxi rolls towards the group.

"Anything"

"No matter how hard I push and pull.. don't give up on... us"

"I promise. Like I said, I will win you over properly this time. And this time, there will be no confusion about it" he quickly pecks your cheek before he guides to the taxi door, holding it open for you.

"I'm sorry for everything.."

"I'm sorry too..."

What happened was the past now. All you and Taemin can do is just take everything, one step at a time. Together.

Fin

#taemin scenario #lee taemin #taemin x reader #taemin #taemin fanfic #taemin x female reader #taemin angst

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