#it sucks. it’s really bad actually. I should not have read 60 chapters of it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

raibebe · 4 years

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Sugar and Spice

Genre: Fluff? Words: 4.390 Warnings: none for this chapter

Chapters: | 1 | 2 | 3 | masterlist

A/N: Sugar and Spice is a series now, I know you all probably wanted more smut but I chose to write a prequel about how Jeno ended up being a sugar baby in the first place. Since this is going to be a longer story, I wanted to try to do it in chapters instead of writing one giant thing. Later on I will switch the POV but I felt like it was needed to start off with Jeno’s. Do not worry, there will be smut in later chapters.

Taglist: @yutaalove, @byunniebaekhyunnie

Like all the bad decisions Lee Jeno had made in his life, this one started with none other than Lee Donghyuck. The two boys were sitting in the university’s cafeteria where Donghyuck watched Jeno eat the food they had served with a disgusted look on his face. “I don’t understand how you can even swallow that.” “It’s either this or instant ramen again and I am pretty sure my body consists of 60% ramen already,” Jeno whined, trying to wash down what must be the most dry piece of meat he had ever tasted his entire life with some water. “Dude you work like three jobs,” Donghyuck groaned, kicking his friend beneath the table. “Got fired from the library because they caught me sleeping,” Jeno sighed deeply. “You look like you’re ready to pass out right now.” “Hyuck, I am functioning on three hours of sleep and two redbull.” “Jeno,” Donghyuck sighed and Jeno hated it when he used that tone of voice. He didn’t need Donghyuck’s pity. He could do this. He was fine. Well mostly. Apart from the fact that he got an average amount of four hours of sleep, was barely passing his classes and got fired by one of his many part time jobs every few months his life was absolutely peachy. “I’m sure if you talk to your parents again-“ “No,” he cut Donghyuck off, “I won’t come begging at their door. I chose this path for myself and they simply don’t agree Hyuck.” “Your parents suck ass,” his friend sighed, leaning back in his chair, “Pretty sure my parents would throw a party each day for a week straight if I had told them I wanted to become a vet.” “Well mine aren’t,” Jeno sighed and raked a hand through his messy hair. It was getting too long again, his bangs hanging into his eyes. Could he ask Renjun to cut it again? Did he trust the furious Chinese man with something sharp that close to his eyes?

For a while it was quiet between the two friends while Jeno continued to stuff his face with the cafeteria food. He didn’t have much time before he had to go to his shift at a little record store not far from his dorm building. It wasn’t paying the best but the owner of the shop and no issues with him doing his readings there when no customers were around. “You know that we miss you, Jeno. Right?” Donghyuck cut the silence which made Jeno stop mid bite, “We haven’t done anything with all the boys in forever and I am not counting the times we were at the club while you were working and declining the tips we were trying to give you.” “I don’t need nor want your pity money, Hyuck,” Jeno groaned again and shoved the plate with his food away. His appetite had left him. Donghyuck and him had this conversation every other week always with the same outcome: Donghyuck explaining how he was worried about him and Jeno telling him that he was fine (which he most likely wasn’t but he managed). “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to make it to our meets ups, I really am,” Jeno tried to explain and Donghyuck’s eyes immediately went soft, “I just- I’m behind on my tuition again and haven’t paid the lease for the dorms for the last moth yet. I really need to take every minute and hour of overtime I can get and my grades aren’t getting any better either. This will all be for nothing if I fail my anatomy class again.” “Jeno,” Donghyuck tried again, “You can’t keep on like this for another three years.” “I have to Hyuck,” Jeno sighed, slouching back into his chair, “I have to.” His body had been screaming at him to stop whatever he was doing for weeks now and to be completely honest, he was aching for a full eight hours of sleep and not the usual four that were just disconnected naps throughout his day.

“I’m going to make a suggestion and I need you to promise me to not be mad at me, alright,” Donghyuck suddenly said, holding out his pinky finger. “Hyuck, I won’t take money from any of you. I don’t want Chenle to pay for my lease again. That was a one-time thing and I told him that I would pay him back,” Jeno immediately argued, shame running through him. He hated constantly being treated to meals and the thought that he had a debt with his younger friend even though the Chinese had told Jeno hundreds of times that he didn’t need to money back. “That’s not what I wanted to suggest. Now promise.” Jeno rolled his eyes before interlocking his pinky with one of his arguably best friends. “Actually this isn’t my idea. But Jaemin and Renjun brought it up last Friday at our movie night.” That alone made Jeno feel bad again. While his friends had been all cuddled up in Chenle’s apartment to watch some movies and eat popcorn while drinking cheap beer, he had been working in a sweaty club with horrible music that made his ears ring. “I’m sorry,” he muttered under his breath but Donghyuck didn’t seem to hear him. “But hear me out: Have you ever thought about becoming a sugar baby?” Jeno lost all control over his facial muscles and was pretty sure his brain had just short circuited, his open mouth free real estate for the fruit flies that were all over the cafeteria. “No, no, think about it Jeno,” Donghyuck immediately argued, “I did my research and you can get a monthly allowance for at least a thousand dollar if not more. You’d be able to quit that job at the shady bar.” “Hyuck,” Jeno cut in when his brain had successfully rebooted, “In case you haven’t noticed in all the years we’ve been friends: I’m not gay.” “So what?” “What do you mean so what? I’m not going to prostitute myself for some old man just because I need money,” Jeno hissed between his teeth. “Oh my god Jeno,” Donghyuck sighed, “You’re so 2010. There are plenty of wealthy woman out there looking for some arm candy to pass their time.” “You’re insane Donghyuck.” “Insanely brilliant that is,” his friend grinned, “This is literally the perfect solution for all your problems.” “How is fucking some old hag going to solve any of my problems?” “Oh come on, Jeno,” Donghyuck groaned, “There are plenty of sites that let you choose your preferred partner for this kind of arrangement. And don’t even try to deny that you’re into older girls.” At that Jeno flushed a deep red color. His preference about his partners was basically an open secret in their group of friends that he had confessed after a drunken round of truth or dare some time in highschool when Renjun had asked him why he had rejected the confession of a cute girl a year below them to keep crushing on the substitute teacher they had. Chenle had not let this thing die until Jeno had started to date a girl from Mark’s class and even then the boy had made some cruel comments about their age difference. “Here, Renjun found a site that seems very legit,” Donghyuck brought him back from his memories, scribbling down a link on a piece of paper, “Please just check it out.” “That’s a lot of promises I have to give today,” Jeno mused but took the paper to put it into his pocket. “We’re just trying to look out for you Jeno.” “I know,” he sighed, “And I appreciate that.” “You’re running thin Jeno.” “I know Hyuck!” He said, making his friend flinch at his outburst, “I fucking know, okay. I’m sorry I am making you all worry with how terrible my life currently is. It’s not like I am happy about it but you could really stop bitching about it.” Just when Donghyuck opened his mouth to reply something, Jeno’s eyes shot to the big clock on the wall. “Safe it Hyuck, I need to go to my shift.” With that he got up to hoist his bag that was barely holding together onto his shoulder and basically fled the cafeteria. Donghyuck could bring back his plate, that was the least he could do.

Once outside, the student quickly plugged in his earphones into his phone and played his favorite playlist on his way to the record store, inwardly scolding himself for being so proud and not leeching off of Jaemin’s spotify anymore when what felt like the third ad in ten minutes interrupted his vibing. At the record store, he quickly unlocked the front door and put on a random record to play over the speakers before he got situated behind the counter to try to revise his notes from today that were unreadable at best. He had fallen asleep at least twice in his morning class and had to be shaken awake by one of his classmates once the lecture was over. Great. So self-study it was.

Over the course of his shift, he was only interrupted twice from reading the chapter in the book that he was pretty sure he should have brought back to the library last week. But since he really didn’t have any money to spare for the fine, he had decided to keep it a little longer until he was at a financially better place which was nowhere near in close sight now that he was fired from his job at said library. Which brought him back to what Donghyuck had said to him. But him becoming a sugar baby? Jeno really couldn’t think of himself in such a position. Sure, he wasn’t bad looking but when he thought of the word sugar baby he thought of beautiful and petite boys like Renjun or maybe even Jaemin but him? Even though he had lost quite some muscle mass since this shitshow had begun, he was still built quiet broad and had more of a masculine, handsome feel than sweet and beautiful. And wasn’t that was sugar mommies would look for? If they wanted a man, they wouldn’t search for a someone younger. Jeno sighed loudly and let his head hit his book. This was a hopeless situation.

But he guessed having a look at the site wouldn’t hurt and so Jeno ended up typing in the address of the sugar baby site into the computer at work, praying the owner didn’t know how to check which sites he had opened once he’d delete the browser history. The site itself looked clean, mainly consisting of muted pastel colors and black font and accents. If you weren’t signed in, you didn’t get much information on what exactly was going on but the site claimed that keeping their clients data safe was their main concern since very influential people were using their site. Jeno completely blamed Donghyuck and the two redbulls he had already had for clicking on the pastel blue ‘sign up’ button. He then had to fill out basic data about himself: His gender, age, profession and interests along with his sexual orientation. He hesitated for a second when the site asked if he was okay to be partnered with someone of the same sex for a strictly platonic relationship but denied it in the end. Next he was asked to choose a nickname to chat with potential benefactors as the site called the sugar mommies and daddies. Was this where he should choose something cute to attract people to his profile? Whacking his brain for any cute plays on his actual name, he came up with exactly nothing other than the No-Jam nickname he had earned in highschool which really wasn’t cute at all. The only other thing that came to mind was when Jaemin jokingly called himself Nana and Jeno Nono in that god-awful aegyo voice which never failed to make Jeno cringe. Why did he have to choose a nickname anyways? It was to protect the benefactors; he really didn’t have anything else to lose than his dignity. Sighing, Jeno quickly typed in: ‘Jenonono’ as his nickname, only cringing slightly when choosing a password and entering his email address to confirm everything. Once he had activated his account with the link he was sent, Jeno only had to choose a couple of pictures for his profile to complete it. Well this was a problem. Jeno couldn’t even remember the last time he took a selfie where he wasn’t looking like death on two legs to send them to his friends. He quickly scrolled through his camera roll in search for at least one decently attractive photo. He only stopped scrolling when he found photos from almost a year ago before he had changed his field of study and had the fall-out with his parents. His hair was bleached a bright blonde color and the sides were shaved but he was looking good, more toned than he was now and like he actually slept at night. Not even close to how he was looking right now but it was still him, so did this count as catfishing? He quickly chose two photos with his blonde hair styled up and one with his natural haircolor from before he and Jaemin had the great idea to bleach each other’s hair and send them to himself via mail so he could upload them onto the website.

When Jeno pressed the ‘complete’ button, the site showed him on overview of what his profile would look like and it wasn’t even half bad if he did say so himself. He still felt a little uneasy about the whole thing and the fact that he was basically catfishing people into thinking he still looked so bulky and put together like he had looked last year didn’t help. “Come on Jeno, you have nothing to lose,” he grumbled and pressed the ‘confirm’ button one last time. His profile disappeared and the site instead showed Jeno their actual layout for the matching. Unlike other dating sites, he couldn’t swipe through potential benefactors himself; he had to wait until someone actually message him. Great. So he had to hope that his pictures and his honestly not great profile would lure someone in who was at least mildly attractive. Maybe no one would ever contact him and he could just throw it back into Donghyuck’s face how this had been a shitty idea to begin with. Sighing, he closed the site for now and deleted the browser history just to be safe as well.

The rest of his shift went by in a blur of trying to make sense of his scribbly notes and whatever the authors of the book he was reading were trying to teach him about the anatomy of different species and Jeno didn’t even think twice about the site he had signed up for when he closed down the shop and went home to his shitty dorm. The short trip to the convenience store only made him more aware of how poor he was when he had to choose between an actual meal and food for the cat he had recently (very much illegally) saved from the streets and taken in. He’d be more than damned if the kitten he had named Bongsik would have to suffer, so it would be a delicious meal for her and more instant ramen for Jeno.

Back at his dorm room - a single one that could barely fit his bed, wardrobe and desk - the little cat immediately rubbed its tiny head against his pant leg and Jeno couldn’t help but smile and bend down to pet the little creature. He felt a little bit of tension immediately seep from his tired muscles and indulged the kitten in a little cuddle session until he felt his eyes starting to itch. His allergies be damned! Sighing the boy got up to actually shed his jacket and shoes and opened the fresh can of delicious cat food for Bongsik who immediately devoured it. If she thought it was delicious, would it taste good for Jeno as well? Chuckling he turned back to prepare his own food, all this instant ramen might have started to take a toll on his psyche. He ate his meal in silence before throwing both containers in the trash. Jeno knew he had to work on his essay for one of his classes but for a moment he just felt the need to relax for a bit, especially now that he didn’t have to rush over to his job at the library. Taking out his phone, he quickly replied to the group chat of his friends where they were animatedly planning a trip to the cinema on Friday which Jeno had to decline. Not only did he have a shift at the bar but he also didn’t really have the money for it. Sighing he locked his phone again. Well that went great, now he was stressed again. “Bongsik you love me right?” He asked and turned towards his cat again who was lounging next to him on the floor, her belly full with delicious food. Oh to be a cat...

Jeno sighed again when his cat of course didn’t answer. He really was going insane. But it was going to be worth it, he reminded himself again. Once this was all over he would be a vet and able to help all kinds of animals. He would make good money and could pay off his tuition slowly and maybe a couple of years later he could even have his own medical practice. But to have all that, he really needed to up his grades. Especially this godawful anatomy grade. Groaning Jeno got up from the floor to plop down on his desk and start his laptop that made an awful lot of noise while booting up. Knowing that it took the device a good two minutes give or take to completely be ready, he started to go through his notes again before typing them into the document where he compiled all his notes just to have them all nice and neat in one place.

By some ungodly hour in the morning, Jeno’s eyes started to close more and more often on their own accord and the letters on the screen started to blur together despite wearing his glasses. “We should probably call it a night, Bongsik,” he spoke into the silent room, his cat already fast asleep at the foot of his bed. Fondly smiling at her, he saved his progress on both his notes and his essay and shut down his laptop. Jeno didn’t really dare to look at the time, so he just quickly grabbed his stuff for the bathroom and got himself ready for bed in the vacant bathroom he shared with a couple of other students. But at this time it was almost guaranteed to be empty.

Once back in his dorm, Jeno quickly climbed under the covers and plugged his phone in to make sure his alarm would actually go off in about 4 hours. Even though he was dead tired now that his body was surrounded by the warmth of his bed, a notification caught his attention. Leeching off of the free wifi at the record store, he had downloaded the app that came with the sugar baby site praying it would work on his outdated phone which it luckily did. Maybe the programmers had actually thought about broke students with shitty phones just like him for once. Taking a deep breath, Jeno clicked on the notification that had told him that a potential benefactor wanted to text him. Well that was quick. A lot quicker than he had anticipated. When the app had finally loaded with the shitty wifi he definitely not stole from his dorm neighbor (he had set his password as 1234, he was begging to have it stolen), a profile of a woman showed up. She smiled warmly in the picture she had chosen and it seemed to be taken at some tropical place judging by the palm trees in the background. Jeno quickly skimmed through the rest of her profile that only said that she wasn’t that much older than him. Well she was but not to the extent where she could have been his mother - ew. As her job she just had just listed estate agent. Did that pay well? Jeno didn’t know. His thumb hovered over the pastel button that said ‘accept’. If he would press this, this wasn’t just a ‘I’ll take a look at this app for Donghyuck’s sake’ then he was actually invested. But even if he accepted, he was not entitled to the woman. He could still say no if she turned out to be a creep. Hell, he didn’t even have to meet her ever if he didn’t like chatting with her. Before his courage could leave him, Jeno quickly accepted the offer and a new page opened that looked just like every other messenger.

To: Jenonono You’re up late.

What a weird way to open up a conversation. But it certainly was better than perverted innuendos or a ‘hi’ like Jaemin was continuously whining over whenever he had reinstalled tinder. But what was he supposed to reply? Should he try to act cute and coy? Was that what she would be looking for? But before he could even type anything, she had sent another message.

To: Jenonono You don’t seem like the typical boy you find on here.

What was that supposed to mean?

From: Jenonono I’m not? what are those like then?

To: Jenonono They’re not as handsome as you.

At that Jeno flushed a deep red color. He wasn’t used to such blatant flirting.

To: Jenonono I really like the blonde on you but the darker color is cute as well.

From: Jenonono it’s dark right now

As soon as he hit send, Jeno wanted to hit himself. What was she supposed to answer to that message? God he was such an idiot.

To: Jenonono Cute. Are you nervous?

From: Jenonono I have never done this before and didn’t think someone would message someone like me

To: Jenonono I haven’t been doing this for long either. And what do you mean by ‘someone like me’?

From: Jenonono you said yourself that I’m not the typical boy you would find on here...

To: Jenonono Well occasionally there is a diamond between all the rocks.

Jeno wasn’t sure if this was even an actual saying but it made him feel warm nevertheless.

From: Jenonono you’re pretty forward with your flirting

To: Jenonono Am I making you shy, baby?

As if to prove her point, Jeno almost choked on his own saliva, coughing loudly which ultimately woke up Bongsik who threw him a very much not amused gaze. He hadn’t known that just reading the word baby would have such an effect on him. A voice in the back of his head that sounded a little too much like Donghyuck called him a ‘bottom bitch’. Biting his lip he contemplated whether he should flirt back. Up until now it was fun talking to her. And he still had nothing to lose.

From: Jenonono What if I maybe blushed just the smallest bit?

To: Jenonono You’re so cute. I’m glad I found you. But you should go sleep, baby. It’s late already.

From: Jenonono shouldn’t you be asleep as well then?

To: Jenonono I just came back from a long flight and my bed seems a little lonely.

Was this his chance to get a little flirtatious himself? Was she testing him?

From: Jenonono would you want me there with you? so it’s not as lonely?

To: Jenonono That does sound very tempting, baby boy. Let me take you out for a meal before I take you to bed.

Jeno’s breath caught in his throat for a little before he broke out in little giggles. He had completely forgotten how good it felt to feel wanted between all the stress that his life currently was. Maybe but just maybe Donghyuck had been right and this truly could be the solution for many of his problems.

From: Jenonono is that an invitation?

To: Jenonono How does lunch tomorrow sound like baby? I’ll treat you to something delicious.

Gnawing at his thumb, Jeno read the message over and over. He didn’t even know the woman. Meeting up with her might be a risk. For all he knew she could be a serial killer.

To: Jenonono I know this is sudden. But I want to get to know you better. Face to face. Not just over a stupid text box.

Taking a deep breath, Jeno took all his courage and replied with shaking fingers.

From: Jenonono I have a little break between my last class of the day and before I have to go to my part time job.

To: Jenonono There is a cute little bistro not too far from where I remember the main dorm buildings were. [link attached]

Clicking on the link, a website opened and showed him a French-style bistro that judging by the address was right between his dorm and the record shop. He should be able to do it. Curiously he clicked on the menu and immediately regretted it. The prices were ridiculous. For the price of a simple piece of bread, he could easily feed Bongsik and himself for two days.

From: Jenonono isn’t this a little too much?

To: Jenonono Let me spoil you, baby. Just tell me the time and I’ll make sure that I can be there.

From: Jenonono would around one work for you?

To: Jenonono I’ll be there. I’m looking forward to meeting you. Now sleep tight and have sweet dreams, baby.

From: Jenonono maybe I’ll even dream of you

Screaming into his pillow, Jeno threw his phone away. He couldn’t believe that he just send that. Quickly grabbing his kitten, he pressed his face into her soft fur while she struggled in his hold. “Bongsik I have a date,” he whispered, “An actual date. With a potentially very rich woman. I can’t believe I actually did that.”

#jeno #nct #lee jeno #kafenetwork #neosmutcollective #nct dream #jeno fluff #jeno smut #nct fluff #nct smut #jeno imagines #jeno scenarios #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct dream imagines #nct dream scenarios #nct dream fluff

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pretend-writer · 3 years

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Kids Of The Future (Chapter 6)

Mini-Series

Summary: After time traveling from the apocalypse in 2019, a surprise waits for Diego and Y/N as they arrive at Dallas, Texas circa 1960.

Pairing: Hargreeves x sibling!reader, Diego Hargreeves x reader

Word Count: 3.9k words

Warning: mention of violence, mention of death, gruesome violence, swearing

✤ · ✤ · ✤ · ✤ · ✤

- Y/N's POV -

Five had left me by myself in The Handler's office, hunting for the briefcase as I read more of Belinda's files.

It was a huge mystery how she ended up in the 60s with us. She was only a baby when we found her in the alley, nothing made sense at all.

A loud creek shifted my thoughts, making me jump up. Staying in character, I spoke up thinking that it was probably someone from the commission. 'Who's there?'

'Ahh!' Diego screamed as he tackled me, 'You creep! It was you at the alley harassing my girlfriend huh? Who the hell are you exactly and what do you want with my daughter?'

'It's me, oh my- Diego, it's me!'

He seemed confused until the realization hit him; Diego's jaw dropped when he noticed that I was shape shifted into The Handler. 'Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know this is what you were doing.'

'What are you doing here?' I turned back to my original form, slightly raising my voice at Diego. 'I told you it's just me and Five here today.'

'Sorry, I just got worried and-and I came here. I didn't meant to cause trouble.'

'But what if you got caught? We don't know what these people are capable of.'

'Well, I took the risk for you.' Diego bit his lips and shifted eye contact. 'I had to make sure you were okay.'

I sighed, frustrated but flattered at the same time that my stomach was filled with butterflies. He had called me his girlfriend, came all the way here to talk to The Handler about that night.

But I was far too focused because my baby was in danger; more importantly her history was revealed. I handed Diego the file that was in my hand, 'Read it.'

His brows furrowed, showed nothing but confusion as he saw Bel's name across the file. 'Where's this from?'

'It was in this desk. The Handler's desk.' I answered as he opened it and read throughly. 'It-it kind of answered our questions we've been wondering for the past three years.'

'This... this has got to be a mistake, right? I mean she's one of us then? But how?'

'I have no idea.' I was scared; scared as to how she got here in the first place. Scared about what was going to happen to us, to Bel. Scared that this whole thing could've been a set up and we never knew.

Diego grabbed my hand, 'This... this won't change the fact that she's still our baby.'

A small smile formed on my face, it was nice that Diego was giving me reassurance. In a way, I was glad he was here. He made me feel safe. 'Yeah. You're right.'

'You don't have to worry anymore. I'm here to protect you and Bel.' He smiled, it was weird for him to say such thing because this whole time we'd never talk to each other like that. Or in this tone, at least. He squeezed my hand, pulled me in as he wrapped his arms around me. 'You're safe with me, Y/N.'

As I smiled back at him, Five appeared out of thin air using his powers. With a briefcase in his hand, he stared at us. 'Guys, get a room.'

'We're already in a room.' Diego chuckled, 'You're the one that interrupted us.'

Five rolled his eyes, 'What the hell are you doing here anyway? This is supposed to be mine and Y/N's mission.'

'Sorry, I couldn't sit still knowing how crazy The Handler is. Didn't want anything to happen to you guys.'

'Well, we're fine. Now let's get back to the others and figure out what the hell we're going to do now.' We gathered around together closely, Five controlling the briefcase as we traveled back to our meeting spot, the Karate Gym.

Everything was fine, or at least we thought it was until we turned around and saw all our siblings tied up with one person standing around them while holding onto Bel; Lila.

'You really think you could impersonate my mother?' Lila laughed, 'Your acting sucks.'

'Stay away from Bel. Put her down.' Diego shouted.

'Ah, so that's where the cute one went. I was looking for you, Diego boy.' She grinned, 'What makes you guys think I'll give her back?'

'Give me my baby back, now. Or I swear I'll do harm to you far more worse than you can imagine.'

Lila raised her eyebrows, 'I'm not scared of you. What, you're going to morph into Frankenstein or something?'

'Ha, I wouldn't test it if I were you. She's pranked us with things scarier than that.' Klaus laughed softly.

'You see Lila, my power is such a great thing because you know why? I can turn into anything I've seen and I've read many books as a child. Many.'

Lila laughed, 'You guys are such idiots. I thought it was just Five but seems like it runs in the family.'

'Watch your mouth!' Five yelled at her.

'You Hargreeves aren't the only ones that have super powers, you know that right?'

The cheeky grin made me want to just punch her in her smug face. 'We already know Bel has powers. We went through The Handler's fil-'

'I'm not talking about her.' She flashed a smile as she stepped closer to Diego and I. 'Diego, I heard a rumor...'

Diego's eyes flashed glassy grayish white, completely freezing into place. My mind immediately was out of focus, noticing that somehow, Lila had Allison's powers. But I didn't have time to think, I had to get her before she got into his head then try to get Bel back also.

My eyes met with Five, knowing exactly what we needed to do. He disappeared into thin air, appearing back next to Lila as he quickly grabbed onto Bel.

Lila was distracted, not realizing I shifted into Luther as I used the strength to pull her up the floor.

'You can take their powers too?' Lila smirked, holding onto my hand as she tried to grasp for air. 'Thought it was solely just for design.'

'Why are you surprised? I'm a shape shifter, I told you I can turn into anything.' I threw her to the ground then shifted into Vanya, using my force field to try to hurt Lila. While my surrounding turned blue as my energy started to build up, Lila kicked me hard into the mats.

A scream came from the other side of the room as Diego charged towards Lila, throwing knives at her when she tried to get up. As he tackled her down, I grabbed one of his knives and held it only a centimeter away from Lila's neck.

'What do you want with Bel?' I yelled as I shifted back to myself again. 'And don't fucking lie to me.'

'I don't know, this was all mom's plan. Even if I did know, I wouldn't fucking tell you.' Lila giggled devilishly.

This time, I stuck the cold knife onto her skin, letting her bleed lightly to scare her but not hard enough to where she's severely injured. 'I appreciate you playing this "I'm a bad girl" act, but cut the shit or I'll really hurt you.'

'You wouldn't dare.'

I raised my brows at her as she tested my patience. It had been a while since I've "investigated" anyone but the thrill and the adrenaline just took over my body. It didn't help the fact that this girl was a part of taking my baby away from me.

As I took her hand off the floor, I snatched her index finger and this time, pushed the knife right under her finger nail. 'I'm not playing around, do you believe me now or should I keep going?'

Lila was terrified, breathing heavily as she shook her head. 'S-sorry.'

Five kneeled next to me, joining in on the conversation to try to get information out of her. 'So how did Bel end up here in the 60s?'

She rolled her eyes. 'You really are a kid aren't you? Story time is-'

I interrupted her as I pushed down the knife that Diego struck into her arm earlier. Screaming in pain while the knife dug deeper into her skin, I got closer to her face.

'Okay, okay. Don't mess with you or your brother, I get it now.' She said before I let go of the knife. 'Who are you people?'

'Couple of old roommates that had to play house with an old man that never gave a shit about us.' A fake smile formed on my face. 'That geezer taught us a lot of stuff, taught me how to interrogate people at the age of six. Sounds great right?'

She laughed, 'We would've been great friends.'

'I'd rather have my eyeball chewed off by a wolf.'

Five groaned, 'Will you guys shut up and let me know how this baby ended up here please?'

Diego chuckled, 'Oh no. Keep going. It's hot watching Y/N getting riled up.'

Klaus gagged from behind. 'We're only tied up you know? We can still hear.'

Lila sighed, probably fed up with the Hargreeves shenanigans that she had to deal with. 'Anyways, she was several months old when she started to discover her powers, poor baby couldn't control such powerful thing. Her ecokinesis energy collided with the lightning that was flashing that night, aligned with your timeline as you were traveling back in time. Then boom, alley. Crazy huh?'

'That is actually fascinating.' Diego nudged Five's shoulder as he nodded, interested in the story. 'What? Don't tell me you're not surprised as I am how that worked. That means lightning can somehow boost time traveling. Maybe that's why we're stuck here.'

'Or you just suck at time traveling.' Allison added.

I looked at Lila and smiled. 'So what do you say? You let us go and never ever see us again.'

'That's cute of you, really but I can't let you do that.'

Five cracked his neck and his fingers as he looked at me and Diego, 'Guys move out the way.'

Diego asked, raising his eyebrows as he was a bit scared of what might happen. 'Uhm why?'

'Just go untie them, please. I'll handle Lila.'

'Handle? What are you going to do to me?' She replied back as Five pulled out some weird item from his blazer. In a second, he made Lila shut up which I was thankful for. On the other hand, I was a little scared since I didn't know what the hell he did. Hopefully, it was a tranquilizer.

Making sure that Lila was no longer conscious, Diego and I walked over to our siblings. As I reached over behind Allison to untie her, she cocked her head. 'Ah. Well, Five left with that girl.'

'Can we please talk about the weird but sort of cool transformation that Y/N did?' Klaus added as Diego helped him untie the rope. 'You turning into Luth-'

'Yeah, no let's not mention it.' Diego shook his head, 'Y/N don't ever do that again.'

Luther gasped. 'Hey! Honestly, I thought it was awesome.'

I laughed as I stood behind Luther after I was done with Allison, fiddling with the knot on his wrist. 'I mean, it worked right? I needed the strength and Luther was the first person I thought about.'

'Why couldn't you be like Hulk or Wonder Woman?' Diego complained, untying Klaus from the ropes from his wrist.

Just as I finished untying Luther, I heard the voice. Her voice.

'Majority of the Hargreeves in one room, very impressive.'

'Yup, did it all by myself. Are you proud or what?' I implied as I popped up from behind Luther, quickly shifting to Lila. 'Couldn't find Five or Y/N but asked the commission to keep an eye on them while I'm here.'

The Handler smiled, 'Good work. So tell me why everyone's untied except for Luther and Vanya?'

With Luther's hands still behind his back, he played along and kept his hands as if it were still tied. Vanya was still tied up from when Lila captured her, since Diego and I didn't have the chance to untie her yet.

Klaus, Allison and Diego on the other hand, stood still and stared at me. Thinking of some random excuse, I went along with the first one I could think of. 'I've rumored them to stay like that and to keep their mouth shut. They're harmless now.'

'Brilliant. Wow, Lila. You're more ready than I thought you were.' She walked over to me then "booped" my nose.

Oh, what I'd do to wipe the strong perfume off my nose. I just kept on talking to The Handler, hoping that it would distract me from the smell. 'So what should we do with this baby?'

'I'll take care of it. Raise it like I raised you, make it a warrior and hopefully become a powerful part of the commission.'

'She.' I corrected her. 'The baby is not a thing.'

The Handler chuckled, putting her briefcase down as she walked closer to me. 'Does it matter? Don't tell me you're attached to.. "her". Are you?'

'No, mom. Just wondering if you ever thought of me like you do this baby.' I was a bit proud of myself, thinking of a scenario and keeping Lila's accent as I fooled this woman.

'Oh, no darling. I could never.' She stood close to me, caressing my cheek and smiled at me. 'You will always be my one and only daughter. Always making me proud.'

'So you don't mind us taking Bel back then?' Allison stood behind her and smiled, knowing that she took The Handler by surprise.

Luther walked over next to Allison, grabbing The Handler's briefcase off the floor. 'Excuse me while I take this off your hand. You won't be needing this anymore.'

The woman's brows raised, confusion rushing through her brains as the rest of my siblings except for Vanya started roaming free. 'H-how did you guys-'

'Ha, it's just me behind my powers.' I revealed myself in front of The Handler, watching her jaw drop. 'My accent was pretty good wasn't it?'

'Way better than The Handler performance, to be honest.' Five popped out of nowhere, smiling and waving at the woman. 'Long time, no see granny. Did you miss me?'

Vanya stood up as Klaus helped her with the rope. 'Uh Five? What did you do to Lila?'

'I figured out that she can manipulate people's powers so I had to improvise.' Five grinned, 'Used my briefcase, zapped us to a time where she won't be able to survive. Now I'm back here.'

Luther stared at him, 'Wow. You're fucking evil.'

'Thank you, how kind of you.'

'You bring my daughter back right now!' The Handler stomped on the floor.

Diego gasped, 'Hey! You're going to ruin our mats. It cost us a fortune building this gym.'

'You only want your daughter back because you have no power when she's gone, right? Just like how you want Bel for her powers.' Five took a step towards her. 'You can't control and manipulate them anymore.'

'Letting you choose the easy way or the hard way.' I watched her squirm, looking around the room for a way to escape or perhaps a weapon that can hurt us.

Klaus smiled, 'There's no way out of here.'

The Handler huffed. 'The commission will come and hunt you forever if you kill me.'

'They already don't like you.' Five laughed, 'We'd be doing them a favor. And you know it.'

She slowly backed away from us, knowing this was the end for her. I would've felt bad about all of this but knowing that she only wanted to use Bel for her "personal project" and seeing how manipulative she was towards Lila, I didn't feel any remorse at all.

'This won't hurt. Maybe.' Five smiled as he inched closer to The Handler.

✤ · ✤ · ✤ · ✤ · ✤

- Diego's POV -

Our gym was a wreck. I guess it didn't matter though because we were about to go back to our own timeline, leaving everything we've ever had here. It sucked that we had to leave this place that we called home for the past three years, it was even worse that it got turned into a crime scene all because of this woman that couldn't mind her own business.

I was always for beating the back guys and punishment but seeing how this turn out made my stomach turn a little. It had been a while since we did something as gross as this; not since we all left dad's mansion. But Five mentioned that a bullet through her brain wouldn't even stop her, so I guess this was necessary to stop her once and for all.

At the end of all of this, Bel, Y/N and the rest of the family was alright. That's what mattered.

'Wow, damn.' Luther spoke in awe as he looked around the room. 'This place is... uhm... I'm so sorry guys.'

'It's okay.' Y/N let out a soft laugh, 'Like Five said, we don't belong in this timeline. Nothing here will matter anymore once we go back.'

Allison took a deep breath, trying to catch up her breathing after long, hard work. 'Still, Y/N. This was yours and Diego's home.'

'Honestly I'm more worried about Bel watching us do what we just did.' I looked over at her, realizing that she had fallen asleep in the corner of the gym. 'Oh, well I guess I don't have to worry.'

Klaus got up from the mat, 'So you guys ready to go back home? I know I am.'

'Hold on, there's something I need to do before we go back.' Y/N said, then looked over at Five. 'Do you mind helping me with something?'

✤ · ✤ · ✤ · ✤ · ✤

The seven of us stood behind a bush, in front of a nice, suburban house after Five zapped us here with a briefcase. Five and Y/N haven't told us where we were yet, guessing that they didn't want to share whatever they were whispering to each other. Luther questioned them, 'Where are we?'

Both of them ignored him, continuing to mumble amongst each other. Y/N seemed sad, as if she was about to cry. I wanted to comfort her but decided to wait until she reached out to me.

Vanya nudged my side, grabbing my attention and looking at me then back to Y/N. 'You know what's going on?'

I shook my head in response as I was confused as she was. Continuing to watch over Y/N, she finally looked over at me and motioned me to come. With Bel in her arms, she held her tight and kissed her forehead. 'Everything okay, Y/N?'

She stared into my eyes, tears streaming down as she nodded slowly. 'You see the two couples inside the house? That's Bel's parents.'

My eyes fell to our baby, then back to her. Hoping that it didn't mean what I thought she meant, I clarified. 'We're not in the 60s anymore, are we?'

Y/N bit her lip and shook her head. 'Five took us forward in time. This is the year we'd turn three years old, where Bel would turn three too.'

'Wait so-' My mind was all over the place, I wasn't prepared for this at all. 'What are you trying to say?'

'You know Diego, you know.' She sniffled, 'Please don't make me say it.'

Y/N cried on my shoulders as I hugged her and Bel tightly, heartbroken that it had to be this way.

I didn't know what I expected when we took her in. I've never thought of the days where we would finally see the rest of the Hargreeves, or getting the briefcase to go back to where we came from. I didn't even imagine the days where Y/N and I would grow old together, raising Bel peacefully as we start our lives in the 60s. I just simply took it day by day, enjoying every single moment with the two girls that I loved so much.

But everything was different now, so different that I didn't expect any of this. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Bel, I couldn't imagine being back to a "normal" life because my norm was being with her. I knew, however, that this was the right thing to do and I was sure Y/N knew that too. This must've been a tough decision that she had to make, I stood next to her and supported her choice even if it hurt so much.

'Don't cry, mama.' Bel giggled, touching Y/N's cheek and wiping away her tears.

A laugh escaped her mouth, smiling as she kissed the top of Bel's head. 'I'm sorry kiddo. I-I just love you so much.'

'I love you, Bel. More than you could ever know.' Belinda smiled at me as I said those words to her, grabbing me on my nose.

Y/N exhaled, 'You ready, Diego?'

'Yeah.' I said hesitantly, gazing at Bel for the one last time before Allison took her in her arms. 'You're going to say bye too?'

'Something like that.' Allison walked to the front door, guessing that she needed space from me and Y/N.

She mumbled words to Bel, making her eyes turn grayish white for a few seconds before it turned back to normal color. Y/N saw my facial expression change, holding onto my hand as she comforted me. 'It's for the best, Diego.'

Allison knocked on the door then left Bel on the front porch before she joined us back behind the bushes. The couple came out, gasping in surprise as they reunited with their baby once again.

'She's back with her family. It wouldn't have been fair for her to remember everything, you know? A normal life is what we want for her, right?'

I hugged Y/N and kissed her on the cheek as she wrapped her arms around me. We've loved Bel as if she was our own, took care of her for the last three years of our lives. Knowing how much Y/N loved her, it must of been hard to let her go. 'I love you, Y/N. I love you so much.'

'Aw, that is so cute. I love you all. I actually loved that little goofball too.' Klaus joined in on the hug, ruining my not-so-romantic moment with Y/N, although I wasn't slightly upset about it because Klaus was just Klaus.

Luther chuckled, 'Look at us being a family again.'

'Again? We were never a family to begin with.' Five cackled. 'This will be a start of something new, maybe. If you guys won't piss me off, that is.'

'That is the cutest and the kindest thing that's ever came out of your mouth, Five.' Allison grinned.

Five rolled his eyes. 'Ugh, never mind then. Let's just go home.'

'Okay, okay. Quick question though before we have this wonderful and fun time traveling back to 2019.' Klaus beamed, ear from ear. 'So when you turned into Luther, did you turn into Luther? You know, like your body everywhere?'

I hit him on his stomach, grossed out by the imagine in my head. 'Klaus, I swear I will leave you here in the 90s.'

'Actually, that doesn't sound too bad.' Klaus hummed.

#tua series #the umbrella academy series #diego hargreeves fic #tua fic #the umbrella academy fic #diego hargreeves imagine #diego hargreeves fics #number eight!reader #n8!reader #tua fanfiction #diego hargreeves x reader

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your-daily-biaswrecking · 4 years

Text

Serva me, Servabo te

save me and I will save you

pairing: photographer!Taehyung x f.reader

genre: smut, angst, slight enemies to lovers

word count: 10.5k | reading time: 60 min

chapter summary: The two of them spend their day on good terms for the first time, but still manage to find something to rile them up

warnings: switch!tae, switch!amy, oral f&m receiving, face sitting, dirty talk, teasing, a lil bit of orgasm control? some name calling (bitch), light spanking, hair pulling, unprotected vaginal sex, riding, praise, squirting, also some spooky stuff, i don’t remember what else ahh

A/N: I know absolutely nothing about photography, so if you do and you read this and think to yourself nothing is making any sense, you are right and I am wrong. Please just enjoy this as best as you can lol

All chapters | Masterlist | Read on AO3

Chapter 7: Love is just a form of possession

The place was definitely haunted. But perhaps it was in a good way. Perhaps it was magical.

It felt that way when you slowly opened your eyes to find a snoozing Taehyung just inches away from your face. His expression set in a natural pout as he had his arms snaked around your body like he was afraid he would lose you in his sleep. You bit your lip as you inspected his resting form better; his ruffled hair, his soft but dehydrated lips, his naked shoulders that were peeking under the blanket. Last night you had moved on the couch, struggling to fit on it at the same time but managing to entangle your limbs just right so that he wouldn't fall over. You had a light rug that you had found in the room over your bodies, as well as Taehyung's sweater on to keep you warm, although the heat from his bare body was all you needed.

And the fireplace. You heard it crackling before you raised your head to look over at its direction and confirm the fire was big and strong once again. Yep. This place was definitely haunted.

Taehyung's arms tightened around you, pulling himself nearer until his face was buried in your neck. "Don't go," he mumbled in a way it was hard for you to understand, with his voice heavy from his slumber. He had felt your body move while you were trying to look around the room and without even opening his eyes, his reaction was to hold you closer.

You ran a hand through his hair, smiling to yourself. "I'm not going anywhere."

Rain was still falling, not as heavy as the previous night, but it was just enough for the rhythmic melody it created by hitting the windows. That meant you were stuck in the house for one more day. Not that you had any interest in leaving, in even getting out of that room or that couch. Not only was it warm in there, in Taehyung's embrace, but it was safe, too. Perhaps, on any other occasion, you would hate yourself for just how nice you felt at that moment, but you were starting to believe that being by his side wasn't just appealing, but also necessary. You wouldn't last another day in that Manor otherwise.

"What should we have for breakfast?" you heard him whisper, right before he started stretching so much he almost fell over.

"Oh, um..." you mumbled, thinking about it. "Is it my turn to cook?"

You felt his smile against your neck, a low chuckle being produced at the back of his throat. "It is. What will you feed me?" You took a couple of seconds to think, and his smile grew. "You know, you could just offer me your cunt right now and I'd happily have that as a meal."

You groaned. "Tae!" you whined, pushing him on his chest. "You're disgusting!" He had certainly ruined the romantic atmosphere that the room was painted in. But that's just how that man is, isn't it?

He was laughing as he was trying to catch himself from falling, grabbing the sweater you were wearing and the arm of the couch. "Oh, come on," he said once he found his balance. "You can't tell me you're still shy after everything we've done."

But you rolled your eyes at him. "This isn't a matter of openness, it's just very inappropriate."

He looked up at you, licking his lip slowly as he watched your eyes. "So, you're turning me down?"

For a moment you tried to get up, but he held you tighter. The truth was that the way he was looking at you was almost making you cave in, but thankfully you could think better in the daytime. Even though you didn't have much of a reason to, anymore, you still didn't feel quite comfortable just casually doing stuff like that with him. It was too much already that you had woken up cuddling him as if he was your boyfriend.

"I need to go shower," you said, both replying to him and changing the subject in a way. "I'm so nasty from last night."

"You and I both. Do you want to shower together?" He made his proposal by reaching up a bit and kissing your jaw. It made you drop it, not to give him better access, but because his words were making you flustered again.

"No- why would we- we..."

"I'm just saying; it's cold and it's raining. There might not be a lot of hot water. We should be frugal."

Since you hadn't stopped him exactly yet, he took it as a sign to keep kissing you. Up your jawline and down your neck. And now forming a coherent thought was even more difficult. Your body squirmed around like you were being tickled, and you wanted to block him but at the same time not at all.

"Now, you're just making up excuses," you snorted, trying to sound austere but the smile he had managed to get on your lip served the exact opposite mission. "Do you want to have me for breakfast that bad?" you teased since he wasn't the only one able to do that.

But Taehyung pulled slightly away, biting his lip and looking at you through his lashes with the most innocent face he could muster. "Actually, I was hoping that if I eat you out, you might return the favor and help me out with this morning wood." And with that, he pressed upon you more, so that you could feel exactly what he was talking about. Your eyes widened and you gasped a bit, realizing that the hard thing nudging your thigh wasn't actually his knee like you thought.

"Oh..." you mumbled.

"But you don't have to!" Taehyung was quick to say when he saw your surprised reaction. But it wasn't so much surprise as it was a feeling of guilt; the man had done everything to please you the past couple of days, and you hadn't had the chance to do much for him in return. And there he was, with a pout on his lips and his dick begging for attention.

When you kissed him, you didn't do it just because you felt a sense of duty to do it, but mostly because the idea that he needed you turned you on so much, and so fast. You kissed him hard, not wasting any time to slip your tongue in his mouth, and your chest filled with pride when he started moaning. He was moaning more and louder than usual, probably being less interested in controlling himself since he still hadn't fully woken up yet, and you hadn't even touched him yet.

The rag slid down your shoulders as you moved over him, changing the position that had you both on your sides, to one where Taehyung was lying on his back and you were straddling him. You didn't have anything on other than that sweater, and so when you ground on his hard-on, it was easily gliding between your folds, making the man growl harder.

"Shit, Amy," he moaned and his voice was higher in pitch than normal. "I feel like a goddamn teenager. You're- shhh- you're gonna make me cum just like that."

You found his little voice cracks so adorable. You didn't know -could have never guessed- just how needy, desperate, whiny, and loud Taehyung got in the mornings. He always put on that facade of being in control, when in reality, deep down, all he wanted was to pleasure you as best as he could; all he was waiting for was a chance to be good for you. And then he was at your mercy for his own release. It was obvious in the way he hung from your lips, clawing at your sweater. Completely dependent on you and your moves.

"You can't cum like that, baby," you reminded him, pressing his chest down and sitting up, keeping your lips out of reach to make him whine more. You weren't used to this exactly, but damn, torturing this poor boy felt so good. Perhaps because you still wanted to hate him, so now that he was hooked on you and you were in control, you wanted to make him suffer; make him beg. Just like he had the audacity to do to you. "You can't cum before I tell you to, alright? If you do, I won't let you touch me again for the rest of our days here."

Taehyung cried out, his hips rising involuntarily to grind on your core more. "Stop," he breathed out. "Don't do that."

You laughed. Was he trying to order you around when his whole face was pink and he was panting, unable to compose himself? That was bold. Especially since what you were telling him seemed to turn him on even further.

You let two fingers run down his chest toward his belly. "You will finish in my mouth, okay? Nowhere else." Just to test him, you pushed down on his dick more, almost letting him inside you, and he crushed his head back, groaning.

"Amy- I'm so close already," he complained. "Just- just..."

You clicked your tongue, withdrawing both your hands and your hips from his body. "I don't like your tone, mister."

But he just looked at you with pitiful eyes. "I won't last if you don't..."

"You want me to suck your dick?" He nodded frantically. "You have to ask nicely."

"Son of a bitch," he sighed, biting his lip. And you could see him twitch all alone underneath you. It made you smirk.

"That's not nicely, baby," you cooed.

Taehyung's forehead started glistening as he got a little sweaty. And he groaned once more. "Amy..."

"Yes?"

He panted. "You don't even need to do much, just let me cum," he hummed.

And you chuckled. "Man, you really don't know how to ask politely, do you?" Then you snorted. "Well, what did I expect from someone like you."

You could tell all he really wanted to do was anything you asked of him; he just didn't like the fact that you were doing it on purpose. And if he just let you see exactly how desperate he was for you, then it would be a lot harder to establish himself later when he would need to again. But when one of your hands traveled south and wrapped around the base of his cock, there was truly little holding him back.

"Amy, please!" he squeaked, his voice cracking again. "Please, what do you want me to do? I've been as best as I could to you."

The words made your stomach do a flip, and you smirked, slowly running your fist up and down his length. "Yes, you have," you whispered. You lowered your head to his dick and stuck your tongue out. Taehyung watched you with wide eyes as you lazily brought the tip of your tongue on his head, gathering up all the precum that had leaked out. And he took a sharp breath in through his teeth. "You've been so good."

"I'm gonna cum," Taehyung announced, dropping his head back.

But you held him tighter. "Not yet." And you dropped your mouth entirely onto him.

Taehyung's mouth fell open in a silent cry as he did his best to control himself. This was torture. Sure, he had asked for it, but he had already woken up so close to his orgasm with the kind of dreams he was having, that all it would need to spill his seed out would have been a couple of strokes. It would have probably served him better to just go to the bathroom and deal with it himself. Now, he had this pretty girl with her warm, wet mouth all over him, sucking him off hard, and it felt so good he thought he would explode. And yet he couldn't. He had to wait.

"Amy, please," he choked out when you brought him deep enough to hit the back of your throat. "Ugh, please, let me cum."

You had never enjoyed giving someone a blowjob as much as you did at that moment. Besides the fact that Taehyung's dick was straight-up delicious, the sounds he was making and the way he was begging had your head spinning. It had you rubbing your legs together, bopping your head faster, and sipping him up harder as if you were trying to milk him. And you would have kept on doing that for so much longer, until your jaw was in too much pain, if it weren't for how his cries made you feel sorry for him.

So you popped him off your mouth just enough to say these words: "Coat my mouth with your scum, baby. Let me taste it."

You didn't have to touch him any longer; your words alone drove him over the edge he had been dancing on for a while now, spurting his seed on your offered tongue, his hands holding your head for the first time to keep you still. He gave you a couple of pumps, some of them missing the target and hitting your nose before he groaned and dropped back down. Panting and sighing, pulling his hair away from his face and whipping the sweat that had formed on his forehead. You stayed still, not sure if you wanted to spit or swallow, but since you couldn't immediately think of where you could do the former, you gulped down all that he had gifted you.

From your point of view, Taehyung had never looked hotter than he did at that moment; completely exhausted and dried up, probably without a single thought in his head. And all because of you. If you hadn't just made him finish and his dick go soft, you would have already jumped to sit on him, not even waiting to wear protection. Your core itched with want, too, and since he looked ready to go right back to sleep, you needed to go take that shower you had mentioned right away. And by shower, you know what I mean.

You went to get off the couch. But Taehyung's hand wrapped around your wrist instantly, keeping you back. His head foggy from his orgasm but still super aware of you and your movements. "Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna go take a shower. Like I said." Your voice was a lot lower than before, much of your confidence having left you the moment that scene was over. In contrast, Taehyung seemed to be gaining his old self back little by little, considering the way his eyes were piercing you.

"Not before I'm done with you," he rasped, pulling your arm until you lost your balance and fell over his body. "Come sit on my face."

Your eyes popped open wide. "Wha- no, I'm fine."

While licking his lips, Taehyung snaked his free hand down your sides and cupped your pussy, a finger immediately sliding between your folds as if he was trying to gather up all your juices. "You call that fine?" he asked smugly as he made sure you could hear just how soaked you were. A moan caught in your throat, trying to hide how much you needed him. He smiled sweetly at you. "What, you thought I'd just leave you hanging? Come on, babe, turn around and sit that pretty ass of yours on my face because I don't have the strength to get up right now."

It would have been hard to say no to that when you could both feel the way you gushed out at his words. So you moved around until you were facing his feet and kneeled over his head. One of his arms wrapped around your hips, his other hand still playing with your folds. You hesitated coming down to him, that being a position you weren't used to, but he was pulling at you until his tongue managed to replace his fingers, licking a stripe from your clit to your entrance. You moaned, your legs shaking a bit as he gave you kitten licks to see the way you squirmed over him.

And then you felt a strong smack on your ass.

"Bitch, I said sit on my face, not hover over it!" Taehyung scolded.

"Ah!" you cried, a sound that sounded like pain at first but turned to more like thrill later. Your head whipped back, trying to see the man lying beneath you. "I am sitting," you insisted.

"If I can breathe while you do it, you're not doing it right." And then he gave you another smack on the ass, making you yelp again.

"Ah, stop! You'll suffocate."

"Good." His hands kneaded your buns strongly, waiting for you to move. But you were still uncertain. So he exhaled and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong, Amy? I thought you hated me, yet you don't even want to choke me with those thighs? I thought you wanted to kill me?"

It was a cheap trick to rile you up. Cheap, but it worked. You let yourself drop down completely, not holding any of your weight back. It felt weird at first, you felt pretty self-conscious, but then Taehyung's arms secured you around him and his tongue slipped inside you, and you didn't have the right mind to worry about anything else. You pushed even further down, trying to get him even deeper. He squeezed and pinched your things, moving your hips as best as he could to get you to grind on his face. And once you felt how nicely your clit rubbed on him, it was hard to do otherwise.

You held onto his hips for leverage to thrust against his tongue, as you could feel the feeling inside your tummy growing rapidly. And you moaned his name like a prayer. He pushed you off him just for a second enough to take a breath before he was pressing his mouth on your sensitive bud. His tongue flat on you to let you move against it in the way it felt best for you. Voice getting higher and higher as you got closer and closer, Taehyung smacking your ass again to make you scream. And with just one more hit, you were gushing all over his face, legs, and hips shaking violently as you fell over on him.

He remained lapping at you, cleaning you up, until you got so sensitive you had to pull yourself away. You got up and suddenly remembered to check on him. "Are you okay?"

He gave you one of those boxy grins, his eyes almost closing completely by how hard he was smiling. "Couldn't be better."

"Your face is all red." He looked like he had nearly died from asphyxiation. But he kept grinning.

"To be completely honest, I did forget for a moment to breathe. But that's not your fault. It was just too good to stop." With that he sat up and swung his legs to the side, in front of you, looking up at you.

You had to laugh. His whole approach to the moment, and even his bright red face with his hair all chaotic framing it, made you feel a lot more at ease. He seemed so happy for what he had just done. Almost like he had enjoyed it more than you.

"I have never met anyone who likes this so much as you," you admitted with another giggle.

Taehyung got up finally, looking around the room to find the discarded clothing items and get dressed. "Well, you have been dating all the wrong guys then," he said matter-of-factly before he found his briefs and jumped into them. He turned to look at you again. "See, this is what happens when you have standards and won't go for someone like me."

"I'm with you right now."

"Yeah, but you still won't date me." His words made you frown momentarily. Because they sounded slightly like a complaint. Or like a wish in disguise. But before you could have the chance to think twice, he cleared his throat and started putting on his pants, the eye-contact over. "Let's go shower and then eat something. This doesn't count as breakfast."

The atmosphere was awkward, only for a little, because then you occupied yourselves enough with dressing up, and going upstairs, and getting in that shower. You didn't shower together, chose the separate bathrooms instead. Which, you thought, was for the best; he might have already seen you naked but that was only while having sex. You didn't know if you were comfortable enough to be in your birthday suit and just... exist like that around him. But you still couldn't stop thinking about him. About what he would look like with all the water hitting his face. How you would like to shampoo his hair just to be able to hold him more intimately like that. Or for him to help you scrub your back and brush your hair. Generally, showering with someone else was another one of those things you didn't do much.

You heard the doorknob turn, and it brought butterflies to your stomach, thinking he had come to find you after all. But no one came in. You peeked your head around the curtain and the door was still closed. The shadows moving on the floor betrayed someone had just walked by, but he was still not entering.

"Taehyung?" you called but got no answer. Had he changed his mind?

You finished that shower alone. When you returned to your room, you found your phone was on your bed. You blinked at it, confused as to how it could be in such plain sight, and yet you still hadn't been able to find it yesterday. You grabbed it to see if you had any more notifications, and found a couple more missed calls from Yoonji. Oh, she would kill you for not responding earlier. Thankfully, you found just enough signal -you still hadn't been able to predict when or how that happened- and you called back. But she didn't answer. And when you called a second time, she still didn't answer. There was no way Yoonji was anywhere away from her phone; she must have just gotten mad at you for not calling earlier and ignoring your calls. But what would you even say? That your phone magically disappeared and reappeared today? And that you were too busy, what with fearing for your life and the sex and all?

"What did you want to talk about?" you sent her a text. Whatever. If she can hold a grudge against you over this petty thing, then it couldn't have been anything too important. Let her reply whenever she wanted to.

Taehyung had already served some breakfast when you got down, but at least this time it wasn't anything too extravagant, had simply opted for some toasted bread with marmalade, a boiled egg, and orange juice. You talked about his work and your studies, almost like making small talk. Like you would if you were meeting for the first time. Which is so odd; the two of you really just do everything the other way around, don't you?

What was making things uncomfortable was the fact that the two of you weren't fighting anymore. You certainly weren't used to that. But at the same time, you weren't exactly okay. Sure, you talked and spent your time together, you cooked and ate your breakfast and lunch, you played games and even cuddled sometimes. But it was all a little tricky. Because you had to be careful not to enjoy yourselves too much and let any emotions slip and show, or be too weird and ruin what you had managed to get. You almost felt guilty for liking being around him. But at the same time, you almost didn't want your days there to end.

You didn't want to go back to your reality, to your routine. Back to where you didn't talk and hated each other. But that would require you to admit it out loud first, and you definitely weren't about to do that.

"Amy?" Taehyung called for you after he had gone upstairs to get something and you had parted ways for a good five minutes. Five minutes and you already wanted to be in the same space again.

"In the kitchen," you shouted to let him know where you were. You were making both of you some afternoon tea since you had liked it last time. And yes, you wanted another excuse to keep him around you.

The photographer came jogging into the room with a grin on. "Look what I found!" he exclaimed, raising his hands to reveal a camera. A very old-looking camera.

"That's not yours?"

He shook his head excitedly. "No! I found it in that room with all those antiques!" With two steps he appeared right next to you, showing the tool around like a little kid that had just gotten a new Lego set. "Loot at this baby! It's a Japanese Arsen from the 1940s! This is insane, I don't think they realize how good this is if they just have it laying around here."

You chuckled. You had never seen Taehyung so enthusiastic. You knew, of course, that he must love photography and the such, but he always seemed more of a show-off about it than having a genuine passion for it. And seeing anyone talk about their passions, even if you don't understand a word about them, is sure to make your heart warm up.

"And get the best part," he went on. "I have a film with me that I think can work with this!"

"You do? You just carry around old film with you like that?"

Taehyung started picking the camera apart, opening up things you didn't quite understand to check whatever he needed to. "I am in the middle of using different models of analog cameras for a festival of 100 years of photography that we got going on in two months. So, yeah, I have a variety of films with me right now." He finally set the machine on the counter and looked back at you. "I don't have the exact film this would normally take, which would be a Vest Pocket film that's black and white, right? But I do have a Rera Chrome 100, and they're both 127 format films, so it should work." You were just staring at him with a confused smile. "This is the only 127 film with color, too."

You felt like a grandma listening to her grandchildren talk about technology you didn't understand. But you were happy for him. "That's all very amazing!" you finally said. "Are you gonna take pictures?"

"Yeah, I was thinking we could try to. The camera seems good to me, I think it should be working," he mumbled more to himself, taking another look at it. "You wanna go catch fairies with this thing?"

His words caught you a bit off guard. "What? Fairies?"

"Well, you know, the rain finally stopped and they always come out afterward, like snails." You were pretty sure he was messing with you. But he did take your hand to pull you out of the kitchen. "All we need is a pretty bait, which is where you come in. You will sit between the flowers in the garden, I will take your pictures with this, and then when we develop them we can see if we managed to recreate that famous picture with the little girl hanging out with the fairies."

You chuckled. He was definitely messing with you about the fairies, but he still seemed pretty serious about the photoshoot.

"I thought fairies were bad," you responded right as he threw a coat over your shoulders to push you out of the front door.

"Depends on who you ask," he told you with a wink.

Everything outside was still damp, even the atmosphere somehow. There was the distinct smell of the rain and the fresh air probing your senses, and for the first time since you got there, the environment felt nice. Like anything bad had been washed away. The plants glowed a bit brighter, the trees swinging around more rhythmically. You almost felt like an intruder when Taehyung guided you through the garden. But he was great at making you feel more relaxed and confident to pose for him; helping people like that was part of his job, after all.

He shaped and forged you in all those different positions, steering your body, or your face and your eyes in the direction he needed, before snapping the few pictures the film provided. Always kissing you in between. Every time his lips hit yours, you almost got too distracted to remember what you were up to. But the cold breeze brought you back each time without fail. It was sad that you couldn't see the pictures right away; Taehyung swore they were gorgeous yet you were doubtful. You would have to wait to go back in town to prove him wrong, though. And that was only if you even talked again after that.

The afternoon carried on calmly. This time you didn't occupy yourselves with work or studying at all. The days that you had left there were getting fewer and fewer, and it was no secret that you wanted to enjoy each other's company; even if you would never admit it. So you just had that tea you had forgotten, played some more games, talked about this and that. It turns out you had a lot more in common than you would have guessed. And the conversation was easy as long as you didn't fight.

"Any ideas for dinner?" he asked you once it had started to get somewhat late.

You nodded immediately. You had already thought about this beforehand. "Yeah, pizza!"

"Pizza?"

You nodded again. "Yeah. You know, I used to date an Italian-American guy and he taught me the easiest way to make good pizza," you explained while you started walking towards the kitchen. "It's so easy even I can do it."

"Oh," Taehyung mumbled before following behind your step. "Used to date? Like, how long ago are we talking about?"

You chuckled at his clearly annoyed reaction, then peeped at him over your shoulder with a smirk. "Why do you care?"

He was quick to shrug. "I don't care," he insisted as he started engaging himself with anything he could find on the counter that had no real use. "It's just a little suspicious that you would just casually bring up your ex like that."

You were torn between laughing at him and rolling your eyes at his behavior. "Yeah, I brought him up because of the pizza. If I had just said I'll make us pizza I'm pretty sure you would have complained that I don't have the skills for that, so I offered an explanation."

Taehyung snorted. "It was unnecessary."

"Are you jealous?"

"No, why would I be jealous?" He was avoiding your eyes while you decided not to stall any longer and start getting the flour and the rest of the ingredients ready. "I'm just saying-" he kept talking behind you, "-people usually talk about their exes when they still have feelings for them. And if this is a recent relationship I don't want to get caught in between. I don't want any Italian-American dudes showing up, wanting smoke."

You couldn't help but chuckle, your tongue pressing on your cheek, and you finally humored him by glancing at him. "Tae, that's not going to happen. Don't worry, I'm not like you when it comes to relationships."

He didn't say anything else, simply helped you with anything you needed for dinner. He helped you with rolling out the dough, and cooking the sauce, and shredding the cheese. You were always thankful for the moments you were cooking or eating, because no matter what was going on with the two of you, these were moments of reconcilement every time.

You made two big pizzas and a smaller one. The crust was a bit thin, but you argued that it was the way Italians make it. In one of them, you played safe and simply used sauce and mozzarella cheese. On the next one, Taehyung got to decide the toppings, and he went with pretty much anything he could find that would work on a pizza. And on the smallest one, you had minimal sauce left and no cheese, so you just improvised with some spiciness and pepperonis. You really didn't know if you would be able to eat them, but Taehyung never complained.

The photographer fixed up the fireplace a bit so that you could go eat next to it again. And you're not sure if the food was actually pretty good or if you were just very hungry and in a good mood that couldn't be ruined easily, but you both ate everything fast until there wasn't even a crumb left. And you felt so proud of yourself. Treating Taehyung made you almost blush before you reminded yourself that he wasn't it; that he wasn't your boyfriend and all of this would be over the moment you left this house. That you shouldn't be feeling this way. Just because you liked the sex didn't mean you had to start liking the man, too.

"Wanna play beavers?" you asked him once you had finished and you didn't really have anything else to do. I mean, you did, but you couldn’t just ask that yet.

But Taehyung was busy with his phone, not even glancing at you. "Give me a second."

He had been on his phone for the past half an hour or so, on and off, and you had never seen him so glued to it before. It made you frown in curiosity. "Are you talking to someone?" you asked.

Taehyung nodded. "Yes, Jimin." His face was way too serious to be texting his best friend, and it made you worry a bit.

"Jimin?" you murmured, leaning closer like trying to peep at his screen, although that's not what you did. Was something wrong? Did Jimin know about you? Had something bad happened with Yoonji; is that why she wanted to talk to you? "What are you guys talking about?" you finally asked. Taehyung's jaw moved around as if he was chewing an invisible gum, and you weren’t sure what to do because you had never seen him like that. You leaned back away, feeling a little off. "Tae?"

"You," he said then.

It took you a second to realize what he was answering. "What?"

The photographer dropped his phone next to him, looking at you in the eyes at last. His scrutiny making you cower a little. "We're talking about you."

You gulped. "You told him what happened between us?"

He shook his head. "No. I didn't say anything." But it was clear that from his stance and his words, he was still not making any sense, so he carried on. "He is the one talking about you."

Somehow, that statement was worse than the one you had expected. You didn't know what Jimin could possibly be telling him, but it was certainly not anything good, given Taehyung's serious face. And suddenly your blood went cold, trying to think of anything wrong that you might have done. And you were so scared, and you didn't even know why. Were you scared of disappointing him? Of ruining the little that you had with him? Why did the idea of Taehyung being mad at you, make you feel so bad?

"Wha- what is he saying?"

He clicked his tongue. "Can I ask you something…?” he mumbled, straightening his back and rubbing his chin. “You keep saying your not like me when it comes to relationships. And you’re still mad about what I did three years ago. But what did you do then?”

You gulped. You had no idea what he was referring to, but somehow you already felt guilty. “What do you mean? What did I do?”

Taehyung leaned in closer to you. “I mean, you obviously hated me. How did you handle that? Very… maturely, like you constantly try to pretend to do?”

You huffed. “Just get to the point, dude. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The corner of his lips twitched, almost like he was about to smile, even though it was clear his mood was anything but cheerful, while his eyes bored into yours dangerously. And he took his time replying, either waiting for you to admit whatever it was he wanted to hear first, or simply to keep you sweating. And then he finally sighed. “You made up a rumor about me, didn’t you?”

It wasn’t what you suspected he would say, and for a split second, you frowned, confused by his words. “What? What rumor- what are you saying? I’ve never done such a thing.” You didn’t get all the way defensive like you normally would because even though you couldn’t understand what was going on straight away, you still felt that guilt in your stomach.

The photographer chuckled in the darkest way you had ever heard. “Oh, so you’re telling me you didn’t spread around that I had the smallest dick ever?”

You choked. “Wha- no, I- I didn’t…”

“Oh, please. Yoonji said so herself.”

You couldn’t lie; you knew exactly what he was referring to. Had you said those exact words before? Yes. Had the rumors spread around so much that everyone on campus knew about them and they eventually reached back to you? Also yes. But had you intended for that to happen? Absolutely not. You had simply told a friend of yours and then Taehyung’s reputation did the rest; he was in the spotlight, everyone was talking and wanting to know more about him.

“I wasn’t trying to spread any rumors,” you tried to excuse yourself. But the boy was already shaking his head at you, not exactly seeming to want to listen to you. “It wasn’t my fault. I just told one girl and then she-”

“But you didn’t even know!” he interrupted you with a bitter laugh. “You never saw me, you just straight-up lied. Why would you tell anyone something like that?” He didn’t sound hurt, nor angry. He mostly sounded disappointed and that was so much worse.

You definitely didn’t like fighting with Taehyung when you were clearly the one at fault. “To be fair-” you kept talking even when he wasn’t paying any attention to you, “-when I said you had a small dick, I meant metaphorically. As in you had small dick energy. 'Cause you were a cheating little shit.”

He scoffed. “You know I don’t actually care about that.” Saying that, he got up and you were immediately on your feet as well. “I never cared about those rumors, we both know how fake they are.” He paused and leaned closer to your face. “What I care about is that you started them,” he whispered, and it was so much worse than if he had chosen to yell instead. “That you keep pretending you’re oh-so-perfect and I’m the asshole who deserves nothing but hate. When all this time you were just as guilty.”

Your entire face burned, your fists so tight you could feel your nails digging in your palms. All because he was right and you hated being put in that situation. “I said- I didn’t actually mean to-”

“Tell me, if my dick’s so small, why can’t you get enough of it?”

Your jaw dropped dramatically. “I-”

“And you can’t stop screaming my name when I fuck you?”

You were pretty sure he was just trying to rile you up, and you shouldn’t just let him succeed that easily. But, god damnit, he was good at everything he was doing. Whether that was getting on your nerves or turning you on. “Gosh, I hate you!”

He laughed at you. “If you hate me so much, why can’t you keep your hands to yourself?”

He had gotten so close to you, starring down at you with a smirk, and at that point, you weren’t even sure what his mood was. Was he angry, trying to make you so, too? Or was he trying to get something else out of you? You pushed him back, the proximity choking you. “I’m the one who can’t keep my hands to herself?” you mocked. “Might I remind you who was begging me to touch him this morning?”

Taehyung licked his lips as he looked away. “Might I remind you who was thanking me for making her cum so hard last night?”

You snarled, stomping your foot on the floor. “And might I remind you who tried to get in the shower with me ‘cause he still hadn’t had enough?”

His smile faltered. And then he slightly frowned. “Not me.”

“Yes, you!”

But Taehyung shook his head, keeping up the amused look on his face. “I only joked about it, I didn’t actually do it,” he mumbled with his frown still on, confused as to why you were bringing it up. “It doesn’t count.”

Yet you pressed on. “Oh, come on, you didn’t just joke about it, you did it!”

“Did not.”

“Did too!” you insisted. “I heard you when you tried to get in the bathroom while I was showering, Taehyung. You can’t lie to me.”

Taehyung lost his smile completely. And he looked at you seriously, his frown deepening. “You heard what?”

“The doorknob,” you announced, with a smug look.

But the photographer’s expression didn’t change. “Amy, that wasn’t me. I didn’t go anywhere near the west wing today.”

The arrogance left you within a second, your face turning pale and your eyes wide, as they stared into his very similar ones. “Stop,” you murmured.

“What?”

“Stop playing!” you whined suddenly in a high-pitched voice.

But Taehyung raised his hands defensively. “I’m not! Amy, I swear, I’m not joking. I don’t know-”

Before he had time to finish his sentence, you threw your body on his, gripping his shirt tightly in your fists, holding onto him like your life depended on it. Perhaps it did. "Tae!” you cried. “Someone tried to get in the bathroom while I was showering! Taehyung, there was someone-”

“Are you sure?” he simply asked you, his eyes searching yours with worry. You knew he wasn’t lying by the way he was genuinely concerned, too. By the way his arms wrapped around you like he was trying to protect you.

You nodded frantically. “Yes! Tae, I’m telling you, someone turned the doorknob to get in, but then didn’t.”

“Maybe you got confused and thought that’s what happened, but…” Taehyung tried to say. He wasn’t saying that to invalidate your words or doubt you. He, too, was trying to think of a logical explanation as you were freaking out in his embrace.

“No, I’m 100% sure. I heard it, I saw it! Someone was outside the door, Taehyung, and they tried to get in!” Before you knew it, you had tears threatening to fall down your cheeks. “I thought it was you, I called your name. But no one responded.”

His fingers brushed your hair behind your ears as he talked in the most soothing voice he could muster. “Alright, alright. I believe you, Ames.”

“There was somebody, or- or something in here!” you continued wailing.

“Maybe it was a cleaning lady-”

“What cleaning lady, Tae?” you shrieked. “Have you seen any ladies in here?”

But he held your face firmer, forcing you to look into his eyes. “It must have been. Maybe she wanted to get in the bathroom, realized you were inside, and left.”

You sniffed at him, looking over your shoulder to check the room as if you would find anything out of place. “That’s just wishful thinking and you know it.” Then you buried your face right into his chest, your grip tightening. “This place is haunted! This place is haunted and we’re gonna die!”

He let you go just so that he could grab your wrists and pull your hands away from your face so that he could look at you. “Amy, no,” he rasped. “No one’s gonna die.”

“I want to leave,” you whined again, your tears blocking your view and unable to meet Taehyung’s concerned eyes. But you could still feel his thumb caressing your cheek, whipping those tears away. And it still calmed you down as much as possible.

“Hey, okay,” Taehyung mumbled before he started walking towards the door while pulling you with him. “Okay, okay…” he kept repeating under his breath as he led you through the corridor and toward the main hall. You were confused as to what he was doing until he reached for that old phone sitting on a small coffee table.

“What are you doing?” you asked. “Are you calling the owners?” Your sniffs and sobs died down, seeing more clearly now as you watched Taehyung roll in the number that was written on a card next to the phone without looking at you.

“Yes, we need to get to the bottom of this,” he stated as he raised the phone to his ear.

“Tae, why are you calling the people at this hour? You will disturb them,” you almost whispered.

But he shook his head sternly. “No, it’s more important that you feel safe. Plus, they did say we could call any time.” Before you could say another thing, Taehyung started speaking on the phone. “Good evening, I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you. Yeah, no, everything’s alright. I was just calling to ask you about the housekeepers. Yeah. Do you know if they came in this morning?”

The conversation was making you a little uncomfortable; you were never the kind to confront people at work. But just the act on behalf of Taehyung was already making you feel better. “What’re they saying?” you mouthed, and he glanced at you, his hold on your hand getting a bit stronger as though to console you.

“No, nothing’s lost. We just had a situation; we didn’t see anyone here and I wanted to know around what time they’re here.” He was nodding along to whatever the woman on the other end of the line was telling him. And while he listened, his thumb started drawing circles over your hand absentmindedly. “Yes, I think one of them tried to get in the bathroom while my friend was there- No, no, nothing like that. She was just curious to know if it was one of them. Yes. Yes, I understand.” Taehyung gave you another look, noticing how your teeth were digging into your lip, and smiled at you. “Could you? Thank you, that would be great. Yes, thank you. Have a nice evening.”

And with that, he hung up. And he turned completely toward you and smiled brighter. But he wasn’t saying anything; just looked at you like he was admiring your beauty like he forgot you were still anxiously waiting for the results of the conversation. “So?” you asked.

Taehyung leaned in and gave you a peck on the lips, holding your face with both hands. “They were here this morning and the lady said one of them probably tried to get in the bathroom to get some cleaning supplies. She said she will ask and tomorrow morning they will talk to us, okay?”

You chewed on your lip as you watched his face so close to yours. This all sounded so ridiculous suddenly; they had seriously called in for something like that? But Taehyung didn’t once make you feel like you were overreacting. He didn’t see it like that. He thought you had every right to be scared, you had every right to feel panic. And he would do anything to calm you down, to make you feel protected, as well as actually protect you if he had to. His whole stance and presence made you feel at ease.

You wrapped your arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Yes. Thank you,” you murmured against his neck.

You heard him take in a deep breath like he was trying to take in all of your aroma as if it would be his last chance. And then he sighed as he exhaled. “Don’t go anywhere, Amy. It’s more dangerous for you to leave right now.” It was a long way home on a muddy road with no lights or anything close-by for help. Late at night, with rain threatening to pick up soon and a terrible signal. Of course he didn’t want to let you go of his arms.

You shook your head a bit, still buried in the crook on his neck. “I know. I won’t leave.” You had managed to calm down a surprisingly good deal. Even though you had nothing more of an answer as to what was happening in that Manor than you did earlier when you were just guessing, it felt good enough. Taehyung was there, ready to help you in any way he could, and it was enough.

“We should just forget about this and go to sleep,” he whispered before pulling away to look at you. “Then we can see what happens in the morning, okay?” You almost started to get nervous again, your fingers gripping his shirt immediately. Without having to say anything, the photographer noticed the change in your eyes. “Don’t worry, nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to hurt you, I will be right here to keep you safe all night. Okay?”

You pouted. “You won’t leave me alone?”

He immediately shook his head. “No, not at all, baby. I won’t leave you from my sight for a second.”

He led you to his room on the east wing, a bigger and darker room than your own. Yet somehow it felt safer, too. Perhaps because Taehyung’s energy was all over the place. A pretty and slightly scary at first room, but once inside, it’s inviting and better than the rest. That was definitely Taehyung’s energy.

He had you seated on the king-sized bed with the raven covers while he locked the door, then pushed a dresser in front of it as well, for good measure. He drew the curtains in front of the balcony door and lit up a couple of lamps around the room to make sure you would have light even after switching off the main one. And after having affirmed time and time again that you felt as safe as possible in there with him, he came to meet you in the bed. To give you another peck on the lips and hold your face a few seconds more. Looking at you like it would be the last time he would be able to.

“Let me give you something more comfortable to wear,” he offered when he noticed your jeans and how neither of you had thought about making a stop to your room before coming here.

You pointed at the shirt he was wearing. “Can I have this?” You didn’t want just anything, you wanted something that had his scent still all over it. To make you feel like you were being hugged by the boy himself.

Taehyung nodded. There was no way he would say no to you, and it wasn’t even because of the panic attack you had had earlier. In actuality, he had more or else been treating you like that from the beginning of your days here. Like deep down it was the only way he wanted to act around you; even if he liked to tease or rile you up every now and then. He probably only did that just to play into your idea of him and not scare you away with his affection.

Taehyung took off both his shirt and pants, getting in bed just with his briefs on. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, licking his lips. You didn’t mind, but it did make you a bit flustered. Ridding yourself from your clothing too, you put on his shirt and joined him.

He immediately turned you into the little spoon, snaking his limbs around your body and caging you against his. He nuzzled his nose in your neck, giving you a couple of kisses right under your ear, but other than that there was nothing sexual about his advance. He simply held you close to keep you safe like he had promised. Cuddling into you like it was something so natural, like you had been doing it for years. And his breath on your skin felt like company, his heartbeat on your back like a lullaby, his warmth and entire presence like a shield.

It almost ached you how good you felt at that moment. Good because you loved being with Taehyung, and ached because you wouldn’t be with him for much longer.

You cleared your throat, the sound filling the quiet room entirely. “I’m sorry I spread rumors about your penis,” you whispered, hanging your head low.

A low rumble of a laugh was heard muffled from behind you. “It’s alright,” Taehyung reassured you, holding you tighter. “Even with rumors like that, every girl still wanted to fuck me. And then they could be met with a pleasant surprise, right?”

You rolled your eyes as you could tell he just wanted to make you say it. “Right…” you admitted, without going into further detail about how big he actually was. “But still, I shouldn’t have talked bad about you just because I was mad.”

He continued chuckling, clearly finding your apology amusing. Maybe because he didn’t actually see the need for one, had already moved past the subject. “It’s really fine. Plus, they only lasted a couple of months before I completely disproved them.”

You rolled your eyes again. “By fucking the entire campus.”

“You have to do what you have to do.”

You knew it was a joke but it still served as a pretty good reminder of the fuckboy he really was. Of how different the two of you really were, on a fundamental level, even if staying in that house together had overshadowed that a bit.

“You haven’t been in an actual relationship since I’ve met you, have you?” you asked, not sure why.

Taehyung ran his nose up and down the slope of your neck for a couple of seconds like a predator circling his prey. “No,” he admitted then. “Relationships aren’t really my thing.”

“Not surprising.”

“What about you?” His hands were stroking your body, not in an erotic way, simply just feeling you up while he still could.

“I only do relationships,” you replied. “One-night-stands aren’t really my thing.”

See? Fundamentally different. Even if you didn’t have everything that was already holding you back, you would still probably never work. And no, the one week on vacation here doesn’t count. Because when you are trapped away in a Victorian Manor, with no other communications, in a world so contrasting to your actual routine, with a promise that when it’s all over, it really is… all over. Then you are bound to act some type of way. You are bound to seak the other’s company, you are bound to forget about the rules, you are bound to give yourself in for a romance with an expiration date. Right?

“I’m glad you made an exception for me, then,” Taehyung whispered in your ear. And you couldn’t help but turn to look at him.

Exception. Because this wasn’t a relationship; this wasn’t going to last. Whether it would end tomorrow or the day after that barely even mattered. What mattered was that the photographer and you were a one-time thing. A one-in-a-million thing. A thing that would never, ever repeat itself. And if you liked kissing him and wanted to do it for a bit longer, you had to keep it to yourself. And if you didn’t even want this night to dawn so that you never had to leave, you couldn’t admit it aloud. And if you wished you were his exception instead, you had to just accept you weren’t.

You closed the tiny gap between you and kissed him; softly. Because this might be your last chance to do so. And he let his lips be guided in your rhythm, dipped a hand through your hair to pull you as close as you wanted to be. You couldn’t entirely see the point of indulging in an act that made your stomach rouse like never before, when you knew how it would end. Why would you let yourself get used to something so sweet, when you know you’ll only ever be chasing that high from then on? Then again, you couldn’t stop. You kept kissing him, deeper and firmer, because why wouldn’t you indulge in this while you could?

Even as your kiss became more passionate, your bodies squirming and pressing against one another more desperately, this continued to be the softest you had ever been with him. Almost like there was something more than lust at play there. And even though you could feel his dick hardening on your hip, and your panties soaking up in your wetness, even though you both clearly wanted more, neither made that move. Your lips and tongues were enough; you wanted to take your time to memorize exactly how that alone felt.

And when you had plenty of that, you straddled him gently to press down on his erection with your wet core.

“Ah, Amy,” he moaned, his mouth dropping open. “Fuck me.” It was a kind request, the man’s brain having rotten from desire and you appearing like his sole savior in the moment. His hands traveled down your body, to hold your thighs as you ground on him, sneak under his shirt and pull it over your head. Then they reached your breasts, massaging them like a kid messing with playdough. “Baby, use me.”

You growled as you pressed down on him harder, throwing your head back. Your fingers ran through his hair and you pulled it, making him whine. You loved those eager sounds he made so much. You couldn’t imagine never hearing them again.

You didn’t want to waste any more time. “Do you have a condom?”

He sighed, biting his lip with a pained expression like he just remembered, too. “I- I don’t. Only had one in my wallet, didn’t exactly think I’d get some here.”

It was clear he felt bad, thinking that meant you would stop. And he was ready to accept it. But you were too far gone for that. You couldn’t give two fucks if you had protection or not; there was nothing stopping you from feeling him where you wanted him tonight.

“It’s okay,” you said, surprising him a bit. And right away, you pulled his briefs down to free his cock that stood hard against his lower abdomen. “Just tell me before you cum.” And, with a swift movement, you pushed your panties to the side and lined him up with your entrance.

Taehyung, still somewhat processing what you were doing, widened his eyes and growled when his naked head brushed on your wet pussy. He quite literally howled as you started slowly sinking on him, spasming from how good you felt around him. And you were close to doing the same. You weren’t sure if it was the rawness of it, the intimacy of your treatment earlier, or the adrenaline from even before that, but Taehyung inside you felt so good you almost orgasmed before even bottoming out, your eyes rolling to the back of your head and your lips digging in your bottom lip.

“Gosh, princess, I love— this so much,” Taehyung moaned once he could feel all of you, his dick curved inside and pressing straight on your cervix. “Fuck yourself on my cock.”

As by his order, you started rocking up and down. Arching your back to move back and forth smoothly, and in circles, and in any way that made your man make those delicious sounds. His hands held you like you were something to worship, a goddess, as he helped you in your movements. Until you were dripping sweat and your knees hurt so much you fell forward to crush your body on his. That’s when he hugged you and started thrusting up inside you, all while kissing your forehead sweetly. You ground on him, trying to get your clit to rub against his pubic bone in order to build up your climax.

“Good girl,” Taehyung purred in your ear. Because he knew you were close, and he knew how much his words and his voice affected you. He wanted to push you over the edge with just that. “You make me feel so good, baby.” You whined in response. “You and your perfect, little cunt. Feels so good wrapped around me like that.” And you whined again, picking up the pace of grinding against him, chasing your high. “I want to feel you cumming on me, princess. Want your cum all over my bare dick.”

In his attempt to make you orgasm, his thrust became deeper and harder, and they were immediately attacking your g-spot. You cried out loud, the sensation of it along with the constant stimulation of your clit being a little too much. Your pending climax suddenly felt like so much you tried to hold back. “Tae-” you whined, trying to push back.

But his arms held you down on him more firmly. “No, no, don’t fight it. Give me everything you got.” And he continued to hit that spot inside you, pressing two fingers on your clit as well. And you had an orgasm building upon orgasm, and it was getting uncontrollably big. “Give it to me.” Your mouth fell open in a cry as you reached beyond the point of going back, yet still tried to hold it in. But Taehyung kept thrusting, kept begging. “Please, baby, please cum on me.”

How could you refuse that? You spilled on him before you could understand what was happening, screaming his name at the top of your lungs as more and more spurt sprayed out of you and onto his stomach, like it was never-ending. The high you were ridding was never-ending. A high you had never experienced before, a high you didn’t want to get off, a high sure to make you fall in love.

“That was so hot-” It was the first thing you heard after who knows how long. After you managed to recollect your mind and see in front of you again. And then you realized Taehyung was no longer inside of you; he had pulled you off him and released his own cum against your ass while you were blacked out.

When you looked down, it was a mess. You quickly got off him. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” you said.

“Princess, what are you apologizing for?” Taehyung grabbed your arm to pull you back close to him. He kissed your lips softly. “You looked like you had such fun, never apologize for that.

You bit your lip as your eyes were still glued on his glistening belly. “I… I think I… Did I just squirt?”

Taehyung smiled at your innocent and shocked expression. “You did. And I liked it so much.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“Was that your first time?” he asked when he saw you were still processing everything. And when you nodded shyly, he pulled you in for another soft kiss. “First of many to come,” he said.

Almost like he was promising he would be there to make sure that was the case.

The bed was big enough for you to lazily clean yourselves and roll to a drier side to sleep. Taehyung wrapped his arms and legs around you again, the same way he had done before, nuzzling into you like you were a teddy bear. And you closed your eyes and allowed yourself to melt and mold against his body in a way that it would be the perfect fit.

The fear of the haunted Manor forgotten. The only thing on your minds being each other.

Next Chapter

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deltas-writing-corner · 4 years

Text

Courtship: Respect

Fandom: Twisted Wonderland (Malleus x GN!reader)

Warnings: Mentions and depictions of smoking/tobacco usage

Next chapter | AO3 version

Slight revisions and full version posted on: 5/4/2021

The alarm clock on your phone is loud and annoying, but it’s the only sound that will wake you up without fail so you can get a head start on your more demanding days, like today.

Groggy and neck a bit strained, a sign that you’ve slept on it wrong, you carefully push yourself up and off your bed. You come across your first hurdle of the day. A few wolf cubs had settled on your chest and your sides during the night. You try carefully to move them off of you and to the side of their mother, who has settled near your feet and isn’t afraid to growl or snap her jaw should you even think of shifting or moving away from her. Unfortunately, the pups seem determined to stick by your side despite your efforts. Luckily the pack’s alpha, Gunter, is settled right behind your head and acted as your pillow for the night. He must be why your neck feels stiff as hell.

You reach back and start petting behind his ear, rubbing into the bunch of dotted scars beneath his coarse hair. You feel his body stretch and shake as he wakes up as well. A small whine comes out of him as he gives out an enormous yawn. It makes you yawn as well.

“Ready to start the day?” you whisper to him.

He huffs with a bit of attitude as if to say, “Not really, but what choice do I have?”

You redirect his attention to his pups, preventing you from sitting up without disturbing everyone else. With silent understanding, he removes himself from underneath your head and carefully steps over one of his brothers, who has graciously allowed you to use him as an armrest somewhere during the night. After another good morning stretch, Gunter begins the slow and steady process of picking the pups up from the scruffs off their necks and setting them elsewhere on your bed.

While he does this, you grab your phone and do a quick sweep of all your notifications. You have a few emails, one a weekly newsletter about current and future school events, most of it spam. You have a couple of dozen messages from Ace and Deuce detailing an argument over whether the former ate the latter’s piece of strawberry shortcake they were saving for after dinner. Apparently, they thought to ask you to be their mediator since it was clear they weren’t going anywhere arguing and pointing fingers back and forth at each other.

Unfortunately for them, they messaged you right after you conked out. You were exhausted yesterday, having to deal with an especially rambunctious and mischievous Grim. You were also scrambling to gather the reading materials needed for one of your classes before the other students can snag them. The most recent and urgent incident is figuring out what to do now that the only generator that powers up all of Ramshackle is going out or outright failing to even start up at all. You also have a decently sized garden to tend to, and the next large harvest is today. Once everything has been properly collected, washed, and either stored away in your pantry or given to Sam so he can sell and make a profit on your behalf and his own (it’s a 60/40 split and you had to fight tooth and nail for that 60), you have to replant everything once again after you’ve tilled the soil…

To say that there’s a lot on your plate is an understatement.

Free from your furry prison, you’re finally able to sit up and move your limbs freely. Something slightly damp presses against your bare shoulder, calling for your attention. Gunter, still clearly tired (expected of anyone, human or wolf, having to wake up at six o’clock in the morning), is now awaiting proper payment for his services.

“I got some dried venison in the kitchen,” you offer. The way his one good eye pops wide open and his tail begins to rapidly wag, the deer jerky will suffice.

You give the top of his head one last rub before standing up and heading straight for your bathroom to take a quick shower. Since the availability of electricity has been scarce lately, so is the availability of heating throughout the dorm. Unlike the ghosts, who can’t differentiate between hot and cold (unless it’s magically sourced), you can. Unlike the ghosts who are already dead, you will die in this late winter cold. Grim has better control of his blue flames compared to when you first met him, so he can now essentially be his own heater. He seemed a bit too comfortable keeping himself warm and letting you freeze to death, considering you’re the only reason he’s enrolled in this school.

You make do with what you have and your situation. Even when you gathered all the untorn and clean blankets and piled them on top of you last night, the cold still found its way underneath your cocoon. Gunter, the leader of a small bunch of wolves you had been taking care of during your first few weeks in Twisted Wonderland, must have seen you struggling to stave off the cold and settled himself next to you during the night followed by his brother, his sister, and finally Gunter’s mate and their pups.

Of course, with three full-grown wolves and four chubby wolf babies as your immediate heat sources, you overheated in no time and had to throw off all your covers and strip down to your underclothes in the middle of the night since your pajamas had quickly gotten soaked in sweat (and most definitely covered in their thick fur). A cold shower is just what you need to clean up after a long night drenched in sweat.

You also need to clean your sheets, but without electricity, your washer and dryer are out of order for the time being…

Dammit.

Cold showers suck, but once the ice-cold water hits your back, it woke you the hell up. You probably spent only five minutes in there before you quickly rinsed off and got out because of how unbearable the ice water was.

Once you’re properly toweled dried, you head to your closet and change. You put on clothes you don’t mind getting covered in dirt and sweat; a simple wool sweatshirt and some overalls lined with thick fleece. You also put on a pair of knitted crew socks and secure them to your leg with a pair of garters.

Right as you snap the final metal clasp on the knotted fabric, you feel a familiar bump on your shoulder. Gunter is giving you his best pleading face he can manage. Most people likely wouldn’t fall for it, what with the many scars littering across his body and face, making him look scary rather than cute. You feel a little tug in your heart. Luckily, you’re all dressed up and ready to start your day, so you quickly straighten up and usher him downstairs to give him his well-deserved treat. You grab your phone before you exit your room so you can peruse it on your way.

As you read over old texts and useless emails, a new notification comes in. It’s another message. As surprised as you are to receive a message so early in the morning (Ace and Deuce are likely still snoring and drooling into their pillows at this hour), it is the sender of the text that makes your slowed strides halt completely.

Good morning. I hope you had a pleasant and well-deserved night of rest. I’m currently getting ready to head over to the Ramshackle dorm to help you with your harvesting, as I promised. The coat you’ve made and gifted me during the holidays also fits perfectly and is by far the most comfortable piece of clothing I now own.

Thank you again for your most generous gift. I will inform you when I have arrived.

Yours truly,

Malleus Draconia

You can’t help but smack your palm on your forehead. You’re not annoyed or exasperated, it’s quite the opposite, actually. You’re happy that Malleus’s charm can somehow manifest even within a text message. In fact, this isn’t the first time he’s sent you a message formatted and written like a formal letter. If someone were to look at the small messaging history between you two, they’d see that a great majority of it is just Malleus sending you these long strings of text. They would also find your messages, or rather, your poor and embarrassing attempts at mimicking his language and style (he says he gets a laugh out of them, so maybe they’re as bad as you think). There’s also always a follow-up message, gently reminding and encouraging him to relax and not worry about offending you for speaking casually for you.

His response is always the same, and it makes your stomach feel strangely fuzzy.

You have earned my respect, now I must strive to earn yours.

It’s only been a little over a month since he dropped the bombshell that was his desire for your friendship to evolve into a proper, romantic relationship. To say it surprised you is another understatement. You were thoroughly flabbergasted once your mind finally registered his words as genuine. To hear him say “I love you” and direct such a powerful statement towards you was truly the last thing you expected since arriving in this strange world.

But through all the outer uncertainties there was one thing you were certain of, your inner uncertainties. Malleus is a dear friend of yours. Even amongst Ace or Deuce, two individuals who have been with you since the beginning and nearly every overblot incident that has come your way, Malleus holds a special place in your heart as your dearest friend.

But a friend is all he’s ever been in your mind. There was truly never an instance where you pondered or even held some amount of desire or expectation that your friendship could evolve into something more. You felt like a total prick during the end of his confession, asking him if you could sit on his words for a while and come back to him when you have a more certain and final answer to give. Watching the hope and nervousness in his eyes turn into one of pure and utter sadness and even embarrassment, yet he willed himself to conceal his heartbroken emotions back for your sake. It hurt like hell. What was supposed to be an exciting and relaxing end-of-winter-break party in Scarabia’s dorm (and an apology party for Jamil’s actions against you), turned awkward. Neither of you stayed any longer once you went your separate ways.

Despite what had happened, when you received a proper smartphone (and a proper phone plan to boot) as a gift for Christmas, one of the first things you did was transfer all your old contacts into the new device. The first person you messaged was Malleus, wanting to check in on him after your last encounter and to wish him a happy holiday. He answered back in a matter of minutes, much to your surprise. While he’s not the most tech-savvy, your major concern was whether he was holding up well after what happened and if you guys were going to remain as friends. You went on a whole tangent, trying your best to not sound so desperate and ensure that your response is in no way his fault because it most certainly is not. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s you.

Gunter suddenly tenses up. His fur instinctually puffs out, trying to appear bigger in anticipation of whatever threat he’s detected in the kitchen. Metallic clanking and clashing come from underneath the kitchen island where you store all the pots, pans, and heavy-duty appliances. A loud and harsh crash riles up Gunter enough that he feels the need to growl at whatever is underneath the cupboard.

You quietly move past him and wave your arm, signaling him to move back a bit. He listens to your orders and takes a few slow steps back. You position yourself on the side of the cabinet, fingertips pressing onto the top of the door to prepare to open.

“On my mark,” you whisper to Gunter. “One... Two…Three!”

You yank the door open, and Gunter quickly launches himself towards the potential threat. Though, not a second passes before he’s suddenly skidding across the floor, trying to immediately halt himself. He barely avoids hitting his head against the wood and giving himself a nasty bruise. When you ask him what’s wrong, he sticks his head into the cabinet and pulls out the apparent intruder.

It’s Blossom, a young fawn you rescued from the rose gardens of the Heartslaybul dorm. It was during the preparation of the unbirthday party near the start of the school year that subsequently led to dorm leader Riddle’s overblot. Cater assigned Grimm, Ace, Deuce, and yourself to paint the roses red with him. On top of rose painting duty, Cater was also on the lookout for a supposed ‘rose thief’ who had been snagging some roses from their garden right from under their noses. The scoundrel they were looking for was the fawn before you. From the way he still wobbled on his feet, he wasn’t even a month old when you initially rescued him. He’s lucky you found him when you did. His front leg was caught in a rusted and dull, but full-sized bear trap they set up in case the thief was a wild animal.

“What are you doing in there?” you ask the little troublemaker. “Probably trying to find a snack to chew on, huh?”

Blossom thrashes, trying to break free from Gunter’s hold on his scruff. He of course fails, but not without giving out a distressed scream and trying to plead for forgiveness by giving you his best innocent look. You shake your head before looking up at the small clock hung up on the wall above the refrigerator. It runs on battery so you have to worry about the time no longer being correct when the house lacks power.

It’s 6:15, still way too early. You tell Gunter to let go of Blossom and he does it without argument. Blossom quickly runs up to you, using your own body as a foothold to jump up into your arms. Once you have a hold of him, he bombards your face with little licks and nuzzles of his snout. While this action is normal and you would gladly accept it, you know better than to think it’s not the fawn’s attempts at trying to distract you from his misdeed.

“If you’re looking for the sugared flower petals, you won’t have any luck down there,” you tell him. He immediately stops his loving ministrations and gives out a disappointingly snort before relaxing in your arms.

You chuckle and give him a few apologetic pets on the head as you walk over to one of the upper cupboards and rummage around the various jars, trying to locate the dried venison for Gunter. You also grab a jar placed far in the back with the aforementioned candied rose petals Blossom was most definitely looking for. The moment you open the jar and the heavy scent of sweetness and floral whiffs in the air, Blossom begins to excitedly thrash about in your arms and tries to stick his head into the container. Luckily, the small nubs on his head, his newly budding antlers, stop him from reaching too deep.

You spend the next few minutes feeding your companions their early morning treat. The doorbell rings as you let Blossom lick the last specks of sugar off of your now damp palm. After rinsing your hands off and drying them, you head to the door. You open it and take in the sight of a newly arrived Malleus, dressed in a simple black dress shirt and a pair of loose-fitting linen pants you made for him when he expressed discomfort over his PE uniform the last time he helped you in your garden.

“Good morning!” you greet him as brightly as you can without being too loud.

“A good morning to you as well,” he greets back. Unlike you, who is still groggy and slow, he seems properly energized despite the time. You’re jealous. You’ve been waking up at the crack of dawn for years, at least a decade now, yet your body isn’t used to the early routine. Though compared to the hundreds of years Malleus has on you, you probably won’t show any sign of improvement until your hairs are gray.

“Have you eaten yet?” Malleus asks.

You shake your head. “The electricity is out, so I can’t use the stove or open the fridge too often.”

“Crowley still hasn’t replaced your generator?”

“No,” you frown. “Every time I try to bring it up he either gives an outlandish excuse or just flat out tells me I don’t need a new one.”

His eyebrows pressed together, clearly upset as you are at the headmaster’s failure as your caretaker. You reassure him it’s fine. Everyone in the dorm has been saving money for emergencies like this, and it just so happens that the money you’ll make for selling the produce you collect today will bring in just enough to buy a brand new generator. You’ll be out of electricity for another week, two at most, but have enough firewood and nonperishable foods to last until then.

“You should at least make yourself some coffee,” Malleus urges. “It’s bad to work on an empty stomach. You've said so yourself.”

“I will once Grim and the ghosts wake up,” you reassure. “For now, let’s head to the back and get started. There’s a lot to harvest, so the sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish up.”

He’s clearly unhappy at your dismal of his concerns. You know that being so nonchalant towards a fae is rude, but you don’t want to worry him with your own issues. You also have no desire to eat or drink, not this early in the morning at least. If you tell him as much, he’ll probably freak out like he did last time, thinking you were unwell and forcing you to lie in bed for the rest of the day.

Yes, you could have pushed back and argued that you were fine, but it’s very hard to tell him “no” when his intentions are purely out of concern for your well-being. Better to let him hover over you and see that you’re fine than to leave him stewing in his anxieties in silence.

“What have you been growing this season?” Malleus asks as he tugs on the loaned gardening gloves you handed him.

“The usual spread. Some potatoes, cabbage, and carrots. The only fresh additions I planted are some peas and kale. Oh, and broccoli!”

“Did the crops hold well when you were gone?”

“They did thanks to the ghosts. The heat from the fire faeries around the campus also made them easier to protect from the cold,” you explain. “I should probably give them some type of exotic wood as a little thank you gift.”

“You can never go wrong with a bit of mahogany,” Malleus says as he ties back his hair.

You hand him a straw hat, one that you weaved to accommodate for his black horns. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”

“Your welcome,” he smiles at you before turning back to your garden. “So where shall we start first?”

“I’ll work on picking the cabbage heads. You can cut off the pea pods and we’ll go from there.”

“Very well. I’ll follow your lead.”

It’s 8 a.m. You know this because Ace and Deuce are woken up at this hour by Riddle and one of the first things they do is bombard you with text messages which usually forces you to turn your phone on silent mode. Despite it being late winter, you’re already working up a sweat from the repetitive and demanding motions of picking and carrying around baskets full of vegetables and cleaning them. Malleus is no better, hand continuously raising to his face to wipe away the constant wetness clinging to his forehead. You know he’s not used to manual labor like you are, so you try to bring him a pail of water every so often so he can stay properly hydrated.

“Oh my, you’re already up?”

You turn around to see who’s speaking to you and see one of the ghosts that live with you and Grim in Ramshackle floating towards you.

“Good morning!” you greet him. “Did you need something?”

“No no,” he shakes his head. “I just came to check up on my bees and saw you already hard at work.”

The ghost (Franklin is his name, but you all call him Frankie for short by his insistence), affectionately ruffles your hair with his large white palm. He’s one of the tamer ghosts, but he’s still capable of pulling a prank on you or his fellow housemates now and then. You and he have been cultivating and maintaining a small beehive since October, but he does most of the work and maintenance since he has more experience in the ways of beekeeping than you from when he was alive.

Frankie does a quick once over of the garden, his scanning gaze doubling back at seeing Malleus carefully rinse a couple of heads of broccoli.

“How long has he been here?”

“Since 6:30,” you answer back. “Why?”

“No one gets up that early unless it’s for someone they fancy,” he says rather nonchalantly, but the way he quickly side-eyes you show that he’s clearly talking about you. You try your best to appear unaffected and give a “Is that right?” type of hum, but your efforts are in vain since he just laughs at you.

“If even you know, that means he’s got it bad.”

You say nothing back because you honestly don’t know what to say, or if you should. You’re content to just go back to plucking potatoes out from the ground, but Frankie doesn’t seem to want to leave you alone just yet. He asks you to come with him to the greenhouse where the hive is being kept. The small glass enclosure also houses some flowers and herbs you use for cooking or medicine.

You quickly close the door behind you once you enter, reveling in the warmer air that hits your face. While Frankie lights his cigar and gets a heavy cloud of smoke going (his personal method of keeping the bees calm), he has you open the top and carefully pull out the panels one by one while he checks for any signs of a decaying hive and ensures the queen is alive and healthy. One of your initial worries about beekeeping was getting stung, but Frankie reassured you it’ll only happen if you purposely upset the bees or fail to care for the hives consistently. Now, you gladly let the buzzing honeybees wander around your bare skin.

As Frankie pulls out his cigar from between his lips and taps off the ashes into the respective ashtray, he looks over at you and asks, “Is everything ok?”

You give him a confused expression as you snap the cover for the hive back into place. “I’m fine?”

“You sure? Because if you ask me, you don’t seem like it.”

“I mean, I already have a pile of schoolwork I need to finish and a rundown dorm to take care of. I’m as ok as anyone in my position can be-“

“I’m not talking about any of that,” he interrupts. “I’m talking about you. Forget about Grim and your studies. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” you answer again.

“Are you sure?”

Well, when he puts it that way, even he must be able to see that you’re clearly not doing alright. In fact, you haven’t been alright since you were literally kidnapped and held against your will in the Scarabia dorm. Luckily everything worked out fine for everyone else, but not so much for you. You’ve noticed that your appetite is waning and you wake up multiple times during the night because you don’t feel safe, even in your own room.

Malleus’s confession unfortunately was another wrench being thrown at you. With your hands already so full of this and that, you’re struggling to figure out what needs a priority and which issues you need to either drop entirely or find someone trustworthy to take care of it in your stead. It’s hard to ask people for help when they either find a convenient reason to say no or you feel as if you can’t trust them to do something as simple as watering your plants. The only person you feel you can trust and ask for help is Malleus, and things aren’t exactly as they were between the two of you.

“Talk to me kiddo,” Frankie prods. “What’s been eating at you?”

He lifts his ashtray and makes to snuff out his cigar so he can focus on speaking to you, but you hastily reach over and stop him. You take the smoke from him and bring it up to your lips and puff a few grey clouds. Strangely enough, it tastes rather pleasant, floral, and creamy. You didn’t expect to taste like this because of the way it smells, like soil that was just freshly rained on.

“Sorry,” you hand it back to him. “I haven’t eaten and I’m practically running on fumes.”

“That’s alright,” he says, handing it back to you. “You look like you need it more than me.”

Malleus carefully blows small bits of green fire onto his freezing fingertips, trying to warm them up after being drenched in the icy water from the water pump. He looks over his shoulder, over the stalks of peas, towards you. You’re still in the greenhouse and frantically moving your lips. He can see your eyes are glistening with a fresh layer of… tears? You don’t allow a single drop to get past your lids, wiping them just at the last second before they can pass over the threshold.

He’s only ever seen you cry one other time, when he came to your rescue in Scarabia over the break. He initially thought he frightened you with his aggressive display of magic. Once the dust settled and the blot on Jamil was expunged, no one was more shocked than he was when you boldly ran straight towards him and jumped into his arms. It was all he ever wanted, what his mind dreamed of every single time he closed his eyes. He could no longer brush off the fluttering in his stomach as the mere excitement of making and spending time with his first genuine friend. He was determined to keep his newfound affections for you with him under lock and key, not willing to risk ruining your close-knit friendship with his selfish and potentially one-sided desires.

Your desperate embrace, your toughie exterior lowering to that of a sniveling and shaking human, gave Malleus the impression that the only reason you would display such vulnerability before him was that you reciprocated his sentiments. It gave him a sense of confidence he never knew he was lacking, usually so sure of himself most other times. It made his chest burn with an aching desire to say “to hell with it all” and spill his heart right then and there.

When you extended the invitation you received from Kalim to him, he saw it as his proper opportunity to let his affections be known. He was upset (according to Lilia, more than usual) that he had to take Sebek and Silver along with him for the usual security, but he was determined to get them distracted long enough so he can pull you aside and confess to you without fear of interruption or letting his personal affairs be known to anyone else, at least, for as long as he can keep something so monumental under wraps.

As a prince, he has been taught to look at the long term for each of his decisions, as they carry substantial weight. The long term of pursuing a relationship with you meant having to deal with the prejudices and stigma against humans that still live within the hearts of his people. For once in his life, he didn’t want to think like an heir. As he watches you continue to talk to one of Ramshackle’s ghosts with increasing frustration, he realizes his love utterly blinded him back then. The only long-term his rose-tinted mind could comprehend was of the happy moments he had long conjured in his head becoming a reality.

You didn’t explicitly reject him, however; he knows your behavior well enough to know that once his feelings were laid bare before you, you would not take them into your arms and hand yours over in return. Arms crossed and avoidance of eye contact, you do this when you’re nervous or unsure, sometimes both. He held onto the self-indulgent hope that you’d show him what you look like when flustered. Perhaps you’d stutter?

You did stutter when you spoke up, but they were not the words that he wanted, that he thought he was, going to hear.

“Malleus...I’m so sorry…”

“Ah, you’re here early!”

“It’s just that…I don’t think I can…”

“Hey! Are you listening to me? You better not be ignoring me on purpose!”

“It’s not that I’m telling you I don’t feel the same way, but I can’t exactly say that I do. It’s just... I’ve never- “

“Tsu-no-ta-rou!” Grim’s shrill voice, still a bit riddled with drowsiness, still pierce Malleus’s eardrums and nearly causes him to drop the vegetable in his hand. “Pay attention to me when I’m speaking!”

“Quiet,” he growls at the monster. “If you need your master, they’re in the greenhouse. Though, you might want to come back another time.”

“Huh? Why’s that?”

Malleus lifts Grim from the back of his fuzzy robe (you must have made it and gifted it to him during the holidays) and points to you. Frankie has one of his translucent hands on your shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly now and then while he speaks. You were no longer wiping your face so furiously, allowing your tears to fall and drip off of your jaw and wet your shirt as you listened to your fellow dorm resident.

“What happened? Did you smash all the tomatoes again?” Grim cranes his neck to look at Malleus accusingly.

“No, I didn’t. Those are out of season.”

“Maybe it’s about what happened at Scarabia,” Grim muses. “They haven’t been sleepin’ too good since we came back, y’know?”

Malleus nearly drops the cat. “They haven’t?”

“Nah,” the cat answers, far too casually and dismissively for the fae’s liking.

“This is news to me,” Malleus says, almost whispering to himself. He’s sad, almost offended, at the fact that you haven’t told him you’ve been having some difficulties this whole time. You normally keep him up to date with your personal life. He’s even more offended once he realizes that you’ve been worrying and reassuring him that your friendship with him isn’t ruined after what’s happened.

There’s a small voice in the back of his mind, conniving and twisted, that feeds into his already prevalent belief that your unwillingness to share with him your personal problems anymore is a sign that he hasn’t earned your respect. It’s a ridiculous explanation, but no amount of reassuring from either you or himself is going to stop his Mind from asking such a multi-sided question. Surely, if you thought admirably of him, you’d continue to allow him to bear witness to your moments of weakness and vulnerability. He feels close to you, connected to you in a way he’s never felt. He can be slow and downright miss some references to your jokes and behavior. You always put on a face of understanding, but is he so lost that your patience has worn paper-thin?

Are his feelings for you truly one-sided? Is he still jumping to conclusions too soon and just needs to give you more time and space? Did he just set a course for a ruined friendship or could his hastiness have been a fruitful gamble?

If it’s not iron that kills him, it’s the uncertainty within his heart and mind.

A shrill whistle pierces through the air and Malleus’s eardrums. Grim hisses at the sudden noise and the hairs on his neck stand up. Even Frankie and you can hear and turn your heads towards the source despite still being in the middle of a conversation. The one who whistled was another one of the ghosts who live in Ramshackle. Johnathan is his name, usually shortened to Johnny. His sunken cheekbones make him look unassuming, but you’ve rightly warned Malleus never to turn your back on that one for too long. It’s a miracle that you can keep up with all their shenanigans.

“I got the generator to start up and made some coffee!” Johnny happily announces. “Come get it while it and the dorm are nice and warm!”

“I’ll have a cup or two, so long as there’s a ton of cream and sugar!” Grim says whilst smiling. “And I ain’t skimping this time on the sugar!”

“You better if you know what’s good for you,” you sternly say, now out of the greenhouse along with Frankie. “We’re short on sugar and I’m not stocking up till next weekend.”

“Whaaaat?!” Grim exclaims, his lower jaw almost reaching the floor. “Since when did you become such a cheapskate?”

Everyone, including Malleus, did a sharp intake of breath as soon as the words passed the cat’s mouth. Everyone turns their head towards you, awaiting your reaction to Grim’s comment. This isn’t the first time Grim has gotten lippy with you and, given his nature as a mischievous little monster (a common trait between Ramshackle’s residents, Malleus is now noticing), it won’t be his last no matter how badly you scare or pull a fast one under his clawed feet. Even when your face is all puffy and wet with semi-dried tears, the look of “oh you’re in it now” is still so panic-inducing to everyone, ghosts, and feline alike. To the sole Fae present, he thinks of you as nothing short of adorable and wants nothing more than to wipe your messy face clean.

“Well, if you want more sugar there is one way you can get some more.”

“W-W-What is it?” Grim says, pudgy body shaking and sinking into the comfort and small safety of his fuzzy robe.

You approach him and bend down to grab him by the back of his neck, lifting him so he’s at your eye level before deadpanning, “Get a job, Make some money, and then buy your own.”

Once you set Grim down, he scrambles back into the home with an almost comical amount of fear in his eyes. He screams about how he’s never getting a job even if it kills him and his continued determination to find the small money vault you have hidden around the dorm and spend it all on canned tuna. Johnny, Frankie, and you all give a unison chant of good luck to him before he disappears completely.

“Has he made any progress in his search?” Malleus asks.

“Our money vault isn’t even in the house, so no,” Johnny answers, resulting in you and Frankie cackling and high-five one another.

With the power back on, you announce that it was time for a well-deserved break. It’s your turn to make breakfast and you immediately begin to ask everyone for their preferences. Frankie cuts you off and insists he take over your duties for the day. You normally would protest and insist to whoever was offering to cover for you it wasn’t a problem for you at all. “I enjoy doing [insert chore], so it’s fine!” is your usual go-to reasoning, but not this time.

Malleus notices the way you make to protest as usual, but you quickly back down and just let Frankie go ahead inside to take over for you. In normal Ramshackle fashion, Frankie mentions the cigar you were puffing and waving around earlier and says that you owe him another one, particularly an artisanal one that he’s recently read about in the local newspaper and has been aching to try.

“You got any more highly specific goods you want me to fight tooth and nail for?” you sneer.

“No, just the cigar will do,” he says before turning around to head back inside. Before he can close the door behind him all the way he pulls it back and says, “If you get it sometime this week I’ll buy a new bag of sugar.”

You whisper an impressive string of curses under your breath. Malleus has to restrain the urge to laugh at your colorful vocabulary.

“In that case, I hope your schedule is free tomorrow night. I’ll have it by then.”

Frankie gives you a thumbs up before heading back inside. Once the door behind him clicks shut, you turn towards Malleus and he physically feels his body shift from somewhat relaxed to stiff and proper. You notice this and crinkle your nose a bit, something to do when you find something endearing or as a way of silently giggling. Malleus watches with such an unnecessary amount of focus as you reach up to adjust his straw hat and wipe a bit of dirt off the collar of his shirt.

“I’m sorry for leaving you hanging back there,” you say as you pick off a stray leaf that somehow got tangled in his dark locks. “I’m also sorry you had to see me crying like that. I’ve just been so tired lately.”

There it is again. That damn twisting ache right in his heart.

“It’s fine,” he reassures you. “But if it isn’t too rude of me to ask, is your lack of sleep really all that’s wrong with you?”

You give out a long sigh. “I’m guessing Grim told you a bit of what’s been happening since winter break?”

“He has.”

Your arms cross and the ground suddenly becomes more interesting. You’re unsure, but the way your eyebrows press together is a sign that you’re conflicted. Malleus feels his frostbitten hands accumulate a layer of sweat as you silently mull over your thoughts. Despite the pain and hesitance in his heart, he wills himself to grasp you by the arm and pull you into an awkward hug. He knows it’s not exactly what you might need at the moment, and he was fully preparing you to push him away. He’s relieved when you bring your arms around his torso and reciprocate the embrace.

“I’m tired,” you sigh

“You haven’t been resting well, so it makes sense.“

“No,” you shake your head, the tips of your hair tickling Malleus’s neck. “It’s not just a lack of sleep that’s making me feel exhausted. After what happened with Scarabia, especially with Jamil, I don’t feel safe anymore.”

“Are you afraid?” he asks. To think of you as fearful is an entirely foreign concept for him when you’ve only ever been confident and certain of yourself since the first time he met you.

“Yeah, I am,” you admit without skipping a beat.

Considering what you told him, Malleus thinks your fear is justified. You have no defense against magic…

He fills a strain in his neck as his entire body suddenly seized up. You notice this and pull away to ask him what’s wrong. “Nothing,” he quickly dismisses, but you don’t let him go silent on you.

“If,” he hesitates. He’s thinking too rashly already, yet he’s still so compelled to act upon his thoughts. “Should anyone attempt to do you harm, I swear upon my name and title that I will do whatever it takes to protect you.”

He means every word, but you seem to take it far too casually than he would have liked. You press your face against his shoulder and laugh against his skin, your breath bringing him some much-needed temporary warmth. Such an ordinary action, yet it causes another pang within his heart. It settles next to the one that arose before, but he bites his tongue and endures it for your sake.

“Maybe you could play that electric violin for whoever comes after me,” you jest.

As embarrassing as it is to hear that you know about that incident (he’ll have to reprimand Lilia for telling you about that), he can’t help but laugh along with you. If making a bunch of teenagers’ foam from the mouth amuses you, then so be it.

“Thank you for offering to get your hands dirty for my sake,” you say. “That’s one thing I respect about you. You take care of the people you care for.”

His body goes still once again. “Is that right?” is all his mind can wrap around and say.

“Yes, oh Wise and Great Lord Malleus. I do, in fact, respect you.”

He cringes at that title. It’s something he has heard Sebek try to enforce you to refer to Malleus as, which you never do purely so you can get a rise out of his loyal guard. Before he can ask you to never call him that again, a bunch of howl’s ring out, and the two of you pull away from each other. The wolf’s howling is usually a sign that food is ready, which you seem rather eager to get to as you interlock your arm with his and drag him inside with you.

He looks back at his basket of still dirty vegetables. “What about-“

“It’s alright! I’m not throwing a fuss over a few broccoli heads!”

Crispy bacon, over easy and scrambled eggs, and a mountain of sizzling hash browns. Once everyone grabs a plate and sits down at the dining table (Malleus sticks close to you, hoping he can sit next to you), they grab whatever pieces of food they want in whichever quantity. Somewhere in the next room over, a faint melody plays through the speaker of an old record player. The vintage singer has a rather cheeky attitude in her vocals but with the accompanying music, it all comes together harmoniously. It’s perfect for a rather excitable breakfast.

It seems you never told the ghosts too many details about your sudden disappearance during the break. You downplay the true extent of your dilemma as you willingly giving your time and effort to help a desperate Jamil figure out what was causing his normally kind dorm leader to have a sudden personality switch. The ghosts listen carefully, and as you gradually get to the big climax that is Jamil’s betrayal and overblot, followed by Malleus’s sudden appearance, they’re all practically hanging on the edge of their seats. Your tale even intrigues the wolves and Blossom. They gather and settle near the legs of your chair, ushering you to continue your story by whining and scratching your ankle.

You don’t exaggerate Malleus’s part in your tale, something he greatly appreciates. You tell them how things happened just as they did: Grey clouds suddenly covering the sky and the occasional peak of lightning through their fogginess. Just when it seems like Jamil has the upper hand and is going to put an end to Grim and you, as well as Jade, Floyd, and Azul of Octavinelle, Malleus appears out of nowhere and effortlessly zaps the blot right out of the vice dorm leader of Scarabia.

“That deserves some praise,” Benjamin, the third of your ghostly residents, raises his half-filled mug of coffee and extends it towards the middle of the table. “To Malleus!”

Everyone, including you and Grim, raises your glasses and repeats his chant. “To Malleus!”

“To me, I suppose,” Malleus half-heartedly raises his own cup. “It really wasn’t much effort, or any praise really.”

He catches you looking at him in his peripheral and he feels a lump form in this throat that he immediately swallows. “I simply did what I believed you would have done for me if our positions were reversed.”

“Well, you’re not wrong there,” you say after swallowing a hefty mouthful of scrambled eggs. “But it’s nice knowing you have my back. It makes me feel safe.”

“Safe?” Malleus is surprised to hear you say this, considering what you told him earlier. “I make you feel safe?”

Now it’s your turn to be surprised. “Y-Yeah. I guess you do.”

“You guess?”

“You do,” you say, more definitively this time. “I promise. If you didn’t you’d know.”

He can’t help but laugh. “I can only imagine what interacting with you would be like then.”

“Probably not that good, or not at all. I steer clear of people I don’t particularly like.”

His eyebrows raise in intrigue as he sips his now lukewarm coffee. “What makes you dislike someone?”

“I dislike people I have no respect for,” you say casually. Malleus thinks you might be joking or poking fun at him, but how you take the time to look up to him while you busy yourself with feeding Gunter a few bits of bacon clearly means you’re trying to tell him something secretly. It’s definitely something along the lines of, “I don’t know where this mindset of me not respecting you came from, but it’s a load of bullshit and you need to get that thought out of your head.”

Even within his head, your language is still so vulgar and blunt. Only you would talk to him in such a rude manner.

But he respects that part about you.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst malleus #malleus draconia #malleus x reader #twst writing #fanfic: courtship #reader insert #reader insert fanfiction #gender neutral reader

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stevestony78 · 5 years

Text

Parkner Fic Rec Because I’ve Found A Lot Of Good Ones Recently

PROOF SPIDER-MAN LOVES CLICKBAIT

words: 87 283

author: mauvera

where: ao3

completed

When Peter Parker gets a job working at Buzzfeed there's really only one subject he can write about: superheroes. And what superhero does he know better than everyone's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?

What he didn't expect was that everyone would think Peter's new obsession with the hero would be interpreted quite like That.

To Whom It May Concern

words: 28 756

author: buckybear

where: ao3

completed

a parkner pen pal au

(no endgame spoilers, i'm just gonna pretend it never happened)

Tennessee Whiskey

words: 33 400

author: Superstitious

where: ao3

completed

When Peter’s Volvo breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee, “just passin’ through” turns into a three-day stay at the Keener Ranch after Harley rescues him. Who knew one weekend could change Peter's life.

Too bad he has to go back to New York after his cars fixed, right?

***Slow-burn featuring domestic Keeners, hella pining and small town shenanigans.

Last Name Keener, First Name Harley

words: 60 377

author: PeachyKeener

where: ao3

completed

IronMan-DidNothingWrong: I love spiders, they just, exist man.

IronMansMechanic: PETER BUD WHAT THE FUCK

(Peter and Harley are internet friends. Harley's mom dies, and he gets adopted by Tony because Tony is obviously the best choice for him and his sister to go too. Harley meets Peter at school. Instant. Hatred.)

Last Name Was Supposed To Be Parker

words: 25 936

author: PeachyKeener

where: ao3

completed

Peter Parker is dead. And Harley Keener grieves

Last Name Is Keener-Parker

words: 12 336

author: PeachyKeener

where: ao3

completed

“Do you, Peter Benjamin Parker, take Harley Tyler Keener to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness or in health?”

“I do.” Peter whispered, his eyes on Harley.

“And do you, Harley Tyler Keener, take Peter Benjamin Parker to be your lawfully wedded husband-”

“I do, I do,” Harley interrupted, “I do.”

(Aka, a HarleyPeter wedding fic set in the First Name Harley AU- can be read as a stand alone but preferably read within context of the series. This is probably the fluffiest thing I've ever written,,, v sweet.)

((Chapter two is smut, please don’t read if your not comfy with that))

There’s No Way This Will End Well || Peter’s Trip to Stark Industries

(it’s the basic “oh peter goes to stark tower on a field trip” trope, except it’s actually good.)

words: 12 031 to date

author: I_Want_ Marvel_to_Choke_Me

where: ao3

incomplete but with regular updates

Peter Parker's class is going on a trip to Stark Industries, cutesy of one Tony Stark and Peter is absolutely dreading it. He knows for a fact that the Avengers won't pass up such an opportunity to embarrass him (and scare the fuck out of his bully Flash)

or,,,

Another field trip fic, but Harley is very protective over his spider-boyfriend and Shuri has had enough of Flash's shit.

Take Me To Church

words: 4392

author: Shaderose

where: ao3

complete (i think?)

'Take me to Church.

I'll worship like a dog at the shine of your lies.

I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife.

Offer me that deathless death.

Oh Good God, let me give you my life.'

Excerpt (because I suck at summaries):

"Prince Peter Parker Stark of the Iron Kingdom, born from King Anthony Edward Stark and Queen Virginia Potts Stark, brother to Princess Morgan Alexandra Stark." He takes another step forward, standing tall, firm, assertive, dominant, and Peter forces his feet to stay planted, his chin to stay up, his eyes to stay connected, even as he wants to step back, lower his head and submit. "Yes, I know who you are."

"But the real question you should be asking, your highness," And there it is again, the mockery, the disrespect, the tease that shouldn't make him burn brighter than the flames illuminating the room, shouldn't make him feel hotter than the sun herself, but does anyways. "Is, do you know who you are talking to?"

If The World Was Ending (You’d Come Over Right?)

words: 4721

author: Shaderose

where: ao3

complete

Peter gets kidnapped after running away from home.

Excerpt (because I suck at summaries):

"And now, now he did the worst thing possible. Worse than fighting every night with someone he thought was the love of his life. Worse than getting scolded at his dream job everyday, by his mentor and father figure. Worse than being forgotten by the only mother he really remembers, by his friends that he grew up with.

He ran away. He broke down, freaked out, and ran. Stuffed as much clothes as he could find into a suitcase, called the first hotel away from the city he could think of, booked a suite for the night and took off without telling a soul. Not his boyfriend, not his mentor, not his aunt, not his friends. Nobody.

Because he just couldnt take it anymore."

Based off of the prompt:

14. "Just get home as soon as possible, okay?!?"

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audi-famas-illiorum · 4 years

Text

Why I WILL NOT buy Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

Yes, you read that headline right. The only chance of me buying this game is if it will be at a discounted price and I’m going to tell you why.

1. My worry that the beat mechanic will be half-assed.

The Kingdom Hearts series has a track record of having bad beat-based minigames in the past, and this is one of the main complaints of the entire series. People begged that Atlantica not be included or at least not a required music section in Kingdom Hearts III. This is simply because it sucked. The music wasn’t good, and the mechanic itself wasn’t that great or engaging either.

Some Kingdom Hearts music is really good, don’t get me wrong, but there are some songs that simply don’t care enough of a solid tune or beat in order to make a beat game out of it. The Agrabah theme has a nice tune, but to me, it almost sounds wrong out of the context of casual exploration.

I will give that I haven’t played the game, but based on my past experiences with this type of game in KH in past, I would be going in with expectations of something much greater than what they’ve done in the past.

2. Most of the content in the game is already in other games.

A friend said to be that it was nice that there would be a theater section where you can review all of the cutscenes from all of the games. Okay, maybe that’s cool, but every Final Mix game now has a theater where you can do the same exact thing. Plus, many of these ‘scenes’ don’t include all of the scenes in the games. The main complain about the 358/2 Days cinematic is that it didn’t include many small but important events. Sure, it’s a good review, but unless this is your first Kingdom Hearts game, you both already own and have the theater.

On top of this, there are cutscenes that play in the background while you play the game. All of these cutscenes are likely going to be snippets of previous games which means, all they have to do is render the scene, plug it into Melody of Memory for a given song, and put an overlay for the actual gameplay over it.

The only content actually being created is animation for the new chapter of story, the tracks for the game (as in, placing the notes for the mechanic), key art, and a new UI.

While this game may also have new versions of the music we know and love, 90% of these tracks have already been made and recorded for previous games. Once again, this is a case of them just plugging it into the game.

3. Console only.

I love playing on my PS4. I love it so much more than playing it on my ipad or my phone because it’s a bigger screen and generally better quality. However, every rhythm/beat game I’ve played is on mobile besides Rock Band. I personally find beat games better with a touch screen instead hoping that your input delay isn’t so bad where it ruins the entire game.

I could possibly get behind a beat console game, but I worry about what the control scheme is going to look like and that it will feel unnatural. This is another thing that could seem bad in theory but okay in practice, and I’ll give that I haven’t play it, but I still have my doubts.

4. Minimal story.

As far as we know, this is only a chapter of the story. This is going to be a very non-traditional Kingdom Hearts game where they expect every previous fan to play because... story.

We’ve been told in the past that Kingdom Hearts Union Cross won’t be that big of an impact on the story, and yet look at the end cutscene of KH3. Without seeing Back Cover or playing a Pay To Win mobile game, you would have pretty much no idea what’s going on. This brings me to my final main point.

5. $60. A full price console game.

We are paying for content we have already seen and heard, but they feel it is okay to give us full price because it’s being presented in a fun, new way. Which it isn’t even a new way because we’ve had previous rhythm games before! It’s just a different style now.

This especially peeves me because we paid $30 for ReMind for content that should have been in the final game, and ReMind itself was also a rework of scenes that we already in the game, just from a slightly different perspective.

And another thing...

I am very disappointed with the creative story decisions that have been made thus far in the series. Sure, Sora’s “disappearance” has brought about an interesting arc, but Kairi’s sacrifice was ultimately meaningless with Sora eventually sacrificing himself for Kairi. She was portrayed at the damsel in order to give Sora his arc, not necessarily showing how strong Kairi has become through all of her training.

I’d also like to note that Riku is Sora’s other best friend is getting brushed off to the side in order to build a relationship for Sora and Kairi. Luckily, we’ll get to see a bit of Kairi and Riku interacting which has been desperately needed, because it’s been seeming like they’ve been fighting for screen time with Sora instead of with each other or all together.

tl;dr

The game costs far too much for mostly content we’ve already seen and I feel so robbed of my money that I don’t want to pay to see one chapter of story that I can see just as easily on youtube.

#outoflegends #kh #kingdom hearts #I have feelings okay #opinion #drama #?

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vsullivan · 5 years

Text

Lucky 7 | Steve Harrington x Reader - pt. 1

Okay, so I wrote smthn for stranger things?? I haven’t written in a while pls forgive badness pls and thank. Idk if i’ll do more parts ihfoiqsdhfei I just fell in love with this show and Steve.

She remembers looking into his eyes, searching for the tendril to connect her mind to his own. When she did, she grasped it tightly, for not a second later she was harshly sucked into another world entirely. Before her stood he, stiff as a board. His eyes were vacant, non-searching despite the wave of light that began to stream into this realm of darkness.

Chapter 1: The Experiment

This light took the form of memories, all of his own. From birth till’ present, everything his eyes have seen are now on display for viewing. She’s done this before, so she knows full well how long it could take to find one particular moment amongst a grown man’s entire lifetime. As it would be, all she had in both worlds was time.

The process allows her to learn more about the person than that they, or anyone close to them, have ever known. She sees firsthand how this man passed his fifth-grade math test by side eying the paper of a young girl who sat beside him. She witnessed the moment he became a father. She also felt this excitement; experienced the pure joy he felt after receiving that C+, and the sense of ultimate adoration upon viewing his son’s face for the first time. She was also filled to the brim with a mixture of dread and ultimate shame as his wife burst into their shared room to find him in bed with the vice principle of their son’s elementary school.

Eventually, she came across the scene she’d been searching for. She watched as one of the men in long white coats handed this same man a sheet of paper. It listed a series of random words, alongside one sentence that read: When you wake up, list these words in the same order they are written.

And then, she opened her eyes. The blood dripping from her left nostril went unattended as she stared ahead, through a glass pane, into the eyes of the same man she’d seen cheat on his math test and on his wife. “Unrequited.” She began slowly, “Wilderness.” Her leg began to shake, “Representative.” She remained careful to announce every syllable, “Kettle.” Then, she inhaled sharply, “Infidelity.”

She then exhaled, blinking for the first time since she’d awakened from her journey through the stranger’s mind. On the other side of the glass, the man in the white coat nodded his head as he recorded the time it took for her to find that moment in the man’s memories. She noticed that the stranger was wearing a different outfit, alongside having a cleanshaven face from what she’d seen in his mind, while he now adorned a thick beard and clothes that seemed to have come right out of the 60’s.

She jumped as a voice sounded from above, it got her every time. “Your timing has improved since the last experiment.” It said. “Continue this progress.” She resisted rolling her eyes – a facial movement she’d picked up from an elderly woman who as a teenager, would use it to symbolize annoyance when her younger siblings would complain about her to their parents. What she wouldn’t give to have parents to complain to about these experiments she was forced to partake in.

“Now, reapply your eye mask.” She did as she was told, for no one could enter a space with her until she put the mask on, and she was all too eager to be escorted back to her room - the only place she was somewhat able to be alone.

As she placed the fabric over her closed eyelids, the sleeves of her long shirt rode up to reveal the lettering on her wrist;

007.

She then settled both arms down her sides. And with that, the door to the room opened before she felt two strong hands on her shoulders begin to push and guide her towards the next destination.

“Seven!” The loud call of her name startled the young woman out of her flashback-induced trance. For that she was grateful - she hated reliving the years she spent as an experiment for the twisted wackjob she used to call “father.”

The door to her room swung open, revealing the owner of said voice from before. “Please come talk some sense into El, I beg of you.” Now the only twisted wackjob she had to listen to was the lovely Jim Hopper, who’s current facial expression was a hilarious cocktail of desperation and exasperation as he stood in the doorway. Seven bit her lip to stop a smile from forming at the sight.

“Come on kid, it’s not funny.” He huffed before turning his head to look across the small hallway, aka the location of El’s room, before turning it back to Seven who was currently sitting cross-legged on her bed with a book in her hands and small grin plastered on her face. “Those two are seriously way too close, she needs an older sister to snap her out of this puppy love.”

Seven shook her head lightly as she closed the book she held and placed it on the space beside her. “Now, you know I can’t do that.” She spoke as she stood up from her seat and headed towards her adoptive father. “But I can try to prevent teen pregnancy.” Hopper grimaced at the sentiment but still nodded in agreement as he stepped out of her way.

“It’s something, I guess.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. “God forbid the chance of another screaming child around here.” Seven snickered at the thought, turning her head to look at him before she twisted the doorknob to El’s room. “You know you can’t live without us.” He signed again before saying “Yeah, well sometimes I feel I won’t live much longer because of you two.” This caused her to chuckle before she opened the door and stepped into what could only be two teens up to no good.

Seven heard two gasps as she looked down to find El and Mike scrambling away from each other. She couldn’t help but grin in amusement while watching the two settled down at opposite ends of the mattress, both of their faces flushed red from both the kissing and someone other than Hopper walking in on them.

The room was silent for a few moments, Seven not uttering a word as she crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow at them. Finding the silence unbearable, Mike decided to speak first. “Uh, um, we weren’t doing anything bad, bad.” Eleven quietly nodded as the boy continued his nervous explanation. “And-and, we would never do a-anything that crossed the line.”

Seven looked between the two of them, that eyebrow of hers not wavering as she continued to give them an expectant look – for this is not the first time Hops has begged her to intervene in a teen makeout party in El’s room. “We’re sorry.” The younger girl then spoke up, her brown eyes filled with worry and slight embarrassment – Hops’ scolding has never really phased her, but Seven’s really get to her. Whenever she’s reprimanded by her older sister, which isn’t often, El’s mood hits rock bottom and won’t get better until she and Seven have made up.

“It’s okay, we just really don’t want you two to get carried away.” Seven replied, uncrossing her arms as she moved to sit next to Mike at the end of the bed. “Do you know how hard it is to take care of a baby?” El and Mike both grimaced and made the typical ‘ewie’ sound. “Gross.” Mike stated, “You don’t have to worry about that.”

Seven smiled and patted his shoulder before standing up. “I better not.” With that, she told the two to keep the door relatively ajar and waved them adieu. As she faced the door to her own room, an idea suddenly popped into that big brain of hers – the same one that rears its head every day. That idea being she wanted some Scoops Ahoy ice cream, or really to have Steve Harrington serve her the ice cream, or actually just see Steve in general.

At the beginning of summer, she’d gone to see Steve at his new job in the mall. The two had become relatively, kinda, but still not really good friends since saving Will Byers from the flayer? Hops had absentmindedly pointed out that she was going to the mall an awful lot. He was joking, but she perceived that to be a sign that she should slow down her visits, not wanting to make herself look creepy. Mostly because prior to summer break, the only time she and Steve spent together always consisted of the six kids, Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers, alongside Hops and Joyce Byers or anyone in on the supernatural shit they were all dealing with. It was also spent with a lot of Steve, as Dustin had put it, making “goo-goo” eyes and flirting with her and her not realizing it in the moment so she accidentally makes situations awkward. A perfect example would be when she was cleaning Steve’s wounds after his fight with Billy and he looked up at her with a pained, yet grateful expression. His eyes were twinkling, filled with an emotion she’d couldn’t place as he said, “Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” And you know what she said to him? She said, “I fell over Billy, but I landed on you, so it didn’t hurt too badly. I’m sorry about that.” Somehow, he found it in himself to slightly laugh at her response. Choosing to keep quiet as she continued her work.

It was later when Nancy told her that it was a pickup line, which Seven quite literally wanted to kick herself for not realizing that in the moment. In her defense, she was worried about the boy and all of the new friends she’d made, she wasn’t in the headspace to recognize any form of flirtation. Actually, let’s just be real. She doesn’t know how to date. She doesn’t know how to take compliments. She doesn’t know how to flirt. When Steve smiles at her or tells her she’s pretty that poor heart of hers just melts while her brain self-destructs. He’s asked her to go places with him, which she assumes would be considered “dates.” And she really, really wants to go, but there’s always something preventing that “yes” to leave her lips. Something always stopping her from verbally reciprocating his advances.

She knows what that something is. She pretends like she doesn’t, but she knows. She knows she feels like he deserves someone “normal.” Someone who can’t look into your mind, can’t talk to you without even opening their mouth, can’t ‘mind control’ (as Dustin put it) people into doing what she wants. She doesn’t want to acknowledge it because if word ever got to El that she thought this way, she knew it could very well effect how Eleven looks at herself, not that Seven thinks she should. Because she doesn’t, her adoptive sister deserves the world – period. However, everybody is a hypocrite in some sense, and this is where Seven is the definition of. Despite Steve already knowing of her powers, she just can’t bring herself to let him insert her weirdness into his life. She would prefer him never seeing her use her powers at all, thank you.

Shaking herself of these thoughts, she decides it wouldn’t hurt to go see him. She wouldn’t even need to go in and get an ice cream. She would be perfectly fine just glancing at him as she passes the store.

Guess she completely forgot her goal was to not look creepy.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

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alwaysahiccupandastrid · 4 years

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Some Disappointments I had about the “His Dark Materials” show

So I loved the HDM show, I did. I can’t wait to see The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass adapted, since I’ve been wanting to see that since I first got into HDM/TGC.

Having said that, whilst I enjoyed it, there’s still parts that disappointed me? I don’t know if that makes sense, but I’ll try to explain anyway.

This post ended up being far longer than I wanted it to, because I ramble and don’t edit, so it’s under a “keep reading”/”read more” just so it doesn’t bother anyone or clog up the dashboards! I’m also interested to hear what any other fans have to say, so please feel free to add/disagree with anything!

Firstly, dæmons. I know that TV budget is significantly less than movie budget, so I understand why it was not possible to show every single person on-screen having a dæmon. When the dæmons ARE there, especially Pan, they’re done extremely well - such as seeing him shift forms, for example, and the fight between the Pan and the monkey. However, there are moments where there’s maybe two people on-screen, such as Ma Costa (who has a hawk dæmon) and Lyra, and they’re indoors (eg. On the boat), and their dæmons are nowhere in sight - I think I saw Ma Costa’s dæmon once in the course of eight episodes. It really put me off because for 60% of the show, there were no dæmons - saying “maybe these people ALL have tiny dæmons in their pockets” can only go so far. Dæmons can also only travel a short distance from their humans, and going too far physically hurts them both.

The worst part is when it comes to a) Billy Costa and b) the parts in Bolvanger, where we’re supposed to feel horror because these children are having their dæmons - literally their souls - cut away and they’re becoming sickly zombie-like beings, barely even human. In the book AND the movie, it always made me feel sick and scared seeing Tony/Billy because it’s this child without a dæmon, clutching a dead rotting fish “as Lyra would clutch Pantalaimon” - it is literally a barbaric and sickening sight. Tony/Billy (depending on whether we’re discussing book or movie/tv) is awake, asking for their dæmon, unable to say anything but “where’s my Ratter? I want Ratter” - in the show, Billy is passed out and says nothing, he just sort of let’s Lyra help him into Iorek so they can go back to the camp. Because the point of dæmons being your soul, something EVERY person has, wasn’t exactly driven in properly in the series, it’s just kind of like “oh. Okay. Well, that sucks I guess”. Imagine the horror you’d feel at seeing someone walk around with half of their head missing - that’s the same horror you’re supposed to feel here.

Then you have Bolvanger. At first I was like “okay actually this is super creepy and messed up, good job”, but then it got to the part where Lyra and Pan are about to be separated, and...I don’t know. I respect that the series was trying to develop the human relationships, I get that, but parts of that whole scene didn’t work. Lyra is about to he separated from her soul, her lifetime companion who knows her better than literally anybody else, and in the book/movie, they cry out for each other and are distressed about it. Whilst Lyra was kind of animalistic like in the book, she doesn’t even spare a look at Pan the entire scene. Even when she and Pan are let out of their cages, she doesn’t look at him - where was the hugging? The “never, never, they’ll never separate us”? Maybe it’s a budget thing, the reason they didn’t hug, but would it have killed them to have her just so much as look at Pan? For them to check on each other? Instead we got her and Mrs Coulter staring at each other coolly for some reason? At least in the movie, after they wake up (because they passed out before Mrs Coulter saved them), she sees him and immediately hugs him tight, burying her face into his fur.

My other major gripe is the bear fight; the 2007 film did a way better job at showing that damn bear fight, despite the fact the film was a PG extremely watered down for families, and the show is a supposedly more adult one - and on BBC, the bear fight episode was shown a whole hour later at night, which is usually what happens when an episode has more violence/adult content. First of all, why were Iorek and Iofur NOT wearing armour?? The panserbjørne are ARMOURED BEARS. Part of the satisfaction in seeing Iofur being killed by Iorek is that under Iofur’s rule, the bears were forced to turn from their ways, using prettier/fancier but weaker metal for their armour, whilst Iorek - the rightful bear king - represents how the bears SHOULD be, using armour he made himself from Sky Iron that fell from the sky. Iofur tried to be a human so bad, allowing himself to be manipulated by Mrs Coulter, and he was able to be tricked - Iorek says that you cannot trick a bear, and the reason Lyra is able to trick Iofur is because he doesn’t behave like a bear, doesn’t think like one, because he’s not as a bear should be. I went off on a tangent there, but what I was trying to show is that having two ARMOURED bears fight WITHOUT armour is literally stupid, especially since every other bear was wearing armour during the scene.

Secondly, even in the PG film, we got to see the two bears fight and claw at each other - AND we saw Iorek smack Iofur/Ragnar’s lower jaw clean off before grabbing him by the throat and disposing of him. In the show, it mostly happens behind Lyra as she cowers and doesn’t watch - fucking excuse me?? Why is Lyra NOT watching her dear Iorek - who she loves fiercely and more than her own parents (not that that’s difficult, mind you) - fight in a life or death battle? Why is she NOT watching two bears fight when that is exactly the kind of thing Lyra WOULD watch? Lyra Silvertongue does NOT turn away and cower. She would especially not be hiding and refusing to watch because the outcome of this battle literally decides if she lives or dies too - she’s told Iofur that she’s Iorek’s dæmon, and that if he kills Iorek then she will become his dæmon instead. She does this because otherwise, Iorek will be killed by the fire-hurlers/guards before he can even get close to the palace - it’s the only way she can stop that from happening. If Iorek IS killed in the one-on-one battle, Iofur will know right away by a) her heartbroken reaction and b) the fact that they’re not connected that she was lying, and he would kill her instantly. So yeah, if I were Lyra, I would not be closing my eyes and turning away.

It’s just overall a disappointing battle, even more so because it’s one of the most exciting and thrilling parts of the book. I was also lowkey hoping that we’d finally get to see Iorek tear open Iofur’s chest and eat his heart, but I guess not.

I do have a minor gripe about the way Mrs Coulter is shown as well - I love Ruth Wilson. I absolutely do, and she’s an incredible actress; she’s incredible in this series too. Having said that, I always personally envisaged Mrs Coulter as being very cool, calculated, collected, etc. She knows how to wield the power she has, she knows how to manipulate people into doing what she wants, and she’s nearly always wearing a mask - her dæmon being a Golden Monkey shows that while, like the Monkey, she’s very beautiful and sleek and pretty to look at, her exterior hides a darker and more violent side. I’m rereading the first book again, and in the first two or three chapters (before the Cocktail Party) where we see Mrs Coulter, she puts on the front of being very kind, very wonderful, and an absolute dream come true for Lyra, who has never had any kind of maternal figure in her life. It’s so easy to see why Lyra trusts her at first, because she’s soft with her, charming, and genuinely seems to be absolutely perfect. I personally felt that Nicole Kidman did a pretty good job at conveying that, though I may be somewhat biased because it was the film that made me even know the books existed (hence why I tend to be nicer about the film than most); the first few scenes before the fight between Pan and the monkey, you get that same sense of Mrs Coulter being a loving motherly figure to Lyra, such as taking her out to lunches, getting their hair done together, etc.

However, in the film, there’s a moment I love during the first dinner scene where a) Mrs Coulter goes from soft to slightly threatening in 0.05 seconds, and b) where her monkey dæmon is grooming Pantalaimon under the table whilst he tries to escape, all while she’s carefully manipulating Lyra into trusting her. You also know that Mrs Coulter is probably bad news in the scene after when we see her dæmon straight up attack Roger and Billy + their dæmons, and then next thing you know both are missing...that kind of makes it a little more sinister.

In the show, Mrs Coulter from episode 3(?) onwards always seems like she’s constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown. In a way, it’s an interesting take on the character, and I thought the way certain behaviors or mannerisms directly paralleled the Monkey dæmon’s was brilliant (eg. The way she repeatedly hit Benjamin when tackling him, the way she crouched on a table after leaving the vent in Bolvanger). It’s also interesting to see a new side of her, and it’s unsettling as well, which makes her a fantastic villain because you just don’t know what’s going through her mind or when she’ll snap. However, in this interpretation, it also kind of means that we don’t see the carefully maintained and calm front that she puts on, and it makes you wonder why on Earth Lyra trusts her in the first place because the whole time we see her, even at Jordan College, you can tell that something is not right. Like that moment where she says “sometimes children can just...disappear” while snapping her fingers...yikes. I would NOT trust her at all. This is not me trying to insult Ruth Wilson, because her performance was absolutely incredible and she did a great job with it.

It’s not just Mrs Coulter, to be fair - I love James McAvoy so much, I truly do, but the moment at the end of Episode 7 when Asriel starts to creepily smile at Roger and say “I’m so glad you’re here, Roger Parslow” is WAY too on the nose. I know this scene wasn’t in the film, but you can see it somewhat in the cut-scenes of the console game, and Daniel Craig’s reaction is way more believable; he sees Roger, slowly calms down because before he was yelling at Lyra, and then tells Thorold to run the children a bath - he gains control over himself, and you can sort of tell that something’s not right but it’s not “alarm bells blaring” kind of off putting. Other than that moment, however, I do love McAvoy in the series, especially since he was actually cast very last minute apparently.

Even Lyra comes across differently in the show. I don’t know know what it is about show!Lyra, but she seemed for the most part sort of subdued and less like how she is in the book. Maybe some of that is due to what I said before about the dæmons/Bolvanger issue, but she seemed overall more subdued and less wild. Lyra is supposed to be, as Pullman wrote in Northern Lights, “a brutal little savage”; before any of these events happened, she was this girl who led warfare against the town kids and Gyptian children, she tried to steal the Costas boat, she was constantly dirty and filthy, never listened to any of the Scholars to the point where it was disrespectful, and she was always lying or exaggerating - she had the background to act like she was better than the servant kids, like she was somewhat more noble, because of her “uncle” and his wealth, whilst also being savvy and street smart enough to be absolutely savage and wild. In the show, there were moments where I felt that, “yes, this is the Lyra we know and love”, but overall it just seemed like she was extremely toned down and not as fiery or fierce as she should be. Maybe that’s just what happens when you adapt such a huge scale trilogy like HDM, I don’t know. Again, I have nothing against Dafne Keen, she’s incredible at what she does, especially at her age.

Finally... While I loved seeing Will, I do feel like seeing him and seeing Boreal in our world was kind of just filler. It made for a beautiful ending scene in the final episode, where we see the parallel of him and Lyra both entering windows into different worlds, but for the most part I felt like it was unnecessary and slowed the episodes to a grinding halt. Like, we’d be seeing exciting battle, scary child-cutters, and then suddenly switch to Will watching interviews of his missing dad on his laptop, or to Boreal talking to a contact or whatever. It just feels like that time could have been used to develop the characters (in Lyra’s world) better, because I watched the series with my sister, she has never read the books, and I had to explain to her that it was a different world, why is this important etc., and I have to wonder if people who haven’t read the books felt the same.

I don’t think it’s the actors’ faults - I do think it’s the way it’s been written/adapted by Jack Thorne. I mean, come on, we’ve seen what his work on Cursed Child looked like, for goodness sake (yes, I know he was one of three credited writers on Cursed Child, but still). I feel like he didn’t quite grasp the importance of dæmons, or how to write some of the characters...hell, I don’t think he even wrote LYRA properly, for that matter, and she’s the main character.

Having said all of this, I am looking forward to the next series, as well as (hopefully) seeing the entire trilogy FINALLY adapted to completion (unlike the film, which didn’t even give us the final part even though it was filmed), and I’m excited to see how it’s all done! I know it sounds like I’m totally trashing the television series, but I did love the first season of the show, I truly did, and I would love to make a post about everything I loved or thought was well-done, but that’s for another post! It would also be a FAR longer post, or else episode-by-episode separate posts, but perhaps another day!

^For the record, this is absolutely the Lyra we know and love, and she said this in the book, so yay!

#his dark materials #hdm #lyra belacqua #lyra silvertongue #philip pullman #daemons

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Got my nightmare professor fired, might've indirectly gotten him deported too

Before this tale even begins, this is obviously a throwaway account. This is a big bitch of a story spanning two semesters, so I'm putting the tealdeer at the beginning and at the end for those who are short on time.

TL;DR - My French professor was so terrible that I decided to get him fired on behalf of my classmates. After he got fired, my partner that I worked with to do this tipped him off to an immigration agency to get him deported.

Last semester, I enrolled in an introductory French course at my university. This was to learn at least a little bit of French so that I could read French papers about French filmmaking techniques since I'm a pretty hardcore film student and I really love film as an art form. Plus, I needed some gen ed credit for my degree, so it made sense to take the course.

I went to the first lecture kind of dreading the course. I was in 19 credit hours, which is taking six classes in a single semester, and the class was 4 credit hours, meaning we met four days out of the week, every week. Very overwhelming schedule, indeed. Needless to say, I didn't work a single job that semester.

The professor, who will be referred to as Baguette because it's one of the few French words I actually know, began to go through the syllabus and I watched as the excitement that is usually present in students on the first day slowly left everyone's faces. Before I explain why, I have to address that this is the most basic French class that the university I go to offers and is really meant for people who never took a lick of French in high school. Like me.

Baguette announced that not only would he be teaching the entire class in fluent French with no English whatsoever, he wouldn't be answering questions in English at all, and if you asked him a question in French but got even a word or a conjugation wrong, he wouldn't answer you either. Attendance was mandatory as well, and you could only miss 4 class periods before he started dropping letter grades. Now, this attendance policy is unfair bullshit because we met for class just under 60 times that semester, meaning you would fail the course if you missed 8 class periods, which is only about 7% of the total course. I was looking around the class and people looked like they couldn't drop this class fast enough.

Then, he announced that not only would we not be using a physical book, we'd be using a free website online, a site called Francais Interactif. Now, this got some excitement back in the air. Textbook prices suck, and anything to lower the cost of education for students is great. You can even use the site yourself to practice your French skills, if you want. It's open source, knock yourself out.

That said, the site isn't meant to replace a textbook. There's a free workbook and audio files to help with aural comprehension on it, and that helped me and some of the other students pass some of the exams, but the site's equivalent to the part of a textbook that actually teaches you the material is extremely lacking, sometimes only having a couple of paragraphs about a really important concept in the language. In short, it gives you a ton of ways to practice concepts but almost no ways to learn them in the first place.

This would have been totally fine if Baguette would have explained things better in his lectures. But, as you'll recall, he gave them entirely in French, and in fast fluent French. So, picture this; you have to sit through four classes a week that you understand literally nothing of for an hour at a time while the professor rambles on in a language that you don't understand but are desperately trying to learn, and on top of all that, you can't even ask him any questions in English because he won't answer you and you can't ask him any questions in French either, because you don't know how to do that properly yet, and you won't for 3/4ths of the semester, because the unit that covers question words and phrases was arbitrarily put a few weeks after midterms, and on top of all that, you can't even really do your homework or study for exams because you have no fucking idea what any of this nasally shit means. Naturally, we, as a class, slowly started to get more and more frustrated as time went on. A few of us decided to band together and be friends and study partners to weather the storm. I'll call the important ones to the story R and S.

S was a foreign exchange student from Spain who spoke perfect Spanish and was taking the class to learn French for when she goes back to Europe. Now, we dug into what all other classes Baguette taught and found out that he taught Spanish, too. Perfect. We found a loophole. We could ask S a question in English, and she could ask him in Spanish, since it wasn't asking him in English, and he could answer in Spanish and she could translate that back to us in English. Now, you might be saying to yourself that this a fucking stupid and no self respecting educator should teach in this broken, shitty, ass-backwards way. You're right.

This worked for a bit, but he started answering S's Spanish questions in French to combat our little exploit of the rules. We were defeated and back to square one. We needed to devise a new plan, because most of us were failing at this point and we were stressed beyond belief.

R, a frat lad, and I, decidedly not a frat lad, became unlikely friends. He was a pretty naive kid, and he was a hardcore drinker. It visibly took a toll on him. He had a beer gut at 22 and addiction kind of mentally hollowed him out and made him flippant and emotional. The guy was super easy to piss off and he overreacted to everything. I felt bad for the guy and even outside of the struggle in class, I tried my best to be there for him. We were talking one day and we decided to meet up at the library and just theorize ways to crack the class to get at least a 60.

At the library, R was playing around on Francais Interactif trying to find the videos the professor would use for the aural part of the exam (basically, you'd listen to the video and copy down whatever the person was saying for credit. problem was, it was hard as shit and it was easily the part of the exams that took the biggest chunk out of the class's grade). He couldn't find them on the site anywhere and he got frustrated and gave up, so he started filling in the slots where you put answers on the homework pages of Francais Interactif with random words.

That's when we realized that when you do this, the site gives you the right answer regardless, no matter how wrong you are. Essentially, we now had access to the entire course's answers for the homework section and all we had to do was put one character into the answer boxes and, since all we had to do for the homework assignments was copy and paste our answers into a Word document and submit them online, we could theoretically do all the homework while knowing zero material whatsoever if we just changed the answers in Word. We sat for about 45 minutes and did the rest of the homework for the entire course this way in one sitting.

We agreed to not turn it all in at once so we couldn't get caught and we agreed to keep our mouths shut and only share this with people who wouldn't rat on us. Obviously, we told S.

One of the things I'll never forget about that first French class was that, during the final, one of the students started to quietly weep. Then, the weeping got louder, then louder still. The student was clutching his head in his hands and you could feel the palpable impotent frustration at his inability to do French correctly. After I finished the final, I saw him outside the class staring out a window in the hall. I asked if he was alright and what he was crying about and he told me he couldn't answer even the most basic questions asking for words for things like left and right and up and down and that was thing that finally broke him. That got to me, man.

Most of the kids failed the course, even some of the ones who used the homework exploit. R and S passed with a D and I passed with a C, surprisingly. The professor actually liked me, for some reason, and graded my exams a bit more fairly. Even still, I'm an A/B student, one in the Honor's Program at my university, so a C kind of stung my GPA. But, seeing as more than half the class failed, I counted my lucky stars that I got off easy.

I went to enroll in my classes for the next semester, and I had completely forgot that I still had to take another French class for my degree. I checked the class list and the second class you're supposed to take in the progression was only taught by Baguette. No other professor taught Beginning French II, apparently. This struck me as kind of odd, so I checked the rest of the French classes that were available. All of them, all 6 courses in the French department, were taught by Baguette. He was the only fucking teacher the department had. My stomach dropped as I realized I had locked myself into yet another class taught by the worst professor I've ever had, to this day.

This is class where the revenge begins, and I'm sorry if that preamble was too long, but I had to give context as to how horrible Baguette was. Even still, I'm frankly not doing him justice. His class was an artful trainwreck of incompetence, in the slowest slow motion available over nearly 60 class periods. And I had to do it again, only this time with harder material.

I had been keeping up with R and S over the winter break and S was going back to Spain, so she wouldn't be in the next class with me. But, I got R to enroll in the same section of Beginning French II as me.

Baguette passed out the syllabus to Beginning French II and it was the exact same as French I, down to us using Francais Interactif again, just in the higher chapters instead of the basic chapters. Now, here's the thing about learning a foreign language; you have to build from the basics, or else none of the other stuff makes sense. None of us in that class, not one person, knew any of the material past maybe Chapter 3. Most of us didn't even know how to ask questions. I did, so I asked questions for people who didn't, since S wasn't there.

Well, if you thought we bumbled through the basic material, no harder bumbling took place then when we started on things that have no direct English translation like y and en. When he asked students questions in this class, they'd just kind of look at him dumbfounded and shrug.

We got a study guide for our first exam and I was going to study my ass off so that I could get a better grade than a C. Besides a brief stint with depression my first semester that made me not be able to go to classes and fail one of my courses, a C was the lowest grade I had gotten at university. I must've studied for twenty hours over the course of a week before the exam. I hadn't even put that much effort into classes for my major. I got into class on the day of the exam, and nothing that I had spent all that time studying was on it. I bombed that test spectacularly, getting a 30%.

At this point, I was pretty much done. I was willing to go to my professor's office hours and ask him how I was supposed to study for his exams effectively, and his response is what began my quest to get revenge on him. He told me to watch YouTube videos. I don't know what it was about this that got me so pissed, but I was fired up.

But, that wasn't all that drove me to take the revenge I took on this fucker. No, what drove me to go after this guy was R calling me up crying after getting his exam back. He did worse than I did. He got a 15%. He kept repeating through sobs that he just wanted to be a good student and that he didn't want to disappoint his mom again. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried at this. I thought back to that kid in French I after the final, about my peers and about R and something inside me snapped. I was going to get this guy fired and peacefully do anything else I could to ruin this guy's life one way or another, and R was going to be my Right Hand Man.

We met at his dorm and started brainstorming. It was about halfway through the semester, after our midterms. We both had a job, a significant other, extracurricular activities and I was taking 19 hours again this semester. We were going to need time on our side, a commodity that neither of us had, and we were going to need it quickly. We knew that the professor was going to be gone for a week at a conference right after spring break, so there was a two week window there. But, even still, we needed more time for what we started planning to do. I faked a doctor's note for two weeks absence and R agreed to use all four of his absences to meet at the same time French was supposed to occur and plan our peaceful academic coup.

Now, I knew I was eventually going to get caught from word go. But, I was so confident that I could get this guy fired before I would have a disciplinary hearing that I took the gamble, and Baguette took the bait. He excused me for two whole weeks.

So, you're probably wondering what we actually did. Well, the reason we needed so much time is that we needed time to both conduct interviews from the class as well as collect data on scores. We got a total of thirteen out of the seventeen students to make a statement about Baguette's performance in his Beginning French II class and all of them were negative. This was just in one section of the course.

Then, we asked if we could have their exam scores so that we could have some hard data to nail this guy with. All but two complied. We did some quick maths, and determined that more than half the class failed the exams, with most scoring between 30 and 50.

But, as it turns out, we didn't even need the exam scores given to us. We figured out that the online grade database site that our school uses so students can monitor their grades without asking their profs has a built in feature that shows the class average of every assignment that's put into the gradebook. Not a single assignment had a class average above a 50 except for the homework, which had a class average of around 80, no doubt thanks to the stupid exploit in the website.

Sure enough, I got tagged with a notice that I broke the discipline code of the university because obvious shop is obvious. But, it didn't matter. I had everything I needed to go to the Foreign Language department chair and sort this shit out. So, I did.

I showed the department chair all the data, let him listen to the audio from the student testimonies as well as gave my own testimony on the course. After showing him all this, he was dumbfounded. Not only did the chair not know that Baguette was a shitty teacher, almost nobody did course evaluations for French I, so he thought that Baguette was doing a decent job. He took all my evidence and gave it to the dean of arts and sciences and a couple weeks later, I get an email saying that Baguette was Bag-gone and that I was going to be withdrawn from the course along with everyone else who would've likely failed. Those who would've passed got to get a Credit Received grade without having to take the final. He got fired one semester before he qualified for his tenure.

But, that's not the juiciest fucking morsel of this tale. You're probably wondering how he got deported and how I found out that he got deported because of his firing. Well, after my disciplinary hearing got thrown out because the complainant was no longer affiliated with the university, I got more than I bargained for.

During his lectures, one of the few times he spoke English was after he introduced the syllabus on the first day. He had everyone introduce themselves and he started the exercise by introducing himself. Well, in his introduction, I remember him saying something about him being an immigrant from Venezuela. I live in the States (Etats-Unis for you Bonjour Bois), and some of you might know that we have pretty strict visa policies.

Well, R is pretty conservative. After our work got Baguette fired, we celebrated by getting some beer and shooting the shit. We talked about random aspects of the course and the fact that he was an immigrant got brought up. Apparently, R didn't know this and he was pretty upset about it. I tried to calm him down, but he went on a rant that I tried to politely nod along to while tuning out since I'm not really about that. I didn't think anything of it until a couple of days later.

He called me up and told me that he tipped Baguette off to a certain immigration agency for a "visa check" (his words, not mine) and that now all we had to do was wait. I was shocked. I didn't think this would go this far. I feigned that I was pleased with this but in reality, I was kinda bummed. Since he was probably here on an academic visa since he was a professor, he probably is going back home to Venezuela. I am glad, though, that he won't be teaching any more of my fellow students at my uni, because I wouldn't wish his classes on anyone.

edit: formatting

(source) story by (/u/ouiouirevenge)

#prorevenge #by /u/ouiouirevenge #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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strawberryxpie · 5 years

Text

Little Salvatore Chapter 2

"Not Bad Looking"

Author’s Note: Y/N/N means Your NickName

Still in shock Damon looks at you and says “What do you mean father isn’t your father, who is then?” You shook your head, “I don’t know Day, mother never spoke of him. The only witch I knew in town at any point was Ms. Emily. I knew of no warlocks but then again the Lockwoods kept quiet enough about the werewolf gene.” You commented, next thing you knew a blond girl came rushing in the door, “Bonnie, what the hell you said you’d met me at the grill after school!” She shouted, she looked at you and glared. “Who the hell is she? One of Klaus’ minions?” She accused, you shook your head no, “No, I’m Y/N Salvatore. And you must be the beautiful Caroline Damon spoke of.” You introduce yourself. “A Salvatore, but I can hear your heart, you’re human?” Obviously she was confused, I mean then again you’re over 150 years old, you don’t look at day over 16, and somehow you’re human. Well and a witch but still. Elena began to explain the situation to Caroline when Bonnie came up to you. “I can help you learn to control your powers if you’d like. It will take some time but I can help.” She asked, you nodded, “I’d like that a lot, I think you guys will need all the help you can get to fight Klaus.” Before Bonnie can take you to a different room to train Caroline comes up to you. “Hey, I’m sorry about accusing you of working for Klaus. We all want to keep Elena safe, she’s already had one original vampire try to take her to Klaus.” She apologized, “No problem, it’s good to stay on guard with him coming. He’s evil and will kill whoever gets in his way of what he wants.” You explained understandingly. You and Bonnie go to one of the bedrooms to practice when Bonnie calls Damon up, “Why do we need Day?” You asked, “Well as great as everything is going we won’t know how well some of your defense spells are without testing them.” She explained gingerly. “Aka you need to practice them on me.” Damon said walking in. “No I can’t hurt him, he’s my brother.” You say shaking your head, Damon looked at you and said “No, you need to do this, I want to know you can protect yourself. Please, I will be fine just try.” Bonnie smiled, “Aww, he does have a soft spot.” You both giggled, you turned your body straight at your brother. You remember Bonnie’s words ‘Look at them and imagine what you’re trying to do, imagine a brain aneurism popping and what the person would look like when it pops.’ You stared at your brother and his face twisted in to one of pain as he dropped to his knees screaming. You stopped, “That was great Y/N/N!” Damon said between breaths. “Good job Y/N,” Bonnie said, “Now I’ll have him run at you and you need to push him back with magic.” You nodded and Damon looked at you before he came at you with blinding speed. You threw your hands up and imagined pushing him far back from you. You watched as suddenly your oldest brother was thrown into the wall and the wall crumpled under the force. “Holy shit, Day!” You shouted and ran to him, “I’m so sorry!” Damon smiled while Stefan came speeding up, “Don’t be sorry that was awesome!” Damon said. “It was powerful.” Stefan said in awe, Bonnie nodded. “I would love to know what line of witches you come from.” She said, 'Me too.’ You thought sadly. “I think that’s enough for one day, you did really good but you must be exhausted!” She said getting ready to leave.

After everyone left and it was just you and your brothers you guys went out to buy new clothes for you as yours were, well dated. “Where’s the other half of this shirt?” You shouted out looking at a 'crop top’ and read the price. “$28 for half a shirt!” You couldn’t believe how times had changed, you could hear everything outside your coffin but you couldn’t see! Damon and Stefan laughed, “Good because we’d never let you out of the house with one on!” Stefan said. You picked out some 'clothes’, they were cute but you aren’t used to the short shorts and crop tops. “At least I don’t have to were five layers of clothes and a corset any more!” You joked but you were actually still very glad, all those layers and if you sweat, well you were the talk of the town, woman didn’t sweat! You made it back home and picked an empty room when Stefan came in. “Hey, so tomorrow we are going to have Elena sign the boarding house into her name so that only vampires she allows in will come in. I enrolled you at mystic falls high, you can go after Klaus is dead.” He explained you nodded, he gave you a hug and told you goodnight, Damon came in and did the same. The next morning you woke up, excited you weren’t stuck in a coffin! After Elena signed the papers and let your brothers in you, Bonnie, and her talked about going off to school. “The way I see it the safest place is right next to Bonnie and Y/N.” Elena said defending herself, “Oh Bonnie and the newbie witch? No offence little sister.” Damon said looking at Elena. “Don’t underestimate me!” You warned, as the three of you turned to leave. “Wait! I’m- coming.” Stefan shouted, and left you you guys. “I guess today I’ll get to meet this Ric guy that Damon seems to be close with.” You said walking down the hall of your new school and Bonnie rolled her eyes at the mention of your eldest brother. “Do you not like my brothers Bonnie?” You asked, “No, I mean I like Stefan, just not a big fan of Damon.” She explained. “Damon isn’t exactly the super sweet brother you remember, he’s a little bit of a dick now.” Stefan told you. “Is it because of the whole Caroline thing?” You asked innocently, he shook his head. “It’s a bit more complicated than that. He wants to be the bad guy, but I’m hoping with you here now that will change.” Stefan said, you decided not to push further and that you’d find out over time. You all sat down in this Mr. Saltzman’s class and waited for him. Elena held a poster up to Stefan that was for a 60’s decades dance, he shook his head. She turned to you and Bonnie, you both nodded. You guys have to blend in and not act like Klaus could control you guys. A dance sounded like a good idea plus who would show their face to kill someone with so many people around as witness. Just then the man you assumed to be Alaric came in and began to speak to the class. “What are we learning today?” He asked, odd the teacher doesn’t know what we should be learning but you brushed it off when no one else took notice. Instead a girl in class answered, “Well with the decade dance tonight, we’ve been covering the sixties all week.” He turned to the board, “Right, the sixties.” He stopped mid turn and kinda stared at Elena, probably making sure she’s ok with everything that’s been going on lately, you’re assuming. “The sixties, I wish there was something I could say about the sixties, but… they actually kind of sucked.” He paused, “Except for the Beatles of course. They made it bearable. Uh, what else was there? The Cuban Missile thing, the- we walked on the moon. The was Watergate.” He rambled when you cut him off, “Watergate was the seventies sir.” You said, everyone turned to look at you. The new girl spoke aloud to the teacher and corrected him. “Ahh, that’s right, it all kinda mushes together up here,” He gestured to his head. “Thank you, -” He stopped not knowing your name, “Y/N Salvatore, sir.” You introduced yourself, he stared for a little and nodded. “Y/N.” Not too long and the bell rung indicating class was over you walked up to Alaric’s desk and got his attention. “Did you need something miss Salvatore?” He asked, you shook your head. “I just wanted to fully introduce myself to you, I hear you’re close with my brothers. They may have never told you that they had a sister, but they do and I’m only alive because a witch spelled me- cursed me.” You explained and he had a bewildered look on his face, “So that did sound as strange as it was to say.” You giggled. “No! Just something I’ve never really heard of before!” He laughed lightly, “Well I have to get to my other classes, nice meeting you. I’m sure I’ll see you again outside of class.” And with that you were out the door and had no idea he watched you till you were out of sight.

You met up with Bonnie and Elena at lunch, you three seemed to be getting along well. You liked both them and what you’ve seen of Caroline. As you three are talking the girl who answered Ric’s first question in class, you have since learned her name is Dana, walked up you guys. “Hey Elena, this is going to sound totally strange but this totally hot guy just told me to ask you to the dance.” Dana said excitedly, “Well tell him she has a boyfriend.” Bonnie said, “Oh, come on just give him a chance. His name is Klaus.” The moment that name came out of her mouth your blood ran cold, you quickly learned Dana was compelled. “He wanted you and Y/N to save him a dance! How cute is that?” Dana was still excited, you what did he want with you? You all quickly left and went to the boarding house and talked about it. “I guess school wasn’t as safe as you thought.” Stefan scowled, “What does he want with you though?” Damon asked, “I’m not even sure how he knows about me.” You said as Alaric came in, Damon talked about needing to be a chaperon. You stared off into space when Ric snapped you out of it. “You ok,Y/N?” Alaric asked, “Yeah I just don’t know what the world’s oldest vampire would want with me.” You explained. “Maybe he has taken a liking to you?” He suggested, “But why?” You asked. “Well you’re not bad looking.” He said, you blushed deeply as everyone talked about how Bonnie could take on Klaus you stayed quiet while they did this. Later you headed to the dance you wore the dress Elena decided not to wear. As you walked into the dance Dana was on stage when she announced who the song would be dedicated to. “Elena and Y/N, from Klaus.”

*Sorry but I must time skip*

“DAY WHERE IS SHE?!?” You screamed, as you ran past him. Elena was already banging one the doors Bonnie was taking on Klaus/Alaric just as you got to the door Bonnie dropped to the ground.”NO!!” You shouted and your emotions made your magic blew the doors off their hinges and threw all the tables back. You ran to Bonnie, crying. “I’ll take care of the body take them home.” Damon said to Stefan, you broke your new friend you just made died and your brother is talking about ‘taking care’ of the body. You were so numb you suddenly realized you were home. Not listening to a word Stefan said, Stefan was right earlier, Damon had changed. Damon came back you didn’t pay much attention until he said, “You both had to believe it.” You looked at him, “Believe it, does that mean she’s not dead?” You suddenly got filled with hope and then he nodded. You and Elena shortly video chatted Bonnie later on. You were so tired Stefan took you to your bed. You laid in bed until you realized something Alaric/Klaus said. “Well you’re not bad looking”

2,042 words

#Klaus Mikealson #reader x klaus #Salvatore!reader x niklaus #Niklaus #niklaus mikaelson #niklaus imagine #niklaus x reader #salvatore!reader x klaus #Salvatore sister #damon salvatore #Stefan Salvatore #the vampire diaries #the originals #tvd imagine #tvd #to #the vampire diaries imagine #the originals imagine

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incarnateirony · 5 years

Note

Why do you think so many people in fandoms of tv shows, movies, games and pretty much anything have such a strong resistance to a character being revealed to be LGBT? I've seen it so many times, and I know you've seen it a lot as well, and it's just so weird to me how offended people are by this. A recent example is in the fandom of a videogame I'm in, were many are just outraged by the notion some believe that a main character, a white, male soldier that exists since 1997 could, maybe, be LGBT.

The fight over this crap is kind of intersectional. Everything from homophobes to our own. This is heavily tied to (America, since this is intersectional with an american show, but also global) opinions shifting on things like oh, gay marriage. (x) Such as modernly 15%~ of citizens are homophobes and think The Gay Sexinating should be illegal. Which sounds shitty as all kinds of fuck until you scale that against 43% in 77′, and 77 was actually *before* the AIDs epidemic really became central or anything so you can imagine what those numbers realistically became then.

We’ve made progress, and there’s still progress to be made, but it was literally less than half a century ago – two generations ago – here, in many of our lifetimes, or at least in the lifetimes of people the younger reading audience here *knows* – that this landscape wasn’t even *recognizable*

So socially speaking this works in waves of conversation– be that the gays being cursed by god yadda yadda and thus deserve to die of AIDS and be treated like lepers – down to “Why do they even need included in anything” following shortly after, with a mindset of “perversion” still heavily steeped in the population that would plague children of the 80s and 90s heavily. You wanna deal with some internalization, there’s some internalization.

Keeping a thumb on the fact that the needle *has* shifted is a great deal of it, I think – obviously not “OK! WE’RE DONE NOW!” but being aware there’s not a 50%~ chance someone you walk by thinks you should be arrested or killed anymore, that more than 1 in 8 douchebags are going to be whole thundergeese about it, and that it is what it is, and it sucks, and we’re waiting to get further-again. Also there’s whole other issues WRT MLM vs WLW and what earns what kind of resistance but that’s a WHOLE other rant.

The thing is, when people grow into an environment of being *disadvantaged*, if they don’t as much take time to celebrate our *progress* as much as rant about everything that *isn’t going perfectly right*, we lose our scale. It maintains this feeling of being the completely 100% hated unseen minority that the whole world still hates, when we can’t look back and go, you know what, in 2019, 83% of people don’t think it should be illegal, 2% have no opinion. That’s just a very congealed residual screaming mass of assbags and subconsciously we all know it, but continuing to gear the conversation as if we’re fighting from the pits of the 60s or 70s is??? really weird???

But at the same time understandable?

So on the one hand you get The Gays arguing from being an angle of being incredibly more disadvantaged than they are. And then, you get people from this shifting demographic – be it the 15% remaining douchebags congealed into a screaming lot, or the 40% slide that have come to realize we’re just minding our own business and loving who we want between 77 and now – that, still lost *in* that dark history and frankly propaganda hold onto *resistances*. So if we’re talking about a character that, say, probably straight white guys have attached to since the 90s, if they attached to that character in the 90s, odds are, they were fairly developed and at least 15 years old if not more already. And odds are, they were subject to everything from the impact of the epidemic to just older nonsense clouding their vision, and whether we like it or not, these people *will* have likely resistance.

Because we may not like that chapter of history, and we give no excuse for homophobia, but in perspective when an entire country’s homosexual population was ravaged by something ignored by government and hospitals, and dismissively packaged as a curse by evangelical america in a country about 75% christian, just how *much* that *completely* fucks up people’s internal understanding. It’s the same dehumanization that was used against anyone else genocided, in other major historical moments we all know about. It doesn’t make the passivity right, but welcome to how literal propaganda can fuck up entire populations.

So to roll back to the Nonnie: These fights in general seem to strike me as a mix of intersectional… lack of understanding. Young Gays that don’t really get what the world was like 40~ years ago or even 20~ are absolutely baffled why anyone would get so reactive to an idea. Old Gays do want better representation, but some have had a hell of a time *from* internalizing those ideas. The Straights of the time have a WHOLE other mess of shit to sort out in their heads before coming around to being open and understanding. Everybody’s talking across each other, instead of talking with each other, and some have unfortunately entirely convinced themselves they are still as hated as they were back then, which turns into more circular representation visibility fights, which turns into another circus, yeehaw.

Which sometimes even turns into striking down their own representative work (be that SPN here or the goblins we all know on this hellsite that tear down anything that looks vaguely like representation because it isn’t XYZ enough). Because in the interest of arguing with *maybe 15 percent of the population that doesn’t think you have the right to exist* about *fictional content* being made to *represent YOU, not them*, we ironically do a lot of damage to our queer canon by just stomping on current incrementalization and expansion without minding the history and steamroll it. Which frankly makes us all look like disorganized lunatics trying to Make Everything Gay™ even if that’s not what it is remotely.

And because I know this will be misunderstood I’ll continue to frame this point from a few angles before it’s misrepresented: Wanting rep/seeing queer narratives wherever you go is fine and the nature of the fight, I’m just trying to explore the divide between r/NiceGuys that get mad at the gay vs the modern LGBT comm and frankly the general bloated, inflated relevance they have that the community at times lets, or even invites dialogue of, their heteronormative framings, often rooted back from times of REALLY DARK PROPAGANDA AND GENOCIDE and how it affected culture – to damage and bury their own content, generally in the logic “if they don’t see it, then it doesn’t count!” when, if-and-when queer coding or open in your face textual coming-out canon or even just low-visibility text is conscious, that is content for *you.*

And it’s not saying “stop and settle” to put this into perspective. It’s “don’t piss on the work everybody else did before you – or worse on what they’re doing right now – just to argue with the couple of assbags left in the universe.“ They’ll go away too eventually. It doesn’t happen overnight. And they’re not going to stop happening overnight. No matter how many gay video game soldiers you find at this type, no matter if Dean Winchester just quietly voices his repeat encounters with men in a way that landmarks it so loudly you NEED to break out alt-right dialogues those same 1 in 8 have that I have beaten to death – to choose to interject that kind of long-ago-addressed conversational edge is literally to choose to interject homophobic dialogue into conversations of how LGBT rep should work and honey if you need an indicator that you may be leaning in the wrong direction, there’s your sign.

But it can be hard to unplug and stop thinking the world is still as bad as it is back then, BECAUSE you run into those assbags that resist it loudly. But like many things, numbers show they’ve died off into a minority. We still have a way to go, but this is a weird ongoing self-inflated fight that seems heavily unaware on WHY people react like that (as per the original ask) much less how ridiculous it is to keep dragging dialogues born in the AIDS epidemic days into these discussions.

Simple point? If you aren’t able to really mobilize on content (yelling online generally ain’t it, chief), ignore them. Enjoy your content if it’s yours, because there’s a lot of effort in simply erasing normalizing queer content because if it’s not EXTREME enough to win against THOSE GUYS *POINTS AT* then NYEAAAAAAAAAH.

It was never gonna be enough to win on those guys, even if it was full queer cinema canon LGBT stories and not stories that just include LGBT people normally.

Look I don’t even know what soldier you’re talking about, and I don’t care. Enjoy your shit your way and remember how easy it is for a minority to be ruthlessly loud when they can connect themselves across the wholeassed internet.

But until people really learn the history of why certain mindsets cropped up or how they invaded conversation or what rattled entire generations to their core, prople are gonna have a hard time fucking communicating with each other instead of just talking over each other. And sometimes even talking over their own within the community/engaging in deletion/the carousel runs in a circle.

But *why* that mindset exists? It’s not difficult. It’s because this nation got saturated in propaganda that warranted letting the homosexual community suffer and die in numbers that would make your head spin, where everyone knew someone with it, as coffeebrainblog has said, where we were treated like lepers, or “cursed by god”, or as lesser, inhuman things and climbing out of that hole has been a hell of a ride, but the community has to also de-internalize that propaganda and realize WE’RE PRETTY MUCH THERE. Like the road isn’t over, the war isn’t 100% won, but if the statistics alone don’t get you, if you *really* sat and read this reply, maybe where the din and eternal upset has buried our *progress*, you’ll realize that progress has dramatically pitched that into being the minority.

But it keeps everybody arguing from disadvantaged levels and even some choosing to self-handicap by creating their own definitions, rules, boundaries and almost states of the universe they’ll accept, because 1 in 8ish people hate them, but they’re still stuck in a world where 1 in 2 might want you dead, somewhere in your headspace. It’s like setting your own handicap bar which… is kind of the opposite? Of what we’re supposed to do? We’re supposed to knock down those cages? And point out we’re the same as everyone else? Running to prove things to people who still think we might carry God’s Plague And Be Judged that haven’t listened to decades of correction so far, just to dissect and dismantle your own contents or enjoyments – it’s a really, really weird backwards pedaling thing to aim for.

I *get* why people think it’s the right way, again, as per all of this, but it’s… it’s pedaling backwards and thinking it’s moving forward.

So while I don’t know what soldier you’re talking about, it was a chance to address A) why there’s resistance in some generations B) what that did to us, as a community C) where sometimes we lose track of ourselves in a carnival of competition.

EDIT:

This note by @amitywho rings home:

Excellent analysis. I’m extremely ancient - I was a grown-ass adult in a flyover state back in 1980 when the first whispers about “the gay cancer” in New York and San Francisco began to make their way to us. I had to drive 150 miles to find a bookstore that carried any kind of gay-positive literature. We parked across the street to watch and see who might be loitering in the neighborhood - if they had baseball bats, no one would be coming to help.

I’ll also add there seems to be OUSA influence, but I centered on the american demographic of an american show; but it still impacts online worldwide net conversation. That OUSA influence varies between highly oppressed countries having heartier ala-80s POVs on LGBT, to on the exact opposite OUSA fans not really having their heads wrapped around the American side of the history beyond what it means in a few articles if they came from more progressive countries that didn’t, like, genocide their gays. So even older LGBT OUSA people look at it from the disembodied angle of a few headlines they remember, not being in the blast zone and resulting fallout.

Also to drift to another topic of LGBT exploitation: If you want to know why CW has “dare to defy” as a slogan just behind the idea that they have PoC or gays on their channel, I really need someone to sit and think about that. Welcome to a bunch of older people that remember these days that see it as *DEFIANT* to do at our current intersection. Nevermind them now exploiting that to try to find a new center for their network after CBS fucked them WRT Netflix, but hey. Yeah. Put that in scale. Why does it need virtue signal marketing, and moreover, what are they “defying”? This. This kind of mindset. Which is heavily sourced in an age demographic likely to be the core of CW Exec boards and marketing.

If you want an idea how deep rooted in our psyche stunted dialogues are, the fact that few people even blink at that says a fuck of a lot to me. No, we dared to defy decades ago, you’re just trying to profit on what you still run through marketing and demographics and ho-hum but think you can pull money from. There’s a difference. But it does betray the minds behind it. It should be more like “DARE TO LOSE 15% OF OUR PROFIT MARGIN AND HOPE WE GET THAT 20-30% OF GAYS INSTEAD” – it’s profiting off of the work the LGBT community did and acting like they’re brave for doing it at a point that they actually risk more losses to NOT start. It’s signaling themselves as heroes in a battle they had nothing to do with. And it’s pretty standard fare.

(And, ON that aside, it spins me out how often I’ve seen in misc fandoms fans acting like queer content that is canonically queer doesn’t count if it’s not overtly marketed and shopped explicitly as LGBT content, rather than content that happens to have LGBT elements – why are you BEGGING to be exploited before you consider yourselves valid, I’m confused. We’ve already had our big grand coming out stories and tales of struggle and there’s a whole queer canon history I’ve posted about this. The whole point of our current junction is getting content everywhere that reflects how normal-and-everywhere we are, why are y’all like this)

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tarithenurse · 5 years

Text

On my mind, in my soul - 17

Prompt: Prompt is kindly given (read: thrown in my face) by wonderful maladaptive-ninja-returns: ““Cosmic Love” by Florence & The Machines; if not Asgard then Rann of Kutch (at night because why the fuck not); and a cummerbund (like a thin studded strip around the waist, if that makes sense).” It makes sense. Pairing: Loki x Burglar!reader. Content: Swearing as usual, some violence, angst, restraining (not in the fun way), sarcastic undertones, public exposure, anger. A/N: This is the second to last chapter of this series. It’s been a pleasure to work with the awesome prompts I’ve gotten so I doubt it’ll be the last time I do something like this. If you liked it, then like, leave a comment and/or reblog <3

Lost and found

Loki is nervous and you can feel it with every fiber of your being. It isn’t like him. Restless? Sure. Agitated in any way that involved flexing his superiority somehow? Been there, done that. But nervous…now that’s different, and it makes the hairs stand on end while shadows morph into stuff of nightmares for nothing more than a second.

Maybe you shouldn’t have insisted on knowing what was going on, but the curiosity had gotten the better of you the day you’d heard Clint insist that it wasn’t up to Loki to decide.

“Decide what?” you asked, walking into the room to find more than the two of them. All of the Avengers were there, and they were staring at you in a way that made your skin crawl.

“Nothing to worry your head about, beloved.” Loki attempted to divert your attention by kissing you on the sweet spot below your ear, earning him an exasperated sigh from Stark.

“Oh no,” sarcasm dripped from every single one of Natasha’s words, “nothing except your expertise being needed, but Loki won’t share.”

Pulling back from your lover’s embrace, you looked from one to the other. “Mine?”

That’s how you’ve gotten involved in the work that you’d promised never to get into. Heroing. A little smile settles on your lips at how backwards everything has become. Dark marble under your feet sends the footsteps of you, Loki, and other tourists tumbling between the hard walls that only sparingly are adorned with paintings or tapestries of historical value. Still, if you bothered to look then this would be a treasure trove for your curious brain…but you are here for one thing.

“How can you smile?” Loki hisses as you both pause before a statue, pretending to admire the chiseled-off cock.

Shaking your head gently, you pull him down for a chaste kiss. “Is the lie too hard to sell, my dear? Silver Tongue, hmm?”

Winding him up like that probably isn’t a smart move, but you need to stay on top of things for this to work. The pen flits over the glossed map of the museum, jotting down positions of cameras, sensors, and ventilation shafts. The museum has been carefully selected to offer the right type of possible loot in combination with the strategic placement of the building to make it difficult to get away quickly which is actually something that keeps your nerves steady for once.

Several of the Avengers would be able to pull a heist off on their own, but none of them would work a case like you do and that’s the point. Without having seen your style, they can’t fake it. And it’s you that’s needed in order to set the trap for the unnamed villain that’s trying to get to Loki through you. Villain. It sounds like something from a 60’ies movie. Still, here you are, discreetly trying to get noticed by a veritable bad guy in the hopes that he’ll take the bait, show up for the “heist”, and as a result get himself caught in an ambush.

Glancing up at Loki, you feel better about the plan than he does. Don’t worry, babe, I got you to save me.

A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes

… Loki’s PoV …

Imbeciles! Had he not objected to the so-called plan? Had he not been clear what the risks were? And look at where that got us! Snarling at the biting wind, the god lets the engine of the motorbike rev as he regains balance after rounding the last corner on the way out of the city. He is vaguely aware of the squabble among the Avengers as they divide the forces between repairing the quint-jet and scouring the area for clues. Clay-brained mongrels.

Oh, they have told him to step down, to let them do the work the moment it was clear [Y/N] has been taken. Fearing that he may do something rash, Romanova has been tasked with keeping an eye on Loki…and she will for a bit longer until the distance between the Asgardian and the illusion of him becomes to great, causing the decoy to fade. The old resentment still lingers within him, making it impossible for the former enemy to trust the Midgardian heroes with something as important as retrieving [Y/N]. At least it is mutual.

Shifting the seiðr, Loki focuses on the only consistent trace from the not very safe safehouse.

I should never have left her alone. Admittedly, she had ordered him away, claiming she could not concentrate on the plan when he kept pacing back and forth, and because the four others were there, he had grudgingly accepted and wandered off to the market.

The trail he follows shimmers in the light from the setting sun. Flattened, sandy crusts with salty minerals that makes the Asgardian think of the icy expanses of his actual home world despite the heat radiating from the ground beneath the tires. Soon, the day will come to an end, leaving only the stars to illuminate the open desert.

Loki feels the change in his magic, warning him a second or two before Natasha’s voice cuts through the communications device. Curses, in Russian and a few other languages, make the earplug crackle.

“Reindeer Games,” Stark’s voice sounds flatly, “where y’off to?”

“If I had any intentions of sharing that knowledge with you then I would have told you before departing.”

The archer quips something about almost having the jet ready.

“Was that you? The jet?” Rogers asks.

There’s a soft chuckle from Natasha. “’Course not, Cap, otherwise Tony and Clint couldn’t fix it.”

“Thank you.” At least the wench understands and who would I be to deny it. “I shall inform you when [Y/N] is safe once more.”

“Loki…” Even through the device, it is clear that the Captain does not approve. “Don’t do anything…rash.”

“I would never…” he proclaims before tossing the communications device to the ground. Of course, that depends on what someone would consider rash.

Either way, the god is gaining on his target. All through his body, the adrenalin is surging with the thrill of the chase and the figuratively magnetic attraction of a very special woman. My queen.

And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat I tried to find the sound

… Reader’s PoV …

You’re not entirely sure what you realise first. It might be how bad your head’s hurting…however, equally uncomfortable contestants are found in the numbing tightness around wrists and legs as well as the distinct roughness of something that’s been pulled over your head. At least the fabric isn’t very dense, so you can still breathe relatively freely. I can see through the mesh. The discovery itself is great…the view not so much because it’s very dark, leaving you mostly with the rumbling motion and an oily smell to go by. Car…van. Maybe the brain is trying to squeeze out through any orifice in your skull, at least it feels like it.

”I think she’s awake,” a surprisingly intonationless voice offers.

”We’re all-e-most there.” That voice is distinctly male and accented like an Italian.

Two guys. Twisting carefully, it’s not easy to get either within view, but you manage to locate the owner of the first in the shadow behind the driver’s seat (where the second must be). I can deal with that. The optimism doesn’t quite seep into you as much as you would’ve wanted, but you keep encouraging yourself as you roll about on the floor of the van until you’re in a position where you dare to test the restraints. Crap. It’s not just cheap tie rips, but proper rope.

”I wouldn’t do that, little lady,” the androgynous voice offers, ”we know our knots.”

It’s a gamble. ”Why tie me up at all? ’S not like I can do anything ’gainst two people.”

”Just a precauzion, you see.” It sounds like the driver’s smiling. ”Padrone ‘as…euh…demands!”

For several minutes, the only noise is the rumbling of the engine as you’re brought further and further from the people who should’ve protected you from this. At least the first part of the plan had been a success: getting spotted as you were ”planning the heist”. Admittedly, the next part had been to plan said fake heist in a way that allowed the Avengers to apprehend the wannabe kidnappers before they got to you.

Still, you don’t exactly feel scared but more a sort of…inconvenienced? Embarrassed? At the moment, you’re not really sure what it is because of the pain.

“Did you guys literally knock me out?” you groan.

“Sí,” is the answer from the driver.

“Boss’s order?” That would place one more on the list of who to bash around the head.

“Little lady’s got a point.”

“Mamma mia! Just ah …zitta and get ‘er ready!”

Someone grunts and then big hands grab you by the upper arms, hoisting you into a sitting position before getting to work. In the dim light of dashboard, you see a knife glistens on the other side of the canvas supposed to blind you. Oh, that sucks, you manage to think before the cold steel tears through the fabric of your shirt. Just the fabric. Shred by shred, the cotton-blend is removed, exposing your bra and the tiger’s eye pendant on the golden chain. Goosebumps have spread all over your body, and now the fear is there alright. On another occasion, you might consider how the pain apparently has disappeared from one second to the other, but all you do manage is to sit stock-still despite the rumbling of the van. Barely breathing and tense like a spring while waiting for the unavoidable doom – whatever it may be. Loki!

You don’t expect a flashlight and ruffling of paper nearby. Nor the cool touch of rich fabric carefully being wrapped around your chest. Only then are the bra straps snipped and gingerly tugged away under the new layer.

“Sorry ‘bout this, miss,” the surprisingly gentle kidnapper mumbles as he grabs your waist.

Cut by cut, the shorts go the same way as the t-shirt did earlier until you lie there on the hard floor with nothing by a minuscule g-string and ropes on your lower body. Even if the immobilizing fear isn’t gone, it’s being replaced by a burning sense of shame. This is not my doing. I have nothing to be ashamed of! The words echo like a near-forgotten mantra in your mind.

“I need to stand you up on your knees, little lady,” the handler explains.

He wouldn’t actually need your consent, it seems, because he’s perfectly capable of moving your around as if you were a doll. But he does it gently, and the careful manner is continued when something like a skirt is wrapped low around your hips. Soft, flowy material that tickles you thighs and calves, yet held in place by a broad strip of the same stuff that’s wrapped around your upper body (well, technically just enough to cover the boobs). There’s a shimmer of purple in the flashlight as your stylist inspects the result. A breathed “oh” precedes a metallic jingling, something cold touches your skin before settling on the broad top-hem-thingy of the skirt.

“All ready,” your fashionista slash abductor announces.

“Perfetto.”

Already, you can feel the van slowing down, so you’re ready for when the breaks are applied inconsiderably enough to bring the contents of the vehicle crashing. Landing awkwardly (and painfully) on the side with a jingle, you add to the tally of things to be pissed about.

… Loki’s PoV …

I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map And knew that somehow I could find my way back

The cold light of the stars is cast back from the shimmering ground, making it easy for Loki to spot the structures as dark silhouettes against a world of silver. A couple of vehicles and several tents, most of which seem squalid in comparison to one. It’s the only one illuminated internally, adding circles in flowery patterns to bring colour back into the night. Orange hues come and go as the light source sways and people move to block the rays.

Undoubtedly, less dangerous men would abandon the noisy motorbike and cover the rest of the way on foot to ensure the element of surprise, but of course Loki does not need to bother with such details. Whoever is at this camp have made the mistake of angering a god and nothing can save them now.

Leaping of the machinery in the middle of the temporary village, the first guards (mercenaries, really) are already approaching with their weapons at the ready. None of them reach Loki, falling instead to the ground with knives buried in their chests.

“[Y/N]!” he yells, wanting to confirm his suspicion on where she is kept.

A half-choked yell. The sound of glass shattering. Then finally an answer, although it is from one of the supposed guards: as the only survivor within line of sight, a male abandons his weapon in favour of holding his hands above the head.

“She’s in there.” Nodding towards the large tent, a streak of grey mimics the shade of the vast landscape. “Alive and pissed, which is fair ‘cause kidnapping’s not okay even for me.”

Tilting his head minimally, Loki eyes the man. “You think your panic-laced words will save you?”

Clearly trying to find the right answer, the mercenary eventually gives up and shrugs instead. “I’s…kinda hopin’ that, yeah…got morals and shit, but I need the money and it’s hard to get out of this business.”

Honest, amusing…although still a sorry excuse for a Midgardian. “Go.”

There is no need for repeating the order, and the man hurries off, mumbling something under the breath about “why me” and “again”. It is of no relevance for Loki, however, who has turned his full attention onto the silent tent before him.

Without wasting another second, the god dashes through the lose-hanging flaps of the entrance. The knives in his hands look like fire solidified, deadly, ethereal, yet they never fly gracefully through the air as intended but fall to the canvas under his feet as he takes in the sight. Two figures splayed lifelessly on the ground with a third standing above them, the stance a fierce display of the person’s will to live and clashing perfectly with the delicate attire that barely covers the perfect body.

“About time,” [Y/N] announces drily as she straightens up, “even had to get my hands dirty.”

Glancing at the male figures on the ground, it is with a certain relief that Loki can see that they still are breathing. Would he mind that the love of his life had killed someone? No. But he would feel at fault that it had been necessary.

A flutter of purple and pink hues is all it takes for the god to be staring at the woman, appreciating the curves and show of skin displayed before him. A few steps, then she is in his arms and he gets to let his hands roam her shape under the pretence of ensuring she is unharmed.

By the time the examination clearly has a different purpose, [Y/N] slaps him away with a teasing growl. Their lips are swollen, and hair mussed from something else than the fighting. Loke is just about to come with a suggestion when the sound of a familiar jet-engine announces the arrival of Romanova, Stark, Rogers and Barton, effectively spoiling any fun that the couple could have had.

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