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multimagical · 3 months

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The Ghosts of Melbrew

Book 1 of 12 in the Multimagical Series by Lillian R.S.

Masterlist

Chapter 2 - "Foreign Roads"

4,185 words

Friendly criticism is welcome for future reference!

Continue reading below the cut, and enjoy! <3

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After getting over my shock of being pushed I got up, brushing off my clothes, feeling a bit shaken and confused. I exited the school through the back doors of the science hallway, and made my way down the stretch of road that would lead me home. It was quiet, and lightly raining, the pins and needles type that you only slightly feel. Sort of like a mist. The sky and atmosphere was grey, and that comforted me. It was as if the world had grown calm and soft, the stillness in the air felt relaxing rather than creepy.

When I arrived home, I told my parents everything I learned that day, as well as the strange things that I felt. Minus the whole history club truth thing, of course. I promised I was trustworthy, and I was. It didn't even matter if I did tell them the truth of it though, they dismissed everything as typical boys trying to scare the new girl. I didn't really expect them to believe me, but I guess they were more so in disbelief of what I was told rather than me myself. I couldn't even argue with them because afterall, they could be right as far as I was concerned.

I walked up the stairs to my bedroom, creaking beneath my feet as the whole house seemed to do. In the hallway Benny was sat on his cat tree bed, greeting me with a "Purrp!" as he then rolled onto his side. I pet him for a few moments as he purred loudly as a motorboat, making biscuits in the air with his paws. He quickly jumped to the floor and followed me to my room as I turned the knob on my door.

I went to get changed into something more comfortable, even if it wasn't pajamas. There's just something not very nice about keeping on the same sweaty clothes that you've been wearing all day. I pulled the black and purple striped sweater off my body, feeling better afterwards. I know it's Autumn and it's chilly, but when you're not outside where it's actually cold the double layers can get quite hot. That's why I'll never understand parents bothering their kids about wearing a coat all the time. Do you think I'm gonna be outside all day or what?

I looked at myself in the mirror a bit, I'd only just gotten it the day before. A small painting-like mirror which hung on my wall that I got at a local thrift store not far from the house. I ran my hands down my face, that Kimi girl calling me freckle face was certainly a new one. I chuckled thinking back to her bluntness.

Benny jumped up onto my bed, and then onto the window sill as he looked outside. My window faced out towards the farm across the street, and out to the left was a tree. I noticed his tail begin to swish back and forth in a hunting motion, he was probably looking at a bird. I would sure hope so considering he seemed to be looking at nothing.

Everything was just so strange, I know I'm a broken record, but I just haven't been able to shake it from my mind since we got there. I plopped down on my bed with a sigh, and looked randomly around my room. The dust had been cleaned of the floors and I've fixed up the peeling wallpaper a bit, wanting to completely replace it eventually. I got a dresser moved in, a TV stand, and the few other furniture we bought from the store. We pretty much left everything behind. It was ironically cheaper to buy all new furniture than it was to bring it with us. I didn't get it, but whatever. My parents didn't wanna hire a moving company because it would be too expensive.

I went and took off my knee-length brown boots. I was left in my long sleeve turtleneck, my leggings, and my socks, which were all black. Wow, at my old middle school I'd definitely get called to the guidance office for that. The guidance counselor once told me to stop wearing black because it apparently meant I was depressed, I mean, did she expect me to be cured of my non-existent depression if I stopped wearing black, or something?

I pulled my hair out of its low ponytail and bushed it for a bit. I was always surprised how tangled it managed to get in the span of one day, especially because I often never let it down. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, so I just continued to sit in my room, and thunk for a little while. Usually I would do homework, but I got all of it done in school. I decided to listen to some music and read until I got bored.

At five, I decided I would go out and look around for however long I felt like. It would be good to get to know the town and where things are located. I put on a pair of black boots and decided to head out, keeping my hair down, which I rarely do. I don't like it all in my face most times, but I put on a headband to help with that.

Before I left I took a bag and a pocket knife with me, because I certainly wasn't going to walk around alone in a town like this unarmed. Might just be paranoia, but it's better to be safe than sorry, especially as a teenage girl. When I was ready I told my parents I was going to look around for a bit. Before I was able to close the front door, Benny darted outside in a flash. I suppose he's fine as long as he's with me, he did always like to follow me around when I was outside. I was just a bit concerned about the wildlife here, as this place was much more rural than our previous home.

I stepped down off the porch and walked down the stone pathway to the road. Benny eagerly followed me with a little jog. For being an older cat, he sure was agile. I took in a deep breath, breathing in the cold, misty air, the Autumn wind blowing lightly.

I could still feel the little raindrops from earlier stabbing my face in an ever so graceful manner. It was now the evening, which means the more minutes that ticked by, the darker it got. It actually wasn't a bad town, just a little bit off-putting and in need of a few slight touch ups. I wasn't someone who liked really fancy things, so the old feel of the town was actually something I really liked.

I felt like some kind of edge lord wearing all black, but it didn't feel too out of place here in a town like this. The only thing that was missing was a black cat, though alas, Benny was a fat, brown, green-eyed tabby. He reminded me a lot of a dog in a cat's body as he followed behind me, staying close to the side of the road. He'd occasionally stop and sniff random smells before trotting back up to me.

The sky was still grey, and it seemed like the weather didn't really change much, but I had expected a lot of rain since before we moved here. Everything was totally quiet except for the occasional wind and the barely audible tapping of the raindrops that slowly got thicker. Another dog-like trait about old Benny boy is that he doesn't care about getting wet. Silliest cat ever, I tell you.

I was walking down the road from my house to the school. The street was lined with houses, and trees stood tall behind them. My house was located on the practically abandoned side of town. I don't mean that in a bad way, though. Sure, some houses looked decrepit and run down, but most of them were normal old houses for sale. Here on the Northernmost side of town "For Sale" signs were in practically every front yard. It was the side that an old mansion and cemetery were on, so I guess that could be a factor as to why. No one wants to live up here, but they are cheaper, so that's a plus.

It was strangely calming, though, but I've said that a lot. It just is. Being around all these empty houses, a town devoid of people. I approached the cutoff at the Melbrew River, which cut through the town, separating the void north from the middle and south parts. I stood on the bridge for a while as I looked out to the flowing water beneath me.

There was something that I loved about the water. The smell, the feeling, the emotion. The smell of rain, autumn, and cold air. It was great. I had a feeling it would be hard to walk to school without getting distracted by the bridge. I could sit on it for hours, and Benny agreed as he jumped up on the ledge with me to get some pets.

Once crossing the bridge you've got more residential houses, and locally owned shops, and businesses. Things immediately began to feel more lively than they did up by my house. Children yelled in the distance, and inside some houses I could hear people's TVs playing. Lights lit up the insides, and some people even sat on their porches, reading a book or drinking their evening tea. Completely different from the dark and empty part my house was in.

On this side of town, Halloween themed flags waved outside the houses, while others had pumpkins, scarecrows, and more seasonal decorations. I saw a black cat in the window of one house, and waved to him, telling Benny he has a friend in the window.

Instead of continuing down the road that would lead to school, I decided to take a right. It was a residential road with houses on both sides. On the corner of the street at the other side, there was an ice cream shop and a diner. I decided to head down a side street that led into the woods, at the most Southwestern part of town.

The side streets in the town were made of gravel, and fully surrounded by woods. From what I could tell, houses were scarce, but the ones that were there looked incredibly creepy. These little shelters built into the forest, with moss and vines growing up the sides. There was a no outlet sign at the entrance, so I was curious what was at the end.

As I walked down the road, I began to hear voices in the distance. Benny seemed to be on alert at the sound of people, refusing to follow me any further. The voices became more and more clear the closer I got. When I could finally make out their conversation, I recognized the voices as the people I met earlier that day.

"Oh, come on, Kimi!" I heard Cameron say loudly in the distance as I continued to get closer still, "It's not like I spilled every single illegal thing we've ever done to her!"

"You still told a girl you just met that the history club isn't a real history club! It's supposed to be a club just for us, everyone else is going to get faked! And if you don't care about that, then you should at least consider that if she tells anyone about it you could get him fired!" Kimi's whiney voice yelled.

"Mr. Marshall didn't have a problem with it, Kimi, it's not that deep. In fact, he even told me to tell her about it himself. We didn't even say anything bad, we just said we're going to look over the paranormal conspiracy stuff that happens, and the Humphrey family murder, and last time I checked the Humphrey family counts as history. Also, you'd have to be braindead to not know about either of those things and still live in this town. Do you think we're idiots?" I heard Dominik say.

"You can't just tell a complete stranger who just moved here all of these things! They can't tell them, right, Kai?"

The road was curvy, so I stayed out of sight between the tall, thin trees. I could see them as I peered around a corner. Kai simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "She seemed trustworthy enough."

"Trustworthy enough?!" Kimi sounded shocked and angry, "How can you stand there and just say she looked trustworthy enough?! Just looked like it, slightly? Are you people just that careless? I know Cameron is but I expected better of you two because you two aren't supposed to be fucking idiots!"

"God damn, Kimi, Calm do-" Dominik said.

"DON'T TELL ME TO BE CALM!" She screeched, practically echoing throught the forest. Everything went silent, but just for one second.

"It is not that deep, stop yelling!" Cameron yelled back.

"I'll stop yelling when you stop yelling!"

"What are you guys? Five?!" Dominik said.

"Do you wanna fight, little Miss throw hands?!" Cameron said, ignoring Dominik, putting up his fists in an exaggerated fighting pose.

"Don't fight my sister." Kai said, still monotone.

"Yes, I would love to fight!" Kimi yelled.

"No." Kai said.

"Then let's fucking fight!" Cameron yelled, punching his first into the palm of his hand.

"Let's not fucking fight." Kai said.

"Cameron, I think that would be assaulting a child." Dominik said, "Don't fight a 12-year-old girl!"

"You calling me a child?!" Kimi said.

"You literally are a child!" Dominik exclaimed, stretching his arms out in bewilderment.

"Yet I could probably still beat your dumbass."

I decided that I should probably step in and stop this, so I went around the corner and began walking towards them, "Um, excuse me, I hate to be of disturbance to this lovely conversation you seem to be having, but I presume that I'm the cause of all this?" I yelled loud enough for them to hear me.

"I will rip your face off, you overly-polite sack of–!" Kimi yelled very loudly, though Kai slapped his hand over her mouth last second before she could curse, looking and sounding constantly done with everyone's crap. I'm not even exaggerating. That man had a blank face 24/7 but in that face I saw an overworked 47 year old dad who's ready to go to the grave, but also doubles as an edgy teenage loner.

"You were the one that caused this, but that is okay, because Kimora is over dramatic and always wants to fight people for any reason that she can come up with. We are leaving now." He said, and began to walk away, pulling his little sister with him.

"LET GO OF ME I AM NOT FINISHED HERE!" Kimi yelled, trying to pull herself away from his grip.

"Well I am." He said, sounding tired.

They disappeared into the distance down the road I came from, and Dominik shook his head sadly, "That kid drives me insane. I sometimes wonder how Kai deals with that fiery ball of aggression. It's quite sad too because they both used to be so different."

"Sorry that you had to find us in the middle of an argument, dude. As you can probably tell, she wasn't too happy that we told you about some of our secret shit, even though we really didn't tell you about any of our secret shit. It was just that we have secret shit." Cameron said.

"Well, I'm sorry to have caused a conflict. I am interested in it, though." I said honestly.

Cameron waved his hand dismissively, "Don't worry about it, it's not you, it's Kimi. Honestly, you should feel honored, your first day at Melbrew and you managed to hit a gold mine of town information getting to know us!"

"Do you have some sort of ego, or something?"

"Yes." Dominik said, "Oh God, Yes."

"Hehe, I pride myself on my knowledge. You also can't lie that she's lucky enough to get this all on the first day, too. You're extremely easy to get along with, you know that, Emeline?"

"I've been told that before, yes. I'm not one for causing conflict, though I guess I managed to do just that. Why were you guys out here, anyway?"

"We were just hanging out, but then my dumbass started talking about you and Kimi got pissed at me as per usual." Cameron said. "Nothing new there."

A phone soon rang, and Dominik picked it up. He said a few yeahs and okays and shortly hung up. "That was my mom, she wants me home for dinner soon."

"Yeeeah, I guess I should be going, too," Cameron said, following alongside Dominik, "Muh mum's makin' potatoes. I love me some fuckin' potatoes. Catch you later, Emeline." He said, putting up finger guns. They walked off down the street together, farther into the woods.

I began to head back out, calling for Benny. He popped up out of the woods and ran up to me, hitting his head against my ankles. Once back out on the actual roads, I took a seat on the propped up sidewalk, giving Benny the pets and attention he wanted constantly.

Was Kimi really just an unnecessary ball of anger, or were they really doing some kind of shady stuff they shouldn't have told me about? Cameron did mention doing illegal things, but what could that possibly mean? What illegal things could you even do in a small town like this, especially if they're– as I assume– mystery related? What, did they rob a store for ghost hunting equipment, or something?

I began to walk home, taking a different route than the one I came from. My thoughts were running wild, I was certain there was something going on here, but what? According to Kimi it's something much deeper than I should know about, or be trusted with. Like, where am I right now? Gravity Falls if it was one more state north? Who's gonna be the demon to bring the apocalypse, and how long will it take? If you tell me twenty years from now I'm gonna be upset.

I was determined to find out what's going on, I'd just have to show Kimi that she could trust me. I've always been into mystery shows and books, but I guess I'm in one now? So, uh, that's cool. Fits the vibe.

As I headed up to the Northwest side of town, I got an eerie feeling. Not the same eerie feeling as before, one that was now making me genuinely unsettled. The same kind of feeling I got earlier that day when I was in Ms. Hogg's class. The sky grew darker as the day headed into later hours, making the scenery even worse than it would have already been in the daylight. It happened basically right as I stepped off of the bridge, a different one than the one I crossed to the east. Benny seemed to feel it to, and I watched as he ran off back home as fast as lightning.

I went and walked down mainstreet, which finally split two ways around an old looking park. To the left of me down Hill Street was a gas station store, and to my right down Park Street was more woods. In front of me though, was a park. It was extremely creepy and I really didn't want to be outside anymore, but I decided to walk through it anyway. It appears that I'm a dumb horror movie protagonist. Oh well.

It seemed to me like no one ever really went to that park anymore, as everything looked to be rather worn down and old. There were unkempt bushes and trees that were withering away and dying. The broken and rusted playground equipment was sure to have seen better days. One of the benches was just straight up split in half. In the center of the park was a stone well, and even when I shined my phone's flashlight down it, it still continued on into darkness.

I exited the park on the opposite side from which I entered, and I was now at the base of a hill, or a mountain, or whatever. The path in front of me to my right led into a graveyard, with the road following alongside it. I'm pretty sure following the graveyard to the right would lead me home, but I wanted to see if there was anything on this hill first, so I walked the road going left.

I walked down the road, and now on my left was the park, while my right was a hill covered in trees. After a little bit of walking I found a road going up it, but it curved a bit and I couldn't see through the grove. It was a very long driveway, and it was boarded up, no kidding. Giant boards were nailed to the trees, and very old caution tape was wrapped all around it. Okay, I'm so going up there.

I climbed up the hill in a struggle until I got to a point where I could slip by between two trees higher up. I made my way higher up, and there were loads of NO TRESPASSING signs stapled to the trees, as if the boarded up entrance and caution tape wasn't enough. I guess it really wasn't though, considering I was still walking up the path despite them. The gravel road went on and on, as it kept ascending upwards, making twists and turns.

Finally the road came to an end, and at the top of the hill I began to see a house, but the closer I got the less it looked like a house and the more it looked like a mansion. A big, giant mansion just sitting up here on a mountain in the middle of the woods with a gravel driveway. It had big brick walls going around it and a gated entrance made of fancy black bars. It looked very Victorian, except for the caution tape and no trespassing signs that made their way all the way up here. So this was the place I've heard about!

In front of it were three graves, which had names I didn't recognize. The last name seemed familiar though, and I was trying to remember if Cameron or Dominik might've said it earlier that day. I took out my phone flashlight and shined it around. I could see into the yard, it was big and overgrown with plants.

I looked down and noticed a little reflective glimmer from my flashlight. There looked to be a shiny gem object on the other side of the gates, which was luckily just within my reach! I picked it up, it was an old-looking, purple, amethyst necklace. I put it on since I didn't have any pockets, and decided to finally make my way back home. I was officially getting too many creeps, even for me.

The wind blew cold in the air. It felt like winter now, the way it nipped and stung my face. I started running down the gravel road, trying not to look at the tall trees to the sides of me. I had to use my phone as a flashlight, and I couldn't see three feet in front of me.

When I finally got of the large driveway at the base of the hill I could see again due to the streetlamps turning on. I slipped back out between the trees and stumbled down onto the road. Despite now being covered in mud, I breathed a sigh of relief to be out of the woods and into the open again. I started walking down the street to my house, with the cemetery to my left, and park to my right.

I began running, and slowed to a jog when my corner street house came into sight on my left. The cemetery and park were now behind me, and both to my left and right stood houses, all with their "For Sale" signs. The farm was in front of me, and my house stood to my left. It began fully raining now, and I quickly hopped up onto my porch, Benny running up and dashing inside when he heard me twist the doorknob.

When I got inside I felt so happy to feel the warmth. I went back to my bedroom, put on my pajamas, and collapsed in my bed, too exhausted to eat dinner. I felt so tired, but also so eager and intrigued. I had a feeling I was going to be good friends with these guys, I'll show that Kimi girl!

I went to sleep with thoughts of ghosts and murder mysteries running through my mind, Benny purring happily on my chest as the rain fell from the skies.

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#The Ghosts of Melbrew #TGOM #TGOM C2 #lillianrs #multimagical

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stormkobra-5 · 2 years

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Hello dear, let's start ╰⁠(⁠＾⁠ᴗ⁠＾⁠)⁠╯

🦇 + the moon boys please? Thank you ✨🌺!

Hello 😌 okokokokok—

Steven:

This boi 110% plays Pokémon. Don’t ask me how I know this. I just do. His Pokédex is almost full and he’s like at level 546 if that’s a thing idk. If he’s not at work/reading up on mythology, he’s playing Pokémon.

Speaking of mythology. Based on books on his desk, he’s most definitely teaching himself Wakandan and Asgardian, just like he taught himself Ancient Egyptian. But have you also considered: Ancient Hebrew? Indian? Welsh? This guy can speak like twelve hundred languages. Steven, my friends, is a polyglot.

He doesn’t just read non-fiction; sometimes he enjoys fiction, too. His go-to comfort series is Percy Jackson (he got started on Kane Chronicles when he was just renting books on Egypt from the local library, and then realized it was a fiction novel and he had to go back and read the whole series).

Marc:

You know how I said Steven plays Pokémon? Marc is fucking OP in Animal Crossing. Hey— hey— easy— don’t be hasty. I mean he hates violence, so Call of Duty/Mortal Kombat isn’t really an option. He’d prefer relaxing games like Animal Crossing and Sims. He loves being just a Little Guy doing Little Guy things like gardening and decorating a house and stuff.

Feeding ducks. Marc is söft, okay? He likes to pretend he’s not but he’s so soft. And huggable. And cuddly. So when he goes to the park he always brings food for the ducks because he’s worried they might not have enough.

He has a collection of Star Wars comic books from when he was a kid, and baseball cards. They brought him comfort and were probably one of the only things he kept. He still looks at them.

Jake:

Jake isn’t like the other boys. He doesn’t care much for video games. No, Jake enjoys board games. Stuff like DND, to be specific. This guy has like 20 different characters and campaigns going at any given time, and he runs them out of the local pub with his buddies. He might disappear for a week or two without notice, but good fucking luck getting through Menkalavert the Red’s dungeon without his Lvl. 98 half-elf ranger with maxed-out stats. Nobody dares to play without Jake. He’s OP (he’ll also kick your ass at Monopoly btw, and he’s always hanging out in pubs so ofc he knows every card game ever invented).

Documentaries. Look. It might seem like he doesn’t care for/nor have the patience to sit through one. But think of it this way: he never got to go to school. Everything he knows he knows from Marc and Steven. How to read, write, spell, and such. So in his free time he’ll sit and watch something on the history channel or National Geographic just to learn something new. It makes him feel good, especially when Marc or Steven quiz him on it later and he gets all the questions correct.

Jake makes it a point to always visit the local homeless shelter with all the food and clothes he can fit in his car. His cab business brings in good money, so once Steven and Marc get their share (before they get jobs again), and once he spends only what he needs to, he spends the rest on food and clothes. He helps get them interview clothes for jobs, helps them get bank accounts and assists them until they’re able to find a home. There’s always someone new in the shelter for every group he helps, but he’s always ready to do it all over again.

Spookable September

#moon knight #steven grant #marc spector #jake lockley #steven grant x reader #marc spector x reader #jake lockley x reader #stormkobra 5 answers #spookable september #oscar isaac #oscar isaac hernandez estrada

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writingwhenimbored · 3 years

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Puppy Dog

Summary: You’ve been in love with Druig since you came to Earth but he wants nothing to do with you. Maybe you can still be friends or maybe not.

Content Warning: Near death experiences, arguing, unrequited love, (Druig is an asshole in this)

Word Count: 6.5 K

When you first saw Druig you knew you’d want to know everything about him. He was gorgeous and before he even had the chance to speak you knew he’d be your reckoning. It wasn't long before you all had a routine on the charming little planet of Earth. The people, the food, the music, all of it was beautiful and filled you with such a sense of wonder and joy. If the stoic telepath had any love for the ball of rock he didn't show it; he merely watched from behind pillars and listened to chatter from the outskirts of gatherings.

Of course he wasn't too serious. On some occasions you would catch him joking with the stable boys or mingling with the women washing their clothes by the river; something that made you more jealous than you would like to admit. But it was refreshing to see him smile.

Your power is the ability to manipulate thermal energy, to put it simply it means that you could freeze a person to death while they were standing in a bonfire or keep an entire family warm during snowstorm (something you had to do couple times). You thought that everyone had incredible gifts but it had always been Druig that amazed you. Even though his power wasn’t flashy or grand, it was captivating nonetheless. The ability to control minds is impressive if not intimidating, there are moments where you wondered what he’d do if he could use them on you. That’s not to say that you’re scared of him, but you couldn’t deny that the hairs on the back of your neck stood whenever you watched him in battle. He was dangerous and scary and occasionally rude, yet here you letting him take up most of your daydreams.

You’d destroy the Sun just to have Druig look at you the same way he did at Makkari. The two of them have been on and off for forever but you never felt animosity towards her. In fact, you were almost happy that she was able to make him smile; for whenever you’d try to strike up conversation with him it was the complete opposite. There was something that he just didn’t like about you and even though you’d do anything for him to just be content with your presence, you didn’t see that happening anytime soon.

And you would have to be okay with that.

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607 B.C.

The Sun had just begun setting over the desert horizon when Phastos had sent you over to the local blacksmiths with some molds as well as some prints that they could use for farming. He was always sending you into town with new ideas that would help the community progress and you didn’t mind it; meeting with the people of Earth and learning along with them was one of your favorite things about being an Eternal. A warm and comforting breeze swept through the small Southwest Asian village and you could hear the faint noise of men laughing. As you neared the house you began to sense the people within the building. You could feel three heat signatures: a large man that was probably in his mid-thirties, a younger man in his twenties, and...Druig.

Your palms grew sweaty at the thought of talking to him. Of course the two of you had conversed before but it seemed like he wanted nothing to do with you. When the Eternals first began their mission on Earth you had tried befriending him (perhaps a little too hard); and maybe it was the fact that you we’re always surprising him. Whether it be with small gifts or even just your presence, you remember him being less than happy to see you. But the question remained: what did you do? For the longest time you had lead yourself to believe that it was because you weren’t gorgeous or that you were gross or some other superficial thing that someone like Druig would think up.

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Two hours earlier (Flashback)

"I just don't get it. I've literally tried everything just to get somewhat of a bond with him and he hates my guts!" You and Sprite were both laying on her bed in the Domo after fighting off Deviants in North America. You were positioned near the top and she was spread along the bottom, both looking at the intricate details that decorated the ceiling. "I bring him gifts, he gives them back. I compliment him after a battle, he ignores me. What do I have to do to get him to not completely detest me?" You groaned.

Sprite turned her head to glance up at you , clearly not thinking too hard with a slight smile on her face. "It sounds like you like him"

You sprung up at the accusation. "What! I can't like someone who looks at me like a bug under their show, Sprite. And news flash: Druig's an asshole. Plus if I did like him, I would never do that to Makkari even if they’re not “technically” dating; she’s too good a friend and far too kind for anything along that nature to happen. But doesn’t mean that I want Druig to absolutely hate me!”

She giggled at your antics before laying back down, looking at the ceiling. "Well if you want an honest answer why don’t you just ask him?"

You rolled your eyes at the thought of talking to Druig. “I can’t just go up to him and ask. He’ll say something snarky or just flat out ignore me like he always does.”

Sprite raised an eyebrow at you. “Y/N if you want an answer I don’t know who better to go to. Get some balls and ask the guy!”

“What if it’s something terrible?...”

“Ask.”

“...Or something that I can’t fix...”

“Ask!”

“...what if he absolutely hates my guts and want nothing to do with me for all of eternity!” You flopped back onto your back with a sigh of frustration

“Y/N,” She said sitting up. “you can ask and finally know or you could wait another thousand years. But in the end it’s up to you. I’m not going to tell you what to do but I hate seeing you this way”.

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Pushing open the blacksmith's door you removed your hood and made your way over to the workbench.

"Ah, Y/N! What does Phastos gift us with this time?" The head blacksmith, Andreas, asked. His face had pink hue due to the heat inside the shop and his long curly black beard was peppered with white ash. He was wearing a while linen cloth with a blood red robe thrown on top. The sleeves and edges of the robe were frayed, worn from the years of wear. His working apron was sitting on the chair across the room where Druig and Omar (Andreas’s apprentice) were sitting.

"Farming tools! From what I understood — and you know how Phastos is — there should be some things here for land managing and some other stuff for better irrigation, but it's hard to tell since I’m not to familiar on how to read prints all that well; if you have trouble with these molds I'll just pry Phastos from his workstation and bring him down here."

You set down the molds and blueprints then took off your cloak. Underneath you wore a fine emerald green garment that cuffed around your ankles and wrists. It was decorated with beautiful gold beads. The one-piece was a gift from a noble family in the last village you visited.

"We were just about to eat." Omar said as he uncovered a large bowl on the back table. "Eleni brought us stew a few minutes ago. You’re invited to join us if you'd lik —."

“I’m sure she’s busy enough as it is," Druig interrupted, a false sense of innocence in his voice. "No sense in wasting time here with us when she could be doing much more productive things. Isn’t that right Y/N?"

“Well what are you up to, eh? I’m sure I could help.” You spoke back with a weak attempt of staying cheerful. Even if he hated your guts you were going to try your best to be pleasant even though you felt your heart squeeze every time he glared at you.

“I’m not sure you could, I doubt you’d be any good at it” He quipped.

“I bet I can manage. Plus I don’t see you digging a well or saving a village,” You spoke with a bit of edge. “You know, productive things?”

He motioned to the various sketches and designs on the table in front of him.“Actually I’ve been helping these two with some new armor improvements. You’re more than welcome to stay,” He sneered. “but as you said you’re not too familiar on how to read prints”.

You felt your face heat up as embarrassment swept over you. "You know what? It’s fine. I just ate anyways," You said turning to Omar. "so thank you for the offer, but perhaps we can meet up another time, hm?”

Before Omar could even reply you started making your way back to the workbench to retrieve your cloak and headed out the door.

———————————-

As you laid in bed you thought of how much it stung to have the one person you had heart-eyes for hate you with such a passion. He had no right to be so rude and crass with you, especially when all you’ve wanted since you’ve known him was companionship.

knock-knock

“Come in!” You beckoned to the visitor.

The door to your room opened as Makkari made her way into your space. She was in her lounge clothes and greeted you with a soft smile.

“Hey what’s up?” You questioned. It wasn’t like you and Makkari didn’t get along, you just didn’t hangout often.

“I was just wondering how you were feeling. I saw you kind of stomp in and figured you might want a friend”.

You weren’t exactly sure what to sign. Of course you didn’t wanna lie to her, but how do you tell your friend that you’ve been in love with her on-again-off-again boyfriend for over a millennium?

“I got into a little argument with someone down in the village, nothing major.” You felt a little guilty for not telling her the whole story, but it was still technically true, right?

“Let me guess it was Druig, again?” She rolled her eyes at the thought of him.

You eyes widened when she signed his name. “How’d you know?”

“He’s the only person who makes you this upset; it makes sense since he’s also the only person who seems to fight with you.” She put her hand on your shoulder before sitting down next to you on your bed.

“Um yeah he kind of told me to buzz off earli— why does he hate me?” You asked exasperated.

Stunned by the switch of conversation Makkari took a deep breath. “I don’t know if he hates you. Maybe you should ask him” She shrugged .

“Yeah that’s what Sprite said.” You signed.

“Two against one. Just get it over with Y/N! It might make you feel better once you receive, I don’t know... closure? Maybe if you both just air out what needs to be said, you can get along”

“I know, I just thought putting it off would be okay,” You cringed at the thought of earlier as confrontation. “but it’s creating more of an issue.” You pouted.

She gave a shoulder a squeeze before leaving your room and shutting the door.

“Thanks, Makkari”

—————————-

You sat in the kitchen. You had eaten hours ago and only the evidence of the curry that you made earlier was a dirty bowl in the sink. Just as you were about to call it a night you heard the faint noise of footsteps. As you looked up from the table you saw exactly who you were dreading, Druig.

He looked as glorious as the first time you saw him. He was glossy from the sweat and grime of working with the blacksmiths. He wore a beige cloth draped across his waist with a loose robe sitting low on his shoulders. There was something about how he walked and a sort of glare that danced along his eyes that conveyed he was irritated and if you hadn’t been sitting there for hours on end maybe you would’ve waited to have this conversation, but you couldn’t back down now.

“You’re still up I see” Your voice was rough from not talking for awhile. Looking up you waited for his response.

Nothing.

“So how did the rest of the night go with Andreas and Omar? Any progress with the new armor?” You asked as he grabbed a clay mug from the cabinet. You we’re pressing and you knew it. Whenever he’d ignore you, you’d usually just drop it. But not tonight. Tonight you were going to get him to open up whatever thoughts he was having about you whether he liked it or not.

“Druig...” Nothing, again. He reached into the pantry and fetched a jar of tea, but you weren’t going to let him get away. “Hey! I’m talking to you.” You huffed. At this point you were getting impatient.

As he turned to take the mug and tea back to his room you decided to do something you’ve never intentionally done before: touch him.

Placing a firm grip on his shoulder, you stopped him in his tracks. “I don’t know why you think you can treat me like shit but I’m stopping it,” You paused, unsure of how he was feeling. “now.”

He turned his head back towards the hand on his shoulder. Glancing from the shoulder to your eyes, you felt yourself recoil at the connection. Never in your life had he been this close, this...intimate. You could see his thoughts turning behind his eyes but you couldn’t tell what exactly he was feeling. His glare was now hardest on you, his mouth controlling into a disgusted snarl.

Shifting his stance he placed both the mug and jar in the crook of his left arm and used his right to remove you from his shoulder. “You want to know why, Y/N?” He tilted his head as he questioned you, irritation evident on his face. “It’s because you” He dug his finger into your chest. “follow me around like a puppy dog, giving me gifts and compliments just hoping— wishing— for a lick of attention. You don’t think I notice it? Well I do. I’m obviously not into you Y/N and you’re going to have to get over it. Just cause Makkari and I aren’t a thing right now doesn’t mean I wanna settle for someone like you. So leave. Me. Alone”.

He brought himself back up from his looming stance over you before taking a deep breath and turning back towards his room.

You stood there frozen for awhile. The feeling of utter dread and rejection flooded through you and before you knew it tears started to prick out of the corners of your eyes. Fearing that someone would see you at your weakest you ran to your room where you would undoubtedly cry yourself to sleep.

—————————-

You had thought long and hard about what Druig had said last night. Currently, you were in your room. You we’re wearing a soft loose tank top (or the equivalent of this time) with an earthy floor length cotton skirt. The sunlight of the early morning trickled it’s way through your windows and onto the bed where you were laying.

‘Just cause Makkari and I aren’t a thing right now doesn’t mean I wanna settle for someone like you’. You winced at the fresh memory. Even though you were indisputably in love with Druig, you valued your friendship with Makkari too much to move in on her ex right after a break up. Even though they would routinely break up and get back together just about every other year, you’d wait until they were both sure on how they felt before even thinking of pursuing the telepath. Of course you would love to not have to go after anyone’s ex, but as everyone in the group knows by now: it comes with the price of being an immortal being in a mortal world.

The sound of your stomach growling took you from your thoughts as you made your way to the kitchen (otherwise known the crime scene where your heart was massacred last night). As you entered the kitchen you were met with a bed-headed Kingo. He was eating a piece of toasted bread glazed with butter made from some of the bakers of the last village we were in.

“Morning,” You said softly. “looks like you slept pretty well”.

“Not even close.” He said with a groan. Stretching his arms over his head he tried to shake himself awake. “Our royal couple had another fight last night”

“Oh really? Usually Sersi stops by my place after her and Ikaris have their little arguments” You said as you tore a piece of bread from the loaf.

“No, no. I’m talking about Makkari and Druig. She came by my room last night talking about how ‘she’s tired of this whole back and forth thing’ and ‘he thinks that she’s just going to wait and eternity for him’ . Just a whole bunch of angsty couple stuff, you know the deal” He said as he took another bite.

“Not really” You half-chuckled. Maybe that was the reason why Druig was such in a poor mood you thought. You internally cringed and actually felt guilty for cornering him last night.

“But I don’t blame her. How long have they been dating? And how many times have they broken up?” He asked.

“Too many for me to count”

“I care about her too, Y/N. And...I don’t know...it just frustrates me when all she’s telling about is how terrible their relationship is.”

“Well we don’t know how they act all the time” You said. “Of course she’s only going to tell you the bad things about their relationship when she’s venting to you. I don’t think it’s good for you — for us— to get involved in whatever’s going on between them. If they don’t work out then they don’t work out, but we should leave that decision for them, it’s not our place.”

It was almost comedic how you, Kingo, and Sprite worked. You watched him pine over Makkari, Sprite after Ikaris, and in turn they watched you. It was like you all bonded over the fact they you’d never be with the one person in the world that you wanted. It was almost comforting. Almost.

He ran his hand down his face. “You’re right”

“I always am” You joked.

———————————-

Leaving the people who had touched your heart in such a special way was always something that was bittersweet; knowing that you’d never see them again was depressing, but you took refuge in the thought that you were going to help new people \who you’d learn to love.

It had been a pretty easy week despite the interaction with Druig. Most of your downtime was spent helping the locals or learning about their cultural traditions. It’s times like these that made you love your mission. The people of Earth were so special to you and you were happy to watch them grow. Unfortunately, the peace couldn’t last for forever.

Today you were woken up by the sound of screams coming from the town. Quickly dressing yourself and running to the commotion, you were met with your fellow Etrernals who we’re doing the same. “What’s the plan, Ajak?” Gilgamesh asked.

Ajak joined up to your left.“Sprite, Kingo, Druig, and Phastos are working defense. Get as many people to the top that hill.” Looking out to where she had pointed, you noticed that it was just a bit south of the town. “It’ll be easier to fight off Deviants if they’re the ones who have to come up to us.”

Once given their commands, the four split off to round up civilians. You tried to fight the urge to watch as Druig left and even though he couldn’t read your mind, you hope that he knew you were rooting for him. One fight couldn’t erase the unfathomable love you carried in your heart for him.

“Thea, Ikaris, and I are on offense. We’ll clear them out the best we can. There’s going to be some stragglers that we won’t be able to get in time, so Y/N, Makkari, and Sersi clear-out all the deviants on and around the hill; we don’t need them slowing down the other group”

With your commands given, you and your group started running.

———————————-

Atop the hill you and your group had managed to kill a small amount of the deviants present, this was a larger number of them than anticipated but it was nothing that you couldn’t handle. Sweat was dripping down your forehead and your fingers were covered in grime. This was just one of the key principles that you and your fellow Eternals knew: war was dirty.

It was probably twenty minutes since you had last seen the others when you had noticed a small blob coming from the village. Shielding your eyes from the sun you were able to see that it was the defense group with a sizable amount of people among them. Judging the distance, you could guess they were probably a little less than half a mile away. As they continued their pilgrimage to the hill you could make out a 5-9 deviants coming from the village towards the group. You were dowsed in the feeling of fear as you looked from the group to the deviants and back to the group. They weren’t going to be able to defend themselves and the humans without casualties.

Glancing back to Makkari and Sersi, you decided to take it upon yourself to attempt to meet the group halfway in order to alleviate the pressure of deviants on them.

“Sersi I’m going to need you to cover for me, okay?” You said as you dodged a deviants attack.

“I’m on it!” Was all you needed for you to dart across the field to where the group was, and with the downhill slope on your side you were able to get to them in a relatively short time.

“Y/N we need more cover, take the backend of the group with Kingo and Druig while we keep pushing forward”

Using your powers to create a pathway of ice, you skated to the back of the pack where the two Eternals were fighting. Slowly but surely the group progressed further up the hill. “Well what do we owe your presence?” Kingo joked over the commotion.

“To the fact that you’re getting your ass kicked” You yelled with a cocky grin.

You, Kingo, and Druig had fought side-by-side countless time before — just as you had with all the other Eternals — and you found yourselves getting into a familiar groove. First Kingo would blast the deviants in order to distract them while you froze their limbs to the ground. Once frozen in place Druig would be able to cut of their heads with his long sword. Even though you were getting the job done, you felt like there was something different about your dynamic.

Usually there was a sense of fluidity to your fighting pattern. The three of you would almost move in a waltz: blast, freeze, chop, blast, freeze, chop. But Druig (of course it was Druig) was somewhat stiffer than before. You noticed there was hesitation in his movements and it ended up slowing you and Kingo down in the process.

“Hey could you two speed it up? Not really feeling the drag happening right now” Kingo shouted as he blasted another deviant.

“Talk to Y/N! Maybe if she had her head out of the clouds her shots wouldn’t be such shit” Druig snapped.

You were taken aback by the utter disrespect happening, especially on the battlefield. Druig was always rude to you but never in serious moments like these. Fighting together meant that you had to fully trust your teammates and you began to feel yourself sinking further into your insecurities (something you probably shouldn’t be doing in the middle of a fight).

“My shots are just fine, just do your job” You bit back as you froze a deviant to the field.

“Don’t worry Kingo,” Druig continued. “you’ll probably just have to pick up her slack as usual since Ms. Puppy-dog is having another off day” .

Your heart twisted at the reference to your earlier confrontation. Looking out at Kingo you noticed his face had turned sour. “What’s your issue, dude?”

“Nothing” Druig huffed as he swung his sword once more.

“Clearing it’s something since you can’t shut your mouth for a mission” Kingo pressed. You knew he was angry on your behalf, especially since you two were fairly close. You found comfort in the sentiment but it seemed to be taking your collective attention away from the fight.

“It’s fine Kingo, let’s just focus.” You were grasping at straws to keep the peace. As they continued to bicker you felt them grow slower and slower against the attacking deviants.

“No, Y/N. It’s not fine.” Said Kingo. “I’m so tired of him running his mouth and nobody says anything.”

Druig scoffed. “Oh really? You don’t think I know what this is really about? You don’t give a shit how I treat Y/N. No, this is about Makkari.”

“Druig that’s enough” You warned.

Kingo was gradually getting closer to Druig, his eyes filled with more rage than you had ever seen the jokester have.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Druig. I don’t need an ulterior motive to say you’re an asshole.” Kingo said. His figure standing a few inches taller than the telepath.

Turning your attention from them, you noticed that as the argument progressed, your small trio had fallen behind the main group. Looking up ahead you looked to Phastos that was witnessing the bicker. “What’s going on? We have people to save up here!”

Deciding to take matters into your own hands you placed yourself between the two men and gave commands. “Kingo make up our lost ground and blast any deviant coming up behind the main group. Druig, I still need you and that sword so we’re going to continue down here.”

Kingo’s eyes shifted between you and the man in front of him.

“Please” You begged.

With a sigh he turned away from the two of you and started running up the hill.

Getting your mindset back into the fight you started attacking any deviant you could get your hands on with Druig in tow. It was harder now without Kingo but you were making do.

“You and Kingo are perfect for each other” You heard behind you. Druigs voice was serious and was full of resentment.

“I’m not doing this now” You said as you continued the fight.

“I bet you two just sit up all night waiting for Makkari and I to break up, eh? Make it a little club or something? You got Sprite in there too? ‘Cause we all know she’s ready to pounce on Ikar—”

His sentence was cut off by your fist hitting his cheek. “I don’t know what the fuck you think you are, but you are not going to speak about anyone that way” You said. Your blood was pumping more than it had been during the whole fight.

Stunned by your strike, Druig brought his hand to his lip that had split on contact. “You know what,” He shoved you back a few steps “I’m so tired of your shit. I’m tired of you sitting here acting like an innocent lamb. But that’s not true is it? No. Not with you constantly throwing yourself at me. And now you’re telling Kingo to talk shit about me to Makkari?”

“Me?” You said getting incredulously. “I didn’t tell Kingo to do anything. And just cause your girlfriend is starting to realize how much of an asshole you are, doesn’t mean you can treat me like trash”.

Druig let out a laugh before meeting his fist with your left cheek —ultimately knocking the wind out of you. You looked up to see Druig towering over you, his shadow blocking out the sun.

“Don’t you ever talk abo—” Druig’s sentence stopped abruptly. A look of utter horror and shock struck his face as he looked down to his chest.

Lodged just above his stomach was a claw. A deviants to be exact.

He had been impaled.

Suddenly the world had come to a halt. The indescribable sense of rage had left your body and had been replaced with the purest feeling of panic and terror. It had happened almost instantaneously: you’re body ignited and you were no longer a mere instrument of heat — you were on fire. Within a split second you had discovered your newfound power and burned the towering deviant to the ground; reducing it’s body to ash. Everything happened so fast that you still had time to reach out and catch Druig before he fell to the dirt.

“Druig? Druig.” You said as you slapped the side of his face.

His eyes were searching around as if he couldn’t make out exactly what was happening.

“Wh...what’s going on? Y/N, my chest...” His words were drowsy and he motioned to his ribs. “my chest...i-it hurts...”

You looked down to where the deviants claw was still embedded. You wanted to wait until Ajax could heal him before you even thought about removing it, but there was so much blood escaping around it.

Tears began to run down your face as you began to think of the worst. “Druig this is going to hurt but you’re going to be okay.” You used the tip of your finger like a welding gun to seal the gaps around the claw where the blood was escaping. You tried to ignore his grunts and screams but seeing him in pain like this only made you cry harder.

Unbeknownst to you, the defense group was having trouble of its own.

The other Eternals were having trouble with the increasing number of deviants trying to get to the humans. Even with the addition of Kingo, Makkari, and Sersi it wasn’t enough to hold back the blood-thirsty predators, and if they didn’t do something quick people were going to die.

“Where’s Druig and Y/N?” Yelled Sersi.

“They’re further down the hill” Kingo replied bitterly, recalling the argument from earlier.

Sprite huffed. “Well we need their help. Call them up here!

Looking down to where you two were located Phastos couldn’t quite make out what was going on, “Y/N we need you two up here!”

You were too preoccupied to care about what was happening uphill. The only thing on your mind was saving Druigs life and you were going to do that.

“Druig!” Sprite shouted in an attempt to get your collective attention.

As the fighting progressed more and more deviants pounced on the group, now outnumbering the Eternals greatly.

“Y/N!” Sersi begged.

“I can’t!” You cried glancing back down to the telepath, your mind frantic and overwhelmed.

You didn’t know what to do. Do you leave him here to die or go up to help your teammates? There was too much going on and you were frozen in place. You placed your hands over your ears to concentrate on your options. How could you get him up the hill? Was he too injured for you to move him? Where would you put him while you finished the battle? With all of these questions running through your head you didn’t notice how the world began to gradually quiet.

Your attention was taken by the sound of flesh tearing.

Looking up you saw that Thea, Gilgamesh, and Ajak had made it to the scene and were helping the rest of the group kill of the remaining deviants. They all worked like a fine oiled machine and finished off what was left of the predators.

As amazing as they were, you turned back towards the man on the ground.

“Druig” You said sternly. “Druig I need you to stay awake, okay? Can you do that for me?” You pleaded.

You looked for any sign that he understood what you but were met with none.

“Druig. Please please please, stay awake.” You said as you grasped his hand. “I’m sorry for all of that earlier, okay? When you wake up we’ll sort this out — and you’ll wake up — but please. We need you to stay awake, Ajak is going to be here soon. Just stay awake.” You sobbed.

You heard the sound of footsteps approach and saw your teammates had made it down the hill; each and everyone of them were converted in blood and dirt from the battle. If you hadn’t seen what had just happened you would’ve assumed they took a bath in blood.

Once in sight Ajak rushed to Druig’s side. Her face was full of worry and she was careful not to move him as she assessed his injury. The entire group was quiet as you all feared for the worst.

“He’s going to be okay”

————————————-

You stood naked in front of the shower. You mind blank as your processed what had happened not even an hour earlier. Looking at your shaking hands you felt sick at the crimson red that stained them. You were covered in his blood and it shook you to the core just how close you were to having him die in your arms. Is this how you were going to live? On the edge of life and death?

You didn’t want that for yourself. You knew that much.

————————————-

After getting cleaned up you made your way back to the main room to fetch your armor that hadn’t made it to the wash yet. Turning the last corner you were met with a surprise: your team waiting for you.

“I think we need to talk, Y/N” Ajak said firmly as she motioned for you to join the rest of them.

The feeling of anxiety once again was present in your mind as you made your way to the circle.

“You are an Eternal, correct?” She asked.

“Y...yes?” You weren’t sure exactly where this was going.

“Then why aren’t you acting like it?”

“Wha—”

“Your job is to protect life on this planet no matter the cost. I know that. Druig knows that. Everybody in this circle knows that. So why don’t you?”

You were growing frustrated at her accusations. “What was I supposed to do? Let him die? What would happen if that was you, Ajak? Or anyone else here?” You questioned.

“Then I would expect you to do what’s best for the mission. You can’t let personal feelings get in the way of that. I love you all as if we were family but I will not compromise the job for anyone. We needed you out there. I heard that Sersi, Sprite, and Phastos called for help and you weren’t there! I know it’s hard but that is our reality. This is no time to be selfish; our mission comes before the individual and you need to figure that out.” Disappointment was evident in her voice as she looked you down. “Am I clear?”

“Yes.” You spat.

———————————-

As the sun set over the desert horizon you were almost finished packing.

A couple pairs of clothes along with enough jewelry to pay lodgings and food was all you really needed for your journey. The thought of bringing more sentimental items flashed in your mind but you feared that it would make you turn back. Make you come back home to the war, and the loss, and the bullshit you just couldn’t deal with.

You sighed. Maybe running away is the cowardly thing to do but you knew Ajak was right; you had lost sight of the mission and you couldn’t go through the agony of watching your friends die one by one. It was just easier to cut them off; severing the relationships you had with them sounded a lot better than submitting yourself to the heartbreak of death. Now the important question was: did you even want to say goodbye? If you did you weren’t sure if you could actually leave. If Ikaris even got word of you trying to leave he’d report back to Ajak and that wasn’t something that you really wanted to face.

But you remembered that there was one person who couldn’t tell a soul.

———————————-

Druig was lain out on a cot with a wool blanket draped over him. His chocolate hair was messy and his lips were cracked but to you he looked ethereal. He wasn’t awake of course — his condition would probably last a few days as Ajak had stated — but that didn’t stop you from saying goodbye.

You took a deep breath as you approached his sleeping figure. “I’m leaving. For good.”

You seated yourself on the side of his bed. “I know you probably don’t want me here but...I don’t have anyone else to talk to that won’t tell the others.”

You felt tears start pooling around your eyes as you continued. “You were right. Everyone was picking up my slack today and I just figured it’d be better if I took off, you know? Avoid facing a situation like this again. The whole thing today and last night...it just made me think. I can’t watch my friend die, Druig. How is everyone just okay with that? How am I wrong for valuing your life in such a way? I tried doing what’s best for the mission, it’s hard — so —hard to accept that because...”

Biting your tongue you debated your next words. “...because I’m in love with you. I’m in love with you and I couldn’t just let you go. Not even after how you treated me. And I’ve fought so fucking hard to keep myself together as I’ve watched you love someone else all-the-while you act disgusted by my existence. But despite all the signs telling me not to, I’ve loved you since we arrived on Earth. And I should have told you, and maybe —just maybe — that would’ve saved us all this shit,” You said motioning towards his injury.

“but you know what? Now I know.” You face grew into a scowl as you thought back through the thousands of years of insults and rejection. “I know that I didn’t deserve how you treated me. You actually made me believe that I was wicked for wanting you to like me — to treat me like a person — how crazy is that?” You half-joked.

“I’m not evil, or selfish, or any other name you’ve slapped on me because...because I deserve love. I want someone to love me just as passionately as I did you, and I want to make connections with people who I won’t have to leave after a week, and I want a life filled with friends that won’t abandon me for some stupid fucking mission!” You cried.

“And guess what, Druig?” You stood up, and wiped the tears from your eyes with your sleeve.

“I’m going to find it”

—————————-

A/N: Thank you for reading! Ive never really written fan-fiction before but I really wanted more Druig content so here you go. Lmk what y’all think and I’ll try to figure out how to open my requests lmao

#druig #eternals #druig angst #druig fluff #druig fan fiction #reader x druig #druig fic #eternals fic

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jungkxook · 4 years

Text

—amortentia.

⟶ pairing: jungkook x reader

⟶ genre: hogwarts/harry potter au / enemies-to-lovers + fluff

⟶ words: 5,486

⟶ rating: pg-13

⟶ summary: jungkook loves everything strawberry but the simple pleasure is always kept hidden, stowed away as if some hideous secret to protect the rumours that had built up around him — until a love potion outs him.

⟶ disclaimer: this is a repost of an old fic from my old blog since i know some of you were asking about it! i hope you enjoy!!

Jungkook loves strawberries.

He remembers fondly the warm summers as a child when he would go strawberry picking with his grandmother, and revels in the taste and the memory each time he bites into a fresh berry, the juices coating his tongue in sickly sweetness; he likes the smell of all the lotions and lip balms, candles and fragrances, that carried notes of the red fruit in comforting wafts, remembering distantly a time when his mother’s fruity perfume would breathe warm life into his cold house in the middle of a dull winter; he remembers sentimental times spent at the local cafe near his home, loving and basking in the way the homely and warm aroma of a freshly baked pie and the sugary tartness of strawberry lemonade would fill his nostrils and consume his senses, leaving his mouth watering.

Jungkook loves everything strawberry but the simple pleasure is always kept hidden, stowed away as if some hideous secret to protect the rumours that had built up around him.

Ask any girl that thought Jeon Jungkook is handsome or any boy that thought Jungkook is a god and they would say he smells like the purest form of any man with a harmonious scent of musk, cedar wood, and oak; like fresh rain that soaked in the middle of a mossy forest, spices, and black coffee — but they couldn’t have been more wrong. Maybe he did smell of musk or wood or rain when he was continuously outside, practicing every moment he had with his Quidditch team, but Jungkook was more than just that. Really, though, it made sense as to why people thought that way about him when he had left such a lingering impression on the school.

You can still remember the very first day you saw him; the very moment you had, from your spot in line in front of the Sorting Hat on the first day as a first year, saw the stoic boy step forward. Made up of a nervous face and obsidian locks that fell into his equally dark eyes, the Hat had instantly deemed the boy a Ravenclaw — and perhaps the house’s reputation was what added to his mystique and strange charm. Even then, from what you observed, he had been a silent boy, making his way to and from classes usually alone, and somehow ignoring the gaggle of girls (from all years and from all houses) that trailed along behind him, giggling and clamouring over how cute he is.

As the months went on, you never witnessed much change in Jungkook safe for the friends he suddenly made in the first half of second year (a surprising mix of Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and Slytherins) and the smug attitude he began to develop. A rebel, they said, a bad boy at heart, the very antithesis of Ravenclaws. Someone all the girls craved for and all the boys yearned to be. And while you tried to assume that perhaps there was more to the boy than meets the eye — that maybe he was built on different layers you could one day explore — when he begins to become too conceited with the way he is praised, you grow disenchanted by him and his cocky smirks. Yet, for some reason, he finds it necessary to go out of his way to talk to you no matter what — and you were quick to learn to despise him and his constant mocking, all possibilities of trying to get to know him diffused.

In first year, you had to endure a whole semester worth of Jungkook tugging at your hair when he sat behind you in Charms class. In second year, an unspoken rivalry began in which the two of you would compete to see who could earn the better grades. You can’t quite pinpoint when or where the hatred for one another began, but the irritation that comes as a result of it only grows more adamant with each passing day.

In third year, you distinctly remember being confined to the many dusty oak shelves and rows of leather bound books in the library, your eyes constantly flickering to the ornate grandfather clock nearby you as you wait alone. An agreed time of 6 pm to meet in the library after dinner to work on a partnered assignment had otherwise vanished from the boy’s memory. Had it been up to you to decide what partner you wanted, you would have much rather preferred to pick one of your friends and not the Ravenclaw who was fifteen minutes late. With the project due in two days, and with the nearly three weeks you had to finish it, you had constantly asked to meet with Jungkook to work on it and each time he had made a different excuse.

As time crept on and the waning hours of the daylight dwindled to a dull darkness, twenty minutes would pass and it was then that you would grudgingly begin packing your belongings. The wait was not worth the trouble. Yet just as you are standing from your seat, the boy waltzes into view, coming to a nonchalant halt in front of you and placing his bag on the table, as if he didn’t know how late he is. He has abandoned his robe to wear only a grey fleece pullover on top of his white button up, his torn up Converse shoes ruining the uniform outfit with his casual flare. Your stare flickers up to meet his smug face and a frown forms on yours as you spot the other third year Slytherin girl giggling a flirtatious goodbye to the boy who winks in response. Finally, he turns to look at you.

“You’re leaving already?” Jungkook asks. “I just got here.”

“Twenty minutes later, Jeon,” You snap.

The boy quirks a brow, twisting around in his spot to look at the clock. “I could have sworn you said we should meet at six-thirty. I’m ten minutes early.”

“I remember saying six o’clock,” You say. “As well as you telling me that six was perfectly fine. Look, History of Magic isn’t my favourite either but I would appreciate it if you at least put some effort into the class and this project.”

“Shh!”

The hiss that comes from the student studying near you only makes you scowl. You turn around hotly to continue shoving your books and papers into your backpack.

“I was busy,” Jungkook says.

“Busy flirting with every living thing?” You asks.

“What?” Confusion paints his face, and then he is shaking his head furiously. “No!”

Your eyes narrow into a scrutinizing glare. You point over your shoulder at the same Slytherin girl who is still within the library, standing just a few feet away from the pair of you. She has an opened book in her hands in an attempt to look distracted but her eyes are fixated solely on Jungkook. When she catches Jungkook staring, his gaze lifting over your shoulder, she hurriedly looks away and blushes.

“So I assume she’s just a friend?” You retaliate. “You know what your problem is, Jeon? You never take anything seriously.”

Immediately, Jungkook tenses. His arms snake around to cross in front of his chest.

“Well, you take everything too seriously,” he says. “When was the last time you had some fun? Any time I talk to you, you’re always fussing about the work or about how much you hate me— it’s like you’re a walking, talking, breathing dementor! You suck the life out of everyone.”

“Shh!”

The snarl this time is much harsher, coming from yet another student who has been devoting his time to writing an essay. But now you can’t be bothered to worry about silence. You slam shut the book in your hand with a very loud thump that seems to echo around the eerily silent room and fling a strap of your bag over your shoulder.

“Well, I’m sorry that I, and this assignment, are such inconveniences to you,” You say, “but from now on I give up on making sure we both don’t fail this class. If you need me, which I assume you won’t, I’ll be in my room, far from you.”

“Excuse me!” The familiar bark of the librarian’s voice hardly makes you jump even as she comes marching down to the two of you. “This is a library, a quiet place to study. It would be greatly appreciated if you could bring your conversation out into the halls.”

Had she not interrupted your conversation with Jungkook, you would have never realized just how loud your voice had risen. Clearing your throat and tightening your grip on your bag and the book, you tear your eyes from Jungkook and stomp defiantly out into the corridors to retreat to your common room, leaving Jungkook alone. He would find you the day after in a sluggish state, his hair dishevelled and his clothes askew as if he had slept in them — or, rather, had not slept at all — showing you all the work he had finished for the assignment the night before.

In fourth year, you are leaving the stands of the Quidditch pitch on a surprisingly warm November evening. Following the slew of students back to the school after a heated game between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor — where the latter team won after a fiery race between the two Seekers for the golden snitch — the eager chatter buzzes in the air. Beside you are your two friends who are, just as many others are doing, whispering excitedly about Jungkook’s role as Seeker and his “amazing performance.”

“Did you see the way Jungkook played?” Hana asks from the right side of you. “How can someone be so attractive?”

To your left, Nayeon is practically standing on the tip of her toes, desperately craning her neck to search the crowd for the boy and his friends. “Oooh, look! There he is! He’s so sweaty! Imagine his muscles—”

“You’re ridiculous,” You sigh with a disapproving shake of your head.

Despite your condescending tone, you can’t help but glance over your shoulder to follow your friends’ gaze. Laughing in triumph with his team and friends, Jungkook stands adorned in the usual Ravenclaw royal blue Quidditch uniform, the robes somehow accentuating his tanned skin and dark hair that clings to his sweat-covered forehead. Since when had he grown so tall? And maybe Nayeon was right — since when did Jungkook start looking so muscular?

“Your staring is obvious, Y/N,” Hana says.

“And so is your crush on him,” Nayeon murmurs.

“Crush?” You burst out into laughter. “Now that’s funny. I could never have a crush on him!”

“Have a crush on who?”

The familiar voice makes you groan inwardly and the arm that is tossed around your neck almost makes you gag. Your body grows rigid under Jungkook’s touch, though he doesn’t seem to notice that or the way you carefully try to peel his arm off of you but to no avail. Joining him is his typical duo of friends. The other Slytherin boy next to Jungkook is the shy and soft Park Jimin, accompanied by their inseparable Hufflepuff friend, Kim Taehyung. The two boys smirk wolfishly down at your friends, both of whom are so suddenly at a loss for words.

“Evenin’, ladies!” Jimin says. “Enjoy the show?”

“We hate to brag but we taught him everything he knows,” Taehyung says, ruffling Jungkook’s hair.

Jungkook rolls his eyes and swats Taehyung’s hand away. “Maybe the three of you can come down to watch us practice one day.”

Your friends exchange glances and giggle nervously.

“We’d love to,” Nayeon smiles.

Your lack of response clearly doesn’t go unnoticed by your friends, nor Jungkook and his friends. As you turn your head to look away from the group, you briefly catch the sudden scent that is Jungkook and your face scrunches. It isn’t so much as gross as it is overpowering. Passed salt and sweat, you can smell something clean like freshly cut grass or some sort of lemongrass shampoo. But instead of telling him out loud what you thought, you pushed him away.

“You smell terrible,” You said. “Go take a shower, Jeon.”

“Always playing hard to get,” Jungkook sighs. “Sorry we can’t all smell like your floraly essence after playing an intense Quidditch game.”

You only hum in response, turning your head to look away from him and his friends. The act seems to earn a smirk from Jungkook and then he and his friends are parting from you, walking back to the locker rooms. After that day, your friends’ profuse pleads and begs for you to come with them one day when the Quidditch teams are practicing would eventually make you cave in. When Jungkook sees you sitting in the stands burrowed in a wool scarf and heavy robes, albeit with a frown on your face and your eyes scanning the pages of a book in your lap, he catches your attention by shouting your name and then winking at you. Seconds later, a Quaffle is thrown his way by a fellow teammate and nearly knocks him off his broom.

In fifth year, you are seated in your Transfiguration class at the back and nearly dozing off as your Professor drones on and on in the early morning about some boring lecture. Jungkook sits in the row opposite you and a seat behind but that doesn’t stop him from constantly trying to catch your attention, whispering your name. It is only when you hear a few classmates near you break out into wondrous awes that you lift your head from its resting place wedged between your folded arms on top of your desk and turn. Soaring above the students’ heads is an enchanted paper bird, its thin wings fluttering its way to you.

You gaze at it for a moment, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips, before noticing that it is Jungkook who had magicked it, wand in hand as he waves it towards you. As soon as it reaches your table, it floats around your head and lingers in front of your face, beckoning you to take it. Instead, your hands try swatting it away though it doesn’t seem to budge. When you relent and succumb to taking the bird, it is not before you shoot an annoyed glance back at Jungkook. Then, you unwrap the bird in your hand. With thin black ink sprawled out in perfect cursive writing, a single dreadful question is poised in pretty script: Meet me tomorrow at noon at the Three Broomsticks? It’ll be my treat.

“Is that from Jungkook?” Hana asks. She peers over your shoulder from beside you to look down at the paper, her voice incredibly louder than you would have liked. “It is! Is he asking you out? You know, I always knew you liked him. You’re a terrible liar— ”

You gasp. Your hand quickly covers the paper, yanking it out of Hana’s view. “I do not like him!”

“Do too!” Hana laughs. “So, what are you going to say? Huh, who knew Jungkook was so soft and cute? Have I told you how cute the two of you would be together?”

Maybe it’s the way she so suddenly begins to gush over you dating Jungkook, or the way her voice garners the attention of those sitting around you, letting other girls fawn over how cute his simple gesture is, that makes you curdle with embarrassment. But what are you so shy of? You are insistent that you don’t like Jungkook but you were certain that if word spread that you did have feelings for him, your whole life would be drastically ruined. Or maybe you were more fearful of the idea of possibly liking Jungkook in return, even if you had so profusely been lying to everyone and yourself.

“Stop it!” You hiss. “I would rather kiss the squid in the Black Lake than date him!”

Then, as if to emphasize this apparent hatred, you grab your quill and furiously write in big scratchy letters “NO” before crumpling it in your hand and twisting in your seat. Set on chucking the balled up piece of paper right at Jungkook’s smug face, you are startled when you feel the paper being plucked from your grasp by none other than your Professor. She stands before you with a sour look on her face, a willowy old lady with gray wisps of hair pulled back into a tight bun.

“Ah, Miss Y/N,” she hums, “if you have more important matters that you seem to want to discuss with Mr. Jeon, surely you can divulge with the rest of the class too.”

Your mouth clamps shut. You watch, stricken with horror, as she unravels the paper in her hands, her glossy eyes skimming its contents from beneath her half-moon spectacles. She purses her lips, and then shifts her gaze to you and then to Jungkook sitting behind you. The silence that follows as she moves towards him is near unbearable, making you shift uncomfortably in your seat.

“If you would have much rather preferred to flirt with Miss Y/N than listen to my lecture, feel free to leave my class, Jeon,” Your Professor says. She drops the paper onto his desk with a flourish. “Though, it’d be in your best interest to stop your daydreaming and pay attention to my class because I’m afraid her answer was no.”

Your eyes widen as you twist in your seat to look at your Professor and a startled Jungkook. And, maybe, if you looked hard enough and passed the smug smirk, you could see his conceited stare falter as a look of hurt flashes across his eyes. A few murmurs and giggles break out amongst the students, making your cheeks burn hot and forces you to turn back around and away from Jungkook.

“And I suppose that now neither of you are busy tomorrow, you wouldn’t mind spending it in detention with me,” Your Professor says. Then she was rounding on her heel, marching back to the front of the classroom and restarting her lecture.

After the torturous detention where Jungkook suddenly refuses to look or talk to you after what had happened, and a week after the missed Hogsmeade trip, you would find Jungkook walking the halls, hand-in-hand, with another Ravenclaw girl. As they pass you, seemingly unaware of your lingering presence, you see the girl stop Jungkook and lean forward to kiss him, his own hands resting on her waist and tugging her closer to him. Though you tell yourself you’re free from his constant flirting and mocking, you can’t help but feel somewhat let down as you walk away that day.

In the beginning of sixth year, when all the students had found a moment to themselves and a much needed break from all the sudden stress of homework, you would wind up at a party being held in the Room of Requirements. Though you weren’t quite sure how the students were able to smuggle alcohol into the school, you remember drinking until you are blissfully numb and without a care in the world. Most of the evening had been spent chatting to Nayeon and Hana but when they become distracted with flirting with their crushes, you are left alone. It isn’t much long after that you stumble into Jungkook. Drunkenly dancing to the upbeat thump of music that reverberated around the room, you had, somehow, lost your footing. As you fall into the thick crowd, a pair of strong hands reach out to swiftly catch onto yours arms and hold you up. Jungkook’s surprised when you don’t bother pushing him away and let him help straighten you up. Clearly, you’re much too drunk to function, and he makes sure to hold you at a comfortable distance away from him. Then, there, under the dim lights of the room, you are met with his typical smirk tugging at his luscious pink lips (which you find yourself gazing at for longer than necessary).

“Ah, if it isn’t Jeon Jungkook,” You rasp. You sway dangerously in his hold and nearly fall to the floor again. He tightens his grip on you and catches you once more before you can slip away. “What do you want from me tonight?”

“Hey, you bumped into me. I’m just being nice and making sure you don’t face-plant the floor.”

“Yeah, but of course you had to be right beside me. I think I’d rather have face-planted the floor.”

He quirks a brow. He feigns dropping you, momentarily loosening his grip just enough for you to come flailing forward with a yelp of surprise. He doesn’t let you fall too far, though, and catches onto you swiftly once more, hooking his arm around your waist. When you meet his stare with a scowl, he grins. “You were saying?”

“Do you remember that one time you told me I never have fun?”

“Not really.”

“Ah, well, you say a lot of shit to me,” You say. “But that stuck out the most. You called me a dementor. A dementor. My thirteen year old self never forgot that.”

Jungkook winces at how carefree you seemed to say it, at how you still remembered it three years later. His hands drop from you once you’re steady and he runs his fingers through his locks, softly pushing them up and out of his eyes before they ultimately fall flat against his forehead once more.

“I didn’t mean it,” he says. “I mean, look at you now. You seem to be having a lot of fun. How drunk are you anyway?”

“It’s not fun when it feels like I’m trying to prove a point to you,” You sigh. “But I already know you don’t care about me.”

“That’s not true,” Jungkook says. “You’re the one who doesn’t care about me.”

You burst out into a fit of mocking laughter and shake your head at him. Swaying forward, almost precariously close to him, you tap the tip of his nose with your finger. “Jeon Jungkook, you can be real oblivious.”

And then you are kissing him, pressing your soft lips to his. He doesn’t push you away, albeit however incredibly surprised he may be. Instead, as he feels your lips move against his, he finds himself basking in everything that is you. All he can smell is your floral perfume and, passed the liquor that stained your lips, could taste your peach lip balm and the bubble gum you had been chewing earlier in the night. He hates how much he loves it. His hands lift to rest on either side of your face and he gently brings you closer to him, his tongue laving at your peach flavoured lower lip. He hears you moan softly in content as you melt against his chest, your fingers suddenly tugging desperately at the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s then that you realize that all you can smell is the scent of freshly cut grass and his lemony shampoo, but all you can taste is something warm and sugary that feels all too comforting.

You come to the conclusion in your drunken mind that you would have loved to keep kissing him. That, maybe, kissing Jeon Jungkook wasn’t so bad. But then just as suddenly as you had kissed him, he is pulling away from you, sending you crashing and burning down from your reverie. With swollen pink lips, wide eyes, and dishevelled hair, Jungkook shakes his head abruptly and mumbles a quiet, “I’m sorry.”

He flees from your grasp and from the party before you can stop him — and it is in that moment that you began to hate Jungkook, but not more than you hate yourself for actually enjoying the way it felt to kiss someone like him. You would never learn why he had left so soon until much later when he tells you that he didn’t want you to regret anything you did drunk — didn’t want you to regret kissing someone like him when you had seemed to hate him for years prior.

In the second half of sixth year, when you begin to fail Potions, your Professor does what he thinks is best and pairs you with Jungkook, the smartest student in his class. Hearing that Jungkook, of all people, is remarkable at Potions doesn’t come as a surprise. You are quick to learn just why he had been placed into Ravenclaw, carrying their impressive ambition and intelligence. If anything, you are almost jealous of how easily he seems to pick up on things and can reproduce them at top notch quality.

Your friendship with him is still strained and is perhaps even worse than it had once been ever since the night of the party. Neither of you talk about the moment and, from what either of you were concerned, both of you had long since forgotten the night had ever happened. Unbeknownst to you is that when Jungkook sees how cold and distant you become in the days after, he refuses to tell you the truth that the kiss is always on his mind. So, when you are forced to work with him for any assignments or in-class work, most of your conversations end in constant bickering. Miraculously, somehow, your grades do gradually begin to pick up.

One day, when you both walk into class, you are greeted to the sight of a smoldering cauldron placed neatly on top of your Professor’s desk, a beautiful scent filling the room that seems to be coming specifically from whatever has been brewing. The liquid contents within contains a mother-of-pearl sheen and clear smoke spirals from it in wisps. As soon as everyone is seated at their desks, your Professor steps forward and begins his lecture.

“Good evening, class!” he chirps. “Today we have a very exciting lecture that has to do with what is currently sitting on my desk. Now, can anyone tell me what exactly it is?”

A few shouts of guesses are tossed into the air but all are wrong as your Professor simply shakes his head. Jungkook raises his hand casually and your Professor points enthusiastically at him.

“Yes, Jungkook?”

“It’s Amortentia,” he says.

“Right you are, my boy!” Your Professor beams. “Five points to Ravenclaw! This is, in fact, Amortentia. Now, for those of you who do not know what it is, that is perhaps all the best. But as it is, it’s important to educate you on the various effects each potion can have on a being and why someone should, or should not, administer it. Amortentia, simply put, is a love potion.”

Gasps of awe and murmurs from certain students circulate the room as your Professor carries on.

“And not just any love potion — the most powerful love potion in the world,” he says. “If anyone were to receive such a potion, it would cause an intense infatuation and obsession on the drinker. However, the potion must be continuously administered to the drinker or else the effects will wear off and the drinker will regain his or her conscience and free will. Now, if you ever wanted to know how to identify Amortentia, you can rely on its very distinct smell. Differing on the person who smells it, it will always morph into the scent of whomever you desire most. For instance, I smell lemon drops, toothpaste, and parchment paper. You may all smell something different.”

A handful of students lean forward in their seat, desperately moving closer to the cauldron and the potion that carried such charming scents. Despite not wanting to show your immediate interest in something as strange as a love potion, you sit back in your seat but inhale a slow, deep breath of air and the scent that makes your heart skip a beat. It would pose as an obstacle to focusing on the lecture as your Professor carried on, though you find you’re not the only one so easily distracted by it. Halfway through the class, he stops his lecture and informs the students of their task for the evening: replicating Amortentia perfectly with the help of the partner sitting next to them.

So, you and Jungkook immediately head to work, beginning the tedious process of preparing ingredients and brewing the potion. Naturally, your own potion brewing goes faster than others as Jungkook seems to know what to do with everything. For the most part, you sit back and watch, as Jungkook refuses your help any time you offer, claiming you would only just slow him down. When it’s done, and the entire class is still halfway through theirs, you fold your arms over your chest and look up at Jungkook, noting the way his eyebrows scrunch together as he peers down at the glistening potion.

“I can’t smell anything,” You say. “Did you even do this right?”

Jungkook grimaces, though his stare falters. He doesn’t admit it aloud, but he worries for a moment that maybe he isn’t as good at Potions as he thought he was. In the next second, he scowls and shoots you a look.

“What kind of question is that?” he asks. “Of course I did it right! I followed everything properly. It even looks perfect.”

“Well, obviously it isn’t perfect if neither of us can smell anything,” You say.

“Well,” Jungkook says, irritated, “maybe if you didn’t bathe yourself in your ridiculous floral perfume, I could smell something.”

“Me?” Your mouth drops open in an appalled gap. “Now it’s my fault? You’re one to talk. Did you have practice this morning? All I can smell is grass and your stupid lemon shampoo or whatever it is. It’s disgusting.”

The bickering continues on between the two of you until you’ve seemingly grabbed the attention of the entire class. Near the very end of the period, it’s Taehyung who finally says something, leaning back in his chair to look at the two of you.

“Jungkook didn’t have practice this morning,” he says. “He also didn’t shower because he slept in late. Or did you forget that, Jungkook?”

“And Y/N?” Nayeon chimes in from beside you. “Didn’t you run out of your perfume last week?”

Jungkook clamps his mouth shut. Your own heart stops. Suddenly, your face is burning intensely and Jungkook’s own cheeks are pinched a bright red as, slowly, the realization seems to dawn on the both of you. Chuckles emit from your friends as your Professor signals that the time is up. You don’t dare look at Jungkook as your Professor grades each potion, and then anxiously await the chance to dash out the door when your Professor claims yours and Jungkook’s potion was done just perfect. As soon as he moves on to the next pair, you have gathered your belongings and have darted out the room. You are nearly halfway down the corridor when you hear Jungkook calling after you, begging you to stop.

“Y/N! Hey, Y/N! Wait up, please!”

Your feet quicken in pace as you round the corner. Just when you think you’re free, you feel a hand clasp around your wrist and pull you back into a hardened figure. Jungkook. He’s standing so incredibly close to you now, his gaze softening as he looks you once over. You can only avoid his stare, though your eyes fall to the distraction that is his hand clamped around your wrist.

“I really am not in the mood to talk right now, Jungkook,” You mumble. “Just leave me alone.”

“What else did you smell?” Jungkook asks.

His question makes you stop. It’s what causes you to carefully lift your stare to look at him.

“What?” You stammer. “What does it matter?”

“Just tell me, please,” he says, his grip tightening around your wrist. “I need to know.”

You could have shaken your head at him, pushed him away and walked off, but the longer you stare at him, the faster you begin to cave. Your mind is instantly brought back to just moments ago and the love potion that had filled your senses. As you think about all the lovely things you could smell, you whisper the answer in a sheepish voice:

“Strawberries.”

There is a split moment where all you can see is Jungkook’s beaming grin before he is pulling you toward him for a kiss that nearly sweeps you off your feet. You collapse against his broad chest, your hands flying up to bundle in his shirt and pull at him tightly as he kisses you and kisses you. You wonder why he had done so spontaneously but then it seems to hit you.

All you can smell on Jungkook, all you can taste, is lemon, grass, and strawberries.

⟶ Feedback is always appreciated!

#btsbookclub #jungkook #jungkook fluff #jungkook x you #jungkook x y/n #jungkook x reader #bts #bts fluff #bts scenarios #jungkook scenarios #jungkook imagines #jeongguk fluff #jeon jeongguk #jeon jeongguk fluff #bts fanfic #bts oneshots #bangtan #hogwarts au bts

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lady-literature · 4 years

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Accidental Crime Boss Marinette

Okay so,, I have this AU in my head, right? (not surprised) and I’m lacking any real direction for it (still not surprised) but it basically goes like this:

Marinette moves to Gotham.

She’s drawn there for whatever reason and the kwami are saying something about balance and being a Guardian and her sacred duty and something but Marinette isn’t really listening. She’s too busy trying to find a shop front where she can open a bakery without having to worry about getting mugged every time she steps outside.

Chloé comes with her, obviously, because they’re friends and Chloé has a business degree she puts to good use actually running Mari’s bakery and online boutique while Mari gets to bake and fuck around basically. Adrien, Luka and Kagami are not there, but that’s mostly because they travel too much to settle down and keeping an empty apartment in Gotham is just asking for trouble.

Kagami is a world-renowned fencer and Luka travels the world for his music company. Not touring, but soaking up cultures and ways of life so he can make soundtracks to movies and tv shows. Providing the background and life to a film is more his style than touring the world ala his father, Jagged Stone.

Adrien is having the time of his life being Kagami’s trophy husband. He has no pressing responsibilities he doesn’t take on for himself and he gets to fuck with the world’s elite with little to no consequences. He spends most of his days donating far too much money to charities and orphanages and then causing minor scandals that land him on the cover of magazines.

He has much the same kind of ‘dumbass with a heart of gold’ persona to the media as Bruce Wayne does, only without the playboy bits.

(There is a wall in the back of the bakery, where Chloé and Mari carefully cut out and frame every headline and ridiculous picture Adrien has. He is very much delighted when he learns about his ‘wall of fame’.)

Anyway, Marinette finds herself with a bakery not overly far from crime alley, much to Chloé’s chagrin.

(“What do you mean it ‘just felt right’?! I swear to kwami, DC, you’re going to get us robbed and sold into slavery.”)

They do not get sold into salvery.

In fact, despite their less than stellar choice of locale, they do pretty well for themselves. The only problems they have (according to Chloé) is the army of children Marinette accidentally attracted.

When asked, Marinette tells everyone that it was an accident. Meanwhile, Chloé, standing behind her, will shake her head and insist there was literally never any other option for them the moment that first kid came in looking to nab some cash and a few pastries.

Mari lives by the phrases, ‘kindness breeds more kindness’ and ‘do unto others’ and all that other nice person shit. Chloé just lets Mari pseudo-adopt her strays and makes sure that they don’t steal anything too important in the time it takes her to gain their loyalty.

The kwami stay staunchly out of any arguments involving the kids (and eventually the homeless all along their street and every working girl in a five-block radius). They do so with a special brand of amusement that never means good things for either of them. (After all, the last time the kwami looked that amused, they moved to Gotham.)

The first kid is named Serrure, as Marinette comes to learn over the next month after he returns again and again, getting closer and closer like a feral cat. Other kids come during that time, all of them too small and too thin and too guarded for Mari's tastes. She wants to wrap them all up and tuck them into bed but she can’t. She has to be patient, has to be gentle. These kids are just as likely to bite her hand as they are to accept help.

Serrure becomes an almost permanent fixture at the bakery after that first month. Mari’s not quite sure what she did to get through to him, but she did, she supposes. He can’t be much older than eleven and looks nine, but after getting settled, she and Chloé discover this little slip of a boy is just as mischievous as Trixx and has all the dramatics of their favorite black cat.

The kwami, when talking about him, only refer to Serrure as Loki, even after Marinette scolds them for it. She eventually gives up trying to correct them, it’s not like Serrure talks to them anyway(yet)((that she knows of)).

There’s an apartment above the bakery, which is where Chloé and Mari and all her strays that grow to trust her enough live. It’s three bedrooms, and at first, Mari just buys as many bunk beds as she can fit into the spare room and calls it a day. The kids feel safe in her home, which isn’t too surprising. Everyone thinks the bakery feels safe, feels like home or comfort or whatever else eases their minds.

And Marinette should hopes so. She certainly put enough time and effort and magic and energy into the wards around this place for that to happen. To protect her and the children and all her strays that no one else will help.

But, she eventually amasses too many kids to fit into the one room. Chloé throws a fit about having to share with Mari again—“I had enough of that in university thank you very much”—but she relinquishes easily enough.

Mari buys more bunk beds, and Serrure has taken to sneaking into her room to curl up in her bed anyway, and sometimes the smaller kids who have nightmares will come in and pile on as well.

(There are only a few that Chloé will allow to do the same with her. It is considered a high honor and breeds a playful kind of jealousy that Chloé finds amusing. Mari scolds her for pitting the kids against each other.)

That only lasts them another two months.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Chloé tells her one day before the kids wake up. Mari is at the stove, cooking and baking for a small army while Chloé balances the books. “There’s not enough room for us all, DC, and the only reason someone hasn’t come barrelling down on us about the abundance of children is by the grace of your absurd amount of luck.”

“Well I can’t just kick them out, Queenie! What do you want from me?”

“Either we need to buy more real estate in this city—which I’d rather not do—or you open up the grimoire and start building pocket dimensions. I know you can. I’ve read the chapter.”

Marinette looks at her. “That is such a bad idea.”

They do the idea.

And then Mari adds about a thousand more wards to the bakery, carved into the wood and counter and anything that’s a permanent fixture. Doorways become particularly ward heavy, what with them being the entrances and exits to the hidden realms and children’s’ rooms.

The apartment above the bakery isn’t quite infinite but it gets pretty damn close some days.

This also means, of course, that all the kids definitely know about magic now. Some of them—Serrure—have known about it for a while she knows, but it’s different now. The kwami followed her around most of the time and she doesn’t keep them trapped in the Miracle Box like Fu did, but now that the kids know, they don’t bother staying hidden.

The children, at least, love them and the kwami adore them with all the ferocity a god can give. After Chloé gets over her ‘ew children’ phase, she throws herself into their education (on top of actually running the businesses Mari keeps, mind you). She has the help of the kwami, who act as personal tutors to the children, and it’s not long before the kids start to joke about her being the Principal.

(Some tried to call her Warden, but that joke didn’t last long.)

Marinette has also been telling the kids bedtime stories ever since this started. Old stories of the Guardian and Chosens who fought back the darkness, she shares all she knows of the Orders history with these kids and it’s not until Wayzz points it out to her does she realize what she’s doing.

“Ladybugs are known for renewal. It is no surprise that you are rebuilding what was lost.”

Rebuilding the Order using children was certainly not her intention but, well. She supposes there’s no place safer for her kids than what is shaping up to be the new Miracle Temple. It’s the only haven where they can learn to harness their Gifts and powers, it’s the only place where they can be surrounded by others like them without being thrust into superhero-dom.

Context: about a month into this whole circus, Marinette had realized there was a significant—almost all of them really—amount of metas and Gifted in her little hoard of strays. Which is… odd. Especially with how few metas there are in Gotham.

She had asked the kwami about it, and they have that amused look again. “You are their guardian.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re their guardian. True, you are the Guardian of us, of the ancient ways, but you are a guardian at your soul too. You protect what is yours, and they are yours whether you realise it or not. The children can sense that, so they flock to you.”

And, huh. She supposes that makes sense but that’s also really kind of strange and weird and she doesn't want to think about that anymore actually.

So things are… fine, Marinette supposes. The bakery is doing well, and she has about two dozen-plus helpers running around underfoot to help tend to the customers or run to the store or help in the back with the baking. And every kid of hers has new clothes, their street things thrown out for being too ragged and replaced with something fresh made by Marinette’s own hands.

She embroiders little fairy wings into the clothes normally, because that’s what her cloaked wards look like most times and the kids like it and its technically the logo for the bakery and there’s a million reasons she does it.

It is, perhaps, her first mistake.

(“It was certainly not your first,” Chloé will snark one dayin the future.)

Because now Marinette has an army of magical children learning to wield their powers and not fear them and they’re all wearing what can be considered her insignia and uh oh, it looks a lot like Mari is some sort of up and coming mob boss who uses kids and prostitutes and the homeless as runners. People on the street start calling her the Pixie, start referring to Chloé—her second in all things just as Chat had been her equal—as Wasp, as Yellowjacket, as the Unseelie.

(They cannot seem to pick a name for her, but Pixie is all but engraved in stone. Mari is not sure who coined it, and she doesn't think she wants to know.)

The first time the whole situation is brought to her attention, she punches the idiot who dared even imply such a thing so hard she knocks him out.

Because look. The kids are hers right? And she watches out for the people near her, makes sure the working girls are treated as well as they can be and offers the homeless extra food and a dry place to wait out the storm. She offers her hand and gives them all a place to rest, to eat, to exist without expectations or consequences.

She does that because she’s kind, because it hurts her to see people in need, to see them suffer, not because she’s hoping to gain something from it.

The fact that most of them repay her in gossip or information or bend her ear about the newest goings on in the corrupt elite or filthy underworld is strange, yes, but it’s nice to know what’s going on in the city, she supposes. And one time, Kathy, who works on the corner of Brookes and Gilmore, warned her of a drug raid that saved her an unnecessary trip to the police station so it’s not like it doesn't have it’s uses.

But mostly, Mari doesn't really think about all the information that’s unintentionally or otherwise passed onto her. She remembers it all, because it’s rude not to listen when people talk to her, but nothing comes of normally.

Not until Serrure—now twelve and well versed in the magic of illusions and glamors and knows almost as much about this city as her or the Bats—bursts into the bakery one day and grabs Mari away from the front counter right in the middle of a customer ordering. She should, perhaps, be a little angry at that but Tony, one of the older boys and just shy of sixteen, steps into her place almost immediately, so.

And then Serrure speaks and everything is pushed aside in favour of the next words to fall from his lips.

“Someone took Sophie,” he says and she nearly sees red.

After Serrure, Sophie has been here the longest. She is the youngest of them all, only seven, but oh so clever and kind and while she looks nothing like her, everyone calls her Mini-Mari. If Serrure is her beloved first son, Sophie is her treasured daughter.

She’s out the door in the next moment, storming her way to their base. She has Sophie and a handful of extra kids back by sunset, a little frightened, but no worse for wear. She doesn’t make a big deal out of it, besides making sure that the idiots who dared cross her never do so again, but word gets out.

Soon, her kids and teens and adults begin giving her more than just information, they begin giving her problems. Ones she’s meant to fix because she’s Pixie. She’s safety, she’s protection, she’s the one the people start to turn to for help.

And enter stage left, one Jason Todd who’s all snark and charm and smiles wrapped up in a nice leather bow and tall enough that Mari likely could climb him like a tree. If that was something she wanted, she guesses.

(She wants. She just won’t admit.)

He becomes a regular at the bakery and befriends most of her kids.

Mari’s wary when he first takes an interest in them. They’ve been hurt and a lot of them are still adjusting to being safe and it doesn't matter that this man is hot enough to burn, if he steps even a toe out of line with her kids she’ll make him wish he was never even born.

But, she stops worrying eventually. The kwami like him well enough, but seem to think something’s odd about him—but its Gotham, who isn’t strange?—and both Serrure and Sophie take to him like ducks to water and they’re both good judges of character.

There’s a certain intuition they both have that reminds Marinette just a bit too much about herself and pure magic. Not for the first time does she wonder if they got such strong magic from their parents or if it cropped up in them randomly, fostered by fortune and chance and the magic that’s so deeply seeped into the bones of her bakery it’ll be here long after she’s gone.

And, okay, so she was a little right to be wary because Jason was mostly there to investigate her. Far too many people respect her and are loyal to her and she has a veritable orphanage in her pocket and also Harley and Ivy like her and it just- it doesn’t look good right?

But Jason’s a good detective and it doesn't take him long at all to see that Mari is just as sweet and kind and loving as she appears to be. Not long after that, Red Hood declares Pixie and all of hers, under his protection. She, of course, is more than capable of taking care of her and hers, and the underworld knows this, has seen it, but he does it anyway.

The news, of course, gets back to Mari and she is… confused. Why would the Red Hood do something like that? She’s heard talk of him being sweet on kids, but to claim her? They’ve never even met.

Bonus points for Jason being there when she’s told about it. He kind of raises his eyebrow at her because, huh, that was fast, and then spends the next few minutes talking up the Red Hood to her much to her utter bafflement.

He actually keeps doing that too, talking up the Red Hood. Mari thinks he has a crush on the man for the longest time because of it. Until he reveals he is Red Hood, then she just wants to punch his stupidly handsome face for being such an idiot.

Shit happens from there and things go down and the two spend a couple of months dancing around each other and intentionally and unintentionally ruling the criminal underworld and at one point Marinette definitely punches Bruce and Batman in the face—separately, much to Jason’s unending joy—and she also definitely adopts Duke/Signal as well because that poor boy needs to know he’s not alone.

And it’s just them being domestic and badass and lowkey raising an army of children and falling in love while the kwami and the kids and Chloé are all in the background just yelling at them to get together already!

Which, they do. Eventually. After all the secrets come out and Jason knows about the magic and Order and meets Mari’s other friends, ie Kagami, Luka and Adrien who are all intimidating for wildly different reasons. And Mari finds out that Jason died and came back (which earns him the nickname firebird btw) and that he was a Robin once upon a time but is now Red Hood and oh my kwami it all makes sense now.

Jason confesses like three times via classic Victorian romance novel quotes because he’s a fucking literature nerd but it’s not until he basically spells it out for Mari does she really understand. it’s all very sweet and heartwarming and then the pair duck into one of the empty pocket dimensions they have lying around and aren’t seen for three days.

(No one really goes to look for them tbh)

Chloé definitely teases them about early honeymoons and things but besides the two being even more ridiculously lovey-dovey than usual, life goes back to normal. Or as normal as it gets for them.

And they all live happily ever after the end.

#maribat #jasonette #my typewriter #batfam #crime boss mari #miraculous ladybug #dc #mlb x dc #i was possessed by the need to write this all down #i have so many random ass moments from this au #just scenes taht barely fit together #zero coherency #let me know if yall want that ig #?

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writer-akihiko · 3 years

Note

Hello!

Can i request again?

So... Fluff really fluffy. Old Mc with Old warlords.

Please don't kill them. 😭

IkeSen Boys + Growing Old With MC

Note: The children of the warlords are taken from historical record, but please know that not all scenarios are accurate as I had named some children to fill in the children who were unnamed.

To be honest with you this is probably the longest ask I've ever done, over a period of 4 days of editing and characters so I hope you enjoy the fluffy family content! It's cut for length. Also... I couldn't add so many tags so please share it if you can!

Nobunaga Oda

You were excited for this particular day, since your oldest son, Nobutada was finally coming home from a skirmish he had settled. The Owari province was long handed over to your sons, as you and Nobunaga lived peacefully in the edges of Azuchi, away from the city.

You had waited a long time to see your children once again, although not all were in Azuchi. With 21 children in total, both adopted and from birth, most were of similar age. The only few that lived with you were your youngest daughters, Oushin and Ofuri who were adopted at the same time. Youngest was a stretch, considering they were both 19.

Your other warlord friends were due to visit soon, including Hideyoshi. Throughout your years, you never comprehended why no one interested Hideyoshi as a romantic partner. Although, your heart eased, remembering how Hideyoshi would care for your sons as if he were their own.

Your thoughts were interrupted by your husband, as he plopped next to you, taking in the serene view of the empty field. In his hand were a bag of konpeito. Hideyoshi would be angry, but you weren't so as you managed to control his candy-loving instincts. You took a few to nibble on yourself, as you leaned against your husband.

"What were you thinking of, my fireball?"

You hummed, wondering how to respond. "About the future perhaps?"

"Good," he said. "I've been thinking... I wouldn't change a thing. But..."

You leaned into him, tickling the hairs of his neck. He flinched away, peppering you in kisses in retaliation as he continued his thought. "I want to travel once again, with you."

"I won't say no... But why not travel for longer?"

The moment your friends gathered, you and your husband announced your decision. Your children were surprised but the older warlords weren't. Masamune also teased Nobunaga, saying how he grew tired of a tranquil life. It wasn't long before you contacted Motonari, and the Oda couple were due to sail to Portugal.

"My years with you gave me the greatest life, YN."

Hideyoshi Toyotomi

It was not long before the day of your 20th marriage anniversary with Hideyoshi, but you woke up to a missing husband. Hideyoshi, being the way that he is, never stopped working for Nobunaga. Years went by, and you and Hideyoshi had a family of two sons, Hideyori and Tsurumatsu.

Your oldest son, Tsurumatsu, welcomed you instead in the morning. Your oldest was the spitting image of Hideyoshi, except that he took your eyes. It was as if you were looking at a younger Hideyoshi, and you commented on it, "With a sword like that, you remind me of your father..."

Your son's attitude however, resembled Ieyasu more than anything. Well... Ieyasu was his favourite warlord uncle when growing up. Tsurumatsu denied any of the sort, and insisted he accompanied you around Azuchi. You were internally grateful that your sons took after your husband's gentleman-like attitude, although at times when living in an estate with all three, it could get overbearing...

As you looked over the local fabrics, your hands traced over a fabric that you thought would suit all three of your boys.

"Princess YN?"

"Lord Mitsuhide!" Your son quickly bowed to the other warlord, but Mitsuhide gave him the respect to get up. The sudden appearance of the two bachelors, one older than the other, caused an uproar of the unmarried women of the market. It got you to think why Mitsuhide never settled down...

Your trip with your son ended in the front gates, where your younger son Hideyori and your husband Hideyoshi stood. Hideyoshi welcomed you wholeheartedly.

Hideyoshi escorted you around town, and you held onto his arm as you did before, and you two reminisced about the memories you had in the town together.

"20 years married..." You muttered. "Time flies huh? The boys have the townswomen swooning over them just like you did back then..."

"I only had eyes for you, YN..." He said. You huffed, teasing him about how he was in denial about his feelings the entire time. Hideyoshi grew red at your teasing, with you pulling him down to your level, kissing him on the cheek.

"For these 20 years with me YN... Thank you for telling me to live and staying with me."

Mitsunari Ishida

Your life never slowed down despite Mitsunari's calm approach to life. It was a joyous occasion for the Ishida clan throughout the years as you and Mitsunari had a wonderfully, large family of you both and 6 children.

Mitsunari still worked under Hideyoshi, with your third son Sakichi following in his footsteps. The week was busy, with you preparing for two weddings for your second and third daughter.

All your 6 children followed in the steps of Mitsunari in terms of worshipping Ieyasu. It was so much so, that one of your son-in-laws was Senchiyo Tokugawa. The warlords were long gone with their aggressions, so you were surprised when Mitsunari and Ieyasu arranged Kennyo to officiate the marriage.

Kennyo had been a neutral force after the birth of your first son Shigenari, as he even offered to bless your child. Kennyo himself never settled down, but he focused on rebuilding the temples instead. Mitsunari was quite the supporter, but Hideyoshi let an insight that it meant a lot to him since before Mitsunari studied in a temple.

You and Mitsunari returned home after a long shopping trip with the two oldest sons, Shigenari and Shigeie. Mitsunari nowadays forgot his things more and more, but his hatred for carrots continued. Your sons disappeared somewhere else to eat their carrot snacks, as you sat with Mitsunari in his study.

"You've never changed, Mitsunari..." You said, preparing some tea for him.

He reached out to your own hand, helping you pour. "I'm sure I'm improving on my tea manners!"

The silence never settled between you two, as no matter how much time had passed, you two never ran out of topics to run out of. You comforted Mitsunari as he confessed how sullen he felt about your daughters leaving.

"If anything... YN, in my time with you... Thank you for marrying me."

Mitsuhide Akechi

You moved to Tanba permanently, and you gave up your rank as Princess. With Mitsuhide gone for his missions, you'd answer to the other warlords. Somehow, it lead you to the title of 'Lady Akechi'.

It wasn't long before your first daughter, Tama, was to come of age. Mitsuhide was a private man, so it was only to be held with the other warlords and your entire family. You and Mitsuhide had a small family, but they were equally cherished by the others.

Yoshimoto arrived at Tanba earlier than expected. You had become fast friends with him, despite Mitsuhide's dislike. You had reassured him multiple times that Yoshimoto had no interest in you, but at times you had questioned why Yoshimoto never married...

"Tama! Yoshimoto is here!" You called out for your daughter. She was most likely with your youngest daughter... Yoshimoto had agreed to come and help Tama put together her hair, with the accessories he had collected.

It was not long before your daughter was finished, and by that time Mitsuhide with your eldest son, Mitsuyoshi, returned. No matter how many people were in the estate, your husband kissed you on the cheek, as it was customary to do.

Mitsuyoshi made faces, but was silenced by his much more mature, younger sister. Yoshimoto was quick to escort the three siblings outside, where Kyubei was waiting to bring his Lord's family to Nobunaga's Castle.

"Mou... Mitsuhide, the children are waiting... It's Tama's day today..." You muttered, as he continued to kiss you.

"Our children are adults, YN..." He said, holding you close. "Let your husband indulge in you for one more kiss... For now, and all our coming years..."

Ieyasu Tokugawa

In celebration, you decided to throw a banquet for Ieyasu as he announced he was stepping down from work. It was lively at home, with 16 children and a small army of rescued deer over the year helping you to decorate the house. You and Ieyasu, besides the deer, adopted children over your 20 years of marriage who soon became close with your 6 biological children.

You hurried to prepare the grand hall, but before you could fully lift the box full of tapestries, it was quickly carried away.

"Mama... You're not allowed to carry heavy things anymore," A blond man told you off, as two other men carried the vases away.

"Nobuyasu... Ogimaru... Hidetada..." You smiled at your three eldest sons. Ah, your heart warmed at how considerate they've become. It made you feel like a proud mother... "You three returned from Kenshin's lessons?"

The gap between the Oda and Uesugi-Takeda forces closed, and Kenshin grew close to your family. He never had children of his own, so you were enthusiastic when Kenshin treated your eleven sons as his own, even taking some to learn the sword by him.

"Mama! Don't be distracted! Let us fix you up!"

From behind you, your five daughters swarmed you, wrapping you up in a cloth you sure you bought this week... and it was untrimmed...

"Tokuhime! I haven't trimmed that cloth!" You turned to your other daughters, who were also holding makeup paints and hairpins. "Kamehime! Ichihime! You don't have to throw your jewellery to get my attention!"

"Mou... Mama, Father will be so happy to see you dressed up~" Your third daughter, Furihime chimed.

Matsuhime, the fourth daughter, joined in. "Without our help, your kimono might be too old fashioned Mama..."

Oh... Things were lively with all your children back at home... Your sons finished decorating the hall, and as a token you decided to do your daughters' hair to match them to your hairstyle.

You were last to enter the hall, as the boys wanted to greet their father first. Your daughters entered next, and all Ieyasu saw through them was you, and the way you raised them made them blossom into the people they were today. When you entered... he swore he stopped breathing.

"YN... My wife..." Not much was said after, but the blush on his face was enough to show how much he loved it, as well as his hand gripping onto yours tracing every finger of it.

Masamune Date

You would like to think that your life grew much more peaceful, but with a chaotic husband like Masamune, and four equally chaotic children like him. The Date forces as a whole were also chaotic. It was safe to say that Lady Date was one who took care of them all, no matter how big or small.

It gave your husband the great idea of planning a surprise birthday party for you with his children. As a warlord, he was not Ishida Mitsunari but he could still plan a well thought-out strategy...

"Irohahime, Muuhime, you are to distract your mother at the market. Kojuro will give the signal when we're ready."

They nodded. "Yes Dad."

"Hidemune, Tadamune. You know when to start the fight," He reiterated.

"Yes Da-"

Ieyasu, who came earlier as a guest, spoke up. "Why am I a part of this?"

"YN will only break a fight if it involves people outside our family," Masamune explained, flexing his arm. "She knows we're tough as nails..."

Ieyasu Tokugawa remained a bachelor, although he never explained why he didn't. Masamune had a little bit of a hunch, but he isn't one to pry. Ieyasu was an undeniable favourite of his daughter Muuhime, who gained an affinity for medicine.

"Tough as nails?"

Your family was dumbfounded that you stepped in the decorated hall, with your husband and children, with Ieyasu in the corner with a bowl of spicy soup. Kojuro had kindly lead Lady Date into the hall, despite of the plan as no one in the Date palace dared to defy YN LN.

For a room full of adults, your family at the moment were not acting like one. It was typical, but you had to wonder what the fuss was all about. Tadamune, the closest to you, was someone who couldn't lie to you, and told you the truth. It ended quite simply, as you insisted to help prepare.

In the kitchen with Masamune brought back memories. The whole time you and your husband were cooking, you played around with the ingredients as you did back then.

"My wife... you have a little flour on your face. Should I wipe it with my fingers or..." He wrapped his arms your waist, brushing his lips on your ear. "Kiss it away myself?"

Ranmaru Mori

You and Ranmaru decided to leave the Oda forces once you both got married. Ranmaru was mainly the reason, as he wanted to keep a neutral stance for your safety.

Ranmaru grew much taller over the years, but he wasn't as towering as the other warlords. You didn't mind as much except for the period of measuring out new kimonos for him. You both lead a quaint life, with Ranmaru working as your courier for your sewing work.

You and Ranmaru never had any children of your own, instead opting to become foster parents to other children whose parents were in war efforts or children that were orphaned from incidents.

Many children came and went, some of them leaving and never returning but there were the few that stayed. Ranmaru was still actively talking to the other warlords through letters, so you weren't surprised when he said that he intended to take you back to Azuchi for peach season.

It was no surprise that Hideyoshi gathered the entire town of Azuchi to welcome you both. It was nice to meet friends you had missed, as well as the daughters of the warlords you worked for. They awed at you, but to you it was as if you had adopted many, many girls resembling your friends.

"YN-hime! Etto... Do we call you YN-hime?" Tatsuhime, the oldest daughter of Mitsunari, asked.

"Of course! Even if she's not in Azuchi Castle, all our uncles say that she's the best princess!" Tokuhime, Nobunaga's oldest daughter, chimed in. "I may be Azuchi's princess but I can't fathom comparing myself to YN-hime!"

You shushed the girls, getting overwhelmed easily by the compliments and praises showered on you. You gave a peak to Ranmaru as a plea for help, but he added the cherry on top to the compliments instead.

"YN, YN... You know you're the best princess in my eyes!" He said, kissing your hand.

You were sure Ieyasu's daughters poked at their father with teasing of following Ranmaru's example. Others, like Mitsuhide's and Masamune's daughters, began to swoon that Ranmaru was more romantic than their fathers.

"I think that's enough Ranmaru... Let's save the romantic lines for our walk in the garden..."

Keiji Maeda

Oh what memories you had with Keiji over the years... For one, you were glad that the allegiance between the Oda and Uesugi-Takeda worked out, as you and Keiji decided to live together during that time.

You were shortly married after, with Keiji inviting Naoe as well, which lead to Kenshin being invited... plus Sasuke and Yukimura... not to mention Shingen as well... In the end it resulted in another gathering between the Oda and Uesugi-Takeda which you were glad didn't turn out violent.

Keiji was quite the family man himself, for after 20 years of marriage you had raised 10 children together, with 4 biological children and 6 adopted children. They had all grown up, married off to someone they love, leaving the once rowdy house now empty and quiet.

Keiji never stopped supporting Nobunaga, working almost as much as Hideyoshi on some days. You lived quietly, occasionally accompanying the wives of the other warlords as you never gave up your title as Azuchi's Princess, but it was obvious that you missed your entire family.

Keiji was always good with knowing your mood. Much to your surprise, you came back to an empty estate... but there were voices? One roaring voice sent you running to the main hall, where you opened the doors and there were your children, sitting around their father as he told more of his old war stories.

Overwhelmed with emotion, you shed a few tears as each of your children went up and hugged you.

"It's been so long my children..." You said as you hugged your two daughters.

"Mom, don't cry! If you cry... I'm gonna cry too!" Your first son, Keita wailed. He was taller than his father but it was quick to see that Keita, and much of the large boys of the family treasured you as their mother.

"Hoi hoi you rascals!" Keiji called out, getting up to walk to you. "Your monstrous heights would crush your mother!"

You moved into a hug with your husband, feeling Keiji lift you up. "My dear... they wouldn't," You grinned, finally laughing. "Keiji... Thank you for bringing our family together."

Kenshin Uesugi

Being crowned Lady Uesugi, you and Kenshin got busier and busier every year. It was an occurrence for the scribes of Kasugayama Castle to trail your relationship with Kenshin, as by the end of the day, it was a habit of his to take you on a stroll with your many, many bunnies.

There was not a soul in Echigo that did not hear of your marriage, Many were welcomed, but at the time no one thought that there would be a larger party than this. That was... until it was announced that you were pregnant.

It was an uproar, especially with Kenshin going around to everyone, saying how you were with child. To your surprise, your family of supposed three become a family of four as you were blessed with twins.

Kasugayama Castle was the home of your twins, Kagetora and Kagekatsu. Kenshin was proud of them, and they grew up to follow in their father's footsteps to take over the Uesugi clan... or that's what you thought until you realised how stubborn your husband was. He was making them work hard for it in their teen years when they expressed their interest in it.

Ah, but of course... Your three boys would always recharge with you, talking about their day. If one thing, they never learnt to share...

"What? You're drinking tea with Mama? But I wanted to show her the fabrics the merchants showed me!" Kagetora yelled at his older twin. Besides sword fighting, he grew up with an interest towards strategy, which was under Mitsunari's influence. He visited as often as he could, but you wonder if someone would ever catch Mitsunari's eye...

"An oaf like you wouldn't know how to brew tea like this for Mama..." Kagekatsu retorted, setting the pot down. He gained an interest for elegant arts similar to his father, and of course his favourite uncle is Yoshimoto.

Both glared at each other, but it was not long before the God of War entered the garden, with his many bunnies. "And why are you bothering my wife?"

"Father! Don't talk as if we're strangers! We're your sons and we wanna spend time with Mama too!" Kagetora retorted.

Kenshin drew his blade, challenging his sons that the winner gets to spend the afternoon with you.

"Ehem!" You coughed out, folding your kimono under you. "Boys, what's my number one rule in the garden?"

"No fighting and no swords..." Kagekatsu muttered.

"That's right," You said, taking a cup for yourself. "Now, why don't we all just sit down and have some tea?"

Sasuke Sarutobi

You and Sasuke didn't rush your lives in the Sengoku, since coming from the future meant a busy livelihood. You both agreed that when you both grew older, you would relax a little and not worry about the larger things in life.

Sasuke kept you in Echigo, as you stayed close to him and his other friends. You both had no intention of moving, but you did have an idea to own an estate to yourselves. There was no intention of children from both of you, so you decided to become foster parents to children with majority of their families at war.

You had only fostered about 3 children, but similarly, they too had extended families that they stayed with instead. The both of you learnt how to let go, ever since staying here, but that was something you both grew from. Finding out you both let go of the children you cared for, Yukimura had asked if you were interested in taking in his nephews and niece.

Yukimura himself never married, and you never asked, but he was a dear friend that you and Sasuke would sacrifice a lot for. Yukimura's orphaned nephews and niece were quickly known as your children, and Sasuke would always read them Physics Theorems as a bed time story...

It was a joyous occasion whenever those three would come back, and sooner by that time you realised you had gotten older. There was a small room where you and Sasuke kept your modern items, coincidentally was the room you would often have tea in.

You sighed, taking another bite of your bun. "Sasuke... I know we've lived quietly, but I've wanted to know if you ever wanted to return?"

"There's nothing I would've changed, YN... Not a single thing." He smiled, brushing his hand over yours. "Maybe... maybe there's another timeline, but you're in this one so it's where I am."

Kanetsugu Naoe

He continued to serve his years under Kenshin's reign, but then it was a moment of realisation of how time passed when you told him you were pregnant. It was a moment of stress for him, as he wasn't knowledgeable on the process.

It was recorded by the scribes of Kasugayama Castle that when Azuchi's Princess gave birth, Kanetsugu shed tears as if it were raining. That is to say, he cried a lot. You had a son, Kanetsuna. Much like his father, your son grew up to admire the line of Kenshin Uesugi, becoming close friends with Kagekatsu and Kagetora Uesugi.

Those three went off adventuring so much, it often worried you. Kanetsugu, with his curt self, would reassure you in his own way. It wouldn't help you much, since Kanetsugu would also talk about how helpful Kanetsuna was being towards the Uesugi family line.

You always busied yourself with your sewing, so you often used your son as a model to model your kimonos after. Kanetsuna never had an interest in fashion, but he would always walk up to women in the streets to go and buy your kimonos whenever you would open the shop.

Needless to say, most thought you were available for a marriage interview instead. Kanetsugu was surprised to see you carry home so many letters addressed to your son. Somehow, he was proud but wary.

"How did our son even resemble Shingen's charm? I'm aware he has my looks, but this is a bit much..." He adjusted the glasses he wore, taking more letters off your arms.

"Our son is of age, Kanetsugu and don't flatter yourself too much," You said, setting the letters aside. "You weren't a charmer but you steered clear of women..."

He turned red when you brought up his past self. His blush went away the moment you kissed him cheek, wrapping your arms around your husband. "It's alright, my husband... I certainly fell hard for you."

Shingen Takeda

How you lived in bliss with Shingen... It was not long before Kai was returned to Shingen, and he worked hard to build it up from the state that it was left in. Shingen created a loving community in Kai, and it was no question a homely place for you and him. Nobunaga claimed that the crops he gifted on your wedding were a gift, and you thanked him for that. Despite the time that passed, Nobunaga never took a spouse, so you wondered when he would marry too.

The whole community was in joy when you were with child, which prompted Shingen to throw an entire festival to bless your first born. Years went by, and you bore four sons for Shingen. Kai was now famous for its festivals, since Shingen insisted on one for every child you both had.

Kai, in turn, had a festival for every season and every son, with each having their birthdays in a particular season. Katsuyori was in the summer, Harukiyo was in the spring, Nobuchika was in Autumn and Yoshinobu was in Winter. The particular festival this time around was for Nobuchika, your second son and his 20th birthday.

You sighed, remembering the times the boys were younger. How they would run around, and how Shingen would swing them around hanging off his biceps. It was about 20 years of marriage, so you could still attest that he had the biceps, but your sons were far too tall to swing off their father's arm.

"Remember how they would swing on my arm?" Shingen said to you, taking a bite of a sweet bun.

"Mhm... Katsuyori would always fall off..." You replied, sipping your tea. The both of you watched as the new generation of the Kai people set up the tents, and raked the leaves off the walkways for the guests. "But Nobuchika was very stubborn..."

"It was always adorable how you'd panic, my Goddess..." He teased, pulling you close. "Not like I minded... Ah, and how Yoshinobu would sleep on Koro's back..."

The teasing was uncalled for, but Shingen couldn't stop swaddling you in his arms, relishing you in his kisses. You laughed, and your gleeful smile is one he'd always want to see on you.

Harukiyo, the youngest, nudge his other brothers. "Hey... Do they know that we're still here?"

The other three shook their heads.

Yukimura Sanada

Throughout the years, you and Yuki had 11 children together, with a mix of adopted and biological children. You were surprised that Yuki even had the confidence to take care of so many children with you, since Yuki wasn't exactly a paternal type either...

Another thing was, out of 11 children, you only had four sons... with very similar names that you can't help but give nicknames to them!

"Yuki! Dai! Help your sisters carry this heavy pot!" You yelled. In a rush, four young adults plus your husband came from their training, spears in hand, at your call to the garden.

You always wondered why Yuki insisted on naming two sons Yukichika and Yukinobu and the other two Daihachi and Daisuke. It always confused the others, especially Shingen when he couldn't tell them apart.

Besides that, all of your children had gained a love for some kind of weaponry. The only exception was your oldest, Kiku, who decided to become a healer instead. You fully supported their interests, but you still had to lay down some ground rules about weapons...

It wasn't long before three of your girls came back with Sasuke. Sasuke continued to be a favourite of the Sanada family, especially with the triplets, Okane, Oshobu and Oume, who had an affinity for throwing stars and knives. The last three girls, Ichi, Naho and Akuri were fans of archery instead, which their father taught them as well.

Speaking of Sasuke, you were glad that he treated the children as his own. You never asked why he never did adopt a few, or get married, but you were sure it wasn't right to pry.

It was always a big dinner with the Sanada family, but after dinner Yukimura would always take you somewhere else, be it the study or the garden, for his alone time with you.

"Time passes by huh..." You muttered, reaching in the tiny jar of fish snacks.

Yuki hummed, stroking Muramasa's coat as he listened to how your day went. No longer did he insult you as often as he did, but that boyish attitude of his never changed.

"Oh by the way... I arranged a marriage interview with Kiku and Katsuyori!"

Yuki spat out his drink. "T-Takeda Katsuyori?"

You hummed. "Kiku really likes him, and the feelings are mutual so-"

Not a word was to be said about what Yukimura screamed. Except for the fact that you replied with, "Kiku is 23 years old."

Yoshimoto Imagawa

Yoshimoto wasn't someone you'd imagine wanting a family, but then you realised that Yoshimoto really wanted to pamper any children you had. It was a slow process, but over the years, you both had 5 children, with 4 daughters and a son.

Your four daughters were well-known for their beauty, especially with mentions of their lineage as the phrase of 'Elegance of Imagawa and Beauty of Azuchi's Princess' was repeated several times over. Yoshimoto would not stop gushing over his own children, no matter how old they were.

Your only son, Ujizane was much more interested in becoming someone like Yukimura but he was also famous for his calligraphy works. It was an understatement how many pieces were commissioned by Kenshin and Masamune.

Yoshimoto however, has no concept of approaching romance when it came to his own child. He so happened to eavesdrop your conversation with your second daughter, Reishou.

"Ah! I can't look at him Mother! He's... He's very charming!" The usual stoic Reishou hid her face in her hands, her body swaying back and forth.

"Now... did you send him that letter I told you to do?" You said, patting her on the back. "Yoshinobu was it? He's a nice man..."

"But... But... the messenger accidentally sent it to Harukiyo Takeda! He mixed up the wrong brother..." Reishou told you, tears coming from her eyes. You wiped them away, hugging her close, and telling her it was going to be alright.

"Father? What are you doing in front Reishou's room?" His first daughter, Chotoku, asked, a hand to her hip in wonder. She wasn't as quiet as her father, her mannerisms and voice loud and clear. The 'eep' from the room was enough for him to bow down in shame as he saw you exit Reishou's room.

You ushered Chotoku to comfort her younger sister, as you dragged your husband somewhere else.

"Now Yoshimoto... you should apologise to your daughter," You said, finishing your lecture about why he shouldn't listen in. He pressed his head to floor as he listened, bowing to you as you went on about how he should be supportive.

"I... I understand my wife. Thank you..." He said.

"With that said... The five of you can come in now. I'm done with the scolding..."

Oh, the embarrassment he felt...

Kennyo

He was embarrassed to tell you that he had planned out his future with you when you found him pacing around about names for your future children. You and Kennyo lived in the reconstructed Honno-ji Temple as a wedding gift from the Oda forces.

There was no further issues between Kennyo and the others. After all, they were getting older and no one would want to make you upset. You were still friends with many of them, especially with Ranmaru. He was someone who would deliver the gifts from the warlords to you, especially when you were with child.

Kennyo was ecstatic when you were pregnant, but he was scared. Looking back then, Kennyo would get shy whenever you'd bring it up. You however, would tell him not to worry as he was a great father to your three sons.

Kyounyo, Junnyo and Kenson followed in their father's footsteps, specialising in several different aspects of the religion. Kenson, the youngest of all three however, was the most interested in travelling, most likely from the stories he'd hear from Ranmaru and Motonari.

Your three children easily mingled with Motonari's, but you always wondered why Ranmaru never settled down. He was still doing his own work, which worried you enough as he was almost a workaholic like Hideyoshi.

Kennyo's birthday rolled around, so you decided to make a special party for your husband. As you focused on the food, you tasked your three sons with work to distract their father as Kennyo's other subordinates helped with the preparation.

"Father! I wanted to ask you about this text!" Kenson carried papers about a sermon to his father, as he saw his father exit the main temple with a package in hand.

He held out his hand to his son's head, ruffling his hair. "I'm afraid not today, my son. I have to see your mother."

"Wait, but father-!"

One by one, they all failed and the surprise was ruined, but Kennyo wasn't aware of what he had done. He was so focused on giving you the said package. He only notice what he did when he saw the disappointed face of his wife, a face he was indeed weak to.

"YN-! Apologies my wife... I'll pretend as if nothing happened..."

"Father... Father has a one track mind huh..." The sons whispered amongst themselves.

Kichou

You never imagined finding a place where you and Kichou belonged. After all, your relationship in itself was out of place from your other friends. That was, until Motonari asked if you both wanted to travel around the world. You were on board, and after much prying, you and Kichou were travelling around Asia.

Most of your post-wedding years was spent with Kichou travelling to many places, although you would say that you both found a place in what you know today in modern Japan as Shikoku. The Island was not far off Motonari's reach, so you had some familiarity with it.

There was no rush to start a family straight away, especially considering that you moved away from the friends you were accustomed to. Kichou's work wasn't interrupted at all, but he did ask Motonari to help you out with finding what suited you. Somehow, someway, the assistance popularised your kimono work not to mention your fans from Azuchi and Echigo travelling to commission your work.

It was smooth sailing financially, and sooner down the line, Kichou asked if it were alright to adopt children. You agreed, and you found yourself raising a pair of twins with Kichou. They were fraternal twins, but they were quick to adapt to you and Kichou's home.

Kichou enjoyed the family life much more than he thought he would, and he realised it the moment you said your son expressed an interest in marriage to one of the village girls.

Your son, Yoshitatsu, bowed to his father as Kichou listened to his appeal. Kichou was loving but at the same time, he was strict with the twins.

"Father! Please let me marry this girl!" He bowed deeper, pressing his palms to the floor.

Your daughter, Myoinni wasn't around since she decided to be a part of the Uesugi army. Your son instead focused on business, which you assumed was where he met this girl.

Kichou was silent, but a soft nod was enough for your son to jump with glee. You rubbed your hand over his, giving him a kiss on the jaw. You felt him lean into you, so of course you praised your husband. "Kichou... You did well."

Motonari Mori

He was someone who you thought wouldn't be one to settle down, but Motonari was much more attentive than you thought. He knew that one day, he'd have to stop but he'd want to make sure that you were alright with whatever landing spot you chose to stay at.

After much deciding, you and him reached an end point of perhaps moving to the Aki province, his hometown. At first, he was uptight about it since he didn't want his family to meddle with you. He wanted to keep you away but the way you loved his hometown... He couldn't help it.

He had to gain control of his clan before he brought you in... Although it was a faster process than expected since you were pregnant... Which was not planned...

It took about a year for Motonari to accomplish it, but by his will he was going to make life comfortable for you and your first son, Takamoto. It was great for you and Motonari then on, and most in the Aki Province knew you as Lady Mori. You and Motonari may have also adopted a few children, totalling your children over the years to 12.

There wasn't much to complain about... except for the fact that Motonari had a naming gig... Which made things difficult...

"Moto! Help me with this-"

6 boys... and your husband... came running... Then you had to choose which one to help you and it wasn't even all of the children. "No no... I only wanted Motoaki to help me..." You said.

The other boys and your husband made protests about it, asking why you wanted that specific brother.

"What? Is it because Motoaki's good at arithmetic?" Motoharu asked.

"Like you could ever do arithmetic..."

"Shut up Motoyasu!"

"Oh yeah? Fight me Motomasa!"

"How undignified..."

"Don't try to be the proper one here Motokiyo!"

Motonari was the one who could break up the fight, but he didn't want to. You sighed, going back inside where your three daughters were as your nine sons and Motonari battled it out...

"Girls, let's go out to eat..."

321 notes · View notes

roanniom · 4 years

Text

The Night That Follows

Poe Dameron x Reader

Word Count: 8,000~

Summary: While celebrating a successful mission, you and Poe accidently ingest a mysterious beverage that makes it hard to resist one another, helping you forget the stress that weighs you down and the friendship that you’ve been holding between you two as a shield.

Note: This is my first ever non-ADCU fic and it is dedicated to the ever lovely and supportive @paper-n-ashes who urged me to get out of my comfort zone and cheered me on.

Warnings: NSFW, dirty talk, alcohol consumption, sex pollen, drugged drink (it’s drugged with the sex pollen by a 3rd party and not with malicious intent but it still might be triggering), masturbation (f/m), PIV sex, unprotected sex, war-related angst

When people talk about war, they often discuss the paralyzing fear, the numbing depression. Hopelessness that spreads through your veins like cold water as you face immeasurable odds and stare death in the face day after day. And you can attest to these feelings. You experience them with each dawn that breaks, muddy in the sky regardless of the atmosphere shrouding whatever planet you find yourself waking on each morning. Your life is transient, full of ships and bases and camps. The constants are the clothes on your back, the friends in your squadron (those who survive), and the x-wing you hop in each time danger calls.

The other constant is the part of war that people do not discuss. The rush of adrenaline every time you make it out of a tough scrape. Adrenaline that burns your veins, evaporating the icy hopelessness that had flooded you up until the minute your boots hit turf and your jellied knees catch up to the reality that you are still very much alive. The euphoria that crackles in your brain when you spy your best mate zooming down from above, finally landing and throwing themselves into your arms in the hug you never thought you’d experience again after their coms had gone down in a fire fight. The absolute debauchery of a night of celebration after such a fire fight. Because nobody needs to live quite as much as those who may die.

Which is how you find yourself here, on this non-descript jungle planet, the name of which you didn’t catch during your descent because honestly there have been so many jungle planets and they have all become little more than coordinates on a screen to you at this point. You and your squad have been set up with a mini-festival by the resistance-sympathizing locals as a thank you for your recent decimation of their First Order oppressors. The operation had been pretty seamless, thanks in no small part to the excellent teamwork between you and a one Poe Dameron.

Your flying today had rivaled some of his best, which is certainly saying something since Poe prides himself on being the best pilot in the resistance. You certainly gave him a run for his money, outflying TIE fighters and swiveling shuttle cannons in a perfectly choreographed tandem maneuver wherein the two of you manipulated your assailants to ultimately destroy themselves.

As you knock back a burning shot of the local alcoholic beverage, the liquid tingling and warming you all the way down, you search the triumphant crowd for the cocky pilot who had helped you set the stage for this celebration. You wouldn’t dwell on the earlier events of the day much more tonight. Wouldn’t think much of the comrades you’d lost in the struggle. That was an ache that would throb back to life tomorrow. Tonight, the priority is living.

It is then that you lock eyes with Poe Dameron through the throngs of semi-drunken revelers. His handsome face splits into a wide, cocky grin, so you adopt an exasperated smirk in response as he pushes his way towards you. Such is the game you play. A dance, if you will. Poe plays the role of the self-assured, overly confident golden boy while you, his long suffering partner, humble him with your good-natured criticism and ever rolling eyes.

“Alright there, Sweets?” Poe practically drawls as he reaches you, the nickname both a term of endearment and a teasing reference to the sweet tooth that keeps you hoarding candies of all kinds in your bunk, much to Poe’s own benefit. You beam up at him and upend your little glass to demonstrate its emptiness.

“On my way there, Fly Boy.”

“Looks like you’re falling behind, rookie. Like you did on that triple barrel twist today.”

You throw a punch that lands a little too lightly on his shoulder to produce the grunt and showy flail that he graces you with.

“First of all, you’re not allowed to call me rookie anymore. Your dumb ass might need to be constantly reassured that you’re ‘best pilot in the resistance,’ but by now I am, at worst, second best.” Your gut warms and you’re not sure if it’s the drink or Poe’s deep, full-bodied laugh in response. “And second of all, we don’t talk about the day if we make it to the night.”

Poe almost seems to sober at your words, a phrase of his tossed back at him. The smile remains, though, and he tosses an arm around you before dragging you over to the table that’s been set up with refreshments.

“Right you are, Sweets,” Poe agrees quietly. Louder now and injecting you two into the crowd surrounding the cluster of bottles, he continues, “as for you being second best pilot, I’d rather let the squad decide before you go getting a head too big to fit in your helmet.”

This receives a laugh from the crowd as well as another smattering of slaps thrown towards Poe’s chest.

“Dameron, we all know you already have your own helmet custom made so you can stuff that massive ego in there,” your friend Myrna.

“And those curls,” you add, reaching up and ruffling your hand through his hair in that way that always makes his nose scrunch up in mock anger.

“If you must know, there’s something else they also have to custom make me…” Poe says, grabbing your wrist and forcing your hand to slide down his chest towards the bottom of his flight suit zipper and wiggling his eyebrows. You shriek and yank your hand away.

“In your dreams, Dameron.” Poe leans down toward you so that his face is close enough for you to feel his breath fan across your cheeks.

“Or perhaps in yours?”

Suddenly a small, wrinkled face appears between you. It’s an elderly female member of the local alien race and she’s beaming up at you, holding two steaming mugs and smiling around a garbled statement in a language you don’t recognize.

“Oh I’m sorry, I’m not sure I…” you interrupt her, glancing awkwardly between her massive eyes and Poe’s confused ones.

“I might be able to translate!” Myrna cries out, stumbling forward with a newly refilled glass in her hand.

“You sure that’s not just the liquor talking?” Poe asks with a chuckle. Myrna waves him off and kneels unsteadily to listen to the old woman. More garbled speech issues forward as the woman gestures between you and Poe with her mugs. Myrna nods several times and gives little hums of agreement and affirmation. You and Poe trade glances of amusement during the interaction, but you have to look away when the upturned corner of Poe’s mouth begins to distract you.

“Alright alright,” Myrna pipes up. You turn back in time to see Myrna standing back up to her full height, now holding the two mugs, while the woman waddles back into the crowd.

“What’s the deal?” Poe asks, slinging his arm back around your shoulders. You resist the knee jerk actions that come to mind, both to slap his touch away and to lean into it, standing rigid instead.

“She said these are for you,” Myrna says, pushing the steaming mugs into your hands and Poe’s.

“Did she say why?” You peer at the milky, opalescent contents curiously. Myrna has already moved on, however, turning back to the pilot she’d been hanging on before you and Poe had approached. You look to Poe but he shrugs.

“I don’t know, something about you guys deserving it.” Myrna waves her hand dismissively, obviously ready to get back to her own evening. You look up at Poe, unsure, but he’s nodding and smiling.

“Hear that, Sweets? Seems like word travels fast that we’re the top two pilots,” Poe says cheekily, clinking his mug to yours before throwing back his head and downing its contents in one gulp. Your insides ignite at his acknowledgment, as well as the bob of his adam’s apple, but your eyes still flit warily to your beverage.

“We don’t even know what it is and you’re drinking it?”

“Honey, I’m pretty sure that liquor we were taking shots of earlier was actually jet fuel, I don’t think we need to be too worried about this.” Poe smacks his lips and runs his finger around the inside of the mug. “And besides, it’s really kriffing good.”

Watching the way his cheeks hollow out as he sucks the last dregs of his drink from his finger makes a heat boil in the pit of the stomach. You decide you actually are quite thirsty, and since your curiosity is stronger than your apprehension, you knock the liquid back yourself.

“Atta girl!” Poe cheers you on, nudging you. The drink is sweet and thick on your tongue like a melted version of the ice cream you’d tasted once, many years ago. You can still remember the creamy texture, very much worth the credits paid to the traveling vendor who’d brought it to your village during the hottest summer of your childhood. As you swallow this liquid down, however, its cold temperature changes into a burn, similar to alcohol, though smoother than any liquor you’d ever had.

“Good, right?” Poe asks, eyebrows raised. You nod and lick your lips, sure that you’re imagining things when Poe’s eyes flicker down to your darting tongue.

“That was actually pretty good,” you concede with a grin.

“So what have we learned tonight?” Poe prompts, grabbing your mug from your hands and placing it next to his on a nearby table. You shake your head.

“Your cockiness extends to believing locals on a miniscule planet find you special?”

“The correct answer was ‘always give things a chance,’ Sweets, but you can continue being closeminded if you want,” Poe responds with a chuckle. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and makes to walk away.

“Fine!” You reach out and grab his arm before he can leave. When he rounds back on you with a wide smile you roll your eyes and refuse eye contact. “And just so you know, I’m a lot more open minded than you think, Dameron.”

“Is that so, rookie?” You bristle but as the glee raises in his eyes at your reaction you do your best to tamp it down.

“I’m…flexible,” you say, your grin begrudging. A hubbub breaks out beyond you in the crowd as the makeshift band that had assembled to play party music transitions to a particularly festive song, causing both you and Poe to watch as people begin forming an impromptu dance floor. When Poe turns back at you and raises his eyebrows, expectant, you throw up your hands defensively.

“No. Don’t look at me like that, Fly Boy,” you’re quick to say, but Poe’s even quicker, having already grabbed you by the hand and pulled you to him. Your body collides with his and his other hand finds the dip of your waist.

“Oh I’m sorry, what was that I just heard someone say about being open minded?” Poe asks. In a sudden fluid motion he dips you, bending you over so that your back is parallel to the ground and his face hovers over yours. “Being flexible?”

You let him pull you back up and steady yourself with a hand on his chest to catch your balance, dizzy now, most likely from the suddenness of the motion. You’re about to toss back a witty retort, possibly something that will knock him down a few pegs, but then you catch the glint in his eye and a smile spreads across your lips unbidden.

“You get one dance, Dameron.”

~*~

One dance turned into many, as it turns out. The band, upon realizing their audience’s appetite for raucous music, had begun a steady rotation of upbeat tunes. The dance floor had expanded, spilling out of its original confines in the center of the town square and into the concession areas on the perimeter. Resistance members danced and drank, their bodies jumping and moving to the beat in one chaotic mass of excess energy and euphoria. Bodies writhe against one another in all directions as people seek out friction that can confirm to them that they did indeed survive the day’s trials.

You’re experiencing friction of your own in your little portion of the dance floor. Where things had started out innocently – energetic bouncing to the beat and moving in unison – the tone had long changed. At this point Poe is behind you, arms slung dangerously low on your hips to hold you against him, hands pressed right above your pelvis. The feeling of his chest pressing against your back, his hips bracketing your ass – you’ve lost yourself in the sensations. The rhythm of the music shakes through your muscles but instead of tense and tired, they’re loose and buzzing.

Though truth be told, they aren’t the only thing buzzing. The proximity of Poe’s hands to your lower body feels charged like a magnet. Without thinking you press your hands over the backs of his, encouraging pressure on your lower abdomen. You swear you hear Poe growl behind you has his hands pull you further to him, but it could also be the roar of the crowd. Your hips move in sync, your ass grinding against him in time with the music. Escapism in its purest form is what you’re experiencing in Poe’s arms, held against Poe’s body, matching Poe’s motions. It’s heady and distracting and everything you could ask for to make living feel like living, especially in the aftermath of a day centered on death. You’re content to let this moment last as long as the universe allows.

That is until you realize that the increasing beat you’d thought was a shift in the music is actually the rapid crescendo of your own heartbeat.

Swallowing you find your throat is thick, saliva pooling in your mouth inexplicably. You take a deep breath and allow your mind to reel. How long had you been feeling like this? Why hadn’t you noticed these feelings coming on?

One of the large hands at your hip begins sliding up along the plane of your side and you get your answer. The weight of his touch lights your skin on fire as it drags up and across your collar bone. Your breath feels ragged, rattling around in lungs that can’t seem to take in oxygen no matter how high your chest rises and falls. Poe’s hand lingers on your throat for a second so you swallow again, with even less luck than before. His hand reaches up to grip your jaw which he uses to turn your head back toward him.

Oh.

Poe continues to move behind you, his motions controlling you both on the floor, but his face is strained. Sweat dots his temples, gleaming in his curls, and his teeth seem gritted, making his jaw set at a striking angle. His eyes pin you down, however, and they keep your attention as you gaze back, wide-eyed.

“You okay, rookie?” Poe’s voice is deeper than normal, huskier. The way it reverberates through your body makes a rumbling bubble up deep inside your chest. The beginnings of a moan, perhaps? You’re quick to gasp a response before such a sound has a chance to make its way into the air between you.

“I’m…feeling quite strange.”

The hand still at your waist tightens its grip while the other rejoins on the opposite side. You have to gasp again to keep from moaning. Suddenly you’re being maneuvered forward, Poe’s guidance weaving you through the crowd with ease despite the congested revelry.

Neither of you see the way Myrna is watching you both with a knowing smirk from her place draped around her own handsome pilot beau. Or the way the little old woman who’d gifted you the beverage hovers on the outskirts of the dance floor, a proud look on her wrinkled face as she eyes your retreating figures.

~*~

You’re not really able to follow where Poe is directing you, mainly because of how the imprint of his hands on your body seems to be searing into your skin through your flight suit. While your accelerated heart rate was the thing you had been most worried about, now you are equally worried about the dull ache that has seated itself in the pit of your stomach. You bite down hard on your lip to keep the moan from spilling out, the one you’ve been suppressing since the moment you became conscious to your current discomfort.

When Poe’s stride finally slows to a stop only then are you able to take in your surroundings. Blinking, you’re surprised to find that you’re now outside of the town, far from the lights and bustle of the party, walking into the silent clearing that contains the squadron’s parked aircrafts.

“Why are we all the way out here?” you ask, unsettled by how deep your voice sounds in the darkness.

“Needed to get away from the crowd.” You’re even more unsettled by how breathless Poe’s voice is as he says his first words since the dance floor. So unsettled that you turn in his arms so you can finally take in his disheveled appearance fully.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know, it’s the weirdest thing. One minute everything was fine and the next…”

“You can’t catch your breath,” you finish for him and he nods gravely. Both of your chests are practically heaving, pressing into each other with each exhale. When you become aware of this, it also brings awareness of the way his chest pressed up against yours is also adding pressure to your nipples. Since when were your nipples hard? The night is balmy, a cool breeze barely able to disturb the moist warmth that settles in the jungle terrain. You feel sweat begin to collect on the back of your neck and your hairline, much like the sweat causing Poe to shine a bit in the moonlight. And yet your nipples are hard and a shudder runs through your body, nerve endings clearly ten steps ahead of you, taking in some experience to which you’d yet to catch up.

“Wait a minute, look at me,” Poe suddenly orders, his fingers wrapping around your chin to lift your face toward his. You freeze as he stares down at you, eyes widening at whatever he sees.

“What is it?” you ask, voice urgent, almost frightened.

“Your pupils are wide as planets,” he mutters, distracted fingers drawing up the side of your jaw to press to the pulse point at your throat. “Your heartbeat is out of control.”

“I haven’t been able to calm down,” you say, nodding but getting more worried by the second. “Why can’t I calm down? Are you feeling the same way?”

Poe’s mouth presses into a hard line and he turns away abruptly, head tilting down.

“Oh fuck.”

“What?” You try to pull him back toward you but he doesn’t budge.

“I think…we’ve been drugged.”

Your blood runs cold and a hand flies to cover your mouth. You’d known tonight was too good to be true. Your mind races, making connections out of thin air, trying to place when and where you could have possibly come in close enough proximity to First Order agents to be compromised.

“But what – how – what can we do? What is it? Is it deadly?” You’re cut off by a sound issuing from Poe’s now curved body. You wonder at first if it’s a sob, which makes sense because you’re about ready to cry yourself. But then you realize it’s a chuckle.

“I wouldn’t say deadly. Just exceedingly inconvenient.”

“So you know what it is then?” you prompt, tugging at his shoulder some more to try and see his face. “Tell me!”

“Well for starters I’m pretty sure it was that drink the old woman gave us.”

Fuck.

Of course. What was the one suspicious thing you’d ingested all day? The fact that you hadn’t thought about it sooner makes you want to kick yourself, but you press on instead, anxious to have the matter dealt with.

“What does it do?” You hate the tremor that colors your voice. At that Poe finally turns around and you take him in all at once, trying to assess what he could have been hiding. His tall, wide-legged stance makes it easy to notice after a few seconds. As your gaze moves lower on his body you finally see the massive tent forming below the zipper line of his flight suit.

Without even being able to mentally process what you’re looking at your body responds immediately. A rush of warmth and wetness floods the apex of your thighs and the moan that you’d so far been able to hold in finally makes it way out of your throat. Poe’s eyes, which had recently gone hooded, widen in response to the lewd sound. You clap a hand over your mouth and snap your eyes back up to his face, away from the rigid shape that had made the muscles inside you contract wantonly around nothing.

“It’s made from a plant that’s meant to accelerate sex drive,” Poe says matter-of-factly.

You almost don’t hear him because your eyes have already slid back down his body, feasting on the sight of his impressive bulge. You’d heard stories of Poe’s sexual prowess, many from the man’s own loud mouth. You knew he’d satisfied many members of the Resistance, male and female alike. But you had never truly let yourself consider what he’d be like. What he’d look like. What he’d feel like…

“Why would she possibly give that to us of all people?” You feel like you’re going to cry. The feelings coursing through your body are overwhelming.

“Maybe she went around spiking many people at the party. Maybe she just thought you and I would look hot together? You can’t blame her for that one.” Poe winks at you and it diffuses some of your angst. You let out a tense laugh and shake your head.

“How do we make it stop?” you force yourself to ask, just as you force yourself yet again to look back up in his eyes. Poe averts his own, a sheepish look overtaking his face. When he doesn’t answer you step forward and grab his arm in alarm, trying not to consider the way his bicep bulges under his sleeve. “Poe?!”

“We have to…take care of it.”

You’re launching yourself away from him before he can finish the sentence. You probably knew the answer before you’d even asked the question, but his words still sent electricity through your spine.

“We can’t. That’s…that’s crazy – you’re crazy, Dameron!”

“Hey, you think I like this? Standing here like an idiot with my dick so hard I can barely see straight?”

The sexual nature of his words, spoken so plainly and without euphemism for the first time, makes a new wave of wetness pool between your legs against your will.

“Don’t….talk about it,” you say through gritted teeth, closing your eyes in an attempt to center yourself.

“What? Don’t talk about my aching cock?” he asks, almost as a challenge. He’s frustrated now, egged on by your attitude.

“Stop it.”

“Are you about to tell me you aren’t wet right now?”

You turn your back on him in a childish and fruitless attempt at blocking out his words. When you don’t reply you hear his footsteps as he approaches from behind.

“If we’re both having the same reaction, and I’m certain we are, then I’d imagine you’re practically dripping right now.”

His words would have made your eyes cross if you didn’t have them shut so tightly. A hand molds around your hip while the other grasps at the side of your neck, both working in tandem to pull your back flush against his front. The impact, though gentle, knocks the wind out of you. Or whatever wind had been in you in the first place. His lips are at your ear then and you melt into his touch.

“If we take care of this together we’ll go back to normal.”

“…back to normal?” you ask, simply repeating and not really aware of your words.

“Exactly.”

“I…I don’t know.” Poe’s hardened length is pressing into your ass now, insistent and firm behind you. The hand on your hip migrates lower to pull you against him. A swivel of his hips causes your own to follow the momentum, gyrating in their own right.

“We can be quick,” Poe coos, his voice vibrating over your earlobe where his lips are making contact with your skin. Another low chuckle sounds. “Or I can take my time if you want. Either way, I can promise you’ll enjoy it.”

There’s your cocky Fly Boy.

You wrench yourself from his grasp and take a few steadying steps away before gaining the wherewithal to turn back and face him once more. He looks supremely disappointed, arms still outstretched in the place where you had just been.

“Does this really have to be a…team effort?” you ask, face screwed up with discomfort. Poe runs a hand through his hair and casts a distracted glance about your surroundings.

“I mean I guess theoretically one could take care of themselves – ”

“Great!” you cut him off and stalk around to the other side of his x-wing. Of course he’d brought you to his ship. You look around for your own but when you can’t find it you plop yourself down on the ground.

“Are you kriffing serious?” comes Poe’s angry voice behind you as he stomps over. “We could bang this out and feel better but you’re just going to – ”

“Oh ‘bang’ this out? Real nice, Dameron.”

“You know what I mean.” You can practically hear his eye roll.

“The other side,” you say simply, lowering the zipper on your flight suit. When you don’t hear the sound of his retreating footsteps, however, you pause. “Stay on the other side of the ship, Dameron.”

He grumbles but does as you say. When you finally hear the sound of him throwing himself to the ground, you lift the tab of your zipper again. However, the loud and sudden ziiiip indicating that he’s yanked open his own garment seems ring out then in the clearing and you’re inundated with mental images of what that must look like. Poe sprawled on the ground with his flight suit open and askew. You imagine the expanse of his chest, the way the muscle would ripple in the shadows of the jungle. You’d seen him without a shirt before, the arms of his flight suit tied at his waist as he reclined beneath his x-wing making repairs. Covered in sweat and grease. The memory and the subsequent lurid thoughts have you dipping your hand down into the small opening you’ve made in your clothes, not fully comfortable enough to expose yourself entirely to the elements. When you reach the place between your thighs you have to swallow the gasp that bursts forth at the realization that Poe had been right. You’re not just wet. You’re dripping.

“Fuck.”

You think you say it quietly but a chuckle from the other side of the ship proves otherwise.

“Need any help over there?”

You ignore him and try to focus in on your own body, closing your eyes. You allow a hand to ghost over your breast as you ease a finger through your folds. You feel the insistent thrumming of your pulse even down below and your breath is shallow in your chest. The images dancing behind your eyelids show you flashes, glimpses of things you try to banish from your mind. The angle of Poe’s jaw. His faint, ever present stubble. The arch of his eyebrow. The curve of his smirk. His ass in those pants.

“Sweets…”

Poe’s voice interrupts a whimper you hadn’t even realized you were releasing.

“Poe.” Your voice is small and it cracks around his name. Your muscles are contracting but nothing you do eases the sensation. It just continues building within you. “It hurts.”

“Just come over here. I don’t even have to touch you. Just let me help you through it.”

You ponder the darkness before you, the way it envelops the other aircrafts in this makeshift parking zone. You hear a shick shick shick behind you and your cunt aches. Completely in response to the siren call of Poe Dameron’s building pleasure. You’re immediately intensely jealous. Jealous of the way that, you assumed, he was having more luck getting himself off than you were, despite the fingers inside you right now. Jealous of the way his voice didn’t crack when he beckoned you over.

But most of all jealous of the fact that he’s the one currently touching his hard cock. Not you.

You will yourself to stand up, pulling your hand out of your flight suit but not bothering to zip it back up. On jelly legs you make your way to the other side of the ship. The far side, facing away from the town square and the distant glow of the party you’ve now forgotten.

As you round the edge of the x-wing you bite your lip at the sight before you. Poe is indeed sprawled out with his suit zipped all the way down. His thick member protrudes from the bottom of the opening, a fist moving up and down rapidly, pulling from root to flushed tip in skilled motions. However the eyes that gaze up at you from under his unruly mop of curly hair are not doused with pleasure and satisfaction as you’d imagined. Instead he looks pained, almost agonized. At the sight of you he sits up a bit and does his best to give you a reassuring smile though it comes out as more of a grimace.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful, rookie.”

“That’s the drink talking,” you dismiss, despite the way your stomach swoops as you move to settle yourself down next to him, careful not to make contact. “And you know I hate you calling me rookie.”

“I’ll call you anything you want, baby, as long as you start touching yourself.”

Your cunt pulses at his words so suddenly that you almost double over. Your breathing, already ragged, speeds up as you feel the overwhelming urge to have something deep inside you. Dropping your hand into the opening in your suit you halt, however, watching Poe warily in your peripheral vision. He catches you looking and reluctantly stills the hand moving on member.

“Would sitting back to back help?” he sighs. You nod, scrambling over so that your back is to his.

This is better. This is much better, you think as you dip your hand back between your legs and into the waiting slick. You drag a finger in tight circles over your clit and do your best to calm the racing thoughts that flit back to images of Poe’s body.

The body that is currently pressed to yours, though not at all in the manner you would prefer.

Poe grunts then, making you lose your rhythm.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve wanted you, you know.”

You cut your answering gasp off at the source, not daring to make a sound lest it interrupt this information that you desperately needed to here. He interprets your silence correctly and continues.

“I’ve thought about you. When I’m in the cockpit on my way to some distant planet. When not even hyper speed can get me there quick enough before thoughts of you creep in.” He almost sounds mad, but you get it. The emotions coursing through your body along with the hormones are driving you wild and you don’t know how to feel.

“What…what are the thoughts about?” you can’t help but ask.

“I’d love to say it’s your smile or your brains or something sweet like that. And I do think about those things too, don’t get me wrong,” he says on a hoarse chuckle. “But it’s mainly your body.”

You slip a third finger inside your cunt as he says this, his words and the feeling mixing to cause you to let out an unchecked moan. You feel Poe’s body shudder against you.

“Shit Sweets you’re killing me.” You feel him tense as his hand begins moving faster. “I think about how you look poured into that flight suit. The way your tits and ass jiggle when you hop into your x-wing – fuck.” Another shudder wracks through his body and you can’t take it anymore. The way you’re touching yourself isn’t the way you usually do it. Not in those rare moments where you’ve got the sleeping quarters to yourself and you’re able to get yourself off in your bunk to images of a chiseled jawline, a clothed bulge, rippling muscles, soft, curly hair…

You abruptly pitch yourself forward to balance yourself on your knees and one hand while the remaining hand redoubles its efforts between your legs. The shift in position ends your physical contact with Poe and he swivels to see.

“What are you – ”

“Don’t turn around,” you gasp out. Your new angle works in your favor as your swollen clit becomes more sensitive, pulled down by gravity so that every swipe of your finger becomes more potent. “But for the love of gods, don’t stop talking.”

Poe is taken aback by your sudden forwardness, but he doesn’t let it faze him for long. Instead you hear his renewed efforts at jerking off as the sound of skin swiping across skin, made smoother by spit and precum, gets louder behind you.

“What do you want me to talk about? How much I wish it was your tight little pussy I was fucking instead of my fist?”

The whimper you release at that statement is unlike any sound you’ve ever made and it only spurs Poe on.

“And I just know you’re tight. I know it. And wet too, just like I guessed you were. I can hear it, baby,” he practically growls and you become intensely away of the slick, creamy sounds coming from the rapid in and out, in and out rhythm of your fingers delving into your cunt. “You’re dripping, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” You close your eyes and hear his words and wish the fingers inside you were harder, thicker, him.

“You wish it was my cock inside you, I know you do. You don’t want to admit it but you wish I was pounding into you, making you feel good. Making the ache go away.”

Your answering whine confirms his beliefs and he lets out a triumphant grunt.

“Fuck, baby. I want it, too. Bury myself deep inside of you and fuck you till that drink wears off and you’re still screaming for me, that’s how good it would be.”

“Oh gods.”

“Tell me who you’re wet for.”

“Y-you.” It comes out small. You’re shocked that you even say it, especially with how much you’ve been fighting all of this. You want it. You want it in your bones and in your blood and in your tight, spasming cunt. But you also want Poe’s friendship. Want him to tousle your hair on the way to the hanger. Want him to keep sending you funny messages over your data pad, constantly trying to outdo your own silly riddles and jokes. Want to tease him and eat dinner with him in the mess hall and slap him when he says something stupid and yell at him when he does something dangerous and cry when he doesn’t come back on time from a mission…

A sob finds its way out of your body, sandwiched between two moans. You’re not sure Poe even heard it until his voice reaches your ears again, this time gentler.

“Sweets? Is this working for you?”

You take a shuddering breath before answering.

“No.”

You practically hear Poe slump in defeat, the rhythm of his hand on his length slowing down. You bite your lip before continuing.

“Take me, Poe.”

“What?” Poe whirls around so fast you feel the air woosh over you as he disturbs it. You jump to your feet, still facing away from him and yank your flight suit over your shoulders and down your body, stepping out so it pools on the ground. He watches as you get back down on your hands and knees before him in your underwear, ass in the air, waiting for him to catch up.

“I need you, Poe. Just…just please get inside me,” you say, reaching back to pull the damp fabric of your panties aside, exposing your glistening, swollen folds for him to see.

You don’t have to ask him a third time. He’s on you so fast that you’re confused by his motions. It takes a few seconds before you realize that he’s taken your discarded flight suit and stretched it out on the ground, positioning you over it so that your hands and knees are protected from the dirt. The sweetness of this considerate action is offset by the way his fingers dig harshly into your hips, maneuvering your ass so that it lines up with his pelvis. You tilt forward, aided by pressure on your lower back which raises your click cunt to the level of his cock.

“I’m going to make you feel so good – ”

“No more words, Dameron. Just shut up and get your cock inside – FUCK.” He spears you mid-sentence and you immediately fall down onto your elbows. Your ass still in the air, held in place by his hard grip, receives a smack and you cry out, feeling no pain. Only pleasure as the sting ripples through you and into your clenching cunt. He feels it deep inside you and groans.

“Maybe you’re the one who needs to shut up, baby.” His words issue forth from gritted teeth. “Always fucking teasing me with that fucking mouth.” His hips rut into yours, taking up an unforgiving pace, while the rest of his body folds over yours so his chest pressed flush to your back. One hand closes tightly around your chin, wrenching up your head and dragging a finger over your bottom lip which has grown plump from biting. “This beautiful, bossy fucking mouth. Always telling me off, telling me what to do.”

Your tongue darts out to meet his skin and his other fingers caress your chin in response. It’s a stark contrast to the almost feral way he is still clutching your hip and driving into you over and over.

There’s almost no resistance. You’re tight, cunt clutching onto his throbbing cock in an effort to keep him buried inside, but you’re wetter than you’ve ever been and it’s making his thrusts effortless. You assume it’s a side effect of the drink. But in some part of your brain you can’t believe that a plant could possibly make a man’s cock feel as good as Poe’s does right now inside you. How a plant could cause you to feel pleasure that is not simply rooted in the way his hand drags down from your jaw to wrench your breasts out of the cups of your bra. How a plant could in any way magnify the surely already intoxicating feeling of Poe’s mouth working at the side of your neck, the curve of your shoulder.

“This working, baby? This doing it?” Poe checks in then, not relenting in his thrusts. Never relenting. “You’re squeezing me, so I know your little pussy likes it.”

A shuddering gasp kicks through you before you can answer his question and he laughs. The vibrations go straight from his cock to your clit and you whimper some more.

“Your sounds. I want to record these little sounds you’re making and play them back when I’m flying. Have you fill the space in my x-wing till I can’t take it any more.” Poe presses a kiss to the back of your shoulder, nipping and then laving the skin over with his tongue. “I’m going to hear these sounds in my dreams.”

“It’s…just…the drink,” you practically hiccup, barely able to form thoughts from the way your body has focused all energy, all recognitions of nerve endings to the space between your thighs. Poe slaps your ass again and you keen.

“Just listen to yourself, baby. No drink is making you sound this hot. That’s all you, Sweets.”

Before you can argue further you do take a second to listen. To the way your shallow breaths mix with whimpers and whines. The gurgle in the back of your throat when his cock bounces against your cervix. He’s right. It is hot. You are hot. You reach a hand down to your clit, desperate to increase the already mind-blowing stimulation, greedy for more.

“You feel so good. You’re sosososogood,” you barely manage to slur. Despite your inability to fully speak you make the attempt because you assume that if hearing your gasps is egging him on, your words will amplify it. And amplify it they do. Poe’s hips stutter for a second before he drops down heavier on you, thrusting deeper and from a more primal place. A hand savagely kneads at one of your breasts, playing with the nipple.

“I’ve never been this full. I can’t take it, I can’t…”

“Seems like you’re taking it pretty well, baby,” Poe coos, pressing more kisses to the side of your neck.

“I need m-more,” you gasp, realizing with urgency that the pressure in your core is finally building past the plateau of the last…hour? Half an hour? How long had this been going on? All night? It doesn’t matter because Poe’s inside you and he’s listening to you and suddenly you’re being slammed into with all the force he can muster. He expertly wrings pleasure from your body and you feel yourself careening toward a release that you can’t describe. Just out of reach and full of all the potential energy inherent in an object rocketing toward the moon only to soon plummet back to the depths.

“Poe! I…I…oh fuck…oh gods…I…”

“Go on, baby. Cum.”

“You ha- ahhhh. But you…y-you…” You’re babbling. You’re incoherent, not wanting to leave him behind in the blinding ache that comes before release. Your hands are fisting in the flight suit below you, desperate for something solid, something substantial to hold onto.

“Don’t wait for me, Sweets. Let go.”

And then his hands are closing over yours, fingers interlacing and squeezing down, pinning you to the ground with white knuckles that would hurt if you weren’t squeezing him right back, finally grounded in the way you needed.

And you’re cumming.

And cumming.

You feel every muscle in your body seize and spasm and bliss roils out through you in waves. You shake and stutter under him, feeling fresh wetness gush down around his cock as he fucks you through the feeling. You keep waiting for it to stop but it doesn’t, it only intensifies. It must be a side effect. Of the drink not the man. But when you feel yourself transcending the moment, the way your soul feels like it is literally floating above you, you use the out of body experience to take in the man who is causing this pleasure. The way he cages you in, bracing you through the storm of your orgasm, giving more and more to keep the flame burning as long as possible.

His muscles ultimately seize sometime around when your soul seems to sink back into your body and you’re one again enough with your senses that you can feel him paint your walls with sticky, hot cum. He doesn’t drop his weight on you like other men have after the completion of such exertions. Other men who had focused more on the destination than the journey, leaving you as wanting for release as you were wanting for air under the pressure of their body weight. Instead, Poe pulls you of you and flops to his back in the grass beside you. Without him holding you up you crumble down, face pressing into the fabric of your rumpled flight suit instead of the dirt, thanks to Poe.

A few minutes pass, silent except for the sound of your slowing gasps for air. When your breathing evens Poe sits up on his haunches to guide you back into your flight suit. You’re sticky from sweat and your combined cum, but you couldn’t care less with your bones liquified and your eyelids heavy. Gone is the buzzing ache, in its place a heavy sleepiness. When Poe lays you, now clothed, gingerly back down on the ground you automatically curl into him, allowing him to wrap his arms around your body.

Neither of you shares another word. You don’t have to.

Because shortly after you doze off. And for the first time in a long time your final thoughts before sleep overtakes you are not of the dread the morning will bring, but the solace you found in the night.

~*~

When you wake it’s to a dawn as grey as all the ones before it. Hazy with receding fog and with the promise of all the danger that looms ahead in the hours soon to follow. One of the planet’s suns has already breached the horizon, and you raise a hand to cover your eyes as you peer out from under the x-wing’s protective wing. Looking down you take stock.

Your flight suit is on but fully unzipped, leaving your chest and stomach entirely exposed, all the way down to your lower belly. A large hand covers one of your breasts, fingers twitching against your flesh as the man attached to it continues to dream. You follow the length of his arm to take in his body, tucked close into your own, equally unzipped, his broad torso showing through the gaping fabric. You watch Poe’s abdominal muscles contract with his inhales and exhales for a moment while you check in with your body.

The humming from last night is gone, that much is for certain. This makes you believe that the effects of the drink have worn off. You’re quick to question this hypothesis, however, when Poe stirs in his sleep and his hand squeezes down a bit on your breast. Your breath catches in your throat and fire shoots through your veins. A lingering symptom, you wonder. Or perhaps just a normal, biological reaction to sexual stimuli. You kick yourself mentally because of course it has to be the latter. It couldn’t be the third option which you won’t even allow yourself to fully consider.

You require a shower urgently, it occurs to you suddenly. And food, a realization that coincides with a rumbling in your empty stomach. Knowing you’ll never have a good enough excuse to extricate yourself from this gorgeous man’s arms you steel your nerves and pull away. When you stand, Poe groans and allows an eye to crack open, his hand flying up to shield his eyes from the rising sun. You’re silhouetted against the dawn and he takes in your outline. The curves of you.

“Morning, Sweets,” he says, voice hoarse with sleep this time instead of sex.

“Morning, Fly Boy,” you reply simply with a small smile. You feel a buzzing in the pocket of your suit then and pull out your mini com unit, even more portable than your usual data pad. The message that blares across the screen and you relay it before Poe can reach his own device which had similarly vibrated.

“We’ve got a new mission. Briefing is in an hour and then we take off.” The information feels stilted as it leaves your lips. How can you feel so entirely, earth-shatteringly changed and yet in many ways everything is still the same. The sun still came up. The war still rages on.

You look down at Poe and his intense expression as he watches you makes you think that he’s wondering the same thing.

Your heart thumps in your chest, this time unaided by any drugged drink or the eyes or hands of a man whose existence seemed both your making and undoing. Routine is the only thing that can calm these nerves. Routine is what is required to survive war. Routine and protocol and boundaries.

You zip up your flight suit with finality.

“See you at the briefing?” you ask, though its more statement than question.

“Of course.” Poe’s response is quiet as he continues to watch you from his reclining position. You’re still above him and at a distance, a position he often associates with you.

You smile and give him a good natured salute before turning and making you way back toward the town where you know the rest of the Resistance members are already bustling about and preparing for the day.

Another day you hope you, and Poe, will be lucky enough to outlive.

~*~

Doing a smaller taglist since it’s a Poe fic and I’m not sure if everyone on my usual taglist is into it (Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed for future work!): @paper-n-ashes @mariesackler @tlcwrites @foxilayde @mylifeisactuallyamess @sacklerscumrag @jynzandtonic @millenialcatlady @barbers-glimmerin-darlin @hopeamarsu @direnightshade @leather-flannel-liquor @fizzywoohoo @aliveandlonely @wayward-rose @safarigirlsp @emeraldsiren20 @finn-ray-nal-beads @maryforyou @maybe-your-left

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blossom-hwa · 3 years

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Time and Time Again - CHANGBIN

I cannot believe this is finished??? I feel like I say this every time but genuinely I didn’t think this would get done until maybe bin’s birthday in August but I somehow finished it the second day of January?? Anyway, I really loved this (the concept LITERALLY came to me in a dream), and I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it :)

(The idea that prompted this response to a @quillstarters challenge is the same one that inspired this story :D)

Pairing: Changbin x gender neutral!reader

Genre: fluff, angst, reincarnation!au, soulmate!au

Triggers: death, mentions of suicide, blood (nothing graphic)

Word Count: 10.8k

A vengeful god curses one hundred lifetimes of your love.

SKZ Masterlist

In your first life, the life that starts it all, your mother knows magic.

She’s a healer, one whose patients come from all walks of life, all over the world. From that first lifetime, you remember the heavy, comforting smell of dried herbs, the softness of her hair tickling your face, the shimmers of magic emanating from her practiced fingers into bubbling pots.

You sort of remember a father, hazy memories of a smiling man who wasn’t home very often but when he was, liked to pick you up and swing you around the room. He isn’t around by the time you’re six, maybe seven, though.

You know not to ask about it. The first time you did, your mother’s face just turned sad, an awful sort of sad that looked more like regret and repentance and anger and desolation. It takes a few more slip ups, but eventually you learn to ignore your curiosities. For though your mother never outright dismisses them, they upset her, and you never get a straight response.

Until the god arrives.

They appear in a shower of blinding light. Cold, white sparks burst into brilliant rainbows that fade in the air. You watch, mesmerized, even as your mother drags you away.

The god is beautiful. Fine, androgynous features, red eyes as soulful as song, lush locks of hair that tumble around their shoulders. But it is the severity in their face, as well as the bloodred bow and the bone-tipped arrow nocked in their hands that tell you who they are.

“You hid yourself well, disciple of Hekate.” Cupid’s beautiful lips curl in a mocking smile that doesn’t even attempt to disguise the anger in their eyes. “Eight years. I applaud you.”

Three slow, ominous claps echo loudly in the room.

You look up at your mother, heart about to leap out of your chest. Her face has gone pale, devoid of color. It only scares you more.

Cupid’s eyes flicker to you, clutching your mother’s skirts like a toddler. They freeze you in place. “So she never told you.”

Told me what?

“You never wondered where your father was, child?”

All the breath stops in your throat.

My father?

The god shakes his head disapprovingly. “It’s the least you could have done, sorceress.”

“What would you have me do?” Your mother’s voice brims with desperation and anger – though aimed at whom, you aren’t sure. “How could a child ever understand?”

“You should never have made the mistake in the first place.”

Understood what? Your eyes flit between the god and your mother. “Mother?” you whisper, tugging at her sleeve. “Mother, what do they mean?”

The story spills out in broken fragments. Your father had a liaison with your mother and she found she was pregnant with you. She loved him, but he didn’t want to stay. So she dabbled in forbidden magic. Gave a love potion to a man who did not care for her.

You were born. He realized, eventually, what she had done. Then he left, leaving you without a father.

You can’t even try to speak when the story is over. It feels as though you can’t breathe, can’t feel, can’t see anything beyond the god’s blood red eyes. Fingers cling to your mother’s skirts numbly as you attempt to process the flow of words that just passed through your ears.

Dimly, you register your mother pulling free from your hands to kneel on the floor. “Do with me as you see fit,” she whispers.

“With you?” Cupid laughs. The sound tears at the silence in the room. “What use would that be? No, I think your child will pay for your crimes.” They pin you under their gaze. “Yes, I see many lifetimes of pain in these eyes that would suffice.”

You don’t understand. You can’t understand. What does the god want with you? What have you done to anger them? It was your mother who committed the error, not you. Why must you pay for it? Your heart pounds faster and faster as their eyes refuse to waver.

“Yes.” They nod, finally satisfied. “A heart broken one hundred times will pay for your crime.” Cupid lifts their bow and arrow, aiming at your heart.

Your mother’s head snaps up. “You would condemn my child’s love to centuries of turmoil?” Her voice shakes with barely controlled anger. “You would punish my child for my mistakes? Take me instead!”

Cupid’s cruel eyes flicker between you and her. “Love is hardly fair, as you should well know,” they snarl. “By meddling in my affairs, you have secured your child’s fate.”

Their gaze fixes on you with the intensity of a thousand suns. You shrink under their glare, even as their eyes gain some semblance of softness. For a moment, it seems as though the god will take pity on you.

Then the arrow sinks into your chest, exploding into a shower of the god’s cold sparks. No blood flows but your chest throbs.

Through a dim haze of pain, as though they speak through water, you hear the god speak their final words.

“A hundred lifetimes will pass before I will allow your love to rest.”

. . . . .

It takes years, really, for the information to sink in. You don’t fault your mother entirely for her actions – raising a child alone is hard, you come to know as you grow older. But at the same time, you can’t find respect for a man who would abandon a woman he had a relationship with over the birth of a child. You can’t understand why your mother would love such a person, can’t quite understand love in general. You know you love your mother, of course, but what does such an emotion really mean?

You learn the meaning at age twenty in your first life when you meet Seo Changbin.

Your mother rushes into the house that day, almost collapsing under his unconscious weight. You immediately zero in on the huge gash on his leg that’s still leaking blood, despite the makeshift bandage, and start pulling down the necessary salves and potions.

He doesn’t wake up for a week. Other patients filter in and out of the little hut as the days go by and you dutifully do your best to treat them all, gently treating scrapes and brewing tonics. There’s something about the man lying unconscious and feverish at the back of the hut, though, that draws you in like a moth to a flame. Day by day, you sit by him when you can, wiping the sweat off of his forehead with cool cloths, forcing brews down his throat and dabbing creams onto his leg to fight the infection.

He doesn’t look like one of the gentlemen that sometimes come to town. He doesn’t seem like he has the stately grace of Hwang Hyunjin, the lord’s heir, nor does he exude the cold elegance of Choi Chanhee, the magistrate’s son.

So this man is probably a commoner, if your deductions are correct. But you know almost everyone in the village – they’ve all come to the healer’s hut at some point and met you – and this boy’s face is new. You don’t recognize him, not at all.

You wake up to a soft crash in the middle of the night, then the sound of a loud curse. For a moment, you lie back down on your pillow. Probably Mother.

Then you sit bolt upright. That was a man’s voice. Not your mother’s.

Thieves?

Then you realize.

He’s woken up!

Large, terrified eyes glow in the flickering light of your candle when you enter the healing ward, carefully holding your hands in a purposeful gesture of surrender. “Hello,” you say, trying not to fixate on the beauty of the boy’s eyes. “My name is Y/N. My mother found you in the forest with an infected wound and brought you to our home for treatment.”

He glares at you, still distrustful, but speaks. “How long have I been here?”

“Almost a week.”

The boy visibly tenses. “One week?”

“Yes.” You step forward. “And I would advise you not to leave for at least another two, given the condition of your leg. Wherever you’re going, if you go now, the infection will kill you before you get far.”

“How long will I have?” he asks.

You raise an eyebrow. “Are you suicidal?”

For several tense seconds, you stare at each other, neither backing down. Finally, the boy lowers his gaze. “Fine,” he says, the fight leaving his voice. He smiles a little, apologetically. “I’ll stay. Thank you for treating me.”

“You’re welcome.” You help him back onto the cot. “Now try to sleep. I’ll come back to check on you in the morning.”

Just before you fall asleep, you think of large, brown eyes and petulant lips. For some reason, they make you smile.

. . .

His name is Changbin, you come to learn after several days of pained grunts, spilled salve, and muted conversation. He won’t tell you where he comes from, but a name is far better than nothing. At least you have confirmation that he isn’t a local, and he smiles too much for you to suspect him as a murderer.

That would be unpleasant.

And Changbin is the opposite of unpleasant. He has this smile, a smile that no matter how small, is bright enough to light up the room. He’s so smart when it comes to life but he’s also a little dumb, really, telling bad jokes that make you roll your eyes but laugh anyway. He snorts when you tell your own stupid stories and insulting jokes and as a result, you think of more and more for him, more tall tales and bad puns just so you can hear that beautiful laugh that sounds like a cross between wedding bells and a pig’s snort.

He stays for your recommended two weeks, then another, and another. Your mother doesn’t mind, only smiles at him like he was her own son. Changbin isn’t useless, after all – he helps you tend to the herb garden, chops wood for the fire, and is receptive to the eventual lessons you give him on the basics of healing.

(And if you stare at his muscles when he lifts heavy pots over the fire, what of it?)

The boy your mother found so many weeks ago in the woods lights up your life in a way you’ve never experienced before. Even though it makes you feel guilty, sometimes you’re glad that Changbin injured himself in the forest. Otherwise, you might never have met the boy who sits with you shoulder to shoulder on the bank of the river that runs through the woods, laughs ringing through the trees.

“Y/N,” he says on one of those quiet days by the river. When you look up from your feet dangling feet in the swift current and when you look up, you find Changbin staring at you with something so soft, so deep in his gaze that you can’t decipher it.

(It makes your heart thump.)

“Hm?” You pull your feet out of the water, feeling almost shy as you meet his eyes.

“Have you ever been kissed?”

When Changbin kisses you that afternoon under a green canopy of leaves, golden light showering his dark hair and tanned skin, you can’t think. There are no thoughts of anything in your head (and certainly none of Cupid’s curse) except the euphoria of his lips against yours. With his mouth pressed softly to yours, you feel like you’re flying, drifting on the breeze without a care in the world. It’s bliss, pure bliss.

Your mother knows when you walk back into the hut, suppressing an uncontrollable smile. Her gaze remains carefully neutral for the rest of the day, but when Changbin has gone outside to chop wood, she speaks. “You know about the curse.”

Dread mixes with the bliss in your heart. Your head hangs over the herbs you’re grinding. “Yes, Mother.”

“Darling, look at me.” She turns you around, and you see the tears building in the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

There’s bitterness in your chest and mouth, tingeing the tip of your tongue, but this is your mother, the woman who bore you and cared for you alone for so much of your life. Though angry words rise in your throat, they never make it past your lips.

“It’s okay, Mother.” You brush the tears away, valiantly holding your own back. “I can’t blame you for a mistake you made in the name of love.” Blind, blind hope rises in your chest. “Maybe the god forgot. Maybe they will have mercy.”

Your mother just looks at you with dreadful eyes, eyes haunted by the knowledge that your words will prove false. But Changbin’s already coming back inside and the fluttering happiness in your heart from seeing him expels all negative thoughts from your mind.

One year passes in domestic bliss. Your mother never brings up the curse again, and you push any thought of it to the back of your mind. Changbin’s kisses do much to dispel any worries of yours, anyway.

Late one night, curled in a blanket next to the fire, Changbin tells you the reason he came. “I left because of a family dispute,” he says, almost ashamedly, staring into the flickering flames. “I had a falling out with my father, and he told me to leave. Even though I knew he really didn’t mean it, even though my mother pleaded with me to stay, I… I left anyway.”

You hold him closer under the blanket, comforting him with your warmth. In the light of the fire, his eyes look ghostly against the dark.

“I’m telling you this now because I want to go back.”

Your heart freezes.

Back? He wants to go back to his village, go back home… and leave you behind?

But Changbin’s smiling now, slightly. It settles your heart a little – he couldn’t speak of leaving you forever and smile in the same sentence, could he? You look at him, eyes pleading with him to continue.

“I want to go back to apologize,” he says, squeezing your hand. “I want to go back to make amends. But I’ll come back to the home I have here.”

“Can I come with you?” you can’t help but ask, even though you’re sure you know the answer.

He shakes his head, and your heart sinks. “No, I think this is something I have to do myself. But I won’t stay, I promise you that. I’ll come back home.”

“Promise?” you ask, voice barely a whisper over the crackling flames. Your fingers clutch his desperately. He has to come back, or you’ll go with him.

“I promise.” He lifts a thin silver chain from his neck, a necklace he’s never taken off since he arrived, and loops it around your throat. “That’s my promise, all right? I’m leaving this with you because I know I’ll return. And when I do…” He sweeps one of your hands out of the blanket and places a gentle kiss on it. “I’m going to marry you.” A note of uncertainty enters his gaze. “Unless you… uh, unless you don’t want to?”

You tug your hand out of his and punch him in the arm. “Are you stupid, Seo Changbin?” you ask over his yelps of mock pain. Eyes turning shy, you smile. “Of course I do.”

Your heart explodes in bliss when he kisses you, the fire’s warmth dancing on his lips.

. . .

“No more than two months,” he promises you the day he leaves. “I’ll come home.”

He keeps looking back and you keep waving as he starts out into the forest, green leaves beginning to shroud his path. The last you see of him is his bright smile as he disappears between the trees, the gentle pressure of his lips still a memory against yours.

One month passes, then two. You wait outside the hut eagerly every day, waiting for a sign of his returns.

Then another month goes by. And another. Winter settles in, heavy snow coating the forest in cold, white blankets.

“Perhaps he was held up,” your mother says, guiding your shivering body back inside the house. “He couldn’t travel in the winter, so he’s probably staying somewhere for the time being.”

You want to believe her. You really do, with all your heart and soul. But Cupid’s curse remains in the back of your mind, twisting and turning in its depths, whispering to you that Changbin is gone, that he will never return.

Winter has passed and a month of spring gone by before you decide to find Changbin’s family yourself. It takes several months because really, you don’t have any guide other than the name of his old village, but eventually, exhausted and almost losing hope, you find them.

A stooped woman answers the door with a confused smile on her lips. “Hello.”

“Um, hello.” You swallow. “Is this the Seo residence?”

“Yes, can I help you with anything?”

You pull the necklace from under the collar of your shirt. “Did Changbin come visit some months ago?”

For a single moment charged with hope, you see the widening of the woman’s eyes and believe that she will say yes, that Changbin came and is just having a hard time returning.

Then she shakes her head, and the world begins to crumble at the edges.

. . .

You stay just long enough to tell Changbin’s family who you are and what he set out to do, then flee back home as fast as you can. Tears stain the forest floor and when your mother opens the door to the hut so many months later, it only takes one look for her to fold you into her arms as you begin to cry on her shoulder.

He could be alive, you desperately hope. He could be somewhere, lost, unable to find his way back home. You know your Changbin would never break a promise to you, not if he could help it.

One year. Two years. Then three. The months pass with no sign of his return.

And you know, dead or not, he isn’t coming back.

It hurts. Everything reminds you of him, of Changbin, of what could have been and what should have been. You curse Cupid, cry for the god to come down so you can scream obscenities at them face to face, but they never answer your pleas.

The silver chain Changbin left you burns around your neck, but you can’t bring yourself to take it off. It’s the last thing you have of him, the only thing you have of him. You clutch it on your worst days, imprinting the tiny chain links into your palm when you fall sick, wasting away without a desire to live.

This is what it feels like, you think, delirious with fever, to have lost your entire world.

Your crying mother stays by your side as you wither, sponging your forehead, feeding you soup, whispering apologies into the blankets she covers you with. In moments of lucidity, you clutch her hand and tell her it’s not her fault. That you understand, now, what it means to love someone with the force of the universe.

Weeks pass in a feverish daze until winter seizes control of the earth. Numb with cold and sweating with warmth, you pray to the heavens above to release you from this pain.

The day you drift away is bitterly cold. You’re wrapped in at least five blankets, your mother shivering beside you as she grips your hands, trying desperately to warm them.

There is one brief moment of absolute clarity. You sit up, eyes wide, and cup your mother’s cheeks between cold, cold hands. “I love you, Mother.”

She kisses your forehead. “I love you too, my darling child.”

Her tears drip onto your cheeks. You don’t remember anything more.

In your first life, in the dead of winter, you die of a broken heart.

. . . . .

Your second life begins in a poor family, though happy. Sixteen years of life pass in ignorant bliss, with no knowledge of soulmates or vengeful gods. A week after your birthday, hope filling every step, you set off for the nearby village to try your skills at sewing. Luck paves your path and you find a kind mistress who values your quick fingers and eye for color. The village is bright and cheerful, you’re making money to send back to your family, and life is peaceful.

Then the dreams come.

The first vision is barely there, just a quick glimpse of green trees and a disappearing smile wedged between the scenes of your mind’s musings. You wake up, an uneasy feeling in your chest, but the image is already fading. You shake the discomfort away and get to work.

The second dream is longer, more vivid. You hear a voice, feel a gentle touch, see a mop of dark hair and a pair of gleaming eyes. In the moment, you feel happy, so happy in a way you’ve never felt before. It’s pure, this happiness, something so deep that your entire body feels warm when you wake, even as a chilling breeze seeps in through a crack in the window.

The dreams continue for several days, and each morning, you only grow more curious about the strange man who keeps wandering into your mind. Who is this man? you wonder as you sew, poking your fingers with the needle more times than you’d like to admit. Who is he, and why does he make me so happy?

Why does it feel like I should know him?

After a week of lovely, warm, but deeply unsettling dreams, it hits you all at once.

Needle in hand, you’re about to push the sliver of metal through a silk shirt, ready to begin embroidering the next leaf on a flowering vine. Taking a second glance at the embroidery you’ve already done, you blink in confusion.

This kind of vine doesn’t exist in your little village. In fact, you’ve never seen it before. But each leaf, each flower is so perfectly stitched that it doesn’t seem possible that you just made this up on the spot.

Oh.

Green leaves, sturdy trunks, water rushing down a river. Firm muscle, a flowering vine curled into a crown, fingers placing the circlet upon your head. A brilliant smile, bright as the sun, and a peal of snorting laughter that sounds like wedding bells.

One name hurtles through your mind, the name of the dark-haired, lovely-eyed boy who, by now, is a frequent visitor in your dreams.

Seo Changbin.

The needle embeds itself in your palm.

. . .

It’s hard to explain away your frazzled state when your mistress comes into the room to see you staring at the embroidered silk, palm dripping blood onto your clothes. Voice trembling only slightly (and you’re proud of yourself for that), you tell her that you just made a mistake, really.

Never mind the fact that the needle stuck itself far enough into your hand that you really have to pull it out, releasing a small spurt of blood that raises your mistress’s eyebrows so far they look like they’re about to jump off her forehead.

Shakily, you get back to work. Years of practice have steadied your fingers so that the stitches remain even, but as you sew, your mind races with memories. Memories of a trembling mother, a red-eyed god, a gaping leg wound festering on an apothecary table. Memories of boys you’ve never met in this life, a Hwang Hyunjin and a Choi Chanhee, but most importantly, a strong young man with sweet lips and a raspy, whining voice named Seo Changbin.

“Seo Changbin,” you murmur, testing the words between your lips. Just saying his name sends a rush of warmth through your chest and brings a small smile to your face.

The smile disappears, though, when you remember how the story ends.

Night brings dreams again, full, vivid scenes that begin with joy and happiness and warmth. You see your mother from another life, smell the comforting scent of herbs wafting through the air in the hut. You see your love, Changbin, feel his arms wrapped around your body, see the flush in his cheeks when you press your lips to his in a kiss.

The day he leaves is vivid, too. Sharp greens against a bright blue sky devoid of clouds, his smile disappearing into the forest as he begins his journey home.

A journey that you know he will never finish.

You know what will happen next and you don’t want to see it. You beg yourself to wake up, to stop these visions before your heart breaks, but sleep pins down your limbs and forces you to watch, to experience, to live the turmoil of emotions that flooded your heart those last few years of your life.

The next morning, you look so ill that your mistress forces you to take the day off, despite your pleas that you can work, you really can. The last thing you need is more sleep, after all, more time for vengeful gods to replay past lives for their leisure.

So after sixteen years of blissful ignorance, you know. You know of your love, you know of the curse, you know of the life that began it all. Sick emotions mix in your heart, syrupy and viscous and heavy, hope for a love as deep as your life before and terror for the heartbreak that will inevitably come.

And this time, you don’t have a loving mother who knows of your predicament.

You imagine Cupid laughing in the heavens as you face his wrath once more.

. . .

It happens by chance, purely by chance. On your days off, you sometimes like to visit the marketplace, see if you can find some fun trinket to send back to your family or to keep for yourself. Today is no exception.

Something makes you pause in front of a jewelry stand, a stand you don’t usually visit because your apprentice’s pay, though enough to support your family, doesn’t allow for expenses on jewels. However, a thin chain necklace catches your eye as you walk past.

It’s silver, shiny, not a hint of rust on the metal. A small black stone hangs as a pendant and you’ve never seen it before, but you can’t shake the suspicion that this is a necklace you wore in a past life.

A necklace Changbin gave you in a past life.

Uneasiness grows in your mind the longer you look at the chain. How did the jeweler even get this chain? Who took it away? You’re pretty sure you wore it until your death, and you don’t believe your previous mother, based on your dreams, would have taken it away.

You think you want it back.

Pointing at the chain, you look up at the jeweler. “How much is this?”

“Eight gold pieces.”

Your heart sinks. A day’s work gives you five silver pieces, and there are twenty silvers to a gold. Most of your money goes back home, leaving you with only a little pocket money of your own – certainly not enough for a piece of jewelry worth eight golds. Lips pressed thinly together, you nod before beginning to walk away.

A voice stops you, a familiar voice you’ve never heard before. Not in this life, at least.

“Wait!”

You turn around, slowly, slowly, as Changbin’s voice asks the jeweler, “Eight gold pieces, you said?”

It’s him, you think faintly. It’s really him. Different hair, skin a shade lighter, but his eyes… his eyes are the same. The absolute same.

He doesn’t look at you with any recognition, though, and he’s dressed in silk, indicating high status – at least, higher than yours. So you politely avert your gaze, trying to calm the pounding in your heart.

Eight golds appear on the counter, exchanged for a small silk pouch with the necklace inside. You’re about to walk away – why did Changbin stop you, anyway? There’s not a single chance he would give it to you – when the pouch appears in your line of vision, held by a familiar hand.

You blink once, twice, then look up from the pouch to the man holding it in his palm.

Only one thought runs through your mind.

There is no way, in two consecutive lives, that Seo Changbin would offer me the same necklace.

Your confusion must show, because he laughs. “It’s for you,” he says (and oh, gods, his voice makes you want to just sit and listen to it forever). “It looked like you wanted it, no?”

Thankfully, your vocal cords remember how to speak, even if your mind doesn’t. “I couldn’t possibly take such a gift, sir,” you say, stepping backward slightly. “You paid for it – it’s yours.”

“Then it is also mine to give. And I believe you would appreciate this much more than I.” He unstrings the pouch, slips the chain into his fingers. “May I?”

For any other person, you would have said a polite no before speed walking into the crowd, hoping to disappear between the stalls. Now, though, you stay in place, rooted to the ground under Changbin’s steady gaze.

You nod.

His hands are gentle in their feather-light touch against your skin, clasping the chain around your neck. The pendant hangs at the base of your throat, cold at first, but slowly warming with the afternoon sun.

It feels right.

“Thank you,” you whisper when he’s finished, sinking into a low bow. “Thank you so much.”

Changbin smiles, loosely taking your hand. He drops a butterfly kiss to your knuckles and you physically have to restrain yourself from gasping too loudly, because – oh, because –

The spot where his lips touch your skin sends warmth spreading throughout your body.

“It was my pleasure,” he says, still smiling. “My name is Changbin.”

I know.

“May I know yours?”

“Oh.” You smile, hoping your lips don’t tremble too much. “I’m Y/N.”

His smile widens at your words, making your heart flutter in shy embarrassment. “I hope to see you around once more, Y/N,” he says.

A sudden burst of courage turns your smile a little teasing. “Just once?”

Changbin’s laugh – it’s shy, it’s a shy laugh, your heart can’t take it – makes you want to melt into the ground. “Maybe not,” he finally says, ears red. “Maybe many times more.”

. . .

He keeps his promise of many times more, appearing again on your next day off, then again, and again. If possible, you seem to fall in love with him even more than you did in your previous life, his laughs tickling your heart, his smiles like sunshine against your skin.

Deep down, you know this won’t last. If Cupid took your love away so harshly in your last life, he won’t hesitate to do it again, possibly with even more malice. But Changbin is intoxicating, pulling you toward him like a leaf on the wind, forever fluttering in the breeze, only resting when the air does.

It’s not even just Cupid. At least before, you and Changbin were on equal footing – one a healer, the other a poor runaway. There was no status difference. Now, though, Changbin wears silk while you clothe yourself in homespun fabric, finer perhaps than a peasant’s, but homespun nonetheless. No matter how daintily you embroider the cloth with leftover threads from your work, it will never match up to the rich, gorgeous clothing of the nobles with whom Changbin must walk.

Such differences inevitably drive a wedge into a love that could have been.

It starts after you go to the market once, twice, three times, and Changbin doesn’t meet you at any of the stalls. It feels empty, walking around with no one by your side, and you’re just wondering if something’s happened when you receive a note written in your love’s handwriting, asking you to meet him at midnight where you first met.

He arrives a bit later than you, footsteps softly padding across the empty market. For a moment, you only stare at each other, faces lit just barely by the light of the moon.

Changbin breaks the silence. “I’m getting married.”

The words send a knife into your heart, but you try to ignore the pain. It was expected, you tell yourself, expected of someone with Changbin’s high status. The two of you could never end up together, not a sewing apprentice and a member of nobility. “I see,” is all you say.

For the first time since you’ve met, Changbin looks broken. It hurts your heart and you want nothing more than to hold him close until that expression disappears, but you can’t. You’ve barely even touched – you don’t have a right to hold him the way you’d like.

“I don’t want to be,” he says.

Your hands shake slightly with your reply. “Why?”

“Because…” Changbin’s voice almost fades into the silence. “I think I love you.”

His words should make you feel happy, should make fireworks burst in your heart the way they did when Changbin kissed you in your past life. And yes, a small part of you jumps for joy. But a larger part withers with disappointment, with pain, with the knowledge that none of this will come to good.

“Y/N.” His voice turns insistent. “Don’t you… don’t you feel the same?”

You swallow. Take a breath. “I do.”

A lovely brightness enters Changbin’s eyes, hope filling his face. You hate yourself for having to crush it. “But you have a duty to your family.”

“We can run away,” Changbin says, taking your hand. You want to melt yourself into his touch, rest in his warmth forever. “We can run, Y/N. We don’t have to stay.”

Only the greatest force of will allows you to pull your hand away. “I have a family, Changbin,” you say, trying not to focus on the light that’s fading out of his face with every second. “I have to support them. And you… you have a duty to the village.” You swallow. “We can’t run. It’s too selfish.”

He doesn’t blame you, you know. He understands what you’re saying, has probably already thought of it himself. Still, it doesn’t stop pain from breaking the glass in his eyes, gaze becoming fragmented as he nods once, twice. “I know. I just thought…”

Changbin never finishes his sentence. In fact, you never speak again. He walks you back to your mistress’s house that night, squeezes your hand once under the moonlight, then disappears back into the darkness.

And with that disappearance, he leaves your life forever.

Over the years, you hear stories of Changbin’s lovely partner, her flowing hair and vibrant face and pretty smile. You hear stories of how much they love each other, the children they have, how well they watch over the village together.

It doesn’t matter how much your heart hurts, you tell yourself every time you hear one of those stories. It doesn’t matter at all, not even when his wife commissions a dress from the shop you now own, years later. It doesn’t matter when Changbin comes with her and stands in the main room silently as you take her for fitting, and it doesn’t matter when his eyes linger slightly on you when you lead her back out.

You exchange no words that day, but you’re certain Changbin sees the black gemstone still resting at the base of your throat. He makes no obvious expression, but when his eyes flicker over it, their light dims the slightest bit.

In this life, there are no kisses, no hugs, none of the passion you shared in your first life. Instead, you love through vivid conversations, knowing smiles, and in the end, the barest brush of his hand against yours before he leads his wife out of your shop.

In the end, you never marry. Instead, you spend the rest of your life sewing until your eyes go blind, leaving you all too much time to contemplate everything you’ve lost.

Which is worse, you wonder, losing your love to death or to societal pressures and another woman? Which is worse, never knowing how Changbin suffered as he died, or knowing that he’s doing well without you?

Which is worse, having your love die in a land unknown, or having him live so close, yet so far away?

. . . . .

It continues, over and over again, endless cycles of living, remembering, loving. He’s a thief and you’re a merchant. You’re a shop owner and he’s a soldier. Both of you are orphans, living on the street. None of it matters, not gender, not occupation, not social status – no matter what, you end up apart.

With every lifetime, the dreams grow more vivid, as though to make sure you don’t forget a single instant of the love you experienced, the love you could never see to the end. You’d think that the lines between each life would grow blurred as each one passes, but they only grow sharper, more defined. It’s impossible to forget how many lives you’ve lived, not when Cupid forces each one to remain in your mind, endlessly playing in your dreams time and time again.

On your twenty-ninth reincarnation, you experience a month’s worth of dreams in your silken bed, the bed of a noble heir who can have nothing to do with the boy who stays by their side day and night as a bodyguard and nothing more. You wake up every night stifling screams resulting from twenty-eight lifetimes of broken hearts, muffled cries and tears that bring Changbin running into your room, asking if you’re all right, reminding you that you’re safe.

Physically, you agree. You trust Changbin entirely – he’s proven more than capable of protecting you after multiple attempts on your life – but mentally? Emotionally?

How can he protect you from a god’s wrath, a wrath he doesn’t know of, when you can’t even protect yourself from that same wrath you’ve known of for twenty-eight, soon to be twenty-nine lifetimes?

You try to harden your heart, speak to Changbin a little less, spend more time focused on your lesson books and less on Changbin’s lovely face, but it’s impossible, you find after several months of this forced silence. It’s impossible to ignore the allure of your guard’s lips, his entrancing eyes, impossible to ignore the gentleness of his strong, roughened hands guiding you through life.

But with every chaste kiss, with every stolen hug or brush of skin, you know, deep in your heart, that something will befall your love. Something will tear you two apart.

When he dies, stabbed in the chest by a traitor to your family, rage drives you to take the knife that fell out of your love’s hand and shove the blade into the attacker’s heart. It drives you to cry, to weep, to wail to the sky as Changbin’s skin grows cold, the remnants of his last “I love you” still hanging on his lips.

Watching your love die in front of you, you decide, is the worst punishment of all. Nothing, absolutely nothing could be worse than this, knowing that Changbin died because of you, for you, without a singular doubt in his mind as he did it because he knew you would do the same for him.

Moonlight streams through the windows, illuminating Changbin’s blank face and the blood on his chest. As people begin entering the room, pausing at the carnage next to your bed, you raise your head, tears still flowing down your face.

“YOU SELFISH GOD!” you scream at the cold moon, resisting the arms tugging you away from the body of your love. “YOU SELFISH GOD! I GAVE YOU TWENTY-EIGHT LIFETIMES OF MY LOVE, AND YOU WANT MORE?”

Someone’s speaking, trying to make you hear their words over the raging of your voice. You don’t care, violently wrenching yourself out of their grip to stay thrown over Changbin’s body, tears mixing with his blood. “COME DOWN AND FACE ME!” you gasp. “COME DOWN AND TAKE MY LIFE, DO ANYTHING, I DON'T CARE! FACE ME, YOU COWARD!”

Strong hands, too strong, containing none of the gentility Changbin used to show you, begin pulling you away. You thrash in their grip, still staring at the moon. “I WISH HE NEVER MET ME!” you scream as they drag you out of the room. Blood stains your nightclothes, sticky against your skin. “I WISH HE NEVER MET ME, NEVER DIED FOR ME, DO YOU HEAR?”

. . . . .

The god grants your wish.

. . .

You regret it more than anything in all of your now-thirty lives.

. . .

To know of your love, but to never experience any semblance of it in your entire life? To know of a certain Seo Changbin, but to never meet him, never know how he is, never see him once in over fifty years of living?

Torture.

. . .

From your sixteenth birthday, when you begin having the dreams, until your death well into your fifties, there’s only pain, endless pain, marred by a piece of disgusting hope that rests in your chest, a piece of hope that keeps you praying that you will see him just once in this lifetime, that you’ll know his face and he’ll know yours.

. . .

It becomes so clear as you grow older that you will never know the Changbin of this lifetime, if he even exists. You will never touch his skin, see his smile, bathe in the glory of his laugh. You’ll never kiss, never experience even the briefest joy of seeing his face.

But your heart hopes, anyway, even though your mind sees reason. It prays, refuses to accept the truth.

. . .

Hope, you decide, is a weapon. A weapon far deadlier than the sharpest sword or the heaviest club, a weapon wielded by only the most intelligent of tyrants.

. . .

Apparently, you go mad towards the end of this life. You can’t blame those who eventually put you in an institution, over fifty years old and withering away. They don’t know who Changbin is. They never will.

You never will.

. . .

You blame the dreams. If you didn’t know of your previous lives, if you didn’t know Changbin existed, you might have lived happily – well, maybe not happily, but you’d be content, at least. You wouldn’t be wishing you were dead every minute of your existence.

. . .

You die in that institution, supposedly of a wasting disease, but more accurately of a broken heart, a heart even more broken than the one Changbin left behind that first life when he never came back.

. . . . .

Your forty-sixth life is first one in which you end the love with death, not Changbin. Looking back, it was probably better for you, you suppose, because you didn’t have to feel the pain of losing your love. Maybe this was Cupid’s laughable attempt at some sort of mercy.

You loathe it anyway, loathe it almost as much as the lives – yes, plural by now, which automatically cancel anything Cupid tries to do to make up for it (if the god is even trying) – where you dreamt of certain sparkling eyes and a lovely smile but never met them face to face. It’s not quite as horrible, but nearly.

To know that your love had to deal with any measure of the pain you’ve felt for so long, the pain you wouldn’t impart on even your worst enemy, is unimaginable.

It’s ironic, too, considering your occupations in life. You’re a healer on the battlefield, wearing the strip of blue silk on your arm that denotes your immunity to the opposite forces. He’s a soldier on the same side, though he has no protection other than his skill from enemy swords.

You are sworn to heal. He is sworn to kill.

Isn’t it strange, then, that fate wills you to die first while forcing Changbin to live?

You weren’t supposed to be killed in war. Your healer status, that piece of blue silk tied around your arm, was supposed to protect you from enemy blades. But some unsuspecting enemy soldier, perhaps not seeing the blue amidst the dust of the battlefield or genuinely just not caring for the rules of war, drove their blade into your back as you knelt over a fallen man of your side.

Within minutes, you had succumbed to darkness. The pain of dying, the blade in your back wasn’t even the worst part.

All you could think, after all, as you lay there gasping, was that he would have to learn of your death from finding your body, that you wouldn’t even get to say a proper goodbye.

. . . . .

It’s a pitiful, desolate figure who sits on a clifftop fifteen lifetimes later, blankly staring at an expanse of open ocean, waves crashing against the rocks below, contemplating every single one of the sixty-one lives you’ve lived so far.

You married Changbin in this one, this sixty-first life. You married him for the first time in sixty-one lives, made your vows with him, kissed him under a shower of flower petals.

It didn’t change your fate, not even when, unable to have a baby of your own, you adopted your first, then your second child. It didn’t change anything, not when Changbin had a duty to this village that you couldn’t interfere with. It didn’t change anything, not when pirates came ashore and massacred the village population, killing your two children and half of the rest of your family.

Changbin threw himself from this very cliff, you remember, threw himself to a watery death rather than die at the hands of the pirates who came to raid the town so many years ago. He was brave to the last, fending off invaders even when countless others had thrown down their swords, and he never lived to see the defeat of the pirates whom he died fighting.

You hug your shoulders tightly, staring down at the waves crashing against the rocks. With all that’s happened to you over sixty-one lifetimes, who would blame you for tipping off the edge the same way Changbin died, albeit much less heroically? Who would blame you for giving up in this life, giving up in every life if you knew just how badly it would end every time?

“You’re right,” a rich voice sounds behind you, a voice that you once heard in person, many centuries ago. “Who would blame you? Not even I would.”

Your eyes slam shut, refusing to gaze into blood red. You don’t speak.

A sigh passes from the god’s lips, breath puffing softly. Where the air hits your neck, you feel your skin curdle with disgust.

“It’s no use not speaking,” he continues, a hint of amusement tinging his voice that makes your hands curl into fists. “I can hear your thoughts.”

A snarl twists your lips. “They must be very loud,” you snap, words dripping acid.

More silence.

“You hate me,” he finally says.

You breathe in, out, in, out. Calm, you tell yourself.

“Why wouldn’t I.”

A pause.

“Perhaps you can elaborate.”

For the first time since they appeared, you turn around, eyes blazing, to stare into the red gaze of the wrathful god who cursed you. “I would rather throw myself off this cliff,” you seethe, “than relive my lifetimes in front of you.”

Is it remorse that glitters in ruby eyes, pity that rests in their shadows? Whatever it is, it makes you smirk without mirth, lips curling without cheer as you turn back around to watch gray waves crash against the cliff. It doesn’t matter how a vengeful god feels after lifetimes of revenge. Apologies from the curser mean nothing to the spite of the cursed.

“I made mistakes,” the god says simply. “I acted rashly. I should not have taken my anger out on you, and certainly not with so harsh a punishment.”

You want to snort. “I am ever grateful you realize after sixty-one lifetimes of wrath,” you say, acid practically burning a hole in your tongue. “Now quit with the blather.” You don’t care that you’re staring at a god who could smite you down a thousand times over with a single flick of their finger – they’ve already hurt you too much for it to matter anymore. “After so many years of never answering my calls, you finally come, unbidden. Tell me why you’re here, or I will jump off this cliff.”

“I’ve come to offer an exchange,” they say. “It is impossible to erase a curse, but I can impart it on someone else.”

In a flash, you’re standing, staring the god dead in the center of their bright red eyes. “You said you could read my thoughts,” you snarl. “Tell me, God of Love, what I’m thinking right now.”

They raise an eyebrow. “You don’t want it,” they say calmly, though surprise coats their words. “You have no one, then, on whom you would impart this curse?”

“When I tell you,” you snap, “that I would not wish this curse on my worst enemy in all of my sixty-one lives, I do not lie. That –” you take a breath – “that is how much you have hurt me.”

Astonishment shows itself in the god’s gaze. “I don’t understand,” they say, for the first time looking bemused. “I have given you everything, dying first, dying last, watching him die in front of you, never seeing him in a lifetime –”

“You don’t need to remind me,” you cut him off. “I know it very well.”

“Then you would not even give this curse to me?” they ask. “Not to the god who has shown you so much pain?”

That almost gets you, almost. The desire for revenge claws its way through your chest, begging to be released in a monstrous cry of pain, but you rein it in with a scoff. “For a god of love,” you say, turning back around, “you really understand nothing of it.”

More silence.

“I will leave you with two gifts,” the god finally says. “Two gifts to try and make up for what you have lost.”

You suppress another snort.

“Your love will remember you on your one hundred and first lifetime,” they continue. “When the curse is over, your love will remember you, will know how you have lived one hundred lifetimes without him.”

The words, acerbic with derision, fall from your lips without missing a beat. “Will I remember him, then, or will you take that away from me too?”

A short pause. The air seems to grow slightly warmer, as though the god has been angered, but it cools quickly. “You will remember him,” they reply, voice thinner with a tinge of frustration.

You smirk.

They clear their throat. “The second gift you will find when you return home.”

You give no response to that, only stare resolutely at gray waves, feeling the ocean spray tickle your skin. The god must disappear at some point, because when you finally turn around to return home, they’re gone. But once you enter your empty house, there’s something on your table, something that sparkles in the last glimmers of sunlight peeking through the window.

You pick it up, eyes narrowed, and almost immediately drop it.

A thin silver necklace, polished to shine, with a small black gem as the pendant.

Though there’s no way to prove it, you’re sure this is the very same piece of jewelry that Changbin gifted you so many centuries ago, two lifetimes in a row.

The chain trembles on your shaking fingers as you place it back down, carefully, so carefully, like it’ll explode any second. You go to bed that night wondering if the necklace will have disappeared by morning, but when you wake up after a fitful rest, it’s still there, glittering on the table.

You wear it for the rest of this lifetime, hiding it beneath your clothing so no questions are asked. And when you feel you will die soon, you carefully place the chain in a small box and bury it just outside your home.

You’ll find it in your next life. You’ll find it in the next, then the next, time and time again until the end of your hundred-lifetime punishment.

It’s a small comfort, that simple silver chain with the little black jewel, but it’s a comfort nonetheless, a piece of your love to carry with you until the end of your times. Even if it was given back by the god who cursed you.

. . . . .

Years trudge along, years of waiting and waiting and more waiting for the torture to end. More death, more illness, more societal pressure to drive you two apart. In five lifetimes, you die first. In the others, Changbin either leaves you to face the world on your own, or you never know him at all.

It seems that even though Cupid may have felt some remorse for your curse, that didn’t stop the god from finding new ways to hurt you.

At some point, the lives finally begin to blur together. There have just been too many. If you tried, you could probably piece them all together, work out the details of how the two of you lived and how you were ripped apart, but after seventy, then eighty, then finally ninety lifetimes of broken hearts, it becomes too painful to relive.

(As you near the ninetieth lifetime, if you’re lucky enough to be born to a family who cares, someone always comes running in for months to the tears that stain your cheeks through dream-filled nights. You must have helped send so many people to an early grave with the endless screaming they would wake up to on the nights you dreamed of particularly painful lives.)

There are two saving graces to this pain, and as much as you hate to admit it, they came from Cupid. The god never deigns to meet you again (something you’re grateful for), but their gifts keep you from losing all hope as you near the end, the blissful end of your punishment.

One, the necklace. In every lifetime, no matter how painful, no matter whether or not you find Changbin, you find the thin silver necklace from your previous life. And no matter how rusty the chain gets, how dull the jewel becomes after years of wear, it shows up shiny and polished the next time you find it.

Two, the knowledge that Changbin will recognize you that first lifetime your punishment is over. You don’t have to keep track of your lifetimes, don’t have to count them until the hundredth has come and gone, don’t have to live any unnecessary lives with the fear that Changbin will be taken away from you suddenly and horribly.

As much as you loathe saying it, these gifts give you the slightest bit of hope that keeps you going.

So you trudge through lives, living as a tailor falling for a shoemaker, a nurse who comes to love a bedridden patient, a rich socialite who wants to marry the son of your family’s sworn enemy (this one’s interesting, quite like Romeo and Juliet, really. In your next life, when you dream of it, you wonder if Cupid met Shakespeare after the playwright’s death and decided to have a sick laugh at your expense). Seventy passes at some point, then eighty, then ninety.

By your hundredth life, you aren’t entirely sure what number you’re on. You think it must be ending soon, what with all the dreams your seventeen-year-old self had to suffer through, but it hurts too much to pick them apart and count. When Changbin doesn’t recognize you, though, a student at the same university as you, you resign yourself to several more lifetimes of heartbreak. It’s too much to hope for at this point, too much to hope that you’re on your last cycle of punishment, that the next time you live, you will be able to love Changbin wildly, freely, without a care in the world.

The dreams come once more in your hundredth and first life. It makes you despair that your punishment isn’t over, not even now (because though you don’t dare to freely pray, hope still buries itself deep in your chest, allowing Cupid to wield it like the monster he is).

Cupid assured you on his second and last visit that you would remember Changbin when you met him, though. You don’t like it, but hope only grows when you recall his words. Blind, blind hope.

It’s a cold morning, bitterly cold, when you roll out of bed to go to work. Eyes blinking blearily, you fumble around the cabinets for a package of coffee before remembering you ran out yesterday.

Just my luck, you think, scribbling “coffee” onto the grocery list on your refrigerator. You shove the piece of paper into your pocket, hoping you remember to go shopping later for whatever’s on the list. Your roommates are out of town, so you can’t rely on them to get anything this time.

Bitter wind slashes at your face as you walk to the small café just down the street for your daily fix of caffeine. By the time you’ve reached the shop, your nose is already stiff with cold, and the steaming cup of coffee the barista presses into your chilled hands only briefly warms your skin before you have to step back into the cold.

The bus will be coming soon, you note, checking your phone for the time. Steps quickening, you bend your head into the wind and set off for the stop.

So focused on your destination are you that you don’t notice the person until it’s too late. You smack right into them, sending them lurching into a nearby pole. They fall to the sidewalk as you spew apologies from freezing lips, holding out a hand to help them up.

They take your hand, squeezing with a grip that seems a little too familiar to be coincidental. A familiar sensation of warmth, a lovely, dreadful warmth, spreads through your body, emanating from where the stranger’s hand touches yours.

You freeze, eyes hardly daring to look up and gaze into someone who might be Changbin, who might be the love of one hundred of your lifetimes. You don’t even know whether to hope it is him, because if it is, will he finally recognize you after so many cycles of pain? Or will this just be another love that ends in heartbreak?

Slowly, slowly, your gazes meet.

It’s him.

Lovely brown eyes, eyes that throughout twenty, fifty, ninety years of pain, have remain unchanged in their depth and gentleness, stare into yours. Your breath catches. The coffee in your hand drops to the ground.

It’s really him.

Belatedly, you realize he’s still on the ground and give a quick yank to pull him up. You try to apologize, both for hitting him and for the coffee that’s spattered onto his shoes, but your vocal cords won’t work. All you can do right now is stare.

He doesn’t recognize you. He hasn’t reacted to your touch, hasn’t given any indication that this is anything more than a chance meeting, an everyday occurrence where a stranger bumps into him (albeit a little harder than normal). You’re about to retract your hand, to force your vocal cords into giving an apology for smacking into him, but then he opens his mouth and speaks words you never dared to believe you would hear.

“It’s you,” he breathes, gripping your hand even more tightly, almost involuntarily, like he’s trying to keep himself grounded to the earth. His eyes, now wide with confusion and awe, search your face greedily. For what, you don’t know, but you’re doing the same, even though you’ve seen his face millions of times by now over a hundred lifetimes.

“It’s you,” he repeats once more, raspy voice breathless with emotion. “It’s really you.”

Finally, your throat manages to choke something out. “Changbin?” you try, words small and soft, conveying all of your disbelief in that one single word, that one single name. “Changbin?”

He says your name, then, says it once, twice, as he keeps staring into your eyes. It sounds like honey on his lips, sweet in a way that makes you heady with bliss, and only the biting wind keeps you rooted to the present, reminding you that this is real, this is not a dream, that this is real, completely real.

Slowly, naturally, one of your arms curls around his waist, just as his hands rise to cup your cheek. His fingers are cold against your bare skin but you lean into his touch, pulling him closer, closer, until your faces are only inches apart.

“It’s you,” Changbin murmurs, still as though he can barely believe it. “It’s really you.”

A strangled sound escapes your throat, something between a sob and a laugh all at once. “You remember,” you choke, eyes beginning to fill with warm, salty tears. “You remember, Changbin.”

He cups your cheek with an ungloved hand, cold skin brushing against yours with a gentleness that makes you want to melt. “I do,” he replies, voice almost cracking with emotion. “I’m only sorry I didn’t remember before.”

In your previous lives, time and time again, you kissed Changbin’s lips. It was always lovely, absolutely lovely, lovely in a way that made it feel like a field of flowers blooming in your chest, butterflies fluttering in your stomach. But there was always a lingering desolation on your part, a despair born of the knowledge that this love would not last, that Cupid would not allow you to see it to its natural end.

Today, Changbin’s lips taste of sunshine and honey, dew on green grass on a summer morning, the excitement of a first snow, nothing reminding you of a lingering heartbreak to come. You can’t even feel the bitter wind with him pressed so closely to you, lips molding against yours as his hands cup your cheeks.

The last walls on your heart crack down, walls formed with the knowledge of your hundred lifetimes of punishment. From the broken walls springs a new warmth, a sparkling warmth that you can’t even find the words to explain, a warmth that spills through your body and makes you feel full, happy, joyous in a way you’ve never felt, not once before in your hundred lifetimes of heartbroken love.

When you break away, tears are streaking down your cheeks. Changbin’s eyes glitter, too, but the smile on his face is radiant as he gazes at you.

Cupid’s punishment was cruel, you know, crueler than it had to be. It was harsh, evil, almost wicked in the pain he inflicted on you. But even though the vestiges of that pain still line the edges of your heart, it’s easy to ignore it in favor of staring at your love standing in front of you as a wobbly smile of the purest joy finally begins to curve your lips.

Is this real? you wonder to yourself. Is this truly real, your punishment finally ending, Changbin remembering who you are and the lifetimes you’ve shared? This bliss, this love, this warmth… it all seems too good to be true.

As though he can read your thoughts (and perhaps he can – a hundred lifetimes of love have probably given him a window into your soul, the same way it’s given you one into his), Changbin grins, vibrant, radiant, warm even in the bitter cold. “This is real,” he says, lovely lips curved into a brilliant smile.

“It is?” you ask, soft, wondrous, childlike, hardly daring to believe.

He brushes away a tear on your face, his thumb stroking your cheek with the gentlest touch. “It is,” he whispers. “As real as your love for me, and mine for you.”

Time and time again, you burned your heart for Changbin, burned it with the love you felt for him over one hundred lifetimes of a curse. Time and time again, you swore at love, swore at the god who inflicted the curse on you without so much as an afterthought until sixty-one lives had passed.

But now, as you crush Changbin close, fitting your lips to his once more, you push those thoughts to the back of your mind and lose yourself in a kiss finally free of pain.

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 slap in the face for Cupid fuck them)

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