#my madness is being indulged so patiently

[sesamestreep]

Crozier/Fitzjames, fake amnesia

from this list of reverse tropes for fic writers. i told @firstelevens I wasn’t sure I had it in me to write fic for these two and then I went and washed my hair and while I did that, this idea popped into my head fully formed and I was bound by honor to write it down. Also it’s the first thing my brain has wanted to write in like two months, so I took that as a good sign?? Anyway, here’s…something. Kind of a Parks and Rec AU?? but also not in any serious way? It’s like…what if these dudes from The Terror worked in local government or whatever… don’t worry about logistics, I mostly wanted to write Blanky and Crozier being best friends and also talk about sobriety feelings a bunch. AND THEN I DID. only fits the prompt if you squint super hard but, regardless, please enjoy… on ao3 because why not

“So, you feel ready to go back to work tomorrow?”

Francis removes his gaze with considerable effort from the perfect red orb that is the sun sinking steadily under the horizon line across the lake and shifts it reluctantly back to Tom, who’s sitting back in his chair with his booted foot propped up on a milk crate that he got from God knows where. The sight of the boot that encases the lower half of his left leg does push a wave of guilty bile up the back of his throat but he’s already been told that if he apologizes for causing Tom to have need of it one more time, he’ll be drowned in the aforementioned lake, so he resists. Tom knows Francis is sorry about what happened and he’s chosen to forgive him, even if Francis still thinks it’s a stupid choice, second only to him befriending Francis in the first place all those years ago. Francis doesn’t know where he himself would have ended up if that hadn’t happened, though, so it all comes out in the wash he supposes.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Francis says, tracing a hairline fracture in his coffee mug with his thumbnail just for something to do. “If I take any more time off, I’ll just never go back, so it’s now or never, really.”

“Attaboy,” Tom says before taking a long, thoughtful drink from his own mug. Out of solidarity, or maybe sensitivity, he hadn’t had anything to drink tonight either, despite Francis’s assurances that it wouldn’t bother him and might even be a good idea, just for him to get used to it. It’s not like he could reasonably expect to go the rest of his life without ever seeing alcohol again. He’d seen four different ads for light beer alone this afternoon while watching reruns of ‘Bones’ on the couch and imagining every possible way his first day back in the office after rehab could go wrong and that hadn’t sent him into a tailspin, so he’d probably survive watching his best friend drink in his presence. Still, Tom had chosen to just drink decaf coffee with him after dinner like the ancient relics they are, because he is, without a doubt, the best person Francis has ever known. “You talk to anybody about it? I mean, besides me…”

“What, you mean like a therapist? Of course. I’ve got, what, six of them now, for Christ’s sake!”

“No, I mean, from the office. Have you talked to anyone about coming back?”

“Well, John, obviously.”

“I suppose you’d have to, yeah,” Tom says, running a ponderous hand over his chin. “Anything interesting from that quarter?”

“Just about what you’d expect,” Francis says, trying to be generous. John had been kind enough to let him keep his job, after all, despite how bad things got in the end, but Francis’s issues with the man remain, even with his newfound sobriety. Francis had sent him a long, downright obsequious email apologizing for the damage he’d done with his drunken theatrics both over the years and in the very recent past and explained in detail all the ways he was going to do better in the future, while expressing gratitude for the unprecedented amount of grace everyone, but particularly John, had shown him during this stressful time. It was, in no uncertain terms, the most embarrassing thing Francis has ever had to do, and he has, in his life, proposed to the same woman three separate times with absolutely no success, so it’s not like he’s lacking in options for that top spot.

John is, thankfully, the sort of man who likes to breeze past unpleasantness wherever he can and is also, more importantly, a deeply entrenched bureaucrat who’d just as soon do no work as do even a little work and therefore could not be bothered to hire a replacement for Francis. In fact, if he had to guess, John was probably clever enough to frame it as some sort of protection against a discrimination lawsuit somewhere down the line, despite the fact that several things Francis did at the staff Christmas party right before hitting rock bottom were definitely fireable offenses. John’s unflappable dedication to the status quo has worked in Francis’s favor for once, and while he certainly doesn’t deserve the break, he’s going to take it where he can get it on the off chance it never happens again.

“And the staff? Your team, I mean.”

“I got coffee with a few of them individually, just to clear the air and apologize, so that if anyone wanted to take a swing at me, they could do it outside of work,” Francis says, scuffing his shoe against the porch.

“Well, that’s considerate of you. Any of them try it?”

“No. The cowards,” Francis scoffs, which makes Tom laugh. “Jopson and Edward both seemed like they might be sick at the prospect of anyone in charge actually deigning to apologize to them, which was…humbling, to say the least. Then I got an extremely nervous monologue from Harry about the history and relative efficacy of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I think was his way of saying we’re square. And Silna told me if I tried to meet up with her outside of work hours again, she’d block my number and quit without notice, so...”

“She’s got the right of it,” Tom says, with a crooked grin.

“Yeah, that was my favorite of the lot,” Francis replies. “We’ll have a team meeting tomorrow and we’ll get someone in from HR so everyone can talk about feelings, God help us, but I think it might be okay. Which I could not have predicted when all this started, but here we are.”

“I could have,” Tom says. “You’ve made plenty of mistakes, I grant you, but you’ve also done right by these people in a lot of ways. They’re not going to forget that in a hurry. They’re a loyal bunch.”

Francis nods, looking out over the water again. The pinks and golds of the sunset a few moments ago have already faded into purples and blues as night creeps in. The nocturnal chorus of frogs croaking and insects trilling is rising in the nearby woods. He’s already said his piece about how absurd it is that they’re sitting comfortably outside on the porch after dinner—with jackets on and a fire going, sure, but still—and it’s only the beginning of March. Tom doesn’t need to hear any more ranting about global warming right now; it’s no fair repayment of his generosity. What Francis really should do is head for home soon and let his friend have some peace and quiet. He could use some of that himself, but he somehow doubts that he’ll get much rest once he’s home for the evening. At least he can panic about tomorrow properly there, though, by himself.

“Speaking of throwing punches,” Tom says, carefully, after they’ve been quiet a moment, “have you spoken to James at all?”

Francis winces with what feels like his entire body. “I haven’t had the chance,” he says, as lightly as he can manage.

It isn’t precisely true. If he found the time to contact everyone else who’d been affected by his spectacular fall from grace during his leave of absence, he could have found the time to reach out to James too, but he hadn’t. The apology he owes James Fitzjames is too big for an email, which he’d, in a truly cowardly fashion, gotten away with for almost everyone else, and the presumption and humiliation of asking for any of his free time as he’d done with some of his subordinates was a bridge too far. Besides, if they’d met up at a coffee shop to talk things out, Francis has no doubt James would have ordered his drink with oat milk or stevia instead of sugar or mentioned a cleanse he was on and Francis would have rolled his eyes and said something awful and then he probably would have had to go to rehab all over again, which would have defeated the point. Francis has been told by outside observers—professionals in the field, for what it’s worth—that he’s making progress, but he’s even more sure that he’s still, at his core, a miserable old bastard. He’s just less miserable than he was before, by a small margin. Unfortunately, he’s not any less old, though. In fact, he’s older, but that’s beside the point.

“You’ll have to face him sooner or later,” Tom says, not quite gently but not as bullying as he could be either.

“I know,” Francis says, covering his face with his hands. “I’ll do it tomorrow. I mean, if anyone’s entitled to an in-person apology, it’s James, surely.”

“After you punched him in front of everyone at the Christmas party and verbally berated him? Yeah, I think something more than a text message might be in order.”

“You accepted an apology text,” Francis says, scowling into his mug. “And I broke your leg. You needed surgery and everything. I don’t even think I broke James’s nose.”

“Only because your aim sucks when you’re wasted,” Tom replies, unbothered. “Gave him quite the shiner, though, if you want to compare wounds.”

Francis sighs. “I already said I’d talk to him. You have my word.”

“What am I? Your bloody father?”

“No, and I like you a great deal better for it.”

“Good, then what do I need your word for?”

“I was just trying to convey my sincerity.”

“I don’t doubt your sincerity, Francis. Never have. It’s everyone else you need to convince.”

“I don’t know what to say to James,” Francis says, into his hands. “I mean, with you at least, we’ve known each other for ages. We can bounce back from quite a lot, it turns out. James, he’s—I’ve never known how to talk to him in the first place. Now I’ve got to do it sober? I don’t know where to start.”

“How about, ‘James, I’m sorry for trying to knock your lights out with an audience present while I was drunk off my ass on the company dime’ to start?”

Francis closes his eyes and leans back in his chair, letting the shame wash over him like a wave and then, more importantly, letting it recede like waves do. He sighs loudly and shakes his head.

“You know, I’ve always regretted I wasn’t the sort of drunk who forgets what he does when he’s wasted. Feels like it might be easier, ultimately. Like, I could say, ‘oh, sorry for whatever I might have done to you, James. The trouble is I don’t remember any of it, but I’m sure it’s nothing I would have done sober, all the same.’”

“Feigning amnesia?” Tom barks, laughing and looking at him sideways. “What’s that? The thirteenth step?”

“Leave me alone,” Francis replies, waving him off but laughing himself despite his best efforts. “I’ve done a lot of owning up to things lately. Can’t I keep one petty grievance for myself?”

“You could probably get away with it, if you’d left it as a petty grievance rather than escalating to violence. And your resistance to dealing with James should tell you making amends there is your highest priority. Discomfort is a good thing here, a signal you’re heading in the right direction. If it were all easy, everyone would do it, you know.”

“That’s lovely, Tom. Will you be cross-stitching any of these aphorisms onto pillows to remind me to stay the course, or shall I just memorize them for when times get tough?”

“Fuck off, you dusty old prick,” Tom laughs. “Hey, what about this? ‘James, I’m ever so sorry for getting plastered and calling you out in front of everyone and then attempting to rearrange your pretty face with my fist! I do think some of the blame lies in you being so pretty and in me having some unresolved issues around my masculinity and my self-esteem, all of which you can blame on my waste of a father figure growing up, but in this case, I suppose I have to shoulder some of the responsibility for my actions myself. Forgive me?’”

“There’s no one else on earth who could get away with saying even half those things to me, you know,” Francis says, even as his blood doesn’t boil or even heat in the slightest hearing them. It rushes to his face instead, no doubt resulting in a fierce blush that the gathering darkness mercifully hides from view.

“I earned it the hard way, my friend,” Tom says, patting his boot.

“That you did,” Francis says, and rises from his seat. “I’d better be going, then. Much to do, after all: apologies to draft, laundry to fold, worst case scenarios to spin out.”

Tom gets up with effort, clunky and inelegant in his boot, but not so proud as to decline Francis’s hand when it’s offered. “I wasn’t trying to scare you off,” he says once he’s vertical.

“You didn’t. It’s like I said, I’ve a lot to do before the big day.”

Tom nods and, after a moment of deliberation, puts a hand on Francis’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, you know.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Francis replies, shifting away from the praise. “More of a bad man trying to be better.”

Tom gives him a long look at that and then shakes his head, smiling. “All that work on yourself and you still don’t get it,” he says, not unkindly. “What else do you think a good man is?”

Francis doesn’t know, but he spends the whole ride home and the rest of the night thinking about it all the same.

*

Francis’s plan of attack, such as it even exists, takes form more easily than he could have predicted. Once he starts thinking about how best to approach James at work and make amends on that front, he finds he knows a lot more about the man than he originally thought. A few years working together, however contentiously, has been enough to pick up on each other’s habits and quirks well enough that Francis can reasonably predict when he’ll be able to get a moment of James’s time without anyone else around. The fact that he can do this and yet never thought to do it before under any other circumstances is the cause of another wave of shame that passes less quickly than Francis would like.

Francis arrives at the City Planner’s office just before 8:30 in the morning with the certainty that he won’t run into John—the man has many flaws but his dedication to never showing up to work any earlier than he absolutely needs to is not one of them, in Francis’s opinion—but that he will, in all likelihood, find James already there and more than likely already working. He also arrives with the materials for a bribe, should that prove necessary.

He’s so worked up, going through everything he’s planning to say one last time in his mind before he actually sees James, that he doesn’t think to knock on the outer door, which is sitting half-open anyway, and just barges in instead. It’s not a great start, he realizes a second after it’s too late to do anything else, and it’s made even worse by the fact that James is there, as expected, and he’s only partially in his shirt, which is not so expected. Francis stops and gapes for a moment with all the grace of someone who’s been tased.

“God, sorry,” he says, and tries to step back, only to collide with the door jamb. “I should’ve—”

“Francis, it’s—good morning, I—this isn’t—I’m the—I’m sorry,” James says, managing to sound crisp and self-possessed even when he’s stammering his way through an apology. “I don’t normally…do this…in the office, I mean.”

“No, of course not,” Francis says, behaving like a teenager in a romantic comedy for some reason and averting his eyes, even though there’s nothing to see. James was in the process of buttoning his shirt when he came in, so it’s really the sight of his clavicle that’s made Francis so uncomfortable. Was he always this much of a ninny? Is that why he started drinking, to cover it up? It’s the only explanation that makes any sense now.

“I went for a run this morning and I neglected to pack a shirt with my work clothes, so I had to use the spare I keep in my desk for emergencies.”

The old Francis (of several weeks and easily a thousand group sessions ago) would have rolled his eyes at any number of things in that small explanation: running to work, keeping a spare shirt in one’s desk, referring to anything related to fashion as an ‘emergency’ and meaning it. Now, he nods thoughtfully and tries to think of it all as part and parcel of what he respects and admires about James: his dedication and planning, his ability to anticipate and address future challenges. The fact that he looks nice in blue. Whatever. It turns out it’s easier to do than he imagined it would be.

“I don’t think you have a habit of undressing in the office for fun, James,” Francis says, instead of any of those nice things. “Don’t worry.”

“Right,” James says, lightly, even as his shoulders remain tense. He does up the last few buttons and his clavicle disappears under the taut poplin fabric of his dress shirt. “Well, what can I do for you, Francis?”

Francis has heard—and, in turn, mocked—James on any number of occasions start conversations with a smooth, ‘to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?’, which is not an expression Francis himself has been treated to in a long time and for good reason. He doesn’t know why he thinks of it now, except that he’d take even a sarcastic reference to the pleasure of his company (of which there is none and never has been for James in particular, he thinks) over the idea that James should do anything for him, at this point.

“You’re training, then?” Francis asks, skirting gracelessly around the question James actually posed. “For another one of the what-do-ya-call-em’s? Not a marathon. The thing you did last year…?”

“The Ironman,” James suggests, looking slightly pained. “It’s a triathlon.”

“Yeah, that sounds right. Another one of those?”

“God, no,” James replies, nose wrinkling slightly before he seems to catch himself doing it and intentionally blanks his expression. “I’m not likely to do another one of those. I already have my bragging rights, after all. Today’s run was just for health.”

“Oh, sure,” Francis says, tapping a fingertip nervously against the cardboard sleeve of his coffee cup. “I’m meant to be doing that now.”

“Running?” James asks, betraying some surprise, which is fair enough.

“Exercising. For my health. To keep me…”

“Fit?”

“Well, distracted,” Francis replies, with a shrug. “There seems to be some thought of it helping to keep me away from drink, though I’m not sure what the logic is there. But I’m meant to be thinking of something I’d enjoy, anyway.”

“Not running, then,” James says, brow crinkling like he’s giving the matter serious thought. James is a fixer by nature—and by profession, of course, being paid mostly to follow John around and make sure the grand promises that flow from his mouth actually happen somehow. He thrives with a problem to solve. If Francis were even marginally less stupid and less proud, he might have thought to come to James sooner. He’s nothing if not several very large problems wrapped in a trench coat. Or a wind breaker, in actuality. The point is, Francis could use all the fixing he can get his hands on.

“Not likely. Never enjoyed it, really. Hard on the ankles, I’ve found.”

“Yes, it can be quite stressful on the joints. You’ve got to take all sorts of precautions,” James says, in the tone he gets when he’s working his way up to a long treatise of some kind, but he stops abruptly and his face betrays that he’s seemingly caught himself. He clears his throat. “So, it’s not for everyone. I understand.”

“Yes, well, my sponsor was saying that I might try tennis or racquetball, but then I’d have to find a regular partner or group, and I’m not sure I have it in me.”

“There’s a club nearby, actually, and they could help you arrange—” James pauses and shakes his head, once again stopping himself from expounding on the different options available the way he normally would. It’s an uncharacteristic amount of restraint coming from James, who loves recommending things to other people almost as much as he loves the sound of his own voice. Francis sees some of his own handiwork in this new display of shame and feels the need to make amends even more keenly than before because of it. “Well, you can Google it, I imagine, and it would be faster than listening to me. It is, uh—it’s in Eagleton, however, so I suppose that won’t do.”

“No,” Francis replies, frowning. “Thanks all the same, though. I imagine I’ll end up doing water aerobics with the rest of the senior citizens at the community center and call it a day.”

“You’re not a—you’re barely fifty, Francis!”

“I’m fifty-two, actually.”

“Oh, well, in that case, I hope you have your affairs in order,” James gripes, as he messes with something entirely unnecessarily on his desk. Francis smiles at the strange comfort of annoying him, which should not be reassuring to him at all but he’s a messed up sort of fellow even on his best days. The smile grows when James clears his throat again and adds, like he can’t quite stop himself, “Swimming’s rather good for the joints, actually.”

“Swimming?” Francis asks.

“Yes, swimming. As in, laps…in a pool. Something else the community center offers, if you were interested. It’s solitary—meditative, even—and good exercise. In—that is, in case you were wondering.”

“If this is you trying to talk me into a triathlon, James—”

James sniffs, more performatively haughty than genuinely haughty, Francis suspects. “I’d never,” he says. “I was merely recommending an activity that you might enjoy more than water aerobics, and that might spare the elderly of our community from dealing your obvious personality disorder early in the morning, when those classes tend to be held.”

Francis, much to James’s surprise from the look on his face, laughs at that. “I’ll take that under advisement,” he says, while James continues to regard him like he’s wild animal exhibiting signs of rabies who’s suddenly appeared in his path, which is maybe a common occurrence in town, depending on who you ask. “Thank you.”

James nods, distracted. “Sure.”

“Well, I—I…listen, I didn’t come here to talk about exercise regimes, which I figure you could have guessed,” Francis says, in a rush, because anything less than a headlong dive into the subject they need to discuss will hurt much worse than just getting it over with, he suspects. “And I don’t want to presume anything about your life, but I also figure there’s a non-zero chance that you’re already familiar with the famous 12 step program, maybe just through cultural osmosis, and I don’t want to over explain any of it to you, but, well, there’s a pretty important part about identifying people you’ve wronged through your addiction and the resulting behavior and making direct amends to said try people and—”

“I’m familiar,” James interrupts, softly. “Not directly, of course, or, um, anything like that—I don’t want to detract—but—”

Francis waves him off. “No need to explain. I just—well, obviously, that list of people, for me, had to include you, because of what transpired between us at the end of last year and how I behaved. The things I said to you, then—how I’ve always spoken to you, really—and of course, I—God, I’m so sorry. It feels absurd to say out loud but I’m sorry for lashing out at you and hitting you, I should never have—”

“It’s fine, Francis,” James says, starchily. He’s got a nervous hand pressed to his ribcage, so intently that it’s almost shocking to look and see no actual knife sticking out from there, somehow. With that, it’s hard to believe the breeziness of his words. “Really, this isn’t necessary.”

“And I’m telling you it is,” Francis explains, as carefully as he can manage. “Maybe it isn’t for you, I don’t know, but it’s necessary for me. Do you—can you understand that?”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” James says, after a deep breath. “Of course. Is there…more?”

“You tell me. Is there any other ways my drinking harmed you that I haven’t thought of?”

“No, I wasn’t—”

Francis holds up a hand to stop him. “That probably read as very sarcastic, given our…history, let’s say, but it was a genuine question. I think I’ve raked myself over the coals for every possible slight I can imagine but if there’s anything I did that I can address for you now, I’d have you tell me.”

“No, it’s fine, really,” James replies, shakily. “I only meant, I don’t really know what goes into all this. Is amends just an apology or is there more to it? I don’t need there to be, I was just curious. That’s all.”

“Well, you’re meant to endeavor to show you’ve changed your ways, I suppose. To indicate that you won’t be perpetuating the same harm in the future. Which, in this case, is tough, because…well, I mean, all I can give you is my word I won’t try to knock you out at work ever again.”

“Outside of work hours, however…” James muses, with a small, mirthless smile.

Francis winces, but otherwise doesn’t react. “I’ll never behave that way towards you again. On my honor, for whatever that’s worth.”

James folds his arms over his chest and looks down at the carpet, appearing like a sullen youth for a brief moment before he raises his gaze and becomes a grown man once more. Francis remembers when he’d shown up with John that first time, how he’d called James an infant to Tom when they finished their initial meeting with him about the town’s budget crisis all those years ago. Tom had laughed at him, wheezing ‘he’s a decade younger than us, if he’s anything, Francis. He’s our bloody peer now, and if you don’t see it, you’re cracked!’ Francis thought—still thinks—Tom is the one who’s cracked, in this case. James looked young, then; he looks young now, everywhere except the eyes, which contain a stormy sea’s worth of disappointment. Francis can be self-centered with the best of them but he knows he’s not the one who put that feeling there in the first place. He’s not that important. For the first time, however, he feels protective of the man in front of him because of it and takes it as his very solemn duty to never be the cause of his disappointment again, so long as it can be helped. All that and it’s not even 9 in the morning yet.

“It’s worth plenty,” James says, eventually, clearly just as uncomfortable with this much emotion so early in the day as Francis is and eager to be done with it. “Thank you, Francis.”

“Yes, well, I won’t take up any more of your time, I’ve been nuisance enough for one morning, but if there’s ever anything you want to discuss or clear up between us, my door’s always open. To you, that is. Well, to anyone, but just in case your particular welcome was unclear, I mean, you should—”

James sweeps a hand out wide in a graceful gesture like he’s literally clearing the air. “Understood,” he says, sincerely, “and appreciated.”

“Great,” Francis says, too cheerily and then winces again. “I mean, uh—right, I’ll just be going then.”

As he pivots back towards the door, the sloshing noise of the ice shifting in one of the cups he’d forgotten he was holding draws his attention. Christ, right. The whole point was—Francis really is starting to lose his mind. He contemplates just leaving anyway, like nothing’s amiss, but he’ll have to explain the two drinks to his team, absolutely none of whom will buy that the iced chai is for him. He’s gone on too many rants about how coffee shouldn’t be iced and tea only on certain occasions. He’s the type to drink hot, black coffee even on the most brutal summer days, though his sponsor did warn him that a lot of alcoholics do turn to sweets as a coping mechanism for replacing alcohol in their daily lives and not to be surprised if he found himself needing additional sweetener in his morning coffee as a result. Francis hadn’t credited it at the time, but he had found himself momentarily tempted at the coffee shop this morning by a sign advertising something called a ‘death by chocolate latte’ as the daily special before he’d gotten a hold of himself, so maybe there’s some truth to it. The point is, dragging this extra drink back to his office will be more humiliating than turning around and giving it to James like he originally planned, no matter how awkward it feels right now.

“Okay,” he says, turning back, “I promise this is the last thing and then I will let you get back to work. There’s, uh—it’s not a bribe, mind you, just an extension of the apology for what happened and for the fact that you’ll have to continue working with me for the foreseeable future and—you don’t have to forgive me, you don’t owe me that, I just thought—”

James looks at him, utterly perplexed, fingertips gently steepled on the top of the desk like he’d already been going back to whatever he was working on when Francis interrupted again. “What is it?” he asks, somehow still not betraying any annoyance at the interruption, hiding it well under an open tone of curiosity.

“The—this,” Francis finally spits out with considerable effort, holding the cup out towards James, rather than try to explain himself further. “It’s for you.”

“Oh,” James replies, with an expression like Francis is trying to hand him a live gerbil and not an upsettingly overpriced beverage like the ones he’s seen James drink on dozens of occasions. “I, uh—that’s really not necessary.”

“You must take it, James. Please. I said you’re not obligated to forgive me, I’m not trying to sway you, really. It just felt wrong to show up empty handed, after everything.”

“I understand, but, really—”

“You’re not on another one of your cleanses, are you? Giving up sugar or…calories before noon or something?” Francis ventures, imbuing his tone with more patience than he normally would, even though he still feels very little towards this thing in particular.

James is already so annoyingly healthy and brisk and handsome, it does take extraordinary amounts of patience to tolerate his talk of intermittent fasting and green juice with the goal of making himself even more annoyingly perfect. Surely, there’s got to be a limit to that sort of thing, but Francis doesn’t know; he’s on the opposite end of the spectrum it seems, having to re-learn the fundamentals of barely looking after himself in middle age without the aid of alcohol. It’s pretty grim, if he’s being honest. It really is no wonder that James has been so consistently earning the gold medal spot in the competitive sport of getting on Francis’s nerves, with that in mind.

His intentional gentleness does seem to pay off in this case, though, since James smiles at him in only mild embarrassment. “Uh, no, I’m not. I just—you’re not obliged to—”

“I know, but—listen, James, I already committed my penance by having to say the phrase ‘dirty chai’ with a straight face to a college student with a lip piercing at eight in the morning, okay? The damage is done. You might as well enjoy the spoils of my humiliation.”

James’s smile widens at that, looking for all the world like he can’t really stop himself. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that mental image might be worth more to me than the entirety of your apology.”

“No offense taken,” Francis says, finally succeeding in handing off the cup, slick with condensation by now, into James’s care. “I hope it will sustain you for a while yet.”

“Oh, it shall,” James says, placing the cup gingerly onto his desk.

“Right, well,” Francis replies, “that’s all, then. I’ll see you…later, I suppose.”

James nods. “We have a meeting set for Tuesday—tomorrow. It should be on your calendar. Thomas said he—”

“If Jopson says it’s there, it’s there.”

“Great,” James says, easily. “Until then.”

“Yes. ‘Til tomorrow.”

Mission completed, Francis turns once more towards the door and is only interrupted in leaving by the sound of James clearing his throat behind him. He pauses, and looks over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows in question when he meets James’s eye.

“It’s only—forgive me if this is the wrong thing to say, under the circumstances,” James offers, fidgeting with the edge of the notepad lying open on his desk, “but you do—that is, you look well, Francis.”

Francis doesn’t allow himself the liberty of moving even an inch, not to fiddle with his collar or brush back his hair or otherwise indicate he gives so much as one singular damn about his appearance. “Do I?” he asks, tone purposely vague, like James has just told him the weather forecast and it’s only interesting to him in theory, really.

“Yes, very well,” James says, putting his hand flat on the desk very deliberately, like it was giving him away before. At what, who knows, but he’s got it under control now. “This change, it suits you.”

“Well, thank you, I guess.”

James now looks at his computer screen, absently. The next words he says might be something he was reading off of there, if they were anything else. “You look good, is what I meant.”

“How—?” Francis pauses, feeling immense pressure to say this right, somehow. “Sorry, but how would that be the wrong thing to say?”

“I wouldn’t want you to think, well—” James interrupts himself by laughing, just a little and rather joylessly. “It’s not that you didn’t look good before.”

“Oh, right,” Francis says, even as those words continue to make no sense to him in that particular order coming from this particular person. “Wait, you’re saying—I did?”

James meets his eye again, finally, but only to give him the most impatient, long-suffering look in human history. “Is it too much to hope that one of the twelve steps involves learning to take a compliment?” he asks, sounding depleted by the effort. “Because it is one of your most exhausting qualities that you can’t do so without endless interrogation first.”

“And it’s got a lot of competition,” Francis replies, feeling himself smile and choosing to do nothing to stop it, “what with all my other exhausting qualities.”

“You’re really only proving my point here, you know.”

“Thank you, James,” Francis says, dutifully. “It’s very kind of you to say. Better?”

“Much,” James sighs. “You’re showing remarkable improvement already.”

Francis leaves him, then, because to stay any longer would just be exposing himself to further ridicule and he’d absolutely deserve it, what with the stupid smile he now can’t seem to get rid of.

[dumbification]

my aeon ft. boothill

summary: when he wants to cherish the moment to hold you in his arms.. boothill's devotion and adoration for you is endless, you'll never hear the end of it... (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) !!

cw: boothill x fem!reader, body worship, reader has scars (interpret it any way), you're both touch starved, u just wanna get to the point.. iykwim ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) softcore smut?? or highly suggestive.

“so pretty, baby.” boothill’s voice hummed through your skin, sending shivers down your spine. he went on and suckled at the sensitive skin of your neck—he made sure it would leave marks. he was always an expert at making you squirm, he knew just how to make you long for his touch.

he started to trail kisses down your body, pausing to give your breasts a gentle squeeze. an erotic moan escaped from your lips. he smirked. “the aeons must’ve blessed me, sugar.” he raised his head for a moment to cherish you in all your beauty. “heck. you might as well be an aeon. look at yerself..” 

he laid down to rest on your chest for a while. his mechanical heart’s beating adjusted to yours, syncing in patterns. “boothill..” he knew you longed for something more, but he insisted on relishing in your warmth—at least for now. he enjoyed tracing circles on your abdomen, hearing your breath hitch.

he went back to work and trailed kisses down your lower body, purposely avoiding your intimate area. he stopped at your inner thighs, his face shifting into a frown. “ya got new ones?” his cold thumb gently brushed over your scars—old and new. your eyes averted his in fear of being lectured. 

“ya know i ain’t gonna be mad, darlin’.” he pressed loving kisses against your scars. you felt something pulse and throb. your hunger for him grew. you spread your legs, trying to send him a message. he ignored this, and trailed kisses back up—all the way to your lips.

he looked you up and down, his lips ghosting your own. his hands had a firm grip on your waist, ready to devour you. you made the first move, he soon followed—crashing against your plump, soft lips. you hesitated at first, but introduced your tongue to his. you loved making the first move, whenever you had the chance.

boothill always wanted to enjoy the moment, taking things slow to truly indulge in you. on the other hand, you were quite impatient, you wanted to get to the point. he usually attempted to convince you that the reward would be even greater if you were patient.

his tongue traced over your face, leading to your ear. he left a clean stripe of saliva—it wasn’t hot nor cold. “tell me what ya want, pretty lady.” he was teasing you. a soft moan crept through your mouth when he gently nipped at your ear lobe. his teeth were awfully sharp.

“please..” you were this close to crying. you don’t take teasing lightly, boothill usually gave you what you wanted. he never, ever said no to you. that doesn’t mean he can’t play games another way. “please, what?” a string of curses slowly slipped out of you. his husky voice only turned you on. he could hear you sniffle.

“‘m sorry, baby. no more games.” you heard his pant unbuckle, you audibly sighed. his belt collapsed to the floor as he carelessly tossed it around. you could tell he was hungry for you, too.

“what does my aeon want from her devotee tonight?”

[mediumgayitalian]

“Oh, come on, there’s just —” Will blows an errant curl from out of his eyes, cheeks red with exertion, balancing nimbly on his feet to put both hands on his hips. “There’s no way, Nico.”

Nico, not blessed with such balance, has to hold all footholds with all limbs, staring warily at the lava wall’s snake holes.

“What? I’m just not as good as you.”

Will flops his right arm outwards, narrowly avoiding smacking it against the rock. “But you are!”

Nico shifts his wary gaze from the snake holes to Will’s rope harness. Is it tight enough? It better be tight enough. Will is putting a lot of faith in it, right now.

“You scaled those cliffs in — in the place —” he trips, still, over the pit, on the odd time he mentions it, and it always makes Nico wince — “like it was nothing! And whenever Percy visits and challenges you you’re suddenly the lava wall expert!” He turns stern blue eyes to face Nico’s head-on. “Not buying it, di Angelo!”

A gush of lava forces him to resume climbing, but there’s an aggression to his movements — a specific, stiff, curated aggression, that Nico has learned means anxiety in people known as William Andrew Solace. That, and coupled with the rapid muttering which, in between the roar of molten stone, Nico believes is a a repetition of “dumbass” “always tryna act a goddamn fool” and “I’m gonna kill him before he sends me into cardiac arrest again”, interspersed with random swears in English, Latin, Ancient Greek, and also — gods — Klingon.

“Will.”

Will ignores him, scampering the last few feet up the wall and slapping the top before relaying down. Nico sighs, following him (albeit significantly slower).

“Will.”

“You’re hiding something from me.” He practically rips the harness off his body — do not think about that do not think about that do not think about that — and shoves it on the hook so hard it damn near snaps off. The look he levels in Nico’s direction practically turns him to stone, it’s so frigid, and he has to resist a shiver. “I can tell.”

It takes a good amount of pushing to make Will all testy like this. Sure, his buttons are easy to push, but most of that is for show. He likes to be dramatic. (Especially because he knows Nico will indulge him, more than anyone else ever has. He relishes in it, Nico thinks; he likes that Nico will watch his productions. An Apollo kid through and through.) He’s not usually one to show his genuine frustration.

But, hoo, boy, when he is frustrated.

Nico has a bad, bad habit of making it worse.

(As if it’s his fault that Will’s hot when he’s mad.)

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nico says, forcibly lightly. He sticks his hand out defiantly. “Check me, why don’t you? Not hiding anything.”

He really isn’t. No injuries, no illness, hell, he’s not even tired. Had a full three meals and everything. Even his perpetually achey joints aren’t bad today.

All of this, obviously, is communicated when Will touches him, squinting suspiciously at their joined hands.

“You’re heart rate is high,” he mutters petulantly.

Nico looks at him patiently. “That’s ‘cause my smokeshow boyfriend is holding my hand.”

Grumpy as he’s trying to be, his ears redden. A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth.

“Shut up.”

Nico grins, pulling his hand up to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the knuckles.

“No.”

“Whatever,” Will says, snatching his hand back. His smile spreads widely across his face, now, and he looks away, as pleased as he is exasperated. “You’re still being a weirdo. I should not be so far ahead of you on the wall, Neeks.”

Success — back to nicknames. Crisis averted.

“Have you considered that you’re the camp-wide record holder for a reason, you spider monkey?”

“Still!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Nico gets up on his tiptoes, pressing a lingering kiss to the bridge of his freckled nose. “Stop worrying about me, Solace. I’m fine. Burn off some steam, I’ll watch.”

Will huffs. “Fine. But I’ll find out, y’hear me? Truth can’t hide from me for long.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He watches as Will suits back up, helping him with his more complicated straps (because Nico was raised to be a gentleman, obviously, why else) and shooing him away when he opens his mouth for more interrogations. He switches to sticking out his tongue, and after a moment of hesitation, bounds back over to his first true love — being a big nerdy jock dork.

Nico settles on the grass several feet away from the wall, pretending to clean his sword. After a few minutes, he hears footsteps, and two people sit next to him on either side.

“So,” says Lou Ellen, ignoring Nico’s suspicious look as she tosses a glowing ball of something around, “how come you’re not climbing?”

Nico shrugs. “Only so many times you can climb before it gets boring.”

On his other side, Cecil makes a loud buzzer sound.

“Nope! Wrong answer. Try again.”

Nico is a dignified grownup who refuses to stoop down to Cecil’s level by responding. Instead, he reaches over and pokes him in his ridiculously sensitive ribs, hard, sending him sprawling with a screech.

“Shut up,” he says mildly, as his friend flails. “I’m trying to be a supportive boyfriend, and I can’t do that with all your whining.”

Will has, in the ten minutes since he started, made it halfway up the wall. He seems to have it programmed to the Super Extra Mega Evil Insane mode that the Athena and Ares kids invented just for him, since he smoked all the other levels. He dodges a shot of lava with a laugh, throwing himself to the side and hanging on with three fingers and one scuffed sneaker poised on the tiniest sliver of rock. His attention is broken when Lou Ellen sticks her face right in Nico’s field of vision, tracing Nico’s eyeline with narrowed eyes.

“Ah,” she nods knowingly. “You’re staring at his ass.”

Nico falters, damn near slicing his own fingers off. “No idea what you’re talking about,” he says blithely. He gestures without looking at his sword. “I’m busy, see?”

She scoffs. “Real busy. That’s why you almost just did emergency surgery on yourself.”

“Exactly.”

Will pushes up a foot, shifting his hips and launching himself upwards. He makes a little shout of victory, plastering himself to the wall to keep balance, every muscle tensed.

From his place on the floor, Cecil makes an appreciative noise. “He does have a nice ass. Can’t blame you for looking.”

Nico frowns. “Hey. Stop objectifying my boyfriend.” He reaches out and smacks a hand over Cecil’s eyes. “That’s my job.”

“You guys are ridiculous.”

Nico reaches over and puts a hand over her eyes, too, ‘cause there’s no missing where they’re pointed.

“Shut up or I’ll literally put shadows into your retinae and blind you forever,” Nico threatens. (Is this a thing he can do? No. Do his friends know this? Also no.)

“You’re a dictator!” Cecil protests.

“Depriving us of basic human rights!” Lou Ellen agrees.

Nico shrugs. He glances back up the the climbing wall, where he has a very perfect view — and a great reason to never even try to climb faster than Will does. He grins.

“Too bad for you guys.”

[akutasoda]

war lasts, and so does a broken heart

synopsis - you lied to him, but was it your fault or was it his fault for failing as a healer

includes - jiaoqiu

warnings - gn!reader, angst no comfort, sloght fluff, kinda arguments?, implied death, brief mention of injuries, wc - 1.2k

a/n: found this in my drafts, don't remember writing it but decided to finish it! shout-out to @harque and @iceunhie for proofreading and offering very valid suggestions and advice! :>

jiaoqiu abhors you.

he despises the saccharine words that leave your mouth, hiding sickeningly sweet, placating lies behind them. he despises how you make him feel, how you made him care for you - how you make it so much harder for him to say goodbye. all the lingering memories he held dear now only served to mock and torment him, they were so vivid that for a moment he could indulge in the idea that you were still there with him.

all those years spent with you along rainsoar lake. in rain or shine, you accompanied him while he harvested ingredients as he rowed along the lake. he'd always make a point of peeling open the rice stems and handing them to you, a sweet treat as a form of thank you. jiaoqiu always spent longer at rainsoar when you were around but ultimately he would end up rowing ashore, though he wished that there'd be more time for just the two of you.

but now there was no time for reminiscing. the misty rain, various flora and peaceful fauna were replaced by unpredictable environments. the smell of iron and ash permeated the air. a chill found its way to the pink foxian and wormed its way into his very core, but it was the least of his concerns - he should be used to it after all.

jiaoqiu was drawn from his thoughts by the shouting and rushed footfalls of various soldiers drawing closer to his position. he looked over to the incoming soldiers and immediately honed in on you, being carried in by your allies. his heart dropped to his stomach but he remained still - after all, it’s important for a healer to remain calm and composed for their patients.

he listened to your allies explain today's calamity that unfortunately claimed part of your health before ushering them away. as soon as they were out of the field hospital, he turned to you with narrowed eyes. you smiled sheepishly as he sighed and started assessing your wounds.

it was silent.

you knew he was mad, and he could deny it all he wants, but he couldn't stop his ears from drooping or tail from lashing back and forth - or even prevent the frown making itself more prominent as he kept finding injuries. jiaoqiu eventually stood up and made his way to the nine-square cauldron, busying himself with cleaning and slicing ingredients.

the silence was soon filled with the bubbling and boiling of the cauldron. you tried to speak up, but jiaoqiu beat you to it. “i thought you said you'd be careful”

you sighed.

“i did jiao-ge, but you know what it's like out there” pausing for a minute before making a pained gesture to your uniform “i took on this responsibility”

“i wished you didn't” is what jiaoqiu would've said, but he couldn't form the words. when you told him about your decision to join the ranks, he respected it, bringing up his disapproval now would only be distasteful. instead he just nodded, turning to add more ingredients to the pot.

it didn't take long before he made his way back over to you with a full bowl in one hand and chopsticks in the other. jiaoqiu handed it to you before going to retrieve fresh bandages - there was only so much that his ‘medicine’ could do. he took care dressing your wounds while you ate, and when you finished, he took the bowl and chopsticks away

he seemed too distant for your liking and so you called out again “jiao-gege we both know the risks… but you have to trust me”

he didn't move to face you but he did stop to respond “this is the second time”

“but it isn't my last, is it? and that's thanks to you” your answer did little to soothe him so you continued,

“i can't guarantee i won't get hurt, but i can guarantee i will always make it back here”

a lie. it was all lies that were meant to comfort him and you both knew it. jiaoqiu shoved his thoughts and feelings aside, biting down on the urge to say everything that weighed on him

“just try and rest”

he'd never sounded so distant to you, and it hurt.

he knew that by dawn, the bugle would call again.

that dreaded bugle that forced you away from him and into the battlefield. whether he would see you again or not was anyone's guess. jiaoqiu could only hope that you weren't a part of those missing faces that he knew had departed the world for good.

every morning, he would hear that bugle. and this morning, he watched your injured form leave the field hospital in a dejected silence as he again held back everything he wanted to say. again, he tricked himself into believing that you'd always return. again, he clinged to those lies you both believed in, even if deep down he knew that it was a futile effort.

it was only a matter of time before you never returned, and jiaoqiu could only wonder how many days you had left.

the answer was one he dreaded. he wished that the day when he lost you forever never came, that it was only him doubting your abilities because that was better to fix than the pain of losing you. jiaoqiu had lost plenty of patients, he knew what happened to all of them and he hated it. but jiaoqiu barely knew those fallen soldiers. and if he hated losing them, how would it feel to lose you?

your absence did not go unnoticed.

he searched for days, a foolish part of him hoping that you did return completely unharmed, that you had simply decided to stay with your allies but…

jiaoqiu never saw you again

what hurt most was that he couldn't mourn your passing. the battlefield was no place for such sadness, if he was even capable of displaying such remorse anymore, and so you became just another face among the many patients he healed that went straight into the jaws of death.

jiaoqiu knew he had to continue on, push through the ache that tore his heart into shreds and left him with nothing but a hollow emptiness. he knew he had to move on and heal more people that would soon perish as well.

---✩

“jiao-ge look!” he turned to see you crouched beside a leafy green plant, one that had a white flower blooming out the middle. he joined you, pulling a small amount from the soil “sand ginger. good find” he placed it into his herb basket and ushered you along.

jiaoqiu stared down at the sand ginger that had grown in abundance. it wasn't the spiciest, it wouldn't bring his senses to life again but it would do - he wouldn't admit that it was foolishly more for the memories than anything else. maybe it could counteract the bitterness that consumed him.

you lied to him.

he believed you, clung to your lies like a lifeline because he refused to face the truth.

sometimes he questioned if it was his fault. he knew that all the soldiers he healed were ultimately destined toward death, but he didn't want to believe that fate would also befall you.

so maybe if he told you his feelings, if he became a better healer, then maybe… you would join him by his side one last time.

taglist - @little-miss-chaoss, @frankiesteinn

[futurecorps3]

Hello my love! I have heard your call for Kaz requests and I have an idea rattling around in my head!

Could you maybe do a Kaz x fem!Reader where they're in their early 20s and have been together for years and overcome Kaz's touch aversion (bc our poor boy deserves some healing 😭)? But that's not the idea, the idea is that the reader hasn't been sleeping for a few nights and ends up getting hurt because of it? Could be from fainting and hitting her head, slow reflexes on a job, etc. I trust your brilliant mind!

I can't wait to watch you grow as a writer!!!! ❤️

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐧𝐮𝐦

Masterlist<3

Summary: The lack of sleep Kaz has been warning his girl about finally has consequences. Pairing: Kaz Brekker x fem!reader Warnings: Mentions of overwoking, lack of sleep, blood, a very angsty moody angry sad Kazzle, mentions of blood and lost of conscience. The usual crow violence! Lmk if I missed any. Word Count: 3.5K whoops Requested: Yes

A/N: IM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! :( I love the prompt, however and am very excited to work on this. Hope u like it nonnie and that last thing means the absolute world! <3

˚ · • . ° .

Now he knew he was in no position to demand her to rest. Kaz Brekker was known in his close circle for two things; killing whoever disrespected his love and always scheming. The electricity his brain consumed when plotting the next heist didn't even allow him to sleep when being tucked in with Y/N laying over his chest. But she never had the same issue before!

That's how it worked. She got mad because he wasn't sleeping and would reproach his ears off until he folded and left his papers to join her in bed. So, it was safe to say Kaz was startled when he noticed the absence of steps approaching his office. The clock read the time to be a quarter past midnight. He learned by endlessly scolding from you the hard way it was no use staying up late for a job when he had pretty much everything prepared, so he dropped everything and left to his room.

"Darling, are you-" his question was answered as he opened the door and saw her drawing on the little desk he got for her. "Hmm, hi love. It's quite early. What are you doing here?" Kaz wanted to laugh at that. Had she really lost notion of time that badly? "It's past midnight now, Y/N. What are you working on?" His shirt was discarded in some chair, along with his coat.

He was now in his dress pants and a black sleep blouse, leaning over the back of her chair to see the canvas. It was a picture of the sea, surely an image she hadn't been able to get out of her head after the quick trip you took to the docks with Wylan to ensure a better hiding spot, in case things went south on Saturday.

"I don't know if I'm getting the blues right... you know how it somehow turns gray when the day's rainy?" she wondered out loud. "Don't throw it away altogether, I know you're already thinking about it" "I'm not!" Y/N giggled, knowing fully her boyfriend could read her mind. "Fix it in the morning. Let's go to bed now, yes?" Kaz tried, tilting his head to her right side and nudging his nose a little on her cheek as she hummed in response.

It had taken a long time, many years, to reach these moments. Years of hoping she could one day have his arms draped around her waist in security, head on his chest without a care in the world, because all that really mattered was they'd be keeping each other warm with their bodies. Y/N was patient, not minding the baby-steps and Kaz's constant need to push her away because he thought she deserved better. Truth is, there was no one better for her.

Kaz had a hard time wrapping his head around this fact. Did you love him for him? A limping criminal who was too weak to even bear the thought of embracing you when tears streamed down your cheeks on a specially tough day? Why? It took convincing, long talks, difficult moments and even worse fights... but you made it.

She felt his steady heartbeat as they lay together in their silk black sheets, indulging in the beauty of it. Their breathings became one, and she swore there was no better place the saints could come up with as heaven. "Everything's ready?" "Yes, I figured I should come here with you instead of overthinking it all. I'll tell everyone the plan tomorrow and revise it again the day before" he took a deep breath, turning to face her and leaving a soft kiss on her lips.

"It's late, you don't seem tired" Kaz noted, Y/N's eyes nowhere near closing as they usually would by now. Her boyfriend, on the contrary, was starting to hide that beautiful icy green his irises held, then came a yawn to confirm his fatigue. "Rest, my love. I'm sure I'm not too far behind," she assured him, pecking his head as he lay on her chest now.

"Goodnight, Kaz".

˚ · • . ° .

It may as well have been minutes, or hours, days, for all she cared to reason. All she knew was that she couldn't sleep for the life of her. Kaz moved a lot in his sleep and after he lost hold of her, the night became a non-stop tossing and turning in their shared bed. She could hear the faint sound of carriages passing down their street, surely carrying some rich merchant who just had the night of his life betting or in one of the pleasure houses.

It had been a while since she felt this way. Pretty much every night prior Kaz offered her a permanent position on the crows after she worked with them was like this. The clock in their room, hanging on a wall distant from her, kept ticking and if it got quiet enough, she could've been able to hear the gears turning. Three in the bloody morning and Y/N had luckily gotten by far twenty minutes of sleep. The girl sighed and lay down again, looking up at the ceiling briefly before closing her eyes in hopes of resting a little more.

She didn't, not even in the days ahead. Kaz pointed out how he could feel her moving way more than usual as his a light sleeper, not blaming her whatsoever but more concerned as to what was keeping her up. Y/N didn't know either, so she figured solving it with Jesper's coffee and quick (very ineffective) naps on the couches and tables at the slat so she could at least be aware of the task at hand; the job.

The day came, and she felt very optimistic about it all. Truth is, Y/N loved dressing up with pretty dresses and daggers hidden around her thighs. She found some kind of satisfaction in keeping this knowledge to herself, the men and women throwing looks at her, completely unaware of how dangerous she happened to be. People on the streets knew her as the wild child... ruthlessly gorgeous, is what Kaz called her.

The girl had a habit of getting carried away in a fight. Too much anger and resentment for the past had to find an exit. It did when she killed, leaving a scared Jesper to deal with an even more scared Wylan who wouldn't dare look her in the eye for weeks after she kept on punching a man's face she saw was trying to kidnap a little girl right after a job years ago. Kaz helped and understood.

His revenge was calculating and took years in which she was by her side, but Y/N just couldn't help herself when it came down to the people who did unspeakable things to her. With the years, she got a hold of herself even though her nickname on the barrel stuck, adding "the crow queen" when word got around she was Brekker's girl. Now, she was still ruthless but way more cold-headed and grounded, Kaz's doing.

She wore a pink dress with embroidered roses around the floaty sleeves. Inej had a blue set of dress pants and shirt, long-sleeved as well as Nina sported a hot red strapless dress with a lot of cleavage. "We're a smoke show! Those fuckers will barely be able to keep their eyes off of us." The last one squealed, adjusting her hair "That's the point" Inej giggled, agreeing clearly as she looked at herself in the mirror.

Y/N laughed at the thought and her head pained a little; Girls on those big houses did the very same thing they were doing now, with very different intentions. Those ladies wanted to find a rich husband, and they'd be set. Her friends were dressed to kill, and so was she. A little fucked up version of a cliché she, too, wished to live when she was little. "I hope these sleeves aren't an issue" she wondered, picturing them getting stuck on their knife or maybe being too tight to throw a punch.

"It's a simple job, love. There's nothing to be worried about! Also, I can bet on my life Kaz is going to be drooling over you when he sees." Nina smiled, playfully smacking her shoulder. "Even more so if you fight in that, he's going to go insane" spoke the Suli girl with a giggle "Kinky" the heartrender added, making the girlfriends break in a fit of laughter. Nina was right, Y/N knew, but decided against confirming her friend's assumptions.

Her eyes felt droopy from the obvious lack of sleep but nothing a cup of coffee couldn't fix, right? She walked down the stairs and into the makeshift kitchen they owned, heating up some. The smell filled her body with pleasant chills, and suddenly some more energy invaded her. "Wacha got there?" asked Wylan, who was quietly sitting behind her. How long had he been there? How did she not notice?

"Coffee, want some?" "Right before a job?" "Yes, I haven't been sleeping too well the last couple of days". Certain zemeni voice erupted from outside the room, exclaiming a brief "Neither have us!" that had the merchling blushing like he got some contagious disease. Y/N delivered a pat on his back, and coffee in hand she exited the room.

Kaz gathered everyone in the living room, to revise the plan once more. "...so make sure you cover that corn-" He stopped mid-sentence when Y/N came into view. Her hair looked polished, but she could be bald for all he cared. The dress complimented her figure beautifully, adjusting in the right places, which to Kaz was any place, really. Inej and Nina giggled and high fived. "Go on, love." She smiled, ready to listen attentively at his plan even though he made sure to walk her through it personally a few hours ago.

As Y/N brushed next to him, he grabbed her hand to make her stop right before she got seated. "You're stunning. Is it comfortable?" he whispered, looking at her with a certain glow in his eyes he once thought lost. "Yes, dear. Thank you" she pecked her boy's cheek and took a seat behind him. He went on with the plan, and everyone seemed pretty much ready to leave.

So they did.

˚ · • . ° .

"Darling, watch out!" Jesper exclaimed, shooting at a man behind Y/N. Things went south, they did. In the hiding spot Wylan and the girl had settled; some dreg must've ratted, they guessed. An ambush from some new-forming band trying to get known by stealing from The Crows themselves, pathetic. Inej had gotten there to help, but Y/N and Jesper insisted she went back and warned the others so to spare them from possible damage.

The wild child and Jesper were a great team, who knew a durast and an avid fighter could take down men three times their size and weight? They proved on many occasions to be useful for situations as these, so there was no problem. They'd be out of there in the blink of an eye. Around ten people had arrived at the scene, and four remained, Y/N realized as she took a kick in the gut and fell on her back, jumping back on her feet with a flip.

Jes' revolvers did the job for two others as she managed with the guy in front of her. "Come on, big guy, that can't be the best you got, aye?" she smiled wickedly, taunting the man with a daring hand despite the very much broken rib she could feel. The dress was ruined with blood she was sure wasn't hers, shreds ripped it off so largely one of her legs was now exposed.

He lunged forward, coming with a dirty blade to her throat, and she skipped it. Came again, now, aiming for her arm and she skipped it again, landing a kick on the throat that left him coughing on the ground. Y/N crouched to his level and grabbed him by the hair, sliding a knife in the same spot, careful not to cut. She noticed a tattoo on his neck, a beaver. Couldn't help but laugh. "You tell your boss not to mess around with us, or next time he won't get too lucky as to get less than half of his men in one piece. And change the tattoo, a bloody beaver? Seriously?"

The man nodded furiously, tripping on his way out of the warehouse. "A beaver? Their thing is beavers?" Jesper laughed, putting his babies back in place and making sure the painting they had stolen was still with him. "I know, couldn't pick a funnier thing" she answered, giggling. Looking around, something was odd. Yes, Y/N was not very well educated and lacked the month of college her best friend had, but she thought she counted four men remaining in this spot of the building.

The other six lay limp near the door, and there were two next to them, plus the one who ran with the message. One was missing. "Hey Jes I think we're missing one" "What do you mean? There's no one here". She stopped listening and her world went quiet when he met his yes. A lanky, tall figure could be seen next to a stack of boxes on her right, a flicking light revealing him for brief intervals of time. Ugly motherfucker carrying a gun that pointed straight at her.

The blood started gushing out of her leg before she could even react. "Too slow" she faintly heard. He wasn't stopping either; shooting at various places until one loud boom next to her made it cease. Was concrete always this cold? Oh, she was now feeling Jesper's soft suit. Warmer. "Is that wool?" Y/N asked and realized her voice sounded a little quieter than she meant. "Yes, it is doll. Open your eyes for me, okay? You can't die on me now"

She really tried. She really wanted to look at her best friends face and maybe hear him crack a joke or two. But her eyes felt droopy and her head felt heavy so she finally fell asleep.

˚ · • . ° .

Kaz arrived minutes later, Wylan, Nina and Inej by his side as they all rushed to a crying Jesper, desperately trying to wake Y/N up. "S-she got shot, didn't flinch.. like she didn't even see the bastard," he hiccuped, letting his boss take his place next to a limp body as his boyfriend helped him up and hugged him tightly.

Brekker's head spun. A thousand possibilities. There was blood all over the dress, and leaking over his clothes but he couldn't give a fuck. Not her. He couldn't bare it. Y/N was a piece of heaven in that saint forsaken island, the only saint he ever believed in and the angel that saved him from himself. If he lost her, there was no coming back for him. The water rose to his nose again for a brief moment.

It hadn't happened in a while. And he chose the techniques his lover taught him. He acted. "Nina" he mumbled, taking Y/N on his arms as the grisha girl assured him she had a pulse. His legs carried him to the slat, never too far from Nina, as she was making sure her pulse didn't slow down too much. He didn't even notice the pain in his bad leg. He felt a sting on his heart, so sharp it seemed as if pieces of broken glass would poke through it at any moment.

The boy sent Inej looking for whatever idiot decided it was a good idea to try and steal from them. Only information. He'd take care of them later. The Wraith left and was out all night, returning with a lot to say the next morning. Kaz looked over at Y/N's face and the utter peace that brushed over her features scared him even more. Not now. Not like this.

"Is she going to be okay? T-there was definitely something wrong with her back there" Jesper started once the girl was on the bed and getting healed with a few healers in the dregs and Nina. Kaz was sitting, head propped up in his hands as he stared at the wall opposite from him. "She didn't move! At all! He shot her three times and looked amused while doing it". The zemeni man had to stop if he wasn't trying to reunite with the other deceased blessed people on his bloodline. Kaz's stare hardened and his jaw clenched tightly.

"Wylan, I can't lose her. She was too slow a-" "ENOUGH" Kaz stood up, looking at him with murder in his eyes. "If you were more aware of the surroundings, she would be fine. Don't you dare call her slow. This is not her fault. You should've been there" menacing gloved finger pointing to his friend. "Oh, so this is my problem now?" Jesper countered in complete disbelief. "If you don't consider your best friend's life being at critical risk a problem you're much more of a superficial, incompetent and heartless bastard than I thought." Kaz spat.

He knew this wasn't Jesper's fault, maybe it was the lack of sleep or you just weren't on your element. But he had to let it out with someone. Anyone. Pain turns into anger and screaming at your brother when it's too strong. He knew that better than anyone and couldn't care to stop himself this time. "Kaz, stop" Wylan said, and then he noticed Jesper's puffy eyes with a sigh. Then he felt his own neck starting to tickle. He was crying. Kaz Brekker didn't cry.

"Out" "But Ka-" "I SAID OUT"

And out they were. Everyone who didn't need to be there to save his girl's life. He could hear Nina struggling between wrecked sobs, fast pacing around the room and a distant sound of water running non-stop. Hours passed, and he remained in the same position, in the same chair, with the same thoughts running wild inside him.

Not you. Please. I should've been there. I'm going to kill them. Please be okay. I can't do it without her. Please.

Kaz Brekker was repeating pleas, thinking out loud to whoever was listening. Let her live. Please let her live. This is not her fault. Not to a god, neither to those saints who proved to exist so many years ago. He didn't know who he was asking for help to. But he was screaming, please don't let her go. He was leaving with her if she did.

All sound stopped, and Nina emerged from the dimly lit room, drying her cheeks. The boy stood up, looking at her with the most terrified look he ever gave someone. Fuck the facade. He was utterly afraid. "She's okay, not waking up, but she will". He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and couldn't help but throw himself into Nina's arms in search for some comfort to his wrecked sobs.

His friend received him with open arms, careful not to squeeze him too hard, as she knew that could trigger him. "I can't lose her, Nina" he whimpered before pulling away. "You're not. Not now and not soon. She's okay, Kaz. Stay with her, will you? She could be a little startled if she wakes up in an empty room"

He almost scoffed at that. What else would he do? A quiet nod was delivered, and he stepped inside to accompany her in an uncharacteristically unsettling silence. There were dirty gauzes everywhere, her dirty dress discarded in a corner and a blanket covering her figure. Kaz stopped, looking at your chest. It rose and fell in a moderate rhythm. Good.

Taking a seat once again, he held her hand and brushed a thumb over it, grateful to whoever listened. And Nina.

Sun bled through the curtains, filling it all with a pleasant orange hue Kaz knew Y/N would appreciate. Jesper came by every few hours and amends were made. He understood how badly everything hit Kaz the day before and didn't need an apology. They were all under intense pressure the day before, couldn't blame him for a such a reaction. Wylan had brought flowers and Inej made sure everything was ready for when she regained consciousness.

His crows got it handled.

A whole day and a half had gone by and he was reading beside her when she woke up. Her hand moved and he could feel the twitch in his palm, looking up frantically to find those pretty y/e/c eyes looking back at him. "Finally, got some sleep," she joked and laughed at her own joke. Kaz laughed back. "Hello" he offered, kissing her hand and never really wanting to let go "Hi". "Are you feeling okay?" the boy asked, happy to see his lover once again awake.

"It hurts a bit but I'll live" "I'm counting on that, my love". ♡

[chastiefoul]

out of place | alhaitham

a/n: the hold this man has on me is unreal, it's been 10 or more writings already why can't i stop. anyways. gentle and soft alhaitham will forever be my weakness; the special treatment he's been hiding too well and you brought it out from him.

genre: fluff. soft.

0.4k words

‣

“hey,” the soft tone ceased you out your drowsed state, your eyelids felt heavy as you forced them open, remembering that you’re currently studying with alhaitham. you hummed in response, putting the weight of your cheek on your arms at the table. “’m sleepy,” you mumbled.

“why are you so sleepy during the day, hm?” he asked as his left hand rubbed the back of your head so gently. the simple gesture made your heart skip a beat, your stomach fluttered in joy. his touch were always so tender, so delicate. “i’m not usually. maybe it’s because i’m in your room?” you continued to mutter. he let out a small chuckle and you swore you could listen to it for days.

his hand continued to do wonders, as it tucked the messy strands of your hair behind your ear. “i’d really like to hear the theories to back up that claim.” alhaitham played along, your presence had made him giddy. made him spouted nonsense, but he didn’t mind. “maybe later,” you said, as you let the drowsiness took you over once more. “(y/n), you can’t sleep here,” the grey-haired man scolded you. if it could even be able to be called that. his voice was always a tone lower when speaking to you, always so sweet and patient that you thought perhaps you could get away with anything in front of him.

“why?” you closed your eyes, his supposed ‘threat’ did nothing. “because you’ll hurt your back hunched over like this.” he pinched your cheek, even then his touch was still so tender. the man wasn’t even mad because his study time got cut short, he was worried about your well-being. you finally sat right up in your seat, bringing his hand that was on your face atop of your knees as your cheeks warm with fondness. alhaitham stared at you playing with his hands, his chest brimming with the most pleasant coziness. he couldn’t resist the urge to intertwined his hand with yours, a slight surprised expression flashed across your face before a smile appeared.

it’s unfathomable; how different he usually was and how he treated you. to think the usually aloof scribe was so attentive and careful around you made you unbearably happy, it made you want to indulge yourself more and more in his kind affection.

and you had a feeling he would let you do just that.

[cannellee]

TOKYO REVENGERS OMEGAVERSE ☆

୨୧ alpha! kojiro x omega! reader

— what kind of alpha is he with his omega

my masterlist: ☆

tw : red flags, yandereish

he's so uncomfortable with his emotions. they're almost too much for him to bare. so he'll bury them, which makes it hard at first for you to get close.

what charmed him in you surely is your kind nature. kojiro isn't attracted to egotistical and violent people, he finds it refreshing to have such a bundle of joy next to him. you're glowing and with you, kojiro feels way better about his life and the future. it feels less scary.

it's the first time he ever feels the need to be careful around someone, to watch his mouth and behave. you're so small and frail, and you have such a gentle soul. kojiro is scared you won't be able to handle an unfriendly alpha like him.

he knows cute omegas like you like thoughtful and caring alphas. an alpha who'll tenderly kiss you, patiently scent you and shield you from the big and scary world. but kojiro isn't all that, and he knows it. but he doesn't want you to know that.

how can you look at him with your big, innocent eyes like that ? will you still look at him the same once you learn what he has done ? will you still trust him and believe him, stay by his side despite everything?

he feels so at ease with you. it's always so peaceful around you, as life can not be anything but easy. he wished he found you sooner.

your omega nature pushes you to look after your alpha, and this constant nurturing instincts you show him are a very nice change. you're so delicate and yet, you treat him warmly, without any judgement, as if he was the weak one.

                                     · · ୨୧ · ·

kojiro is a jealous person. he knows he isn't enough, he knows he isn't able to give you everything you deserve. but he'll try and accept every criticism you have to offer him, he won't say anything back. but if someone else does try to tell him to leave you, if someone gets in between the two of you, shooting disgusting wandering looks at his omega, kojiro acts accordingly.

yes, he wants to remain the most flawless possible in your eyes, but it sometimes can't be helped. and kojiro actually would rather disappoint you than let anyone touch you and risk your relationship. he can still make it up to you by apologising 'sincerely' – you're too surprised and pleased by his efforts of actually admitting his mistakes, that you quickly forget what you were even mad about in the first place – it always works.

in fact, you sometimes have to act as a mediator, softly scolding him for his lack of care and his rude behaviour towards others. you don't like it when he's being aggressive and he knows it, he tries hard to control himself around you but his emotions sometimes get the best of him. still, he never lashes out at you ; you trust him wholeheartedly and know that you don't have to be scared of him.

"kojiro, you can't talk to chifuyu like that, he's just trying to help you", your serious tone has him thinking twice about his next words. albeit still a bit grumpy and harsh, he won't be too disagreable. of course he will never apologise or talk nicely, but he will tone down the insults and become a tiny bit 'softer'. he'll carefully imagine what you'd like to hear from him, as he's not sure how to behave correctly. when you look at him with a satisfied look, he unconsciously releases a relieved sigh.

he's the type to blame others for his bad temper. you'll get mad at him for cursing out someone for no reasons, and he'll get even more aggressive with them, affirming that he's the one who caused your argument. "you're happy? look at what you did, now y/n is giving me the cold shoulder". he will learn, but for the time being, you're careful and indulgent.

                                     · · ୨୧ · ·

he does get a bit manipulative. as I said, kojiro is jealous and somehow a bit insecure. he'll blame you for talking to someone else ; he often gets the wrong idea and ends up genuinely hurt.

he growls and take it out on the object of your interest, on the asshole who stole your attention. it's truly terrifying sometimes. you can't do anything though, you can call his name all you want, he isn't stopping until he knows his omega won't be coveted anymore.

he's mad at you. annoyed that you let someone else get this close to you, especially when you know how possessive he is over you. why are you testing his limits?

"I'm sorry I'm so horribly jealous. tell me you love me, and only me". it's up to you to indulge in those crazy fantasies, but you'd better do because kojiro has the power and obsession to do much worse. he wants to keep you with him and he acts sometimes a bit too violently ; dragging you by the arm with enough strength to make your skin bruise.

he isn't exactly aware of what could hurt you. he grew up in a toxic environment and honestly clings to his only source of happiness like it's his life force. you're vital to him, he tries to change for the best because you asked him, and eventually, you do see improvements. but a lifetime of abuse and mistreatment aren't that easily forgotten. that's why having your sweet scent next to him is necessary ; he can feel you, scent and smell you. you're here with him, your presence is soothing.

he likes hugging your small frame, finding satisfaction in knowing he's the one who can keep you safe. you rely on him, and it sends a wave of pride to see you so blindly trusting him.

[wongyuseokie]

Tall Hot Boyfie and His Tall Hot Friend | k.m.g | k.s.w

Summary: Your boyfriend has been neglecting you for long enough, and you decide to take things into your own hands. Is it your fault that your boyfriend’s very attractive colleague is there the night you decide to do so? 

☆ 18+ minors dni |☀︎fluff | ♕ smut | ♥ completed works

Word Count: 2106 words

Pairings: Kim Mingyu x Female Reader x Kim Seokwoo (Rowoon) x Female Reader

Genre/Trope(s)/AUs: PWP, smut

Content Warnings: Mentions of alcohol 

Smut Warnings: Kissing, threesome, oral sex (f receiving), finger, rough sex (sorta), squirting, overstimulation, cum eating, very, very brief m x m. Spanking, like once, dirty talk. 

Authors Note 1: Thank you so much to @hwasangelbaby for beta'ing this 💕 Authors Note 2: Look, wbk how bad I am down for Mingyu, but Rowoon--I blame Tomorrow and Destined For You, and in general my love for tall hot men. So this fic happened. Also, I repurposed an old fic to make this heh.

Tagging a few lovlies: @dejavernon, @gyuwoncheol @smileysuh @duhnova @kmgkmg

Cross Posted on AO3

© wongyuseokie 2023. All rights reserved.

It was the fourth night in a row when your boyfriend cancelled on you at the last minute. You couldn't be too mad either, being the CEO of the most prestigious banks in Seoul. Kim Seokwoo had a lot of work, and while you usually were patient, you had run out. 

Aside from merely missing dates, he last touched you nearly two weeks ago. Every night he got home, you wanted nothing more than to ask him to fuck you and make you beg for more, scream his name and shiver from overstimulation. 

Except he looked so exhausted from work you couldn't bring yourself to ask him to fuck you senseless. 

“Baby girl, not now. Daddy's too tired” was the same response you'd been getting for at least two weeks. 

You'd been patient, but two weeks was too long, and you needed him. You were done being understanding. You needed him and needed him now, and you weren't taking no for an answer. 

You even offered to take care of him, you just wanted to touch him and sink to your knees and take his cock in your mouth and make him cum, but he shook off your advances. 

“Yes, Mr. Kim, I understand what you're saying, but it's just getting ridiculous that I must explain to the board why I'm making decisions. I'm the fucking CEO.” You heard Seokwoo bellow downstairs. 

Your curiosity got the better of you, and you went downstairs to the living room, where you saw your boyfriend wearing a black suit with his sleeves rolled up and exposing his tanned and toned arms. 

His tie was loosened and just dangling loosely around his neck. You shook your head; you came downstairs to find out what your boyfriend had so worked up. Instead, his appearance got you flustered. 

“Listen to me. Your arrogance is why the board doesn't trust you. Yes, you are the CEO, but you cannot ignore the presence of the board. They are there to help you.” The voice belonged to a man you could only describe as ungodly handsome. His stern gaze and delicate features made you swoon. 

You were a loyal girlfriend, and no one could ever doubt it. You and Seokwoo had your indulgences, and a threesome was on the list of things you both wanted to try yet never had an opportunity to do so, and this beautiful man in front of you was making your head swirl and fueling your wildest dreams. 

The thought of your boyfriend fucking you, making you beg, and while you were sucking off this handsome stranger's cock, made you feel lightheaded. 

“Mingyu-” Seokwoo started to say.

Oh wow, a beautiful name for a handsome man, you thought. 

“Listen, take a break. We can discuss this; let's have a drink. The three of us discuss this calmly.” Mingyu stated calmly, and you realised you had been noticed. 

“Three of us?” Seokwoo questions, keeping his back to you. 

“I believe that is your beautiful girlfriend; you talk about her a lot. It wasn't hard to identify her.” Mingyu casually said. His confidence and calmness stirred something in you. 

“Baby? You know better than to interrupt my meetings,” Seokwoo said sternly, his eyebrow cocking as he expressed his displeasure at you interrupting your meeting. 

Typically, you would apologise and accept your punishment later on. 

Not tonight. 

You didn't know whether it was the lack of intimacy, the handsome stranger or your boyfriend, but you would not be a good girl. You weren't going to behave. You were going to be a brat, and fuck, if Mingyu wanted to watch or join, he could. 

“And you know better than to leave your girlfriend alone for two weeks and not touch her,” you stated calmly and confidently. 

Both men looked shocked for a split second. Seokwoo recovered with a gaze that you only saw when you disobeyed him. Mingyu, on the other hand, got up from his relaxed position on the sofa and extended a hand out to you. 

“Hyung, do I need to teach you everything? I understand you see me as your advisor, but I thought you were more than capable of caring for your lady?” Mingyu teased as he intertwined his fingers with yours.

You were at a loss for words but kept a poker face. Seokwoo, on the other hand, got visibly more annoyed, his jaw clenched.

“Mingyu, I can take care of her just fine.” He spoke back, gritting his teeth. 

“Really? Is that why I haven't had your dick inside me for the last two weeks? Is that why your baby girl had to use her fingers to cum?” You responded while smirking. You didn't know where this newfound sense of boldness came from, but god, did you love it. 

“I believe Mingyu said we should all drink together, so let's do that. It's the least you can do for not fucking me, Daddy,” you said, making Seokwoo hiss in annoyance. 

“Wow! Hyung, you got yourself a bratty one, didn't you?” He laughed and turned his attention to you. 

“Tell me, pretty girl, what's your poison?”

“Whiskey neat,” you responded.

“Hyung, you heard the pretty lady. Get us all a drink, and we can talk about how we can fix several issues,” Mingyu suggested. 

Seokwoo stayed still. He was getting angrier by the minute, but the way you were acting also had his trousers getting tighter, and he wanted nothing more than to put you on your hands and knees and fuck you until you cried his name. 

“Daddy, please, your baby is thirsty. Don't worry, Mingyu can keep me company in the meantime,” you say as you sit on the sofa. Mingyu follows you and sits beside you, still holding your hand. 

Seokwoo growled, and that growl shot straight to your core and instantly started soaking your panties. You rubbed your thighs together in a feeble attempt to relieve yourself. 

The action didn't go unnoticed by either man. Seokwoo responded to your pathetic attempts by walking into the kitchen to grab the drinks while Mingyu slowly stroked your thigh. 

“Baby, don't think I didn't notice you. You got wet from a growl. You are a dirty little whore,” Mingyu praised calmly, smirking. Your arousal and his words had you so confused yet wanting to know more. 

“Hyung, you were right,” Mingyu exclaimed as your boyfriend returned from the kitchen with the drinks in his hand. 

You were so confused.

“What did I tell you? She is a dirty slut. Look at her. She saw her boyfriend and another handsome man, and she's a mess,” Your boyfriend spat, making you whimper.

Feigning innocence, you meekly said, “Seokwoo?” 

Seokwoo glared at you, downed his drink, yanked you out of Mingyu’s arms and placed you on the floor. He leaned down to you, his hot breath fanning your face, and at this point, you were sure your arousal was dripping onto the floor. 

“Baby, you're so needy, and I was going to take care of you tonight, but you couldn't listen and wait. So, whores like you deserve to be punished,” Seokwoo taunted, and your mind was hazy with arousal yet going wild with fantasies. 

As if reading your mind, Seokwoo moved back onto the sofa, grabbed Mingyu by his neck, and kissed his jaw.

“Daddy, please,” you whimpered. 

“Jealous?” Seokwoo taunted, making you whine, and both men scoffed at you, not paying you any attention. You felt so desperate you needed something. You removed your shirt, undid your shorts, and discarded your bra and underwear. You spread your legs and started circling your clit. 

“Daddy, please fuck me,” you let out a soft whimper as you begged,  this time, both men noticed, and neither was impressed. 

“Baby girl, because we have a guest, I won't punish you,” Seokwoo said calmly. He extended his arm out to you, and you grabbed onto it. Seokwoo sat you down between both of them. The position made you giddy, and you couldn't stop squirming. 

“Hyung, let's put the poor girl out of her misery, shall we?” Mingyu suggested as he rose from his seat and started discarding his clothes.

You started drooling when you saw his cock, it was large and thick and curved slightly, and you knew it would hit you in all the right places. 

“Look at her, Hyung. She's already drooling for my cock. Do you want it, pretty girl? My cock in your mouth?” Mingyu teased, and you shook your head furiously, your words failing you. 

At this moment, Seokwoo stood up and stripped himself from the four years of being together. You could never tire of the sight of your boyfriend naked. 

Both men, now naked, took their positions back on the sofa, only this time Mingyu sat slightly far away from you and pushed you back so you were leaning on Seokwoo’s chest. You felt Seokwoo get hard under you, and the thought of it made you tremble. 

Mingyu snaked his large hand down to your breast, slowly rubbing and pinching the nipple. His hands trailed down further to reach your pussy; he teased you. 

Mingyu’s fingers were ghosting your clit and entrance. He finally showed mercy and slid a long finger into your wet pussy. 

“Fuck pretty, so fucking wet,” Mingyu praised as he moved down, hovering over your face and softly kissing you. While he added another finger inside you and started moving his hand against your g-spot. 

It was embarrassing how close you were, but these men had worked you up so much. Mingyu crawled down your body until his lips reached your dripping cunt. 

Mingyu stuck his tongue out and gave your pussy a tentative lick, and you moaned and squirmed about from the teasing, but Seokwoo’s strong arms held you in place. 

Mingyu put you out of your misery almost instantly. He wrapped his plump lips around your clit and sucked and fingered you. He showed no signs of slowing. On the other hand, you were starting to get so close, and you were almost there until Mingyu stopped, leaving you a whimpering mess. 

“No, pretty, if you cum, you cum around my cock,” saying this, Mingyu lined his cock along your swollen and sensitive folds, making you shudder, and without warning, filled you up. 

He showed no mercy and set an animalistic pace; you fell apart and around his cock. Your pussy clenched around him, making him groan and growl, only making him fuck you senseless through your orgasm till he reached his own. 

Mingyu finished, his cum coating your walls and pulled out from you. 

In an instant, Mingyu reattached his lips to your cunt, and pushed his tongue into your cunt. He was collecting his cum on his tongue. You shuddered and nearly cried from the overstimulation. 

You suddenly felt Seokwoo let go of you and fell back onto the sofa. 

Seokwoo grabbed you by your waist and flipped you onto your hands and knees with no time to readjust. Without warning, he pushed himself into you. 

Seokwoo set a pace much like Mingyu, fucking you hard and with no signs of slowing down. He fucked you as your second orgasm hit you, you shook, trembling, but Seokwoo showed no mercy. 

He kept fucking and fucking. You felt something like a coil come undone inside you. You came hard and shook and started whimpering.

“Baby? You okay?” Gone was the dominant Sekokwoo; instead, a loving disposition took over. You nodded, still shaking. 

“Baby girl, you just squirted all over daddy’s cock,” Seokwoo stated, smirking and groaning, and you whined and shivered when Seokwoo slid his cock back inside your pussy, fucking you again as he chased his orgasm. 

“Fuck baby, you are so fucking tight,” Seokwoo moaned.  

Seokwoo’s thrusts started slowing down, and you felt him still and released into your pussy. He quickly scooped up his cum with his long fingers and walked over to Mingyu, and made him suck on his finger, making you whimper at the sight. 

“Well, Hyung, I guess you know how to please your girl,” Mingyu teased as he dressed quickly and left the apartment. 

“Thank you, baby, thank you,” you said breathlessly once the door shut behind Mingyu. 

“Baby?” Seokwoo said incredulously. 

“Baby, after a stunt like that, you think I'm done with you? You’re in trouble now. It’s still Daddy for you,” Seokwoo warned as he picked up your limp body off the sofa, threw you onto his shoulders, and made his way to the bedroom, slapping you on your ass for good measure. 

This night was far from over.

[i-literally-cant-with-this]

This is an oddly specific request but could I ask for headcanons with Kafka and a reader who’s on the curvier side? Like I’ve got DDs, I have wider hips, and like Kafka I have abs but only if I suck in my stomach. So I guess I feel very seen and validated by his body type??

Sfw/nsfw is fine, and feel free to delete this if it’s too vague. I hope you have an awesome day! ☺️

MDNI under the cut, please and thank you!

A/N ::: I woke up at 4:30 this morning and am falling asleep as I write this lol. Proofed as well as I could for the remaining brain power I have.

Anon! I LOVE this so much. And oddly specific requests are fine with me. It just means I have more to work with! I hope you like this and that it meets all of your needs =).

Always had a soft spot for women with more to love. And you've only made these feelings of his grow in intensity.

Can't believe YOU are interested in him. Sure, he knows he's strong and relatively good looking (my god, he deserves the world) but only recently has he started to feel really comfy in his own skin.

Respects the hell out of you for being so confident in your body.

Never tires of seeing you walk around in your bra when you get ready in the morning.

Has trouble focusing on his breakfast when your tits are looking so much more delicious than what he's trying to eat.

Has given up on finishing his food more than once to take a few well-placed bites of you.

Can't get enough of your ass, especially when you're bent over something in the kitchen. Or the bedroom. Or the bathroom. Anywhere, really.

Comes up behind you and starts to rub your hips, squeezing and pulling at you, whining because he doesn't want to wait until later to have you all to himself again.

You've let him indulge in his fondness for the softness of your body more than once.

You're nearly convinced that he likes what he's doing to you more than you do.

The way he reacts when he's eating your pussy, moaning and pulling your body closer against his face, his big arms wrapped up under your thighs and his hands almost turning white they're gripping the fat of your legs so hard.

It's like he's possessed, unable to control himself.

And when he fucks you, his abs bulge and flex as he slams into you, his cock hitting all of those spots deep inside of you, driving you mad.

Does his best to let you cum first.

When he finishes, sometimes he'll pull out and cum all over your tits, stomach, ass. Any part of you that he's fixated on at that moment in time.

Has had trouble deciding and almost ruined his own orgasm - luckily, there are only beautiful parts to you, and he was able to finish anywhere.

He's never had a preference for where he puts it before, but with you he just seems to really like to cover you in his cum.

Provides world-class aftercare.

He offers you anything he can think of that you might want or need.

Warm washcloth to clean up a little? Sit tight, kitten, he'll be right back.

Hungry? Where do you want to eat? He's famished, anything you want sounds great to him.

Thirsty? He's already walking his chubby, jiggly naked butt down the hall to the kitchen for a glass of ice water for you.

Tired? Great, so is he. The two of you have curled up more than once to take some quiet time for just you.

He's got you covered for anything.

So grateful to have someone so loving, patient, and caring in his life.

Fights (playfully) with you about who is luckier: You or him. But he never backs down that he's the clear winner here.

@kazutora-kurokawa @katkusuo

@darkstarlight82 @southside-otaku

@bakubunny @mintiblossom

@breathofthewind29 @viburnt

@trevengersprincess @manji-hoe

@witchy-scribblings @

[tht0nesimp]

indulgent Drabble…

Idea: so have any of you guys seen those AU things where it’s like being a Yandere is a normal thing, so if you’ve seen season four you know about the wrong timeline things so like what if they ended up in one of those or this was one or something, this is probably not very well written…

tw: spoilers but not like specific instances just like information,Yandere bcs…it’s my blog, kidnapping, non consensual…everything?, normalized stuff idefk , Five is inspired by a Yandere five fic I read once I won’t even lie

thinking of them all having their little darlings and how they treat them >.<

Luther’s darling is getting it probably some of the best, he pays, and he really wants them to love him! Really! He just…don’t get mad when he breaks all your stuff, he knows that you had an ex and that the object was important, but you can’t be mad! People see you two and are probably a little off put because likely you are dwarfed by him unless your a body builder or something, he doesn’t mind, just please don’t make him do anything….:(

Diego and a little spitfire, they’re likely someone Hellbent on fighting it, clawing and biting. Hair frazzled, likely to have a hole or tear in they're clothes—he doesn’t really mind, even when he has to drag you into the mansion, the others having some level of understanding of what he’s going through because…they’ve all done it, to varying degrees of lengths and extremities. He never felt healthy love before and it’s damn sure his dad don’t love ‘em so he truly doesn’t understand why you can’t just accept love?

Allison who makes sure her precious little mannequin is well known as hers, people envy you, an amazing actor with enough money to last a lifetime?! You might be able to run off and find a closet to huddle up in at home, but she won’t be patient with misbehavior in front of the media, you will find yourself on the wrong side of a chain if you try anything. Probably not a big fan of introducing you to people personally, she loves the flashy couples stuff; at least 2 dozen roses might make up for it? Right?

Klaus is barely making it, his other siblings likely pay for and/or babysit for him. He doesn’t snap very often like his siblings, he sees you as an angel! But, not a person. Truly, I think not only would the being forced to be around a very active addict but he won’t let you do anything outside of a hobby or two! He rarely leaves you alone, and to be honest he probably uses a chain or restraints all the time because even if he can come back, he’s not physically the strongest guy—but past that, he’s always eager to help you with bathing or eating or baking or drawing or writing or drinking or meditating or relaxing or sleeping or making the bed or cleaning up or driving or going outside(ofc with him, can’t have his little martyr running around! What if someone recognizes you as his and and and the debt collectors collect you!?) or any possible task, he’ll learn to cook or bake so you don’t have to! Just ignore the small white grains on his credit card….please! He won’t get angry commonly, if ever, but in the very rare chance he gets angry it’s best to just shut up and try not to make the voice begging him to tie you back up any louder.

Five and the little doll he carries around, always looking lost and glazed over, or maybe a girl who is eerily like him, either way, he’s dressing them up in whatever he wants. He likely drugs them pretty consistently, it makes him feel good to have someone who will thank him when he takes care of them, even if they don’t know what’s going on whatsoever. His siblings are surprised at the ice cream dates and picnics he sets up, people smile at him when he goes to get you a milkshake, the guy behind the bar laughing when five pours a little packet of powder into your drink and stirs it—happily accepting the man’s offer to top up your whipped cream, so you don’t get distressed about it—all in all, atleast his darling will never have to do anything for themselves…ever again

Viktor happily plays instruments for you, learning your favorites so he can serenade and impress you. He tries to be as accommodating as possible, so patient and okay with your panic that he succeeds in comforting you. He’ll even let you help him at the bar once you get settled in, people find it adorable when you and him work together you don’t really do anything

They probably don’t have playdates very often, but the most to least well behaved would probably go

Viktors darling—Viktors humanity pays off, and his darling likely comes to terms pretty quickly, asking him nicely for things and even letting him touch them willingly!

Luther’s darling—All in all, they probably don’t have all too much to complain about. They’re awkward, but the darling isn’t clawing at him or anything

Allison’s darling—no cameras? Her darling is probably playing a Nintendo switch on a couch somewhere in the mansion, avoiding the wackos

fives darling—He’s trying, and so are they, but they’re a little out of it most of the time. I won’t give them credit for behaving because they don’t even know they’re doing something good by clinging to torso they wake up on every morning or by not biting the hand that feeds them dinner every night

Klaus Darling—Trying to run like all hell, but klaus just pulls them into whatever room has been set up for the meetup and wraps a friendly arm around them for the rest of the event

Diego’s darling—Biting at him, breaking things, all hell will break loose and he will be chuckling at his siblings as his darling tries to stab him with a fork

—

Maybe I should write more in depth personal series about it??? Who would yall wanna see first??? All of them?? SEASON 4 IS STUPID AND I HATE IT >:(

[hwaslayer]

project: make you love me (jyh) | 13.5

♣︎ spotify playlist | series masterlist

—summary: yunho can’t stand how you’re so wrapped up in the notorious campus fuckboy, park seonghwa. he would gladly love you the way you deserve, despite being shy, awkward and the complete opposite of seonghwa. thus, when he finds himself spending more time with you over literature reviews and random study sessions, he decides to take on the challenge to win you over.

—pairing: jeong yunho x f. reader x park seonghwa

—genre: (18+ - minors dni) strangers/friends to lovers, college au | fluff, angst, smut

—word count: 1.8k

—chapter content/warnings: cussing/mature language, just a peek into some stuff that happened over break, very self indulgent honestly i just wanted more yuyu time lolol, the usual teasing between these lovebirds, making out, handjob, teensy weensy bit of spit play, unprotected sex, riding yunho after hes fresh out the shower purrrr 🤪

—a/n: hi! dropping a bonus chapter because it's like ... kinda necessary in order for the next update to make sense? more self indulgent tho LOL but it wasn't long enough to be a chapter chapter 😭 anywho, enjoy!! pls vote on my poll if you haven't already cause ya girl needs to figure out her priorities hehe ty 💕

"Get in the damn car! We're late!" Chaery yells at Seungmin as he lazily walks over after forcing for a pitstop just to get snacks. Yunho laughs as he watches from the rear view mirror, popping his mouth open when you lean over and feed him a fish ball.

"Why don't you get in and stop worrying about me? I'm getting there!" You hear Seungmin yell back as Soobin swings the door open and slides into the back seat.

"Maybe they'll never notice if we just drive off?" Soobin suggests, making Yunho chuckle again.

"He's almost to the car." 

"Why is she hella mad anyway?" Soobin shivers in his jacket.

"He's taking his sweet ol' time. Plus, you know how Chaery is. Her family is full of seasoned travelers. They don't do pitstops and stuff." You dip the fish ball into the sauce and pop it into your mouth.

"Right." Soobin sips on his cup of coffee, scooting closer to the door when Chaery and Seungmin finally slip into their seats.

"We're literally so behind now. You made Yuyu wait." She continues to go at Seungmin, making him roll his eyes.

"Yunho, I'm sorry. I really had to use the bathroom. Some people don't understand it's a thing." 

"You're good." Yunho starts up the car and instantly turns up the heat. "We've only got about an hour and a half left." 

Today, you and your friends were off to spend a few days deep in the snow; renting a huge cabin near a snowboarding and ski resort. Yunho graciously offered to drive, patiently dealing with your friends and their requests on the way over.

Yunho heads to the cabin to help drop off the bags before meeting up with the rest already at the ski resort. He pulls into valet while the rest of you hop out and head straight into the store to get some gear and rent some snowboards. You find the rest of your friends hanging around in the café, sipping on hot cocoa while waiting for your group to arrive. Everyone is in good spirits, excited to see Yunho alongside of you. Even though he's tagged along a few times, you still can't help but feel worried about Yunho. You don't want him to feel isolated or left out, especially if you and your friends already have a good bond with each other. But, he fits in so well every single time, you almost feel like he's been friends with them for as long as you have been.

He tries, and the effort shows.

Once the snowboarding finally takes off, you find out that Yunho has been snowboarding before and is pretty comfortable with it. You, on the other hand, are terrified out of your mind. It takes a few tries, a patient Yunho and constant falls before you're [at the very least] boarding in a straight path. But, you're having fun and sharing lots of laughs with your friends, and you find yourself enjoying yourself no matter the circumstance.

After an hour or so of boarding, you, Yunho and a few of your friends sit off to the side to observe everyone else and play around with the snow in the surrounding area. You give your sister a Facetime call during the brief break, getting your friends and Yunho in the screen. Your sister kept calling Yunho a cutie, demanding for you to bring him over for dinner ASAP. Yunho agrees and tells your mom and sister that he'll see them soon again, waving goodbye before helping you stand to your feet for another round of snowboarding.

You and your friends are out there for another 1.5 hours before you call it quits, heading back to the cabin for a relaxing rest of the evening before another day of playing in the snow tomorrow. Everyone pitches in to make a good, hearty dinner— Yunho and a few of the other boys grilling in the covered back patio while the girls stayed indoors and finished preparing the rest of the dishes over some drinks. Once everything is set, everyone sits at the table and quietly enjoys their food before debating what to watch for the rest of the night.

After dinner, most of the food is gone, and the group is cleaning around before you head upstairs to your shared room with Yunho. You take a shower first, while Yunho hangs out with the group downstairs, enjoying the hot water as it hits your skin. You take a good, lengthy 20 minute shower; gently moisturizing before getting into Yunho's shirt and some shorts, leaving your wet hair to air dry.

Luckily, the cabin is warm enough, but you know you'll get cold the longer you sit around. Before leaving the room, you turn on the portable heater just to warm the room a bit more before you get to bed. By the time you've headed back downstairs, a few of your friends are huddled around the living room now watching a true crime docuseries with some snacks; the rest already resting in their rooms or asleep from the eventful day.

"I'm gonna shower." Yunho kisses your cheek before excusing himself to shower. You watch for a bit before helping clean up around the kitchen and living room. You then bid your friends goodnight— the exhaustion kicking in quick that you don't really have time to sit and enjoy the rest of the docuseries they've started. When you get back into the room with a cup of tea in hand, Yunho has just turned off the shower and steps out in nothing but a towel. His hair is damp and you can't help but ogle at his frame, his body. "Hey. You didn't wanna watch?"

"No, the exhaustion is hitting me pretty badly now. I just helped clean up a bit downstairs and made some tea."

"Mm. Is the room warm enough for you?" He points at the portable heater that he's turned up a bit more.

"Yes. It's cozy." You chuckle. "Thank you." You sit on the bed with your back against the wall, watching as Yunho takes a seat on the edge. He's running a smaller wet towel across his damp hair, his back facing you. You can't help but crawl over and throw your arms over his shoulders, planting random kisses against the side of his neck and shoulders.

"Cutie." He chuckles. "What can I do for you?" 

"A kiss?" He smiles, dipping forward to connect his lips with yours in a sweet kiss. 

"You sure that's all?" He teases. "You know you can just tell me, baby."

"That's all." You continue to kiss him, hand traveling down his chest, to grazing across the tent forming in his towel. 

"Hey." He whines in between kisses, slightly hissing when you continue to gently palm him through the towel. "If you keep doing that, I won't be able to stop myself."

"Your fault for walking out of the damn bathroom when it's literally below 0 outside." He laughs, hands falling onto your hips when you crawl onto his lap.

"It was warm enough in here!"

"Sure." You playfully roll your eyes.

"Take these off." He whispers, tugging on your shorts.

"So bold." You tease as he helps you out of your shorts and bites his bottom lip.

"Mm, well. You started it." His hands come up your shirt to squeeze your sides. "Care to show me what exactly you need, love?" He smirks, a drip of a suave tone slipping through his lips.

"Mhm." You sit back a bit and run your hand up his towel to gently stroke his already-hardened member. He hisses and tilts his head back in pleasure, tempted to thrust into your hand as you pump him at a steady pace. He lets out low, strangled moans, trying his best to keep contact with you through hooded lids. You take the opportunity to spit onto his dick, letting it drip down the head and down his length while you pick up the pace. Yunho's moans are a little louder now, and hearing it drives you crazy.

"Jesus." He lowly groans. "Baby, wait, wait, wait—" He grabs at your wrist and stops you. "You'll make me cum if you keep going."

"You don't want that?"

"No. Or else, we would've gone through all that trouble of taking off your shorts for nothing." You giggle, adjusting your position to line him up at your entrance. 

"We have to be quiet."

"Do we? They have the docuseries on loud downstairs." You slowly sink down his length, lips attaching to his as you both let out soft moans while adjusting to the feeling.

"Mm, but there's still rooms across—" Yunho chases after your lips, enclosing it in a heated kiss before you can say anything else. He grips onto your hips and guides you at a steady pace, more gargled and low moans leaving him as you work him.

"They won't hear a thing, pretty. Don't worry." He smirks against your lips. "Is it really a bad thing, though?"

"Yunho." You giggle, tilting your head back in pleasure when his cock hits you in all the right places, clit rubbing against him perfectly. 

"Love when you say my name like that." He mutters against your neck, tongue swiping against the surface before he bites onto your neck. You let out a sigh just as his hand comes to your neck, gently squeezing as he watches you ride him at a steady rhythm.

"You feel so good." Your hands trail up the nape of his neck, tugging at the ends of his hair. His hands come back to your sides as he whispers in your ear, praising and cooing you straight to the edge.

Gonna keep being a good girl for me?

Riding me like you were made for me.

So pretty, so beautiful.

My baby.

And it only takes a couple of more rolls against Yunho before you're twitching and trembling in his grip, digging your nails into his shoulders as he thrusts up into you and fills you up shortly afterwards. He groans as lets out every last bit into you, lips grazing against your neck before planting a soft trail there, to your jaw, to your lips.

"That was fun." You say, making Yunho chuckle.

"Let's get cleaned up." He looks down at the towel that's now on the floor. "Again." You laugh, heading to the bathroom to clean up, get dressed and do some final touches before slipping into bed with Yunho. He instantly pulls you into his arms, wrapping one around your shoulders while you lay on his chest. "Can barely keep my eyes open now." You smile when Yunho kisses you on the forehead, letting out a content sigh with you in his arms.

"Yunho?"

"Mhm?"

"Thanks for coming along on this little trip."

"Wouldn't miss it for a thing, love." He hums against you, falling asleep in due time just to repeat the agenda all over again tomorrow.

♣︎ taglist: @s-nsanshine @soupbinlily @tyongff-ff @jiminiscricket @g1g1l @staytinyinmybpack @woomyteez @gfksz @bitchwhytho @savluvsmingi @thisisntmyrightera @hyukssunflower @miriamxsworld @tmtxtf @kuromibabe04 @lmnhead @carrietwrites @tournesol155 @persphonesorchid @txt-yaomi @mxnsxngie @h-nji @mundayoonimnida @jalapeno-princess @nakiiko @asjkdk @kunikku @idkwgoh @kyeos4ng @agust-d2 @araknoid @bintificreads @primoppang @betray-the-light @aurorasjoongie @wineyoungie @yunholuvrsblog @yungigiggles @jaerisdiction @ignoretheskies @luminouskalopsia @naeviscall @vixensss @choisansplushie @arya9111 @my-lightspirit @dazednconfusion @astro-doll-the-star @faesmingi

[thequietkid-moonie]

im, going batshit crazy... the fandoms that you have are so expanded and i love everything 😢😢😢 so ermm... indulging myself by requesting a kyouka from ouran with a cat like reader... :3

Cat like S/O

[ HEADCANONS ] [ Ootori Kyoya ]

[ Ouran High School Host Club ]

I understand you, i just love so much all those fandoms i can't just not write for them! Feel free to send more requests when I open them again!

Kyouka isn't exactly my favorite characters but I did my best! I hope you like it

Kyoya isn't exactly someone who fall for someone easily, even getting to be his friends is rather difficult since he is more used to think about his life as a competition or measure things by their value and what he can get out of them, however its safe to say that your cat-like personality is something that have catched his attention from the start and he find it quite fascinating to some extent (not that he will admit it out loud to everyone)

Something that Kyoya finds amazing and is always happy to see is the way you always carry yourself around, you can be the most extrovertive and energetic person or even be more quiet and even shy and still your movements are graceful and elegant, its quite amusing to him seeing you walk with such elegance and being something so natural for you, he had asked you once how and why do you do it and you just say that is your natural way to walk, even if he found your answer weird he doesn't express it, besides it didn't take him much time to just love it

Something that Kyoya learn to love over time is how observant and smart you are, cats are natural hunters so you do have that instict too, being able to stay back and just watch carefully whatever had catched your attention, taking some careful steps forward until you find the perfect opportunity strike your attack, and even when you don't really kill whatever you consider your prey it kinda feels that way whenever that attack went towards him because he never liked feeling vulnerable or without the control (and you being so stealthy doesn't help at all), but over time (mainly when he finally trust you) he just learn to love that little quirk of your (and may or may not find some use for it)

Cats are really agile and fearless and that is something that will bother him a little bit, mainly if you show it by having a lot of energy, going around running and climbing like a child (but he does find quite fascinating your inmense hability to be still be graceful by it), it would bother him because he already had to deal with his friends at the host club and his partner also being kinda caotic will definetly finish with his patient, but if that agility is express by something less caotic he won't mind too much then

No matter how much time it pass, Kyoya will never stop complaining if you are too sleepy, cats normally have longs naps during the day, so if you do tent to take naps he will be bothered by it, and even so he tries to be there to watch over your sleep, making sure no one bothers you (but don't try to cuddle him or rest on his lap, he doesn't take it too well but sometimes he can't just say no to you)

Being affectionate with him doesn't work too well for him neither, he can handle being occasionally affectionate, and wouldn't mind hugging you or kissing you a few times (mainly when there is no one around or to tease you), but you clinging onto him and trying to be always with him will stress him quickly, he needs time to himself (what is already difficult for being in the host club) or just have time to relax, so he may argue or even get a little mad if you are too clingy

Kyoya doesn't make jokes about your cat-like personality, thats something that Tamaki and the twins will do but not him, he does sometimes compare you with a cat but doesn't joke much about it he has other things with which tease you anyways

[see-arcane]

Blood of My Blood: Something to Cry About

Consider this a spinoff of a spinoff. Based on @ibrithir-was-here's Blood of My Blood and directly jumping off of @bluecatwriter's chapter, Overindulgence.

In which the Master of the castle runs into an unexpected concern regarding his dear vassal and being the monster in the picture is not quite as fun as he recalls.

(Warnings for suicidal ideation and domestic abuse.)

His eyes were shut, but he wasn’t sleeping.

It was not the first time his friend had greeted him so. Back in that first private summer there had been something of a game made from it. Whenever his friend was caught supine in bed or on a couch without the will to drag himself to consciousness and perform for his Master, the latter would sometimes test the limits of the act. A hand on his throat. Another under the shirt and over the drumming heart. That had been back when only one of them carried a chill.

What a distant thing that season was now. The dark-haired youth had only been able to hide his expression because fatigue still left its miserable countenance stamped on him. He had not been able to fully hide his shudders then; not when the hands began to move. Now here was his friend just shy of the full metamorphosis, human by the thinnest wisp of definition, a marble statue in his bed.

Stained marble. He was so drained as to nearly match the silver-white corona of hair on the pillow. There were the usual shadows under the eyes and the mottling spots that showed where his family nursed at throat and wrist. But the palette broke anew along one side. Even if it was to allow space for the bandages.

Bandages that had started white but now flared in spots of scarlet. Rings, rather.

Bites.

Ah, he had indulged deeply. 

Enough to sand the years away to those earliest days when he himself had been a youth peddling soul and sacrifices away beneath the Mountain. Amusing as it was, and infinitely worth the woman’s face upon seeing the full claim of her husband in action, he did catch himself counting the hours until this whipcord stage would fade out of him. It would be a pain in and of itself for bone and beard and build to all even out again into full manhood. Just having his own voice in his ears would be a relief in itself. Unquestioned as his rule was, even he could not play deaf to the absurdity of the lord of the castle sounding a year short of his first shave.

He could almost fool himself into thinking dear Jonathan was playing ignorant because he did not recognize his Master’s voice. Almost.

“She wrapped it poorly,” he hummed. He sat at the faux dreamer’s hip. “The stain should not be visible.”

Jonathan’s eyes stayed shut. His breathing did not change, thin as it was. Perhaps the woman was in his head, whispering behind his back. But a simple check showed otherwise.

Mother and child were both out from underfoot for the moment, amusing themselves with animals. The boy maintained the wolves as his most cherished creatures, as was right, but the other beasts in the dark had hooked his eye as well. Bat and rat, owl and fox. The latter had scared him once, hearing it scream for the first time—a human shriek from an inhuman throat. The woman was out with another of her husband’s doting gifts, a book of fauna with all the airy definitions and dissections that mortal science had seen fit to cage the local range of species in. It was something to keep them busy and another little facet to add to the boy’s knowledge.

The woman felt him prying and a reflexive response tried to leap back at him. He shut her out before she could know where he was. Not that it would matter. He could revoke her meager privilege with his friend as he liked. But this was not for others to intrude on. Supposing Jonathan dropped his act sometime this decade.

“Oh, dear. I had not realized you were so depleted. Perhaps I should fetch some donors from the village and have them pipe their veins into yours. It worked so artfully for other patients. Or,” he made a show of slitting open a wrist to let the dark vein ooze, knowing the gesture was sensed even behind closed eyes, “since you are so set on the repose of death, we could go ahead and rescind all the playacting and reach denouement early. It would surely save much in time and tears and—,”

Jonathan’s eyes were open. Not looking at him. The pale hands remained folded atop the sheets. One was limp. The other was lax only from the effort to avoid becoming a fist.

“There you are. Ah, and there is the opportunity gone.”

His wrist was already healed. Sealed shut almost the instant it was cut. Even two nights on, he was swollen with his friend’s draught. He had to admire the vitality required for such a task. Poor Lucy would have wilted at the first two bites, with or without her impotent ring of suitors dumping their blood into her to drag out the inevitable. In truth, he had half-hoped that the sweet diversion of the Lesson would end with Jonathan’s heart stopping altogether. The feeding of blood was only a requirement if the transformation was intended to be a slower process, as it had been meted out to the woman.

Had Jonathan died, he would be undead within the same night. Perhaps even the same hour. Being siphoned for almost half a decade by three vampires would leave no room for the process to drag its heels. What a treat it might have been to see the woman realize what she’d done. All her beloved’s sacrifice thrown away because she’d grasped beyond what was hers. And better still to have the weight of the farce finally shrugged from his shoulders as it was ripped from Jonathan’s. The boy would have cheered, he knew, to see his Papa finally in their ranks completely.

And then would come their first hunt…

But he was woolgathering. And, in the fashion of a youth, chasing mere impulse when he knew the fruits were not yet ripe. Let the game play out, young man. He would have his way by the end, do not throw the foreplay away now.

Jonathan still did not look at him.

“You seem unable to turn your head, my friend. Did I truly spend so long with your neck? Memory does not lie and I can see myself that the shoulder received far more attention.”

Jonathan did turn his head—to face the wall. The ghost-light eyes hovered on the calendar, brow furrowed in reading the weeks. His lips moved in silent muttering.

A clawed finger reached out, hooking the pallid chin until Jonathan turned to him. There was a genuine wince as he did so. He had bitten deep and not with the usual set of teeth. He’d called upon the Wolf’s rows to be sure of strength and for the demonstration made before his greedy audience. But even with the heady extra helping of blood, even with the Lesson successfully taught, there was no sidestepping the fact of the method’s sloppiness. Intentional in the moment, yes, but…

But what? He will heal. And if he doesn’t, he will die and do better than heal. Call it a Lesson for him too. Such is the lot of one who clings to the role of livestock. Really, it is probably a boon to his penitent soul. A belated lashing for what he still considers his sins. 

“Does it hurt?” he asked aloud.

Jonathan did not answer. Only stared at him. There was no fear there, nor even that constant element of melancholy. There was only a queer flatness. It might nearly be mistaken for the same glaze of placidity the woman tried to hide her rages with. But no, it was not even anger. What, then?

“Have you lost the use of your tongue as well?” The question came with a flicker of mesmer. It hooked the root of Jonathan’s tongue and yanked.

“No,” Jonathan offered blandly. And no more than that. As if there were truly no other words he had to spare for his Master.

“I had not realized you stored your vocabulary in your arteries.”

“Even if it were otherwise, I imagine I’d have little to say worth sharing.”

My friend, is this you sulking? It has been years!

Years since that last pregnant silence as he showed Mr. Harker the wolves at the door. Since he watched the young man sit and stew and struggle against tears before ascending wordlessly to his room. What a raw little thing he’d been then.

But the thing staring back at him was not raw. It was something leaden and tired and…bored? Was that it? Something near to that, perhaps, but sharper.

“Now, there is no need to pout. You know I have never ceased to cherish our little talks. But I do see you are making do with only water and bread. Dear Mina has left you like a lame pet up here.” In reality the water was fresh and the bread, baked the day before, was joined by what non-perishable goods the woman had scrounged by way of a breakfast. Even the boy had left him with what he considered a treasure by way of a bowl brimming with wild berries he’d picked himself around the castle. All this had been sampled, if thinly. “Yours is the only tongue here left to appreciate a vintage in its original state rather than filtered through a vein. Shall you have a claret or something stronger?”

“Neither. Thank you.”

Flat as a skipping stone. He did not even reach for the old half-joking insistence that he did not dare risk an overindulgence of wine or liquor as, quote, ‘If I drank every time I felt I needed it, I would be an alcoholic within a week.’ Instead, the stare. Still ongoing. Seeming to realize this, Jonathan made himself blink before trying to turn his head away. Back to the calendar.

His Master locked a full hand around his jaw and twisted him back. Another wince.

No fear. No sorrow. No anything. Just that blunt void of acknowledgment. That unknown thing hovering between ire and lethargy.

“Might I ask what it is that so fascinates you about the date? It must be some worthy holiday to outweigh your Master’s presence.”

“Not a holiday,” Jonathan allowed. “Though I suppose I should mark down the evening three nights prior as a milestone. Something to keep on record.” Three nights prior. When the Lesson was taught. “Your first bout of physical abuse on me. I had thought you couldn’t hold out beyond two years. Most of you don’t even make it past the first two months. Yet you are patient, so I figured there would be an insulation period.” 

It was his turn to stare back. Jonathan waited as he did, seeming oddly like he was itching for a pocket watch to tally how many minutes he was wasting breath on this exchange. His Master’s hand moved from the pale chin to the bandaged shoulder.

“Most of who?”

The hand squeezed. Jonathan grimaced, but didn’t blink.

“The demographic of men I had hoped you were better than. There was evidence enough to suggest it. At least a ratio of odds that favored something less predictable. Despite what proofs there are to the contrary, you are not a violent man, Sir. Not when you can happily do worse than violence. Certainly not when the prelude to it provides better results and entertainment. Why else would you take such care to drag out a season of captivity or play your games on the Demeter? Why feed on a victim by drops rather than ravage outright but for the joy of watching their comprehension of the inevitable? The only instances in which you resort to straight aggression are when you want something over with.

“A mother eaten by wolves. Sacks of children thrown like scraps. Your own aide waiting ashore, slaughtered and stuffed in a stone wall to muddy your trail. Quick, quick, quick. Violence bores you in the same way doing linens bores a laundress. If it must be done, fine, let it be over with—but it is no more or less than something to scrape from the schedule. At a guess, that night’s violence was for Mina’s sake. I had not changed anything in my routine. Quincey had done no ill. Mina, I suspect…what? Blinked incorrectly? Asked to see me for a heartbeat beyond the scheduled feeding? Dared to request a moment of make-believe where you do not own us all, as if the very act of imagination equated a challenge to you?

“But that is all beside the point. You have stepped fully into the cliché. And I had accounted for that. The first round tallied. Fine. The issue comes with the timing. Your insistence on who else ought to be in the audience.” In his lap, one hand finally lost the fight and hardened into a fist. The other, attached to the bitten arm, only twitched. “Mina was the point of the show. But our son? Was he part of the Lesson too? Did you order him to stay as yet another hoop for her to jump through, to make her act and lie beyond all extremes? No, I should not ask. Of course he was.”

The ghost-light eyes burned.

“This, when he loves you as his Father. When the entire point of all this is giving him a life he can trust in. You saw him smile for you in this room. He held you and beamed and heard your stories. And then what? What did he ask before you left him in his coffin?”

The woman had not been in his mind at the time to overhear. She could not know. She could not have told her husband what the boy asked.

The boy, his smile fading, his eyes sunset-bright and wondering, blankets fidgeting in his hands.

‘Are you sure Papa is alright? He looked really tired…’     

His Father had told him yes, of course, but Papa had been so enchanting that night that Father had not been able to help himself. Not to worry, his Mum would take care of him as she always did. All’s well, diavol. And the boy had tried to smile. Tried to believe him.

And couldn’t.

“He turns five next year. Five. And you are already blasting holes in the foundation of his faith in you. In what we have been building out of debris to produce a happy reality for him, in which his parents are not monsters.” Now a note of true venom slipped through his voice, the hollow-burning eyes narrowed to cold angles, and at last the feeling was recognized for what it was, and it was... “In which he does not have to be yet another actor for your benefit.”

…Disappointment.

Cold and grey and coarse with recognition. With experience.

“All of that being said, Sir, if you feel you must make another show of the obvious,” the fist uncurled to gesture at the mauled shoulder, “I ask that you reserve it strictly for the adults.” Finally the lambent gaze skidded away, looking not at Master or calendar, but at his still-resting hand on the covers. The fingers still hadn’t curled further than halfway to his palm. “Perhaps I’ll blame it on a doorknob next time.” Then, as if the entire topic were dismissed, he reached across to the nightstand. A notebook sat beside the dish of food. Not another diary, but a weighty planner. Jonathan folded it open to the latest page. The fountain pen’s cap was worked off with some difficulty by wedging it between the fingers of the lax hand. “Most of the itinerary was cleared a week ahead. The triplicates will take a little longer than I’d hoped, but they should still be ready within the month.” The nib poised on the page. “Was there anything else that needed attention, Sir?”

Besides you? said the ghost-light eyes.

His Master regarded him for a moment. Another. A third. As he regarded him, a clawed hand floated out and pinched the book out of Jonathan’s hold. The book flew like a discus into the furthest wall. Outside, a summer storm grumbled. He felt a distant twitch of his senses as the woman and the boy both prickled with worry. Storms were never just storms around the castle.

Jonathan capped the pen and waited. Even devoid of a psychic voice, his eyes spoke with an articulation so clear he might have talked aloud:

Go on. The moment fits the criteria. We are our only witnesses. Fetch a switch off a tree or a broken bottle while you’re at it. Really round out the scene.  

“I came here,” his Master grated with rigid courtesy, “to offer some manner of respite. Perhaps even a token of reward for so expertly assisting in a much-needed Lesson. But I see I was mistaken. If I had known you were in such an ungrateful state, I would have waited. As it stands, it appears you need educating of your own. Poor Mina, she will be so disappointed to learn that her dearly-bought visits are now revoked.” He feigned his own interest in the calendar. Then at the vast window that looked out on the plummeting height of the tower and the half-moon squinting through the thunderhead’s cracks. “Our son’s as well, I think. He really is so spoiled in his free time. Bothering his poor beset Papa night and day when he has so much to do…

“Ah, but then, perhaps this is remiss of me too. I am no child despite my current face. I have run the entirety of this castle and its domain singlehandedly for centuries, all without any novice solicitors to flutter around my office. Likewise for the tending of the castle itself. Really, my friend, what reason is there for you to be so abused as to leave this room at all? To be bothered by maintaining the performance for mother and child? Such a labor, such a trial.

“Well, no more of it! You can stay here, they can stay without, and whenever it comes time to feed, you may empty your veins into a cup. Far tidier that way, and so much closer to the human façade besides! You do want the boy to learn how to pantomime humanity in full, yes? Of course you do. So that is how it shall be from here out. You in your tower, they in the crypt, and I shall endeavor to play go-between for all to the best of my ability. How does that suit you?”

He bared his teeth to the gums with his grin. Waiting for the tears. For the shattering of the dull mask. For the bribe, the plea, the grovel. He did all quite beautifully when the occasion called for it over the years. His wife did well enough, especially for one grappling with the impulse-weight of the Vampire, but Jonathan had it down to an artform. Indeed, he saw the first shine of dew come over the brilliant white-blue of the eyes, the quirk and twitch of his face into a grimace—

No. No, not a grimace.

A rictus.

The corners flinched up before Jonathan could hide it behind his hand. By then it was too late. Assuming the man could’ve stopped himself. A noise that tried to be a sob leapt through his teeth. It came out as a laugh. As did all the sounds that followed. A long hideous string of giggles boiling over into a cackle that brought rivers of tears to his shining eyes. It was not a man’s sound, but the mock-laughter of hyenas, the baying racket of jackals.

Unbidden, he leaned an inch away from his friend. Several inches. The movement snapped Jonathan’s eyes back to him, wide and wild and blazing and for one lunatic instant they seemed to brand the afterimage of the house in Piccadilly on the room, that surreal moment in which he first saw the uncanny Thing that wore his dear friend’s skin; a Thing that could and would kill him with his steel or his own hands. Even in a crowded street.

But that moment passed—long, long ago now, back before the insurance of the woman and her collared will were his precious cudgel—and Jonathan himself seemed wholly oblivious to the recollection. In his face there was only a madness of such profound despair and scorn that the effect dizzied.

“You do not understand. You really truly don’t, do you?” The words were cracked and brittle, barely holding an intelligible shape. “You talk of tokens and punishments. As if I have ever dared to hope, to even think of wanting anything for myself, since that night in October. As if I have not already imagined and lived, expected and met every possible nightmare that God could throw in my path and hers. I lived the first twenty years of a pointless joke of a life already under every bootheel the civilized human world had to offer, as did she. We grasped at crumbs of joy, of hope, of respite from the reality of our lots. This we could do because we had each other and our faith. Faith that for all the ills that humanity dealt out with the good, there was at least a chance for us. There was, we prayed, something better waiting on the other end of life. If we were good. If we did good.     

“But then you had to prove it all wrong. To burst the lie. Not that God is not real. He so very clearly is. But you—all that you are, all that you’ve done, all you will continue to do without so much as a slap on the wrist from the divine Powers that Be—proved that He is fickle. That His love and protection is wholly conditional. That someone as good, as pure, as blisteringly virtuous as Mina could be burned by the Son for another’s sin, abandoned and denied like a used rag for the crime of someone else’s violation. All to have the ransom of her humanity dangled over our heads to spur a handful of strangers onto the hunt after…what? Four centuries’ worth of you owning these mountains and its people, all of them dutifully cowering and dying behind their own half-helpful crucifixes?

“But oh no! Too late! Complications abound! The mother is with child and it does not matter to the good men who swore to slaughter her! And God must have declared them good men, for they did so good with Lucy. Lucy, who has surely gone to Heaven with her slaying…or not. What proof is there? What guarantee is there that anyone with your poison in them can hope for salvation, alive or dead? They saw her corpse and nothing else. They choked on hope and called it evidence that this was the right thing to do. God’s will be done.

“I have already murdered to go against His will. I slew those good men to keep them from making an Isaac and a slaughtered lamb of my Loves. I damned myself then as I had been preparing to damn myself since the moment I woke to her screams and your work. Do you understand?”

Despite the sultry rainstorm air trying to bleed in through the window, the room was cold. Somehow it had grown outright frigid around the bed and the Thing hunching out of his sheets.

“I have nothing. Nothing at all but purpose. Nothing I would dare to want, knowing it will be lost. Nothing I have left to lose, having ceased to believe the lie that I have any potential for joy beyond a reflection of my Loves’ peace. Nothing resembling anything so laughable as respite on any level. I am reduced to a talking trough for the sake of a family who deserves worlds beyond the stain you and I would leave on them without supreme effort. So, go ahead. Play jailor. Play glutton. Play king of the castle and lord above all and whatever else you stopped being able to play with your last captive audience once they were worn down to cackling husks that only had room in themselves for hunger and jeering, knowing that you had no more to threaten them with after taking all that they had.

“In fact? Here. Since I still have some feeling in my left hand. Wouldn’t want you giving me a holiday from work without due reason, and it shall save you the trouble of inventing an excuse to maim the rest.”

As he spoke, Jonathan tore at the bandages. They fell away in grisly ribbons to reveal a far grimmer map of injury than expected. It was worse still when Jonathan twisted to show his back. Bites and bruises patterned him like gruesome puzzle pieces. There were stitches closing two flaps of skin together. In one portion there were small chunks of flesh entirely gone where the teeth had torn them loose.

“Go on. Get on with it. Or would it be better for you if I threw in a scream and a plea to top things off? Pick a script, Sir, let me know.”

Jonathan kept his back to his Master. His Master only stared. Then, with a hand laid gentle as a feather on the ruined shoulder:

“I believe you were right at the start. You do have little to say worth sharing.”

The hand traced the first of the marks. A broad bite clamped along the carotid; the kind that could have torn the entire throat out, Adam’s apple and all. If its maker were not cautious. It was only the ensuing that had been ragged, tearing at muscle more than vein. To make a necessary a point.

As if his friend cared. As if he should care whether his friend cared.

His thumb brushed over a small crater where a canine had torn away so thickly that the flesh dimpled.

Jonathan waited for it to be joined by others like it.

Waited. Waited.

It was almost a full minute before he realized the light touch on him was no touch at all. He turned to see his Master was gone. If he’d had the energy to leave the bed, he might have gone to the door. His Master was on the other side, turning the key over in his hand. As he lingered, a bat summoned to the window. Beady borrowed eyes peered through the glass, waiting for Jonathan to rise, to go to the door and see if it was open.

Should he lock it as he rose? As he tried to turn the knob? Or did he skip the key entirely and simply hold the door shut to watch him scrabble one-handed at it?

The bat watched Jonathan hobble from the bed and to the chair of the writing desk. He dragged the chair to the window. Sat. Stared out through the glass at the moon.

His Master willed the clouds to cover it.

Jonathan stared still.

Still.

Still.

His good hand was the only part that moved. There was something white being fidgeted with. A stick of chalk.

It was only when he felt the woman and the boy heading for the tower that the key was pocketed unused and its owner drifted as a mist through another window. The bat watched as Jonathan pocketed his chalk and stood from his chair upon hearing the child’s chirruping voice echoing up the stairs. Papa-Papa-Papa-are-you-up? Papa hid the bandages and donned a robe before grabbing a book at random for his lap while his good hand pinched cold food from his plate. The boy bounded in, mother in tow, Papa, Papa, look-look-look. Jonathan looked dutifully at the new drawings he’d made, including one done from life of a red fox that let them get this close before running off. Jonathan was duly impressed. His weak hand was in his woman’s fingers, gently held, more gently curling and testing the limp knuckles.

Their Master did not linger long enough to know whether Jonathan would tell her of their visit now or later. It was moot. The scene cloyed.

The bat flew and the mist sank away.

He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been in his women’s chambers. Even the sole woman left in the castle hardly bothered with them. Antique treasures were buried under the modern trappings he’d tossed their way in preparation for England. They would have been with him once he set the groundwork in London. Them and his good friend.

All dust now.

Like the dust now glazing so much of the old rooms. Jonathan had taken a Herculean task upon himself some years prior to try and chip at the disuse and damage of a room at a time between his usual work. The paperwork, the horses, the errands, the cautious playing of mouthpiece and shield between Master and subjects. Between all that, he set himself to the tidying of this hall or that chamber. It was as impressive as it was embarrassing to note whenever his Master passed by one of these rooms in a state of surprise. He’d half-forgotten most of them existed, let alone what they had looked like before the ennui set in. Even the tarnish on the fixtures and doorknobs was cleaned away.

‘Perhaps I’ll blame it on a doorknob next time.’

He curled his lip and shoved the thought away. Then shoved over a bookcase for good measure. Novels in half a dozen languages went tumbling alongside a few expensive baubles. Old gold bookends, glass statues, cut gems so large and hollowed they could hold a wealth of rings and bracelets. All to pair with the tailoring of the wardrobes. These stood at attention beside abandoned easels, instruments, and myriad other distractions. All things given to be taken away. Only as was merited, of course. Such lazy mincing things, his old Loves. Coaxing anything but bile or idleness from them was like convincing a snail to run.

And most of what was goaded had been—

‘You yourself never loved. You never loved!’

—not a fraction of what they had given at the start. Not even their beginnings had amounted to much after the consummation. Stolen or bartered or lured, his Loves had lapsed so quickly into backhanded camaraderie. They had made cats of themselves, knowing they were craved simply for the fact of their presence and it gave them as close to free reign as their Master would ever give. Not enemies, but pets. Pretty faces and musical laughter to populate the nights with more than his own echoes.

For there had been laughter. With him. At him. Sometimes he had even let them claw or snap at him just for the excuse of the punishment he would inflict after. Really, for the sake of something to actually do with them beyond their nightly sniping.

He left the chambers and frowned down the hall. Moonlight fell through the nearest southward chamber, the window clean for the first time in ages, the interior righted and swept. It held books he had read two centuries ago, an old chessboard he had lost a century before that, now with its polished crystal men standing at attention, fallen curtains beaten from their dust and hung anew, paintings and an elderly world map peppered with monsters reframed and set upon the walls. The latter had been drawn to his attention by Jonathan himself, smiling with the boy in his lap, mentioning idly that he had found a map of fascinating creatures he had no name for, might Father know them..?

Father had, of course. The boy had been enraptured for nights with his definitions, with the monsters proven wholly imaginary or simply animals or, he knew from experience, terribly real. Tales he had relayed giddily at the next family meal, his Papa wasted but smiling on between him and his mother who had already heard her dose of legendry down in the crypt. Holding his Loves with two good hands.

He knocked a dresser over as well.

What did he care? What did he possibly care whether his dear friend took some overdue recompense for his betrayal? For upending meticulous plans and striking a scar into his Master’s brow and daring to haggle for the chance to squat here, under his lenient aegis rather than order the woman to tear into him and their brat and bash her own skull to gruel? Really, his friend was lucky to have such a meager toll to pay.

Other than vassalage. Other than slaughtering in Love’s name over God’s and sending the hunting party’s scraps limping away. Other than complaining of his mangling only because it upset the child; because the child had to hide that he was upset, just like Mum and Papa hide from Father. Other than actively laying foundations for a second invasion of England once the boy is grown, selling himself further down the layers of Hell, for Love’s sake. Other than this, yes, most meager. Practically nothing. You are many things, old devil, but the least you can be is honest with yourself. Or are you not still preening to yourself even now at your bargain?

Your losses: A scratch on the head. A two-decade wait. A handful of women.

Your gains: Your mind. Your future no longer being a mere checklist. Your Harkers.

Your friend.

Draga ta.

He first bristled, then sighed. His mind was walled off. There was no spying. He could admit the obvious to himself.

Not now, not tomorrow, but eventually. No need to fret over it. Time is the sea that eats away all stone, however stubborn. He will break given ages enough. It took the weight of the Mountain and its Lessons, but you broke too. And you were better for it. This sour period will pass. They will all break and learn and be pieced into proper shape.

Obvious, obvious. Of course.

His feet took him to the southward room. Map, art, chess, books. One of many rooms with forgotten treasures. Converted and cleaned and left like little oases. For the boy, for the woman, for his Master.

And yet Jonathan’s own room remained bare.

There was a little bookcase, he knew. But was it used? Was there anything else in the man’s room but a bed, clothes, and a desk? Memory ticked back along his mind. All the visits made to drink or talk or, in his friend’s sleep, simply to watch. What was there to that room that was not already waiting for him when his Master first ordered him in?

Sometimes there were drawings or wild bouquets from the boy. Food from the woman whenever he worked into one of those stupors that made him forget his meals. No more than that. Almost five years under the castle’s roof, diving in and out of the place’s uncounted rooms, going to and from the towns or ordering from afar, and there was not a single thing within his personal four walls to suggest it. And was that not strange in itself? True, he might occasionally be locked inside the tower, but not as a constant.

If the point of giving something was to have it taken away, the reverse held true too. He did let his friend roam where he may more often than not. And his friend did make use of it and his limited access to his Master’s coffers.

For anyone other than himself.

Yes, well. He does have his chair and his window. If he has gone so long without need of more, so much the better. Far easier upkeep than some hangers-on you could mention.

The thought failed to raise a smile on him.

He gripped the bookcase before him—jammed end to end with hardcovers of multiple eras, not a volume out of place—and thought for several minutes of tipping it over. Perhaps throwing it into the courtyard. Instead, he walked his fingers along until they landed on a history text. Written in the native tongue, it was one of the less maddeningly misinformed volumes of the late 17th century. Even the illustrations were passable. Jonathan must have overlooked it. He had been as adamant as their son once upon a time when it came to unearthing old histories. More, he was making more than fair leaps with his practice in the different languages of the mountains.

The book left the room with him.

The book stayed with him for the rest of the night and all of the day.

His eyes were sent elsewhere.

The bats slept, but the rats were busy. Or they would be, if he’d had need of more than one left loitering in the shade under Jonathan’s wardrobe. Animal-fear waned to animal-confusion waned to animal-annoyance as hours ticked by and its verminous little belly went empty as it continued to keep watch for its Master. Eventually it was swapped for another, this one peeking through a crack near the roof. Fear-confusion-annoyance under his thrall again. The same went for a third and fourth rat. Their eyes all showed the same tedium.

Jonathan Harker only ever allowed himself leisure when he had no choice. He only had no choice when he was recuperating from exsanguination. It turned out that his idea of this amounted to either laying in bed or shuffling to the chair to look out the window. Sometimes he even stood and gripped the windowsill. And once, just once, he undid the latch and swung the pane open.

Looking out. Looking down.

His good hand moved on the windowsill as he stared. The chalk had returned. Scratch, scratch, scratch it went, all the way along the stone, like a student writing out a long verse. It was the damned shorthand, of course. Yet it couldn’t be a message for the woman. Her mind was sunk deep in the torpor. Deep enough that her Master could filter into her unnoticed. There was hardly anything worth digging for beyond the usual infantile fantasies of his brutal demise and carrying her Loves off into the sunset. All he needed was at the surface.

Just a few notes. Just enough to make sense of the arcane little dashes.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, Jonathan wrote.

His Master angled the latest rat so he could read it all and filter it through the woman’s knowledge. The rat squealed and flinched away into its hole as its Master’s own shock prodded its speck of a mind.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT

FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

He twitched in his coffin, almost rising wholly from the anchor of the death-sleep.

But then Jonathan sighed and closed the pane. The chalk was erased. A return to the chair, a return to the stare. This time with new tears tracking down his cheeks. He didn’t move again until his stomach snarled. The doorknob was checked—unlocked—and he took himself away to eat. His Master’s borrowed eyes followed him all the way down, watching him cook and carve a fish without relish. Watched him try and fail to open the office door—locked—before idling down one of the in-progress halls. He worked in the dust and the decrepit furnishings for a few hours before marching back up to the tower. His hands were empty despite having handled an array of oddments and literature and art.

Up. Chair. Stare. Bed. Wait.

It is nothing but a recent spell. He has been here almost half a decade. He’s not spent his time only in his little labors and bloodletting. Who could? Perhaps he dwells on the pending retribution for his outburst. Waiting for the sword to fall.

And what of the threadbare room? What of the trips that brought home nothing but sustenance to let him feed his family, give or take a new treat for them bartered from what allowance was spared for him?

What of it?

He did not answer himself. Only waited until the woman made her exit to the tower. The boy was called to under the level of her psychic awareness.

Come here, child. I have an important task for you.

The boy was still in his coffin, reading in the heap of blankets and fairy books. He poked his head up over the rim with a look that balanced between worry and curiosity.

A Lesson?

Not at the moment. Unless you wish for a Lesson on why not to keep your Father waiting.

But the boy was already scurrying out of his box and up the steps of the tomb. He paused to look up in wonder at his Father.

“Your face is coming back.”

So it was. Finally. He felt the itch along his cheek and jaw which told him adolescence was waning finally back to his prime, just as the shiver of bone announced the return to full stature. There was a reason he rarely drank this deep.

“It is. The body prefers its natural shape even after an indulgence too far. It may only be another night before I am myself again. But that is too long a wait for this. Here.” He passed the history text down into the boy’s small hands. “Be mindful of not turning to the wrong page. There are sights inside that your poor parents would not approve of.”

An easy bait, that. The boy’s eyes glittered like a little Pandora’s. For an instant. But then a cherubic moue passed over him as he mouthed out the title. What little blood he had in him flamed up to his cheek.

“I don’t think I can read this yet, Father.” The boy admitted as much as though it were a crime.

“I would be stunned if you could, child. No, this is something to bring to your Papa. He is a fiend as much for history as the trudge of modernity and I know he is as eager as you to master all tongues in the mountains. This shall be a fine practice for him as your little tales are for you. Come, I shall walk you up.” He reached to tuck the boy under his arm in the usual way only for the child to shrivel under his hand. His gaze had flicked away from his Father in the same moment as his buzzing little mind tried clumsily to bury something. “Diavol. Is there something you wish to tell me?”

The boy started to shake his head, knew better, and simply shrank deeper into himself. His eyes were nailed firmly to the hardcover. He hugged the volume like a paltry shield.

“Child.”

The lips trembled and cracked at the same time those brilliant ruby eyes rolled up to him. Fear hovered there, but it was not quite of his Father. It was the kind of fear a Father was meant to dispel.

“Are you and Papa fighting?”

“Where would get such an idea?”

His hand reached out again. The boy still cringed, but did not shrink from him. They walked from the tomb and on toward the stairs.

“Since our last meal he hasn’t talked how he used to.”

“Oh, dear. He has gone mute?”

“No. No, he talks. Only he skips over things now. Things he used to bring up all on his own.”

“We are not playing a guessing game, diavol. Speak plainly.”

They had made it to the floors aboveground now. The boy paused mid-step to look up at his Father, his face turned pale as ivory in a window’s moonlight.

“He has not talked about you, Father. Before he brought you up at least once whenever we were together. Asking what you taught me last. Sometimes he’d bring things up like you do. Little hints and edges of things I would have to go to you or Mum to ask about. Papa was the one who brought up journalism—the power that records the world—and told me to ask Mum about it. And he told me that you knew how to find buried treasure on a magic night, that everyone else was too scared to try. And…” His narrow throat worked with a strain. “And he told stories about before me. About how you and Mum and him all came together.”

A crest of the innate fondness rose and fell in the boy’s look at that. He was ever a fiend for the romance of his parents’ history before they came to live in the castle. The romance as their Master had scripted it.

Yet the child’s cheer over it blew out like a candle.

“He won’t talk about you at all now.” The ruby stare flicked up at him. “Not since we ate.”

Not since you tore at Papa like a wolf with a rabbit, Father.

“It has been less than a week, child. For all that I am an occasional favored subject,” he failed to ignore how something twisted in his chest at that, “it is nonsense to expect he keep a checklist of things to speak of. He is recuperating and things will slip a hazy mind. But, to answer your question, no, Papa and I are not fighting.”

The boy did not look away. Even the expected smile could not follow the rules.

And since when does he have rules of acting to follow?

“Was there something else?”

The fear was back. Redoubled. Not the kind dispelled by a Father.

“Father, are you the one who’s been making him sit?”

They had been walking again. Halfway to the tower. Now it was Father’s turn to freeze. Even to gawk.

“What?” The boy shivered at his tone, half-hiding behind the history book. He winced as the white hand at his shoulder grew out its claws. A long breath was forced. The claws retracted an increment. Then, again, “What do you mean ‘making him sit,’ child?”

“Do you remember when I had the Lesson about trancing?”

The one in which mother, child, and Master sank their psychic teeth in dear Jonathan’s mind and almost tore it three ways down the center with their mesmeric quibbling? Yes, vaguely.

“I recall.”

Now the boy looked away entirely. Facing the tower’s direction. Dread came off him like a perfume.

“Do you remember the sharp thoughts in Papa’s head?”

“…I do.”

“Mum said before—,” another lurch of the little throat, almost choking, “before we all jumped in him, when the Lesson started, that she could make him do things. Things people aren’t supposed to do to themselves. Like walk in a fire or make him stay in one place for hours and hours, not doing anything. No sleep or food or anything that keeps Papa alive. She could do that. But she didn’t. She hasn’t been. Papa would know and he’d not be so mad at her that time when she used him in the Lesson.” The child rattled where he stood, intent on the shadows that led up to the tower. “He was sitting at the window before that night. Lots of nights. And days. The first couple times, I thought he was waiting for me. Back when I first learned to do climbing. I snuck up to his door to surprise him. Watching in the keyhole.

“And he sat and sat and sat there, looking out the window. Sometimes he stood up to look closer, sometimes he scratched something out on the stone and wiped it off. Then he’d go back to sitting. It was strange. I didn’t know what it was. But then the Lesson happened and I saw—I saw him—,”

He could not finish and did not need to. His Father remembered.

Vision of a daylit escape. Rising from the chair. No message written on the sill. Just the open pane, his feet on the ledge, and a tipping over into gravity’s arms. Down, down, down. Gone. Among other methods by rope or steel. But the fall came first and crispest to his flailing mind.

Before. He was thinking of it even before that night. Since the boy started climbing. At least two years. And that was just when it was noticed.

The boy was making noise at him again. Accusing.

“Are you the one doing it, Father?”

He would have been mad if it was Mum. We all know no one is allowed to be mad at you. Right, Father?

He struggled with a sudden urge to snatch the child up by his scruff and drag him the rest of the way up to the tower. To hurl him squealing into the room where the loving couple roosted, watching their faces drop slack with horror, and then—

And then..?

Then his mind fell into a red haze. A livid shapeless blank where something like release from the growing storm behind his temples would finally come.

“No, child. I am not responsible.” He stole his hand back with a twitch. “Go the rest of the way yourself. There is something I must see to first.” The boy peered up at him. Doubt in miniature. “Do I need to tell you twice?”

The boy fled. Not walked, not ran, not ambled. Fled. From him.

What of it, old devil? Is this not the proper way? Your adversaries and their spawn cringing and scrambling from you at every turn, quailing under your thumb? This is victory at its height. Is it not so?

He thought of three harpies who mocked and robbed and tittered as he piled their centuries up with gifts and weeping sweetmeat.

He thought of the spur of a delightfully infuriating woman and the admiration of an impossible child.

He thought of his friend, red-handed with the enemies slain for his wife and his Master, slipping silently into servitude and his tithes of blood and obedience, the quiet misery free of charge, Sir.

He thought of his friend, sweeping dust from his mind as blithely as he banished it from his forsaken rooms, varnishing and whetting his nights to an edge finer than a surrendered kukri.

He thought of his friend, who had begun as a mere pending addition to his colony and was now evolved into a thing worth bartering for, worth sheltering and hoarding and honing despite a betrayal paid triply in death and deeds on his Master’s behalf.

He thought of his friend, screaming in his jaws. Clawing his way towards a laugh, look, son, see, son, it’s alright. No, Mina, no, let it be, let him do it, please, Mina, don’t, Mina, do not risk yourself, our boy, please, please.

He thought of his friend, mauled for another’s Lesson, half-dead, streaked in gore and sweat and tears, patched together with inexpert hands. 

He thought of his friend in his desolate box of a room, staring out the window with a piece of chalk as the only barrier between life and death.

He thought of all these things and many more. He went on thinking them as he stalked away to his own room and went to work.

An hour had come and gone since he finished what was needed.

An hour and fifteen minutes since he masked himself from their senses and planted himself outside Jonathan’s door. He listened to the cadence of them as one might strain for snatches of birdsong. Only Jonathan and the boy were audible, but even the woman’s mental chatter carried a bristle on the air. His Harkers made such a warm sound all together.

The sound stopped as he turned the knob.

Three heads lifted like a trio of deer hearing a huntsman’s boot disturbing the grass.

They were huddled together on the bed, as always. The woman guarded her husband’s wounded side. The boy sat under his Papa’s good arm with two books open across their laps. Here was the history book and one of the fairy tale collections. They had been taking their turns reading a page apiece, son reading meticulously through a moment of fantasy in Hungarian while his Papa overdid a silly dull drone in the same tongue over the drudgery of an overpacked page for the child to groan at. Mum would cap the whole act by way of glancing at the page and then thinking a flash of knowledge into their heads. There, done. Thank you, Mum. Laughter abounded.

Until now.

“Goodness, such a hush. Do I interrupt?”

Jonathan, the immaculate actor, smiled and shook his head.

“Nothing that did not want interrupting. For some reason I’m failing to win any appreciation for the recital of 200-year-old politics across the Carpathians. Perhaps it’s my delivery.” The latter was directed half to his Master, half to the boy. He even cupped the child’s shoulder. Hinting. The boy offered him a smile in return.

And tried, “They didn’t make it like a story. Just a lot of, ‘This happened and then this and then this and then this.’ You and Mum could write it better.”

The woman offered a sing-song rebuttal of, Or you could, Dearest. It would make for very thorough writing practice.

The boy made a face of dismay and denial, pretending to take cover behind his book of fables. Cute. Precious, even. The whole charade was. Their Master felt his own grin strain to hold in place as he strolled to the bed. Anxiety thick enough to gag floated on the air.

“I leave such judgment to mother and son. For now, Papa and I must speak in private.” He set his gaze level with Jonathan’s. “There is something I require your assistance with, my friend.” His hand uncurled to take. “Come.”

“Of course,” from Jonathan. Not so much as a tremor. He turned to the woman as his good hand gave the boy a parting hug, then raised it to set in his Master’s palm. “I’m afraid you must take up the mantle of inflicting ancient territory disputes on him—,” But then found his good hand was trapped. By the boy. The woman tensed. Jonathan froze. “Sweetheart…”

“Papa, don’t go. Please don’t go.” The boy held fast around his Papa’s hand and half his arm, a feeble anchor whose attention jumped fitfully among his parents; not including his Father. “Mum, tell him not to. Please?” A hesitant thread of mesmer squirmed in his voice. His Father could have rolled his eyes. This tug-of-war again? Was the child dense? “He’s going to do it again.”

The room chilled.

Jonathan flicked a frantic gaze to his wife, blasting silent urgency through his thoughts. The woman fought an enormous urge of her own to spare her Master a glower before addressing her son:

Dearest. You know that night was only an accident. We are a long way from another meal besides.

Then, thrumming with the weight of a lie:

It’s alright.

But the boy would not swallow it this time. He was an amateur at playing pretend in the way of his parents. A child fed on blood and fairy tales full of monsters who lived in the house as much as without. The boy held onto his Papa and shook his head. Fear crashed up against sorrow and sorrow up against anger.

“It isn’t! You all keep saying it is, and it isn’t! Papa, he hurt you and he did it on purpose! He didn’t kiss you at all! It was just tearing and hurting and—,” a word stuck, choked, flew, “—and lying. He says you aren’t fighting, but you are, or he wouldn’t hurt you and make you sit and be sad and sharp all the time and…and…” His eyes were close to running now, the words melting into a hiccough. “…and he never even said sorry…” The boy forewent his Papa’s arm and clamped around his middle instead, hugging tight and hiding his face in the man’s side. “Papa, don’t go with him…”

Him, him, him.

Was he not even Father anymore?

“Quincey, I promise you we aren’t fighting. Even grownups make mistakes. That’s all that night was.” Then, silk-smooth, “Father apologized already.” He turned to the woman, expecting reinforcements, “Mina, you remember—,” But the woman was looking through him and into the boy. The boy, who had peeked up enough from his sniveling to think out at her, showing the little chat shared between Father and son on the way to the tower. Inhaling it, she looked to her husband with renewed alarm, reflecting their child’s tattling into Jonathan’s mind.

Jonathan lost another shade in his pallor. He turned all but snowy as his wife turned her attention to their Master. A blazing thing, all horror and hate and, surprised that she could still feel it, a new level of shocked disgust.

Even this is not beneath you?

‘This’ being the vision scraped from her son’s spying through the keyhole. Hours and nights and days’ worth of the sight of Jonathan Harker mesmerized by his window.

Her hands had drifted by reflex to grasp her husband, her position shifted in paltry protection of her prize. Likewise for the boy who now clung wholly around his Papa’s waist. Jonathan, meanwhile, appeared truly and entirely terrified to a degree his Master hadn’t seen since their last nights together in that long-ago summer. Afraid for them.

He held them each as best he could before lifting his good hand again—

“My Loves, it’s alright, I promise, I—,”

—and having it caught in his Master’s.

His Master, roiling with ire, pulled him forward. His kin, roiling with fear-hate-love, pulled back. Three iron grips all working against each other.

And what was begun in a battleground of the psyche not so long ago was made flesh upon the bed. Briefly. Just before they heard the pop.

A muffled sound, almost comical. Wet and cracking and quick.

Pop went Papa’s shoulder.

Papa made his own noise to go with it.

The iron grips turned to jelly, their owners flinching back as one. Jonathan caught himself on his working elbow and fought down another agonized note as its own pain throbbed up to the mangled shoulder. This he tried to turn into another smile as his breath came in a huffed stutter of a laugh.

“Oops,” he panted, wavering up on his knees. His only hand went to the sagging shoulder, the hold still too weak to hoist it. “See? Accidents happen.” A hoarse noise, fighting not to be a sob. “Darling, could you..?”

But she was already on him, aligning shoulder to socket, bracing, shoving—

Pop!

—the arm back in place. Another noise from Papa, this time through locked teeth.

“Thank you. See?” The fingers of his right hand flexed experimentally. Weak, but functional. “It’s fine, Sweetheart, it’s fine, you didn’t mean it, no one did, it’s alright…”

But the boy was past mere sniffling. Now he bawled. Red rivers of tears emptied from his eyes, turning his little face wax-white as he scrambled to his Papa, blubbering fragments of apology, of denial, of no no no, Papa, it isn’t alright, no no no. The woman’s eyes were running too. Shame and rage and pain streaked her face like a mask of grief as she wrapped herself around her husband, her mind a litany as garbled as her son’s.

Jonathan Jonathan sorry so sorry Darling my Love sorry sorry sorry sorrysorrysorrysosorry—

“It’s alright,” Jonathan echoed mindlessly back, the most he could do by way of dialogue through pain and panic. “It’s alright,” as his arms, now both water-weak and crippled, folded around wife and child. His back to his Master as if he might shield them.

His Master felt somehow as if he had ceased to be in the room. Now he was watching a lackluster play unfold. See here, the poor little family menaced and ravaged by the monster. The monster looms over them, gloating over the injuries left, waiting to strike again as they weep. The boy cries, the woman cries, Jonathan cries. And why not? The monster gives them something to cry about. As monsters should. As is right. The family belongs to the monster, not the reverse. The monster has no place within the family. Fragile and grating little thing that it is.

See how easily it’s wounded? How quickly it turns on the monster for a mistake? Not even his own! Not entirely his own, at least.

This time.

So. You can admit it.

The boy, the woman, Jonathan, all crying. All huddling against him. Away from him.

As if any of them can spare the loss of blood. As if they expect him to open his veins and refill them to make up for their own idiot blubbering. As if he can waste more of himself on their fumbling and failures. As if he has not hollowed himself of everything, feeding his blood and his time and his toil and his soul until he has only a husk left for himself, picture of the good husband and father, give give give, work work work, feed feed feed, and all they offer him is more need, more pain, more excuses, sorry, sorry, I did not mean it, Papa, I did not mean it, Darling—

He watched Jonathan raise his head enough to look over the heads of his Loves. A single pining glance at the window.

I did not mean it, draga mea.

“Enough.” It was not the bark he wished it to be. He was not even sure if his Harkers heard him. But they didn’t need to. Within a heartbeat he had shot forward snaked his arm around Jonathan’s middle. He hoisted the man like a doll, shock alone making him flinch and scrabble at the hold. The child keened piercingly and the mother’s mind erupted with hate-panic. Her Master flung an order out.

Hold the boy. Do not follow.

The woman spasmed against the order until every cord of muscle stood out from her like wire. Then she was giving a mute howl as she fell upon her son, snatching him up and trapping him in her arms. The boy shrilled deafeningly and fought his mother in a blur of little limbs, tugging, reaching, kicking, begging.

“Let go! Mum, let go! Papa! Papa!”

The boy’s face was a horror of running blood, his eyes turned to marbles of red glass.

Jonathan was little better. His Master had not allowed him to stand. He would waste time if he had; would have tried to dawdle, to scramble back and soothe the tantrum away, to trap himself and his Master another endless minute in this squalling hell of a room. So his Master had hoisted him up first as a farmer might trap an errant lamb under his arm, then threw him over his shoulder.

Then moved to the window.

The boy shrieked.

“Papa! Papa! No, let him go! Papa!”

“Please,” Jonathan’s voice was a hoarse whisper. His hands clung without strength to his Master’s back, trying to drag himself loose, straining towards mother and child like a dying flower bowing toward the sun. “Please, Sir, not like this. I have to go to them, have to explain things, I have to—,”

SLEEP.

Jonathan became a dead weight over his shoulder. The window was opened. Another scream from the boy, this one so great it turned into a nigh rupturing cough.

“Papa,” a reedy sound, “Papa, wake up, Papa..!”

Out the window they went.

Mid-descent, monster turned to mist, carrying his prey like a leaf in a breeze. Down and away and around the castle’s side. Finding the way back in that no eye or mind within the castle could discover.

Jonathan woke half an hour later.

He did so with a surprising lack of pain. As sleep melted off, he became aware of new wrappings layered on both shoulders. The left’s ragged side was plastered with a cooling sleeve of linen strips. His right was bound with something that felt like a fuzzing velvet numbness trapped under its bandages. Each side ate away their respective aches.

“Alchemy as men know it never did manage to turn iron to gold. But it bridged many gaps between simple medicine and magic’s bending of bodily law.”

Jonathan raised his head enough to see his Master sat at the opposite end of the bed. If one considered it a bed. They were in a nest of blankets and cushions that had been layered into a den of alien stonework. While not musty in the way of other ancient bedding strewn around the castle, they carried the spiced stamp of aromas from the work that was done in the adjoining room. Over his Master’s shoulder he could see a heavy oaken door left a crack open. A lamp glowed there, highlighting glass and clay vessels arranged on a far worktable. Some smoked. Some glowed. Some seemed to look back at him.

“Nature would have you heal over the course of weeks. Likely months. Supernature,” his Master gestured at the bandaged shoulders, “will see you healed within the next two nights at the latest. Of course, this will hardly matter if you decide to forsake your little chalk notes and throw yourself from the window.” Jonathan held his tongue as his Master sunk both eyes into him like brands. “The boy did not catch what you wrote on the windowsill, if it’s any consolation. You could let them go on believing I have been so monstrous as to force my poor friend, poor Papa, poor Darling, to sit dull and dead before the window for hours upon hours whenever he does not work or sleep or bleed. I am so suddenly the only monster under this roof as well as Master.”

Jonathan swallowed. Once, twice.

“Apologies. I shall—I shall explain things to them. Please, forgive me, Sir.”

“No.” Jonathan stared at him. Worry and confusion clashed and crumbled into each other behind the ghost-light eyes. “No,” his Master echoed, “this is not something that is forgiven any more than it is forgotten.” His hands clenched to white stones in his lap. “How long have you been like this, Jonathan?”

Do not lie.

Jonathan twitched but failed to catch his tongue in time.

“The first time was in mid-May. Back when I first started to suspect you. The prospect rose and fell in me more than once until the end of June. If it were not for the chance of seeing Mina again, I would have walked into the wolves on that last night together. I was still thinking of cliffs and wolves the day I escaped, prepared to take that route rather than have the Weird Sisters’ teeth pin me here forever. But those thoughts came and went.

“It wasn’t until October 3rd that the urge came back and never left. That was when I stopped being sure whether or not Mina would heed the threat of death potentially leading to undeath. I know she still thought of high buildings. Of train tracks. Fires. So I started thinking of them too. Just in case. After November, after the killing, I just kept thinking it. Whenever I was not busy or seen or sleeping. I have heard that suicides are damned outright. Murderers of good men too. I have thought sometimes that I could take that leap and die, but I would not know the difference once I woke to Hell. Sometimes I think I jumped an eternity ago and just can’t remember.  

“I know I cannot risk it, of course. It would risk them too and leave them hurting besides. All it amounts to now is a sort of meditation. And I do appreciate the view. It is no more than that, I swear.”

“You swear,” his Master nodded. “You swear in this particular moment. Just as, not so long ago, caught in a snare, you thought of taking yourself away in earnest. The leap or the rope or the knife reached for in full daylight. A most effective slap to rouse your greedy little family from their play. But it does not bode well for this, your current oath. Only a thought, only a meditation. Not to worry. This is what you would have me believe?”

“Thought is not action, Sir. I would not still be here if it was.”

“Indeed, you are here. And doing what? Ah, let me specify. Doing what, besides working and bleeding?”

Jonathan frowned at him.

“Raising my family.”

“Which falls under work.”

A deeper frown, almost stormy.   

“It hardly feels so, Sir. My Loves are not the burden you would paint them as.”

“Even if I believed you, you still have not answered my question. What are you doing, Jonathan Harker? What are you doing solely for yourself? You stare out a window that you must convince yourself every day not to leap from. You clear dust away from every room in the castle but your own. You touch a book only when you must be seen reading, you sing only when there is an ear besides yours to hear it, you wear your smiles the same way a maid dons her uniform. You do not answer me because you have no answer to give.” Lantern eyes burned. “In the five years since you have been here, you have done nothing but hollow yourself of everything. Blood and fealty and life and love. Yes, true, you live. Because that too is in your itinerary. Just another chore of maintenance.”  

 Jonathan sat up fully now.

“And?” A whisper. A thing of lead. “What does it matter?”

Why do you care?

“It matters because, even without a stomach, I am not immune to nausea. Call it secondhand indignation if you like. I have made deals with many devils and played pupil to the best of them. You see what bounty such Lessons have afforded me compared to,” he waved a clawed hand in Jonathan’s direction, “the usual lot of misery that comes to the would-be hero and the practicing martyr. If I should ever get around to some dire retribution from kismet, it will only be after nigh half a millennium of unchecked power and slaughter with nary an angel flying by to chide me for my play. Even Faustus got to have his allotment of pleasure before Mephistopheles tore him to shreds and flung his soul to Hell. But you? You spoke the truth before.

“You have nothing. You began with scarcely more than that. A narrow starving life with only the distraction of a woman who hardly merited the pedestal you lifted her on for playing nursemaid and starring, as so many muses do, within a theatre of high romance you painted around her; she, a soul as commonplace as a grain of sand in a desert. For her, you damn yourself. Her and the unholy miracle of the boy. You started with crumbs and gave away all you had and more, gaining nothing but the safeguarding of others’ fortune. Others’ lives. While you whore your life and veins away and tell yourself a chair and a window are sufficient for the last dregs of self you permit to exist.

“Do not mistake me. It is hilarious in the abstract. I would laugh if you were on a stage. But you are here and real and proving insufferable with your insistence on denying yourself any opportunity to do something other than play the role of grist in a mill.” He bared his teeth. It was not a grin. “But I waste my time telling you what you already know, yes? You have clearly made peace with this Spartan half-life. You did not even bat a lash at the prospect of mother and child’s visits being stripped away.” Jonathan’s breath stopped as his Master looked down on him. Lantern eyes now infernos. “Until tonight. There is a crack in the performance now. Father is suddenly a monster and he has stolen poor Papa away.

“And here, in this space, Papa can never be found. Not even by his wife’s prying mind.” White knuckles rapped against the strange black stonework. “It was not easy making this place. A genius loci can only flex so much. But the Scholomance exists in a space that is not possible and it was with brick from that Mountain that I formed these walls. A little sanctum away from Earthly meddling. Back before my condition required the grave soil. How nice to know it will not go to waste.”

Jonathan’s face fell as his Master stood. In less than a blink his Master was at the door, then through it, filling up the threshold. Perhaps too late it occurred to him that the nest of a room had no light lit in it. Not so much as a candle. The only illumination left was the faint glow at his Master’s back and the fires that were his Master’s eyes.

“You have a new task before you, my friend. Something to meditate on without distraction. No work. No window. No wife or child. The task is this: Think of something to do, to be, to want, that serves only you. An addition to your life that you can drop into the raw pit you have carved out of yourself to feed the clamoring maws of your dear family.”

His hand curled around the handle.

Jonathan’s eyes were wide and bright as stars.

“Wait—,”

“In the meantime, for as long as you fail in this endeavor, you will be here. To the boy and his mother, you will be a ghost. Undetectable by mind or sound or scent. They will only know you live by the taste of you in the cup. But do not rush yourself. Take however many nights or years you need.”

Jonathan fought his way out of the tangle of covers.

“Please, wait—,”

“I’m certain they will take it well.”      

The door shut and bolted. A moment later there was a hammering in the dark interior, fists drumming against the thick oak. From the exterior it sounded barely louder than the patter of rain. The shouting only the buzz of an insect. Rain and insect grew slightly louder when the laboratory’s light was put out, erasing even the outline of the door. All was dark. Hammer, patter, shout, buzz.

Silently, the Master of the castle sighed.

He just as silently took a seat outside the door. His eyes were their own strange points of light in the pitch and they glanced down into the open face of his pocket watch. It stood out clearly enough to him. One hour. Two. Three. His friend carried on at intervals through them all. Shouts or sobs, pleas or pounding.

Out in the castle, mother and child were hunting. Father and Papa were nowhere to be found. They threw out the feelers of their psyche as far as they could go, scented the air, raced and called to each other on every floor and through every room. Nothing, nothing. The woman even dared to breach her Master’s bedroom.

Ah, close! So close! Did she detect her husband there? An echo of his presence?

Of course she did.

Her husband was the only one other than her Master to be allowed in that room, and then only with their Master’s beckoning. Even if she had no reason to doubt the freshness of the hint, there was still no following. Not into this space that only a student of the Mountain could detect, let alone enter. She came and went within walking distance of her beloved. All as he screamed out for her. For their boy. For their Master.

By the fourth hour the room had quieted.

He held his ear to the crack:

“Please…” came a croak almost too thin to count as a voice. “Please, I don’t understand this. What do you want from me? What am I supposed to say? Just tell me, please…”

I did. I did and you still cannot make sense of it. Draga mea, has this been you your whole life?

He wanted to laugh.

A curse was mouthed instead.

He stood, relit the lamp, unbolted the door, and found his arms suddenly full of his friend. The bandaged arms clung to him while a face streaked in tears and sweat ground into his chest, eyes somehow still running. He made a note to force a carafe down the man’s throat before he passed out. For now, he let his friend hold to him, shaking.

“Sir, Master, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for angering you. I only want to understand what has to be done to mend this. Please.”

He held his friend in turn, stroking through the white cloud of hair.

“That you say this means you have not taken the order to heart. How is it such a trial to want something? Whether you fear it being taken or not, how is it you cannot even name a thing you desire?”

“I don’t know.” The words left his friend like millstones. He seemed almost to deflate in his Master’s arms. “I don’t know.”

“You could not have been so before you were here. Before you were mine. Even the destitute will dream. Did you not want for anything then, however meager?”

Quiet unspooled for almost a minute. There was a small breath. He waited.

“…Wanting gets conditioned out of some lives,” was his friend’s answer. “Need comes first. Need is always there, taking up your mind and your time. Urgency. Efficiency. Every cent and minute hoarded. Books were a luxury. Second and thirdhand purchases, the rest from the library. Theatre was a treat to reserve once a season at most. No concerts, no revelries, no records playing in the apartment on a phonograph never afforded. The first time we did not know need was after the man I considered a father died and left the gift of his will behind. A house and a business and a bank account that finally did not sting to look at, traded into our hands at the loss of another precious life.

“Between Lucy and Hawkins, there was not even a heartbeat in which to be more than performative in appreciating our changed fortune. Not before the trap of you sprang again. Van Helsing’s call to arms. You know the rest. Even Mina, even the blessing of our child, those priceless wants above all others, were made into another thunderbolt from Fate. Another proof that some people are just not meant to want, let alone have. No matter how great or small a treasure. I learned that Lesson well enough even before you. And so I have schooled myself out of it. Wanting.

“The part of a mind that craves for itself has been atrophied and beaten into dust in me. But if you say I must want, I can perform otherwise. Tell me I am sick of the window and I shall board it up. Tell me to read, I will read. Or sing a song. Or dig up old recipes to enjoy even when I am not cooking to flavor myself. Or whatever else. Even while you all sleep. Even with no one looking.” Jonathan pulled his face away from his Master’s heart and turned bleary eyes up to him. Blue ringed in rose. “Whatever fixes this. Please.”

Throw him back in. He will do better in a week. A month at most. Do it.

He sensed mother and child outside the castle now. Running, circling. They had taken clothes from Jonathan’s wardrobe and, against the Lesson so gravely taught, son watched mother order the wolves to her, demanding they take her husband’s scent and search, go! The wolves would lead them to the usual route Jonathan took to the towns, no more. But they were desperate. Still weeping. Bloodless and starving for grief.

Do it.

Jonathan stared at him. Waiting for another blow. For a laugh, a sneer. A cold hand tossing him back into the dark. The dog laying before his Master’s rising boot, knowing the fine quarry brought home was no excuse for not wagging his tail as he did so.

A fine dragon you are, old devil. Are you so soft now? You laid out the terms. He has not satisfied them. Do it. Do it!

“Fifteen years. That is how long the boy has left to nurse from you if you have your way. Fifteen more years until he is a man, innocent of taking a single life. Likewise for his mother. Because you feed us all. Wasting and wasting until that final night. Do you expect to die and remain dead at that hour? Do you think I would lose you, even if Mephistopheles himself came up to collect?”

“No,” barely a breath. Jonathan seemed to wilt another inch as it left him.

“No. The wait ends. Your unlife begins. Which means what?”

Jonathan could not bring himself to speak. Only looked away. His Master thumbed away another tear.

“Eternity in potentia,” he answered himself. “Centuries. Longer. We both know the Vampire is made of its wants before anything else. Such is our nature. I will give credit to dear Mina for her control. She has far more cause for loathing me than her Sisters did and she does admirably against her own desires. Even if she only has as much will as my own allows, it is a thing of iron in itself. But what of you, draga mea?”

Recognition pinched Jonathan upright again. The ghost-light eyes gaped with what was uncertainty or else the wish to be uncertain.

“You will no longer be as you are. No more playing vassal. No more wearing the yoke of mere servility. No more stalling in your martyr’s Pit. You will be Vampire, you will be want. And what will you do if there is nothing of the latter there to catch you? What shall you do with infinity? Will you only be as my missing shadow? Only your woman’s faithful dog? Will you still have the boy, grown and whole, pulling at your apron strings? A servant, forever caught between bowing to others or laying as a corpse in the moonlight for lack of anyone to serve. That you would be for eternity?”

The hand that wiped the tear moved to Jonathan’s jaw. It held like a strut against his attempt to turn away.

“I always kill my pests. I may torture an enemy before his end. But I would ultimately be rid of them, not leave them to such a Hell as the one you seem so dedicated to crafting for yourself.”

The hand was a snare and it kept Jonathan facing forward. Straight into the basilisk gaze and the mesmer at its heart. An order that was a plea.

“Think. Think of one single thing you want for yourself tonight. Just one.”

The trance worked deep. Snapping at the heels of Jonathan’s mind like a hound after a fox. Further, further, down, down, through a pinhole of a tunnel into the abandoned gloom where the carcasses of hope and yearning had been thrown away. The trance dug. The trance prodded. The trance found a coin’s worth of treasure, like dead men’s gold hidden under a blue flame.

Here was another view from another window. After the departure of a captor. Before the arrival of the hypnotic mists and their hungry smiles. Sweetly in-between, here was the sight of the moonlit world back when it had been a beautiful balm. A sole comfort in his terror but a heartbeat from being spoiled by his hostesses’ threat.

Jonathan Harker had seen small shapes moving on the wind. An owl soaring far below. Moths fluttering past like living petals. So high, so close to the peaks and stars, a needle of nostalgia had found him. The boy within the young man who had wished with the hopeless fantasy of all hungry children looking up from their sparse plates and miserable families and through tatty curtains at the open and untouchable sky. Wished with sweet-somber futility for escape. For…for…

Jonathan spoke the wish aloud. A last wet trail fell from his bloodshot stare. His Master wiped this too.

And found Jonathan’s mouth with his before willing him back to sleep.

Mother and child were returning from the road. She had taken the boy up in her arms again, cursing as she half-ran, half-flew. The child had ceased sobbing, at last, but he rattled in her embrace. This had never happened before. They had not thought such a thing could happen. That anyone, let alone Papa and Father, could simply disappear. Especially from her senses. It was impossible to lose track of them. She always knew where they were. Always.

And now…

“Mum?” She had stopped. Her head cocked like a wolf’s, ears pricked high, eyes flaring. “Mum, what is it?”

There. They’re right there. How?

“Where, Mum? Are they close?”

She didn’t answer. Only took off at another rush, firing herself and her son like a spectral bullet through the forest. Perhaps the boy would have been more stunned than afraid that his mother could be such a blur if not for his worry. His senses were smaller than hers, still reaching and searching for whatever it was she’d found. It wasn’t until the outline of the castle came into view that he skimmed the presence of his fathers on the air. They were at the castle, but not within it.

Two frantic sets of eyes hunted around the grounds, trying to make sense of how the mingled presences could be so near and invisible at once. Closer. Closer.

Up.

They craned their heads until the moon met their gaze. That and the two shapes against the sky.

Jonathan was held close in his Master’s arms. The two of them were a speck against the stars. A moment more and they were drifting down to the ground. Jonathan was set lightly on his feet and almost knocked off them as his son clamped around his waist. His wife almost finished the job by locking her arms about his mending shoulders. Their Master watched on at a careful distance; no sudden moves to alert the herd.

The next hour was devoted to running both men’s tongues ragged.

Yes, diavol, he had lied. There had been a fight and he was embarrassed for it. But it was not what caused his Father’s tearing at Papa. That was his Father forgetting himself, forgetting how easy Papa was to break. Father grew angry at himself first for the mistake, then again when Papa was upset for frightening their son, and then most of all when, old man that his Father was, he had forgotten a remedy he had once known to cure away the injury and make Papa well again. It made him stormy, as all saw. He hated having a solution just out of reach.

But he had remembered at last. That was why he had come to take Papa away that evening. To put his mistake right. But then had come all the hurtful words from their harsh-tongued child, the tears, the fretting, and then that nasty surprise of a second mistake. Again, poor Papa was forced to pay the price for an unruly family. And Father had snatched him away before more pains could add up.

He had gone to a place that, he will be honest, did not exist properly inside the castle. Like a ballroom tucked into a woodshed. It was where his older magic was stored, back before Father was all that he was, back when he had need to worry about skin and bone. There he took Papa to heal. And to talk.

About his sitting and staring. About how he did this for lack of joy alone. Papa made himself so busy and tired that there was nothing left in him to play or take pleasure all on his own.

Was it the sharp thoughts again, Papa?

A tremor here from the boy. Begging, but bracing.

No, son, only absurd ones. The kind that grownups do not like to admit out loud because they do not wish to seem foolish or idle. Other things too. Little things that would need asking for. But your Papa hates to ask for anything, and so he hid all that in his head too, so he would not ask at all.

Yet Father had made him talk and ask and it turned out it really wasn’t such an absurd thing at all.    

“I asked to fly.”

“Like us?”

“Like you. Isn’t that silly?”

“It’s silly that you didn’t ask! I always wanted to fly too, seeing Mum and Father do it so easy.” The boy held tight to him again, grinding the coagulation of old tears against his Papa’s neck. In a small voice he shuddered, “I thought you wanted to do something else. I thought…”

“I know, Sweetheart. I’m sorry for scaring you all before. I would never listen to the sharp thoughts like that. It’s just a sour part of imagination. That’s all.” He rested his chin atop the boy’s head. One hand cupped him close. The other looped around the woman’s shoulders, the ease of the gesture proving the strength of the medicine. Her eyes dug in his. Knowing and shelving the truth for later. “I promise,” Jonathan breathed.

…Do you still want to fly?

“Once you have another meal in you, Darling. I think we are all too worn out for now.”

“No,” the Master intoned from the castle’s shadow, “You need not soften it. You are worn out, all of you. I remain the only one overfed and hale. I shall still be so once you are ready to feed again.” He waved his hand. “I shall skip my helping at the next feeding, lest I burst like a tick.” The boy perked up in his Papa’s lap while his mother narrowed her eyes. Father never skipped his taste of Papa. Not ever. Father only grinned. “But before Papa plays family dinner again, it must be agreed that he needs a holiday. I believe he had some ideas he wished to share with you.” His gaze flicked to Jonathan. “Is it not so, draga mea?”

Mother and child each recognized the term as it hit the air.

The woman was considerably less enthused than her son, who knew the words from the fairy tales. The magic words between one true love and another.

Jonathan distracted them both with the first small thing: A phonograph and new music to play on it. Perhaps even sheet music of their own, if any of them would dare to risk each others’ ears with the practice.  

What was a phonograph, Papa? Was that like the music boxes he’d brought home for them?

Something like that…

Chatter carried on under the moon until Jonathan’s stomach growled. The woman stopped just short of carrying him off to the kitchen. Master and child dawdled behind. The latter pretended interest in a moth that had landed first on a flower, then a stone, and then up on his Father’s shoulder like a great grim tree.

But the moth flew off and still he did not look away.

“…Yes, child?”

“I’m sorry, Father.” Thank every god below the Earth, he did not bring himself to tears as he said it. Though he looked close. “I should never have thought you’d hurt Papa.”

“Ah, but I did hurt him. We all did. By accident, with carelessness, without ill intent, still he was hurt. We are fortunate that he is so forgiving a soul and strong enough to weather us. Such men as him are rare. I do not think I have met another like him in four hundred years.” The child’s eyes shined just short of another bloody tide he could not afford to lose. Sensing this, he snuffled and squinted and fought the weeping back. Good boy. “He will be alright. Amends will be made and we shall not repeat our mistakes with him. Papa does so much out of love for us. We will do the same, yes?”

He held out his hand. The boy forsook it to duck wholly under his arm in his accustomed spot, huddled close as a pup to his kin. The open hand drifted down to stroke his hair.

“Yes,” the boy nodded against him, scrubbing the last dry tracks of tears away on his suit. “Promise.”

“Good. No more tears tonight, diavol. There is nothing to cry about.”

[okkalo]

Hiiii do you do scenarios for multiple characters? i'd like to request jealousy scenarios for isagi, chigiri, kaiser, nagi, reo. thank u sm ^^

hi anon! yes i do :) i hope u enjoy these and have a good day/night 🫶

characters: isagi, chigiri, kaiser, nagi, reo

isagi

- it’s the way the beast mode song came in my head just thinking about this 💀

- he would be a calm type of jealous though

- the only situation i can see him getting mad in is if kaiser was the one interacting with you and he was obviously flirting.

- even then he would try to control it around you, just making sure to send a little glare kaiser’s way before taking your hand to lead you someplace else. oh, you were mid-conversation? it’s okay because your boyfriend is much better company!

- he rarely gets jealous though

- and when he does he usually just touches you in someway, whether it be taking your hand or throwing an arm around you. he definitely gets pouty.

- i can imagine him getting jealous because you were talking to someone for too long

- you guys had gone out for a date, strolling around town until you suddenly bumped into an old friend

- at first isagi didn’t mind but you guys just kept talking

isagi let another rough sigh, borderline huff, slip from his lips as he watched you pay no mind to him. he had been standing there for god only knows how long, letting you interact with your old friend when really it should’ve just been the two of you. it was your guys’ date after all. he let out another sigh, hoping you guys had at least been getting close to ending the conversation. he wouldn’t know since he stopped listening ten minutes in. okay..maybe that’s an exaggeration. but it felt like an hour went by to isagi.

he switches his balance to his other foot, impatiently, before deciding to at least try to enjoy the time. he places a hand on your back, starting to rub it up and down while he continued to fake smile at the guy. his heart fluttered once you sent him a worried look, finally giving him some sort of attention. even better, you even took his hand as a sign that you should be wrapping up the conversation, to which you did with ease.

once done with waving goodbye, isagi immediately let out a dramatic sigh, lips going into a slight pout before pulling you closer to him. he didn’t need to say words for you to understand he was upset, because frankly his sighs said it all. you could only let out a small giggle before pulling isagi into a hug, resting your chin on his chest as you looked up. “thank you for waiting so patiently, yoichi.” okay, maybe he could do something like that again if this is what he got in return.

chigiri

- he’s definitely the hardest one to make jealous out of these characters

- but that’s mostly because he trusts you

- i can imagine you being brought up like his sister to the blue lock team

- you happened to be at one of the games, next to his sister, when she did her loud callout

- and of course the men heard and turned towards the direction, this time someone else had caught their eye.

- chigiri had to put up with their questions back then and he thought that was it

- until he had saw otoya try talking to you after the game

a huff left chigiri’s lips at the sight. he should’ve known to not trust otoya, i mean he saw it all that day they went bowling. what annoyed him even more is that he could tell otoya was using the same pickup tactic as if you were an ordinary girl. and to top it all off? you had been indulging him. he was lucky he came when otoya asked for your number.

“she’s not for grabs.” chigiri immediately slid his way into the conversation, arm finding it’s way around your waist as he gave a deadpan expression to his teammate. chigiri’s heart swelled once you gave him an excited greeting, forgetting the jealousy that pricked him before. “let’s go home.” he stated, sliding his hand down to connect your fingers, giving a light squeeze to your hand before dragging you off. he ignored otoya’s giggle in the background.

“next time just ignore him if he comes up to you.” chigiri broke the calm silence between you both on the ride back to your shared home. you were about to reason yourself when he spoke up again, not giving you a chance to, “he’s got a lot of other girls to talk to, trust me.”

kaiser

- LMAO

- gets jealous only when he sees people he doesn’t know or like interact with you

- but that’s also a lot of people so

- and god forbid isagi ever come close to you

- or if the person you’re with is throwing in light touches

- remember that cocky yet pissed face he showed in one of the chapters? that’s the face he uses.

- does not care if the person you’re talking to is important

- will absolutely use pda. if you aren’t comfortable you either have to immediately drop the conversation or punish kaiser with no kisses or smth for a period of time

- will use insults as well

- just so so obnoxious.

it was after one of kaiser’s football games when he saw this random idiot trying to talk you up. after a shit game of having to deal with isagi and noel’s suckup relationship. after a game that consisted of thoughts about you, just wanting to go home with you. and this is what he sees? he scoffs at the sight before his legs carry him to you two.

“hey babe,” kaiser makes sure to greet you with a pet name, sliding his arm around your shoulders before his hand moves your head to meet him in for a kiss. he peeks one eye open during the kiss, sending a glare to the guy while his lips formed into a smirk at the guy’s shocked face. he departs from the kiss shortly after, his eyes now only on you. “let’s go home and celebrate, yeah?”

he ignores you trying to introduce the guy, pulling you along with him while his other hand flies off in a lazy wave. “don’t care, i’m better.” you could only give him a light push while giving a rushed apology to the guy you were in mid-conversation with before kaiser dragged you away.

nagi

- the pouty type of jealous

- argue with the wall

- hard to get jealous though because frankly he doesn’t care most of the time

- but this situation had been ongoing

- he started picking up on your play flirts with your friends

- at first he thought it was weird but as time went on he couldn’t help but be jealous of your friends

nagi’s lips formed into a frown at the now red screen in front of him. he had been distracted by your coos over the phone with your friend and ended up losing his game. he let out a huff as he looked over at you smiling dumbly while holding a phone to your ear. he was thankful you were saying your goodbyes, quickly tossing his own phone to the side as he crawled over to plop himself on your stomach. he ignored your groan at his weight, head laying down on your chest as he stared off to the side. “why can’t you talk to me like that?”

the blunt question had caught you off guard, eyes narrowing in confusion until you started to think. “you mean flirt? you want me to flirt with you nagi?” he gave a huff at your confused tone before giving a small nod. you couldn’t help the laughter that escaped your lips at his answer. “nagi, you’re my boyfriend why would i need to tell you ‘i’m kissing you through the phone’?”

his head immediately perked up, eyes now meeting yours. “it’s not just that! why don’t you tell me ‘i’m going to marry you’? i should be the one you say that to, not them anyways.” he declared, his frown sinking deeper as you let out another laugh. you pushed your fingers into his hair, scratching his scalp as you gave him a goofy smile. he let out a sigh, his heart easing at your smile before setting his chin back down on your chest. “i’ll marry you better than them anyways.”

reo

- definitely gets jealous easily

- he’s a mix of the pouty jealous and the cold jealous

- definitely pouty with you but when there’s someone else he has to put on a cool look yk

- he happened to walk in at the wrong time once he heard you call someone hot while looking at your phone

- he went smug immediately, thinking it was him you were looking at

- you can only imagine the betrayal he felt once he saw you looking at a picture of one of his teammates

- calls you out on it and he became pouty that whole night, even giving you silent treatment up until bed time

you sighed, crawling into the bed just to notice you weren’t welcome to open arms like usual. now it was your turn to pout, eyes falling over to reo who sat with his body against the headboard, his arms crossed and his head turned to avoid you even more. “reo…you know, i still think you’re the hottest guy on the team.”

you let out another sigh as you were met with silence. you were still determined, nonetheless. you couldn’t go to sleep without reo pulling you close. you decided to crawl up to him, lightly setting yourself down on his lap as your hand moved his head to look at you. “not only that but you’re the best guy on your team. i mean, you can pull off so many cool moves it’s incredible.” you start whispering compliments to him, your thumb stroking his cheek while he finally moved his eyes to meet yours. you still hadn’t won him over, his arms staying crossed. “and you’re nice and did i mention handsome?”

he let out a soft sigh before giving in and wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you close to him. his head falls to rest on your shoulder, inhaling your scent while one of his hands went down to caress your thigh. you let out an excited giggle as your arms threw themselves around his neck, your head nuzzling into his own neck. “i’m also your hot boyfriend who should be the only one you’re gushing over.” you decide to stay silent at his claim, not wanting to take his bait and ruin the moment.

unedited thanks for reading!

[subskz]

Imagine Minho being a brat. You're leaving kisses on his chest, while fingering him and (even though he enjoys your sweet kisses) he keeps demanding more, keeps commanding you, keeps complaining that you're not doing a good job. "Fuck- not like that- faster, go faster". And you, being a pretty patient person, decide to indulge him. But Minho keeps up his act. "I said- shit- i said faster- nngh- are you doing a bad job on purpose?" You know he doesn't mean these words, he's just teasing and you're too focused on kissing him to respond anyway, BUT! Your silence is just making him want to keep up his attitude.

"A-are you serious? You know what, just stop. Do something useful and bring me a dildo so that i can get the job done myself."

You knew damn well what he's trying to do. He's saying those things, wanting to rile you up, so that you fuck him harder and show him that he's wrong. Well, you're going to do the exact opposite. You stop your movements and look at him. "Does it really not feel good?" you ask, looking at him with a serious expression on your face. Minho didn't expect that reaction, he expected you to get mad and talk back, so he stayed silent for a moment. Then you started getting up from the bed.

"What- where are you going??" You had to keep yourself from smiling at his panicked voice.

"Umm...to get you a dildo? Like you asked me to?" The look on his face after that was priceless. You wish you knew what's going on in his head right now.

"N-no- i was just- i didn't-" he couldn't believe his plan backfired like that and now, in order to get you to touch him again, to make him feel the way that no other person or toy ever could, he has to swallow his pride and apologize. Watching him avoiding looking at you, struggling to find the right words and the way he's rubbing his thighs together, those pretty thighs shaking, begging for your touch...

English is not my first language, so excuse me if i made any mistakes🫢

no worries at all your english is perfect! 😭 and so is this ask hehe you wrote it so wonderfully~

i absolutely love the idea of besting minho by not falling for his bratty behavior like he wants you to. instead you can break him without even having to lift a finger, treating him softly no matter how much he mouths off until he realizes that all his lil mindgames won’t work on you. it’s honestly cute that he’s too shy to ask you to fuck him harder so he has to resort to provoking you like that, but only way for him to really get what he wants is to spit it out like a good boy 🥰 it makes it a million times more humiliating for him that you don’t even have to be rough to mess up his act and get him begging for you

kissing all over his chest and pretty collarbones while he secretly basks in all your attention <3 i firmly believe lino is weak for having his chest played with so feeling your warm lips press against his pecs and brush over his nipples would heighten the pleasure of you fingering him even more. he hates how it gets harder and harder for him to focus when every pump of your fingers feels so intensely good, like a jolt of electricity passing through his entire body that he can’t get enough of

“are you doing a bad job on purpose?” god u nailed his insufferable antics 😭 he thinks he’s sooo clever trying to cover up how badly he wants more by pretending it doesn’t feel good. poor kitty doesn’t know how to handle it when you see right through his challenge and suddenly he has nothing smart to say anymore~

his thick gorgeous thighs rubbing together so obviously and his pouty face watching you so helplessly would be such a perfect sight. you know you’ve got him right where you want him when he starts squirming around in the sheets, mumbling and stuttering bc he’s so caught off guard. the way “sorry” and “please” sound on his tongue when he finally musters up the courage to murmur them would be so sweet…you can’t help but make him repeat it over n over again before taking pity on him as payback for him being such a fussy brat who can’t use his words properly <3

[yanderemommabean]

I love doctor Lee so much. Half of my brain is like 'haha he's so cute, he has a snake called Gilbert that's adorable'. The other half of my brain says:

'what if you were a patient at the hospital's mental ward, and Dr Lee was assigned to your case? He's generally caring and sweet, checking in on you every day to make sure you're alright.'

What if Lee comes in, asking you about side effects of the new medication that you're trying, but the line of inquiry soon grows uncomfortably invasive. Have you been feeling happier? Have you experienced a decrease in libido? How frequently do you think of masturbating? Do you think of anyone? Do you think of him?

Lee's a bit too friendly, actually. He examines you in ways that aren't strictly necessary, asking for you to disrobe so that he can check to see if you've injured yourself. The nurses would ignore you if you told them about what Lee does. He's already warned the staff that you're not the most trustworthy. Nobody would believe you. You're his lovely little patient, and he hopes that one day you'll accept it.

“I-I want to change doctors…I have a right to do that don’t I?!” you asked in a hushed, panicked voice. The nurse sitting before you sighs in annoyance, and while you don’t blame her, you’re also hurt because to her you’re just another patient causing problems.

“Dr.Lee has already notified us about why you’d want to change. You’re so lucky he hasn’t fired you as his own patient! You trying to get those drugs from other doctors could put you in jail you know? Lee is trying to actually help you”

You grit your teeth in frustration, trying not to lash out and shake the woman to get her to pay attention. You’re clearly not a fucking drug addict, or some psycho patient to just ignore. “No! No listen to me! Please!”

“Ah, I see our little butterfly is awake and eager today!” a deep, amused voice purrs from behind you. “Mrs. Williams, Ill take it from here. Go on, take an early break! It’s almost the holidays, you could use a bit longer to relax after working such a hard shift for me”.

Your face drains of color as the nurse happily leaves, thanking him as she walks away with a pep in her step. You shiver as he nuzzles into your shoulder and inhales deeply, murmuring something about how he loves the scent of your hair.

“You know, you trying so hard to escape me…It should make me mad” he sighs deeply, as if trying to keep himself calm. His hands wander down to clasp yours, pulling your knuckles up to his lips as he kisses them. “It should make me want to kill…but you have this way of being adorable even when panicked and upset”.

“You’re a sick fucker if you get off on me being terrified of you!” you hissed, trying to pull away, only to be yanked right up to his chest, face forced to look up at him as he grabs your chin. “Oh no no, dear butterfly, I don’t think you’re sexually appealing when scared. I think you’re adorable when scared of me. I get protective of you when you’re scared”

He forces you to press closer as he noses up the column of your neck, kissing right behind your earlobe “What makes my cock rock hard is knowing you can’t escape me, and that every night I get to indulge in you and your body…even if you insist that you hate me”.

You brokenly sob as his teeth begin to tease your skin, not hard enough to leave a mark but enough to make your body betray you. “I feel those shivers” he states with a smirk, turning you to face the wall as he presses right against your back “I feel the way your body craves me, butterfly. Why must you always deny it? If you would just let me love you, this wouldn’t be so hard anymore”.

His hands cup your crotch, fingers pressing down firmly to massage and grope you, making your thighs tighten and shake as your breath quickens. “I-I hate you. I hate you!” you scream, but your voice soon becomes breathy and shaky while his hands slip into your underwear with ease. “Say that all you wish darling, I'm a professional. I know when my patient is lying to themself”

(Hiya! Sorry if this isn't up to par, I'm still recovering and work is kicking my ass mentally lol, but I love these types of scenarios! I hope you enjoyed! -Mommabean)