#sick how idk what else to do about this but to write posts on my little blog

[westanthewaterman]

Feel You - Dark x GN!DA!Reader

Rating: NSFW

Word Count: 1700+

Summary: Reunited after a century apart, Dark and the District Attorney spend some quality time together. Or more simply put, love sick Dark -> feral Dark.

Contents: handjobs, penetrative sex, no pronouns or body parts used for reader, standard Dark pet names (dear heart, pet, etc.), mild voice kink, blink and you miss it references to Dark's mind powers

AN: Idk where this came from, but it was fun to write. I'll post to AO3 and add all my usual links later, I should've been in bed an hour ago. If you're still here despite my hiatus, I appreciate you.

         Dark hikes your leg up onto his hip. He relishes in the softness of your skin beneath his fingers, a concrete reminder that you’re here, that you’re together again after everything.

         The new position allows him more space to roll his hips, grinding down against the heat between your legs. You shudder beneath him. He repeats the motion once, twice, and you throw your head back against the pillows.  His hungry, grey eyes follow the column of your throat upwards until they land on your mouth. Your lips part around a whimper and he can’t stop himself from pressing a kiss against them.

“I’ll never tire of hearing you sing for me, dear heart.”

“Damien,” You whine before hiding your face in the crook of his neck.

“I think it’s a little late to hide from me now.” He chuckles. “What’s gotten you so shy, darling?”

“You never talked this much before.”

         Dark tenses, a familiar, far-away look in his eyes, one he always gets when the two of you discuss the past. You cup the side of his face, gently guiding his gaze back to yours. He blinks. A melancholy smile settles on his face. You pull his head down so that you can press your forehead against his.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong, my love. There are bad memories, yes, but also good ones. In fact, I can recall quite a few memories of us just as we are now, bare in each other’s arms, locked in the throes of passion.”

There’s a wry smile on his face, one that reminds you of evenings spent tucked away between bookshelves, sneaking out of dormitories at the crack of dawn, a rendezvous in the storage closet of a crowded chapel. Your heart aches for all the two of you have lost and can never get back. But despite everything you had been through, the two of you were together again.

Dark presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “I can feel how your mind races. I think about it too, even now. Almost a century without you and I never stopped feeling your absence. I ached to hold you in my arms, to have you beneath me, to feel you tight as a vice as you come apart around me.”

A thought creeps into your mind and turns your stomach to lead. He had been by himself for so long, sure you were gone forever. You couldn’t blame him or be angry, but still the thought makes you sick.

“Was,” you pause a moment, steeling yourself for his answer. “Was there ever anyone else? In your heart, or your bed?”

He looks at you as if your words have burned him. When he speaks, his voice is firm, unwavering.

“No. My dear heart, there could never be another. I vowed to love you in sickness and in health, in love and in death. There could only ever be you.”

“Oh.” You blush.

The intensity of his answer makes you feel foolish for even suggesting such a thing. You drop your gaze, absently picking at the sheets beneath you. It’s Dark’s turn to take your face in his hand and bring your gaze back to him.

“I loved you deeply, but I know my actions did not always convey that. At times, I allowed my responsibilities and ambitions to blind me to how I was neglecting you. You deserved a better man than I knew how to be back then, and I have spent a century regretting it. But now, despite terrible circumstances and the battles still to be fought, we have a second chance, and I intend to use it to do right by you.”

“Damien, I…I don’t know what to say.”

“There is no need to say anything, dear heart. I know you feel as strongly as I do; I feel it through our bond, and soon I’ll feel it here as well.”

Dark presses a finger against your entrance, pressing it into you slowly. You cry out, throwing your arms around his neck and pulling him flush against you

“You said earlier that I never used to talk very much when we were intimate, and you were right.” His voice drips with venom as he continues. “The prim and proper mayor, so worried about civility and manners. Too obsessed with his image and what was ‘acceptable’ to truly speak his mind.”

You want to argue, to defend Dark’s former self against his own harsh criticism, instead a moan rips its way out of your throat when two more fingers fill you. Dark’s grin is wicked. He ducks down to press his lips to your ear, taking your earlobe between his teeth and giving it a quick tug. You clench around his fingers, earning an amused chuckle.

“I have no such worries. My only concern is pleasing you and, by the way your body responds for me, I can tell I’m doing just that. This little hole of yours is so hot and tight around my fingers, and it’s all for me, isn’t it?”

A shudder wracks your body and you moan, digging your nails into his shoulders.

“Oh,” Dark purrs. “Now what got that reaction? You like when I talk to you like this, don’t you, pet?”

“Y-Yes.”

“But what is it that has you so responsive? Is it my voice in your ear? The things that I’m saying to you? Or maybe none of that matters. Perhaps I could say anything, and you would respond just as wantonly, so long as I have you filled with my fingers or my cock.”

“All of it, it’s all of it. Damien, fuck.”

“Dear heart, such foul language. Have I already wrecked you so thoroughly?”

You scowl at him but you both know there’s no mirth behind it. “Fuck you.”

         There’s a wicked glint in his eyes as Dark grabs a handful of your hair, pulling just enough to force your head back and bare your throat to him. Sharp canines scratch playfully against the sensitive skin of your neck.

“You should be careful what you ask for, my love. I am a changed man with a century of pent-up sexual frustration. I could take you over and over and over again, never tiring until I have given you every drop of my spend and the only word you know is my name.”

Dark sets a languid pace thrusting his fingers in and out of you.

“You want it now, just as much as you did back then, isn’t that right? You wanted the serious, respectable mayor to break. You craved to be taken passionately, for him to make love to you like a man starved.”

“Yes, yes.” You nod frantically, bucking your hips against his hand.

“I have hungered for you for so long, dear heart; I feel almost ravenous with it.”

Dark removes his fingers from you and fists his leaking cock, stroking himself slowly. You find yourself mesmerized by the motion and the way his stomach muscles tense and flex with every stroke of his hand. Your eyes follow a drop of his arousal as it drips down the underside of his cock. You lick your lips. Knocking his hand out of the way, you take him in your own, his length hot and heavy in your palm.

         He groans appreciatively as you stroke him from base to tip, occasionally rubbing your thumb over the head of his cock. You guide his hand to rest over your heart.

 “You’ve spent all this time talking about what I want and how you can please me. What do you want?”

“I want to make up for lost time. I want to give you everything I could not before.”

“But that’s still about me. Damien, what do you want?

He falters. “I…I just want you. I want to feel you. I want to know that you are real, and not just some illusion he made to torment me.”

“I want to feel you too.” You guide the head of his cock to your entrance. “I’m here, my love. I’m real. This is real.”

Dark presses into you in one long, slow thrust that has him buried to the hilt. Both of you moan at the sensation. You wrap your legs around his waist and urge him forward, forcing his cock deeper inside.

“Fuck, my love, I never thought I would feel you like this again.”

You smirk. “Such foul language, Damien. Now who’s wrecked who?”

Instead of a response, Dark grabs your face and presses your lips together in a passionate kiss. So much is shared between you in this single moment of contact, decades of sorrow and grief, an emptiness immeasurable by time. But there is also hope and joy, lust and elation. Most importantly, there is love; a love that has weathered the test of time and survived even the most unthinkable circumstances.

The two of you pull apart, both crying and holding each other like your lives depend on it.

“I love you, dear heart. Thank you for coming back to me.”

“I love you too, Damien. Thank you for finding me.”

Dark speeds up the pace of his thrusts, breathing heavily in your ear.

“I am afraid it has been too long, my love. I have spent a century waiting to feel you like this again and now I find myself unable to hold back my release.”

“I’m close too. You feel so good.”

“I want you to cum with me now. Let me feel you.”

         He grabs your thighs and presses them back so that he can rut into you, ruthlessly. You cry out at the way the new angle causes the head of his cock to brush against a sweet spot deep inside that has you seeing stars. Your orgasm washes over you and you finish with a cry of his name. The tight heat of you bares down around him and the dam holding back Dark’s climax breaks. Waves of pleasure crash over him as he stills inside you, filling you with his release.

         The two of you lay together in silence, collecting your bearings. You think you might fall asleep until Dark gives a shallow thrust, his cock still hard inside you.

“How-”

He gives you a wicked grin and presses his lips to your ear.

“I told you I was a changed man, dear heart, and we have quite a lot of lost time to make up for.”

[5283]

kpop stans really think "delulu" is...... just kpop slang? 💀

there were way more similar answers to bm's question, i just picked out the first two. the rest were variations of "delulu pills" memes 😶

i'm not on the schizophrenic spectrum myself but i experience a similar set of ableism daily so i can't just keep quiet about this.

i'm also aware it's not every kpop stan and that twitter is a spawn place for those teens who are trained to believe that performing being politically correct as not to get "cancelled" is the way nowadays. i'm talking about the phenomenon of "being an ally" by putting pronouns in their bios and thinking it's all there is to being an ally for lgtbqi+ people and other similar examples. it's not exclusive only to twt though but it's not like i take screenshots everywhere i go because it's really just exhausting talking about this.

i don't care if you're an impressionable teen, using specific symptom-related terms of stigmatized conditions to talk about anything but actual said symptoms will always be simply disgusting and ableist behavior.

delusional is a word used to describe a specific experience people on the schizophrenic spectrum experience. people that don't experience delusions shouldn't use this word to name other things that are not related to a particular everyday experience of schizo-spec people. delusions are debilitating and are a part of what makes a person disabled. using the word devoid of its original meaning only further stigmatizes schizophrenic people + people with related conditions who also experience delusions. because it normalizes only the word describing a symptom without normalizing the symptom itself since all of you keep using it in wrong context by erasing the initial meaning behind the word. the word you were searching for was a belief, not a delusion.

other examples since you're in need of more varied vocabulary to say the most usual things: far-fetched dreams, illusion, parasocial, desperate, naive etc.

[violentdevotion]

i love your actimel fridge posting keep it up

:D thank you !!!! Its more full than usual right now because the other day i went shop and got some and today my brother went to get groceries and my mum told him to get me some actimel while he was there so for at least the next 2 weeks i should be good on actimel !!!!

[fatesundress]

⭑ for the love that used to be here. tom riddle x reader

summary. you and tom are the only muggle-borns in slytherin, until one day he isn’t.

tags. angst, afab reader who is referred to as a witch a few times and rooms with girls but i don't think i ever use she/her pronouns or say the word girl/woman, biggest warning is that this is SO long (idk what compelled me to write a year 1 – post-hogwarts fic but here we are twenty thousand damn words later), blood purity and bigotry, dumbledore is greatly offended by the bonding of two orphans until he can capitalise on it, frequent wwii mentions (specifically the blitz), book clerk tom, MURDERER TOM… ministry reader, kissing, smut once they’re 21/22 May all the minors in the room exit at once, more angst, sad ending kinda, me spreading a very personal and very nefarious tom riddle agenda that is canon to ME but probably only like two other people

note. i need a shower and an exorcism after writing this shit. i'm exhausted. i don't even remember half of it. but i'm also SO stoked, this is my little (very large, frankly) 100 followers celebration! i've only been on here for about a month and the love has been so crazy so thank you mwah mwah mwah ♡

word count. 21.8k (i know... i KNOW)

You learn quickly that your shade of green is not the same as theirs. The rest of them are emeralds, even at that age — they glitter with their parent’s polish. You are flotsam, sea-sick, envy green; the putrid boiling stuff that brews in your cauldron when you look away for a second too long, and, really, it’s more of a stain than a colour at all. There is a fraction of a second where you find something powerful in that. You are not an easy thing to remove. And then it’s gone, because they want to so badly.

You learn, with a bit less tact, that you doesn’t actually mean just you; that it’s you and him whether you like it or not.

He evidently does not.

“It has to be completely fine,” Tom says to you in Potions, his voice small then but just as practised.

You narrow your eyes. “‘Scuse me?”

“I said the powder has to be completely fine.”

“I heard you completely fine. I know how to read.”

He stares blankly at you before returning to his own station, and that’s that.

It isn’t unheard of for muggle-borns to be sorted into Slytherin, so you’ve been told, but one glance around your common room and you can see it’s pretty damn rare.

There’s Tom Riddle, there’s you, and there’s a seventh-year girl whose knuckles are always white like she’s spent so long with her hands balled into fists that they don’t know how to do anything else. Tom Riddle is a prat, the girl is too old and unapproachable even if she wasn’t, and you are very good at being alone.

That decides it. Flotsam still floats.

Everything is — fine. It’s fine for months; you have no one and need no one and sometimes you catch a jinx in the back of Charms that zips your mouth shut or bends a foot the wrong way (a cruel reminder of how much more these people know than you) and your broom occasionally pivots so sharply the Flying professor has to stop you from careening into a wall and breaking enough bones for a week’s worth of Skele-Gro, but it’s fine. 

…It’s just that he’s insufferable.

The boy is eleven years old and he speaks like he’s stealing glances at an invisible lexicon between every word, more refined than any of the orphans you grew up with which makes you wonder which sort he’s surrounded by, and you take it upon yourself to theorise in passing if you could ever scare him badly enough his real voice would slip and he might just appear human for once.

Only it becomes clear when you’re stirring awake in the Hospital Wing after a mysterious bout of dragon pox (conveniently, all the pureblood children developed an immunity after catching it young) has rendered you bed-ridden and pockmarked, that you don’t think anything can scare Tom Riddle. He’s suffering just as well in the bed beside yours to keep the contagion to the two of you, and he’s all cold, eddied rage under sallow skin and beetling bones. 

“They’re going to kill you,” he says after three days of silence, when the room is dusted in moonlight so thin it’s like squinting through cinema noise or mohair fluff to try to see him.

You blink at the vague shape of him. “What?”

“If you don’t hurt them back, eventually, they’ll just kill you.”

In hindsight, it’s an assumption so hastily bleak only a scared child could make it.

I want to hurt them, you try to say, but for what follows you cannot: I want to hurt them but I’m not good enough to do it.

You roll over and pretend to sleep, and in the morning, you hurt them anyway.

It’s Avery who’s unlucky enough to be the first to test you when you’re three assignments behind in Transfiguration, still a bit groggy from your last dose of Gorsemoor Elixir, and actually, physically green. He tugs your hair and stings your cheek with the promise of “bringing a bit of colour back to your face” and it’s sort of funny how banal it is compared to the other transgressions you’ve been dealt — that this is the thing that makes you bare your teeth, grip your wand in a hand that still can’t hold half of it, and send Avery flying across the room with a Knockback Jinx.

Tom sits with you in the Great Hall for dinner that night, and he never really stops.

You practise spells by the Black Lake between classes and he’s anything but kind about the ordeal, but you teach each other. You end your days with singe prints and sore wrists and you often take more damage than he does, but sometimes, as spring settles in with warm tones (apple and jade and moss — all the greens you’d never imagined), you leave with less bruises than he does. It hardly feels like friendship. It feels much more like purpose.

When summer comes you don’t write to him, and you don’t expect he will either. You don’t suppose you’ve actually written a letter in your life. Instead you try new wand movements under your quilt every night and wait for August’s departure on a big red train.

You sit together when the day does come. He asks you if you’ve been practising. You frown and tell him you’re not allowed to use magic outside of school.

Second year is nothing but monotonous, antiquated theoretics. Most everyone complains. You don’t see why they should — they’re already aeons ahead of you — but that means you finally have a chance to catch up in your less-than-school-sanctioned meetings with Tom while the rest remain practically stationary. 

Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore is imperceptibly less soft with you than he was last year when you make the apparently poor decision to sit beside Tom on the first day, and you file the subtle shift in demeanour into some mental cabinet to review later.

You find workarounds with the librarian, Madam Palles, inclined to sympathy for the poor, orphaned muggle-borns to grant relatively unfettered daytime access to the Restricted Section so long as you keep it tidy and none of the books leave the library. That’s where things get a bit more interesting.

For a month you remain innocuous as can be. You browse through rare historical tombs and foreign biographies that would charge more galleons than you can conceptualise, and you never leave so much as a tea stain on the parchment. You smile at the Madam when you return the key each night, and walk back to the dungeons with your hands behind your back. It is, of course, totally unrelated that a month is what it takes for Tom to master the third-year curriculum’s Doubling Charm. An entirely separate affair when you meet him in the most secluded alcove of the library, slip him the key, and stifle your grin as he duplicates it perfectly. 

You discover Christmas break is your favourite time of the year. Nearly all the purebloods go home. The Slytherin dormitories are effectively halved.

It’s two weeks of earnest, uninterrupted work and sleep without fear of waking up with jelly legs or whiskers.

Madam Palles, most nights, makes a slight, drowsy effort of searching the library for leftover students before she casts the lights out and closes the door. Then, it belongs to you and Tom.

You’re splayed rather ridiculously over one of the big reading chairs on Christmas Eve, Lore of Godelot in hand, enthralled by a chapter detailing his controlled use of Fiendfyre through the power of the Elder Wand.

Tom is cross-legged and sat straight, his brows furrowed in concentration.

“What’ve you got?” you ask, leaning over to answer your own question.

Tom as good as rolls his eyes, holding up the book to give you an easier look.

“Magick Moste Evile?” You scrunch your nose. “Bit much, don’t you think?”

“It’s the stuff they’ll never teach us.”

“I wonder why.”

He steals a glance at your own book and smiles in that smug way that makes you want to slap him.

“What, Tom?”

He shrugs. “You might want to know you’re reading stories about the author.”

You look down. Lore of — Godelot wrote Magick Moste Evile? 

It shouldn’t really be surprising. Three chapters ago your book was recounting his months in Yugoslavia grave-robbing magical burial sites.

“Whatever,” you mumble, “It’s just a biography. Least I’m not reading the words out of his mouth.”

“Well, they’d be out of his quill.”

“Oh my God, Tom, shut up.”

All good things must come to an end. Term resumes and your hackles are back up. 

Abraxas Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Walburga Black and the best of the worst of your house have returned, sleek-haired and insatiable and deranged, truly, in such a manner that you don’t think you can be blamed for the instinct you feel every time you pass them to lunge like a wild predator or run like wild prey. All Tom does, though (and so you follow, because he’s standing with you and who has ever done that?) is meet their gazes with equal assuredness. He never seems bothered. He never seems animal. You are still all hammering heart and heavy lungs, and you are learning not to see the world through the eyes of someone who’s only ever had their fists to fight. You have magic, you remember. You’re good at it. You could hurt them, if you really wanted.

Not much is different that summer than the last. The war is hard. The food is hard to chew. You chip a tooth. You’re too afraid to fix it with the Trace on you, but you still smile because you will, and everyone seems put off by that. What is there to smile about? 

You suppose, for them, it’s a question with few answers. 

For you — you’re back on a big red train musing about the functions of muggle warfare with Tom Riddle, chucking a useless card from a chocolate frog out the window and moaning about how you wasted the sickle you found under your seat.

He’s gotten very good at ignoring your theatrics and going right back to whatever it was he was talking about. And you note, unrelatedly, he almost looks like he’s learned how to open the windows at Wool’s. (You dare not suggest he’s doing something so ludicrous as sitting in the sun too, but this is a start.)

Dippet, or the Minister, or whoever it is that’s in charge of the practicality of the curriculum, has become fractionally less stupid in the last three months.

You don’t have to rely on nights in the Restricted Section or weekends at the Black Lake to actually learn something anymore. Of course, without the assistance of those illicit extracurriculars, you wouldn’t be able to match up to your peers the way you are this year, but it’s nice to duel with dummies instead of motioning your wand vaguely over a desk, and you and Tom still climb the notice boards in rapid succession. 

They hate you for it. One of your roommates makes a pointed effort each night to glare at you from her bed like those jelly legs are back on the table, Orion Black (two years younger but just as nasty as his cousin) nearly trips you on your way to Divination, Abraxas Malfoy develops what you think borders on obsession with Tom, and for once it feels almost offhand to not care about any of it.

You’re beginning to think even at its best, Hogwarts is remarkably insufficient. This leads you to books mercifully unrestricted so you can read about a few of the other magical schools for comparison. Beauxbatons is renowned for providing most of the worlds alchemical developments, Uagadou’s early propensity for wandless magic makes it unfathomably more practical than Hogwarts, Durmstrang (though you scoff at their violent anti-muggle sentiment) teaches the Dark Arts as something beneficial rather than unforgivable, and — what do you learn here? Even with the hair’s-breadth of magical leniency you’ve been allowed this year, it’s no surprise so few recognizable names in wizarding history are Hogwarts alumni.

“Let me have a look at that,” you say to Tom one evening, when he’s peering once more over the pages of Magick Moste Evile. He’s a purveyor of knowledge in all forms, but he always seems to come back to Godelot in the end.

He raises a brow, handing it to you like your intrigue doubles his. “No more reservations?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m only curious.”

“Curiosity—”

“Killed the damn cat, I know.” You glare at him through the pages. “I think that’s you, in this case though, since you’re the one in love with the bloody thing.”

He shakes his head as he reclines in the low light of the Restricted Section, muttering something that sounds like “ridiculous,” or “querulous,” or something else unimaginably fucking annoying.

You might be wrong. Retract your last quip and expunge it. If Tom’s in love with any book, it’s the behemoth dictionary he’s been spitting stupid adjectives out of since he was eleven.

But Godelot’s musings on the Dark Arts are fascinating enough that you can understand the appeal. He’s no wordsmith, and you appreciate that in a way you’re sure Tom deems regrettable, but his points are straightforward but thoughtful in such a way you can read in them how he was guided by the Elder Wand through everything he did. There’s a stream-of-consciousness to them. Something doctrinal you’re surprised to enjoy for all the obligatory English creed they washed your mouth with at the orphanage.

“Find what you’re looking for?” Tom asks, combing with little interest through the tomb you’d put down in favour of his.

“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just…” You sigh. It’s almost painful to say. “I think you were right, and — oh, shut up, don’t look at me like that — I don’t think we’re learning anything here. Not really; not as much as they do at other schools.”

“Of course,” he says blankly. “Hence this.”

This — restricted books and furtive duels — should not be necessary. 

“You know that’s not gonna be enough. For the rest of them, maybe, but not us.”

He tenses how he always does at the reminder of his difference. And you get it. Sometimes in moments like these you forget the reason you’re here in the first place. It isn’t just the rebellious divertissement of two academically eager students, it’s… survival. What future do you have as a penniless orphan in wartorn London? What future do you have as a muggle-born Slytherin who’s apt with a wand when there are a thousand more your age, just as skilled and twice as pure? 

It isn’t enough to be as good as them. You have to best them, and you have to do it forever.

The night stumbles into an exhaustive silence because you both know it’s true and it’s a bit too heavy right now. The answer isn’t in this room. Just you. Just him. So you sit in the dark and you stare through that muffled nighttime noise playing tricks on your eyes. The worst of the world can wait until morning. 

The worst of the world has impeccable timing.

A fault of both sides of the coin; the muggle world is a travesty and the wizarding world is just a bit fucking late, really.

So there’s the newspaper. It’s October first and the date reads September tenth. School owls are a joke and you can’t afford anything better.

And it’s a dirty, ashen grey. It smudges your green if you ever had it at all. You were born to this and you will return to it always.

BOMB’S HAVOC IN CROWDED PUBLIC SHELTER

MOTHERS AND CHILDREN AMONG THE CASUALTIES

DAMAGE CONSIDERABLE, BUT SPIRITS UNBROKEN

All you can hope to do is pass the paper to Tom and wonder without words what you’ll go home to.

The answer is very little when the summer clouds your vision with dust and you stand dumbly with your suitcase in front of nothing at all. You’d tried your best until your departure to keep up with muggle news, but it had remained, routinely, a month behind with the owls. By the time June arrived you were still holding your breath through May. Tom had attempted to reason with Dippet for summer lodgings at the school but you were both denied in light of the exquisite mercy — the bombs have stopped! The Blitz has ended! Go back to the aftermath and make do with the craters.

It’s a bit ironic that Tom’s orphanage survived and yours didn’t. At least you can finally see what all the fuss is about.

In truth, it’s more strange than anything. You feel unreasonably like you’re impeding on a part of him that has never belonged to you (if any of him does); that place where you intersect but never draw attention to. You remind yourself you had no choice in the matter. The system puts you where it wants to, and these days the options are slim. But it’s — the walls are amber-black tile and plaster, lined with sanitary-smelling hospital beds and a cupboard per room. Per room, you think; you’ve got one of those now, and with only one girl to share it with. 

You figure the reason for the extra space is probably not one you want to know.

Anyway, you don’t actually see Tom for two days. The caretakers bring you a tray of dinner that’s vaguely warm and a bit too salty and you sleep off the debris you think you breathed in that morning, half-sated and sun-tired.

But then you do see him, and he’s in these funny uniform shorts and a thick blazer and your greeting is an offhand joke about the scandal of his knees that he doesn’t seem to appreciate. He eyes your muggle clothes while you wait for your own set and you know you really don’t have any room to judge. 

He doesn’t, or at least doesn’t say he minds your relocation.

You spend half the summer waking up in the middle of the night to acquaint yourselves with the London tube stations, and the other half in whatever crevices of the orphanage you aren’t harangued by Mrs Cole every five seconds, which are far and few between. She seems to have decided fourteen is old enough an age to worry about your intentions unchaperoned, like it’s the bloody 1800’s, and admonishes you and Tom relentlessly despite only ever finding you quietly buried in useless books. 

You begin to miss Madam Palles and her invaluable pity. Everyone’s an orphan here. No one’s sorry.

“What’s his deal?” you ask one stuffy afternoon, reclining in your creaking seat to prop your legs on the desk.

Tom knocks them off (he’s so well-mannered that you sometimes push these little gestures of impropriety just to bother him) and glances at the target of your question. Some broad, blond boy who skitters down the corridor a shade paler than he arrived. You’ve yet to properly introduce yourself to anyone you don’t have to, so names are muddy when you try to apply them to faces.

He shrugs, but there’s a flash of something in his expression you’re fascinated to realise is unfamiliar. “He’s an imbecile.”

“...Riiiiight, but that isn’t a proper answer.”

You smile. Legs return to table. Timeworn Oxfords muddy the surface. Tom scowls. 

“There was an altercation last year,” he says tersely, “he’s rather fixated on the matter.”

“An altercation.”

“Very good, that is what I said.”

You narrow your eyes and he sweeps your legs off the desk again, gaze catching the unmistakable ribbon of an old bullied scar on your shin. 

“And I suppose you’re above such incidents,” he muses.

You cross your arms and huff. He always wins games like these.

You’re grateful when you return to Hogwarts in one piece after your final night of summer is spent underground, and the certainty of knowing where you’ll rest your head for the next ten months cannot be understated. 

But the worst thing has happened, and you blame it on the flicker of a moment where you missed Madam Palles like it was some jubilant, accidental curse to ever miss anyone. A foreign thing you remind yourself never to do again. 

She’s only gone and jinxed the locks to the Restricted Section so they cry like newborn Mandrakes when Tom’s replica key clicks in place.

For a second you both stand there looking stupidly at each other. Getting caught was a fear two years ago; you’d almost forgotten it was still possible.

Tom is quicker to collect himself. He grabs you by the arm and casts a Disillusionment Charm, and you don’t burst running out of the library like two blurry suncatchers reflecting the candlelight as your instinct heeds; you cling to the shelves and you slither silently to the door. (You’ll make a joke about it when you can breathe.)

Madam Palles the Traitor comes heaving into the library in her nightgown, a blinding blue light baubled at the end of her wand, and it’s really just theatrical at this point to use Lumos bloody Maxima when the basic spell would do the job just fine.

“Has she suspected us the whole time?” you say on gasp once you’ve made it to the dungeons.

“Perhaps someone else has,” Tom suggests.

“What? Malfoy?”

You think it’s a good first guess. It could have been any of the Slytherins, upon consideration, but Malfoy seemed most fixated on Tom last year and it wouldn’t surprise you to learn he’d been observant enough to follow you to the library and notice you don’t leave with the other students.

But Tom quashes the idea. “I’m doubtful. Malfoy is attentive, but Madam Palles is hardly partial to him.” (He had, in second year, set one of her books on fire while studying offensive spells.) “I suspect it was someone with more influence.”

Only no one has more influence than Abraxas Malfoy. The rest of the Slytherins follow him like lost pups. But then Tom might mean —

“A professor?”

“It may be.” He says it like he’s already decided his suspect.

He is, as always, and ever-infuriatingly, correct.

It’s that file you tucked away for later, reoccurring when you return to Transfiguration in the morning like a second epiphany: Dumbledore.

He assigns the term’s seating arrangements, which he’s never done before, and there’s something in his tone when he pairs you with Rosier that feels intentionally like not pairing you with Tom. You don’t think it’s paranoia clouding your better judgement, and by the way Tom’s gaze hardens as he takes his seat beside Malfoy, neither does he.

Dumbledore is suspicious for a number of reasons. He disappears for weeks at a time. The Prophet writes articles on his sightings in Austria and France like he’s an endling beast. He’s being sighted in Austria and France — two notable countries in Grindelwald’s ongoing war. Perhaps ancillary, you’ve decided the charmed glass repositories he uses to hold his old artefacts are the same ones encasing the least permissible books in the Restricted Section. And if that isn’t paranoia (which, you’re willing to admit, it may be) then you assume he has them so proudly on display because he wants you to know.

You consider it a warning.

Tom does not.

“Just give it up,” you hiss over a game of wizard’s chess, “I bet we’ve read every book in there twice already anyway.”

His jaw ticks as the sole indicator of his annoyance, and he takes your rook. You scowl.

“Tom, that man thinks you’re devil-spawn. You know he’s just waiting for an opportunity to catch you doing something wrong.”

“So?”

It sounds so petulant you think he’s been possessed by his eleven-year-old self. Then you think he was a lot wiser at eleven.

“So?” You make an aggressive move with your knight. “So don’t give him one!”

He stares at the board and his breath is just a trace sharper and you hate that you know him like this and no one else. You wonder if he knows you like that too, but resolve with ease that he does not. You’re hard frowns and lewd jokes and trousers torn at the knee to bare scars with stories you wish you could forget. There’s no mystery there. Tom is nothing but — gordian knots and fixed expressions and little patterns to learn like the rules of this stupid game between you. You must know Tom Riddle by every atom or not at all. And that isn’t a choice, really. You’ve never known anyone else.

“Are you stupid, Tom?”

You glance at the board. He’s got Check. A terrible, true answer.

“No,” you finish. “Then don’t act like it.”

Your king glances at you and you nod. He falls. The game is resigned.

Tom acts stupid.

Dumbledore knows.

It all happens very fast.

You strike Tom harder in the arm with Confringo than is likely necessary that night, and he returns the favour with a Knockback Jinx that thrusts you into the shallows of the Black Lake.

You gasp. The cold water feels like it’s swallowing you whole when it strikes, an envelope sealed around you and licked shut for good measure. Everything holds to you, and it’s fucking November. Your senses are so overwhelmed that you forget to murder Tom the instant you sink in. You forget to do much of anything.

You wade trembling out of the lake when sense returns and Tom huffs, peeling off his robe to treat the burn on his arm.

“You—idi—iot,” you mutter, trying to find the incantation for a warming charm but the words get stuck between your chattering teeth. “You stole a re… stricted book.”

Tom glares daggers at you between his poor healing job and you scowl, mincing through the grass and grabbing his arm. “Fucking imbec-cile…”

You’ve done enough damage that if he were anyone else you’d be proud of yourself, and somehow, simultaneously, if he were anyone else you’d be able to manage a pinch of guilt. But he’s Tom, and you know him by every atom, so you cannot be proud, and he’s Tom — he retaliated by tossing you in freezing water and now your clothes are clinging sodden and heavy to every inch of you, so you certainly can’t be guilty either.

“I borrowed it,” he says tightly. As if that means anything at all. And then he takes his robe and drapes it spiritlessly over your shoulders. “You could attempt communication before curses.”

“I could attempt communication,” you scoff, uttering a charm to partially close the gash on Tom’s arm, “Fucking h-hypocrite. I did communicate. You lied.”

“I —”

“Omitted information? Withheld the truth? Watch your mouth or I’ll steal your fucking dictionary, Riddle.”

You swear a great deal when you’re cold and mad, apparently.

“I won’t be caught.” His calm is infuriating. “It would hardly earn expulsion regardless.”

“It doesn’t matter! He knows it’s you! He was staring at you all class!”

“So nothing novel then.”

“D’you want me to blast you again?”

His lips form a flat line. No. That’s what you thought.

You sigh, clutching his robes in your fists to quell your trembling. “What’d you take, anyway? We never touch the encased stuff.”

That is, you assume, why Dumbledore was vexed enough about the whole thing to mention it in class today. A highly valuable book has gone missing, from a repository you dare conclude belongs to him, and he has to pretend all the while not to know it’s Tom who took it. You are out of the question. Theirs is some delicate vendetta you can’t begin to unfurl.

“Nothing anyone should miss,” Tom says, a complete non-answer as he stops to murmur a warming charm you could probably manage yourself by now.

“Tom.”

“It was an encyclopaedia. It’s entirely in Runes. I suspect it will take months for me to decipher.”

“God’s sake,” you groan. He really is exhausting. “I think Dumbledore’l take his chances and loot your dorm before that happens.”

Tom wipes a stray droplet of water from your cheek. His fingers are soft. “We should return. You look half-drowned.”

“I am half-drowned, dickhead.”

And you accost him in hushed tones the whole walk back. Runes, Tom, really? Threw me in the damn lake over a Runic Encyclopaedia? He accosts you just the same; You burned me first.

It does, in fact, take Tom months to decipher the Runes, and he’s quite secretive about it. He won’t let you see the book, won’t tell you what it’s about, won’t indulge your queries on how far he’s gotten or if it’s worth the way Dumbledore bores his eyes into the pair of you in the Great Hall with nothing but the glass of his spectacles to soften his censure. You consider — well — you consider taking your chances and looting his dormitory.

The day everything changes starts the same as any. 

You muse over breakfast about muggle news and how the way Tom holds his wand when he casts defensive spells is too sharp when it should be circular. He argues. You soften the criticism by telling him his offensive magic is stellar but you’ll always beat him in defence if he doesn’t swallow his damn pride and listen to you for once. (So, really, you soften it very little.) He doesn’t take Divination so you don’t see him until Herbology that afternoon and he’s silent enough during the hour you share with your wormwood plant that you know he’s done it sometime between breakfast and now. 

Tom has cracked the book.

It’s late spring and the night takes longer to settle than it did in the winter. Errant sunbeams still sparkle on the water when you meet him by the lake, and it’s warm enough to forgo a coat.

“Are you going to tell me what it’s about now?” you ask without preamble, arms crossed over your chest as he approaches.

He hands you the book like it’s worth something to you without his explanation, but you’re intelligent enough to gather something from the illustrations of two twined snakes embroidering the cover.

“I should have suspected it sooner,” Tom says before you can comment. “By the way Dumbledore acted when I told him… I should have known he would have wanted to keep it from me.”

“Tom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s an Encyclopaedia on Parseltongue and its known speakers.”

You flip through the pages and none of it means anything. “Parseltongue?”

“The language of serpents,” Tom supplies, and the two of you walk along the edge of the forest. “It’s almost exclusively hereditary.”

“Okay, so, what — you’re trying to learn it anyway?”

“I have no need.”

You frown. “You… you already know it.”

“I always have,” he says, and there’s something almost unrestrained in his voice. He’s proud in a new light, and it takes you a moment to understand and you’re not sure why exactly it makes your heart sink, but —

“You’re not muggle-born.”

“No, I’m not. And Dumbledore knows.”

“So, he —” You try not to sound crushed because why should you be? Why should it matter that he isn’t some exact reflection of you? He’s at your side, he’s still there, he’ll always be there — “How does he know?”

“When he came to Wool’s to inform me I'd been accepted at Hogwarts. I hadn’t known anything, certainly not that speaking to snakes is emphatically rare, so I asked him. He said it was ‘not a peculiar gift.’ Perhaps to keep my interest at a minimum.”

“Why would he lie?”

“Because it isn’t just that I’m of magical blood. I’m a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.”

You can’t be faulted for laughing. It’s not often Tom makes jokes, let alone funny ones.

“That’s good, Tom. Morgana used to have tea with my great-great-hundredth-great-grandmother, so that works out nice.”

He sighs, taking your hand and leading you further into the woods.

“Are you trying to murder me?”

“I might.”

“You’d be the first suspect.”

“No, I wouldn’t. You’ve far too many enemies.”

Not by choice, you start to scold, and then he stops, not so far into the Forbidden Forest that you’re afraid, but far enough you understand this is not something he’d chance showing you in the open.

He closes his eyes and whispers, and it’s — decidedly not English. And you know the sound of a few other languages, at least; this doesn’t sound like words at all. His consonants are pointed, his S’s stretched, the syllables repetitive but separated by a difference in cadence someone less perceptive might not notice. 

It shouldn’t be surprising; it’s exactly what he told you, but it startles you how much it reminds you of a snake.

“Tom?” you murmur, unsure at the prospect of speaking some ancient, unknown language into the air of the Forbidden Forest, and, underneath that, still reeling with the knowledge that this is real at all.  You’ve pinched yourself a few times to make sure.

There’s a low susurration in the grass, wet with dew that catches the moonlight, and you gasp, clinging to Tom’s arm when you see the blades part in helices for the space of an adder.

“It’s all right,” Tom says softly, almost elsewhere, his eyes zeroed in on the snake. “It won’t hurt you.”

You’re still by the balance of his arm and some petrifying awe as he extends a hand to the grass and the adder coils around it, weaving upward to his shoulder.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, Tom.”

The adder points its beady gaze at you, and Tom whispers something else in that strange language before it retreats in agreement or compliance or whatever could come close to expression on the face of a fucking snake, and maybe you’re dreaming this despite your pinching. Maybe you’ve lost your mind.

“Hope you didn’t just tell it to bite me,” you try, and it comes out half-choked.

He smiles. It’s partly for you and partly for this venomous little thing on his shoulder, and that’s a bit startling. Tom Riddle smiles for adders and you and not much else. 

“Should I?”

And all you manage, for whatever reason, is, “Don’t be like them now that you’re not like me.”

It’s out before you can stop it, welling from a small, scared place that embarrasses you to return to. A hospital bed when you were eleven. The walls of a bedroom ravaged by bombs.

Tom’s smile fades. “We’re nothing like them.”

The thing is, neither of you know that’s the day that changes everything.

You celebrate your fifteenth birthday in the Deathday ballroom with Tom, a stolen dinner pastry, a green candle, and a few sad ghosts. You try to learn how to dance. Tom thinks it’s silly. You tell him that’s only because he’s upset he keeps stepping on your toes.

Summer blisters when it comes.

Some of the children take jobs as mail-sorters and steelworkers and you clasp for whatever you’re (one) allowed and (two) capable of, which isn’t much. You’re both old enough at the end of the day to explore London on your own, opting to spend as much time away from the orphanage as Mrs Cole allots, but you only have knuts and pennies and you warn Tom it would be unwise to swindle muggles and risk a letter from the Ministry. So you work where you’re needed and you eat the rationed nonsense you always do and you miss Hogwarts terribly. It’s much the same: you’re together, you’re hungry, and you’re nothing like them. 

And then it’s different: Tom makes Slytherin Prefect, is suddenly tall, and you wonder in fleeting moments if his face has always suited him this well.

A stupid remark. You fervently ignore it.

Fifth year begins and you have almost the same number of electives as you do core classes, Tom has duties in his new role that take much of his spare time, and despite popular belief, you and him are not a mitotic entity, so this splits you up more often than it had in previous years. Which is fine. You still have plenty of things to talk about during meals and between duels, and you reckon you’ll share DADA until you graduate.

But in his absence, your attentions are forced elsewhere, and you should be grateful they land on something potentially promising.

It’s like Transfiguration just clicks for you this year. You’ve never been the greatest at Transformation (importantly though, you’ve also remained far from the worst), but fifth year launches you into Vanishment and something about that feels like a perfect equation. There are no complicated half-numerals and objects stuck between inanimacy and being — just unmaking the made. Nothing or not. You’re fucking excellent at it. You glean the theoretics fast and then the practise comes like breathing. Even the purebloods struggle as you Vanish Dumbledore’s Conjured garden snakes in brilliant tendrils of light. You exult unabashedly when you brush past them on the way out of class — who was it that didn’t belong in Slytherin?

You say the same to Tom and he rolls his eyes, but the amusement is there.

“Think you can talk to my snakes for me?” you tease, nudging him on the path to Hogsmeade.

“If they’re yours, I doubt they have anything worth discussing.”

And Dumbledore is… a hue nearer to the man you remember from first year. He praises your improvement and smiles when you can’t hide your giddiness as if equally impressed.

He doesn’t shelve people the way Slughorn does (you’re dismayed to find Tom has been invited to join the Slug Club and you have not) but you think if he did you’d be rapidly climbing your way to the top. Maybe get put in one of those neat little repositories he keeps all his best treasures in.

Dumbledore does, however, offer additional assignments for those who are interested, and tasks you with a few if you’re up to the challenge.

You always are.

The Tom-Dumbledore-Encyclopaedia debacle is apparently either resolved, or your part in it forgotten. 

Tom humours you when you’re both singed at the fingers from duelling, yours dipped in the lake while he buries his in the cold moss, about how Abraxas takes the seat beside him at every Slug Club dinner. He tells you he pretends to be very interested in the Malfoy’s business affairs and their stock in the Bulgarian Quidditch team’s win this coming spring. He tells you he finds it amusing to let Abraxas think he can make Tom his pet. Tom says he considers searching for Salazar Slytherin’s fabled Chamber of Secrets and showing Abraxas what a real pet looks like. You smack him in the arm.

He’s had an ego forever. He just has a few too many reasons for it now.

And maybe that’s why you push harder in Transfiguration, dedicate the majority of your studies to it, spend your Saturday nights scrutinising advanced techniques while Tom makes nice with Potions experts and politics with people who don’t even know what he is but like him anyway. It’s patronising, of course — borderline fetishistic; not a real like — but it scares you. Tom Riddle would not allow himself to be anyone’s pretty mudblood show pony if he didn’t have an ulterior motive.

Everything changes but the observable truth that he is still insufferable.

You’re lucky to see him twice a week if it isn’t in class, and the way it starts is so slow you don’t even fully understand what’s happening until Christmas break when Abraxas stays a few extra days and leaves by Dippet’s Floo instead of the train.

You don’t dare ask where Tom has vanished to in that time or why the hell Abraxas Malfoy would willingly subject himself to unnecessarily extended time at school with all his lackeys gone, and it isn’t because you don’t want to. It’s because he won’t tell you himself. It’s because you’re terrified the answer will feel like a broken promise, and you’ve come to realise (it’s been there for so long; such an obvious, tiny thing that you’ve never stopped to really dissect it) that it’s quite difficult to know someone at every atom and not love them a little bit.

You’re suddenly aware of the risk of it: you love him like an inextricable piece of yourself, and, well, you’ve seen war. You know what amputation looks like. You’ve seen the remains of structures designed to stand forever, and you’re strong like them — casts and gauze in all the weak spots because you remember the pain of breaking them — but those were blows dealt without the complication of loving the bombs behind them.

Tom is the green on your robes, the dragon pox tinge you sometimes think never truly faded when you look in the mirror too long, and all the shades you never imagined. Apple, jade, moss. The beginnings of emerald. (No, he couldn’t be that.) 

You wonder what the world would look like if he stole those colours back, and it’s much worse than some brutal decimation; it would leave you with too much. You would just be you without him.

So you love him into June like you always do, and you pluck his Prefect badge off on the last day of school and tell him it makes you jealous like a joke when it’s half-true. 

It’s raining when you walk to the train together, miserable for what should be summer but not at all remarkable in Scotland. Tom wipes it from your cheek. Your wrists are sore from vanishing bits and bobbles all night while you still can, never truly prepared for three months without magic, and you curl into your seat as soon as you’re in it. Tom wakes you up when you arrive back in London, startling you to find that you fell asleep at all.

It rains a lot that summer. There’s nothing much to see in the city and you can’t get anywhere else (you note: the Trace cares little about broomsticks but you can’t afford one of your own and flying might be the only thing Tom is bad at) so you’re stuck to the library again with a noseful of old paper and a certain prose that magical literature cannot replicate. You theorise a lifetime of reckoning with the mundane forces one to be more creative.

Perhaps it’s the cold that makes you sick. Perhaps it’s the state of your meals. Either way, your final weeks before sixth year are hell. Biblical, blazing hell.

The nurses aren’t sure what it is — another influenza epidemic you’re the first in the orphanage to catch — but they isolate you immediately and there’s not much care they can offer. 

You hear Tom arguing with one of them outside your door but can’t make out the words. Everything is dizzy, sweaty, halfway to unconsciousness but without its relief. You’d take dragon pox over this.

Some days later (though you can’t be sure because it feels like bloody centuries), he’s at your bedside, and you think even if you were lucid enough to ask what horrible thing he’d done to change the nurses’ minds, you wouldn’t. 

But you know he’s not beyond breaking wizarding law, because he’s muttering healing spells with a hand to your damp forehead, and you hazily find yourself reaching for him, trying to shake your head no.

“Not allowed,” you mumble. Your throat is sore and your nose is stuffy. You sound terrible and you probably look worse.

Tom is slightly blurry but you think he’s staring at you. You know if he is it’s with the utmost incredulity.

“Not allowed,” he repeats slowly. It’s very easy to picture him clenching his jaw. “I wonder, if the Trace is so exact that it can detect all forms of magic, it can’t also detect malady. You’re burning — and I’m to consider whether saving your life might be illegal?”

He’s angry. He’s angrier than you’ve seen in a long time; and you can actually see it now. His magic courses through you and your vision clears, bit by bit, until your depth perception steadies and you realise he’s closer than you thought. His jaw is, in fact, clenched.

You move to catch his wrist and manage it this time. “Tom.”

“Don’t argue,” he says thinly.

“You’ll get sick.”

His face is far too neutral for the way his fingers stroke your damp cheek. “Hm. Then it’s a good thing you’d break the law for me too.”

Of course he’s right — you love him. Which makes it a good thing he doesn’t get sick.

Some of the younger children do. The fever comes overnight for a girl who wasn’t in the orphanage last year, and it takes her by the next.

When you get back on the train to Hogwarts, the virus is circulating Britain and you’re livid. 

What Tom said is true; you consider the Trace’s precision and the details of the laws on underage magic — how one of the technicalities is that a young witch or wizard may be absolved of the consequences if the circumstances are life-threatening. You think about how it supposedly doesn’t care about broom-riding or Portkeys or Floo travel, and if the Trace is that complex, surely it understands sickness.

You only wonder if the Ministry would understand it. There haven’t been any epidemics in the wizarding world since Gorsemoor cured dragon pox in the sixteenth century, and when there isn’t healing magic there are antidotes and Pepper-Ups and herbs that muggles simply don’t have. The fatality of a fever of all things is not something you imagine could be comprehended by the sort of people who sent you and Tom back to London in the wake of the Blitz.

Of course, the Ministry hasn't written to you, you haven’t been forced in front of a representative from the Improper Use office, and you have no real reason to be upset.

You are regardless. 

It shouldn’t even be a thought: you immolating into oblivion protesting rescue because one of you might get in trouble for it.

A world you’ve never much cared for is blanketed in ash and its people are dying and you can’t help them. A girl is dead. You’ll return next summer and there will certainly be more.

Life is for the magical, you find. The muggles can burn.

It’s what makes you start to panic this year, knowing you’ve only got one more after it. You have no idea what you’re going to do after school, and it doesn’t help that Tom doesn’t appear to share the sentiment. He’s got Head Boy in the bag and when he isn’t with you he’s with Abraxas, who can surely provide him connections if whatever game Tom is playing at works (and you have no doubt it will), but it’s like you said in third year: that isn’t enough for you.

You remember with a small ache that you no longer means you and him.

And then — it makes sense. You feel incredibly stupid.

“You told him, didn’t you?” you ask Tom the first opportunity you can get him alone, in the glum blue light of the Deathday ballroom on your way back from supper.

He sighs like it’s a conversation he’d hoped to put off for longer. “You’re referring to Abraxas, I presume?”

“You’re referring to — yes, you prick, I’m referring to Abraxas. Of course I’m referring to Abraxas, or are there others? Dolohov and Nott seem unusually enthralled by you, now that I think about it.”

“And for a reason I’m supposed to be aware of, this is an error on my part. Should I be apologising?”

“Why did you tell him, Tom?!”

“Why?” he deadpans.

You throw your hands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Shall I provide you with my itinerary as well? Would you accompany me as I tour the third-years around Hogsmeade? Or can you do me the favour of trusting me to make my own decisions with the nature of my ancestry?”

“You’re keeping something from me and there’s a reason,” you say, stepping closer to him, “and forgive me if I want to know what it is when you were willing to tell me you’re the Heir of Slytherin and you can talk to snakes. What — what could possibly be bigger than that?”

Tom returns your approach with one of his own. His eyes are steady, dark, thick with lashes and you can’t reminisce on the details of the rest of him because that would be strange for a friend to do. Stranger to do it now, when you’re angry with him and there’s two sleeping ghosts in the corner and he’s framed by deep indigoes like the ripples in the Black Lake and — you’re doing it anyway.

To be short, he’s close, he’s very beautiful, and sometimes you despise him.

“Trust me,” he says again, without the derision of the last time. “This will change things for us.”

You frown, but it’s a weak upset in contrast to the explosion you came in here willing to make. There were at least twenty questions you meant to ask and you only managed one.

You are not his keeper. You know that. 

“Change them for the better, Tom,” you say on a sigh.

He blinks, and you think he’ll respond with a nod or a slightly offended ‘of course’ but he does not. He blinks and he just keeps looking at you. It’s disarming. It probably resembles the way you often look at him. There’s a rationale somewhere; you never see each other anymore, life is so incredibly busy, maybe he’s forgotten what you look like.

And he does nod, finally, but he does it with his thumb brushing the corner of your lip.

What? Sorry. What’s going on?

He pulls it away like he’s heard you. “You had something.”

You’re almost positive you did not.

Transfiguration this year brings Conjuration, which is an advanced and welcome distraction, and even more exciting when you consider no longer having to Vanish things you have no idea how to bring back. Dumbledore’s is one of three N.E.W.T classes you’re taking — Defence Against the Dark Arts and Alchemy besides. It’s easily your favourite.

You share it with eleven other Slytherins and twelve Ravenclaws. Four of them are muggle-born, and it’s hard to describe the ease you feel among them because you don’t think you’ve ever had anything resembling ease with anyone but Tom.

Your schedule is more crammed than it’s ever been, but it’s good. Two of the Ravenclaw girls invite you to Hogsmeade every other weekend, you share butterbeers when you can afford one, you study until you collapse, you take Dumbledore’s extra assignments and consider trying out for Chaser on one of your more restless evenings before waking up in the morning and resolving there is such as thing as too much of a good thing. Best not to get ahead of yourself.

Your contentment is remedied quickly.

Someone is found unresponsive in the dungeons. Dippet makes an announcement at breakfast that the boy isn’t dead, rather, petrified. No one is quite sure the cause, but the Headmaster warns a few minor precautions, suggests a buddy system, and says that after dinner studying should remain in everyone’s respective common rooms rather than the courtyards or library.

You know next to nothing about petrification, but the victim is muggle-born, and you suspect it was the result of a poorly performed statue curse by one of the many blood zealots in your house. The whole thing makes you hold onto your wand a smidge tighter, but you’re adamant not to let it drive you to paranoia like it would have a few years ago.

Tom nods at your theory when you manage to escape to the Black Lake together in November.

“That isn’t unreasonable,” he says. High praise.

You sink into the moss, sighing. “Do you think there’ll be more?”

He looks out onto the lake, the lapping waves, the crystalline beads that furrow them, midnight algae and flotsam you don’t think you belong to anymore.

You peer up at his silhouette in the dark. “Do you think whoever did it will do it again, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” he says finally, and after another pause: “but I don’t think it would be you.”

“How’s that?”

“No one would be senseless enough to try.”

And he sinks beside you with that, breath shaping the cold in steady, rhythmic clouds while yours are scattered. His robes brush yours and you take his arm with a sleepy hum, tracing patterns in the stars until your eyes feel heavy and he insists on taking you back to your dormitories.

One of the Ravenclaw girls, Marigold Wright, distracts you with a spare blue scarf and an invitation to her next Quidditch match. You watch from the stands and cheer as she catches the snitch to beat Gryffindor.

It’s a bit strange — having a distraction — having a friend. Mari is kind, smart, a good study partner who’s as keen on stepping into the advanced theoretics of Human Transfiguration a year early as you are. She’s funny in a vulgar way, introduces you to all her friends, shows you the best way to sneak into the kitchens, and you sometimes wonder if she was sorted wrong, but — her methods are creative, and she’s definitely intelligent. She’s also definitely not Tom.

You see less and less of him and more of her, Dumbledore, the Ravenclaw common room and the pages of progressive Transfiguration methodologies. He sees less of you and more of Abraxas, Dolohov and Nott and all the other purebloods, Slughorn’s soirées and Prefect meetings that cut into meals.

It happens again.

Second floor lavatory. A girl called Myrtle Warren. She isn’t petrified.

There’s a vigil the following week and her parents are there, two muggles whose sobs wrack the Great Hall even as the students clear out. Flowers descend from the charmed ceiling, little bluebells and white chrysanthemums.

You cry that night. You can’t remember the last time you cried.

This time, you don’t have to seek Tom out. He catches you on your way back from Alchemy and brings you to the Deathday ballroom with a melancholy glance in your direction that you don't hesitate to follow. You realise it’s an odd place to continue to end up in, but no one else goes there and you suppose that makes it yours.

You’ve seen Tom skinny and sickly and olive green, but today his eyes are circled with veined violets and the lack of summer sun this year has whittled him grey once more. He’s still beautiful. He’ll always be beautiful. But he’s tired and — sad — and for the six years you’ve known him you aren’t quite sure what to do with that.

You don’t spend too long pondering it. You just hug him with the dawning newness of a thing like that; a thing you’ve never done, and never really thought to do. (You ask yourself in bewilderment how you’ve never thought to do it before.)

He’s warm. He’s uncertain. He doesn’t reciprocate immediately. 

And then he does, and you understand without caveats or concerns that you stopped having a choice in your destruction the moment you chose him. He’s home, and that’s going to ruin you one day.

Your arms tighten around him and his around you, the rhythm of his breath holding you to earth when you begin to float away. Nothing makes sense in this moment but the mercy that in all the death you’ve seen, you swear to God you’ll never see his. As long as you’re alive, he must be too.

And there’s something to be said about the innate self-slaughter of loving a person (of loving Tom Riddle, especially): that it’ll cleave you in two, that you’ll say feeble things in his embrace that you should be above saying, like ‘I’m scared’, that his hand will find the back of your head and he'll tell you he knows, that that should not feel like enough but it will be. You’ll clasp your hands under black robes and hold this singular embrace together by the faulty adhesive of your fingers. Maybe you’ll cry again, like your body can suddenly comprehend its capacity for it and is making up for lost time.

The first sign that something is wrong, more than the obvious grievance of the death itself, is the Ministry’s happy acceptance of Rubeus Hagrid as the culprit.

The boy is maybe fourteen years old, half-blood — half human, mind — and no one has a bad word to say about him other than he likes to keep eccentric pets. Which leads you to wonder what pet he possessed with the ability to petrify one student and kill another and what cause he’d have for it in the first place besides two terrible, miraculous accidents.

That question draws an even stranger path. Mari says over butterbeers (on her, bless her soul) that she read somewhere years ago that Gorgons can induce petrification, but that she doesn’t remember much else.

One of the boys in DADA says that his father’s an auror, and heard from him that Hagrid’s pet was some sort of arachnid. Tom deducts five points from his house after class with a scowl on his pale face, muttering about conspiracy.

The second sign that something is wrong is that only one of those things would need to be true for the entire case on Hagrid to be called into question. If Mari’s memory serves right, how the hell did Hagrid come into ownership of a Gorgon? (Could Gorgons even be owned?) If the auror’s son is worth your credence, then what species of arachnid is capable of petrification?

You take to the library.

Unsure of where to begin and hesitant to draw attention, your research lingers into Christmas break and stalls some of your extracurriculars in Transfiguration. Tom is busy enough not to notice the new step in your routine, and you’re grateful not to have him breathing down your back, telling you you’re looking in the wrong places or you shouldn’t be looking at all.

The third sign is the end. 

You wish to retract it all. There are time-turners and memory charms and potions that could dizzy you enough to manipulate the truth; there is anything but this. You’d suffer the consequences for the bliss of loving him with one more day before the ruin — you’d write it down to remember through the fog: look at him, duel him without wanting to hurt him, kiss him to know that you did it at least once, have him, be had. You never will again.

He’d shown you the adder. He’d joked about the Chamber of Secrets. He’d spent months disappearing with Abraxas, earning the trust of the sons of the Sacred Twenty Eight. 

And he’d killed Myrtle Warren.

So it’s statue curses and Gorgons and Tom — speaking to serpents when no one else can, buttressed by pureblood boys who want people like you dead.

Don’t become like them now that you’re not like me.

He’s something else entirely.

What do you do in a moment like this? Panting into an empty library at a revelation you wish you could unknow, fingers digging into the hickory of your desk — another memory carved among the initials and hearts; how do you stand from your chair and leave like the world outside this room is the same as it was when you entered? There’s nothing to orbit. You are cosmic debris, tea dregs in a barren cup, flotsam.

You stand; and you tell no one. Not even Tom.

His presence in your life is so infrequent that you don’t even have to come up with excuses for your distance until three weeks after your discovery when you’re paired together in DADA to practise stretching jinxes. 

You almost laugh. He’s standing beside you, tall (lanky like he was when he was a boy if you look long enough) and serious, and you love him without knowing who he is anymore. You’ve skirted corners to avoid him and sat with Mari during lunch and breakfast like he’s some scorned lover to escape confrontation from and not someone who held you through a grief inflicted by his hand. 

“You look tired,” he says, inspecting the daisy you’d been tasked to elongate.

You glance at him. You are tired. It’s exhaustive, bone-deep, aching like nothing you’ve ever known, and maybe that’s why you can look at him and smile sadly instead of thrashing against his chest screaming for what he did. You suppose it happens enough in your head to satisfy. When you can sleep, you sleep to the thought of it. The waking moments are just blank.

“Mhm,” you hum, transfiguring the daisy stem back to its regular length.

Tom observes it with curious eyes. “You’re getting good at that.”

“I’ve been good at it.”

His lips turn, a small frown before he puts it away. You make the observation that he’s tired too; there are still bags under his eyes and his hands tremble ever-so-slightly with his wand when he loosens his grip on it.

His own doing and still you flicker with some relentless hope that he's drowning in regret.

“Sorry,” you say. A ridiculous thing. Do you intend to slowly push him from your life with weak disinterest and diverging academic avenues? As if he were something extricable. He’d never let you.

You’ll have to confront him, and that’s a revelation that holds its weight on your chest until you think you'll suffocate under it.

You’re in the blue light of the Deathday ballroom with a face you've never worn before when it happens, deep into spring, and you know then that you were wrong all those years ago.

He sees all of you.

Takes you in in the flash of a second and maybe it’s your quivering jaw that reveals you or the flint of betrayal in your eyes waiting to be struck and lit. Yes, you were wrong — Tom Riddle knows you at every atom too.

“Are you going to let me explain?" he asks before any hello. His jaw is tight but there’s nothing else to go on to judge his disposition. He's settling into impassivity like an animal drawing its shell. You will not be allowed in if you're going to make it hurt, and you might be the only one who can.

“Explain," you copy with a hard exhale, “Just tell me it wasn’t you. That’s all there is to say."

He stares at you. There’s nothing there.

“Tell me, Tom.”

Your breath catches on an automatic please but you don’t want to offer him that.

“I cannot.”

Then make me forget, you want to scream. Let it be summer. Let us work for pennies and breadcrumbs and be no one together.

It’s late winter and it’s too cold.

“You killed her,” you say quietly.

“If I told you I did not wish for it, would you even believe me?”

“What are you… so it was an accident?”

“There was — an opportunity presented itself that may never have come again; that does not mean I don’t find the nature of it regrettable.”

“Regrettable.” You’re laughing or crying or both, and you must look unwell. Halfway out of your mind.

He’s so composed in the face of it that it only makes you more incensed.

“You told me to change things —”

“You killed someone! Can you understand that?”

“You nearly died,” he hisses, “and if I am to apologise for recognizing it only as the first of many times, I will not. If I am to apologise for doing whatever is necessary to prevent it, I will not. The hand we were dealt will not be the hand we die to — so yes, I understand it. And one day so will you.”

“Don't," you spit, and your anger must look pathetic under your welling tears. “Don't you dare tell me that this was for me.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“What could her death possibly bring me, Tom?”

“Her death is the first step to —”

“God, stop dancing around the fucking question!” Both hands have wound their way to your head, clutching at your skull like the brain matter might spill through one of the cracks he’s wearing down. “Just… tell me.”

“You recall Godelot's work," he says stiffly. The question of it takes you by surprise, peels the moment back like the rim of a fruit and you're left uncertain.

All you can do is nod, arms falling to cross over your chest.

“There was one form of magic he refused quite concisely to impart. I searched the Restricted Section for days, and under Dumbledore's watch that was not an easy thing to do."

You stole from him, you're urged to remind him, but it's something you'd say with a nudge of annoyance and a roll of your eyes. Such admonishment is small and far away.

“I found it at last in one of the repositories," he goes on, “Secrets of the Darkest Art."

“...What?"

“It's called a Horcrux,” he says. “Murder, by nature, splits the soul. The Horcrux simply makes use of the act; puts the soul fragment into something imperishable so that it is protected, rather than abandoned. In turn, your life cannot be taken. By malady, by magic, by sword — the vessel is destroyed but the soul lives on.”

You blink, feeling dizzy. “Myrtle was the sacrifice.”

“Myrtle was there,” Tom remedies.

“How lucky for you.”

“The circumstances could be ameliorated if one were to be made for you. I would have preferred it be someone who deserves it.”

“For — you’d do it again? Again, Tom?”

His brows crease, and even his upset seems contrived. There’s this barricade he’s placed that you, in all your infallible knowing of him, cannot puncture. It’s agony to begin to question what he could possibly be keeping from you in a confession like this.

“You killed someone, Tom. You — I would never ask you to do that. I would never live at the cost of someone else."

“No, you would not,” he agrees, though he shakes his head like it’s incredulous of you. “Do you think, even if I knew it were certain,  a summons from the Ministry would have stopped me from saving you this summer? Do you suppose the threat of punishment would cause me to waver at that moment? I know it would not hinder you. So, you have your lines and I have mine — you never needed to ask.”

And now it hurts. The emptiness clears and you can't stand yourself for crying, but you do. It comes out in ragged, breathless sobs, clasped behind your palm as you turn away from him. 

You've loved him since you were eleven. It's always been you two — it was always supposed to be you two. What is there to say to him? He's blurring in your periphery like in the midst of your sickness, and there's nothing he can do to heal you this time. Your vision will clear and Myrtle Warren will still be dead. He'll still be a stranger in the face of the boy you love. 

“Why," you whine, a wet, hollow stain in your voice you've never cried enough to hear before. “Myrtle was — wasn't — uh —" You swallow, hysterics severing your words. You can't really think right now. Your body wobbles and your head feels puffy and hot. This might be shock. 

Tom scowls like it irritates him to watch you push yourself, like this is just the unfortunate effect of you depleting your energy in a duel, not eating correctly, treating yourself carelessly. 

Of course you can't stand or talk or think. You're you, contemplating a life without him.

“Sit," he says in frustration. You smack his hand away when he reaches for you, but the world has turned a shade darker and you're slipping into it. 

He tugs a chair towards you with a silent charge and a reprimand, and your body doesn’t possess the wherewithal not to collapse into it the second it’s under you.

After a moment you can speak again, shaking hands steadied by your knees. “Did you… did you think I wouldn't find out? You know, the only thing that can petrify someone besides a serpent is a Gorgon. And — where would Rubeus Hagrid have found one of those?"

“I thought I would have time.”

“To come up with a good lie? Something I’d sympathise with?”

He bites his cheek. “Evidently the particulars matter little to you.”

Fuck him. “Fuck you.”

“Very cogent.”

“No, fuck you, Tom. We could have — we only had a year left and then we could — we could've done anything we wanted." You're crying again. You don't have the energy to be embarrassed. “And you chose this."

He’s indignant as he steps closer. “With what money? For what life? We are better than all of them and it’s never mattered. It never will; you know that. You told me that. You’re angry now, but you must know the truth of it. I would not forsake you. I would not lose you.”

You blink up at him, mouth stuck with some cottony feeling and cheeks stiff from crying.

“You have lost me, Tom."

He stills as if suspended. Some maceration must follow but it doesn’t.

You stand on weak legs to look him in the eyes. You wonder if he can see the love in yours. You wonder if he knows you will walk away despite it. (Of course he does. You’ve never lied to him.) 

You think about how his fingers seem to always find their way to your cheek and you put yours to his. The bone there is sharp, but the skin is soft. Boyish. 

There isn't a word for a goodbye like this. It shouldn't exist and so it doesn't. You just leave.

You fail your N.E.W.T courses. Quite spectacularly.

Mari sits beside you on the train with a soothing hand on your shoulder, and doesn’t ask what’s rendered you into a comatose husk since March. There’s no crying. You chew numbly on soft caramels from the trolley and stare out the window onto the hills.

That summer is spent in your bedroom unless you’re forced elsewhere. A new girl with skin so white it’s nearly translucent sleeps in the bed beside yours, taking meals on trays like you did in your first days here, tracing the cracks in the tiles, humming to herself in the dark. She makes you feel less pathetic for doing much the same. 

You’d been right in your assumption that there would be more dead upon your return, and wrong that there would be more empty rooms. There are always more orphans being made.

And then you receive a letter. It isn’t delivered by owl (only for secrecy, you assume, because there are no muggles who’d be writing to you) but it’s stamped with a vaguely familiar crest. Not Hogwarts’ waxen seal, but something undoubtedly magical. A cockroach and a cup, you think, squinting. Transfiguration.

You tear the envelope open and pull the letter out.

It’s from Dumbledore. Some of it melds together, but the key words stand out.

Spoken to Dippet… Exceptional promise… N.E.W.Ts… May be reconsidered… Upon dispensation… Be well.

Be well.

You are not. You are something half-drowned and half-burned, never enough of one to quell the effects of the other. Sunlight is sparse through your side of the orphanage. On the radio, they warn a pattern of one bomb every second hour. The only other warning is the sound when they fly overhead, and if you can’t run fast enough —

You write your answer in a crowded tube station with a spotty ballpoint pen. Tom is there, looking between you, the dust, and your shaking hands as if to say: tell me I was wrong.

Some of your letter melds together but the key words stand out.

Thank you, Sir. Whatever you need.

It’s a shock that you live to seventh year. It’s a shock that you do it without him — though he watches, and in his gaze you feel regressed. You’re alive, yes, but there’s something there… his dead weight, death-grip; his haunting. They always speak of the dead as something heavy. Something that holds onto you even after it’s gone.

You find that to be true.

Dippet’s condition that you remain in Dumbledore’s N.E.W.T class is that you achieve more than the standard requirement. Essentially, your final exam will be much harder than everyone else's: Human Transfiguration, mastery of petty Transformation (through the means of Wizard’s Chess pieces), Conjuration and Vanishment of various delicate objects — all done nonverbally.

Even Dumbledore seems sceptical, but it translates to more rigorous practise rather than resignation, assignments he doesn’t even task to Mari, though she’s just as good, and you can’t begin to understand why he cares so much. 

“I’ll entrust you with these while I’m away,” he says before Christmas break, sliding a sheet of parchment your way with a flick of his wand.

You frown, unfolding it. His instructions are always short now — you’ve learned to decode his meaning well enough without much exposition. 

Teacup to gerbil — to cat, and inverse.

Inanimatus Conjurus spell (cockroach and cup, as instructed) to be Vanished when perfected.

Study Antar’s Doctrine. Miss Wright will act as your partner.

Due February.

It’s far too much to be done in that time. “Sir?”

Dumbledore lugs a messenger bag over his shoulder that appears small, but he carries it in such a way you suspect it’s magically extended. He smiles wistfully, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “You know, I often regret how much this war asks of me. A consequence of my own doing.”

Right — Grindelwald. Sometimes you forget between awaiting the next muggle paper. War is everywhere.

You nod. “I hope… Good luck, Sir.”

Another half-smile as he twists open a jar of Floo Powder, and then he shakes his head with something you almost decipher as amusement. A brittle sort. Tired. “Good luck to you.”

And then he’s gone, in a swath of green flames that do nothing to inspire any desire for Floo travel in you.

Antar’s Doctrine is simultaneously prosaic and grandiose. They read like excerpts of a journal and you yawn into them over your morning tea, stirring amongst the first-years, who are the only people at the Slytherin table you can stand to sit with. Your blood status is apparently nullified by your age, and the worst they do is look at you funny. You aren’t sure what Abraxas’s — Tom’s (the new hierarchy never fails to stagger you) — lackeys would do if you sat with the other seventh-years instead. A part of you longs to know. They certainly don’t bother you in class the way they used to, you aren’t tripped in the corridors, but you wonder how far Tom’s influence can stretch. He is the Heir of Slytherin, and he’s earned them. But you are nothing.

You’d like it if he would let them hurt you. You think the incentive would be enough to hurt him back. And God — God, you want to. You want to hurt him almost as much as you want him.

You practise through the doctrine with Mari, as Dumbledore directed. When you’re able to sever Antar’s egotism from his abilities, you can see why Dumbledore would recommend his book to you. It feels like slipping through a crack in glass without shattering the whole thing. You weave in and back out, and Mari grins when she returns from the shape of a teapot to her body without you needing to utter a word to do it.

In the back of your mind, you’re aware what you’re doing is nearly unprecedented. It’s spring, you’re months away from eighteen, muggle-born, and mastering nonverbal Human Transfiguration like it’s a Softening Charm. Mari tells you you’re the smartest person she’s ever met. It makes your cheeks go hot to hear such open praise, worse when you snap out of the thought that you believe her.

Grindelwald falls. The school celebrates in whispers until the evidence is in front of them — Dumbledore, returned without a scar, a new wand in his hand — and then they’re cheers. The feast that night is a great one, and he toasts to you from the end of the staff table, a discreet tilt of his cup before he takes a sip and returns to converse with Professor Merrythought.

You take from your own, and your eyes land on Tom, spine of his goblet tight in his hand. He’s looking at you like you’ve affronted him somehow. You could laugh — by choosing Dumbledore. Of course. As if it was a choice at all.

But if it bothers him… if it feels anything at all like the betrayal you felt, then — good.

You drink, and don’t look away.

By the time your N.E.W.T.s arrive you have a renewed confidence that you’ll succeed, even with the obstacle of performing each exam wordlessly.

There are only twelve students who came out of your sixth year class, so to divide resources for the tests is no grand task. You’re given a Wizard’s Chess set, a desk with assorted vases and goblets, an intricate epergne (you had to whisper to Mari to learn its name), and a Ministry worker borrowed like some laboratory mouse. You suppose it makes sense, though — you’re all capable enough of Human Transfiguration not to mutilate anyone, and performing on a classmate could obfuscate the results. It’s far easier to Transfigure someone you know than someone you don’t.

You start with the chess set, Dumbledore and the Ministry worker observing you as you turn pawns to knights and rooks to kings, the minutiae of the pieces drawing sweat to your brow. They change, and change, and change, and you don’t mutter an incantation once. The Ministry worker puts the set away and directs you to the glass. You Switch the vases with the goblets, Vanish them, and Conjure them again. The Ministry worker takes notes. Dumbledore nods affirmatively at you and you can exhale. The epergne is the hardest; so kitschy and elaborate you don’t know where to start when you’re tasked to Transform it into an animal. 

An animal — like that isn’t the vaguest instruction you’ve ever received.

You look at it on the desk, mirrors and glass and gold on protracted arms, and you go for the first thing you think of because the Ministry worker is staring at you like you’re inept and you see it in his eyes — this is the muggle-born one, this one can’t do it. 

You’re better than them. You can do it forever.

The epergne spins at the dip of your wand, and emerges more than an animal. A big glass tank appears in its place, round and gold-rimmed, water lapping at the sides. Inside it is a jellyfish. Emerald green, bobbing, tentacles and oral arms coiling against the glass like the limbs of the epergne had spanned its centre.

The Ministry worker swallows. Dumbledore smiles.

“And — and back?” the worker says, like that will be the thing that stops you.

You point again, mouth tight with irritation, and reverse the Transformation. A droplet of water smacks your face and you’re lucky to be so hot you can disguise it as sweat. You suspect even an error that small would cost you a mark.

You wipe it away. A strange thing happens; you imagine Tom brushing the water from your cheek at the Black Lake. You imagine his fingers in the rain.

The Ministry worker steps closer with a shameless frown. He tells you to turn his hair red. You do. He regards himself in the mirror and scribbles something down. He tells you to turn it back. You do. To grow him a beard, to change his clothes, to make him taller, shorter, this and that — all read from a list he does not appear enthused to recite. You do it all.

He shakes Dumbledore’s hand when it’s done, duplicates his notes for him to keep, and follows the other Ministry workers through the fireplace when everyone’s exams are finished.

You find out you’ve passed with an Outstanding on your birthday.

Mari drags you to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate, butterbeers on her. (They always are.)

“Can’t believe we’re about to graduate,” she says into her cup, froth on her upper lip.

You sigh into your own, partially giddy and mostly nervous.

Mari squeezes your face between her thumb and finger so your frown is puckered. “Chin up, genius. You’ll be excellent.”

You push her hand away but can’t help a small smile. “Outstanding,” you correct.

“Outstanding!” She bursts out laughing. “Bloody ego on you now…”

“Well, I am the smartest person you know.”

“I take that back.”

She pushes out of her chair with a slightly inebriated wobble. “Going to the loo. Don’t touch my chips.”

Your hands raise in surrender, and you steal only one when she’s gone.

You aren’t the only ones here to celebrate. (Your birthday and your mutual achievement, yes, but the Three Broomsticks is filled wall-to-wall with seventh years drinking their final nights at school away.) There’s music charmed to reach every corner, even yours at the little alcove hidden from plain sight. It’s nice to watch from here — the stumbling, the kisses meant for mouths that land drunkenly on cheeks and noses, the barkeeps that roll their eyes as soon as they turn away from all the newly adult customers, not yet learned or careless in their drinking manners.

It is not nice to be occluded from plain sight in such a way that you don’t notice Tom Riddle until he’s inches away from your table. It is not nice that no one else notices either.

On instinct you don’t make any impressive exit. He slides into the booth next to you and your brain short circuits for a moment at the warm familiarity of his presence beside you. Then it occurs that it’s been more than a year since this was remotely commonplace — that you cannot forget the reason why.

There’s not much time to decide whether you want to be vicious or indifferent or to debate on past precedent which would bother him more. You haven’t attacked him despite being concealed enough to do it unnoticed, and you haven’t shoved furiously out of the other side of the booth.

Indifferent it is. 

“Can I help you?”

“You’re causing quite the stir,” he says, taking one of Mari’s chips.

You’re allowed. It’s infuriating when he does it.

“Am I?”

“It’s enough to fail a N.E.W.T level class and be expressly petitioned back, but to have a special criteria set for your exams and manage an O on top of it all…” He inclines his head as if to appreciate your face so close after so long. You should not let him. “You are incomprehensible. It terrifies them.”

“They’re afraid of the wrong mudblood, then, aren’t they?”

Indifference effaced. You’re angry.

He seems to have come prepared, and shrugs your scorn off like a scarf you would have forced him to wear winters ago. “Of course, they have no reason to suspect Dumbledore might have ulterior motives.”

Ulterior — you certainly hope he isn’t suggesting this is based on anything but your merit, but then — you couldn’t begin to understand why Dumbledore cared so much, could you? You’d made brief inspections of his disdain for Tom in second year, his waning shades of kindness and the matter of his stolen encyclopaedia, but you hadn’t… you hadn’t thought at all about how his dedication to your progress only begun after you’d stopped sharing a class with Tom, how it had developed as you began to drift from one another in fifth year and accelerated in sixth after the first petrification and Myrtle’s death. How Tom had worn you down with a weighted glare at Dumbledore’s little toast.

It wasn’t because you had chosen Dumbledore, you realise. It was because Dumbledore had chosen you.

“Why don’t you worry about your pets, Riddle?” you snarl, “I’m sure there are bigger problems with your lot than my exam results.”

Something in his face shifts at the name. You swell with distorted pride.

He mends the reaction by looking you over in more detail, his features schooled into something he must know you can’t deduce. You try not to squirm under the intensity of it.

He reaches almost mindlessly for your collar (there is nothing mindless about it, you’re sure) and smooths the fabric gently with his fingers. “I always liked you in this colour.”

You blink. His thumb just barely brushes against the skin of your neck before retreating, and your mouth falls open.

“Don’t do that,” you say. Truly a sad attempt. Your repulsion is more with yourself than him, and that’s not at all right.

Where is Mari?

“Your friend was at the bar, last I saw her.”

You stare at him with wild eyes. How the hell — ?

“You were always easy to read,” he supplies, and leans in so you can follow his line of sight to the tiniest sliver of the bar visible between two columns, where Mari looks deeply engaged in conversation with Leo Ndiaye, one of the Gryffindor Chasers.

You take a sharp, exasperated breath at her antics. She might be more in love with the competition than the boy himself. They’d never last without Quidditch to bind them, but you can’t fault her for wanting a bit of fun.

“Well then —” 

Right. Tom hasn’t actually moved away. You turn and his face is just there.

His eyes dart forthwith to your mouth, and — no. No, he won’t be doing that and neither will you.

“...I’m off to bed.” Stop talking to him like he’s your friend, you think miserably. Stop looking at him like he’s your —

“That would be wise.”

He’s still looking at your lips.

No one else is looking at you at all.

It could exist in just this moment, you deliberate; separate from everything else.

Except nothing about Tom exists in its own moment. He’s all over you all the time, skin and bone and soul. You hope you still have a place in the broken fragments of his.

“So I’ll be going now,” you say again.

“I haven’t protested.”

But he’s leaning in, and he has to know that’s impedance enough.

“But you will.”

His lips touch yours. “Yes, I will.”

You grab him by his shirt and you’re kissing him. You’re kissing each other like either of you know what the hell it means to kiss anyone, but you’ve learned the rest together, haven’t you? Your noses bump and you don’t care. You just need to kiss him, and — God, you make some noise against his mouth and the hand cupping your face spreads to capture more of you, greedy and wayward — he needs to kiss you too. It’s a horrible thing to know. It leads you to pose too many questions.

The need must have begun as want, and when did the want begin? How long has he looked at you and wondered what you’d feel like to kiss, touch, mark? (He’ll never have the latter. You swear that.)

You’re pulling away in intervals. “You don’t have me, you know.”

“I know,” he responds, lips on the corner of yours.

“You still lost me.”

“I know.”

“I hate you.”

He pauses for a moment. “I know.”

You kiss him again. Long and soft, memorising his cupid’s bow and the tip of his tongue, and when one of his hands moves to your waist you part from him like you’ve been burned.

“I —” You resist the urge to touch a finger to your lips, standing abruptly from the table and adjusting your shirt. Your body feels like an evolutionarily faulty vessel, too easy to please, though you can’t imagine it responding to anyone else this way. Or perhaps your mind is the problem. Not wired well enough to resist an evidently bad thing. “Goodnight, Tom.”

You thought there wasn’t a word for your goodbye, but that’s it. So simple it sinks you. Goodnight, Tom. I’ll dream of a morning where I wake up beside you, but you won’t be there.

He grabs your hand before you can go, licking his lips and it haunts you to think he’s savouring you. It stings a place deep in your chest you’d spent all year trying to heal.

“My door is always open,” he says.

He lets you go.

You graduate with Mari’s hand in yours, and you aren’t afraid.

Dumbledore requests that you stay for the summer to help him prepare for the first year’s curriculum in the fall. It’s a ridiculous opportunity for someone your age — free lodgings and a stellar impression on your resume, and — you can only accept it with an ire you haven’t felt since the spread of influenza in muggle Britain.

If he’s offering you lodgings now, he could have done it all along.

It sends you down a horrible train of thought while you move your things from the Slytherin dormitories to a little chamber a few doors down from the staff room; Tom will be removed from Wool’s this year. Will he stay at Malfoy Manor? But Tom is still publicly muggle-born — Abraxas’s parents would never allow it. Will he find a job, a flat? Will he swindle muggles once he turns eighteen and the Trace is no longer an obstruction?

You think of him often. You think of his offer.

My door is always open.

Plenty of doors are open to you now. Why should you want to go back to his?

Still, the Second World War ends in November and you feel like you can breathe at a depth you never could before. The school doesn’t celebrate like it did with Grindelwald. No one but you seems to care at all.

It’s a tempting door.

The year passes in a blur of graded papers and lessons Dumbledore sometimes involves you in and sometimes does not. Most of the first-years care little for you, but there are two Slytherin muggle-borns who look at you like a new sun to orbit. Everything is worth it for that.

You see Mari when you can, and find she’s training with the Italian Quidditch team, who apparently are smart enough to care more about skill than blood. She says she misses the complexities of Transfiguration, but any career in it was always going to be yours. Smartest person she knows, she reiterates. Biggest ego too.

The next summer Dumbledore informs you of a posting at the Ministry. Something small with a smaller wage. He emphasises the weight of his personal recommendation, but that you won’t be respected unless you claw tooth and nail for it. You don’t take long to consider a chance to make an actual income with an actual career doing something muggle-borns simply don’t do before you’re nodding assuredly and asking him what you need.

Better clothes are first, and all you can afford until further notice. You take to Gladrags with intent to purchase for the first time in your five years of wandering in the shop with eyes bigger than your wallet, and the owner looks at you with distrust when you slide her your sickles.

The Ministry job is truly, infinitesimally, insignificant. 

It’s far down in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. You’re a glorified secretary, and you recall the few times you’d worked as a mail-sorter during the war. It’s some sick irony that you’ve landed yourself in a pile of paper once more.

But the money, though offensively scant to someone with better options (and it’s infuriating the options you deserve), is more than you’ve ever had, and within the next year you’re able to leave the castle and take a cheap room at an inn in Hogsmeade. You’re close enough to Dumbledore to aid him when he needs you, but far enough to feel like your school days are departed, and you need not worry about memories lurching unexpectedly at every corridor. 

A sick part of you still reaches for your mouth sometimes to remember what it felt like to be kissed. That part of you wishes for Tom. You could kiss him into oblivion. You could find a way to make it hurt him back.

My door is always open.

Then you’ll slam it bloody closed.

Mari invites you to her first professional game and you cheer for her in the stands, a green, white, and red scarf around your neck in place of her old blue.

She wins and you get drinks in a muggle pub. You kiss a man at the bar. You go home with him. His hair is dark, but not dark enough. His lips are soft, but the shape is wrong. He makes you feel good, but you wonder if in another life, the dream is true; you roll over in the morning to Tom beside you, and he makes you feel better.

When you can find time between the monotonous demands of your job, you’re in the Transfiguration classroom, staying behind to help the Slytherin muggle-borns with their Switching spells.

It’s one stupid accident the next fall that changes things.

A muggle bank has been robbed, and whatever idiotic, panicked witch or wizard was behind it apparently found themselves incapable of getting the deed done with a simple Imperius Curse (you can’t imagine, based on the scene, that they’re above Unforgivables), and somehow ended up leaving the building half-charred and teeming with at least six bank tellers Transformed into birds, two chirping into the floor tiles with broken wings.

“Renauld’s on it, though,” your coworker says when the news finds your department.

“Renauld?”

He’s a year older than you, a pureblood with parents in high places, and endlessly fucking hopeless.

“Well, yeah —”

You push out from your desk, files fluttering behind you. “Renauld will expose the whole damn wizarding world if he touches that building.”

“But McCormack sent him.”

“Where is it?”

“I… McCormack said that —”

“Where is it, Flack?”

“Um. Um, near King William, I think. Moorgate or, um —”

That’s good enough. You toss the Floo Powder into the fireplace and go.

The place is a mess. You don’t even have to look for it. There’s some ward around the street, bouncing muggles away like an invisible end to a map they don’t even register is there. At least that’s handled right.

But you slip through it and curse under your breath at the muggles trapped inside the wards. They’re like fish prodding at the dome of their bowl, and some run up to you demanding explanations when they see you unaffected by it. You brush them off — Obliviation is not your strong-suit — though you do shout at a pair of DMAC wizards uselessly standing guard outside the bank.

“What the hell are you doing?” you ask on approach. “Renauld’s supposed to handle the inside, yeah? You deal with fixing them.”

You point toward the frantic muggles, and the officials just regard you with vague confusion at your presence. “Renauld said —”

“Oh my God! Fix. The muggles.”

You afford nothing else before pushing past them to enter the bank.

It’s quite impressive, actually; Renauld, the result of generations of foolproof breeding, is waving his wand around like he’s just stepped out of Olivanders for the first time.

“Heal their wings,” you say without greeting.

Renauld jumps. “What? What are you doing here?”

“Heal their damn wings. They’re easier than human limbs and healing magic’s the only thing you aren’t completely shit at.”

“Who authorised you?” he hisses.

“I did.”

In hindsight, it should have gone horrifically wrong. Your wand could have been taken and your life might have been over in all ways that matter, flung back into the muggle world where you’ve always been told you belong.

But Renauld vouches for you. You Transform the walls, you fix the burns, you mend the bank to something presentable. A muggle robbery — dangerous, financially tragic, but believable. And your suggestion to heal the injured bank tellers in their animal forms might be the thing that saved them. When Renauld mends their wings and regenerates their blood, you Untransfigure them, and the other DMAC officials alter their memories with haste.

You were completely out of line and utterly right.

It isn’t something people like you are allotted.

Your probation period is dreadful. You hide in your room at the inn most days, Vanishing little stained panes on your window to feel the warm breeze of air before you Conjure them again. You help grade papers, though Dumbledore is displeased with you and the night is a silent one. He assures you curtly that he’s doing his best with the Ministry to amend this.

And… he does.

With Renauld’s help and the corroboration of the other DMAC officials, you’re back at work by the start of the school year.

It’s a slow process — almost eight months of meaningless paperwork — before the next incident occurs and you’re hectically ushered to the scene like a belated understudy. And then it happens again. And again. And again.

There’s really no choice but to promote you.

Your heroics are torn from a Gryffindor cloth, so says Flack. You urge him never to say such a thing again.

By your twenty-first birthday, you think about Tom almost exclusively in your sleep. You’re much too busy to think about him anywhere else.

The summer is warm and Hogsmeade is lively. You’ve vacated your room at the inn for a little house on the outskirts of the village, decorating it how you like — discovering what you like. You’d never had a chance to find out before.

Mari visits when she can once you have your fireplace connected to the Floo Network (you yourself prefer Apparating) but her name is slowly working its way from the Italian papers to the British ones, and she has so much to tell you there isn’t possibly enough time in her days to tell it. There’s also the matter of Leo Ndiaye, who has, recently, gotten on one knee and proposed to her. If there had been a bet on them ending up together, you would have been out enough galleons to put you in debt.

After especially gruesome days at work, you and a few colleagues make a habit of getting sherries at the Siren’s Tail, complaining that sometimes the nature of your work is akin to an auror’s but without the notoriety and pay.

“Oh, please,” says Emilia Alves, twirling her straw, “have you seen the shit the aurors are up to lately? I’d rather be a blimmin’ Unspeakable.”

“You’d have to be able to keep your mouth shut for that, Alves.”

Emilia punches Renauld in the arm.

“What are the aurors up to?” Flack asks.

“I dunno much. There was a murder all the way in Albania, s’posedly. Reeked of dark magic.”

“Nothing new,” you join, and then frown. “Why’s our Ministry dealing with it though?”

“I dunno. I got word from Hillicker that the Albanians didn’t know what to make of the mess. They’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Hillicker’s not a source,” Renauld scoffs.

“Yeah? Why don’t you ask your daddy for something better?”

“Alves, I’ll have you know —”

You lean in over the counter. “What do you mean they’ve never seen anything like it?”

She grins. “Why? Storming a bank robbery wasn’t exciting enough for you?”

You roll your eyes, taking a drink.

That ought to be the end of it. One extraordinarily lucky incident to push you up the career ladder was rare enough — there is absolutely no way digging around a case that has nothing to do with you or your department could ever end well.

But something about it itches.

You make nice with Hillicker. She’s a year younger than you and far too kind for her own good, and she gushes freely about her husband’s work as an auror (they must be a perfect match for him to gush freely about it with her). It’s a bit manipulative. You have no excellent excuse for it, but… ambition, and all that, you suppose. Flack’s Gryffindor theory is studded with holes.

You are green, through and through.

Emilia’s updates are meaningless when you garner so much information that you’ve already heard everything she has to say over drinks, and at this point her and Hillicker might be a step behind you. Emilia still only knows about Albania; peppery little details of half a story. Hillicker discusses an assortment of murders with no real string between them, and Dumbledore regards you with cool heeding when you bring up the matter with him.

You see him little nowadays but you’ve never been close in any true sense, traces of resentment budding over the years like rainwater collects on glass until the stream finally slips.

You visit Hogwarts mostly for your Slytherins, fourteen or fifteen now, unafraid of the distinction of their blood.

And then there’s one night after you turn twenty-two where drinks take place at yours for a change, Mari and Leo included and happily wed. You have no sherries but your ale is just as well, and it’s only you and Renauld who are sober by the time everyone else is vanishing into the fireplace and going home.

That makes it much worse when you sleep together. 

There’s no excuse of having had a glass too many — so sorry, I’ll be on my way then, and him stumbling over his trousers to get out of your hair. Of course, he does that anyway, scratching the nape of his neck when he reaches your doorway in the morning.

“Thanks for the — well, you have a nice home — I do think I should —”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

“Oh!” He turns around at the last second. “Er — I know you’ve become a tad obsessed with… Hillicker mentioned another, anyway. Hepzibah something. Killed by her own elf, the aurors suspect.”

“Oh,” you echo, sheets pulled up to your shoulders. “Thanks, Renauld.”

“I thought you might like to know. Don’t be daft about it.”

You’re incredibly daft about it.

There’s something reminiscent about Albania in this case that wasn’t there with the others. The tide of dark magic ebbing across the scene, the cherry-picked information released in the Prophet, the claim of an old, dumb House Elf who poisoned her mistress like the Albanian peasant killed in some insoluble accident. 

The itch exacerbates.

You see him in your dreams again. He peers over Runes in a stolen encyclopaedia, he whispers to an adder on his shoulder, he kisses the corner of your mouth and it isn’t enough. He kills you, again and again. You kill him too.

You wake up and he isn’t there.

It’s a new low when you’re invited to the Hillicker’s anniversary dinner and you end up digging through the drawers of their study halfway through the night.

The Albania file offers nearly nothing. There was the charred residue of dark magic imprinted on a hollow tree in the fields of the peasant’s hamlet, but nothing detailing more than a blank imprint of the Killing Curse in his eyes. Still, you tuck the knowledge away for the file of one Hebzibah Smith, whose tea did indeed have traces of poison, but whose den was also ripe with a layer of darkness that didn’t line up with the Ministry’s tale of senile elf.

And then there’s the forgotten matter of her being a purveyor of ancestral artefacts. The file doesn’t recount whether any are missing, since the woman was wise enough not to proclaim all her possessions to the world, but it’s something. A scratch.

You travel to Albania that Christmas. The neighbours in the peasant’s hamlet have skewed memories, so they provide little help, but the man’s house was left almost untouched.

You tear the place apart and Transfigure it back together when you’re done.

All you find, in the end, is a scrap of an old envelope in a suitcase.

R.R

It could be that it’s old. The cursive seems ancient enough. But you swear the letters have the distinct shape of quill ink — too artful for any pen — and maybe that wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for half a wax seal stuck to the torn edge of the envelope. Stained but silver, the barest hint of two ribbons, a crest, and the letter H.

You return to Hogwarts posthaste.

It’s snowing in the courtyards and you waddle with a duotang under one arm to pretend you’re here for something scholarly, an array of excuses prepared in case you run into Dumbledore, but you don’t.

The Grey Lady is as beautiful as she’s rumoured to be. 

You ask her about her mother, and she’s silent, an expression on her face like you’ve struck her.

“Is it found?” she whispers. The snow floats through her.

Your heart hammers as you consider how to approach this. She thinks you know more than you do, which means there’s something to know.

“Yes,” you say. And you dare further with the context you know, “In Albania.”

“Oh,” she hums. “Oh…”

And if she means to say more she doesn’t seem able, washing away through the balusters, then the walls. You think of your house ghost and what he did to her, and you feel sorry for a second.

Madam Palles expels you from the library the moment you find what you’re looking for, and you rush past a throng of staring students to the staff room fireplace. It’s too far a walk to the border of the castle wards to Apparate. You bite back the preemptive sickness, get swallowed by the flames, and go home.

There are blanks to fill in but you do it easily. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Hepzibah Smith and her assortment of unregistered artefacts. The stain of dark magic. Something so rare not even the aurors recognized it.

But you do, because he told you.

You wonder on your search to find him what object he used when he killed Myrtle Warren. Nothing special, you think — maybe even the closest thing he could find. These murders involved more preparation. He got to mark them however he wanted.

It’s almost disappointing to find him here. In a little flat over Knockturn Alley with a view of charmed coalsmoke and the brick wall of another shop. 

It’s as tidy as his room at Wool’s, the only dirt the irremediable age of the building itself. The whole place looks almost slanted, large enough only for the bare necessities; a kitchen, a toilet, a bedroom that looks more like a closet, and a study/dining room/den you can’t imagine he hosts many gatherings in. You rescind the mere thought. Whatever gatherings Tom Riddle is having these days, you’re sure you can’t begin to imagine at all.

You wait, legs crossed on an old loveseat, fiddling with your wand.

The door clicks open when the snow has turned to hail and there’s no light but the few scattered candles you’d lit on the mantelpiece. 

It strikes you only when he’s standing before you that it’s his birthday.

You’re in Tom Riddle’s flat, on his birthday, adorned by the orange glow of half-melted candles, and you know everything.

He eyes you carefully, a hint of surprise at the sight of you after four years that even he needs a second to recover from. And then he's even, inscrutable Riddle again, and you dare to think, come back.

“I placed wards," he says, hanging his bag on a rack by the wall.

“I thought your door was always open.”

You see his posture change from just his silhouette.

“Wards never work in Knockturn,” you offer additionally, “not really. There's too much conflicting magic; one border cuts into another; leaves a little sliver behind if you’re smart enough to find it. You should know that." 

He turns to you. You take in a moment to acknowledge how he's changed. It's hard to see in the curtained moonlight, and it seems unreasonable to imagine he’s grown, but you think he has. An inch taller, perhaps. Two. Maybe the dress shoes. His arms are bigger under his button-down, but not enough to consider him muscular. His black hair isn't as perfect as you remember, and you suspect a long day of work undoes his curls. You always liked him better that way in school, after a night duel at the Black Lake, his robes askew and his hair a mess. Evidence that you were the only one to dishevel him. Now you were — what? Did he even think of you anymore? Yes. You'd always think of each other.

“Duly noted. What are you here for?” He tries your surname like a foreign language.

You cross your arms, and you're acutely aware that he's observing your changes too. You're not the matchstick witch he once knew. Your emotions are cultured now, taut to mirror his. You wear dull, formal grey, and that glowing green tinge that should be gleaming on you is under a thick carapace. That’s for Mari, Flack, Emilia — even Renauld. Not for Tom.

You wonder if he knows it was Dumbledore who put in the word that got you this uniform. You wonder if he resents you for it.

“There’s been talk at the Ministry," you say finally, “A string of murders. Whispers of something — some dark magic they don’t understand. And you know they're careful about things like that after Grindelwald."

“A string of murders... Hm. That might imply you understand a connective thread. Is there some sort of accusation being made?”

“Oh, I'm sure you'd be flattered by accusations. There’s not enough there, as it stands. Just whispers." You sink more comfortably in the seat and the springs make a concerning sound. “But I know you."

His hard, sharp gaze falters for a moment. You watch the flames dance behind him, the firelight playing against the lines of his shoulders, and feel your heart skip a beat. “Who else is speculating?"

“No one." Your fingers brush over the book spines on the coffee table. “I guess their attention hasn't been drawn to a book clerk yet, even if you have taken residency... here." You say it with no shortage of disapproval. 

Knockturn was never where Tom belonged. You'd once imagined a flat together in muggle London, taking the telephone booth to the Ministry together, changing the world together. It's a wish that's a lifetime away now.

“Is this a warning? I assure you, I don’t need the condescension.”

“I'm not warning you," you scoff, “I — I'm seeing you. God knows I'll probably never get the chance to do that again once you get yourself locked up in Azkaban, which you will." 

You sound exasperated. You sound half-pleading. “What are you doing, Tom? Is this — this is really what you want?"

“Yes."

You shake your head. “I don't believe that." And then some of that fiery spit returns to you, and you feel like a child again, stuck in the London tube stations holding his hand at every plane that flew overhead, scowling that you needed his reassurance. Scowling that you were afraid.

“Well, your conjecture is ever-appreciated. Shall I lend you mine? Shall I congratulate you on your revolutionary position at the Ministry? Or is it Dumbledore I should afford my thanks?”

“I earned this,” you hiss.

“You deserve it,” he amends. “But do not lie to yourself and pretend that’s why you have it.”

“Fuck you.”

He smiles. “There you are.”

“I don’t need your congratulations, Riddle. Dumbledore doesn’t need your damn thanks. But,” you say, biting back the snarl that wants out, “you could thank me. After all, I could turn to the Ministry any minute with the truth of your heritage. I could tell them about Myrtle, the Horcrux — Horcruxes.”

The humour dissolves from his face and you despise the immense glee it brings you.

“Oh, did you think I didn’t know? Didn’t understand the connective thread? You are sentimental under all that… fucking posturing, you know. I’m sure it’s all very romantic to you — making Horcruxes out of Hogwarts artefacts. Shame it’s such an insult to your intelligence.”

“Very good,” he says after a long, terse silence. You’re sure he’s thinking just the opposite.

You hum, meddling with your nails. “So what’s your plan?”

“I’d need a Vow for that.”

You laugh. “I’m not that desperate.”

“You’re also not an auror, are you?” He tilts his head appraisingly. “And yet you’ve found your way here.”

“How many do you plan to make? How many people do you plan to kill?”

“A Vow.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tea, then? Biscuits?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t. I read in the paper the other day about a poor old woman who had her tea poisoned.”

“Hm. Terrible shame.”

Your fist clenches around your wand. “Is it paying off well, Riddle? It must be a good life if you’re willing to split your soul to hell and back to have more of it.”

He smiles at the barb in your words. “You never were good with subtlety.”

“I wasn’t trying to be subtle. This place is horrific.”

“I was referring to your inability to see more than what’s directly in front of you.”

“Oh, really? And what more should I see than a boy who’s very good at getting weak men to bow and do very little else? I’d try to see the bigger picture, but I reckon it wouldn’t fit in here.”

Tom regards you colourlessly. You are slate, Ministry-grey, impermeable like palace portcullis. 

“I suppose I should have killed you.” He says it with the nonchalance of a forgotten chore. He says it like you’re a stain. 

He doesn’t say it like he feels any terrible urgency to remove you; and you think, this time, you’d feel more powerful if he did. You think it’s far more debilitating to sit here and be looked at like he regrets wanting you alive more than he wants you dead.

“Yes,” you concur, “I suppose you should have.” 

You place your wand down on the table and scoot your chair away for good measure. “It’s never too late to rectify your mistakes.”

Tom, for a moment, looks surprised. That makes you feel powerful. You’d take more of that.

“You have wandless magic,” he tries. A weak recovery.

“Scout’s honour, Riddle.”

He doesn’t move for a moment, then fixes his wand in his hand and rises, doused in the same inscrutable calm that always used to drive you mad. Now something in you gleams with the knowledge that he only ever looks like this when he’s trying not to look like anything at all.

He steps closer and it gleams brighter. It trembles inside you and you know, distantly, that this is insane. You’re weighing your life on a childhood trust that was shattered years ago, and you don’t think you’ve ever been that good at faith, but he’s approaching you and that gleam you feel is reflected in his eyes and you just… know. Your spilled blood once crawled with his. There’s no undoing that. Half of you is made of the other.

“I should have killed you,” he repeats.

It’s a murmur. Stilted. Angry, even. Angry that you made him this and there’s no fucking rectifying it — what a joke that is. What an immensely you thing to suggest.

“Yes,” you agree.

It’s a breath. Low. Proud, even. Proud that you’re his only mistake and he’s going to make it again.

Tom kisses you. It’s a murder of its own kind. You kiss him back, and — you were always going to kill each other like this, weren’t you? It’s you and him whether you like it or not.

There should be no love in it. You know that. Love is far behind the both of you, stifled in a gasp at the back of your throat on your eighteenth birthday and the soft, selfish hands of a seventeen year old boy. This is mutual destruction. Spite and teeth and skin that’s cold under your fingers.

He was your first in everything but this.

You push back at him and feel the hunger, the need in him, like a flame as he kisses you deeper and harder, and you find yourself losing yourself to it all over again, like you're back in the dark alcove of a pub where you told him goodbye, pushing to extend the juncture. And then he lets out a hitched, gravelly sound; not a moan but enough to make you shudder.

You pull him onto the sofa and crawl onto his lap.

“How long?” he asks thickly.

You don’t have to ask what he means. You bite against his neck, nails under his shirt as you struggle to pop the buttons open. There must be a violence in all your want for him because if there isn't it's just loss. It's just another thing you'll give him without taking anything back. 

“Sixth year," you pant, “in the Deathday ballroom when we fought for the first time. You — ah — you put your thumb on my mouth. Since then."

You hear a sharp intake of breath, and his hand moves up your back to pull you impossibly closer. His voice is ragged. “Should I tell you how long I’ve wanted you?"

You shudder a breath. “Since —" And it's a bit hard to talk with the way he's rolling your hips — “Since when?"

His lips twitch into a mirthless smile, hands spanning your thighs as you start to rock against him. “When you burned me, and I sent you into the lake." 

You swallow, agonised by the slow pace his grip forces you to keep when all you want to do is go faster. 

“Your uniform was terribly wet,” he says, mouth tracing your jaw. “Did I ever apologise for that?"

“N-no.”

He tuts, the hushed sound warm and deadly on your neck. “Bad manners. I must have been distracted."

Oh. Oh, you think. It seems pointless to flush in the position you're in now, but the knowledge that he wanted you then and you hadn't even known is... all the more devastating. 

But you shiver at the question of how he’d wanted you, in what amount of detail, in what precise way. You almost want to ask. See it for yourself. 

You don't think you'd manage the words. He’s hard underneath you and your head wants to lull toward his shoulder but a big hand holds you from one side of your jaw down the length of your neck, his tongue laving up the other. Instead you’re balanced only by his hands and his mouth, rolling against him because it’s all you can do like this.

He’s marking you, you realise with a gasp, and your fingers bury in his hair to remove his mouth from its descending assault on your collar. Not that. You’d sworn against that.

Your fingers return to his buttons and he copies you by finding yours, pulling at the fabric tucked into your trousers until it’s discarded entirely. You press your hands to the planes of his chest and watch him, your mouth agape as his eyes linger on your chest.

His heart is pounding and he must know you’re about to comment on it because his lips are on yours again and he adjusts his position and your fingers dig into his shoulders at the delicious new feeling of him pressing into your thigh. 

You move for his belt. He moves for your zipper. It’s some sort of race, whatever you’re doing, and you’re at an unfair advantage when you’re still fumbling with his buckle when his hand is already carving a slow path to the band of your underwear. You're scalding under the journey of it, little stars pricking you under every new inch he explores.

He dips in and your eyes wrench shut, grasping frantically for his wrist.

“Shh,” he says softly, caressing your cheek with his spare hand, thumb finding your mouth how it did all those years ago and you want to curse him. The fucker knows exactly what he’s doing.

You shake your head, chest rising with heavy breaths as you return to his belt and scrabble to unbuckle it.

“So tense,” he murmurs. The hand at your cheek draws over your lower lip before it falls to your back to hold you closer. “Rest now.”

And his fingers trace you where you want him most, brushing past your clit as he pulls his face back to watch you.

You sink into the feeling, still swaying on his lap, a half-efforted attempt at finding friction in the hardness between his legs that feels fruitless because it won't be enough until he's inside. Your hand just grips onto the fabric of his unzipped trousers and stays there. It’s a pause. An obstacle on your path to him that you need just a moment to recover from before you’ll make him feel just like this. Better. Worse. It’s hard to tell which is which.

He’s stroking at you now, pleased by the way you lurch against him with every touch.

You have to recover, you have to make it even, you have to… you…

A finger presses inside and you moan.

“You came back to me,” he whispers, close enough to be kissing you but there’s just the stutter of his breath. It's a fucking religious thing to say, the way he does it.

“Doesn’t make me yours,” you breathe.

He shakes his head. “I know. You’ll still take it though, won’t you?”

Oh, fuck.

He makes a sound of approval. “Good.”

Good. Fine. Your hands slip from his zipper to the meat of his thighs, pushing yourself forward so the shape of him is firmer against you, and Tom slips another finger in.

You’ll take it, won’t you? Yes. 

Maybe you don’t need to tear him at the seams (though you want to) to make it even. Maybe this is punishment enough. That he can have you like this and it still won’t make you his, that he’ll give you everything and you’ll lap at it with half the greed he possesses.

You ride his hand, clutching his shoulders, rocking your hips. You take all of it, and it builds something delirious inside you, that it’s him doing this, his perfect fingers, the shape of his lips, the soft dark of his hair when you find your hands in it again. The feeling makes you stutter, and he has to move you by the waist himself to keep the momentum when you can't do it yourself.

He’s painfully stiff, pushing up against you with a degree of self-control that feels like it can only end disastrously for the both of you, and you start smattering kisses down his cheek. You tilt his head back and lick a stripe down his neck. Rest now, you'd say if you could.

But he adds a third finger and your head falls, a cry planted in his collar when you come, and you don't think you say anything.

Tom holds your legs steady, guiding you through it like this is just another one of his studies. You are what he knows better than anything else, and still he wants to learn more.

“Look at you,” he mutters, dipping you back to press his lips down your chest, unclasping your bra while you’re still breaking, the sensation swelling again when he takes a nipple into his mouth.

“Tom,” you try to say. Your mouth is the sticky sort of dry that words refuse to come out of.

“Will you give me more?”

Give, not take. You fuss into a stolen kiss, grappling again with his trousers, pulling them down until you can palm him through his boxers.

He hisses, gripping your wrist like he hadn’t just done the same to you, and then he’s pulling you up and off the couch, trousers discarded with what must be magic because you blink and they’re gone. Greedy boy. (You have no room to judge.) Your back is to the wall an instant before his fingers are on you again, pushing your underwear down your thighs until it falls at your feet like they despised to ever part from you.

You arch to feel him press against your stomach, pushing off the wall so that you can meld to him but he just closes in on you to do it himself.

He goads the heat from you when his fingers push in again, still wet, coiling how you like, where you like —

“Want you,” you protest shakily, hand on his abdomen.

That must kill him a little, because he curses under his breath (a thing he never does) and the immediate absence of his touch is cruel when he goes to free himself from his boxers. You reach for him without thinking as he does, and he pins your hand beside you when your fingers so much as graze the length of him.

You sound frail, but you have to ask. “Is this how you wanted me?”

A cruder version of you would go on. Is this how you pictured it? Taking me against a wall? Have you waited for it all this time?

And you don’t belong to him but you’re so incomprehensibly, contradictorily his. You’ll want him forever. He could do anything, and you’d be his. You could haunt him into his lonely eternity, and he’d be yours. Then, you suppose — haunting him makes him yours by principle.

Maybe you already do.

Tom practically growls into your mouth, pressing against you and — God, it’s skin on skin. He's right there. You could push forward and —

He slides in. You cry out at the feel of him inside you, the angle of it like this.

“I wanted you,” he says lowly, your legs wrapped around him, “everywhere.”

You’re gripping him so tight you think he’ll bleed under your nails and somehow you still feel on the brink of collapse when he thrusts deeper.

“I thought mostly of your mouth,” he rasps. “It felt depraved to imagine it wrapped around me, but then I thought of you splayed out before me instead. That maybe you’d like it if it was my mouth on you.”

You whimper.

“Would you like that?” he asks, hands spanning your hips to snap them into his, like you are a piece removed from him he seeks to reattach.

If you wanted to answer you couldn’t. You’re clinging to him and the rising surge inside you, carved between your legs like something sweltering and unfixable. It rushes in and he pulls out of you. He pushes in and you cry for the release of it, the moment the wave lurches over the edge, but he won’t let you have it.

“But,” he says, and your eyes want to roll back at how heavy his restraint is, callous in the tone of his voice, some leash at his neck he must tug himself lest you take it from him — “If I knew how well you’d take me like this, I would have thought of it much more.”

Taking him, again — you don’t feel at all like that’s what’s happening. You feel possessed. You are buoyant in his arms: his and his and his.

“You can — uh — you can — ”

"Hm?" He brushes down the slope of your brow, your cheek, back to the edge of your mouth, wiping a trail of saliva from your chin. “Poor thing.”

And he slams into you again, drawing a mewl from you that slices your unfinished thought.

You clench around him, flames wild and fluttering at every contact of his skin on yours, and there are too many to count. Too many points where they intersect, just some blend of bodies connected at every curve.

“You’re going to give me more,” he says, like it’s an epiphany when you already told him you would.

You remember then. What you meant to say. “You can take me too.”

You feel him twitch inside you, his pace stilling for a moment, and the thumb on your lip slips into your mouth. Your lips close around him and he curses again.

He fucks you with a finger in your mouth and his teeth clamped over your shoulder, soothing the sting with his tongue. His pace is too slow when he drags his free hand between your legs, but you understand its purpose well enough that the mere recognition almost destroys you. 

He’s patient in bringing you to the edge because there's time here. A slow agony that severs you from the rest of the world until it splits you down the middle. And he may not ever have it again.

You have to promise yourself he’ll never have it again.

But the movement of his fingers against the same spot he’s hitting inside you is too much at once, and you won’t last. You drool around his thumb. You let him mark you. You can see on his neck you’ve marked him too. And you hope impossibly there’s a scar. You hope the little death you coax from him claims him as yours for eternity, keeps him even when you're gone. You tighten, lurch for the edge, and make him mortal once more.

Tom holds you there, your cries reverberating as he sinks another finger in your mouth, and then he’s gasping at your neck, peeling back to look you in the eyes when he spills into you. Your eyes screw together and he releases the sounds you make by holding you by the jaw instead.

“Look at me,” he says, and for the strained need in it you do.

You come down to earth and you kiss him, wetness dripping down your thighs as he pins you to this moment. You love him. You’ll always love him.

He’s still inside you when he’s secure enough to bring you to his bed, only removing himself from you when you’re safely in his sheets, legs surrendering their grip on his waist as you pull apart. You pant into the cold linen of his pillow. Everything smells like him. There’s something empty now; the reason you came today; the reason you left four years ago.

You love him and it isn’t enough. Not even to look at him, the sleepy hint of the boy you knew in his eyes, and know that he loves you too.

“Goodnight, Tom,” you say, finding home in the warmth of his chest.

You’ll dream of a morning where you wake up beside him, but you won’t be there.

[wonwoonlight]

when he finds out you're sick through the internet

A/N: idol!au. OC is also a celebrity though I don't explicitly say what. tiny teensy angst bc cheol is a worried Boyfriend💔 1.5k words! another random word vomits bc that's the only way i know how to write now lol idk why but everytime i write this kinda fic it's always seungcheol looooooooooooooool. not proofread, but enjoy!

[part 2]

Seungcheol doesn't really get angry.

For the three years you've known him in which you've dated him for two, you've only seen him actually get angry a total number of three times. None of them was directed at you, and all of them are for reasons that you would've exploded upon way before he did.

Seungcheol is patient and rational.

Seungcheol is normally patient and rational.

But he's never normal when it comes to you. And even though the patient bit still stands, nothing about his feelings towards you is ever rational. He's a little too emotional, a little too rash, and a little too worrisome when it comes to your wellbeing.

So when he's relaxing in the practice room during a break with his members, for once not on his phone because he's charging it somewhere on one of the tables, and he hears Seungkwan gasps a little upon his phone, he thinks there's another scandal blowing up upon the industry. But when the younger guy's blown out eyes meet him, colors drained from his face, Seungcheol hates that he knew it could mean one thing: something happened to you.

He shoots up almost immediately, not registering any words that come out of Seungkwan's mouth. His hands shake a little when he unlocks his phone, and his heart drops when he reads the official post from your company's twitter account that states your current condition, that you might need to pause your activities for the time being due to health reasons, apologizes for the worries, and asks for the fans' understanding.

He wants to get angry.

At who, he’s not sure.

At your company, for pushing you even though they know your schedule is practically inhumane? At your manager, for not making sure that you have decent rest in between schedules? At you, because he’s been telling you to fucking stop running towards whatever goal you have in mind but you insist that you know your limit and you’ll know when to stop?

Apparently, no you fucking don’t because else this wouldn’t have happened.

The rest of the members look at him in worry, and Jeonghan silently walks to their manager and the other staff to let them know about the situation at hand, that Seungcheol would probably not be in his best state to continue practice at the moment. The leader would probably insist that they continue anyway, but they’ve practiced for almost five hours already anyway and they could spare an hour or two for the leader when it’s clear that he’s worried beyond measure.

Seungcheol bites his lip as he tries to call you, his concern skyrocketing by the seconds the longer the beeping sound goes, no sign of you picking it up. He tries one more time, but you still don’t answer and he’s about to hurl his phone at the wall when your manager calls him instead, tells him that he sees his name flashing on your phone, informs your whereabouts, and that he should just drop by your place in a few hours if he wants to see you because right now you’re still sleeping in the car and he’s taking you home.

He finds it hard to say anything, a lump growing in his throat until he manages to swallow it down and ask how you’re doing right now.

“She’s… exhausted.” Your manager says quietly. “I know it’s my job to take care of her but… you know her. She didn’t tell me that she’s been having a hard time sleeping at night the past few weeks and it finally took a toll on her.”

It’s hard to suppress his anger, his breath heavier than usual though it’s not too noticeable unless they know Seungcheol. He wants to scream at your manager, but he knows it won’t do anyone any good and it’s really not the time nor the place for that. So he mutters a quiet ‘thank you’ before he hangs up, his members looking at him with a mix of worry and understanding when he looks up at them.

“Go.” Soonyoung says. “We’ve practiced enough today. Take care of your girlfriend and tell us later.”

Seungcheol nods and sprints out of the room, beyond thankful that his members always have his back.

Seungcheol is glaring at you when you wake up, though the way his thumb is still softly caressing your head and the worry in his eyes clearly tell you that his anger is nowhere near his distress. 

You offer him a weak smile, unable to defend yourself because you know what his eyes are scolding you for.

“Sorry?” You whisper and immediately cringe at how dry your throat feels.

He doesn’t say anything as he helps you sit down and hands you your favorite mug. Taking in the moment, you frown at how weak you feel, though you really only have yourself to blame because you genuinely thought you’re okay and you can take it.

You know it’s on you for taking as many schedules as possible, practically everything that your company offers you even when your manager says he doesn’t think it’s physically possible for you to do all that in such a short span.

Thinking about it now, you realize that your manager and the rest of your team also gets the short end of the stick through your decision. Him, your make up team, and your stylists would all need to be with you and your ambition forgets to consider their wellbeing even when you wrongly claim you would be able to handle it.

Guilt starts to eat you inside out, and it grows even larger as you see Seungcheol in front of you–didn’t he say he had practice today?–his face screams distressed and his shoulders tense since God knows when.

“Hey, talk to me.” He says softly when he notices you’ve been spacing out and you’re nibbling on your lip like you would when you’re anxious, taking away your mug before enveloping your hands with his.

You tear up almost immediately, and he moves to sit on the edge of your bed to usher you into his chest, patiently listens to your nonsense as you try to talk through your tears. He gets the gist of it: sorry–manager–company–wellbeing–my team–didn’t think it through–made you worry–overestimated myself–sorry–and the list goes on. He exhales as he hugs you tighter, both understanding and upset at the turns of events.

Being in the same industry, he gets what you’re trying to do, understands that you feel the need to keep on running while you’re able to, relates that you’re doing everything for yourself and your fans. But still, it’s hard not to be upset to know you’re pushing yourself too hard when he’s been telling you there’s no need to run as fast as you are without resting; that you’ll only hurt yourself one way or another and he hates that the one time he needs to be right, it’s this.

You end up laying down against his chest on your bed, hiccups and sniffles filling your bedroom along with a random song he’s humming against your head. You pull away to properly look at him, the first time you’re doing it since you woke up earlier, and his hum stops in question.

“Thank you.” You manage to whisper, your fingers grasping the front of his shirt without even realizing. “For being here when I woke up.”

He shakes his head like he doesn’t understand why you’re thanking him, simply leans down to plant a long, chaste kiss against your forehead before he pulls up your blanket so it’ll cover you properly.

“Just… don’t surprise me like that again, okay?” His breath is warm against your face, pleasantly so, and you nod as you promise him that you’ll take better care of yourself moving forward. 

“Are you staying the night?”

“Yes, I’ll return to the dorm the day after tomorrow. They’ve given me a day off.” You cringe at his words, though thankful that he’s been in the industry long enough to attain that kind of privilege. But still, you feel bad that you’re obstructing his practice and his members just because you’re foolish enough to– “Hey. Stop. I know what you’re thinking. No need to feel bad. I’m actually glad I get to rest with you.”

“But–”

“No buts. The kids can do without me for a day.” He playfully bumps his forehead against yours, his lips hover above yours merely centimeters apart.  He doesn’t meet your lips, though he kisses their corner sweetly and wraps you back into his embrace to the point where there’s no space between you two. “Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Good night, Cheol.”

“Night, baby.”

“See you in my dream?”

“I’ll see you anywhere you want me to be.”

He hugs you tighter, and you try your best to return the gesture despite the awkward position of your arms. It’s uncomfortable and you’re sure your arms will be sore the next morning.

But you wouldn’t have it any other way. Not when you succumb to sleep and find Seungcheol smiling at you on the other side of your dream, as real as he can be.

cont.

[number1jeonginstan]

Bed Sheets

Lee Know x roommate afab!reader

A/N: This is the longest fic I've made to this day, so I hope you guys like it. I was supposed to finish it yesterday, but I fell asleep... If you want to be added to my taglist please comment under this post! I hope you guys liked this because it was really fun to write!! I really hope you guys like it!!!!!!

CW: Kinda Perv!Lee Know/big dick Lee Know, but the reader is also kind of pervy. One bed trope! Having to cuddle for warmth trope! Unprotected sex (please don't for your own safety), Lee Know calls reader kitten, cum eating. (idk what else)

WC: 2.6k

It was the dead of winter, snow was falling making the ground look like it was covered in a blanket. It was currently 11 at night, and you had just done your entire nighttime skincare routine. The lotion soaked into your face when your roommate’s cat, Soonie, strutted into your room like he did every night. Purring as he wrapped around your legs and brushed himself against you. You felt like that was your cue to finally put your bed sheets on, ready to curl up with a good book on your silk bedsheets after taking an everything shower. 

“Lee Minho get your ass in here!” you yelled across your shared apartment.  As soon as you placed them down, Soonie threw up all over your sheets. “What?” he walked up to your room, leaning his body on the frame. “Look at what your son did to my bed sheets” You looked at him with a face of disgust, but not anger.

“What do you mean my son? Last time I checked you told me Soonie is yours and laughed when he slept in your room at night instead of mine.” He looked at you with his signature stoic face. 

“But that was before he barfed all over my only sheets,” you whined “Please just clean it up already, you know just the thought of someone vomiting makes me nauseous.” 

“Fine,” he said with a sigh, getting some paper towels from the kitchen. “Where are you going to sleep now though? You only have one set of sheets and I know you don’t want to sleep on the… couch” his face ridden with disgust. 

It wasn’t like the couch was that bad of a place, but when you walked into Jisung fucking a girl on it you vowed to never sit on the couch or be in a 5-foot radius without having to take a shower after. You guys even offered Jisung to take the couch but he said how you guys “now have a little piece of him.” You kicked him out of your apartment after he said that and did not let him come back without cheesecake and a horror movie marathon as a way to apologize. 

“I would rather sleep in Soonie’s vomit than on that couch,” you said with a deadpan face. “Suit yourself,” he replied, already ready to leave your room without cleaning up Soonies… incident. 

“Wait! Come back Minho,” you yelled, “please just clean this up for me. I’ll make you breakfast in bed” you pleaded. He was still walking away, about to go back to his room when you offered something he could not resist. “I’ll buy you pudding for the rest of the month.”

Now that got his attention, he came scurrying back to your room ready to clean your room. “You have a deal, now please get out of my way. The faster I finish this, the faster I can find what places sell the most expensive pudding” he said with a grin.

After he cleaned up Soonie’s mess he came back into your room seeing you on the floor reading your book. “Are you going to sleep on the floor tonight?” he asked knowing if you did you were going to complain about your back all of tomorrow. “I guess that’s what I have to do because I have no sheets to cover the wet spot on my mattress,” you groaned getting ready for the most uncomfortable sleep of your life.

“You can always sleep on my bed if you want” 

“Really? The Lee Minho will let me sleep on his bed? Did hell freeze over? Are you sick?” you questioned. “If you wanna sleep on the floor be my guest.” He shrugged turning out of your room. “Wait!” you ran up to him giving him a bear hug from the backside, “I never said no.” 

He chuckled at your response, “Go to bed, I’m gonna finish cleaning this up.” 

Even though you are Lee Know have been roommates for years, you’ve only been in his room a couple of times. Almost all of them were to wake him up or ask him a question when he wasn’t in the living room. You took everything in as you stepped into his room. Lee Know was a minimalist, not having much in his room other than his desk, bed, dresser, nightstand, and a cat tree for Soonie, Doongie, and Dori. You didn’t really expect much from his room. He had a few pictures of him with you, Jisung, and the rest of his friends. 

“y/n, are you done snooping through my room because I’m tired,” he said to you while taking off his slippers. “Calm down grumpy pants, I’m just assessing what’s going to be my sleeping position, I don’t know what side of your room I like better yet. Don’t you want me to wake up happy enough to make you a delicious plate of breakfast in bed?” you pouted at him. 

“Just get on the damn bed” he grunted at you. You finally got into his bed, his comforter was so nice and cozy, but it was weird having a huge warm body next to you. You finally fell asleep after 30 minutes of tossing and turning. 

You woke up to your body shivering, for some reason, the room was so cold. You turned to see Lee Know also shivering, his body shaking with each breath he took. You shook him awake “Lee Know, please wake up it’s so cold” you whimpered, regretting wearing shorts in the winter. “Fuck, why is it so cold?” he asked you finally realizing how the room felt like it was below freezing. He opened his phone to see a text from your landlord. “The power went out due to the snow and the backup generator isn’t working. That means the heat isn’t working either.” You could hear a tinge of annoyance in his voice. “How are we supposed to keep warm then?” you whined to him. Your body was getting colder by the second and your teeth began to chatter. 

“We could cuddle?” he suggested a bit giggle in his voice. You and Minho cuddle all the time, especially during movie nights on the couch. This was the first time he ever asked you to do it on his bed, but dire times are dire times, so it wasn’t a terrible suggestion. You wrapped your arms and legs around him, and he did the same, making you guys feel like a ball. 

Even after fifteen minutes of trying to combine heat by cuddling, you were still freezing. Your teeth began chattering again and you couldn’t take it anymore. “Minho, is there anything else we could do, I’m still freezing.” 

“There is one more thing we can do, but I don’t think you will like it” he sighed. He was afraid you were going to think he was perverted for even suggesting it. “Please anything, I don’t care what it is, but if I don’t get even a bit warmer in the next 10 minutes I might just turn into an icicle.”

He laughed at you, you were so cute when you were angry. “We could combine body heat,” he said affirmatively. “What do you mean, we are already oh…” you replied. “We can do that, but you're getting naked first, I don’t want to be the only one naked” you giggled. 

“Yah! What do you mean naked?” he asked with a concerned face, “We are still wearing our underwear silly.” He pressed your forehead with his finger. “Obviously, you really thought I was going to get butt naked?” you asked him giggling at his assumption. 

“No, that’s not what I thought, I thought you thought that.” He kept rambling until you stopped him. “Please can you just take off your clothes, I’m going to die from hypothermia or whatever it is.” 

He sighed, taking off his shirt and pants as you did the same. You couldn’t see much in the dark of the night, but you forgot how broad his shoulders were. You sometimes forget how beautiful Minho was because he constantly pestered you. “Are you done staring at me?” he asked. You looked at him gobsmacked “I am not staring! Plus you can not even see my eyes, mister. Now get to cuddling.” you said with the most assertive voice you could muster. You were thanking god that he couldn’t see the blush that was riddled on your cheeks, and the same went for him. 

The last time he saw you naked was by accident. You were in your room changing and he opened the door without knowing. Somehow you didn’t notice or hear him, but he saw you. You were wearing a lace bralette and cute white panties with a pink bow on it. He just stared in awe and quickly turned into his room to take a cold shower, which didn’t help, at all. That was engraved in his mind for months, and he would feel guilty every time he jerked off to the thought of you, on your knees taking you in his mouth, or him pulling aside your cute little underwear and fucking you til all you knew was his name. He would never admit this out loud, but he was obsessed with you. He just didn’t have the balls to tell you. 

You finally wrapped yourself around him again, feeling his entire body pressed into yours. Finally feeling warm and at peace, you fell asleep in his arms. Minho, on the other hand, couldn’t fall asleep. The feeling of your body pressed against his was something he could only imagine in his wildest fantasies. It was taking everything out of him to not just rut his hardening cock into you. He tried and tried to fall asleep, that was until he could feel your pussy grinding straight onto his cock, moaning his name. 

“Fuck kitten, don’t do that to me” he moaned. You slowly woke up to hear his moan, rubbing your eyes awake. “Minho?” you asked with such innocence in your voice he felt like he could cum right there and then. “Kitten, go back to sleep, nothing happened.” 

“I can’t, I’m so wet, just for you” you pleaded, he could see your doe eyes pleading even through the dark. “Fuck,” he replied. 

Little did he know, you purposely pretended you were sleeping. Him liking you was no surprise to you. You knew that he saw you in your underwear and you knew he had been jerking off to you. You heard him when you came home early one day. The image of him moaning your name while cumming all over himself was engraved in your mind. You would fuck yourself on your vibrator thinking of him. You were waiting for the perfect opportunity, and you were finally given one. 

You slowly palmed his dick through his boxers. “Don’t start something you can’t finish kitten” he grabbed your hand. “But I want it so bad” you whimpered into his ear kissing it and then his lips slowly. He couldn’t take it anymore. He flipped himself on top of you, kissing your neck. “You wanted this didn’t you?” trailing his kisses down your neck to your chest biting along as he went. “Fuck, I wanted it so bad” you moaned into his ear. “Wanted this for so long you have no idea.”

“You don’t know what you do to me,” he whispered into your ear before pulling your bralette down and sucking on your nipple. You could feel his erection on your thigh. It was throbbing and you needed to feel it inside of you. “Please, need it in me Minho,” you whispered. He waited for you to say those words for the last two years. 

“Fuck kitten, I need you around me, but I gotta stretch you out first.”  He slowly pulled down your panties, removing them and putting them in his nightstand drawer for later. Slowly putting one finger into your soaking cunt. “So good Minho, so good sir.” He moaned in response. “Can’t believe one finger is enough for your cunt to squeeze around my finger like this. You are gonna let me add a second one, let me stretch you out to get ready for my cock aren’t you?” 

“Yes sir, going to be so good for you, going to let you fuck me with your big cock. Please, sir, give me another finger, I need you, need to cum around your fingers.” you pleaded. 

“Awe, does kitten need another finger, I’ll give you another finger.” he slowly added another one, and to give you more stimulation he ran his tongue against your clit. “Fuck!” you yelled and started yanking on his hair. “Fuck, this pussy is sweeter than any pudding I’ve ever eaten. You are going to let me eat it any time I want, right kitten?” he moaned against your clit. That’s all you needed to cum. Your body shaking feeling his fingers hit that spongey spot inside you over and over again.  

He slowly took his cock out of his boxers, stroking it. It was the biggest you think you have ever had, but also the prettiest. It wasn’t too thick, but it was long. You didn’t know how you would be able to take it inside of you. “Don’t worry y/n it will fit, you are going to take my cock so well aren’t you?” 

“Yes sir, going to take it so well” you whined wanting to feel it inside you. He was going back to his nightstand drawer when you reached out your hand to stop him. “Please give it to me raw, I’m on birth control and I’m clean.” Just by you saying that and the thought of cumming inside you was enough for him. “I’m clean too, but are you sure y/n, I don’t mind wearing a condom.” Before he could even finish his sentence, you grabbed his cock, slipping his tip through your folds. “Want it inside of me raw Minho,” you whimpered. That was enough confirmation for him. 

He slowly pushed his cock into you, the stretch not feeling too much because he already prepped you, but it was so deep, you felt like you could cum from him just putting it inside of you. “Fuck kitten, your pussy is taking me so well, wish we did this before, it’s like you were made for me.” he moaned while thrusting into you. He slowly started playing with your clit. “Wanted you so bad sir, wanted you for so long.” That’s all he needed to start thrusting into you deeper. Each thrush hitting your g-spot perfectly. With the stimulation of his finger on your clit, you couldn’t do it anymore. You started clenching down on him harder and harder. 

Your cunt was locking him in and all he could do was groan. The final push was when he moaned directly into your ear. You came all over his cock letting your moans hit his ear. He pulled out of you stroking his cock “Where do you want me to cum kitten, where do you want it?” 

“I want it in my mouth” you begged and that was all he needed. He pushed his cock into your mouth causing you to deep throat it, cumming down your throat. “Fuck, I can’t believe we didn’t do that sooner.” you giggled. He kissed your cheek “I agree.” 

You both fell asleep in each other’s arms only for you to wake up to make him breakfast like you promised. He came up behind you seeing you wearing his shirt and gave you a big hug “You know I could get used to this more often” he said kissing your cheek.

[jeon-ify]

that night : j. yunho - pt. 1

a/n: this is my first actual fic since i’ve just been posting scenarios and requests :3 !! this idea came from listening to ‘you broke me first’ by tate mcrae. its a great song and it reminds me of yunho but toxic yunho. it would kinda be good if you listen to the song while reading !! idk girl i just write

genre: smut, drama, early 20s- mid 20s romance, toxic/dark romance, 18+

warnings: smut, dark romance, toxic!yunho, yunho has a threesome with y/n’s best friends, yunho is a cheater, reader swears a lot, yunho calls reader a psychotic bitch, san is a druggie, alcohol, cocaine, yunho begs, yunho gets sad and guilty, reader claims she moved on, san is annoying as hell, wooyoung is readers bestie!!

“san! i haven’t talked to you in so long, i’m sorry! how have you been?” your phone rang, you look to see that san called you about 20 times. you’ve been ignoring him, since he’s done almost every drug under the sun in the past year since you all have moved to different cities.

“man I called you 6 times. stop playing dumb. yunho’s asking about you again, please call him back. i’m sick of his shit.” san sniffles sharply. you’re sure he’s doing crack again, but when is he not?

you did not want to hear about yunho. you haven’t heard about or seen him in almost 4 years now, recovering from that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~

you call yunho, in hopes that he’d pick up. you left him a voicemail asking if he’d want anything from target when you were off work tonight.

*hello!! it’s yunho, sorry i couldn’t take your call. leave a message and i’ll call back!*

“i’m gonna stop at target, babe. did you want anything? love you, call me back.”

you finish your target run, grabbing a set of shampoo and conditioner and other necessities as you’ve been out of your favorites for a week now. you step out of the car, grabbing your bags and unlocking the door to yunhos apartment. you didn’t live with him, but you practically did since you were there almost every day of the week.

“~yuyu, fuck its so good! so big!” “you fuck us so good oh my god.”

“you’re both so fuckin’ pretty. my god.”

no fucking way.

your heart dropped to your ass, at a loss of every word in the dictionary. you felt like you were being run over by a truck 100 times over.

it felt like every moment with yunho was flashing at once.

he told you he loved you a million times a minute, you thought you were the only one. you thought that yunho would love you and only you, but how could you be so stupid to trust anyone else again?

you walk to where the noise is coming from, tears flooding your eyes, threatening to fall. the door is cracked a little, you see a pile of black hair and red hair mixed, one on top of the other. one of the girls has a tattoo on her wrist while the other has one too— it looks all too familiar.

one tattoo being a moon, the other being a sun.

your best friends.

you want to cut off the star tattoo on your wrist so fucking bad. how could they ever betray you like this? they never approved of yunho, but he’s inside both of them, fucking them on your shared bed. in your (what was once) home.

you didn’t even want to acknowledge the situation, instead you dropped the target bag at the door of the bedroom, leaving as soon as you could.

hours later, yunho calls. no answer.

you stare as your phone rings.

*32 missed calls from yuyu 🫶🏻✨*

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: hey, sry i didn’t call back. where’d u go?

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: babe?

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: y/n, pick up the phone.

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: not funny.

Read at 12:43AM

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: ur reading my fkn messages but ur not answering n its pissing me off

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: alr whatever lmao dnt pick up.

Today at 5:21AM

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: i cnt sleep, thibkin about yoj

*2 missed calls from yuyu 🫶🏻✨*

you watch your phone ring, waiting for the ringing to stop. your tears flow, deciding to call him back.

“baby? my fucking god, i mis-missed you. *hiccup* had me worried sick.” he slurs. he’s fucking crying.?

“you’re a fucking liar. my best friends? you’re drinking, you piece of shit. and you’re fucking crying?”

“relax, they’re not your best friends and i know that cus they did that to you, plus me and you baby, we don’t belong to each other. been wanting to leave. felt so fucking locked up. you won’t let me do what i want, you controlling fucking psychotic bitch.”

what the fuck.?

you watch the time on the phone call increase as he mumbles what you really meant to him.

you feel like you really did trap him, but you both didn’t agree on a poly relationship. for him to fuck your best friends is an insane thing to do to someone.

you end the phone call after 57 minutes of yunho talking about how much he fucking hated you for never letting him fuck your friends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“i’m never talking to that piece of shit again and never bring him up to me. i have things to do, i’ll text you.”

you hung up the phone after 35 seconds.

you’ve grown past the situation with yunho, healing and becoming a better person. you were single, traumatized from your past relationships being a burden on you. but, your best friend wooyoung always supported you through and through. he wanted what was best for you, even though he introduced you to yunho. it wasn’t wooyoungs fault that yunho had fucked up (or was already fucked up), he just wanted to help you find someone. you had your own apartment, your own car and your own lash studio. you were booked for days on end, always working and being your own person.

but, with healing comes pain.

you’d occasionally think about yunho, how he’d pamper you in gifts and he’d take you anywhere you wanted. you thought about the nights that you’d cried to him, he’d hold you in his warm chest, making sure you were held and you didn’t feel alone. you sometimes still toss around in bed, thinking yunho was next to you, on your right side. you’d still bake matcha and white chocolate cookies as if he’d eat them with you, a reminder that you loved yunho— as your love language was baking— and every time you see those cookies, your heart begins to ache.

you pick up your phone and text your best friend, as he’s the only person you go to for anything.

—————-

to: woo 🧍🏻‍♀️

y/n: bitch get up

y/n: r u awake yet

y/n: GET THE FUCK UP BRO ITS AN EMERGENCY

y/n: if ur not up in the nect 5 minutes i’m calling the cips

y/n: next *^ & cops^*

y/n: man i just need to talk 😩 san called me

*seen*

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: girl what the FUCK

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: did u call the cops yet

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: is the cop hot

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: bitch WHI CALLED

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: im calling u rn answer

your best friend calls you in no less than 3 minutes after your series of texts.

“why is san calling you? what’d he want?” wooyoung asks, concern masking his voice.

“woo, i just started feeling like i finally moved on from all that bullshit. he fucking calls me like ‘oh yunho wants to talk to you’ and i’ve been dodging yunho for fucking ever. i know he’s been calling me but-“ you ramble to him. he cuts you off, questioning:

“did you ask him what he wanted from you?”

“it doesn’t matter because im over it and im over fucking everything. its all bad news and i don’t wanna go down that hole again, woo. if you’re so curious ask him yourself. i don’t care and i honestly don’t wanna know.”

“okay. i won’t ask.” wooyoung says in defense. he has a sixth sense, and his sense is telling him that maybe something is wrong with yunho, or maybe he wants to try to give you the closure you deserve. though he already gave you closure— just not the kind you expected from someone you’ve loved for 6 years.

but a part of you really wanted to know why he called. a little portion of your heart still aches for yunho, but you’re healing, remember?

the phone call ends after small talk, and you stare at yunho’s contact info for 7 minutes. you open messages and read the last message he sent you. you have him blocked, but you know it’s his number.

May 19th, 2021 at 3:21AM

*You have new messages from (***)***-**** *

(***)***-****: baby, i’m so sorry.

(***)***-****: you won’t ever forgive me, but i’ve changed. my star, my love, my moon, my sun.

(***)***-****: i can’t sleep anymore.

(***)***-****: i’ll leave you alone, okay?

December 10th, 2022 at 1:21AM

(***)***-****: i can’t live without you.

(***)***-****: it’s been so fucking long

(***)***-****: js need to see ur face. keep staring at the same pic but it was so long ago

(***)***-****: my messages are green, why are they green?

(***)***-****: i met someone today, his name started with an M but i can’t remember what his name was

(***)***-****: he’s helping me heal. ik i don’t deserve to heal but i wanna be better bc u deserve better

(***)***-****: i wanna be the one for u my love

(***)***-****: i fucked up but pls believe me when i say i’ll change for u bb

(***)***-****: i’m going to sleep, goodnight my angel

January 8, 2023 at 7:08PM

(***)***-****: everythibg remjnds me of u baby

(***)***-****: ur everywhere i go

(***)***-****: ur everything i see

(***)***-****: mingi won’t let me live diwn what i did to u

(***)***-****: i deserve to fucking die

(***)***-****: i really lost u

Today at 10:32PM

(***)***-****: i still miss you, my love.

(***)***-****: want you to carry my children and be in my life forever.

(***)***-****: i’ve bettered myself. i’ve changed, please let me see you again.

*seen*

shortly after you open his book of messages, your phone rings.

*2 missed calls from (***)***-**** *

———————

you watch your phone ring twice, your heart dropping 6 times over, you didn’t think he would be this bad about it, but maybe he aches for you the same way you ache for him.

maybe yunho is sorry. maybe he changed and maybe he wants to be with you again.

your phone rings again, the same phone number showing up, as your shaky hands press the green button.

silence. the first 8 seconds is silent as yunho tries to process and come up with what he’ll say to you.

he tried calling you for 3 years on end, you’d blocked him. he was so used to your voicemail being the only thing left of you to heal him.

“h-hello?” there it is. the voice you refused to hear for almost 4 years, its there. it’s no longer only in your head, it’s his voice on the other side of the 7 inch screen against your ear.

his voice makes your stomach twist and turn, your hands sweating as your chest forms a hole within itself.

“you don’t need to say anything, just listen to me, hm? you can hang up any second you want, but if your heart still aches for me the way mine does for you, you’d listen.

my love. i’ve ruined you and tore you to shreds. i don’t even know where i begin. you are the most precious thing that has ever happened to me. the minute you entered my life, i took you for granted and fucked up. i didn’t realize how much i loved you or how much you meant to me until you left. that night is a blur to me, you didn’t deserve any of that. you deserve to be treated like royalty, you deserve to be treated in the most beautiful and enchanting way because that is how you made me feel. but i went and fucked that up for the both of us. i didn’t mean what i said to you. i was drunk but that’s no excuse to talk to you the way i did. it’s not right. it never was.

the only time i ever find myself doing right is when i beat myself up for doing you wrong.

i stay at the same apartment, san comes over and does whatever he needs to do but i haven’t touched a drug since you left me. the minute you left was the minute i decided to better myself. mingi is helping me be the person i want to be for you. my god, i hate myself for everything ive done to you. i’m not asking for your forgiveness, i know you won’t give it to me. but i want you to know that i still am here and i still love you. i love you better and i love you the way you deserve.

are you still with me, y/n?”

he breathes. you breathe. you finally breathe.

“i- yunho. i don’t know how to feel about any of this, you really hurt me and i can’t trust anyone anymore. you fucked my best friends, in our room. i don’t even know why i even looked at my phone or why i even answered san when he called me. i’m doing better, but you calling me again is really making me feel like i’m falling down that hole again.” you try your hardest to not let him hear you grow weak to his confession. his heart caved in, and his stomach grew empty when you’d brought up his mistake.

“i understand. i won’t push or do anything to make you uncomfortable. but, i want to have coffee with you, or one of us can come over and we can talk about this, hm?”

you sigh. you felt like all the healing and all the self care you’ve been doing is going straight down the drain.

but do you wanna listen to what he has to say?

“i’m free tomorrow afternoon. but i can’t stay long.” is all you say. you don’t wanna keep this conversation going, nor do you even want to talk about this at all. you are growing selfish; only wanting to see yunho because you miss the attention you used to get from him.

“as long as i get to see you, its okay. i look forward to talking to you, y/n. been waiting forever. is 4:30 fine with you?” he sniffles and lets out a calm chuckle from within his throat.

he’s aching just as much as you are.

“yes. goodnight, yunho.”

“goodnight, star.” that nickname. the same nickname that dragged you into his lore. he speaks lightly. the phone call ends and he sounds like an angel, making your head spin and your heart confused.

you don’t know whether to trust yunho again because, maybe, he is sorry. maybe he wants to make things right with you.

for the rest of the night, you cannot sleep. you don’t decide on going tomorrow, you really don’t want to face yunho after what he did to you. after 4 hours of tossing and turning, rereading texts from yunho, drinking water, and listening to nothing but the buzzing in your ear, you finally manage to get sleep.

—————————————————————————————

first fic!! yay!! i know yall are gonna hate yunho because what he did to y/n is trash and ass and all of the above. i hope you guys start to understand yunho further in the story. idk what im gonna do with this fic but i hope i come up with part 2 in a timely manner cus i dont want it to be dragged lol. but!!!!!!!!!! i hope you all like this fic just as much as i HATE it 😋

[nothingbutnowhere]

Hockey player au! Simon "Ghost" Riley headcanons. Based on the NHL

Note: suggestive of ghoap and ghoap x reader (she/her used)

Goalie. Starter. Tall, large, and most importantly: weird. Goalies are always weird, idk they just are, it's what happens when you spend half the game hanging out alone I guess

The best part of goalie Ghost is his flexibility. Have you seen how flexible goalies are? These huge, muscular men can do the splits. It's very important to me that you consider flexible Ghost, thank you.

His mask is black and white, matches his tattoos. He's the unshakable goalie, not flashy, never frustrated. Just a brick fuckin wall. If he sees it, he's going to stop it. You cannot snipe on him and score. Also his rebound control is unreal, no second chances.

He never retaliates against opposing players fucking with him because no one fucks with him due to:

His death glare, it's enough to make any and every enforcer or net nuisance shake in his skates

The Incident in the minors where he sent a guy to the hospital with a jab from his blocker and almost got kicked out of the league and banned from the NHL

On the off chance that something untoward does happen on accident, someone else will do that for him. The bond between a goalie and his defensemen cannot be understated. Ok fine. Soap. He's the defenseman, there's the spoiler.

Very superstitious, has his routines and does not deviate. Doesn't ever take his mask off on the ice, except when it breaks. Doesn't even pull it up to squirt water on his face or drink.

The loyalty that his skaters have towards him and vice versa is off the charts. Even if the media and fans don't see it, it's there. Usually guys don't speak poorly of their goalies, but this is on another level. Ferda.

Speaking of, social media people can never catch him. Like seriously where does this guy even walk in the building?? Where does he go during intermission?? Surely he practices at some point right?? He won the Veznia trophy (voted best goalie) and straight up did not show up to the ceremony.

He will go to the children's hospital to do visits with the team and the kids are either terrified or love him. Picturing him giving out the little teddy bears 😭

Caught covid despite his vigilant PPE usage (hockey locker rooms are cesspools like ew), got really sick, and developed myocarditis; ie almost died multiple times, recovered insanely fast and then just showed back up to practice one day at 100% like "put me in coach". No one outside of the trainers and locker room even knew why he was gone to begin with. Wild stuff.

Hockey players tend to tack on an '-y' or sometimes '-er' to a name for funsies but no one gets to call him 'Ghosty'. (Maybe Soap can call him that in private, as a treat 🥺)

Hockey hair status: he shaves his head boooo (not that you'd even be able to tell really with his mask and use of hats and hoods). Won't even grow out facial hair during the playoffs. Maybe if he did then he'd have a cup. Smh.

Roster pic: the meanest mug you've ever seen on a guy

Mic'd up status: everyone thinks he's unmic-able, however he's secretly telling jokes to himself when the puck is in the other zone. But no one needs to know that.

WAG status: if he had one we would never know... Right? He's always in the background of photos that Soap's girlfriend takes and posts of her and Soap? Much speculation.

...

I do NOT consent for my works, part of my works, or my ideas to be used for ANY form of AI.

Note: WAG stands for wife and girlfriend or the plural, used to refer to sports guys significant others. Yes it is heteronormative.

A/N: I'll never actually write fics for this, but I have headcanons. I know a moderate amount about hockey and next to nothing about cod so apologies. Completely unserious. Just some silly little thoughts :) plus letterkenny reference!

Edit for typo

More hockey au: Soap | Gaz | Price

[a-spes]

I litteraly can't stop thinking about this post from @whumped-by-glitter ~ Like, can we (please) take a minute to think about how perfect it's for Wandanat or BlackHill x young!R where they take her out of the Red Room?? | Warnings & Tags : messy blurb? (imagine? idk, just wanting to share my thoughts, and couldn't stop writing), mainly BlackHill, mentions of the Red Room/past abuses, no idea if that makes sense. Imagine, teen or young adult R that fails a mission, and is captured by SHIELD/The Avengers. R isn't really cooperative, even if she is not under mind control anymore, she firmly believes that. However, Nat just can't accept the idea of leaving her rotting in a cell for the rest of her life for something that isn't really her fault. Despite what R can say, Natasha wants to believe that it's not true, and that she will be able to show her that life is way more than the Red Room.

But it's not that easy. Nat more than anyone else knows that you don't come back from the Red Room that easily, and she can only assumes that it would be worst for someone that went under mind control. And she was right. At first, she tried to introduce you to how life outside is, how sweet it could be, but she quickly noticed that it didn't work. Whenever she asks you a question about what you would like, she gets no answer. If she doesn't tell you to eat or to go somewhere, you don't do it. The amount of time you didn't followed her or talked because she didn't especially told you to do so is insane, especially in the beginning. So she decides to do what she thinks it's best, even if she hates it: giving you order, being stern with you, offering you a place you know, where you feel safe (no matter how sick it's) because you can predict it, a space where you'll be fine as long as you do as your ask. The world is a big and scary place in which to evolve in, especially when you don't have the keys to understand it - what you do something you're not supposed to, and you're punished for that? R will eventually come here, but it'll definitely takes a lot of time.

But obvsiouly Nat' is hating herself for that. She knows she has to do it, for you, but it doesn't make it easier. She does it because she believes it will help you to feel better, and because if you're under her orders, they have less reasons to be worried that you would attend something under Dreykov's name (or try to go back to him). She feels guilty, and old thoughts about her not being better than the man that made them are coming back. But Maria/Wands are here to help their wife <3

AND SO, here is how I see things if it's WandaNat we're talking about - I picture Wands as the soft mom she is shown as in Wandavision, and she would definitely not appreciate Nat's methods. She trusts her wife, she knows that she has her reasons, and it must be the best way to help you, but she still doesn't like it. She hates the way you always look down, the way you would do everything her wife is asking without thinking twice about it, and most of it, she hates when you're calling Nat' "ma'am" or something else of that kind. She hates even more than her wife isn't saying anything. She didn't know you for long, but she already loves you as her own, and it pains her when you reject her. Sometimes, she and Nat would argue about the whole situation (and those arguments would definitely go too far).

BUT imagine if it's BlackHill?? Even better in my opinion, and definitely can't stop thinking about it ~ Because, unlike Wanda, Maria is directly concerned. She read your file, she saw footages of you killing dozens of people, she tracked you, lost men in the process, and she saw how you didn't seem to regret anything when she questioned you. So Maria has every reasons to be worried, especially for her wife's security (physically and mentally). What if it's just a part of a biggest plan to attempt to kill the redhead? Or worst, to take her back there? I can easily Maria being upset, and taking it out on the other recruit she is training (poor them), not daring to do much more than glaring at you, knowing her wife wouldn't appreciate. And even if she doesn't appreciate R, she trusts and love her wife, so she lets her do her thing. But she is always somewhere looking at you with a stern face, waiting for the moment you would make a mistake to step-in. But you never really make a mistake, always following Nat's orders at the perfection, which is kinda frustrating because then she has no reason to get rid of you. Except if one day R's misunderstood one of Nat's orders, which lead to a heavy situation <3 It's honestly the only situation I imagine leading to an argument between Maria & Nat. Like, maybe you hurt someone or stole something or idk, thinking you did good, and they would be proud, but when you come in the room they're just looking at you with that shocked face. But you did what you had to, no? That's exactly what you were asked to do, so why are they angry? AND IMAGINE THE ANGST FROM NOW. R's confusion, Nat' desesperatly trying to find a solution, trying to convince Maria that it was just a mistake (that was her fault because she is the one that wasn't careful with her words) but she doesn't change her mind. Pulling the "what if it happens again?" and "I am your superior, you don't get to discuss my order" cards, knowing that it would pain Nat', but she has to do it in order to keep her safe. Bonus point if Nat turns to Fury, trying to convince him as she knows her wife won't change her mind, but he doesn't say much, just agreeing with her agent, mumbling a simple "sorry" Nat doesn't want to hear. Obviously, it would eventually

AND (because there is more), I also can't stop thinking about that comment from @light-me-on-pyre ;

Like, I can easily imagine R hating Nat'. It would make so much sense because she grew up in a place where Nat' was pictured as the enemy, the one that betrayed "the ones that gave everything to her". But it wouldn't be the exact reason why R is hating Nat'. I mean, right, she hates her because she left, but mainly because of the consequences it had for the ones that came after - the worsened conditions, the mind control, etc - and how she succeed what's supposed to be impossible: leaving the Red Room. Not only physically, but mentally. Imagine R seeing Nat' on the news when she is on a mission or seeing her interacting with Maria/the Avengers, witnessing Nat' being happy. It's something she was told she doesn't deserve/will never have from a young age, so why would Nat' have the right to be happy when so many didn't? It was so much easier to hate on Nat' than on Dreykov all these years because she wasn't here, and no one would blame her to do so. But now? It's easier to continue hating Nat', for R to convince herself that the redhead is bad despite the appearances because it's easier than admitting that her whole life is a lie (kinda). And the fact that Nat' has to take the "bad guy" role in order to help R only makes things easier because, in the end, she is not different from the others, right? And so, as Nat' can't provide R the comfort she needs, it's all on Maria (at least for the beginning) who doesn't have a choice. But we all know that despite her cold demeanour, she is all soft, she is just scared for the ones she loves <3 Which includes Nat', because she saw how her wife is affected by your arrival. First, she has nightmares again because, with you, inevitably came back old memories and traumas. Then, Maria can see how her wife is so invested in your case that she barely sleep/eat/ (which is one of the reasons why she doesn't really appreciate R ...). But also, what would happen if they can't save you?

Bonus point if things get better but something happen, and everything get worse again, throwing away all these months of progress. But what if they don't have the patience to start all over again?

It's definitely (one of) my favorite trope because the amount of angst/comfort it holds is insane, and I am going crazy about it (you can tell by the lenght of that post that was supposed to be a few lines ...). Do I want to write something like that when I already have too many WIPs? Yes. Will I do it? I don't know, but I'll definitely be thinking about it 24/24 & 7/7.

[pomegranate]

I rewatched “Hanky Panky”, an episode I don’t revisit very often - in my opinion, it’s not a very good exploration of BJ and his faithfulness, and the concept kind of falls flat for me. The lovely @captainhunnicutt explains it perfectly in this post.

What it does do, however, is provide a fascinating depiction of Hawkeye reacting to his best friend being unfaithful. This turned out way longer than I wanted it to, so:

We see Hawkeye go through several phases, re: BJ and cheating. First, he teases him about it and the viewer is reminded (clumsily, see Shan’s post) that BJ is the ultimate family man - directly contrasting the charmingly lecherous Hawkeye.

Then we see the scene in the mess tent where they all get mail (BJ gets three letters! what a family man). BJ notices Carrie getting upset and leaving the tent, and he follows her, while Hawkeye silently observes BJ getting up from the table and leaving.

We don’t see Hawkeye again until the mess tent the next morning, where BJ shows up and Hawkeye plays up the worried parent angle before saying this. Note his posture during this scene; he crosses his arms when BJ shows up and when he says the line below, he shifts ever so slightly closer to BJ.

When BJ says he was sitting up with a sick friend, Hawkeye gleefully says “tell me all about it”, still enjoying getting a rise out of BJ. And then Carrie shows up and it’s obvious to everyone that something happened between her and BJ.

I know other people have talked about this scene so I’ll try to be brief, but Hawkeye is suddenly more awkward than we normally see him.

Hawkeye: “Donovan, you look like a new woman! Not that there was anythingwrong with the old one.” Carrie: “Thanks, I feel better.” Hawkeye: “Well, why shouldn’t we all feel good? Our work is so rewarding. Always lending a helping hand. Doing unto others.” BJ: “Hawk, your mouth runneth over.” Hawkeye: “I'm just teasing. I mean, do I know what I'm saying? Whatever it is, I don't mean it. Should I go?” BJ: “Just stop talking.” Hawkeye: “I will as soon as I get my foot out of my mouth. I think I'll put it someplace else. Ah, I'm being paged at the pool! Well, you two carry on. [laughs nervously] Strike that. This is me leaving. Here I go. Bye. So long.”

Hawkeye flees the mess tent and we don’t see him again until the Swamp, where BJ is writing a letter to Peg about what happened. He shows up and makes himself a martini before sitting down to be the comforting friend that BJ needs him to be.

(btw: in trying to goad BJ into opening up, Hawkeye says, “Pour your heart out. I'm a doctor, I can fix it.” Which is a line that makes me go nuts but anyway.)

So BJ opens up to Hawkeye and vents about how he doesn’t want to be unfaithful to Peg! He loves his family and is lucky to have what he has! Hawkeye is, of course, soft and sympathetic.

He realizes BJ was busy when he came in and asks him about it, and is immediately outraged when BJ explains that he’s confessing to Peg.

Hawkeye then makes BJ take a vow: “I promise to be a good and faithful husband, to write nice, cheerful letters home, to think of Peg often, and to keep my fat hands off Nurse Donovan.”

and then makes a vow of his own: “I, Hawkeye Pierce, vow that some day, I will take a vow just like his.”

Then we come to another awkward Hawkeye moment, where he finishes making his little vow and throws on a scarf, saying he’s “a little late for a very important date”.

Idk but Hawkeye didn’t seem like he had any plans when he entered earlier, and I know the obvious Doylist answer is “well they didn’t really think this scene through and we are simply meant to assume Hawkeye is going on a date”. But to me, it comes across as though he’s once again uncomfortable about the whole situation and has to flee BJ’s presence again.

It’s interesting to see how Hawkeye was very much having fun teasing BJ with the theoretical idea of him being unfaithful at first, but when he realizes that it’s actually happened - that BJ is not infallible and can & will have sex outside of his marriage if he lets himself - Hawkeye becomes incredibly nervous.

To go full Beejhawk in my interpretation of this episode, it feels like Hawkeye has been harmlessly flirting with BJ and enjoying having an unattainable crush on his best friend, knowing nothing could ever happen. And when he realizes that BJ can be pushed to be unfaithful, it rattles him. He has BJ make that vow and then vows to make his own version of the vow BJ made (not even touching that) and that’s that. What's the point of this post? I don't know tbh but I had to dump these thoughts somewhere and I've already done enough shouting at my pals on Discord. TL;DR: Hanky Panky is a weak episode in terms of exploring BJ's brush with infidelity but it's so interesting to look at with Beejhawk goggles on.

[vintagelacerosette]

Tag game 🩷🎀

Hosted by the wonderful Jess @jrooc

Sorry for the lateness!! I was tagged by these twinkling starlights Kaka @stocious Dosho @doshiart Kat @mybrainismelted Pie @gallapiech Ice @spookygingerr Michelle @mmmichyyy Willow @ian-galagher Jen @wehangout Georgia @iansw0rld Cyn @ms-moonlight-inn Evie @ energievie Gigi @guinguin1984 Becki @francesroserecs Michelle @michellemisfit

Thaaankss 🥰

Name and A03 handle:

Shermyn/Myn & Dynastyria (no written works yet!💕)

Current Location:

On the lounge couch

Favourite picrew (don’t have one? you can skip this or do this one)?

So many to choose from!!!

Picrew 1 (I am obsessed with cardcaptors) , Picrew 2 (Willow made of usss & I treasure itttt 😍) Picrew 3 & Picrew 4 (bc who doesn't love a good bread bowl)

What’s one thing you want in a picrew?

I think more body size inclusively 🙌🏻

Favourite thing you’ve created (or seen created) for the fandom?

Tie between Molly's draw this in your style/Gallacrafts & 2024 gallavich valentine's!

Why is it your favourite?

It's the first time a drawing really looked how I thought it did in my head & I impressed myself. Also, I'm obssessed with the pastels in the gallavalentine. 🩷🩵💜

Did it come easily or was it hard to create? 

Hard bc I find body poses hard, then I start to procrastinate bc of that, but then I've got the deadline so it makes me stressed haha

Last ao3 fic you commented on?

from way up there (you and I, you and I) by the amazing @sam-loves-seb It was the cutest I couldn't even!!!

Biggest WIP heartache you’ve ever experienced? 

Where the Feigned Wind Falls by the very talented & missed Jenna @ianrightsonly

Thank you for sharing your story & I hope one day you'll come back 🥰

Favourite trope or head canon you like included in a fanfic?

Ohhh gotta be lust at first sight, then we fuck our way into true tender feelings!! I'm a sucker for it!! Notable writers of this are Jane @captainjowl & Kay @goodkwuestion & they are so damn good at it

Least favourite?

I haven't seen with gallavich thankfully but turning one character in a gay ship into the opposite gender to make them het!!

Secret or surprising kink or trope?

Omg it's gotta be uniform kink bc of Ray @whatthebodygraspsnot Kinktober 2022. It awoke something in me & I was like I finally get it ahaha

Describe how you feel after you’ve created something new?

I feel relief & feeling proud. Then I stress about when's a good time to post for most of ya'll to see bc of timezones 😅

Top hype man you have that always helps you get across the finish line:

My loves Benja @svltburn & Vey @look-i-love-u

I run to Ben in my art WIP bc like a kid showing art to an adult & Vey's given me amazing advice with writing that sparked inspiration 🥰

I'm in the headspace of desperately telling ppl about my fic ideas & wanting it to be a surprise so idk i may reach out for more hype men haha

It’s been a bad day, you turn to the fandom and you _____

Like Evie I mass reblog fandom works to spread love 🩷

I'm tagging these sparkling rainbow darlings if they wanna play & for anyone else consider yourself tagged 🌈

@ burninface @deedala @jademickian @sgtmickeyslaughter

@darthvaders-wife @matt404b @gallavichsbitch

@deathclassic @look-i-love-u @celestialmickey

@takeyourpillsbitchh @sickness-health-all-that-shit

@whaticameherefor @heymrspatel @gallawitchxx

@psychicskulldamage @sleepyfacetoughguy @doodlevich

@awa444 @suzy-queued @crossmydna @iandarling

@y0itsbri @michellemisfit @mikhailoisbaby @samantitheos

@pookiebearmick @reganmian @firecrxtch

@howlinchickhowl

[si1verghosts]

you and me found love (lost under the shade)

re4r leon s. kennedy x fem reader (no use of y/n)

wc: 3.3k

18+ | cw: mentions of drinking, smoking, sex | tw: illusions to suicidal thoughts; author's general preoccupation with death and dying

read on ao3

title: falling asleep on a stranger by pierce the veil | art: taft bridge under the rain [#127] by carmonamedina

a/n: i honestly don't know if i am doing this whole tagging thing right idk how to tag on here so sorry if i missed anything.... anyways, this is the first thing i've managed to finish in months - i did not imagine the first leon fic i'd actually post would be reader insert but here we are!! i hope u enjoy :D

not beta read - all mistakes my own or done purposely due to my general disrespect for the grammatical conventions of the english language.

i do not own leon, yadda yadda, please don't sue me <3

please do not use my work to train any sort of AI chat bot and/or writing generator.

-----

"I can't be what you want," Leon had said, voice even. "Maybe you should try to find someone else; someone who can… be around."

Someone who can give you a straight answer. Someone who doesn't come home bloodied and bruised and can't tell you why. Someone who doesn't make you feel like it's all just a lie. 

You had never heeded any of Leon's suggestions before - "You should go," he had whispered after that first night, and the second, and the third - but you wish you had; so you give it a shot now. 

You let your friend set you up with the guy in accounting at her job she had been telling you about for months. "And get this - he always wears a tie bar! He just seems so put together," she had raved to you over drinks the weekend prior.

Accounting, tie bar, put together. Nice, neat, safe. 

You had shrugged, "give him my number."

He's waiting for you outside the bar when you arrive, jogs over when he notices you approaching, holding his umbrella out over you. It's unnecessary - the cold precipitation is hardly a mist, barely coating the strands of your hair. "You look beautiful," he smiles. It feels rehearsed, platitudinous. You thank him, letting him guide you inside. 

His hand brushes your arm as he helps you out of your jacket, skin soft. You pull away with the shock of it, covering with a small wave of beckoning. He falls in behind you as you traverse the familiar path through the room to your usual spot, settling in before he can manage to make a show out of pulling out your chair.

Same table, different seat; back against the wall - it's a whole new perspective. No longer focused solely on the person across from you, it's as if the whole world falls into your line of sight. It suddenly makes sense why you always found it so difficult to hold on to Leon's attention.

He slinks away to acquire your requested vodka soda from the bar. You pick at your nails until your fingers shake, shifting to look out the windows. The rain has picked up, pelting the glass and obscuring the view. You long for your car and the pack of menthols tucked away in the glove box, nobody to quit for now. 

He returns with your drinks, water for himself - "trying to cut back on carbs, you know? I've been making real progress with my lifts lately." 

"That's great," you smile. 

He leans in, beginning to chatter away excitedly about weights and protein and bicycles and Wall Street. His cologne reeks of business school, of polo shirts and white picket fences and 2.5 kids. You hope you are nodding at all the right moments. His tie bar catches the light of the Budweiser sign hanging behind you, silver glinting red, as if informing you you aren't.

It's hard, much harder than it reasonably should be but you've forgotten how to do this. Leon and you hardly spoke; the silence was easier - until it grew violent from your overreliance. 

You catch the ring of the doorbell over the drone of his voice, a familiar shape of blonde hair and brown leather entering your peripheral vision. You turn, a sick sense of satisfaction slithering up your spine. 

Shoulders hunched and hands shoved deep in his pockets, he shakes off the water droplets clinging to his hair like a dog. He picks his head up, blue eyes and dark circles meet your gaze almost immediately.

You raise a brow, I took your advice; happy?

He spins around, setting the bell off again as he slips out the door. 

"I'm sorry," you interrupt your date, who had been entertaining himself, seemingly never even recognizing your shift in attention. "I'll be right back." 

You are out the door a second later, shoving your arms back into the coat you thankfully remembered to grab, shielding your skin from the rain clouding your vision. Blinking away the droplets from your lashes, you spot Leon making his way down the sidewalk and take off after him, catching up as he nears the corner. 

You call to him, voice near enough to stop him, but only for a moment. "Go back inside," he throws over his shoulder, continuing forward.

You want to reach out and grab him, make him turn to look at you, but his shoulders are set in a tense line. Your touch is sure to set him off like a slingshot. 

Steeling yourself, you dart around him, blocking his path. You find yourself in front of him without any idea of what to say. You gape at him stupidly, chest heaving from the exertion of chasing him down; maybe you should've asked what's-his-name for a good gym recommendation before you ran off.

Leon entertains you for a moment before he huffs, eyes narrowing, "what are you doing?"

It's an excellent question - one you had never bothered to stop and ask yourself. 

What are you doing? 

Why did you agree to go for drinks? Why had you put on the dress Leon had carefully unzipped and let pool around your ankles just a few weeks ago? Why had you asked Mr. Tie Bar to meet you at the bar you knew Leon always popped into after work? 

Fuck. 

You swallow harshly, "trying." 

"Trying?" Leon reiterates, almost laughing. "And what is it that you are trying?"

Normal. To get over you. To make you mad. Honesty. To make you look at me. To make you want me like I want you. Safety. To hurt you. To get you to say something, anything. Trust. To get you to make me stay. To get you to stay. 

You feel yourself frown, the familiar pressure of tears building behind your nose. You try to swallow the feeling but it just mixes with the venom stuck in your throat, bubbling back up after mutating into a bitter twinge of anger. "What the hell does it look like, Leon? You told me to try to find someone else - that's what I'm trying."

He rocks back on his heels, crossing his arms. "Well, it doesn't really seem to be working out, does it?" 

"It was going great, actually." You smile, hoping it's not as hollow as you feel. 

"Oh, yeah?" He cocks a brow, lips pulling into a sly smirk. "Then why are you out here with me?

"You," you huff, at a loss. His words seem to be coming easier than ever while you choke on every one. You shrug, "You looked upset when you left."

"And I'm sure that's exactly what you wanted, right?" His smirk stretches into an acetous grin. "Came to relish in the tears, huh? Sorry to disappoint." He moves to brush by you, but you plant yourself in his path once again. 

"I can't believe-" you start, but stop short. Because you can believe he'd think of you that way - you'd never given him a reason to think otherwise. 

You think back to the silence that had made its home between the two of you, realizing you had used it as a confidant, letting it absorb everything you should've given to Leon instead. 

"I just wanted to check on you, see how you are doing." Your voice comes out as small as you feel under the weight of Leon's gaze. It's ironic - all this time you just wanted him to look at you, and now you wish he'd turn his eyes anywhere else. 

He snorts, short and irascibly, "I don't need you worrying about me."

"I know you don't, Leon," you throw your hands out, rainwater flicking off your skin with your exasperation. "You've made that very clear. But I can't help it - I'm going to anyways." 

"You shouldn't."

"Why not?" You half-yell, half-whine. You cringe at the sound, feeling slightly delirious; freezing cold and nearly begging him to let you care. 

 "Because you can do better." His voice is even once again, feelings stacked neatly away and locked up tight. 

"You don't get to decide that for me," you spit, ears ringing with the echo of your too-loud voice. 

"Yeah," he nods. "I do." 

He steps around you again, intending to disappear down the side street. But this time you grab him, fingers latching onto the slippery leather of his jacket, his arm as tense as a bowstring under your grip. 

"Let me go," he requests without turning to look at you, voice still even, even, even. It's a courtesy, he could easily pull free - but you are sick of his kindness, his courtesies; that's how you ended up here. You don't want them anymore.

"Make me." 

"Let me go," he repeats, slower and thicker. 

"No." If you want me gone, you'll have to force me. You don't say it, but you know he got the message when his shoulders slump, fight draining out of him all at once. 

With the thrill of victory that ripples through you, you make the mistake of loosening your hold on his jacket. He seizes the opportunity, twisting your arm and grabbing you by the bicep, pulling you close. He is running hot despite the chill of the rain, you have to force yourself not to relax into his heat. 

A moment passes, and then another. Neither of you move. The precipitation falls in sheets around you. You can't bring yourself to care. 

Your gaze slides from his chest to his neck to his jaw, backtracking the path of a stray raindrop. You chance a glance at his eyes, finding they are already on you, steely blue shimmering with the light of the streetlamp behind you. 

You love him. 

You wish the ground would crack open, allowing you to freefall straight down to hell. You imagine that would feel better - less painful - than this. 

You love him, and your skin burns with the feeling of it. You want to throw up. You want to kiss him. You want to pound your fists against his chest, curse him for doing this to you. 

You settle for allowing a sob to escape your throat. 

He releases you from his hold instantly at the sound. You scramble to grip his jacket to keep yourself upright - it's pitiful, the teeth of the zipper biting into the skin of your hands. The sharp pain comes as a tether, gifting you the space to ground yourself, to shove the tears back down. 

"I'm sorry," he whispers, tight and clipped. "I didn't mean to-"

"No," you cut him off, voice rough, grating. "It wasn't. You didn't hurt me."

"Okay," he mutters. 

You laugh. You love him and you can't help but laugh, sinking into the insanity of it. 

You feel him start to stiffen again, unsure. The feeling of his discomfort building under your fingers forces you back into yourself, realizing where you are, that you've been causing a scene on the corner down the block from his apartment. 

You release him, but you don't step away, tilting your head just enough to take in the sight of him - parted lips and a handful of freckles, blonde hair tinted green by the neon sign over the entrance of the convenience store a few feet away. 

"I'm sorry," you croak out, drifting back; wishing the rain would melt you down, suck you into the storm drain. That's the only thing that could pull you from him, you think; swirling down the gutters with the cigarette butts and the fallen cherry blossoms until you're laid to rest at the bottom of the Potomac. 

His nose twitches. "For what?"

That I can't find someone else, can't force myself away from you.

That I love you, but can't tell you.  

"For," you throw your hands out, weaker than before. "All of it."

He nods, "It's okay."

You don't want it to be, but you suddenly feel exhausted. Too tired to fight, to pull any more truths from him. 

"Take me home?" You request, you plead. 

He nods again, holding his hand out to you. "Yeah."

You intertwine your fingers with his own, the roughness of his callouses and scars soothing in their familiarity. 

The walk to his place is short. You don't bother trying to shake off the water before entering, leaving a trail of raindrops up the stairwell, down the hall, through his front door, across his apartment to the tiled floor of his bathroom. 

He reaches into the shower, cranking the hot water, allowing the stream to heat up as he helps you out of your wet clothes. He removes the drenched fabric piece by piece - jacket first, then your dress, unzipping it with even more care than the previous time. It doesn't slip off with the same ease, but his gentle fingers pull it from your skin until it falls away. He crouches to undo your shoes, allowing you to step out of them before reaching up and rolling your nylons, guiding them down your legs. 

He moves to do the same with your underwear, fingers resting on the waistband as he glances up to you, silently asking your permission even though he already has it, always will. There's no heat behind his actions, but the tenderness sears your skin all the same. You nod, a low ache settling into the center of your chest as he slides them off you before standing. You unclasp your bra; he doesn't comment on the matching set.

The steam of the boiling shower envelops you as you undress him in turn. You struggle with his belt buckle, stiff fingers uncooperative. He takes over and you drop to your knees to untie the laces of his boots, finding them mercifully secured with single-knots. You make quick work of them and he reaches down to help you up, moving you out of the way before he kicks them off. 

You assist him in pulling his shirt over his head, peeling the cotton away from his skin. You unbutton his jeans as he removes the clips from your hair, wet strands falling limply in front of your eyes. 

"Go ahead and get in, I'll go throw this stuff in the wash." His voice is mellifluous, sickeningly soft. 

It makes you feel like a kid, incompetent and helpless. You hate him for it. You hate yourself for twisting his kindness into something dark and disgusting. 

"I can help," you offer, because that's all you can do; already leaning down to collect your things. "You have to hang the jacket, it's-"

"Wool. I know," his hand brushes your back lightly, "it's okay. I'll be right back."

You straighten up, allowing him to guide you across the bathroom and help you into the tub. You slowly ease your way under the hot stream as he slides the shower curtain closed. 

You watch the shape of him through the cloudy plastic, shucking off his jeans and pulling off his socks. The sobs you had just barely choked down twice before make another escape attempt, clawing at your throat as you watch his shadow collect your clothes and move down the hall. 

You shut your eyes against the sudden emptiness of the room, against the tears and the silence and the panic; against the loathing and inferiority. You take the coward's way out, turning away from it all to hold your face up to the showerhead. 

He returns quickly, rustling around for a moment before slipping into the tub behind you. His presence awards you the bravery you needed to crack open your eyes, to clear your throat. "You're wrong, you know."

Exhaustion overshadows his amusement as he hums in question, "about what?"

Picking your hand up, you reach out slowly to slide your fingers along his collarbone, circle the puckered scar on his shoulder. "That I can find someone better." 

He scoffs, dropping his head, hair fluttering down to obscure his face. 

You move your hand to his neck, thumbing his jaw. "If anything, it's me who doesn't deserve you, Leon." 

He shakes his head, but you ignore the action, continuing before he can protest. "Nobody can take care of me like you do - not even myself. I'm sorry" - for needing you, for burdening you; for loving you even though I'm unworthy of it - "for pushing you. I understand there are things you can't share, but I want whatever you can."

You sigh, shifting your hand at his neck to pull him to you; he follows you easily, achingly. "Even if it's just this." 

He nods minutely, hooking his arms over your hips and resting his forehead on yours. Answer delivered on a breath that floats across your lips, "alright." 

You remain in his arms, his agreement echoing in your mind in time with the beat of your heart in your chest. Seconds morph into minutes, only moving when the water begins to grow cold. 

You wash first, your shampoo and conditioner still on the rack next to his own. Leaving him under the stream, you make your way to his room after wrapping yourself in one of the towels he'd brought into the bathroom. 

Home. You had asked him to take you home and he brought you here, despite your own place being just a few blocks further in the opposite direction of his from the corner you had been on. But his assumption was right; this - he - was home to you.  

The emptiness of his apartment was unsettling at first, but it quickly grew comforting - no regrets staining the carpet; no photos on the dresser of you as a girl you don't remember being. Here you could be untethered from the past you didn't want; white walls graciously offering a clean slate, even if you didn't deserve it, didn't earn it. 

There is a shirt of his waiting on the bed for you, a pair of your pajama pants in the drawer next to his. Your stomach turns at the sight - no wonder he had tried to push you away; you had subconsciously settled into his space, his closet and his bed. 

Your mug in the sink, your pills behind the mirror - the reckless domesticity of it all is startling, terrifying. He had given you an inch and you had taken a mile, too eager for the chance to be something new. 

You pull on the clothes, making your way towards the balcony, a wave of nausea rolling through you under the soft cotton. Outside, it's still raining, translucent ropes sluicing off the overhang of the roof. 

You almost immediately regret stepping outside, feeling as if it's a betrayal of the care Leon took to get you warm; but you needed it. The chill of the air forces your thoughts to line up, to wait to be addressed one by one.

His hand leading you home, your wool coat hung to dry, his shirt waiting on the bed for you to occupy - each act a silent invitation; the realization stirs inside you, grips your collarbones from the inside. 

Could it be…?

You should ask him, but you've asked for more than enough tonight. 

He slides open the glass door, sweatpants low on his hips; the lamp on his nightstand illuminates him from behind, feathering out all his sharp edges. Maybe it's not love; maybe it's just lust, desire - a need so great it's all-consuming. You have no point of comparison to use as a frame of reference, to assist in finding the distinction. 

"I was away for a few days, there's not much in the fridge. Is ramen alright or do you want to order something?" He asks and it's love, you are suddenly sure of it. 

You turn; the sight of Leon in the buttery glow of the bedroom acting as a beacon, guiding you through the terror. "Ramen is fine."

[svnflower-writes]

i could never give you peace

description: James reached his hand out, gently cupping Regulus’ cheek and moving some hair out of his eyes. “Hey, little star.” Regulus leaned slightly into the touch, but didn’t speak. “Let’s get you to your room, yeah?”

or

in which James comforts Regulus after a particularly bad fight with his parents.

relationship: bodyguard!james potter x regulus black

warnings: mentions of child abuse, secret/forbidden relationship, hurt/comfort, angst, james may be slightly out of character but idk maybe he's just sad 😭

requested: yes!! @allyeardepression requested this about 4 months ago and i am SO sorry for taking so long writer's block has been kicking my ass omg i started writing as soon as you requested it but it sat there unfinished for far too long. anyway i hope you like it!!!

note: uh ok hi. this is the first thing i've posted in MONTHS and i wrote most of it in class so it's not great but fuck it i had to post something. also... sorry. the first thing i write in five months and it's heartwrenching angst, which is very typical of me. also based off a taylor swift song which is also very typical of me

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54453148

marauders taglist: (lmk if you want to be added or removed) @lovefolder @gu1lty-as-sin @dandelions-fly-in-summer-skies @a-beautiful-fool @optimizedchaos @qwerty-keysmash @lost-in-reveriie @tulips-best @nqds

James had to pretend that it didn’t affect him, seeing Orion and Walburga treat their children like they did. After all, he was there to work for all of them. But Merlin, he felt bad. The looks that flashed across the younger brother’s face were subtle enough that anyone else would have missed it, but James didn’t miss any small details—especially when they were to do with the little star.

This was one of these moments, James was positioned outside the closed door as he heard the screaming match going on directly behind him. He heard snippets of conversation, words such as ‘useless’ and ‘pathetic’ making their way to his ears and crushing a little bit of his heart. He supposed he was lucky not to be in the room while it was happening, but all he wanted was to rush in and protect Regulus from the harsh words and actions of his parents.

James allowed his head to rest against the wall, exhaling slowly as his eyes trailed over the dark tiles on the ceilings. The decor on the house was not to James’ personal taste, a combination of dark brown, green, cream, and black. He glanced down to the floor, the extravagant geometric tiles making him feel claustrophobic and sick to the stomach. Harsh black wallpaper covered the wall, the dull gold picture frames making a pathetic attempt to soften the unharmonious glare. The paintings in the frames were judging him, the upturned noses and narrowed eyes made that obvious enough.

James and Regulus had been quick to subtly remove the paintings in the hallway outside Reg’s room—Orion and Walburga didn’t tend to go up there, so no one noticed. Sirius had given them a knowing smirk when he’d caught them sneaking down a hall with a covered portrait of one of Regulus’ great aunts, but he had said nothing. Sirius held an undeniable feeling of respect for James, he could see how much he cared for his little brother, and for that he was eternally grateful.

A sharp, high pitched shout broke James out of his trance, and he glanced at the door with a grimace.

Walburga Black was his least favourite person in the whole world. He couldn’t clearly hear what followed the shout, but he had a few ideas of what it could be. He had been in the room when this had happened a few times before, and Sirius had always seemed indifferent to his parents actions—James knew he wasn’t, of course.

It was all just an act in the Black family, everyone simply pretending to be okay and pushing their feelings to the back of their minds. Regulus was less numb to the pain, and while Sirius just sat there sprawled out on the couch, ignoring his parents, Regulus always looked unnaturally stiff. He was trying to copy Sirius, that much was obvious. But it was clear that the words got to Regulus, the way his brows furrowed and he blinked quickly or looked away with fiddling hands.

Then again, maybe there was a reason that James noticed these things—not that he could take much notice of whatever underlying feelings there were anyway, since Regulus might as well be his employer. He knew Regulus felt the same, of course. There were signs, there had been since a mere two months after James started the job. Fleeting glances, brief touching of fingers as James passed him something to eat, waiting for him in the halls— the list could go on and on.

Regulus knew that James liked him too, as James wasn’t exactly subtle. He tended to forget himself when they were around others, such as Sirius or Pandora—which made for a lot of teasing from the two. Barty and Evan couldn’t say much, as they were in much the same situation.

So the two had kept up the secret whispers and hidden gazes, neither boy making any more to further the relationship, even behind closed doors. There was only so much they could get away with, and they were not embarrassed to admit that they were terrified. They were terrified of the nature of their world, the judgements and the prejudice that came with merely trying to exist. They would prefer to be open with each other about their relationship, but they would take whatever they could get at this point.

The door next to him flew open and Walburga stormed out, not even sparing James the slightest glance as she walked past him. Orion followed close behind, the harsh glare painting his face giving James an idea of the severity of the fight. After the brother’s exchanged short hushed whispers, Sirius walked through the door, offering James a small, polite smile. He walked past and James stopped him quietly. Sirius’ eyes narrowed slightly.

“Is there anything I can do?” At James’ words, Sirius’ expression softened.

“Talk to him. I’ve done as much as I can, but I think we both know that you’re better at this stuff.” Sirius pulled James into a quick hug, “and thank you. It means a lot that you try, seriously. It’s not exactly part of your job description.” Sirius being Sirius, he laughed, but it was obvious that he wasn’t actually amused. James had known Sirius for three years, and if there was one thing he had learnt about him, it was his use of humour as a coping mechanism.

“You go sneak out to Remus, I’ll take care of him.”

Sirius grinned slightly, reaching out to ruffle James’ hair, “aw, you know me too well.”

James groaned at his now messy hair—as if his hair wasn’t always a mess—pushing Sirius away and waving him towards the door, “go find your lover, Pads.”

Sirius was out the door without another word.

James glanced down the hallway to ensure it was empty and walked into the room the fight had just taken place in. Regulus was sitting on the ground and had his knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, and head leaning against the cushion of the couch. He didn’t look up when James entered, nor when the older boy crouched down in front of him. His face wasn’t betraying what emotions he was feeling, but James knew.

James always knew.

James reached his hand out, gently cupping Regulus’ cheek and moving some hair out of his eyes. “Hey, little star.” Regulus leaned slightly into the touch, but didn’t speak. “Let’s get you to your room, yeah?”

Regulus nodded, mumbling something incoherent under his breath before looking up. “Good idea.” he took James’ outstretched hand to help him up off the ground. Even well after he had stood up, he kept his hand in James’, determined not to let go.

Regulus clearly had something he wanted to say, but his brain was not connected to the rest of his body, still in autopilot from the fight. His eyes were empty and his hands were clasped together in front of him as James gently rested his palm on his lower back to guide him up the stairs. Regulus subtly leaned into the touch, his heartbeat slowly calming and the goosebumps littering his skin beginning to fade.

Merely being near James brought him an unparalleled sense of peace.

James let his hand rub up and down his lower back comfortingly, and for a brief second he considered taking Regulus’ hand in his own but he decided against it. His brain was plagued with guilt, wishing he could rescue Regulus from the cruel reality that was his family. But no matter what James wanted, it wasn’t that simple. It never was.

James could never give Regulus peace.

Regulus stopped walking and James looked up from where his gaze had been fixed on the floor in confusion. He soon noticed that they were in fact directly outside the door to Regulus’ room. Regulus seemed to take notice of the fact that James was lost in his head and he squeezed his hand reassuringly.

After checking if the hallway was clear, James quickly opened the door. He wasn’t really supposed to enter any of the private rooms in the house, but Regulus had insisted many times that it was alright. No matter how safe Regulus felt around him, he couldn’t risk Orion and Walburga spotting him. He really was Regulus’ only source of comfort.

Regulus sat down on his bed with a blank expression on his face. James sat down next to him and pulled a bottle of water out of his bag. He handed it to Regulus with no words spoken, because the pair didn’t need words. This routine was very familiar to the two of them now, it was almost a second nature.

James quickly checked for any injuries—he hadn’t heard anything to make him suspect that there could’ve been a physical nature to the fight, but he had seen enough bruises on the Black siblings to make double checking an automatic part of the procedure. There was one on the side of Regulus’ cheek, and James pulled out the healing ointment from his bag and carefully put a little bit on the bruise.

James pushed the guilt at being unable to protect Regulus from his parents aside, knowing that this was not about him.

Once Regulus had finished, he slowly leaned into James’ side, letting out a sigh as he closed his eyes. The crook of James’ neck was like a puzzle piece that was made perfectly for Regulus’ head, and as the two slowly relaxed into each other's presence, James let his hands drift up to Regulus’ hair. His fingers slowly entangled themselves into the dark curls as he comfortingly stroked Regulus’ forehead.

It was clear to James that the support Regulus needed right now was not someone to tend to his wounds, but someone to hold him. So hold him he did. James’ right hand moved slowly up and down the small of Regulus’ back soothingly, showing an undeniable caution not to startle the younger boy with any quick movements.

He cared more about the little star than was possible to admit, and he prioritised his safety over everything else. The two lay in each other’s arms for what felt like (and probably was) hours. Suddenly, Regulus shifted in his arms, mumbling something under his breath.

James tilted his head like a confused puppy, gesturing for Regulus to repeat himself. Regulus cleared his throat and glanced away.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For…” Regulus trailed off, and James was about to let it go—he wasn’t going to push for him to open up more than he was willing to do.

“...for keeping me safe.”

The dark haired boy’s voice was merely a whisper, head buried into James’ shoulder as he refused to meet his eyes. He was embarrassed, James realised. He didn’t know what to say, so he stayed silent.

James thought that the two were about to fall back into their silence, when Regulus spoke. “It’s peaceful.”

Giving him an inquisitive look, James turned to face Regulus.

“Being here with you. You’re peaceful.”

James stiffened slightly before slowly nodding, “yeah, I know what you mean. You’re peaceful too, little star.”

You deserve more peace than I can give you.

Regulus smiled up at him, entwining their fingers reassuringly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more at peace than I am when I lie here with you.”

Merlin, it’s like he can hear my thoughts.

Finally, James responded. “You mean more to me than anyone else ever has, little star.”

There was a raw honesty in his tone. He may not love their situation, but he loved the boy in front of him with his whole heart.

No matter where this road was leading, James knew it was where he wanted to go. Whatever the roadworks along the way, he was in this for good.

[bonesandthebees]

I'm not sure if any of this is as important to say as I feel like it is, but just in case, here it is.

Idk about you, but I'm really tired of having things taken from me because the cc's were abusive. I say this with an emphasis on the fact that supporting their victims and condemning their actions is far more important, that I'm not giving that man a single cent anymore. The most important thing the community can do is support the people he hurt. But It's still gonna hurt to purge my playlist because we, as a community, were lied to. And something I derived comfort from, especially in the wake of recent personal events, has been taken from me. Not by the community or by the people coming out; by him and his actions.

So seriously thank you for creating a space for people to talk about what's going on, because it's so easy to feel guilty right now for having feelings about this situation. Especially as a neurodivergent person whose main comfort is music, including music (and YouTube videos) he made.

I just feel like it's important to put this out there. The community as a whole needs to support the victims, but it's also okay to feel betrayed and it's okay to look at his songs in your playlist, dreading deleting them, for a while. No one will hate you for that. You're not a bad person for that. They're just songs or videos, but they're content that mattered to some of us. How dare he ruin that for all of us. How dare he.

Now that I've written a whole entire novel, please take care of yourself. I know I'm an internet stranger but I almost didn't write this because I think that it's important to emphasize that while I'm glad to see Tumblr users creating a space to talk for those of us who don't post and such, I also think it's way more important that your blog be a safe space for you yourself.

- a rambly anon 🪐

yeah, trust me, I'm fucking sick of this too. you're not selfish for feeling upset about deleting his songs from your playlist or not being able to watch vods of his for comfort anymore. you are not a bad person for having an attachment to someone who lied to his audience about who he was. you are human. you are allowed to be upset.

also, to veer slightly from your point but to bring something else up, while I know there are varying opinions on the community in this I personally don't think I want to let this make me stop hoping for people to be good. yes, it might seem like an endless pattern of people you like being revealed to be assholes. and for some people, they might want to leave the community to avoid that disappointment again. for me, I'm not going to put cc's up on a pedestal and expect them to be great people, but I'm not going to expect the worst from them either. keep my expectations realistic, but not pessimistic. content creators are flawed human beings like the rest of us, and sometimes they can be really shitty people, but sometimes they can be good people too. and I'm always going to hope for the latter.

and thank you for thinking of me. honestly the reason I've slowed down answering asks the past few days is precisely because I've been trying to take care of myself. I've gone up and down in terms of how I'm doing, and when I'm not feeling up to it I don't touch my inbox.

and despite everything that's happened this morning, I've had a good day. I got myself a cinnamon roll. I'm drinking green tea and it's sunny out. I saw flowers blooming on the side of the road and it made me smile. focusing on the little things, you know?

[burning-academia-if]

Hi again. If you've been around a while you're probably going to be like "Em, again??" But guess who got sick for the 6th time this year and this time it was a full on chest infection!! It has been three weeks, and somehow I am still Not Free!!

Anyway, BA fell to the wayside this month because it was Velox Fabula time and I've yet to miss a Velox jam (also...chest infection). I also needed to get my sudden and newfound Pirates of the Caribbean obsession out of the way so! I made a short pirate visual novel for the jam and I'm normal again. I also released the prologue of my side IF To Taste Sweet Silver (@sweetsilver-if) just to have it out. Feel free to check it out if you want, but it likely won't be updated for a while as I'm shifting gears back to BA for September!

I don't have much to report but:

UI update should be out in the next week or two depending on how I'm feeling. It won't look like much to y'all since it's more for my sake via cleaning up the code LOL but there were things added (friendship indicators, open dyslexic font option, character page updated, stat page updated, glossary page added) I'm not a graphic designer but it's better organized I think. There won't be an Official Post about it because it isn't new content, but I will make a small announcement when it's out. It'll also include the originally deleted Lars/Zoe/Nevio lunch scene in Chapter 2 as well. Sorry this is taking so long, I just really struggle with the coding side of things which has made the process slow.

Writing in August was also slow, and honestly, I think I really needed those few weeks off not thinking about BA. My inbox being very quiet helped as well, so I really did take a real break from BA. When I opened up the writing doc, I felt a whole lot better about working on BA again, and we have hit 100k words finally!

Anyway, I don't want to lament much, but I did have a personal goal of releasing up to Chapter 4 this year which obviously is Not Going to Happen. It honestly sucks I got sick so often this year because it cut into so much time for creative projects, be it BA or anything else.

I'm not really going to be hard on myself for it, though. I think releasing 3 chapters this year considering everything that kept Going Wrong this year is actually pretty good. I just think its annoying when I know I could have done it but the universe said no instead akfjalfa Anyway, I'm not sure when Chapter 3 will release but I do have a good feeling about September and I think I'll be able to at least get a decent chunk done this month!

Finally, September marks the one year anniversary for this blog and October marks the one year anniversary of BA releasing!! I feel like I literally just started writing this, the fact it's September already is wild.

I was going to do art commissions, but due to surprise car issues, I don't really have the money for that now (next year for sure though!!), so I was thinking of maybe doing character Q&As to celebrate? I've also seen some authors do raffles, but I'm not entirely sure what I would raffle off? Maybe personalized short stories with readers MCs if there's interest in that? I'm not sure yet, but I have a month to figure it out lol

But also thank you to everyone who has followed along!! It's been a really fun time both writing BA and on the blog. I know I say this a lot, but I'm really glad this is such a chill place. It's nice for me the author obviously, but it's also nice because I always want the spaces I have to feel like safe places for others as well so! Thanks again!

Lastly, I normally would end on a little snippet or preview but since most of what I wrote was just the two different openings, I feel like I have nothing fun to tease (or maybe I'm too picky about snippets idk). Hopefully Zoe's bday post tomorrow makes up for it, and I'll post some snippets later in the month instead!

Thanks for reading!

[petrich0-r]

warning!!! long rant incoming

weeks later and i am still not over how much reading chapter 426 traumatized me. seeing touya reduced to a what??? burnt-up corpse strapped to a wall and on life support, barely breathing and with no hope of recovery, with only a bleak "slow march toward death" ahead of him was only the first blow.

then we see the todofam marching into the hospital determined to "talk with him" while he can barely string together a few sentences and is strapped to a heart monitor in a way that invasively reveals his true feelings of upset/excitement/anixety at whatever they feel like talking to him about, which was personally mortifying to witness.

one of the FIRST things he says is how he isn't "some damn tourist attraction" for them to come gawk at and talk at to make themselves feel better. and yes even though most of my ire is directed at enji i still dislike how the rest of the family acted in this chapter. all determined to say their piece now that he's forced to stay there and listen to them, and even shouto's part in all of it being framed as him "saving" touya and making time for them all to have together while he is DYING an AGONIZING and SLOW death. also natsuo not even saying anything to touya even though he was the only one to ever advocate for him and constantly remind everyone in the family of what happened to his brother and demanding justice from enji. although if i interpret this as him recognizing that talking with touya now would only violate his privacy since he can't hide his feelings because of the heart monitor his behaviour is the only one that makes sense.

enji once again taking the opportunity to talk about what HE is doing to atone for "his sins", in a way that fills me with such indescribable rage and fury at this man's audacity to even show his face to any member of his family and makes me once again want to kill him with my bare hands because i am SICK and TIRED of hearing about his "atonement" and "rejection". and even though natsuo renounces him definitively once and for all once they exit the hospital, he also says he thinks enji is a "badass" now???? EXCUSE. ME. also shouto calling him "father" still makes me want to puke i'm sorry.

to rub salt into the wound the chapter then switches to hawks talking with nagant who is now fully recovered?? from literally exploding??? in a parody of what i hoped a final dabihawks interaction was going to be. but i guess only heroes and "good" victims get to live and have miraculous recoveries in this story.

another thing that makes me livid is this trend horikoshi has set of showcasing touya in pivotal panels as not-being-burnt-to-a-crisp so he can?? what??? show us his imagined facial expressions better??? idk it just feels so disingenuous to him being crippled, burnt to death, stripped of all bodily autonomy, irreversibly and gruesomly injured only for horikoshi to take the easy way out when he wants to show emotions on his face so we can what?? see him as a person still and not a disfigured corpse???? i don't get it.

as someone who up until those chapters at the end where horikoshi decided that yes izuku should absolutely vanquish tomura was very hopeful about bnha's ending and where it was headed and what kind of story it wanted to tell i feel immeasurably and utterly betrayed and furious at what happened to the remaining lov characters. touya's end is a nightmare scenario on a personal level but what tomura's character went through at the end felt like a complete butchering of everything he as a character stood for. and don't get me started on himiko, a fucking TEENAGE GIRL who i was SURE would get to live if nobody else from the league did. but those are rants for another post.

my final thoughts for this rant are musings on whether horikoshi is aware how hurtful and trauma-inducing chapter 426 is. i struggle to grasp how he could write such a nuanced character without apparently knowing the first thing about how to resolve their story in a satisfying way. whether or not he waffled on how he should end bnha and then chickened out on its "true/controversial/revolutionary" ending i can only speculate but at this point i don't even care because the fact is he CHOSE to end the story this way and i have no idea what the point of it all even was anymore and i am tired and rant over because i've been rambling like a lunatic for way too long now

anyway sorry if this doesn't make a lick of sense idk what i'm saying or trying to articulate here, this is my first post of this length and i was gonna keep it all inside but i felt i had to let it out somehow. if u got this far thank you for reading this and have a good day <33