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katuschka · 2 months

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A Rollercoaster Ride with Tom&Jerry

Josh Kiszka x male OC (1st person narrative) 8.014 words

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, intended for adult readers. Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Also, if you're under 18, go find some other entertainment elsewhere. Warnings: intense and confusing emotions; swear words; both verbal and physical fights; oral sex; anal sex (surprise, surprise, it's about two guys); toys; choking&gagging&some spanking; BDSM; ...so you see, it's not for everyone. This is basically a story about finding and re-establishing mutual trust. It involves conflict. Where there is a flame, someone's bound to get burned. So if you have any doubts that you're gonna be able to handle it, proceed with caution. Big thanks goes to: 1. @edgingthedarkness for making an illustrative short video (you're gonna find it inside the story below) that should make the whole experience even juicier! 2. all my beta-readers and cheerleaders, especially @writingcold, @edgingthedarkness, @its-interesting-van-kleep and @thewritingbeforesunrise. Cheers, guys.

I've got some things to say 'Cause there's a lot that you don't know It's written on my face It's gonna be hard to swallow (P!nk)

“You’re awfully quiet tonight. What’s going on?”

I sighed. Yeah, no shit. There was actually so much I wanted to say to him ever since the show ended, I just couldn’t figure out how to do that without sounding like a jealous little girl. My mind was absolutely racing and when that happens, the connection between my brain and my mouth just gets cut off completely. It’s a serious condition, really. Commonly known as “sulking.”

I often accompany him on tour, but I try to avoid live shows. I have my reasons. Hundreds of them. I agreed to be there for the last few concerts, which I now deeply regretted.

It had been a really busy and eventful week; me, myself and I getting increasingly irritated – by everything, but mostly him – as the days went by, and tonight’s events felt like the last straw. Part of me wanted to be finally alone with him, and another part just wanted to be alone. So, as a result, I just tried to avoid him. I had kept to myself while watching him down his beer as the band enjoyed their aftershow high back in the green room. No one else seemed to pay attention to me, and for that I was glad. Now we were sitting in a car on our way back to the hotel room, and the confrontation that I’d tried to avoid seemed inevitable.

As much as I pretended to be interested in the night scenery behind the window, it was impossible to ignore him any longer. Sadly, it was equally impossible to pretend that everything was ok and the idea that we could resolve it soon seemed pretty absurd. He was still in his stage outfit, bare chest in full display, absentmindedly scratching the skin right below his left nipple. Much to my dismay, he smelled divine, too. Warm and musky from the exertion, still with a faint hint of vanilla and cedar. AND he was obviously completely clueless.

“You know Josh, you make it really hard sometimes...”

Well, shit. I realized what I just did even before I finished the sentence. The instant smirk on his face told me that it was a really bad word choice and I regretted it immediately. I really wished that he would take it seriously this time. But he was still exhilarated and unnaturally restless, even to his standards. He literally couldn’t sit still, fidgeting in his seat, rapping his knuckles on a windowsill, giggling at nothing in particular…and I’d swear I even heard a moan when the car accidentally hit a curb. If I didn’t know him, I would say that he was high, but I knew he would never do that while performing.

“Yeah, I often do, don’t I darling.” He turned to me and pouted playfully, his chin resting on his fist. “...but you’re never quiet when that happens, so why don’t you tell me what’s bugging you.” He was looking at me now, the lower lip between his teeth again, eyelids half closed. Cheeky bastard.

What I really meant was – and he just proved my point again, by the way – that it was hard to keep the conversation serious when he was like that. And he was like that most of the fucking time. Everyone loved him for it, and that was the problem, because he just didn’t hesitate to love them all back. Not only was this his nature, but what is more, he was required to do that. A people pleaser, an entertainer…I was no longer pleased, nor entertained, though.

I knew what I signed up for when we started seeing each other. Granted, I didn’t know who he was – or what he was – when we first met in that rally more than three years ago. He was just a beautiful boy with the eyes of a winking doll and a golden halo bouncing around his head. In a crowd of other nameless, faceless and anonymous people, he exuded blinding light. Am I too sentimental? If you were there, you’d surely understand. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. After staring at him for at least fifteen minutes, I dared to lift my camera up to take a picture just as the wind blew a few disheveled locks into his face. He immediately noticed. His brows furrowed and his eyes squinted at me, but they were warm and I could tell he was smiling behind his mask, even though apprehensively.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” “Why did you do that?” If I had thought that it couldn’t get any worse, I was sorely mistaken. The sultry voice that came from behind that black piece of cloth didn’t match his overall appearance. It made my dick twitch though, and I had to hear it again, so I decided to come clear about it, because he was already turning away again, not really interested in my answer. As if having his pictures taken was something that happened everyday. Yeah, as if. But…

Believe it or not, I just told him I thought he was beautiful. Right there on that street. I don’t normally do shit like that. To this day, I still don’t understand what got into me. It was blunt and impudent and no doubt a bit weird, and I expected him to tell me to fuck off.

But instead, he blushed. “Well, you’re not so bad yourself.”

I wasn’t sure if it was genuine or if he was just playing along. Or even mocking me. But I had to seize the opportunity by the hair. “I’m Tom.” What else to say, right?

“Josh.”

That’s it. That’s how Tom met Josh. We talked a lot that day. He was cute and funny and I just couldn’t get enough of that voice, which is never a good sign. You shouldn’t let yourself get addicted to people. It’s dangerous and he was very addictive. Later that day, when we left the crowd behind and he put the mask down to reveal his full, rosy lips, I should have run. But I didn’t. I let him use those lips to chain me to him just as they enveloped my dick.

Since then, there was not one single day when I wouldn’t think about that mouth. It only got worse when that sleepy pout became the first thing I saw almost every time I opened my eyes in the morning during that summer. Our relationship started as a strictly sexual one, not because we wanted it that way, but simply because arousal and excitement came first, and there was nothing else to do. We skipped dating and dived head first in the sheets. The world had slowed down, the future looked hazy, and we were just bored. OK, I admit, I was bored. His life wasn’t boring at all. Not even then. I got sucked into it pretty soon (pun absolutely intended). He made me fall for him before we even realized what was happening, and it was brutally intense. And it was also mutual.

I soon learned what it really meant to be part of that world. Our secret summer of love ended and reality hit. I went completely offline, partly because I was not interested in being hunted down by hysterical chicks, but mostly because he didn’t want them to know. You know what I mean. I didn’t really care that much myself, but I also understood.

If you’re into traveling, and if you ever followed @tomontheroad on Instagram and wondered why it just vanished one day, wonder no more. Yes, it was me. You probably didn’t even notice though, because in late 2020, it had already been dead for months anyway.

That’s just how it was. To keep the life we shared safe, I became an invisible nobody, which made it almost impossible for me to do my job, but I somehow managed. Meanwhile, he was there in the spotlight, adored by thousands, making their pussies and dreams wet. I was never to be seen. I agreed to all that, gladly, even though it was gradually getting worse. They started touring again, and that was when I saw his full potential, wrapped in velvet. He was their Pied Piper, playing his flute just as he played his vocals. I still didn’t mind. It was all worth it. I thought it was, at least. As soon as we closed the doors behind us, a brand new universe opened before me. Behind the closed doors, I was a traveler again, a tireless explorer. Every inch and every curve of his body was a land full of miracles and pleasures. A wondrous landscape. Every valley, a new home for me. Every peak, a place that revealed brand new horizons. Who needed tropical white sands when his warm skin was the perfect place to lay your head, the sound of his heart more calming than the humming of sea waves. I simply loved him.

I learned to live with the fact that I had a boyfriend that hundreds of people wanted to fuck, but it was me who actually did. They were mere voyeurs, standing outside the shopping window, ogling hungrily all the delicious desserts on display, which only I had the privilege to taste. I kept telling myself that I was the lucky one.

And you know what? That’s complete and utter bullshit. I keep doing this to myself. Lying to myself. I hadn’t learned to live with it at all. Granted, we had these conversations before, and all of them ended with me telling him it was fine. Everything was fine. I spent nearly two fucking years trying to convince myself that I was completely ok with all of this and just this evening I realized how much it was really bothering me.

Today he crossed the fucking line. The feeling that lurked somewhere in the back of my mind now reared its ugly head and I felt like I reached my limits.

I said I was there for the show. I actually never really get to see it, because I myself can’t be seen. It had been months since I last watched their concert and this past week I just waited for him in the green room. But tonight he insisted that I be there. I finally agreed, even though it really meant just lurking by the side, under the stage level with the staff, watching what was going on onstage on the monitor with Steve who’s in charge of big screens.

The camera loved him. And he loved it back, losing himself in the moment as he got high on the music they made. The audience was losing it too, screaming in frenzy because he made them feral. It all looked just like one big orgy. I had seen it many times before, that’s why I didn’t really want to be there, but I still couldn’t get my eyes off that screen. I was very familiar with all those faces he made. I had heard those moans before, I had watched him arch his back just like that before, the way he bit his lip, how his brows furrowed… I could tell he got bolder with it over time. I was mesmerized, but there was one big problem. The whole arena was watching this with me now, equally enchanted, but he was interacting with them and I felt unwelcome. I had seen some pictures, watched two or three shorts, but nothing could prepare me for this.

He ran down the stage a few times that evening, waved at me the first time, blew me a kiss a moment later, but as the evening progressed, I suddenly felt like losing him. It was an unwelcome surge of panic and just when I thought I got it under control, he ran past me and the next thing I saw on the screen was him right at the barricade, letting himself be hugged and groped by all those random people. I had enough. I couldn’t breathe. I excused myself and ran to the green room to pour myself a generous amount of whiskey.

Fast forward back to where we were, in the car on our way back to the hotel. “Not here,” I retorted. “Later.” The rest of the ride was tense. He kept looking sideways at me, I kept being extremely absorbed in examining the hem of my shirt. As soon as the door of our shared apartment closed behind us, he confronted me.

“So, we’re here. Care to explain why you’ve been behaving like such an insufferable bitch tonight?”

“Oh that’s rich, Joshua. By all means feel free to make it aaaall about my behavior again. Nothing wrong with you acting like an insolent and inconsiderate slut!”

“Inconsiderate…” He looked as if I just punched him.

“Yes!” I hissed, “inconsiderate! You know, it’s funny how you find this worth reacting…but not the fact that I just called you a slut.”

He just laughed and shook his head in disbelief as he headed straight to the minibar to pour himself a drink. “Well,” he trilled, “you didn’t shake the bitch allegations either, my love. At least I’m fun to be around.”

I just huffed and went towards the balcony to open the glass door. I really needed some fresh air. “Yeah, I’m not amused. But you don’t seem to mind. You were having a really good time there, with their hideous, overlong nails scratching your tits. Or when you were moaning into the microphone, almost pretending that you were fucking them all.” With that, I collapsed on the couch.

“So what do you want me to do to amuse you? You want me to fuck you? Let’s fuck in earnest, no pretending. Will that make it better? Do you want me to show you what and who I’m REALLY thinking about when their nails scratch my skin?”

“No Josh, you fucking me wouldn’t really sort out anything I’m afraid, because right now I feel like you’re fucking with me all the fucking time. I want to claim you, because I love the way you’re looking at me when I’m deep inside you and when you have to bite your lower lip just to stop it from quivering, you know. Not only because I really, really love that sight, but also because only then I feel like I’m the only person on your radar. And that’s what I need now.”

He watched me avidly, with his head slightly tilted and his expression almost unreadable, except for the obvious arousal that was silently flowing through his whole body, and I swear you could see it glimmering behind his pupils. I definitely could see it in his tight pants. I would lie if I said that I wasn’t aroused. Truth be told, I needed to fuck him, badly. We could continue bitching about each other’s behavior later. For now, angry fuck would do…

He put his glass down and slowly took off his sun jacket, all without breaking eye contact. It was like watching him in slow motion, when he palmed his hardening dick through the white satin, squeezed it briefly and then stroked it gently a few times. He loved this. He was a born entertainer, always ready to please the audience. I couldn’t help but admire the fact that he knew exactly what he was doing. I was his audience now, and I had to admit to myself that this was a completely different show.

“Ok, that’s convenient, because I’d really love you to finish what I started.”

I had no clue what he was talking about and watched him – flabbergasted – as he turned around, pulled his pants down and bent over to unfasten the cuffs around his ankles. That’s when I saw it. A little sparkly gem between his buttcheeks. I recognised the tiny steel buttplug with a faceted stone immediately, even though we hadn’t used it much. I gave it to him for Christmas, and later he joked that it really fit the Starcatcher aesthetics, so maybe he should wear it with the rest of his jewelry, but I didn’t really expect him to actually do it!

“Josh…did you have it in for the whole show?” I tried to keep it cool, but the words only came out as a breathy whisper. He only chuckled and stretched like a cat to relieve his stiff muscles. He was still acting, completely naked now, exaggerating every move just to torture me.

“No, darling. I wanted to, but they would have seen it under the jumpsuit. It’s quite tight, isn’t it. No, I put it in for es-tee-tee. Colors, gems and trim, darling. Now, let’s take a shower first. And close your mouth, or else I’ll fill it.” And with that he strutted into the bathroom without even waiting for me, shaking that tiny bejeweled ass just for the show. He knew that I would follow. He already had me in his grasp, metaphorically speaking.

We often showered together. That was our personal habit, both at home or when I accompanied him on his travels. It was always our sweet moment of seclusion in his otherwise busy schedule. Very intimate, but not always blatantly sexual. Of course, sometimes it WAS blatantly sexual, but oftentimes we just talked a lot, kissed a lot, washed each other’s hair, just took care of each other. Just tracing my fingers down his spine was enough to help me forget about the gloomy world beyond our walls. Not to mention being inside his walls, but I digress…

I took my time. I couldn’t give him the satisfaction of following him like a pet dog, so I stripped slowly, took a few more sips of my drink and walked indolently into the bathroom. Just for the show. I expected him to wait for me by the counter, but he didn’t. He was already in the shower, steam already filling the room. I slid the glass door open and started. He was standing there, right under the stream, facing the door, his eyes boring into me. He was quite a sight, too. Not having bothered with the stage makeup, the streaks of smudged eyeliner were now running down his cheeks, over the remaining rhinestones. Wet hair already flattened and pulled back. This was intentional. He was still provoking me.

We just observed each other warily before he broke the silence and asked me nonchalantly if I could just wash his back. I gestured to him to turn around and did as he asked. I poured the vanilla-scented body wash in my hands and soaped his body with it, just like I always did. And just like he always did, he started talking about the events of the day. Some tiktok video they filmed after the soundcheck that I didn’t care about.

His tone was completely casual, in spite of the fact that I held his balls firmly in my hand, gently massaging them with my soap-covered hand. I let my other hand travel slowly down his left buttcheek towards that little surprise he had there for me previously.

“So tell me, Josh. Why this?”

I watched him smile at the question. His previous restlessness suddenly made perfect sense. The whole time I was sulking and worrying about us, about his behavior and his intentions, he was just getting himself off. I took the bejeweled plug in my fingers and twisted it gently. He arched his back and moaned softly. I just loved listening to him. His lovely mouth could elicit the most delicious high-pitched whimpers. So I did it again. This time, his head landed on my shoulder, exposing his neck to me. I let my nose brush against my favorite place right under his earlobe. This was dangerous territory. Everytime I let myself wander through the smooth valleys of his lithe body, I was close to losing my mind, and he knew it. He was narcotic. Normally, it just meant that earth-shattering sex would follow, but I needed to stay focused, because I had to resolve this first: “Fucking tell me, Josh,” I hissed.

“I…I like to keep myself perked up, my love. I can’t go onstage…oh, yes, thee-e-e-ere…I can’t go onstage drunk, or high…dammit…that would, aaah would be unprofessional, yeah?” He chuckled. “So I just keep myself turned-on instead. It’s good for the show.”

“For the show, eh? You’re a liar.”

“No…no-ah, I’m not lying, dear. I keep myself turned on…and when I feel the rhythm in my bones and when I let the… the melody soar through my veins, I imagine your dick inside me. Or your fingers. Aaaall because they lo-oooh-love seeing me like that. So you see, it’s good for the show. They can feel it. Our love. Just…genuine…love. The feeling is omnipresent…and I want to share it.”

The insolence! “You see Josh, that’s the problem,” I whispered while my teeth grazed his jugular, “I don’t want to share it.”

With that, he turned around and kissed me gently, letting the tip of his tongue just brush against mine. With his left hand stroking the nape of my neck, his right palm slowly wandered down my torso, fingertips lightly grazing my left nipple, and further down, until he had me in his grasp, now literally speaking. I fell under his spell again, utterly and completely, and I no longer wanted to fight it. I had to remind myself that tonight was supposed to be my night, that I was supposed to be in control, but I was slowly losing it anyway. He sensed it, and generously put me back on track, while still jerking me off.

“Honey, this is us. This is just us. I share the miracle, you see? That’s my job. But you don’t share me with anyone. You own me!”

Oh yeah, that worked. His words felt like a detonator. Perhaps more than he had intended them to. I’m sure they were partly meant to soothe me, but something really snapped in me and all those pent-up emotions suddenly begged to be released. I lost all my remaining mental clarity and acted upon it without really thinking. I pushed him against the wall and firmly wrapped my hand around his throat. His head hit the tiles with a dull thud and even though my own actions took me by surprise and I saw a brief flicker of panic in his eyes, I couldn’t stop. I kept him pinned to the wall with my thigh pushing his legs apart. He belonged to me, and I needed him to understand it.

I’m not the world’s strongest man, but I’m bigger than him. Three inches taller, and I could overpower him without much difficulty. That’s why I had always been rather gentle with him, even though he’s a hotheaded bastard and always fights back like a mad chihuahua. Not this time. He just watched me with those doe-like eyes and his mouth slightly ajar, while his hands just rested on my chest. I barely felt the touch. He was a meek lamb, a rag doll, but his face told me a different story. I could see his previously bewildered expression transform into a defiant one. He tilted his chin up, nostrils flared. He was daring me, breathing heavily and waiting for my next move.

“Damn right I do! Fuck, you’re mine,” I growled and tightened my grip on his neck, while my other hand kneaded his left buttock.

He whimpered and I recognized the sound. I’d heard it many times before. Everytime I pounded into him with feral force, when I pulled his hair, or when I smacked his ass, because that was the only part of his body I ever dared to leave a mark on.

“You like this, you little fucker.”

He closed his eyes, breathing raggedly through his nose. I could feel his semi spring up and twitch against my thigh. I could tell just by his fingertips now clawing at my chest that he really did. But I needed to hear it.

“Answer me!”

“Yeah,” he finally breathed out and our eyes met again.

We were both very sensual people, but never overly violent with each other. It’s not that the idea never crossed my mind, because I really like rough fuck. Sue me. I’d had my fair share of “tough love” during the time spent with my previous lovers. Truth be told, he was often pushing my buttons, and it took all my willpower not to act. All smiles and sunshine on the outside, he could be an insufferable brat sometimes. I just always had to remind myself that I couldn’t leave a mark, even though his own nails frequently branded me with scratches. But that was it. It was part of the deal. I treated him like my pampered darling, even at times when I just had to shut him up with a gag… some occassional BD sans SM, that’s how we rolled. It just occurred to me that treating him like that might have been a mistake. I just had to make sure that he was really agreeing to this.

I let go of his neck and let my fingers travel up his jaw and into his wet hair, all without breaking eye contact. We were watching each other intently, trying to communicate without words, searching for clues. I cradled his head in my hands, my fingers massaging the back of his head. He leaned into the touch and closed his eyes.

“Does it hurt?”

He shook his head silently. I placed a trail of short kisses up his neck until I reached his earlobe and nibbled on it gently. I felt him pull me closer to him as he pressed his fingertips convulsively into the flesh on my hips until it almost hurt.

“Are you ok?” I whispered in his ear. He nodded and rubbed his nose against my cheek. A brief moment of tenderness was exactly what we both needed to reassess our position. Now it was the time to remind him of his role…

“Fine, on your knees!” I pushed him down, perhaps with not enough force, because it did not wipe that defiant look off his face, but I was well aware of the fact that he also still had that thing deep inside him. I was pumped, but not reckless. He was now kneeling right under the shower stream, small rivulets of water running down his face as he looked up at me, blinking. I had to take a deep breath not to cum just from the sight.

“Open your mouth.”

…and he didn’t. Because he knew. That dastardly sneer of his is going to be the end of me one day, but I usually tolerate it. Not only because it’s hot as fuck, but also because it tells me he knows what I need. Or better yet, what he makes me need…and crave. I certainly hadn’t known that I needed my head to be treated like a lollypop until he taught me it was what I craved. Parting his lips ever so slightly, it just rested on them until he darted his tongue out into the slit, savoring every little drop of my precum. He had this habit of looking up at me when he was doing this, because he knew it was driving me crazy.

So that’s what he was doing. Licking at my glans, watching me, daringly. I wasn’t having it. Enough of this game. I grabbed his head and buried my cock in the back of his throat. He gagged on it violently, darting his head backwards. I was still holding his head in both of my hands, though, and pushed him back, fucking his mouth in ferocious speed until he tapped on my thigh. Only then I released my grasp, watching him gasp for air. He looked up at me again, and whispered: “More.”

And more he got. Oh god, that was so sexy, him literally begging me to choke him with my dick. I adjusted my pace, sliding in and out of those full, swollen lips. Grabbing my butt with both his hands, he urged me to go deeper, to fill him up, to obstruct his airway passage again. He tried to relax, letting my cock glide smoothly on his velvet tongue. I was getting close, dangerously close, but I wasn’t done with him yet. His mouth was perfect, but I needed more.

Before I stopped, I grabbed him by the nape of his neck, pushed him down my shaft and held him there for a while, until I felt his throat contract and his body convulsed. Another gag, another gasp. I let go and tilted his chin up lightly with my index finger. The running water quickly washed away the thick strings of saliva and the tears, but he still looked a mess, exhausted and tamed. He was also very hard, his eyes not the only thing looking at me. He loved this. A wave of tenderness washed over me again. Damn, it was always like this with him. A real rollercoaster of feelings.

“Come here, my filthy princess.”

I grabbed him by the arms, pushed him up on his feet again and pulled him into a tight embrace. I felt his chest rise and fall against mine, deep breaths interspersed with intermittent, barely audible chuckles.

“What’s so funny?”

“Not funny, just…exhilarating.”

My good boy. He deserved a reward. I bowed down and ran a few circles around his hardened nipple with the tip of my tongue, because he loved that. You might think I’m too soft, but this is what makes the experience really intense. I was still pissed, and full of adrenaline, but it was all because I loved him so much, and I needed him to feel it all. I ran my fingers down his spine, scratching his skin with my nails, perhaps more than necessary. But it was necessary. With the actual words still stuck in my throat, the touch was my language now. He looked at me again with a sweet smile, the tip of his tongue grazing his upper lip.

“So…now that it’s settled and I promise to be good, are you going to do that thing, darling?”

“That thing” meant me sucking his dick with my fingers knuckles deep in his ass. “Yeah, baby, you’ve earned it,” I stroked his cheek with my right hand while the left one traveled down right between his asscheeks...”let’s pull this out, then?” He nodded and turned around, resting his elbows against the tiles. It was my turn to get down on my knees. Yeah, I hear you, not very dominant of me, but you need to understand that this man has got the most fabulous ass I’ve ever seen, and I swear I’m gonna kiss and bite and spread and lick it any time I get the opportunity to do so.

I put some shower gel on my fingers and circled them around the plug. “Try to relax.”

“I know,” he spat impatiently through his teeth. That earned him a smack on his right buttock. Brat. I pulled the plug out gently, eliciting a long, breathy and relieved moan from him. I massaged the opening a bit, washing the rest of the soap out, before I grabbed him with both hands to spread him a bit more for me. What a glorious view. I buried my face in it and darted my tongue out.

“Oh god,” he breathed out as I licked into him.

The flowing water was starting to get on my nerves so I turned it off before I turned him around to face me. It was now my turn to taste his leaking tip. A few swift cat licks made him clutch at my shoulders tight and he almost lost his balance when I swallowed him whole. I reached behind him and gently pushed my middle finger inside him while my head bobbed up and down his dick. I pushed my finger deeper, curled it towards me and set a steady rhythm of my movements.

His breath suddenly quickened and I could feel him pulsate on my tongue. It was a matter of mere seconds. No. I stopped, retreated abruptly and stood up. His eyes nearly popped out of his skull and he was gaping at me in disbelief. I just smiled at him maliciously. He thought he could play with me, so let’s make this a shared experience.

“What the hell?!?” My plan worked perfectly. He practically shouted it at me. He was furious. Cute.

“I haven’t come yet, so what on earth made you think that I would let YOU, “ I smirked.

“Fuck you!” he pushed me aside forcefully and stormed out of the shower, heading back into the bedroom. Dripping wet, he slipped on the floor and almost fell, which gave me more time to react.

I ran after him. “Hey, where the fuck are yo…ouch!” The fucker slammed the bathroom door right in my face. I threw it open again with force, triyng to catch him. He was just by the bed when I reached out for his hair and yanked him back, making his back collide with my chest. “Ouch, that hurt, you bastard!” he yelled as he tried to break free from my grasp, squirming, but he stood no chance.

“Do you want me to stop?” I hissed in his ear.

“No…” Good. I pushed him face down on the bed, grabbed his wrists and held them firmly behind his back. I needed him to stay that way, so I searched the ground for something I could use. My eyes spotted a bathrobe that I tossed over the armchair earlier that day. Perfect. “Don’t move!” I got off him for a while to get what I needed. He looked over his shoulder, watching me as I pulled the belt out of the loops. He didn’t move, lying face down by the edge of the bed, ass up. My obedient baby.

I grabbed his wrists again and showed him the belt, making it obvious what I was going to do. “You ok with this?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

I nodded, tied his wrists behind his back and went searching for the lube. “I’m going to fuck you now, and I’m not going to be gentle about it. If it becomes too much, or you just want me to stop, just say stop. Do you understand?

“Yes.”

“Fine. Oh, here it is.” I squeezed a generous amount of the lube on my fingers and put two of them to his asshole, rubbing it in circles before I pushed them in slowly. He was already almost ready from before, but I needed him to relax a bit more. “Now listen, I will let you cum this time. No monkey business. But I want the same from you. If you wanna cum, you’re going to behave. You’re going to beg for it. Understand?” I added a third finger and he whimpered and bit his lip, huffing. I was getting impatient. “Do-you-under-stand!?”

“Yeah,” he breathed out, “yes, I understand. Fuck me please. I’ll behave.”

I withdrew, slapped his butt, rubbed the remaining lube all over my cock, positioned myself and… pushed in. I had to focus all of my self-control on not pushing all the way in. He was so tight and warm and inviting, and I was all worked-up. The whole situation was a bit overwhelming, to be honest, but I just couldn’t get enough of it at the same time. His quick and shallow breaths told me that he felt pretty much the same. After several languid thrusts during which we both somehow managed to regain our composure and I quickened my pace. I grabbed his bound wrists in one hand and held his head down with the other. The room was filled with our synched moans and the slapping sound of our flesh colliding. I couldn’t get enough of him.

I grabbed his ass and slammed into him with full force. He cried out and begged me for more. His profile was absolutely entrancing, eyes squeezed shut and his mouth wide open, his melodic whines in sync with my thrusts. I needed to see more of it, so I unbound his wrists, pulled out and turned him over.

I grabbed his ankles instead and forced his legs up, before I buried myself in him again. My heart was beating wildly. I felt the poisonous cocktail of all the previously suppressed and boiling emotions fill my veins as the pleasure overcame my senses. “Look at me!” He watched me, bewildered, while I rammed into him, sweaty and almost out of breath. Suddenly all I could hear were my own labored grunts, while he just stared at me, wide-eyed and speechless.

“Cat got your tongue, hm? Always so…eloquent…with…them all…but not one…spare word…for your dirty little secret!”

Adrenaline running in my veins, I continued pounding into him and almost missed the sudden shift in his mood and movements.

“Tom…”

It was barely a whisper at first, but soon he became more and more agitated. “Tom…Tom, please. TOM! Hold on…stop…”

His face twisted in clear discomfort and his hands were clawing at my chest. I pulled out carefully. “What happened Josh? Did I hurt you?”

“No…no, m’fine. S’just a bit overwhelming, is all,” he mumbled. “Can you kiss me?”

I let his legs slide down my shoulders, leaned down and softly brushed my lips with his. I was confused, but also desperate to make this better, whatever it was. I stroked his cheek with my thumb and tried to make him look at me, but his eyes scanned the ceiling erratically and he blinked several times as he obviously tried to fight back the tears. But I could see that his eyes were already red. Now it was my turn to start panicking. Was he afraid of me? “Josh! Josh, honey, please, look at me. Are you hurt?” He shook his head and sobbed. Then his eyes finally met mine: “No, I’m alright. It’s just…please, don’t hate me Tom. I can’t stand you hating me. I was just trying to protect you.”

The realization that hit him a minute ago now backfired back to me. And just like that my heart shattered into millions of microscopic pieces. I searched his face for more answers, those big, tearful eyes staring back at me. I stroked his hair tentatively. All the previous tension and anger dissolved and he was my sunshine boy again, but these were mere pale winter beams, and it was my fault, and the realization chilled me to my bones. He was weeping silently under me, obscured by my clouds.

I moved slowly from between his legs and pulled him up into my embrace. He was reluctant at first, but slowly wrapped his arms around me. We just sat there for a while, cradling each other. “I could never…,” I whispered against the damp skin right above his collarbone. “I’m just a terrible, jealous guy.”

“No, I made you jealous. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t realize…”

He couldn’t have. He’s the one who always lets his feelings pour out of him. I’ve always struggled with this. Not that I didn’t want to tell what was bothering me, I just couldn’t translate the whirlwind of my thoughts into coherent sentences. Just tell me what’s wrong, Tom. My previous lovers often lost patience with me. They always thought I didn’t want to talk and then our arguments ended with them giving up on me. Not him. He tried to make me laugh, he tried to make me yell, he tried to seduce me and he let me take all of him. I held him tight. I couldn’t let go. I was on the verge of tears, but it was him who needed comfort. I just hoped that I could give it to him. It was him who finally broke the silence.

“Tom…” It was barely a whisper.

“Yes?”

“I just hope you know I love you.”

I finally loosened the embrace to look at him. My mouth was dry and my throat felt constricted, but I somehow managed to force out at least a weak “I do.” But that wasn’t enough. I knew I needed to say more: “…yes, baby, you’ve been telling me…I’m sorry,” I croaked. He took a deep breath and continued.

“But hearing is not the same as feeling it…and,” he cleared his throat,”...and sometimes I need to feel it too. Sometimes it feels like you’re not even present. In your secret hiding place behind a thick wall and I just can’t get in!”

I buried my face in my hands. I needed a minute to process the evening’s events. “So, you seek it elsewhere?” I regretted those words almost instantly, but at least I finally forced myself to speak.

“What do you mean? God, no!”

“No, not like that. I mean all those people, the plug. You didn’t really expl…”

“I already told you! I wanted to share what we have.”

“By letting them touch you…”

“Cut it already!” He slapped the mattress, furious once again. “Yes, maybe you’re right…to a certain extent,” he spat out at me. “Yes, I let them touch me. I share a lot with people. It’s fulfilling and it feels natural. But it’s a different kind of love. And they understand. They didn’t grab at me, no one tried to pull me in. I share a lot with them but I don’t belong to them. But I agree with you that it's very personal. I thought about doing that for quite a while, but couldn’t find the courage to do so…unless I felt you there with me. I do miss you there. Sometimes I just miss you… anyway, about the plug…I guess today felt like a perfect day to try it. Please just tell me you understand, because I’m getting really sick of this.”

The plug was a gift from me, so yeah, I understood…kind of. Touch is important to him. But... “But why today?”

“Oh Tom,” he was tearful again. “Oh, fuck you. Really. It’s exactly three years since the day you first told me that you loved me.”

I just stared at him for a while, speechless. Then I finally lost it and started crying. “I’m a terrible person.” I felt like shit, I treated him like shit and really deserved to get a taste of my own medicine, in one way or another. But Josh is not like that. He doesn’t do that. And so it was now his turn to hug me, even though I tried to back away at first. But he’s stubborn, too. “You know, Tom, I felt it today. Among other things…”

“Forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive. I understand.”

“No, you don’t... Listen Josh, I don’t need you to protect me. If anything, it should be the other way round. But I do need to feel like I belong in your life. I…I’m not sure I could continue like this.”

Here, I finally said that. I had been afraid to utter those words aloud, because I knew they were dangerous. I expected another argument to follow, and maybe it would be the last one this time. But he only sighed and I felt him nod lightly against my shoulder. “I guess we need to make some inevitable changes then.”

I knew what he meant, but this was not just about me. And it was not just me who he’d been trying to protect. Himself, too, but also others in a way…

“Are you ready to make those changes?”

“I guess so…”

We looked each other in the eye once more, trying to communicate the rest. At last I stood up and offered him my hand. “Come on, let me fix you a nice, hot bath.”

“No.” He took it but didn’t move. Instead, he tried to pull me back to bed.

“No?” “No Tom, come back here, please. Make love to me.”

He was sooo good at playing with my heartstrings. He really wanted me. He still trusted me. And from the look on his face, he needed me. I climbed back to him, took his face in my hands and kissed it. I traced my parted lips across his cheek and down to his jaw. He was like the oxygen I needed in order to stay alive and I was breathing him in. I continued upwards until our lips finally locked together. It was the first genuine kiss we shared that evening.

How…?

“Spoon me.” As he lay down, I retrieved the previously discarded tube from the floor, lubed my fingers and cock once again and snuggled behind him. I didn’t rush it, and repeated the process once more that evening. I was nothing but tender this time, but he thought otherwise. He took my hand that was stroking his bare chest, placed it on his neck and tilted his head back. “Choke me.”

“Josh, I…you…” “Shhh, just do it. Please.” And I did. I wrapped my fingers around his throat and pulled him firmly back towards me. It wasn’t harsh. He let himself be completely vulnerable with me and I wanted to cherish it. I just rested my hand there, holding him firmly, but not with too much pressure. I could feel his pulse beating against my palm, every intake of breath. This was different than before. A moment of raw intimacy. He arched his back and reached behind to grab the back of my head. He knows I like that. I rewarded him with slow and deep thrusts, just how he loves it. He was moaning melodically to the rhythm, singing a secret song just for me now, and we rocked in tandem slowly, meeting each other halfway. Nothing else was necessary, this was everything.

I took control again soon. Quickening my pace, I thrusted into him with a frantic urge. Goosebumps appeared all over his skin, which told me that he was very close. He always got shivers when he was approaching orgasm while I fucked him. Almost as if he was feverish. “Maddening ecstasy” – those were his words with which he once described it. I could feel him tense and tighten around me and rolled my hips once more to hit that perfect spot. “Oh my ggggnnnh Toooooohmmm….,” he let out a high pitched scream and came hard, his whole body convulsing.

He was literally sobbing. I slowed my movements to a near stop and held his shivering body tight in my arms, waiting for his breathing to slow down. I was just about to pull out when he started moving again against me, urging me to continue, but I grabbed his hip and made him stop. He looked up at me, frowning. “What?” “Are you sure? It’s been a long night…” “No, Tom, don’t worry…come on, go on.”

I moved again tentatively, looking for any clue of his discomfort. He encouraged me again and I gradually resumed my pace. It didn’t take long. With a final groan, I buried my face in his hair, holding his now almost limp and exhausted body pressed to mine while I threshed about in an almost comical way, keeping him swaying in unison with me. We shifted a bit so that he was lying on his belly now, me hovering above him. With the last few erratic thrusts I filled him up and we finally collapsed together into the pillows.

We barely moved for at least another ten minutes, limbs still intertwined, eyes closed and our torsos literally glued together with sweat. Both of us simply wanted to prolong the moment, but I was slowly becoming aware of the world around us. We had left the glass door leading to the balcony open and the evening breeze finally pulled us back to reality.

“Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“I think a few people might have overheard us.” “Uh huh…ok…good.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

Love sticks, sweat drips Break the lock if it don't fit A kick in the teeth is good for some A kiss with a fist is better than none (Florence and the Machine)

@writingcold @edgingthedarkness @its-interesting-van-kleep @thewritingbeforesunrise @lvnterninthenight @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @takenbythemadness @fleet-of-fiction

#greta van fleet #josh kiszka #josh gvf #gvf fanfiction #greta van smut #greta van fic #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet fanfiction #greta van fleet fanfic #josh kiszka fanfiction #josh kiszka smut #slash fanfiction

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reclusiverisottonero · 2 years

Note

May i request some Headcanons beauty and the beast au with Risotto?

But reader is actually pretty chill to be kidnapped since they were suppose to marry some asshole a la Gaston, but dosent have a cool dad like Belle, so they are fine to be in a fancy castel. Maybe even too much fine.

"haha how tall are you??"

"...2 meters? 2 meters and 30 with the horns?"

"With the horns, haha, you are soooo funny...wanna fuck?"

Sorry but im a sucker for awkard big monster and their freak monsterfucker s/o

God i love the trope where character A kidnaps character B and then finds out that B is just totally fine with it and throwing A for a loop because they didn't see it coming. Its just so fucking funny to me. Oh and monster fucking is great too! Okay but for real, I love this prompt.

I uh, don't think I made Risotto as awkward as you were looking for here, though I hope you still like this! I've actually never written anything like this before so any feedback would be great! 😃

HCs with Monster!Risotto/gn!Reader, Beauty and the Beast AU...Sort of?

Kinks/Warnings: "kidnapping", Risotto's failed attempts at being intimidating or scary in any way, oral sex & face sitting, monster fucking, size kink, knotting, cream pie, belly bulge.

✂️ You had gone out to the woods with the flimsy excuse of foraging for mushrooms and other herbs so you could be as far away from the man who was just not taking the hint you didn’t want anything to do with him. The number of times you turned down his marriage proposals has to at least be somewhere in the double digits by now. So busy thinking of ways to avoid this man you don’t notice the shadow of something lurking behind you until its massive form is nearly on top of you, and by then it’s too late. Your escape attempts don’t get you very far, tripping over a tangle of raised tree roots you land face first into unconsciousness.

✂️ You wake up in a bed with throbbing pain across the side of your face. That’s not as important to you as the hulking beast looming over your bedside. Your gaze begins at the sight of abs chiseled by the gods, blanketed with a dusting of silver-white fur that's thicker along the flanks of the torso. Held up by thighs that look ready to burst the trousers they’re covered up with at the seams from how thick they are. Hairy arms rest at the sides, ending with black claw-tipped fingers on giant hands. A thrill shoots through your gut as you tilt your head back to look further up at the bare chest, the dusky brown nipples almost mesmerizing. You clench your thighs hard when you tilt back even more to look at the face of the one all this beauty belongs to. Oh god, he has horns too.

✂️ “What were you doing trespassing on my property?” The man-beast asks with a growl, like he’s annoyed to be dealing with you. His unique eyes tell you differently, peer down at you with a curiosity that makes the flares of heat inside you crackle. In your flustered stupor at taking in his appearance you start to giggle, and his lip curls just enough for you to peak at the sharp teeth hiding behind them. There’s no mistaking the leer on your face as you look over his body. His expression falters, and is that a blush you can see? You bite your lip as his deep voice grits out with a bit of bewilderment, “Who are you?”

✂️ An awkward series of introductions and explanations go on from there but Risotto is unmoved by your honest mistake of wandering onto his lands, “There’s been a group of hunters trying to kill me for the better part of a year. I can’t let you leave and risk you telling someone I’m here in this castle.” Risotto's tone holds an authority that leaves no room for argument, “You have two options: Live here the rest of your days, or die.” You grin at those choices, causing Risotto to take a step back. Either one is a death sentence in his eyes and here you are happy about it?! When you tell him you’d like to stay it confuses him even more, “But...why?”

✂️ “Well, if you’d wanted to kill me you could’ve done so to begin with,” You slide out of bed to size yourself up next to his towering form. Risotto has to be a little over two meters from what you can tell, more if you count his horns. It's obvious he’s someone used to having his orders obeyed without question, clearly not accustomed to the type of attention he’s receiving from you, “Something tells me though, that you don’t wanna do that,” He growls low as you get closer but doesn’t make any efforts to stop you from pressing yourself up against his front. “I get the feeling you want company and are just looking for an excuse for it.” You trace your hands along the divots of his hairy abs, through the coarse fur to press your palms against his nipples, “Tell me, Risotto, how long have you been alone in this castle?”

✂️ Risotto doesn’t bother to restrain himself, he lunges for you with a breathy growl of: “Too fucking long.” Next thing you know you're thrown onto the bed on your back, legs wrapped tight around his torso and big mouth covering your own in a sloppy kiss. A clash of tongue and teeth and Risotto lets you adjust the angle of his head with a chuff so your lips slot together better. It tugs at your heart how content Risotto seems to be with just a simple make out session, making you wonder if he’s been without even normal touch for this long as well as intimacy. When Risotto’s kisses start to taper out into soft pecks and licks down your neck, you reach for the trousers housing the massive outline of his cock. The change in scenery as he shows off his strength to lift you and roll you both over is dizzying with how much raw need it sends through your gut.

✂️ You’re arranged to sit on his chest and the sound of your clothes ripping apart brings you back to the present. “I need to prepare you. It’ll hurt if I don’t.” Risotto grunts, straight to the point. He tosses aside the frayed remains of your clothes and you flush under the hungry gaze of his red-black eyes. “Hm, can’t use my fingers, either.” He emphasizes that with the light brush of his claws over the tops of your thighs. There’s a brief silence that Risotto uses to think of how to proceed, before you watch his wide shoulders shrug and he takes you by the hips to let your thighs cage his head in between. “Is this okay?” Your crotch is just inches away from his mouth, the light puffs of his breath on your sex sending shivers through you. When you nod he hums out, “Don’t let me hurt you.” and well, that's the last thing he says for a long, long while.

✂️ Risotto eats you out like he’s starved and you have to hold onto his horns to keep balance. Your grip at the base of them makes him moan against your entrance, his hands on your waist pushing you forward to encourage humping his face with abandon. Risotto opens you up with his long, thick tongue for what feels like an age. Lets you ride him until his face is soaked with release after release. Until your inner walls hug soft and comfortable around the slick intrusion of his tongue. As satisfied as you are right now, you still want more. You turn to find his cock already out of his trousers. Watching the thick vein along the shaft pulsing makes your mouth water. Hard and blurting out a downright obscene amount of precum onto his abs. Risotto grunts when you take him in hand and god, you can’t even get your grip completely around it. You circle the head of his cock with your thumb, causing it to twitch.

✂️ Only after triple checking with you that this is still what you want Risotto lets you shuffle backwards until the tip of his cock brushes against your hole. Risotto quakes underneath you as you start to sink down on his cock, yet still his hands massage along your hips and thighs in an effort to distract from any discomfort. Large knuckles drawing circles against your sex and you think there will be no end to your descent until you suddenly bottom out with a gasp. Risotto hands shootout to take the bedding in a death grip. Sharp claws digging into fabric with an audible rip. The soft, desperate noises Risotto makes as you shift around to get comfortable around his cock would seem adorable if you weren’t feeling the same as he is right now. Both you and Risotto look down to see the faint outline of it along your lower body and the moan Risotto let out at the sight vibrates throughout your body hard enough to make you see stars.

✂️ Your efforts to ride his cock are admirable, but Risotto can tell you’re struggling. With shaky hands he takes you by the waist and begins to move you up and down his length, the size of you worth nothing in the face of his inhuman strength and need. Your moan of relief morphs into a reedy whine as Risotto’s girth slides along all the right spots inside of you to draw out your cries. It’s only a few moments later Risotto shamelessly murmurs out a gravelly, “‘M close,” and tries to pull you off his cock only to stop when you dig your hands into his fur to stay in place, “Nngh, you don’t understand. I don’t, ah! St-Stop squeezing around me like that! I don’t cum like a normal human!” He half shouts, half moans, “If my knot inflates inside of you I could rip you apart!”

✂️ “I think I can handle it,” You’re not so naive to be ignorant of what Risotto speaks of. You read to an obsessive degree, of equal amounts fiction and educational texts. The veterinary illustrations you’ve seen were only intellectual curiosities that now serve in a way you didn’t think would be possible, “Now stop being such a gentleman and take what you want—whoa!” Risotto flips back over to press you into the mangled bedding, folding you in half to do exactly what you’ve instructed. The angle has your eyes rolling back and clenching around him just so that it only takes a few more thrusts until he’s pumping thick ropes of cum inside of you. Risotto doesn’t stop until his knot well and truly ties you both together. It swells faster than you anticipated, but Risotto’s hand returns to your sex to mix the pain with your pleasure to make you a twitching, crying mess as you cum around his cock.

✂️ Risotto grunts and trembles from above, cock twitching hard inside of you. No doubt cumming again from the grip you currently have on him. So much of it that you can feel it leaking out of you from around his knot. Slowly he arranges you on your sides and stuffs pillows around your exhausted body to support you as you sag into his chest. There is a strange noise filling up the space of the room, realizing it’s a purring sound emanating from deep within Risotto’s chest you can’t help but giggle. He chuckles in turn, wrapping a comforting arm around you, “I’m sorry but you’re going to be stuck to me for a while, so try to get some rest. We’ll figure out where to go from here...after.” You hum in response. As the comfort of his purring starts to make you drift off to sleep, you wonder if this castle has a library.

BONUS—

🥓 “Keep searching, there has to be clues about what happened to them!” Prosciutto shouts to the search party he’s accumulated to help find you. He refuses to believe you would so willingly vanish without a trace, cursing himself for not stopping you from going into the forest in the first place. He’s warned you again and again about the monster that skulks this part of the woods. Prosciutto saw that thing with his own eyes, a horned, wild hybrid of man and beast that had to be spawned from the womb of the devil themself. He should’ve cleaved his sword into its skull then and there.

🥓 Pesci calls out to him from not far off, and he races to the clearing where minor shreds of your clothing and specks of your blood stains a gnarl of upturned roots. Prosciutto spits out more curses before commending Pesci on such a great find. The only explanation for this is that the monster got to you before he could, and stole you away to its lair which he’s yet to find. While it’s something to start with, Prosciutto won’t be satisfied until he’s either found your remains, or you’re safe and whole in his arms.

🥓 He will save you. He will save you. Once he’s brought you back to the village and killed the beast that dared lay its hands on you, you’ll finally see that he’s worthy of the title of husband. No one could possibly turn down a proposal from the one that saved their life from such horrid circumstances. His place by your side is all but guaranteed. Making sure that monster won’t hurt anyone ever again will just be a nice bonus. Prosciutto’s already wondering where he’ll display its horn in his den.

BONUS BONUS—

I wanted to talk about some ideas I had with this AU. I’m probably not ever going to write a full blown fic so anyone reading this feel free to take these ideas and roll with them in your own story!

Risotto and Prosciutto’s family had a generations-long feud for reasons that have since been lost to time. Risotto & his cousin were some of the few remaining members of the Nero family left. Risotto’s cousin was like a father/older brother (or mom/sister) to him. His cousin is brutally murdered during negotiations to marry the rival families sons/daughters so as to bring an end to the feuding for good. Risotto goes on a long, bloody, bitter revenge quest. He almost wipes out the entire rival family—many which had nothing to do with or knew of plans for the murder, including children—before Prosciutto’s grandmother (this part of the AU takes place during her generation when she’s a young woman, and she’s a secret witch!) places a curse on Risotto to change him into a beast. With his cousin dead and Risotto forced into seclusion because of the curse the Nero family dies out and falls to ruin.

Instead of loving and being loved like in the Disney film the only way to break the curse is for Risotto to let go of the bitterness, the hate and vengeance in his heart. Not just the hate for Prosciutto’s family but the hate he has for himself and for the things he’s done in the name of revenge. He also has intense depression, survivor's guilt and PTSD from watching his cousin be murdered. For decades Risotto stays in hiding, those negative feelings keeping him numb on the inside. A beast that wants to die but for some reason keeps on moving forward.

Until the Reader shows up of course! 😁

Prosciutto isn’t exactly a Gaston insert in this AU and not an outright misogynist (as the Reader is gn in this story), he is more just someone that feels entitled to the Reader’s love because of either his high standing in the village or noble status. I can’t decide which explanation is better. Either way, he was raised a bit spoiled as one of the handful of children in his generation and very entitled because of it. Prosciutto is completely ignorant to the feud and what happened during his grandmother’s time, she told him that illness almost ended their line.

He thinks Risotto to be some horror story come to life and nothing more. Risotto is equally as ignorant to which family Prosciutto belongs to, only seeing Pros as nuisance to his quiet days of brooding while taking long walks through the forest. Risotto just wants to be emo in peace goddamnit!

Prosciutto’s grandmother is now the matriarch of the family, and holds deep shame over what transpired between them and the Nero’s. She becomes head of her family a few years after cursing Risotto and vows to lead them to be better than their ancestors who started this pointless feuding. Watching how her only grandson acts, she now worries she did not do as good a job as she had hoped.

And that's all I got! If you read this far I hope you enjoyed it and thanks for sticking it out through such a long post! 💖

#risotto nero #risotto nero x reader #risotto x reader #risotto nero jojo #risotto nero jjba #prosciutto gets cucked and he doesn’t even know it #does it count as cucking if he never got to fuck reader in the first place? 🤔#idk i wanted to bully someone and it was either him or formaggio and the masses voted for the ham man #ask #anonymous #my writing #i went way overboard with this i am SO sorry to anyone that feels unsatisfied with how i did their requests now

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drarrily-we-row-along · 3 years

Text

Day 67: Soulmate (Take 2)

Okay- I don't usually do this but I'm writing two for this prompt. I think you guys were probably actually hoping for some soulmate au so that's why I wrote Soulmates (Take 1) but I feel like ficlets (or my ficlets, at least) can't really do that trope justice. So Take 2 is what I would have written based just on the prompt.

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Draco trailed his fingers along the smooth, strong planes of Harry's body. He loved the time they spent together like this when it was just the two of them, their bodies in sync, it felt like even their heartbeats had lined up.

Harry hummed as Draco's thumb brushed over his nipple and he pressed a kiss against Draco's forehead. "This is nice," Harry whispered. "I always like getting to lay here with you."

"Sometimes I think you might be my soulmate," Draco murmured back, thinking it was funny that they'd been thinking the same thing.

"I don't believe in soulmates," Harry said and Draco's heart froze. "One person that you're destined to be with," he shrugged, "seems like nonsense."

"Right," Draco said as he pulled away. "Of course." He grabbed his hair tie off of the nightstand and pulled his hair up as he stood and moved to collect his things.

"Draco, what-"

"Nothing," he said. "You're right. We're just fucking, it was stupid of me to forget," he added as he pulled on his trousers.

"I didn't-"

"No, it's fine," he said, shrugging Potter off and grabbing his things. "I'll see you around, yeah?" he asked in the split second before he apparated out of Potter's flat and to his own home.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he cursed himself. Falling for Potter was the dumbest thing he could have ever done. Of course the other man didn't see him as anything more than a warm body. How could he have let himself forget?

Clean break. That's what he needed and he resolved not to see Harry Potter again.

-----------

The trouble with that resolution was that he saw Harry Potter every single day at work.

(Read more below the cut)

But he did an admirable job avoiding talking about anything personal, if he did say so himself. By the end of the day he'd successfully deflected Potter so many times that he'd lost count.

He should have known that his luck wouldn't be able to last.

Just as the doors were sliding shut on the elevator, Potter slipped inside. "Draco-" he started.

"Don't," Draco said. "Please, just drop it."

"You misunderstood-"

"No," he replied, glancing at the other man, "No, I understood perfectly. And it's fine, Potter, honestly. You're right, we're just friends with benefits and I let myself get carried away. It's the dopamine."

"Are you done?" Potter asked, one unimpressed eyebrow raised as he stared at Draco.

"Done with what?"

"I just wanted to make sure that I could speak. You haven't let me string more than two words together, so I wanted to make sure you'd said what you needed to."

The doors to the elevator dinged and they opened onto the ground floor, "Perfect timing," Draco said as he started out.

"Draco," the other man growled, following him. "Can you please let me explain?"

He sighed because the truth was that he'd couldn't really deny the other man anything, "Over a drink." He turned to look at him, "Not here, in the entryway to our place of employment."

Nodding eagerly, he asked, "Now?"

"Meet me at Nightjar in an hour."

"Alright," he agreed.

Draco spun on his heel and apparated home to get changed.

--------

He walked through the door to the muggle bar, that he and Harry had come to several times in the past, about 45 minutes later and was surprised to see that Harry was already there, sitting at a booth in the corner.

Draco headed toward him and when Harry caught sight of him he rose quickly. He was wearing the tight jeans that Draco liked and the green cashmere sweater Draco had given him for Christmas. "Hey," he said breathlessly.

"Hi."

"I got you a Lupita because you liked it so well the last time," he added quickly, "but I can get you something else-"

"It's fine," Draco said, somehow Harry's nervousness eased his own nerves a bit. "Thank you," he added with a little smile.

Harry returned his smile and they slid into their seats.

They stared at each other for a long moment before Draco cleared his throat and said, "Right, so, I'll just reiterate what I said earlier. You don't need to apologize, I'd started t-"

"Draco," Harry said softly, reaching over and covering his hand. "I'm not apologizing for not believing in soulmates. I don't quite understand how I've hurt you but that is what I am sorry for."

"You don't need to be," he said again.

"Can I tell you what I meant?"

Draco nodded once and took a sip of his drink to keep himself from talking over Harry again.

"My whole life was dictated by prophecies and I often wondered if there were things that could have gone differently if there wasn't 'fate' involved," Harry said softly. "Not that I wouldn't have wanted to do my part and everything, just," he shook his head. "I'm done having things that make my choices for me."

"I don't understand," Draco confessed.

"Having a soulmate implies that there is one person that I am destined to be with."

"Right," Draco said, "You've got lots of options, I understand."

Harry's brow furrowed, "You're focusing on the wrong part of the sentence."

"Sorry?"

"You're focusing on the 'one person' but I am focusing on 'destined'."

He huffed, "Is this a riddle, Potter?"

"Let me say it this way: I want to be with you, Draco," he said earnestly. "I'm not saying I don't believe in soulmates because I want to keep my options open. I'm saying I don't believe in soulmates because I choose you. You aren't just some foregone conclusion that someone picked for me, I picked you for me and I hope that you'll pick me for yourself." His fingers threaded through Draco's.

"You want to be with me?"

Harry laughed, "Very much." He squeezed Draco's fingers, "I actually think I'm rather in love with you."

"What?"

He brought Draco's knuckles to his lips, "Yes. I was going to tell you last night."

He frowned, "No-"

"I was!" Harry protested. "I was literally going to say, 'I don't believe in soulmates, I don't believe that there's someone I'm destined for. But I do believe in love and I do love you.' But you didn't let me finish."

"You love me?"

He nodded, "Yes. Intentionally." Then he added, "Even when it's hard, I choose to love you."

"Well you're not always easy to love either," he huffed.

"No, I'm sure I'm not. I know that I am a pain in the arse, that I don't know my salad fork from my dessert fork, and I'm always diving head first into danger, and I-"

"I love you, too," Draco said, stemming the flow of words. "I choose you, too."

"Thank Merlin for that," Harry replied with a radiant smile. "Would you maybe like to make this relationship public knowledge?" he asked. "No pressure, I just thought it might be nice to go to dinner in our world, or hold hands at work, or-"

"Yes," Draco interrupted, leaning across the table to kiss Harry. "Yes, I would like that very much."

"Good," Harry said, with what seemed like a sigh of relief. "And would you maybe, someday down the road, consider choosing me for the rest of our lives?"

He blinked, "I'm sorry, that sounded an awful lot like a proposal."

Harry scratched his beard, "I'm not trying to get ahead of ourselves or anything. It's just," he trailed off, "I can't imagine ever loving anyone the way I love you and especially after last night, I want you to know that I am in this for the long haul. For as long as you'll have me."

"The rest of our lives doesn't seem like long enough, though, does it?" Draco asked.

"No it doesn't," Harry agreed with a radiant smile, "But I suppose we'll have to make do."

--------------

Day 66: Bond | Day 68: Rain

(Read Day 67: Soulmate (Take 1) Here )

#100 drarry drabbles in 100 days #I strangely feel better about take 2 #we'll see what you guys think #drarry #soulmates #drarry ficlet #drarry drabbles #my writiing #send me a word and i'll write you a fic

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fics-n-stuff · 3 years

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Home

Pairing: Kaz Brekker × Reader

Summary: Y/N and Kaz were once childhood friends, later reunited in the Barrel. After a business dealing went awry, Y/N has been in hiding for almost a year and the time apart has brought up a lot of feelings for Kaz.

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: touch aversion, alcohol consumption

A/N: I haven't actually read SoC yet but I have done my research so I really hope I wrote Kaz accurately enough 🤞🏽 Let me know!! I left the reader gender neutral so all parties can enjoy 😁

Update: Pt 2 here!

You stared out of the window, watching the nightlife of the Barrel in full swing below you. It had been almost a year since you had been able to be a part of it all and, even though you had lived in Ketterdam all your life, you felt like an outsider now.

There was a knock on the door and you froze, head tilting to listen out for any threat. After a moment there was another knock, loud and heavy – certainly not the result of somebody’s knuckle hitting the wood. With a sigh, you stood up from the window ledge and crossed the room to the door.

Kaz was waiting on the other side, looking unamused as ever, and you waved him inside quickly and hurriedly shut the door behind him.

“I am one of three people that knock on your door, Y/N.” He said flatly, removing his hat and placing it atop your desk.

“I can’t be too careful, never know when someone might come sniffing around here.” You replied with a shrug. Kaz hummed shortly in acknowledgment before producing a small stack of envelopes from his coat. You snatched them from him eagerly, but careful to ensure that your fingers made no contact with his gloved ones.

“I’m getting tired of being your courier.”

“Well, I’m getting tired of being in hiding.” You huffed, leafing through your letters. “But I’d rather not walk around in a city where I’m actively being hunted.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten caught then.” Your head snapped towards Kaz at that, and you raised your eyebrows challengingly.

“I should slap you for that.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Kaz’s face remained largely unchanged but you could see the shine of amusement in his eyes.

You had first met Kaz as a child, while visiting family in the village where his family lived. He was a sweet child, and you had struck up a fast friendship in the few months you spent there. You had even written letters back and forth for a couple of years until one time you never got a reply.

When you met again years later, entirely by chance, Kaz was a changed person. Your family’s fortune had taken a steep downturn and you found yourself alone, living in a tiny room in a boarding house in the Barrel, when Kaz came across you pickpocketing outside the Crow Club. He had recognised you, but you hadn’t recognised him at first. Everything about him was so departed from the sweet boy that you had known as a child.

He refused to tell you what had happened to change him in this way. He never gave you a cause for the ruthless person he had become to climb the ranks of the Dregs and earn the name Dirtyhands, never even told you what had brought him to Ketterdam at all other than that his father had died. He never pushed you away though. Kept you at arms length, yes, but he never tried to dissuade you from sticking around.

The longer you knew him the more you realised that he wasn’t as cold as his demeanour portrayed. He was fiercely loyal, you could see it in the way that he was with his Crows, and you were certain that he would do anything to protect those he cared about most. You admired that about him.

“You don’t have to come, you know. You could send Inej with my letters, she already delivers me food.” You said, turning away at the realisation that you had been looking at each other in silence for a few seconds too long. You went to sit down, picking up the envelope from the top of the pile and pulling up the wax seal. Kaz didn’t respond for a long while. You tried to read your letter but found yourself distracted with anticipation of what he would say, if he said anything at all.

“I commend your commitment to your business.” He said finally, and you smiled at the compliment. “Eleven months trapped in this apartment and you’re still keeping up with it all.”

“Being in hiding is no excuse to get lazy. If anything, it gives me more of a reason to keep on top of things. Work keeps me sane and keeps coin in my pocket.”

“And how long do you intend to keep conducting your business through letters and underlings?”

“For as long as I have to, Kaz. You know that.” You answered with a quiet sigh, setting down the letter that you definitely hadn’t been reading and turning your head to face him again. You saw his jaw tense and the grip on his cane tighten, but you didn’t know what it meant. You were worried that somehow you had done or said something to upset him.

You had learned, in the few years since your reunion, that sometimes even the most seemingly innocuous things could put Kaz in a black mood. You had caught on quickly to the way that he avoided touch at all costs, and adapted your behaviour accordingly. He had still never told you why being touched triggered such a strong reaction in him, but he knew that you would always respect that fact.

It didn’t matter to you what traumas Kaz had suffered to create these traits in him, only that you knew how to navigate being in his space without violating his boundaries, because deep down you knew that Kaz was the most important person in your life. He took you in and offered you support when you needed it, given you structure and taught you skills to survive without even necessitating that you use those skills to serve his gang, all because of the friendship that you had shared as children. It didn’t matter how heartless people said the Bastard of the Barrel was, you knew that Kaz cared; perhaps not in the same way that you had come to care for him, but he did care.

“Maybe you should go, I’m sure you have work of your own to do.” You mumbled, your eyes drifting downwards anxiously. “And anyway, I have letters to read.”

“I could protect you.” He blurted. His voice was a little louder than usual, his tone less flat, and your brow furrowed in confusion and curiosity. “We could. The Crows, and the Dregs.”

“I don’t need your protection.”

“But you’d have it.”

You turned fully in your chair, straddling it with one leg either side of the backrest, and leant your forearms on the top of it. There was something in Kaz’s eyes that you’d never seen before and, although you prided yourself on being able to tell how Kaz was feeling and what he might be thinking about, you couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Do you know something that I don’t?” You questioned.

“Of course not.”

“Do you suddenly not trust my ability to keep myself safe?”

“Nothing like that, Y/N.”

“Then what?” You rested your chin on your arms, looking up at him expectantly. He held your gaze, but you could see the cogs turning in his brain as he calculated his next sentence. You were preparing for an argument to start, so you certainly didn’t expect the words that came from him next.

“I’m concerned about how long you’ve been alone here.” He answered. You blinked.

“Concerned?” Your voice cracked a little with your surprise, and Kaz clenched his jaw as he averted his eyes from you.

“I just thought that maybe all this time on your own might have had some affect on you. And I... hold a certain sense of responsibility.” His voice never wavered or faltered, other than the one pause there was no suggestion in his speech that the words held any significance to him, but you could see the tension in his shoulders and the tight grip that he maintained on his cane.

You narrowed your eyes, taking a moment to examine his face and his demeanour. Everything about him was wound tight, like he was making a particularly tricky deal rather than talking to a friend – you hoped that he considered you a friend – and though he was looking in your general direction you noted his avoidance of eye contact.

“If I didn’t know better I’d think you were saying that you miss me, Mr Brekker.” You said, your mouth turning in a small smirk. You saw Kaz’s chest tighten as he silently took in a sharp breath, and you chuckled lightly. “I’m fine, Kaz. Inej visits often enough, and I’m happy to see you when you deliver my letters. I will say though, I miss drinking with your Crows.”

Truthfully, you did feel rather trapped in your tiny apartment. For almost a whole year your entire world had consisted of only three rooms, and even if you didn’t admit it you were going slightly mad. Not being able to leave was frustrating, and living your whole life in one room (because really, who spends that much of their day in the bathroom or kitchen?) made you feel like a caged animal.

He didn’t reply. He also didn’t move. You watched him, standing straight and stiff as ever in the middle of the room, for a few moments. Usually he would have said something or made a move to leave, so you knew that he was deep in thought about something. You slouched further down against the backrest of your chair.

“If you’re planning on sticking around then you should at least sit down.” You sighed. “I have some kvas, or whisky if you’d prefer.” Kaz shook his head no to the drink but made a move towards the window seat. You watched him cross the room and sit down, his grip remaining on his cane as he placed it between his knees. “What’s on your mind, Kaz?”

“It’s not important.”

“That can’t be true.”

“And why is that?” He questioned dully.

“Because you’re still here, with me, staring into space like you’re waiting for the wind to tell you a secret.” He looked at you then, and you could see a conflict swirling behind his eyes. You resisted the urge to furrow your brow in worry. He still didn’t say anything, and that didn’t do anything to ease your concern because Kaz Brekker was not often one to be at a loss for words. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes.” He murmured, his head nodding slightly.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” You asked softly. He looked into your eyes for a few seconds before turning his head away, clearly deciding not to answer. You were almost expecting him to get up and leave the apartment right then, remove himself from the uncomfortable situation like he had been known to do before, but he made no move to stand.

You stood instead, abruptly moving through to the tiny kitchen and pouring a glass of whisky for yourself. You took a long sip as you came back out into the living space, picking up a wooden staff on your way. You kept up your combat training while in hiding, though it wasn’t often that you got an opponent.

“Humour me, will you?” You smiled, spinning the staff in your hand and setting your drink down.

“There’s not much space in here.” Kaz commented.

“Then we’ll be careful. Get up and fight me, coward.” You goaded. He gave you an incredulous look but stood anyway, tossing his cane up and grabbing it at it’s middle as he came towards you. Your grin broadened, and you waited just until the was in your range before you swung at him.

Your staff collided with his cane, moved up just in time to block your attack, and he watched you with challenging amusement. You let him make the next attack, knocking his cane away when he swung it towards you.

You exchanged blows, each of you managing to block all of the other’s attacks but you were starting to corner him. It seemed like you were about to get the upper hand when he swiped his cane towards your middle, making you jump back, and before you could move to swing on him he had pushed the crow’s head handle into your chest, not so hard that it was painful but with enough force to knock you backwards.

You landed on the edge of your bed with a groan, letting the staff drop from your hand in defeat.

“No fair, your cane is basically an extension of your arm.” You grumbled. Kaz let out a short breath, the closest thing to a laugh that anyone could get from him.

“You picked the fight.” He shrugged, lowering his cane and righting it at his hip. “I could have told you that you wouldn’t win it.”

“Mean!” You exclaimed in exaggerated offense, sitting up. When you looked at Kaz his expression was soft, the worry behind his eyes seemingly eased, and you smiled. “I could beat you if it was hand to hand.”

“I don’t doubt that.” He replied, the almost compliment catching you by surprise once again.

It had been a while since you and Kaz had spent any significant amount of time together. He was a busy man, particularly so over the last few months it seemed, so other than his brief drop-ins to deliver your letters you hadn’t seen him. It was nice to have his company again, even if he was a little off.

“Do you remember those drawings of Ketterdam that I used to send you with my letters?” You questioned softly, tucking your knees up to your chest. “I used to walk around the city looking for spots to sketch. I’d spend hours sitting on the street with my pencils trying to get the picture perfect to show you what it was like. I think, now, you probably know the city better than I do.” You smiled wistfully, resting your head on your knees as you looked up at Kaz. You saw his Adam’s apple bob with a swallow.

“You miss it, don’t you?” He asked.

“Of course.”

“You could go out there, stop hiding. You know I would look out for you.”

“I can’t put that burden on you, Kaz.” You chuckled lightly. “Enough people want you dead already, you don’t need to be looking after me while I’m being actively hunted.”

“How long do you plan on staying locked in here then?”

“As long as it takes, we went through this earlier. I have a big deal coming up, with the money from that I’d be able to smooth over some edges and maybe I could come out of hiding in a few months.” You theorised. “I’d still have to watch over my shoulder all the time but it would be an improvement.” Kaz’s jaw tightened again, and he bristled with agitation.

You hugged your knees tighter, doubt and worry overcoming you. Was Kaz not okay with coming to see you here anymore? Was he trying to get you out of hiding to lighten the burden it had put on him, getting your letters delivered to the Crow Club and having to bring them to you? The thought of not being able to rely on his short visits was enough to fill your chest with a mixture of dread and guilt.

“Like I said before, you don’t have to keep coming if that’s the problem.” You added, hiding the dejection in your voice. “Inej can-"

“No.” He interrupted bluntly. You blinked, pressing your lips together in contemplation. Was he upset that Inej was bringing supplies for you? Or worse, had something happened to her? Was that what was bothering him so much tonight?

“Why not?”

“Because I-" He cut himself off. He took a step back as if regaining his balance, his gaze falling to the floor, and you watched him flex his fingers around his cane as he organised his words. “Do you remember how you got sick while you were visiting your family?”

“Kaz.” You murmured tentatively, craning your neck to try and get a better look at his face that was turned away from you. Kaz didn’t like to talk about the past. Even bringing up the letters that you sent each other had been pushing it, but for him to choose to talk about your childhood was something he had never done before. Still now, it looked like the mention of the past was making him nauseous as he moved to sit down in the window once again. Your curiosity was growing by the second.

“You got sick and you could hardly get out of bed for almost a fortnight.” He continued, dismissing your concern. “I went to visit you every day. I picked flowers for you to make you feel better, and your mother baked oatmeal cookies but I refused to have any unless you did because you weren’t eating enough.”

“I remember.” You nodded. “You never let my glass of water get empty. It was sweet. But why does it matter now?”

“I can’t... I can’t stop worrying about you. But unlike when we were kids, I can’t just walk up the street and check on you every day.”

You felt as if all the air had been knocked out of your lungs and for a second you genuinely wondered if you had made that up in your head. Kaz very rarely expressed any emotion – the mask he wore hardly ever slipped – but here he was telling you that he worried about you. For Kaz, that was practically him baring his soul for you to see.

“You don’t have to worry about me.” You said shakily. “I’ve been fine so far, haven’t I?”

“But what if you’re not fine for much longer? As long as you’re holed up here I can’t keep you safe, and I can’t come to check on you because if I come here too often people might notice. Honestly, it’s a miracle that they haven’t already.”

“I didn’t think you believed in miracles.” You mumbled. Kaz glanced up at you, and the vulnerability on his face was unlike anything you’d seen before. It struck you in the heart and made you feel a need to comfort him, to put him at ease. “I can take care of myself, Kaz. I promise."

He was silent for a moment, his gaze downcast once again, then he took a deep breath and spoke.

“I think I’ll take that drink now.”

You watched him for just a second before you got up, crossing over to your desk and picking up the glass of whiskey that you had left there. The glass was half full since you had admittedly poured a little too generously.

You held it out to Kaz, who reached for it without looking. Although you were careful to hold the glass at the very top, his gloved fingers still brushed slightly over yours as he took a hold of it. He immediately stiffened, and you were quick to pull your hand away, taking a step back to give him space. He downed the drink in one, his face scrunching just slightly at the burn it left in his throat as he set the glass down by his feet.

“I just want to be able to watch over you.” He said, his voice barely more than a whisper, and you could practically see how difficult it was for him to verbalise his feelings.

“I think... I understand what you mean, Kaz. But I’m safer staying here than being out there, even with the Dregs protecting me. You have to know that, right?”

Kaz pushed a peice of hair out of his face, his gloved hand smoothing over his head as he let out a long and quiet sigh. Finally, he looked up at you.

“I know.” He answered.

“I appreciate your concern though.” You smiled. “Honestly, I didn’t think you cared about me that much. Or, well, I knew you cared but I just didn’t think... nevermind.”

“You didn’t think what?” Kaz’s question made you pause, anxiety pooling in your chest as you contemplated coming clean about your feelings. You thought about lying, about keeping your secrets to yourself, but Kaz had been so sincere it only felt right to return his honesty. With a deep breath, you worked up the courage to finally tell him the truth.

“I didn’t think that you cared as much as I do.” You replied. The sentence hung in the air for a moment as you moved back to sit in your desk chair, heart pounding in your chest. “I’ve kind of found myself caring a lot, actually. I think it’s only fair, really. I mean, I kind of owe you my life and all so it makes sense that I care. That’s not to say that it’s sensible but it is at least understandable, I guess.”

You bit your lip to stop your rambling, dropping your head so that you didn’t have to look at Kaz. There was a long stretch of silence.

“I care more than I might show.” He spoke softly, much more softly than you think you’d ever heard his voice. When you looked up Kaz was gazing right back at you, your eyes locking and his stare going deep into your soul. He didn’t need to say more, that simple sentence and the look in his eyes were enough to tell you what he was confessing. A smile pulled at your lips.

“Be careful what you admit, Brekker, or I might think that you’re going soft.” You joked, and he shook his head lightly in amusement. You leaned forward with your elbows on your knees, letting go of the anxiety that had been coursing through you.

“I'm serious, Y/N."

“I know. You don’t make a habit of saying things that you don’t mean.” You nodded. You glanced up at the clock on your wall with a sigh. “You really should get going, it’s dangerous for us both for you to stay too long.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” He muttered.

He stood after a moment, his hand flexing over the crow’s head handle of his cane. You reached back to pick his hat up from the desk, and he held a hand out for it, but instead of passing it to him you placed atop your own head. It was too big, and you had to push it back on your head so it didn’t slide over your face.

“You know, I rather like you without the hat.” You smiled.

“Is that so?”

“Yep. I can see your face better this way so I can tell when your emotions manage to break through.” Kaz’s lips quirked upwards a little as he took the hat from your head and put it on his own. You jutted your lip out in an exaggerated pout and he let out a huff that seemed suspiciously close to a laugh.

“Do you have any letters you need me to send out?”

“No, not this time.”

“Alright, then I’ll be on my way.” He gave a quick nod and turned towards the door. He had only taken a couple of steps when you twisted in your chair and called after him .

“Kaz.” He stopped and turned back to you. “I’m doing what I can to get out of this apartment, I promise.”

“That’s not something that you owe me, Y/N. It’s your freedom and your safety. But I await the day that you come waltzing into the Crow Club ready to make Jesper lose all the coin in his pocket.” He replied lightly, making you smile. “And if you need anything then I’m here, all you have to do is ask.”

“Thank you, not just for this but for everything. Everything that you’ve given me since that night outside the Crow Club. I might be dead if it weren’t for you.” You let sentiment out freely, finally feeling able to show your heart to Kaz now that you knew that your affections weren’t one sided. His expression softened, and he seemed to contemplate something deeply, before he took a single step back towards you and held out one gloved hand.

You hesitated, unsure if he was initiating what you were thinking, but he maintained eye contact. He gave a small nod, a mix of permission and encouragement, and you tentatively reached for his outstretched hand.

Kaz took in a deep breath when your hand made contact with his, and you watched him carefully ready to pull your hand away. After a moment he released the breath, wrapping his fingers lightly around yours and running his thumb over your knuckles.

“You’re the closest thing to home that I have.” He croaked. “I didn’t want to lose that.”

“You won’t.” You affirmed. Kaz released your hand, and you found yourself missing the feeling of the leather glove. He took a small step back, trying to hide the shake in his breathing.

“I’ll come back soon, as soon as it’s safe to.”

“Okay.” You smiled. “I’ll see you then.”

Kaz left the apartment without another word between you, he paused before closing the door after himself just to look at you for a moment longer. You watched out of the window to see him leave the building and start off through the street, a broad smile on your face.

#shadow and bone #six of crows #shadow and bone netflix #sab #sab netflix #soc #kaz brekker #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker fanfic #kaz brekker fic #kaz brekker oneshot #grishaverse #leigh bardugo #crooked kingdom #jesper fahey #inej ghafa #dirtyhands #bastard of the barrel

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shivada-jade · 3 years

Text

codename: vind

older sibling!reader

characters: diluc, kaeya ➡ mentions: adelinde, crepus, la signora warning(s): alcohol consumption, swearing, and because for some reason, older siblings tend to be shorter than younger siblings. iDK WHY but ugh, yeah you're shorter than diluc and kaeya bc you're the older sibling. ik, i hate it too

like, i wanna be a tall 6'2 woman

diluc's 5'10 so u can still be tall in the story.. just not 5'11 😢 sorry over 5'10 folks

➡ WRITTEN BEFORE 2.1 so uhh :D

notes: platonic w diluc and kaeya, duh bc ur the older sibling. sibling love!!! sibling love !! woop woop !

"Dad, I'm home!" You bellow out to the house, waving a polite hello to Adelinde who looked shocked to see you. You kick off your shoes and slide your way to the long table in the living room, swiftly grabbing an apple before heading upstairs.

Your hands graze the railings and make your way up to find your dad. Upon reaching the last flight of steps, you were suspicious with how the place was very quiet. Granted, your younger brothers are now adults, but it still felt too quiet. Maybe you expected to see your brothers playing a game of chess, maybe bickering and fencing. You were hoping to see your family after being away.

You were a part of the Fatui under the Mondstadt branch. It was and at the same time wasn't a choice to be roped into the Fatui. You got roped into the wrong group of friends and found yourself blackmailed by the infamous group.

You didn't want to join. You didn't want any of it. You've been disconnected from the world. Wiped out from the face of Earth. No one gave information to you, you couldn't learn anything about what's happening currently. The most you could do was send letters, but even those were difficult to send out. You had to do it in secrecy or you'd be in trouble.

Love, the better sibling,

[Y/N]

Or another common send off is:

Please write back soon,

[Y/N]

And your family never failed to send back letters. They asked what you're doing, where you are and how are you, still you never told them your occupation, fearful of what they would think and where your loyalties lie, so you told them you were working under an adventurer.

It's for the greater good. You remember trying to convince yourself.

You're a horrible person.

You were sixteen then. Your younger brothers were twelve. It's been 10 long years since you last saw them, and 6 years since you last received a letter back. You miss them dearly. You often wondered what sorts of adventures they did without you.

But why are you wondering about this? You knew what they did: you knew everything that happened.

You're living under a heavy burden.

"Dad?" You call out again. Maids and wine makers look aghast when they see you, and they're on the verge of fainting when you call out to your father.

Stop the act.

It's strange how the letters were suddenly cut off. The last letter you received was from Kaeya, telling you how you needed to come home straight away. You tried to, but the Fatui prevented you from doing so. A lady called La Signora supervised you directly to make sure you didn't leave.

You know...

Adelinde brushes the dust off her uniform and hurries up the stairs to catch up to you, "Dear, is that you [Y/N?]"

"Did you forget me that easily? I'm offended Miss Adelinde," you chided, but the teasing look in your eyes give Adelinde relief to know you aren't actually offended. "Miss, where's dad?"

You're sickening.

Adelinde takes one look at you and squeezes your shoulders with a smile, "I'm afraid that's not for me to say. Master Diluc should be able to-"

"Oh, where's Diluc and Kaeya?" You ponder, and the corners of your lips curl upwards. "Those two were always attached to the hip. Where are they now? Horseback riding at the vineyard? Ha! I-"

You glance at Adelinde's watery eyes and stop your babbling. "What's wrong Miss Adelinde?" You reach for her hands on your shoulders and hold them. "Ah, has father been making you work too hard? I can request him to lessen your load."

Adelinde shakes her head no. "You don't have a clue, do you? Oh," she sighs. "Please, rest yourself by the fireplace. I'll prepare tea for you." She rests her hands back at her side and scurries to the kitchen.

You frown, unsure why she's jumpy, but you follow her request and sit by the fireplace. The crackle of the fire contrasts the tense air you feel when maids brush past you, offering tea Adelinde made. You thank them, gently blowing on the drink.

After taking a sip, you place it down with a pinky to lessen the noise it makes on the table. You hear the door open, and the choruses of maids greeting someone.

"Welcome home, Master Diluc," you hear and other voices saying, "We've prepared a meal for you and your sibling, would you like to rest yourself?"

You peek from your chair, he obviously hadn't realized you yet.

Diluc's lips make a thin line and shrugs off his jacket, "Why is Kaeya visiting. Isn't he supposed to do his knightly duties?"

You have no clue why he says it like that. The venom in his voice sends a shiver down your spine. You decide this is your cue to give him a warm welcome. You stand from your seat, and open your arms in a grand gesture and waltz to your brother. "Diluc! It's been a while huh?"

You clearly see him tense hearing your voice. His head snapped to your direction with his mouth parted. The maids respectively take their leave, bowing before they do so.

Diluc looks you up and down, still not believing you're there, like you're just his imagination. His hand slowly reaches out to you as if you're a dream.

Your feet lead you closer and you grasp him tightly in an embrace.

He freezes, but slowly relaxes in your hug, reluctantly bringing up his own arms to wrap around you. You feel his grip tightening, and you feel his shake out silent sobs. His face buries in your neck, letting tears fall on your clothes.

You soothe his back, and press a kiss on his hair. "I'm home, Diluc."

He trembles, pushing himself away to look at you clearly. Why hadn't you come home earlier? He wanted to vent, he wanted to yell, shout, he wanted to know how much he missed you in your absence.

He clears his throat and coughs in his fist. "You should have told me about your arrival," he adjusts the gloves on his hands, and looks to the floor like he did when he admitted he accidentally broke your toy when you were 10.

After these years, he still looks up to you as his older sibling. Not a thing has changed.

But you couldn't help but notice one thing. You knew Diluc and Kaeya had matured, you knew they would grow taller, but shit, now Diluc's taller than you.

"I sent a letter a month ago," you began. "It should have been sent to your office in the Favonius Headquarters? That's where I send my mail after you told me about your promotion to Cavalry Captain."

You squish his cheeks with both your hands. "Because I know you're a workaholic and only respond to letters that mean business, so that's where I sent it off to. You never write back, neither does Kaeya," you pause, thinking for a moment. "Neither does dad. Tell me he hasn't gotten sick that he couldn't respond to my letters."

Diluc lifts your hands off his face and frowns. He doesn't know how to break the news to you- not when you look so excited to be home and tell of your adventures to your family, so he asks, "Did you eat yet?"

You note the frown on his face. "'What's got you grumpy," you prod. "I need to find dad first. Told him in the first letter I gave him, I'd give the first gem I find."

Diluc watches you leave him to go to Crepus' room on the second floor. He hears the thuds on the floor and the opening of the door, but does nothing to stop you. You left with a smile, and you come back confused.

"Why is dad's room empty?"

How cruel.

...

Kaeya hums, passing by Flora's shop and purchasing a Calla Lily for the sake of it. He is well aware of the Fatui that stand by corners. Whispers of the wind give him intel, and so does alcohol apparently. He leans on a wall right outside Angel's Share, watching two Fatui members drink some of the tavern's strongest alcohol, imported from Snezhnaya.

"That damn," the one with the red and black mask hiccups, lifting a mug with foam overflowing. "Damn brat's gonna snitch on us to the Knights- *hiCC* boss lady wou- *HicC* would have our heads!"

Thankfully, their more responsible Fatui friend takes the mug and switches it with their drink, water. "You're the one who let Vindicta out of your sight when you know their frequencies to escape. This is all on you, buckaroo."

One of the Fatui escaped? How peculiar.

Kaeya hums, in steady strides he shows himself to the Fatui and takes a seat from another table and sits in front of the two. "My, my, my. If it isn't the wonderful Fatui," he divuldges. He twirls his Calla Lily around his fingers, amused with the Fatui's reactions.

Their mouths drop, knowing who he is and they hastily clean themselves up by sitting straight and wiping away the alcohol from their faces. "Good evening, sir."

"Evening to you too," he places the flower behind the person's ear, flustering them. "Well? Drink up. Everything you order will be on me."

The Fatui look at each other, skeptical with Kaeya's kindness, but the drunken one accepts the offer. Kaeya celebrates in the inside as he slowly gains Fatui intel.

Though, the second Fatui whom he dubbed the "Responsible One," took a while for them to take a sip. Turns out, they couldn't handle alcohol, that's why they avoided drinking it.

"So, my dear friends," he slides a coin on the table and stares both of them down. "A mora for your thoughts? I couldn't help but notice the tense of your shoulders when you first arrived here."

Responsible One raises their mug drunkenly, and gives a pointed look, "You... you know too much. How?..." They stare at their friend and whisper shout, "Don't tell him about Vind or-" They fail to continue their sentence and pass out on the table.

Kaeya feigns a surprised face and looks at Fatui number 2, "Who exactly is Vind? I'm sure you don't mean the storm watcher up at the cliff." He coats his voice with sugar, and it seems Fatui friend fell for his kindness.

"The damn brat," they spit out before hiccupping again. "Recruited them, fed them, saw potential, gave a home, and they escaped."

Kaeya nods and pushes another bottle of wine to the Fatui's direction, urging them to continue.

"Was supposed to be one of the Agents to spy on the *hiCc* to spy on the Ragnvindr family, because *HicC* Vind was one of the best there is. They were about to be promoted Harbinger after an assignment *hiCCUpp* but then Big Boss Lady said 'End the Ragnvindr legacy,' Vindicta left without a word. They escaped."

The Fatui downs another bottle of wine. "But judging from Boss Lady's reaction, Vind did the job: killed him and placed the blame on the Knights."

The Calvary Captain knits his brows and places his hands in front of him. It laced themselves and he watches the Fatui person empty out his wine.

"I'd be careful of what you say if I were you." His lone eye glints dangerously.

"End the legacy?" Kaeya frowns. "Can I ask..." He couldn't ask why or the Fatui would stop talking to him. "Can I ask when your beloved spy did their job?"

The Fatui waves a hand, "Six years ago. After they killed that damn aristocrat's father, they tried escaping. Big Boss supervised them under their watch. 'Potential' the Harbingers always say, but I don't see the potential in them if they don't have loyalties under the Fatui. A wild card, really."

They lay their cheek on the table. The temperature drops quite dangerously. Kaeya's diamond eye glints with coldness before it turns back to warmth.

"Rumours have it," the Fatui sighs, playing with his empty mug. "The training Vindicta went through is rougher, so we were hoping they would tie their loyalties to us. We let them explore once, and they escaped under my watch. Maybe it was their assignment to leave, maybe it's not, because Boss Lady was okay with it, she said 'Vindicta will always return in our hands.' when they first escaped, and surely enough they do return. But either way, I'm fucked for letting them go missing the third time of the week."

Kaeya laughs with no soul and quickly ends the lovely 'conversation.' He pushes himself from the table and stands, "Thank you for chatting with me, it's been interesting." He tucks in the chair and glances at the two Fatui dozing, or close to dozing off.

He swiftly turns away, scoffing when he's out of sight from people. Vindicta is a dangerous card. Not even the Fatui know where their loyalties side.

Vindicta. How peculiar indeed.

One of the best Fatui, which probably meant they were payed well with respect and mora, but why are they labeled as an escapee when they always return? With someone as dangerous as a Harbinger, who do they side with- the Fatui or something else?

Kaeya has a lot of questions.

...

Diluc sits on a cushioned chair and hunches over, resting his chin on his hands, thinking.

Always thinking.

The once lit fireplace is soaked with water he splashed over. The scent of burnt wood wafts nearby. The light chatter of maids go through one ear and leave the other.

How long had it been since he last saw you?

Eternity is his answer. It's been eternity since he last saw you.

He lets out a long sigh, throwing his head back and running a hand through his untied locks.

Too much thinking for today. Diluc groans in frustration and sits back up. He turns his head slightly, seeing you in the corner of his eyes taking out boxes of things you owned from 10 years before.

It doesn't make sense to him. Why come back so suddenly after years of not seeing you? Though, you claim you sent him letters, he never got them because he closed himself off from the Knights.

"Diluc," you set down a small picture of a family portrait you took out from hiding behind many books.

You are taking this oddly well.

You're taking this too well, in fact.

This raises a red flag for Diluc. He told you the fall out of your family, how he quit the Knights, but still you're going around the place like nothing had happened.

Don't you feel any rage? Or even sadness?

He sees too many red flags and hates it- from the way you can hide things like Kaeya so easily, to the way you just suddenly appear back in his life. It feels weird. It's not easy to let someone that in quick, yet you're still his role model, so it's okay, right?

He's always looked up to you when he was younger. You never were at a loss of words and stood up for him. You were the person he can turn to when something wrong happens, but what were you doing for yourself to be gone for so long? Adventuring Teyvat could not have taken ten whole years. Where did you even stay?

"Diluc," you crouch in front of him and talk to him as if he were six again. "I'm okay, okay?"

Diluc takes a shaky breath and sits up straight. His posture resembling a king's. "I have an idea, and I would like you to help me."

You look at him in awe. The realization settles in: Diluc has grown, and you're still stuck trying to make up the past.

"And what do I help you with?"

"Finding who's responsible for father's death."

notes: had this in my drafts for a long time and i was like "wait where was i going with this..." until BAM i have the idea again so im gonna continue it

(part 2)

#genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #diluc x reader #kaeya x reader

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awheckery · 3 years

Text

so. uh.

cut for frank discussion of chronic illness and the serious failures of the american healthcare system. tw for fatphobia and gaslighting.

Last July, I got sick. It wasn’t too bad at first: some fatigue, body aches and a slightly elevated temp, until suddenly it was bad and I wound up in the ER. It took three rounds of steroids, a round of antibiotics and a more powerful inhaler to get my feet back under me, but I never fully recovered.

I didn’t talk about it here, except for answering an ask in October and blaming my lack of creative output on depression. It really, really wasn’t depression; it was my health progressively collapsing, one system after another until the avalanche of symptoms that flattened me just after New Year’s.

For the last four months, I’ve spiked a fever over 100°F nearly every single day. My joints hurt. My knuckles are knobbly and swollen, and occasionally my fingers are so painful and weak I’ve had to literally tape my pen to my hand at work. I get rashes at random that itch so badly I claw myself bloody. I overheat and have hot flashes in temperate rooms. The skin on my face and neck and shoulders turns red and hot to the touch, like I’m burning for hours with no immediately discernible provocation.

Some days, I wake up and I don’t have the strength to get out of bed. Some days I can’t wake up at all. I’ve slept through deafening alarms for hours, long enough for my phone battery to run out and die. I can only stand up for ten minutes a day without being hobbled by the effort, and every extra minute beyond that I pay for in hours spent bedbound by exhaustion and pain.

I keep losing words. I’ll arrive at the middle of a sentence and stumble to a halt, because the word I need isn’t there. It’s not true aphasia, and it’s not all the time. I comprehend written and verbal communication perfectly well, but I can’t get my own thoughts out without tripping over them.

I am, to quote a friend attending school to be a nurse practitioner, “a textbook case for SLE,” and I agree, but somehow I can’t pay a doctor to treat me seriously.

In January, I was referred to a rheumatologist after the bloodwork my PCP ordered indicated I had autoimmune activity of some kind.

To date, that’s my only test for anything that’s come out definitively positive for any kind of disease state at all. Ever. I tested negative for celiac disease on a technicality nine years ago, despite how specifically and intensely sick gluten makes me, so I was dismayed but not too surprised when follow-up bloodwork for lupus came back just barely inside the range of “normal.” Despite that, I wasn’t prepared to be jerked around as much as I have been.

The first rheumatologist I saw, back at the end of January, had barely been in the exam room for thirty seconds when I could see he’d already made up his mind about me. He was dismissive and perfunctory and condescending when he told me that “plenty of perfectly healthy people have positive ANA results,” and he referred me back to my PCP for an exercise program and antidepressants to treat my “fibromyalgia.”

Putting aside that I’m not a “perfectly healthy person,” I’m a Fat Lady living in America, and I’ve experienced medical fatphobia for decades at this point. You learn the key words and phrases pretty quickly, and “exercise program” has never not been a euphemism for “weight loss.” (Which is heavily ironic in this particular situation, because before I was Fat, I walked 2-3 miles a day for funsies and spent 15-20 hours in the gym every week. I only stopped because I somehow shredded both my ACLs in one summer. I’d love to get back to that if a rheumatologist could help me figure out how to be active and uninjured at the same time.)

I was frustrated after that first appointment, enough to request a referral to one of the best teaching hospitals in the country. Why not go to the best, right? There was a five month wait for an appointment, but I am stubborn, and I made use of the time by documenting every bullshit symptom my body threw at me. I have a daily symptom journal, full of subjective entries like my pain and fatigue levels, as well as objective entries like daily temperature changes and photos of my rashes and my burning face and my goddamn mouth ulcers.

I thought I had enough logged to be impossible to ignore, and then I saw the second rheumatologist three weeks ago, and the first sentence out of her mouth was the beginning of an interrogation on my blood pressure, and whether I was taking medication or if I was on a fucking exercise program for it. I tried to get the appointment back on track by sharing my symptom diary, and she turned back to my just-under-the-wire test results, and told me, “many healthy people have positive ANA results, it doesn’t mean anything without other positive test results for specific conditions.”

I said, “Healthy people don’t run a fever for months.”

And then she told me that a "fever is not associated with any of the conditions a rheumatologist treats." I was so startled by the confidence and authority with which she stated the lie that I was unable to speak to rouse a defense or contribute anything else for the rest of the appointment. After an insultingly brief examination, in which I never took my face mask off and she declined to look at any of my photos, she said that she “didn’t see anything that could be rheumatologically wrong with me.”

I asked her what she thought could be wrong with me, and she grudgingly admitted it’s possible, though rare to have an autoimmune disease and test negative for everything, so she would order more tests and refer me to appropriate specialists for my various symptoms. She ordered a referral to an infectious disease specialist for my fevers, and a referral to a dermatologist for my “rosacea” (that she’s assuming I have, because I would like to again note she did not see it, at no point did she actually look at my face or a photo of it), and a referral to an ENT for a salivary gland biopsy for my dry mouth, and a referral to a neurologist for my “stroke-like” memory and speech problems.

It was, all told, an unbearably shitty appointment. I cried in my car for an hour in the hospital parking garage so I wouldn’t do anything impulsive like lying down in traffic, and then I went home, cried some more, and went to bed for three days.

On the fourth day, I woke up enraged. It’s one thing to be blown off by a doctor when you’re just reporting symptoms without proof, it’s a wholly different thing for a doctor to ignore your proof and lie about diagnostic criteria to your face.

It’s hard enough not to think you’re crazy when your test results come back negative over and over; it’s that much harder after being told that your major concrete measurable symptom is diagnostically irrelevant, when it really, really isn’t.

(for the record, just going off the symptoms I can concretely prove I’ve experienced in the last week alone, I land a 16 on this chart, which is the most up-to-date, widely agreed-upon diagnostic criteria)

I have decided, for the moment, to play ball. I don’t have the energy to jump through all the hoops this rheumatologist wants, but I'm angry enough to drag myself through them. Tomorrow I’m supposed to see the infectious diseases specialist. On Wednesday I see the dermatologist. In two weeks I see the ENT, and I’ve got a neurology appointment tentatively scheduled for December.

I’m going to be blisteringly forthright with all of these doctors about why I’m there, and that I’m looking to exclude diagnoses other than the lupus I pretty obviously have. (Except with the ENT. Apparently they treat allergies, and I’d like to be able to go outside long enough to walk a dog, someday.)

I’m supposed to see this rheumatologist again at the end of November. Depending on how this week’s appointments go, I’m aiming to either move up my appointment with her when one becomes available, or just send a firm yet diplomatic email asking why the diagnostic criteria apply to everyone but me.

If anybody else has gotten through this fucking nightmare successfully, I’m open to suggestions, it’s not like it can get worse at this point.

#long post #sufferpunk life #chronic illness #chronic pain #sle #lupus #aka why I've gotten nothing interesting or creative done since last year #fml

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deans-haunted-baby · 4 years

Text

Okay I see there are those who are confused as to why most of us are pissed about 15x19 I will gladly explain in depth:

Let’s start off with our boys Adam Milligan & Michael. These characters have not been seen for 10 fucking years. During that time there were Adam stans like myself campaigning like mad to have him and the infamous archangel return for some much needed closure. We had to content ourselves with headcanons, fanfictions and metas based on what we briefly knew of Adam and Michael as people while they unfairly sat in Hell. You might have seen the “Adam’s Still in Hell” memes that circulated. WE WAITED OVER A DECADE FOR THIS. And finally SPN answers our prayers and returns these boys back into the story for the final season. None of us anticipated what their arc and dynamic would look like. Before we could only imagine who these two characters were/are after having been trapped in a cage so long; what their personalities would be like and if they’d be antagonistic to TFW. 15x08 was a surprise because not only were Adam and Michael likable right out of the gate but the writing for them and their dynamic was damn near flawless! And Jake fucking stole the show he killed it as these two. It’s a crime they were not featured in more episodes because the chemistry between these characters is amazing and they’re played by the same dude.

We were given so much background into both Adam and Michael’s psyches in just a short period of time. Their motivations, interests and how they viewed those that wronged them (like the Winchesters); how Hell affected/changed them both and how they viewed their families. We got to see them banter, cooperate with one another and most importantly their different personalities. With Jake Abel appearing in only a handful of SPN episodes, he still fleshed out Michael and Adam beautifully; giving them layers and complexities that most side-characters (who’ve appeared more times than they have) didn’t. The way Jake played Adam’s anger and resentment towards his brothers was brilliant because it’s more under the surface compared to his angsty teenage self in 5x18. He’d become somewhat restrained, laid-back, gentler and wiser which works because Adam displays traits similar to Sam and Dean. He’s kinder and has a sense of humor but none of that distracts from rational thought as he’s quick to analyze and dissect situations. Man, he would’ve made a great hunter/Men of Letters recruit. We know right off the bat Adam’s pissed at his brothers for abandoning him in a thousand-year-prison-sentence and didn’t lift a finger BUT that ironically doesn’t compromise his willingness to help them unlike his past self in 5x18. Jake gets the point across with this character without saying much and that’s what made him so compelling to watch in this episode.

Now Michael was even more of a mystery onion since he wasn’t onscreen as much as Adam had been in past episodes so Jake got to really build on top of this character. Going from the uptight, cold-blooded merciless celestial warrior/dutiful son of God we saw in 5x22 to someone whom despite his arrogance and regal princely demeanor was very human, intelligent, fair, mindful and compassionate. He trusted Adam and respected his opinions even if he didn’t agree 100%. Whereas most angels take over the vessel completely from their original occupant; Michael chooses to share his vessel with Adam as a mutual agreement which says a lot about who he is. He’s fascinated with humanity and wanted to explore it instead of returning to his throne in the clouds. We know that Michael was created specifically to be Humanity’s protector and guardian of Heaven and Earth so these quirks he’d demonstrated in 15x08 aren’t too far off. He holds a lot of pain inside from his abandonment issues with his father whom he loves to a fault and grief over the death of his brothers. On the surface there’s very much an abused child syndrome thing going on with him though he masks it with a domineering presence. And above all this we saw that he was capable of forgiveness. Whether or not Michael always had these traits inside to begin with, its very evident that his friendship with Adam influenced the person he became post-Hell. And that was someone who, like Castiel, chose to rebel for the sake of free will by aligning himself with the Winchesters after witnessing the evil his father had committed. He actually cared about saving the world. This is what we call character development.

What does 15x19 do? It shits all over that. We don’t get to see Adam and Michael’s dynamic at all; and this was perhaps one of (if not the first) most healthy portrayal of a relationship between an angel and its original vessel occupant in the history of Supernatural. Adam is just killed off-screen Thanos style without so much as one last word and Michael barely reacts like he gives a crap. It was just established to us in 15x08 that he’d developed an emotional bond with Adam through years of inhabiting the same body. He protected Adam while they were trapped together in Hell. They were each other’s only friend and source of comfort. They’d developed a certain co-dependency on each other while respecting one another’s space. They’d both made peace with their joint situation. All they had was each other and the writing in 15x19 basically tells us their relationship meant absolutely NOTHING to Michael based on his OOC actions in this episode. He shows up much darker and shadier now that Adam is gone and its like all those years of friendship, things like that independence, newfound strength and humility he’d gained from living with a human for so long are erased. Michael just reverts back to Chuck’s 5x22 bitchboy persona in the most ridiculous 180 shift I’ve ever seen in my whole damn life. And all because his little brother called him mean names. Pitiful. Just when he lectures Lucifer about standing up for what’s right; he betrays his own words, his allies and the rest of humanity in T-minus 2 minutes. That is total character assassination. Nothing about this motivation makes any sense.

There’s no build up to it, no foreshadowing in 15x08 or throughout 15x19 until they get to the lake. He’s completely deconstructed as a character in this episode and rendered weak. It’s like 15x08 never happened. Stripped of all his development for lousy shock value. Instead utilizing all of what he’d learned through Adam and sticking it to Lucifer by proving he could be more than what Chuck tried to mold him into; Michael becomes just another NPC in the story forfeiting the hero he was. And his reasons for siding with Chuck are never specified. Was it about about saving Adam? Was it about proving something to Lucifer (whom he’d already killed in anti-climatic fashion)? Was it all an act that he was in on with the Winchesters; cause there’s absolutely NO FUCKING WAY they could’ve predicted he’d flip on them like that for their magical plan to work. Not after everything Chuck’s done, killing Adam and Jack and leaving Michael to rot in Hell for eternity. And why would he suddenly go along with destroying the Earth when defeating Chuck would probably get Adam back (if that was his goal) which IT DID not to mention its his sworn duty to freaking protect humanity, hello? So his betrayal meant jack shit in the end as it got him killed by his fucking dad!! He’s brought back into the show only to be ruined forever and killed off in the stupidest fashion.

Moving on.

Jack Kline & Castiel. This iron-clad relationship has been in development for 4 in 1/2 years since before Jack was even born. And next to Adam & Michael its the other most healthy relationship on the show. Castiel, a million year old celestial being, spent the first 9 years of his arc on Supernatural following around the Winchesters, being torn between his loyalty to them and to Heaven. He rebelled when he was supposed to be a straight-by-the-book warrior of God. And he defied every rule in the process even when the odds were stacked against him. There was an endless rinse and repeat cycle of love, loss, betrayal and redemption when it came to his relationship with Sam and Dean. It made his character complex, interesting and layered but it still didn’t give him an arc that was his own. Castiel started out moreso being written as just the Winchester’s angel BFF/side-kick. Until Lucifer got Kelly Kline pregnant in 12x08 then things really took off. Before this, Castiel was a lost soul. His faith was broken, he was depressed, lonely, battered and rundown from years of being conflicted over the other angels and Sam & Dean. He felt he’d lost a sense of self and meaning in his life. And didn’t have a mission. Once he turned on Heaven’s orders, Castiel was a rebel angel without a cause so to speak. But like I said this changes the moment he meets Kelly.

Originally Castiel was suppose to kill Kelly in 12x19 because she was carrying the child of the devil and Nephilim are considered forbidden abominations. Told that if Lucifer’s kid was born he could unleash even more evil into the world. But instead of doing what he thought he should, Castiel decides to runaway with her. Choosing to protect her from all threats (Lucifer, demons, other angels, princes of Hell); this especially included the Winchesters. During this short time-frame the angel develops a strong, emotional bond with Kelly and her unborn son that stretches all the way to the S12 finale; to the point where it actually gave him a power-boost. From the womb, Jack appoints Castiel to be his father and protector and he’s given a glimpse into the child’s destiny that he’ll bring paradise to the world. A prophecy that the writers establish head on. This is an unusual circumstance because right here is where Castiel’s solo arc apart from the Sam & Dean takes shape. The journey of becoming a first time parent and guardian. Its a new kind of independence that for the first time has nothing to do with his friends or his family members/colleagues in the sky. Its his own personal mission that he willingly accepts, the second he connects with Jack from inside Kelly. Castiel immediately falls in love with him, before they even see each other; and adopts the boy devoting himself to keeping him safe. Making a promise to Kelly that would later become a vital plot-point in the seasons to come.

Castiel literally risks everything (Heaven and Earth) to ensure Jack’s birth and ends up dead by 12x23′s startling conclusion. Leaving the newborn infant Nephilim alone in the care of the Winchesters going into season 13; scared, confused and aged into a seemingly 18 year old boy for his own protection. And Alexander Calvert who is a fantastic addition to the cast really brings something wonderful to this role; he’s like a breath of fresh air and a bright light in the middle of a dark room. Jack’s naïve, innocent and curious about his surroundings but also as Castiel once put it “remarkably intuitive”. Right when he’s introduced his arc is intentionally paralleled with Castiel’s. Their alien-fish-out-of-water beginning is practically identical as is their adorable stoic facial expressions. Like father like son. And this helps because while the angel is currently dead in the beginning of season 13, there’s an empty void he’s left behind. So Jack is kind of his temporary stand-in. Odd enough this type of switcharoo would’ve been considered very controversial but it’s handled quite well. Alex is so likable and charming I almost wish Supernatural had introduced him sooner. I mean I really thought I was looking at Castiel’s actual mini-me and not the son of Satan. But I digress Jack’s story in the first half of this season is pretty much about discovery and reuniting with Castiel. He’s a baby so everything is new to him but he’s also one of the most powerful beings in the universe destined for greatness which makes the Winchesters very nervous.

Jack remembers choosing Castiel as his dad which is why he already feels strongly connected to him. Its a bond so powerful that it actually resurrects Castiel out of the Empty the first time. Something Chuck himself was unable to do (that was until the mess that is 15x19). When they’re finally reunited the payoff comes so naturally. Misha and Alex have such a phenomenal onscreen chemistry starting with that first hug; they really play off one another so well that it doesn’t feel like two angels interacting but a genuine father and son duo. So much of what makes Jack and Castiel’s relationship so relatable, deep and endearing is because of what the actors bring to it. But they’re not just a fascinating relationship, they’re compelling on their own too. Both trying to find their way in the world and within the Winchesters’ lives. Death is no stranger to either of them (tragic being that Jack is only a toddler). They’ve each experienced their own personal pain, traumas, life lessons, mistakes and decisions. The biggest for Castiel would be his deal with the Empty to save Jack in 14x08. While for Jack it was the consequences of said deal that would lose his soul causing him to accidently kill Sam and Dean’s mom in 14x18 as a result (something that Jack struggles with immensely to the brink of depression from so much guilt and regret that he’d rather die). Repercussions that would follow into the shows final season. What’s interesting about this deal though is that Castiel made it on parental instinct alone not as a promise to Kelly. He chose to sacrifice himself for the sake of his son as a selfless act of love and kept it a secret from Sam & Dean until his death in 15x18. That’s the extent how much this child meant to him. The other great thing about their family dynamic is that it parallels nicely with the Winchesters. Castiel and Jack share this unconditional love that can never be broken. its even greater than their ties to the Winchesters themselves just as Sam & Dean’s love for each other is greater than any of their other relationships. They would do anything for each other. Castiel would go to the ends of the earth for the little nougat baby because that’s his son.

Each time these characters were faced with danger or died, Castiel and Jack were overcome with extreme devastation and distress. That said its not just pain that binds these two its happiness. Jack is the best thing that ever happened to Castiel. Literally becoming a father to that child saved him. It brought him back to life, restored his faith and gave him a sense of self-worth and hope he’d long since abandoned. And for Jack, Castiel is the best dad he’ll ever have! He gave this baby comfort, wisdom, nurturing, strength. Was always there when he needed him whether it was to talk or to have his back. No other person in Jack’s life has ever made such an important impact nor made him feel more safe and loved than Castiel. Even when Jack had done such a horrible thing to Mary alienating himself from his family; it was Castiel’s unyielding devotion to Jack that ended up being his salvation. This was huge because once again he’d chosen over the Winchesters proving that no matter what (whether it be the world ending) his son comes first. So when Castiel’s pact with the Empty finally comes due in 15x18 you’d think it’d have an earth-shattering affect on Jack in 15x19. I mean for the first bit it does...until he becomes God. Then its like to hell with that relationship. Castiel is a complete afterthought to Jack and the rest of TFW in this episode. JACK DOESN’T EVEN GET TO GRIEVE HIM PROPERLY. And he just lost his dad because of a deal he’d made a year ago for him. A DEAL JACK HAS BEEN FUCKING DREADING WHILE HE WAS SOULLESS MIND YOU. And when he finally has the power to bring him back, he doesn’t? Jack just walks around with a conceited smirk on his face, bids Sam and Dean adieu and fucks off. I mean who gives a shit right, its only your dad that you love more than anything. This was extremely OOC given that time in 14x14 Jack nearly lost his shit when Castiel got infected with gorgon poison; the anti-venom wasn’t working so Jack resorts to using his powers putting his soul at risk.

I mean if he was so limited to helping Castiel in the Empty AT LEAST FREAKING CLARIFIY THIS TO THE AUDIENCE. This is not about shipping a certain pairing btw. Jack becoming God is not the issue its his characterization after the fact. His first instinct would’ve been to save his dad above getting in touch with the Earth. Yes we knew this transformation was coming it was foreshowed way back in Season 12. Does that justify bad writing or character assassination?? HELL NO.

This is what I’m talking about, episode 15x19 deliberately butchers these characters and their relationships. It shat all over them. No one is behaving like themselves. The pacing is wonky and inconstant. The script feels like it underwent several rewrites and I swear there were scenes cut out. The acting is off too and maybe the pandemic could be blamed for these things but it ultimately falls on the writer. Buckleming screwed up by showing us they don’t know who the hell these characters are, their motivations nor do they give a rat’s ass. And its noticeable on screen. I’ve known better fanfiction writers for SPN than these guys. It’s like they all came back to work but just didn’t care to put the effort into it. That’s why people like me are upset and we have every freaking right to be. Some of us have been with this series for the entire 15 year run. I at least expect these characters to be handled better and for things to make sense. 15x19 doesn’t and its not satisfying its just a cruel joke. The writers and Dabb should be embarrassed to have put this out there thinking we’d just swallow it and shut up. But far as I’m concerned the only thing this episode serves is to disrespect and ruin everybody while angering long-time fans.

MICHAEL. ADAM MILLIGAN. JACK KLINE AND CASTIEL DESERVED BETTER. And that’s the tea.

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justfangirlthingies · 3 years

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How about another one? (Sunday Nights) (Dad! Draco Malfoy)

Welcome to part 4, the final part of Sundays at the Malfoy's! If I can find more ideas I might do a little thing for Saturdays as well, but for the Sundays, this is it!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Word count: 3585 words

Warnings: This part includes smut! (it's probably really bad because I've never written smut before) I will mark it in the story, so minors and people who don't feel comfortable reading smut can just skip it!, now with that being said, breeding kink? maybe but not really, I think that's it, if I forgot anything please lmk

Even more soft and caring Draco!

I wish you a wonderful Sunday night!

What did the couple do on Sunday nights when the rest of the house slept, leaving only the two of them?

▪︎

▪︎ Now that Scorpius was asleep, Draco and (Y/n) had some time for themselves. Time, which was usually spent with affectionate cuddle sessions on the large living room sofa. A sense of calm and comfort wafted over the young parents as they laid in one another's embrace, twinkling pools of (e/c) gazing into a pair of shimmering grey eyes. "I want every day to be a Sunday" you would say, causing a chuckle to escape Draco's lips as he shook his head slightly in amusement "You say that every week darling." At that you'd just smile and pull him closer, your fingers tangling in his silky hair "I know and I'll repeat it every week until it actually comes true"

▪︎

On this particular Sunday night, you felt happy and content when you climbed into bed with your husband and skidded closer to him underneath the covers. Well almost. There was something that you seemed to miss. Something you couldn't quite put your finger on yet. You didn't really understand this feeling, you had everything you could ever want after all. A loving and caring husband, a kindhearted and healthy son, a beautiful home... You had it all. The perfect family. The perfect life. Even so, you somehow felt incomplete. Draco had noticed how your once relaxed posture changed to a more thoughtful one, your eyebrows scrunched together as you were deep in thought. "What's got you all worked up love?" he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "I'm not sure..." you replied, getting a hum back from him in return. He'd just wait for a bit and give you a chance to collect your thoughts, he had been with you long enough to know that you'd talk when you felt ready.

"It's just-" a sigh passed your lips "I don't know Draco, I mean we have the perfect life. You gave me everything I could ever wish for, yet I- I still feel like-" Your husband was listening attentively, never breaking eye contact. The back of his hand made contact with your cheek as he gently caressed the soft skin there "like there's something missing?" he asked, finishing your sentence. You bit your lower lip and gave a slow hesitant nod, your eyes casting downward. Your gaze stopped at your intertwined hands and the shining wedding bands that graced your fingers. Absentmindedly you began playing with Draco's wedding ring. This action made him smile, especially when he felt your small hands twisting and turning the ring on his finger. You spoke up again after a few minutes of silence "I'm sorry Dray, I don't know why i feel this way, after all I have no reason to-" "There's nothing to be sorry for (Y/n). Besides, I've had this feeling for a little while as well" at that statement your eyes widened and you looked back up at him "In fact," he continued "I might actually know why- well, I mean I know why I feel this way." You were unsure what expression you expected to see on his face, but you certainly didn't foresee it to be a bright grin that reached his eyes. Now you were confused "I'm sorry what? Why are you smiling like that" The perplexed face you made, had him holding back a snicker. "Well, you see darling," he smirked "we've got everything we could ever want don't we? Or more like, nearly everything" His little riddles didn't help soothe you at all and you knew that he was aware of that fact if his signature smirk was anything to go by. "Something's missing in this perfect little family isn't it love?" he teased.

"Draco Lucius Malfoy, if you don't get straight to the point, I will wipe that smirk straight off your handsome face" you growled, yet there was some kind of amusement in your voice. It calmed you a bit to see that he wasn't worried or as serious as you thought he would be. "Is that so?" he chuckled and pulled your face closer to his, his hand buried in your (h/c) hair "and how exactly do you plan on doing that, my love?~" At this point you could feel his breath on your face as he practically purred at you, causing goosebumps to appear on your skin. After all this time, he still managed to make you feel like a giddy teenager.

"Like this" you exhaled and pressed your lips against his soft velvety ones. The blonde wasted no time, eagerly kissing you back and nipping at your bottom lip. Soon enough, his tongue had claimed your mouth as his territory like he had done so many times before. As soon as you broke the kiss and pulled apart, you were left practically gasping for air. After a few moments of heavy breathing, he leaned back in, in an attempt to capture your lips once more, but instead he was met with your pointer finger against his lips. "Ah-ah-ah, first you tell me what it is that's missing in our lives" Now you were the one with the smug expression, leaving Draco groaning in frustration. However, he soon regained his wits and confidence "How about I show you?~" the man whispered against the shell of your ear in a sultry voice, his teeth gracing against the skin of your ear lightly. After hearing that you immediately pushed him off of you and stared at him in confusion again, an eyebrow raised "What?" At this, the male laughed "I said let me show you." he repeated as if what he was implying in combination with the conversation topic made perfect sense, his fingertips trailing up and down your sides.

After seeing your quizzical look turn to frustration he had to stop himself. You were absolutely serious and as amused as he was, he knew not to mess with you in that state. "I think we need an addition" he stated simply. "An addition?" you asked "an addition to what exactl- oh!" One could practically see the gears turning and working in your head, before realization hit you. You looked at your husband with wide eyes, a hue of pink tinting your cheeks "You want another child?" His features softened as he took your hands in his, his thumbs found their way to the back of your hands and started rubbing soothing circles onto your knuckles. He gave a small nod, all the while keeping his eyes fixated on you "But only if you want another one as well of course." he whispered, blushing slightly.

You sat there for a while, pondering if this really was what you were missing. This was an important decision. Had you thought about having another child with Draco before? Oh yes,countless times. You even imagined different scenarios. The thought of Scorpius as a big brother made you smile and so did the thought of spending your Sundays or any day really, with another child in your little family. When Draco noticed the smile creeping onto your face it ignited a spark of hope inside of him. He had always wanted at least two children, not that he wasn't happy with his son. On the contrary, he wanted another human being that he could love with all his heart without being scared of the consequences, he wanted Scorpius to have a sibling to play with, so the boy didn't end up like himself. Alone, broken, scared, unlovable and lost. He would still be that way if it wasn't for you, he thought. You had been his light, his rock, his everything. He had completely lucked out with you. Sometimes he still couldn't believe his luck. Hence why he treated you like a goddess, never taking you for granted. The moment you snapped out of your trance was also the moment you found piercing silver irises search your eyes for an answer. You didn't really know what to say though, so you just grinned and pulled him into a deep, loving and passionate kiss that left both of you breathless. "yes" you whispered, your voice getting louder with every word "yes Draco, let's have another baby!" You could feel your head being lifted up by his fingers that were placed just underneath your chin, before he pulled you in for another kiss. A smile appeared on the platinum blonde's face as he kissed you, pouring all his love into said kiss. "I love you (Y/n)" he exhaled after you broke the kiss. "I love you too Draco"

A mischievous grin made itself prominent on your face "Now, how about you show me how to get what we're missing, like you suggested before?" You implied and used your best, most innocent looking doe eyes as you gazed up at him, your fingers gently slid up one of his arms. Your husband's breath hitched slightly at watching your actions and feeling your fingers trailing up and down his arm. He didn't expect that you'd want to go for it right away, seeing as you had just made the decision and you were usually the kind of person to overthink every choice you made, the only choice you never thought twice about was loving Draco, but he was not one to complain about that. "Gladly~" the male purred, before pulling you into yet another kiss.

Alright my lovely minors and people who don't feel comfortable reading smut, this is where the smut begins, so please just scroll until you see the same marking as here. Okay? Okay.

To anyone else, sorry for interrupting your reading flow, you may continue :)

Smut starts here

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The kiss was full of passion and had Draco groaning against your lips as he dominated your mouth and pulled you impossibly close. Soon enough, you found yourself a panting mess underneath him, your hands tangled in his hair while his roamed your body, loosening the robe you were still wearing in the process. You watched his steely eyes wander over your body, unintentionally biting your lip as your gaze was fixated on him. The way his fingers traced over your soft skin and skillfully unlaced your robe, completely slipping it off your body and the way he drank you all in with his eyes as his tongue moved over his lips in an attempt to wet them. You could feel your cheeks heating up slightly as you just laid there admiring him marveling at you. "Beautiful" he breathed out before he made eye-contact with you again and smiled softly at you. His eyes held so much love and adoration for you, yet you did not miss the glint in his eyes and the way they darkened with lust and to be honest, you probably mirrored his expression perfectly. This time though, it was you pulling him into another heated kiss, the way you tugged at his hair had a low groan emitting from his throat. You grinned into the kiss when you felt him shudder underneath your fingertips which by now, had untied his robe and were gracing along his chest, every once in a while you would drag your fingernails across his delicate skin. When your hands moved to his shoulders to push the robe down his arms and off of him he smirked and helped you by shrugging it off "Eager, are we?" he teased as he pulled himself from the kiss. "Very" you smirked "Especially with a husband like mine"

"Oh? Please do tell me more about this husband of yours." there it was. The cocky smirk he loved to show. You grinned, rolling your eyes and you were about to playfully flick his head, but before you could do so, his lips had found your neck, sucking and biting on the skin there and eliciting a breathy moan from you in the process. "Does he please you?" he asked, by now tracing open mouthed kisses from your neck to your collarbone. "mmm~ Oh yes he does" your voice sounded sultry "In a way no one else can." By now, Draco had one hand on your breasts, fondling them softly. His mouth hovering over one of your nipples before sucking on it and when he released it again he started to blow on it. At this, your nipple perked up immediately and by the time you felt the fingers of his previously unoccupied hand ghosting over your clit you were a moaning mess.

"Would you look at that, you're already a complete mess and I have barely even touched you, my darling" the platinum blonde crawled back up to you, his breath fanning over your face. Gently he swiped a strand of hair behind your ear before cupping your cheek and giving you his sweetest, most loving smile. Even after countless years of marriage, this man could still make butterflies swarm your stomach with ease. You were like putty in his hands and he knew it. Oh he definitely knew. You flashed a bright smile back at him and wrapped your arms around the back of his neck again, pulling him closer to you in the process. Your breath hitched when the hand that had been toying and gently tracing figure eights on your bundle of nerves moved through your folds and stopped in front of your opening, tracing circles there now in order to tease you. You were unconsciously rolling your hips against his hand when he pressed his lips against yours again. The feeling of his hard-on pressing against your thigh became more prominent with each passing second. One hand left your husbands back and instead wandered downwards, lightly stroking his shaft, leaving Draco moaning into the kiss and soon you were gasping into the kiss as well, as you felt two of his fingers slowly enter you. "You are soaked, my love" he purred into your ear as he began pumping his fingers in and out of you at an intense speed "all this, for me?" His voice turned you on even more as you laid panting and moaning underneath him "Uh-huh. All of it for you Draco" was all you could mange in your state.

"I need you" you whined, pushing his hand away and leaving your husband groaning in the process. "If that's what you desire my dear wife, then I shall not deny you your wish" More moans tumbled from your lips as you felt him aligning his cock with your entrance. He was peppering your face with kisses as he teased you with his tip, sliding it through your wet, glistening folds and lightly bumping against your clit. "Draco" you groaned and practically begged him "please"

"Please what (Y/n)?" he questioned as he slowly started pressing into you. A gasp left your mouth at the familiar and very pleasurable feeling of him stretching you out and you arched your back, trying to thrust your hips upwards "please fill me up and plant a baby in me." With that he kissed you and fully thrusted into you, all your moans swallowed by the kiss. Draco's thrusts were long, slow and deep, reaching spots within you that no one else could ever reach, not in the same way he did. Within minutes, he had you seeing stars as you laid sprawled out for him, your head thrown back onto the mattress of your shared, king sized bed. You were stunning to him and he could always watch you in this state. Your hair spread over the pillow, delicious moans, his name and some curse words, leaving your throat and the thin layer of sweat that covered both of you had you glistening and he was starstruck by the sight before his eyes. The love of his life, vulnerable, fully under his control and falling apart underneath him and all the while, completely trusting him. "Draco! mmm right there!" you called out and he followed your command, the speed of his rhythm picking up slightly, as he kept pounding into you with the same strength, repeatedly hitting the spot that made your sight go fuzzy "like that?"

Another moan "YES! Draco, I'm-I'm about to" you wrapped your legs around his hips and locked them there, allowing Draco to go even deeper as your walls fluttered around him seeing as you were on the brink of your orgasm "go on then, cum all over me" he moaned and pressed more open mouthed kisses against the skin of your neck. "Fuck (Y/n) I'm close" he groaned. You felt his breath hot against your neck as his thrusts became sloppier "Please Draco, fill me up all the way" you practically screamed as you came around him. Your words and the feeling of your velvety walls clenching around him, had him toppling over the edge as well "(Y/n)!" he moaned your name out loudly as he came hard inside of you, coating your insides with his sperm.

There you laid together, trying to catch your breath, Draco still hovering over you. When he pulled out he made sure to push the overflowing remains of your mixed juices back inside of you. The feeling had you shuddering and squirming due to how sensitive you were. "Don't want any of this to go to waste, now do we?" he grinned.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Smut ends here

Your husband flopped down next to you and pulled you into his arms, where you immediately settled and snuggled into his side, your head on his shoulder. His fingers traced along your stomach gently as he pressed a kiss to the side of your head and just as he was about to speak up, the door to the bedroom burst open, leaving a distressed looking Scorpius in the middle of the room. The boy looked terrified as he tried to take in his surroundings "Scorpius? What's wrong, love?" You questioned in a soothing voice, while it did sound soothing you also sounded tired and completely exhausted. When your son finally looked up at you he ran to the bed and climbed onto it. He was looking for comfort in your arms and immediately clung onto you "shh. shh mommy and daddy are here" you hummed, wiping the fallen tears off his face "I thought you were hurt" the child spoke up, trying to calm down in your embrace. "Us? Hurt?" Your husband questioned. "uh-huh there were so many noises and then mommy screamed and-and then you shouted mummy's name and I-I thought you were attacked"

Draco's pale cheeks tinted pink and you felt heat rising to your face as well, while you desperately tried to hold back a laugh and judging by the other adult's face, he was holding one back as well. "Well as you can see, all is well. We're perfectly fine, but thank you for worrying so much about us" The four-year-old, seemed extremely relieved after hearing those news, but then he asked the question you were dreading to hear "What were you doing then?" "oh, um...well-" The platinum man cut you right off "We were playing a game, we didn't realize we were that loud buddy, sorry for waking you up" A breath of relief passed your lips. It was moments like these that you were thankful you married someone who could come up with excuses on the spot and sell them really well. "Can I sleep with you tonight?" the boy asked innocently. You giggled and ruffled his hair "well you're already here aren't you honey? I'll just get my nightgown first, okay darling? Then we can cuddle" A bright smile appeared on your son's face and he nodded his head in excitement. You got out of bed quickly to get dressed, your legs still a little shaky, your husband also joined in on getting dressed.

▪︎

▪︎ When the three of you got situated in the bed again you smiled. Yes on the one hand, you would've liked a little more alone time with Draco, but on the other hand, you were lucky you had finished before the door burst open, it's not like that hadn't happened before.

It was nice to cuddle with your family and the thought of hopefully having another baby cuddling in bed with you some day, filled you with joy. You kissed the two goodnight and enjoyed the warmth and comfort you all shared. It had been an exhausting day and you would probably fall asleep as soon as your eyes closed.

▪︎

You were about to drift off to the world of dreams when you heard the youngest one speak up again "Can we play that game together next Sunday?"

At that your eyes shot open again. "NO!" the two of you exclaimed simultaneously. "Why no-" you cut him off right away "It's late Scorpius try to sleep okay?"

▪︎

Generally, Sunday nights were filled with cuddles and love. They were peaceful nights spent together. Nights where the world was quiet and calm. Nights where you often reflected on how far you've come already and where the future would take you. It had been a hard and long journey to reach this point of happiness in your life, you won't deny that, but it was absolutely worth it.

▪︎

Sundays at the Malfoy's were always nice and full of quality family time because Sundays were reserved solely for family.

Taglist: @dracomalfoys-wh0re @ateez-star @littlemissnoname13 @gwlvr @paulina1998

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idiotic-genius · 3 years

Text

How to write an immersive scene

requested by @noa-i - check out their blog, they have amazing lists of helpful links to writing guides!

As a writer, it is mostly inevitable to get to the point in writing where you are questioning whether anyone will actually want to read what they have created. A question greatly important to writing something the reader gets hooked up with is: How do I lure them in and make them feel like they are part of something? Sometimes, writing immersive makes THE difference between a scene quick to skip over and a scene you can't take your eyes off. But how do you create immersion?

In this post: 1. Worldbuilding 2. Narrators 3. Writing visually 4. Setting the scene 5. Example to summarize

Step 1: Learn your own facts

It might be banal, since you are the author, to re-read your own notes and think about what you have written so far. However, to get the reader hooked up, make them INTERESTED. This is easily accomplished by creating a detailed fictional world that doesn't seem flat. It might be a tiring process, but it always pays off! Knowing exactly what kind of world your character finds themself in makes it a lot easier to fill in details that subconsciously make the reader believe they are dealing with an actual real-world instead of "just" a fictional one. But even though it may seem harsh, cutting out some details and facts might make the reader feel much more comfortable. Their mind wants to insert them into the universe they're reading about, so overloading them with too many unnecessary details can be just as defeating as giving them too little info. Here is a link to a great beginners-guide on worldbuilding.

Step 2: Know your narrator

As we all know, there are a bunch of different narrator types to pick from when starting a new story, and each of them is good for a different thing- reaching from the typical first-person narrator (The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson) over personal third-person (Warrior Cats, Harry Potter) to omniscient third-person (Anne of Green Gables) and biased third-person (A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). If you are writing an unbiased third-person narrator in your WIP, you can just skip this step. However, if you have any indication at all in your story as to who the narrator is, you might want to think about this more closely. The narrator is the bridge that connects the reader to the fictional world. To immerse the reader in a book, it's usually easiest to use the first-person narrator or the personal third-person narrator, because that way the reader will either imagine themself as the narrator or as a friend of the main character, which keeps them interested. If your narrator is an actual character in the story, it is necessary to keep their speech and description patterns consistent with themselves and the events of the story. For example, a character narrating that has never visited a school or similar should not use highly scientific words to describe what's going on, etc, because it will interrupt the reader's reading flow and disturb the immersion just as much as time skips do.

Step 3: Writing visually

After making sure you have the narrator and the world they're in all set, it's time to choose a writing style, more specifically, to decide the visuality of it. What I mean by that is that having a fictional world so flat it's boring is just as bad as not describing it in a way that delivers it in the way it deserves to be delivered. Picture it like this: Every scene starts in a white room, with neither windows nor doors. If you as the writer don't describe what is going on in that room and what it looks like, at best while keeping the narrator's character in mind while doing so (to make it "3D"), the reader will never know what is actually happening. This also includes adapting the length and complexity of sentences to the scene: In a combat scene, you will usually find short and cut-throat sentences to represent the intensity and living-in-the-moment mindset of a fight, however, in a meaningful conversation between two characters about a heavy subject, it's more likely that longer and more complex sentences are of use to mirror the narrator's deep thinking of the subject and their concentration on the conversation.

Step 4: Setting the scene

By setting the scene, you fill in this white room in the reader's mind, adding characters, sounds, furniture, windows, and scenery in general, while still leaving space for the reader to fill in the blanks. To find a middle between these two extremes is up to every individual writer and depends on the writing style. If you over-describe the room, the reader will know every detail about it, but it will take away their focus from what is actually happening in the scene. However, if you don't set the scene at all, the reader automatically makes up what the room might look like based on what they imagine, and then breaks out of the immersion as soon as you mention something, later on, to be in the room that they did not picture. For example, if you just say that A enters B's bedroom, the reader might quite as well imagine there to be small windows, some bookshelves, a standard bed, etc. If you don't set that up right in the beginning and later on mention that B has small windows, the books stacked on the floor, a bunch of plants, an aquarium, and a bunk bed, the reader will get confused because it doesn't fit what they had pictured before. So ask yourself: What is so important that the reader should know it before the scene actually starts? Context also matters in that case.

5. Example

In the following, I will write the same scene multiple times in different styles to illustrate what makes a difference in writing immersion. The scene goes as following: Jae falls into a dark room underground with a hooded, mysterious person waiting for him. The hooded person greets him and lights a candle, and in the emitting light, Jae realizes who he is talking to. Remember: These are more caricatures of the different writing styles than actual representation and are very overexaggerated, but you get the idea.

1. first-person narrator (Jae), scene not set properly, no visual writing, no consistency in speech pattern

After three seconds, I landed on something soft and realized I had landed in a chamber underground, slightly lit by the moonlight above me. I walked through the only doorway and found myself in a second room. A hooded figure in the middle of the dark lifted their arm. From the table beside them, they picked up a candle and lit it using a lighter. "Hello, Jae", they said, and in the newly emitting light, I recognized them in front of the fireplace.

-> feels flat and jumpy, gives no significance to the change of scenery

2. biased third-person narrator, scene set properly, overly descriptive visual writing, consistency in speech pattern

After falling for what felt like an hour, even though it was probably just a few seconds, Jae finally landed on something soft. Before even attempting to get up, he shivered at the fresh memory of what slimy, earthy, suddenly appearing tunnels felt like. He stared up through the hole at the moon and the stars, and immediately recognized the constellation of Cassiopeia, high up above him. Cassiopeia is said to have angered the Gods, so they gave her the gift of divination, but made it so that nobody would ever believe her prophecies, finally banning her into the sky as this constellation. Weirdly enough, the stars' pattern doesn't look like a woman, or a human, at all. Jae slowly stood up from where he landed and realized he had fallen onto a rather big cushion with a print of primroses in yellow, pink, red, and blue. He looked around in my new location and found himself stuck in a small portico with no windows at all and only one doorway. The walls seemed just as dirty and muddy as the tunnel he had fallen through, and as he looked closer, he spotted about a dozen small, pink worms slithering through the soil. The floor on the other hand was made out of dark wooden panels- if you wanted to call it a "floor". The pieces were just loosely stuck onto the earth underneath, and mud squeezed out from the gaps in between. Jae slowly walked over them and reached the doorway after just four steps. He saw a hooded figure standing in the center of the next room. The room had two sources of lighting: One, the moonlight shining through the disgusting tunnel, and two, a crackling fireplace. It looked like it belonged in a small cottage, being made out of red bricks and looking a little old with the small black-and-white pictures put on top of it. The flickering orange glim of the fire met the silvery-white shine of the moon in the middle of the room. On the right side, Jae saw a big old round table made out of similar wood as the floorboards outside. There were obvious scratches on it, some made by smaller knives, others bigger and maybe made by swords, with splinters on their edges. Apart from two, the fours chairs around it seemed just as maltreated, but the two others were polished and reflected the two light sources, with no scratch marks at all. On top of the table rested a metal candlestick with one slightly burned-down candle stuck inside it. The candlestick had a few scratches as well, on the side and at the bottom. "Hello, Jae", the figure said snarkily, with a voice deep and rough like sandpaper. They wore a black cape, smooth on what Jae could see of the inside and rough on the outside, with a big hood covering their hair and most of their face. A few of the blue buttons with a golden pentagram engraved on them were missing from the coat, and it was slightly ripped in a few places. One strand of dark hair fell into the person's eyes as they reached out for the candlestick, lighting the candle inside with a silver zippo-lighter. The lighter had small scratches as well as a few symbols on it. Slowly, the flame grew bigger and bigger, until the shine from below reached the figure's face. Jae's eyes went big as he realized who he was talking to.

-> little place for the reader's fantasy, but details make scenery deeper and less flat. This kind of description does make sense if the narrator/the character the narrator fixates on (Jae in this case) is very observant and/or intelligent because they will notice details that others don't. The question is whether those details are important enough to keep in the story.

3. first-person narrator (Jae), scene set properly, visual writing, consistent speech pattern

After what felt like an eternity of falling and silently begging not to die from the impact, I finally landed with my eyes squeezed shut. Okay, legs, arms, and head still in place... I slowly opened my eyes again, realizing I had landed on a soft pillow with a flower print. Cautiously, I got up, gazing up at the tunnel through which I had fallen. The view of the slimy earth made me shiver involuntarily as I blinked against the bright moonlight far above me. The sky was clear enough to see stars, which could have been far more enjoyable if it hadn't been for my miserable situation. I had landed in a small chamber underground, with a single doorway leading into a bigger room. The walls were just pure earth and seemed to swallow all noise, but when I took the first step, the sounds of my shoes on the dark wooden floorboards and of the mud squishing out from beneath them was louder than I had anticipated. I could hear the crackling of fire from the next room and see the orange glow as I made my way over to the doorway and took a glimpse into it. The room was not very big, but also not as small as the one I had landed in. There wasn't much space because of a wooden round table and four chairs, which all seemed very old and maltreated, judging from the scratches on them. I could make out a few pictures on the fireplace, and in front of that- "Hello, Jae." I had to suppress a gasp as I realized that I was not alone. In the middle of the room, right where the silvery moonlight and the orange glow of the fire met, stood a hooded figure. Their coat looked as old as the few pieces of furniture, with missing buttons and rips. I couldn't make out much of their face, even though I squinted my eyes, but the flickering light made it hard to see anything, let alone recognize. But that voice... Before I could come to a conclusion, the figure reached for a metal candlestick standing on the table and lit the candle inside with a silver lighter. As the flame grew bigger, they dispelled the shadows below the hood that had disguised the person's features before. I could feel my eyes get big as I finally realized who was standing before me.

-> Gives enough information to "fill the white room" without dwelling on details too much, shows the context of the story, gives Jae a consistent personality

So that's it for this post! I hope I managed to pass on a thing or two that I learned while researching and that this post will help you with your writing. Please acknowledge, I am not trying to attack anyone's style of writing!! If you write the way I wrote a "non-immersive" scene, it does NOT mean that your writing style is bad, let alone wrong, because the existence of many different writing styles is what keeps it individual and interesting! Find your own way and let nobody get you down :)

#writing #writing prompts #writing tips #writing advice #story prompt #fanfiction #writers on tumblr #writing inspiration #immersion #writing immersion #immersive writing #story tips #how to write #tutorial #tips #request

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monodipita · 3 years

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Acts of Love (Yandere!Josuke Higashikata x Reader)

Word count: 4,078

Warnings: YANDERE CONTENT. GORE WARNING.

"Please, no! Don't leave me, [Y/N], I'll make everything right! Just give me a chance!" Josuke's voice was scratched raw from the crying and pleading he did. His knees hurt. His heart hurt. "I'm sorry, Josuke," you spoke softly to him while you helped him off his knees, "but I can't keep going on."

You were moving away from Morioh. As good of a town as it was, there were bigger opportunities for you if you moved to Tokyo. It was heartbreaking. You didn't have the heart to tell him- all you said was that you were leaving him. A long-distance relationship couldn't work between you two. You didn't want him to break away from school to focus on being with you, either, so this was the only way you could actively get him to stay away from you once you broke up. It was horrible, yes, and it hurt you to do it, but you had no other choice.

As you pulled him in for one last hug, you felt his arms tighten around you to the point that he acted more like a snake rather than a human being. "Josuke!" You cried out his name while you squirmed within his grip, "let me go!"

"No... I don't want to!" Josuke yelled back. When he lifted his head from your chest, you could see the tears in his eyes that threatened to spill over again, the warm streaks of tears on his cheeks. The raw pleading that left his lips echoed the desperation in his purple orbs. It was tearing you apart... but you couldn't admit the truth to him. "If you leave me, I'll--"

He never got to finish his sentence.

Your hand collided with his cheek. "That's enough!" You yelled at him. For some reason, you were angrier more than you were upset. Maybe it was the fact that he was behaving so irrationally.

His grip loosened on you, and you took this opportunity to remove yourself from him. He collapsed onto his knees again - the cycle began anew - but you couldn't bear witness to what he was doing again. You hated to see someone you knew as the confident one to begin breaking down. For good reason, but you didn't want to think that you alone were enough to make everything shatter.

You felt your hand be pulled into his. His other hand collapsed on top of it as he weakly tried to pull you down into his arms, but to no avail. You tugged away from him just enough to make sure that you wouldn't fall into him. "Please... will you let me write to you at least? Please??"

"..." if you were only breaking up with him, then why did he want to write to you? Did he not understand that you didn't want to see him anymore? But you couldn't bring yourself to say no to him. "Yes... you can send me letters... Josuke. Please, I have to go now." You began to pull yourself away from him completely. You couldn't bring yourself to say that you wouldn't be receiving any of his letters past tomorrow... the way that he looked already described how he felt about being able to stay in contact with you. There was a smile on his face that stretched from ear to ear, which created an eerie sight when you saw the tears still streaming down his face.

"Thank you, [Y/N]... thank you."

Over the next couple of days, there was a surge of letters sent to your home while you packed to leave. Each letter was stacked neatly on your desk until your desk was packed up, then moved to your seat in the moving truck. You followed your parents into the truck and sat down in your seat, then pulled the slow-developing stacks of letters to your attention. You carefully opened up the first one and took the time to read what it said. Your eyes scanned over the beautiful handwriting carefully...

'Hi! This is the first time I've ever actually written a letter that was going to be sent to anyone. You know about when they make you write to Santa or the Prime Minister about dumb stuff. Well... I'm thinking about what I should put in these kinds of letters, but for now, I'm saying hi! And Okuyasu says hi too. Maybe I'll talk about stuff like my day and how everything went... maybe you'd be interested in reading that?'

The second letter.

'I haven't seen you around school lately, and I've been wanting to go to your house to see if everything's alright.' You furrowed your brows. This one didn't quite make sense. If this was on the second day after you gave him your address, then this meant you were only out of school for a day. 'But I respect your privacy... we aren't together anymore, after all. I'm still worried about you. Just let me know that you're alright when you read this letter, okay?'

The third letter.

'I waited for a really long time this time in hopes that I would see you. I waited until the night. It's 2 AM, I'm growing nervous. Are you sick? I want to check on you but I know I can't. If you get this letter, please write me back and let me know you're ok.'

A deep sigh left your lips as you read the words before gently folding the letter and putting it back in its envelope. You stared at your name printed in beautiful letters on the front while you tried to think about how much time had passed since this letter was given in to you. Guilt began to set in. You were so busy with packing that you never bothered to pick up a pen and write back to him. How did he feel about this?

You glanced back down to your lap. There were two more letters to go. One dated from yesterday, and one dated for today.

'I decided to stop by your house when no one was home. I looked through the window and saw that there were boxes everywhere.

You're moving.

Is it because of me? Is this why you're not writing back to me? Why are you leaving me? Is there someone else??'

You could sense the desperation in his words. His emotions must've gotten the better of him, as his writing appeared to be jumbled. Ink smudged at the end of the sentence and made the last question hard to read. He found out. You promptly lifted your head up to see if you would see Josuke anywhere, in the event that he was casually waiting around to greet you before you went to move. However, you didn't see anything. So ... you turned your attention to the last letter in the stack. Like in the last letter, your name and address were written as if he was in a hurry to get elsewhere. You reached into the envelope and swallowed thickly, hanging your head and gathering your bearings before reading this last letter. You were afraid of what was going to be written.

"Do you have everything, [Y/N]?"

You looked up from the envelopes on your lap and nodded your head. "Yeah, and if I don't, the moving company should be able to give me what I've forgotten." You affirmed them with a smile on your face. "I'm good to go."

Saying those words made you feel uneasy. Everything about reading these letters now happened to make you feel incredibly uneasy. But you needed to read the last letter... so you pulled it up to your eye line.

'I'll find you'

The words were so simple. So frightening. So sobering. You regretted to notice that you were witnessing the detailing of someone spiraling into an obsession, and that signs of it dated as early as when the two of you broke up. How could you imagine that someone who seemed like a regular, devoted boyfriend, turned out to be ripped apart by obsession?

You closed the letter and folded it back up, then placed it back into the envelope. Even with it out of sight though, the words haunted you. I'll find you. He meant it, didn't he? He was going to look for you. He was going to go out of his way to find your whereabouts and where you lived...

...but the more you thought about it, the more you realized that it seemed impossible. There wasn't a way he could reach you - you were going far away from Morioh. As much as it pained you to admit that, you just knew there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to reach you anymore. At least he might've found some solace in writing these letters out to you... as troubled as they sounded, you would cherish these final letters. You could rest, even if it was only a small bit.

Months passed since the incident. Morioh was a town that was far behind you now. You were attending a new school, surrounded by new people and new friends. Though new life was great and easier to get accustomed to in a bigger town as there were people that were more like you, nothing about them spoke volumes to you like Josuke did.

Josuke...

You wondered how he was doing.

"I'll see you later, [Y/N]!" Your best friend's hand went high in the air with excitement as she waved goodbye to you. You waved in turn and headed off the bus. You headed inside and let out a hefty sigh. "[Y/N], love, were you expecting any mail?" Your mom asked as she held up an envelope. You stared up at it in half-shock before you walked over and nearly snatched it from your mother's clutches. You stared at the name and address on the front of the envelope... this handwriting was eerily similar to Josuke's.

But how?

"Is everything alright?" Your mother asked worriedly. You swallowed some of your anxiety to be able to speak to her and put a smile on your face. "Yep!" You grinned, before you hurried away from her to reach your upstairs bedroom. You locked yourself into your room and ripped the envelope apart to see what the letter inside would entail.

'I FOUND YOU'

Your eyes immediately trailed to the window as if you would see him out there, standing and staring at you once you read those words. But to your half-expectant surprise, no one was there. Still, you were anxious. This ominous letter was real. You remembered the letters because you read them on his birthday in remembrance of the memories you shared with him - and if his past words were anything to go by, then these words were real.

You tried not to let the words get the best of you, though. So what if he found you? Was he truly bold enough to act upon his findings, or was he going to stay behind and continue to send you letters, now that he knew where you were at? The latter sounded more plausible in your opinion. Josuke was a level-headed individual who had a grip on reality, at least, that was what you thought. You couldn't let your paranoia impede the date you were going on with your best friend. It was the first one! You couldn't have been more excited. It was going to be a nice day on the town to go to the mall, things that you couldn't do in Morioh, like walk through a park or shop at multiple outlets - basically, you were going to do what you could in the weekend before you had to go back to school.

Your phone rang.

"[Y/N], it's for you!" Your mother yelled from downstairs. Who could it be, you wondered to yourself as you walked over to the phone on the wall. You picked up the phone and held it to your ear. "Hello?"

"This is [Y/N], right?" Their voice was unfamiliar and distorted. It sounded like they were speaking in a room full of people. "Umm, yes?" You responded, "who is this?"

There was no response.

"Hello?" No response.

Your stomach began to flip. Over, and over. The longer they took to respond, the more your stomach began to hurt. "J-Josuke?" You tried his name, and the person on the other end hung up immediately. Dread filled your entire being. "What..." you were baffled. He even knew your phone number, but how? Who did he get this from? You were so far away from Morioh now, how was he able to do anything that he was doing?

"Who was it?" Your mom asked. You couldn't tell her. "No one," you responded, "must have been a secret admirer or something."

You couldn't sleep that night. What happened weighed heavily on your conscience. Paranoia made you close all of your windows, shut the blinds and close the curtains, so your room was disgustingly hot. Compiled on top of losing sleep to fear, you were left feeling clammy and restless when your alarm went off. Maybe a shower will do. You were going to meet your new best friend in two hours, so you had plenty of enough time to take a shower and maybe get in a quick nap.

The phone rang, startling your otherwise eerily quiet bedroom. You turned your attention to the phone on your wall. Who could be calling at seven in the morning??

"Hello?" You asked into the phone. "[L/N] residence."

"You're going out today, aren't you?"

"How??" You asked, "how did you know where I was at??"

"I searched for someone, or anyone who could overhear you talking about your plans to move. I asked everyone at school, even the people who didn't know you, the teachers, the janitors. I must've looked like an idiot, but I don't care, because I finally got into contact with you."

"Who told you??" You couldn't remember talking to anyone about it... someone must've overheard you, but then again, who would you be speaking about it with in earshot of students in the school? No one should've known but the principal... did Josuke really have the gall to ask the principal? "You don't need to worry~. Can you answer my question, please?"

"...I'm going to hang up." You furrowed your brows. "Please leave me alone."

"You wouldn't make me force my hand just to come and see you, would you?" Josuke asked. "I know you're going out ... I just needed a confirmation. And it's with that girl, isn't it?"

"H-how do you know all these things?" Why haven't you hung up yet? The power of his threat couldn't be verified. But... you just found yourself being glued to the phone. You wanted to know what was going to come next. "Does she make you feel safe? I see how close you are with her. You're mimicking the same feelings you felt when you were with me. She can't replace me, [Y/N]. No one can replace me,"

You immediately pulled the phone from your ear and slammed it on the ringer. You began to pace, as you were far too antsy to stay in one place. There were so many things wrong with what he said... what he knew. You needed to cancel the date... you worried for her, but it was far too early to call her, and you didn't want to show up just to cancel the date, because then you'd be wasting everyone's time. What did you do? You walked over to your bed and sat down on it, putting your face in your hands. This wasn't happening, was it? You hoped it wasn't. You wanted everything to be a dream.

"-?!"

You threw your body up in a moment of panic, forcing yourself awake. For a moment you felt dizzy, but you didn't care enough to stop yourself from rushing to get out the door. You threw on whatever could be appropriate for a hot day and headed out to go meet your best friend. You were late - no shit, you were horribly late. The time read 13:21 by the time you looked at the clock on the way out. There wasn't exactly a way to reach her, so the only way you could find her was by meandering the streets in hopes that you'd find her.

You ran down the street as quickly as your tired body could permit. Panic filled your being. What if he caught wind of what time you were supposed to meet her?! What if he did something to her?!

"No!" You shouted aloud. People that were walking nearby were already drawn to you because you were running down the street, but the fact that you were talking to yourself seemed to add extra icing on the cake. You tried to ignore their stares and focused on trying to get to the nearest telephone booth. Maybe you could call her house and see if there was any way of finding out where she could be right now.

You spotted a telephone booth, thankfully, and headed into it. You reached into your bag to retrieve some yen to be inserted into the payphone, then crudely shoved whatever excess you had back into it. You dialed the number to her house and waited with bated breath as you heard it ring multiple times. Her mother picked up the phone. "Hello??"

"Hey!" You blurted, "is [best friend] around? I know I kind of bailed on her, but I wasn't having a good night." You explain and rub the back of your neck.

"Oh! No, she's still out on the town! I hope you're feeling better, [Y/N]. If she comes home, I'll call your home and let you know, alright?"

"Alright. Thank you, ma'am." You hung up. Your heart felt like it was going to implode. This wasn't a good thing - Josuke was still out there, and so was your best friend. He probably already reached her and now he was doing all sorts of despicable things to her ... no. No, you couldn't think that way, not yet. There was still hope... you just needed to find her, and the first place you should check is most definitely the mall. So, you removed yourself from the telephone booth. You exited the claustrophobic space and began your anxious trek to the mall as quickly as traffic could permit it.

Coming face to face with the mall was enough to make you collapse onto your knees and vomit up what you (didn't) eat. Your palms were clammy from the night before, and you must've reeked of sweat and anxiety. You paled before the mall's imposing stature, and swallowed thickly, before you pushed your way inside. She had to be in here, right? But the question would be where, and then who was she with, and if he was there with her...

You began your search. The mall was filled with people, young and old, weak and strong, men, women, and nonbinary people alike. The walkways were cluttered on both sides, which made you increasingly nervous. Even though people recognized you for the mess you currently were as the new student [L/N] [Y/N], you couldn't recognize them. They were nothing more but passing faces that would occasionally stop you and say that they would see you at school. You didn't care about them, you cared about your best friend. She was around here somewhere.

But so was he.

Seeing him in the corner of your eye made you feel increasingly paranoid, but every time you took a double, then triple, then quadruple take, he was there. Your eyes didn't fail you... no, he was right there. You'd recognize that pompadour-donning young man anywhere Leaning on the corner, head bowed, but you could tell those fiery purple eyes were staring at you, following your every move. He wanted you to go to him. No... you wouldn't.

However, he caught up with you before you could walk away from him. Your heart reached into your throat and threatened to choke you as your gaze went over to him.

His hand grabbed your arm and wrenched it tight, making your body flinch in place. "You're looking for her, aren't you?" He asked, "come with me. I'll take you to her."

"..." You narrowed your eyes, "how can I trust you?"

"You want to find her, don't you?" His purple eyes looked... different. They no longer held the spark of life in them, even though his voice sounded no different from what you remembered of him. You tried not to look into them for too long. "...yes."

He began to pull you along. This part of the mall wasn't isolated by any means... so you wondered... how they couldn't hear this girl gargling on her own blood. In the janitor's closet, you stumbled upon the horrendous sight. Your stomach caved in and you lost it, doubling over on her poor shoes and letting loose while Josuke's hand rested "lovingly" on your shoulder, holding it with a grip that would make abusive lovers envious. She was unrecognizable. The only way you could even tell that it was her was because of her hair, and even then, had there not been a familiar pattern you'd noticed from being around her so much in the earlier weeks of your friendship, you wouldn't have recognized her.

"Yes... I know, this looks incredibly bad on me. But I can fix things... and I will, if you just come back. All of this can disappear. She can going back to being a normal girl, you can go back to Morioh, and I can go back to being your loving boyfriend." He squeezed your shoulder. "Do we have a deal?"

"Y-you... you're a monster! Y-you can't fix this!!" You yelled at him. His eyes widened for a moment, and his brows furrowed. He lost his cool for a split second before he calmed down and sought to reason with you again. "But I can, my love. Just watch."

You didn't bother to look... merely turning your head away from this gruesome scene. Your heart was heavy, your throat was scratched, and your knees felt like they would give in at any moment now, but his grip on your shoulder kept you grounded, if that did anything to help at all. "Look at her, she's all brand new. Why don't you look at her, [Y/N]?"

You reluctantly turned your head to see what he did - and he was right. Her face looked... normal. She was no longer this amalgamation of destroyed flesh. She was your best friend, just as you'd last seen her. "And she can stay this way," his hand reached up to cup your chin, using his hand to gently pull your head to his. You were forced to stare into his eyes as he spoke again. "As long as you come back. If not, she will just have the same thing happen to her - and she'll lay in this closet until someone finds her, and then you will be painted as the killer for vomiting all over this poor girl's shoes. You don't want that, do you?"

You didn't respond. You tried to - but you just didn't know what to say in response to the atrocities he'd committed in the act of obsession.

"You don't want to watch her be subjected to relentless torture for trying to be my replacement, do you?? You don't want to hear her crying out for help while you can't do anything but watch, do you? Answer me, [Y/N]!!"

His other hand cupped your face and squeezed it tight, pulling you closer to his body. Your noses were mere inches away from each other. You could smell his cologne... and in that moment of pure lunacy, you had to wonder if you even smelled good.

"N-no..." you squeezed your eyes shut. "Please just leave her alone..."

"Hey, hey, don't cry," he pulled your face into his chest and stroked down your back lovingly, "I'm not a bad person, baby, you know that. You just have to come back to me... all you have to do is let me be your boyfriend again, and all of this will disappear. We'll go back to being together like we rightfully should be, okay?"

"...okay." You squeezed him, "okay."

#jojo x reader #josuke x reader #yandere josuke #josuke higashitaka #diamond is unbreakable #jojo's bizarre adventure #reader insert #gender neutral insert

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9layerdevilfoodcake · 3 years

Text

Some Of A Kind

Chapter 1: Virgin in the Chapel

(Michael Langdon x reader)

Summary: When you accompany your friend to a black mass at the Church of Satan. You pick the wrong time and place to let him in on the fact that you’re a virgin, garnering the attention of the ‘chosen one’ himself.

Warnings: murder, mentions of drug use, poorly represented Satanism

Word count: 3,666 (that’s right)

It was a typical Wednesday night when you got a text from your friend Tyler.

‘So what do you say? Is tonight the night?’

He had been bugging you for weeks to come see a sacrifice at the satanic church. And since the first time he asked, the conversation always went the same way.

“I’m telling you, just one slice and then you can have whatever you want”

“You mean I can have powers beyond compare?”

“Yes” he answered back, in a hopeful tone. Clearly he hadn’t picked up on the sarcasm in your voice.

You couldn’t help but chuckle at the excitement in his voice.

“I’m sorry, you do whatever you want over there with your edgelords but I’m perfectly happy in my boring powerless existence”

“First of all we aren’t edgelords, we're satanists. We just see the world for what it is. A dreadful place full of selfish people.”

“Well I can’t say I argue with that”

“Exactly, so give in to being selfish, and start doing what you want. You work so hard, and for what a one bedroom apartment you can barely afford and bags under your eyes that are only getting bigger by the day?”

“Hey” you interrupt, slightly offended. Which only earns a laugh on his end.

“I’m just saying, you put in so much effort for no pay off, when you could do this one thing and have everything you deserve”

“What a cable package and a ‘skip the line’ pass at Disneyland?”

“I also get unlimited snacks!”

“Oh sorry how could I forget, well if one soul is all it takes to get a free waffle cone then what are we still doing here?!” You ask back, your tone full of mockery.

“Have you ever wondered why I can snort as much coke as I want and have never OD’d? Or why every girl I bring home is a certified 10?”

Actually you had, the two of you had met the year prior in a religious studies class when you were partnered to write a paper on whether morality was dependent on a god. He could barely get through a sentence without tripping over his words or looking away in embarrassment. It was sweet really, and by the end of the class you two had basically become best friends.

But about 2 months ago things started to change. There was almost always a girl leaving his house when you would come over.

You swore at least two of them you recognized from Victoria Secret runways.

One night you even saw a man leaving whose resemblance to Ryan Reynolds was suspiciously uncanny.

He got a new car without any explanation as to where he got the money, and he had so much coke in his living room you assumed he started dealing, before he told you it was just his stash for the weekend.

At first he was vague about everything, but eventually he told you the truth, or at least what you assumed was a version of it.

For his final project he wrote a research paper on the church of Satan.

You went with him to a couple of services when he was writing it, him being too nervous to go alone.

You both thought they seemed a little kooky, but relatively harmless.

Yet what you didn’t know was that he kept going back after the class ended and had gotten himself sworn in, and eventually given the honor of participating in a black mass.

Where he had sacrificed a school teacher in order to get these new “gifts”.

Now you weren’t naive enough to think he actually killed someone!

You were sure his new lifestyle was a part of some religious Ponzi scheme, and one day the debt collector would come calling.

You’ve watched enough documentaries to know better than to get involved with this.

But he is still your friend so you take it upon yourself to be supportive and let him have his moment, while simultaneously letting him know you’ll be here for him if the day comes that he gets excommunicated.

“I love you and I am so happy for all you’ve gotten, especially when you share it with me, but I’m good, really. I’ll let you know if I ever change my mind”

That dropped the subject for a while.

That is until a few days ago when you lost your job.

Well actually when your job was stolen from underneath you by your boss's son.

All it took was one night of bitching to your best friend for the talks of satanism to start up again.

So here you were bored on a Wednesday night actually considering his offer to watch a black mass.

‘Well…’

He texted back after a few minutes of no response on your part

‘Fine’

It’s not like he’s ever going to let up, you might as well go see what all the hubbub was about.

After he picked you up, you made your way to the church.

More precisely the back alley with a hidden door. Not at all unsettling.

And the rain pelting down on the robe he gave you just adds a nice ominese touch to what you're sure is going to be a long night.

Now inside you sit in a pew in the back. While the choir above you sings as the others file in.

They actually sound pretty good if you’re being honest. Maybe on your way out you’ll pick up the album you saw for sale in the lobby (for $6.66 no less).

You haven’t been sitting more than 10 minutes before the mass begins.

And in that time Tyler roughly explained what you were about to see.

You weren’t paying too much attention though. More enamored with the atmosphere.

It was a sea of red cloaks and black pentagrams. And the thunder outside appeared to clap along in sync with the crescendo or the choir.

This place seems vastly different from the shabby collection of misfits you encountered when you visited the first time. Who spent most of the service complaining and handed you a stale donut on your way out the door.

“...Y/n are your listening?!”

“Hmm Yea”

“Really?”

“Yea the guy’s gonna sacrifice some ‘innocent soul’ say a few hail satans and voilà he gets his hair back and starts getting laid again” you answer back, waving him off. You’re more interested in watching two Satanists in the front of the room give each other the “sign of the cross” gesture in reverse order.

“This is serious, the things you see might shock you but you can not react! If they think you’re some sort of threat to our secrets or even just afraid of them, it won’t end well. I’m kind of taking a risk by bringing you here”

That brings your attention back to your friend.

“So you hound me for weeks to come with you, but I’m not even allowed to be here?” You ask back, starting to wonder why you actually said yes to this.

“Well yea, I just really want you to see what I’ve seen, I want what’s best for you”

That was actually really sweet of him.

Now you felt a little bad for making fun of this so much.

That is until you see a man in the next row pull out a flask with “unholy water” written on it and rub it on his chest like Vick’s.

But before you get the chance to ask Tyler where he keeps his flask(which you're certain he has). The choir stops singing and the Priestess has the room's attention.

Everything goes as Tyler explains at first.

The “sacrifices” are brought in in their underwear. (They couldn’t even keep their clothes on, what does the devil give them a level up if the victims are humiliated before they die?) and tonight's chosen one, Phil, is about to take his position, before you hear a voice behind you.

“Wait!”

You turn your head to see an older woman rushing in, but it’s not her that steals your focus it’s who walks in behind her.

He is quite possibly the most attractive person you have ever seen. With cheekbones that could slice butter and soft blonde hair falling around icy blue eyes.

She says his name is Michael and this honor belongs to him.

You look over to Tyler to see what’s going on. He didn’t explain what part of the performance this was, was this some sort of second act surprise?

You were expecting this night to follow like a church service, watching Phil take his vows and minimal audience participation. Now you wonder if this is all rehearsed, or if the Satanist’s are partial to improv?

But Tyler pays you no mind, he can’t take his eyes off the blonde either.

It’s not until the Priestess mentions the “mark of the beast” and that he is the chosen one, that you get why Tyler is looking at him like he’s some sort of god.

Because to him he is, this guy is supposed to be the Antichrist.

Tyler says nothing only glances in your direction when he sees you’re the only one still standing, before he pulls you down to your knee like everyone else.

The rest of the performance is really top notch.

The flickering of the lights was a nice touch, but you can’t help but feel a little uneasy wondering how they keep getting the thunder to time up with everything they do.

Plus the bodies of the sacrifices fell to the ground almost too well.

How did they manage to get their bodies to look that lifeless, and why did those cuts look so deep?

But you try not to focus too much on it as you walk to the ceremonial Wednesday night potluck.

After the Antichrist has dismissed his followers from fawning all over him, you sit with Tyler at the end of the table and dig into your lasagna.

“So does the antichrist part happen at every sacrifice or is this one special? Is it some Satanic holiday I wasn’t aware of?” You ask, breaking Tyler out of whatever trance he appears to be stuck in.

“What?”

“I gotta say the dramatics were very entertaining, but if you really wanted to get me here all you had to do was tell me the guy who plays the Antichrist is really hot” you snicker under your breath.

“Play? Y/n your don’t understand he IS the Antichrist” he explains in a hushed voice before continuing

“That doesn’t happen every time, he really has come. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for! Don’t you see?! I think it was fate you came here on this night!”

“Ha, why do you need a virgin to sacrifice or something?” You laugh and take another bite before you look over and see Tyler staring at you with wide eyes.

“What?”

“You’re not serious are you?”

“Well yea, what’s the big deal, I didn’t realize you were so caught up on a social construct”

“I’m not, but you can’t say things like that around here” he looks around the room nervously and you follow his path of vision until your eyes land on Michael, who’s own gaze is locked on you.

There’s no way he heard you, you were across the room and you were whispering.

Still he continues to stare with eyes that speak only of intensity. No smile, no nod, no hint emotion whatsoever.

It’s only after you raise your brows and mouth a “What?” That he looks back down at his plate with a hint of a smile on his lips.

“Oh Satan, I think he heard you. You should go” Tyler’s tone becoming more erratic by the second.

“What?” You’re sure he's joking, but when he looks at you there is nothing but worry in his eyes.

Now you’re starting to get nervous, this is too far.

He actually thinks these people are going to do something?

He’s practically shaking with fear, and because of the man in the turtleneck? Who barely knows how to hold a spoon?

Okay you’ll play along for tonight, but tomorrow you are having a serious talk, he might need professional help.

“Alright let's go then” you huff out as you start to grab your belongings.

“I can’t just leave, especially since our savior is here, but I’ll make sure everything is good and you’re not followed or anything”

“Okay, is there some sort of satanic shuttle bus that can take me home? Or should I call an Uber? Does this place have an address or should I just send them an inverted cross?”

Still unamused by your inability to grasp the gravity of the situation, he just shakes his head and hands you his keys.

“Here just take my car, I’ll get a ride later, in fact stay at my house incase you’re followed”

He’s basically pushing you out of your seat and nodding to the door.

“Okay...bye I guess”

And with that you take off down the hall.

You know you’re supposed to go straight to the car. You’ve never seen Tyler look so serious in his life.

But when you walk past the chapel you can’t help but stop. You can still see the bodies up at the altar.

Why are they still there? Was there a trap door you missed and these were just doubles?

Or were these people so committed to the role and as crazy as your friend that they had to stay in the character of “dead sacrifice” all night?

Curiosity got the better of you, the car could wait, you had to see for yourself.

Closer inspection did nothing to stifle your suspicions.

It looked so real.

They weren’t breathing, so there was no way they were still the two actors, but you had never seen fake bodies look so real.

You're reminded of an anatomy class you took last semester.

Those cadavers looked suspiciously close to these.

Just colder and with less life left in their faces.

And there was so much blood, the iron was thick in the air.

But that couldn’t be true. Your friend wouldn’t kill someone would he?

He didn’t actually think they would kill you?

If you got a closer look, if you just swiped some of the “blood” with your pointer finger it would surely taste like corn syrup and not like…

“Are you afraid?”

You whip your head around, blood still staining your finger and beginning to drip onto the linoleum. To see Michael walking in the same way he had an hour earlier. Only this time without the cloak, but with some newly added confidence.

“They’re really dead aren’t they?” You know it’s true, but you still wait for his confirmation.

“Yes, that tends to happen when you slice someone’s throat” He acts as if this shouldn’t be a shock to you. It didn’t shock any of the other members of the congregation. Yet you know without him saying it, that he’s well aware you’re not like the others. That you don’t belong here.

“So you really sacrifice people, just to get stuff” you blurt out. Still trying to wrap your head around the fact that everything you witnessed tonight was real. Perhaps you shouldn’t have taken that last crescent roll you’d seen another satanist eyeing at dinner, you definitely have a curse coming your way. That is if you live through the night.

“Well not me” Michael says, pulling you out of your thoughts and back to the present.

“Oh of course, you’re the one they do it for”

“Well my father more specifically”

“Does that upset you?” You know you should be more careful about how you proceed with this conversation, but the words leave your mouth before your mind can stop them.

The question seems to catch him by surprise as he ruffles his brow, you’re not sure if it’s in anger or just shock at your brazenness. But he doesn’t answer. Just goes on to question you.

“Have you ever witnessed a murder before?”

“No”

“How did you feel watching it before your eyes?”

“Well I didn’t feel much, considering I thought it was all fake” That earns you a smile from him.

“And how do you feel now?”

“Curious”

“Really? Not scared?”

“No. Why should I be?” You’re really digging your own grave here. But your mouth seems to have a mind of its own.

“It seems your friend would say otherwise”

“Ah so you did hear.” You say, seeing his smile grow wider. “These aren't the days of the Old Testament, virginity doesn’t equally purity. Just ask sacrifice number one over there, with a body like that I doubt she was a virgin” you laugh, partially at your joke and partially out of sheer uncomfortableness. Michael doesn’t even spare the bodies a glance, eyes latched onto you, you go on to add

“I’m no saint. Despite my sexual history, or lack thereof”

“No, I’m sure you’re not” he emphasizes by swiping some of the liquid from your finger with his own, before taking it into his mouth. Making a show of it by closing his eyes as he releases it from his lips, slow as molasses. Smiling when he opens his eyes and sees you’re practically drooling.

Before his little show can go any further, you continue with your own questions.

“Have you killed people before?”

“Yes”

“How many?”

“You don’t have the time”

He’s looking at you waiting for your response. Waiting for the shock to subside and the shrieks of terror to take over.

Instead you just pause thinking everything over.

You should be scared, you know you should.

In one night you have watched two people die, found out your friend is a murderer, and that the Antichrist is not only NOT a myth, but is standing in front of you, conversing with you like he’s nothing more than your new neighbor.

Yet you search and search in your mind for any hint of fear and come up empty. All you feel is curiosity. You must be losing it too, you feel bad for judging Tyler so harshly. Maybe it’s his youthful face and the little outburst in the dining hall earlier, but Michael seems like more than simply the ‘incarnation of evil’. He seems so...human.

And more than anything he just seems confused and dare you say, lost.

“Do you like killing people? Or do you do it because it’s expected?”

“It depends”

“Would you like to kill me?”

Now it’s his turn to take pause, looking like he’s trying to decide if he’s “in the mood” to take your life.

“Not right now”

You can’t help but laugh at that (yea you’re definitely in shock). Soon enough he joins in too, and the mood feels lighter than it has all night. You might even say you feel comfortable.

That is until the laughter subsides and you meet his eyes. He’s now staring at you with the same intensity you’d met earlier at dinner.

It’s like he’s looking right through you, into your soul. You feel on display and more than anything afraid of what he might find.

“Stop that”

“Stop what?” He says with a playful tone and a tilt of his head.

“You’re..well..I don’t know what you’re doing but I don’t like it. You’re trying to get a read on me or something.”

He just smiles at that, because of course he does.

You know there is no avoiding playing into his hand. He wants to get a rise out of you, in one way or another.

“And what do yo-”

“Y/N!”

At the mention of your name you both turn to see Tyler standing in the doorway.

Antichrist or not, the look Michael gives him is enough to send a wave of fear up your spine.

He appears as though he’s about to snap his neck through just a look(and you're afraid to find out if he could).

Noticing his anger, Tyler stops and bows before Michael, apologizing incessantly for interrupting him.

You don’t miss the twitch of Michael’s lips. He’s clearly loving the effects he has on his followers.

You just roll your eyes at your friend.

“Calm down Tyler, get up”

He just let’s your words pass over him as if you hadn’t even spoken. If he hadn’t been the one to call your name a moment ago, you wouldn’t be sure he even knew you were in the room.

Every sense he had was aimed at Michael, and it was only when his precious dark lord gave him a nod that he got up and looked your way again.

“What are you doing? I thought you were going home?” He says through clenched teeth.

If he weren’t so worried about keeping you alive he would be pissed at you for not listening.

“I was. I am” you reassure him turning to Michael.

“It was a pleasure to meet you Michael, I’ll see myself out”

You are scurrying out of the room, grabbing a frozen Tyler and tugging him along with you, when Michael calls after you.

“No y/n, the pleasure was all mine.”

You’re at the end of the hall, and in the middle of Tyler’s scolding session, when you realize there is still blood on your finger.

It feels like it’s vibrating where Michael touched you, begging you to take notice.

Just wipe it on your jeans, you tell yourself.

Wait until you get to the car and find a napkin.

Do anything rational other than what you're thinking.

As you pass through the exit door, you cave and take a taste of the crimson on your finger.

Although you can’t see him, you know Michael is smiling. You can feel his smugness in the air around you and you're sure he knows what you just did.

This started out just as me wanting to make some jokes about Michael and the Satanists and has somehow turned into a multi-chapter fic. I still don’t really know where it’s going I’m just letting it take on a mind of it’s own. If it looks familiar it’s cuz it’s been on ao3 for a little bit now, so sorry it’s not a “new” new story! If you liked it that makes me very happy, and if not I hope it was at least entertaining! Either way thank you for reading!

(I wasn’t sure who wanted to be tagged just in my Xavier fic and who did in general so I didn’t add a tag list to this one)

#Michael langdon x reader #Michael langdon #ahs apocalypse #far too much sarcasm

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7wanderingpaws · 3 years

Text

Mess We Made - second (m)

Pairing: Baekhyun x reader

Genre: arranged marriage au (not bbh), doctor AU, university AU (this chapter only), fluff, ANGST

Words: 12K

WARNINGS: language, unprotected sex, terrible family relations, stalking

Quick A/N: Goodness. This is long. I need to sleep! ENJOY! And thank you for patiently waiting ❤

tags: @byunfirstlady @blackon @puppyeoliepop @in3vitably3v3 @mangobaek @bobohumyonlyboo @wooya1224 @exortedgoods @gureuma ( if you want to be tagged/untagged please reply to this post)

>> A very special shoutout to @byunfirstlady because she rocks and deserves all the best! ><

parts: first -- second -- third -- fourth (last)

Mess We Made, part 2

Gentle puffs of hot air were hitting the shell of your ear as he was whispering something to you. The tip of his nose was poking you in the side of your cheek and you giggled, squirming away from him but his hand under your shirt and on your hip were preventing you from doing so.

“Where are you off to,” he whispered teasingly again, smiling widely as he bit your earlobe gently while his arm tightened around you. He wasn’t letting you squirm away that easily. “It’s too early.”

“You literally didn’t let us sleep the whole night,” you whispered back, still shimmying under his wandering hand. “It’s basically time to get up and my eyes are stinging from having no rest,” you pouted, blinking them a few times to prove a point. You were lying on your back while Baekhyun was propped on one elbow, hovering over you. Baekhyun’s shirt was the only piece of clothing on you. While he was completely naked, it seemed to be his second nature by now. After so much time together, his personality and preferences were more than familiar to you.

“Because I want to enjoy you as much as I can. And because I don’t want you to go,” he whined quietly and you giggled again, turning on your side to face him, hiding in his chest. “I really don’t want you to go, love. What do I do?”

You kissed his chest and looked up at him with a small smile. “I won’t go then.”

Baekhyun returned the smile but there was something in his eyes- that something giving you slight uneasiness. He was hesitating. Usually, he would immediately agree and it wasn’t like he had to beg you to stay; if anything, you had to beg him to kick you out because there was no way you would willingly leave his place and his warmth by your own choice.

“But I will have to go,” you added, verbalizing the sentence he secretly wished to hear but wouldn’t voice it. “Since my parents are waiting for me.” You didn’t give two damns about your parents. You really, really didn’t. But Baekhyun did. So you should, too.

Baekhyun caressed your hip bone, his hand sliding over your tummy where he tickled you, causing you to squirm once again under his touch. “I will meet you later, if you want,” he said, smiling when he saw your lips widely stretched in a silent laugh. “We can go to the coffee shop and be a little productive.”

You groaned, hiding your face in his chest again. Baekhyun let his hand slide over your back, enjoying the warmth your skin was emitting. “I don’t want to study. I want to cuddle you and kiss you and just feel you.”

Baekhyun’s chuckle was quiet but so handsome. He kissed your neck lovingly, puckering his lips three, four times. His lips were so smooth and soft; you wished you could stop the time now and live in the moment forever. “You felt me the whole night, didn’t you?” he rasped.

“Besides,” you added and leaned back a bit to look at his affectionate gaze. “We have some free time now before university starts.” His messy hair was falling over his eyes and you hummed, sliding your fingers through the strands, brushing them back and revealing his forehead. “Let’s make the most out of that. Just you and me.”

The air in the room felt warm. Whether it was from the activities you did the whole night or because you simply couldn’t not blush under his hooded eyes, you wouldn’t know. But when he leaned in to kiss you, unable to hold back any longer, you knew it was simply Baekhyun’s presence that was keeping you hot inside. With his hand on your naked skin, with his tongue teasing your lips or just a simple smile was what kept you burning hot, passion swallowing you and blinding you at the same time. If you were to keep walking, it was because of him. Thanks to him.

There were no cars parked in front of your house as you typed in the code for the tall wooden gate. Usually, there was some guest present but it was unusually peaceful. It almost made you excited because you naively believed your parents wouldn’t be home. Them not being home equaled time to yourself and more time to think through how you would approach the upcoming (dreader) discussion.

Stupid marriage, you thought unhappily as you entered the house. Making a beeline towards the kitchen, you were surprised yet again to find it empty. Wasn't it almost lunch time? Where were the maids? And the cooks?

It was all too strange which made you walk around, what was an obviously empty, house in order to find someone. Sure, your house was huge, and getting easily lost in it was a common issue for guests who were not hosted well, but this was beyond everything you expected.

Making the final decision to check your father’s office, you stopped in front of the sturdy wooden door. No sounds were coming from there, but the wood was too thick anyways. Clearing your throat gently, you opened the door and walked in the spacious room. It was also vacant, his chair turned to the side as if someone stood up from it in a hasty manner. Some documents were scattered around his otherwise well-organized table, so there wasn't anything out of ordinary until you felt a presence behind you, and you turned. You let out a shocked gasp when you saw your mother’s strict, emotionless face while standing straight with her arms crossed on her chest. She was, as per usual, well-dressed, her make-up one shade too light for her darker skin making her seem almost lifeless. You shuddered, but before you could react, she snapped.

“Do you like what you see? Empty house, no maids to run around you nor your family to welcome you?”

This time, you were really startled by her words. “What?”

“This is what will happen if you continue disobeying us, dear daughter. There won't be anyone to tend to your needs, no one to cook for you, to clean for you, not even me and your father will be there if you continue meeting that boy.”

You snorted, disbelief written all of your face as you sent daggers with your eyes. She dared to attack and mention Baekhyun again? “What is wrong with you-”

“Where were you last night until now?”

Scrambling to compose your still shocked state, you muttered: “You know where I was.”

She let out a humorless laugh and you noticed her jaw clenching. “What do you think you are doing? What were you even doing?” She reached out to the collar of your dress and yanked it sideways, revealing your collarbones along with your shoulder. Even though you didn't see exactly what she was looking at, you knew very well what she found there. You felt your heart jump in fear.

“Fooling around with him in bed?” she grumbled and snapped her cold eyes at you. “Letting him mark you? You little bitch.” The back of her hand landed with your cheek, the sting bringing tears to your eyes as your head snapped to the side, your hair covering half of your face from the strong blow. “How stupid must you be to be this irresponsible?!”

You held the abused cheek, biting your lip hard to prevent you from letting out a sob. You turned at her. “How dare you! I told you I will not comply and let that other man touch me-”

Her hand landed again on your cheek; the other one. “Wrong answer.”

You stepped away from her before she could hit you again, now letting the tears fall from your eyes. “You're crazy, mother,” you whispered, “you and father are both crazy.”

“That other man is your future husband,” she seethed, making a menacing step closer to you which prompted you to step back. “And he won't accept you cheating behind his back with some kid-”

“Stop talking about him like he is a no one!” you screeched loudly, losing your calm, surprising your mother and yourself in the process. Seeing your mother was finally silenced, you added: “He is the one I love, mum! I already said I will marry the guy, but you cannot take Baekhyun away from me! He is the only good thing I have in my life,” you cried. Your tears were scorching hot on your already reddened cheeks, just like Baekhyun's warmth that you were supposed to leave behind.

“The only good thing?” she repeated, disgusted. “After everything we have provided for you - you always had food and luxury! The least you can do to repay us is to do as we say!” she shouted, swishing her hands in the air. “I didn't even tell you off when you kept bringing bad grades home. I didn't bother. After all, you went to a useless, regular high school with no reputation. But right now, when I am telling you to do as I say, you decide to go against me?! I won't tolerate it! You will break up with him, and you will marry Mr Kwon. I made arrangements already, and he won’t impregnate you until you are done with university.”

Your gasp was loud, overwhelming the both of you, but your mother was faster to brush it off and continue with her nonsense. Her words were like a cut of a dagger; precise, because she knew your weak points, and very painful, because her goal was to wound you and eventually destroy you, leaving you in pain that would make you surrender to her orders.

“Impregnate?” you finally let out, voice trembling. “What the actual hell! I TOLD YOU. I am not letting him touch me.”

“Well,” she pressed an ugly, wrinkly smile, “you will have to. We need an heir. A boy.”

Sick. You were sick to your stomach at the idea of Mr Kwon smiling at you, let alone touch you at your most private parts and let him take you. The idea was maddening, and you desperately wanted to pull at your hair, hoping it would be a good enough sign for your mother to understand you didn't want to be part of an arranged marriage.

“Mum,” you whimpered finally, letting more tears fall as you connected your hands in front of your chest, pleading. “Mum, please. Don't do this. I will… I will do anything else you want me to, but please… You can't simply let him sleep with me.”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “You're acting as if you haven't been bedded already,” she said through gritted teeth. She was so disgusted by you, you couldn't help but take the hurt. Family was supposed to support you, be warm and kind and helpful, but her and your father were anything but. However, it never ceased to hurt you; the way she looked impersonal towards you, and right now, disgusted. As if you were some trash; someone unworthy of love and understanding.

“Please,” you whispered, closing your eyes for a moment.

“Wash up,” she grumbled resolutely before her eyes fell on the still exposed shoulder, “and hide that stupid mark with some make-up. Mr Kwon will be over for dinner-”

“NO!” you screeched, stomping your foot. “I WILL NOT MEET HIM!”

“Unless you want me to beat you up until your pretty-for-nothing face is marked just like he marked your neck, then I advise you to go. Wash. Up.” She turned around and walked away with resolute steps.

There was a crack within you; it literally felt like a knife slashing through your weak organ that was your heart.

“You’re cruel, mother!” you shouted after her, despite her not paying you any more attention, and you ran out of the office and up the wide staircase that would lead you to the only place you could hide in. Your room.

Shaky hands grabbed at the hair tie, yanking it out of your hair and throwing it across the spacious room. It was followed by your dress, also thrown to the other side while you stomped to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind you. Its surface was cold on the skin of your naked back as you slid down, sobbing.

How many times have you been in this position already? How many times have you cried like this, despair pooling in the pit of your stomach, hoping, praying that things would somehow magically turn over and you’d feel some sort of relief? That relief never came and your misery would only worsen. Maybe it was exactly because of your high hopes, you thought as your sobbing slowly ceased, leaving you with only quiet whimpers and a throbbing headache. Maybe it was because, at the end of the day, you’d have Baekhyun who would bring out all the best and kindest and the most positive parts out of your suffering soul.

The thought of him made you only weep again, but you became determined as well. For him, you’d do anything. Anything.

He said to obey.

And you would.

Just before the main guest would arrive, your mother pushed a familiar pink gift bag into your hand. “You didn’t even open this ever since you decided to grace us with your presence,” she pressed through her gritted teeth, holding back from raising her voice. As much as she wished to smack you, she also didn’t want to cause a ruckus just before Mr Kwon would arrive. She needed you to look your best, which you did. “Open it and make sure to mention the gift,” she ordered and took a sharp look-over at your dressed up figure.

As promised, you hid all the hickeys Baekhyun left on you blinded by his passion and desire last night. The polite black dress was hugging your curves just in the gentlest ways, not too much but still leaving a good image of what you were hiding underneath. The colour of your stockings was of your skin, but with a glistening touch, making your legs look more desirable. Hair politely combed, wavy at the ends and tucked behind your ears. Perfect.

“Finally you know how to dress up properly to your age,” mumbled your mother. When you didn’t respond and averted your gaze to the ground, she hesitated before heaving out a sigh. “He’ll be here soon,” she turned around to leave your room. “Prepare.”

You were surprised when your mother shut the door quietly behind herself, giving you the necessary time to actually get ready and collect your thoughts.

The bag, just as yesterday, felt heavy in your fingers and you decided to finally take out the small, cream-coloured box, most probably promising a pricey gift. Sitting down at the edge of your bed, you quickly opened it to find a pretty set of earrings and a necklace. Earrings consisted of two pearls while the necklace was a simple silver necklace with a single pearl in the middle.

Noticing their unusual shape, you could tell right away that they were real pearls. Each piece of irregular shape made the actual stone throw all kinds of colors of the rainbow. It was beautiful, it really was, but not something you’d expect from someone you had never met. It strengthened the idea that what was about to go down in the future was, in fact, real. He was pursuing you.

Sighing tiredly, you felt your eyes burning up once again but was abruptly stopped when your phone vibrated on the vanity where you left it. Quickly moving to take it, you instantly smiled when you saw Baekhyun’s picture and his caller ID on display.

“Baby,” you sighed breathily, eager to hear his voice.

First you heard his handsome chuckle before he spoke: “My princess. Just wanted to check on you. I told you to text me once you’re home,” he scolded gently.

You bit your lip before quickly releasing it, remembering you had lipstick on. “Sorry I got… busy,” you murmured eventually. Not sure whether to tell him about the dinner, you decided to keep quiet. If he heard your uncertainty, he’d know something was up right away.

He hummed. “There was no trouble, right?” His voice was careful, hesitant. He always trusted you but he also knew you would lie if he asked.

You lied anyway. “Of course. You know I’m not that easily breakable, right? There is no need to worry, Baekhyun.”

He sighed. “I always worry about you.” And about your family hurting you. He kept that to himself though. “But as long as I hear your voice and know your fine, it’s more than enough.”

You closed your eyes, desperately wishing you could be with him, in his bed, while he studied and you’d observe him. Anything would be better than the situation you were in now. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” he was fast to reply. “Always. I missed you even before you left this morning.”

You giggled, covering your mouth even though no one saw you. “I’ll gladly sneak out tonight.”

“No. Stay home. Don’t want you getting into trouble-“

“You know I’d do it even with you disapproving.”

“Oh, I know you would, sweetheart. I know.”

“I’d do anything for you, Baekhyun,” you whispered, “in a heartbeat.”

He was silent for a moment. You weren’t sure why he wasn’t replying, but then again, your words bore quite a powerful meaning. “And I’d do anything to protect you and keep you happy.”

Burning tears came to life when you heard his low voice, sending shocks down your body. “Then never leave me.”

Silence again.

“Baekhyun,” you muttered, “promise me you won’t leave me.”

Why wasn’t he replying as fast as he did just a few moments ago? Were you asking for too much? Were you crossing boundaries? That made you scoff. You and him had such a strong and intimate relationship, there was no space for any boundaries. Your relationship seemed to be limitless.

“I won’t leave you, love,” was his answer finally. “I love you too fucking much for me to leave you.”

“Then that’s enough,” you sighed shakily, knowing it was time for you to hang up and face the dreaded. “As long as I know you love me and won’t leave me, all will be well.”

The silence in the dining room was one of the worst things your life had put you through. The chewing sounds, clinking of the cutlery along with slurping were the only noises that you heard physically, while your mind was about to explode with your thoughts.

Mr Kwon was sitting directly opposite you, to your misfortune, while your parents were seated in their usual spots, your father being at the head of the table. It was almost the absolute end of you when the servers put octopuses on the table as the main dish. Shooting them a horrified glare, they could only widen their eyes at you, silently asking for your forgiveness when they knew octopuses made you puke your guts out. Just the sight triggered your gag reflex and you ended up swallowing the rice through the wrong pipe, causing you to start a spree of aggressive coughing. Definitely not lady-like.

“Oh my, look at you,” chided your mother who was next to you, tapping your back with good enough power. “You eat too fast, darling,” she said knowingly and when you turned to glare at her, she only chuckled, taking in your red face.

“Maybe have octopuses,” suggested Mr Kwon with a chuckle as he reached for one right away. “They certainly won't make you suffocate.”

Your presence alone is suffocating enough, you thought bitterly but made sure to break a smile to show respect even though it was killing you. Quickly reaching for a jar with water, you wanted to pour yourself some very much needed liquid when you saw the man's hand in your line of vision, and he poured you water.

“Eat carefully, miss,” he murmured, giving you the slightest of honest smiles.

You bowed your head in gratitude before gulping down. It gave you the relief you desperately seeked, but the sight of the octopuses was creating an uncomfortable bulge in your stomach.

“So, now that we enjoyed the main dishes, we shall talk about some business, what do you say, Mr Kwon?” suggested your father in a friendly manner, connecting his fingers as he rested his elbows on the table.

Mr Kwon nodded. “Oh, yes, we shall do that. The meal was terrific, by the way.”

“Thank you, I will make sure to tell the kitchen staff,” smiled brightly your mother, hiding her grin behind her hand. You tried not to shudder at the tense, over-polite atmosphere, but on the other hand you were dying to find out more about your fate. With Baekhyun on your mind, you braced yourself, ready to fight for whatever was to come.

Your father gave you a brief glance before facing the expectant Mr Kwon. “Well, I suppose we should set a wedding date. Given we discussed most of the business part, we should now focus on you and our daughter.”

“Yes, yes. I would like to suggest marriage once she enters university,” proposed Mr Kwon importantly and you felt blood leaving your face immediately. “As you know, I would also like to get to know her better and I believe that if we will start our marriage early on, we both can earn ourselves some valuable time before starting a family. I also do not want her to steer away from me too much.”

No. No, no, no. “Actually, may I say-”

“No, you may not,” muttered your mother, squeezing your thigh under the table. She quickly looked at Mr Kwon who had a questioning look. “Would you like the ceremony when her first semester starts? You see, she is a good student, so I'd like her not to steer away from her studies too much.”

Surprised, you stole a glance at your mother, but she was facing your future husband. Your heartbeat was frantic in your chest and you swore you would pass out at the idea of your mother trying to protect you in some twisted manner, despite her fighting you like a wild bull.

“What do you suggest, then?” asked Mr Kwon, his attention fully on your mother.

She took a deep breath and her hand left your thigh, leaving behind a warm, but uncomfortable feeling on your skin. “Marriage after graduation.”

The man in question raised his eyebrows slowly, thinking over the suggested idea. Meticulously, he scrutinized your mother before his eyes fell on your wavering gaze. It was almost scorching, and you couldn't help but look down at your lap where your hands were politely connected. Noticing the sickeningly white skin of your knuckles, you didn't realize you were squeezing them together in order to fight the nerves.

“Alright,” he rasped eventually, causing you to raise your head in hope. “Under some conditions, though.”

Your heart died a little bit at that, but it didn't matter. You had four years ahead. Four years of freedom. With Baekhyun. “I am to do what my initial plan was,” he started, “and that is to get to know my future wife well. I do respect her needs, however I would like to visit her on various occasions and take her out, too. She shouldn't be a newbie to the house where I live in, so I demand to have at least one night with her-”

“Oh, Mr Kwon,” chimed in your mother nonchalantly, while your father shot her a warning look, “let me remind you that we would like our daughter to finish her bachelor degree on time. Which means we wouldn't want unwelcome pregnancies or such.”

Your throat went dry and you almost whimpered at the horrific idea.

“Are you suggesting no physical contact until after marriage?”

“Excuse me,” you said in a tiny tone, withering under the adults' strict gazes, “but this is my life and my body we talk about here.” You bravely looked at Mr Kwon's face. “As much as I understand and respect your request, I do not wish to do anything more until we know each other well enough,” you hesitated, before adding, “until I feel ready. You know yourself that I am still young and have a desire to live a little bit before I will settle down with you.”

“By living a little bit I hope you do not mean finding other boyfriends,” he cut in, the slightest of scoffs tinting his voice. “From this moment on, you are to tend to me only.”

“Actually-”

“Actually,” this time your mother cut in, her hand back on your thigh, wordlessly silencing you, “we understand your request.” She paused and you held your breath. “We agree, of course. She shouldn't be seeing anyone else besides you.”

“And has she been seeing anyone else before?” quipped Mr Kwon, leaning back in his chair, his stance somehow lazy. “Does she have experience? Has she been bedded before?”

You winced and your head snapped to your father, your eyes pleading with him to do something.

“I'd rather not…” your father trailed off, obvious discomfort on his face, “talk about this. We promised you our daughter and we are willing to make the wedding ceremony once she graduates in four years. Until then, you are to pursue her,” he decided, authority now dripping from his voice. “Feel free to contact her, but our conditions are as I stated just now. Marriage after graduation. Otherwise, we comply with your requests to be with her. She won't be seeing anyone else. Do not worry, Mr Kwon.”

Mr Kwon was watching you and that scared you. Was the fact that you were in a relationship written all over your face? You hoped not, even though you desperately wanted to tell him that yes, indeed, you had a boyfriend. You already had someone who occupied every possible space in your heart and in your mind.

“Alright,” said the guest, “may I suggest a little talk face to face here with our young miss?”

“But of course!” agreed your mother without hesitation and in no time, her and your father were gone, both of them shooting you warning glares. If only they could support you for once. Was that too much to ask for? Though you had to be honest. You were satisfied that you still had something you could hold for yourself.

“Miss,” Mr Kwon snapped you out of your thoughts. He stood up and walked over to you, motioning for you to stand up as well. You hastily did, quickly adjusting your skirt, which didn't go unnoticed by his sharp eyes. Feeling your cheeks reddening, you didn't look up.

He was quiet for a little while longer before softly muttering: “My gift looks very pretty on you. I have to say, I feel baffled that you decided to wear the pearls for me.”

Your breath hitched in your throat, but you still refused to look up at him. It was anything but for him.

“I assume you must be startled by the events, but I assure you I won't harm you. In the adult world, it is only normal to follow natural instincts though,” he murmured again as he made a step closer. “And you are definitely a breath-takingly beautiful young woman.” Suppressing the shivers, you nodded to show you were listening. He chuckled lowly. “No need to be shy around me. I prefer my women brave and confident. Like they know what they want.”

You raised your head now, reciprocating the eye contact. “In that case - I am still eighteen, Mr Kwon. I would appreciate it if you respect that.”

“I didn't even do anything,” he laughed again, shaking his head, taking your words as a joke. “But I like it. Okay. You got me. I will ask your parents for your telephone number and from now on,” he paused and leaned in a little closer, his strong cologne hitting your nose, “we shall deal with everything privately. Just the two of us.” He leaned back, checking your face for some reaction. You were shaken. “Alright?”

You nodded, wanting it to be quickly over. “Alright.”

“I'll make sure no one else will roam around you, miss. From today on, you are mine.”

It was yet another of the many times that you cried in your bed. Guilty feelings eating you away, the creeping sense of disgust at everything that you had to listen to and become part of sooner than later.

You were trying to think your situation over - how you could trick Mr Kwon to make him believe you weren't seeing anyone. In a way, you were thankful your mother and father never mentioned you already having a boyfriend as much as you wanted to shout it to the whole world. It was better to keep Baekhyun a secret which was basically one step to being in a relationship you didn't want to be. Baekhyun already became a forbidden fruit and you wondered what would happen if Mr Kwon found out.

You never told Baekhyun what was the deal between your parents and Mr Kwon. As much as he knew you were secretive and he tried to be the same Baekhyun as before, you couldn’t help the lurking feeling of your relationship's dynamics suddenly changing.

It shifted.

Unfortunately, in the wrong direction.

It’s been almost four years now that you’ve been attending university, meaning the sacred time to part was coming up, and you saw your boyfriend less and less. Even if the weather was nice and all you’ve asked was five minutes of his precious time, Baekhyun slowly but surely refused to give it to you. He would make sure to make it up later but the slightest hint of distance was palpable in his eyes and his touches.

In the beginning, you still enjoyed each other as much as you used to. He would bring you along to parties and show everyone you were together. You would bring him along to your get-togethers and make sure all the ladies knew he was yours. You slept at his place whenever you could and you were still just as crazy about each other as you used to be.

It was only once Mr Kwon started to take you out, asking for dinner dates and sometimes even making unannounced visits, was when your relationship started to break. You hated that word dearly; to break. You hated to use that word in the same sentence with Baekhyun's name. But you got the hunch that Baekhyun was suspicious. He knew something was up, he was not dumb. Suddenly, it was you rejecting his advances, it was you busy and with little time to spare. So you made sure he wouldn't get the hint and masked everything. Mr Kwon was not allowed to give you unannounced visits and you had to meet him somewhere far away from campus (it was convenient since he always treated you to expensive, tasteless food in Gangnam).

Over those few years, you and Baekhyun developed a routine; at the beginning of each semester, both of you exchanged your timetables. But in your final year, despite you knowing about Baekhyun's whereabouts, he would either stay later in school or hang out with his classmates. Thankfully, he took you many times with him - to lunches and dinners and get-togethers. Many of his friends there had girlfriends and you were never surprised that Baekhyun managed to win over almost everyone in his year. Because even if you were there as his girlfriend, his hand on your thigh to prove it, there were still so many girls, younger and older, swallowing him up with dark, hungry eyes.

Just where did the good old days go? In the good old days, you would be inseparable. There was no one who could stay between you two, even if it was your evil parents. He would kiss you, you would hug him, he would caress you and you would lay your head on his shoulder. You’d sneak out to see him, and he would create a new, safe home for you even if it meant just for a night. You risked so much to be with him; even now when you were under a scrutinizing watch of Mr Kwon, you’d always go and try to see Baekhyun.

So why was Baekhyun acting like this? With every passing day, he would drift away from you and you felt like you were trying to grasp onto him desperately, preventing him from leaving your side. Baekhyun was always by your side. He belonged there.

You were in your final year now, the beginning of a brand new, and last, semester when you decided to sign up for a fashion design class. You weren’t sure why you did it; the constant doodling as a way to get rid of your negative emotions, you grew to love grabbing a pencil and just let the sharp tip of it slide on the crisp surface of the paper. Fashion was something you always had to excel at given your reputation so when you found yourself sketching some pretty lingerie, you decided it wouldn’t be a bad move to attend a class that you actually liked, unlike the rest.

“But why does it have to be in the evening?” whined Baekhyun who was walking you to the seminar room. His hair was messy and it wasn’t because of your fingers. Apparently he had been in the library since 6am.

You sighed, and hugged your books closer to your chest, the chilly autumn evening catching you unprepared. You loved the deep red dress you wore today, but not only you were cold, but the heels were killing your feet too. “You’re always busy, Baekhyun. Why is it suddenly so difficult for you to accept that I will be busy one evening out of seven?”

He went silent and you knew you hit a sensitive spot. “You’re right.”

That made you feel… disappointed. He wouldn’t even try to fight anymore.

“Let’s talk after your class,” he suggested when you stopped in front of the classroom. There was some movement inside, most probably the professor preparing the materials for the seminar.

Baekhyun’s words left you feeling uneasy. “About what?”

He looked at you but his gaze was unreadable. He didn’t smile but didn’t frown either, until you saw the slightest clench of his jaw before he relaxed it. “About us.”

You instantly had tears in your eyes but you pressed your lips together, praying you wouldn’t start wailing now. Despite that, you shivered. “Maybe another time,” you tried.

“Sweetheart,” he sighed, running his hand through his hair. “I really need to talk to you.”

“So when you want to talk to me I need to have time but when I was chasing you the past years, you couldn’t even give me five goddamn minutes of your precious time!”

He was taken aback at the raise of your voice but didn’t comment on it, nor did he act upon it. “I think you know that we have too many unresolved issues.”

“I don’t want to solve them,” you replied stubbornly.

He frowned. “What? What’s the matter with you?” he asked, exasperated. “You’ve been acting so strange,” he added, saying your name with so much seriousness it made you shiver again. “All I want is to talk.”

“But you will break up with me,” you said, voice low now and your chin trembling. “I know it. And I don’t want to.”

“No,” he was fast to whisper, shaking his head as he stepped closer to you, “I don’t want to break up with you, angel,” he whispered into your ear now, his hands gently cradling your head as he hugged you to him.

You whimpered, dropping your books so you could squeeze his slim waist and hide your face in his chest. His sweater had a pleasant scent of his detergent and it made you feel instantly at home. “Then what is it,” you gritted your teeth to prevent yourself from sobbing.

He sighed, knowing how he must have shattered you over the time. He grew distant, he was aware of that. But Baekhyun was also a perfectionist. He had to excel in classes, he had to make sure he knew what he was doing in order to become a qualified doctor as he always dreamed about. However, him being meticulous with his studies made him lose someone who was very special to him - you. “I miss you,” he whispered. “I just want to make sure we are in the clear. I want to spend more time with you. But I want to talk.”

“I’ve been missing you for so long,” you mumbled, ignoring the few students who were passing by and entering your classroom. He had a sad look on his face and you weren’t sure you wanted to know why. “I’ll come to your place. Will the other guys be out?”

He grasped your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours. “I don’t know. I don’t care. Just head straight to my place, alright?” he said, attempting to smile.

Baekhyun was sharing an apartment with his friends just across the campus so it was convenient for him and for you. Even though they could be annoying sometimes, they knew not to play around you too much, given how ignorant you were towards anyone that wasn’t a Byun Baekhyun.

You nodded and Baekhyun hummed in acknowledgment, leaning in to kiss your forehead. You sighed, satisfied.

“Enjoy your class,” he murmured, his lips still brushing your skin. “I'll be waiting for you.”

Before he could let go of your hand and walk away, you pulled him towards you, ignoring his questioning gaze and stood on your tiptoes, pressing your lips together. You felt him heave out a soft breath before he cradled your face and angled you up to have better access as he teased you with his tongue.

Someone cleared their throat out of nowhere and you gasped, disattaching from Baekhyun's lips a smooch that made you blush. He let go of you when he zoomed in on someone and you turned to find a young professor standing in the doorway to the seminar room. “Are you joining my class?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Quickly bowing to him, you nodded, apologizing as you made your way to the classroom. Before the doors could completely close, you looked at Baekhyun who gave you a supportive smile.

You could smell cigarettes in the corridor as you stood in front of Baekhyun's apartment door. It wasn't the nicest building; some weird people lurking here and there, but you knew he worked hard to earn the place so you never told him how you actually felt about the place.

You typed in the code, letting yourself enter and quickly took off your heels, chasing the very much needed relief in your aching feet.

“You came.” Baekhyun appeared from his room, a big grey hoodie and black pants looking extra comfortable and cuddly on him.

He walked over to you and this time he initiated the small kiss. “How was class?” he asked, taking your bag from your hand as he moved to the kitchen. He was about to lift it up when your sketchbook fell out, the pages messily opening and splattering on the floor.

“It went very well,” you answered, watching him slowly pick up the sketch book, his eyes drinking in what he was seemingly missing out on the past year. Your sketches.

“Did you…” he trailed off, swallowing before looking up at you, “did you draw this? Did you come up with this?”

“Well, I had to present something to the teacher so that I wouldn't look too lost in his fashion class,” you smiled cheekily, sensing the unease Baekhyun was suddenly full of. He let his eyes follow you as you stepped towards him, taking the sketchbook from his frozen hand. “This is my personal favourite,” you said in a low voice, turning the pages until there were no more left. The last page was the only sketch you didn't show to your professor. Baekhyun was silent, but his eyes were sharp. They flickered from your face to the lingerie sketches that you were showing him.

Slowly, he took a deep breath, eyes scanning the figure that was resembling yours unlike the regular ones that you sketched before, for anyone's eyes. This one was meant for Baekhyun's eyes only and he was assured of it when he saw the small “unlock, bbh” under the sketch.

You knew Baekhyun loved wearing black colours despite his favourite one being red. So you decided to combine the dark with a deep, sultry red that oozed sexiness and confidence. Lace was so thinly sketched, it almost seemed like your skin was tattered with it. You never liked wearing thongs, so you made sure the underwear would be comfortable for you, instead filling the space with lace and silk.

It was a luxurious piece that you were confident you could actually wear one day if you would be determined enough to bring it to life.

“You see,” you started when silence was too much to bear, the growing tension made you feel all sorts of strong emotions, “I made it like a game for you, Baekhyun.” You took his index finger and pointed it at the paper where your left shoulder bra strap was drawn. “You won't unlock me until you find out one crucial point of this set. If you do, you'll unlock the entire outfit,” you told him, your voice low. “And what do I mean by unlock?” you asked, letting go of his finger and he looked at you from his side. “You'll get to see me in my whole glory. Just a simple click can give you access to everything that I am.”

Baekhyun was thinking about your words even though it had been a while since he spoke. Eventually, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to control something you weren't aware of. “Is this what you did in your class?”

You snorted a laugh. “No, Baekhyun. This is just for you. My present to you,” you smiled at the idea. “One day.”

“How can you be so fucking sexy inside and out?” he grumbled and with one arm swiftly brought you to his chest, his hand tightly gripping your waist. His eyes flickered all over your features, taking in the make-up and the red lipstick that you knew he adored so much. How could he let himself ignore you when you were a full meal, a huge prey for any man with bad and good intentions? How could he not appreciate you every single day and tell you that he loved you and wanted to make love to you every single time he saw you?

You smiled up at him and he lost it. Despite the trouble and negative tension he created, you still dared to smile at him?

He claimed your lips, catching you by surprise but you moaned instantly when you felt his hands drag downwards over your hips and bum until reaching the backside of your thighs. Both of you were so familiar with each other's actions, that Baekhyun didn't have to tell you to jump anymore. You did so without his order and when he had you in his arms, you felt him right at your center instantly. You gasped, reacting to his body as you tried to shimmy your middle over him and he grunted into the kiss.

“Jesus, what are you doing to me, woman,” he breathed, his lips glistening with your mixed saliva before cradling your cheek with one hand, bringing you in for another dirty kiss.

You whined, growing wet right away. Squeezing his waist with your legs, he clumsily put you on the counter, accidentally knocking over some cups, but neither of you cared. Baekhyun was kissing your jaw, slowly making his way to your ear into which he whispered: “I need to fuck you right now.” He bit your earlobe and you moaned, wanting to close your legs but his hands were already pushing them apart. Your dress hiked up to your hips, revealing your underwear and you fumbled with his pants, your hands already inside to bring him out. Upon touching him, you gasped, looking at your boyfriend. He was hard.

“It's what you do to me all the damn time,” he whispered, panting when he felt your light touch. “I told you years ago, didn't I?” he smirked and pushed your hand away, instead his hands grabbing you under your knees and yanking you to the edge so he could have better access. You whimpered, clenching around nothing when he pushed the crotch of your panties aside and felt his middle finger teasing you by letting it dip but not quite enter. “So wet,” he breathed, looking at your blushed face. “Let’s dive, shall we?” he murmured, grabbing himself. You circled your arms around his neck, face buried in his neck as you felt him poke you. Lubricating himself he made sure to spread your arousal all over your womanhood. You whimpered and he finally pushed in. Both of you moaned in unison, the stretch so pleasurable it made you almost see stars.

“Mmhhmm, you feel so good,” you moaned, closing your eyes and biting his earlobe. He was quick to reply when he set up a fast pace, chasing his release.

Both of you were panting, neither of you speaking as you were indulged in each other. Feeling the sweat prickling around your hairline, you kissed Baekhyun, who grunted, pushing extra deep and hitting your g-spot. You let go of the kiss with a smooch, moaning loudly into his mouth which he swallowed, his forehead pressed to yours. “Is it good? Am I making you feel good?” he breathed, puffs of air hitting your lips.

“Yes, yes, you do,” you exhaled harshly as he slowed down, circling his hips to make sure he was touching every corner of you. You arched your back, your head hitting the cupboards you forgot were behind you. Just like that, both of you were laughing like crazy, Baekhyun smiling widely as he kissed your exposed neck while still deep inside you.

You cursed, still giggling. Bringing your face back, you took his face into your hands and kissed him as he took himself out of you completely and then slammed back in right away.

“I’m so fucking close,” he whispered between messy kisses. “I swear I'm gonna cum right now, princess.”

You wanted to tell him to wait for you, but instead you lead him on. “Then cum.”

“Should I pull out?” The urgency of his voice as he kept thrusting into you made you momentarily dizzy. He felt so good. “No, don’t pull out,” you breathed and he groaned loudly, hiding his face in your chest as was his habit when he was releasing. Exactly then, you felt hot spurts pumping into you. You felt so full but the satisfaction was anywhere near. You chose not to act up on your frustration, instead deciding to enjoy seeing Baekhyun in a bliss.

“I don't remember when was the last time I came this hard,” he told you, stilling completely, his breath fanning your lips as he was slowly coming down from his high. After a few moments, he kissed you sweetly. “Sorry, baby. Let me-”

“No, don’t,” you said, the wetness leaking out of you and on the counter. His hand hovered above your bundle of nerves just above where he disappeared inside you. “It's fine.”

“But you didn’t cum,” he muttered, embarrassed. “Sorry… this is so ridiculous.”

“Don't be silly,” you said with a gentle tone and brushed his hair out of his sweaty forehead and leaned in to kiss it. “You're so gorgeous, Baekyhun,” you told him when he finally focused his shy gaze on you. In response, he squeezed your thighs he was holding onto the whole time. The iron grip eased up into a gentle hold. You were sure you would bruise but damn, you didn't care.

He smiled and that was your biggest present. His smile that was meant for you. “The one who is gorgeous is you. You made me cum so fast with just the idea of you wearing that lingerie… I'll make it up to you, I promise,” he whispered, kissing you again as he pulled out of you, once again causing you to moan at the friction.

Baekhyun cleaned up the mess quickly and sent you to wash up but before you could saunter off, he held your hand. “Stay over tonight,” he requested softly.

Feeling yourself smile even wider, you gratefully accepted.

After eating dinner, it was already too late, so both of you moved to Baekhyun's room, deciding to talk like you wanted to.

He lent you his clothes and you relished in the feeling of getting lost in his hoodie. When he lied down, he opened his arms for you to find comfort in and you were fast to jump at him, causing him to grunt at the impact which made you giggle.

“Are you trying to say I’m heavy!” you shrieked in mock anger, hitting his chest gently, and Baekhyun laughed.

“No, never,” he hummed when you settled in, resting your head on his chest. His heartbeat sounded a little irregular.

Your mood instantly deflated. “So,” you started, drawing circles on his pectoral with your finger. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

He sighed gently and you felt his breath on your forehead. “I don’t know how to begin.”

“From the start.”

Baekhyun clicked his tongue at your reply and you smiled though it didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You’re a teasing little thing, aren’t you, my love.”

My love.

If he called you his love it meant he wouldn’t break up with you, right?

“I just feel like …” he trailed off, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. “You’re in your final year.”

That sentence spoke volumes to you. The meaning behind it meant only one thing and it was that only thing you’d been trying to fight against and refuse to accept. Your time with Baekhyun was almost up.

“Won’t you say something?” he asked softly when there was no answer from you.

This time you were the one who sighed and gently pushed yourself out of his grasp, to sit up facing him.

He mirrored you and sat opposite you. “Baby, what is going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” you murmured, lowering your head. “I mean-“ you looked up. “I won’t leave you, that’s all I know for sure.”

Baekhyun wasn’t satisfied with your answer. After all, you had the same answer years ago. He called your name. “We cannot do this forever, you know? Both of us deserve to know where we stand. It’s weird that you’ve been promised to that man but there is no news about when you are supposed to get married?” he rumbled though his voice wasn’t accusative.

Biting your lip, you avoided his eyes again by looking down.

“You know stuff, don’t you.”

You grit your teeth.

“What aren’t you telling me, hm?” He waited for a moment and when you still refused to talk, he took a deep breath. “I can’t believe you’ve known stuff and not tell me!”

This time, he sounded angry. “No, Baek, it’s not like that! I- yes, I’m supposed to be marrying him after I graduate but-“

“There is no but. There is only a period. You are marrying him after you graduate. Period.”

Your heart broke into two. Baekhyun was frowning, hurt flashing in his eyes as his jaw pulsed with how hard he was clenching it. His lips, those lips, were set into a hard line and there was no way to make him look happy like he once used to when he was with you.

“Baekhyun,” you tried, voice thin, “I already told you I’m not letting you go.”

“You seriously think about yourself only, don’t you,” he responded coldly, disbelief painting his voice. “You really don’t care what it means for me to sneak behind some rich dude who can give you anything you point at! I have my own pride. I can’t bear to share you with someone-“

“Baekhyun, I won’t let him touch me! I won’t let him do anything! You won’t be sharing me with anyone! My heart belongs to you and you know it,” you said, tears burning up in your eyes. “I love you so much,” you whispered before your voice could break.

Baekhyun was holding back, you could tell. His lips quivered but he didn’t make any effort to reach out for you. His eyes glistened. “Don’t marry him.”

You groaned inwardly. “You know I can’t do that.”

“So you’ve been going behind your parents the entire time, seeing me despite their protests and when I ask you not to marry him, you suddenly want to comply?”

“It’s for business,” you reminded him, “I didn’t choose this myself if that’s what you’ve been thinking.”

“I don’t care! I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you more than he can ever give you,” he said hurriedly and you let out a small gasp because Baekhyun was usually anything but desperate. He was the collected one, but now he was anything but.

“I’ll never leave you,” you promised shuffling to him, taking his face in your cold hands. “Please know that, Baekhyun. I won’t let him do anything. It’s just a status. That's all.”

His eyes were frantically flickering between yours, as if searching for something more than there was. “How can you just marry him when you barely ever saw him?”

And now was the time where you could start feeling guilty. It was on you. This was your fault and given how well Baekhyun knew you, he would read right into it. It got confirmed when he pulled away from you, your hands dropping.

“What else aren't you telling me?” he said in a low voice now completely withdrawing away from you and pushing himself up against the headboard.

“Baekhyun-”

“Just tell me already!”

You winced, quickly shutting your mouth. “We sometimes meet because he… eh, he just wants to get to know me better. That's it, he just asks me questions an-and I answer,” you replied shakily, brushing your hair behind your ear. “There is nothing, I swear. I deserve to know what kind of man I am marrying, too,” you added, looking up at your boyfriend whose gaze was set somewhere behind you.

“Has this been happening the entire time?” he asked quietly.

“Since the start of the uni.”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Fucking awesome. Congratulations.”

“Baekhyun,” you said, this time strictly. “What the hell is wrong with you? I've been begging to meet you the whole past year and you always found some bullshit excuse for studying and actually you know what? Who knows what you'd been doing during those times!” you exclaimed, the idea of him being with someone else sending you into a rage.

“The fuck? As if I would cheat on you!” he shouted back, sending daggers your way. “I've been in a relationship with someone who was never supposed to be mine! Tell me, sweetcheeks, how does that sound to you? I'm saving myself for you while I know the entire time that I'll be on the loose end. I'm the pathetic one. I am the one who will lose. Not you,” he said in a menacing tone. “So before you start to throw shit at me, I would look in the mirror if I were you.”

“Byun Baekhyun!” you shouted.

He raised an eyebrow. “What. You don't like to hear the truth? Well, this is it. And I have lost my mind, finally. I've been too goddamn blinded by your hope when I knew the whole time it would be fruitless. I cannot do this anymore!”

By then you were sobbing. The last sentence sent you into fits of cries that you couldn't suppress no matter how hard you tried, and it hurt. Byun Baekhyun's words hurt like hell. Hiding your face in your hands, you felt the wetness of your tears pooling in your palms, hoping he would stop being angry with you and just take you in his arms and take his words back.

It didn't happen.

Slowly, you moved your hands away to see him stare at you, hard gaze, lips sealed tightly. “Baby,” you tried, reaching for him. More tears fell from your eyes but you didn't care anymore. He had seen you cry so many times and he was always there to comfort you. This time you were crying because of him and he wouldn't even move a finger for you. “Baby, please.”

“You said you deserve to know him better, too,” he said. “So it is that important to you - that you need to know him.”

“Of course,” you replied with a nasal voice, “what if he is a psychopath.”

He laughed bitterly. “Right. What if he is. How the fuck would you know - you are marrying him anyway! So why is it so important to you to let him get to know you? And you him?”

“It's just the way the deal went, okay?”

“No, it's not okay,” he spat. “You're going against your own word. “You told me there would be nothing happening until you graduate and you were with him behind my back.”

It was your turn to scoff now, though your face was splotchy. “Because you were waiting for me so much!”

“Don't you dare turn this against me,” he muttered in a low tone which left you shocked. This was the first time Baekhyun used that kind of tone with you. In fact, this was your first time fighting this ugly. “This is about you. About your fucking family. About them wanting to destroy us!”

“And it's obviously working!” You threw your hands up. “Just look at you now! You're doing exactly what they want you to be doing! They so desperately wish for you to hurt me so I could dump you,” you shouted, more tears rolling down your hot cheeks. “I guess they were right after all.”

“Right in what,” he snapped again, glaring at you.

You stood up, unable to keep fighting with him. He watched you wordlessly as you picked up your bag where you had your school books. “You're just using me. I guess I was just money to you as well!” You were seething as you yanked his door open and rushed straight for the door.

Sensing someone in the kitchen, you stopped abruptly for a moment, seeing Park Chanyeol staring at you in shock while he took in your state.

You shook your head, not bothering to say hi to him as you went to grab your shoes just to realize you came in heels. “Fuck,” you muttered. Well, Baekhyun's vans would have to do. Grabbing them, you tied both shoes tightly so you wouldn't fall as you rushed to grab the door when you felt a hand grab your wrist instead.

You looked back, making out Baekhyun's features through tears. “Let go,” you snapped, trying to shake him off.

“Where are you going this late?!”

“Anywhere is better than here with you! I cannot stay with you, Baekhyun!” you shouted, finally yanking him off harshly enough so his hand slipped.

You slammed the door shut and Baekyhun was met with silence. Throwing a single, helpless gaze at his friend was enough for Chanyeol to nod and move. “I'll go after her,” he reassured Baekhyun who seemed to be on the verge of mental breakdown.

Baekhyun just nodded, watching Chanyeol leave and hoping you wouldn't actually break up with him.

You were marching down the dark street, ignoring the anxiety creeping in from the silent, empty streets. They were eerie and scary and you hated walking down them at such a late hour but there was no way you could stay at Baekhyun's.

Fast steps brought you back to the present and your heart almost jumped out of your rib cage when you felt someone taking your wrist again. Hope spiked up, expecting to see Baekhyun but it was Park Chanyeol.

He turned you to him gently, little out of breath from trying to catch up with you. “You sure walk fast,” he commented.

He let go of your wrist and you sighed, looking at him with expectation. “What do you want, Park?”

“I just wanted to make sure you're fine,” he said rather shyly.

“I'm just fine,” you insisted, “I will go home now. Go back, it's late.”

“I'll take you home,” he said and to prove a point he clinked with his car keys. “Though it's not the best car out there, it will do the job.”

You rolled your eyes. “I always knew all of you were judging me for my status. And don't bother. I know you're only doing this because of Baekhyun. Well, you don't need to do this.”

“He would skin me alive,” he whispered, horrified. “And he is now too good with the scalpel. I wouldn’t dare.”

“I don't want your help unless it's something you actually want to do, Park Chanyeol,” you muttered through gritted teeth, feeling another wave of tears threatening to spill. “You just made it worse. Leave.”

“It’s late.”

“I don't care. I need to be alone right now.”

“For your information, we all know how much he cherishes you,” he started. “Whenever he would reject you, he would study but not really focus. He keeps talking only about you. We don’t judge you for money but for how much you occupy our space even if you aren't there. That dude is just bewitched by you and I don't know how you managed to do it, to be honest. He is the coldest guy to any other opposite sex beside you.”

“What are you trying to say, Park Chanyeol?”

He sighed and gave you a pointed look. “Baekhyun sacrificed a lot for you. He is so loyal to you despite all the matters you guys have. He never told us but we have a hunch. Just… don’t go breaking his heart.”

“I am not breaking his heart!” you said loudly, tears rolling down your cheeks. “He doubts my feelings.”

“He doesn't. He is insecure.”

“How can he be insecure? All I ever wanted was to be with him.”

Chanyeol stepped closer to you, causing you to tilt your head back further. “Then go back and amend the mess you made.”

“It's not just my mess. It's ours. We made it. He should know what he told me was wrong.”

“All he ever did was listen to you! What makes you think that guy has unlimited patience? He doesn't! So go back, and make it right again!”

You let out a loud groan, turning away from him. You tapped your foot on the concrete, thinking hard though you were close to exasperation. Turning back to Baekhyun's friend, you muttered: “Since you brought those keys, take me on a drive. I’ll sponsor the gas.”

It was already late when you returned back but at least you managed to clear up your mind. Quietly slipping back inside his dark room, you saw him lying in bed, his back turned to you. Putting your bag quietly down on the floor, you slipped under the comforter, your arms and legs hugging him like a koala bear.

You thought he was asleep or worse, that he’d ignore you, but he moved almost as soon as you hugged him, turning in your embrace, pushing his leg between yours and his hand circling your waist, his hand on the skin of your lower back. It was pitch black in the room, but once you felt his hot breath on your mouth and then the moisture of his lips on yours, you didn't need to see. You just felt. He kissed you and poured all of his apologies, regrets and forgiveness in the kiss. You returned the kiss just as fervently, feeling his warm hand on your cheek, his fingers in your hair while his thumb smoothed the skin under your eye. He shuffled himself closer and hummed when you darted out your tongue. He sucked on your lip a little longer before opening his mouth to let you in, and you took your time in exploring him, twirling and sucking on his tongue while you felt his arm tightening around you, his hand under your hoodie as he caressed you under your breast. In the quietness of his room there were just the slick sounds of your making out.

When you couldn't keep going anymore, you separated, your mouth fully wet from your mixed saliva as you panted loudly. You felt him pressing his forehead to yours and you sighed in relief.

“I'm so sorry, princess,” he whispered, nuzzling your nose gently, dragging his leg up so he could rest it on your thigh. “I was a fool.”

“No,” you whispered back, wishing you could see him better. “You merely stated the facts. It's all on me.”

“We both screwed up,” he added, “but fuck.” He gave your cheek a small, open-mouthed kiss, sending shivers down your spine, “I can't imagine you leaving me and being with him. I can't.”

You wanted to reply to him and to ease his mind that you wouldn't, but you would lie. The more you would keep to yourself, the more you would end up hurting the most precious person in your life.

“I'm so sorry. None of what I said is true,” you managed to blurt, unable to come up with anything more. “I keep breaking you. I'm so sorry.”

“Shh, baby,” he whispered urgently, his hand that was resting on your cheek slipping to the back of your head to bring you closer. You hid your face in his chest while he hid his in your neck. “You're not breaking me. You're breaking me if I'm not with you.”

You snuggled closer to him and he sighed, hugging you tighter. “My precious gem, I love you,” he whispered into your ear. To make your body contact more intimate, you also hid your hands under his hoodie, feeling his muscles contracting at your delicate touch. “You're mine.”

Few days later you received a message. It was from Mr Kwon and you groaned, stopping on your way to another class.

I request a lunch with you today

My driver will pick you up at 12

I know you're not supposed to be having classes

You scoffed, rolling your eyes as you pushed your phone back into your bag and headed inside the classroom. Even if you would reject him, he wouldn't accept it, so you might as well not bother with replying.

However, you were shocked when the driver came all the way to your classroom as all the students were pouring out and heading for lunch. You knew Mr Kwon's driver and even though he was polite, you didn't like the looks he was giving you whenever he saw you wearing skirts, like for instance, now.

He escorted you to the expensive restaurant where they were already waiting for you. Upon spotting you, the staff rushed towards you and led you to Mr Kwon who was already seated, his hands clasped together as his elbows rested on the table. He stood up, giving you a polite bow as he helped you sit down.

When he was opposite you, he said: “Pleasure to see you. How have you been the past few days we didn't see each other?”

You suppress a tired sigh. “I've been fine, thank you.”

“Oh, have you, now?” he questioned, his eyebrow lifting. His eyes were telling you something he wasn't verbalizing and it put you into unease right away.

Smiling, you muttered: “Yes, but thank you for your concern.”

“No issues with your friends?”

His stupid inquisition was starting to annoy you. “Excuse me? Could you please speak more explicitly?”

“I thought you'd never ask,” he smirked and took out an envelope from the inside of his cardigan and handed it to you over the table.

With uncertainty, you accepted it and opened it, not wasting time in trying to understand his mysterious words. There were photos. Frowning, you inspected them better and you were shocked when you saw it was you with a tall male. Park Chanyeol. It must have been that night when you fought with Baekhyun. Your breath hitched in your throat when you realized this man had you followed by someone.

You opened your mouth to talk but he cut through like a knife. “I was wondering where did you receive such a - how shall I put it - passionate bruise on your neck the last time I saw you. Turns out you're sleeping around with someone.”

It felt like he just threw a bucket of icy cold water on you. The idea of him having you followed, of him not trusting you and rudely breaking into your privacy as if you were some object he could manipulate and decide whom to meet and whom to not meet was driving you up the wall.

“You don't have anything to defend yourself?” he asked sharply. “How long have you been seeing that man?”

You swallowed on a dry throat. Mr Kwon thought your boyfriend was Park Chanyeol? That was good. As long as he had no knowledge about Baekhyun, you didn't care. “I… it's been…”

“Jesus Christ, I really didn't think you would be a whore,” he snickered, eyeing you up and his eyes eventually resting on your cleavage. “You were acting all innocent and brave just a few years ago and attending university changed you so much. I wanted to be the only one who would bed you,” he sneered and you felt a bile rising in your stomach.

“What- Excuse me?! Who do you think you are?!” you exclaimed, horrified. “Don't you dare think of me that way.” You stood up and wanted to scream when you saw his eyes drinking up your thighs that got revealed as your skirt hiked up. “A deal is a deal. You don't have any rights to treat me like this. And you can bet you aren't going to boss me around once we are married. I'll easily reject the marriage, too.”

Mr Kwon was fast up on his feet to walk over to you. “Well, if you do, your parents are as good as dead. Their business is in shackles, young lady. So unless you want them to be able to afford some food and have a roof over their heads, I advise you to respect me,” he was talking so fast you could barely register his touch on your hip and on your backside. Gasping, you slapped his hand away and dared to push him from you. He snickered.

“Watch your hands, Mr Kwon,” you spat. “This is a private property.”

He laughed and leaned in. “Oh, are you like this with him too? Then I can't wait to have the full rights. The only one with rights. Soon, little tiger.” You moved to push him away when he added: “You better end this little thingy you have with the boy. Because if I find out who he is, I will destroy him and any perspectives he could have for the future.”

Even though he didn't know about Byun Baekhyun, you could not risk it.

You had to break up with him.

// // // // //

Drop me a message! ^^ CuriousCat

#exowritersnet #baekhyun fanfiction #exo fanfiction #superm fanfiction #baekhyun angst #baekhyun smut #baekhyun fluff #baekhyun scenario #baekhyun fic #MWM #mywritings

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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TD Clues in the S11 Preview Special

Hey Everyone!

Who watched the S11 preview show? I did, and there were actually some fairly heavy TD clues in it. (Yay!)

I only got to watch it once live, and didn’t have the option to record it, so I probably missed stuff. If anyone noticed anything I didn’t, feel free to send it in. I’ll focus on 3 major things that jumped out at me.

So, Angela Kang was in the studio with Chris Hardwick, but Norman was there only via satellite from Georgia.

@wdway noticed that the music box was still sitting on the shelf behind Angela, which was cool.

1. The first big clue we noticed came from Norman. Chris had asked him something like, how is this season was different from previous ones, or how has filming been different. Norman said everything was brighter and more colorful than usual.

I think he probably means because of the Commonwealth. If you think of the CW sales video we saw in the coda of the trailer, everything looks new and clean and nice, and doesn’t have the bleak, dirty vibe of most of the rest of the show. Then he said (and I paraphrase) that a lot of it felt like they’d all “eaten the wrong mushrooms.” And by that, he means something hallucinatory. And that it seemed “like the Wizard of Oz.”

Yeah, massive hints going on there.

There has been a subtle but recurring mushroom theme in the show. It’s part of the overall hallucination theme, but goes back at least until S4 (you know, when Bethyl came from and center). It might be earlier than that, too, but that’s the earliest reference that comes to mind.

Either way, Norman is furthering the idea of hallucinations and things not being as they seem.

And then there’s the wizard of Oz reference. I’ve literally done entire theories on this (X), (X). We saw it around Beth at Grady and also around Rick right before the bridge incident, where he disappeared into the CRM. Because of the way it’s used in both cases, I think the Wizard of Oz motif is specifically about the CRM. Dorothy was transported away from her family and to a whole new world. The same thing happened to both Beth and Rick and both times they went to a community with ties to the CRM.

The hallucination theme is also present in TWOO. People have written whole essays about how trippy the whole thing is and how it feels like an acid trip for Dorothy. That’s not the way it’s written in the show, but of course this film came out in 1939. For Dorothy, it was an elaborate dream. But that just makes me think of episode 6x12 of Fear the Walking Dead where an almost identical thing happened with Grace and the episode is even called In Dreams.

And I’m not at all saying the CRM isn’t real. I’m just saying they’re using these things as themes and we saw them back in S5 around Beth. I’ll have more to say about this theme next week when I discuss episode 11x01.

2. The next thing that struck us as suspicious is that Chris asked Norman, with this being the final season, what does he want for Daryl?

Norman replied that wants Daryl to find happiness and “what he’s looking for.” And he very clearly meant emotionally. You could argue that he meant romantically but it could also just be in terms of life and familial relationships.

But you could also argue that he already has most of that. He has strong family and community relationships. He’s helping raise two kids. (In fact, very small spoiler for 11x01: at one point Daryl returns to Alexandria and we see both Judith and RJ run out and hug him. It’s very sweet. The point is, he pretty much IS their father for the time being.) And he has closer “family” relationships with those he’s closest to: Maggie, Michonne, Carol, Aaron.

So, the only thing he’s truly missing is the romantic element.

@wdway also pointed out that the way Norman said it, it very much feels like something futuristic. Something he currently doesn’t have in his life. (Sorry Caryl and Donnie shippers.)

So yeah. That, and the “what he’s looking for” wording definitely made us side-eye.

3. Finally, near the end, we saw a sneak peek that comes from 11x02, and Dog enters a Dark Tunnel.

The sneak peak is Daryl and Dog, alone together in the subway tunnels. Daryl finds a walker rolled up inside a sleeping bag, which he kills, and then Dog starts barking at something and runs away from Daryl, into a small, dark side tunnel.

So, the dark tunnel symbolism is HUGE around Beth and I’ve got theories about Dark Tunnel symbolism that are YEARS old (X).

And, until next week when everyone sees 11x01 and I’m safe to talk about it, you’ll just have to take my word for this, but they’re definitely using an S4/S5 Beth template for Dog this season. We already know from what’s been released about the season that Dog and Daryl will get separated and he’ll go looking for Dog. We already knew that. But when you see 11x01, it becomes even more evident.

So, Dog heading into a dark tunnel just backs up the Beth template even more.

But then, when they came back to TTD after the sneak peek, Norman started singing a song. Okay, I have no idea what it was. I didn’t recognize the tune and he did it very quickly. (If anyone knows what it was, let me know.) Chris clearly recognized it and started laughing, razzing Norman about how of all the songs he could possibly have parodied, he used that one. So, the lyrics weren’t real. Norman was making them up, overall.

But wanna know what lyrics he sang? He said (once again, I paraphrase) something like, “When Doggy goes into the tunnel, I know things are serious.”

So, he not only emphasized the importance of Dog entering the dark tunnel, he actually turned it into a serious/Sirius/return reference.

Me: 😲

Okay, those were the three big things that jumped out at me. 1) Hallucination/Mushroom/Wizard of Oz references. Yes, all in one sentence. 2) Daryl finding happiness and “what he’s looking for.” 3) Dog in the tunnel = Sirius.

As I said at the beginning, there were probably other, smaller things I missed, but these were the ones that made me super happy.

Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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lavender-lotion · 3 years

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Fanfic Writer Asks

I was tagged by @asarcasticwitch - thank you so much!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

737, which is an ugly number :(

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,890,054 words, which ... AH I might actually get to 2mil by the end of the year!

3) How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

thank you, ao3 dashboard for this handy list:

Teen Wolf (TV) (377)

X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies) (187)

Marvel Cinematic Universe (93)

Glee (29)

Young Justice (Cartoon) (11)

Kingsman (Movies) (9)

Original Work (9)

The Avengers (Marvel Movies) (8)

Criminal Minds (US TV) (7)

Thor (Movies) (6)

Deadpool (Movieverse) (5)

Weird City (TV) (5)

X-Men (Original Timeline Movies) (4)

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga) (4)

Ragnarok (TV 2020) (4)

Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies) (3)

Teen Wolf (TV) RPF (3)

Iron Man (Movies) (3)

The House in the Cerulean Sea - T. J. Klune (2)

Venom (Marvel Movies) (1)

Stranger Things (TV 2016) (1)

Captain America (Movies) (1)

Fate: The Winx Saga (TV) (1)

Power Rangers Ninja Storm (1)

X-Men - All Media Types (1)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan (1)

Riverdale (TV 2017) (1)

X-Men Evolution (1)

Push (2009) (1)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

With You, I Belong

Mates and Marriage Proposals

The Perceptions of You and I

(baby) maybe that matters more

Breathing You In

5) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

ughh so, fair warning, I have a lot of works. I definitely do not remember all of them, however I do have four works tagged as Unhappy Ending and then another nine works tagged Ambiguous/Open Ending, which is way more than I’d thought I had!

however, there is one fic that stands out in mind when I think about which of my works has the angstiest ending! Heed the tags :)

And Now?

Stiles Stilinski finds out who his soul mates are by setting one on fire.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

ughhhhhhhh I truly do not know???

7) Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I don’t write many crossovers at all! I have some mcu/teen wolf cross overs, I have a teen wolf/glee cross over plotted (that i’ll probably never write), but my strangest is probably this teen wolf/x-men cross over!

what-ifs (don’t fuckin’ matter to no one)

Teen And Up Audiences | No Archive Warnings Apply | M/M | X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)Teen Wolf (TV) | Logan (X-Men)/Sheriff Stilinski | Logan (X-Men), Sheriff Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski | Memory Loss, Telepathy, Mentions of War, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Child Neglect, Grief/Mourning, Telepath Stiles Stilinski, Telekinetic Stiles Stilinski, Nightmares, Cuddling & Snuggling

There’s somethin’ there. Somethin’ that has him sleeping curled up on his side with a pillow tucked to his chest, somethin’ that has him splittin’ up his food ‘fore he eats ‘cause he don’t need as much as a baseline. Has him turnin’ to tell someone shit that ain’t there. There’s just...there’s just somethin’ there that’s missin’ and it shouldn’t be missin’.

8) Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

sometimes! I don’t write a lot of smut because I actively dislike writing it, but the smut I do write is super super soft and sappy and full of emotions lol

9) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I respond to almost all of my comments! comments i won’t respond to: negative comments, unsolicited criticism, comments that aren’t relevant to the fic itself, comments simply asking for more

I love love love responding to comments! I love every single comment that I get and I want to show how much I appreciate getting them, and personally I think responding to comments is the only way to do that! everyone has different comment philosophies, but for me, if someone is taking the time to comment on my fic like I so badly want them to, I think it’s important to respond to show my appreciation!

10) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

aha YEAH I DO. this past weekend I actually got a number of shitty comments and had to file two ao3 abuse reports for harrasment (: I love it

I am no stranger to hate comments. I write copious amounts of age difference fic. I write copious amounts of incest. I am not going to apologize nor am I going to feel bad for enjoying either.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

ughhh I sure as heck hope not!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I have a number of them :) I always always do my best to make sure it’s linked to the original fic, AND that I add a tag noting that there’s a translation!

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have made a few attempts! the only successful attempt is there's nothing i wouldn't do to make you feel my love which is a collaboration with @flightinflame, not quite a co-write!

14) What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I am unable to answer this lol I don’t have an all-time favourite. mutli-shipping forever.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

god okay this is such a good question! imma ramble about a few so bear with me here! (i may have 700 posted works but I also have a few hundreds wips & ideas floating around in my gdrive, too)

gone & past - this is a starrish wip i’d started in 2017. I ended up deleting it from ao3 to rewrite it and never got there, but I have about 20k of content! I built my home, inside of you - thorki human au with college jock thor and high school dancer loki. i’ve got a start and nothing else Sheriff Stilinski Gets Some Sweet Sweet Lovin’ - massive wip where... well, the sheriff fucks his way through the entire pack. I want to write it but. trans allison au - this is an au where allison is trans and that changes the entire season 1 canon. it features stallison, petopher, and a looooooong ass outline that will never exist beyond my wips You Fill My Heart (With Such a Gentle Love) - this is a stetopher a/b/o au with pregnant omega stiles and alpha pair petopher falling in love. it started as a labour of love to someone I no longer have in my life. I have about 30k, a full outline, but idk. makes me sad to think about it they slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered - this is my big x-men first class rewrite that I honestly don’t think i’ll ever finish. I have a few thousand words, a full outline, but no love lost for cherik so. doubtful Physiotherapy (I'll Be Your Baby) - this was a fic I was SO excited about, and then it kinda flopped and stayed a wip because I didn’t have a plan or the motivation to finish it. it’s a winterspider human au with amputee bucky and science twink peter that I adore the premise of but who knows breathing you in chapter 2 - I have a massive second chapter planned for this fic but the first did so good so fast I am way too intimidated to write more in case everyone hates it lmao

there are more arjgoirjeg there are so many more but these are the bigger ones I can think of right now!

16) What are your writing strengths?

ughhhhh I hate answering this because I have, like, seriously bad imposter syndrome around my writing BUT I do think i’m able to weave poignant backstory into narration & i write strong, distinctive narrative voices!

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

literally I can’t write settings at all. I don’t know how people vividly describe settings but I absolutely cannot do that and it’s one of the reasons I haven’t delved into original fiction. I need to write the town my characters live in?? fuck that imma just use a location we’ve seen on screen & let readers fill in the blanks lmao

I am also shit at long fic. I don’t have the mind for long and interesting plots, and I don’t have the focus to write long fic (which is why every long fic i’ve ever posted has taken me literal years to complete smh).

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I like it! both as a reader and as a writer. as a writer, I generally only use a few words, or small sentences that can be understood by context, and I generally don’t

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

the last thing I wrote and posted was this one:

Languish

It was a really, really hot Saturday, and most of the school was outback, enjoying the sun, not caring about the heat, and having the time of their life.

Everyone but Bobby, of course, who was melting away.

“I just want to remind everyone that I make ice. I am the Ice Man. I am not built for the heat and soon enough I’m going to melt away into nothing.”

20) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

this is another impossible question! I have a few I really enjoy, but I really don’t think I have a favourite that stands out above the rest!

i’m tagging: @4magicandmayhem @insertmeaningfulusername @midrashic @wynnefic @ikeracity @stronglyobsessed @elledelajoie @wolfnprey & anyone else who sees it and wants to do it! seriously! go ahead :)

blank questions below the read more!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

3) How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

7) Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

8) Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

9) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

10) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14) What’s your all-time favorite ship?

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

16) What are your writing strengths?

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

20) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

#lavenderlotion #my writing #writing tag #writing meme

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the-darklings · 4 years

Text

coa one year later & self-reflection

(*drags out a creaky metal chair and plops down on it heavily*)

Hi. It’s me, ya boi skinny--

Wait, wrong one. Do over.

Hi, it’s me, Kat, and I’m not dead. Clearly. Today being one year anniversary of COA has kinda put me in a reflective mood, so I guess I decided to sit down and just...talk about some things, thoughts and feelings I’ve been bottling inside for a hot sec. Especially given how radio silent I have gone on here and people deserve a bit of perspective.

And before anyone starts worrying, it’s all good, and I’m still around and currently in good health for the most part.

So, let’s take it back to the start. Regardless of how dramatic it may sound, we need to go back a year for that.

By technicality alone, COA actually turned one year old on October 12th. That’s when the first part was posted. However, the reason I’m treating today as the aforementioned birthday is simple: I had no intention of this story ever being more than a short two-parter. I told this to the discord gang already but COA was only going to have two parts. V was going to die in Tokyo and the rest of the story follows glimpses of John throughout the movies and it’s her ghost that haunts him. Skipping ahead, it was going to have a bittersweet ending of John eventually dying, having completed his task, only to be greeted by V, Daisy and Helen in the afterlife. A peace of sorts. Then, I realised that, well, no. I have more to say on this world and intrigue about this placeholder character V kept growing.

November 1st happened and I made a very last minute call to continue COA but with the added pressure of doing it during NaNoWriMo 2019. And boy did I. Most of the story was figured out during that very intense month. I posted Part 2 on this day a year ago because I was so eager to share it. Perhaps, in retrospect, a bit too eager.

For those of you who may not know this, I work as a writer full time for my actual every day job. I’m the main writer for an original webcomic called In the Bleak Midwinter on Webtoon.com and have been for almost two years now. Getting what is essentially your dream job is amazing. I’m very lucky on that front but it also taught me stark realities of having your job and only hobby overlap. It’s a dangerous creative mix. Especially because I was not used to being constraint in what I create or the feeling like I have to please anyone else. Writing as a job is a whole other avenue of creative exhaustion. I love my job a lot and am very, very lucky to have it but it doesn’t change the fact that those initial stages made me fall back on COA a lot for creative freedom that I craved so desperately. To an unhealthy degree looking back on it now.

But going back to November last year. NaNo time. I did it. Finished on the 24/25th I believe. A juicy final count of 52k+. All while maintaining a weekly update schedule for a fic that usually hit around 10k per update, if not more, even during those early days. Add writing an original story on top of that. Writing every day for hours on end (we are talking 10-12hr days) without any time for other hobbies or time for myself in general. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. Losing weight and sleep in the process. I think the thing that convinced me that I should continue doing so is the fact that the outpour of support for COA ended up surpassing anything I ever expected or even dared to hope for. I’m not a huge numbers person but the outpour of love and just sheer investment in the story and characters blew me away. John Wick fandom is on the smaller side and has been going through downtime when I posted COA so my expectations were...well, small tbh. I like keeping expectations low to avoid any disappointments in general. But I’ve also always had an issue of being a massive 0 or 100 kind of person. If I love something, it consumes me. In this case, it brought me as much joy and freedom as much as it was steadily pushing me towards the ultimate crash.

That being said, I can’t thank you all enough for every comment, like, reblog and message and fanart. You’re the reason I got this far. With your support. It brightened some really dark days for me.

But.

To be frank, it’s never been about you guys. I never wrote or pushed because I felt like I had to appease anyone. That creative mindset is pure poison and I long since learned to let go of it. I kept pushing and kept working myself to the bone because I liked it. I liked how reading peoples’ responses made me feel. I liked the addictive nature of reading all the comments and theories after an update. I loved the idea of brightening peoples’ days and giving them something to cheer them up after what might have been a shitty day. Even if that was at expense of my own time/well being. But for a long time, it wasn’t. I love writing a lot but facts remain facts.

It was beyond unhealthy and burnout wasn’t a question of if but when and that when was approaching at neck-breaking speed.

So we come to the end of November. Part 4 has just come out. People were invested and I was invested alongside them. I was just finishing up Part 5 which (back then) was the biggest single chapter I’ve ever written and god I still recall my sheer dread because that was the beginning of Santino being established as a LI. Looking back on that now, it’s downright hilarious how worried I was about the reception of him and V together after John.

So honestly, I hit burnout at around Part 8. Because that’s the first time I recall struggling with writing a chapter. Part 8 came out on December 28th. I had a brief break for holidays. But my mistake was not taking longer back then. Because I continued writing with a barely healed burnout. Followed by almost a year of struggling and continuously creating through that state. It wasn’t like I eased off the pressure, either. Oh, no. The chapters grew in size, the world and the characters with it. AUs amassed quickly and while I adore every single one - again, I didn’t know how to pace myself well enough.

I’m spiteful though. The more the chapters struggled the more I pushed against the burnout. By the time Chicago arrived, however, I knew I was in trouble. I ended up writing 43k+ in a span of 2 months, I believe. And while to some it may not seem like a lot given the time frame, it’s a lot when you’re burnout to a crisp & writing an original story for work + deadlines. Which I was burned out and then some. Chicago was something I was looking forward to writing for months. I have built it up since Part 4. It was a long time coming. So while I’m still proud of it, I would be lying if I said that some scenes were not sacrificed for the sake of keeping to my invisible schedule that no one but me actually cared about. You guys have always been patient. I never felt pushed into anything. It’s always only ever been me doing the harm.

Chicago was the downwards spiral for me mentally. I felt like I was failing to live up to my own expectations. That people were drifting away from it. I was plagued by the thought that the story I poured so much into was falling apart and growing weaker. Which this has always been an issue with me: I am my own harshest critic. Always have been. In fact, I’m a downright mean little fucker when it comes to just tearing at myself. I know writing is for fun - and it is - but I still like the idea of being proud of my work which only made everything worse despite the love each update received.

This takes us to the beginning of June. Specifically, June the 2nd. Or, as I like to call it: Kat Makes Another Impulsive Decision but This One Actually Works Out For the Better. On this day, I created the COA Discord server. And damn, I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting when I did ngl. I did it for fun and as an escape more so than anything. But somehow it ended up being the best decision I made in a long while. I know some of you are reading this. So love you lots, dorks. It’s such a privilege to be able to call so many of you my friends even outside of COA now. That little community has given me some of the best memories from this year and helped me to crawl out of my own metaphorical pit I was stuck in. Mentally, I’m doing much better than I did beginning of this summer. Which could be summed up as a constant self-hatred cycle and a feeling of inadequacy.

That, however, does not mean my burnout magically disappeared. If anything Chapter 17 just put a nail in the coffin so to speak. 2020 has been a shitty year just across the board for obvious reasons I don’t need to go into here but that can only partially be attributed to my mental state. Chapter 17 was...exhaustive. To say the least. But I was determined to stick with my vision and not split it up. I was also starting to be a bit more forgiving towards myself in terms of how long I may take to write it thanks to guys on discord though the feeling of failure and worry never quite faded fully. I’m proud of Part 17. Truly. But that was also when I hit rock bottom creatively on COA. It drained me completely.

I tried writing Part 18 for weeks after, day in and day out, not getting past the first scene and hating every word I wrote. So I took a deep breath and stopped. Figured I let it marinate and wait instead of trying to piece one of the most crucial chapters in this story like some Frankenstein monster two sentences at the time.

So my solution was simple: give myself some distance from it and write other things. Get my spark back. Of course that’s always a good idea. Having multiple creative escapes is the best thing you can do for yourself creatively. There was just one tiny little problem.

I was still burned out. Still am. The problem went deeper than just being burned out over COA. I was burned out over writing itself.

Which is an issue for a person who only has writing as a creative outlet.

I don’t have any other way to express myself. So I was stuck in a runt, trying to write because it’s the only thing that makes me genuinely happy even when I really shouldn’t have. And let me tell you. It’s a shitty fucking feeling. My burnout worsened. I had a thousand ideas but every time I tried to get them down it felt forced, fragmented, and weak. Repetitive and dry. Now, this is also in part because English isn’t my native language, so my vocab is limited as a result, but I hit that sweet rock bottom in that regard, too.

So, I worked on V (but in her OC form Clara), Lucien and The Elites. All those characters have grown so much since you last read about them. I have multiple original projects planned down the line that will feature all of them existing in their own world, with their own stories and no longer constrained by JW canon.

Which, finally, takes us to the end of October and beginning of November 2020.

I was convinced that the best course of action was to do NaNo again but with an original story this time (involving V). Suffice to say, it took a grand total of maybe 5-6 days and hating every second of writing it while also feeling like this project I’m so passionate and excited to write (still am) is just...going down the toilet to be blunt, to realise I may have made the wrong call.

Still, the stubborn ass that I am, I pushed through. Convinced I can get into it if I just keep going. The realizations that I am sharing with you right now won’t have been possible if it hadn’t been for a rather curious turn of events about a week and a half ago.

I recently bought a gaming laptop, all in preparation for Cyberpunk 2077 dropping ofc. But, in the meantime, I kept recommending a game to a friend on the COA server. That game? Far Cry 5. (It’s a blast to play btw, just a side note.) And playing it brought back all the feelings of nostalgia from the days when I used to write for that fandom. So I revisited some old work. Checked the stuff I never published and that has been sitting ducks in my docs for months and hoo boy. Let me tell you it was a vibe check of the worst kind.

The stark difference in the prose and the ease with which it flowed was...startling. It made me remember why I love writing so much and how proud I used to be of what I wrote back in the day. Which is not to say I’m not proud now, but it was just such a sharp dip in quality it was impossible to ignore.

So I didn’t.

I paused NaNo, moving it to another month. I paused writing for everything but work, which with our season coming to an end I will also get a rest from soon, too. I kinda paused in general. For the first time in a while, I finally forced myself to switch off. Rest.

The reason why I haven’t been on here is simple: guilt and not having energy to be on here. I like making my blog a safe space for everyone. Similar to escape it has become for me. I couldn’t pretend I was fine when I wasn’t. I felt obliged to perform and being here became exhausting. I haven’t been checking my inbox. Haven’t done much of anything except occasionally dropping by and reblogging a random post so people know I’m alive.

And that’s that, folks. That’s where I am currently. Resting. Completely exhausted mentally but resting. Getting my energy back.

So where does that leave us, huh? If you read this far, dunno what to tell you. Thanks, I suppose. It’s still odd to think people actually care about my existence sometimes.

I know what you’re likely thinking, too. So does this mean COA is never gonna be finished? What is gonna happen to it? Are you abandoning it?

The answer: no. 17 out of 25 chapters and 250k+ in, I’m too far in not to give it a proper conclusion. Not because I owe it to anyone other than myself. I want this story to be a stepping stone for my future as a writer. I want to prove to myself that I can get this done and finish it. As of right now (as you can no doubt tell with how long it’s been since last update) it’s on a soft hiatus while I rest. This rest? Not sure how long it may last. Right now, my plan is till mid December at which point I will reevaluate. Ideally, I finish the year with an update. But my New Year’s resolution is to finish COA. That timeline has become a little more murky now but, again, ideally it’s within the first quarter of 2021. Will that happen? I don’t know. And I don’t want to make false promises, either.

All I’m saying is that it will be done. I’m just no longer sure how long, exactly, it may take me to reach that Epilogue. I don’t expect many people to stick around for however long it may take me, but if you do, thank you. Truly. I really and deeply mean that.

So what’s on the cards for this blog in the meantime? Well, CP77 is coming out in under a month (if it doesn’t get moved again lmao rip) and I expect that to be my soft return to posting my writing on here again. We will see where the muse takes me, if at all. Regardless though, I’m excited.

One doctorate thesis later, here we are at the end of this really long rambling session. I hope that this has given you some perspective on things going on behind the scenes. I spared you some of the gorier details but I think this post has been long overdue. I suppose I, myself, was just too unwilling to face these things despite knowing about them deep down for a while now. I’m too self-critical not to notice but acting on correcting this behavior has been a whole other matter clearly.

Thank you for reading this post, my writing in general, and supporting me. I’m not going anywhere. I’m still around. More is on the way in the future. I’ll be seeing you all real soon. And all my love to all of you.

Love,

- Kat.

#kat speaks #blog psa #i suppose

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