#that barely had any coal left but still

[the-acid-pear]

okay i wont be posting every thought i had while liveblogging my first pure evil route but the fact i had the audacity to roast steven EVEN THEN is so fucking ridiculous. BRO DEADASS LIVING RENT FREE IN MY HEAD

[asa-do-your-thing]

Among the ferns

18+ MINORS DNI Halsin x F!Reader 2.6k Warnings: SMUT, cunnilingus, p in v sex, unprotected sex, loss of virginity, size kink, fluffy smut as always no proofreading no nothing this is for you bby :3 @foxyanon

As the night grew colder, your companions retired to bed one by one. All except for Halsin, who had made a promise to stay up with you. He didn't mind avoiding Lae'zel's loud snoring; he preferred talking with you anyways, and sleep wasn't coming easy for him this night.

“Tav, may I ask you something?” he asked gently, looking down at you with a small smile. The full moon illuminated the small clearing in the woods where you had set up camp and a soft breeze played with the undergrowth.

The fire that had once crackled and danced with life was now reduced to glowing embers, casting a warm, orange glow on Halsin's face. His eyes twinkled with curiosity and earnest sincerity, making them as captivating as the night sky above.

"Well, Halsin," you responded, cradling your cup of warm cider between your hands. "You can ask me anything." Your tone was light, playful even. This was not the first intimate conversation you’ve had with him, nor would it be the last.

His brow furrowed slightly under his tousled locks. "It's just..." he hesitated, looking slightly unsure of how to phrase what was on his mind.

You chuckled lightly to yourself, finding his uncharacteristic shyness amusing considering that he was normally so confident and outspoken. With his muscled frame and towering height, he was often mistaken for a brute by those unacquainted with him. But you knew better than most that there was a lot more to him than met the eye.

"Why have you never spoken about your romantic partners before?" he finally asked, voice barely above a whisper. A breeze rustled through the leaves overhead, adding a symphony of soft whispers to the stillness of the night.

A hush fell over you both as you considered his question. The forest around you teemed with life – crickets chirping in the underbrush, an owl hooting in the distance – yet all sound seemed distant as you pondered your answer.

"Truthfully?" You start, shifting your gaze from the dying fire up into the night sky, blushing gently. "I suppose that is because I've never… had a romantic partner before.”

The revelation hung in the air, ungraspable as moonlight. Halsin took a moment to truly absorb your words. His head tilted slightly, the glow of curiosity was now replaced with surprise. "You mean…" he stumbled over his words, a rare occurrence for him indeed, "You've never…?" He didn't need to spell it out; his meaning was clear.

You found yourself shaking your head in confirmation, your cheeks heating up. The confession had left you feeling lighter somehow, liberated even.

"I know it's unusual," you admitted, your fingers idly tracing the edge of your cider cup. The warm ceramic felt grounding against your skin amidst the otherwise ethereal atmosphere of the night.

Halsin, still overwhelmed by the revelation, defaulted to silence as he stared at you with intense concentration, as if trying to understand an enigma. His gaze seemed to penetrate beyond your skin through to the very essence of who you were. It was a gaze that could make anyone feel seen for perhaps the first time in their life.

The silence lingered but didn't feel oppressive; instead, it held a certain comforting intimacy that carried an odd tranquillity with it. Perhaps it was due to understanding that sometimes words were superfluous and that silence spoke volumes more than any spoken language ever could.

Finally, as if breaking free from a trance, Halsin shifted his gaze away from yours and stared into the almost extinguished fire. His fingers absent-mindedly picked up a stick and prodded at the glowing coals – it seemed like he wished to say something, but held himself back out of respect.

“Halsin, I… Look, it’s not like I have no desire for… it, it’s just that no-one ever, uh… invited me for…,” you stammered out and looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction.

"I see," he finally answered, his voice just above a whisper and filled with an understanding that you hadn't expected. He looked back at you, the light from the dying fire dancing in his eyes. “Well, under any other circumstance…” he trailed off, looking at you with a softness you hadn’t seen before.

His gaze held yours as he continued, “I would have invited you for...” he paused as if searching for the right words, “a quick, intimate encounter.”

Your cheeks heated up further at his admission. The mere thought of it sent a jolt through your body, making your heart flutter.

"But," he quickly added, seeing your reaction, "given what you've revealed... I think I would be entirely satisfied sharing just an innocent cuddle." His words settled over your ears like a soothing balm, calming your anxious thoughts.

It was a simple offer — one of warmth and companionship without any expectation or pressure.

You felt a burst of adoration and gratitude for him. It was as if Halsin was offering to meet you at your pace, to hold space for you in a world that often demanded too much too soon. He understood, perhaps better than anyone else ever could.

“Halsin…” You couldn’t help the soft smile that graced your lips. The tension that had been building dissipated into the cool night air.

He smiled back at you then – not his usual mischievous grin but something far more genuine and tender.

Together, you sat in silence once more, the crackling embers providing a warm glow to your faces.

“Actually, I… uhm… wouldyouliketoteachme?”, you pressed out and immediately looked away, afraid that he would reject you.

“I mean, everyone’s asleep, you know this forest well, you are a gentle man and as far as I know you you are a very good teacher and I’ve liked you for so long and you’re good looking…,” you rambled, sure that your cheeks couldn’t heat up even more than they did in that moment.

Halsin blinked, taken aback by your sudden outburst. Then he laughed, a rich and warm sound that echoed softly in the quiet of the night. “Easy,” he said, his voice gentle yet laced with amusement, effectively cutting through your rambling. His gaze softened even further as he reached over and took your hand into his.

"Thank you for the compliments," he said, his thumb gently caressing your knuckles. His touch felt like a spark in the darkness, both startling and comforting at the same time. "And for trusting me enough to ask."

There was an earnest sincerity in his eyes that made you feel seen – really seen – for perhaps the first time in your life. It was as if he truly understood the depth of what you’d asked him. That he grasped how much courage it must have taken you to let down your walls and bare a part of yourself you’d kept hidden away for so long.

The silence that followed was pregnant with anticipation, each moment stretching on as you waited with bated breath for his response.

“Alright,” Halsin finally said, breaking the silence. His tone was somber now, filled with a level of gravity that reflected just how seriously he was taking your request.

“If this is what you want... If it’s something that feels right for you…” He paused to give you one last chance to change your mind. However, seeing no hesitation in your eyes, he simply nodded and continued, “Then yes, I’d be honored.”

A sense of relief washed over you at his words. It was as if a weight had been lifted off your chest - a wide smile spread over your cheeks and you hugged him, losing yourself in his warmth and scent.

Gently, he cradled your head against his shoulder, the rhythm of his heart a soothing lullaby as you relished in this newfound intimacy. It wasn't long before he scooped you up into his arms, rising from the bed of moss and ferns to carry you further into the forest. Your heart pounded with a mixture of anticipation and nervousness as pine needles rustled beneath his feet, creating a symphony with the nocturnal creatures singing their songs.

The forest that had seemed so intimidating before now felt like a safe sanctuary under Halsin's guidance. He deftly navigated through the complex labyrinth of towering trees, guiding you through dappled moonlight that slipped through the rustling canopy above.

Eventually, he came to halt in a hidden glade awash with soft silver light. It was an enchanting spectacle - fireflies danced in the air while a gentle brook murmured in the distance, providing a harmonious backdrop to this still moment. Here, beneath the vast expanse of stars, Halsin laid you down gently on another bed made of moss and ferns.

Halsin hesitated for just a moment before beginning to remove his clothing, piece by piece. His movements were unhurried and deliberate, affording you enough time to adjust to each new revelation of skin and muscle underneath. He was beautiful in all senses of the word – not just physically but in his vulnerability too.

Once he stood undressed before you, it was his turn to ask for permission. His voice was low as he asked, "May I?" His respect for your comfort evident in that simple question.

“Y-yes, you may,” you muttered and gasped as you felt his hands working on the laces of your dress and the feeling of his lips on the nape of your neck. “You may do anything you wish, as long as you… are gentle,” you whispered, drawing in a big breath as he bared your breasts, gently tracing his hands over the gentle curves.

"Yes," he murmured against your skin, "always gentle." His voice was a soothing rumble that reverberated through you, making your heart flutter in response. His hands were warm against your cool skin, his touch so tender and careful it nearly brought tears to your eyes.

He guided you to recline on the mossy bed, his strong hands supporting your back as you did so. The moss was surprisingly soft underneath you, nature's own cushioned bedding. Halsin continued to worship your body with his hands and mouth, his every touch sending waves of pleasure coursing through you. You gasped as he traced kisses down your neck, over the valley between your breasts, and then lower still.

You gasped and blushed at the sensation and bit your lip as you felt his big finger gently slipping between your wet folds. Gods, it felt so good, and the longer you looked at him pleasuring you through half-closed eyes, you felt your inner fire burning hotter and hotter. Everything about him drove you wild. From the way he loomed over you, to his strong, yet gentle hold on you, not to mention the way he caressed you - it drove you to the brink of insanity.

“Let go, my love… moan for me, my sweet thing… let nature hear your call…,” he muttered, alternating between rubbing your pearl, licking and kissing it gently.

Gasping, you struggled to breathe as the pleasure coursed through you like wildfire. You'd never felt anything like this, and it was all too much and not nearly enough at the same time. His touch was electric, igniting every nerve ending in your body and sending sparks of ecstasy ricocheting along your spine. Moans tumbled unbidden from your lips, mingling with the chorus of the forest around you.

"Halsin," you whimpered, arching your back off the cushiony moss beneath you. "Oh gods, Halsin... it feels... it feels..." Words failed to do justice to the sensations he evoked within you.

He chuckled against your damp core, sending a shiver cascading down your spine. "That's it, darling. Let it out. I want to hear every little sound that escapes those pretty lips of yours."

Emboldened by his words, you did just that - moaning louder as he continued his ministrations. His tongue flicked and swirled over your most sensitive spots, teasing and taunting you until you thought you might combust from the aching need building within. Every stroke of his tongue or caress of his fingers seemed to send you higher and higher still, until you were certain your heart would beat right out of your chest.

"Halsin... Halsin... I... I'm..." You panted, but could not finish your sentence, as a huge wave of pleasure crashed over you. You cried out in unadulterated bliss as your body shuddered and arched beneath his touch. Halsin continued to caress and kiss you, milking every last shudder and gasp from your body until at last, your cries subsided into satisfied pants.

“You did perfect. Now… are you ready for me? Or should I let you rest?”, he asked sweetly, pulling himself out from between your thighs and up to you.

It felt like you were dreaming - and could do nothing else but to shake your head and hold your chest, gazing wantonly up at him. “No, no rest, I… I need you, I want you, but… are you sure that it is going to fit?”

He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that sent shivers down your spine. “Oh, my love, I've imagined this moment for so long... and I assure you, I will fit. Just…” He leaned in to replace his words with a fiery kiss, his tongue teasing yours as he gently slipped his hardness between your wet folds.

It felt like he was right - it stung for a second, but it was a perfect fit, and he filled you up completely as he entered you inch by inch, stretching you to the limit, even though he was still holding back from plunging completely into you. "Feel how perfect we fit together?", he whispered into your ear, gently kissing the top of your head.

"Y-yes," you panted, arching your hips against his. "Halsin... please... don't stop." You wrapped your legs around his waist, urging him onward.

He obliged, slowly and steadily, surging into your depths as if he had all the time in the world. The sensation was unlike anything you'd ever experienced - a delicious friction of stretching and heat that bordered on pain but was oh so exquisite. His every movement sent waves of pleasure crashing through you anew, his length hitting places inside you that had never known such stimulation before.

As he rocked his hips against yours, a primal, animalistic growl escaped his lips, and his grip on your hips tightened just enough to leave marks. You didn't mind, though - if anything, it spurred you on further. Your hands tangled in the moss beneath you, nails clawing at the ground as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over you.

"You feel so good... so tight... around me," Halsin groaned between gasps, the pace of his thrusts increasing marginally with each breathy moan that escaped your lips. "I... I've wanted this... for so long... You, bouncing under me… in the woods…"

The way he spoke to you - so guttural and raw - was enough to send you over the edge a second time. Your climax washed over you like a tidal wave, hot and consuming, leaving you reeling in its wake. "Halsin!" You cried out his name as your body clenched around him, contracting around his hardness and milking him for all he was worth.

"Gods...," he panted, his thrusts growing erratic as he too lost control. "I... I can't... much more... So tight…"

With one final, earth-shattering thrust, he stilled inside you, his essence welcomed within your depths as you both shuddered through the climax together. Halsin collapsed atop you, his breathing ragged in your ear.

"That…" He finally managed between breaths. "Was… better… than I ever imagined."

You smiled up at him, your insides still convulsing and hugged him tight, not minding that he squished you under his large, shuddering body. “You’re… you’re a good teacher. The best.”

[calypsocolada]

213 DAYS | f. dostoevsky

(click here for part two)

synopsis: you seek out a demons help not realizing just how long he’s waited for you.

authors note: LOL this was completely out of left feild. I binged bungo stray dogs in less than a month and CANNOT stop thinking about this man (and every other character) who would definitely manipulate me to death. LOL anyways enjoy this mess, i didn’t have much of a plan just kinda wrote.

cw: suggestive, soft!fyodor, lovesick!fyodor (he’s literally obsessed with you), manipulative, fluff, making out, cussing, plot convenience lol

wc: 3.9k

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Your hands were shaking terribly so you clenched them tighly as you followed a guard down a long, long hallway. It’s lights sickly, everything looked the same, the doors, windows, ceilings and flooring. All without a single identifiable difference. You took a steadying breath as the guard a few feet in front of you slowed. He turned slightly to talk to you over his shoulder.

“No one comes to visit this guy, your the first since he’s been here.” He says. You knew a lot about said prisoner. A bit of a complicated past, very, very complicated. “He doesn’t have any existing family, or so I’ve heard.” You could tell with the way this guard was talking he was sweet on the prisoner. That didn’t surprise you, the man you were about to see for the first time in months had a lot of things under his belt. He was manipulative, he could trick the soul right out of your body. The guard rounded one last corner and you knew which padded cell was his. Your hands shook even worse as the guard approached the door.

“I’m sure you know how dangerous he is.” The guard starts as you give him a sharp look.

“I do. Do you?” He looked caught, like the jig was up. He cleared his throat.

“Of course, ma’am. Our city thanks you for capturing him.”

“Just open the door. Oh and,” you take a step towards the guard. “Whatever he’s promised you, I advise you to not take it, or you’ll have me to deal with.” You threaten, the guard's eyes go wide as he slowly nods his head. “Good boy.”

The doors swung open and you saw him just mere feet away, locked tight in the middle of a room.

Fyodor.

There were countless scraps of paper littering the white walls. A various drawings of you. You walked forwards, eyes catching each piece. He started to not remember your face after some time so on some papers there were just hazy outlines but you knew it was you.

Your heart sped like crazy, his sharp snake like eyes met yours and a wicked grin spread across his lips. HIs eyes dragged every inch of your body, probably thinking this was a once in a lifetime visit and he had to memorize your features all over again. He told you you’d come back to him someday, you didn’t think it’d be so damn soon.

All alone the giant room seemed small. You walked forwards, feeling all sorts of things, sickness and anxiousness from seeing Fyodor again. You’d been driven right into the hands of a demon. You could feel his grip beckoning you to come closer. A dangerous energy swirling. You'd felt that since you first met him, unexplainable and new.

“213 days was all it took for you to come back to me.” Fyodor greeted as you walked the distance towards him. He’d counted the days, it wouldn’t surprise you if he knew it all down to the second.

“That’s quite some time.” You answered and Fyodor cocked his head to the side just barely, coal black hair falling over his shoulder.

“It is, my love, too long if you ask me.”

“Not long enough.” You quipped. Fyodor’s eyes locked onto yours. He was devilishly handsome, whatever pull to him back then you still felt in the pit of your stomach when you were around him. Like a magnet or a string tied from you to him. Everywhere you went didn’t matter because it all led back to him. Something kept you thinking of him for those 213 days just the same as him.

“You say that but your eyes tell a different story.”

“Mhm, is it the same story you so crave for me to want.”

“You will want it in due time, my love, but until then a new story is being written.”

“What story is that?” You ask. Fyodor grinned, eyes lighting.

“Well, the story of us.”

“It looks a lot like a tragedy.” You said and Fyodor sighed, amused with your comebacks.

“Now it does, but that’s just the first act. Can’t have a resolution so early on.” He’d wave off if he could. He was currently in a straight jacket, chained to the floor beneath him. He was a dangerous man and this was the only way to keep him from trouble.

“You’re smart, I’m sure you know why I’m here.” You say, you were now mere feet from him, his coal back hair looked like silk, his red crimson eyes looking up at you with something like amusement. You knew he was going to play dumb just for the sake of you talking more to him.

“I’m sorry, you might have to catch me up.” You needed his help and there was little Fyodor wanted in this word, but the biggest, most glaring thing he wanted was you. He’d been infatuated the moment he saw you fighting alongside the detective agency, he’d even foiled some of his comrades plans just to make sure you weren’t hurt in the process. Still, he was a highly dangerous criminal and should be treated as such. You needed to remember that. You slowly sat on the chair across from him.

“Dazai’s been captured and has been missing for three days now. The kidnappers have given us a week. If they were smart enough to trick Dazai they’re well over our heads. I’ve exhausted every avenue, I can’t sleep, I’m scared they’re going to kill him. I'm alone in all of this. If anyone is close to Dazai’s level it’s you.” You explained, Fyodor’s face morphed into something you hadn’t seen much except in your loved ones faces. He looked worried. “What is it?” You asked, scared that he knew something you didn’t and that he couldn’t help you, this was really a last resort.

“You haven’t been sleeping?” Fyodor asked, genuinely concerned. Your lips parted in surprise.

“What?” Was all you could say, he’d surprised you.

“How long have you not slept, my love?”

“That’s- that’s not what’s important here, Fyodor.” You dismissed.

“That’s what’s important to me. How long?” He asks, a bit more commanding this time.

“I- I don’t know. Two days at least.” You answer. Fyodor’s face goes serious.

“I will help, but you will not. You will sleep.”

“We’re working this together. Faster you solve the faster I can sleep.” You counter, wondering if this really was the only stipulation he needed in exchange for his help.

“Deal, we should get started at once.” He says, hastily working something behind his back until suddenly his damn straight jacket clicks and falls to the floor. You gasp, shocked. He could’ve broken out of that this whole time. You wondered what other measures put in place to keep him here were really just laughable to him. If he could escape so easily why hadn’t he before now? Was he really just waiting all this time for you to come back to him?

“That’s- that’s it?” You stutter as Fyodor stands, holding a hand out to you to take.

“Your precious company is more than enough to repay me for my services.” He beams and you know he means it. You're not sure what is it about you that has him to utterly captivated, whether it's all a lie and a part of some plan of if he really, truly cares for you.

Cautiously you take his hand and gently he pulls you to your feet, tugging you against his chest, long white fingers tucking hair behind your ear.

“You’re still as beautiful as the day I met you.” He says and you feel a traitorous blush creep across your cheeks. His eyes look hazy this close, you could feel on hand ghosting your cheek and another around your back. "Now, listen closely love, I own three out of four of the guards outside my door, plus the warden. You use those powers of yours on the last one and we can escape peacefully." He says, hands sliding off your body as he knocks a serious of knocks on the door, most likely some sort of code. Your mouth drops open.

"You what?" You burst out. He really was just relaxing here, not confined at all. Fyodor cocks his head at you, confused as though he hadn't just told you he practially owns the prison.

"I like to play games, dear, you know that. As long as I'm back in the morning no one will know." He says. Your jaw ticks as you strut across the floor, closing the distance between you two. You grab him by the front of the shirt.

"I'm not bringing you back here just so you can break free behind my back!" You growl, he looks at you as though you claimed the stars in the sky.

"I'm quite content here for now, but here, I'll make you a deal." He offers as you furrow your brows.

"A deal?" You echo and he nods his head. You let go of the front of his shirt.

"You visit me once a month and I'll stay put."

"You're crazy." You breath out, but the conviction on his face was real. He'd rather see you once a month than be free. It was fucking insane. You bit your lip in contemplation. "You give me the names of every worker here under your payroll as well." You say and he instantly nods his head.

"Do we have a deal?" He holds out his hand for you to take, and for the second time today, you take it. His cold hand envelopes yours, fingers gripping you gently as a smile spreads across his lips.

"We gotta go." You say and Fyodor nods his head.

"Swipe your card and put the guard with the blond hair to sleep." Fyodor says and you nod. You do as told, the door sliding open. There were four guards, three with dark hair and one women with blond hair. She looks up and smiles when you walked out. You smile back.

"Sleep." The power drips from your voice and the other guards are startled when the girl falls to the floor snoring lightly. They jump up, guns at the ready.

"Gun's down," Fyodor directs coldly, walking out behind you. The guards do exactly as told.

"Sorry, boss." The guard from earlier says, eyes meeting yours. You felt like an idiot, warning him earlier to watch himself around Fyodor and now here you were aiding his escape.

"We're going on a little date, keep things quiet while I'm gone." Fyodor says as the guards salute to him. You stroll out of the prison, Fyodor a step behind you.

“If you had an ounce of malice in your body you could destroy anyone that you ever came across, you know.” Fyodor said when you loaded into your car, the look in his eyes like a kid looking at their favorite superhero. Like he truly admired you. You had a hard time believing that but he was here and if he tried anything you could shut it down with your powers quite quickly. You had the power to control anyone with just your words. You were the one who captured him all those months ago, you could do it again.

“You're over estimating me.” You say as you turn down a backstreet that led towards the agency. Everyone else was out on various tasks, you were on this job alone. Everybody else just assumed he’d find a way to save himself, you didn’t like taking that chance. Dazai had saved you millions of times and you’d try your hardest to repay him.

“I think you’re underestimating yourself, dear, your agency friends would agree. You could be completely devastating.” Fyodor says as you roll your eyes.

“Well you must all be so lucky.” You wave off, pulling into the agency. You met Fyodor at the front of the car. Giving him a serious look.

“Don’t try anything, I really don’t wanna have to kill you.” You say tiredly, too tired to stop his hand from crossing the space between you two, tucking your hair out of your eyes. You freeze at the contact.

“To die by your hands would be bliss to me dear, but you won’t be rid of me yet.” He says, the look in his eyes like admiration, he looked at you the same way your father looked at your mother. It makes you feel unwanted things.

“When will I be rid of you?” You ask, but it was a loaded question and you weren’t sure what you meant. If you meant physically or mentally because you thought about him all the time when he was gone. Fyodor’s eyes slide down to yours, his hand lingering on your cheek.

“Dear, when we’re done here you’ll be begging me to stay.”

“In your dreams.” You challenged and he just smiled.

“Yes, those too.”

You swallowed and waved Fyodor forwards. As you walked, Fyodor turned to speak with you.

“You could’ve used your powers to bring me here.” Fyodor points out as though you didn’t know that.

“Yes, I could’ve.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Maybe I did, then I told you not to remember.” You jest.

“Oh dear, how I would love you to manipulate me. But alas you are nothing like me, but that’s what I like the most. The purest of intentions.”

You slide the key into the lock, pushing the door to the office open. Fyodor gives the place a once over as you lead him towards your desk.

You slide into your chair, taking out the letter that was sent to the agency about Dazai’s disappearance. Something you’ve looked at time and time again, it almost made you dizzy with exhaustion seeing it again.

Fyodor leans against your back, face close to yours as he reads the note over your shoulder. Your heart speeds at the contact. Fyodor’s hand slides down your shoulder to the note as he points to something.

“Dazai sent this himself.” Fyodor says quietly next to your ear. You snap your head to the side to look at him. He’s so close as he slowly slides his eyes to meet yours.

“What?” You force out.

“Look there, love,” you look at where his finger is pointing. It’s small so you bring the note just a little bit closer. A smile smiley face. You hadn’t noticed that before.

“What the hell?” You ask.

“Some letters are darker than the others, it reads out, ‘be back in two weeks, Dazai’.” You feel like a complete idiot. Anger builds fast in your chest. You rip the note in two and push yourself up from your desk.

“I just helped break a highly dangerous criminal out of a maximum security prison to find out Dazai’s on vacation.” You huff, falling back down into your chair. You hear a soft chuckle behind you. “Screw this.” You growled, storming out of the office towards your car. In your anger you totally forgot Fyodor but that didn’t matter because he followed you just a few steps behind. It was later in the day now, you were so tired and so angry as you stormed to your car. “Get in.” The power slipped into your words as Fyodor tripped over himself to get in the car, you hadn’t even noticed you did it, sometimes that happens when you lose control of your emotions. This was still so new to you. When you slipped in beside Fyodor, you pressed your head against the steering wheel, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry, I’m such an idiot.”

“Don’t say that, dear.”

“But it’s true. It took you seconds! I haven’t slept in days, searching that note night and day.” Frustration built in your chest as angry tears formed in your eyes.

“Dazai’s lucky to have a friend like you, someone who would lose sleep to help. Doesn’t matter how fast I figured it out, you would’ve gotten it out.”

“The note said a week till he was dead.”

“And you still had four days. Stop being so hard on yourself.” You slowly lifted your head off of the steering wheel, eyes fluttering to Fyodor’s. His voice was so calm, so non judgmental, it was messing with your head. You clear your throat.

“It’s too late to take you back now, we’ll have to go in the morning.” You say, trying to snap yourself out of whatever spell Fyodor was casting onto you. His face softens.

“Okay, dear.” He says, settling into the seat. You were hesitant bringing him to your home, he could kill you. But some stupid part of you thought differently of him, some part told you he wouldn’t hurt you. And that stupid part, driven by exhaustion had you driving back to your place, leading him inside and locking the door behind you too. You turned to him in the dim light of your hallway, his eyes shining red.

“Do I have to make you behave yourself?” You ask, the tightness of the hallway had you two quite close.

“You do whatever you like to me.” He whispered, his pale lips smirking in the dark. You swallow against the dryness in your throat, something tugs in your stomach. This was a terrible idea. The way he was looking at you was more dangerous than anything. The space between you both was barely existent. He was so tall, so handsome, all dark and magnetizing. You felt it all washing over you now. A invisible pull. A terrible turn. You let out a breath in your chest, eyes locking with his. Your hands had their own mind, reaching for the front of his shirt, his eyes watch over you. Your fingers knotted in his shirt and you stepped in his space. His lips parted. “Love, you’re crossing a line.” He whispers and you pause, drunk on something you weren’t sure of. Clearly you weren’t thinking straight but sobering up felt like going against yourself. It was strange.

“Should I stop?” You ask. His hand slides up your arm to tuck under your jaw, cold fingers pressing there.

“Never.” He says huskily. “But if you kiss me now then throw me in prison in the morning I’ll be quite hurt.” He jokes, his accent thickens. The air in your chest that you didn’t know you were holding exhales. You leaned into him and watched his eyes drift close, felt his body slack in anticipation. He was completely whipped, he was the one under your spell.

“You thought I was going to kiss you?” You ask, gaining a bit of attention back. Fyodor cocks his head just a bit, eyes fluttering open.

“You weren’t?” He asks, his lips slightly pouting. You grin sharply, slowly rocking on the tips of your toes to pull him down to your lips. A soft press, an answer. Something shoots through your body at the contact. You wanted this. You’ve wanted this since meeting him. He’d wanted the same. You pretended it away the best you could but you couldn’t fucking help it. He wasn’t a good person but he was to you. It was like he was two different people. One made for you. Fuck, you couldn’t help yourself any longer. Your hands dragged up into his hair, tangling. He groaned into your mouth, letting you walk him back into the front door, pressing your body against his, pinning him. You pulled back, kissing his jaw down to his neck, he whimpered at the contact, melting against your touch. “Love, you— you can’t,” he panted, unable to form a coherent sentence. Your cold hand slide under his shirt, feeling warmth beneath it, he gasped at your touch. His hands held you softly, as though you’d realize who you’d be kissing if he held you even tighter. But you knew who he was, what he’d done. But fuck it. You kissed him all over, his neck and jaw and cheeks and lips, you couldn’t stop. He shivered and his fingers slowly dig into the fat of your hips as he pulled you closer to him. He sighed, head falling to the side to give you better access. You kissed softly at his open throat and he made a low sound.

“I’ll show you to my room,” you whispered into his neck, hand sliding into his. When you went to tug him he didn’t move, you turned to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

“We shouldn’t.” He says and your heart dips.

“We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to,” you say, dropping his hand but he catches your fingers, shaking his head.

“You misunderstand me. I want to. But not right now, you’re not- you’re tired and it’s been a long day, I’d rather you sleep then keep you up all night.” You find yourself blushing at his words. You swallow.

“What if I want that?” You barely whisper as though your words held too much gravity. You watch his jaw tick, something flashing in his eyes. It was clear what he was thinking about.

“Love, please, I have just a shred of chivalry left, don't test it.” God you wanted to test it so badly but you felt light headed, exhaustion plaguing you now.

“Alright,” you say softly, he closes the distance between you both, pressing a soft and quick kiss to your lips. When he pulls back he pauses a hair’s width from your lips and when he speaks you feel his breath tickling you.

“Let’s go.” He says. You fumble through the darkness, Fyodor’s arms around your body, pressing soft kisses to you shoulders and neck as you push open the door to your bedroom. You strip down, changing into a large t shirt, letting Fyodor borrow something to change into. Something an ex left at your place, you decided not to tell him that. You both fell into the bed together, exchanging tired kisses in the dark. His body on top of yours, the weight of it heavy, you brought your hands to his sides pulling more of him on top of you. “For someone who hasn’t slept in days you have a lot of energy.” He mutters against your neck. You shutter.

“I want you so badly.” You say before you can stop yourself.

“Trakhni menya…” he groans softly, rolling off of you. You roll to face him, blushing and hot. “You have to sleep.” He says, his hands sliding around you to pull you into his chest. You settle in his arms, his heart beating steadily against your back. He presses a kiss to your shoulder. You close your eyes, listening to his steady breathing. How things escalated was beyond you but you’d never felt more comfortable in your damn life. He pulled a cover over the both of you, reaching to flick off the light. He brushed your hair back out of your face as you wondered what the hell you were going to do in the morning. Taking him back made your stomach twist. You realized for those 213 days you were looking for a reason to seek him out. That when an opportunity fell into your lap you grabbed and ran with it because despite everything you tried lying to yourself about, you wanted him badly enough to break him out of prison. You settled closer to him, sleep slowly tugging you deeper. You tangled in bed with Fyodor, his fingers playing with the ends of your hair.

One last thought formed before you were taken by sleep.

You weren’t taking him back. He was yours to keep now.

[capslocked]

DEPARTURE

male reader x hwang yeji

13k words

So far as you can tell, Yeji never loved you. A wish beyond your reach.

-

April, and you were barely seventeen. It was spring, but the weather hadn’t gotten wind of that just yet. So—cool, rainy, just like every April before it.

Yeji’s voice stuck a perfect landing in your ears. "You know what’s crazy?"

"No?" you responded cautiously.

"Apparently this stuff starts out as a wheat, or a rye. You believe that?"

You paused. "What the hell is rye?"

"It’s… well, it’s like a wheat."

The wood crackled again, embers sent flying into the chill night air. Now that the fire had already begun burning out in front of you, you pulled your jacket tight around your shoulders.

"Okay. Ready? On three."

"Wait a second." You raised a finger in the air. "One, two, three?—or, one, two, three go?"

"Who on earth does one, two, three, go?"

"I dunno."

Yeji twisted an eyebrow without saying anything and leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. The coals and dying gasps of the bonfire between you illuminated the sharp, perfected features of her face, casting a set of even sharper shadows.

"I mean some people do," you added.

"Do I look like some people?"

That mischievous smirk again pulled at the corner of her lip. It was dark and hard to see, but you could feel it.

"You look like you’re trying to get me sick," you said.

"Don’t be such a baby about it. Just do it with me."

"On go?"

"On three." She curled her lip, dissatisfied with you yet again. "One. Two. Three."

Eyes closed, you tilted the cup back against your lips. A dark, dreadful liquor pooled in your cheeks. And against your better judgment, it finally seared its way down your throat. For a moment, it sat woefully in your stomach, like a question mark. Your eyes watered, your chest heaved, coughing and choking.

It took a beat, but eventually you would make peace with it, the beverage equivalent of a kick to the head. You were just thankful it had not elected to leave the same way it came.

"Ugh," you sputtered, wiping your mouth with your sleeve. "I swear it’s like someone wondered what would happen if you tried to drink dirt." Your eyes drew over the bonfire—or at least what was left of it—to find a face beaming with the smuggest grin you’d ever seen, the drink in her hands entirely untouched.

"Gotcha," she lilted.

"Oh of course, you ass."

Yeji’s hand covered a laugh, the corners of her mouth sneaking out from behind it. The sound of it alone made nearly puking worth it. She stood. And in one uninterested motion, tossed the contents of her cup—a kind of alcohol you’d only learn later in life could probably be used to start a car—right out into the grass. Twisting the insides of her jacket pockets, she sauntered around the pit, briefly lit in the spits and licks of the dying fire.

"Think there’s any room on that tree stump for one more?"

Her eyes, sharp and magnetic, always pulled you deeply into her. She held you in them for a moment, a long couple of moments, and the flickers of the fire painted bright streaks of gold in those whirlpools of deep, earthen brown. When she smiled, the corners of her eyes creased, snapping at your attention.

"You deaf?"

"Dunno. Depends," you said, still clutching your chest and clearing your throat. "Who’s asking?"

Hwang Yeji. Your first kiss. Your first a lot of things actually. However for the sake of this story, your first kiss. It was somewhat crude how she’d stolen it off you too. Though still that was your fault mostly. It’s only fair that you got what was coming to you for the way you had dragged your feet.

A playful slap landed on your shoulder. "Scoot over."

You think about it less and less now, and as a result, the actual details of it have begun to elude you. Obviously you remember kissing her—or rather her kissing you—but that’s just about all you remember. There’s the way it started; her fingers under your chin, dragging your eyes away from the pile of embers that glowed in the fire pit. And of course how it ended; a wide smile dimpling her cheeks as her lips pulled away from yours. But everything in between? Years after the fact? God, your guess is as good as anyone’s.

Still, in spite of their incompleteness, Yeji shows up in a lot of your memories, the good ones anyway. You tease them through your head time and time again just to make sure they’re still there, intact.

She’d been around for a lot of the growing up you had to do in school, persistently dissatisfied you wouldn’t do it any faster. Never before had you gotten that close to anyone, let alone someone as vibrantly charismatic and beautiful as her. Allowing yourself to think back on it, there was a lot of downtime, time where nothing in particular was happening at all—the walks home after classes and clubs, Saturday afternoons just spent hanging out on your parent’s couch, not to mention all those late night runs on the local Pelicana for more chicken wings than anyone should ever eat—it all seemed like such a big deal at the time (though arguably, Pelicana is still a big deal).

To be clear, no, the two of you never dated. It was far too difficult to describe it like that. When one of you would turn eyes to the other for comfort, for compassion, for a sincerity absent in those everyday flirtations, you’d always find her—or she’d find you—with eyes pointed away, thoughts elsewhere. Though that didn’t mean you wouldn’t get teased about it, relentlessly you might add. Your friends would see the Friday evenings and Sunday mornings you’d spend together on what must’ve looked like nothing other than what they were: dates.

But the truth was more complicated than you ever cared to explain. So—you let them think what they wanted. You’d always return back to them and field twenty questions about what the two of you got up to, if she was good at kissing, what position she liked, how she was down there, whatever the color was of the underwear she wore that day. You’d make up your own answers, the ones they wanted to hear. It always did shut them up.

So, officially, you were friends. And you were the first person she came to when she got the news.

"In Seoul, huh?" You shoved your hands in your pockets.

"Yep."

"For how long?"

"No one knows." She twisted at the collar of her shirt, pulling and turning it into a tight knot. "For some people it’s a year and then they know it's not really gonna work out. For others it’s a whole lot longer."

"Well, it’ll get pretty quiet around here then won’t it."

Yeji smiled. "You’ll survive. I know you will."

A brief silence hung between you, different from any of the other lulls in conversation or times just spent quietly in your thoughts. Dry leaves crunched and mashed as you walked, and you could hear the wind shake old tree branches of whatever was still left on them.

"I bet you’d be good at it."

"What’s with that?" A muted laugh and Yeji’s eyes were again pointed up to the sky, as if she were counting stars. Always she was looking at the sky like that. You knew it. Maybe she knew it too. She didn’t belong here.

You let out a short sigh and shrugged your shoulders. "Just a hunch."

-

Five years had passed now, and you still remember vividly the conversation that had become your last. A fresh blanket of snow over the street hadn’t yet been disturbed by the morning traffic. Yeji’s hands were balled into two tiny fists, hidden in the long sleeves of the overcoat of her school uniform, a hand-me-down from her older sister ostensibly. Her hair was tied back into a loose ponytail, a pair of white earmuffs sitting atop it, and for the first time you’d ever known, she searched and searched for that bright smile—only she came up empty.

She told you she was leaving. She told you she wasn’t coming back. And then without skipping a beat, tears welling in her eyes, she told you not to wait for her.

See, our memories are a rather peculiar thing. In the backyard of that party neither of you belonged at, when the two of you were kissing beside those dying embers, you thought it’d be the memory you always play back in your head, clutching it tightly to your breast like your life depended on it. But truth be told, you can’t even tell at this point what’s fact and what you’ve since fabricated to fill the gaps.

As fate would have it, it’s that scene—in the middle of your driveway at four-fifteen in the morning—you remember it perfectly. While it played out, you made no special notice of it. You’d never stopped to think what a lasting impression it would make on you, how five years after the fact you’d manage to recall it in excruciating detail.

You had paid no attention to all that scenery around you either, the stars disappearing to make way for the sun, the sound of snow crunching beneath your feet, the gentle hum of the electric generator heating your home, or the white puffs of air that leaked off your chest. No, you were paying attention to yourself, the things you felt. You were paying attention to that unfairly beautiful girl standing arm’s length in front of you. Your thoughts wandered about the two of you together, and then again, retired solemnly back to yourself.

To make matters worse, you were in love. A troublesome, frustrating, complicated love.

With very little to say, you said very little. She said she’d call. She didn’t. You understood. Time passed. And then some. Later, you’d hammer out a drunken text message on New Year’s Eve the next year. A final albeit clumsy effort to hold your world together. Sent, but never opened.

And that was it. There was little else to do about it. You figured it was time to move on. Not that you had even an inkling of an idea how. Playing it back again in your head only ever filled your teary eyes with an almost unbearable sorrow. Realizing you’d never know if Yeji loved you.

-

It’s October and you’ll soon be twenty-four. The seat belt sign above you lights up. The cabin shakes and struggles. And your ears ring as the aircraft begins its descent onto a runway at Heathrow Airport. You typically enjoyed the window seat to get a good picture of where it was you were arriving—even if it wasn’t new—the layouts of highways, parks, train stations, large construction projects, all the things that made a city unique. But by the time the aircraft breaks through dark cloud cover, the only thing you can see beyond the ground crew in rain jackets and the chain linked fences around the tarmac, beyond the cold autumn rain beating down upon it, is that unyielding, gloomy sky. Again—London.

Buckles unlatch and passengers stand, gathering their belongings from the overhead bins. You remain stuck in your seat, chin resting on your hand, gazing at the backpack of the woman across the aisle—the contents that peek out of it blindsiding you: a copy of Vogue magazine with five unbelievably gorgeous faces on it, Yeji’s most noticeably staring back at you.

You’d groan out loud if you weren’t surrounded by people. It was becoming untenable.

Most of the reason you’d taken your job abroad was to keep from seeing her at every turn. There were the advertisements, the billboards, the promotional material you’d find on buses, subways, anywhere with decent foot traffic really, and that’s just what you could see. Her voice was always in your ear, and her name on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

And now it seems that even all the way out here, on a short flight from Zurich to London, that plan to escape her is already now showing delicate cracks in its optimistic veneer.

Perhaps it was the way your lips twist, or how your eyebrows furrow—you’ll never know—but a stewardess feels it within reason to check up on you, to see how you’re doing. She asks first in German, and then in French, and then finally in English that you can understand.

"I’m okay—just a little lightheaded."

"Are you sure?"

"I’m fine, thanks," you say, pulling your gatherings together from beneath your seat.

-

You’re not crazy, no more than anyone else. So it logically follows that you don’t believe in ghosts. At least certainly not in the colloquial sense. And the queue for immigration and customs at London Heathrow Airport has to be about the last place on earth anyone would choose to loiter about for eternity. But those ones you create for yourself? The ones that haunt you?

"I told you! I packed them in a little gray bag! The one you threw across the room at me!"

Those are real.

"Why the hell would you pack them away—when it’s the first thing you’re going to need to get off the plane?"

"Maybe I packed them away safely because we’d need them first thing."

Yeji waves her hand flippantly at the girl beside whose hair was dyed a garish blonde. She rolls her eyes with enough disdain that it drags her face over her shoulder. You watch her do a double, a triple take and your eyes lock with hers. Be it accident, be it fate, it doesn’t matter—it makes it hard to breathe. You shake your head, blink your eyes, but the two of you are stuck in each other’s gaze like it were a finger trap, unable to look away.

Nevertheless there’s some part of you still that refuses to believe in what is now a few feet in front of you. The same scene, playing out back home—assuredly there would be no end to the camera flashes and people chasing and begging for autographs. If anything, the only interest it gathers here, halfway around the world, is impatience from the scowls of grumpy travelers who’d rather be anywhere else.

"Yeji?" The girl beside her, whom you now absolutely recognize—god, you wish it was a mystery to you, what all Yeji had been up to since she walked right out of your life—she asks again, frustrated, "are you even listening to me?"

"Hang on. Give me a second."

She walks with purpose, an insatiable curiosity gnawing at her thoughts. Those heeled boots that tucked in the bottom of her jeans tap loudly against the concrete beneath your feet. And her hair bounces in place against the shoulder of a beige knit sweater on each step. The baggy garment’s sleeves are long, just as she always liked them, hiding her hands in their cuffs as she marches toward you.

Each step leads into the next with such grace and poise it leaves you frozen. Yeji had always been easy on the eyes. And of course you’d seen her everywhere, seen the beautiful woman she’d grown into, taking mental note of it more times than you could count. But even your most particular memories—no matter how bold you chose to remember her—they never could’ve imagined this confidence, the way she carried herself with such raw assurance and certainty.

She sweeps the hair out of her face, looking up at you, confirming exactly what it was she thought she saw. Glistening, her eyes widen, and she holds you in them for the first time in years. You can feel your chest tighten and your stomach twist—she’s so unbelievably pretty it hurts. It’s something like the way you experience a master painting, a Rembrandt or a Hals, by not only letting it steal your breath from far away, but also up close, where you might appreciate the brush strokes.

Shaking her head, laughing quietly to herself in disbelief, she leaps headlong into the silence. "What are you doing here?"

See, this had been a scenario you’d puzzled over a million times in your head already. She’d find you, or perhaps you’d find her, and the two of you would smile, before saying something cute, something that would instantly return you to where you left things five years ago. But even in the pages of your most speculative efforts, it would never quite look like this. You struggle to remember any of those quippy one-offs you thought you’d say. In fact, the breath you draw in, swirling knots of air in your chest, it simply finds no words to speak at all. Upon realizing its uselessness, it falls off your tongue, silent.

After all, you hadn’t talked to her in years. What reason do you have that makes you think you’d start now?

"Yeji, I—" Even her name is a cursed utterance at this point, the way it makes you strain and choke. It takes you a moment, but a dry laugh leads your response upon realizing the absurdity of the question. "Yeji, I live here."

"You live here?" Her eyes open further in shock. "What? Why?"

"Work." It wasn’t a lie, but the simplest answer conveniently hid the fact you’d picked up your entire life and settled thousands of kilometers to get away from her.

She furrows her brow and tilts her head inquisitively. "You’re pulling my leg."

"Well, I’m certainly not on vacation."

She crosses her arms, thinking for a moment before blurting out the first thing that came to her head as she was so often wont to do. Raking her fingers through her hair, gathering stares of everyone around you, she finally responds, "I’m just—I’m having a hard time—I really had no idea."

Accusative, "I mean… Yeji. Does that surprise you?"

Her lips narrow and tuck against her teeth. She twists the collar of her sweater between two perfectly manicured fingernails, painted dark with meticulous white detailing. Further and further, she knots it beneath the pale skin of her neck. It’s the same anxious tic she’d always indulge. 

Her voice, tender and choked up, reaches out to you "I’m sorry."

You hadn’t much to respond to it. Your thoughts were tied and shackled to the fact that you were now suddenly eighteen again, staring down the barrel of the girl who broke your heart. Again, tongue-twisted, you search the look on Yeji’s face—eyebrows knit together, and the corner of her lip pulled back into an unsure smile. It defies logic—and reasonably so—it’s beyond the grave, the relationship you thought you’d buried years ago.

-

"And so when we got off the plane, we were still missing the better half of our passports." Yeji pulls her shoulders up into a hopeless shrug, her hands still in her pockets. "I guess they’re just going to sit and wait in customs until someone can do something about it."

"Bleak."

"Tell me about it."

"You’re just gonna leave them there?"

Yeji laughs to herself. "Trust me, I need a break from those girls. And now you’re here? Talk about a silver lining."

The two of you had made a loop around the terminal concourse god knows how many times now. You could feel the strain of walking the circuit start to make your knees ache and your muscles sting, but you weren’t about to complain.

Things felt different, but also not so far off from the way they always were. Both of you were older, more mature, found more interesting things to talk about. Your words carried a certain edge to them, a cleverness that might not have been so present back then, but still—Yeji talked, and you listened. That’s how it always was. And Yeji could talk for hours.

She stops short, finding a railing to lean herself against. And she asks, "What are you doing out here anyway?"

"Well believe it or not, I passed the national service exam—" You pause with your mouth agape, remembering just how badly you wished you could’ve told her while holding a shredded letter in one hand and the results in the other. "And now I’m here."

"Like in an embassy or something?"

"Yep."

Her eyes light up. "Really?"

"It’s half as cool as it sounds," you say, running your fingers through your hair, "I stamp visas for a living."

"Ugh." Yeji punches playfully at your shoulder. "I could’ve used you about two hours ago."

That’s not how any of it worked of course, but you weren’t about to correct her.

She quickly shoves in front of you a more interesting question, "so you’ve gotta live pretty close to here I imagine."

"I dunno. How close is forty minutes?"

"Close enough." Nearly jumping, she stands herself up onto her feet. "C’mon. I’m not going to forgive you if you don’t show me your place."

You study her face for a clue, a hint, a tell—surely she was joking. Though you realize it soon enough: those arching brows above her eyes remain resolute, cheeks refuse to dimple, and her long, dark eyelashes don’t even dare to flutter. Nothing moves an inch.

You swallow hard. "You don’t have anywhere to be?"

"Manager told me to go straight to the room and read a book or something."

"Then shouldn’t you go to your room and read a book or—"

"Uhh-uh. No way." A smirk and her eyes sharpen. "I’ve got the rest of my life to follow the rules."

-

So, now—there you are, your jacket drawn over both your heads, a poor excuse of an umbrella. Holding open the door to the backseat of a cab for the most spectacularly gorgeous woman you’d ever known, the girl who shattered your heart into a million pieces and then some. In your pocket, a text message on your phone, curious about your flight home—the girl you’d been casually seeing for the past couple weeks—waits for a response.

Though truthfully, you haven’t a clue what you’re doing.

The ride to your apartment is mostly quiet, listening close to the sounds of rain against the windows and the occasional turn signal from the driver’s seat. And for the first time you’ve ever recognized, the silence between you makes you feel uneasy. You had a thousand questions burning a hole in the pocket of your heart and you didn’t even know where to begin. Those questions, they weren’t interested in her schedules, the places she’d been, the things she’d seen, her life in the limelight, how she’d eventually introduce herself to all the heroes and idols you’d known as a kid. In fact, it’s the same way a map that has too much information is effectively useless at helping you navigate. You needed to ask her where you were. Where you stood. Where you were going.

It’s been ages since you’d both had a girl in your apartment and the two of you weren’t immediately en route to your bedroom. You struggle to call back to how your parents might host a guest in your home.

"Yeji," you yell from in front of your refrigerator, "can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?"

"It’s a little late for caffeine don’t you think?" The cushions of your couch groan as Yeji collapses into them. "A beer would hit the spot if you have one though. Especially after today."

You scan the contents of a mostly empty fridge and find it, raising your eyebrows at the six pack on the shelf in front of you, one beer already missing from its cardboard holder. It was mostly the thing you were hoping to avoid.

"It’s nice," she says, grabbing the beer out of your hand and taking in the view of your apartment. "Cleaner than I expected too."

"That’s not really a compliment now is it?"

Her shoulders shrug as she pops the tab of the drink and lifts it to her lips. A refreshed ‘ah’ precedes her. "It does feel a little like I’m sitting in an IKEA showroom though."

"Yeah. Well, guilty as charged I guess."

She laughs, head on a swivel, taking note of—silently judging—your furnishings. "I mean you are probably the only person I know—" She stands, wandering through your apartment to the wall between your living room and your kitchen. "With a calendar that has no pictures, words, or anything." She rifles its pages with her thumb. "It’s just a damn calendar. You don’t even mark it or anything."

"It’s functional."

"It’s weird."

Rain continues to pelt down on your windows, permeating the brief silences between your conversations, but soon you can barely notice it. It becomes so natural the way you wrap yourself up in her stories, and hers in yours. And if the hour hand moving quickly about the face on your clock above the mantle was at all an indicator, neither of you had any deficiency of things to share.

Though still, there remained something noticeably off. You’d spent a lifetime listening to Yeji, and it was always so effortless the way she commanded your attention. But the nature of her speaking, it was although she were a machine struggling with a loose bolt or a stripped screw. See, it was the space between the stories that had your curiosity piqued. She’d start to tell you about subject A and move quickly into subject B and then before you knew it you were in subject C with no real rhyme or reason. You recognized the incongruity immediately, but it took a few beers and hours of listening to pinpoint the cause.

She’d start. Her voice soothing and relaxing. You’d both reminisce. And the moment the story began to find itself concerned with you, with the two of you, she’d swerve around it. Like a car trying to avoid a squirrel that foolishly darts across the highway.

It’s what makes it all the more surprising when she asks a simple question, "So—are you seeing anyone right now?"

You have to clear your throat before you can answer. "Kinda. On and off. You?"

"Yeah; kinda. On and off." She sinks her gaze into her lap. "She nice?"

"She’s fine."

"Good." Her eyes, glistening up at you from under her lashes, find you again. "You deserve a nice girl."

It had been one of those questions aching to leap off your heart and onto your tongue. And now that it had been asked—and so succinctly answered—you felt robbed of everything it was supposed to give you. A deafening silence fills the room. The clock ticks mercilessly and you listen again to the rain coming down on your windows.

You can feel it. You’d be shocked if she couldn’t feel it. That unceasing tension. Yeji stands, pulling the hem of her sweater around her thighs, selfishly hiding the curves of her hips along with it. "It’s late. I should probably get going."

And then with hardly any flash or fanfare, she hugs you. Her arms refuse to linger and the purposeful gap between your chests remains obstinate and unmovable. You show her the door and she takes a long step through it. She smiles, her eyes creasing, but her mouth barely moves.

"Till next time," you say, wondering when that might ever be.

"Till next time—good night."

You wave. She waves back. And the door closes—the evening along with it.

That was it. Again. Sifting like sand through your fingers. So consistently she could just walk away from you and be done with it. Every time you’d imagined this miracle meeting in your head, it would start like it did. But then ultimately the two of you would always tear each other’s clothes off in frustration. So that two broken souls might ever become whole again.

But you know it now. Yeji was never broken. For as long as you’d ever known her, she was like a rocket, launching onto a journey to the furthest stars in the night sky. Face pointed away. Thoughts elsewhere. She never really looked at you. And because of that you often wept.

So far as you can tell, Yeji never loved you. A wish beyond your reach.

Your head hangs against the wall beside the door and you gaze at your feet, maybe hoping to find some comfort hidden away in the striped pattern on your socks. You consider for a moment simply just standing outside on the balcony, letting the rain soak you completely in your clothes.

A knock at your door holds you accountable for at least a moment longer.

You sigh. It’s unfair really. Cruel even. She stands in front of you again. Only this time her hair slightly damp, raindrop stains on the shoulders of her sweater. You feel the stitch on your heart—a delicate, haphazard patchwork of time—its last suture coming undone. And boy, does that hurt.

"Hey, sorry. I realized I have no idea how to call a taxi. Can you lend me a—"

It can’t be instantaneous. But you don’t quite know how it happens either. Something pushed you to drag her through that opening and your hands held Yeji’s face, backing her against the door, now shut. Her eyes become stuck on you and her lips part. If she says anything, it’s far too hard to hear beyond that dull drum of blood, beating loudly between your ears. A shared breath, slow and purposeful, fills your lungs and hers.

Boldly, without reservation, you leap. Thousands of kilometers apart, reduced to a distance known now only by breaths hot across your cheeks, you find her again.

It’s soft the way you kiss her, as though you hadn’t done it hundreds of times, more of a question than it could ever be an answer. Her lips are soft, cool and wet, unbelievably perfect. A breeze through your hair on a hot summer day. In fact, they’re everything you remember, even competing midst those memories you’d embellished. Your fingers run through the smooth locks of Yeji’s hair that bundle in your hands, cold to the touch. It quickly becomes a handle, a grip, tilting her head up toward you as you pull her tight into your chest.

Her lower lip quivers gently against yours, and in a single shuddering breath, gathers itself enough to kiss you back. Hands grabbing tight around your shoulders, she lets a soft cry sink into your mouth.

You could listen to her talk for hours. And you did. But you needed to hear her say it—the way her lips capture yours, the way she tells you she missed you. It’s not some grand romantic gesture. There is no sunset, or gentle call of the ocean waves, no extraordinary vista, no candlelit room to bathe you in its soft glow. There is only Yeji, and that alone makes it perfect.

Her voice falters against you; the sound it makes whenever she’d need to hold back a tear or two. "Thank god the dumb taxis are so confusing…"

You kiss her again. That's all you know. The only way to possibly make right of this strange world.

It’s wild. Pressed firmly against your face is hers—the one you couldn’t stop seeing; the one that demanded so selfishly the attention of cameras and eyes around the world; only it had managed to seize your heart so very long ago. The roundness in her cheeks spreads around you and her nose struggles against yours. You hold her lips tight, the ever persistent worry they might disappear from you again forever biting at your thoughts.

Even though it’s not within your means to fall for her any harder than you have, you do. You always do.

"Mnph…" A quiet smack arrives on your lips. Another one. She starts to find an old rhythm, the way she used to kiss you when she was angry, when she was overwhelmed, or whenever she was just plain wound up. You grab a fistful of a sweater and turn her away from the door, stepping slowly into the foyer of your apartment.

The only thing more desperate than the lips pressed against yours becomes Yeji’s fingers, clutching tightly against the fabric of your shirt. Hums and moans pour from her throat to meet yours. She sways and sinks, leaning against the closet door you’d left open in the middle of the hallway. Her mouth tightens and you recognize the shy smile that fills across it.

Her cheeks, rosy now, burn bright against you and her voice rasps. "Don’t you dare go anywhere."

You had nowhere to be. Hell, you were already home. It’s confusing when you think about it. So you choose not to as best you can. Instead, you tease gently at the backs of her thighs, the roughness of denim meeting your fingertips. It’s Pavlovian perhaps, the way she jumps into your arms at your touch—never forgetting those secret traditions shared between you.

Her arms around your neck and her thighs over your elbows, you grip as timidly as might ever be possible onto the two handfuls of Yeji’s ass filling out between your fingers. Though you realize quick that whatever worries you harbor still are unnecessary, that strange boundary between clearly crossed. A soft moan, and her tongue begins to invade your mouth, marking and claiming the space she determined might just as well belong to her.

There’s this instant familiarity your hands find on Yeji’s body. Her svelte frame beneath that baggy sweater is the same perfect shape you’d held onto god knows how many times. The way she kisses you, pulling and massaging at the swell of your lip, it’s as though you’d never missed a beat, as though it had been Yeji’s kisses alone you found comfort in for the last five years. Though now, the flavor of her lipstick is noticeably different. It’s far more muted than the cheap fruity stuff she used to buy, but you recognize that taste of need and want off her lips still all the same.

Your fingers squeeze at the soft, pliable flesh that stretches all along Yeji’s thighs and rear, still protected by that sturdy pair of jeans—an obstacle now to be overcome. Feet and legs swing behind you as you step your haphazard union down the hallway. With any luck, she won’t knock any of the pictures or posters off your walls.

A light bite at your lip sends a surge of fiery pain down your neck. At that, you push Yeji’s back to the wall, another door behind her rattling in its frame and a soft moan escaping her chest.

She whispers against your cheek, "This your bedroom?"

"No. Not quite. Laundry."

"Ah. Well, as nice as that sounds; I’ve already got a washer at home—isn’t there some place that’s better for—ya know—the two of us?"

Thoughts stuck on the idea of Yeji sitting atop yours, hers, any washing machine and getting herself off makes your pants tighten. You groan softly, repositioning her weight in your hands and pulling her away from the door. "Bed or sofa?’

"You tell me."

You consider it for just a moment, unable to remember the state you’d left your room in before your trip. Is your bed made? Are your clothes put away? No idea. So you don’t tell her. You show her. Holding her tight, you navigate a brief waddle into your living room and your hands release her from their grips, sending her into the cushions of the couch beneath you.

"Really? On the leather—"

"Don’t care," you stop the complaint before it has time to marinate in your head. You knew she was right.

Her voice rattles at a faux concern, "what would IKEA think?"

"They’d be wondering who the two good-looking people on their couch are. Or how they got a free promotion out of you—who knows."

She stifles a laugh and motions her hands to your shoulders. "Come here, you."

She fits underneath your weight—your arms around her shoulders, and her legs entwined amidst yours—with such incredible ease. You sink into a kiss against the pale, tender skin that you find beneath her jaw. It’s delicate, easy to bruise, and it begs for a roughness only your lips could ever hope to provide. The more-than-welcome touch coaxes a moan, breathy and sudden, from her chest—a sound you’d only heard in your thoughts for so long.

Her fingers tease at the hem of your shirt, pulling it up along your chest and off over your head. "I missed you."

"You have no idea."

"Well—maybe some idea," she says, a hand quietly brushing against the hardness she finds at the front of your pants.

You trail up along her neck, the ridge of her jaw, until again you find your way back to the swell of Yeji’s soft, plump, ever-so-kissable lips. Your knee between her thighs, pushing her legs around you, legs that wrap and hook onto the backs of yours, knocks on the rise of her jeans. She lets out a quiet whimper, the sound reverberating through your chest.

There’s this thing about the way Yeji kisses you. Her hands run along your scalp, burying themselves in your hair. And she steals kisses off your lips with such an immediate urgency, with a hunger of someone who’d been starved for so long. You’d have chalked it up to the lapse of time you spent apart, years spent finding, failing love in different places, but she has always been like this—needy.

"Ugh," she sighs, amusing her hands on the shape of your chest, your back, your neck. She’s careful not to let the pointed tips of her fingernails scratch deeply at your skin, lightly caressing her way down to where your pants sit on your waist. Though you admire the thought, you had no intention of letting this woman undress you first.

Defiant, you lift your lips off hers. And a suspicious expression fills in the sharp features of her face. You can feel the skepticism building in those eyes that look you over.

"What’s the matter?" she asks, quietly trying to pull your shoulders back down to where she wanted you.

"I, uh—" You give your throat a good, solid clearing. "I’m going to take your clothes off. Right now."

Yeji raises an eyebrow, scooting up and resting on an elbow. "Talk about forward."

"No real use pussyfooting around it now."

Yeji twists her lip between her teeth and then slowly, she draws a line with her finger from your belly button, along your stomach and up your sternum until it holds your chin, making you look down your nose at her. "Someone teach you how to finally be direct with your words while I was gone?"

Maybe. Maybe not. You’d spent a good deal of time now practically inoculated to the fear of rejection from other girls—considering you’d already seen the worst of it. "Something like that."

"Then tell me Mr. Straight-shooter. What do you want to take off first?"

"First?" you say, letting a smirk drag at your mouth. "Well—no shoes on the sofa. House rule."

One thud, and then another as Yeji kicks off her boots onto the floor behind her. She keeps the intensity in her eyes locked on you—smoldering. "What else?"

"The sweater has gotta go."

"Only if you promise to keep me warm—"

"Easy—deal."

Yeji squirms out from underneath you while the sound of rain continues beating the side of your apartment. Your hands offer what is probably unnecessary help, grabbing onto the hem of her sweatshirt, scrunching it up along the toned muscles of her stomach. And after a short struggle, off over the top of her head, you reveal her slender, gorgeous figure.

She refuses to lose you in her cat-like eyes still for even a second. Even while she airs the garment out between her hands, neatly folds it, and gently sets it down onto your coffee table.

It ought to be criminal to be as charming and beautiful as Yeji is. She’s got these delicate collarbones, shoulders that round off the tops of her arms and run the distance to the skin on her neck you yourself couldn’t get enough of—there’s a tiny freckle here and there, none of them as prominent as the one that proudly sits on the bridge of her nose—though there’s nothing she has that no one else doesn’t, it’s the way everything manages to come together, like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle, lightly fitting itself in place—it’s simply perfect.

"You’re staring."

You blink yourself out of that momentary trance before letting yourself laugh about it. Clearing your throat, you smile and return the jeer, "Yeji—absolutely I am."

Standing herself from the couch, she smiles at you with her eyes. Her fingers tease under the waistband of her jeans—the biggest challenge of what all was left—and she asks, "I’m guessing you want these too?"

"I mean look—you know how it is. House rules and all."

"Those pesky rules again, huh." She laughs quietly to herself. "Whoever it is that came up with them—I’d like to give them a piece of my mind."

You simply shrug. That nothing I can do about it message clear enough as she begins to unbutton the top of her pants.

The fact that she has to wiggle her hips to peel the tight denim from her waist and down her thighs is a show in of itself. Inch by inch, slowly, meticulously, she reveals her legs to you—long and unending, toned and sculpted now in that manner that only the physical regimen of someone like her might yield. A pair of high cut athletic underwear—gray and pilling at its edges—hardly matches the navy nylon bra cupping Yeji’s soft breasts against her chest. But it’s not like you were going to complain about it. After all, she’d been traveling. Not to mind the fact you’d have to be insane to find anything worth complaining over in the visage standing in front of you.

She saunters over to where you now sit on the sofa, each step every bit as deliberate as the last. You can’t help but bring your face against her stomach as Yeji arrives in front of you. With your lips you can feel the goosebumps that rise atop the smooth skin across her abs, your kisses running the edge of her bottom-most ribs.

Her fingers stroke through your hair, and she lets her voice reach down to your ears. "Hey, I’m cold."

Those soft, ephemeral hairs that stand on end along her stomach, her back and the skin along her thighs corroborated the statement. However between her legs, where the darkened gray fabric hugged tightly against her entrance, where you could make out the shape of her lips imprinted into it, she was anything but cold.

Kissing her stomach again with lips that drag against the taut, velvety skin they find all over it, you place your fingers against that warmth. It’s instant—the quick spasm her diaphragm makes, knocking on your forehead, and Yeji gasps for air.

You follow the long, endless curves of her leg until it arrives on a perfect handful of ass that spills through the gaps in your fingers—fingers that tuck and dive into the back of her underwear, the thin fabric easy to twist and manipulate. Delighted, you listen close to how Yeji pulls fast breaths through her chest as you start to tease her body.

Your voice nearly chokes as you tell her what both of you already so clearly understood.

"Do you have any idea how bad I want you?"

Yeji’s eyes lock with yours, her chin tucked against her chest. "Show me."

Now, it’s important to mention again that this girl had left you absolutely devastated. In the years since she’d left, you wouldn’t have described yourself as particularly loose or rakish, but you weren’t ever one to turn down an opportunity at finding a momentary comfort in the embrace of another either. And the first chances came fast. Home for winter break along with everyone else, suffocating in nostalgia—a handful of girls you’d gone to school with would only see Yeji’s sudden disappearance as something to celebrate, a long awaited opportunity. It was shocking how fast they pounced on you.

It always felt good—for a second. And it’d wear off fast as they spent more time than you ever cared for snuggling up to you as if the sex was anything to write home about. The worst was when all you wanted to do was turn over in the cheap hotel sheets and they’d start to ask you a million questions: How was university going? Are your grades good? Do you have a girlfriend? What’s your blood type? Do you have a career in mind? How much money do you think you’ll make? Do you think my boobs are too small? Should we get breakfast in the morning? When will I see you again?—it was endless.

You put up with it for the most part. It helped you forget if at least for a moment what a shitty hand of cards you’d been dealt. There was a predictable formula too—you’d meet up for drinks, and before the waiter could take orders for seconds, you and her were making out on the curb, waiting for a cab. The hotel room lights would flip on (or stay off, depending on how horny and desperate you were). And you’d begin that necessary formality of going down on her—so that she might let you use her as you pleased. Always mechanical, robotic, transactional.

But Yeji’s legs resting on your shoulders, your face inches away from the damp fabric covering her hole, you wanted nothing other than to take your time.

It’s not too unlike the way you’d pluck at keys on the piano. Some touches quiet and pleasing to the ear, some loud and heavy and boisterous—you tease your fingers around the ‘V’ of cloth between her thighs, some notes playing soft subtle whimpers and others a lilting moan.

"Mmmph…" Yeji raises her hips gently, the backs of her knees rubbing at your shoulders. Impatient—rightfully so—she lifts the edge of her underwear, pulling it aside and offering you her glistening entrance. She’s wet, sopping and needy, and she’s begging for you.

Your kisses continue along the inside of a thigh, lingering longer and longer against the creamy skin that leads you to her heat. That addictive smell of sweat, lust and excitement fills your nose alongside the long breath you draw through your chest.

The way your palm brushes against her swollen clit makes Yeji shudder and jolt her hips—your finger diving down between the cleft of her bare lips to where she was really just utterly soaked. You trade your mouth across the gap to the other thigh you’d neglected, but Yeji can only reward you with her frustration—"please."

Maybe it’s because she’s always had this intense look about her—like she could take on the world with one hand behind her back and win—and it’s not like you haven’t noticed the way her company plays it up either. The girl you knew who was always fierce, plucky—lionhearted—the face looking at you now, eyes down her nose over the top of two navy clad breasts, it’s so soft. Even those sharp eyes, so often beguiling, had become tender—filling fast with lust and want and need and desire—like she’s pleading for you to save her, to rescue her, in the ways only your mouth and fingers might ever know how.

"Please—I need it," she rasps.

"Yeji," you weave into the sounds of her whines. "Trust—I’m gonna take good care of you."

Your mouth hovers against her. And just above where your fingers play and tease at her folds, your lips part. It’s not on purpose, and it’d be a little cruel if it were, but a hot, wet breath spills lax from lungs, off your tongue and out of your mouth. It crashes and collides, rolling and tumbling about the aching skin around her hole. It’s not possible to touch someone less if you tried—and it brings Yeji to wit’s end.

She sucks a sudden, whistling bout of air past her teeth. Her fingers thread themselves through your hair and pull you into her. Your nose meets her hip, tickled by the soft patch of neatly trimmed hair she saves for you, and you watch her head roll back on her shoulders. A reveal of the raw, tender skin you’d all but bruised along her neck and her whole body sighs, her body saying, without speaking, finally.

Yeji hums in delight as you take care of her. There’s your tongue, brushing up and down the hoods and folds of delicious skin that struggle to contain the scorching heat that burns fast between them—your hands, one teasing the narrow depths at the tightness just beyond her entrance, the other holding her hip, firm, to keep it from evading you—your unapologetic lips, grasping and sucking around her clit—your tongue again tapping and caressing it.

"Fuck," she hisses.

A word that is so usually rough and abhorrent and grizzled, and it’s never sounded so elegant. You can only imagine how bottled a profanity like it must be—there’s such oppressive decorum to follow when you’re on television, soundbites repeating like a million broken records across the internet, a voice that speaks for all to hear. And that goes doubly so for someone like her.

You dive into her, hard, and she rewards you with the airy, sing-song moans that fill your apartment, meshing themselves against the unyielding pitter-patter of rain.

"Oh my god—you’ve got some real talent." A thick, strained laughter leaves her throat and Yeji collapses back into the cushions of the sofa, brown leather now dark and staining with her wetness, a problem for tomorrow. Perhaps unfixable; worst case scenario, you could always get a new couch.

Rain hits hard against your home. It mixes a delightful track to your onslaught and a finger brings Yeji to her knees.

"Please, please, please—keep doing that."

It doesn’t have to search far, the soft pad of your fingertip finding that familiar stretch of dangerously sensitive skin. You curl at the knuckle—and Yeji becomes an extension of your will—her hips quake, relaxing only when you do. Your finger flexes. You tap, rub and tease. Each time a reaction, more wild and unrestrained than the last.

"F-Fuck. Just right—there," she squeals.

Her thighs wrap tight against your ears, all those sounds of your apartment quickly mute and muffled. The fruits of your labor pool, run wet, beading into droplets at the bottom of your chin.

"Please do—not—stop," she begs, breathing fast and heavy. Her eyes find you again, lip twisted mercilessly between those perfect teeth. And at a quiver that shakes and pulls her muscles taut—she closes her eyes and she growls through gritted teeth, "you’re gonna make me fucking cum."

There were a lot of memories you struggle now to piece together. Like having dropped a stack of papers or a pile of laundry, each time you bend down to pick something up, you’ve lost another in its stead. It’s become its own awful tragedy in a sense. But if there’s anything imprinted so permanently into the deep inner workings of your thoughts—you remember when Yeji cums, she cums hard.

Entirely overwhelmed, Yeji pushes your tongue away from her overstimulated bud. Her fingers grip tight at your hair, and she locks and clenches her body around your fingers. That twisted, unrestrained expression, eyes clenching and lips curling into a beautiful ‘O,’ she finds the release she so desperately needs.

All kinds of sounds, full of watery, anguished breaths, and whimpered moans leak through the seal her thighs make around your ears. You recognize a few words, a lot of them curses and profane mewling—nonsense mostly—but just as readily, your name gets thrown haphazardly into that lustful mix. Perhaps for good measure.

It’s only once she’s let those waves of pleasure dissipate through her entire body, squeezing and gripping you in the vice her legs make around you, that she lets herself relax and releases you to speak.

"Well that was something," you tease, wiping your mouth and chin with the back of a wrist, "been a while?"

"Oh—come—on," she says, heavy breaths still laboring to catch up to her, "don’t be cute. It’s not my fault if you’ve been practicing."

You smirk, lifting yourself up and finally freeing your legs of those stiff pants that were struggling impossibly to keep your cock calm and demure. "So? What now?"

Yeji returns herself to a halfway decent posture, the sweat on her back sticking to the leather as she does so. "What do you think?"

"Hmm." Shuffling your pants free from your thighs you tap at your chin, playful. "How many guesses are you giving me?"

"Zero. Get those things off. I’m gonna ride the fuck out of you."

"Yeah?" A bout of laughter forces your smile. "I can’t help but wonder what people might think if they heard ITZY’s fearless leader talking like that."

Standing, she slides that pair of soaked underwear down off her legs, and in a quick practiced motion, hooks an ankle behind yours. A push and you’re sent tumbling into the couch.

"What? You don’t think they’d be cranking one out to it?"

"The girls or the boys?"

She smirks. "Both. Though I imagine it would be all together kinda frustrating, huh?" She puzzles, straddling your legs. "Never being able to actually fuck me."

It’s unclear to you if she always preferred being on top because she forced it out of you, or if it's because you let her—but that’s how it goes. Your cock is already at full attention, standing proud like it wanted Yeji to know it needed her. It twitches noticeably as she rubs her pussy against it.

"What’s the matter? Been a while?"

"Yeah, because it’s so easy to get off on a business trip."

"Mnh-nh. I don’t want to hear excuses." She teases the head of your cock between the soaking lips of her pussy, kissing your tip with her heat.

Her lips purse, her eyes shut and she blows a purposeful breath of cool air out of her chest, out the narrow hole her mouth makes—an enticing shape you’ll have trouble getting out of your head—as she begins to take you into her, adjusting to the shape of your cock.

You both groan, two wildly different noises, but the same heavenly feeling communicated. She holds the base of your shaft steady with her fingers as you’re pushed past the muscles clamping around you. It’s warm and it’s wet and it’s fucking unbelievably tight. It’s enough to make you feel dizzy, stars appearing in your eyelids.

"Phew." Yeji drags her knees toward, sitting back on your cock. "That always feels so fucking good. Don’t worry I’ll go slow."

"Yeah, sure—but it has been a while, right?"

Leaning forward, she smiles against your cheek. "If that’s what you want me to say, then yeah—sure, it’s been a long while."

"I’m ignoring that." You reach your hands up onto her waist, the soft curve of her hips making for two perfect handles. "I’m ignoring you."

She laughs, the melodic sound again filling your head. "That’s fine—but I’m not going to let you ignore this."

There’s this moment, her ass suspended high above your hips, the tip of your cock barely held in place by her pussy’s grip. You’ve felt it before on roller coasters mostly, at the peak of the tallest drop—the car hanging in suspense, the strangest knot twisting in your stomach. Of course, the moment doesn’t last long. No, not when Yeji slides herself down along your length in the quickest of motions, the base of your cock kissing those wet lips again.

A sound, not particularly describable or even repeatable punches through your throat, and your eyes widen.

And then she does it again.

Quick, your voices melt into one another, the pleasure that rips through your thoughts—from the entire length of your cock buried deeper into her cunt than either of you can pretend to not notice. It’s immaculate.

But it’s fucking dangerous.

You’d noticed them before—those legs that she’d worked on for years, built and perfected by hours in the gym. See, she lifts herself up on your length again, some crude combination of cum, spit and sweat leaving a sticky trail between your thighs. A soft moan announces the end of the motion and then without remorse or hesitation, she finds herself flush against your hips again. It’s tiring no doubt, but you find Yeji relentless.

She brushes her hair out of her face. And those eyes–smoldering with lust–study the indecent expressions you make as she impales herself repeatedly on your cock. Her hands find a home on the muscles above your breast. And the reasonably flat support gives her everything she needs to lift and roll her hips against you with little resistance.

It’s not the angle, the depth, the tightness, or the technique—and god, does she know exactly what she’s doing—it’s the damn speed. Even when you were both eighteen, cutting classes at the end of your schedules, a pair of horny teenagers aptly described as rabbits, she had never fucked you like this.

"Fucking christ, Yeji." You grit your teeth and squeeze hard on her hips, bracing for impact on each downward thrust. "So much for slow—you trying to kill me?"

"Well I was thinking about it. And I changed my mind." Bouncing away still, eagerly taking your length in and out of her tight hole, she sits herself up and reaches her hands behind her back, unclasping the navy bra across her chest. "It might be better if you just cum now, since you’re so pent up—you might actually be able to enjoy yourself on the next one."

The straps come down over her shoulders and the bra lands somewhere in your room. It sounded like the floor. You don’t really care though, not while Yeji is lifting your hands from her hips and placing them on those two beautifully soft mounds that hang shyly off chest.

Frustrated perhaps with the shyness in your touch, she palms her hands over yours, squeezing and massaging at her own breasts until you find the touch she craves all on your own.

You groan again, loudly enough to make a smug smile stretch across Yeji’s cheeks. "Then tell me—is it a bad time of the month? Where do you want me to cum?"

She leans forward, breath hot against your ear. "Anywhere you want."

At that, you reach a hand around her, palming the back of her neck and holding her tight against you. The suddenness of it makes her yelp and squirm, but you hold her firm, and she realizes exactly what it is you need as you slide yourself lower on the sofa, a new angle with an entirely unrealized potential waiting for you there.

"That’s it—" she gasps, struggling in the strength of your grip, "make this pussy yours—use me."

Her body flush against yours, you hear every little gasp, every sultry moan that leaks off her lips. It drives you faster, more wild and feckless on each thrust, burying yourself hard into the heat of her cunt. Your throbbing shaft inside of her—it feels as though she was made with your cock in mind, made for you, designed—a perfect fit, the way she wraps and grasps around you. Without hesitation, you settle your hips into a rhythm that you know beyond a shadow of doubt will send you hurdling into those irreversible triggers of your orgasm.

"Mph…"" Your thighs slap against hers, that sound of wet skin on wet skin filling your apartment and drowning out the rain. Your cock disappears so neatly between her legs, and your hips move immediately to bury it there again, desperate for her warmth, her tightness. Beads of sweat pool at your back, and every time you should shift your weight, you become stuck to the leather sofa beneath you.

Yeji’s words continue to pour into your ear, though they too seem to be growing disjointed and bewildered at the motion between your hips. Her shoulders collapse against you and her face buries into the cushion aside yours. 

"Yeji—I cant," you sigh, and your chest shudders in anticipation. "I’m going to fucking—cum in this—"

"No!" her voice cries, muffled into the leather of the couch beside you, "It feels—so deep—I’m close!"

"Yeji," you groan, "please."

Don’t you fucking dare," she husks, a voice desperate for you, "don’t—You can’t cum, you can’t—fuck!" Writhing again, she lifts herself on her elbows, observing how your face twists and contorts beneath her as if her own wasn’t every bit as wrought and agitated. "Babe! Your cock feels too—fucking amazing!"

She grabs your cheeks with her hand, pulling your attention away from her breasts shaking wildly, jostled about by your thrusts. Those eyes—they hold you deeply, begging you to hold on.

"You’re asking for a fucking lot here, Yeji I swear—"

"No—fuck," she gasps. Eyebrows twist. Her eyes shut tight. And her lips mouth the words that might release you, I’m cumming again.

It’s always like this.

She leads, you follow.

And it’s far and away too much for you to handle—the gorgeous woman on top of you, straining an expression only meant for you to see—it’s just too much. Plundering the depths of her pussy for pleasure you didn’t even know could wrack you like it does, you follow her into that unthinkable bliss. Her mouth hangs open, her muscles lock again and she quivers and quakes around you.

Your hands slap down hard onto her ass cheeks, searching desperately for a brief reprieve of something other than the warm, tight cunt that’s been rocking your thoughts senseless. You press your fingers into her creamy skin, hard enough that it’s sure to leave a mark, and in a thundering moment of pure, unbridled lust, you let it all out. Honestly, your thoughts are all so crudely whiplashed by everything that you make little notice of how much hot cum your thrusts pump up into the deepest reaches of Yeji’s pussy. It’s already something spectacular as it arrives, erupting unabashedly from your throbbing cock, but then it just keeps going. It fills around you, an unthinkable lubricant against the way her walls clamp and squeeze around you. And then you feel it, dripping and leaking out of her hole and onto your thighs.

A gasp bellows from your chest and your voice, raw and hoarse, punctuates the heavy panting between your crumpled, tired bodies. "Fuck. Me. Yeji."

-

Prudence would’ve been closing the curtains, turning into your pillow and catching whatever was left of the night to rest before you’d wake for work tomorrow. So, a simple fade to black. But you’d spent years searching and seeking for what is now between your hands—if there was any mistake you’d made, it was that you hadn’t kissed her sooner.

You remember it now, the way your family would host guests: there of course was that initial cup of tea, or whatever could be cooked up quickly in the kettle, but a tour of the house had always followed close in its wake.

And so a tour you two ventured. The rest of living room (though you worry about how thin the walls are you share with your neighbor), the kitchen, the bathroom, the laundry room. Any place with a surface you could either bend her over or sit her on really—until finally you two might enter your bedroom and fuck like a pair of functioning adults.

You lean back, grasping the bed sheets between your fingers. A heavy sigh pulls at your shoulders while Yeji runs her tongue up along the side of your cock. She’s got this wicked touch, her fingers wrapping ever so perfectly around your shaft, knowing just what firmness will send you reeling.

"Shit," you hiss, watching Yeji’s tongue swirl the head of your cock before her lips swallow it whole.

She’s methodical. Her tongue slips and darts beneath the sensitive skin under your shaft as she takes you in her mouth further and further. And in excruciating increments she nuzzles her nose against your waist, eyes just beginning to water. She’ll hold it—hold you, cock filling the lovely sleeve that is her throat—and then release. Just like that.

"Yeah—I don’t care what you say." You run your hand along the side of her head, her makeshift ponytail of smooth, silky hair now a perfect grip for your fingers. "You didn’t learn how to do that from those women’s magazines."

She pulls herself off your shaft, cock popping out of her mouth. Hands stacked, one on top of the other, she abuses you with that slobbery layer of saliva in between her fingers. Her eyes poke out, smiling over the top of it all. "I’m new to this—I promise."

"Uh-huh."

"So." Belly against the mattress, she pulls her knees forward, swaying her ass behind her head where you could see it. It’s a whole spectacle with this girl. She taps and teases at the tip of your cock, amused at the precum that sticks to the pad of her thumb, before again finding you with her eyes.

"So," you repeat back.

"How do you want to cum?"

You lean your head back on your shoulders, eyes up at the ceiling—a break. "If you’re not careful, it’s going to be down your throat."

"Well that’d be a waste."

"Oh yeah? How you figure?"

"When you could do it inside my cunt?" She narrows her eyes and raises an eyebrow, hands gingerly pumping at your shaft. "Yeah. A waste."

Yeji’s tongue and fingers work and tease in perfect union along your length. And you blow a steady breath through your lungs to rally your thoughts. "Let me think."

"You’re good, take a breather. I’ve got a nice, beautiful cock here to keep me entertained." And like that, she simply swallows you again.

Her drool continues to spill unapologetic down your shaft, catching itself between Yeji’s fingers and spreading out everywhere along your sensitive skin. A hand twisting, pumping—she has you so effortlessly figured out.

You help her head along as you puzzle about the many possibilities in front of you. Holding her hair, guiding her slack jaw and perfect lips up and down your throbbing cock feels—and you’re a little ashamed to say it—feels like using a toy. A toy that’s hot and hums and vibrates as you fuck it. And that’s exactly what you want to do.

"Yeah, I think—I want this mouth Yeji."

Before she can protest, you guide her again down your shaft, the perfect seal of her lips parting around your tip and swallowing your length. She glides and slips up and down you, the tiniest sounds of her throat struggling to accommodate you reaching your ears.

With her hand pulling yours away, Yeji pushes herself off you, your cock again leaving her lips with a pop.

"Well aren’t you selfish." She pushes gently at your chest with her fingers, "Let me at least take care of you."

You’d been catching yourself staring at her lips all evening, the way they curve and pull themselves up into that irresistible bowing figure—you’d had them running through your thoughts long before today—and now they’re all over your cock. She kisses you, caresses you, exploring every inch of vulnerable skin she can find all along your shaft.

The brief moment exists each time she swallows you, just the second before her lips part and seal around you. A hot, wet breath, spiraling and barely in control, wraps itself around you as her mouth hovers just over the tip of your aching cock—a blanket of warmth surrounding it. She takes you, all of you—again.

If it’s not the tightness of her throat or the doubled effort of ten slender fingers all fighting over one another to try and to send you to the edge, it’s that wet, smooth tongue. With it, Yeji brings your hips forward, bucking into the air above your sheets. A simple lick and you groan. Flattening it and adding it to the friction you find at the back of her throat? You’ve become putty in her hands.

"Fuck… Yeji, that feels incredible."

She hums a self-satisfied note, buzzing it all down your shaft, before pulling herself off your cock and finding you with her eyes once more.

"Tell me what you want," she says, holding your skin taut with her fingers and pumping a tight, squelching fist at the top of your cock.

You laugh, shaking your head. "Yeji—"

"No—tell me."

It’s the heart beating in your throat, it’s the sloppy noise her fingers make as she tries to pull every last ounce of cum out of your cock, it’s the sound of the god damn fucking rain hitting your windows—you whisper beneath it all, "I want to fucking cum in your mouth Yeji."

She lifts an eyebrow, cruelly pulling her hands away from your cock. "And then?"

"And then you’re gonna swallow it."

It all happens so fast. She takes you again into her mouth, fucking you with her throat and tongue—your hands are in her hair, finding the exact contact and warmth you need—and you struggle to do anything beyond holding your breath and closing your eyes tight.

"Mnph."

Your voice spits, "Fuck—"

"Mnmnph."

While you cum inside Yeji’s mouth, into the wonderful shape of her throat, she coughs and sputters, struggling to hold you in her grip, fingers splayed wide against your hips. You can see a good amount of your orgasm almost immediately leak from her lips, spilling down her chin and staining the sheets of your bed—again, tomorrow’s problem.

You grab her Kleenex, water, and anything she might really now need (a good hug more than anything).

Nighttime routines, finding her a pair of pajamas—ones that fit loosely on your body already mind you—a trip to the bathroom, and you’re both brushing your teeth, staring at each other's naked reflection when it really hits you—and together, you just start laughing. Those contagious giggles and bouts of laughter that make you remember just how much you missed the girl who’d forever been your best friend, the girl you loved.

The two of you are quick to find the blankets on your bed, the comfort beneath them. Arms untangle from each other, a quick kiss and a reach for the night stand, Yeji allows a complete darkness into your room.

"Till next time," she whispers into your ear.

-

The rain had finally stopped, but that doesn’t mean the sun harbored any intention of coming out. It was always kind of stubborn like that.

Rolling out of bed, you’re exhausted, mentally and physically. But you’re not sixteen anymore; you couldn’t fake a cough and tell your mom you were running a fever, take an indulgent day off. So—work it was.

Slacks come on, a dress shirt stuffed hastily into them, and you look over your shoulder to see Yeji’s more or less unidentifiable shape bundled beneath the blankets she’d spent all night stealing from your side of the bed.

"Yeji," you call out.

A soft groan marks the extent of her response as you watch her hand stretch into the air before falling defeated back against your mattress.

"I don’t know where, but—I’m sure you have somewhere to be." You draw the curtains open wide to your room, particularly dissatisfied by just how little light it earns you.

You fish from your suitcase a tie and the top half of your suit before finding your way to the bathroom. When you’re brushing your teeth, you again watch Yeji’s reflection stumble across the mirror, rubbing at her eyes. It took her little time to cop one of your sweatshirts. And you begin to wonder how many of yours you’ve seen taken up like this—now only to be never seen again.

"Good morning," she says, blinking at you.

Even in her least put together state, hair tousled and eyes sleepy, she possesses a certain charm that you struggle to put into any words beyond the obvious ones—she’s cute.

"Man." She looks at your reflection in the mirror–the marks along your neck. "I really roughed you up good, huh."

Usually the tie around your neck was enough to cover up those lip-shaped bruises on your Adam’s apple. You pull at the knot, the silky fabric sliding through your fingers. It’s probably optimistic to think another attempt at tying it might yield better results, but you haven’t all that much choice.

"Nope." Yeji hides her grin with a closed fist, her other hand hanging off your shoulder. "You can still definitely see them."

"Well, shit." A heavy sigh leaves your chest as your hands find your hips. "How bad is it?"

You turn from the mirror, searching for any reassurance in those soft, dark eyes. But the muted laugh, that painfully smug smile, those mischievous hands sneaking around your waist—it’s bad.

"Yeji. I can’t—" You grab onto her hips, trying to stem the flow of laughter that pours from her chest. "Yeji."

Grinning, "gotcha."

You roll your eyes back to your reflection. "I can’t go to work like this."

Yeji takes a second to think through her response, which makes the solution that ends up coming off her tongue even less impressive. "Then don’t."

"Hah. I bet you think you’re clever."

"I do." She runs her fingers through her hair, head tilting and eyes looking up at you. You wish she was just a little less dangerous. "What all is a day off going to do to you? You stamp visas for a living. Remember?"

And so for about a week, the two of you would run through a variation of this same conversation every morning. If it were a test in temperance, you failed it every time. It was sex, it was sleeping, it was cheap take out, it was more sex, but it was also just a lot of time to sit and talk. Like you used to.

Yeji wipes the sweat off her brow and lifts herself off your hips, her nude body cuddling up alongside you, her head resting on your chest. That soft voice of hers again lands perfectly in your ears, "You know what’s crazy?"

"That whiskey is made from wheat or rye?"

"Well, no—" Her chin turns on your chest to look you in the eyes. "What?"

You chuckle. "It’s nothing."

She takes a beat to regather her thoughts. "I was going to say I felt awful for years about it." A soft sigh moves her whole body, the cool breath landing on your chin. "But I never doubted for a second—I knew I’d find you."

You puzzle it through your thoughts. "How’d you figure?"

"Well—because I love you."

Easy, effortless, straightforward—the words spill from her mouth. You wonder for a second if perhaps you were mid-sip a cup of nostalgia instead, burying yourself in memories that never existed. But the soft touch of her hair against your chest, the way her face rises and falls as your chest draws breath, the sweat still lingering and stuck between your bodies—it’s all too real.

Your voice, watery and choked, manages to push a breath through your throat, "I know I can be a cynic—but that’s not really a whole lot to put faith in."

"Maybe. But you said it too."

Your eyes widen and your brow furrows. "When?"

"Couple years ago now. By text—because you’re an asshole."

The memory of it, sorrowful for as long you can remember, comes crashing back to you. "You—you never even opened it."

"I didn’t need to—not a whole lot else getting said in a text message at three in the morning. On New Year’s no less."

You sit in a brief silence, confounded by the old wound. The feeling of her fingertips caressing the skin atop your chest provokes a question, "But then why not respond?"

"You think reading it would’ve made it any easier on me?" She reaches again for the night stand, flipping out the lights from your room with the switch. "What was I supposed to tell you? Suffer in silence and wait for me?"

"Yeji. I’d have done it."

There’s a brief quiet as she moves back into the bed, only the sounds of her shuffling about reaching your ears. You feel her face press against yours in the dark, hot tears streaming down her cheek. "But would you do it still?"

[ghostsy]

Forever Hold Your Peace

WARNINGS: yandere, mentions of death, mentions of murder, non-consensual implications, implied kidnapping, hand kink if you squint

A/N: another quick short drabble, pls enjoy a deranged lil wedding crasher dabi.

read at your own discretion.

yandere ! DABI X READER

“Give me one good reason not to kill you.”

She’d never known blue to be such an angry color, but even glowing with barely contained rage, she couldn’t help but find his eyes beautiful. 

“I can’t.” 

It was growing all around them now, ice-colored fire licking at the tattered remains of her white dress. Still, she thought the heat was less threatening than warm. 

Her answer seemed to physically wound him, the soft tremble in his brow almost begging her to say something. Something to justify whatever confusing ugly thing he felt finally standing in front of her after all these years. Something that would let him sleep at night if he were to burn her bones to ash that moment, give into that cruel voice in his fractured mind demanding he destroy any and every memory that had ever made him feel something. 

“You broke your promise.”

“I wasn’t aware there were promises to keep with corpses.” There she was, that quick wit he remembered her for, loved her for, once upon a time. Even with his hand at her throat, even with the blood of the man she’d just sworn to love until death–another corpse, whose promise had quickly been fulfilled–even with his blood smeared across her cheek, she still stood tall, dignified.

“Is that what I am to you?” He breathed, thumb tracing the curve of her jaw, fingers flexing at the feel of her racing pulse under her neck, “A corpse?” It was a silly question; the patchwork wounds stapled to his rotting skin suggested he was anything but a real, living, man. If he thought about it, he really hadn’t been living for quite some time.

“No, I suppose not,” Her voice was shaky, and he couldn’t tell if the mascara-stained tears wetting her cheeks were for the mass of burning bodies behind them or for him, “More of a ghost.”

The corner of his lips quirked up, huffing a short, bitter laugh, “A ghost,” He pondered for a moment, “I like it,” His other hand made its way up from her hip, brushing at the underside of her clothed breasts, “Here I am haunting you, after all.”

“I think,” Her hands balled into fists, but he made note as they stayed trembling at her sides, “That you’re here haunting us both.”

“I guess you’re right,” His eyes fell to scan her singed gown, “In another life,” Ignoring the clenching of her jaw, he continued, “You’d have worn that dress for me.”

She swallowed, “In another life,” Her eyes left his now, sweeping the mutilated remains littering the pews, “You’d have loved me enough.”

All of a sudden he tore himself from her as if she’d burned him, “Loved you enough?” An incredulous laugh as his arm stretched out to the scene behind them, “What the fuck is all this if it isn’t enough?” 

“It’s really so devastating,” She sighed out a name that was once his, and he was surprised at the weight one word could leave on his heart, “That you would consider this love.” But his anger had returned full force, and he thought maybe now he’d be able to kill her.

“Did you love him?” 

Here it was, the answer that would seal her fate. He could do it if she said what he knew she’d say. He would do it.

“No,” His heart skipped a beat, “I do love him.” And all at once, the mangled coal in his chest crumbled to ash. Do it. You said you’d do it. Do it, you fucking coward.

No, he needed more. His fingers twitched at his sides, sparks of blue igniting and snuffing out in nervous repetition. Just one more thing, and he could do it. 

“You can’t keep a promise to a corpse,” He spat, “But you can love one?” He stepped closer to her, glowing eyes narrowed, staring down at her.

“Not any more or less than one can love a ghost, I’d imagine.”

His hands flew back to her throat, and he wrenched her face up to meet his, “And do you?” His voice fell to a raspy whisper, and he couldn’t tell if it was out of fury or desperation, “Love a ghost?”

“I don’t want to,” And again more tears welled and fell, “I really didn’t want to.”

“That’s not what I asked.” His words were shaking with anticipation, fingers trembling as they cradled her cheeks.

“Does it matter?” She sniffed, eyes flickering to the carnage, “I shouldn’t. Especially now, I shouldn’t,” There was a wrinkle in her brow that betrayed her self-disgust, “I never should have.”

He swallowed, gaze catching on her lips, “But you do.” He’d meant it to come out as a question, but there was a sort of finality in his words. She makes you weak. Kill her. Do it. Now. Do it now. Shut up.

She tried to pull away from him, but he held her face firmly, “No matter where I go,” The turn of her voice was bitter, “You haunt me.”

A soft, manic laugh, “I think,” He leaned down, lips brushing hers, “We’ve both been haunting each other.” And after a month-long moment he surged forward, crashing his mouth against her own, tongue swallowing the strangled yelp that died in her throat.

He stepped forward as she stumbled back from the force, and her fingers flew to grip at his wrists in an attempt to stabilize herself, nails digging into the ruined skin. His leg steadied between both of hers, the bones in his patchwork hands straining as they pulled her into him, as if he were trying to make her body melt into his; make him whole.

Finally she ripped herself from him, stumbling, and wiped furiously at her lips, “I don’t want you,” Her voice was hoarse as she caught her breath, “Nothing else matters, because I don’t want you.”

It was like someone had poured ice water in his veins, and he’d come to the terrifying conclusion that it didn’t matter what she said or did; she could tell him she wanted him dead, and he’d still find an excuse to keep her here with him. 

“I don’t care,” A breathless confession.

After years without, he hadn’t realized just how starved the idea of letting her go would make him feel. He intended for his flames to swallow her whole when he'd found her again, but there was an entirely more appetizing option. He’d starved himself long enough.

The tapestries along the walls had caught fire, and the light shone through the stained glass windows, casting a blue tint across her skin. Like it was marking her as his. His hand shot out to wrap around her wrist when she tried to turn away, and he yanked her back to him.

“Nothing else matters, because I don’t care.”

She tried and failed to pull her arm from his bruising grip, feet sliding as she used her full weight, “Kill me, then,” She choked on a sob, “Why don’t you just kill me, then?”

He stared at her a long moment as she struggled, streaks of ruined makeup painting her cheeks, that once angel-white gown stained black with ash, a gloss in her eyes he could only describe as heartbreak, and he couldn’t help but think that she’d never looked so beautiful.

“I can’t.”

[octuscle]

So this one Black guy I've been working out with said he needed a new boyfriend, and now I'm swelling up with muscle and fat. My skin's gotten a lot darker, too. What's happening?

Malcolm is a picture of a man. A nubian god. Ebony black, flawless body. Works as a personal trainer here at the studio. Actually, you have no idea why someone like that is training with a linnet like you. But you didn't question it. You enjoy it as long as it goes well.

The chocolate protein shake after training tastes bitter. And sweet at the same time. It's incredibly rich. Malcolm empties his canister in one go. You can't quite manage it. But almost. And then you have to burp. Malcolm laughs. And you say goodbye with a fist bump. You can feel the questioning looks from the other guests. What does the Adonis want with the linnet?

I'm neither particularly clever nor particularly successful. The training with Malcolm is actually starting to take effect. But you still have arms like twigs. And your pale, pimply face with the red hair isn't exactly an eye-catcher either. Nevertheless, you got a decent job as a developer in the administration department of a large insurance company. It pays good money. And you work in a nice team where you are largely left alone. Thank God. Because things are different today. As you develop your code, you notice how your hands change. Your fingers are getting meatier. And the skin darkens. You grin. Is it the chocolate milk? Hardly. More likely the light in the office, you suspect. You're having a good run today. Work is going well. Normally you need your peace and quiet, but now you feel like listening to music at work. You put on your airpods and ask Siri for some chill tunes to help you concentrate. At lunchtime, you order something from the Indian restaurant. In the evening you had sushi. You've forgotten the time. You look at your watch. Obviously it's time to go home. Apparently you're fantasizing. When did you start wearing such a fat gold watch? And the back of your hand really looks like you probably do after three weeks of beach vacation. In other words, like a normal person after a three-week beach vacation. You'd probably be red as a sheet. Barry White is booming out of your fat overears. It's time to go home and go to bed.

While you're brushing your teeth, your moustache is bothering you. You didn't have one this morning. And the whiskers are black. But your teeth are dazzling white. But maybe it's only because of the dark color of your face. Damn, it must be the protein shake. Your pyjama bottoms are tight around your thighs. And the T-shirt is stretched across your chest. When the alarm clock wakes you up at 05:30, it doesn't. You ripped it off your upper body in your sleep.

Malcolm is waiting for you with a big grin and a chocolate protein shake. As you fist-bump, you notice that his skin is barely any darker than yours. You're lifting more than ever. You're sweating like a pig. But this is the best workout ever. As you rub the sweat from your forehead, something is different. Something is missing. Your hair. Your hands are calloused. Like from years of hard workouts. You look in the mirror. The horseshoe on your face makes you look older. Is that why Malcolm calls you "Daddy"? You just grin about it. Nevertheless, you need to take a shower now. Malcolm, because the first paying customers are about to arrive. You, because as head of department you want to be the first and last in the office.

Normally you can easily wrap towels around your hips in the gym. Today it only lasts a few steps. Then it slips to the floor. No wonder, with your roid gut padded with healthy fat. As you pick up the towel, your gaze falls on your reflection in the mirror. Your cock is dangling between your legs. As big as a beer can, even though it's flaccid. And it's as black as a piece of coal. Like your bushy pubic hair. You're no longer a pimply twenty-year-old Irishman. You're black African-American prime beef. A sweaty black piece of prime beef. You need to take a shower.

Malcolm has soaped himself up by the time you arrive in the shower. Damn, your cock has a life of its own. He slowly gets up. Malcolm grins. And drops the soap.

Pic found @roughridingrednecks

[dozing-marshmallow]

CHRISTMAS WITH TOTAL DRAMA CHARACTERS(CHRIS, DUNCAN, HEATHER) SCENARIOS

Merry Christmas everyone! So sorry I couldn’t post something Christmas themed sooner, I hope everyone’s been having a wonderful day with family and friends whether you celebrate or not!🎄❤️

CHRIS

Despite the Christmas events he hosted for many networks, Chris didn’t feel he was really celebrating it until he went over to Newfoundland.

Before dinner, you joined him on this tradition that his homeland calls “Mummering” where it was basically Guess Who and Trick or Treat combined.

Needless to say, every neighbour you visited guessed who he was correctly.

He was reluctant to complete the family secret Santa. Originally, you sucked your teeth, thinking he was just being arrogant. However, from that event, you got an insight on the nature of a lot of his relatives- opportunistic.

“Could you lend me a few thousand dollars? What’s a guy like you to lose?", "Could you be the best nephew in the world and pay for the wedding of my best friend’s daughter?", "Could you help me pay off my mortgage?"

No wonder why your husband was barely enjoying himself at the dinner table! These people didn’t see him as a human; they saw him as a big shot wallet.

“Tell me, Chris... Is this how every Christmas goes for you?” you asked when it was just you and him, sitting next to him on the guest bed.

He was as sombre as ever. Sombre!,“Yeah. Told you the rest of the family weren’t important. I only bother to put up with them for my mom. I wish they all drop dead soon though.”

Not on Christmas Day... You couldn’t end the evening like this,“Okay... Is there anything you want to do together to cheer you up before we go to bed?”

“Hm...” the exhaustion shifts in his eyes as he smugly commands,“Tell me how good I look.”

You sigh in annoyance. That, you could do any day,“Really, Chris?”

“Fiiiiiine.” his moping tone of voice settled back,“I suppose raiding the leftover desserts wouldn’t hurt.”

“That...” is an oddly simple request coming from him,“Yet you’re implying you never did it?”

His attention is caught by the room’s door,“I didn’t have anyone I wanted to do it with.”

And unlike the fall of snow, his festive misery had vanished all at once.

“ᴬˡˡ ᴵ ʷᵃⁿᵗ ᶠᵒʳ ᶜʰʳⁱˢᵗᵐᵃˢ ⁱˢ ʸᵒᵘ!”

DUNCAN

Duncan’s dad was very pushy about Church this time around.

And he always found in his best interest to not go anyway.

This time though, you were there with him. So he decided, he’ll go this year.

He was also forced to join the local youth choir that would sing on the streets to raise money for those in need.

As long as he got to wear a mask...

“Not happening.” his dad sneered.

Okay, it wasn’t actually as bad as he thought it’d go.

Though he didn’t want to give his dad that satisfaction so he played sour about coming home. His main motivation was to steal some plates worth of food, give his mother her Christmas present and stuff the stockings of his cousins with bars of coal.

If anyone asks, you didn’t see anything.

His mom knitted him a Christmas sweater in return so obviously he wore it.

He visited his friends back in juvie with you.

It was quite heartwarming, seeing these teens who had done wrong in the past still have tenderness to friends and family, making you wish them a good future post leaving prison.

Besides, if they were Duncan’s friends, they had to have some morals.

Walking back, it was clear that he had room left for mischief and wanted to fill that space by stalling so you would be in front of him and turn around in confusion to not be met with Duncan, but his snowball.

“Hahaha! Nice makeup!”

You brush the snow off your face and feel your own devil inspire.

Let’s give him a taste of his own medicine.

You bent down and rolled up a snowball. Let the fight begin!

“ ᴼ ᶜᵒᵐᵉ, ᵃˡˡ ʸᵉ ᶠᵃⁱᵗʰᶠᵘˡ, ʲᵒʸᶠᵘˡ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʳⁱᵘᵐᵖʰᵃⁿᵗ!”

HEATHER

She scrunches her nose at the arrival of Christmas, that season that’s “nothing but noise and shallow junk.”

"I got you a present." you held it out for her.

“Buying my favour when it’s not my birthday, huh?” she looked inside the bag with no anticipation until she saw designer clothes neatly folded. She raised a smile and an eyebrow as she glanced back at you,“Okay, I guess it’s not that bad.”

Seeing her house made you wonder why she auditioned to come on the show.

To her displeasure, you were having fun cutting snowflakes, painting ornaments and decorating gingerbread men with her younger brothers and sisters.

Even more so when you helped her parents prepare the meal.

“We could never dream of Heather helping us out in the kitchen!” her mother claimed, wearing gloves over her manicured hands and a long apron over her expensive attire,“This is a nice change!”

“For sure! (Y/N) should come every year! Maybe our Heather Feather could learn a thing or two from you!” her father would then add on, with a hopeful smile.

With that, she dragged you out of the kitchen by the ear lobe.

“Let’s get out of here. I want something to drink.” she demanded, all ready in her outside winter gear.

Why come home if you’re not going to enjoy yourself?

You’re about to pay for the cozy drinks, but Heather interrupts you.

“I’ll do it.”

After an opening sip and staring at all this pure white showering from the sky, you smirk at Total Drama’s first villain,“So she does have a giving heart!”

Her answer was as cold, but her face was soft,“Don’t make me spill this on you.” the steam from her cup should be the only thing your eyes made contact with,“I just felt nice today. Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t, I won’t.”

Something about that clarification made her tighten her grip on her cup for a small moment.

Seems like she wanted to give home a chance to fix her a reason for being...this. Generous.

A reason to like Christmas.

However, being with you, peacefully drinking with her, not disgusted or intimidated, was a reason on its own.

“ᵀʰⁱˢ ʸᵉᵃʳ, ᵗᵒ ˢᵃᵛᵉ ᵐᵉ ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵗᵉᵃʳˢ, ᴵ’ˡˡ ᵍⁱᵛᵉ ⁱᵗ ᵗᵒ ˢᵒᵐᵉᵒⁿᵉ ˢᵖᵉᶜⁱᵃˡ,”

[finniestoncrane]

12 Days of Kinkmas • Day 12: Food - Arkham!Poison Ivy x GN!Reader request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist • dividers minors DNI!! 🔞 cw for nsfw stuff: humiliation kink, restraints, oral sex

Your face was red, from exertion, from blushing, and your chin followed suit, raw from the slick that collected on it. Pushing on, desperate to make a good impression, you pressed your tongue between her folds once more, moaning as you collected the taste of her on your tongue. It was fresh, slightly acidic, perfumed with a natural floral scent that turned to an earthy musk as it hit the back of your throat. Delightful, arousing. But you barely had any focus to savour the moment. This was your one chance to shine, to do a good enough job that you might be allowed to do it again.

The unfortunate giggle emanating from you was a natural reaction, however, something you couldn't suppress as you felt the soft, tender sensation of vines passing over your underarms. Only when they tightened and tugged you away from the sweet nectar you sipped at did your expression fade from one of glee to one of disappointed confusion.

Closing her legs, Ivy shut you off from the delicacy of her soft, wet cunt, stepping down from the petal she leaned against and walking to where the vines held you up, like a limp beast waiting on death.

"Do you really think that was the best I've had? Do you think that was the kind of effort I deserved?"

"N-no, Pam... I'm sor-"

"Excuse me?"

"No, Miss Ivy. I'm sorry. I'll do better next time."

Her deep, almost husky laughter brought a prickling heat to your cheeks, the cruelty behind it hitting a little too close to home.

“I had hoped for better from you. You’re yet another in a long line of disappointments.”

You cringed at the words, but hoped she would continue, a dichotomy you hadn’t quite reconciled with yet, but one you found beyond intriguing.

“I should have you strung up outside like the others, an effigy. A symbol of what I need. A threat to others who think they’re good enough for me.”

Ivy stepped towards you, looking up at your forlorn, but blushing face.

“Did you think you were good enough for me? Did you think you could please me? Or were you wasting both of our time?”

Before you could answer, she placed a finger to your lips. Her skin, soft, but lightly prickled with an odd texture that reminded you of a strong plant stem, and the slight sappy dew that covered her remained on you once her touch had been removed.

“A shame, truly. I had a much better gift for you if you’d done better, since it’s the holidays and all.”

You sighed, quietly, so as not to invite further disappointment from your subordination.

“You won’t leave empty handed. I’m sure I have some coal I could give you, in the spirit of things.”

Scrunching up your nose in confusion, you looked towards her, thankful that she was smiling at you.

“What? Don’t be so ungrateful, you’re lucky to get anything. Besides, coal can be used as a very effective fertiliser.”

You realised that the coal was essentially a gift to herself, much like you were when she brought you in. Still afraid you were going to be left to hang from the windows of the greenhouse by her vines and tendrils, though, you looked to her, pleading eyes searching for her remaining humanity.

“You’re lucky I can see potential. I can help you, do you want that? Do you want mother to show you how she likes it? Can you be less of a useless creature and do good next time?”

Frantically nodding, you swallowed the collecting drool from your mouth and uttered a weak ‘yes’.

“Good, because I am not kind twice.”

[nuhahani]

3:15(Breathe)

3:15(Breathe) - Angst. Multi Fandom/Character. GN(No pronouns for reader)

It started out as it always does at the beginning of the fall. A missed call or two. Staying later at work. Cancelling plans more and more. You had been together for five years and suddenly it was like living with a stranger every time he came home. The distance between you and him grew larger with each attempt to close the gap. It was 2am, then 3am and then it was 4am. He wasn’t coming home tonight. It was the third night in a row in a pattern that had become the new normal for the past month. How did it all fall so far from where it began? 

“You smell like perfume.” 7am, he walked through the front door. Hair disheveled, clothes that looked as if they were carelessly thrown on. A small hum left his throat, the only response he gave. Your voice was softer than cotton itself. “Why do you smell like perfume?” 

He didn’t even glance at your figure on the couch, knees tucked under your chin and arms locked right around your legs. He wasn’t even that close to you, and you could still smell her from the distance. He no longer cared. There was no point in hiding it, he was perfectly fine hurting you. Showing you that your relationship was no longer a priority. He ran a hand through his tousled hair, undoing the shirt he wore to work yesterday as he continued to ignore you. Were you not enough? You worked even though you didn’t have to. You cooked and cleaned, took care of him. Kept his secrets and held him in his distress. Keeping it together was the hardest thing you had to do. You wanted to scream, cry. You wanted him to show any type of emotion, something that showed he still cared. That you were still important. But you weren’t, he showed you that you weren’t. The light left his eyes every time he looked at you, you had watched it happen for some time now. Eyes that now stayed glued to his phone as he left you alone just like always. The sound of water running down the hall answered your unspoken question. Soft sandy carpet felt as if it were hot coals under your bare feet. Your feet that didn’t need eyes to see you were carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Weight that slowly breaking everything ounce of your soul.

The bedroom at the end of the hall that was a haven from everything now turned into an empty isolated hell-scape. A home built by two people now being rented by one. Your body refused to step forward past the threshold of the doorway. Paralyzed by lost and foreign memories. 

“I’ll love you long after my lungs stop breathing.” He spoke so genuinely to you, his lips not wasting a second afterward to kiss you. Soft, gentle lips that spoke poetry to you with every word. Hands that felt like home on your cheeks as they cupped your face to pull you closer. Hands that would never let you go.

A moment that used to make you feel so warm and at peace now caused the familiar ache of abandonment in your chest. This was no longer home; he was not coming back. There were no thoughts as you packed a bag full of clothes. Your hands moving faster than you would’ve thought in your dissociated state. Shirts and pants that seemed to weigh a thousand pounds in your hands. A backpack would be all you needed; it would have to be for now. Running water could no longer be heard as you slung the bag over your shoulder. You pushed past him in the hallway as he stepped out of the bathroom. The gaze of his eyes on your back, but you couldn’t turn back. You couldn’t because if you did you would stay. 

Trembling fingers snatched your keys as you maneuvered your way around the kitchen counter. This apartment was suffocating you with its silence. The prickling sensation of tears welled along your waterline threatening to fall if you didn’t move quicker. A voice cut through the tension calling your name. The ringing in your ears muffled the sound of your name leaving his lips. Lacing your sneakers seemed a nearly impossible task. The frustration and anger brought on the swelling sensation in your throat as if you were choking. Your shaking hands yanked the front door open only to slam it shut behind you as he kept calling after you. 

Time had seemed to be racing and slowing around you simultaneously as your alert body pulled you towards the complex parking lot. A dazed and hazy state that not even drugs could replicate. Walls and doors turned into pavement and parked cars. Tossing the bag into the backseat you locked the doors as you started the engine. Once you pull out of the parking lot there is no turning back. You would have no choice to go back, there was nothing to go back to. A home that built turned to one that you rented and was now one you watched burn to the ground. A fire that had been started by the man who vowed to love you until death do you part, the same man that tried to trap you inside the fire. 

Parking spaces and pavement turned to traffic lights and tears as you pounded your fists against the steering wheel at a red light. Screams that the rest of the world would never hear escaped your lungs, threatening to burst them into confetti sized pieces if you held them in any longer. Where would you go? You left but where are you running to? Your phone vibrated in the cup holder. There was no point in checking it. He only called because you left.

[son1c]

if you like robots so much, then maybe you should become one :/c

falling stars fic masterpost

There was no escape from the tank. Sonic was stuck like a fish in a bowl, and he didn't even have the comfort of colorful pebbles to help ease his claustrophobia. Not that it would've mattered, since the cables at the top of the tank soon became alight with electricity, and the Roboticizer roared to life.

The feeling started in his eyes. They were as wide as dinner plates when the electricity coursed through them. It was like they were being peeled away and replaced by something else, something colder. Something that glowed dimly through the bubbles of the tank.

The feeling quickly spread to his nose. His ears. The rest of his body.

It was cold. So cold.

By the time it was over, Sonic couldn't even shiver. Temperature wasn't even a blip on his radar anymore, he was so incapable of registering it. His body was no longer flesh, fur, and bone. Now, it was metal, circuits, and wires. He saw the world through a red-tinted screen. At first, the image was fuzzy, but it quickly sharpened, the pixels that made up his environment rendered in crisp HD.

He saw a motobug with a star sticker on its forehead cowering by the door. He saw Doctor Eggman standing on the other side of the glass, grinning at him triumphantly. Sonic stared back at the man, the gears in his head beginning to turn.

Then, he realized something. He wasn't in pain anymore. The lingering ache that had been holding him down for days had been obliterated, and he was left feeling strong. Powerful. Like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders--or, more accurately, his leg. And the person responsible was standing right in front of him. Examining him through those round glasses and down that big, long nose.

Doctor Eggman.

Sonic… was supposed to listen to him. That's right. He was supposed to do whatever the Doctor said. As a part of the Eggman Empire, it was Sonic's job to help see its conquest through. And he would. He would do it. It was what he was made for. Yeah, he remembered now. Serving the Empire was what he was always meant to do.

The water drained from the tank, and the panel at the top slid open.

Eggman said, "Well? Do you plan on staying in there forever? Front and center, if you please."

Sonic's shoes sparked to life, and he flipped out of the tank in one swift motion. He stood in front of the doctor, still dripping, with his head tilted upwards. Even with the extra inch or two his new metal shoes added to his height, Eggman was still so much taller than him.

"Remarkable," Eggman breathed. He was admiring his handiwork. "Perhaps this old machine has held up better than I thought. How fortunate for you, Sonic… since the alternative would've been much uglier."

Sonic caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Immediately, he snapped his head toward the door, and only just barely managed to catch the back of Metal Sonic as he angrily flew away.

With a wave of his hand, Eggman said, "Oh, pay him no mind. You know how it is with look-alikes, don't you? They tend to become quite envious over time."

Suddenly, Eggman stepped away from Sonic. The doctor's attention was now on the motobug that was still cowering by the door. He shot it a loathsome glare. "Now, to take care of that miserable little traitor…"

The motobug curled in on itself when Eggman approached. It knew what was coming. Deactivation. Or dismantlement. Or something else that any sensible robot would be wise to quiver in fear of. It covered its eyes with its claws, unable to look at the disappointment on the doctor's face.

However, right as Eggman was about to lay a hand on the little robot, Sonic appeared in between them. He had crossed the room in the blink of an eye, so fast that neither the doctor nor the motobug had even seen him move at all. Now, he was standing protectively over the little robot, his glowing eyes boring into their leader like hot coals.

"What do you think you're doing, Sonic?" Eggman hissed.

"Easy, sir," Sonic said. His voice was covered in a layer of robotic vocal fry, and far too flat. "I'm just lookin' out for the Empire."

Frowning, Eggman leaned back. There was a hint of genuine curiosity in his narrowed eyes, but it was well hidden. "I don't remember telling you to do that," he said.

Sonic's heroic nature was, of course, common knowledge to Eggman. But to see it translated to--and even directed toward--his own robots wasn't something the doctor was expecting. And it was a strange sight to see. After all, none of his badniks had teamwork programmed into their code. None of them cared about each other.

The only thing that mattered was that they were loyal to Eggman himself. That was the driving force motivating each and every one of them. And Sonic, now a Robian, should be no different.

Should be.

"I- I know," Sonic said quietly. He looked down, the new programming in his head fighting against the will of his heart. It was hard for him to get his next words out. "It… won't happen again. I'm s- suh- sorry."

The motobug didn't dare move. It stayed perfectly still, every mechanism in its body locked in place while Eggman stared down at it over Sonic's shoulder. Slowly, the doctor's expression changed from resentment to rapacity.

Eggman stroked his mustache. He was calm now. He'd realized how to take advantage of this. "Actually, Sonic," he began, "it would save me a great deal of resources if you protected my badniks. You have no idea how expensive it is to replace them! And money doesn't grow on trees, you know. It's hard work printing it all myself."

Sonic looked up. His processors, which had just been whirring loudly from the war being waged inside of his mind, suddenly shushed. He smiled. "I'll keep 'em safe. Promise," he said. The faintest glimmer of emotion shone through his robotic voice: gratitude. "I won't let you down, Doctor Eggman, sir."

Eggman spun around on his heel. He started down the hallway, the sound of his footsteps echoing down the long corridor. His blood red coat trailed behind him, a stark reminder of what he could have done to the motobug. If he'd wanted to.

Finally, the motobug allowed itself to relax. It was lucky to be online right now.

After letting his own shoulders slump, Sonic turned around to face the motobug. He winked at it with his electronic eyes. "Don't worry, little buddy," the Robian whispered. "I've got your back!"

"SONIC!"

Hurriedly, Sonic followed after Doctor Eggman. But not too hurriedly--he didn't disappear from view like he had when the motobug's life was in danger. He just jogged down the hallway at a respectable pace before falling into step at the doctor's side.

He didn't notice Metal Sonic watching him from the shadows. And he was too focused on Eggman's voice to hear when the look-alike exited the Scrambled Brain Bowl. He and the doctor continued on through the complex, unbothered.

While they walked, Sonic thought about how good it felt to have two functional legs again. He was thankful that Doctor Eggman had fixed the broken one for him. The Robian cherished it--cherished his freedom of motion.

For the next few days, Eggman kept a close eye on Sonic. The Robian could always feel the doctor's hawkish gaze on the back of his neck while he worked. But the brand new code swirling around his mind told him not to worry about it. And Eggman kept him too busy for any doubts to creep in.

So, he didn't ask questions. He served the Empire.

He ignored his whispering heart.

But the static in Sonic's mind was building. It grew louder every time he listened to Eggman. And it grew more insistent every time he ran an errand for him, or took down a G.U.N. drone that had wandered too close to Scrap Brain Base.

It pulled on his heart like a drawstring every time he was reminded to stay away from the deepest part of the basement.

No amount of un-OSHA-regulated labor could kill the part of him that was fighting. Fighting hard against Eggman's control. And as the days turned into weeks, the static plaguing his mind became impossible to ignore. Now, it was deafening.

At the same time, Eggman stopped ordering Sonic to follow him around everywhere. The doctor probably assumed his Roboticization was flawless. That he could be trusted not to rebel. So, his leash got a little longer. And Sonic was left alone with his thoughts more often. Thoughts that oftentimes, didn't match up with the programming that had been drilled into his brain.

Thoughts that he didn't belong here. Thoughts that he was forgetting about something.

Thoughts that he should really just go and check out that room in the basement, the one that was locked behind a heavy blast door.

Sonic groaned. All of these thoughts were giving him a headache, and that shouldn't even be possible. Annoyed, he kicked his feet. They were hanging off the edge of the Brain Bowl, because he was sitting on the very tip of one of the Bowl's mustache spikes. The movement made him feel a little better, but it wasn't enough to get rid of the static that was ringing in his ears.

Beside Sonic was the motobug with the star on its head. It balanced expertly on the thin strip of steel, having gotten used to Sonic's weird hang out spots by now. It looked at him curiously.

Sonic smiled. Maybe a little thinner than usual. "Just thinkin'," he told the motobug.

The little robot kept looking at him. It beeped once.

Sonic rubbed the back of his neck. "What else? About his vileness, Doctor Eggman. Duh."

The motobug beeped again.

Sonic pinched one side of his mouth and looked away from the little robot that could always, somehow, see right through him. "Alright, alright. You caught me. But it's nothin', bud. Seriously."

The motobug wasn't convinced, and neither was Sonic. But there was no more time to talk about it, because an alarm suddenly started going off in the Robian's head. His eyes flashed red.

[INTRUDER ALERT. IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED.]

[LOCATION: BB-F3.]

An intruder? That was different. But Sonic's directive remained the same: protect the Base and its badniks.

In a flash, Sonic stood up, hopped over the motobug, and slid down the roof of the Brain Bowl. He made his way inside and up to the third floor landing in ten seconds flat, his thrusters allowing him to skip the elevator entirely. Once there, he looked around, but the landing was empty. The only things up there were benches and tables, and a few spare tool boxes.

Sonic frowned. Could it have been a false alarm?

The thought had barely finished processing when he noticed it--something shiny on the table at the far end of the landing. Sonic bounded over to it and found that it was a card of some sort. He turned it over and was confused to see a bat printed on it with the words "Thank you" written over top in pretty cursive letters.

A voice from behind Sonic said, "Hey there, Blue. Nice of you to drop by. Mind lending me a hand? I'm looking for something special, and I heard it's stashed around here somewhere!"

Sonic froze. The static screamed in his ears.

Blue.

His sensors warned him of an incoming projectile, and he snapped out of his daze. He whirled around and caught the boot that was about to slam into his head with one of his hands. It belonged to a bat Mobian with white fur. And on her wrists, she wore two gold bracelets.

Sonic recognized her. From the photograph. The photograph that Doctor Eggman had shown him and…

Him and…

Sonic's heart tore desperately at the code that had his mind in a chokehold. It shuddered. Wavered. But remained intact.

The bat wrenched her leg free of Sonic's grasp. Then, she used the momentum to send a sweeping kick at his feet, attempting to knock him over. But Sonic recovered fast, and used his rocket boosters to dodge the kick and flip over her head. From there, he grabbed her by the arm, and threw her across the landing.

She used her wings to stop herself from crashing into the wall. But she was slower than Sonic, and he caught up to her before she had the chance to recover. He dug his claws into her shoulders and slammed her into the wall, and his momentum carried them all the way through it and into the room on the other side.

It was the room with the big green tank. The room he had been reactivated in, a little over a month ago.

The bat used her feet to push Sonic off of her. Then, she jumped up, and dusted herself off. "Wow!" she said, her eyes sparkling. "Not even Metal Sonic was able to get in a move like that. You can really do it like the True Blue himself!"

Sonic stared at her. The static was so loud. So loud.

Finally loud enough to unhook the claws of Eggman's nefarious programming from his mind.

"You," he gasped. Like he had just come up for air. "You're the one who stole Shadow's inhibitor rings!"

[revelisms]

Excerpt: Six Years

Vi wrestles with the realization of how much her sister has changed—and how many unwanted parallels she sees between Silco and their father. From a work-in-progress set after heron blue.

In some ways, she was still so familiar. Her perpetual nest of a living condition and geriatric sense of humor; her inability (refusal) to tend to her hair, herself. Yet, in so many ways, she's nothing like the girl Vi remembers. 

A shell. A stranger.

Jinx—a name that doesn't belong to her sister, that christens a girl who spits at the name Powder; whose body bares sinew and steel, wears yellowed stains at her chipped fingernails and speaks a drawl decades beyond her years—isn't a child, anymore. 

Eleven years, enmeshed in each others' days and nights; eleven, that Vi had always been with her. 

Powder's rock and shield. Powder's everything.  

Then the cannery had happened. Stillwater had happened. That monster had happened—

A monster whose gait she could pick out from a crowd: hears prowling over the floors now, above the jukebox and the metal tickings and her sister's self-directed rambling—a heavy-heeled th-thumping up the varnished steps, his coat a devil's whisper against the walls.

Vi steels herself. Beside her, Jinx prattles on. 

"Y'ever thought of fighting in a ring, sis?"

Th-thump, th-thumping over the dark floors.  

"You'd be the scrappiest scrapper in the Underground. Bet they'd call ya the Red Devil—or Lead Lettie—or Sourmouth Suckerpunch—"

She stares, unblinking, plastic squeezed beneath her thumb. Through the sliver of her sister's cracked door, a polish-slick boot wades through the shadows. Stills.  

"What you really need," Jinx says, with a lax crook of her screwdriver, "is a pair of Vandie's old gauntlets—that'll set'em right."

Vi swallows. The hall's dark devours the wraith on the other side of the door: shrouds all but the unearthly cat's-eye that tips over the leather at his shoulder, burning like a funeral pyre over a rotting corpse. 

"Yeah," she says, stiffly. Comb-teeth bite into her palm. "That's all I need."

His stare lingers—three-four-five beats—before it flits to the floor, trails over the blue tangled within her fingers, traces its mess back to the girl lounged beside her. Jinx stays worlds away in her tinkering, head lolled against the floor. She wrenches another screw into place.

"It's late," Jinx huffs, without needing a glance. "I know."

Silence, for a moment. Then Silco agrees, "It's late, indeed."

Jinx scowls. "One'ta talk."

If the shadows weren't playing a trick on her, Vi might have thought he'd smirked. But that bastard never smiled—never did anything but glare over his paperwork, around the vile plumes of his cigars: eyeing her hyena of a sister like a stray in need of a meal, and Vi like a bull ready to charge. 

Signing a blood-pact to his enterprise (their city's scheme for fiscal independence; her sister's unfathomable choice for a homestead) had done nothing in the way of trust. He'd taken an overseer's scrutiny to her, from the day she'd put her name in ink: a dead-eyed panopticon hounding her every waking hour, as though she'd never left that molding cell.

On one hand, a part of her reasoned, he had a right—sizing up her methods, as he would any new recruit; strategizing where best to slot her in the arteries of a drug-machine already years on the march. A more cynical thread knew he was laying his cards flat and playing the long game. Slouching back, idly, with eyes unblinking, to find any reason to put her under his heel.

She stares at the unmarred side of his face: a dim halo in a coal-blackened sea.

Eleven years that she'd been with Powder.

Six—nearly seven, now—that Jinx has had this snake at her side.

From the doorway, his shadow gravels, "I take it you'll be off soon." 

"Soon as the bell chimes." Jinx flits her wrist, pinkie-promise. "Not a rhyme later—cross my hearts and hope to snore."

Silco makes a low chuff at that: strange, quiet, bemused. A not-quite laugh, like Dad used to do. 

For a moment, a breath tangled in her throat, Vi sees him. 

He was tower of a man, thin as a string. His voice itched with smoke-pocked lungs and dreams that glittered like the stars. He kept chewing tobacco sweetened with cinnamon under his tongue, and he wore the mines on his clothes; gave hugs that made one's soul feel like it'd been wrapped in down-feathers; made the moonlight seem like nothing more than hand-sculpted glass: some beautiful thing he'd spooled on a thread and hung up there for all to see.

He'd been everything to her—her image of whistle-toothed optimism, her laughter, her guiding light—until he wasn't.

Freckles smattering her cheeks, her unruly hair the color of redmilk tea, a younger version of herself had shrieked over the idea of having to share her plates, pillows, toys with some snot-nosed little girl—a blue-haired, rambunctious, wailing thing—a sister. She'd stomped her feet and thrown fits over it. Told Dad, flat out: I don't wanna have her!

He'd stood slouched over her, hands bracketed at his thin waist, a glitter in his pale eyes, and chuffed. You'll do great, Lettie. His smile always pulled a touch crooked at one corner: a sincerity that, without fail, made her believe him. 

She'd always believed him, then. 

She was too young, too naïve not to.

Staring into an empty threshold, into a shadowed hall, a ghost of footsteps thudding down the dark floors, Vi fights to forget their father's voice. To block out the echo of a rasp no part of her wants to compare to it. To ignore the remnants of smoke on the air—tower of a man, thin as a string, heels heavy-footed from those damn mines—that belonged to a man she'd sooner wring the neck of. Wouldn't dare put in the same vein of everything their father was.

(Complicated. Self-loathing. Hellishly tempered. Kind.)

[wyvernquill]

One more snippet of the Dreamling Anastasia AU

...in which we witness Hob and Murphy's very first conversation (spoiler: it doesn't go well). Please enjoy!

Link to the Masterpost!

(Tag list, let me know if you want to be added or taken off: @10moonymhrivertam @martybaker @globglobglobglobob @anonymoustitans @sunshines-fabulous-legs @dreamsofapiratelife @malice-royaume @kcsandmanfan @acedragontype @okilokiwithpurpose @tharkuun @silver-dream89 @i-write-stories-not-sins-bitch)

---

For a moment, the scene unfolding before Hob makes him think he’s stepped into a fairytale - or perhaps a sweet and strange dream, haunting you ever so gently even after waking.

Once upon a time, thinks Hob, there was a Dream King draped in a cloak of midnight, and he held court over the ravens in a silver-winter forest under heavy, snow-laden boughs…

But then he blinks, and the silly, fanciful vision fades. The cloak is but a dark coat three sizes too large and marked by at least ten years’ worth of dirt and wear, the forest only a small and pitiful park fenced in by roads, and the snow a dirty grey, barely more than half-melted sludge where countless feet have trodden it down.

And the Dream King is only some beggar called Murphy, of course, uncanny resemblance be damned.

But there are ravens. Birds of all kinds, really, the sounds of their wings and their various songs nearly managing to drown out the noise of the city around them. Yet Hob is a practical man, and knows that they gather around their ‘king’ only because they’re clever little buggers waiting to be fed, and not thanks to any strange magics.

(Magic died when humanity rose up and brought the Endless low; and what little survived has fled, concealed itself, and would know better than to enchant a hundred or so birds in broad-if-cloud-dimmed daylight.

Magic died with Dream of the Endless, and all that is left are shadows and cheap facsimiles.

Magic died, and nothing will bring it back.)

And yet… there’s potential there, Hob thinks, as he watches Murphy draw his giant coat more tightly around himself, shivering but still holding his head high and proud, surveying the assorted fowl around him as if they were his subjects. There’s a sharp, delicate arrogance in his bearing that will serve their deception well.

And. Christ alive. He does look like him, doesn’t he. Like the Sandman himself, made flesh and bone and sweat and dirt. Made human. If Hob didn’t know, with absolute certainty… he could swear...

Ridiculous thought. Dream of the Endless would never sink so low as to get himself thrown out of a pub swearing and spitting, human or not.

Murphy’s eyes suddenly snap up, and Hob flinches instinctively, contemplates ducking behind the next tree or the column advertising the latest local plays - but the man’s gaze passes over him carelessly, long neck craning out from the ratty scarf wound around his throat as he scans the sky.

It’s the raven. The large, coal-feathered beast Murphy had with him at the pub, with the clever glint in its eye - and in its claws, it holds a whole loaf of bread, clearly pilfered from some bakery or street stall.

The raven drops the bread into Murphy’s lap, and then lands on his shoulder, cawing and nudging its beak against a sharp cheekbone in a strange avian gesture of affection.

Murphy rasps some sort of acknowledgement in his dark, hoarse voice that Hob is too far away to parse, stroking a finger along the bird’s side, before turning his attention to the bread.

His spindly, dirty fingers tear into it with the hungry desperation of a man who remembers with precise clarity when his last meal was, and also that it’s been far too long since then, and Hob’s stomach gives a sympathetic pang. He’s been there. Not so much recently - but he knows the slow gnaw of starvation, and will never forget it.

(He hasn’t gone hungry since meeting Gilbert, who’d rather skip on his own technically unnecessary meals if it meant his young human companion could eat his fill. Sometimes, Gil even hands Hob fruits he’s seemingly conjured up out of thin air, which are never as filling as the real thing, but taste heavenly enough to stave off hunger for a few more hours at least.

There must be some dream-magic there, something to do with Gil being, in all technicality, a meadow - but Hob doesn’t think about it too much. It’s sweet, the actions of a friend who truly cares, and that’s enough for him.)

Murphy raises the first morsel of bread up to his mouth…

…and feeds it to the raven.

Hob blinks.

Watches, as the man takes his own bite, chewing ravenously, and then tears another bit off the loaf, throwing it to the ground, birds immediately flocking around it, picking for their share.

The process repeats. Murphy goes through the entire loaf that way. One bite for the raven who stole the bread, one bite for Murphy himself, and one for the flocks of birds around him. Halfway through, the raven refuses its bites, presumably full, and from then on it’s one bite for Murphy, two for the birds. It’s already not the largest loaf, and a third of it is hardly enough to sate a grown man’s hunger - strangely selfless, this Murphy character. No wonder he’s thin as a rake.

(Then again, Hob supposes there’s strategy in it, teaching the birds that they’ll be well-rewarded for any bounty they bring him.

Altruism, or shrewdness? Hob wonders.)

Soon, there’s nothing left of the bread. Murphy still looks hungry, but it’s an exhausted, resigned hunger that’s there to stay. Hob doubts the man can remember a time he wasn’t hungry. This city is not kind to the starving, to the poor - Murphy might get a place in a workhouse, if he tried, but Hob doubts that quiet pride still shining through the veil of hunger would let him. And besides, they’re dying institutions, these days, workhouses - the modern world is turning up their noses at anything that might help the destitute, even as it churns out more and more of them. It’s a dark and miserable time they’re living in, and none of the glamorous parties the rich so love to throw these days will convince Hob otherwise.

But, well. If their scheme goes off without a hitch, then at the very least the new ‘Dream of the Endless’ will never go hungry again. Hob’s doing a public service here, if you look at it from the right angle - though he’ll be the first to admit that his main motivation is anything but selfless. Immortality is too rich a prize to pretend he doesn’t want it with every fibre of his being.

And he’ll not get it standing idly by and watching, that’s for sure.

Hob straightens his coat lapels, takes off his hat to comb his fingers through his overlong hair, places it back at a jaunty angle - and walks over to finally officially make this Murphy character’s acquaintance.

“Afternoon,” Hob says, still a few steps away, smile widening into a grin when Murphy’s gaze immediately fixes itself onto him, cold and filled with the sharp suspicion of a man most people go out of their way to ignore, and who does not trust direct address.

(The eyes give him away. Dream of the Endless had eyes like midnight stars, the depths of space and the glitter of distant galaxies eternally reflected in them. Strange eyes, inhuman eyes, endless eyes.

Murphy’s eyes are a pale, washed-out blue-grey, slightly sunken in their sockets, and perfectly ordinary.

No matter - they will already have to sell some cock-and-bull story about Dream having been forced into human form, the eyes will be the least of it.)

“What do you want?” Murphy growls, and that is perfect. The voice. Easily his best asset, besides the overall look. It’s right, scratchy and roughened by disuse, but just as deep and sonorous as Dream of the Endless's was. The harsh tone and tendency to curse like a sailor Hob witnessed at the inn will need to go, to be sure, this man speaks too much like a London gutter rat and not enough like the Lord of Stories - but, well, nothing a few lessons can't fix. Nobody else ever got the voice even remotely right, and this’ll already give them a lot more to work with.

“A moment of your time, m’lord. Nothing more.” Hob affects a cheeky bow, and does not waver under the cold disdain he receives in return. Mr. Murphy’s not a fan of teasing and gentle mockery, evidently - unfortunately, that is about 50% of Hob’s personality. They’ll get on just splendidly, won’t they. “Hob, at your service. Are you aware your lady sister is looking for you?”

A quick blink, even as Murphy’s entire scrawny body and haggard face goes very, very still.

“...I do not have a sister.” He says, only the slightest edge of uncertainty and confusion wavering in his voice. And then, “piss off, Robert Gadling” he adds, uncouth and vulgar, a scowl scrunching up his face. Oh, they’ll need to train that out of him, most certainly.

(Hob has not introduced himself as Robert, and certainly not as Gadling. That Murphy has named him thus nonetheless goes over both their heads.)

“No?” Hob smiles. “You’re not Dream of the Endless, then?”

Another blink - and then Murphy laughs, a horrible dissonant sound that seems like it ought to hurt his throat, the raven on his shoulder letting out a single caw alongside him.

“Are you drunk?” He snorts. “Dream of the Endless is dead. Every child knows it.”

“Every child believes it to be so. There’s a distinction.” Hob tries to take a step closer, but the sea of birds at their feet steadfastly refuses to part for him, so he thinks better of it. “You look exactly like him, you know. You might well be.”

“And you would know that, would you?” Murphy raises an arch eyebrow. “I think I’d remember having once been the personification of dreams.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Memory can be a funny thing.” Hob shoots back. “We don’t remember being born, do we? And some lose track of even more than that. How’s your recollection of your childhood, hm?”

Ah. Jackpot. The moment he speaks of remembering and childhoods, Murphy looks away, uncomfortable. Hit a sore spot there, has he? Memory issues. How interesting. How perfectly convenient.

“...you’ve had your fun now,” Murphy rasps, shifting uneasily, no longer so willing to defiantly meet Hob’s eyes. “I want no part in whatever game you’re intending to play with the London Poor, Gadling. Fuck off, before I make you.”

“Now, now, I really do think we’re on to something, here.” Giving up, Hob knows, is for fools who don’t really want to become immortal. “I’m quite certain-”

“Fuck. Off.” Murphy repeats, and turns his pale, unfortunately-human eyes on Hob again.

So do nearly a hundred birds, feathers ruffling and beaks clacking. The raven on Murphy’s shoulder caws, low and threatening.

Hob swallows, and takes stock of his options. Wonders if tactical retreats might not be just the thing for intelligent men who don’t want to die by bird before ever getting to take their stab at immortality.

“I’m only saying-” Hob tries instead, because he’s a reckless idiot.

Murphy’s eyes narrow, and he spits out a throaty sound like a command, the flock of birds rising as one, led by his personal raven jumping into flight with a sharp battle cry.

Shit.

Gilbert glances up when Hob returns covered in feathers and bird droppings, skin smarting where sharp beaks have pecked at him until he fled.

“I take it young Mr. Murphy was not particularly amenable to your proposal…?” He asks, delicately, lip twitching around a politely-repressed smile.

“Can’t say he was.” Hob shrugs easily, only wincing slightly at the way the movement pulls on his skin. “But I think I can convince him, Gil. Given enough time.”

“If you say so, young friend.” Gil, for his part, does not look particularly convinced either. He rarely is, when Hob first pitches his ideas, but he always comes around.

And so will Murphy.

Hob knows it’s only a matter of time… and, perhaps, some clever bribery.

[caycanteven]

@mothiepixie drug me right into another one and I fuckin' love pirates man...and I didn't even fight it lmfao. Enjoy this fun drabble I wrote up~ Fair warning, I just wrote this for fun; no idea how accurate appearances or any of the like are and I came up with "The Black Fiend" myself cause ships have cool names teehee.

The storm raged outside, but among the drunkard squabble and unrelenting retelling of stories on the seven seas, it was a hushed whisper.

This tavern wasn’t a first for her, but it was definitely one she came to seldom enough. Company wasn’t something she avoided like the plague, but she preferred to be alone when she drank her spirits. Cheers to the tavern mates who were Three Sheets to the Wind, but she wasn’t them.

She learned the hard way what it meant to take her eyes off her surroundings and get too comfortable.

She paid the price.

A minor price, but a price, one that wasn’t paid in silver.

She lifted her tankard to her lips, downing a swig of the rum within. With a lazy brush of her arm, she wiped her mouth of leftover sprits and breathed deep. It burned, but it felt so good. It always felt good.

Out of the corner of her left eye and beneath her hat, she noticed a body place themselves on the stool beside her. She grunted under her breath. Out of all the places in this damn tavern, they chose there to place their ass?

She stilled a moment before drinking once more from her tankard, her brow raised with sudden curiosity and surprise.

A lass? It was unlikely, but who would wear such robes like that around if they weren’t…though even she knew better than to judge first sight. After all, she hid well beneath her own rags just to make’er livin’ on the sea under the interpretation she was male.

Or used to.

She set her tankard down slowly in order not to draw attention to herself. She eyed the company sitting on her left thoroughly. They hadn’t requested anything, though perhaps they were already drunk. She could make out a tuff of orange below their own hat, hair no less. A rather beautiful color, like the embers on hot coals. So perhaps they too, understood the importance of hiding their appearance?

It was all too…odd. She snorted and she returned her attention to her drink. She didn’t need to bother her still sober thoughts with that of a random—

“Ye come ‘round here plenty?”

She stopped twirling her tankard, her lips just barely touching the lip of the cup. She hadn’t expected the body to speak. Why would they? She squinted her eye and she slowly put down her tankard with a heavy thud. She leaned against the counter, elbows pressed against cracked wood.

“Aye,” she muttered and she kept her eyes forward.

“Got a name?”

She glanced over, finally seeing the face of the company beside her. Feminine features, as expected, though their face was peppered in freckles and markings; their eyes were as crystal blue as the sea itself. She had to admit, they were a beauty.

“Aye.”

They seemed to be patiently waiting for more, but when she didn’t reply, they pressed further. “Gonna share it?”

“Lass, don’ ye think that’s a bit far for someone ye neva met?” She tilted her head as she turned to acknowledge them, brow raised in question.

“Isn’t that how you greet someone properly?”

Something about them was different from those she met before, behest unwillingly. Their dialect, their posture and their words…

“Ye ain’t from ‘round here, are ya lass?” She spoke with a chuckle laced in her words. They seemed naive, ignorant—perhaps she could indulge in their conversation.

The blue-eyed beauty huffed and looked away for a moment. “Ye can say that.”

She hummed softly with consideration, before taking a quick swig then placing her tankard back down again, half empty. “Ye trade me yer name, I trade he mine, is that fair lass?”

She watched them process her bargain before nodding once.

“Aye. Motti.”

Motti? Interesting, she thought as she looked this Motti up and down. Holstered to their front was a flintlock no doubt, but it was in poor shape. It made her skin crawl but she resisted the temptation to question its condition. The rest of Motti physically looked healthy, disregarding the cuts and bruises healing on her rather gentle skin.

She snorted softly before turning her body more so to face them, smiling ever so slightly, the corners of her lips curled in a smirk.

“Lexico, pleasure to make ye acquaintance. Ye call me Lex, fer short,” she hummed with a nod. Lex watched the expression on Motti’s face brighten with surprise. So she had not anticipated Lex being a woman perhaps?

“I wasn’t sure—“

“Ye’d find another like ye? Aye, don’ really. Not like how yer doin’…” Lex grunted as she swirled her tankard. She chuckled at the bewildered look on her companion’s face. She chuckled and she shook her head. “Ye don’t worry your pretty head ‘bout it. Yer still standin’, so ye good enough to believe yer well off.”

“I suppose yer right,” Motti nodded and turned to face the bar’s surface. “So Lex,” she continued after a moment, “ye happen to know anything about a captain of a ship…named Nightmare by any—“

It had happened far too quickly; a glint of metal in the tavern light, and before a Motti could register, a blade was held at a threatening point.

“Lass, ye be sure to swallow yer words,” Lex warned lowly, but there was tension in her voice. “Ye don’t speak so easily of the Black Fiend ‘round this port.”

Mottie swallowed, though gently placed the tip of her finger against the blade and pushed it away.

Lex narrowed her gaze, then slowly put her knife in her belt. “Ye brave, I’ll say that.”

“Please, Lex…” Motti pleaded quietly, moving closer to speak under breath. “I need to find him.*

Lex hissed softly as she hid her disapproval behind her drink.

She had almost finished it off before she returned a cold but curios gaze to Motti. Her eyes looked the lass over with scrutiny, but eventually relaxed slightly. “Why are ye doin’ that, lass,” Lex muttered and gave her a softer look. “The Black Fiend doesn’t sit still long enough to bring attention ‘bout. The captain more so,” she muttered, but hesitated when there was evident disappointment in her company’s face. “Royal fleet’s been chasin’ him for a long time.”

“Ye wouldn’t understand,” Motti huffed and grumbled curses under her breath, eliciting a chuckle from beside her. “I need to find him. He…”

Lex watched as the blue-eyed lass—no doubt a young pirate herself—beamed at the mention of the captain of a The Black Fiend. Lex knew that look, the glittering behind the eyes.

Lex nearly spit out her rum.

“Ye can’t be serious.”

Motti looked up quickly, the feather of her hat dancing and bobbing. She nodded once, yet hesitantly. “Yes. He’s a lost lover, to say less,” Motti huffed. “I’ve been searching for so long, but only now have I got something to run on.”

Lex nodded slowly, resisting the urge to question how that—the two of them—happened. Once Motti finished their quiet exchange, Lex sighed and pushed her empty tankard away.

“I need a crew for my ship.”

“So ye chose a tavern full of drunkards to look?”

Motti shrugged. “Easier to get them to say yes.”

Lex couldn’t stop herself from actually laughing the more she listened. “Aye, ye keep that tid bit about The Black Fiend to yerself and ye might have it in yer favor.” She sighed, though seeing as Motti was frowning and her eyes were focused on the bar top, Lex couldn’t help feel for her.

She knew what it was like to lose a lover.

She sighed, knowing she’d regret this if this didn’t go to plan. Though, it had been forever since she had a crew to call her own, a ship…a chance to sail those waters again. “Ye chose the right person to ask first,” Lex grunted and she tossed a couple shillings on the bar.

Motti beamed again in surprise and hope. “Ye considerin?”

“Aye. Ye need someone who can handle weaponry,” Lex nodded and gave Motti a smug grin. “I got all ye need to know about it. Not to mention, I got a good shot.”

Motti seemed to be in disbelief. Lex witnessed her eye move slightly to her right, obviously staring at an injury long scarred. “Ye sure?”

Lex chuckled. “Aye…” she smiled and she held out her hand.

“Don’t need two eyes to shoot a man dead. Now how bout ye let me take a look at that ol’ flintlock?”

[softagenda]

birds of a feather (ais)

ais x reader(f)

baking au / short fic

series: birds of a feather ; aperitif

originally posted on ao3

masterlist

Preview

“Barkeep said you’d be back here,” Ais’s voice echoes through the empty kitchen, sounding bemused. “Gotta admit this wasn’t what I expected.”

You glance over your shoulder, snort, and continue to knead the large, lumpy mass of dough on the counter. “Thought I’d be butchering the cow for them?”

“Cleaning the bones for a necklace, bottling marrow for potions,” he adds, his footsteps drawing closer until he appears at the edge of her counter. “Scrying prey with skin or eyeballs. The usual.” He leans over and braces his elbows on the stone, chin notched in his palm.

“Ha ha.”

“Just thought you’d be doing something a little more badass.”

The dough softens and pulls beneath your hands, wisps of flour puffing into the air with each roll. For a long time, you’d been afraid to touch not just anyone but any thing . When you were young, your teacher had eventually convinced you to work on more crafts and skills, to grow more comfortable with your bare hands - and despite all they’d put you through, those memories still held bittersweet solace even now. “There’s still time to add more ingredients. A cup of chopped, eldritch sea demon should add some spice.”

“I was just about to ask if that was a meat cleaver in your pocket, or if you’re just happy to see me.”

You roll your eyes and pause to spread the dough between your fingers, before balling it up and dropping it in a pot to mature in the shade for a while. “Guess Leander’s getting most of my loaf tonight. I know he’ll appreciate it.”

The corner of his mouth quirks. “Most? Who else?”

“Vere will probably sneer, express his utmost disdain for such peasant fair, and then eat a fourth of it. He’s a slut for a honey glaze.” You sidle closer and prop your hip on the edge, looking him over. It’s a little unusual to see him out and about during the day. His hair windswept, the folds of his kimono draping around his belt and down his left arm, Ais looks as though he just rolled out of bed.

“Mhin seems like they’d have a sweet tooth too. Kuras… hmm.” You shrug and flick the tail of your hair over your shoulder. “Hard to know what the good doctor likes. Have you ever seen him eat?”

“No, despite Leander’s best attempts.” Red eyes trail lazily over the quiet kitchen: stacks of copper pots, a shelf full of knives and spokes, the massive iron cauldron warming in the hearth, before stopping on you. “He likes you, though.”

“Think he’d break bread with me?” You ask with a laugh in your voice. 

Ais only hums, but the faint smile evolves into something with a little more teeth. 

“It’s a shame my bread’s not badass enough for the Seaspring’s master,” you muse, biting on your tongue to keep from grinning. “Guess I’ll go and have a cry about it.”

“Always wanted to make you cry, sparrow,” he says, rising from his slouch and stepping toward you. His broad shoulders cage you up against the counter, his body looming over you. He’s not hot like most men and monsters - Ais seemed to exude the same chill that drifted in mists from the Seaspring, smelling of brine and brimstone. “Didn’t think I’d manage it like this.”

You look up at him from beneath your lashes, hooking your finger into the lip of the leather belt. You’re exceptionally careful of what you touch and where, without your bandages to shield him. “How did you imagine it?”

Ais leans into your space, his heavy-lidded gaze settling on your mouth with smoldering heat, like embers roasting on a bed of coals. His finger drew a line across the counter before lifting, a peak of flour sitting there like a snow cap. “No clothes. Less flour.” He blows it off, smirking as the cloud drifts into your face. 

“The counter’s unexpected, but… not bad.” He wraps his knuckles against the top. “It’ll probably hold up.” 

Heat curls within you. “ Probably .”

Ais shrugs. “Probably.”

You take a long, steady breath, feeling your stomach brush against him. “Better chances than that pier, I suppose.”

Something swam through his red eyes, the glow brightening for a heartbeat. “Now that’s a thought, sparrow.”

“You haven’t had it before? I’m offended.”

“Figured you’d want a bed, at least.”

“I’m not picky.” 

Ais chuckles, the sound so low and pleased that it hooks into you with electric warmth. He leans his body forward until his weight presses against you, pins you to the cold stone at your back, and cranes his neck. He presses a grinning mouth against yours. 

“Birds of a feather, sparrow.”

_____________________

a/n: thank you for reading!

[quills-of-freedom]

Crossroads

Chapter III & IV

Tag-List 🐙

@dreamerdeity

@XOYOURONLYAMORRXO

@koo-detat

@5feetofwrath

@lilshades

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@setangel

Chapter I Chapter II

Unlike the previous chapter, your choice here will affect your ending. So be prepared.

Warnings: Smut. Violence. Angst. 18+ only, please.

Chapter III

Old Friends

Regardless of the drama that had taken place the night before, you had returned to your room to find Eren sitting on your bed, having returned to your abode. The both of you had time to cool off, the smouldering flames of tempers flickering down into now-just smoking coals.

You had both apologised, best friends shouldn't really be arguing like this, after all. You explained how you weren't ready for anything with Eren, at least, not yet. He understood and you both fell asleep as he held you in his arms. If you weren't ready for anything else, then so be it. He just took in the moment as you softly breathed in your slumber, your warm back pressed against his bare chest.

Waking up and feeling the cold, empty bed beside you was dejecting and deflating, the sour taste of disappointment is tainting your mouth, as you sit up gauging the empty room. The sunlight beaming through your window told you that Eren had taken the time to open the drapes before he left. It also told you that you slept way longer than you had been supposed to.

As you hurriedly get washed and changed, you notice a small, handwritten note on top of the polished clothes chest.

It's all for us.

Your brow wrinkles at the words, wondering what he meant by that, and why he'd left so early in the first place.

Eren had been one for riddles as of late, which was beyond annoying. He'd grown into a pretty stoic man, although if you knew him well enough, you could easily recognise that fiery temper still lay underneath the cold mask. It was always incomprehensible, to say the least, what was ever going through that mind of his at any given time.

The irony of how opposite his façade now, from when he was younger, wasn't lost on you as you quickly dress and leave your room, locking the door behind you. Back then, you wouldn't need to wonder what was on his mind, because that big mouth of his would spew it out anyway, getting him into trouble.

You weren't sure which version of him you preferred. Both seemed to be a huge pain in the ass.

Being in such a rush in leaving your room, you didn't even notice the figure looming by the side of your door as you turn your back to head towards the stairs.

"Hey." A familiar voice floated. "I finally found you."

Your movements freeze, your pupils dilating as your body switches instantly into flight or flight. You'd recognise those vocals anywhere, and it wasn't good news.

"Oh, hey." You feign a small smile as you turn to look at potentially the second most dangerous man in town right now, second only to Eren.

"Been looking for you all morning. You're not usually one to sleep in so late." Floch frowns, his acting skills of concern laughable.

"What do you want, Floch?" You ask, your eyes focusing on any sudden movements he may make.

Floch's growing influence over this rebellion was extending at an alarming rate, and if there's one thing you've learned from events over the years, is that too much power given to the wrong hands speaks disaster for anyone within the fallout range. His actions lately have been erratic, and out of character and you'd wondered if Shiganshina broke him - he shouldn't even be alive right now.

"What do I want?" He repeated your words. "I want you to stay away from Eren."

Your head flickers left to right, then back to Floch; searching for whether this was a weird joke and Eren was watching from nearby, or looking for where the fuck Floch gets his audacity from.

"I don't quite follow." You settle with as a response.

"Keep your whore legs closed, and away from Eren."

"Excu-"

Before you could even gather up the necessary rage, he'd pulled out a dagger, pressing the blade harshly against your cheek. His hand tightened around your neck as he holds you against your door.

Your eyes flitter around, someone, anyone should be walking around here, it's the barracks after all.

"I don't think your friends are going to help you." He frowns, pushing the blade a little further into your cheek, now drawing blood.

You whimper in pain, your thoughts still not really catching up with the situation. Maybe because you'd not long gotten out of bed. Or maybe, your mind refused to believe Floch Forster from cadets, the one who would break into tears if he was pushed too hard, was now threatening your life.

"Your friends have been arrested. The chain of command is now broken, we're winning. The only reason you're not behind bars is because Eren specifically told me not to. But hear this... y/n. If you so much as think about getting in the way, or interfering with our plan, I will not hesitate to kill you."

"Eren would kill you himself if you harmed any of his friends." You reply, breathless as if you'd just ran a marathon.

"Maybe. But your stupid little minds... all of you. Can't comprehend what he's doing for us. Don't you see?! He is going to lead us all to freedom. Why can't you understand this?!"

You don't reply. You don't really know what to say. You feel the warm trickling of blood now flowing down your cheek.

"Unlike you and your little crew, I know this is bigger than me. If he kills me for assuring the plan runs smoothly, then so be it."

"Where are the others?" You mutter.

Floch can see the fury behind your orbs - although your face is calm, he can feel the bloodlust that was beginning to simmer seep out of your entirety.

He begins to squeeze your neck. "I don't see why you need to know where they are, considering you'll be staying well away, right? Don't go trying any heroics now - if you all behave and fall into line, no one will get hurt. This is the new order of things so you'd better get used to it."

You wheeze as he lets go of your windpipe, coughing while he takes a step back, replacing his knife into his belt, hiding it with his military coat.

"It's always so good to see an old friend." He mutters as you hold your sore neck.

He turns on his heel and makes for the stairs. "Don't think I'm joking." He calls as he walks. "I will kill anyone who gets in the way."

As you regain your breath, you wondered if this were actually a weird dream and you were still asleep in the arms of Eren. But as the seconds click by, you're pretty convinced now that it was, in fact, the reality right now.

What are you up to now, Eren?

You and your friends had always supported him - even his attack on Liberio. Why would he want them locked away?

Unless...It was to keep them safe? Maybe?

You hear the loud bang of the front door to the sleeping quarters slam as Floch leaves the building.

What is going on?!

How you wished your captain were here right now. Levi would know what to do, and certainly, no one would be getting arrested if he were around.

But he wasn't.

He was away, babysitting Zeke somewhere.

It was all up to you, once again. And the first thing you do is the opposite to what Floch warned you not to do.

Interfere.

You hum to yourself in small amusement as you head back into your room. You were chastising Eren's previous juvenile behaviour only moments ago, and yet here you are, risking your life for your friends.

Because you knew, they'd do the same for you.

The plan?

You weren't sure yet. But as you grab your own dagger from your top drawer, you gaze down at the note that was still laying upon the wood.

It's all for us.

"Please, don't do anything stupid..." You whisper, half to yourself, half hoping that somehow Eren would telepathically pick up on your advice.

Wishful thinking. It's Eren, after all.

-

The bustling marketplace of Trost sounded the same as it did most mornings. Loud calls of fishmongers, merchants of trinkets and meat trying to sell their wares were heard over the nonsense chatter of the townsfolk, trying to do their morning shop. "Fresh fish for sale!"

"Fifty percent off all materials, they must go!"

Porco tried to drown out the noise as he steadied his breathing. He always got wound up before a mission, always ready to leap into action when needed. And he is most certainly about to be needed.

Hands within the pockets of his military coat, he fiddles with his fingers trying his darned hardest to not look too suspicious as he awaits the signal to initiate the plan.

"Mom, can we get that really nice butter cream again? It tasted so good last time!" "No, sweetheart not this time. That was a treat." "Aw --."

"Didn't you say he was married?" "Mhm, I sure did. And he's going around saying things like this to Mabel." "No ~!"

"Sixty pounds for how much?" "I know, that was my reaction too -"

Closing his eyes, Porco tuned out the various conversations that were passing him by on the street.

These people don't seem much different to folks back home.

It bothered him slightly; so far he'd not witnessed any cruelty or acts of violence as he was prepared to witness the horror of the islands of devils. But surely, it was happening, right? Somewhere?

Just stay focused on the plan. Magath is going to cause a distraction, and I run in and grab Pieck. God, out of the two of us, why did she get taken? She was the most convincing.

They'd only been within the town for a total of seven hours, split up for two. It was lucky he'd seen her being marched to jail by two of those Jaegerists. How she managed to slip up and get captured was something he'd have to ask her when he got her out of there.

Porco didn't even know what the distraction was going to be, only that it was big and was planned to be blamed on either the Jeagerists or the previous chain of command. They'll blame one another and cause more conflict, making their job of subterfuge even easier. The simple acts of war came so naturally to Marley. They'd been power-hungry and at war for, well centuries now. If creating confusion and mass panic were a skill, they'd be in line for first place.

Hopefully, they hadn't figured it out yet; she wouldn't wilfully speak, and maybe they'll think it was all a misunderstanding.

"Oh honey, look at those silk threads... they'd be perfect for Isabelle's dress." "What, again? What more do you want me to buy? You're bleeding me dry, woman."

It was funny. If Porco kept his eyes closed, he could pretend he was back home. Home... How Reiner stayed here for all those years was beyond him, this island was so outdated, they didn't even have the know-how to take photographs. Degenerate, backward scum. When his mind reminded him of you, and that familiar warmth spread across his chest, it instantly lifted his mood. Where are you...?

Please don't be nearby... Don't want her caught up in -

His thoughts were interrupted by a huge boom - the ground shaking and panicked screams now filling the air from the people around him who were happily perusing only moments ago. Porco staggered, the rocking was so violent and the crash so loud... Jesus Magath, did you have to do it so close?!

A plume of dirtied smoke pillared behind some buildings not too far away as people began to run clear of the market.

"Is it the Titans again?!" "I don't think so, they don't smoke, or do they?!"

Porco placed a finger in his left ear, giving it a shake. The explosion was so loud, it'd blown out his eardrum. Luckily I can just heal it back.

His opening was made when he saw two Jeagerists scrambling from the building to take a look at what was going on.

Bingo.

He lazily pushes himself off the wall and begins to take quickened paces towards the door of where he saw Pieck being taken to, when a familiar flash of colour caught the corner of his eye.

Time slows and all of his surroundings meld together as his chest begins to feel tight. His extremities tingle and all breathing cease its usual rhythm as he sees glimpses and flashes through the ensuing chaos of panicked civilians. His cheeks burn as if his brain isn't exactly registering what was happening around him, but focused entirely on -

"your name..." His lips part as he see's you sprinting through the masses. But you had a purpose in your run - you weren't in a mindless panic.

His initial instinct is to sprint over to you, to take you away from the danger. To finally meet you... His large adam's apple bobs as he swallows, his mouth suddenly becoming dry.

Pieck needs you.

His teeth bare into a snarl of intense frustration. "Damn it!" He hisses, tearing his line of sight off you and towards the door. He kept his movements quick, not knowing if he would have the willpower to stop himself if you noticed him. If it were even real, anyway, and he hadn't just been conjuring up dreams of having conversations with you.

Within a flash he was in the building, slamming the door behind him and leaning his back against the solid oak, his breathing deep and staggered. The sounds of chaos outside became more muffled but it didn't make much difference under the sound of his heart beating within his head.

"Pieck?" He called, taking a step forward.

He was only greeted with silence from within so he proceeded with caution, his pace quick and movements swift as he kept his eye out for anyone who was willing to get in his way.

The building shook as a second loud rumble vibrated the earth, Porco's eyes flying to the ceiling and wondering if their shitty infrastructure would hold such a battering.

He wasn't even totally sure if this was Magath's doing; their country was in such a state it could actually be them fighting amongst themselves. He wasn't exactly told what the distraction would be, just that he'd "know it when he saw it."

He didn't even want to begin to think of how he managed to not only get into a building undetected but to rig up explosives too. Maybe it was Jaeger. Hell, at this point, it could have even been Reiner.

"Pieck!" He called out again.

"Pock!" Pieck breathed in relief, coming up from a set of stairs at the end of the hall.

"Jesus, Pieck what happened?"

Her eye was purple and swollen as well as a cut, bleeding lip.

"Don't worry, I got him worse." A weak laugh left her as she hurried over. "They were questioning me, they know we're here but don't know who we are."

"How do they know we're here?"

"There's a traitor. Yelena... or maybe even..."

"Zeke?!"

"I'd like to hope not..." She sighs, now reaching him. "In any case, they left when what sounded like an explosion happened outside. They kept one with me but - well, it didn't end well for him. When I heard you calling for me I just went for it."

"Good girl." Porco smirks, the both of them now pacing back towards the door. "So, what do we do now?"

"We need to rendezvous with Magath and receive further orders... as soon as Eren Jaeger shows himself, that's when they're going to release the Armoured."

"So Reiner's here now?"

"Yeah, somewhere."

As soon as the door opens, Porco's eyes glue to where he'd seen you to find...

You were gone.

The streets had quietened from civilian screams but were now replaced by roars of orders from military personnel.

"Well, we got you out. We should leave." Porco frowns, gently guiding her by her back away from the gathering pools of soldiers.

"I wouldn't worry too much." Pieck explained as they quickly stepped down the street. "I think they saw an unfamiliar face, a woman, no less, who was alone. I think they just took their chances. I don't think they really thought I was reconnoitring"

"Well that's good at least." He muttered.

They freeze in place when they hear a person roar: "The prisoners are escaping!"

"Shit!" Porco spits, about to set off into a sprint.

Pieck stopped him, looking into the air behind him. "N-no, it's not us. Look."

Turning, he can see a building not too far away from where the explosion was, island devil's on their wicked ODM gear flying around like a swarm of mosquitoes around a dead carcass, gun fire now echoing around.

"Jesus, this place is a mess." Porco comments, his lip curling up in disgust. "Even Fort Slava wasn't this bad."

Pieck points at them, her face worried under the swelling. "That's team Levi. Which means they got arrested, meaning they've escaped. Meaning -"

"They're against the rebellion." Porco finished. "Which means -"

"Don't get your hopes up. Just because they're going against Eren Jaeger, doesn't mean they'll be on our side."

They watch as the Jeagerists fight the survey corps, the anti-personnel gear beginning to fly in from other areas of the town.

"We need to get out of here." Pieck frowns. "Come on."

She goes to leave when she notices Porco's frozen expression, his jaw tense and eye wide. He watches as your group gets closer, buzzing and avoiding gunfire. He can see you, swerving and gliding with such skill. He'd only seen you moments before... how did you even-?

"Pock! We need to go!"

"I can't she's gonna get herself killed."

"What? Who?"

-

It was like you were supposed to rescue your friends; the stars aligned and just as you needed that distraction, the old weapons workshop exploded. You didn't know why. Or who did it. You just thanked whatever ethereal beings were watching over you as you took advantage of the situation, busting your pals out of the clink like some old weird western story you'd read once from Armin's parents' "forbidden" collection.

"Split up!" You hear Jean roar as you, Armin and Connie begin to struggle, more Jeagerists in-coming. "Meet at the rendezvous point!"

You obey, full faith in Jean's directions as you lower yourself into an alleyway, flying between houses with two Jeagerists hot on your trail, their gunfire loud and aggressive. It was becoming harder to avoid the bullets, luck playing a huge part but that only lasts so long.

You try to quickly smother the panic that was rising in your throat, propelling yourself higher into the sky and blasting your gas as fast as it could go. You remember back in cadets, Jean was the one who taught you how to fully utilise your gas, all while saving your supply. How to use your body's momentum, let that do all the work.

Why am I thinking of this now?

You wince as you glance back, seeing the two follow suit and pull themselves higher into the sky also.

Is this my life flashing before my eyes? Am I really gonna die to Floch's little flunkies?

The irony would be such a bitter pill to swallow. Fighting and training all these years, building your skillset towards surviving Titans... and you're going to be killed by two humans.

We've been through this already! You think, the situation is reminiscent of four years ago, when Eren was taken by Kenny Ackerman.

Such simpler times.

You swing faster, taking Jean's advice and using your body weight to gain speed, not seeing the large claw further back behind you swat one of the men down like a fly. You hear the cry of anguish, your head automatically turning to look when - Ting.

Your dropped focus, even for that one second meant you missed your mark with your hook, clinking off a large brass bell of one of the calling towers, your body weightless as you begin to fall to the side, swinging and turning from your one embedded hook.

The wind is taken from your lungs as you cascade down towards the street, about to swing flat into the building you were connected to. As you fall and turn towards the direction of where your hunters were, your eyes enlarge in horror. Instead of the street, instead of your pursuers was a huge open mouth, jaws the size of those metal horse carriages you'd seen in Marley, those things they called "auto-mobiles". Teeth looking like they were carved from steel coming right at you, the darkness enveloping your vision as you realise too little too late, it was that jaw titan you'd seen in Liberio.

And it was going to swallow you whole.

You hadn't even heard it approach. How did it get here unnoticed?!

You don't have time to think about anything else as you collide with something soft. Something wet, and slightly smelly.

A scream pushes with force from the bottom of your lungs and you're enshrouded in darkness, the large tongue lapping over your whole body, soaking you and making it hard to breathe.

Your body jerks around, thick mucus covering your face making the task of breathing even harder.

You scream again, your blades...well they were in there with you, somewhere, but this heavy mush was preventing you from much if any movement. You try to push yourself up desperately within the blackness but the momentum of this beast's movements just slammed you back down. You felt weightless for a moment like you were falling again before a violent slam knocked all precious breath from your body.

Strange enough, although you couldn't see anything within the darkness, small flecks of coloured glitter began to dance in your peripheral vision, fuzzing their way closer and closer to the centre.

I'm going to pass out...

You sink into the underside of the tongue, feeling gravity press down into you as the jaw titan starts scaling the wall out of Trost.

Why isn't it... eating me... I... can't breathe...

You felt weightless again but at this point you weren't even sure if it were real or you were just starting to leave your body, to head to wherever your fallen comrades before you had gone to.

Your eyes squint as the wet cavern is suddenly filled with light once more, your body is ejected from the mouth as you crash onto the floor. You immediately pull thick strings of mucus off your mouth as you take in a deep breath of sweet, sweet air. Your blades crash down with you, still attached to your gear your clothes soaked with concentrated Titan saliva.

You push your backside away from the beast, hearing the familiar hiss of a body ejecting from its Titan form. You'd heard it before plenty of times with Eren.

Your eyes scan your surroundings in a panic, hands finding the hilts of your blades as you notice you're at the edge of a thick treeline, Wall Rose not too far off in the distance.

As your body grasps as much air as it could to make up for lost oxygen, your chest swelling and shrinking - you watch the figure emerge from the nape of this monster. The steam always made it hard to see, at first, the figure leaping off the empty shell with ease before making its way towards you.

Your trembling arm holds up your sword as you were still sat on the ground, all strength having left you.

When...

You notice his eyes first as he stands there, praying you recognise him too, and that it hadn't been all in his head - his chest heaving just as much as your own.

The Titan scorch marks framed the lower parts of his eyes but never the less, those desperate, pleading eyes belonged to -

"Porco...?" Your lips part in a gasp, getting to your feet but staggering back due to lack of remaining strength.

"So you do recognise me." His voice cracks, his brow still pulled back. "It wasn't all in my head?"

Your own head shakes, too shocked to form tangible words, beautiful lips still parted in sheer disbelief.

He hesitantly takes a step forward to gauge your reaction.

"Y-you... you're...?"

"Are you going to kill me?" His voice waivers, expression pained.

Without removing your dazed eyes from his, you press your fingers onto the two release switches, your gear dismantling and falling from your waist with a loud clink to the floor.

"You saved my life." You test the waters from your side now, one step forward.

That was all he needed.

Rupturing into a run towards you, within moments his body collides with yours, his large arms encasing your entire form as your head buries into his solid chest. He grits his teeth together in a furious attempt not to cry, his eyes tearing up regardless.

His heart pounds against your head as he trembles over your form.

"You're real..." You gasp. "You're the Jaw titan? How? Is that why we can talk? I don't know how it works -"

"Me neither." He lets out a breath of air with a smile as he rests his chin on top of your head, his eyes closed as he cherishes this moment. "But I'm sure glad it does."

Chapter IV The Crossroads

You sit in Porco's shirt and coat, your clothes drying on a tree branch as you sit at your little camp just a little way into the tree line. Porco built you a fire to keep you warm as you dry. His shirtless form sat on a fallen log looking into the fire.

"Pieck will be arriving soon." He mutters. "I told her to meet me here. I kind of went off mission to save you. But I couldn't ignore you being chased down like some rodent."

"Thank you." You reply with sincerity. "I'm not sure how much longer I would have lasted. But Porco... if our dreams were real, why didn't you tell me? I saw you in Liberio... we could have changed how things pla -"

"No." He cuts you off with a melancholic sigh. "What we have is just between us. No one else would understand. And even if they did... it wouldn't change anything. You and everything else is... separate."

Your eyes lowered. It was hard to hear, but you knew he was right.

"Will Pieck try to kill me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I put my neck out for you, she understands me that much, at least."

"Right."

"They already know we're here so... are you warm enough?"

You nod, your face burning slightly. "Yes, thank you."

Porco's eyes catch glimpse of your bare calves from under his long coat, respectfully glancing away into the flames as his nose starts to sink into a shade of red.

"So, that means..." You begin, wondering how to pick your next words. "You work alongside Reiner, right?"

He stops for a moment as if mere words froze him in place.

"Yeah."

"Oh..."

"You two were, together, right?"

You nod. "Up until he betrayed us and left."

Porco presses his lips together tightly. So many foreign emotions surged through him; envy, anger, even a pepper of pity. To have turned his back on her must have taken every ounce of strength he had. Maybe he should start cutting the guy some slack.

"Is he here?"

"You know I can't answer that."

This was going to be more complicated than you'd initially thought.

"Yeah, he's here."

The familiar, slightly gruff vocals made you both jump and turn to see Reiner standing there, large arms folded against his equally large chest.

Your breath was taken away instantly.

He'd aged well. His eyes which had witnessed more than enough horror for one lifetime were framed with slight crow's feet, his handsome face now peppered with a short amount of facial hair. His serious expression, and his eyes although framed differently, those honey orbs hadn't changed a bit.

An automatic response was getting to your feet.

"Don't worry, he won't try anything." Porco warned, his gaze piercing the blonde. "Isn't that right?"

"Well, you didn't waste any time, did you Porco?" His frown evident and pulling further down his beautiful face. "What was it you said you were going to do when you saw her?"

"Don't."

"Take real good care of her? Well good job, because now the plans gone to shit. Pieck isn't coming, Magath sent me instead."

It took every ounce of strength within Reiner not to look at you. Or maybe, that made this easier. One look into your eyes he so desperately missed, would melt him like butter.

"What? Why?"

Normally, Reiner would have shot a look in your direction, but he couldn't bring himself to. "We're really going to talk about this in front of the enemy?"

His vocals were dull but his words sharp, the blade of betrayal sinking into your breast all over again.

"I wouldn't be the enemy if you hadn't made me the enemy." You hiss, emotions thrashing from the reins of control.

"Why is she here?" Reiner ignored you, keeping his gaze on the shirtless Porco. "And why is she wearing your clothes?"

"Don't act like you can't hear me!" You call, taking a step forward. "After everything you've done, you can at least acknowledge me! Look at the mess you left behind you in your wake of death and destruction!"

Reiner's pained eyes finally glance over to you.

He holds the gaze for a few seconds, not knowing what to say. Where would he even begin? You're taken aback when you realise he's choking back the water that was threatening to spill out from his warm optics.

A tense, pregnant silence falls over the mini makeshift camp.

"Look, there are more important things going on right now..." You manage to choke out a whisper. "Figure out what you want to do. As soon as my clothes dry I'll go. Okay? Both of you pretend you never saw me, and I'll do the same."

Desperation clawed at both of the men's throats. They'd waited so long to see you, and now you were leaving. Without any conversations about... well, anything.

"No." Reiner muttered.

"No!" Porco snarled at the same time, his anger directed at Reiner.

They lock into a stare, the tension thick and just seeping with testosterone.

"Look..." Reiner then lets out a sigh. "Pieck has been assigned to bring Eren out into the open tomorrow afternoon. That's when it's all going to go down. We're both needed. Y/N."

Your head glances back up at your ex-lovers eyes.

"You can either stay here with Porco, head back to Eren or come back with me to my camp. It's your choice. There are... things I'd like to talk about with you before I kick the dust. If not, I understand. If you want to head back to Eren, we'll have to hold you here until we move out - not risking you informing him of anything."

"I don't even know where he is." You breathe with honesty. "Wouldn't it be wise to just, you know... kill me?"

The two then exchange glances.

"I don't think either of us is prepared to do that if we don't have to." Reiner replies. "Besides... Haven't you realised yet? I knew Porco would be a bit slower to catch on, but not you."

"Wha- what are you talking about?" Porco frowns.

Reiner's volume increases, his emotions now getting the better of him. "How dumb all this is. How we're all the same. Just pieces in a game. Yeah, some of us are knights. Some are pawns. Some are queens... but we're all being played against one another for all the wrong damn reasons. And I'm getting pretty fuckin' tired of it, wouldn't you say the same?"

Your head bobs in affirmation, the sliver of the Reiner Braun you once knew shining through the deep, dark abyss of his lost personality. He's still in there.

All you can hear in the tense silence is the crackling of the firewood, the flames dancing so carefree it was almost worthy of envy.

"No, I see it." Your whisper barely was audible.

"So... What's it going to be?" Porco asks you, his fingers fumbling together anxiously as he awaits your decision.

You feel like screaming from the top of your lungs. This impossible decision lay before you - you wanted to just yell for the three of you to just stay together. But you knew that wouldn't be possible. Would you go with your previous love, reconcile and hear him out?

Or

Do you stay here, with Porco the one who so far hasn't betrayed you and you've finally met after years of on-and-off ethereal communication?

This could be your last chance to hear Reiner out. One or both of you could die any time in the not-too-distant future. It seemed impossible.

No matter which decision you make, it's going to hurt.

You tremble, not really knowing what to do or what to say. You just wanted to crumble, fall from your damned pride and cry in a heap on the floor. You're oh-so-tired now of all of these hard decisions, and it didn't look like they were going to stop anytime soon.

So, y/n.

What path are you going to take?

Reiner

or

Porco

You have mere days to decide. Chapter IV Part II - 22/04/2023

[worm-wood-words]

So uhhh yeah I wrote the two intro scenes please don't rake me over coals that's not me being self deprecating I'm actually still fucked up about actually posting writing.

Anyway TWs for SA (no detail), intimate partner violence, suicide, blood. None of it's graphic but it's there.

2772 words

Veniae-di

Colony Outpost 9

2276, 3rd Standard Cycle

Carina, Age 15

Carina adjusted her mask, turned off her left eye and slid up her sunglasses. They did little against the sunlight streaming down, bouncing fiery off the mix of human and avaki ships docked ahead. She pressed her hands over her ears. They were similarly ineffective against the noise, the cacophony of human and alien tongues and of ships disembarking into space.

“Sorry, Rina.”Tovie whispered. “Your implants will settle down soon.”

Carina nodded, looking up at the woman beside her. She looked older than her 20 years, narrow black eyes scanning the crowd. She tapped her violet mouth, one clawed finger against a tooth poking out from her bottom lip. Short white horns curled out under the veil tied over her long dark braids, white with purple trim. Fine, light blue fur covered her azure skin. A smart brown jacket hung on her wide shoulders and a brown skirt fanned out around her ankles, the tip of a long, striped tail peeking out of it.

“No insignia?”Carina asked, also speaking under her breath. She doubted anyone out here was paying them much mind, but it was best not to take chances.

“I'm not with my unit yet.” Tovie rolled her eyes. “Besides, there's not much insignia on women's uniforms, remember?”

“Right, sorry.”Carina said. Tovie had tried to explain avaki military structures to her before but she had never quite understood, especially when it came to women being limited to a specific set of non-combat roles. “Are…are you sure we-”

“Relax, Rina we're blending in just fine.”

“Right.” She swayed on her feet, trying to ignore the weight of her backpack. “Now…now you said I'm…. Nevermind, sorry. The line's moving.”

They both fell silent, waiting as the two groups ahead were scanned and cleared to board. Carina had seen pictures of whales in her textbooks before, strange marine mammals that were rare on worlds other than Earth, and non-existent on Veniae-di. The avaki ship reminded her of them, all seamless curves of undulating blue and grey, the metal they were made from like a liquid held in place, a miniature ocean shielding a miniature world.

“Alright, we're up.”Tovie squeezed her hand. “We've got this, Rina.”

Carina nodded. Her hand fell at her side.

An avaki man stood by the ship’s door, his arms crossed. He looked them over. “Identification?”

Tovie held out one hand for the man to scan.

“Let's see.”he said. “Of Kallis clan, Tovrek. Ah, off to service. Com-sec, too. Not bad for a lady. Then again, I doubt your clan would accept less. And this one…” He pointed at Carina. “...is your…?”

“My servant.”Tovie said. “She's fully registered.”

“I suppose. Still, a com-sec officer bringing a human along….” His lips pursed, two long teeth jutting from the top.

“Oh don't worry.” Tovie scoffed. “She's a farm girl. Barely literate. I doubt she even understands what we're saying right now, and I won't be getting her a translator.”

“We'll see.”the man said. “Your chip, girl.”

As they had practiced, Carina did not respond. She blinked, staring wide eyed just past the man. Tovie grabbed her hand and held it out. She forced her breathing to stay steady and hoped the man couldn't hear her heart race. Tovie had rewritten her ID chip with a false identity, part outright falsehoods and part the truth of a girl who had recently died. The override would only last so long, if it worked at all. She bowed her head.

“Nova.” The name sounded strange in the man's mouth, unused to any human language. “Of Danvers clan.” He scrutinized his netpad. “Four year contract.”he said to Tovie. “Says she's old enough, barely. Hardly looks it, though. Nice find.”

“May we-”

“Yes, yes, go ahead through the decon scanner.”

“Thank you. Now.” She switched to the human common tongue. “Come along, girl.” The words flowed naturally.

Still silent and meek, Carina followed her. A blue glow ran over them, concentrating on their bags. Once the machine was sure they carried no contraband, a second door slid up to let them enter the ship. A wave of cold air washed over her. The light changed from blazing sun to a sickly fluorescence on silver walls. A crowd of avaki, mostly men, milled about. Multiple faces turned to them both. She shivered.

“Come, girl.” Tovie took her hand and pulled her down a corridor. Her hooves clicked on the metal floor. “Yes, here we are.” She let go, unlocked the room and nudged her inside. “Quiet.”

Carina obeyed, standing still as Tovie inspected the thin room. It was all bare silver metal with two panels stuck out from one wall. Hiding a sink and toilet, she assumed. A small mattress was folded away opposite to her. She watched the door, her heart quick again. None of the men in the entrance had been familiar. No one was coming. She repeated that in her head.

“Alright.” Tovie stuck a small translucent disk to the wall. “That should chop up our speech for a bit. And, hey, sorry about out there, Rina. Had to save face and all."

“I...I understand.”she replied. “I'm just glad we're here now.”

“What did I tell you?” She grinned down at her. “Nothing to worry about. I'm just that amazing.”

“You weren't nervous at all, Tovie?”she asked, lightly chiding.

“Okay, maybe a little.” She shrugged. “But we're fine now. Taking off soon. And hey, we have a window!” She pulled down the bed, leaving them barely room to stand, and pressed a button on the wall. It parted and light streamed in. “Come here, let's watch.”

Carina dropped her bag. It thudded on the floor. She knelt on the mattress. It was as hard as it had looked. Tovie pulled her close, one arm around her shoulder. She didn't know if it was an actual window or even a real time display. It didn't matter. She'd been too anxious in the shipyard to even take a final look. Now, green and red fields stretched before her, under the shadows of towering old brown trees. There was corn and soy and wheat, of course, but far more of the fields were full of avaki vegetables, the trees heavy with fruit just for them. Between the fields were chaotic columns of stack houses, tiny boxes of thin plastic that had been unfolded on the spots where they stood, little more than walls to guard against the elements, the upper levels only accessible by ladders on their outsides. Somewhere nearby, just out of view, was the Kallis mansion, a citadel of metal and glass that loomed over the human community of Outpost 9.

“Is it…gentler out there?”she asked in a strained whisper. “You…you've left a few times.”

Tovie rested a hand on her head, fingers in her hair, claws retracted. “It is.”she lied. “I'm…I'm sorry, Rina, that I couldn't-”

“It's…okay.”she lied in return.

“No, it's not, and-”

“It's not your fault.”

“It's not yours either.”

Carina didn't answer, staring at the fields. She had said goodbye to her mother. The final word had been met with silence.

“May I?”

She nodded and Tovie took her hand, a warm and strong grip.

“Takeoff in forty five seconds.”a low voice announced over a speaker.

They each sat, holding one side of the bed. The ship lurched.

“Sentinel Station isn't so bad.”Tovie said. “It's crowded, but…but it's not the worst place. And I promise I'll-”

“I know you won't be able to talk much.” she said. “Military monitoring and all. Hard to get around even for you. I know I'll be on my own.” She swallowed and rubbed her eyes. “It's okay.”she lied.

“I'm sorry.”

She said nothing. The ship lurched and Tovie held her up. She watched the fields shrink. They disappeared. The window closed.

“You okay, Rina?”

“We're…we're….” She buried her face in her hands. Tears that had built for days now burst through. A sob cut through her heart. Her throat tightened. She screamed, shaking in Tovie's arms.

Sevala

Northern Underground

2276 3rd Standard Cycle

Verren, Age 18

Verren coughed, curled up on the cold stone floor. Pale blue blood spurted between his teeth into his shaking hands. He'd stopped crying but his vision was still blurred, his left eye swollen shut. Kero hadn't broken anything. At least, he didn't think she had, though his whole body was heavy. His bleeding arms pulsed in pain, and multiple teeth had come loose.

"Get up." Kero's voice cut into his aching head. Her eyes narrowed to red slits and she crossed her arms.

He stumbled to his feet. "K-kero, I-"

"Quiet."

He hung his head. Blood dripped from his mouth.

“Fix this up."she said. "Then come to my room.”

"But, Kero, it is-"

"Come to my room."she repeated. “I have things to tell you. And be quiet."

He nodded. Kero walked away, silent. He looked at the first aid kit on the nearest wall, shook his head and turned away. By now he knew better than to even touch the tubes of cura in it. None of that was for him, especially not now. The cuts would heal well enough in time, though they would scar. He tied two old rags over his arms. That would do to stem bleeding. He didn't bother to fix his face, but just swept up the broken pieces. Black polished clay clattered in the garbage bin.

He had dropped the plate. He knew that, but couldn't remember it happening. His body had been useless before, but now it would refuse his control, going stiff and fogging his eyes at least once a day. Kero had forgiven him, the night he had realized he was unworthy of her, but even she could not forgive this new sickness. He swallowed back fresh tears and finished wiping his blood off the floor. The hallway stretched endless and dark before him. Most of the rooms were empty, as he had borne no children for her, not even sons, and Kero did not yet have other men to occupy her.

He stopped outside her room. It had only been five days since the stillbirth, his third in their two years of marriage. She knew he needed at least two weeks to heal, and over a month until they could try again.

"Vera."he whispered. Her half formed face filled his mind. It was a strong name. They could not try again. He didn't understand.

"Are you going to stand there and stare at the walls all night?"

Kero looked down at him. She was so tall, imposing and stately in dark grey silk woven with silver, a necklace of pointed teeth strung around her neck. Her deep red eyes bored into him. More than ever he understood her place in the world. He got to his feet, eyes glued to the floor, and followed her to her quarters.

She undressed. She undressed him. She pulled him into bed. It hurt. It did not seem to end, until at last she pushed him away. He laid there, eyes closed, the floor warm on his skin.

“That was good.”she said. “You’ll do well at Sarae’s.”

“What...what do you-”

She sighed. “Your results aren’t in yet, and your skin hasn't changed, but it’s clear you’re a Feraan-kiin.”she said. “I found a woman who can take you. She runs a...bar you can work at.”

His stomach sank, but he said nothing.

“You’re pretty, if nothing else.”she continued. “At least for now. You’ll do alright.”

“Thank you.”he whispered.

She stood, bent down and lifted him into her arms, carrying him across the room. A large square basin sat in the corner, perpetually full. She dropped him into the water and turned away.

He laid there, silent. Cold burrowed into his veins, cutting through the numbness. The water turned blue with blood, a concentrated, vile azure from his arms and between his legs. It blossomed out into pale cyan. More coated his mouth again. Kero had hit him before. Of course she had. Few women were blessed with mates who never had to be kept in line, and he was more foolish, self centered and impure than most men. She had needed to discipline him many times, but she had never made him bleed before.

He stood slowly, his limbs heavy, and tied a black sheet around his chest. Kero lay sprawled in bed, asleep on top of the large nest of blankets placed in a hole that had been cut into the floor. Verren swallowed down a lump in his throat, watching her. She was broad chested with strong arms and long, muscular legs. All was covered in black, shining scales, and two lines of flexible spines ran down the top and back of her head, connected by translucent blue skin. Her thick tail draped over the bed's edge. Even asleep, even as much as she frightened him now, she was a handsome woman, as ideal in looks as she was in temperament and intelligence, the sort who built and upheld erathi society.

He sighed. Love was not the goal of marriage. Still, he tried to remember if she had ever loved him, if she had ever been happy to have him pledged to her.

He couldn't. It didn't matter. He turned away. The door closed behind him. He drifted back to the kitchen. Slowly, mechanically, he opened the cupboards, took out three bottles and poured them into a bowl. They fused into a thin black liquid. It smelled rotten, a sign he had done it right. He took a knife off the wall, dipped it in and poured out the rest.

“Verren?”

Her voice shot through him. He froze. The knife hovered over his wrist.

“You should be in bed.”she said. “And - oh, by The Mother what is that smell?”

He did not hear her approach, did not know she was behind him until her shadow overtook his own.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was even and toneless.

He opened his mouth but could not speak, his throat tight and dry. She grasped his arm.

“No!”he yelled. He pulled and twisted in her grip.

The knife turned.

Kero's eyes widened. The knife fell. She followed, crashing to the floor.

He would never be sure how long he laid there, frozen and mute beneath her. It might have been minutes. It might have been hours. It felt like days. Arms straining, he slid out from under her and leaned against the cabinet, staring.

“Kero?”

She did not respond.

“K-kero?”

Again she did not speak or move.

“I…I am sorry.”he tried again. “I…I will go to bed. I will…will go to Sarae's. I am sorry.”

Silence stretched. The walls warped inward. She did not move or speak. Blood trailed dark blue from her arm, a thin river drying as it flowed.

He stood. The knife was dry. The poison was gone. He stared into the cupboard. There was enough to make more. Kero was dead. Kero was dead because of him. He held the knife.

Kero was dead. Kero was dead and he was alone. His head was full of static. He was alone.

He screamed. It echoed off the walls. He threw the knife. The jagged bone edge scratched as it fell, claws inside his skull. She still did not move.

He drifted, first to his room and then to hers. Grey skirt, grey tunic, get footwraps and grey gloves. A grey shawl, grey veil and mask. It was almost the garb of a proper man. Not even his eyes showed through. A slight haze hung over all, the world through gossamer webs.

He slid a panel aside on the wall. Kero stored most of her money digitally, but she also visited whores. That much was clear now. He held his breath and keyed in the combination, as much as he could recall from having watched her leave months ago.

The safe swung open, a cavern of deep red. The coins were heavy, pure carved Sevaath stone rather than coated disks. He swept them into a bag until he could carry no more. Surely that would be enough to pay a ship to smuggle him to the nearest station. Her door slid shut. The sound seemed far away.

In the kitchen she still lay there. He stared, silent, at her stiff body, searching his heart. Where there should have been sorrow, regret or even base fear, he only found a horrible, unfathomable lightness.

She was gone. She was gone and he was alone. He opened the door and stepped onto the street.