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witchywithwhiskey · 22 days

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🔪 Slasher 🔪 Choose Your Own Ending

pairing: DARK horror movie villain!bucky barnes x female reader

summary: somehow, you end up in your favorite old horror movie, and you decide to take the opportunity to fulfill one of your fantasies—you're gonna fuck the villain, bucky barnes.

warnings: 18+ content (minors do not interact!!!), dark themes and elements, typical horror movie violence (blood, murder, some gruesome descriptions), smut, unprotected sex, semi-public sex, creampie, unsafe sadist/masochist dynamic (reader is into it but there are no safe words), dry humping, knife kink, size kink, chase kink, oral sex (m receiving), rough sex, rough body play, light spanking, choking, breath play, bratting/brat taming (reader is slightly unhinged), dirty talk, degradation kink, praise kink, boot riding, dacryphilia, pet names (cottontail, baby), reader passes out during sex, possessive behavior

word count: 13.3k total (11.6k with only the dark ending; 11.9k with only the fluffy ending)

a/n: i really didn't know if i'd be able to finish this fic in time for the end of my Slasher Summer challenge because it's probably one of the most ambitious fics i've ever attempted. it's loosely inspired by the movie The Final Girls (highly recommend) but i couldn't decide how i wanted it to end, so y'all get TWO ENDINGS!! both are included here, with additional warnings down below. i worked really hard on this, so i really hope y'all enjoy!!! 😅

The last thing you remembered was the feel of fuzzy static on your tongue, fizzling through your arms and legs and making you feel like every nerve ending in your body was buzzing to life. You had a vague memory of licking something you probably shouldn’t have, but then your ears popped and you felt solid ground beneath your feet.

Staticky silence was suddenly replaced by shrill screams of excitement and the mechanical whirring of carnival rides. The rich scents of funnel cakes and popcorn and cotton candy filled your nose, making your mouth water with the desire to eat your weight in fried food.

Blinking your eyes open—not remembering when you’d closed them—you were met with the entrance to the Bakersfield Fun Fair. The big banner declaring the name of the carnival sparked a hazy recognition deep in your mind, but when you looked around, you didn’t quite recognize where you were, and you had no memory of how you’d gotten there.

Still, something about the fairground, with its ticket booth and carnival rides and all kinds of stalls selling food or touting games to play for prizes, felt familiar. Like you’d seen it in a dream, or when you were a child the memory was a distant thing.

Muggy summer air brushed against your skin with a soft breeze that helped to alleviate the worst of the heat, the air holding a hint of chill as the sun set on the distant horizon. It cast everything you could see, which was mainly just the carnival and the grassy field being used for a parking lot, in a golden glow.

Finally, it occurred to you to look down at yourself, finding that you were wearing cutoff jean shorts and a plain tank top—neither of which you recognized.

The confusion you’d held at bay suddenly overwhelmed you, making you feel as dizzy as if you’d just ridden the tilt-a-whirl, which you somehow knew was nestled somewhere in the fairgrounds. Your stomach lurched as your mind tried to make sense of where you were and how you’d gotten there. You closed your eyes and tried to think.

As you concentrated, memories began to surface in your mind, like you were dragging them up from the depths of a deep, murky lake.

It wasn’t summer. It was fall, you remembered, and just moments before you’d been curled up on the worn, aged rug in your grandmother’s basement. You were housesitting for her while she was on a cruise.

You remembered closing your laptop, heaving a huge sigh of relief at finishing work for the day, then going down into the basement. You’d spent countless hours there as a teenager watching movies on the big, boxy TV set, the kind where you could feel the static if you put your hand against the screen. Your favorite movies to watch were the horror ones…

That was it!

That was why Bakersfield and the carnival seemed so familiar. Bakersfield was the small town terrorized by the ruthless villain in your favorite horror movie, Slasher, and the final act’s killing spree took place at the town’s annual end of summer carnival. The Bakersfield Fun Fair.

And the villain was Bucky Barnes, a psychotic killer with a sadistic sense of humor and piercing blue eyes.

You’d had a crush on him when you’d first watched Slasher as a teenager, and your attraction to him remained even well into your adult years. You’d decided to put the movie on because you’d been lonely at your grandmother’s, figuring a night with your favorite horror movie slasher would be the closest thing to a date you could get.

Once you remembered that, the rest of it came back to you. You’d been curled up on the rug in front of the TV, and your favorite scene had come on. It was the one where Bucky is cleaning a bullet wound in his shoulder—given to him by the movie’s mean girl, right before he brutally stabs her in the head—and he had his shirt off, showing the broad expanse of his muscled chest.

It hadn’t been your finest moment, but you were lonely and you got it into your head to lick the screen of the TV over Bucky’s bare chest. And then, that was it. That was all you remembered—and the feeling of static on your tongue.

Opening your eyes, you looked up at the banner again. You blinked. And blinked again. Then you pinched yourself. You didn’t wake up.

The sign still read Bakersfield Fun Fair. But…that was impossible.

Your jaw went slack as you looked around—really looked at your surroundings.

In the time that you’d spent figuring out where you were, the sun had dipped behind the tops of the trees in the forest beyond the fairground, turning the sky pink and orange, fading into a deep cerulean. There was a ferris wheel in the distance, and the canopy top of a carousel off to the side.

There were lines of stalls stretching in both directions beyond the entrance to the fair, some with ring toss games and others with milk bottles to be knocked over. Other stalls were selling all kinds of junk food, from cotton candy to candy apples.

Everything looked and sounded and smelled real. You could practically taste the funnel cake on your tongue, and feel the powered sugar-covered fried dough melting in your mouth. You could clearly see the faces of all the people milling around the fair, kids breaking off with hands clasped tight around their tickets as they went running down the various rows of stalls.

And the closer you looked, the more realized everything was dated. The clothes, the rides, the toy prizes. Everything looked like it was from the early 90s, when Slasher was made. Even your own clothes and the tennis shoes on your feet looked like they were out of the 90s.

It was bizarre, and yet, it didn’t feel like a dream. But it had to be a dream. Right?

Spinning around in a circle, you decided that had to be the case. It was the only thing that made sense. It’s not like you could’ve been transported into the world of your favorite horror movie. Stuff like that didn’t happen; it broke all rules of physics and other science stuff you didn’t understand.

Deciding to just roll with it and enjoy your dream, you shrugged off your confusion and headed into the Bakersfield Fun Fair. While you meandered down one of the lines of stalls, you wondered if you’d see any of the characters from the movie. You wondered if you’d see Bucky.

You almost tripped over the grass beneath your feet at the thought, your heart speeding up in your chest and beating excitedly against your rib cage as you considered the possibility of actually meeting your biggest horror movie crush.

But your mind didn’t stop there. Oh no. You were the girl who’d decided to lick an old, staticky TV because it was the closest you thought you’d ever get to licking Bucky’s bare chest.

Naturally, your mind took the thought of meeting him much further and you thought about fulfilling one of your most cherished fantasies. If you were in the world of Slasher, you wanted to fuck Bucky Barnes.

Before you’d ended up at the Bakersfield Fun Fair, in some ultra-realistic dream, the closest you could’ve gotten was finding a guy who looked like Bucky Barnes and try to convince him to wear the Slasher mask while chasing you through the woods.

But you’d found yourself in the world of your favorite horror movie—whether by way of your subconscious dreaming about it, or some breakdown of the space-time continuum—and you had the chance to fuck the actual Bucky Barnes. Giddy excitement flooded through you, and you began skipping down the line of carnival stalls, trying to remember what exactly happens in the final act of Slasher.

It probably should’ve worried you how unconcerned you were with the possibility that Bucky could kill you before you even got started trying to convince him to fuck you. But it was your dream, so what was the worst that could happen? If he killed you, you’d just wake up horny and dissatisfied, right? Then, you’d have to take care of yourself, which wasn’t any different to any other day of your life.

Nah, you were almost entirely certain you were in a dream, and because it was your dream, you wouldn’t have too much trouble getting Bucky to fuck you. You just had to find him…

As if right on cue, screams erupted from the opposite end of the fairground, and it sparked your memory. The action at the end of Slasher ramps up when Bucky storms the Bakersfield Fun Fair and the final girl, along with the remainder of her friends, try to set a trap for him.

Trying to hid your giddy grin, you raced through the fairground, heading in the direction of the screams. Since you’d remembered the beginning of the end of the movie, you couldn’t help but think about what else happens. Bucky carves through the final girl’s friends one by one in various, gruesome ways on the carnival rides at the fair. Then, the final girl eventually traps him by crushing his arm in the gears of the carousel.

Bucky doesn’t die, of course. He comes back in the sequel, Slasher II, and sports a metal arm that glimmers in the moonlight while he stalks the final girl around Bakersfield all over again. It’s not nearly as good as the first movie, but Bucky is still very hot, and you watched the sequel nearly as many times as the original when you were a teenager.

You were so distracted by thoughts of Bucky’s prosthetic arm, and what it would feel like to have his metal hand wrapped around your throat while he fucked you, that you didn’t realize you were suddenly alone in the fairground, and you’d made it to the Tunnel of Love ride.

It was then that you spotted the macabre scene of the final girl’s best friend—you couldn’t remember the character’s name, it was something boring like John—with his heart ripped out of his chest and held in his limp, dead hands. His lifeless eyes stared unseeingly ahead, looking almost like a movie prop, but so, so much more real.

This particular kill was one of Slasher’s most controversial, you remembered. Half the cult fandom argued it was too on the nose, since the movie heavily implied John was in love with the movie’s final girl and never found the courage to tell her. The other half of the fandom enjoyed the tragic romance of it.

Personally, you didn’t care much about the kills or the drama between the final girl and the other characters. You really only watched Slasher for Bucky, and only cared about the creativity of the murders when he looked particularly hot doing them.

Your mind whirled as you stared at John’s dead body, your brain focusing on the Slasher message boards you’d trawled well into your college years, rather than trying to make sense of the horrible sight in front of you. It really, really looked like real blood soaking his clothes—and you could even smell the coppery tang of it in the air.

Instinctively, you took a step back, the grass of the fairground soft beneath your feet. The sun had slipped fully behind the trees of the forest beyond the fairground, casting long, ominous shadows over the scene. Your heart beat harder in your chest, and you took another step back, as if putting room between you and the horrific sight in front of you would somehow make it easier to reconcile.

You took one more step backward and bumped into something solid, something that you knew deep in your bones shouldn’t be there.

The smell of blood was stronger suddenly, mixing with an earthy, spicy scent that didn’t make sense for the carnival fairground. Holding your breath, you slowly looked over your shoulder and were met with the sight of a black leather-clad chest.

Already, you knew it was him. But you dragged your eyes up and sucked in a gasp when you met the piercing blue gaze of Bucky Barnes.

His eyes were filled with a cold hatred that was so visceral, it made your stomach twist in a way that was not entirely unpleasant. Inexplicably, warmth bloomed low in your core, unfurling and reacting to the villain’s presence. Finally, you were face to face with your biggest horror movie crush, and you couldn’t help but take a moment to take all of him in.

Bucky Barnes was even bigger and more intimidating than he seemed on your TV screen, and he was more handsome too. His eyes were an electric blue, the color so bright, it seemed like it glowed from within. And his chin-length brown hair fell on either side of his face, highlighting the strong line of his brow and the intensity of his gaze.

The villain’s mouth and nose were covered by the hard plastic mask that matched the utilitarian leather jacket and combat pants he wore with thick, heavy boots. There were straps on the leather jacket that spanned his broad shoulders, and a utility belt around his trim waist where he secured the various knives and weapons he used throughout the movie.

Looking up at his face again, you realized Bucky was so much taller than you expected, standing behind you like a mountain of cold hatred, radiating danger and menace. Unfortunately for you, that only made the heat simmering in your belly burn hotter until you were squeezing your thighs together against the ache building there.

You knew your body’s reaction to the psychotic murderer was foolish, to say the least, but there was something about the dangerous man that made your heart beat harder, and made you want to spread your legs for him.

Glancing down to Bucky’s hand, you saw the big butcher’s knife dangling from his fingers. He hadn’t raised it yet, and when you looked back into his eyes, the villain seemed to be watching you closely, as if wondering how you were going to react to him.

The longer you went without screaming or running away from him, the more his brows lowered over his eyes. He began to look perplexed.

That was fine, you could work with perplexed.

Carefully, as if dealing with an animal you didn’t want to spook, you turned around and set your hands gently on Bucky’s massive chest, your fingertips toying idly with the leather straps on his jacket. Holding his gaze with your own, you slid your hands up to his shoulders and pushed yourself up onto you tiptoes so you could twine your arms around his neck, as if he were your boyfriend and you were welcoming him home.

“Hi,” you murmured, your voice coming out breathy as your heart beat wildly in your chest. You fluttered your lashes at Bucky, figuring that if you didn’t treat him like a threat, he wouldn’t be. And so far, it was working.

The horror villain didn’t seem inclined to respond to your shy greeting, so you pressed yourself close to him, enjoying the feel of his hard body against your soft one. Arching your spine, you pushed your tits up in your tank top, as if offering them to him.

You were gratified when Bucky’s gaze dropped to your lightly heaving chest, and felt his empty hand twitch against your bare thigh, like he wanted to touch you but was holding himself back. Not that you needed him to touch you to know he was enjoying the feel of you against him.

Bucky’s bulge was already digging into your lower stomach, and you suspected he’d already been hard before you’d pressed against him. But still, you were gratified when, every time you shifted against him, he twitched in his pants, his cock eagerly responding to you.

The interest of Bucky’s cock had a smile spreading across your face, making you look like the cat who got the cream as you tipped your head back and grinned shamelessly up at the horror movie villain.

“Is that a knife in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” you purred, rocking your body against Bucky’s bulge and pressing your chest more tightly to his leather jacket. You were practically rubbing on him like a cat in heat, but you couldn’t stop yourself. It felt too good to feel his solid, sturdy form against you.

As you shifted closer, you could feel the tackiness of blood on your arms and chest, and when you glanced down, you saw that some had stuck to you from Bucky’s jacket. It was odd to see the blood on your skin, but it felt like another reminder of what you were doing—and, especially, who you were doing it with.

Fire was blazing through your veins as you cast your hooded eyes on Bucky’s face, your mouth going soft as you met his piercing gaze. There was a cold flame in the depths of his blue eyes, one you’d never seen in all the times you’d watched Slasher, and it filled you with pride to realize Bucky liked having you pressed against him.

In response to your question, which you’d almost forgotten in the seconds after it passed your lips, Bucky huffed a laugh behind his mask. Then his hands were on your ass, and he was grabbing your soft flesh with an unyielding grip. He hiked you up higher against his chest, using his inhuman strength, and your legs fell open instinctively, so his thick bulge dug into the juncture of your thighs.

A wanton moan fell from your lips, your head falling back as you rocked your hips in tiny circles, grinding on Bucky’s hard cock through your clothes. You could feel the flat steel of his knife pressed to the back of your thigh, and your core pulsed at the weapon’s proximity to your most sensitive place, but you didn’t have any worry he was going to use it on you—not when he was staring at you with such a greedy look in his eyes.

Bucky growled out, “Dumb slut,” as his fingers dug into your ass through your jean shorts, but you were too distracted by humping against the mountain of a man, pleasure swirling through your body and filling your head with cotton candy nothing.

All that mattered was grinding against Bucky’s bulge, and the fact that you were finally—finally—getting to live out your darkest fantasies of fucking the horror movie villain.

“Y’know, I always wondered if killing made your cock hard,” you murmured breathlessly, catching Bucky’s eye and giving him a cheeky grin. “Guess I have my answer now.” You dragged the seam of your shorts up the thick length of Bucky’s cock, drawing a growl from him, your smile spreading wider. “Unless you just have a soft spot for dumb sluts like me,” you said, giggling at your own joke and batting your lashes at him.

Bucky shook his head at you, but not like he was disagreeing with you—more like he was already exasperated with your antics.

“I thought I already killed this town’s biggest slut,” Bucky ground out, and though you couldn’t see his mouth or jaw, you somehow knew he was grinding his teeth. His fingers dug harder into your ass, his grip nearly punishing as you squirmed against him.

You found an angle that had your clit rubbing against the tip of Bucky’s cock through your clothes and you let your head fall back, a filthy moan spilling from your lips. The obscene sound rose toward the darkening sky above the fairgrounds, loud against the silence that had fallen over the deserted carnival.

When you managed to get control of your tongue again, and pick up the thread of your conversation, you shot Bucky another grin.

“I’m not from Bakersfield,” you purred, pulling yourself closer to Bucky’s face, until your lips were nearly brushing against the hard plastic of his mask. You could feel his breath, hot and heavy, gusting through the slots on the front, making you shiver. Your expression settled into one of fake seriousness as you stared him in the eye. “And you have no idea how much of a slut I can be.”

A growl rumbled in Bucky’s chest, and his blue eyes narrowed on you, like a predator deciding on its prey.

“Is that a challenge or an invitation, little cottontail?”

He slapped your ass with the flat of his knife, an obvious instruction to keep humping against him.

As you followed the order, you choked out a one word answer, “Both!” Then bit your lip against a moan, hiding your delight at the nickname—and your surprise that Bucky would call you anything so sweet.

But you didn’t seem to be grinding against him hard enough, because he dragged the sharp edge of his knife over the backs of your thighs, just beneath the curve of your ass. He didn’t press hard enough to break skin, but you could feel the threat in the gesture.

You lost the battle against trembling in the big, horror movie villain’s arms, and whimpered, rocking against him harder as a single tear leaked down your cheek. Pleasure was pulsing through your body, hard and fast, the same rhythm in which your heart beat in your chest.

Bucky rumbled a sound of pleasure, his blue eyes going molten as he watched the tear track down your face. He seemed to have forgotten your conversation entirely, more focused on your smaller body humping against his larger one.

You had long since soaked through your panties, and you could feel your arousal leaking through your shorts, coating your inner thighs in your wetness. But dry humping with Bucky wasn’t what you had in mind when you’d fantasized about the horror movie villain through most of your adult years. You needed more, and you had just the idea—a fantasy you’d long wanted to fulfill. With Bucky Barnes especially.

“I know you’re sort of busy, killing and all that,” you huffed, your body straining to keep rocking against his thick length with the speed he desired. “But I was wondering if you might want to take a break and play a game with me?” Your voice was hopelessly breathless and breathlessly hopeful, the pleading in your tone blatant as your words pitched higher with your question.

Bucky’s brows lowered in confusion. “What kind of game?” came his rumbling, distorted voice from behind his mask.

With a flash of a smirk, you shifted one hand to his shoulder, where you remembered the bullet wound would be beneath his jacket. You could feel the slight raise of the bandages beneath the leather, and you dug your thumb into the spot. You were rewarded by a vicious growl and Bucky’s hands falling away from your ass, the cold steel of his knife disappearing from your skin.

Hopping down, you danced a few feet away from the now-enraged psychopathic killer, making sure you were beyond the reach of his long arms, including the length of his knife before you stopped. Something in your core tightened with excitement when Bucky’s cold, blue eyes focused entirely on you. Even the sight of him shaking out his arm seemed somehow threatening.

You could see the dark stain of deep red blood in the black leather of his jacket, and couldn’t help but grin. You’d unleashed the darkest side of him, and you couldn’t be more giddy.

You knew Bucky had been holding back on you while you’d been in his arms. But you didn’t want to fuck a horror movie villain because you wanted some harmless dry humping. You wanted him to wreck you. You wanted him to hunt you down and make you his.

“The game is this,” you began, skipping back a few steps when Bucky lunged for you—though you noticed he reached for you with his free hand, rather than his knife, which you took as a good sign and grinned wider. “If you catch me, you can fuck me.” You held his gaze, your smile turning a little feral as you watched the seething villain. “As hard and as rough as you want.”

Your final words made Bucky pause, like a predator going still right before launching itself at its prey. His electric blue eyes shone brighter, reflecting the neon lights of the carnival as they fall across his handsome face.

You could feel the energy in him shift, and even though you couldn’t see his mouth, you somehow knew he was grinning. You suspected it was even more feral than your own smile.

“You really are the dumbest fucking slut, little cottontail,” Bucky growled, equal parts humor and menace in his tone, sending a delicious shiver skating down your spine. He took a step forward, his eyes sharp as they watched you skip backward, staying out of reach of his hand and his knife. “You better not let me catch you, baby, because if I do, I’m going to make you scream bloody murder as I split you open with my cock.”

The grin on your face was so wide it was beginning to make your cheeks hurt, but you couldn’t wipe it away even if you’d tried. Your entire body was buzzing with anticipation, adrenaline already pumping through your veins as you prepared to run. But you couldn’t help yourself, you had to taunt Bucky just a little more. If you were only going to get one chance to fuck your horror movie villain crush, you were going to make it count.

“Bet you say that to all the girls—bet none of them can scream like me,” you sassed, bouncing on the balls of your feet and scampering back a few more steps when Bucky took another menacing step forward, his big, heavy boot crunching the grass beneath him.

You laughed at his scowling face, the sound loud and wild in the quiet that had fallen over the fairgrounds. Even the music of the carousel had gone silent. But you couldn’t hold your tongue. You loved the look of danger on Bucky’s face too much.

“You gotta catch me first, Mr. Slasher, then we’ll see if you can make me scream.”

With that parting challenge, you gave Bucky one last cheeky, impertinent smile, and the you turned and took off.

Sprinting off into the Bakersfield Fun Fair, you didn’t dare look behind you, knowing instinctively that Bucky would be close on your heels. Your mind raced as you tried to form some kind of plan, since you hadn’t thought this far ahead.

Of course, you had every intention of letting Bucky catch you, but you didn’t want to make it too easy for him. Besides, you’d always wanted to be chased by the hot horror movie villain, then overpowered and taken by the brutal man, so you wanted to make sure you enjoyed yourself as well.

As you turned a corner and began running down a row of carnival rides and games on the edge of the fairground, you spotted the funhouse in front of you. Grinning wildly, you pushed to run a little harder and launched yourself up the metal stairs leading into the funhouse.

There was a spinning barrel right away, and you clambered through it, the silence inside the funhouse swallowing you up as you plunged into the depths of the structure. Hauling yourself up a flight of stairs, you stumbled to a stop when you found that the interior of the funhouse was a maze of mirrors.

Your heart was practically beating out of your chest as you began moving through the maze, your hands outstretched to feel your way between the mirrors. Too soon, you heard Bucky’s heavy footsteps on the metal stairs leading up to the level with the maze and you tried to scurry faster, but you kept bumping into mirrors thinking they were a clear path forward.

A deep, dark chuckle echoed through the stuffy room in the funhouse, the sound distorted through Bucky’s mask, making him truly sound like a horror movie villain.

The sound of his laugh sent a shiver racing down your spine, your heart rate picking up as you heard his heavy boots begin walking through the maze. It seemed like he was moving much faster than you and you tried to pick up your pace.

“When I get my hands on you, little cottontail,” Bucky began, his menacing voice filtering to you easily, sounding like he was right behind you. “You’re going to regret being such a dumb slut—I’m going to destroy your tight holes with my cock and ruin you until you’re all mine.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time!” you called over your shoulder, just before barreling into another mirror with a defeated, “oof,” as you tried to escape the maze.

Huffing in frustration, you turned and went down another path, your panicked breaths so loud in your ears, you couldn’t hear Bucky’s footsteps anymore. You bit your lip, trying to stay quiet, but your lungs protested, your pounding heart making you feel the blood pumping through your veins with every step you took.

“If you’re a good slut, maybe I won’t kill you,” Bucky rumbled, his voice definitely closer than it should be, and you whipped around, looking for the source. But he was no where in sight. “Maybe I’ll keep you—chain you up in my basement, and use your body like the fuck hole you were meant to be.”

You tried to ignore the way your pussy quivered at Bucky’s threat, your body wanting him to do exactly that. But you pushed on, though you were having a harder and harder time remembering why you didn’t want him to catch you. Your panties were soaked and your hole was aching to be filled. And Bucky seemed more than willing to fuck you until you were nothing more than the dumb slut he accused you of being.

Rounding a corner, you gasped loudly as the massive form of Bucky Barnes loomed in front of you, his blue eyes immediately finding yours and making you feel like prey trapped by a much larger predator.

Spinning on the ball of your foot, you turned and tried to escape in the other direction, only to run head first into Bucky’s chest. His arms closed around you, and you belatedly realized the Bucky you’d seen had been a reflection in one of the mirrors. He wasted no time, squeezing you so tight to his body that you cried out, his strength forcing the air from your lungs. You were caught.

“I win, little cottontail,” Bucky sneered, crushing you harder to his chest while you struggled to breathe, your ribs feeling like they were on the verge of snapping.

Then, suddenly, he let you go and you slumped to your knees, your legs giving out as you fell to the metal floor of the funhouse. Your head was spinning from the lack of air and you focused on pulling as much oxygen into your lungs as possible, the adrenaline in your body making you feel your heartbeat in your temples.

While you were distracted, Bucky quickly worked his pants open and before you knew what was happening, his thick, heavy cock fell on your face with a lewd slapping sound. You flinched. But then Bucky’s musky scent filled your nose, and you relaxed. Warmth spread through your body as your mind went fuzzy for an entirely different reason than lack of oxygen.

Your mouth fell open instinctively, your head tipping back to press your lips to his girth, and you felt more wetness dripping from your slit between your thighs.

Bucky chuckled at your obvious submission, but still used the flat tip of his knife to tip your face back further, until it was practically horizontal. He worked his hips languidly, sliding his cock over your face, precum dripping onto your skin and making a mess of your cheeks and forehead.

“Open your mouth wider, dumb slut,” Bucky growled, his eyes glittering in the dim funhouse as he stared down at you.

When you did as he ordered, sticking your tongue out for good measure, the tip playing with his balls, the horror villain made a pleased sound deep in his chest. You had the distinct impression he was smiling again, and you almost dared to ask him to take off the mask, but decided against it. Part of the fun of fucking Bucky Barnes was him keeping the mask on.

“Good girl,” Bucky purred, petting your head with his free hand. He dragged his hips back and pushed the leaking head of his dick into your mouth. “Now, suck.”

The metal flooring of the funhouse dug painfully into your knees, but you pushed the pain from your mind as you focused entirely on Bucky’s cock. Wrapping your lips around the head, you sucked gently, the taste of his precum bursting on your tongue. Your chest warmed with pride when he groaned in pleasure.

You’d intended to take your time—wanting to savor Bucky’s cock and learn every inch of the thick, veiny length before making him come in your mouth. But it seemed your horror movie crush didn’t have the patience for that. You supposed you shouldn’t be surprised. You did make him chase you.

“Is that all ya got, little cottontail?” Bucky growled, using the hand on your head to push you down roughly on his cock, making you gag, your hands flailing against his hard thighs. “I thought you were some kind of slut—thought you’d be throating my cock the second you got your lips around it.”

Tears poured down your cheeks as he pushed deeper with a grunt, your fingers curling into fists against his thighs as you tried to open for him. Bucky’s cock forcing its way into your throat stung a little, and you worked to relax your muscles, but they kept squeezing tight, preventing his hard length from sliding all the way in.

Finally, Bucky pulled his cock free from your mouth and you gasped for breath, a hand massaging your throat, the inside feeling raw already. But Bucky didn’t seem to care.

He bent down over you, grabbing your face in his free hand and using the sharp end of his knife to wipe the tears from your face.

“I thought you wanted this, baby,” he rumbled, his tone mocking and patronizing, a laugh in his distorted voice that made you think he was grinning and enjoying your struggle more than he was trying to let on. “You said I could fuck you as hard and rough as I want.” He paused to tsk at you. “You can’t even take my cock without gagging—some slut you are.”

Embarrassment and no small amount of humiliation flooded through you, making you pout. OK so maybe you were more of a slut in theory than in practice, but you did want this. And you’d been trying. Couldn’t he see that?

Crossing your arms over your chest, you glared up at Bucky, your lips still pursed in a pout.

“Your cock is too big,” you huffed, a hint of a whine in your voice. “Let me try again.”

Bucky laughed, the sound cold and mean, though that only made your pussy drip even more for him. He patted your cheek patronizingly with his knife before fixing you with a hard look.

“You either take my whole cock in your dumb slut mouth, little cottontail,” he growled, a threat in his tone. “Or I’ll make you take it, ya hear me?”

The menace in his deep voice sent a shiver racing down your spine, settling heavily between your thighs until you had to squeeze them together against the ache in your core. You nodded your understanding. “Yes, sir,” you murmured.

“Good girl,” came Bucky’s rumbling, terrifying voice. Then he stood up and shoved his cock into your mouth again, so suddenly that all you could do was make a muffled, surprised noise and take it.

You bobbed on the hard, thick length of Bucky’s cock, stretching your lips until the edges stung, forcing his girth deep into your mouth. You gagged when the tip pressed against the back of your throat, but you tried to ignore your body’s response and work past it. No matter how hard you tried, though, you couldn’t get his dick all the way inside your mouth.

After a few minutes of letting you try and watching you fail, Bucky let out an impatient growl before muttering, “Looks like you need me to make you take my cock, baby.” Both his hands grabbed your head and he tilted it back, so your gaze met his. “Just remember, if you’d been a better slut, you wouldn’t have made me do this.”

Your eyes widened, tears leaking out the corners as he moved you into the new position he wanted, with your back to one of the mirrors, your head trapped between the hard surface and his cock. Your fingers fisted in the fabric of his pants near his knees, but you didn’t protest, just stared up at your horror movie villain, anticipation zipping through your body.

“Don’t worry, little cottontail,” Bucky rumbled, and you could tell he was smiling again, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a telltale way. “This won’t hurt nearly as much as if I’d slit your throat—but it’ll probably last longer than it would’ve taken you to bleed out.”

At that ominous comment, your pussy clenched, even more wetness dripping from your pussy and soaking your shorts. You clenched your thighs together, but that was the only part of your body you could move other than your arms. You were helpless to Bucky’s brutality, and you loved it. If his cock wasn’t already buried in your mouth, you would’ve urged him on.

Wasting no more time, Bucky shoved his dick deep into your mouth, pushing past the squeezing muscles in your throat, groaning when you choked and gagged on his thick cock. Your jaw ached and your throat felt raw, but you accepted it, you welcomed it. Bucky’s roughness was only making your pussy wetter, and you couldn’t wait until you could feel him sinking into your tight, wet hole.

Still, you couldn’t quite control your body’s reaction to the intrusion in your throat. Your throat spasmed and you let out a strangled little sound of desperation as it got harder to breathe. You arms flailed and your body tried to escape, only to bang against the mirror behind you. The fact that you were trapped, really trapped, made more tears leak from your eyes.

“That’s it, baby, cry for me while you’re choking on my cock,” Bucky rumbled, holding your head in his hands as he stared down at you, kneeling for him, your throat bulging with his cock. His eyes sparkled like he enjoyed the sight far too much. “Your dumb slut tears are making me harder.”

You felt his cock throb in your throat as proof, but then he was pulling back, only for his hips to snap forward, burying his hard length in your throat all over again. More tears poured down your face, your throat closing on a sob that wrenched a deep, pleasured groan from Bucky.

“Fuck, that’s it—take it, slut, you might be crying, but you fucking love it, don’t you, little cottontail?” Bucky rumbled, breathless laughter in his tone. “You love letting me use your mouth like my own personal fuck toy, bet your pussy’s dripping onto the floor, making a mess of your thighs like ‘m gonna make a mess of your face, huh?”

You couldn’t help it, you moaned around Bucky’s cock, his words stoking the blazing fire of your arousal. It didn’t help matters that he was right—your thighs, your shorts and your panties were a mess, all soaked with your desire.

Bucky grunted when he felt you moan around his hardness, his hips snapping against your face harder as he pounded into your mouth. His hands held your head in a punishing grip, his cock ramming deep into your throat while the back of your skull was pressed against the mirror behind you.

A whine worked its way up your throat as you squirmed, your pussy pulsing with the need to be filled, to be rubbed, to get some kind of attention. One of your hands fell between your thighs and you rocked against it, your clit rubbing against the seam of your shorts until you were moaning and sobbing around Bucky’s cock.

Suddenly he stopped. “What’re you doin’ down there, little cottontail?” he rasped, ducking his head to the side so he could see around his cock and your face. When he caught you with your hand between your thighs, he laughed, his glittering blue eyes finding yours. “Oh, I see—the dumb little slut’s dripping hole needs some attention, huh?”

Bucky shifted, using his booted foot to kick your thighs apart on the metal floor of the funhouse. Then he shoved his boot between your legs, and jerked his head like he expected you to sit on it.

“You need something to hump against, don’t you, baby?” he asked, his tone mocking. “Well, go ‘head. Ride my fucking boot, little cottontail.” His voice was dark and deep, the sound of it making you shiver. But you couldn’t pretend you didn’t want to follow his order, so you lowered yourself down onto his boot.

The moment your aching core dragged over the laces of Bucky’s boot, you let out a low, filthy moan, the sound muffled by his cock in your mouth. It was exactly the kind of friction you wanted, your clit and messy slit rubbing against the seam of your shorts and the roughness of his laces. Pleasure bloomed, hot and heady, and swirled through your body, overwhelming your mind.

Above you, Bucky groaned, shoving deeper into your throat until your nose was pressed into the thick thatch of hair at the base of his cock and his balls were nestled up against your chin. Spit and precum and tears were leaking down your face, making a mess of your jaw and chin, dripping down to your tits while Bucky watched you with hooded eyes.

“Do that again, baby,” Bucky grunted, holding your head down on his hardness. “Moan like a dumb fucking slut on my cock while I ruin your throat.”

It took little effort to moan again as pleasure and pain swirled through your body, your hips working on Bucky’s boot, grinding your slick cunt against the stiff leather through your panties and shorts. Your clit rubbed over the laces, your mind filling with clouds of bliss as you sank into the feeling of your pussy grinding against Bucky’s boot and his cock fucking your throat.

Bucky was grunting and groaning loudly, his sounds of pleasure a reward for how good your slutty mouth was making him feel. He pounded into your face, his balls slapping against your chin, seeking his release while you humped against his boot, intent on finding your own pleasure while he used you.

You were both lost entirely in each other, too focused on seeking pleasure to notice someone else had entered the funhouse. Bucky’s eyes were only for you, and you were staring up too intently into his face, watching pleasure make his eyes go hazy to pay attention to your surroundings—which was the only reason one of the final girl’s friends was able to sneak up on the two of you.

“Get away from her, you monster!” The girl’s shriek was followed closely by the splintering sound of a wooden bat as she swung it at Bucky, and the thing shattering apart against his back. Her face, twisted in fury and determination, quickly shifted to surprise and panic.

For his part, Bucky merely grunted, barely lurching forward as he shoved his cock impossibly deeper in your throat while he bore the attack. But then he was moving quicker than your pleasure-drunk eyes could fully process, your body only aware that he was pulling back until only the tip of him remained on your tongue. Growling furiously, Bucky turned and used his knife to slash the girl’s throat.

You vaguely recognized the girl as one of the characters in Slasher who gets killed at the carnival in the third act, though you couldn’t remember which ride Bucky kills her on. Maybe it was the funhouse—that would explain how she found the two of you.

In that moment, you didn’t much care. You’d been busy with Bucky and you were more than a little annoyed at the interruption. Your body was buzzing with your unslaked need, and you felt horny and frustrated as you turned your attention back to the horror villain above you.

But Bucky’s focus was entirely on the other girl, who was grabbing her throat uselessly, trying to stem the gush of blood as she stumbled into a mirror, leaving a bloody handprint behind. Bucky’s eyes were gleaming as he savored the sight of the dying girl, the corners of his eyes crinkling like he was grinning.

His cock was still in your mouth, but just barely, and the longer he watched the other girl die, the more a pout grew on your lips.

After a few long moments of the girl’s death dragging on, you’d had enough. This was your fantasy come to life, and if Bucky wasn’t going to pay attention to you and get you off, then you were going to make him.

Carefully, you extracted yourself from between Bucky and the mirror you’d been pressed against, your pout only growing when his stiff cock slipped from your lips and he didn’t even notice. Quickly, you crawled around the corner and once you were out of sight, you hopped up to your feet so you could move faster.

Your legs felt weak from your earlier running and kneeling on the hard, metal floor—not to mention how close you’d been to coming on Bucky’s boot. But you urged them to work as you moved as quietly as you could through the rest of the maze.

You were already almost to the exit when Bucky finally noticed you’d escaped. His angry roar of, “COTTONTAIL!” echoed off the mirrors and metal walls inside the funhouse. But his rage only made you snicker. It was his own fault, after all.

“You shoulda tied me down or paid more attention to me if you didn’t want me getting away, Mr. Slasher,” you called over your shoulder, taunting him as you darted around the final corner in the mirror maze, finding your way out. You clambered through the rest of the funhouse, Bucky’s stomping footsteps reverberating around you and making your heart beat faster with fear and excitement.

You slid down the slide that worked as the exit from the funhouse and as soon as your feet hit the grass of the fairground, you sprinted off again. Wracking your brain, you tried to think about where else Bucky kills the final girl’s friends in the final act of Slasher. All you could remember was the ending, with the carousel.

You turned a corner, running in the opposite direction of the carousel and that area of the carnival, not wanting the final girl or anymore of her friends interrupting you once Bucky caught you again.

Sooner than you expected, a leather-clad chest slammed into your back and, within the next breath, you hit the grassy ground as Bucky tackled you. One of his hands wrapped around the front of your throat, his fingers digging into the sides of your neck while he pressed his face into the side of yours.

Even through his hard plastic mask, you could feel his breath on your skin, his hot, heavy breaths gusting past your cheek as he panted like a rabid dog.

“I win again, baby,” Bucky growled, his voice even more threatening thanks to the fury in it. He clearly didn’t appreciate that you’d made him chase you again, and the coldness in his tone promised that while you might find pleasure in what he was about to do to you, you were also going to feel no small amount of pain.

“And you can be sure I won’t make the same mistake twice,” he went on, resting more of his weight on your back until you were pinned to the ground beneath him, your body struggling to catch your breath as he crushed your lungs. “Now that I have you, you’re never getting away from me again—you’re mine, little cottontail.”

Your heart panged in your chest, and it took you a second to realize the feeling was yearning. Because that was the heart of it, wasn’t it? You wanted someone to see you at your brattiest, with your darkest desires all laid out—and even seeing your soul bared for them, you wanted them to want to keep you. Part of you wanted to roll over and open your legs for Bucky, tell him you were his forever. But that wasn’t really in your nature.

Instead, you huffed a belated laugh, squirming beneath Bucky and fighting against his considerable strength even though you knew it was no good. You weren’t going anywhere, and you loved it.

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Mr. Slasher,” you taunted, bucking your hips hard. You felt Bucky’s big body jostle just a little and, sensing a glimmer of freedom, you fought harder.

Then cold steel replaced Bucky’s hand at your throat and you went still. Despite the fact that he’d used the knife mere moments ago to kill someone else, you were almost certain he wasn’t going to do the same to you. Well, pretty certain.

Besides, you were still convinced you were in a dream and dying would only wake you up. But with Bucky’s knife pressed to your neck, you didn’t exactly want to test your theory.

The horror movie villain chuckled, his chest rumbling against your spine and his breath ghosting over your cheek.

“That’s the first smart thing you’ve done all night, little cottontail,” he murmured, his voice so dark and deep, it made you shiver.

He dug the steel of his knife into your throat, using his other hand to guide you up onto your hands and knees. Bucky’s big body was curled over yours, his hand reaching beneath you to grope your tits while he groaned against the side of your face.

“Such soft tits, baby,” he grunted as his fingers kneaded your flesh through your tank top. Then his hand was diving under the fabric to pinch your nipples, making you cry out and arch your back. “Yeah, that’s it, ya dumb slut, let me hear how much you like having a monster like me playing with your tits.”

You whimpered when he pinched your nipple hard and shook your breast, the sting of pain and pleasure consuming your mind and making you grind back against his thick cock, which he’d tucked back into his pants. An impatient whine tumbled from your lips and it was on the tip of your tongue to beg Bucky to fuck you, but it seemed he was just as eager to get on with it.

Skimming his hand down your body, Bucky found the button of your shorts and quickly undid them. He sat up on his knees, dragging you with him and keeping his knife at your throat.

He shoved your shorts and panties down roughly past your ass to your thighs, then dipped his hand between your legs. A loud groan rumbled in his chest when he realized how wet you were.

“Fuck, you really are a slut, aren’t you, baby?” he taunted in a mocking tone, and you could almost hear the smile in his voice. His fingers slipped between your drenched folds and all you could do to answer him was moan as he teased your pussy. “I’m gonna fill up this slick cunt, little cottontail,” he rumbled in your ear, a promise ringing in his words. “I’m gonna destroy your tight hole until you’re nothing more than my dumb, cock-drunk slut.”

Between Bucky’s fingers playing with your pussy and his words wreaking havoc on your pleasure-soaked mind, you were desperate for him to follow through on his promise.

Suddenly, you’d had enough of the game you’d been playing with Bucky and you wanted him to finally—finally—fuck you.

“Please, Bucky, please, please, fuck me,” you sobbed, tears leaking from your eyes and down your cheeks as you rocked your ass against his hard cock. “Please, god, I need it—I need you.”

For a moment, Bucky was silent and unmoving. Then he was shoving you forward into the grass so you were back on your hands and knees. His knife just barely grazed the side of your neck as you fell forward, and you whimpered at the light sting of it.

The next thing you knew, Bucky’s cock was slapping against your bare ass, and he was lining himself up with your soaked, fluttering pussy. Your fingers dug into the grass, preparing yourself to hold on for dear life.

“Remember, little cottontail, you said I could fuck you as hard and rough as I want,” Bucky rumbled, sliding his cock between your legs, coating his thick length in your desire. “If it’s too much for you, you can scream all you want, but I’m not stopping until I’ve filled your cunt with all the come in my balls.”

You could hear the laughter in Bucky’s voice, but didn’t have time to respond to his words because in the next second, he shoved himself all the way inside you with one thrust.

Bucky’s thick, hard cock slammed deep into your tight pussy, and a scream wrenched free from your lips, making your already raw throat hurt even more. But it was the delicious kind of pain that mixed perfectly with the feeling of Bucky filling you up for the first time.

His girth was bigger than anyone or any toy you’d taken before, and it felt like you were being split apart, your insides rearranging to make room for his huge cock. It was only because you were so wet that it didn’t really hurt, but the sting of the stretch was enough to send your mind reeling, your thoughts scattering until the only thing that mattered was Bucky’s cock inside you and his body behind you.

Bucky made a noise that was half groan, half growl—sounding entirely feral behind his mask as his hands dug into your hips. You could feel him still holding his knife, but the steel wasn’t pressed against your skin so you didn’t give it much thought.

“God, that’s a tight fucking cunt ya got here, cottontail,” he rasped, pulling back and slamming forward so hard, your arms shook and you nearly collapsed face first into the grass. “Feel like you were fucking made for me, baby—made to be my fuck hole, made to take my cock.”

True to his word, the horror movie villain rutted into you hard, paying no mind to your pleasure, just taking his own. But that was exactly how you liked it, and you couldn’t help the litany of desperate moans and whimpers that tumbled past your lips.

Before long, your arms gave out and your cheek pressed to the grass, which was cool against your face. The position made your back arch and your ass stick up in the air. Bucky made a pleased sound, slapping your ass in a gesture that almost felt like praise.

“Yeah, take it like a slut, baby,” he growled, pounding into you harder—hard enough you could feel your ass and hips and thighs ripple with the force of his thrusts. “This is how dumb sluts are meant to be fucked.”

You whined at the searing pleasure of Bucky’s cock hammering into your cunt, and you arched your back further, giving him easier access to drive even deeper into you from behind. Your reward was another hard slap on your ass—that time with the cold flat steel of Bucky’s knife. You squealed, then moaned as the sharp sting devolved into even more pleasure.

Bucky laughed, the sound wild and dark. Then he curled his body over yours, dropping the knife in the grass so he could grab wrap one of his hands around your throat while the other groped your tits.

“You’re mine, little cottontail,” he growled in your ear. “I own your body now, and you’re going to be my personal fuck toy for the rest of your life.” He rutted into you, hard and rough, his hips slapping against your ass mixing with the sounds of your wet pussy being fucked. “I’m gonna chain you up in my basement, and you’re gonna be my basement slut—my little cottontail—forever.”

It was impossible to nod, and impossible to speak, with how tightly Bucky had you pinned beneath him while he fucked you. So you wrapped a hand around his wrist, not pulling him away, but squeezing hard enough that you could feel his pulse thrumming beneath your thumb. You clung to him, telling him wordlessly that you were submitting to him, tears gathering in your lashes as pleasure overwhelmed you.

“Fuck,” Bucky grunted, pounding you hard and fast, the hard plastic of his mask digging into the side of your face. “Cry for me, cottontail, you know it makes me harder.”

His fingers dug into the sides of your throat while his other hand tortured your nipples, tugging and pinching them, until your tears began leaking from your eyes. Bucky ducked forward, nuzzling your tear-stained cheek through his mask, groaning as he hit a spot inside of you that made your whole body clench and your mouth drop open in a soundless scream.

“I can feel your cunt choking my cock, baby,” Bucky rumbled in your ear. “You really love everything I’m doing to you, don’t you, dumb slut?” His hips pressed against your ass and he started grinding his cock deep in your core, the tip brushing against that spot inside you that made you see stars.

“Yes, yes, Bucky, yes,” you sobbed, your words breathless and soft and only able to escape because he’d loosened his hold on your throat slightly. But then he tightened his fingers again and you made a desperate little gasping sound.

Bucky laughed, the sound evil and mocking, and your cunt pulsed again. He refocused on fucking you, pounding into you and chasing his own pleasure. You tried to scream, the pleasure nearly mind-blowing, but his hand on your throat made sure you could only make the barest of noises.

“You’re gonna come on my cock, little cottontail,” Bucky rumbled, his hard plastic mask chafing against your sensitive cheek. “You’re gonna come and show me that you’re mine, that you accept your new life—and me as your master.”

Your fingers squeezed his wrist again in understanding, and then you couldn’t think anymore. Bucky’s cock was pounding into your pussy hard enough to almost hurt, pleasure pulsing through your body as he plucked and played with your tits. Your head was going fuzzy from a lack of air, but that just made everything else feel better and more.

When Bucky’s hand abandoned your tits to slip between your thighs, it only took a few strokes of his fingers against your clit to set you off. At the same moment, Bucky’s hand loosened around your throat, and oxygen flooded your lungs as you came on his cock.

It was almost an out-of-body experience, coming on the thick length of your horror movie villain crush, your mind going entirely blank as your body tried to process all the pleasure and sensation flooding through it. A loud, piercing scream sounded in your ears and it took a second to realize it was spilling from your own lips.

Bucky’s hand tightened around your throat again, tighter than before, cutting off the sound of your pleasure while he grunted and groaned above you. He was rutting into you as your walls squeezed his cock, taking his pleasure as he prolonged yours.

Blackness was starting to creep into the edges of your vision when he finally roared loudly, his cock throbbing inside you as he spilled his come deep in your pussy. His fingers dug into the sides of your throat harder, choking you through his orgasm as your body fluttered with the last waves of your release.

The last thing you heard was Bucky muttering, “Good girl, take my come, little cottontail,” as he pumped you full of his thick, sticky seed. Then, there was nothing but comforting darkness, and you sank into it, feeling satisfied and happy as you passed out in the arms of your horror movie villain…

Now, the choice is yours, dear reader. Do you want to stay with Bucky Barnes and live in the world of Slasher? If so, read on for the dark ending! Or do you want to wake up and meet someone a little less psychotic? If so, skip down to the fluffy ending!

Slasher - Dark Ending

dark ending additional warnings: dubcon, somnophilia, slightly painful sex, basement wife-ing, references to Bucky's arm amputation, Bucky is even more psychotic

You were woken by your body jostling against concrete, an aching mix of pleasure and pain radiating between your thighs. The slick sounds of fucking met your ears and, belatedly, you realized you were impaled on a cock, the thickness of it stretching your tight hole to its limit.

Your inner thighs felt chafed and your back hurt from the position you were contorted in, your shoulders propped up against a cinderblock wall while you were folded in half at the waist, a heavy body pinning your legs to your chest while they fucked you. You were naked and a little cold, but the body against you was warm.

Blinking your eyes open, you were met with the sight of Bucky’s handsome face contorted with pleasure as he fucked you. There was a new glimmer in the depths of his blue eyes—something wild and feral and more than a little frightening. His mouth spread into a savage grin when he saw you were awake.

“There’s my little cottontail,” he rumbled before ducking down and kissing your cheek in a gesture that would’ve been sweet if not for his stubble roughing over your sensitive skin. You whimpered softly at the abrading feeling, your pussy pulsing despite your exhaustion.

When he pulled back, the sound of chains rattling above you finally caught your attention and you looked up, finding your wrists shackled above your head and bolted into the wall of the basement. Dim morning light was filtering in through windows set high in the walls, and you couldn’t make out much beyond the shadow of the stairs leading up to the first floor.

Before you could gather you wits enough to ask a question, or wade through your confusion to figure out what question you should even ask, Bucky slammed deep inside you, wringing a weak moan from you. It was only then that you realized he’d been taking it easy on you while you were asleep, but since you were awake, he started fucking you harder. Pleasure, pain and bewilderment warred with the tiredness of just waking up as you tried to think.

Your eyes slid closed while you tried to block out Bucky and your surroundings. You needed to figure out why you weren’t in your grandmother’s basement, having woken up from the dream you’d been sure you were having.

But Bucky didn’t like that. His weight settled more heavily on top of you, making your hips ache in protest, and grabbed your face roughly in his hand.

“Look at me, cottontail,” he rumbled, shaking your head until your eyes fluttered open again.

Tears leaked out of the corners of your eyes and your mouth worked, trying to find the words for how you felt. You’d wanted this—wanted someone like Bucky who saw who you really were and still wanted to keep you. But now that you were actually chained up in his basement, you wondered if maybe you’d jumped in the deep end without being able to swim.

“Don’t look so confused, baby,” Bucky growled in a patronizingly sweet tone, thumbing your tears from your cheeks and making you flinch as the salt of them irritated your skin. “I told you I was never letting you go—you knew this was going to happen.” He was grinding his cock deep into your well-used cunt, the pleasure almost painful. “Now that you’re chained up in my basement, you have no hope of ever escaping from me again.”

The head of his cock battered against your cervix and you cried out, your head thumping against the cinderblock wall behind you. The pain mixed with the pleasure of thick length rubbing against your sensitive inner walls until your mind was spinning.

You just couldn’t wrap your head around it. You really hadn’t known this was going to happen. You’d thought you were dreaming and were going to wake up after you’d fucked Bucky Barnes, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Apparently you’d really somehow been transported into the world of Slasher.

“Thank me for keeping you, little cottontail,” Bucky growled, wringing another pleasured whimper from you as he kept grinding his cock into you. “After all, it wasn’t easy getting you here after that bitch crushed my arm.” His voice was dripping venom and he rocked his hips harder, forcing tears from your eyes as his cock battered your cervix.

It was only then that you understood why so much of Bucky’s weight was resting on you while his hand held your face. Darting your eyes to Bucky’s shoulder, there was a thick, bloody bandage wrapped around the place where he must’ve amputated his arm after the final girl had crushed it in the carousel gears.

Your stomach rolled at the sight, empathy for Bucky surging through you. It really couldn’t have been easy getting you back to his house when he was injured like that.

But before you could follow the order he’d given you, Bucky yanked your face back to look at him. He ducked closer, so all you could see were his eyes, wild and psychotic, boring into your own.

“Thank your master for keeping you!” he growled harshly.

Your heart panged, and you rushed to do as he said. “Th-thank you for keeping me, Bucky,” you cried, tears streaming down your face, your voice filled with genuine gratitude. “Thank you, master!”

The anger leeched out of Bucky at your words and your tears, and you could feel his cock throbbing inside you.

“Good girl,” he purred, nuzzling your cheek in reward and kissing your jaw with his soft lips. “My good, dumb slut—you’re going to make such a good basement wife for me.”

A small, confused noise squeaked out of you and Bucky pulled back, a grin on his face. He nodded up toward your hands and you twisted them in your shackles, finding shiny, silver metal glinting off your left ring finger. You sucked in a gasp, feeling speechless as your mind failed to process another shocking revelation in so little time.

“Your dream is coming true, baby,” Bucky rumbled, licking the tears from your cheeks, taking your silence as understanding and submission. “You’re going to be my own personal fuck hole—my pretty little dumb slut—for the rest of your life.”

Bucky canted his hips, grinding his cock into the depths of your pussy while the base of him rubbed against your clit and the pleasure that had been winding tighter in your core suddenly snapped. You came with a loud, sobbing scream, your head thrown back against the wall of the basement as tears cascaded down your cheeks while you succumbed to the pleasure, your cunt greedily squeezing Bucky’s cock.

A small part of you wanted to black out again, hoping you’d wake up back in your grandmother’s basement, unsure if you had what it took to be the full-time fuck toy of your favorite horror movie villain. But somehow you knew that wouldn’t happen.

Whatever had transported you into the world of Slasher seemed to be a one-way ticket, and you’d made your choices. The fact that you were at the mercy of Bucky Barnes was no one’s fault but your own.

And yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to regret anything you’d done. After all, you’d gotten exactly what you wanted—you got to fuck Bucky Barnes. And if you had your way, you’d fuck Bucky Barnes every day until you died. Which was good, since that seemed to be exactly what he had planned for you.

Just then, Bucky grunted, his cock twitching inside you and he slammed deep, grabbing your face and pulling you in for a messy kiss while he came, coating your insides with his seed. His lips were hard and demanding, but you weren’t some wilting flower—you nipped his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

Bucky’s cock throbbed inside you as he chuckled, kissing you again, the taste of his blood bursting on your tongue as you devoured each other.

When he pulled away and collapsed on top of you, a satisfied smile curved your lips. You glanced up at the ring on your finger again, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad to be Bucky Barnes’ basement wife.

Slasher - Fluffy Ending

fluffy ending additional warnings: talk about past roleplay, some potentially risky decisions on reader's part, that's really it

You awoke with a start, the loud, chiming sound of the doorbell echoing through your grandmother’s house and dragging you back to reality from the depths of your dream. A faint soreness permeated your body, and you frowned, the memory of your dream clinging to the edges of your mind.

Groggily, you opened your eyes to find you were curled up on the familiar rug in the basement of your grandmother’s house, and you suspected the hard floor was likely the cause of your soreness. Still, you felt a faint tingling all over, the remnants of pleasure from your dream and you smiled as you stretched languidly, easing most of the aches in your limbs.

The doorbell chimed again, and you dragged yourself up, wiping drool from your cheek as you pulled your cardigan tighter around yourself and climbed the stairs up to the first floor. On your way to the door, you checked the time, finding it was nearly midnight, and wondered who was stopping by so late. All your relatives and all your grandmother’s friends would be asleep.

Flicking on the porch light, you opened the front door, but the left the screen door latched when you found a strange man standing there. The frigid autuman night air wrapped around you, and you crossed your arms over your chest to stave off a shiver.

“Hey Mrs—” The man had been standing with his back to you, facing the street, and swung around when he heard the door open. But he paused when he saw you, his greeting cutting off as if he’d been expecting someone else.

A distant corner of your brain pointed out that of course he was expecting someone else—you were answering the door at your grandmother’s house.

But you couldn’t pay attention to your mind’s logic because you were silently freaking out. The man looked almost exactly like Bucky Barnes.

He had the same sparkling blue eyes, though there wasn’t any of the cold hatred that haunted your favorite horror movie villain. And his mouth was curved into a charming smile, which you knew for certain you’d never see on the version of Bucky from Slasher. The man’s hair was also shorter, and the stubble on his jaw was a little less scruffy, like he’d shaved that morning and it had grown out since then. The style really worked for him.

He was somehow even more attractive than Bucky Barnes. You didn’t know how that was possible, but apparently it was.

The man shifted on his feet, running a hand through his hair, looking a little abashed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb ya,” he said, a slight Brooklyn accent in his voice. “Sometimes I borrow some ground coffee from the lady who lives here when I’ve run out.” He shot you a sheepish smile and shrugged. “And I’ve run out.”

“Oh,” you said, a little dumbly. “You must be talking about my grandmother.” Your surprise over the man’s resemblance to Bucky was wearing off, and you found that his smile was infectious. He had a charm to him that made you want to tell him more than you should, which must’ve been why you found yourself saying, “She’s on a cruise, and I’m watching her house.”

It might’ve been a mistake to tell a strange man that much, but instead of doing anything to make you second-guess yourself, he just smacked a hand against his forehead. The gesture was so endearing, you couldn’t help but laugh, warming to him even more.

“You’re right! She told me about that.” He paused for a moment, his gaze raking over your face—hopefully not finding any traces of drool on your chin—and his eyes softened. “Sorry again to bother you, your gran’s normally up watching one of those late shows, I hope I didn’t wake you.”

You snorted to yourself. Of course your grandmother was known for staying up later than you. But you didn’t want the man to feel bad. It wasn’t like he woke you up before you came on dream Bucky’s cock.

“No, no, it’s fine,” you said, shaking your head and smiling softly to let him know it really was fine. Again, you had the urge to say more to him than you normally would to a stranger. So, before you could hold your tongue, you blurted, “Do you know you look exactly like the villain from this old horror movie?”

Even in the dim yellow light of the porch, you could see the man’s cheeks turn pink while he scrubbed a hand over his jaw. But he was hiding a smile behind his palm and when he caught your eye, there was humor in the depths of his gaze.

“Yeah, I get that sometimes,” he said, his voice suddenly lower. “Bucky Barnes from Slasher, right?”

You nodded, almost mesmerized as you stared into his eyes. “I had the biggest crush on him,” you admitted, because apparently the filter between your brain and mouth had been left on the rug in your grandmother’s basement. But the man only chuckled, the light flush fading from his face.

“Did you now?” he asked, his eyes shimmering with humor as he looked at your face, his gaze raking over the curve of your lips. He shifted closer to the door and a shiver skated down your spine at the way he loomed over you. “Y’know, my friends have called me Bucky ever since we watched that movie one summer when were idiot kids.”

“Y-your name’s Bucky?” you asked, excitement making your voice come out like a whisper.

The man looked to the side and chuckled, the sound low and rich and making you want to giggle ridiculously and kick your feet. When his gaze found yours again, his eyes were sparkling with playfulness and something more; his mouth was curved into a devastatingly charming grin.

“No, my name is James Barnes, but pretty much everyone calls me Bucky.” He watched you absorb this information, shifting even closer to the door until you could feel the warmth of him seeping through the screen. “Would you like to call me Bucky, pretty girl?” he asked, his voice pitching so low and deep, you could feel it between your thighs.

Your shoulders trembled as you shivered, nodding eagerly as you whispered, “Yes, please.”

Bucky rumbled a pleased sound, and his hand raised toward the screen, like he was reaching for you. But then he paused, as if catching himself. Huffing a laugh, he drew his hand back and wiped it down his face, seemingly forcing himself to straighten and take a step back.

You almost whined in protest, but caught yourself at the last second, biting your lip against a frown as he moved away. You hadn’t realized how close the two of you had drifted to each other through the door until he was pulling away. You understood it was probably weird, the way you were acting with each other considering you just met, but the chemistry between you was palpable, and you desperately wanted to explore it as soon as possible.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I have the mask,” Bucky confessed, breaking you free from your thoughts.

You were glad for it, because he was giving you another loaded look and you felt your belly swoop, butterflies taking flight as he smiled at you. It took a second to process his words, and when you did, you couldn’t help the impish grin that spread across your face. You gestured for him to go on.

“I bought it for a girl I was seeing who said she wanted to roleplay,” he went on, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looking off to the side again, like he knew he wasn’t supposed to be telling this to a girl he just met, but couldn’t help himself. “But I think I scared her off.” He turned his penetrating gaze back to you, pinning you in place while you held your breath. “You don’t strike me as the kind of girl who scares easily.”

You snorted again and tossed your head. That was an understatement, if your dream was any indication of your desires—which it was. You gave the man called Bucky a cheeky smile. “No, I’m definitely not,” you told him, a hint of a challenge in your tone.

For a long moment, the two of you just stood there, staring at each other. Then, you made a slightly reckless decision. Your hand reached for the latch of the screen door and pushed it open, all while holding his gaze.

“Why don’t you come in and get that coffee you needed,” you offered, hoping your instincts about Bucky were right, and he would turn out to be exactly the kind of man you wanted in your life. Besides, you told yourself, your grandmother liked him well enough to lend him some coffee—and you trusted her judgement so he must be a decent guy. “And you can tell me what about your roleplay frightened off that girl.”

Bucky’s smile spread into a full-on grin, and he eagerly grabbed the door, opening it wider while he stepped forward. When you didn’t move back right away and instead allowed him to step into your personal space, his gaze dropped to your mouth, his eyes darkening and the corners of his mouth twitching in another smile.

“Deal,” he rumbled. “So long as you tell me more about this crush of yours.”

The memories of your dream flitted through your mind, feeling more real than any dream you’d ever had before, and you found you couldn’t wait to tell Bucky about it. The man in front of you was warmer and kinder than the one you’d met in your dreams, but you had a feeling he had a dark side that liked to come out to play—just like you.

“Deal.” After you said the word, you felt as if something truly special was beginning and your heart raced with excitement as you stared up into Bucky’s handsome face. Both of you were grinning like idiots.

Finally taking a step back, you welcomed Bucky into your grandmother’s house, knowing deep in your bones that you were going to be in each other’s lives for a very long time—possibly even forever. And you couldn’t help but think that having this Bucky Barnes was even better than dreaming about your horror movie villain crush. After all, at least he was real.

#slashersummerwc #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #dark bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes one shot #horror movie au #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan smut #sebastian stan #sebastian stan characters #witchywithwhiskeywork

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rememberwren · 2 months

Text

Weeks of bad behavior from your lieutenant have you convinced that he can't get laid. You take matters into your own hands.

Ghost/fem!reader. Rough sex, a nearly submissive Simon, PIV, unsafe sex, pullout method, flimsy premise to explain gross fucking, ruined orgasm. This has been on my laptop for ages please take it. 2.5k

It’s your breaking point.

Once you reach it, a strange calm comes over you. The mission is over, Price has finished taking you all to task for your failures, and Ghost has specifically taken you to task for your own—just like a typical man to notice the speck of sawdust in his Sergeant's eye and ignore the plank in his own. For so long (far longer than just the length of this arduous mission), the friction between Ghost and the rest of the team—between Ghost and yourself—has been building. Like two fault lines grinding alongside each other, there was bound to be a break somewhere.

You just hadn’t expected it to be you.

And you hadn’t expected it to be like this.

“Lieutenant, can I have a word?” you ask, walking damn near double time to keep up with Ghost’s steps.

“Negative,” he says. “Whatever it is, save it.”

“No can do. It’s important, sir.”

“Doubtful.”

“I insist, sir,” you press, pushing your speed into a light jog so that you can come to stand in front of him and block his way. He reluctantly stops, dark eyes blazing from behind his mask. He’s stripped down, gear abandoned but no less intimidating nor lacking in height or width. Still you keep your chin up, refusing to back down. Something has to give, and it won’t be you.

“Two minutes. Go, Sergeant.”

Your eyes scan the hallway. Here won’t do, even if it is night time and the base is quiet. You know that the quiet can be deceiving. Spotting the supply closet, you bound over to check that it is unlocked and—score. It swings open silently, the inside dark and smelling faintly of lemon-scented cleaner.

Ghost hesitates.

“It’s important sir,” you promise again.

You don’t promise that it will take two minutes or less.

Rolling those dark eyes, he sweeps past you into the closet, flicking the lightswitch. The overhead light hums to life, casting a tinny ivory glow over the room. The shelves are well stocked with supplies, most of which aren’t for cleaning but are typical office supplies instead. There is just enough room inside for a man to lay down if he wanted to.

You’ll have to test that to see.

“Take your cock out.”

Silence, for the length of nearly three of your heartbeats. Ghost’s head tilts, eyes narrowing where he stares down at you. He leans down a little as if to hear you better and asks: “Excuse me, Sergeant?”

You straighten your spine, refusing to be cowed. “You heard me. Your cock. Get it out.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

You raise your chin a hair. “The recruits have been talking. They say your bad mood is because you can’t get laid. I’m here to fix that, sir.”

“Getting your intel from recruits was your first mistake. Of many.”

“Either I have faith that you aren’t always this much of a bastard or I give in to the belief that you really are. For the sake of my own sanity, I’m choosing to believe the former.” You find a few pins for your hair in your uniform and begin pinning it back, keeping the extras tucked between your lips and talking around them as you prepare yourself to suck his cock. That strange calm is still over you, but beneath it you can feel your better judgment panicking. You’re propositioning your superior officer right now. This could lead to your discharge, and not an honorable one.

But something had to give. It was either your spirit, or your mouth.

You drop to your knees even though he hasn’t even reached for his belt yet, hoping to rush him along. His dark eyes follow you, and you see the heat in them. The fingers on his right hand twitch.

“Do you...want me to do it for you?” you ask, your voice a conspiratory little whisper. It’s the last little push he needs and then he is reaching for his own belt, undoing the clasp and opening it. He unfastens his pants. Beneath his jeans you can already see the bulge forming; proportionately huge compared to the man it belonged to. It made your teeth ache, like the thought of eating something sweet.

Maybe you were both crazy.

His cock is uncut, a dusky flush just a shade darker than the skin on the back of his hands. His girth is nice; his length is nearly obscene. It takes all of your self control to keep from outright balking at the size of him—though the weepy little cunt between your legs certainly is intrigued by the sight.

“Well?” he says. “Don’t just stare at it. Suck it off.”

You reach out and flick the sensitive head cruelly. He hisses, hips jerking away from your touch. “You don’t give the orders here, Lieutenant. If you want your dick sucked, you’re going to be nice to me, once and for all.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Ask me nicely.”

“Yer the one who begged me in here—!”

You let out a sigh. Drastic measures… leaning forward, your soft cheek brushes against the silky smooth skin of his cock. It twitches against you, burning hot. You turn and let your heated breath fan against it. For all his outrage, Ghost has grown perfectly still above you, not trying to find the perfect angle to slip his cock past your lips or anything else of the sort.

“Come on, Ghost,” you whisper, lips brushing against him. “I’m about to do something very nice for you. Isn’t it only fair that you ask nicely for it? I’m not asking for much. Just say…please suck my cock.”

“Suck my cock,” he says. Then, like a murderous afterthought: “Please.”

You sigh again and shift to stand. His hand is suddenly on your shoulder, pressing you back down.

“Don’t,” he says, sounding less like the prat he is. “Please. Go on. Will you?”

“You want me to?”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Please,” he says through his teeth.

Leaning back on your haunches, you place the softest, chastest little kiss on the head. He’s aroused enough that the foreskin is just beginning to pull back, and you let your tongue out to lap softly at the exposed head, listening to the way his breathing stutters and stops, the way the leather of his gloves creaks as he makes fists as his sides.

“Try to fuck my face and it’s over,” you warn him. “You might be thinking of how badly you need this—and I know that you do. But don’t forget this: I need it more. I need this more. If we’re going to work together with any semblance of civility, I need this. Do you understand?”

“No. But I get the gist.”

“Good enough for me.” You open your mouth and take the head past your lips, suckling on it. He lets out a harsh breath through his nose, cock jerking against your tongue. You can taste precum already, and you’ve barely done anything. No wonder he’s been such a bastard lately. Has he been fucking his own fist at all? God knows that you’ve spent more than one night with your pruning fingers buried to the knuckle inside yourself, hand over your mouth to keep from shouting Ghost’s callsign when you cum.

Leaning forward, you take more of him into your mouth, enjoying the heavy weight of him on your tongue. He is burning hot, smells and tastes faintly of sweat from the mission, but you don’t mind; living with so many men has almost given you a strange appreciation for the scent of hard work. Maybe Ghost’s most of all. You take him as deep as you comfortably can, but there are still a few solid inches outside the wet warmth of your mouth.

You work one hand down your pants and underwear, finding the sopping wet slit between your thighs. Using three fingers, you stroke yourself leisurely from hole to clit, soaking the digits. Above you, Ghost mutters a curse, head tilting almost curiously as he searches for a better angle to watch your hand move beneath the fabric of your pants. Removing it, you hold it up to show him the filmy slick drenching your fingers before wrapping that fist around the base of his cock.

“You get that wet just from thinking about sucking some cock?”

Your eyes narrow dangerously, slowly pulling back until just the flushed head rests on your tongue, wondering if he’s being mean enough that you need to stop and remind him of his manners. Apparently just the threat of it is enough; he lifts his hands in supplication, mouth twisting a little beneath his mask.

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything. Didn’t your mother teach you that, Lieutenant?”

It’s his turn for his eyes to narrow dangerously, an expression that would likely put the fear of God in a lesser man or woman. But with your teeth so close to his cock, you’re not yet afraid. Before he can open his mouth and ruin anything else, you swallow him down as deeply as you can, feeling the thick head press at the back of your throat, your jaw aching. You can taste yourself on his cock and the thought has you whining around his length.

“Fuck,” Ghost mutters. His hand touches your hair—not to grab, but just to pet. “Yer a pretty thing, aren’t you?”

You hum in delight at this unexpected praise. It goes straight to your soaked core, fanning the flames of the ache between your legs. You are a pretty thing, and you are glad he’s noticed. To reward his good behavior, you lean in until the head nudges the back of your mouth again. Tongue out, breath held, he slips even deeper into the warm channel of your throat. His ragged exhale is as sweet as a moan.

You give him a few more minutes of your mouth before you grow bored without your own satisfaction. Slipping him free, you work his cock in your slick fist and say to him, voice wrecked: “Time to see if you can lay down in here.”

Turns out he can, as long as he keeps his knees bent a little. Straddling his waist only emphasizes to you how obscenely thick he is, and you have to stand to shuck your pants and panties down and off altogether. You cast a brief glance toward the door—there is no lock from the inside—but no risk means no reward.

“I don’t have a condom. You’ll have to pull out. Tell me when you’re close, alright?”

“Alright.”

His hands reach for you, gripping your wide hips as you straddle him again. You plant one hand firmly against his chest but hold no illusions that you could actually pin him in place if he decided to move. You lower yourself to brush your soaked slit along the length of his cock, back and forth, until he is soaked in your arousal.

His mouth opens to say something smart, something that will have you gritting your teeth, but instead you rise up onto one knee and sink down on the head of his cock. It’s all you can take before that pinch of pain strikes you, freezing you in your tracks. His mouth is parted beneath the balaclava, wet, quiet pants that dampen the fabric with each breath. You take your time stretching yourself open, thighs burning in time as you lift and lower yourself over him again and again.

“Touch me,” you demand of him.

For all his earlier mouth, he seems content to be obedient now, his gloved fingers searching for the space where you both are joined. The leather traces along the seam where his cock disappears into your cunt before following your parted lips up to your clit. His thumb circles the aching bud with a firm touch, and it helps you ignore the pain as you take another inch of him inside.

You ride him like that: both your hands on his chest feeling the way it hitches as it rises and falls, hips jerking and swaying as you find the angle that suits you best.

“Lean back,” he demands. “I want to look at you.”

“No time,” you pant. “It’s been way longer than two minutes, Lieutenant. I do hate to be wasting your time.”

“Fucking hell,” he sighs, eyes rolling.

“Don’t forget to tell me when you’re close.” He grunts in acknowledgement, his fingers going sloppy between your thighs. That’s not good enough. You bark: “Lieutenant, do not forget to tell me!”

He laughs.

You go to lift off of him, but his laughter turns belly up and dies so quickly, morphing into a strange, desperate little sound as he stops working your clit and grips at your hips, pulls you down more firmly against the cradle of his thighs.

“I mean it,” you say through your teeth, taking one of his wrists and prying a finger loose until he has no choice but to let go or have it broken. You guide his hand back between your legs. “Don’t cum before me, either.”

He sits up, jostling you, forcing you to change your angle. His mouth comes down hard against yours, fabric on skin, but you don’t turn him away, lapping at the cotton like it’s his tongue as you kiss through the mask.

Feeling things slipping out of your control, you press him back down with both hands, pinning him to the floor. The sound of flesh on flesh is loud in the enclosed space. At the apex of his thrusts he brushes against some deep, untouched space inside you that has you digging your nails into him, feeling that ache in your belly writhe and twist into something fearsome.

“I’m close,” he grits out.

“Not yet,” you hiss.

“I said I’m fucking close—“

“Wait for me,” you growl. Then, knowing that you can catch more flies with honey, you soften your tone: “Please, don’t cum yet.”

He shuts his eyes. “Shut up,” he mutters, scrambling for control, fingers digging into your thighs, unsure whether to pull you closer or tear you off of him. “Shut up, shut up, shut the—fuck up.”

It’s your turn to laugh, feeling your release right there, coaxed forward by this pleasurable torture you’re inflicting on him. Never did you think that seeing your superior officer suffering like this would give you so much satisfaction.

“So close,” you whisper, the tips of your fingers tingling with it. “Simon, I’m gonna—“

When it bursts, your teeth snap closed around a whine, jaw tight as your cunt clenches around him—

—and he jerks you off of him, sending you sprawling against his lower thighs as his ruddy cock twitches and spurts pearlescent seed, one dexterous hand wrapping around the shaft as he jerks himself off through it even after ruining your own. You stare, gobsmacked at his audacity, pussy still twitching and clenching around empty air, the stolen pleasure leaving behind a vicious ache.

“You bastard,” you mutter. You bat his hand away, gripping his cock and beginning to jerk him off. When you smile, it is mostly teeth, something feral and mean. “Let’s try that again.”

#simon ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader

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stllmnstr · 2 months

Text

sacred monsters: part one

pairing: lee heeseung x f reader

genre: academic rivals to lovers, vampire au, slow burn

part one word count: 19.3k

part one warnings: swearing, blood and all sorts of other vampire-y things, semi graphic descriptions/depictions of violence, I don't know anything about publishing and wrote about it anyway, not quite as much in this part, but I want to forewarn you that while there is still nothing explicit, we do get a little ~sexier~ than most stllmnstr fics

note/disclaimer: I have been itching to write an enha vampire fic for ages because hello? the material is RIGHT THERE!! this is a story I'm super excited about, and it's definitely gotten me out of my comfort zone. in order to help build this world, I did draw from some outside sources. primarily, a lot of the vampire lore and some plot elements are inspired by the dark moon webtoon series. I did also pull some things from twilight and other well-known vampire myths. lastly, there is a section with "poetry" in it. these "poems" are translated lyrics from still monster, chaconne, and lucifer by enhypen. some are in their original form and some I altered slightly. everything else is straight from yours truly! as always, happy reading ♡

soundtrack: still monster / moonstruck / lucifer - enhypen / everybody wants to rule the world - tears for fears / immortal - marina / supermassive black hole - muse / saturn - sleeping at last / everybody’s watching me (uh oh) - the neighbourhood

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

A literature student in your third year of university, you’ve been dreaming of having your writing published for as long as you can remember. With a perfect opportunity dangling at your fingertips, the only obstacle that stands in your way comes in the form of a ridiculously tall, stupidly handsome, and unfortunately, very talented writer by the name of Lee Heeseung. Unwilling to let your dream slip out of reach, you commit to being better than the aforementioned pain in your ass at absolutely everything.

But when a string of vampire attacks strikes close to your city for the first time in nearly two hundred years, publishing is suddenly the last thing on your mind. And, as you soon begin to discover, Heeseung may not quite be the person you thought he was.

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

The last sip of your coffee tastes bitter on your tongue. Acidic, like it was left to brew too long. Or maybe not long enough. Your limited knowledge of coffee extends to its effects on your alertness and little else.

Taste has always been an afterthought, something of little consequence. Besides, some bitterness is to be expected when you take your coffee black.

Suppressing the small wince that always follows your final sip, you set the reusable thermos down on your desk. Next to your open notebook and favorite ballpoint pen, it settles in nicely with your other class essentials.

Call it poetic or romantic or unbearably pretentious, but you actually do prefer to take your notes by hand. Partly because it feels more fitting for a literature major and mostly because your laptop is on its last leg and between tuition and rent, you don’t exactly have the funds to shell out for a new one.

Frowning at the bitter taste that still lingers on your tongue, you feel another pang of regret for forgetting to pack your water bottle this morning. But no matter. Today is a day for optimism. The bitterness now only means that your imminent victory will taste that much sweeter in comparison.

Because today is the last day of the fall semester of your third year. Which means that this is the last morning you’ll be sitting here in this lecture hall in the minutes preceding 9 am.

Which means that today is the day of your professor’s long awaited announcement. You still remember the day, nearly four months ago, when he first told the entire room of undermotivated, overcaffeinated students about it.

A publishing opportunity. A real, actual publishing opportunity. Something most literature students would sell their soul for.

Because Professor Kim, while a rather mediocre professor who prefers to dish out criticism and bite back praise, has an excellent eye for great writing. So much so that nearly twenty years ago, he founded his very own publishing house.

Known by the name New Haven Publishing, it’s a small operation that deals mostly in short pieces that are marketed more for niche literary circles than mass public appeal. Being published by New Haven may not be a straight shot to the New York Times’ Best Sellers List, but it’s still professional publishing.

And a week into classes, he announced that for the first time ever, he would be choosing one of you to not only intern at New Haven the following semester, but also to publish an original piece of short fiction with them.

You’ve been fantasizing about it for months now. You can already imagine it. A piece of your very own, marketed and edited by professionals. Published and complete with Professor Kim’s stamp of approval.

It’s what you’ve been craving ever since you decided to switch paths and pursue literature studies at the end of your first semester. It’s everything you’re sure you need. Validation that your writing is good, that your words are worth reading.

Hell, maybe it will even earn you the approval of your parents.

And, perhaps most satisfying of all, you will have officially beaten Lee Heeseng once and for all. You don’t want to speak poorly of the rest of your classmates and their writing abilities, but this has always been a competition between you and him.

Or, at least, it has been for you.

It’s the last day of the semester, and honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if Heeseung still had a hard time remembering that the internship was even happening. Then again, you wouldn’t exactly be shocked if he couldn't remember your name, either.

And if you were hard pressed to choose only one thing, that would probably be what annoys you the most about him. Not the way his hair is alway somehow perfectly mussed. Not the way his writing is painfully beautiful and poetic that you swell green with envy just thinking about it.

No, the root cause of your infinite ire when it comes to Lee Heeseung is how damn aloof he is. Like his classmates and professors and even his greatest rival aren’t worth the effort of remembering.

And it’s not like it’s because he’s got some kind of crazy social life outside of academics. Other than mandatory discussion groups, you’re not sure you’ve ever seen him so much as talk to anyone.

But that’s just the way he is, you suppose.

Perfect Heeseung with his perfect hair and his perfect writing and perfect attendance record doesn’t need anyone but himself—

Wait.

Perfect attendance record.

Glancing at the clock mounted high above the front door of the lecture hall, you can hardly believe what you’re seeing.

8:59.

There’s no way. There’s no fucking way that the universe is rooting for you this hard, that the stars are aligning this perfectly.

Despite your doubts, the second hand continues its onward march. You suppress the sudden urge to bounce your leg in a matching rhythm.

He has five seconds.

Four. Three. Two. One.

And it’s official. A ridiculous amount of pent up tension drains from your shoulders as your spine straightens. You can’t believe it was that easy.

A semester of agonizing over every word, every sentence, every assignment you handed in for this class. A semester of panicking over missed buses and waking up way too early just to make sure you always beat the clock.

But today is the day where everything comes to a head.

And Lee Heeseung is officially late.

Professor Kim, at the beginning of the semester, had only two pieces of advice to offer his students that were suddenly all gunning for a shot at being published:

One: “Don’t make me read awful writing.”

And two: “Don’t be late to class. I have zero tolerance for tardiness.”

Heeseung has just broken a cardinal rule. One row down, nine seats to the left from where you sit. It’s the place that would usually be filled with an annoyingly broad set of shoulders and distractingly sharp jawline. In fact, Heeseung usually beats you here most days. Not that you’re keeping track, of course. And not that it matters.

Because this morning, this fateful morning, that particular seat, his seat, is glaringly, gloriously empty.

Your eyes flicker over to it again without your permission. But you can’t help it. You’re so antsy now, teeming with self-satisfied excitement. It’s almost unbelievable actually. A golden stroke of luck that he chose today, of all days, to be late.

In fact, you think the more you stare at the empty seat, Lee Heeseung is such a reliable presence that the entire lecture hall suddenly seems a bit off kilter. Tilted too far in some precarious state of imbalance.

Your smugness is still there, yes, but now there’s also a heavy feeling beginning to settle at the bottom of your gut. Why on earth is Lee Heeseung late?

You’re so distracted by his absence, the endless loop of possibilities and explanations running through your mind, that you almost miss the second abnormality of the morning.

Because now the clock reads 9:04, and Heeseung isn’t the only one missing.

All at once, your attention is on the podium at the front of the lecture hall. It’s empty, too. And Professor Kim may be a hardass, but he’s no hypocrite. Never once throughout this entire semester has he ever begun a class even a millisecond late.

Frowning, you pull out your phone to confirm that the clock on the wall is not playing tricks on you. Maybe there was a power outage or something, and maintenance hasn’t had time to correct it yet.

But your phone screen lights up, and 9:05 is the time that stares back at you.

Glancing around, no one else seems too particularly bothered by this. There are a few titters, a few annoyed grumbles that sound like hypocrite and double standard where they reach your ears.

But still, the clock ticks forward.

The minute hand has fallen another two notches when the front door finally opens, Professor Kim striding in unhurried. Despite his lateness, his steps are steady, even. There’s nothing frantic or apologetic about the way he sets his briefcase down next to the podium, pulling out his laptop and a small stack of notes before clearing his throat.

As the students around you fall silent, class begins as it always does. Other than the time, nothing is out of the ordinary.

But your spirits are still high, and you figure you can cut your professor some slack. Maybe he ran into a bad bit of traffic or spilled coffee all over his shirt. Maybe he’s too embarrassed to draw more attention to his error and has decided that not acknowledging it at all is the best course of action.

Oh, well. It’s no use ruminating on it now. Settling back into your seat, you do your best to focus your attention on the front of the room and not that damn empty chair. But the distraction isn’t necessary for long.

The clock is just striking 9:12 when a second late arrival draws the eyes of the class to the front door of the lecture hall. Like your professor, Heeseung maintains a certain air of composedness as he makes his way towards his seat wordlessly.

There’s a moment, a fraction of a second, where Professor Kim pauses, letting a sentence drift into silence.

Twelve minutes late. It’s a rookie mistake. For a fleeting moment, you almost feel bad for him. Because surely Professor Kim is about to make an example of him. No one walks into his lectures late and leaves unscathed.

Wincing, you remember a handful of weeks ago when a poor girl that sits a few rows behind you arrived late. Not only had Professor Kim stopped the entire flow of his lecture to draw attention to her tardiness, he had also assigned her an extra short story for homework. One on the merits of punctuality.

But the ebb in the lecture begins to flow again, the moment passing as soon as it comes. Heeseung settles into his chair. Your professor resumes his sentence.

For the remainder of the class, you do your best to pay attention, but you’re having trouble finding a point. It’s not like he can assign homework or an exam or a discussion on the last day of the semester.

Like you, most of your peers are fully zoned out, just waiting for him to get to what everyone has been dying to know for months.

Who’s interning at New Haven? Who’s getting published?

But distractions in this class have never been hard to come by. More than once, you find your wandering gaze drifting to the back of Heeseung’s head. Usually, you’d be bitterly admiring how soft his hair looks. But today, there’s only one question that plays in your mind as you stare.

What on earth happened that made perfect Lee Heeseung late?

Your thoughts are only interrupted by the sudden shuffle of small movement around you as everyone sits up a bit straighter in their seats.

“Ah,” Professor Kim glances at the time. “That wraps up our semester, then. As promised, I would like to announce the student who will be interning with New Haven Publishing this upcoming semester. And, of course, the student that will have the opportunity to publish an original piece with us.”

He pauses for a moment, looking down at his notes. You wonder if the people sitting close to you can hear the way your heart pounds in your chest.

Please be me. Please be me. Please be me.

The rushing in your ears is so loud that you almost miss it. But not quite. Because the sound of your own name is something you’d recognize anywhere.

Because it was your name that he said. Not anyone else’s. Not Heeseung’s.

You. You did it.

You’re officially going to be interning with New Haven. You’re going to be published.

When he asks you to stay a minute after class to discuss the details, it’s all you can do to nod. Butterflies are still scattered in your stomach.

As the rest of the students begin to file out, you pack up your materials with hands that shake slightly. It doesn’t feel real. It feels too good to be true. You poured your everything into this all semester long, and now it’s actually happening.

Your mind is a mess, and an erratic movement almost sends your empty thermos flying. Luckily, you snap out of it long enough to catch it before it hits the ground. With everything packed back into your bag, you make your way down to the podium on slightly unsteady feet.

A handful of passing classmates congratulate you on their way out, and you smile in return.

You’ve almost made it to the front of the lecture hall when a body blocks your path. It takes a moment for your brain to register the identity of the offender. And once it does, it spits his name with venom. Heeseung.

Oblivious and self-centered as always, he nearly knocks you over. Rolling your eyes, you move to step around him. Apparently whatever gift he was given for writing doesn’t extend to his spatial awareness or consideration for others.

But as you lean to the left, he follows the movement, still in your path. Your gaze snaps up, eyebrows raised when you find him already looking at you.

Oh. So it’s not a spatial awareness problem, then. He’s in your way on purpose.

As always, his expression is infuriatingly blank. You can’t get any sort of read on him, and it unnerves you. Irritates you. Here he is, blocking your path, and the only thing he has to offer you is an empty, silent stare.

You could just say excuse me, force your way around him, and be done with it. You should. The semester is over, your professor’s decision is made, and you have no stake left in this game.

But you’ve been biting back snarky comments and masking irritated expressions with mild indifference for months. The nerve he has to block you. The utter gall of it all. To physically stand in your way when he’s been your metaphorical obstacle to success all semester.

When every time you look at him, you still remember that one sunny afternoon, early in the semester. The time you tried, actually tried to be his friend. When he waved you off like a buzzing fly that was nothing more than a nuisance.

You inhale, weighing your options. His head tilts slightly at the movement, and it’s your last straw.

There’s poison in your voice when you bite, “Oh, what? Now that I’ve proved myself, you can spare some time out of your day to talk to me?”

Heeseung’s eyes widen, lips parting slightly. It’s the most emotion you’ve ever seen from him, and he’s wasting it on shock. As if he can’t quite comprehend why the girl he’s been giving headaches for months might not want to stop and have a friendly chat with him. Not that you imagine he’d even be capable of that if you tried.

Already, you regret your comment. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have said anything. You’d be just as detached and cold and aloof as he was on that day you hate to think about. You still remember it like it was yesterday. Without your permission, the memory floats front and center to your mind.

It was warmer, then. The last clutches of summer were still holding on tight. Sunlight was bright in the sky, and it felt like a good time to breach the barrier of your comfort zone.

Class had just ended. Usually, Heeseung was one of the first to leave. You had to pack up abnormally quickly just to catch him in the quad right outside the lecture hall.

But you did catch up to him.

And in a voice braver than you felt, you asked, “Hey, it’s Heeseung, right?”

You’d been brighter, then. Still full of an energy you haven’t been able to muster since midterms. Not yet burdened by the weight of assignments and rejection, your disposition was as sunny as the sky above.

Heeseung hadn’t bothered to dignify your question with an actual answer, but he had at least stopped walking, and that seemed like an invitation at the time. Now, with the power of hindsight, you wince. You should have spared yourself the regret.

You remember watching as he pulled out his earbuds, tucking them back into his pocket before turning his attention to you. Or at least half of it. Even then, you never felt like he was truly looking at you, hearing you. His mind always seemed off in the distance, preoccupied somewhere you could never quite reach.

You recall being nervous, heat in your cheeks as you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. His eyes tracked the movement like a cat tracks a ray of sunlight. Lazily, intently. With an energy you weren’t quite sure what to do with.

Instead, you had stuttered, “I, uh, I wanted to tell you that I thought your analysis today was brilliant.” The worst part is that it really was a brilliant analysis. Although you’d never admit that today, and much less to his face.

Instead, you cringe just thinking about it. You should have taken his blank stare as a sign. You should have just let the one-sided conversation die there. With at least a little dignity and some of your pride left to spare.

But you hadn’t.

“I never thought about the use of sunlight as a metaphor for life. I mean, now that you’ve pointed it out, it seems kind of obvious.” The memory of your nervous giggles settle like rocks in your stomach. “Anyway, I feel like I’m rambling, but if you ever want to get together and look through assignments or review each other’s analyses, I’d love to—”

You’d heard his voice before, of course. In class discussions and presentations. But never this close. And never directed at you.

He kept it short, his interruption, his response to your shaky offer.

“I’m busy.”

And that was it. Two words. Two fucking words. And not even an explanation or an I’m sorry or a sheepish expression to go along with them.

With that, you’d watched, a bit helplessly, as he pulled his earbuds out of his pocket, put them back into his ears and turned away from you before you could realize just how thoroughly you’d been rejected.

With a sudden haze in the air and hope dying in your heart, your friendly smile slipped into confused dismay as you watched him track a steady path across the quad.

If your cheekbones felt warm before, you were sure they must have been aflame by then. After all, it was your body’s natural response to the crushing weight of the embarrassment and thoroughly bruised ego he’d left you there standing with.

Fine then, you’d resolved after walking as quickly as you could in the opposite direction, sending a prayer to the heavens that no one from your class had just witnessed the most mortifying interaction you’ve ever had. If Lee Heeseung wanted nothing to do with you, the feeling could be mutual.

In fact, it was probably for the best. You were vying for that internship and if the past class discussions were anything to go by, Heeseung would be your only real competition. If he was too busy for you, then you would just have to be too busy for him.

Too busy perfecting every assignment and acing every exam. Too busy drowning in dictionaries and thesauruses and reference materials to make sure everything you submitted was perfect — no, scratch that — better than perfect.

Too busy to attempt another conversation or interaction or do anything but nod along politely whenever he did make an unfortunately great point in class.

So, no. Heeseung doesn’t get to dictate your time or attention or conversation now that you’ve actually been awarded with a publishing opportunity, now that all of your efforts and dedication and late nights have paid off.

If Lee Heeseung wants a bit of your attention on today of all days, at this moment of all moments, then you’re just going to have to be too busy to entertain him.

Standing in front of you, still blocking your path to the podium, Heeseung has the nerve to look confused. As if you have no reason to give him the cold shoulder. As if you’re the one being unreasonable here.

His brow furrows further. “What?” It’s the third word he’s ever spoken directly to you. It makes your blood boil. “No, I…” he trails off. You can practically see the gears running in his mind, like this wasn’t the conversation he expected to be having. Like he has no idea how to navigate it now. “I was just going to say that you should maybe reconsider.”

Your voice is ice when you ask, “Reconsider what?”

“Well…” He’s treading in dangerous territory, and he seems to realize it too. “The internship,” he clarifies, and it’s the second most insulting thing he’s ever said to your face.

You screw your eyes shut. Cold and detached. Blank and aloof. All the things you should be. But you’ve always run a little hot. And end of the semester exhaustion finds you more willing to throw caution to the wind.

“You have got to be fucking with me.” Eyes reopening, you’re met with that same expression of mild shock. Brows raised, lips parted. And god, he even looks good like that. “Yeah, right. Let me guess, so you can do the internship and publish a piece of your own? If all you came over to do is insult me, then save your breath.”

“What?” He still looks so damn confused. “No, I—”

You don’t want to hear it. “I have nothing to say to you.” If he won’t get out of your way, you’ll just have to go through him. The shoulder check is maybe slightly more intense than it needs to be as you shove your way past him. He barely stumbles back an inch. It makes you want to rip your hair out. “Besides,” you add, not bothering to turn back to look at him. “I’m busy.”

It’s a dig at him, yes, but it’s also true. You are. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and Lee Heeseung is not about to ruin it for you.

To your unending gratitude, he doesn’t try to intercept you again. Your path to the front of the lecture hall is clear, and Professor Kim is just tucking his laptop back into his briefcase when you reach the podium.

Ultimately, it’s a watered down version of the million times you’ve imagined this moment in your head. Even coming on the tail end of the most annoying interaction you’ve had in months. Professor Kim congratulates you again, and hands you a printed schedule of when you’ll be expected at the publishing office for the first time.

There are also submission dates. Deadlines for you to submit drafts of the piece that you’ll be publishing. You take it all in with a beam and enthusiastic nods, mishap with Heeseung from minutes ago all but forgotten.

That is, until Professor Kim’s gaze lands somewhere over your shoulder after he tells you he’ll also send you a follow-up email with all the information you need.

You watch as his expression shifts, something uneasy, distrustful entering his gaze as he looks beyond you. “Something I can help you with, Mr. Lee?”

Following his gaze, you turn to look behind you. The lecture hall is empty, students cleared out from the class that dismissed nearly five minutes ago. All except for one, that is.

Gone is the shock from Heeseung’s delicately sharp features. Instead, he wears his mask of indifference again, betraying no emotion. You must be imagining the way it looks almost strained this time, as if he’s forcing his expression into neutrality instead of it there of its own accord.

Wordlessly, his gaze shifts to you.

And now it’s your turn to be confused, but you won’t let it last long. At least not outwardly. You’re quick to match his gaze with nothing but pure ire, venom dripping seeping from every inch of your glare.

Is he seriously still trying to ruin this for you? So much for being busy.

“No, sir.” Heeseung shakes his head. He’s addressing your professor, but he’s still looking at you. A muscle ticks in his jaw, betrays a hint of tension. “I was just on my way out.”

True to his word, he begins a steady descent towards the front door.

Your professor clears his throat, turns his attention back to you, resuming the wrap-up of your conversation.

You’re extra grateful for that follow-up email now, given the way movement in your periphery distracts you from Professor Kim’s last few statements. Instead, your focus hones in on the even footsteps that carry Heeseung to the door, allow him to slip through it silently.

It must be a trick of the light, must be a figment of your overworked, over irritated imagination. But you swear you see him linger there, just on the other side of the small glass window carved into the door.

Professor Kim says his parting words, and you thank him one final time. If there’s an unnatural quickness in your footsteps as you turn to leave, you tell yourself that it’s because you’re excited to get started on your draft, not because you have the sneaking suspicion Heeseung is still standing just on the other side of the door.

But you swear that’s his silhouette you see as you draw closer, shrouded in shadows but distinct all the same. You’re debating the merits of shouting at him or maybe accidentally shoulder checking him again as you pull open the door handle, a little more roughly than you intend.

But the only thing that greets you on the other side of the door is a nearly empty hallway, save for the pair of students bent over a laptop a few paces away. You ignore their twin expressions of shock as you let the door fall closed behind you, much more calmly than you opened it.

…..

The blank expanse of your notebook stares at you accusingly.

You’d stare back, if that would somehow make words appear on the page. Sighing, you reach for your long forgotten cup of tea sitting on your desk. Taking a slow sip, you realize it’s gone cold.

That just makes you double down on your frustration. How long have you been sitting here, waiting for inspiration to strike?

People always talk about the merits of a change in scenery, but ever since you started your first semester of university three years ago, your favorite place to write has always been here, at the small, simple desk that sits in the corner of your bedroom.

Back then, writing was a hobby. Something to do when the last of your biochemistry homework was finished. A way to release pent-up stress and tension from long days in the university lab and long hours feeling like you were drowning between all of the extra study sessions, TA workshops, and office hours.

At first, it had been worth it. You maintained high grades and high spirits. Mostly because of the small sprinkles of support your parents showered you with.

Every little You got this! that lit up your phone screen on dreary afternoons and We believe in you! that made your evening lectures a little more bearable felt like tokens of your parents’ affection. Something tangible to show for the care they held for you.

Most of all, you cherished the We’re proud of you messages. You can’t remember the last time you received one.

And it’s not like they were mad, exactly, when you told them you wanted to change majors. They did their best to be supportive in the ways that they knew how.

For your father, that was concern. “Are you sure? Literature? What do the job prospects after graduation look like?”

And for your mother, that was letting you know that she thought you were capable of more. Of better. “It’s not that literature is bad, sweetie. It’s just… Well, you’ve always been such a smart girl…”

You get it; you really do. All the questions and prodding comments that felt like criticism were wrapped in nothing but love. But that didn’t do much to soften the sting.

In the end, it was this desk that made you follow through with your change in major. Slumped in your hand-me-down chair late one Friday night, half finished lab report sitting untouched in your bag, the threat of tears burning at the corners of your eyes, all you wanted to do was write.

To put into words the feelings and emotions and fantasies and frustrations that you could never seem to express otherwise. To commit a piece of your soul to paper and wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was someone else out there who would read it and find a sense of solidarity, of common ground.

You submitted your official change request the next morning. You never regretted it once.

But your parents still make comments, still share their concerns. And for the last three years, you haven’t had anything to show for it except for empty promises. But now, you have something. A real something.

Publishing a story of your own is the exact validation that you need that your choice was the right one. And it’s the proof you need to assuage your parents’ fears, to show them that pursuing literature was the right call. That you can carve out a life for yourself with it.

You’ve fantasized about this for years. For the chance to have your voice heard, your words read. There are a million half-baked thoughts and partially written drafts scattered in your notebooks and digital documents and on the corners of takeout napkins that have been lying in wait for a moment just like this.

But no matter how hard you stare at the page in front of you, the words just won’t come. The more old drafts you scour, the more amateur your writing feels. The more you feel like maybe Heeseung should have won the internship over you.

It’s a miserable cycle your brain works itself into. The less you write, the more you criticize, the more you wonder.

What if he hadn’t been late that morning? What if Professor Kim was hoping to choose him instead? What if the reason he didn’t say anything when Heeseung finally arrived in class was because he was so disappointed that his first choice wasn’t an option anymore?

Groaning out loud to an empty room, your head falls on your desk with a muted thud.

It’s there, facedown on your desk, where an idea strikes you. If you can’t manifest a draft out of thin air, maybe you just need some parameters. A general guide to get the creative juices flowing.

Lifting your head back up, you push your notebook to the side and reach for your laptop. Opening a web browser, you navigate to New Haven Publishing House’s homepage.

It’s a simple website, reflective of its simple namesake. Chin in one hand, you click the link that reads Recently Published.

The list that pops up is modest. Unlike a larger, more corporate publishing house, your professor’s self-made enterprise is churning out new releases at a slower rate and smaller volume.

Perusing the titles and descriptions, you note that the vast majority of the works are short form fiction. There are very few full length novels. The majority is made up of essay and poetry collections, short stories, and memoirs.

Scanning the list again, a title close to the top catches your eye.

The Thirst for Revenge: An Analysis of Contemporary Vampire Activity. It was published less than a month ago.

Your cursor hovers over the link, brow furrowing. It strikes you as odd that something so… archaic would be published so recently.

Professor Kim has always come across as a discerning man. Someone that prides himself on his well curated taste.

But vampires… that’s hardly a headline worthy topic these days.

While most people still practice caution walking down dark alleyways at night and some even go so far as to carry charms infused with garlic cloves, monsters of the night are by and large a thing of the past.

The entire species of bloodthirsty, ravaging immortals were hunted to near extinction almost two hundred years ago. Those that survived relocated to remote areas. Some adapted to life in the countryside by learning to enjoy the taste of animal blood. Others found humans willing to donate small portions of their own blood intermittently. You won’t pretend to understand, but you suppose it’s preferable to the alternative.

Some still hunted in the traditional way, of course, but vampire attacks on humans are few are far between these days. After all, vampires, as a means of survival, have all but forsaken major urban areas. Population density spells demise for their species.

You’d have to confirm through research, but if you remember correctly, the last recorded vampire-related death in your city was nearly two hundred years ago.

Without bothering to click on the link, you continue scrolling down. Honestly, it was probably just a fluke. After all, who knows? Maybe there’s some niche circle out there that enjoys analyzing vampire literature, regardless of how outdated it is.

The next title seems a bit more promising. Shadowless Nights. The brief description marks it as a short story published half a year ago.

You click on it, take a sip of room temperature tea while the page loads.

Night was my favorite time of day, the first line reads.

I loved the stillness of it all, the all encompassing serenity. With the moon in the sky and stars in my eyes, every moment felt like a secret between me and the universe. Something we alone shared.

I whispered secrets to the earth and held hers in return. My days felt like dreams. Distant, blurry, faded. It was only then, in the distinct stillness of midnight, that I truly came alive.

Interesting, you think. It’s a bit more melodramatic than you expected, but maybe your professor prefers a poetic touch.

In the night, I earned peace. And in the night, I learned fear.

It came slowly at first, that sinking feeling of dread. The horrible suspicion that made the hair on the back of my neck feel sharp, the air in my throat feel shallow.

But if I have learned anything of monsters, it is that they revel in that fear. That sickeningly overt reminder of mortality, of humanity. The way I couldn’t help the racing of my pulse, the darting of my eyes.

He enjoyed it, toying with me from the shadows. Watching me become desperate, watching me become weak.

But it paled in comparison, I’m sure, with what came next. Every story has its climax, and every beginning has its end. For him, it was the sweet, clean taste of my blood.

Wait. Another vampire story? One was strange enough, but for the last two published works at New Haven to be vampire related doesn’t feel like a coincidence. Especially since the more you read, the more you realize it’s not as much of a story as it is thinly veiled anti-vampire rhetoric.

The dramatized descriptions of a weak, innocent female lead being victimized by a faceless, bloodthirsty monster. It just feels… strange. Outdated. Irrelevant, even.

Clicking back to the list, you scan over the next five entries. All of them are more or less the same. Some are more metaphorical than others, abstract in their rhetoric, but the topic is always the same. And the conclusion always affirms the immense, inevitable, irredeemable blight that vampirism is to the world.

It’s just bizarre. Especially considering that Professor Kim never once had you analyze any anti-vampire propaganda throughout the entire semester. In fact, you were never assigned to read anything vampire related at all.

If this type of literature is so central to his professional career, it doesn't make sense to you that he wouldn’t incorporate it into his class. Especially considering the fact that he was awarding an internship at New Haven to one of the students.

You take another long sip of cold tea. Well… you could try to come up with something that aligns with the current profile of New Haven’s recently published works. It’s not like you’ve ever written anything related to vampires. Maybe you just need to think of it as a writing exercise, a challenge of sorts. Producing a piece that feels relevant and fresh even if the central topic is a bit out of style.

According to the revision schedule Professor Kim gave you, your first draft issue in a week and a half. The same day that you’re set to go to New Haven for the first time and tour the office you’ll be interning at once winter break is over. It’s an ambitious timeline, but he did specify that he’s looking more for a solid concept than a well polished draft. But something in you wants to have more than just a concept. You want his approval, to impress him.

So you have a week and a half to come up with a draft that will catch his attention, that will convince him that you were the right choice for this opportunity. Not anyone else in your class. Not Heeseung. You.

A concept that will excite New Haven Publishing House’s usual reader base, that will maybe actually earn you some commercial success.

A story that will prove to your parents that literature was the right choice for you. That your words do matter, that you can make a name for yourself with your writing.

Well, you think, suppressing an internal groan, it looks like you have your work cut out for you.

…..

Despite your admitted lack of vampiric knowledge, once you have your topic, the words start to flow. You’re not sure if it’s your best work. You’re not even sure if it’s good. But it feels a hell of a lot better than staring at a blank page for hours.

This afternoon finds you in the corner of your favorite coffee shop. Mostly because they offer half priced lattes on Wednesdays. As you make a dent in yours, the pen in your other hand continues to fly over the pages of your notebook, occasionally stopping to scratch out a word or rewrite a sentence.

The bare bones are there. Just like in the handful of stories you perused on New Haven’s website, your plot features a young woman. It’s a historic setting, mostly because you still can’t quite bring yourself to write vampires into the modern day when the reality is so starkly different.

And it’s not a vampire story. At least not at first glance. Instead, you weave an enduring metaphor to symbolize a parasitic relationship between two lovers.

The woman in your draft is young, full of life and energy and optimism. And she dreams. Vivid, brilliant dreams that she clings to in order to escape the harshness of her reality as a lower class woman in the countryside.

Her husband, however, is a brute. Older than her and with a decidedly less sunny disposition. When he learns that his health is failing, he discovers that he can heal himself temporarily by stealing these dreams from her.

So, no. It’s not overtly about vampires. But it does fall into step with some of the more abstract anti-vampire tropes you came across in your preliminary research.

Crossing a dark line through the word you just penned, you sigh.

This is the fastest you’ve put a story together in ages. It’s cohesive, and the writing is solid. Your use of metaphor is strong and concise, and the prose feels true to your identity as a writer.

But something in you withers a bit with every new word you commit to paper. It’s not that you hate your topic. If anything, it’s just that you have no stake in it at all. It doesn't feel innovative or exciting or representative of your creativity.

No matter how easily the words flow out of you, something about it just feels… flat. One dimensional.

You need something new. A different angle or an alternative perspective or… Or a fresh set of eyes.

Struck with a sudden idea, you pull out your phone, plan taking form in your mind. The literature club at your university hosts bimonthly peer review sessions, and you haven’t taken advantage of them nearly as much as you should. They’re a chance for any writer, literature major or otherwise, to come together and workshop any piece of writing of their choice.

Tapping your finger impatiently on the table, you wait for the page to load. The fall semester did end almost a week ago, so it may be a long shot. You’re not sure if the club typically holds sessions over winter break. But as you pull up the club’s calendar of events, a small smile tugs at your lips.

Luck seems to be on your side this time. It’s written there in plain, bold font that there will be a session this upcoming Friday evening. That means that if you attend the session and get some solid ideas for revision, you’ll have exactly five days to refine your draft before you present it to Professor Kim.

The idea of having not only a topic, as the schedule outlined, but an actual complete, well-written draft to show him next Wednesday, turns your small smile into one that overtakes your features.

Energized with a new vigor, you reach for your pen again. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you remind yourself, even as a turn of phrase makes you cringe. Even as a piece of punctuation feels out of place. It just needs to be written. You just need to have as much content as you can to share on Friday.

Besides, you’re sure that a second opinion will help you fine tune this story into something you’re proud to share, something you’re excited to attach your name to.

The afternoon is quick to blur into early evening, and you’re still bent over your favorite corner table. Coffee long drained, you’re full of a new confidence. The thought of proving yourself suddenly doesn’t seem like such an unachievable, out of reach task.

And when you do finally gather up all of your belongings and make your way back to your apartment for the night, you’re sure that this is the exact boost you needed.

That same stroke of self-assuredness carries you all the way through a finished first draft. It’s rough and messy and littered with loose ends, but it’s tucked away in the bottom of your tote bag with a smile as you haul it to classroom number 105 in the university liberal arts building Friday evening.

You pause at the door to the classroom, only for a moment. The inhale you breathe in is deep, full. Nodding to yourself once, you push open the door.

You haven’t been to one of these workshop sessions since the second semester of your first year, back when you had just switched to a literature major. You remember being wide-eyed and incredibly protective over your work. It was hard to part with it, to let anyone else read over the sentences you were so unsure of. The writing you had little confidence in.

But your partner had been kind. Another girl in her first year, she had nothing but gentle feedback to give and reassurance that your writing was worth reading. Honestly, it was such an overwhelmingly positive experience that you would have come back for more sessions if you weren’t constantly struggling to find minutes to spare in the day.

You’re hoping that tonight will be just as rewarding as you enter the classroom, tote bag in tow. But as you survey the space around you, your face falls flat, easy going smile dropping from your lips.

You weren’t expecting a big crowd, considering that it is winter break and most students are deliberately avoiding campus right now, but you were hoping there’d be more than one other person in attendance.

Well, you think, deciding to look on the bright side of things. At least you’re not the only person.

The other attendee is sitting in the far corner of the room, occupying a desk near the front of the classroom. At the sound of your entrance, they turn to face you.

With that, your small disappointment is quick to snowball into an intense wave of exasperation. Because why is the universe so hellbent on playing games with you?

Your mouth drops open without your permission. “Heeseung?”

Your sudden outburst fills the room and lingers long into the awkward silence that follows. You hadn’t meant to say anything, but really, what are the god forsaken odds?

If he’s bothered by your reaction to seeing him, Heeseung doesn’t show it. Instead he looks strangely… relieved. It makes absolutely no sense for him to feel any sort of relief at the sight of you, but it’s hard to put a more apt descriptor to the way tension drains from his shoulders, crease between his brows softening as he looks at you, scans you from head to toe.

A moment of stilted silence passes between the two of you. Another. Your heartbeat feels too loud in your chest.

You exhale, a cross between a scoff and a laugh so humorless it could freeze a flame. Weighing your options, the most tempting by far is to just turn on your heel and exit the way you came.

Heeseung seems to read your intention before you can commit to it.

Breaking the heaviness in the atmosphere, he acts as if you’ve greeted him like an old friend, not as the source of all your recent headaches.

“Hi,” he nods, so tentatively you almost want to let your jaw drop open in shock. Almost.

Because what the fuck does he mean by ‘Hi?’ This has to be some kind of mind game, some way to get in your head and ruin this for you.

“Right.” Your lips pull into a tight line. You don’t bother to return his greeting. “I’m just gonna go, then.” Hiking up your bag on your shoulder, you turn to do just that. Your first draft will just have to be unpolished. Oh, well. You’re sure Professor Kim will have better feedback for you than Lee Heeseung ever would anyway.

Once again, Heeseung’s voice cuts across the classroom. “Wait.” There’s a command in his voice. Gentle, but firm. Insistent. So pervasive that you find yourself following without really meaning to.

Mind made up and dead set on leaving, now you’re just annoyed. What a waste of a Friday evening.

“What?” You turn back to him. You’re not sure if there’s more venom in your voice or your eyes.

And Heeseung, who commands a classroom with quiet grace, with his steady, unwavering presence, suddenly looks so damn unsure. As if tormenting you is uncharted territory. As if he’s never once left you in the cold with flaming cheeks and a thoroughly shattered ego.

“I…” he trails off, not quite meeting your furious gaze. “Didn’t you come here to get feedback?”

“Right.” You scoff again. “Because I’m sure you’d love nothing more than to tear my writing to shreds. Forgive me, but I’m not interested in being the butt end of your joke tonight.”

“What?” If you didn’t know any better, the ignorance he feigns would be rather convincing. “That’s not why I’m here.” He shakes his head. “I brought something I want reviewed too.”

Your brow arches. He can’t be serious. “Even if I did stay,” you counter, “you’re actually the last person I would want to read my work. Feel free to be offended by that, by the way.”

For a solid minute, Heeseung just looks at you. He wears that same damn deer-in-the-headlights expression he had after you brushed him off when he intercepted you in class the other day. He pauses, weighing words on his tongue. “Look, ____.” The sound of your name on his lips strikes a strange chord in you. Until now, you were certain he didn’t even know it. “Did I do something to offend—”

And no. Absolutely not. No way are you rehashing that day in the quad with him now.

“You know what,” you interrupt. You need to go. Now. You need an out. “I’m actually, like, super tired. I think I’m just gonna head back, and—”

But then it’s his turn to cut off your train of thought. “It’s your piece for Professor Kim, isn’t it?” Heeseung takes your silence as confirmation. “Publishing is a big deal. A second set of eyes will only make your work stronger. And if you hate my feedback, it’s not like you have to use any of it.”

You hate it. You despise the way his reasoning matches your internal monologue nearly word for word. The way your thoughts align exactly.

You pause, a decision weighing heavy on your mind. He is an excellent writer… There would probably be substance to his feedback. Real, actual, good substance that you could use to make your writing bloom into something truly amazing. He could be the exact spark you need to make your story come to life.

You purse your lips. “What’s in it for you?”

Heeseung smiles, a nearly imperceptible quirk of his lips. He knows he’s won. “Like I said, I brought something I’ve been working on.” There’s an intention you can’t quite read behind his gaze when he adds, “I want to know what you think of it.”

Hook, line, and sinker.

With a grumble, you take reluctant steps towards where he sits on the opposite side of the classroom. And if you slide down into the seat next to him with a little more force than necessary, well, it’s just because you’ve had a long week. No other reason. None at all.

“Fine,” you relent, reaching to pull your notebook out of your bag. “You get twenty minutes.”

“That’s not nearly long eno—”

“Thirty,” you concede. “And don’t push it.”

Sensing your disdain, Heeseung doesn’t respond. Instead, he accepts the notebook you reluctantly hand him with an outstretched hand and an open palm. The transfer between the two of you is gentle. You have the distinct sense that he’ll treat your work with care, in more than one way.

Still, something in your heart seizes at the thought of letting your work be read. Of letting him be the one to read it.

In return, he offers you a notebook of his own. Bound in brown, aged leather, it’s certainly much more refined than yours. Of course.

He hands it to you still closed. Staring down at the cover, you ask, “What page?” It feels intrusive to start flipping through his writing uninvited.

“There’s a bookmark.” Heeseung nods his chin towards the small piece of paper sticking out of the top edge that you missed at first glance.

And then the transfer is complete. A piece of your heart is spread open on his desk, and a piece of his soul is in your hands.

Ignoring the way your fingers tremble with a slight shake, you delicately open his notebook to the bookmarked page, letting it fall open on the desk in front of you.

At first glance, the writing strikes you as odd. The paragraphs are strange lengths, ending at random junctures instead of extending all the way to the margins. And then it hits you. They’re not paragraphs. They’re stanzas.

Poetry. Lee Heeseung writes poetry.

You sneak a sidelong glance at him out of your periphery. He’s already engrossed in the pages of your notebook, pausing occasionally to jot a note down on a scrap piece of paper. His brow is furrowed, and there’s a tension in his jawline that only makes it sharper.

Still, the image of his profile is shrouded in a distinct sort of softness. The kind of effortless beauty that feels like it should be reserved for intimate moments in the dead of night, secrets passed between lovers. It’s wasted under the fluorescent lights and patchy, beige walls of an underfunded classroom, but you waste another minute staring at him all the same.

For a fleeting moment, it’s not hard to imagine those hands, those long, delicate fingers maintaining an even grip on a ballpoint pen to write something as romantic as poetry.

Shaking your head, you clear the errant thoughts. Instead, you turn your focus back to the page in front of you and begin with the first poem. Forcing your eyes to focus, you read.

As if nothing happened,

She looks at me

With shadowless eyes.

But it is me who has been

Forgiven and reborn countless times.

You inhale. Exhale. Short and succinct with a distinct twinge of tragedy. That was… not what you were expecting. Pushing forward, you move onto the next entry.

Even the stars in the universe

Will close their eyes one day.

Underneath their watchful gaze,

All of these moments are precious.

For memory, for regret,

I will carve them

Into the repetition of the moment.

Again, you pause, taking a moment to breathe. It’s so… melancholy, so poignant in its evocation of pain, of regret. While you’ve been familiar with Heeseung’s ability to analyze the hell out of a novella, this was not something you thought you’d find in his repertoire. And the more you read on, the more you realize these aren’t flukes. This is his identity as a writer, or at least a significant part of it.

The world that abandoned us

Slowly turns to ash.

But I don’t feel the pain.

I only feel the cold.

My god. You nearly close the notebook on instinct. Without your permission, your eyes flick ove to the desk next to you. The broad set of shoulders that fill the seat. What has this boy been through? Why is he letting you read this?

Heeseung looks up. Not at you, but the movement is enough to startle you out of your staring. Returning your eyes to his notebook, you read the last entry on the page.

A shaded castle with no sun

The thick scent of dying roses never fades.

In a broken mirror, I see myself.

And my reflection whispers, “Monster.”

The breath you release is long. Audible. You’re overcome with the urge to run your fingers over his words, to feel the indents his pen made as he carved pain into the page. His writing is gorgeous. It’s beautifully, tragically haunting. Of that much, you’re certain. But you have no idea what to do with that information.

His words feel too raw, too terribly intimate. Like something that was never meant for your eyes. You can’t understand what on earth possibly possessed him to let — no — to encourage you to read these.

You can’t fathom any kind of feedback you could offer him. These feel like pieces of his soul, not something to be commodified or commented on in a writing workshop. Discussed in the cold, unfeeling walls of an old classroom.

Despite the discomfort that lingers with each passing stanza, his writing has an almost addictive quality. Over and over, you find yourself rereading each brief poem. You’re searching for meaning, for clarity, for something hidden between the lines that you missed on your first handful of reads.

Thirty minutes pass in a trance, and Heeseung, true to his word, is the one to break the silence when your half hour is up.

Mind still reeling, you realize with a sinking feeling that you have absolutely no feedback to give him at all.

Instead, you turn to face him. Throwing a meaningful glance at where your notebook still lies open on the desk in front of him. Doing your best to not look too hopeful, you ask, “Well?”

For a moment, Heeseung just looks at you, an unreadable expression on his face. Tension pulls at his temple, his jaw. Frustration seeps from beneath his skin, and you can’t tell where it’s directed.

“Oh, come on,” you prod when his silence extends even longer. “I know you’re dying to spill the gory details of how grossly incompetent I am and how horrifically amateur my writing is, so don’t—”

Heeseung wastes no fanfare. “This is awful.”

Your lips flatten. “Or just cut right to the chase.”

He’s quick to clarify. “But not for any of the reasons you just listed. I mean, sure, there are some craft issues here, but even those seem like a result of your concept.”

“What’s wrong with my concept?” The edge of defensiveness in your voice escapes without your permission.

Heeseung just levels you with a look. Returning his gaze to your notebook, he reads from your draft verbatim, “...Stashing away the light from her life. Tucking it into his back pocket like extra change just for the satisfaction of temporary happiness. It was never love that bound him to her, but the promise of a never ending fountain of life. Of wishes and thoughts and hopes and dreams that he could use to sustain himself as long as he subjected himself to the numbing pleasure of existing at her side.”

He raises an eyebrow, turns back to you. “I mean, really, ____? I’ve read some nauseatingly vitriolic vampire pieces in my life, and this just about has all of them beat. Besides, the whole vampire thing just feels so… irrelevant. Do people still read this stuff anymore?”

Your first instinct is to defend yourself, your work, even if his thoughts mirror your own. Before you can, Heeseung is pressing on. You don’t have the space to get a word in sideways. “I mean, what happened to the writing from that piece you presented back in September? I don’t remember all the details, but there was something about watching birds land on water and connecting it to the feeling of belonging but never truly fitting in.” He looks at you again. There’s more emotion, more glittering life in his eyes than you’ve ever seen from him before. “That was a fresh take and a well done metaphor.”

Your mind is reeling. It’s far too much information to take in all at once. But something stands out amongst the rest. Because that almost sounded like—

“Was that a compliment?” It seems unlikely, but you can’t find another way to take his words. “You paid attention to my presentation?”

You liked it? You don’t ask that question out loud, but the needier parts of you crave his answer anyway.

“Yeah, of course I did. Peer review was a mandatory component of the course.” Heeseung’s cheekbones remain the same, even, honey-tinted tone, but you swear you see a flash of embarrassment in the way he averts his gaze.

“Well, yeah.” It’s not a justification that holds much weight in your mind. “But you don’t exactly seem like the type to really pay attention to other people’s stuff. Especially if you think it’s not worth your time.”

“I just told you your presentation was good, didn’t I?”

You arch a brow. “Yeah, right after you finished calling my draft horrific.”

Heeseung shakes his head. “I didn’t say it was horrific…”

“Oh, please. Spare us both the semantics. That’s what you meant.” You’re not sure why your mind always goes back to that day in the quad, but you find yourself still sore from his rejection, his new assertion of your work poking at old wounds. Picking at poorly healed scabs. “And it’s not like you were jumping for joy at the chance to review my work back then, either.”

Heeseung’s brow furrows. You can practically see the gears turning in his mind. You’re not sure if it makes you feel better or worse, the fact that he doesn’t seem to remember that day at all.

In the end, you decide to spare him the effort of empty recollection. With a sigh, you spill your shame. At least this time around, you’re the only two that will bear witness. “That one day in class. Back at the beginning of the semester. We had to present our analysis of that one short story. You remember, the one about planting seeds in bad soil.” Heeseung nods, but there’s no spark of realization. Not yet.

Continuing, it only pains you slightly to admit, “Your analysis was brilliant, and I gushed about it in front of the whole class. Laid it on thick with the compliments. And then after class, I stopped you in the quad.” Something flickers over Heeseung’s features. A memory tugging at the back of his mind. “When I asked if you wanted to review each other’s pieces for the next assignment, you completely brushed me off.”

Brow still pulled downwards, Heeseung is thinking back to that day, too. But it doesn't seem to hold the same awful, leaden weight in his mind. “I didn’t brush you off,” he argues. “I think I said I was busy.”

It takes a lot of willpower not to let your jaw drop open. “That’s brushing someone off!” Your voice is too loud for the near empty classroom, for your close proximity. “Like literally the textbook definition. Everyone knows that ‘I’m busy’ is code for ‘leave me the hell alone.’”

Almost imperceptibly, Heeseung’s features soften as he watches yours strain. The fluorescent light bulbs that fill the room suddenly don’t seem quite as harsh when he says, “Well, that's not what I meant. I was busy.”

It’s hardly a satisfying answer. But you suppose it makes little difference. If he wants to stick to his story, you’ll continue to feign indifference. “Whatever. It’s not like it matters now anyway.”

And then your mind is back on his poems. His beautiful, tragic, gorgeously phrased stanzas scribbled in his handwriting. Fragments of vulnerability that he handed to you without hesitation.

It’s like comparing apples to oranges in a way, but there is no doubt in your mind that between the two of you, the writing he brought tonight is better. Better than your story, better than most things you’ve ever written, probably. The imagery is evocative, striking in a way you’ve never quite been able to achieve no matter how many seminars and workshops and lectures you attend.

Not for the first time, your brain dangles a dangerous thought in a place where you can’t avoid it. What if Professor Kim chose wrong? What if Heeseung hadn’t been late to class that day? Would you be sitting here with a mediocre draft and a raging inferiority complex?

You’ll never know, not really, but you find yourself asking anyway, “Why were you late to class that day?”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you wish you could take them back. It’s not like his answer will change anything. And it’s invasive. Far too personal to ask someone you barely know. That up until thirty minutes ago, you actively avoided.

But maybe the universe is on your side for once. Maybe you got ridiculously lucky and he didn’t hear you, despite the fact that it’s dead silent in this classroom. Maybe—

“What?”

Or not.

Well, you’re committed now. “The last day of class. When the winner for the publishing opportunity was announced,” you clarify. “You were late. Honestly,” you add with a wry smile, “you’d probably be the one writing overdramatic vampire slander right now if you hadn’t been.”

It’s a self-deprecating joke. It might land poorly, but you’re hoping it will lighten the atmosphere.

A dark shadow crosses Heeseung’s features. “Trust me, ___. You winning had nothing to do with me being late that day.”

If he thinks flattery will get him anywhere, he’s wrong. You can feel your frustrations bubbling in your throat, clawing at your mind. You won. You beat him. So why doesn’t it feel like it? Why doesn’t it feel like anything you do is ever good enough?

“C’mon, Heeseung.” He doesn’t deserve your anger. At least, not now. But he gets it anyway. Insecurities and inferiority and frustration all wrapped in rage. “You were practically a shoe-in, and everyone knows it.”

He’s just as insistent. Leaning towards you slightly, he looks anything but aloof now. “No I wasn’t. Professor Kim chose you to intern with him. He read both of our submissions all semester and chose you to publish with his firm. I told you, your writing is good. Really good.” Glancing down at your notebook, he adds, “Even if this one is a bit… uninspired.”

A compliment and a slight. His version of the truth, wrapped up in a bow and delivered right to your waiting ears. You don’t know whether to be furious or overjoyed. Maybe it would be best to feel absolutely nothing at all. It scares you, just how much weight his opinion holds.

But approval from him has its way of feeling like a long sought victory, and now the air feels fraught with something delicate, fragile. Precarious, even.

It’s early evening in a threadbare classroom. The most neutral territory imaginable. But it’s the two of you, alone, secluded. And suddenly, that frightens you.

“Right.” You won’t tell him ‘thank you’ for the compliment or ‘go fuck yourself’ for the criticism. Both options feel like you would be revealing too much.

Instead, you take a glance at the clock. It’s not late, but it’s an excuse. “I should probably get going.”

Heeseung exhales. Leans back in his seat. “Of course,” he concedes easily, reaching to hand you your notebook.

You do the same with his, almost sad to watch his poetry pass from your hands to his. It’s odd, the way his words already feel like something you’ll miss.

You realize then that he hasn’t asked you for your opinion on his work. For your advice on how to make it better. In all honesty, you’re relieved. You haven’t the slightest idea what you would say.

So instead, you busy yourself with repacking your tote bag. In your haste, you knock your pen off of your desk. The sound it makes as it strikes the thinning carpet can’t be loud, but it feels thunderous in your ears.

As you reach to pick it up, Heeseung does the same. There’s a moment, fleeting but unmistakable, when the skin of his hand brushes against yours.

Instantly, Heeseung recoils as if you’ve burned him. His hand is back in his own space at a speed so fast you nearly miss it.

It was an accident, a tiny blip with no real consequences, but the way he’s looking at you with those damn eyes makes you feel like you should be apologizing.

“Sorry.” The severity of his reaction stings like rejection. It’s not like he’s exactly your favorite person either, but at least you have the common decency to not look repulsed at the thought of touching him. At the accidental brushing of your hands.

Heeseung frowns. Shakes his head slightly as if to clear his thoughts. “No, I…” he trails off, letting his words hang in the air for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he concludes, but it feels disingenuous. And he doesn’t bother to elaborate. Looking over your shoulder, he reads the clock on the wall. “It’s getting kind of late. Where are you parked? I can walk you to your car.”

His hands are busy putting his notebook back in his back. It’s a considerate offer, but coming on the tail end of everything else, it doesn’t hold much weight with you. His words don’t match his actions, and you decide you’d be a fool to take them at face value.

“Don’t bother. I’m walking home, not driving.”

Heeseung freezes, hand still inside his bag. He’s not looking at you, but you feel the weight of his attention all the same. “Do you need someone to walk with you?”

The way he phrases the question makes you feel like a burden. He’s asking if you need someone to walk with you, not offering because he wants to. A subtle difference maybe, but the last thing you want is to feel like you owe him any favors.

“No, I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” He does look at you now, concern painted across his features. “It’s getting dark earlier these days, and—”

His words are wasted on you. You’re already halfway to the door. “I’m sure.” But before you leave, you decide one more hit to your pride can’t worsen the damage that’s already been done. At least this time, it will be by your doing. Standing under the doorframe, you turn back to him. “Thank you for your feedback. It was good to hear an honest opinion.”

Your words sink into the air. Linger for a moment.

Heeseung nods. Something in his jaw tightens. “You know, if you do decide to change topics, I’d be happy to read whatever you write.”

It almost sounds like another compliment. Or maybe another insult. Either way, you’re sure that even if you figure it out, you’ll still have no idea what to do with it. You nod, only once, and then your back is turned again before you can linger too long on any of it.

But his words, the sweet ones this time, replay in your mind the entire walk home.

Maybe if you weren’t so distracted by the ghosts of compliments, you’d have noticed the pair of quiet, even footsteps that trailed after you in the distance. That only retreated once the front door to your apartment was pulled shut and locked tight behind you.

Then again, maybe not. Heeseung has always had a knack for going undetected.

…..

You wake up the next morning with Heeseung’s words replaying in your mind.

Awful. Irrelevant. And of course your favorite, ‘nauseatingly vitriolic vampire piece.’

In the faded glow of morning light, you groan out loud to your empty bedroom. The worst part of it all is that he’s not even wrong. But it’s Saturday morning, and your first draft is due on Wednesday. The thought of starting a new story from scratch and writing it to completion within that time frame is enough to make you want to curl into a ball and screw your eyes shut until you can pretend the world outside your bedroom is nothing but a figment of your imagination.

So no, you don’t think you can start over entirely. But maybe, just maybe, you can rework things. Tweak the narrative to feel less cliche, less outdated. More true to you.

Part of you wants to abandon the vampire concept entirely, convinced it’s what’s holding you down. The other part is hesitant to do so based on New Haven’s list of recently published works.

And while Heeseung’s criticism was the confirmation you needed that your story needs reworking, it’s not like he gave you any ideas as to what you should change. What direction you should take.

Nauseatingly vitriolic vampire piece. That seemed to be Heeseung’s biggest problem with your draft. Not that it alluded to vampirism. No, you think he disliked that it was a tired and rehashed propaganda piece on the inherent evilness of vampires.

Everyone knows that vampires were monsters. Writing about it, no matter how many metaphors and symbolic phrases you wrap it up in, just isn’t interesting.

That’s the route you’ll take, then, you decide. You don’t have to invent a new concept out of thin air. You just need to find a way to bring something new to the table. Something worth reading. Climbing out of bed, you switch your pajamas for clothes more acceptable in public.

And then you make your way to the university library.

Just as you suspected, it’s essentially empty. Between long rows of meticulously shelved books, vacant study rooms, and community computers, the only other person you see is the librarian that greets you as you arrive. Even her eyebrows raise in mild shock to see someone else during the break, and on a weekend at that.

Heading to the second floor, the first section you peruse through is historical records. But between old newspapers, reports, and journals, the content itself is quite cut and dry. Detached descriptions of vampire attacks that only contain details of the date, time, and death toll aren’t exactly riveting. And you don’t think they’ll do much for your feeble draft.

Before long, you move away from the nonfiction section. Navigating to supernatural fiction on the third floor, you start browsing titles. Vampire stories make up a rather small portion of the texts, and from what you can tell, the vast majority align with what you found on New Haven’s website.

From Demons of the Dark to Left in Cold Blood, you doubt that most of what you find will offer any kind of new perspective. But on your third, slightly desperate scouring of the shelf, you make a discovery.

It’s a small, nondescript book. The muted tones and faded lettering on the spine go easily undetected amongst the much flashier copies of anti-vampire propaganda it’s nestled between.

Pulling the book out from the shelf with a delicate touch, you flip the cover face-up in your hand.

Sacred Monsters: A Collection of Essays on the Origins of Immortality

It piques your interest. At the very least, it seems different from all the other novels.

Book in hand, you make your way to a nearby desk. Once you’re settled in, you pull out your notebook, opening to a new page with the intention of taking notes.

The book you lay on the desk next to your notebook seems like it’s lived a long life, the old scent of dust and aged paper and time all contained within its pages. Flipping open the front cover, you look for an author or publication date. But there’s nothing there, not even a title page or a table of contents.

Glossing over the slight oddity, you decide the beginning is as good a place as any to start.

The Taste of Blood, is the title at the top of the page.

And the first sentence begins:

It is neither sweet nor particularly savory. There is no distinct aroma, no compelling flavor profile, nothing that appeals to the eye or excites the taste buds. The only merit is the fact that it is necessary. For even those blessed with immortality know what it means to survive. And even those cursed to live forever know what it means to die.

Frowning, you flip back to the cover, as if that will provide any clarity for the strange passage you just read. But nothing is different. Nothing new stands out. Just the same, faded title. No author or indication of any kind of publication date.

Intrigued, you turn back and resume where you left off.

Some are said to enjoy the act. The purity of release, of giving in to the instincts that can be convinced into domesticity but never fully silenced. I have never found such relief. The ghost of my humanity has always been stronger than the voice of the monster, even as he screams with unbounded ferocity.

Without it, I feel incomplete. With it, I feel irredeemable. Even now, I dodge the truth, omit the profane. I have seen many moons, enjoyed their silver glow. I have stolen the very same pleasure from countless others. And yet, I struggle to call it by name. I cannot reconcile the battles waged in my bones, the war fought in my mind.

There is no winner in either. All that remains in the taste of it. Lingering on my breath. Haunting my waking dreams. That which I cannot name.

The taste of blood.

In my fervor, it soothes like honey. In my regret, it turns to ash.

And still, nothing changes. And still, nothing remains the same.

-- Anonymous

Well, if you were looking for something different, you found it. Because what the absolute fuck are you reading? If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it were written from the perspective of a vampire.

Then again, shelved in the fiction section, you suppose it’s plausible. Actual vampires may have housed little room in their consciousness for anything outside of bloodlust, but it is an interesting idea to think of vampires as conflicted. Haunted by the brutality of their innate instincts.

You’re not exactly sure how or if this will be able to influence your own story for the better, but something about it makes you want to keep reading.

Alone, tucked amongst the dusty shelves of a neglected section of the library, you lose yourself between the pages of the mysterious book.

As the title indicated, it’s a collection of essays. Most are quite short, around the same length as the first one you read. And none are claimed by an author. All are signed off with the same boldface type that spells Anonymous. There are subtle differences in the writing though, stylistic choices that make you think that more than one person wrote these essays.

Despite that, they’re all woven together by a common thread. The first essay, as you discover, was not a fluke. Every single one is written in first person from the perspective of a vampire.

The writing is compelling, humorous in places and deeply upsetting in others. It seems odd to you, just how much humanity is captured within the pages, within each turn of phrase.

You feel inclined to root for the narrator in some stories and abjectly horrified by them in others. But never once does the writing make you think that vampires are incapable of self-actualization, of reflection, of morality.

In all honesty, aside from Heeseung’s poems, it’s the most interesting thing you’ve read in ages. So much so that by the time you realize you’ve finished the last essay, the winter sun is teeming dangerously close to the horizon, and the library is nearing its closing hours.

The notebook page you intended to use for notes, to jot down points of inspiration, is still woefully blank. But as you make your way back to the front of the library, the small, strange book comes along with you.

Stopping at the front desk to formally check it out, the librarian frowns when she enters the number from the spine into the system. She clicks around on her computer for a moment longer before handing the book back to you.

“I’m sorry, but the book isn’t coming up in our system for some reason. Would you mind writing down your student ID number for me? I’ll have to enter the information manually.”

You oblige her request, tucking the book into your bag before you leave.

It’s chilly outside, the cold clutches of winter gaining a full grasp on the crisp, frigid air. After a long day in a stuffy library, the freezing air is almost soothing. Tucking your hands into your pockets, you turn towards the direction that will take you home.

You’ve barely taken five steps when a voice calls your name from behind. Pausing, you turn to find the source of the sound.

“Heeseung?” But there’s no mistaking it. That is most definitely Lee Heeseung, currently jogging towards you on the otherwise empty sidewalk in front of the university library.

He catches up to you easily, no sign of perspiration or even a hint of breathlessness when he asks, “What are you doing walking alone at night?” As if you’re the strange one in this situation.

You give him a once over. The loose jeans and dark winter coat he wears are nothing special, but he wears them well regardless. You suppress the urge to sigh. “I could ask you the same.”

“Fair enough.” His tone is too light, too casual. Like he’s forcing it. Like he’s hiding something. “Are you headed home? I’ll walk you there.”

And if you weren’t suspicious before, you sure as hell are now. Why on earth would he want to walk you home? “I’m fine, thanks.” You turn away from him, heading in the direction of your apartment and hoping he’ll take the hint.

Your wish goes ungranted. He matches your pace easily, even as you try to quicken it. “It’s after dark, ___. And there are a lot of…” He trails off, searching for the right word. “strange people out at night these days. I’m not letting you walk home alone.”

Lips tight, you don’t bother looking at him. The idea of Heeseung letting you do anything makes you want to throw things. “I’ll be fine.”

But he’s persistent. He’s all smiles and a strange amount of desperate when he says, “Either you let me walk you back or I’ll just follow you at a weird distance, which will be far more uncomfortable for both of us.”

That makes you stop in your tracks. And now you do turn to look at him. “Well, when you put it that way…”

Heeseung nods, “Exactly. So—”

You arch an unimpressed brow, crossing your arms over your chest. “It sounds like you’re the strange person at night I need to stay away from.”

Heeseung sighs, matches your eye. A strand of hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it away with long fingers. “Are you gonna start walking or are we gonna stand here and argue a little longer?”

“You don’t even know where I live.”

“What a great night to find out.”

You stare at him a moment longer, lips tight. You don’t want to be the one to give in, to hand him any kind of victory, no matter how small.

But it is getting late. The walk from campus to your apartment is never one that’s made you uneasy, but it never hurts to have someone at your side. Besides, you think he was serious about following you. He’s made it clear that he’ll be tagging along one way or another.

“Fine,” you huff, arms still crossed over your chest. “But only because the streetlight a few blocks away is out.”

Heeseung inclines his head, a minute acknowledgement. There’s a hint of movement at the corner of his lips. “Naturally.”

You resume walking, and he falls into your pace with a practiced ease, hands in his pocket, eyes on the stars. It’s a cloudless evening. The sky above you feels vast, immense as the last rays of daylight lie to rest on the distant horizon.

With a slight shiver, you pull your jacket tighter around your body. Heeseung notices the movement. Parts his lips as if he wants to say something. Changes his mind. Closes them.

You’ve just reached the far edge of campus when he breaks the steady silence.

“How’s your draft coming?”

“It’s…” You trail off, not sure how well honesty will serve you here. It feels vulnerable, like a blatant weakness to admit that you’ve got nothing. But something about cold air and the vast expanse of night has you wanting to tell the truth. “Not great.”

Heeseung lets your response settle. Turns it over in his mind a few times. You’ve noticed that about him. He’s careful with his responses. Weighs his words before breathing them to life. “Still looking for inspiration?”

“I don’t know if it’s inspiration I need.” It’s easier to talk to him like this, when your eyes have something to focus on, when your body has the constant repetition of steps to occupy part of your mind. Without little distractions like these, Heeseung has a way of becoming all consuming. “I feel like I backed myself into a corner with the vampire concept. I’m not sure if there's really anything there to explore that won’t feel outdated and irrelevant.”

“Mm,” Heeseung muses. It’s noncommittal, neither an agreement nor an argument. “Maybe. You said it yourself; vampires are nothing but bloodlust. Riled completely by instinct. Nothing left of their humanity.”

Frowning, your footsteps almost falter. “I didn’t say that.”

“Forgive me.” If there’s a tinge of bitterness in his tone, you suppose it must be because of the cold. The fact that he’s wasting his Saturday night walking you home. “Heavily implied it.”

“Honestly, the only reason I even wrote that story was because there were a lot of similar ones on New Haven’s list of recently published works.” Your reasoning feels almost stupid when you admit it aloud like this. You’ve always prided yourself on your originality, your commitment to staying true to yourself as a writer. But when push comes to shove, you let your desire to impress your professor get in the way of that. “I wanted something that would align with their usual publications.”

You’ve admitted a weakness, a poorly made choice. You’re expecting ire, more of that haughty contempt. But Heeseung’s mind is going in an entirely different direction.

He’s not questioning your abilities, not even alluding to them at all when he asks, “What do you think of vampires, then?”

His question catches you off guard. Why on earth would he care about that? “What’s it to you?”

“My bad. We can just walk in awkward silence if you prefer.”

It takes a ridiculous amount of your energy to swallow the laugh that bubbles in your throat. Since when did Heeseung crack jokes? Since when did you have to fight the urge to giggle at them like a schoolgirl with a crush? You suddenly find yourself grateful for the cover of night, the way shadows make the heat on your cheeks undetectable.

But his question still lingers. Ruminating on it, your mind flickers to the small, odd book currently sitting at the bottom of your bag.

Sacred Monsters.

It feels like a strange combination of words, two concepts that shouldn’t fit together.

“I think it’s more complicated than that,” you breathe. You don’t know if it could possibly be true, the idea that creatures of the night have a high level of consciousness, the ability to moralize, to feel conflicted. But it certainly makes for a more interesting story.

“I mean, vampires had to have some level of base cognition, right?” You’ll never know for sure, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. “They were hunted to near extinction, but they put up a good fight. They hid. They fled. They tried blending in as humans. Some resorted to drinking animal blood. I guess there’s no way of knowing, but that doesn’t feel like pure biology or an evolutionary response alone. It feels like… something a human would do.”

“Wouldn’t that be worse?” Heeseung’s voice is low. If the faint hum of faraway traffic were any louder, you might not hear him at all. “For them to know what it means to be alive and still make the choice to take that away from someone else? To exist as a parasite.”

“It would certainly be tragic.” The words of the first essay come back to you.

For even those blessed with immortality know what it means to survive. And even those cursed to live forever know what it means to die.

“It’s a fatal flaw, a cruel design. They need blood to survive. The very thing that their bodies used to create on their own. It’s parasitic, yes, but that doesn’t make it animal instinct. I can’t imagine the horror of having to experience that with the burden of human consciousness.”

You feel the weight of Heeseung’s gaze on the side of your face. “It’s still evil, is it not?”

His words feel heavy, weighted under moonlight. Though you can’t imagine why, you have the distinct sense that your answer is important to him.

“Like I said, I think it’s more complicated than that. Taking someone’s life is evil, yes, but that was never unique to vampires. Is a vampire that chooses animal blood still evil just because they’re a vampire? Is a human that chooses to kill another absolved of their crime just by virtue of being human?”

Your words settle into the space between you.

“That,” Heeseung finally breathes, “would make a much better story than the one I read last night.”

This time, you do laugh, a light airy thing. It feels easy, lighthearted as some of the tension drains from the atmosphere.

“Unfortunately, I’m not so sure Professor Kim would agree. Based on everything New Haven publishes, he seems to have some weird anti-vampire vendetta.”

As you round the corner, your apartment comes into view. Nodding toward the staircase that leads to your front door, you tell him, “This is me, by the way.”

Heeseung glances at the stairs, then back at you. He shoves his hands into his coat pockets. “When is your draft due?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” you groan. “Wednesday.”

“Mm,” he winces, an offer of understanding. “What time?”

“I’m supposed to be at New Haven by three, so—”

“What?” Heeseung cuts you off, expression suddenly tense, voice suddenly sharp. “You’re going to the publishing office?”

“Yeah.” You nod slowly, unsure why that would possibly warrant such a strong reaction. “I’m dropping off my first draft and getting a tour. The internship starts right when spring semester does, so he told me I could come in person to familiarize myself with the space first.”

“Right.” Heeseung nods. The tension in his jaw doesn’t relax.

It’s all so strange. He always seems to be speaking in riddles, dealing with invisible problems you can’t detect.

You’re tired and confused, and the moon that hangs above you doesn’t feel like a remedy for either of those things. In fact, it might be making things worse.

Because despite the way you feel like you’ll never quite understand him, bathed in the shimmering glow of moonlight, Heeseung looks…

He looks like all the things you’ve been trying to avoid calling him for the duration of the semester. Ethereal. Beautiful. Maybe even kind, at least when he wants to be.

After all, you’re standing at the base of your staircase with company, and it wasn’t due to any insistence on your end.

The silence lingers. A string somewhere is pulled taught.

You’re standing still, and you’re still a little breathless when you tell him, “I should go.” You don’t want to. You’re not sure why.

Again, Heeseung only nods.

The movement sends shadows dancing over his features. The bridge of his nose. The plane of his cheek. The line of his jaw. Things you’ve never let yourself linger on. Things you’re having a hard time looking away from now.

But he’s seen you home safe and sound, and even nights under the stars have their inevitable end.

It occurs to you then that you have no idea how he plans to get home, or even how far away he lives.

After he walked you home,it’s the least you could do to offer, “Do you live far? I could help you pay for a cab or something if—”

Heeseung shakes his head. He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It won’t take me long. Besides, I like to walk at night.”

“Okay.” It feels strange, trading these bits of kindness. You’re craving some normalcy, something unwavering. So with a final wave and a small goodnight, you climb the stairs to your door.

You couldn’t say for sure if his eyes follow you on the way up. You feel the heat of them, the weight of a steady gaze on your spine. But it’s a fickle sensation and you’ve been wrong before. And you can’t quite bring yourself to turn around and look.

The door closes behind you. Surrounded by the stillness of an empty apartment, you release a long held exhale. It drains out of you audibly. You hadn’t even realized you were holding your breath.

…..

Dawn breaks Wednesday morning and carries with it a certain kind of dread.

Despite your efforts, and there have been many, your draft remains far too close to its original state for your satisfaction. No matter how many times you pour over Sacred Monsters, you can never quite seem to find a way to make your submission more interesting while also staying true to New Haven’s general themes.

If anything, the book has been a distraction. Long hours that you could have spent editing or revising or rewriting were instead dedicated to detailed web searches with a variety of keywords and spellings that never seemed to bear any fruit.

It doesn’t matter which search engine you use. It doesn’t matter which database you browse. Other than the copy sitting on your desk, Sacred Monsters doesn’t seem to exist.

But the annoying, wonderful, awful thing about time is that it passes. Time doesn’t care that you haven’t found it in yourself to produce a draft you’re proud of. Time doesn’t relent just because you always feel like it’s slipping through your fingers.

And Wednesday morning turns to Wednesday afternoon with the same steady predictability as always.

You’d like to think that you know the area around your university quite well, but New Haven’s main office is in an entirely different part of the city. You’ll have to leave now if you want to catch the bus with a little cushion of time to spare. The last thing you want to do is be late to your first day. Especially since the draft tucked neatly into your bag isn’t one you can hand over with confidence.

To your relief, the bus is relatively empty. You tuck yourself into a seat and thank your lucky stars that you missed the afternoon rush.

Popping your headphones in, you’re searching for something to fill the time. There’s the draft sitting in your bag, of course, but the last thing you want to do is spend the next thirty minutes agonizing over it. For now, it will just have to be the mess of mediocrity that it is.

Instead, you reach for your phone. Maybe some mindless scrolling will be what you need to put your nerves at ease.

But when the app loads, the first post you see doesn’t have you giggling or rolling your eyes or scrolling on without a thought at all. Instead, your spine straightens, shoulders suddenly tense.

Because the words you’re reading are not something you ever expected to see in your lifetime.

Three dead in suspected vampire attack, the latest headline from your local news reporting channel reads.

Clicking on the article, the details are hazy, but that does little to lessen the grip of fear that makes a sudden grab at your throat. Fragments of sentences capture your attention as you scan the page.

Three bodies found near the river…

Bite marks on their necks…

No trace of recent animal activity in the area…

Eyes widening with every new piece of information, fear claws at your throat.

Bodies completely drained of blood.

Two hundred years. Two hundred years of the belief that vampires have all but been eradicated. Shattered in one fell swoop.

And in your city, of all places. At the river. Somewhere you’ve been. Somewhere you wouldn’t think twice about going. It’s not particularly close to your apartment or university, but it’s not exactly far enough away for comfort.

You shudder, suddenly grateful that Heeseung was there to walk you home last night. Not that he would be able to do much if you did stumble across the path of a vampire, but—”

Oh god. Oh god.

Heeseung.

You have no idea if he made it home safe after parting ways with you and you have no way of checking. He hadn’t made any indication as to where he lived before saying goodnight. For all you know, he could have been heading in the direction of the river. He could have been at the river. Right when the attacks occurred.

Doubling down on your phone, you scour the article for any information you can find on the victims. Objectively, it’s probably a good thing that they’re described only vaguely. Probably an intentional choice to protect the privacy of grieving friends and families.

But ‘three victims, two men and one woman, all in their early twenties’ does very, very little to assuage your terror. In fact, it only heightens it.

Blood pounding in your ears and dread pooling in your stomach, thirty minutes passes in the blink of an eye, you nearly miss your stop. But as you get off of the bus, you’re spiraling. Should you even be here? It feels wrong, leaving such a terrifying loose end untied.

But then you think it through a little further. Even if you got back on the bus, rode it all the way to the stop by your apartment, you have no idea where you’d go from there. You may have shared insults and confidence and a moment under the moonlight with Heeseung, but you don’t know anything about him. Where he lives, where to reach him, where he could possibly be right now.

But Professor Kim might. You’re sure that student information is strictly confidential, but if you explain the situation to him, he might be understanding, might just be willing to bend the rules a bit for you.

So with a heaviness in your heart and fire in your footsteps, you double check the address of New Haven’s office and start walking away from the bus stop. Your surroundings are not a primary area of your focus, but it does strike you as odd how deserted the whole area seems.

Other than a few residential looking buildings, the street you walk is mostly empty lots. Abandoned houses. Not the kind of place you would consider ideal for any business.

Despite the cold morning sunshine, the afternoon has brought a cover of clouds. Squinting towards the distance, you wonder if you should have brought your umbrella, just in case. It almost looks as if it’s going to rain.

When you do finally find the building, you have to stop to double check the address. Not only is there no signage, but New Haven’s supposed headquarters looks just as run down as all of the other buildings in the area.

Frowning, you reread your email. The address does match the faded numbers next to the front door, and Professor Kim seems too meticulous to make a mistake like an incorrect address. Then again, he also seems too well off to run his publishing company out of a decrepit building far away from any of the city’s major business centers.

But you won’t bother worrying about it now. Even your dreary first draft feels like an afterthought at this point. Who cares if the building’s not what you expected, if the location isn’t ideal? Right now, you need to focus on finding Heeseung, on making sure he’s okay.

Because the alternative…

No, you refuse to let yourself spiral there either. But the pressure of grief borrowed from the future is already pressing firmly against the backs of your eyelids, blurring your surroundings.

As you approach the front door, you notice a small, faded placard.

New Haven. Well, at least that confirms that you’re in the right spot. Even if it is a bit odd that they left off Publishing.

Standing at the door, you hesitate. Should you knock? Just walk in? You take a sidelong glance at the window, scanning for any sign of movement. But there’s nothing there. In fact, it looks as if the lights are off.

Dark, quiet, desolate. Strange, yes, but not something you’ll waste time ruminating on now.

You knock once. Twice. The sound echoes; the only response is the whistling of the wind.

Deep in the pit of your stomach, a sense of unease begins to build. It feels off, like something is wrong. Senses on high alert, you force the feeling aside. You need a way to find Heeseung, to make sure he’s okay. Besides, the lingering unease is probably just the anxiety of not knowing if he’s safe.

Steeling your resolve, you reach for the door handle, twisting it tentatively. It opens slowly, the hinges groaning in protest. As if the building itself doesn’t want you there. Stepping inside does little to shake the feeling. Dark and devoid of any decoration, the interior is nearly as gloomy as the sunless sky outside.

And even the layout of the building is strange. The front door opens to a long, dark hallway with no lights on. It’s eerily quiet. Too quiet. Too empty. You weren’t expecting a welcoming party by any means, but it’s hard to imagine anyone, much less Professor Kim, even being here.

“Hello?” You call, clutching your bag a little closer to your body, suppressing the shudder that licks at the base of your spine. “Professor Kim?” You wait a moment, but sustained silence is the only response.

Forcing your footsteps forward, you tread tentatively down the hallway. After all, you didn’t come this far just to turn around. Especially now that Professor Kim might be your only way of finding Heeseung.

Taking slow steps down the dark hallway, you pass two doors, both of them pulled shut. The end of the hall opens into a larger room, still empty of any furnishings. It certainly doesn’t look like a publishing house. It doesn't look like much at all. At the very least, there’s a bit more visibility here, faint traces of faded daylight streaming in through the half drawn blinds on the other side of the room.

Turning to your left, you see another door. This one is also pulled shut, but there’s a name placard on the front. Drawing closer, you read your professor’s name. It still doesn't feel right. Ducking down slightly, you check the gap between the bottom of the door and the hardwood floor for any sign of light, of movement. But it’s just as dark, just as quiet as the rest of the strange building.

As you stand back up to your full height, you raise a hand to knock. Just before your knuckles make contact with the door, you see it. An odd array of crimson stains near the handle. Peering closer, your brow furrows in a combination of disgust and confusion.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think it looked like blood.

But that doesn’t make any sense. None of this does. You won’t pretend to know Professor Kim, but he’s never shown up to a lecture with so much as a hair out of place. Why on earth would he run his publishing company out of a building that’s nearly falling apart? Why would there be strange, suspicious looking stains on the door to his office? Why would it be empty at the time he asked you to come present your draft and tour your future internship location?

You have no idea what to do. Opening the door to his office and letting yourself in would feel like an inappropriate invasion of privacy, but you’re at a loss. This entire thing is so strange.

Before you can decide how to proceed, you hear something. A faint noise, barely there, but distinct from the wind that still whistles outside. It’s disjointed, arrhythmic like the sound of hushed voices. Overlapping. Arguing, maybe.

Inclining your head, your brow creases further. It sounds like it’s coming from your professor’s office, but how could it be? The noises are too muffled, too distant to be coming from right in front of you.

You lean closer. Deciding you’re past the point of maintaining decorum, you press your ear to the door, careful to avoid any of the suspicious looking stains.

For a moment, you hear nothing. Half convinced the voices were nothing but a figment of your overactive imagination, you almost pull away.

But then you hear them again. Still muffled, still indecipherable, but undoubtedly louder than before. Which means they must be coming from behind the door. The voices pause, suspend you in silence once again.

And then you hear another noise, different this time. Less like a voice and more like movement. Scuffling, maybe. Feet dragging against the floor. It’s punctuated by a strange gurgling noise. Something wet and thick and throaty. The kind of sound that makes you wince in a subconscious reaction.

And then a sudden thump has your bones jolting beneath your skin, everything muscle in your body tensing as you suppress an uninvited gasp. Because that didn’t sound far away. It was loud, too loud to be anywhere but right on the other side of the door.

Mild unease is quick to transform into sheer panic as you stagger backwards on shaky footsteps. You need to leave. You need to leave now.

You’ll find another way to get ahold of Heeseung, to make sure he’s okay. And maybe there’s a rational explanation for all of this. Maybe this is an old New Haven office and Professor Kim forgot to send you the new address. Maybe there’s an email in your inbox now, and he’s apologizing for the oversight and rescheduling your draft meeting. Maybe he’s—

The sound of the front door you walked in through minutes ago slamming shut kills the train of thought. This time, you can’t bite down the noise that crawls up your throat.

It’s stupid, from a logical perspective. A fatal flaw of human nature that your first instinct is to scream. To alert whatever danger surely lurks nearby of your exact location, the precise depth of your fear.

But the terror that leaves your lips is muffled. It comes from behind, the palm that covers your mouth. The outline of a body that presses into your back, forces you into submission with a hand around your wrist.

You thrash against the ironclad grip to no avail. Dig your heels into the ground but find little purchase in the hardwood floor as you’re dragged backwards, every nerve in your body singing with terror as you’re forced into a dark room. Even with your elbows flailing and head jerking, the grip on you remains steady, firm.

In the end, it’s a bite that frees you. The hand that covers your mouth drops away as soon as you sink your teeth into the flesh of your captor’s fingers. There’s a muffled grunt of pain in your ear as you spin on your heel.

Again, it’s stupid. You should be running, sprinting in the opposite direction, but everything in you is begging to know. To gain some sense of control over the situation. Eyes still adjusting to the dark and blinded by fear, you turn to find—

“Heeseung?” Your mind is spinning a million miles a minute. There are too many thoughts, too many emotions to keep up with. Relief. Fear. Confusion.

Relief, because he’s okay and he’s here, but—

“What are you doing?” You have a million questions that demand answers. “Why are you here? Why did you grab me like th—”

“Are you okay?” Heeseung takes a step closer to you, reaches his hands out as if to grab you again. Thinking better of it, he lets them fall back to his side with a slight shake of his head. There’s terror in his eyes too when he clarifies, “You’re not hurt?”

“No, I…” What the hell is going on? “I’m fine, but—”

A flash of relief makes itself apparent on Heeseung’s features before they’re morphing again, regaining all the urgency, the fear that was there before. He’s serious, gravely so when he tells you, “We have to get out of here.”

“Okay,” you stumble forward as he reaches for your wrist again, intent on tugging you behind him. “But I don’t understand. What’s—”

“I’ll explain everything later.” He’s frantic, you realize. Desperate. And so terribly afraid. Emotions you’ve never seen him wear. Not in the cool, calm mask of indifference he had in class. Not in the faint flickers of vulnerability from stolen moments under moonlight. This is different. This is so much worse. “But we have to go. Now.”

With that much command in his voice, that much fear in his eyes, you’re putty in his hands. But in the end, it makes little difference. The door to the room he’s dragged you into opens with a resounding bang before the two of you can make your escape. The sound is so loud, so frightening that you feel reverberations in your marrow as the door collides with the room’s interior wall, no doubt leaving a sizable dent.

And standing there, shrouded by the gray tones of sunless winter daylight, your professor blocks the room’s only exit.

Instinctively, you take a step closer to Heeseung. He does the same, pulling you towards him, behind him, until half of your body is covered by his. Peering over his shoulder, the sight that greets you is one that will haunt waking nightmares for a long time to come.

Professor Kim, who always prided himself on maintaining a neat, clean appearance couldn’t be further from that now. His clothes are ripped, hanging from his body at odd angles, adding an element of disfigured monstrosity to his silhouette.

And his eyes. His eyes. Bloodshot and so wide they must hurt, they dart around the room, narrow in on you and Heeseung like he doesn’t see humans. Only targets. Enemies. Prey. Mouth open and snarling, you swear you see a glint in his mouth, the shape of a tooth far too long and pointed to belong to any normal person.

But even those things you could force yourself to forget.

What horrifies you the most is the blood. Even in the shadows, the unnaturally potent shade of crimson is unmistakable. It stains him, covers him, drips from him. Seeps from his clothes and his skin and his mouth.

Panic clawing at your throat, you suppress the urge to vomit.

“Get behind me,” Heeseung whispers, low. “Now.”

But a split second of averted attention is all your professor needs. Professor Kim, lover of literature, beacon of taste, a role model you’ve looked up to since the first time you stepped foot in his class a handful of months ago, pinches a tiny object between his long, bony, blood-covered fingers. And then he throws it.

With startling precision, it whistles through the air, races through a hazy cloud of confusion and panic before it strikes its target true.

It doesn’t hurt, not really. The hand that flies to the side of your neck is instinct, more than anything. But the fingers that linger on your pulse point don’t find the smooth expanse of your unblemished throat that they usually would.

Because there’s something there now. An object lodged just beneath your jaw. Delicately, you draw your hand back in front of your face. There’s no blood on your fingers, but that doesn’t stop them from shaking.

As you look over Heeseung’s shoulder, the world starts to blur around the edges. Darken, as if your eyes are closing of their own volition, against your will. You see him retreat, the terrible ghost of your professor. In the dark, he looks almost forlorn. Regretful.

“Fuck,” Heeseung whispers. He doesn’t see the way your professor spins on his heel, runs in the opposite direction. His attention is trained fully on the space beneath your jaw. “Fuck.”

“Heeseung?” Your voice sounds strange to your own ears. Distant, muffled as if you’re submerged beneath water. You have so many questions.

But it’s suddenly so cold. And you’re so tired. Wouldn’t it be nice to just lay down? Rest for a moment? Surely that couldn’t hurt anything.

Your legs are wobbly beneath you, and you would collapse to the floor in an ungraceful heap if it weren’t for the two hands on your waist, supporting your weight.

“I’m here,” he tells you. Cold. When did it get so cold? Your eyes try to focus on Heeseung, but your vision is swimming. You wonder if he would be warm. “I’m right here. Just… fuck.”

Gently, he eases you both to the ground. The floor is hard beneath you, but it feels like a reprieve. You’re tired of holding the weight of your body upright. Your blinking is becoming slow, lethargic. Your head is suddenly far too heavy for your neck.

Slowly, Heeseung removes his hands from your waist, relocates them to either side of your jaw. With the care of someone well versed in patience, he delicately maneuvers your head to the side, exposing the length of your neck.

Whatever he finds there must be displeasing. You can’t imagine why. You can’t think much of anything. The world has taken on a sort of dreamlike quality in which everything feels loose, fluid and unburdened by the laws of any physics.

“Fuck,” he whispers for the fourth time. The curse scatters over your cheekbone like a kiss.

Pulling back slightly, he meets your half-closed eyes. “I’m sorry.” It sounds like a prayer. “This might…” he swallows, something in his resolve wavering. “This might hurt.”

Pain. You can barely conceptualize the sensation. It feels like a distant memory.

And then he’s tilting your head to the side again. His face draws closer, overcomes the last of your remaining senses, demands the full attention of what’s left of your consciousness.

You think he might kiss you. Whatever desire remains in you almost wishes he would.

Your eyes flutter shut, lips parting slightly as your eyelashes fan against the tops of your cheeks.

But his mouth never finds yours. Instead, you feel the soft caress of his lips against the side of your neck, a fleeting touch against the sensitive skin just beneath your jaw. Inhibitions whittled to nothing, you shudder against the sensation, release the airy ghost of a sigh.

He was wrong, you think. With his mouth on your neck, pain is the last thing you feel.

You feel his lips part against your skin, chasing away some of the cold that has only seeped deeper into bones, into the very essence of your being.

And then you feel it. Whatever capacity for sensation that remains all focuses on the sudden flash of agony as his teeth pierce the skin of your throat.

The tiny moan that escapes your lips is pitiful. Your ability to think, to rationalize, feels like something that’s dangling in front of you, just out of reach. Your body is too heavy, too weak to respond to the flash of searing pain as your skin is pierced deeper.

He can’t speak, but you feel the shallow vibration of a hum against your neck. Soothing, calming. His hand that doesn’t bear the weight of your head moves to push a stray strand of hair from your forehead. It’s gentle, reverent. In complete opposition to the war he wages against your neck.

Mouth still full of you, a groan escapes him. It’s heady, throaty, and you feel it travel the length of your spine, settle in the pit of your stomach. Sensation is the only thing tethering you to this world, and you can’t quite tell if this is pleasure or pain.

He pulls back, the absence of his steady heat leaving your jaw vulnerable to the chill in the air.

“Hold on,” you hear. You can’t pinpoint where the noise comes from. Sound surrounds you, washes over you in a strange uniformity. You feel the ground fall away, something warm and solid behind your shoulders and under your knees.“We’ll be there soon.”

Floating, you think. You must be floating. It’s hard to tell. Moments are bleeding into one another too quickly for you to keep up.

Eyes closed, body molten, you relax into the steady grip that carries you.

And the last thing you hear before reality loses its hold is the fervent, whispered sound of your name.

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

CONTINUED IN PART 2 (which can be found on my masterlist!)

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

note: THANK YOUUUUU for reading!!! this is pretty different from what I usually write plot wise, so I hope it made for a good read. vampire heeseung and this oc are near and dear to me, and I'm excited to continue their story. the rest of this fic is fully plotted and partially written. I'm actively continuing to work on it, and hearing your thoughts/theories/screaming/feedback/etc. is great motivation! as always, I love know what you're thinking. ♡

#heeseung fanfiction #heeseung x reader #heeseung fanfic #enhypen fanfic #enhypen x reader #heeseung x you #enhypen x you #enhypen imagines #enhypen scenarios #heeseung scenarios #heeseung imagines

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shaguro · 5 months

Text

synposis: the story of how you met your sugar-daddy, nanami, at the cafe you work at. ♡ (the prequel to this drabble!)

ੈ✩‧₊˚ tags: sugar daddy nanami! (college student/barista reader x coo nanami), reader is fem, age gap (nanami is 30, reader is 24.), ceo gojo cameo at the start, flirty nd playful banter btwn reader nd nanami, anna is reader's coworker nd friend. nanami calls reader sweetheart once, nanami is just smitten with her as soon as he sees her. sweet fluff! as a whole, this is very light-hearted and unserious y'all. — w.c: 2.2k. ♡

angel's note: consider this my official comeback from my hiatus! thank you so much @preciousamethyst for beta-reading, love you downn. ♡

“you’re telling me out of the five blind-dates that i set up . . . you didn’t like any of them? not even a little bit?” satoru asks incredulously, the french-vanilla latte in his hand almost spilling on the table as he leans forward. “you’re too damn picky, nanamin! they all seemed like nice, respectable ladies to me.”

nanami sighs, looking up from his laptop with an annoyed expression on his face. “the last one didn’t have any teeth . . . and can you keep it down? i’m trying to focus and you’re making a scene, as usual.”

“oh, heh. my bad.”

nanami’s eyes linger on the white-haired man for a moment before focusing on the screen in front of him again. he’s not sure why satoru tagged along to this new cafe with him on his lunch break. (when he clearly stopped visiting his favorite one to avoid him.) it’s not like nanami could say no, anyway — satoru is his boss. his annoying and extremely invasive boss who always finds a way to be in his way and in his business.

it goes without saying that his dating life is certainly not off-limits.

unwrapping the chocolate eclair he just bought, satoru takes a bite of the puffy pastry, humming once the sugary goodness hits his tastebuds. “you were right, nanamin. this does taste amazing.“ he pauses between his words to lick chocolate off his bottom lip, then off his fingers. “maybe we need to try a different approach . . . dating apps! ever tried tinder or bumble—“

“no.” nanami slams his laptop closed, shooting all satoru’s incoming questions down. “i don’t need your help. let’s try ‘letting things happen naturally and staying out of my business’ for a change, yeah?”

“but i have everything planned out! it’ll take me two seconds to make your profile and i have the perfect bio for you — thirty year old trick looking for a pretty woman to spend all my money on — how’s that sound?”

“terrible.” nanami deadpans, placing his laptop into his briefcase. he lifts the sleeve of his shirt, checking the time on his breitling navitimer before standing from his seat. “you have fun with that. i’m getting my pastry to go, i’ll see you back at the office.”

satoru’s jaw is on the floor. “but, nanami—“

without another word, nanami leaves a whining gojo to make his way towards the line that was, thankfully, empty. the baristas don’t notice him, backs turned while they talk to each other by the back counter and nanami doesn’t mind — it gives him more time to decide on what pastry he wants anyway.

truly, he doesn’t understand the obsession surrounding his love life. while nanami is looking, he is by no means desperate. even he knew it was a bad idea to present yourself as a sugar daddy on a dating app, unless you’re an idiot or just lacking a single ounce of dignity.

both categories that satoru fits into, nanami thinks.

kneeling slightly for a better view at the assorted desserts behind the crystalline-glass case, nanami’s unsure of which one to choose. this cafè’s selection is extensive, they offer much more than what he’s used to; tarts, cakes and pastries that he’s never even seen before. ultimately, he opts to keep it simple with one of his favorites: a fluffy cinnamon roll with extra vanilla glaze.

“girl, i’ve been working real hard and i still don’t have enough saved to pay tuition.” you murmur, scooping a handful of coffee grounds into the filter and shaking the brew funnel to level them. “i’m stressed out.”

nanami’s eyes flicker to where the two of you stand. while he’s never considered himself to be a nosy man, he finds his focus shifting from his lunch to the conversation you’re having, ears perked in interest as he continues to weigh his other options.

your co-worker, anna, gives you a reassuring pat on the back, her face itched downward in concern. “yeah, you were telling me about that last week . . . how much more do you need?”

“around like five-hundred more.” you sigh, brushing your hands off on your apron. anna starts to speak but you stop her with a raise of your palm, already knowing what she’s thinking. “and yes, i’ve taken out loans already. my loans have loans at this point.”

anna raises her brows. “so what are you going to do?”

“i’m out of options.” you shrug, adjusting the valves on the coffee machine to their correct settings. with a heavy sigh, you lean your head on her shoulder with a pout on your glossed lips, “it’s either i start an onlyfans or god sends me a rich old man that wants to be my sugar-daddy.”

anna giggles and playfully swats your arm. even in a serious moment like this, you find a way to lighten the mood. she plays along, tapping her chin with her index finger, “hmm, that can work! maybe you can start stripping. you watched the tiktoks i sent you, right? they touch thousands on a good night.”

“oh my god, i didn’t even think of that!” you stand straight and cup your hands on your breasts through your shirt, poking your ass out a bit. “i might need a boob job and bbl if i wanna be serious about it, though . . . plus, isn’t twenty-four a little too old to start stripping?”

“girl, please. twenty-four isn’t old and you know that. you have a nice body and you’re pretty. they’ll throw stacks just based off that, trust me —”

that whole sugar-daddy thing that satoru was suggesting doesn’t sound half as bad to nanami, right now. you get the money you need and he gets to spend time with you, it’s a win-win.

“she’s right,” nanami agrees, unable to hold back the chuckle that leaves his mouth when the both of you literally jump at the sound of his voice, whipping your bodies around to see just who that deep, smooth timbre belonged to. “you’re very pretty miss . . .” his brown eyes shift down to your name-tag. “ . . . ( name ).”

you blink once, twice — lips slightly parted, heat slowly rising to your face once his sweet compliment slowly registers in your brain and how your name flowed so easily off his tongue. just looking at this man, you can tell that he has money. he’s handsome, even more so as your eyes shift from his chiseled face down to his body. nanami stands tall, he must be around six feet. sporting a white dress-shirt and navy-blue slacks that match his tie, nanami is built. the soft cotton of his shirt clings to his biceps, outlining each vein and curve. the very top of his shirt is unbuttoned, exposing a sliver of his toned chest underneath.

there is no way god answered your prayers this quickly.

in a trance, you stare at nanami like a deer in headlights, completely enamored until anna nudges your arm, snapping you back to reality. she whispers a curt ‘you better talk to that man, girl’ in your ear and that’s you realize that you didn’t even thank him yet, how rude.

“o-oh, thank you.” you move towards the register, giving nanami a sheepish smile whilst drumming your french-tip acrylics against the granite counter. “so um . . how much of that did you hear?”

“hmm . . . most of it.”

“the onlyfans part too?”

nanami nods with a grin. “and the old rich sugar daddy part.”

you cover your face with your hand, letting out a long sigh. this is just your luck, embarrassing yourself in front of this extremely sexy stranger. “let’s just . . . pretend that didn’t happen.” you’re certain that you were definitely not getting his number after this. “what can i get you, mr . . .?”

“kento.” nanami answers, leaning a tad bit closer and you have to crane your neck slightly to look at him, that grin still on his plump lips. “but you can call me ken.”

“oh?” you catch the cheeky switch in his tone, the teasing glint in those pretty pools of brown. he’s flirting with you and why not return the same energy? you’re interested in him, too. biting back a smile of your own, you hold his gaze, staring up at him through your wispy extensions. “ok, ken, what can i get you?”

“two of those cinnamon rolls, please.” nanami answers, pointing towards the case he’d been looking at prior.

you nod and grab a set of tongs, opening the glass to place the rolls into a small plastic bag, then into a paper bag on the counter. “just that, nothing else?”

pondering on the question, nanami’s debating the risk of what he’s about to say. it’s obvious that you’re attracted to him but this was a whole different ballgame, asking you to be his sugar baby? — really, the worst that could happen is you rejecting him and as much as he doesn’t want that, he’d just have to accept it. nanami inhales a deep breath once he gathers his thoughts. here goes nothing.

“well, there is something that i have. it’s a proposition of sorts for you.”

you look up from the register, one of your brows raised. “and what would that be?”

“allow me to take you out a few times a week, whenever you have the time . . . and i’ll pay your tuition.” nanami pauses and shakes his head, combing some of his blonde locks back with his fingers. “no, i’ll pay all your bills. as long as i get to see you, i’ll give you anything that you want.”

you tilt your head to the left and raise your brows. “you want to be my sugar daddy?”

nanami nods, chuckling at the look of sheer disbelief on your face on your face. “i’m missing the old part so i’m not exactly sure if i qualify . . . but yes, i do.”

you scoff at that. “. . . and you just want to see me, take me on dates, no sex?” did he think you were that naive? if there’s one thing you know for certain, it’s that nothing in this world is free — everything has a price and in this case, your pussy would be the desired currency. you pout, crossing your arms over your chest. “i don’t believe that. what’s the catch?”

nanami supposes you aren’t wrong for thinking this way. it does sound far-fetched, especially from a stranger you met not even an hour ago. he wasn’t a liar or a perv, and he’d just have to make you see how serious he is. “there is no catch. i think you’re beautiful and i want to get to know you better. i understand that this may seem too good to be true but i promise you, my intentions are pure.”

nanami isn’t surprised when you don’t budge, eyes slanted as you glare him down. (and you look so adorable while doing it.) he expected this reaction from you and little did you know, he’s already one step ahead. if his words don’t move you, then he’s sure his actions will get the point across.

fishing for his wallet in his pocket, he pulls it out, handing you a five dollar bill, “this is for the cinnamon rolls and this,” he takes out a set of bills, hundred dollar bills and you watch him, mouth ajar as he counts off each one before placing it in your free hand. is he serious? “this is for your tuition and a little extra to spend. we’ll handle the ‘loans that have loans’ on our first date, alright?”

you’re speechless, eyes shifting between nanami’s face and the money in your hand as you try your best to process what’s happening before you. from joking about needing a sugar-daddy to having one in front of you. and the man wants to spend time with you, no sex required! you surely couldn’t doubt him now, not when he gave you the money without you actually agreeing. maybe this was the blessing from god you’d been waiting for.

you clear your throat, nodding dazedly. “a-alright, yeah . . . we can talk more on our first date.”

nanami smiles once more, glancing at his watch prior to picking up the paper bag off the counter. “as much as i want to stay with you, i have to get back to the office.” reaching into his pants pocket, he slides a laminated card on the counter. “my personal number is on this card. when you get a chance, call or send me a text. i’ll see you soon, sweetheart.”

with a playful wink, nanami leaves the cafe — your eyes trailing his lithe frame until he turns a street corner, completely out of sight. it’s like you were frozen in place, the money still in your hands. when you finally decide to take a look at the business card he left, your jaw quite literally drops to the floor: this man is the coo of jujutsu, one of the biggest marketing companies in the country.

kento nanami

chief operating officer

jujutsu marketing and e-commerce, llc.

xxx-xxx-xxxx

[email protected]

now, you were definitely certain that god did indeed hear and answer your prayers. in more ways than one.

tagging: @sttoru @screampied @thebimbopalace @tojancy

#⸻꒰ঌ 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭’𝘴 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 ໒꒱#nanami x reader #nanami x you #nanami x y/n #nanami kento x reader #nanami fluff #jjk x reader fluff #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk x y/n #jjk fluff

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thoughtssvt · 6 months

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adventures of sugar daddy nanami kento and his frugal sugar baby [ pt. 2 ]

nanami kento x reader ; fluff & humor ; nsfw joke | [ pt. 1 ]

MDNI — 18+ interactions only

A/N : it's implied that reader is still attending school, whether that be college undergrad or grad is up to you; tldr: reader is over the age of 18

"darling, are you busy right now?" kento's voice dripped from the speaker of your phone like thick honey.

"nope, go ahead," you confirm that you have time to talk as you wipe the sweat off your brow, the summer sun and scalding water making your body temperature rise.

you could practically hear kento's brows furrow, "are you sure? you sound a distance away and I can hear the water running," he said suspiciously.

you cringed, holding your breath as you slowly slid the plate onto the rack only to cringe at the sharp hiss of ceramic skidding against metal.

"I thought you started using the dish washer," kento sighed, the creak of his office chair putting the image of a disappointed kento leaning back in his chair in your head.

"I don't trust it, kento!" you cried dramatically. you would've clutched at your heart if your hands weren't soaking, sparkling glasses weeping on the rack at the mere thought of being thrown in satan's machine.

a staccato sigh and your muffled chuckles filled the kitchen. "anyway," kento continued, "I was wondering if you had the energy for something public." he asked, always considerate of your social battery.

you blotted your hands against the hand towel that hung from the oven door's handle, humming happily as you reached for the nice hand lotion kento had gotten for you, worried about the state of your hands considering the temperature of the water you habitually used. "why? is this some secret exhibition sex club thing that you rich people have?" you teased.

"I want to treat you to an outing since you refuse to do it yourself," kento poked back, speeding passed your joke, already used to your antics.

"oh, not denying it? does it actually exist?" your eyes widened in feigned suspicion, a weak attempt at changing the subject.

"do you know why I started looking for a sugar baby?" kento continued. you sucked in a breath only to be cut off, "nevermind... don't answer that." kento sighed, making you chuckle. "I wanted someone to enjoy spending my money. I lost that kind of excitement a long time ago, so you don't have to hold back. you can ask me for anything that will make you happy, okay?" he explained, sincerity oozing from his voice.

you nodded as you listened, ears perking up towards the end. "anything?" you parroted drawn out and timid.

౨ৎ

kento scrubbed his hands against his scalp, blond locks effectively spiking in every direction. you were both sat next to each other at the dining table, crowding around your laptop-- the one you'd refused to replace, deadset on it lasting you at least another four years despite the volume the fans worked being loud enough to wake kento from his sleep. kento sat defeated, chin digging into his palm as he stared into the abyss while you wore a gleaming smile on your face, excitedly knocking against the table as you waited for your prehistoric machine to load.

once the confirmation screen popped up you wrapped your arm around kento's, pulling him in close. "you were right, kento! spending all this money is fun!" you chimed, wiggling like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders.

kento stared at you with glassy eyes. "I don't know what to do to make you understand," he croaked. "was this really fun for you?" he softened as he took in your features and how much more energized you seemed after just a few clicks.

when he got home from work you'd dragged him to the table, pulling up the tragic student loan debt page, eagerly asking him if it was really okay to spend this much all at once. he'd paid off your loans and the remaining balance of your current semester. you felt like you were floating, to say the least.

kento was more than happy to pay these debts off, but he'd assumed that if you had any they would've been your first priority, not a scrubdaddy and a dish rack. he deflated once again at the mere memory.

you chuckled fondly at the display, reaching to plant a soft kiss on his cheek. "fine, fine. let's go."

his brows knit tightly as you input the address into his phone, sticking it to the dash before securing your seatbelt. you had him park a bit away from a 7-eleven. he followed you hesitantly, watching as you hummed quietly to yourself, a bounce in our step as the two of you took a short walk down to akihabara station. you stopped with your arms spread in a grandiose gesture, the wall behind you stacked floor to ceiling with gashapon machines.

"i've always wanted to try one of these, but the probability that I would get what I wanted on my first try was always slim." you explained as your eyes scanned the wall for a specific capsule series. you held your palm open asking for coins which kento handed to you with a gentle smile.

he watched you for who knows how long. the capsules kept coming, countless duplicates filling his arms. and it was worth it to see your smile, bright and unashamed, every time you popped a capsule open.

"ah, finally!" you cheered as you turned to kento, a small plastic sandwich in the palm of your hand, the same sandwich he got everyday for lunch.

his heart overflowed, spreading heat across his chest. you'd gone through all that work just to get his sandwich. even given the opportunity to do something for yourself you still thought of others, but you were happy and that was enough for him.

"come, come! I think I saw one that had a desk like the one in your office." you beamed, eyes busy searching for the machine with every intention to set these figures up in the corner of your own desk. somewhere along the way kento left you for a moment just to stop by a store for a bag, dumping all your gachas in it until you got exactly what you were looking for. a smile plastered on his face as you continuously loaded coins into the machine.

he rests a hand on your thigh on the drive home, pinching it just enough to grab your attention. "thank you," he whispers, bringing your hand to his face to kiss at your knuckles. thank you for showing him all the small happiness the world had. he had a lot to learn from you.

part 1 | sugar daddy kento masterlist | jjk men x reader masterlist

divider by @tyuniwa

tag list : @that-goth-bisexual @yannauauau

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yosh-iro · 2 years

Text

just realizing my hearing can be summed up as having a fucking nasa computer for hardware but only ever using it to play that vid of a spinning rat with a compressed version of free bird in the background

#making that comparison cuz i literally just bought a $2k desktop after my laptop shit itself and im now watching that exact video #anyways the context for this is that while my hearing capability is much better than average for my age #i have an auditory processing disorder that makes it so my actual ability to hear is dogshit majority of the time #like i can hear really high pitched things (up to 20khz still even on low volume)#but for example speech is something thats hard for me to understand sometimes because it somehow gets garbled in my brain #which i think is why i dont have a hard time with accents since im so used to needing to unscramble whatever the hell i just heard anyways #or like how i cant tell music intervals apart despite taking/being in music for like 80% of my life #i was so happy when my band teacher let me see his hands when i did the interval part of my theory final last spring #cuz i know the difference when looking at it but hearing it i cant tell the difference between a minor 3rd and a major 6th or anything #and its not a lack of practice seeing as id been doing that shit specifically for almost 8 years at that point and hadnt gotten any better #i think he realized there was no way i would pass that part normally cuz he had been helping me with interval training for a while #i could play whichever one when asked to but couldnt tell them apart audibly when i tried to #pretty sure the highest i ever got on an interval test outside of my theory final was like 60% cuz i had to basically guess all of them #even with just single notes i find it hard to tell them apart unless its a G or C #G cuz i was a emo shit in jr high and C cuz that note haunts me in my fucking sleep since i stopped piano lessons like 8ish years ago #anyways yeah welcome to tumblr where i feel its not too abnormal to have somebodys life story in the tags section as context for a joke lol #or maybe im in the minority and most people dont actually do this but i just happen to see a lot of posts that do :p #and now this is very off topic lmfao #yoshi talk

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jaylver · 9 months

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SLUT! — P.JS

synopsis: experiencing love in your last year of high school was totally unexpected, especially when it’s the fact that you had fallen for the boy everyone wants. what you weren’t prepared for was the troubles that came with it. however, you were willing to pay the price just for the sake of love.

pairings: non-idol!jay x afab!reader

genre: acquaintances to lovers, high school au, romance, angst, coming of age (?)

warning(s): profanities, (slight) slut shaming, underage drinking and partying

wc: 6.7k

a/n: last fic of 2023! thank you for all the support 🫶 a little piece dedicated to everyone and also those who loves this song equally as much as me! please leave a feedback and reblogs are greatly appreciated! muah xx

Finding love was the last thing you had on your list right now.

It was the final year of high school. Everyone was freaking out over the fact that they were growing older and their time in high school was over. The Californian air couldn't be any more duller after that. Senior prom and graduation preparations were already starting even though it was just the start of the year. What was stopping them anyway?

Being a teenager was art, but what they didn't tell you about growing up was the process of falling in love.

It was torture. Witnessing people in love all around you while you struggled with advancing past the talking stage. No, it wasn't fair. However, having cupid strike its bow at you unexpectedly one day was the worst of crimes.

You know the embarrassing feeling when you see your classmates outside of school? Right. That was how you felt the moment Park Jong Seong walked into your mother's clinic, your eyes widening behind the counter. Must you be responsible for the counter at this very hour?

“Hey—Y/N?”

Jay was a classmate. You didn't really know him and neither did he know much about you. It was just neutral, where you coexist in the same space until the bell rings and the day ends. You get the gist.

That doesn't exclude the point where Jay was widely known, though. He wasn't like his popular jock friends or an athlete whatsoever. Instead, he was a studious guy who kept his reputation clean. Basically, he was your typical golden boy. You knew he wasn't completely innocent to an extent, but at least he was good at hiding it.

There is no denying that everyone wants him. He was a nice guy paired with strong, distinct features. It was no secret he was also known for his looks and caring manners.

“Jay? What are you doing here?”

He was wrapped in a thick hoodie, hands hidden in his pants pocket. “Caught a cold. I thought I should drop by to see a doctor and get some medicine,”

“Oh no,” you tried your best at giving a concerned expression, though you were busy skimming through files on the laptop. “Do you have a record here?”

“I do. Not my first time,”

You tried for his full legal name instead of ‘Jay Park’ and thankfully, his record showed up. “Found it,” you glanced up just to find him staring back at you. This was probably the first time you were this close to him, enough to be able to distinguish the moles on his face.

“I'll call you in a bit,”

You did what you always do every time, inform your mother and call the patients in. But Jay wasn't just another patient to you. When you called his name, you watched as he got closer, casting you a sweet smile right before he disappeared behind the door, leaving you to your seat at the counter, overthinking the littlest details that you knew you'd have to spill to your best friend after.

Jay waited patiently by the counter once it was time to pay. His gaze followed your every move as you got his prescribed medicine and stuffed them carefully into a bag.

“Here you go,” you passed the bag over, then accepted the cash he had been holding for a while. “Thanks,” you muttered, taking the chance at avoiding eye contact when you slipped the cash into the register.

“Thank you too,” Jay said, immediately gaining your attention. He was still managing a smile even though you could tell he was shivering slightly.

“No problem. Rest well,” you took a piece of candy from your own bowl of personal sweets stash. “Here,”

“Candy?”

You nodded, humming softly.

“Thanks,” his voice was quieter, sounding as if he was in disbelief. Unbeknownst to you, his eyes twinkled, a hint of fascination lingered. “I'll see you around, Y/N.”

“See you.”

That night, you laid awake replaying the encounter you had with Jay. It was the first time you've ever talked to him, and it was barely anything, but you somehow understood why people liked him by then. Not like you didn't like him initially, you meant, romantically.

It was definitely an odd place to meet and talk to him. Out of all the possible places, it just had to be your mother’s clinic that none of your peers came to once, that was until him. But somehow, it was the right timing despite the location. It was the wrong place at the right time.

Who knew his cold and your candy would soon start something neither of you expected.

“Do you wish you made out with him or something?”

Telling Yunjin about it was probably the best and worst idea. Sure, she could be a great moral support, except she lacked filters when needed.

“What the fuck—no!” You glanced around, hoping none of the passing students heard your stupid discussions. “He's hot but not like that, at all,”

“So you admit he's hot!”

You rolled your eyes, chucking the bag of Doritos back to her. “I never said he wasn't,”

“You intended it, said you didn't get the ‘hype’ around him,”

“Until now!” You threw your hands up in surrender, only getting a cackle from Yunjin as a response. “Whatever. It's a one time thing. He's out of my league. It's a whole ‘You Belong with Me’ music video type of situation excluding me being friends with him,”

“You're yapping at this point,”

“Thanks, I know,”

“It's not that serious, Y/N. You fighting your life trying to defend yourself only makes it seem like you're in denial,” why must she always be on point?

“Whatever, whatever,” you waved her off, stubbornly ignoring what she said. “I'm at the back of the line anyway, I should be worrying about graduation and college,”

“Oh right!” Yunjin physically jumped, her backpack shook. “I need your opinion on something.”

That whole Jay discourse had swarmed your head that was currently leaning against the window. You purposely picked a seat by the window at the back of the class, hoping for some space to think since it was a class you didn't have with Yunjin.

“A dollar for your thoughts?”

To your right stood Jay, shouldering his backpack and offering a warm smile. You knew you shared this class with him, but to have him walk up to you at that very moment was something beyond unexpected.

“Hey,” you greeted rather stiffly, not knowing what to do now that you were put under the spot. “W–what are you doing standing there?” Facepalm.

“Oh—do you mind if I sit beside you?” He pointed at the empty seat next to you, and you shook your head. You usually sat with random classmates anyway, having no close friends in this class was a struggle.

Jay's face broke into a smile of relief, plotting his bag down before taking a seat. “Thanks, I don't really have anyone I know here,”

“You don't?” That's weird. You always noticed how people naturally swarmed around Jay's table, either greeting him or chatting with him.

“Not really. None of them are really my friends,”

But you were?

“You're a friend to me, though,” he added, as if reading your mind at that instant.

You were taken aback, but you hid it well, masking it with nonchalance. “Really?”

He nodded, a sincere smile that told you he meant it. You let yourself loose this time, reciprocating his smile. “I'm honoured,”

“I'm even more honoured.”

Throughout the class, you didn't miss the occasional glances from him and neither did you stop yourself from looking at him. He was much more breathtaking up close. Who were you to deny that?

By the end of the class, the bell rang and everyone started to pack up, some already rushing out in a hurry. You, on the other hand, was too caught up in your headspace to notice Jay was already done tidying up beside you and was waiting for his queue.

“Uh—Y/N?” he tapped you on your shoulder, stealing your attention at once. You stared at him expectantly, blinking with curiosity behind your eyes.

“Yeah?” You dragged the word out slightly, packing your last book into your bag.

“Would you like to go to a party this weekend?”

A party? That'd be your first.

“Where's that? Can I bring my friend too?”

“Yes and it's at Jake's house,” he winced, forgetting you're not one of those frequent party goers. “I'll text you the details—wait, I don't even have your number,” he laughed awkwardly, which only made you smile.

“Real smooth, Jay,” you signalled for his phone, and he grabbed it out of his jeans pocket without saying a word, eyes following your move as you typed in your number.

When you handed his phone back, he didn’t hesitate to press the call button. Obviously, you heard your ringtone coming from your backpack. You glanced at Jay, giving him a face that was saying ‘really?’, quite incredulous that he’d doubted you.

“Just wanted to be sure,” he smiled, scratching the back of his neck out of awkwardness. “I’ll make sure to text you,” he held his phone up, waving it a little and slowly getting up from his seat, to which you followed suit. At that moment, the classroom was already almost empty, so it was just a few lingering students with you and Jay, but it all felt like you were in a completely different universe altogether.

“Cool,”

“Cool,” Jay echoed after you, and you resisted yourself from laughing. Apparently he noticed your tight smile and smiled along with you. Wordlessly, you two communicated through each of your smiles even as you walked side by side out the door.

“Which way are you going?” he was quick to ask, eyes shining with expectations.

“I’m going that way,” you pointed to the right, down the busy corridor.

“Oh,” Jay visibly faltered, the expectations he held behind his gaze were crushed. “I’m heading that way,” he pointed to the left, the opposite direction of where you’re going.

“I guess that’s it for today,” you patted his shoulder, unbeknownst to how Jay had froze under your touch for a second. “Until our next class together, then,”

“See you,” he waved, gradually backing away.

You couldn’t help but grin. “Bye!”

You watched as he walked away, his back now fully facing you. It took you another beat before your feet were willing you away to where you were meant to go. But what you failed to realise as you concentrated on your steps was Jay turning his head back to catch a glimpse of you, his head only filled with the thoughts of you.

He’s so screwed.

Staying at the library was the last resort for you once you got to know Yunjin had an impromptu extra hour class after school. She promised she'd take you to the pool, considering the weather was only getting hotter day by day. But you suppose it'd have to wait for now.

What was worse, the heatwave or high school? Trick question.

The library was mostly empty by this hour, only a couple of students remained to either study or chill around just like you. It was one of those times where you wondered why you didn't explore more. As you wandered along the towering shelves filled with old books, you caught sight of an interesting looking one.

Instinctively, you pulled the book out of the shelf without thinking twice. But what caught your eyes wasn't the cover of the book or the book itself in general. Instead, it was the pair of eyes staring back at you through the small gap from where the book originally sat.

The most surprising bit of all was you knew and recognised who those eyes belonged to. Jay.

Your eyes widened, so did he once he saw your reaction. For some inexplicable reason, you stood up straight, unknowingly fixing your hair out of a nervous habit.

You were nervous? It's just Jay. No, wait, that's probably why. It's Jay. How were you not going to feel nervous around him?

Quick, think! Were you going to find him in the next aisle or run away. Maybe not the latter. You turned on your heel and walked forward, deciding to find Jay and greet him out of courtesy.

You were just about to turn the corner when you stumbled into the man you were looking for, perfect. Actually, not perfect. The moment you crashed into him, you stumbled into his chest and his hands flew up to catch you, the book originally in his possession dropped to the ground with a firm thud.

There you were, literally in his arms and looking frenzied. His wide eyes matched yours. It took a few beats and a moment for your mind to formulate what's happening for you to finally push yourself from him, absolutely flustered from embarrassment.

“Hey,” you dusted your front in an attempt to hide your burning cheeks.

“Hi,” he replied rather breathlessly, mirroring your rosy cheeks.

The book that fell to the ground suddenly became unimportant to Jay, but to you, it was a mark that was burning into the precious floorings. You moved fast and picked up the book, yet you weren't quick to hand it back, instead you took a look at it.

“Pride and Prejudice?” You noted from the old cover, then glanced at him, a glint of interest sparked. “Didn't know you're like that,” you extended the book out to him.

He took the book back into his possession, smiling rather sweetly. “Literature is the death of me,”

“Isn't it a selective subject?”

“It is. I was an idiot for thinking I could hold on,” he rolled his eyes, making you giggle softly.

“I'm sure you will. You're—like—Einstein smart,”

“Are you trying to stroke my ego right now?” He crossed his arms, leaning onto the bookshelf ever so casually.

“No, I'm just pointing it out. You literally rank in the top 5 every year! It's annoying,”

“Is it so?”

“Very much,”

“Should I be flattered? I'm flattered,” he bowed dramatically, unable to hide his smug smile. It was your turn to roll your eyes, shaking your head at him. He only let out a laugh at your reaction. “What are you doing here at this time anyway?”

“Oh—Yunjin, my friend, had a random impromptu class so she had to stay back. I was waiting for her since she’s bringing me to go swim, but now I don’t know if that’s happening,”

“You could always stop by my place for a swim,”

You blinked, head tilting to one side. “What?”

Jay seemed to have become embarrassed judging from the reddening tips of his ears that you were (thankfully) oblivious to. “I have a pool, and my parents are out of town for maybe a few months or so for work, so it’s practically unused,”

“What about your friends? Don’t they go over to swim?”

“They do, but they’re looking to take more advantage of it by wanting to throw a party soon since my parents are away,” he grumbled in the last part.

“Well, are you?”

“I guess? I don’t mind it,” he hummed, bright eyes flickering to you. “Will you come if I do?”

“If I’m invited,”

“Obviously you are,” Jay said matter-of-factly, eyebrows raised. “So what do you say?”

“Sure,”

“Great. I’ll hold you to it,” he snapped his fingers, and was basically beaming now. It only made you form more visible heart eyes. “But for now, I’ll see you at Jake’s party,”

“Deal.”

That day, you left the library with a lovesick smile instead of a book. You didn’t even get annoyed after knowing it was too late for a trip to the pool, and obviously Yunjin caught onto that. On the walk home, you thought about him and the party. Anxiety and anticipation were both building up, until he came up in mind again and everything disappeared.

You got lovestruck and it went straight to your head. It was almost the first time you’ve actually felt the way you’re feeling now, nobody had once made you fully experience every emotion of having a crush in your years in high school. No one was even capable of it, that was until Jay appeared into your life.

Going to bed that same night, you thought of him again. At that point, you wondered if he would materialise in your bedroom from the amount of times you had him in your head. Maybe he’d be accidentally manifested into life.

Tossing and turning, you kicked your feet at the imaginations you had of him. Upon realising your own behaviour, you covered your face with a pillow and screamed into it. Were you crazy? Oh my God, you were!

Then it hit you.

You’re admitting this now. You like Park Jong Seong.

“I can’t believe we’re here,”

Yunjin was currently having the best of her life even though nothing has happened yet and you both had just arrived at Jake’s house.

The walk in was already shocking. On the lawn of Jake’s house were knocked out drunks, then by the door were people making out and doing weird things you didn’t want to think of again. You were surprised that everything happening before you was something you’ve seen in movies and you were actually experiencing that now.

“Is this even … legal?” you glanced around, cringing at the tacky set ups and badly picked music in the background.

“No. But you’ve drunk before, so who are you to say?”

“Touche,”

Wandering further into the house, you realised there were many people here, but you weren't surprised at all. Jake was a well known footballer anyway, how could he not be popular in the first place?

"Y/N!"

At the sound of your name being called, you looked over your shoulder to see Jay approaching you. His eyes carried the same kind of brightness he has around you, the corner of his lips were curved up into a wide smile. Let's not forget how he has his hair styled up at that moment. Was he expecting you to not feel anything?

"Jay! Hey," you waved meekly at him until he was standing before you. You noticed his gaze on your friend who was standing beside you, a look of unfamiliarity clearly written in his expressions. "This is Yunjin, by the way,"

Yunjin and Jay both greeted each other amicably, though a little awkward but it was natural for it to be like that. Jay turned to look at you, eyebrows raised. "This would be a great chance to introduce my friends but—"

"Jay!"

"I take that back,"

You and your friend exchanged a brief look, stifling your laughter at Jay's demeanour. He was flailing his hand to get his friend to come closer, and by then, you could recognise who it was.

"Bro, why were you running around all night? Were you expecting someone—oh, hey," Jake, the host of the party and the popular footballer, had finally taken account of you and your friend's presence. "I'm Jake, nice to meet you,"

"Likewise, I'm Y/N,"

"Yunjin,"

"Y/N and Yunjin, you guys are new faces around here,"

"It's not really our scene," you nudged Yunjin a little, and she nodded in agreement. It's true, you and her equally preferred a night in with a romcom playing than this. But you'd make it an exception this time, and maybe the next time for Jay's party.

"You're always welcomed. Any friend's of Jay or friend's of Jay's friend are welcomed to our party," Jake patted Jay's back, while the latter only rolled his eyes at his friend.

"Jake! Your toilet's clogged—" another one you recognised to be a part of the friend group appeared out of the blue. It was Sunghoon. Star hockey player and basically every girl's crush, he was known for his wits, charming good looks, and crazy hockey skills, duh.

If you told yourself from months back that you'd somehow become friends with Jay and meet his friends, you'd think you're crazy.

"Hey, sorry," Sunghoon winced, but gave Jake a pointed look after. Jake scoffed in annoyance, then left with a huff and a wave of goodbye to you and Yunjin. "Sorry 'bout that, I'm Sunghoon,"

"I'm Yunjin," when did she become this bold? Whatever it was, you were willing to support her.

"I'm Y/N,"

"You're Y/N?" Sunghoon gasped quietly, glancing between you and Jay, interest forming in his head.

Jay slapped the back of Sunghoon's head, and in the midst of the latter's grumbles, he could only smile awkwardly at you. "Shut up," he hissed to Sunghoon.

"First, ouch. Second, whatever," Sunghoon bumped Jay roughly with his shoulder. "Wanna get some drinks?"

"I'm fine, I'll pass. Maybe Yunjin can go along with you?" You eyed Yunjin, and you saw her giving you those 'i owe you my life' type of eyes.

"Sure," Sunghoon smiled at Yunjin, but gave Jay a firm nudge, his gaze alone conveying the message. Apparently bro telepathy was a thing, because in a few seconds, he decided Jay was staying with you and wandered off along with your best friend.

"It's just us two now," you said, as if it wasn't already obvious.

"Yeah," Jay was equally stiff as you were. "Sounds crazy, but do you want to go up to the room? It's a little loud here,"

"I don't think it's 'a little' but totally, sure. Lead the way," you figured Jay was familiar with his way since it was quite literally his best friend's house.

He wordlessly took your hand and intertwined it with his. It was so casual and sudden that it was unexpected, knocking the breath out of you. He made sure you were walking in front of him the whole time, hand never leaving yours and only gripping tighter as he held you close to avoid the crowd.

In a world of boys, he was a gentleman.

He eventually brought you to a quiet room down the hall upstairs, into a bedroom that was decorated much simpler. You guessed it was the guest room, it would've made most sense.

"Do you normally bring girls here?"

Jay's face contorted into a mix of shock and disbelief, arms thrown into the air. "What—no!"

"Really?"

"What makes you think that?"

You shrugged, taking a seat on the bed. "I don't know? Well, everyone wants you—"

That was your crime.

"—you're popular, smart, cute, kind and—am I talking too much?" You paused, feeling the bed dip beneath you as Jay joined your side.

"I like it," he hummed, turning to look at you. "I like you,"

You blinked. One second. Two seconds.

"What?" Your eyes were widening, whereas Jay was just staring back calmly with an unwavering smile.

"I like you, Y/N," the confession rolled off his tongue like a secret he has been keeping for too long. The eyes that were searching for yours were filled with longing and hope.

Was this really happening right now?

"I like you too, Jay,"

It felt like the world had stopped and it was just you and him there. You were taking in his confession and so was he. It might've been silent but it was comfortable.

"Can I—" he leaned in, but stopping just an inch away from your lips. You could feel his breath on yours, noses making contact. That was how close he was.

"Yeah,"

Just before Jay could press his lips against yours, the door burst open and you jumped, literally. You heard a thud too, and realised Jay was on the floor.

You turned to look at the door, finding the culprit standing there awkwardly. It was Jake, and he, too, was self aware that he had crashed an important private moment.

"Uh—I just wanted to find Jay…"

"Jake, if you don't close that door right now, I swear—"

Jay didn't even need to finish his sentence when Jake slammed the door shut, yelling out 'sorry's and saying he'd be waiting for Jay down the hall. Talk about awkward encounters.

You locked eyes with Jay, who looked thoroughly embarrassed but also humoured. It didn't take long before you burst out laughing and he joined along. Soon, he returned to his original spot next to you too.

"That was … bad,"

"It was," you were fidgeting with your hands, suddenly nervous. "I guess the timing wasn't right,"

"It really wasn't,"

Silence fell between the two of you, and there was something in your mind that was bugging you. "Does this mean we're …?" You didn't need to finish what you were saying for Jay to get the meaning.

"I mean, do you want to try it out first? We don't need to rush into anything, don't even need to be official. I just wanted you to know how I feel,"

"I can do slow," you nodded, catching a brief glimpse of Jay.

"I'll always be waiting for you," Jay took your hand in his, and that was when you finally had the courage to meet his eyes again. "Whenever you're ready."

People say dating the popular guy was a bad idea, but for once, you were willing to let loose and give your heart a go.

Who knew the start of your newfound romance would soon blossom into a whirlwind of tears, love, and scandalous teen romance.

"So you're dating him now?"

Having Yunjin scream into your ear in the morning during the first period was not surprising. Maybe telling her everything over the phone and leaving her hanging wasn't the best idea. It wasn't your fault she was hungover anyway.

"Shush! Do you want everyone to know?"

"I'm sure everyone knows by now,"

You gave her a puzzled look. "What do you mean?"

"Jake kinda saw you guys, then he blabbered it to Sunghoon, and I guess others heard it because he was not quiet about it,"

Jake. You heaved a sigh, shaking your head a bit. "We're not boyfriend girlfriend official, but just … trying things out, you know?"

"I know," Yunjin let out a satisfied hum. "I think he'd be great for you,"

"Really?"

"He's a nice guy, Y/N. Judging from his reputation, he seems like a good man," Yunjin practically gave you her seal of approval, and it left you feeling happy for the rest of the period.

That was until lunch break where everything fell apart way too fast.

Walking out to the cafeteria, you didn't think much about anything else as you listened to Yunjin rant about her latest online purchase. But the moment you heard Jay's name along with yours in passing, your ears perked up. You thought nothing of it, leading up to Kim Minjeong confronting you head on and you knew that's when you should start worrying.

"Are you … the one with Jay?"

You glanced at Yunjin for a split second, anxiety bubbling in your stomach. "I guess?"

"You're a slut. Don't you know I have a thing for him? There's something call girl code—"

"Woah woah, wait, what? Look, we don't even know you like that," Yunjin quickly butt in upon seeing you fall silent.

"Everyone knows me! Everyone knows Jay and I had a thing! What is it you want? His popularity? Money—"

"Shut up,"

Speaking of the devil.

"You okay?" Jay appeared by your side, gaze softening once it landed on you. "I was searching for you, didn't know this is happening,"

"I—"

"Jay! What are you doing? Why are you with her—"

"Can you just quit it? We've been through this many times, Minjeong. I don't like you and I never have, why can't you just accept it?" He sounded exasperated, almost as if he had been putting up with this for ages. "Put my girl's name out of your mouth and leave her out of this. She's the one I want, not you,"

The only way you could describe Minjeong's face there was rageful. Her expressions were contorted and her lips were etched into a frown. She knew she couldn't defend herself further, so she eventually left with a huff.

It was quite unsalvageable at that point and you felt yourself breaking down from the inside out. Even when Jay called your name, you only shrugged him off and brushed past him. The worst part of all: he didn't run after you either.

Great. Now you were going to spend the rest of the day mulling in bed.

That didn't last long either. Once you got into bed, ready to sleep away from the day's incident and think back to Yunjin's pep talk, you heard your phone buzz. Not once, but multiple times. Who was sending messages at that time? Of course, it had to be him.

jjongster: hey, can we please talk?

jjongster: like right now

you: right now?

jjongster: yeah, send me wherever you're most convenient to meet

This was stupid. Sneaking out of your room when it's dark out and meeting Jay down the street from your house. All when your emotions were not stable and set yet. You've sent him the address and now he's waiting there, standing by his car like a dream.

"Hey," he called out softly as you walked closer to him.

"Hi," you hated this, the sudden stiffness and awkwardness that got between you two, you shouldn't be suffering because of it.

"Sorry for asking you to come out this late," he was quick to apologise, taking a step closer to you. He was always so nice, so kind and loving. "I–it's just eating me up, and I really wanted to tell you—speak to you—in person. I wanted to see you,"

"It's okay, I get it. I'm sorry too, for leaving so abrupt and ignoring you. That was wrong of me to do," you were feeling guilty about what you did earlier, letting your emotions get the best of you and neglecting Jay.

"I understand, don't worry. Are you feeling okay? I didn't expect that to happen, I'm sorry,"

"Don't apologise, it's not on you," you brushed away the strand of hair that constantly fell onto your face, occasionally avoiding his stare. "And I don't know. I don't know how or what to feel,"

He frowned. "Tell me, tell me what's on your mind,"

"Jay, what if this was all a bad choice? You're you, and I'm … me. You're the golden boy, everyone wants you! Now they're talking behind our backs and all I do is hear rumours that aren't true, names being called …"

"It's not a bad choice, Y/N! I want you … so much. No one else compares. Can't you see that?" Jay moved closer to you, his hands now on both your shoulders. "Don't push me away now,"

Jay was taking his chance, and you thought it was a big mistake, but he doesn’t. It might blow up in his pretty face, and you didn’t tell him straight on to do it anyway, yet you knew he was going to and he wasn’t going to care what others think.

"I could never," you shook your head, welcoming his embrace as he pulled you in, and before you knew it, the tears you held in all day started streaming down your cheeks.

He held you there on the pavement as you broke down in his arms, his hold on you never once loosened. There that night, under the starry sky and illuminating street lights was a connection and trust formed unknowingly between you and him, love that blossomed like a flower in spring.

"Gosh, I probably look stupid right now crying," you chuckled, pushing yourself slightly off of him to glance at his face.

"You look pretty, gorgeous to me," his thumb travelled to your cheeks, wiping away the tears that remained.

"I shouldn't have said that … us being a bad choice," you said quietly, cursing internally that you've even doubted it in the first place. "I trust you, Jay, I do,"

"Thank you," his hand travelled down to hold onto yours, a smile ever so soft. "We'll go at your pace. Whenever you're ready,"

"Whenever I'm ready." you repeated, unable to stop yourself from smiling either.

Jay knew he was already in deep, experiencing feelings he's never felt before in his eighteen years of life, but seeing you then, made him realise maybe young love was something to believe in. For once, he had a love to fight for.

Jay was true to his words. He, in fact, did throw a party at his place. But what he didn't tell you was the cleaning up, and boy, was it a headache.

Once everyone had filed out a little after midnight, it was only you and Jay left. It was peaceful. In an empty house that had music blasting in the background, you and Jay each struggled to pick up all the rubbish strewn. You liked this. You like him.

It might've taken a while, but eventually you had the place cleaned, or at least, rubbish-less. There was probably more deep cleaning needed (that was for the next day to worry about). However, for now, it was finally just the two of you, and a whole lot of space with nothing to do.

"Wanna go for a dip?"

"Now?" You glanced at the clock, then back at Jay, who was trying to convince you with his starry eyes and nodding his head like an overly enthusiastic puppy. "Fine."

You didn't even know why you agreed to it. It was a lucky decision you brought an extra pair of everything since you were staying over.

Jay was already in the pool, floating around when you walked out. The light coming from the pool was the only thing providing light. Blue reflection and wet messy hair made Jay increasingly dreamy, till the point where you stood there for a bit too long and he had to call for you.

"Coming!" You huffed, but the moment you reached the edge of the pool, you found yourself stuck and feeling nervous.

The sight of Jay's bare front and your lack of clothing was nerve wracking to even think about. Your mind was in a fuzz even as you accepted his hand and let him pull you in, the cool water invading your senses.

His arms came to wrap around your waist, the only thing you could hold for support was his bicep, so that was what you reached for. Jay didn't mind, he only held you tighter, a conspiring glare glazed over his eyes.

"Hey," he tilted his head, gaze travelling all over your features. You were close, very close. It was almost as if you could hear your own heartbeat in your ears.

"Hi," you whispered back. Your hand was on its own journey, absentmindedly moving to his shoulder.

You should be dying out of anxiety by now, or even freak the fuck out, yet, you successfully kept your composure, in front of a hot man. Hooray!

"How's the water? I swear it's clean. I gated it off before the party,"

You laughed, remembering how Jake was so insistent on keeping the pool part of the party. He claimed that a pool party was way cooler than just a regular party. Jay was not convinced.

"It's nice. Chilly,"

Jay nodded for a bit, pursing his lips, thinking for a beat. "I'm glad you were here today,"

"Why?"

"I just like having you here, that's all,"

"You're so cheesy, it's annoying," you joked lightheartedly, knowing you secretly enjoyed this side of him.

"Whatever, you tolerate it anyway,"

He was right, you did. Over the few months, you've grown to memorise and remember every part of Jay. His habits, his likings, et cetera. It was crazy how your relationship grew with time, but the much crazier part was the fact that you two had not gone official yet.

"Against my will,"

"That's a lie,"

"Whatever you say," you said in a sing-song tone, which only made Jay roll his eyes, reaching up to pinch your cheek.

His gaze never left yours, not even once. It was trained on you, always had been and always will be. The eventual silence got to you, and it was just the distant noise of the water that filled the air.

It was one of those moments where you think 'was this real'. Spoiler: it was. He was testing the waters, you could tell, and you let him.

Jay inched a little closer, eyes flickering between you and your lips. It was obvious that he was nervous from the shaky breath and wavering confidence, but it only made you more relieved.

You let out a breath, meeting his lips halfway. At first, he was shocked, you were too, but for different reasons. Kissing him was a breath of fresh air. His lips moved against yours naturally as if it was his first instinct, like he has been waiting for this for ages, which was not entirely wrong. He tilted his head, deepening the kiss and you swore you felt yourself imploding.

The moment you two finally pulled away to catch your breath, you could only stare at him and hold onto him tighter as if you were afraid he might not be real. Jay chased after your lips, pressing haste pecks and smiling into every one of them. It was infectious, everything about him was and it had you intoxicated.

You realised at that second that you’d be willing to go against the world for him if you had to. Even if someone called you a ‘slut’ again, maybe it’d be worth it for once, and you knew he’d always be right there to defend you.

“I'm ready,”

“Hm?” he was still in a haze, eyes staring back at you with more than love in them.

“I’m ready to be yours, Jay, I’m serious,”

“You are?”

He has never been so relieved and happy leading up till that moment, just having you in his arms was about to make him burst. All he needed was to see you nod and watch your lips mouthing ‘yes’ as a confirmation before lifting you up, arms tight around you.

Under the moonlit swimming pool, you’ve never been happier.

The night might’ve already ended for others, but to you and Jay, it was still ongoing, and you wished for it to not end. So, there you were, in his bed, staring up at the ceiling as he lay beside you. There was barely any space between you and him, his hand brushed against yours from time to time, neither of you dared to move from your original position.

Half asleep, you were taking your time to do something. You took the chance to move your hand closer and gently made contact with his. It didn’t even take a beat for him to lace his fingers with yours, his grip ever so firm, calloused skin against yours. You could tell Jay was equally drifting in and out of sleep as you were, mind in a haze but awake enough to comprehend that you were next to him and not a figment of his imagination.

“I’m in love with you,”

It was faint, almost a whisper, but a mumble that was audible came from Jay. You turned your head to look at him, even under the dim lights, you were able to see that smile from him. The one that always made him look like a lovesick fool, that his friend would claim he’d have whenever he talked about you; it was a smile only reserved for you, and you were the cause of it too.

“Goodnight,” he mumbled out, eyes remained shut, but the smile stayed.

“Goodnight.”

There in the bed slept two young lovers, a fresh love that was unbreakable that connected the two of you together, all of it was fated. From the clinic to now, it might’ve started at the wrong place but it surely was at the right time, and you were glad to be next to him, hand in hand, anticipating what the future had in store for you two.

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