#trying my best to remain positive and spread some fun

[endless-ineffabilities]

Chemical Override (bonus chapter 2) - August!

Ewan Mitchell x actress!reader

a/n: this sweet one is set just before they broke it off (or rather, before the reader stomped all over his heart) in part five!

series masterlist ▪︎ main masterlist

August! (... slipped away into a moment in time)

It's a fine morning, albeit lazy, you and Ewan having done nothing but lay in bed and talk and cuddle.

Granted, you did a lot more than talk over the course of the night. And this continued in the morning, with Ewan gently coaxing you out of sleep in need.

He's been insatiable, not that you can blame him. You two are finally together, after months of dancing around each other, your friends in eager anticipation to see how the 'will-they, won't they' dynamic will culminate.

They'll be pleased to know that it all led up to the best date you've had so far, followed by a night of bodies burning for the other, marking their territory in the throes of pent-up desire.

Ewan was sure he would remain the gentleman, merely driving you back to your hotel and calling it a night.

But you had invited him upstairs for a nightcap. Maybe some tea, as the Brits do. Needless to say, the tea was quickly forgotten, along with any reservations he might have about simply having you.

The haze of it hasn't subsided. Clad in nothing but undergarments, your limbs are tangled with his under the sheets as you watch the newly released New York foods video he did with Tom a while back.

"Baby?" you say, running your fingers through his hair as he has his head propped on your thighs. The screen plays on, showing the lads thoroughly enjoying some New York City hotdogs.

"Hmm?" he responds, his voice hinting at how soothed he feels from your touch.

"You're such a baby."

"What?" He twists his neck to shoot you a look of betrayal. Adorable.

"I bet those chips weren't even that spicy," you say, rolling your eyes. "I would have devoured those jalapeño chips."

"They were spicy!" He leans against his forearm, which he quickly positioned on your thigh without thinking, causing your muscle to spasm from the sudden weight.

"Ahhh, Ewan!" you wriggle your legs. "Get off, get off..."

"Shit!" He bolts upright, immediately kneading the flesh with his palm. "Sorry, baby. Here, where does it hurt?"

You sigh audibly. "Oh, you." You narrow your eyes at him playfully, trying to look all tough, but apparently he takes it as a cue to press his lips to yours.

It's warm, a bit sloppy, your breaths stale from wine drank over the course of the night. And you don't mind at all.

He croons in your ear, "How do I make it up to you?"

"It's fine, I was only kind of messing - "

"Come now, darling, anything."

He gazes at you, awaiting an answer. In the background, you hear his voice saying, The Fuegos... I didn't like them, as the video comes to a close.

I saw your eyeballs sort of pop out your head a little bit, Tom says in response.

This is going to be fun, you think, smiling evilly to yourself.

Rising to your knees on the bed, you loudly declare, "Today, my love, you will conquer your fears and eat my favourite spicy food."

"Nooo!" He shakes his head right away, already plotting how to get out of this predicament. "Baby, please make me do anything else. I can't handle my spice!"

"My mind is made up."

"What if I do that thing that made you scream last night? When I buried my tongue insi - '

"Ewan!" Your face reddens, but you carry on. His face will soon have the same reaction, but for different, more savoury reasons. "I mean, I would like that but - "

"Alright, let's go baby, spread your knees - " he nods, desperate to placate you and your challenge, but also eager to get down to business.

You shuffle away when he tries to pry your legs open. " - I said I made up my mind! We're eating spicy food. We gotta eat anyway, I'm starving."

He groans, collapsing back on the bed. He runs his hand tiredly over his face, mulling it over. As if he actually has a choice. He wants to do this for you, seeing as how excited you're getting.

"Get up, ol' sport," you crawl on top of him, perching above his stomach. "We're gonna go get the goods."

"Hmm," he sighs contentedly, one look at you more than enough to quell his worries. For now.

"Okay, darling," he relents, then his eyes flash in mischief. "But before we get out of bed... how about I do that thing anyway?"

There is not a single chance in the seven hells that you could ever say no to that.

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An interesting spread is laid out on the round dining table in your hotel suite.

Your stomach growls in anticipation, while Ewan is stiff as a board as he sits beside you.

"I'm hungry, aren't you?" you nudge him, but he only moans, throwing his head back in his chair.

"What if I'd already eaten? I can skip this?" he tries.

"And what the hell did you eat?"

He smirks, and even though his answer won't save him from what follows, it renders him gleeful all the same. "You," is his reply.

That prompts an eye roll, but you shake your head at him fondly. "What should we start with, baby?"

"Water."

"Come on."

"How about the strawberry milk?"

"Okay, then I'll pick." You clasp your hands, surveying the options. "Let's start with something easy." You settle for the bowl of Flamin Hot Cheetos and place it right in front of him.

You help yourself to a few pieces, before noticing that he hasn't moved a muscle, so you take one and bring it to his lips. "Open up, handsome."

"Mmmm," he tilts his head away on instinct, but he gives in after a second. He makes a face as the snack crunches in his mouth. "Not... bad, I suppose.... Urghhh - " he coughs a little, making you snicker at him between bites.

"That's not spicy at all," you say. "At least, it's nothing compared to what we'll have next."

The chicken wings are an unnatural bright red colour, covered in hot sauce and dotted with flecks of chili. You lean down and take a whiff, your nose scrunching as the strong hint of spice hits your senses.

Your placating smile does nothing to ease Ewan, who only looks like he is regretting his life choices on the spot.

"O-kay, dragonblood. Time to breathe fire," you remark in an attempt to inspire some confidence in him. Didn't he take pride in playing a Targaryen dragonrider? Surely some part of him would want to overcome the big, bad opponent that is known in our world as spicy wings.

"Breathe fire?" he exclaims. "That does not make me feel any better!"

"Do it for Vhagar, my love. Do it for Vhagar."

"I'm doing this for you," he corrects, before gingerly taking the smallest bite of a wing. He waits for the impact, confused when nothing unpleasant occurs.

So he bravely takes another, heartier bite.

Big mistake.

His hand gravitates to the glass of water, and he chugs it down like a lifeline. His once pale face becomes the same hue as the fiery culprit.

"Fffuck, ba...by," he hiccups. "I didn't like that at all."

You have a bite, wincing just a little when it hits your throat. It wasn't too bad, so you tell him to calm down.

He complains anyway, "I think I just saw my life flash right before my eyes."

You chortle at that, which unfortunately makes some of the spice travel up your nose. "Oh god!" You instantly take a huge gulp of milk. "Don't make me laugh!" you say, when the heat dies down.

"See?" he cries out in vindication. "Why must we torture ourselves, darling?"

"The food's tasty," you counter.

"Yeah, but is it worth the price?"

You grip his shoulder, dramatically saying, "We have to keep going, soldier."

"No."

"Yes."

"You won't break up with me if I refuse, will you?"

You pause, making it seem like you are seriously deliberating it. "Maybe."

"What?!" His expression takes on a more real sense of alarm.

"I'm kidding," you giggle, nudging his leg with yours. He leans his head against your shoulder, responding with, "You're mean."

"And you're dating me. What does that say about you?"

He lets out a weary laugh, "That I'm just really in love, I guess."

That almost makes you give up on the challenge entirely. You could just let him eat the pepperoni pizza you have saved as the actual meal. But it wouldn't hurt too much to tackle the grand finale. The final boss. Maybe it will even get his taste buds to crack and cross over to the dark side.

"Baby?" Here goes everything.

"Hmm?"

"It's time for the spicy ramen."

He sighs a true sigh of defeat and acceptance. "If I survive this, you have to swear you're never letting me go."

"That's your bargain? Easy, baby."

His blue eyes bore into yours. His cheeks are still red and he's still sniffling from the spice, but his sentiment holds weight. He shrugs, before his arm reaches out for the bowl of ramen, making it known that he has already accepted his fate.

You slide the glass of milk closer to him.

"Try not to get it on your lips as much as possible," you advise him, growing worried as the ramen pack did warn that it was '2x Spicy'.

You cringe inwardly as a forkful of noodles enters his mouth. He drops his arm, chewing slowly, and finally the food gratefully slides down his throat.

"Mmm," he clears his throat, trying his hardest to remain calm. His forced, blank expression is even more alarming than the alternative.

"Ewan?" He turns his head toward you, slowly. And you see the full extent of the damage. His eyes well with tears, and his breathing is shallow from an even more congested nose.

"I'm okay," he wheezes, trying to maintain a show of boldness for your sake. "I can do this."

"You don't look okay." You shake your head at him, as his face takes on an even deeper shade of red.

A pained grunt escapes him. "Maybe a kiss will make it better."

A cursory glace at the ramen sauce staining his lips compels you to protest without a second thought. "How about no? You've got it all over your lips."

"Darling, who cares? You're going to eat them too!" he says, scandalised.

"But I've got a technique. I don't let it touch my lips so it doesn't burn!" You inch away as he leans in.

"So you won't kiss me?" He uses his baby blues against you, eyes bright and shimmering as he pouts in disappointment.

"You don't need a kiss." He tries to grab you, making you stand from your chair to get away. With your palm outstretched, you implore him, "Baby, just drink your milk."

"Then I get a kiss?"

"Fine. Then you get a kiss."

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

Tom calls you a few days later, his tone animated from the moment you pick up. "Would you look at that! I didn't think I would get a hold of you lovers. Thought you'd be busy doing somethin' else, if y'know what I mean."

"It's noon here, Tom," you reply matter-of-factly, stretching your legs out on the bed.

"So? I reckon Captain Big Balls over there has got it in him."

"Wow," you let out an amused exhale. Tom always did have a way about him, being a Manc and all. "Well, he's in the shower right now if you wanted to speak to him."

"I'm surprised you're not in there with him, love! You guys are all over the news, bloody hell. Even out here, everyone's buzzin' about the hot new couple from House of the Dragon. And no, it's not Matt and Fabien."

You smirk at his last remark, "Are you sure it's not Matt and Fabs?"

"Positive," he says. "But we never know what could happen. Anyway, how in the hell did you convince him?"

You rack your brain for what exactly he could be pertaining to. "Convince him to do what?"

"To create a bloody Instagram profile, that's what!"

Your mouth falls open, and you quickly put him on speaker so you can scroll to the aforementioned app. Sure enough, it doesn't take long for you to sift through your new follower notifications before you find him.

His username is on brand - straightforward and no-frills - just ewanmitchell . Already verified with a hundred thousand followers and counting. In his following list, however, there is only one - your profile.

If the papparazzi pictures and tabloid stories and fan encounters hadn't convinced everyone yet, likely this will.

Ewan, notorious not only for his charisma and pure talent, but also for being steadfast in staying off social media, has sent the entirety of Ewan Nation into a tailspin with his profile.

Icing on the cake - he only follows you.

"You see, this is what convinces the public that you two are not PR," Tom says. "Because Ewan would never, ever get on the socials for just anyone."

"I didn't even know he made this. I haven't been online in quite a bit."

"Been busy, huh?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"Doin' a lot of stuff out there?"

"I guess."

"Like Ewan?"

"Tom, I'm going to lynch you when I see you."

He only laughs, having gotten his desired outcome from prodding at you.

The bathroom door slides open, and Ewan steps out with nothing but a towel haphazardly wrapped around his waist.

"Who's that?" he mouths at you.

"Tom," you answer loudly, prompting Tom to greet Ewan from the speakerphone.

"Aemond the Fierce!" he bellows, the long-distance call doing nothing to stifle his personality. "I always knew you had it in ya. Ever since you laid eyes on her during the table read, I knew it was only a matter of time."

Well, isn't that a revelation. You had thought it was just you harbouring a crush in the beginning. "The table read, really? I just remember being so nervous," you say.

"I thought you were attractive," Ewan admits, scratching the back of his neck. "And you were reading your lines with such passion that I... "

Tom interrupts, "He ran over to me and told me to show him your social media."

"Not just that, I - "

"He wanted to see whether you had any pictures with a boyfriend or something."

"Alright, alright." Ewan snatches the phone from your hand, as if that will keep Tom from exposing him even more. "How are you, mate?"

"I'm good, lad, and yourself?"

Ewan glances at you, seeing that you've gone back to reading a script, your brow furrowed in concentration.

A smile tugs at the corners of his lips.

"I'm great. I'm happy."

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

"Over here! Over here!"

"How's your evening going, you guys? How are you enjoying LA?"

The papparazzi needlessly try to make small talk and they flash their cameras in your face. You and Ewan barely have time to grimace at each other once you get inside his car. The restaurant where he took you to dinner hadn't been crawling with paps when you arrived. Someone must have tipped them at some point.

Ewan instinctively reaches for your hand when you've driven some distance away from the restaurant, a breath of relief exiting his lungs.

"That's Hollywood for you, baby," he says amusedly, putting on his best standard American accent.

The car speeds through the streets of LA. Heading to Mount Hollywood, you have the famous Griffith Observatory set as your destination.

You have always wanted to go, and it only took one mention to Ewan before he planned it for your next date.

It doesn't take long before the observatory's iconic structure comes into view. Its white domes seemingly gleam under the night sky, a sentinel watching over the city of Los Angeles.

Stepping out of the car, you take in the scene in awe. The resulting look on your face lets Ewan know he made the right choice in taking you here. He'd take you here everyday if it meant seeing you in a spell of childlike wonder.

The observatory itself is just a bonus.

The outer balcony stretches like a vertice into the vastness of the city, a sea of lights glistening down below. It seemed to sprawl on endlessly, a labyrinth of hopes and pains and dreams.

You stand there, drawn to the view like a moth to a flame. The evening breeze dances through your hair, and your face is aglow from the illuminated city.

Smiling widely, you turn and find Ewan lingering just behind, watching you.

"Come and look at this, my love," you wave him over.

He wants to capture the moment, so he does. He subtly points his camera in your direction. Your profile is partially visible, with your face turned out into the horizon. Your silhouette stands before a mosaic of the shining city.

But it's you that has his attention. You that pulls all of his focus into the frame.

He never thought he would have much use for a public social media profile like the one he created on Instagram, but hours later, as you're sound asleep beside him, he finds purpose for such a thing.

He uploads the first ever photo on his profile - the one he secretly took of you at the observatory.

Too conscious to think of a caption, he doesn't type in any, content to let the photo speak for itself.

Putting his phone away, he presses a soft kiss to your forehead and falls into blissful slumber.

Ewan hadn't been aware of the phrase breaking the internet, and he's in for quite the rude awakening.

Even so, he doesn't let it faze him.

You're in shock when you discover the amount of comments under the photo, well past the twelve thousand mark when you wake up. Positive, negative, and everything in between.

Almost unheard of for an Instagram debut.

His reaction?

"At least everyone knows that you're mine now. What's wrong with that?"

You can vote here on the reader's hotd character name!

Taglist: @sprinklesprinkle888 @namelesslosers @skymoonandstardust @valyrianflower @luckyfirebasement @omgsuperstarg @elissanatok @callsignwidow @sinistersnakey49 @darkwriteracademia @yyrzmomo @queenofshinigamis @luvaerina @shamelessblazecrown @mirandastuckinthe80s @elleinex0x0 @pierrotlu @aegonswife @strangersunghoon @lunampacheco @writer-ann-artist @gaiaea @of-swords-and-words @ateliefloresdaprimavera @m00n5t0n3 @helaenaluvr @peachysunrize @annie-ruk @luvly-writer @ananas26t @athenafaes @lovelyteenagebeard @mamawiggers1980 @moongirl27 @katherine93 @barnes70stark @justbelljust @cloudroomblog @somestufftoday @esposadomd @girl-in-the-chairs-void @insideyourimagination @hotdismylife @vyctorya @wildrangers @livcookesgf @dracaryxzs @aemondwhoresworld @aisselasstuff @onlyrealjoy (continued in comments)

The sad, angsty bits will be saved for the next proper chapter! What happens to Ewan's Instagram then? What happens to him?? 🥲💔

I was going to include the double date idea, but alas, my ideas ran dry.

I've got nothing but love for all of you that have followed this story to this point! If you've got scene requests, just let me know!

[thedarlingdearestdead]

Meditation:

Summary: Anakin has trouble meditating, you help distract him.

Warnings: Smut - but it is kind of censored. R18.

Word count: 1,660

“Anakin, I can feel your disquiet.”

His eyes open easily from his placement on the floor. He was cross legged and had maintained his peaceful state for a time after your entrance, but something about his signature told you that he was not so deep in meditation. 

You could sense the turmoil within Anakin, like a storm raging beneath a calm surface. His emotions were a maelstrom, and you knew that if not controlled, they could lead him down a dangerous path. Obi Wan had seemed worried about him since Ahsoka left, you did not think he was wrong to do so. 

You looked at the pain in the eyes of your old friend. You saw his grief, his confusion, his restlessness. You knew Anakin too well to think that he had been meditating, maybe he was trying, but he long since given up on the practise. 

“Why are you here?” He asked, looking over at you sullenly.

“Because you’re being too loud.”

He glares at you and moves to get up. “Fine, I’ll give up.”

“Don’t be stupid Anakin, I’m not here to make fun of you. I want to help.”

He settles back down but doesn’t move back to his spread out cross legged arrangement, instead his knees remain up in a guarded, almost foetal position. 

“I don’t think anyone can help me.” His voice is low and dark, his eyes closed and mind stormy. You could almost feel the heavy weight of his burden through the force, though you knew his shields would be hiding much of the extent of it. 

You take a deep breath and try to center yourself, reaching out to Anakin through the Force. You feel the resistance in him, his shields firm and unyielding. But you persist, gently pushing against them. He does not waver however. 

“Anakin, get up.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re obviously not doing anything here.” 

He doesn’t move. 

“Don’t make me fight you, Anakin.”

He looks up at you with disdain, so you give his knee a light kick. 

“That hurt.”

Anakin's reaction was more of annoyance than actual pain, and he finally unfolded his legs and sat up, still visibly troubled. His emotions continued to churn beneath the surface, like a tempest held at bay. When he stands he raised his eyebrows at you, expectant and petulant, you roll your eyes. 

“Come on, I need your help with something.”

Knowing that he is in need of a distraction you hadn’t bothered to fix-up your lighter from your last mission. It had suffered some hit and made a concerning growling sound as you landed, but you figured it could wait. Anakin was always good with the mechanical world, and he did quite like to show off.

Anakin's expression shifted from sullenness to curiosity. "What do you need help with?" he asked, his voice tinged with a hint of interest.

You offered him a small smile, relieved that he was willing to divert his attention from his ‘meditation’, even if just for a little while. "I've got a problem with my ship. It's making some strange noises, and I thought you might be able to take a look at it. You know how much I trust your mechanical skills.”

He grunts. “Lead the way then.”

You lead Anakin through the winding hallways of the Jedi Temple, the two of you walking side-by-side in silence. As you make your way to the hangar, you can feel Anakin's restlessness ease slightly. You know that he is still troubled, and you worry about him, but you also know that sometimes the best way to help him is to distract him.

When you arrive at the hangar, Anakin heads straight for your ship, a battered old freighter that you've had for years. He runs his hand over the hull, inspecting it with a critical eye. "What kind of noises?" he asks.

You shrug. "I don't know, just strange ones. I thought maybe one of the engines was acting up."

Anakin nods and disappears beneath the ship, emerging a few moments later covered in grease. He wipes his hands on a rag and looks up at you. "Yeah, it looks like you've got a loose coupling on one side.”

“Oh do I?” You say a bit dumbly. 

“Hmmm, pass one of those-“ He gestures to the table at his side but you already had the tool in your hand. He takes it without another glance. 

You stand back and watch him work, admiring the way he moves with such fluidity and precision. He seemed to get lost in the task at hand, his focus entirely on the ship. For a moment, you forgot about all of the troubles that had been weighing on him. Watching him work was a reminder of the Anakin you knew before all the darkness, before the war.

As he finishes up, he stands and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. "Alright, that should do it. Start her up and see if it's running smoothly."

You nod and make your way to the cockpit, taking a seat and starting up the engines. You hear a smooth, steady hum and grin, turning to look back at Anakin who had followed you inside. "Looks like you fixed it," you say, grateful for his help.

Anakin nods, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Told you I had skills," he jokes.

You chuckle, feeling the tension in the air ease a little bit more. “Never doubted you for a second.”

Anakin’s expression grows serious again, and you can see the turmoil churning behind his eyes.

“Is everything okay, Anakin?”

He hesitates, looking down at his feet. “I… I don’t know. Everything’s changing, and I don’t know where I fit in. I’m trying to listen to the order, to the force, but both voices are so loud. I can’t hear either of them properly.”

“Hence the meditation?”

“Hence the attempt at meditation.”

The Jedi Order was in a state of upheaval, and Anakin was caught in the middle of it all. The war had taken a toll on him, and the loss of Ahsoka had only made things worse.

"I wish I knew a better way to help you."

He shrugs, "You do help me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He smiles ever so sadly into your eyes, and like magnets your lips find each other. 

The kiss was soft at first, hesitant almost, but it quickly deepened as the two of you moved closer to each other. Anakin's hands found their way to your waist, pulling you tighter against him, and you could feel the heat of his body against yours. It was a comfort to know that you could provide him with some solace amidst the turmoil that surrounded him.

When you finally pulled away, both of you were breathing heavily. Anakin's eyes were dark with desire, but also with something else, something deeper that you couldn't quite place.

“Do you still want to distract me?”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“You know how to fix a ship, Y/N.”

“Then yes, let me try distract you.”

Anakin grins and pulls you in for another kiss, his hands running up and down your back. You melt into his touch, relishing the feeling of his strong arms around you. For a moment, everything else fades away, and it's just the two of you in your own little world.

But clearly you underestimated his need. He presses you against your ship, growing hungrier by the second. You can feel the heat between your bodies rising with each passing moment. Anakin's kisses become more urgent, and his hands are now exploring every inch of your body. Your own desire is quickly building, and you find yourself responding to his advances eagerly.

You break away from the kiss, gasping for air. "Ani, we can't do this here," you say, trying to catch your breath.

He looks at you with a mix of frustration and longing, his eyes dark with desire. “I need to.” he whispers, his voice husky.

"Someone might walk in," you reply, trying to keep your voice steady.

Anakin looks around the hangar, checking to make sure that you're alone. "No one's here," he says, moving in to kiss you again. You can feel yourself weakening at his touch, your resolve crumbling under his persistent advances. His mouth moved lower down your neck. You bite your lip, trying to hold back a moan. His hands move down to your hips, and you can feel how much he wants you.

You press yourself against him, revelling in the strength of his embrace.

His tongue finds its way into your mouth once again, tracing a path along your teeth and lips. Every nerve ending in your body is standing at attention, begging for release.

His hands pull you against him even harder. His erection digs into your thigh, making you gasp with pleasure. A whimper escapes your lips, and Anakin growls, pushing himself further into you. You dig your fingers into his broad shoulders, loving the feel of his muscles under your fingertips. You let out a low moan, your head lolling to the side as his tongue sweeps across your sensitive skin.

It feels too good. It feels right. It feels so overwhelming. 

You would let him do anything he wanted to you. You give him full reign as he unzips your pants, slips his hand under your tunic. 

Your thoughts turn hazy, and you give into your lust. There's nothing holding you back anymore; your emotions run rampant through your body. Everything becomes one big blur of sensation, leaving you unable to think.

When you are both finished, and he is standing over you, face flushed and sweaty, hair curling deliciously around his eyes. You can finally feel him relax. The tension, the shields which had been so reinforced had fallen. He is yours. 

[teymars]

Bae this has been in my system like all day and ik you’ll js write this the right way, but what are we thinking ab how the sully boys would react to you randomly sitting in their lap? (And reader has that chubby/curvey body type like in the last fic too🤭)

You have the best ideas omlll 🫠

MDNI ‼️ -small mention of knives/knife kinks-

Neteyam- He was sat on the floor, mindlessly working away at preparing a snack when you shift from your original position across the room. You’d sit quietly in his lap, forcing him to put aside his task. Neteyam smirks as you grind the thickness of your ass back onto his crotch, teasingly. “What are you doing, yawne?” He whispered, suckling warm-wet kisses into the alcove of your neck. His strong arms coming to wrap around your front, caging you against him tightly. “You know how I feel about teasing, sweet-thing.” He hissed as you shifted softly against his growing erection.

Lo’ak- He’d be minding his own business when you squish yourself between his legs, nuzzling your head back against his chin. “Hey, babe. What’s up?” Lo’ak greeted you, sounding a little strained. “Nothing much, something wrong Lo?” You nudged, sensing his increasing tension. The man shook his head, muttering something about feeling ill. Despite his denial, you knew that it had something to do with the boner currently pressing into the plush of your thighs. Lo’ak felt his face heat immensely as you flexed against him, the urge to have his way with you only intensifying. “You make me so fucking hard, mamas.” He finally growled out, with a sigh against your ear.

Jake- He was preparing some weapons when you wandered over, sitting in his spread lap without hesitation. He quickly shifted the blade he was working on, as it had been pointed dangerously towards you. “Careful there sweetheart, I’d hate for you to get hurt.” Jake grumbled huskily, continuing his task. The undertone of his words made you shiver. You remained sitting in silence, occasionally shifting in his lap, trying to mask your sudden wetness. He could smell the familiar scent despite your efforts, carefully sliding one arm around your waist, aiming to caress the curve of your hip. His other hand held the freshly polished blade, moving to trail it gently against the side of your cheek, causing you to whine in anticipation. “Jesus.. You like being in danger, don’t ya’ hun?” He spoke softly, teasing the sharp edge along the side of your round cheek, then under your chin. As your head titled to meet his, Jake sealed your lips together in a searing kiss.

Mmm another fun one to write!! Thanks for keeping my creative flow going, i hope this meets your expectations! 😚💞

[genericpuff]

Hey, found you on reddit long long ago and have since been a follower. I wanted to say thanks for all of your essays, for your advice about comics and creative work in general, and especially for the coherent thoughts on webtoon as a company... seeing you do LR and just BE outspoken about the experience of working on webcomics and being a professional artist, it gives lots of people hoping to go into the industry or do that sort of work (myself included) the courage to stand on our feet. I saw in real time that reddit post you analyzed in your last post, and I've made the (honestly pretty scary) decision to stop publishing my own comic on WT completely and abandon ship for a third party site. Still trying to decide which would be best. It sucks feeling like you're abandoning an entire audience, but the knowledge that your work will remain your own and on your own conditions... that's far more valuable at the end of the day. So thanks for the (accidental) help with that decision, and I'll do my part in spreading the word. I really enjoy lore rekindled, thank you for all your efforts and hope you're having a great day :>

Aw hey! It's always humbling to hear that people find strength in my crazy wordy essays LOL I don't particularly like saying 'you're welcome' with this sorta thing so I guess I'll say, no prob, glad I could help? 😆

I understand all too well that fear of 'abandonment'. I'm currently in the process of moving all of my work off WT as well, notifying my readers, all that fun stuff. I've considered using it just as a mirror site for the sake of trying to get audience members, but honestly, I've been using it as my primary site for nearly a decade with no luck so keeping it on the platform even just as a mirror just feels... I dunno, like I'd just be getting the same results regardless. Especially now with the site going in the direction that it is, and the fact that they're clearly moving towards AI, at best I don't want my work to be bringing in the site any more traffic (even if it's just a drop in the bucket) and at worst I don't want my work to get scraped by AI or some shit down the road LOL I often wonder why I've bothered putting up with Webtoons for so long, when I left Tapas over far less. I think it's just the fear of being a disappointment. But really the only person I should be most concerned of disappointing is myself - and I don't want to continue to disappoint myself by sticking it out with a platform that's getting worse by the day.

Something that's helped me reframe my perspective on the "loss" of Webtoons as a platform is just viewing it less as 'abandoning' and more like 'upgrading'- upgrading the environment in which I host my work, so that it can be in a place that works for my goals and stories rather than against them. It's like the golden rule of dealing with employers, if you're not getting adequate raises or proper treatment, then you leverage your skills and experience into a better position. Nothing is forever, including webcomic platforms. But change doesn't have to be a bad thing, so long as you can use it to your advantage somehow.

Take what you can of your audience with you. Encourage them to try new spaces. Turn the transition into a party, get people so excited for it that they'll feel like they're missing out if they don't hop on! Have confidence, even if you don't have everything figured out yet. The readers that truly love your work and want to read it will follow.

And worst case... send me a link to your comic sometime and I'll do what I can ;) I'll see you on the other side of wherever our work ends up (•̀ᴗ•́)و

[streamat4am]

you got anything for blood?

perhaps even... some enko?

or you could just write wednesday being down bad for a blood-covered enid tbh

i want more blood >:)

NOO MY DRAFT GOT DELETED but sure mate, since you've come from main I'll give you what some anons over there have been asking for

Enko ✌️

Not as much blood but I had fun building them up

Tags: gay shit, Enid being confused, Yoko enjoying that confusion

--

Yoko is doing this on purpose.

It was supposed to be a normal day, if a normal day includes your best friend sitting on your lap and unbuttoning your shirt.

See, Enid wouldnt mind! Girls sit on other girls laps at times but this? This was straddling, this was yoko with her legs spread as the vampire faced her wolf. Remembering just what position she's in has her shifting, her hands carefully resting over Yoko's waist.

"can you hurry up," Enid grumbles, her ears feeling a bit warm when Yoko laughs and fiddles with a button for much more than she should. "I thought you were hungry?"

Yoko pats her cheek, a smug smirk on her face as she finally unbuttons another button. "simply enjoying my meal, niddy."

Enid blushes and tightens her grip in reply, a her brows furrowing. "Do you really need to be so gay? Just suck and get it over with."

Yoko rolls her eyes, nudging and pulling Enid's collar further to show more of the wolf's neck.

"you sound like a man, nid," Yoko scoffs. "just suck," she mocks before her lips curl into a smirk. "but if you insist-"

Enid closes her eyes, expecting a sharp prickle of her skin breaking instead her breath hitches when she feels lips kiss at her skin instead.

"yo-" the wolf breathes, her grip tightening all the more when Yoko suckles. A sound that Enid doesn't dare describe spills from her lips and she hears her nails rip into clothing clothing. Panic pierces through her skull and Enid tried to pull away-

Except Yoko is pressing all the more closer , her breath heavier than before as her hands tugged and clung on Enid's uniform.

"damn enid," yoko whispers, pulling back to stare at the litters of red marks lining the girl's skin. "didn't think I'd effect you so much that you'd ruin my clothing." her head tilts to the ripped remains of Yoko's pants, obviously shown to have slash marks from the hips down to the waist.

"i-" enid tries to explain except Yoko is pushing her back to the bed and looming over her before she can say a thing.

Yoko wasn't wearing her glasses and those eyes glow a pretty shade of red when she smiles, sharp fangs in display.

She leans over, kissing at the flushed werewolf's cheek as her fingers trace at the bruises on Enid's collar.

"pretty girl, you already have me addicted." enid couldn't speak and a whine is pulled from her lips when she feels a wet tongue drag along the side of her throat. "I haven't even tasted you yet."

This is so gay, is all Enid can think, her mind running so fast that she doesn't know what to do except press her thumbs deeper into Yoko's hips and try to breath.

Then those teeth pierce and Enid couldn't think any longer.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 63 – The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

This was the last WFA finalist for best novella I was able to get at the library, so I will I suppose just have to accept that I am not going to have an informed opinion on the category. The book is, well – Jamnia’s only other work listed on Goodreads is “Positive Interactions with At-Risk Children: Enhancing Students' Wellbeing, Resilience, and Success”, and you can really kind of tell. Not a bad book – there really is a lot of good stuff here – but subtlety is just nonexistent. Though I suppose better a plot that telegraphs itself from a hundred miles away than one that feels like the author was coming up with it as they went.

The story takes place in a ‘free and democratic’ city state established after a successful war of independence from a struggling and unstable empire, and now a not-particularly-enthusiastic sanctuary to refugees from the rest of the empire. Firuz is one of those refugees, with the added issue of being a mostly-trained blood magic adept, the proximate reason why they and their family had to flee in the first place. Disguising the exact sort of magic they practice, they get work as an assistant healer to the one of (and soon the) only free clinics in the city, doing their bits to try and help the refugee populations through the plague ravaging the city. The meat of the plot is about their investigation of the source of a second strange disease that begins spreading among the refugee population a year after the first plague dies down – looks a lot like anemia, though the word’s never used – and how they try (and just totally fail) to balance their relationships and family against the good they do working in the clinic.

The book is just very earnest, and awkward, and trying to do altogether too many things at once for its length. Also the fantasy!Iranian refugees are called ‘Sassanians’. Which, like, come on. That’s literaly calling your fantasy!France ‘Gaul’.

The medical mystery was fun – strange diseases! Dissections and autopsies! Hiding the magic that’s the only hope you have of figuring out what’s happening! - but it was too strangled for space competing with family drama and a subplot of Firuz adapting and teaching another natural blood mage and just general ruminations to really shine. Which is to say there were exactly two named characters who could possibly be responsible, and it was almost instantly obvious which of them it was.

Which left the book needing to be carried on those interpersonal relationships and character dynamics. Which were like, fine? But every character basically had their key traits and the point of their arc announced on the page – the only character written with any real subtlety or layers was the eventually revealed villain.

The book’s very much queernorm – the protagonist is nonbinary and their kid brother is trans and spends about half the book lashing out as he struggles to cope with his dysphoria. Absolutely no one cares. The brother does get hatecrimed on account of being an ethnic minority and a refugee though, which I admit is a mindset about what bits of reality need to be softened I struggle to wrap my head around. More annoyingly (and, like, actually important at all) it is kind of disappointing that it cuts off any real worldbuilding about sexuality or gender; there are three major cultures in the book, and we go through the entire thing without learning anything much about any of their standards or expectations of femininity or masculinity. The brother’s dysphoria is portrayed as a purely physical ailment – you could replace it with some exotic variety of chronic pain and his role in the narrative would remain functionally unchanged.

Which just seems like a profoundly wasted opportunity to me – it’s fun that there’s one pronoun set that’s used exclusively to refer to the divine! But also I desperately want to know what the differences in cultural understanding between the usage of the two different neopronoun sets used to refer to random tertiary characters are, y’know? If you’re going to devote such a relatively big chunk of wordcount to this stuff then, like, dig into it.

Anyway yeah – as a debut effort, this is really very good. But I’m pretty surprised to see it on any best-of-year lists.

[twelvedozenterrors]

Conniving Children Concealing Celebrations

hxuse-of-muses:

{♚}—; Upon setting Andy down, he expected him to do something like at least continue to explore around or run off but instead he just stood there starring straight ahead. It couldn’t be said if Cosmos’ spell would let him walk around normally or if he could just use it again if he tried but regardless, he wasn’t testing that. “Come now Andy, you wanted to be let down but you’re still staying put?”

Spyro knew taking Craig up to the dessert table would make him happy, and he could easily get him some of what he wanted. Though as soon as he jumped up and nosedived straight into his back it made his knees bend momentarily but he stood his ground. He’d carried him before, but it had been a bit since he decided to take a dive into position but luckily he didn’t accidentally land on a wing. Though seeing this Sparx couldn’t help but begin giggling, his buzzy voice heard loud and clear by the purple dragon who rolled his eyes at his friend making fun of this. Although neither of them really minded, since Spyro was just trying to help the little one. So he quickly spread his wings and began to take their short trip to the top of the table. “Here we go kiddo!” With that he took off, a few jumps and hovering with his wings and there they were able to now feast their eyes upon various desserts all made to perfection by Devlin whom he was sure was proud of these. “Here we are! What would ya like to try first?” Zantor chuckled at the idea, Argus could shout pretty good sometimes if he got to that point. “Trust me, I can see it now!” He could already imagine the various ways in which they would get scolded and that he would no doubt come at them, or any other culprits in full force. Nils smirked, he knew how much she enjoyed getting a gift of sorts from any one of them and so having her balloon returned to her serving as practically what was like a pause button. It was clear that she had completely shifted her mood from being as excited as she was to being much calmer now.

With a chuckle Nils nudged Lindar playfully. “I can see that! It looks like things changed pretty quick like we didn’t just have a speedster on our hands not long ago. I bet you wish you could do that with Spyro too whenever he gets the drop on you.”  Now that Daisy was calm now, Zantor decided he could go along with an idea Nils shared with him a bit ago. “Maybe now, we could do a game with some of my cards.” Zantor suggested, as he began to levitate a few of them.

Even then, Andy’s expressions and posture remained static. He had his freedom and he was going to use it however he wanted; being obedient to an irritatingly literal degree wasn’t the best of time - especially at a party - but coming out on top of the mind game he was subjecting Trondo to would be an ample source of entertainment.

A kid like him wouldn’t dare let a smile peek through during an episode, but rest assured, deep down Andy was quite pleased with himself.

Everything Spyro and Sparx said went through one of Craig’s ears and right out the other. The only thought in his noggin (if there even was one) was to devour; he spared no time alighting from Spyro’s back and switching to autopilot the second he set foot on the tablecloth.

The event horizon had been crossed - the black hole known as Craig began his onslaught by yanking the nearest unclaimed cupcake into a bear hug and wolfing it down.

Rife with smug satisfaction from achieving what the parents of overly rambunctious children could only dream of doing, Lindar had been relishing in Nils’ compliments - that was, up until he struck enough of a chord to make his confident aura falter.

Great. Cosmos already reminded him of the pink hair debacle a while ago, and now everyone’s favourite beanpole was stirring the pot.

To be fair, it was probably karma for what he’d done to Nestor.

“Wouldn’t I just.” the humbled horologist groaned, rolling his eyes. “Nils, from the day he was born we’ve been trying - and failing - to neutralise him.” Of all the dragons that could have gotten their dragonflies early, the Artisans really lucked out with it being Spyro...not that Sparx fared much better with reining him in.

All annoyance soon faded once their whereabouts reminded him of the perfect evidence to support his claims.

“Now concerning party favours and other merry little souvenirs specifically, we know from experience that teeny toddler Spyro wouldn’t be mesmerised into borderline catatonia by a helium balloon,” yet again nodding his head towards the example on the floor, “he’d snatch up as many as he can the instant Nestor spends over a second looking away from him, then get yanked back down before his maiden voyage takes him more than six feet into the air.”

Lindar’s grin widened the further he went into his tale, culminating in more laughter once he reached the point where it could have been the epitome of comedy or horror. “So far, that has been the only time in my life I can say I’ve heard the most stalwart Artisan there is shriek like a little girl!”

A tickle in his throat made the blue dragon realise he was still feeling hoarse from putting his lungs through the wringer and he coughed into his hand to clear it.

Seemed like it was also time for him to calm down.

Daisy hadn’t appeared to listen to the conversation at all and remained unresponsive on the floor, not even when Zantor announced what he had planned; staring at the big pink balloon was basically everything she needed to reach nirvana.

Lindar cocked an eyebrow, intrigued as the Magic Crafter prepared his cards and took it upon himself to get the tot out of the trance he indirectly put her in. “Hey sleeping beauty, are you still with us?” When glancing down and speaking directly to her proved ineffective, he gingerly nudged her with his tail to no avail. “Oh good, I’ve broken her.”

Shrugging, Lindar’s eyes darted towards the clock hanging from his waist and he jokingly insinuated “Yep, definitely hypnosis. I may need to reconsider my wardrobe.”

[bookishtheaterlover7]

So u believe in future spouse, the next one is the one, n all? Didn't want to write an ask about this topic but the way u are this positive, full of optimism is something amazing🙌😊☺️ this NEVER ENDING PR has spread negativity everywhere but I hope u people keep fighting n spreading the love the fans deserve! 😊 Only fear is quiet period after marriage won't help him, that's like they sold the marriage as PR cos it was required to remain relevant but now they are private as usual! So it helps show this is real! Hope they have some ways to keep proving this is PR cos this going on isn't helping team PR! Hope this ends soon! Till then be happy be safe keep fighting n keep smiling😊 I hate him for doing this but I hope he is OK...he is fighting n smiling! N one day shows up n says this was all PR! Without any fear! Praying n hoping...😊

Awwwwwww... Thank you! 😊 I try, and it's mostly because I'm trying to emulate my Grandmother's words and example... "Go against something negative with positivity.

The woman has had so much negativity around her life, but she's the toughest woman I know. And she proves it everytime she makes herself happy when the world gets her down. So, I'm trying to follow her.🥹

And I agree, their radio silence after that huge explosion in our favor about those rings really has had everyone on edge. So much so, that there are some pretty outrageous theories.

But don't worry, they've been silent for so long, they're bound to slip up, or let something slip, in Chris' case. We just gotta hang in there, and enjoy life.

It's the holidays! We'll be damned if we let a racist Nazi and her penchant for begging for attention distract us from our holiday cheer.

And same, Chris should be in the dog house for putting us through the ringer, but the guy is slowly and silently winning. And with every day that passes, so are we. I mean heck, GP is starting to notice with People not mentioning Chris' wedding.

Just patiently waiting and enjoying what a Fandom is supposed to be is the best way to celebrate and have fun.

[aggressive-almond-cookie]

I really haven’t had it in me to write down my musings about this but like. The more I play (and love love love) anarchy the more I understand that no amount of turfing was ever gonna prepare me for anarchy past a certain point. And to some extent I knew that, or at least knew that was the common advice, but the anxious need to over-prepare remained. I mean, I still don’t regret all the time I spent turfing-- it was fun, after all, and I’m still glad I one-starred all the weapons in turf because turf gives you a lot more... space, I feel like, to get the feeling of things, basic mechanics and stuff, in a low-pressure way. It’s a really good intro-to-the-game game-mode.

But it’s just so so so apparent now, at least in my experience, that if you’re aiming to improve your gameplay (and you already have basic mechanics figured out), anarchy is just, by the raw numbers, going to get you there faster just because it gives you so many more opportunities to do that than turf does. Just in sheer encounters-per-minute that you have, each one of them being an opportunity to try something and learn if it works or not, and especially against the same players over a longer span of time. Like, occasionally in turf I would have that experience where I would run into the same person repeatedly and if they got me a few times I would sort of try to slow down around them and figure out what they were doing and see if I could catch them off-guard. I feel like that was really valuable in developing the tactics that I’m finding more consistently reliable now. In anarchy, that sort of thing is happening constantly, every single game and since games are longer (or at least can be longer), I have even more opportunities to face down the same players, often in the same positions, and try out different tactics looking for something that works.

It is a little overwhelming, granted, to be doing this and learning basic anarchy game mode mechanics at the same time. The way scoring works is still a little unintuitive to me. I am terrified of picking up the rainmaker because I don’t feel like I’m good at using it, and while I’ve practiced in recon with it I feel like I need to practice it against moving targets and like, predict where they are going to go and all that stuff I can’t really do outside of an actual game. I feel a little bad about picking it up uncertainly in an actual game though because I feel like I might ruin it for everyone, but I’m not really sure how else to learn. So I kinda feel like I better do it now at lower ranks when it’s less likely to frustrate people that I obviously don’t know how to use it effectively.

Clam blitz definitely has me the most stumped but I feel like I enjoy it the most on mahi where everything is so close together. It feels like it’s the spreading-out nature of the game that makes it such an awkward game mode. Unlike the others where everyone kind of converges on a central objective, there’s this weird gathering aspect of clams and I haven’t really figured out what the optimum paths are to take to gather the clams and where to expect the enemy team to be (or even my teammates for that matter). Maybe you eventually fall into common effective patterns at higher levels when you understand how things work a little better but right now it’s definitely the most confusing/disorienting game mode for me.

Splat Zones is the easiest on my brain because there’s not a whole lot of mechanics to it once you understand the scoring (which, granted, still trips me up at times). I think I have the least experience with Tower Control just due to my luck with which rotations are happening when I play but it also feels fairly straightforward. I’m finding that often I’m expected to be tower-rider in my team (I really don’t know who is supposed to be the ‘best’ tower rider but probably not the backline weapons I guess) and I struggle to do that effectively but it is kind of fun to hang out up there, swim around the center pole and toss out autobombs, quickly dodge-sliding off if I need to. Like I still have a lot to learn but I feel like I’m getting some basics down.

But lord, just in general, anarchy modes are so so fun. The tensions are higher but not high enough to stress me out to the point where I’m not enjoying it. The nonstop action is just really intense and when it’s good it’s just such a rush. It’s actually a little weird going back to turf afterwards and adjusting to the slower pace and having to worry about inking base again. Like this feels a little weird to say but inking turf is just not as compelling or as exciting of an objective to play. I mean, I still enjoy turfing plenty, especially with friends, but it’s nice when I group with folks who have better ink output so I don’t get stuck messily trying to ink base with tetras.

Anyway, progress/improvement is slow. I really don’t get to play anarchy that often with everything else going on-- evenings are reserved for group-play salmon and turfing, but I try to get in an hour-ish of anarchy a day in the mornings, before work, after coffee. That seems to be when I have the highest energy and most mental precision, so it works out.

I’m still working out how to most effectively aim drill/warm up/practice in my limited time outside of games but one thing I’ve come up with is a little game in which I do one dodge roll into the range of several targets in the lobby and then while staying in turret mode, seeing how many I can break before my ink runs out, trying to rotate through them fairly evenly. My record is 10 but I’ve gotten really close to 11 a couple times. I can tell there’s still a lot of improvement to be made-- a lot of ink I waste due to overshooting targets or just being too indecisive about which target to snap to, so I hope this exercise will tighten up my aim as I work on it. I’m making sure to change up my positioning so that I’m not just muscle-memorizing the target locations and some are easier than others.  I’m also just using the stationary targets right now but I figure I’ll migrate to the moving ones as a I get more comfortable.

The other drill that I feel like is helping me is just spamming dodges around a stationary target and trying to take it out before I exhaust all my dodges/get stuck. It’s both forcing me to both get a better feel for where my dodges take me and how to adjust my aim very quickly to account for my movements. It’s quite challenging and messy but it’s the kind of thing that I can usually feel a difference in my ability to do between the start of a warmup and the end, so I at least feel like it’s doing something.

There’s still so so so much I need to improve on and sometimes I get overwhelmed by it. I feel like the worst is just my general awareness/visual processing of what’s going on. Trying to get myself to slow down and look around before I rush in to my death is something I feel like I do better some days than others and I would like to find a way to objectively track my improvement there but I’m not entirely sure how. It’s an interesting thing to puzzle out though. I have a couple ideas I might try.

Regardless, I’m really just having so much fun, and I feel capable of hitting a nice stride sometime in the future if I keep playing mindfully and problem-solving my weaknesses as constructively as I can. Hope abounds.

[bloodredx]

Day 14: Legend

Such things are boring. The short breadth of time that allows an event to become a story to become a legend is unappreciated. How these tales of folly and whimsy spread and remain in the consciousness of villages, towns, societies. How fun when the façade is destroyed.

Every so often, which might be more than is expected, this form wanders the lands. Watching, listening. Sometimes even speaking! From there consequences are determined from actions taken, and such events may or may not have driven themselves into the given lexicons of cities, nations, people. A sure delight, to be considered so strongly, true. But much more pleasurable is the ordeal of being unknown. To walk away knowing that all games have been won and performed in luxurious secret. To see, if ever so briefly, the confusion of an innocent’s face. To not know what they have dealt with. Hehe.

This form suspects the Children find this frivolity annoying, if they were aware of it at all. All work and no play, as some of the Precious Living speak. Should rage fill their forms, the Children might realize their true purpose, ah well. No need to barter with ill spent time. To that end, the Children in their gazes, spending time with duty and recoil, find themselves in the position to play with the Precious Living more than this form does, if that was possible. Upon finding one they find interesting, they scoop them into perilous clutches, imbibing them with portions of power. Myseri Mirtuvi are what the Children call them, cursed sacks of flesh to wander and do the bidding of their masters without even a hint of recognition of their larger goals. Poor things, tend to end up in perilous situations, cataclysmic downfalls, follies or otherwise. Even worse how they are treated by standard folks, aloft and adrift, somewhere between the divine and the damned. Makes this form wonder why any would agree to such an arrangement. Though, it seems most are not given the choice.

--

The bourbon was smooth, good and rich. But it wasn’t strong enough. It didn’t leave the same sting on Bones’s throat as his perpetual wound did. Any distraction would be good, but this one wasn’t cutting it right now. He leaned against the bar, finding solace in the hard surface. Nice to have something sturdy to prop him up. The bartender was shooting him a dirty look. He looked back into his glass, trying to ignore the older fellow.

But the weight of his eyes kept digging into him, irritating whatever cool breath Bones had left in his lungs. He sat up, scratching at his facial hair absentmindedly. “If ya got somethin’ to say, best get it out ya mouth before it busts a tooth.”

The bartender squinted his eyes slightly, the rugged man had grey hair and a thick moustache, but not much else going on. Bones couldn’t imagine much being interesting about the fellow, but it could’ve been the black uniform and white apron of his profession clouding any judgement. “You… aren’t of the Church.”

Bones raised a brow at that, shocked it had taken this long to get here if that was the problem. “Nope, can’t say I am. Yourself?”

“My cousin is. Just a worshipper myself.” He responded quickly, not quite expecting the question to be reflected back at him. Mistrust couldn’t leave his voice fast enough. “But folks like yourself, why aren’t you with them?”

It took much more effort than he was proud to admit to not roll his eyes. Bones reached out with his senses a moment, feeling the souls of everyone in the bar. Seemed like only a few other people, this place wasn’t exactly popular, even for Glacidea’s standards. If there’s an issue, should be easy clean up. Good. Begs the question why ya served me in the first place. Still, he plastered on a grin, gearing up his best voice. “Ah, my eyes ‘n hair got ya, huh? Ah, well, it’s a long story, but I’m guessin’ ya think me to be a mage.” A swift nod, not quite believing him yet. It’s okay, early still. “Well, I assure ya, I ain’t. Just a weary traveler. As I bet ya can tell, now that I’ve opened my mouth wide ‘nough to hear, ain’t exactly from these parts. Nah, out from Reedsdale, yeah? Ya ever been?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Lovely place, spring time has flowers farther than the eye can see, yeah? Storm season’s a bit crazy some of the floodin’ too. But can’t help it, Esc’lyr bein’ as she is.”

The bartender seemed taken aback by the sudden deluge of information, he opened his mouth to try and get a word in, but found himself outmatched by Bones’s quick tongue. “But, back to what I was talkin’ ‘bout. Lots of weird and strange lil’ places all ‘round there. Mangrove trees and their vines, all the thick of the muck, critters runnin’ out there. See, there’s a story we have, right? Lil’ thing called the Grey Gator. Now, she’s a sleepy lil’ thing, always movin’ in and out of the water, up and down the different straits and gullies, the like. Maze, ya have to see it if ya ever get down there.  But she’s got these beautiful silver scales. They shimmer just the right way, kinda like my eyes, yeah? When they ain’t soppin’ with mud.”

He took a quick sip of bourbon to wet his throat again, pointing a finger into the air. “Now Miss Grey is a smart thing. Tales say if ya can get a scale from her, ya get a wish. But she don’t much part with her scales too easy. Makes her look real pretty like. And she is real pretty, bless that lizard heart of hers.

“Ain’t no one be believin’ her when I was a kid, just some playground story, after school sort of deal. But I grew up deep in the bowels of the swamp. I know it like the back of my hand. So I’d seen Miss Grey. Her pretty scales all done up on a moonlit night. But ain’t no one believed me. Ain’t got a single friend that even tried. So I said ‘I’ll go get a scale, y’all’ll see.’’”

The bartender, either completely flabbergasted or just curious enough to have something to break up a dull shift had now leaned in, his firm expression now broken. Bones continued, hoping he had caught him, hook, line, and sinker. “Now I go to where I last saw her, waitin’ on a moonlit night just the same as the first time, and ya know what happened?”

“What?”

“Nothin’. She ain’t there that night.” He took another drink, ice clinking against the side of the glass as he pointed toward the man. “Nor the next night, or the next or the next! But ya know what? I ain’t nothin’ but stubborn, and I had my honor on the line, yeah? So I kept goin’.” Bones took a deep breath, pulling up emotion to rise the climax of his story. “Finally, was a stormy night if I recall, Miss Grey finally came out, creepin’ outta the water. Her scutes all drippin’ with mud and muck. And I said to her, ‘dear madam, ya bless me with ya lovely face. Can I ask for a favor?’ an’ she gave me that look, as gators tend to do. And I said ‘my friends don’t believe in ya, lil’ lady, can ya believe that? To prove ‘em wrong, I need a scale. And only ya kindness can give it.’” Bones leaned in real close to the bartender, a curious shimmer in his metallic metal eye. “Ya know what she said?”

“No, what? What could she have said?”

Bones downed the rest of his drink, slamming it on the bar top with a laugh. “Nothin’! She’s a gator silly!” He stood up quickly, smacking some cash down in front of him, turning to leave. “Right, well, ya have a good night.”

He only managed to get as far as the door before the bartender yelled out to him. “Wait! What about your eyes? What happened there?”

Bones smiled, turning his head back slightly. “Well, that’ll be a story for another day.” He winked and slipped as quick as he could out the door, chuckling all the while.

(OC-tober challenge by @oc-tober2022 can be found here.)

[hithren]

If they had a kid meme

Name:

Gender:

General Appearance:

Personality:

Special Talents:

Who they like better:

Who they take after more:

Personal Headcanon:

Because this community could use with something a bit more positive and cute, I’m hijacking this meme to try and spread a bit of it. Who doesn’t like cute kids, imaginary or not?

Just reblog off this original post with the above filled out and I’ll give you a little doodle based off the info you provide like what I did below. I can’t promise everyone will get one, just because it’s the holidays and I’ll be doing these as warm-ups in between working on commissions but, I hope to get a few in. I look forward to drawing all the babies. For same sex couples, specify if you’d like me to genetic splice what-if, or perhaps adopt!

( Also just to specify, could be for any one! You and your partner’s or friends couples, not my characters. Just make sure I can find a ref of the parents! )

Name: Erden Parnell. coming from the Mongolian name for “treasure,” I think Arshtat would perhaps have slipped into her native tongue calling him it, and it just stuck. His dad’s a mercenary too, treasure fits, right?

Gender: Male

General Appearance:

Personality: Wild, reckless, independent. Erden is definitely the type to make his dad proud by picking fights and skinning his knees, while making his mother worry. High energy, high fun. Secretly a cuddlebug.

Special Talents: Breaking bones probably. His own, at least.

Who they like better: I think equal parts. But also extremely attached to Madoc’s hip. Wants to be taught all the fighting things and hear all his dad’s cool stories.

Who they take after more: Madoc, easily. I mean look at him.

Personal Headcanon: He’s probably taller than Arshtat by like age ten. He’d grow up just like his dad, right down to the axe-wielding and the snark. 

[wizardsaur]

Make Your Own Divination Tools

Hermit-Wizard's Custom Craft Series Pt. 2

These are my Arcana Tiles - a custom tool I created for divination. This is 100% my own design, and is a combination of Runes & the 22 Major Arcana cards of a tarot deck.

The symbols were created by staring long & hard at the original Rider-Waite deck. Some are clearly more obvious than others, but these are in order from The Fool to The World.

To read them, I scoop them into my hands and shake'em like bananas. This is not a quiet process. I like the clacking though. Then I toss em out like runes on a piece of fabric.

Face down, removed. Off or half off the fabric, removed. The remaining tiles are read.

This tends to read like a timeline, a literal or metaphorical map, or just a few groupings of advice. I try to keep them as close to their original positions as I can.

They also tend to "point" to each other in a way that weaves the story.

This also makes an AWESOME tool to elaborate on existing tarot readings too. I'll toss 'em on a spread and watch it flesh out the story more.

I've tried to explain the reading method to people before. It's probably 50% intuition & 50% method, but either way it's extremely accurate and way fun.

The best part, is that your Craft doesn't have to make sense to anyone else.

[fandom-junkie2020]

Oh, Brother

Stu Macher x Sister!Reader

Summary: Big brother, Stu Macher, seems to be the one behind the misery leaking into everyones lives. 

WARNINGS: Typical Scream violence, knives, blood, etc.

Date Uploaded: 8/24/2022

Word Count: 1.6k 

Unedited

Masterlist

Requests are open! Here are some prompts and a characters list!

Stu was having a party. 

It wasn’t a rare occurrence, really. Whenever Stu and Y/N’s parents were out of town it was a given. Stu would prance around school yelling to anyone he could about his party. Naturally, everyone that could go went. Who was going to pass up a couple of beers and loud music? In the small town of Woodsboro, parties were hard to come by. Too close to town and some snot nosed neighbor would call the cops and get the party busted, but Stu and Y/n’s house was the perfect location for some of the raddest drunk fests. 

No neighbors or police presence. 

A perfect place for a party. 

After mostly everyone had left, the few that were remaining huddled by the TV watching yet another Jamie Lee Curtis movie. Randy had carefully selected the best of her films and prepared a glorious night filled with horror and popcorn. Unfortunately, a phone call had interrupted Randy’s movie night. 

After a short conversation Randy turned to the group, “They found Principal Himbry hanging from the goal post in the soccer field.”

“Well come on let’s go check it out before they rip him down!”

It was gruesome really–the reaction these kids were having to the death of their principal. The thought of all the blood and guts made Y/N’s stomach churn. She looked over to her friend Carol who was sitting next to her, “I’m not sure I’ll go.” 

By now, the group of boys were drunkenly throwing themselves outside to their cars, “Come on, Y/n, it’ll be fun. Everyone else is going. We probably won’t be able to see much anyways. If we’ve heard about it then it’s only a matter of time before all of downtown Woodsboro is posted in the parking lot.”

Y/n entertained the idea for a moment. Carol was right. By the time they got there the police would probably be blocking their view, “Okay, let me just tell Stu.” She stood from her seated position on the couch. Carol rose as well, however she took hold of Y/n’s arm, “He’ll never let you go. I know my brother wouldn’t. Let’s just go, everybody’s going to be leaving if they haven’t already.”

Y/n looked over to the kitchen before turning back to Carol. 

“Alright.”

The scene had been disgusting to say the least. Even by the time Y/N and everybody had shown up, Woodsboro Police were unable to clean everything up before Principal Himbry’s guts were being showcased to the entire town. Everyone living on the same street as the soccer field had gathered outside of their homes spreading the grim details of Principal Himbry’s death. When the group arrived, all exciting energy had deflated and everyone who was drunk had suddenly turned sober. They had only meant for it to be fun and games. None of them could quite grasp what they were seeing. So, almost as soon as they had arrived, they left. 

“You can just drop me off at the end of my road,” Y/n instructed the senior who had been driving some of the kids around. Truthfully, she couldn’t remember his name. Not with everything she’d just seen fogging up her mind. 

“Are you sure?” Carol asked. 

Y/n nodded as the car rolled to a stop, “Yea, wouldn’t hurt to clear my head.”

The walk calmed Y/n down and let her control her breathing. She’d have to explain to her brother where she’d been and she wouldn’t be able to do that if she couldn’t breathe. She also didn’t want him to know what she had seen. If he ever found out that she left the house with a bunch of random people in order to see their dead principal,well, he’d kill her. 

She spent the walk trying to not worry about Stu, but that only worked so well. Especially when she walked up to the house and realized who was sprawled out dead on her front porch. Her breath hitched in her throat as she walked past the front fence and toward her house. Both Dewey and Gale Weathers lay together on her porch, blood covering both of their faces. 

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Y/n whispered as she walked past the two of them. Her eyes started to fill with tears and she wanted nothing more than to turn around and never return, but she couldn’t. She had to find Stu. If he was still there–still alive–then she couldn’t leave him here. Even if she was too late to save him, maybe she’d be able to be with him in his last moments. 

Thoughts of panic were scattering throughout her mind as she went to push her front door open. She hesitantly took a step forward and in that moment came face to face with Randy’s body. Blood was pooling around him, staining the wood flooring. A cry left her as she raised a hand to her mouth.

“YOU BITCH!”

Billy. 

He was yelling from the living room. 

He sounded angry–no, enraged.

Had he not sounded so furious, Y/n most likely would have walked straight into the living room to meet up with Billy. He was almost like a brother to her. Stu and Billy hung out all the time meaning Billy was always lounging in the Macher house. But Y/n’s focus wasn’t on finding Billy. If anything at this moment she wanted to run from him. Something about the situation seemed off. Multiple dead bodies and an angry Billy didn’t seem like a place where Y/n wanted to get trapped. At least if she went through the kitchen the front door would be easily accessible. 

As she entered the kitchen she saw Stu perched up against the kitchen counter covered in blood, “My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me,” he cried and dropped the phone onto the counter. 

Y/n gasped as she knelt down to her brother's level, “What happened?”

Stu looked shocked to see her. Honestly, he’d forgotten about the variable that was his sister. He couldn’t find her when he’d been combing through the house so he figured he wouldn’t have to worry about her, thinking she’d run off with her friends, “I thought you were with Carol?”

“I was,” Y/n paused trying not to tell him about what she’d seen, “she wasn’t feeling good so I came back early.” She looked down at her brother's wounds. He was obviously in extreme amounts of pain. She doubted if he’d even be able to get up, “What are we gonna do?”

Stu looked Y/n in the eyes. It was at this moment he realized something. 

She doesn’t know.

He reached to grab her hand, “Help me up.”

She did as instructed but struggled because of Stu’s dead weight.

“It’s Billy,” he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and began guiding her toward the front door. Just then, commotion filled the hallway outside of the kitchen. 

“What do you mean?” Y/n looked to her brother for clarity.

“Billy’s the killer.” 

Y/n’s body went cold and her face became pale.

As quickly as the commotion had consumed the hallway, it dissipated. The only sound left was someone gasping, no doubt running out of air.

“Say hello to your mother.” 

The sentence was chilling. Quietly spoken, yet laced with hatred.

“Come on, we gotta go,” Stu ushered Y/n toward the hallway but she hesitated.

“No he’s right there.”

“Either we attempt to leave no or we stay here and let him find us.”

That was all he needed to say. The pair then headed toward the hallway where not only Randy was dead but now Sidney. Billy stood above her. He seemed to be enjoying what he had done

“We’re almost ready for the sequel,” Billy whispered as he looked toward Y/n and Stu.

In any other horror movie, Y/n and Stu would be sprinting out the door. However, with Stu’s wounds, they’d never make it. If Y/n were to leave Stu then she had a possibility of survival. Even then that possibility couldn’t even be calculated because it wasn’t possible that she’d leave her brother with a killer. But there was something about what Billy had said that Y/n found odd. 

We? 

How was there a “we” in this scenario? 

Everyone had left the party and the only one that Y/n couldn’t account for was Tatum. 

“These days you gotta have a sequel.”

Y/n turned her head to face her brother. His eyes were locked with Billy’s and his expression was different then it had been. Instead of being in pain, he almost looked like he was excited. 

No. No. No. No. 

Her eyes widened as she looked at Stu. His hand gripped her shoulder so hard that it reminded her of the times when they were little and they used to roughhouse. 

“Stu that hurts! Stop or I’ll tell Mom!”

“Go ahead and tell her, I’ll only make your life hell!”

“Please stop–OW!”

“Stu?”

In a split second Billy was in front of her, fully trapping her. He thrust his knife into her abdomen bringing her full attention to him. She cried out and her knees buckled beneath her. Billy’s dark eyes were staring into hers. Stu then pulled her shoulder toward him and brought his lips to her ear. 

“Oh, did I forget to tell you?” he giggled, “I helped him.”

[someone1348]

Surprise! It's me! I'm posting woop woop!

This might be a short one but oh well!

The people in this: Lee!Tubbo, Ler!Tommy, Ler!Ranboo

Benchtrio fic! Benchtrio fic! Irl benchtrio fic!

Tw: some language other than that none this is so soft!

I've had this idea for a while just sitting in my plans list on my notes soooo yeah! I hope you all enjoy!

-K :]

_____________~☆°♡°☆°♡°☆~_____________

Stuck in the middle

Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo were getting to spend some quality time together after a vlog. They had all just arrived back at Tubbo's house and immediately flopped down on the small love seat that had a direct veiw of the TV.

Tommy sat left of Tubbo while Ranboo took the right, the bee boy was left to get the middle spot. He wasn't complaining though he had the best veiw in the house and he was close to his two favorite people, it was a win win all together!

The only con was there was no room for his hands so he had to put his arms on the couch top behind his two friends.

Tommy sighed in content as he rolled his head back "Man that vlog was crazy"

"You can say that again" Ranboo said in agreement as he turned on the TV and flipped through the channels to see what they could all watch and enjoy together

"SOUTH PARK!"

"No!"

This was the hardest part of cable vs the benchtrio, nothing being on! But they had fun with it. After much persistence from the bee boy South Park was played in the background as Tubbo happily smiled watching one of his favorite shows.

After a couple of episodes Tommy was slowly getting more and more bored, he glanced at Ranboo, then at Tubbo, just to see if he could do anything and fix this boredom that was starting to form into a headache, the idea sparked in him like a light switch being flicked on as he saw the way Tubbo was positioned.

He was stuck, a smirk slowly formed on his features, quickly putting it away as to not give away his plan! He waited a bit, occasionally glancing over at the pair just to see if any of them had caught on, they haven't, it was time!

Tommy slowly moved his hand to Tubbo's knee tracing little shapes on the brunettes kneecap and the upper part of the knee where the knee meets the thigh. He felt his best friend tense up just a bit, Ranboo looked over and immediately knew the plan.

Both of them took it slowly, Tommy eventually wrote the word 'Tickle' across Tubbo's ticklish skin, that's when Tubbo spoke up, the giggles trapped in his throat, so close to escaping

"Tommy quit it!" He said quietly as to not fully disrupt Ranboo if he was watching, he couldn't tell, he was so focused on Tommy and his tickly fingers he didn't even realize that Ranboo was in on this too!

"Im not doing anything Tub's I don't know what you're talking about" The blonde said still making shapes on Tubbo's knee,

"Yes you are knock it off"

"No I'm not!"

"Shhh Tommy I'm trying to watch" Ranboo said to throw Tubbo off some more, Tommy knew he was playing along so he went with the flow

"Whatever" the blonde focused his eyes back onto the tv picking up the speed a bit, now scribbling all over the brunettes knee, Tubbo tensed up his leg more to try and stop it but nothing would work if anything that made it tickle more!

Tommy then squeezed his knee and that was the end of that, Tubbo let out an uncontrollable squeak and a few giggles as the smirk on Tommy's face became visible, his eyes still glued to the tv;

He skittered his tickly fingers all around his knee as Ranboo took this as his cue to start pinching all over Tubbo's tigh/upper leg

"Rahahahanboo?!"

Ranboo's eyes remained fixated on the tv as his hand spidered down the length of his tigh squeezing his knee as well, Tommy still scribbling behind Tubbo's other knee and all around it, spreading his fingers out overtop of his kneecap when he felt like it, Tubbo couldn't stop the laughter that flowed out of his mouth after that,

"Guhuhuhuys nohot fahahair"

"Tubbo could you keep it down please im trying to watch South Park" Tommy teased joking around as Ranboo joined

"Yeah Tubbo geez this is my favorite show"

"Jeheherks" Tubbo joked through his laughter

"Woah!!!"

"Language Tubbo! How Dare you call us jerks! You're in for it now pal!"

The playfulness was clear in everyone's voice it was a great atmosphere but man was he in for it!

"Wait wait wait WA-HAHAHAIT! TOHOHOMMY!!"

Tommy smirked scribbling against Tubbo's side, Tubbo squirmed as best he could but in the midst of trying to escape Tommy's tickles he left himself wide open for Ranboo, which he fully took the opportunity and squeezed gently up and down Tubbo's other side;

"RAHAHAN!!"

"Tktktktktktktk~" Ranboo made some tickle sounds scribbling against the length of his other side as Tommy stuck to some pokes there too as to not overwhelm him.

"We're gonna get you tubs!~"

"Ihihit tihihickles!"

"Good! It's supposed to! Tickle Tickle Tickleee bee boy!~"

"Tohohohommyyy!"

"Tickle Tickle tickleee, dawwww~ such a ticklish little tubbo!"

"Rahahahahan! Plehehease!"

Tommy giggled scribbling quickly under Tubbo's arm as he squealed

"AH!"

"PFFFT HAHA THAT WAS AWESOME!"

"You're an ahahass!"

"Language Tubbo! I think we should get his stomach for that one, what do you think Tommy?~"

"Oh I do agree Ranboo great idea!~"

"Nonononono Wait! WAhahait I'm sohoHOHOHORRYY!! NAHAHAHAHA IHIHIHIHIT TIHIHICKLES! NOHOHOHOT FAHAHAIR!"

"Tickletickletickletickle~" Ranboo scribbled underneath his shirt all over his ticklish tummy while Tommy blew tiny raspberries wherever Ranboo's tickly fingers we're not getting leaving no spot untickled.

Tubbo threw his head back in laughter and lightly kicked the ground as the ticklish sensation filled his senses

"OKAHAHAY MEHEHERCY HAHAHA!"

Both boy's stopped instantly, rubbing away the phantom tickles and giving Tubbo room to put his hands down.

"Did you have fun tubs?"

"Mhm! Even though you're both mehean"

"Says the one who called you an ass Tommy"

Everyone was laughing together, it was perfect! Today was well deserved for all of them.

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

I hope you all enjoyedd! Treat yourself, Take care of yourself, Relax, Drink some water, eat something yummy and have a great day my friends! You all truly deserve it!

-K :]

[anashins]

The Right Kind of Wrong

Title: The Right Kind of Wrong

Pairing: Jaehyun x You

Genre: hate to love, cheating, college!au, friendship, romance, smut

Warnings: smut, cheating, cursing, toxicity

Word Count: 8.454

Summary: There are many reasons for you to hate Jung Jaehyun. Aside from being cocky and selfish, the fact that he is dating your best friend is another one of them. But his mesmerizing smile - to hell with it - just isn't.

____

There were at least a hundred things you hated about Jung Jaehyun.

The fact that he was dating your best friend was just one of them.

Not a single day had passed by in the last year in which she hadn’t complained about her boyfriend having flirted with another woman, having ditched her again, going to a party and ignoring her all night, or simply dragging her mood down by one of his unpredictable and hurtful actions.

Aside from being cocky, selfish, arrogant and reckless, Jung Jaehyun was absolutely incapable of being a decent human being for more than ten seconds, and you were wondering why he was so damn popular despite all his faults.

When you went out with your friend group, he mocked the boys trying to hit on you, telling you they were so desperate for that move. When you were attending the same class, he purposely sat down next to you to distract you from the lesson. When he was at your dorm, he kept moving your things onto high shelves, knowing you couldn’t reach them.

And his smirk everytime he did so… his smirk every time he mocked you was so annoying. But also so hot.

Fuck, you thought whenever his mischievious eyes met yours again, and you had to turn away, at a loss for words and afraid he’d caught you flushing. You were so ashamed, because you actually wanted to hate him.

There were many reasons for you to hate Jung Jaehyun, but his mesmerizing smile wasn't one of them.

You hadn’t hated him from the first moment that you two had officially met as you had gotten introduced to each other through your best friend who was also your dorm mate, though. She had found him on a dating app, and you had found him sitting in your class two days later, talking back to the professor.

Back then, you had started admiring his intelligence and courage. But those were the only two positive things you had spotted so far as you only tried to stay as far away from him as possible, emphasizing his negative character traits over and over again.

But the truth was that staying away from him was a very hard thing to do, and you fought every day for your sanity, trying to be a good friend and suppressing your controversial feelings for a man who was absolutely forbidden to you.

“He went drinking last night and I saw an instagram story of him grinding against another girl on the dancefloor!” your best friend complained in your arms, tears on the verge of flowing. “Who’s doing that even?!”

A few pairs of eyes turned into your direction, but when you threw fierce glances at the people staring at you, they passed by very quickly.

When you had been invited to your friend Johnny’s house party, you hadn’t expected to be spending the evening comforting your best friend, even though that had been your daily routine for the past three weeks.

It had grown toxicly usual for Jaehyun and her to fight in a two to three day rhythm over the smallest things, and although their wonky relationship or whatever it was hadn’t been very steady before with them breaking up nearly monthly, lately it had grown almost obnoxious.

“Why don’t you just break up with him?” you suggested again and immediately felt your heart sink.

It wasn’t like you wanted them to break up because you wanted Jaehyun for yourself. You’d never do that to her.

Your best friend was just constantly hurting, and it hurt you just as much when you saw her suffering so greatly. Jung Jaehyun wasn’t a good guy, and you both knew. Yet, she couldn’t let go of him. You knew exactly how that felt.

Even if they were to break up, he wouldn’t belong to you. Because a friend’s ex was a taboo. So having Jaehyun gone entirely from your lives would kill two birds with one stone.

“Not that again!” your friend whined and retreated from you, sinking into the couch with her arms crossed and no signs of tears anymore. “I can’t! I mean… look at him! He’s so hot, and don’t get me even started about his skills in bed. That’s where we usually make up, you know, so-”

“I’m going to get you something to drink!” you interrupted her and jumped up. “You totally need a cocktail now! To come to your senses!”

You loved your best friend dearly, but you didn’t want to hear about Jaehyun’s skills by all means. At some times, your friend didn’t have a filter, and then, it only spiraled downhill from there. You heard them often enough in the dorm, that was already pushing you to your limits.

When you entered the kitchen, you reached up to get a glass from the shelf, but like most of the times, you were too short for the remaining ones at the very top.

“Here, let me help you.”

A soft voice echoed from behind you, but before you could turn around to follow the tone, the guy had already heaved up his arm and reached over you to the very top of the shelf to get you a glass.

Shifting around, you faced the mischievous expression of the young man you had wanted to avoid and who your best friend was currently crying over.

Without a “thank you”, you reached out your hand to grab the glass from Jaehyun, but he immediately shot his arm up to bring the glass high over his head and far out of your reach.

“You think a simple ‘thank you’ is too much for you?”

“Fuck off, Jaehyun.” You crunched with your teeth and narrowed your eyes. “I’d rather die of thirst!”

“What did I do again?” He rolled his eyes in an annoyed manner as though his high spirits got ruined. “What did she tell you?”

“She told me everything she saw from last night!” you defended your friend. “That’s enough for me to get the picture!”

“Okay, and did the picture somehow include me pushing the girl away after she had grinded on me?”

You gulped.

“Just as I thought.”

He placed the glass on the counter, but somehow, this hadn’t got your both’s attention anymore.

“There are two sides of the same coin, yet all you've ever done was looking only at one.”

He approached you, and the rising hotness in your cheeks made you withdraw until your hips bumped into the kitchen counter.

Jaehyun leaned in and propped his arm against the same spot right next to your hip as he asked, “I know you’re her best friend, but being a friend doesn’t mean supporting your friends delusional, one sided thoughts into oblivion. Being a friend sure means to support, I’m not denying that. But being a true friend means to tell someone when they’re wrong. And I am not the one at fault here, y/n.”

“You were doing many stupid things to hurt her in the past!” you started blabbering just to bridge over the silence you’d get when you would stare at his mesmerizing eyes for a little longer. “How am I supposed to believe you?”

“You aren’t supposed to believe me.” He retreated, with the glass in his hand. “All I’m asking for is a chance to explain myself.”

Again, you were flabbergasted by the way he expressed his thoughts that stood in contrast to his questionable behavior. One of the main things that fascinated you. But you quickly turned this feeling into hate by recalling his wrongdoings from the night before.

Looking at the glass, Jaehyun continued, “Yes, there were many things I did wrong in the past. And I’m not going to pinpoint my finger at my girlfriend to tell that she was doing just as many questionable things as me. But people have reasons for doing the things they do. That’s probably why we’re such a good match.”

You didn’t understand a word. In your eyes, and you only knew about their relationship by what your friend told you and what you observed when you were hanging out, the two weren’t a good match at all.

He was the one constantly hurting her feelings, and she was the one to always get hurt.

Or... wasn’t it?

Jaehyun then thrusted the glass into your hand. “You’re lucky, y/n, you know that? It must be so great, living that freely, without any burdens… So oblivious to everything.”

With these words, he disappeared from the kitchen, leaving you behind all alone with the glass in your hand.

You looked at the item, your face getting reflected in the crystals to unrecognizability while Jaehyun’s words still kept you occupied. They had such an impact on you that you suddenly started to question whether your hate against him was actually valid.

When you stepped out of the kitchen yourself with a full glass of your best friend’s favorite cocktail in your hand, you found her in Jaehyun’s arms again, wildly kissing, his kind words suddenly vanished from your mind upon spotting them.

Instead, there was a little monster called jealousy sitting right inside your chest.

___

“8am in the morning! Who even places classes that early?!”

With a groan, Jaehyun flopped down in the seat next to you.

“Shut up, class is about to start.”

“Man, you must be really fun at parties,” he replied. “The professor is not even here yet.”

“You’re annoying, Jung Jaehyun, and if you weren’t dating my friend, I wouldn’t actually talk to you at all.”

“What are the odds we’re still connected to each other, huh! Tell me, y/n, what did I ever do to you? How did I ever hurt you? We’ve never even really spoken with each other ever since we’ve gotten introduced.”

“And I am grateful for this every single day.”

“What is it that you hate about me so much?” he questioned further, his eyes challenging.

But with your eyes straight ahead and no words on your lips, you ignored him as the professor entered the room only a short moment after, announcing the class’ start.

Your pen flew over the sheet, noting down the professor’s words when suddenly, goose bumps spread all over your arm.

When your eyes followed the trail to its source, your right elbow touched Jaehyun’s left one as a result of your hectic writing motions as you had moved too far to the side. The spot on your skin was so warm and so…

You withdrew your arm right away, placing it back to where it usually belonged, but Jaehyun’s own limb had moved so far to the left that you had no place to rest it next to your notes anymore without having his skin barely one inch apart from you. You weren’t touching anymore, but he was so close that you still felt him somehow.

Of course you could drop your arm and place it on your lap as the professor had stopped presenting the most important points of this lesson. Of course you could just move further away with your entire belongings, but the fact was that you didn’t. That you couldn’t.

Instead, you were fixating your eyes on the board right in front of you, listening to your professor’s words but not actually understanding a single syllable that he uttered as your heart beat fast against your chest.

You hoped that Jaehyun didn’t notice how desperate you were for him not to shift away right now. That you actually enjoyed it, but felt so much hatred at the same time. Not against him, but against you - for feeling this way.

“Can you answer my question, Miss y/n?”

Your eyes widened in shock as you got addressed by the professor by your surname. You were actually a good student who was always paying attention in class. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t have happened. But now you got caught red handed not listening to him, and he was a very strict lecturer.

“I… um…” you stuttered.

“The answer to my question, Miss.”

“Yes… the answer…” You gulped as you didn’t even know the question. “The answer is…”

From the corner of your eyes, you perceived how a sheet was slowly moving into your direction from Jaehyun’s place. His finger was pointed at a paragraph that you had also noted down only shortly before.

Suddenly, you knew what the question was about and answered formally to the professor’s task.

With your heart having calmed down after the shock, you let yourself sink down on your seat again. You had gotten distracted only once by something that shouldn’t bother you at all.

This wouldn’t happen again, you swore to yourself.

____

“No ‘thank you’ again from you?”

You turned around to Jaehyun who had rosen a brow at you. “Is this becoming your thing now? Asking for ‘thank yous’?”

“Is this becoming your thing now?” he returned. “Not saying ‘thank you’? I saved your ass in class.”

“Well, I haven’t asked for that, so go beg somewhere else for attention.”

You made your way through the crowded club, feelling the bass under your feet and the techno music in your ears. Jaehyun was following suit.

“Do you want some kind of reward from me? Because you’re not going to get it.”

“I don’t want a reward. Hey.”

He reached out and grabbed you by your arm, right there on the dancefloor. The feeling from this morning returned, but in a higher intensity as it spread all over your body.

“All I’m asking for is respect.”

You snorted. “Respect? Do you respect my friend when you destroy her weekend plans to go drinking with your friends instead? Do you respect my friend when you dance ass on ass with another girl? Do you respect my friend when you hurt her feelings with your rude words? I don’t like you, Jung Jaehyun, because you’re a bad person, and respect is the last thing you’ll ever get from me!”

You yanked yourself out from his grip and disappeared in the mass. What was up with him? Why was he bothering so much lately and evoking all these controversial feelings inside you by acting like this? He should just stay away.

With your eyes closed, you started to move with the music, all by yourself there on the dancefloor. You wanted to collect your thoughts, but as the music flooded through your body, you realized that thinking about nothing was probably the best way to cope with your inner struggles right now.

You opened your eyes widely when you suddenly felt a hand on your bum.

Turning around with much anger reflected in your mien, you stared at a boy around your age who grinned at you seductively. Your fierce gaze was probably mistaken for an invitation when he approached you further, grabbed you by your hips from the front and pressed you against him.

With his lips on your ear, he whispered, “I like what I see.”

And you wanted to scream. You probably did, but it got drowned out by the loud music, and his grip was way too hard for you to free yourself that easily as you shuffled in his arms.

“Let me go!”

Yet, his hands roamed around your private areas like they owned it.

“HEY!”

Before you could scream once more, the guy got dragged away from you by the last person you had expected it from.

“She said let go of her, you asshole!”

Jaehyun grabbed him by his collar, and his height and angry expression alone were probably enough for the other guy to nearly piss his pants as he hastily mouthed,

“I’m so sorry!”

When Jaehyun let go of him, he slipped off silently and wasn’t seen again.

You stood there awkwardly with your arms hugging your chest, still digesting the happenings.

“Did he hurt you?” Jaehyun asked when he leaned in for you to understand better.

You shook your head.

“Do you want to go outside?”

You nodded.

Jaehyun took you by your hand to lead you through the dancing crowd, and you didn’t protest.

This gesture was the total opposite to the disgusting one from the guy who had harassed you shortly before. This touch was raw and chaste. Nothing to be ashamed of and fight against, but something you wanted to accept wholeheartedly.

When you stood outside of the club, Jaehyun let go of your hand, and you finally whispered the words that he had been longing to hear for quite a time,

“Thank you.”

Against your expectations, he didn’t mock you or return witty words. With his eyes locked with yours, he sincerely told you,

“You’re welcome.”

That was the moment it dawned on you that Jung Jaehyun had more positive sides to him that you had always wanted to blend out. But perhaps, you had reached a point in which this wasn’t possible anymore.

You couldn’t continue keeping your eyes closed to all the kind sides of him. Because the more he showed you, the more you’d open your heart for him.

To you, Jung Jaehyun had to remain a bad person, otherwise you’d fall for him, and falling for your best friend’s boyfriend was a taboo.

“Hey, what are you two doing outside?!” Speaking of the devil, your best friend jumped out of the club’s door and into your direction. “Isn’t the music fun?”

Jaehyun looked at you, waiting for your reaction. You knew that if you wanted to go home, he’d follow. If you wanted to stay, he’d stay too, not letting you out of his sight. Because - and you couldn’t repeat this often enough - Jaehyun was actually a good person.

“I want to go home,” you decided. “You can stay, though! Please just let me be the party pooper all alone, I don’t want to spoil your night.”

“Oh, what a pity!” your friend said with a pout. “You always leave when the party is about to start!”

You shrugged with a weak smile, tired of fighting. “Yeah, I guess so. But I still have a lot of pages to revise.”

“Shall we take you back to the dorm?” Jaehyun offered in a caring voice that you apparently encountered for the first time, and your friend immediately shot a reproachful glare at him.

“Are you being serious right now?” she complained. “She’s a grown ass woman who can go home alone!”

His eyes hadn’t left yours. “I’m talking to her, not you.”

Had it always been like this? Her caring about herself more than about you? If it were the other way around, you wouldn’t let her go home alone in the middle of the night, no matter if you knew something had happened before or not.

Suddenly, you saw your best friend from a whole other perspective. Suddenly, she was the one having Jaehyun on a leash, and he was the one fighting back for his rights, not against her.

Two sides of the same coin… If you were to flip it, would your entire world view change?

For a moment, you hesitated. But not wanting to disturb your friend’s evening, you gave in with a, “It’s okay, I can go alone. Have a nice night!”

But Jaehyun held you back when he insisted on calling you an uber for which he even paid while your best friend continued pouting on the side.

____

“FUCK YOU, JAEHYUN!” you heard your best friend scream later that night from her room, every syllable of hers clearly to hear in your own room while you laid in bed later that night.

The hours before had passed by in a trance as you had only fallen onto your mattress face forward after having quickly changed into your pj’s, that was how much of a toll the day had taken on you.

You just wanted to forget what had happened in the club, but also the thoughts that had constantly been in your mind all the way home that only revolved around Jaehyun. So sleep was the best solution, and you would have gladly continued doing so if there weren’t your best friend and Jaehyun arguing loudly next to you for an hour already.

Then, Jaehyun seemed to return something to which she screamed again, “I DON’T FUCKING CARE!”

Stomping followed the brief silence, a door getting opened, then shut again, and footsteps moved into the direction of the entry door before it fell close behind Jaehyun.

This was a nearly weekly experience for you lately, and usually, you’d just miss hearing their arguments, but this time you couldn’t help but to wonder what they had been yelling about. You just hoped it wasn’t because of you and what had happened to you earlier, because in your eyes, Jaehyun had done nothing wrong.

He had been so incredibly nice and thoughtful that you started to doubt their relationship.

You turned in your bed, wanting to fight those thoughts so badly. Jaehyun was your best friend’s boyfriend, and hence, forbidden fruit for you. But you just couldn’t stop your imagination from running now.

What it would be like in your best friend’s place and get treated like this every day, and the worst part was that you didn’t even feel bad about betraying her in your mind.

Fuck, you only thought and sat straight up in bed, now surely not being able to grasp a light thought to accompaby you back to lseep anymore.

Feeling safe to leave your room ten minutes later as your roommate must have fallen asleep by now, you didn’t think about sleep anymore but wanted to get a glass of water from the kitchen to calm yourself down.

Perhaps, tomorrow, you’d have another look at the entire situation, you tried to convince yourself. After a few more hours of sleep, all these confusing thoughts and feelings might have already been forgotten.

“Cannot sleep yet?”

You turned around and found a half naked Jaehyun only dressed in boxers right in front of you. The empty glass of water in your hands got placed back on the counter with shaky fingers.

“What are you doing here?” you contered.

“Well… she suddenly left.” He shrugged. “We’ve been arguing. You sure haven’t missed that one.”

“I didn’t.”

Still, you were wondering what that was all about, but didn’t want to ask. He lifted the weight off your shoulders himself though.

“It was about you.”

“Oh…?” You gulped.

“When you were gone, I went back to that guy and didn’t let him go that easily. They threw me out of the club and your friend thought I'd ruined the night for her.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

You wanted to make your way around him, but he blocked your way as he didn’t move to make space for you to pass by the door.

“What’s making me a bad person, y/n?” Jaehyun suddenly asked. “ The way I saved you in class? In the club? Tell me.”

“You cannot be serious right now. It’s 5am, draw a number for another day.”

You wanted to slip under his stretched out arm, but he moved his body to block you again. “Number one. Now tell me.”

“Because those have been the only times you were nice to me, Jung Jaehyun!” You clenched your fists, breathing in deeply. “When we go out with our friend group, you mock the boys trying to hit on me, telling them they’re so desperate for that move!”

“Because I heard them speaking about you before,” he declared. “They were not looking for something serious but only fun, one had even placed a bet. I tried to spare you from this embarrassment and eventual lovesickness. Go on.”

“When we’re in the same class, you purposely sit down next to me to distract me from the lesson!”

This one let him smirk. “Because I always saw you sitting there alone. You have no friends in that class, and I thought you might need some company. Besides… I knew you couldn’t afford that book we needed, and I purposely always shoved it into your direction when the professor read from it. Have you never noticed?”

Now you have. And you were flabbergasted.

“Wh… when,” you stuttered, “you’re over here, you always move my stuff onto high shelves, knowing I cannot reach them!”

“Because I love to see the defeated look on your face and your cute pout when you have to ask me to get the things for you.”

You didn’t know what to say further as you stood there, frozen on the spot. You hadn’t seen this answer coming.

“Anything else?”

Yes, there were many things you hated him for, and you wanted to throw them all into his face, but as he was standing there in front of you, not even one more came into your mind.

“I just hate you to the core!” you hissed.

But with calmness in his voice, he only turned, “No, you don’t.”

And then, it was all only a blur.

You wanted to push him away, but instead, you found yourself nudging against his body. You wanted to free yourself from his grip, but instead, you wrapped your arms around him. You wanted to escape from his kiss, but instead, you kissed him back in the same passionate manner he kissed you.

Jaehyun’s hands roamed all over your lightly covered body while his lips moved against yours, touching every spot he had missed out on during the entire time he knew you, because you had always pushed him away.

But now that you had opened up to him, you were scared the time window was about to close very soon, so you had to work fast.

You jumped on him, hooking your thighs around his waist while his hands instantly clung around your buttocks to give you the support he needed to carry you to your bedroom. Your hands remained interlaced on the back of his neck when he placed you onto your bed and laid himself between your legs.

Thrown overboard were all your morals, priorities, and the friendship to the person that meant the world to you. You didn’t want to think about all that, but were longing for him so desperately that you wondered for how long you had been suppressing that desire already.

Jung Jaehyun was hot. But he was a bad person.

Or… wasn’t he?

You desperately ground upwards against him, feeling him growing between your legs, and you brought your hands down to massage his length. Jaehyun interrupted your kiss as he hadn’t expected this move to come, and groaned into your ear.

You smirked triumphantly, your hands kneading muscles until he was pressed hard against your palms. Tucking your fingers into the waistband of his boxers, you slid the garment from his hips, revealing his bum. Your hands glided along his curvy, soft mounds, grabbing into them like you were testing ripe peaches.

Jaehyun was pecking your lips as you slid your hands under his body again and closed around his entire girth. He stopped for a moment, but the second he continued on, you started moving your hands, top on top, along his length.

Not being able to concentrate on the feeling down there and kissing you simultaneously anymore, you perceived how Jaehyun got weak with supporting his body on his own arms that he had rested to the left and right of your head. So you decided to take the lead from here on.

Sitting up yourself, you put your palms on Jaehyun’s chest and pushed him backwards onto the mattress. He watched you with surprised eyes, but didn’t protest as you sat on his thighs, eyeing his member with much anticipation.

You slid further down his legs, nearly close to his ankles, and bowed down. With your fingers wrapped around the base of his dick, you led him to your mouth. First letting the tip pass by your lips, then his entire length up until the very middle.

You only heard him swearing, “fucking shit,” before Jaehyun covered his face with his arm placed over his eyes and his other clasping the sheet by his side. Your hair grazed over the area around his navel while you moved your head up and down, cautiously slow at first to give yourself time to adapt to his length.

Then, you started bobbing your head, increasing the speed with every time you came up and nearly let him slip out, your fingers that had closed around him sliding in the same rhythm, adding to the pleasure. The slurping noises that came along with this act filled the room until they got drowned out by Jaehyun’s moans.

He directed his hand towards your head and grabbed it by the back, ruffling your hair between his fingers while he started to thrust upwards, meeting you halfway in the fast motions. Like this, he was able to reach deep within you, but still not far enough so that he could hurt you.

When you witnessed him twitching his legs, you stopped, held him still by the base and decided to tease him further a bit before you allowed him to release himself. With the tip of your tongue, you touched his glans, trailed along the slip and then circled around the entire top part.

Jaehyun’s swearing words came in a never ending trail like a waterfall that you couldn’t really understand all syllables from, but you were sure you did a good job and rewarded him for being patient with the motions from before again, but this time with added pressure and passion.

Suddenly, he grabbed you by your arm, urging you to stop.

“Or else I’m gonna cum,” he said and sat himself up, flipping you around so that you laid under him again.

Hastily, you got rid of your top while Jaehyun worked on your sleeping shorts until shortly after, you were both lying naked on top of each other. You wanted him desperately inside you, because you just didn’t know when you’ve had had sex the last time, but instead of wanting to get through this fast, Jaehyun took his time.

That was when you realized that this entire joining was probably more to him than just sex to get it off. You had thought that because he hadn’t been able to get it tonight from your best friend, he’d take it from you. But the way he touched you insisted otherwise.

If it wasn’t more than just sex, he wouldn’t trail his fingers over your ribcage in feathery-light motions, admiring every inch of your body. If it wasn’t more than a body-focused act, he wouldn’t place soft kisses not only on your mouth, but also onto your forehead, your cheek, your neck… If it wasn’t more, Jaehyun wouldn’t be so damn thoughtful and tender.

He remained his tenderness and his gaze didn’t leave your eyes as well when he finally nudged between your thighs, pushing forward until he filled you up to the brim.

Restraining himself from starting to move right away, Jaehyun took his time to ask you whether you were okay at first when you let out a quiet “oh” that alarmed him. But you were eager to calm him down when you explained that it was only because you hadn’t been with a man in so long, and somehow, after speaking it out, it made you feel embarrassed.

As the boyfriend of your best friend, he’d surely know when you had been in contact with a man the last time, and you hated yourself for being so pressured by society to feel ashamed of who you were and how you lived your life.

But instead of judging you, Jaehyun only nodded and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, and suddenly, you were flooded with such a warm feeling towards him that you nearly cried. Rarely had you encountered a man so considerate and caring.

“Tell me when I can go on.”

You bit your lip and felt the uncomfortable pressure in your nether regions getting replaced by a feeling that you hadn’t encountered in so long. A feeling that made you want more, want him.

Holding onto his shoulders with both of your hands, you nodded back at him with a smile which he then returned. When Jaehyun started thrusting in and out of you, your eye contact didn’t break, and you were sure that right now, you were looking at the real Jaehyun at this very moment.

Not the guy you hated. Not the guy your best friend was dating. But instead the person who wanted to protect you from guys that only wanted to use you. A person who offered you company in class and shared his equipment with you. And a person whose cheekiness and affection he showed through childish acts because he didn’t know how to express his feelings otherwise.

This was not the person you were sure of knowing all along. Probably because you hadn’t even gotten to know him in the first place.

One arm now clung around his neck while with the other, you grabbed the pillow beside you. You threw your head back in excitement, his pushes coming in short intervals one after another, and he was hitting all the right spots with them.

Jaehyun propped his arms up to the left and right of him, lifting his upper body to gather all his strength in his groin area and stopped for a brief moment before he thrusted inside you with such force that it nearly knocked all air out of your lungs, and you couldn’t respond with anything else than moaning.

It felt so good, so… right. But how could something so wrong still feel so right?

Right now, you didn’t hate Jaehyun or your best friend the most, but yourself and the fact that you continued on and on. That you brought your hips up to meet his thrusts with hazy thoughts and his lips all over yours when he slowed down with his movements to dedicate himself to caressing your breasts.

You felt Jaehyun’s hot tongue swirling over your buds, and you shook under him. Not because it felt cold, but because his tender caresses just felt so good. You didn’t have the feeling that he could do anything wrong with whatever he carried out, that was your impression about how well your bodies meshed together.

No, you didn’t hate Jaehyun. You had always only hated how he had presented himself to you. But there was so much more to him.

Sweat droplets showed on his forehead when he continued with the hard thrusts again, the sound of you both breathing heavily mixing together with the sloppy noises of your bodies moving against each other filling the room, but no matter how messy sex was, it was the most romantic thing you had experienced in a long time.

Your eye contact also didn’t break when Jaehyun arose above you, his sweaty chest glistening in the dim light that shone through your windows, and increased his pace even more. When he dropped his head and bit his lip in the process, you wrapped your arms around him and added pressure to your nether regions as you felt him approaching his heights.

It felt very good to you too, but you were by any means not as far as him yet, so you didn’t blame him when he came only a short moment after with a groan that sounded sexy as hell to you.

You held him tightly when he fell limply onto your chest, still breathing heavily from the orgasm that slowly faded. Staring at the ceiling, you smiled with him in your arms, just enjoying the moment when Jaehyun moved away from you.

“We’re not done here yet,” you saw him grin as he laid himself next to you, rolled onto the side and placed his head in his palms as he propped his elbow against the mattress.

You wondered what was to come when you felt his finger tips dragging from your thighs to your navel, then lower again and stopped right at your most sensitive spot.

“Oh!” you let out as he placed two fingers on your folds and started moving them up and down with your remaining juices as lube that made the intense feeling kick in almost immediately.

You screamed when he added pressure and now directed circling motions around the sensitive bundle of nerves. From your half-closed eyes, you witnessed him looking at you with such admiration but also cheekiness as you writhed and wreathed under him, yet spread your legs even wider as release was so close.

Jaehyun leaned in to you, his fingers not letting go of the continuity as he half covered your body with his and just kissed you passionately. Like this, he encountered first hand how the orgasm took over you, and you moaned into his mouth, riding it out against his hand.

It felt like the most natural thing in the world when he wrapped his arms around you right after and pulled you onto his chest, and you drifted off into a slumber shortly after.

Even though the first tendencies of your bad consciousness set in before you closed your eyes, you decided that this would be the problem of tomorrow.

No, you didn’t hate Jung Jaehyun.

If anything, you should probably hate yourself.

___

“YES… YES… YESYESYES, OHMYGOD!”

You heard your friend from the other side of the wall, having rudely awakened you in the early morning hours. At least you thought so. But a glimpse at your phone through sleepy eyes told you that it was past 11am already.

Within a second, you were wide awake.

You were still naked, but the clothes on your floor only belonged to you, and the spot next to you in the bed was empty.

“OH!MY!GOD!.... YES! OH… OH.... AAAAH… OHOHOH… YES!!”

Jaehyun was gone. At least from your room.

Your best friend’s headboard constantly bumped against the wall, and you grabbed your pillow to cover your ears with it. You didn’t want to hear the sounds. Not because they stole your sleep, but because somehow, for the first time, you didn’t feel disturbed by the noise, but actually hurt.

In your mind, you imagined Jaehyun’s mesmerizing smile, the witty expression he was constantly wearing and his deep voice that had showed you for the first time last night that there was a certain softness within it.

You felt hurt, because you knew all the things from last night had been real between you two, yet he was still fucking your best friend mere hours later. What you had shared and felt had been special, yet he was still with her.

And suddenly, you felt hate again. But towards yourself. For betraying your best friend with him. But first and foremost, for betraying yourself.

You had never hated Jung Jaehyun.

You had always felt some certain kind of attraction towards him, but kept telling yourself you hated him to push him as far away from you as possible. If this wouldn’t be so wrong under these circumstances, this attraction would feel right and could blossom. But like this, you could never come to enjoy this feeling entirely.

Your relationship had been doomed from the very start, because given the wicked circumstances, you would never be able to form a healthy relationship. It was like a stain that would never vanish on a white sheet.

So you just decided to continue as usual. To keep this a secret between the both of you and just to carry on with your life.

And to hate Jung Jaehyun just a little more.

You just didn’t know how to feel and act towards your best friend without feeling so much… regret.

“Good morning.”

But the young man stepping out of your best friend’s room wasn’t Jaehyun. But Johnny.

You sat there in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, your mouth agape. And then it started to rattle in your head.

Lately, there were times when your best friend had screamed the name “Jaehyun!” loudly during the act. Those were the times you had actually seen him the next morning. But the nights she hadn’t screamed a certain name, no one had ever come out. And those times, you had counted more than the ones with Jaehyun in the past weeks, just when their loud arguments started on a nearly daily basis.

“Where’s Jaehyun?” you asked without greeting her good morning as you walked into her room.

“Oh, we had a fight last night,” she explained to you while getting herself dressed casually. “And then we broke up. I went away to be with Johnny after throwing him out, and we’ve only gotten back this morning. I hope he left last night already and didn’t stay here.”

“What?” you wondered.

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”

“You actually already got over it as I’ve seen!”

“Oh, Johnny?”

“You’ve been fucking him for weeks already?” you provoked.

She shrugged again. “Perhaps a month… So what?”

You stood there, totally lost for words. “You’ve been crying about Jaehyun to me ever since you got together! That he flirted with other women, ditched you, went to parties and ignored you! And now you’re telling me you’ve been cheating on him for quite a while?! And this instagram story drama from last week?”

She sighed and flopped down onto the bed. “Okay, admittedly, I’m not an angel in this story, but he is by far neither! He was not. There were many things he has done wrong in the past. But then he actually started… doing nothing wrong. Being the picture perfect boyfriend without all these flaws and drama. And perhaps, this is not something that I want, so I started to look around elsewhere.”

“So…” You paused, still processing the shock. “Was it all an act? All the times you’ve cried to me over him lately while cheating behind his back?”

“Not an act, precisely,” she said reluctantly. “Yes, he explained every situation to me. And I was being dramatic over it for nothing, perhaps. I don’t know… I still enjoyed being with him though, but it just didn’t feel right anymore. I want to have men just… telling me I’m right, always coming back to me… what’s a relationship without fire? But Jaehyun didn’t want to do this anymore.”

In your head, you recalled everything that Jaehyun had told you. About there being two sides of the same coin, about you being so oblivious. All this time, he knew that she had cheated on him. He knew what you thought of him, yet he had never made a move to ever explain it to you.

But why?

“As he should,” you then stated. “How you treated him was awful!”

“Only because I cheated on him a few times?” she chuckled. “Come on!”

“I’m your best friend, and yet you lied to me! You twisted and turned stories so that you’d always be the one at right! But the truth is, you’re the bad person here. Not him.”

“Now what? He’s gone from our lives. Don’t care about him.”

But the truth was, you did. Now more than about her.

That was why, an hour later, you found yourself in front of his dorm. When he opened shortly after you had knocked, you stared at him, still gasping for air as you had run the entire way here, with all the memories from last night coming back with each step.

“She’s been cheating on you,” were the only words you brought out.

“I know.”

“For how long?” you asked.

“I assume for just as long.”

You breathed in heavily, not understanding a word. “But why did you stay with her?”

Jaehyun smiled meekly. “Because I don’t think I deserve a good person like you are.”

It ran hot and cold down your back. “I… I don’t understand.”

He leaned against the door frame with crossed arms, and even though he seemed uncomfortable talking about his feelings, he still did.

“I haven’t been the best boyfriend for her most times in this relationship, I admit this openly. We weren’t really good for each other and it destroyed me to the point that I wanted to change. But when I started being the boyfriend she had wished for, it wasn’t right either and she started cheating. So I just settled with it. Because I thought I screwed up to that point where I won’t be able to make anyone happy anymore and also don’t deserve the same in return. Even though I only wanted you...”

“You douche!” You stomped with your feet on the ground.

“What?” he returned perplexed with furrowed brows.

“Everyone deserves love and to love! And you’re not different from anyone else!”

His confusion got replaced with a mild smile. “You’re so kind, y/n. That’s one of the things I like the most about you. But you’re also oblivious.”

Jaehyun pulled out his phone, scrolled through his messenger and started playing a voice message from a very familiar person.

“Why do you even care about this bitch, Jaehyun?!” In the background, you heard music and other people talking. “She’s a stupid nerd, and I’ve only befriended her because she helps me studying and listens to my complains since we’re dorm mates, so don’t even waste a single thought about this party pooper!”

You stood there as though you had been rendered motionless. Your heart had dropped to your feet.

“This is from last night when I quickly went outside again to check whether you rode away safely with your uber and she couldn’t find me directly. That’s why we argued and broke up. No, it’s not the first time she’s talked about you like this.” He put his phone away. “I thought letting you hate me would make it easier for a kind person like you to keep their distance from someone like me. Because, in the end, I will only hurt you too. But the more I started to genuinely like you, the more I felt protective towards you. I couldn’t see her speaking about you like this anymore.”

Your breathing came in hitches as your whole world suddenly crashed over you. Your best friend wasn’t your best friend. She had probably never been.

You stumbled backwards, and Jaehyun stepped forward to grab you by your arm, but you pulled it away.

“I…. I just…” you stuttered. “I have to… talk to her.”

“Sure.”

The whole way home, you only cried.

Not over Jaehyun, but over the betrayal of someone you had considered your best friend, yet had hurt you in the most painful way like no man ever could. And the fact that you had been an asshole to her to the same extent after having slept with her boyfriend the same night they had broken up was probably the final straw.

You were no saint here. You had added to your both’s downfall just as much. And it hurt much more than any heartbreak you had experienced so far.

You had to sort your life out and right now, and amongst this chaos there was no place for Jaehyun in your life.

____

You put the last vase with dried flowers on your shelf, stepped backwards to your room’s door and inspected the final set up.

“Finished!” you praised yourself.

It had taken you three months to move to a new dorm, but this was your last step to a new chapter in your life.

You hadn’t had contact with your former best friend ever since your final conversation in which you had handed the keys over to her. The many conversations before had only consisted of screams, accusations and tears.

She had admitted to saying all those things about you, but also to genuinely have come like you. You weren’t so sure whether that was real or one of her lies again. You had admitted to sleeping with Jaehyun, and she would have forgiven you for that as she hadn’t been really in love with him anymore at this point, but you were sure you didn’t want either in your life anymore.

Your best friend because she had hurt you deeply, and Jaehyun because of your burdensome history. All of you had done so many wrong things, and you were only a bundle of toxic people together, so chaotic that you were better off apart from each other.

But you didn’t want to be this toxic kind of person anymore. So you moved out and left your old life behind.

You didn’t go to that class with Jaehyun anymore, and although you missed him, the touches of your joint night still present on your skin sometimes, you wanted to move on from even the mere imaginations of him as well. You were sure that you’d find a guy just like him, but you missed him wherever you went and couldn’t help but ask yourself “what if?”

The fact that he hadn’t reached out to you either made it easier, and as summer break came and passed, and the new semester started, you had kissed two news guys already, made a new friend group and were just overall happy.

But you still missed Jaehyun dearly and all the possibilities of what could have happened if only your timing had been right in life. Even if he wasn’t the right one for you.

“Is this seat taken?”

And then, one day, there he was again. Taking the seat next to you as though no time had ever passed between the two of you, smiling that mesmerizing smile you didn’t hate.

You only stared at him, and his kind expression didn’t break. When you moved your head to the front again where the professor introduced himself, you couldn’t help but to smile too. Because this wasn’t the expression of a bad person.

People changed, and just like good traits could turn into bad traits, a bad person could turn into a good one also. And they all deserved a second chance.

You had only known the Jaehyun from your best friend’s perspective, and then also his body. But even though you had gotten a glimpse of the real Jaehyun here and there, you didn’t quite know him entirely yet.

But you wanted to. The good, the bad, the real. Jaehyun wasn’t the right one for you, but such a thing didn’t exist. What mattered were only your feelings.

Because in fact, you didn’t hate Jung Jaehyun. At all.

[theringers]

often - charles leclerc

summary: you’re unbelievably desperate for your boyfriend all night.

request: Hope u dont mind me requesting #79 and #82 w charles or lando😃 have a good day!!

prompt: 79) "Look at you, grinding against everything, you're really desperate for it. Aren't you?" 82) "Yeah, that's it, baby, just like that."

a/n: this is short & unedited so i apologize for the lack of “story” but this just came to my brain and i needed to write it down so enjoy also sorry if the gif is malfunctioning i’m ready to throw my phone at the window so just ignore lol

warnings: nsfw, dirty talk, 18+, teasing, obvi i had to include some public stuff bc it’s my brand

The live music was loud and blaring through your ears. You had requested a few songs and enjoyed drinks while you waited for the band to get to your request.

Charles stood up from the table to head towards the crowded bar. “Need anything, mon amour?” He looked at you.

You lifted your cup and smiled. “Another?” He nodded at you and walked towards the corner of the room. He knew you had a tolerance like no other and could outdrink him on any occasion. It was just humorous to him at this point.

“Are you excited for your trip?” Your friend asked from across the table.

“Oh, so excited. Charles and I haven’t been able to get away for a long time. It’s much needed.” You sat in your bar stool day dreaming about the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea and how you were about to spend weeks out there on the relaxing water.

Your friend took another sip of her drink. “I’m insanely jealous. Too bad Pierre and I can’t tag along.” She frowned.

“Next time, I promise. We’ll plan a trip just the four of us.” You both started laughing. “Or better yet, just the two of us. Girls trip.”

After a few more laughs, Charles walked up to your table with a drink in each hand. Pierre followed with the same. “Thank you,” you smiled at your boyfriend as he handed you another. You couldn’t remember how many this had been but you were feeling good and really enjoying yourself.

You sat all the way back in your barstool, but kept your drink at the table. This was the best possible solution to avoid drinking too quickly. Every time you needed a sip, you had to scoot yourself closer to the table, take a sip, and sit back. It was working pretty well.

Charles leaned over and spoke in your ear over the sound of the loud music. “I’m going to need you to stop doing that.”

You looked at him, confused. “What am I doing?”

He waved his hand around. “This.” He leaned in closer again. “You keep rocking your hips back and forth and it’s driving me crazy.”

You sat up and moved yourself closer to the table, rocking your hips at a painfully slow, yet discreet, pace. Your eyes found his and his focus was solely on you, sipping the remains of your drink.

“Anyone want another drink?” You asked the table as you hopped out of your seat.

“I’m good, I think I’m ready to head home soon actually. Pretty long day,” Charles said.

Your friend scoffed. “Nonsense, it’s only 11 o’clock.”

Charles looked at her with his head hung, then back at you. “Fine. One more drink.” He looked at Pierre. “See, this is what we have to deal with.”

You waited in the line for drinks and returned to your table. As soon as you scooted back in your barstool, Charles leaned over. “This is our last round of drinks. I’m going to need to take you home after this one.” You didn’t look over at him. You just kept your eyes straight ahead and smiled.

After more casual conversation with Pierre and his girlfriend, Charles called the car home. He took your hand and lead you out of the bar after leaving a hefty tip for the bartender.

Sliding into the back seat of the car, he acknowledged the driver and then went silent. You followed in after him, sliding across the seats. Your short sundress rode up creating friction between your clit and the car seats. You let out a soft moan, but ignored it, hoping no one else heard you. That was not the case.

The car started to move and Charles leaned over to you. He rested his hand on your thigh and whispered in your ear. “I heard that.” It sent chills up your spine.

The rest of the ride was silent, trying to focus on getting home without jumping each other’s bones in the backseat of the car. As soon as you arrived home, you both drunkenly stumbled in the door.

You shouted at Alexa to play some of your favorite music. Often by The Weeknd came out of your speakers.

Charles sat down on the couch with his hands on his knees. A deep breath escaped his lips as he took in the dark apartment around him.

“What’s up?” You asked, walking over to him.

“Long day,” he said. You nodded in response.

Leaning down towards him, you spread your legs to straddle him on the couch. You sat back with your weight on his knees, looking at him. “I love you,” you said to him.

“I love you too, mon amour,” he said. You felt his hands grip your waist. You began to slowly shift your hips around - starting with back and forth, and a little bit of side to side.

“I had a really fun time tonight,” you said.

“Me too, I’m glad we decided to go out.”

“It’s always a good time with them.” You were lucky enough to play matchmaker for Pierre, setting him up with your best friend. It was a win-win. He got a beautiful girlfriend and in return, you got to have your best friend accompany you on vacations, to races, PR events, galas, the whole nine. It was a smart move on your part.

You looked down at Charles, focusing on his messy hair. He was always such a perfectionist about how he appeared, but that all went down the drain when he drank alcohol. You kind of loved it, seeing him let loose a bit and not care so much. You ran your fingers through his messy locks and smiled.

“That dress looks so sexy on you,” he said. His eyes absorbed your body all over and his hands began to move up and down your sides.

“I knew you would like it.” You started to move your hips with more intensity.

“You want to tell me about what happened in the car?” He asked.

“I think you know what happened in the car.”

He had a smug look on his face. “I don’t, actually. Enlighten me.”

“Well, since you want to play dumb,” you grabbed one of his hands off of your side and guided it under your dress. “I’m not wearing any underwear. And I forgot I wasn’t until I slid in the car.” His fingers massaged the skin of your inner thigh.

“That’s hot.” He dipped a finger between your folds and felt the wetness pooling. He swirled his finger around a few times before sliding it inside of you. You moved your hips slowly, meeting his finger. “Look at you, grinding against everything. You’re so desperate for me, huh?” He smirked. You rolled your eyes at him but continued to move your hips. “You couldn’t even help yourself at the bar tonight. Or in the car.”

“I just couldn’t stop thinking about fucking you,” you said. You leaned down to unbutton his pants, grinding your body against his thigh in the process. You let out a moan and he just watched you in awe.

You pulled his pants down, his hard cock springing free. You got back on top of him and hiked your dress up above your hips. You positioned yourself on top of his cock and started to slide back and forth, creating euphoric friction for both of you. Your folds were wet and warm, making him grunt. “Shit, baby,” he said. His head fell back against the couch as he guided your hips. “I need to be inside of you, now.”

You pulled away and quickly sat down on his cock. He kept his hands positioned on your hips as you ground them onto him. You wrapped your arms around his neck and let your head fall onto his shoulder.

You put the weight on your knees and began to bounce up and down on him. He placed his hands on your ass for support. “Oh yeah, that’s it baby,” he said. “Just like that.” A throaty moan escaped your lips right into his ear.

“You feel so good,” you said. The rhythm continued and he spread your cheeks. He was itching to pound into you but he loved the way you looked bouncing on his cock.

He reached for the strap of your dress, pulling it down to expose your breasts. He took one in his hand and massaged it roughly. “Shit, babe. Look at you riding my cock like such a good girl.” He wasn’t one to talk dirty too much, but with alcohol involved he was an open book.

“I’m all yours, baby,” you said, leaning back. You ran your hands through your hair while riding him and made eye contact with him - driving him crazy.

You could feel him start to thrust up into you, an indication that he was getting close. You leaned back down to his ear. “Cum for me, baby,” you said.

He finished with a grunt and a tight grip on your hips. You rolled off of him and laid your head down on a pillow. After all that alcohol, the couch was seeming like a perfect place to crash.

Charles returned with a towel and a glass of water for you. “You did so well, baby. That was hot.” He said, smiling at you and handing you the glass of water.

You giggled and stuck your tongue out. “You’re welcome.”