#went a little wild with the adjustment layers on this

[alfheimr]

My Favorite Cheap Art Trick: Gradient Maps and Blending Modes

i get questions on occasion regarding my coloring process, so i thought i would do a bit of a write up on my "secret technique." i don't think it really is that much of a secret, but i hope it can be helpful to someone. to that end:

this is one of my favorite tags ive ever gotten on my art. i think of it often. the pieces in question are all monochrome - sort of.

the left version is the final version, the right version is technically the original. in the final version, to me, the blues are pretty stark, while the greens and magentas are less so. there is some color theory thing going on here that i dont have a good cerebral understanding of and i wont pretend otherwise. i think i watched a youtube video on it once but it went in one ear and out the other. i just pick whatever colors look nicest based on whatever vibe im going for.

this one is more subtle, i think. can you tell the difference? there's nothing wrong with 100% greyscale art, but i like the depth that adding just a hint of color can bring.

i'll note that the examples i'll be using in this post all began as purely greyscale, but this is a process i use for just about every piece of art i make, including the full color ones. i'll use the recent mithrun art i made to demonstrate. additionally, i use clip studio paint, but the general concept should be transferable to other art programs.

for fun let's just start with Making The Picture. i've been thinking of making this writeup for a while and had it in mind while drawing this piece. beyond that, i didn't really have much of a plan for this outside of "mithrun looks down and hair goes woosh." i also really like all of the vertical lines in the canary uniform so i wanted to include those too but like. gone a little hog wild. that is the extent of my "concept." i do not remember why i had the thought of integrating a shattered mirror type of theme. i think i wanted to distract a bit from the awkward pose and cover it up some LOL but anyway. this lack of planning or thought will come into play later.

note 1: the textured marker brush i specifically use is the "bordered light marker" from daub. it is one of my favorite brushes in the history of forever and the daub mega brush pack is one of the best purchases ive ever made. highly recommend!!!

note 2: "what do you mean by exclusion and difference?" they are layer blending modes and not important to the overall lesson of this post but for transparency i wanted to say how i got these "effects." anyway!

with the background figured out, this is the point at which i generally merge all of my layers, duplicate said merged layer, and Then i begin experimenting with gradient maps. what are gradient maps?

the basic gist is that gradient maps replace the colors of an image based on their value.

so, with this particular gradient map, black will be replaced with that orangey red tone, white will be replaced with the seafoamy green tone, etc. this particular gradient map i'm using as an example is very bright and saturated, but the colors can be literally anything.

these two sets are the ones i use most. they can be downloaded for free here and here if you have csp. there are many gradient map sets out there. and you can make your own!

you can apply a gradient map directly onto a specific layer in csp by going to edit>tonal correction>gradient map. to apply one indirectly, you can use a correction layer through layer>new correction layer>gradient map. honestly, correction layers are probably the better way to go, because you can adjust your gradient map whenever you want after creating the layer, whereas if you directly apply a gradient map to a layer thats like. it. it's done. if you want to make changes to the applied gradient map, you have to undo it and then reapply it. i don't use correction layers because i am old and stuck in my ways, but it's good to know what your options are.

this is what a correction layer looks like. it sits on top and applies the gradient map to the layers underneath it, so you can also change the layers beneath however and whenever you want. you can adjust the gradient map by double clicking the layer. there are also correction layers for tone curves, brightness/contrast, etc. many such useful things in this program.

let's see how mithrun looks when we apply that first gradient map we looked at.

gadzooks. apologies for eyestrain. we have turned mithrun into a neon hellscape, which might work for some pieces, but not this one. we can fix that by changing the layer blending mode, aka this laundry list of words:

some of them are self explanatory, like darken and lighten, while some of them i genuinely don't understand how they are meant to work and couldn't explain them to you, even if i do use them. i'm sure someone out there has written out an explanation for each and every one of them, but i've learned primarily by clicking on them to see what they do.

for the topic of this post, the blending mode of interest is soft light. so let's take hotline miamithrun and change the layer blending mode to soft light.

here it is at 100% opacity. this is the point at which i'd like to explain why i like using textured brushes so much - it makes it very easy to get subtle color variation when i use this Secret Technique. look at the striation in the upper right background! so tasty. however, to me, these colors are still a bit "much." so let's lower the opacity.

i think thats a lot nicer to look at, personally, but i dont really like these colors together. how about we try some other ones?

i like both of these a lot more. the palettes give the piece different vibes, at which point i have to ask myself: What Are The Vibes, Actually? well, to be honest i didn't really have a great answer because again, i didn't plan this out very much at all. however. i knew in my heart that there was too much color contrast going on and it was detracting from the two other contrasts in here: the light and dark values and the sharp and soft shapes. i wanted mithrun's head to be the main focal point. for a different illustration, colors like this might work great, but this is not that hypothetical illustration, so let's bring the opacity down again.

yippee!! that's getting closer to what my heart wants. for fun, let's see what this looks like if we change the blending mode to color.

i do like how these look but in the end they do not align with my heart. oh well. fun to experiment with though! good to keep in mind for a different piece, maybe! i often change blending modes just to see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i very much cannot stress enough that much of my artistic process is clicking buttons i only sort of understand. for fun.

i ended up choosing the gradient map on the right because i liked that it was close to the actual canary uniform colors (sorta). it's at an even lower opacity though because there was Still too much color for my dear heart.

the actual process for this looks like me setting my merged layer to soft light at around 20% opacity and then clicking every single gradient map in my collection and seeing which one Works. sometimes i will do this multiple times and have multiple soft light and/or color layers combined.

typically at this point i merge everything again and do minor contrast adjustments using tone curves, which is another tool i find very fun to play around with. then for this piece in particular i did some finishing touches and decided that the white border was distracting so i cropped it. and then it's done!!! yay!!!!!

this process is a very simple and "fast" way to add more depth and visual interest to a piece without being overbearing. well, it's fast if you aren't indecisive like me, or if you are better at planning.

let's do another comparison. personally i feel that the hint of color on the left version makes mithrun look just a bit more unwell (this is a positive thing) and it makes the contrast on his arm a lot more pleasing to look at. someone who understands color theory better than i do might have more to say on the specifics, but that's honestly all i got.

just dont look at my layers too hard. ok?

[piss-pumpkin]

Bad dreams (Percy x reader)

Child of Hypnos reader, ~4.5k words, set ambiguously after pjo, the request was enemies to lovers so I sincerely apologize. Masterlist

Capture the flag. It was a game of epic highs and lows, winner and losers, all to decide who wore the crown. Until next week, that is. And nobody took it more seriously than Annabeth, determined to win and keep her indestructible reputation as the best strategist around. She was in the war room, taking this very seriously, and discussing with her right hand man before the team.

Percy groaned, dramatically dropping his head on the table, half pushing off the map. “Annabeth, why?” He complained, hand waving in the air to communicate the distain that she couldn’t see in his face. 

Annabeth sighed, taking her head in her hands. “I know you don’t like them,” she started calmly, crossing the floor to Percy to pat his back gently. “But the Hypnos cabin is an asset, between all of them, we can have half the enemy team asleep,” she said, ever pragmatic.

Percy was not a fan of her reasoning, as sound as it was. Unfortunately for him, the head counsellor of the Hypnos cabin was you. And You and Percy? He didn’t even want to think about. No idea why you decided not to like him upon meeting, even less of an idea how it’s escalated as far as it has. “Wise girl, have mercy,” he whined, standing up straight again. “Putting me in a room with them is a sure fire way to lose.”

Annabeth pursed her lips. “That might be true,” she started, circling the table, eyes the pieces she set dramatically to represent each of her forces. One or two Hypnos campers per squad to weaken the enemy. “But they’re essential to the plan, just… you’ll be in different areas, if all goes well.”

Percy grumbled. Things never went well. 

As the battle drew closer, the allied cabins assembled to hear the more polished version of Annebeths plan. And of course, that meant you at the table, front and centre, your forces being an essential part of the strategy. Great. You always listened to Annabeth, even though she was always sticking up for him. And she managed to get you on the same team, even when you knew that guy you hated would be there. 

You nodded along with the details, assigning siblings you thought best for each task. You seemed a lot nicer with them. 

You conferred with your cabin, and offered another plan to Annabeth. Percy wasn’t completing focused, because when you were done, he had no idea what you’d said. Annabeth seemed to be a fan though. She nodded along, and adjusted the prices on her map while you have people notes and alternate delegations.

An order to each cabin head. All except him. He glanced around at each counsellor telling their cabin mates what they should do, and he cringed. You’d instructed everyone else. “Uh,” he started looking to you because Annabeth was busy talking to the Apollo counsellor. “Does my job change at all?” 

You pursed your lips, smiling just slightly. “No, I guess I didn’t have anything for you,” you said slyly. “But isn’t jumping in without thinking kind of your whole thing? Just roll with that, yeah?” 

Percy’s face flattened as he sighed. He needed somebody else, “Annabeth?” He asked.

She turned to him, and thought for a moment. “They might have a point,” she said curiously, much to his detest. Percy grumbled as she continued. “Using you as a wild card might be beneficial, especially because you can take large groups of them at once.”

Great. No job, and more work, somehow. And you were smiling, a bit too satisfied with yourself and his annoyance. Why was it always like this? 

                                             …

There was one time when Percy was sparring with Clarisse, and they got a little too heated, and it ended up with Clarisse on Pegasus cleanup duty, and Percy teaching sword classes for a week. Definitely the lighter punishment, considering he liked the job. Chiron always went a little easy on him. But there were layers to this punishment. Primarily: you.

When Percy was approaching, he saw you, and sighed. You were there first, already talking to the younger campers, wide smile on your face and holding a weapon. Ugh. Of course he had the misfortune of fucking up the same time as you. Okay. This week was actually going to be terrible. 

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” he said, jogging up to you and the campers. You’d just finished some sort of introduction, it was the perfect time to slide in. The youngest kid looked maybe ten, and had a dagger in her hand. She was little small for the real swords. The kids were looking up at him, faces blank or curious, and you were side eyeing him, brow raised, completely unimpressed. Yeah, he should probably do something interesting.

“Yeah, you sure were,” you laughed sarcastically, sounding just nice enough for the kids not to pick up on your distain. 

Percy grimaced. Great start. With a deep breath, he did  his best to recover, running his hands through his hair nervously. “Well, I’m here now, so,” he said, looking at the younger campers. Grinning, and ignoring your cold stare, he uncapped Riptide, and a few kids gasped. “How about we get to the fun stuff?”

He spared you a glance, catching you roll your eyes at him. This was not going to be a good week. Quite possibly the worst punishment Chiron could’ve given him. 

It’s hard to teach as a team when you can’t get along  for a second. And all the kids noticed, and did their best to egg you on. Percy was fighting for his life harder than he had on several quests, until the very last minutes of the time slot. Thank the gods it was only like, an hour. Even if it was one of the longest hours of his life.

And he wasn’t even spared when it was over.

“Of course we fucked up on the same week” you sighed, picking up a carelessly discarded sword. “Let me guess, something boring…” you started, walking idly toward the weapons rack with a handful of blades. “Like what, blowing up the bathroom again? Or sneaking out of camp for a quest?”

Hmm. Low blow. Though not completely unwarranted. “No, much cooler than that,” Percy sighed, rolling his eyes as he kicked up some dust from the arena floor. “Beating up Clarisse.”

You scoffed, “somehow I doubt that.”

And you weren’t exactly wrong. It was more of a mutual beating up, in a sort of frenemy way, Percy was the first to admit. But not to you. “Hey, you should see her,” he chided. “There’s cold hard proof.”

You bumped his shoulder on the way out of the arena, sighing. “Maybe I will, I could get some tips on kicking your ass,” you said, raising your brow. 

By the time he thought of a good-ish response, you were too far away to hear, and he was kicking himself for letting you get the last word. He glanced around the empty arena dumbly. It looked like you finished the cleanup while he just stood there, another point you had on him now. The punishment may not have been a competition, but you seemed to be winning thus far. Shit. 

And it only gets worse from there. 

He managed to come early the second day, a full fifteen minutes to get warmed up, and think about what could be good to teach the newbies. And he had the arena all to himself to slash dummies in the exact way he’d instruct them to do later. 

“Clarisse told me Chiron intervening is all that saved you from getting sent to the infirmary,” you said.

Percy jumped, Riptide nearly falling out of his hand. When the fuck did you get here? He hadn’t heard you at all. Sneaky bitch. He turned to face you when he recovered from his shock, “yeah, well, she couldn’t admit she lost a fight if there was a gun to her head.”

You didn’t look sold. You raised your brow, “could you?”

He pursed his lips. He wanted to say something like, yes, duh! But quickly realized it might be a lie. To most people he could, but admitting defeat to you felt much worse. Like it would confirm all your doubts or apprehensions about him, or whatever your grudge was. He decided a little lie wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. “I could,” he said casually, slashing a combat dummies head. 

He didn’t see your face as you hummed lowly with disapproval. Probably for the better. 

Or so he thought, because as you were walking towards the dummy beside his, he started to feel drowsy. His slashes got slower as his arms felt heavier, like they were weighing him down. He looked at you, and immediately wanted to lie down and pass out. Ugh.  Your subtle smirk told him you knew exactly what you were doing. And it only escalated when the kids started to arrive. 

You started the lesson off assertively. While he was struggling to blink with his heavy eyelids. “If you have any cool demigod abilities, you should totally use them literally whenever you can,” you said, pointing your weapon enthusiastically at the campers. 

Percy couldn’t help but watch in slight awe as you engrossed them all. You narrowed in on a son of Apollo,  your blade staring him down as you told him he should get comfortable using healing abilities in a fight. You seemed to have a suggestion for everyone; the daughter of Hectate should use the mist, a Demeter kid should try and use vines, your Hypnos brother should use… sleep powers. Percy knew about those all too well. 

Percy had to admit he was jealous of the way they seemed excited about your ideas. Did they really like you more than him? It wasn’t that he felt bad not being liked, he was plenty used to that in all the schools he went to. It was more that it was you. The way you showed a nicer side to seemingly everyone but him. His body still felt like it was made of lead. 

You had some blind spots though. Not everyone had powers, Percy guessed, watching a couple Athena kids rolling their eyes or looking at the ground. “I hate to interject,” Percy started, stealing your and the kids attention again. “But this is weapons training, there are other classes for using abilities.” Plus, maybe you’d stop using yours if they got back on focus. 

”Hey, I’m teaching them how to fight better, isn’t that the goal?” You shot back. You seemed to catch the way his eyes were lingering on the kids without abilities. “Even if you don’t have any specific powers,” you said, turning back to the campers, “if we start using them, you’ll learn how to counter them, and kick our asses better.”

Percy sighed. You seemed pretty stuck on this. He tiredly uncapped Riptide, and pointed at it. “Weapons class, Y/n. Let’s focus on using weapons,” he said. 

You shifted your lips around, maybe chewing on them, and then seemed to have a thought. Unfortunately. You smiled at the kids, “yeah, well, Percy doesn’t always use his abilities to the fullest when he fights,” you said. “Maybe don’t take his lead too much.”

Ugh. “Well, it’s not always as easy as some people make it look,” he said, gesturing at you. “Not everyone has powers, and some people get drained easily by theirs. For me, I can’t always rely on there being water around me.”

You crossed your arms, raising your brow, and actually looked at him this time. “You know what people are made of, right?”

The kids were listening intently, some snickering and smirking to themselves. A couple seemed annoyed that the training was paused just so the teachers could bitch at each other. Percy sighed, “yeah, no, I don’t want to do that. I think that was an episode of Avatar: the last airbender.”

You rolled your eyes, scoffing. “Well you might win more fights if you did,” you said snidely. Your eyes lowered a moment as you lowered your voice with a bitter tone, “I hate the idea of you going easy on me.” 

Before Percy could respond with a retort of his own, you’d dropped the mean act and completely focused on the kids, upbeat and happy. You clapped your hands together, and shot them a wide smile, “how about a demonstration, guys?” 

Aw shit. The kids lit up, nodding along as you continued. “How about me and Percy have a little match, and we see who wins, yeah?” You said, grinning at him. Ugh. It wasn’t a secret that people said he was the best swordsman at camp, but you were a head counsellor too. And even if he could stab you, he probably shouldn’t in front of the kids anyway. 

He had started to tune you out, but got snapped back to reality when he heard his name. “Percy, are you down?” You asked with faux sweetness. Ugh. Percy sucked a breath in through his teeth, and sighed. “Uh-Sure,” he said cautiously. 

You grinned, and the kids stepped back and whispered to each other. Yeah, they definitely picked up on your rivalry. They waited restlessly, probably excited to see the climax of your mutual dislike. Like the fight was inevitable. He uncapped Riptide with a sigh, and raised the blade as you shooed the kids to step further back. He took a fighting stance, raising his blade at the ready. Just great. Your aura of tiredness or whatever was affecting him seemed to get worse. Yeah, he might be fucked without water. 

You smirked, twirling a weapon of your own between your fingers and glancing at your audience happily, chest puffed out in self satisfaction. “Do you want to count us down?” you asked the kids, grinning. 

They nodded along, three, and Percy sighed, eying the water bottle he had off to the side. If he could get it then maybe... whatever. Maybe if he beat you, you’d lay off. Two. Or, if you won, you could get ten times worse. One. There was no good outcome. And it’s not like either of you could maim each other with the kids watching. 

Ugh. Still weighed down by an impossible spell of drowsiness, Percy started to lunge forward, sword ready to slash in an arc above his head. But then he looked at you. And you looked at him. And you were shooting him a finger gun, and Percy was out cold, without enough time to grumble or complain about it. Well shit. 

Like most times he slept, he was dreaming. Nightmares, specifically. At least he felt no godly presence, or anything sinister. Today, it was Annabeth and Grover dead on the floor, with Kronos in Luke’s body glaring at him from the sidelines. And then it was just Luke, looking at him sadly, approaching him, and then asking why he let his sister die. Percy didn’t have an answer. 

Nightmare Luke wasn’t a fan of that. Suddenly he was turning back into Kronos and raising Backbiter, and Percy was completely unable to move, paralyzed by fear, sadness, and bitter anger. Great. Just great. 

But Luke didn’t swing. He stopped, eyes cloudy and blank, and the bodies faded away. Was his subconscious being nice today? Luke stepped back, and his sword has vanished, and the scene was fading fast. 

Percy was awake. He grumbled, not wanting to open his eyes. His head was in the dirt, body completely weighed down by his own exhaustion. The arena floor wasn’t the worst place he could’ve fallen, at least. He grumbled, sat up, and rubbed his eyes until they opened.

You were still there, Percy’s eyes flew open, shaking any lingering tiredness. He scooted back just slightly. You were sitting beside him, head rested in hands and lips pursed. “Uhh,” he stuttered, scooting back further. “You’re uh, still hanging out here?” A quick glance showed the kids were gone, and the lesson had been over for a while. 

”You have some of the worst nightmares I’ve seen, dude,” you said simply, shifting your head from hands to hand. “I’m… sorry, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to snoop.”

Percys brow furrowed. What? You looked apprehensive, but your words didn’t seem malicious in the slightest. He stopped scooting back, but he held his arm up defensively between you, unsure why. You didn’t have a weapon. “It’s… fine. Was it you that… ended it?” He asked tentatively.

You nodded. “It didn’t seem fun,” you said quietly. You looked away, hiding your face in a palm, “Sorry for putting you in there, I guess,” you said. “I’ll try to avoid sleeping you, if you want.”

Percy looked at you quizzically, jaw hung slightly open, more than confused. You were being nice. That’s crazy. He wasn’t sure how to act. Every word he said was laced with hesitation and the slightest bit of a stutter. “Thanks, I guess,” he mumbled, scratching the back of his neck. “Appreciate it.”

You nodded, and a slightly sealed silence fell over the woods as you refused to look at him. But you didn’t stand up to leave yet either. 

“Hey, Y/n, can I ask,” he started, sitting up straighter and crossing his legs. “Usually you hate me…” he said, almost wincing. “Do you… not, today?”

That got your attention, and your eyes were burning through him. Your brow furrowed, and softened, your mouth opened and then closed, you looked away, then back at him, and then sighed. “I don’t hate you, Percy,” you admitted, sounding abjectly defeated. 

That got an involuntary “huh?” Out of him. You totally hated him. That was just a fact. 

You sighed, and shook your head, turning back away from him. You tone was far lighter this time, “no, I don’t hate you, I just- I don’t know,” you said.

”Then why-“ Percy started dumbly, but quickly trailed off, unsure how to make his question less rude. There didn’t seem to be an obvious answer. “Why are you like this,” he asked, cringing at his own callousness.

You snickered, looking at him with a slight and awkward smile. You shrugged, and looked back at the woods. Percy didn’t speak, he barely breathed, waiting for any sort of a signal from you. Somehow, it worked. You sighed , and stretched your legs in front of you and said, “I don’t know.” You paused, probably thinking. “It just comes naturally, I guess.”

Percy hummed. 

“That came out mean, didn’t it,” you laughed softly. 

“Like most things you say,” he laughed, but quickly trailed off. “Sorry.”

You smiled hesitantly, looking over at him with softer eyes than he usually sees on you. “No, that was deserved,” you said.

Percy smiled, and then raised his brow, surprising himself. That didn’t happen when he talked to you, this was fresh territory. Before he could respond, you were standing, and for the first time, offering him a hand up. And for the first time, he took it. 

You pulled him to his feet, but didn’t look at him, curtly turning your head away as he stood in front of you. Percy couldn’t help but snicker under his breath. You seemed intent on staring at a tree.

”Hey,” Percy started, brushing his hair out of his face. “Do you wanna go get on the same page about what we’re teaching them tomorrow so we don’t have a repeat of today?” He asked. He got a little scared when you finally looked at him, but you didn’t seem angry. And if anybody knew your angry face it was him. “We’ll probably be better teachers if we actually work together on it.”

You hesitated, raising your brow. “Uh, really?” You stuttered, crossing your arms and shrinking into yourself. 

Percy sighed. He was doing this, he’d committed now. For better or worse. “Yeah,” he nodded, with a friendly smile. “Why not? Let’s go get lunch or something.”

Percy wasn’t sure how well his olive branch was working. Your lips were pursed and arms still crossed, but.. the ever so familiar scowl you often showed him was absent from your lips. That could be good. You looked at the ground, then back to him, “yeah, okay.”

And here he was braced for rejection and an insult. Small victories. Percy grinned, nodding his head in the general direction of the dining pavilion, “then let’s go.” 

You nodded, and walked quietly beside him as he started for the path. Okay, a little awkward silence was nothing, that was still a win. Miles better than where he was this morning. Or even like, an hour ago. So Percy was inclined to try and bridge the gap. “The kids are gonna be really surprised when we actually work together, tomorrow,” he laughed. Careful words, when, not if.

He caught in his peripheral the tug of your lips upward into the slightest of smiles. “They’ll never see it coming,” you said. Maybe like a joke. Wow, was this actually working? You let out a small laugh, “neither did I.”

Percy but the inside of his cheek to suppress a smile. That made two of you, because this was the last thing Percy expected too. “Yeah,” he started. “Not bad though.”

For the first time in a good minute, you met his eyes, and his attention was drawn. You didn’t normally look at him like that. It was a… nice change pace. You sighed, “No, not the worst.” You swished your cheeks around a moment as you paused, but didn’t say more. And Percy would be lying to himself if he tried thinking he wasn’t a little disappointed. It almost looked like you were gonna say something nice. Well, maybe not the worst was nice enough. For you, at least.

”Percy, I’m really sorry about those nightmares,” you said finally, looking at the ground. 

Ah. That. Percy didn’t tell all that many people about his shit dreams. It was kind of a given that most people at camp got them, in some capacity at least. But he did his best to project a lighthearted image, especially when he was with the younger campers. “Oh,” he said dumbly. 

“If you want, I can help with those,” you offered quietly. 

Now that caught Percy’s attention. He raised his brow, “You can do that?” And he didn’t ask his other question: you would do that? Like, for him? 

You looked up at him, then back to the ground as the two of you approached the dining pavilion. “Yeah, Hypnos stuff,” you mumbled. “I do it for some other people too.”

Oh gods, you felt bad for him. That was a weird thought. “Oh- you don’t have to do that,” he started, suddenly far more embarrassed. So that’s why you were being nice. Suddenly it didn’t feel as good as before.

You looked up at him with wider eyes now, and bit the inside of your cheek. “Well, if you ever change your mind.”

Something about your pity didn’t sit right with him, even if was glad you didn’t look like you wanted to bite his head off. This look, the feeling sorry for him face, was somehow worse. “I won’t,” he snapped, sounding meaner than he meant. Or maybe he did mean it, in his bitterness he couldn’t tell. “You don’t need to pretend to like me now that you feel bad.”

You brow furrowed, and that pity look was gone in an instant. “Hey asshole, I was just offering to help,” you spat. Now this was more familiar. You crossed your arms at your chest as you walked. “Thought about being nice for once.”

”Yeah, for once,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Because now you feel bad.”

”Oh shut up,” you said, shaking your head with a glare. You stopped just short of the pavilion. “You aren’t special because you get nightmares, idiot, half the camp does,” you said, stepping closer to him. He was inclined to back away. “I’ve seen worse.”

Percy took another step back. There was a few stray campers sitting in the pavilion watching curiously, now. 

“But sure, go ahead,” you said, hands animating with your words. He flinched a moment as you halfway gripped the air. “Keep having your shit dreams, I don’t care.”

“Then why did you offer,” he spat back.

You looked at him like he was an idiot, shaking your head. “Because nightmares suck, nobody deserves that shit,” you said, like it was obvious. “Not even a stuck up asshole who thinks he’s better then everyone.”

What? Percy stood dumbly for a moment while your sharp glare subsided into a duller scowl. Did he really come off like that? “I’m not-“ he started, but quickly gave up. As much as he wanted to insult you back, half the things you said were genuinely pretty nice. You were right, nobody deserved that.

You scoffed, “sure you’re not,” you said bitterly. 

The two do you stood silently for a moment. And a few moments more. The couple of campers watching awkwardly tried to go back to eating. The lunch plans the two of you made seemed so far in the past now. Same with the idea of getting in the same page.

Percy spoke first. “I don’t- I don’t think like that,” he said lamely.

”No, you’re just the hero of Olympus, who goes on all the quests, who the gods tried to give immortality too,” you said. But the malice was gone. “You’re the reason I even have a cabin here,” you said quietly. 

Percy winced. How do you explain to somebody that going on all those quests… wasn’t always great. It stopped being amazing when more lives were at risk, the stakes got higher, people died. A lot of the time all the glory kind of sucked. “Well it’s… not all it’s cracked up to be,” Percy managed. “I mean, you saw the aftermath.”

”Yeah,” you said, looking at the ground. “That’s why I thought.. you might not be how I thought.” You looked up, expression made of stone. “But at least you’re… I don’t know,” you trailed off, “I think I’d still rather be somebody, even if it sucks.”

Percy half heartedly laughed through his nose, “Usually I feel the opposite, it would’ve been easier to be a kid of some minor god.”

”Grass is always greener, I guess,” you sighed. 

“You are somebody, though,” Percy said, realizing he should probably address that. The idea that you were insecure seemed so alien. The way you insulted him always seemed so confident. “You don’t need a ton of quests or fights to prove that.”

You rolled your eyes, a weak smile was forming on your lips, “well, that’s easy for you to say. I’m only here, and claimed, and in a cabin because you made the gods pay their child support.”

Percy smiled softly, gesturing his head to the tables at the pavilion. He started to walk as he spoke, “that’s the gods, that’s their problem,” he said, grabbing a plate to fill with the magic food with you behind him. “You’re more then the gods approval.”

He had to look back to see if you were still there, the way you went quiet. You grabbed a plate, and followed him to a table, all with that stone faced look. Not pity or malice, this time. When you sat down beside him, you finally cracked. “Thanks,” you managed, staring ruefully at your food. 

“It’s true,” Percy said. 

You looked up at him, a slight smile on your lips this time. “Thanks,” you said, more confidently. 

“Are you still up for helping me with the nightmares?”

This request haunted me for like over a month cuz I couldn’t get anything out of it for a while. I wasn’t gonna post here but I ended up happier with it then I thought tho. Can you tell I never write enemies to lovers? I usually hate that trope lmao. Anyway part 2 coming maybe.

[coryothesub]

Coryo almost unconscious, with his mind clouded, with his butt raised and saliva falling from his mouth, while the reader relentlessly fucks him with his dildo

Ahhhh this is the sight we all need don't we? I somehow wrote this as a little sequel to the previous ask I did, but they both can be read separately

nsfw / mdni / sub!coryo / dom!reader

You were standing at the foot of the bed in your parents guest room taking in the lovely sight before you. Coryo was laying there on his stomach, completely naked and panting heavily, his hair was already a mess, some tousled curls sticking to his sweat covered forehead. His eyes were closed and his cheek was pressed to the mattress. Poor boy was sucking on his own thumb to give himself at least some comfort after the wild strap-on session you two had just had.

You enjoyed him like that. A teary drooling mess completely under your mercy. Not a sign of  the bratty smart-ass that had grinded your gears just a couple of hours ago.

You gazed upon him with a cocky smirk, wearing a leather bralette that was designed in a way to expose your breasts. Apart from that you were wearing only a strap-on with a sizable dildo still glistening with lube from the last round.

“We're not finished yet,” you cooed, climbing into the bed. “I think we need another round to teach you a good lesson about being a fucking brat in front of my parents.”

Coryo just shook his head faintly.

You grabbed a fistful of his golden curls and yanked his head back.

“I can't hear you darling!”

Coryo pulled his thumb out of his mouth and let out a soft whine, feeling a sting in his scalp from your tight grip. He opened his eyes, all red from the tears he had cried just mere minutes ago.

“I-I…Don't…” he mouthed silently.

“You didn't like it?”

Coryo shook his head again, making you pout.

You helped him sit up, his body felt drained and exhausted almost like a ragdoll in your arms. You tilted his chin up, looking into those big baby blue eyes.

“It did seem like you enjoyed it though cumming in the sheets both times like a little slut, huh? C’mere!”

You pulled him close and your hand went straight for his cock making the boy let out a sharp gasp. You wrapped your hand around it letting your thumb dance around the ultra sensitive tip making Coryo shiver at your touch

“You're fine, angel, you’re good,” you murmured, gently stroking his cock and feeling it getting hard in your hand. You just loved how amazingly responsive he was. And watching you both in the mirror that for some reason was hung just across the bed in your parents' guest bedroom made it feel even more arousing.

“Third time’s the charm and mommy has prepared something very special for you.”

Proceeding to pump him you pressed a soft kiss against his dry lips.

“Let's do another one, mommy’s gonna make you feel so good, okay?”

“Okay,” Coryo whispered against your lips.

“On your knees!” You instructed, getting up from the bed.

Coryo obeyed and you removed the used dildo from your strap-on, grabbing the vibrating one from your bag.

“N-no,” Coryo almost squeeked, noticing the change.

“Shhh baby, I know you can take it!” you mused and sucked on the toy sensually before coating it in a rich layer of lube.

“We gotta teach you a thing or two about being a brat, alright?”

You finished adjusting the dildo and lined up behind your boy marveling at his fucked out hole before pouring some lube over it.

Coryo was waiting patiently, it almost seemed like he was holding his breath.

You started pressing at his hole gently, watching Coryo's pretty face in the mirror. His eyes widened as you were entering his tight hole, a soft whine left his lips and his knuckles turned white from clutching at the sheets.

“Just look at you babyboy, taking it so good,” you praised, establishing a steady pace as you watched the sleek dildo going in and out of his pretty little hole.

Coryo let out a loud moan and as you finally reached the sensitive spot inside him.

“Shhh…don't forget we’re in my parents house,” you gently reminded before shoving your fingers in his mouth and stretching it from both sides. You could feel his saliva dripping past your fingers and over his lower lip as he wasn't physically able to make any coherent sounds so all you heard was just a series of open mouthed whimpers.

“You look so pretty like this,” you cooed, watching you both in the mirror. 

“So helpless baby. You're all mine!” you whispered into his ear before letting his mouth go causing him to swallow deeply.

“Oooh,” Coryo moaned, feeling you grabbing his thighs and rapidly increasing the pace. Your thrusts were hard, almost relentless.

Coryo clutched at the sheets even harder but that didn't prevent tears from streaming down his pretty face and dripping on the sheets beneath him as he felt the dildo hitting against his prostate with an intense force. 

You grabbed his curls and yanked back his head once again, not able to get enough of his beautiful reflection in the mirror, all desperate and broken, completely under your power. His tears glistened in the dim lighting before mixing with saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth and streaming further down his delicate neck.

“Harder, please!” he pleaded through gritted teeth and you kept on thrusting into him with full speed, seeing his neglected cock twitching under him. 

You let go of his hair and grabbed his aching member, switching on the vibration simultaneously and drilling his asshole with the most force you had ever applied.

Not being able to hold on any longer, Coryo let his head sink down on the sheets, his ass deliciously raised towards your thrusts. 

Coryo's face was now out of your sight, you just saw his blonde curls bouncing slightly as you kept banging him into the mattress. You heard a series of muffled moans before his whole body convulsed and he went silent. 

At that very moment you felt a thick load of warm cum coating your hand and you pumped him through his orgasm as your thrusts gradually slowed down. You pulled out the dildo and watched Coryo fall back into the sheets powerlessly.

“Such a good boy for me,” you hummed, laying next to him. Coryo seemed completely out of it for a moment. Then he slowly opened his eyes.

“Hey,” his voice sounded weak and exhausted. “I think I passed out for a moment. I don't really remember myself cumming. But I remember the feeling of it.”

A hint of concern appeared in your eyes.

“Oh my god, was it too much? Did I hurt you?”

“N-no,” Coryo reached out his hand to caress your cheek.

“It was actually fantastic,” he chuckled softly. “You cannot actually expect me to stop teasing you in front of your parents if THIS is the punishment.”

[pleucas]

Would you ever consider doing a colouring tutorial?

Heyooooooo

I've done a coloring post before (a few months prior), but somehow, my coloring/painting process has changed a lot since then lol. I'll give a breakdown of my process (and go into specifics on coloring) here, but please do take it with a grain (or a spoonful) of salt... I'm still very much learning, and though you can use my process as a guide, experiment on your own to find what works for you! This post got a little long I'm ngl so. open at ur own risk. it's really just me rambling and being a bit too pretentious for my own good

using my recent post as an example, my process is basically just:

first i get a clean sketch (after many hours of pain finding detailed references lol), not gonna go into that since you asked abt coloring

then i immediately go to block out shapes over the sketch. For big paintings, I don't do lineart (because i find that it eliminates a lot of depth that can be achieved with shapes and shading) — for smaller sketches and pieces, i'll do lineart tho.

I started darker to lighter in this painting because I knew I wanted harsh light. For me, it's a lot easier to project "additions" onto a surface — ie, if there's a harsh light, that's the addition vs. a shadow in neutral lighting as the addition. dunno if that makes sense, but breaking tones down like that helps me understand how i want to chronologically color smth and choose my bases:

for example, since I knew I was gonna have harsh light here, I felt comfortable with just getting the tones for my shadows down immediately. There won't be many midtones due to how extreme I saw it to be, so there was no point in finding a neutral base tone.

how i choose colors varies from painting to painting, but for this one, I decided to lean purple-blue because skk are just one of many red and blue gays (same reason why most of my other skk works lean red-blue-purple), and also because I knew I wanted my light to be on the warmer side — thus, the shadows and unlit areas will be cooler.

i also wanted it to recede (to emphasize the perspective and for depth), so for the base colors, i made them cooler + darker as they went back. This wasn't as clear in the finished product, but i think it did a good job at reminding me the vibe i wanted as i rendered

By how much I've written for this step, I guess you can assume that it's the step I put the most consideration into — and you'd be right. I think base colors really determine the vibe, and it sets you up for the rest of the painting. Sometimes I have to color adjust my bases over and over (with hue adjustments, color balance, curves) until I'm satisfied. I think that satisfaction is obtained w/ more ease as I've painted more and more. Alongside the sketch, this step takes me quite a while. Sometimes it's fun to mess with really wild color combos, but that's another topic.

Then I block out the lighting, which is probably the most drastic step but also somehow the quickest for me. Once you understand how light affects color (warmth, tone, etc) and you gain confidence with it, blocking out values in relation to base tones isn't too hard. That ofc takes practice and a lot of fundamental understanding of Shapes & Colors but there's a lot of stuff online abt the theory specifically from professionals, so I'm not gonna lecture y'all as a fanartist for glorified literary author rpf

then i just start rendering, layer by layer. above is a screenshot i took mid-rendering; at this point, dazai's clothes were basically done but I later worked on the face + hair more and textured the tie.

I try to do the stuff I want people to focus on first, because at least for me, that's when I have the most energy to make smth detailed — the more detailed an area is, the more naturally drawn you eye is to it (this is because the brain likes areas of high contrast, and details are entirely founded on the placement of contrast).

My art has never been too extremely detailed — I enjoy flatter + bigger shapes, styled texturing and silly patterns, but I find that "detail" still translates into "effort". When I look at paintings, it's very clear where someone put most of their effort — and when I can't tell, then I know I have a very confident + experienced artist who can effectively distribute their workflow (goalz). So yeah, I render in my very silly poly style but still keep that in mind.

eventually, I finish rendering. This part is kinda a blur tbh, and it always varies from artist to artist. I'd say the things I keep in mind are:

shape + form (making sure my rendering doesn't mess up gesture or vibes, and that it keeps things loose)

composition (making sure i don't overdo areas where i don't want people to focus on)

and tone (ensuring that the depth and believability of the scene stays intact so that my non-realistic style can work)

I added the bullet because i wanted a reason for the goofy expressions, just a bit more pizazz so that skk's drama was also believable lol. also visual storytelling or whtv (but that's not something i usually prioritize, it mostly comes with the concept and sketch).

I also added the bullet for some compositional spice. the dark shadow on dazai's arms was there to also emphasize the warped perspective, but it also left a weirdly empty vibe that I didn't enjoy lol. So yeah, bullet! and ofc my favorite, weird flowy line pattern thing that doesn't adhere to the laws of physics

I think a lot of my traditional painting experience leaks into my digital painting practice. I don't like lineart too much, and since I mainly work with acrylic, I rely on opaque color blocks, layering, and "carving out" shapes. probably explains my affinity for solid flat brushes in Procreate,,,,, but yeah. It's a little all over the place, but at its core, it's a lot of technical stuff mixed with habits after finding what works for me.

Dunno if this helps at all, or if it was interesting lolol. Thank you for reading until the end if you're still here! I appreciate it. I'm still learning but I've definitely learned a lot since I started this blog so it's exciting to track my progress. I'm sure I'll see this in a few years and laugh lolol.

[poupeesdecirque]

WiP - Blush, color and matching for Adam

I have yet to apologize to pushing back on posting his progress I did put everything in the queue but I kind of ... went wild on projects and don't want to post 4 times a day or more so ... a bit delayed but here is progress on him.

-

Okay Adam is a very interesting project as I want to adjust the visible parts of him to a darker color, I aim for a gray-brown, like a mix up of the original colors Hoshino used in the beginning and the current colors. Which is ... quite a challenge as the starting material is a beige "normal" tone.

Starting out with different techniques here. I only blushed the neck area as I won't color match the whole doll, the majority won't be visible after all.

The head got a little brush airbrush base.

It was building up the color in several layers here. The color changes with the light sometimes it's a nice light brown, sometimes it's super dark ashen. Interesting but very fitting for what I had in mind.

I absolutely enjoyed painting him and for once I am even satisfied with the eyebrows. He has a super soft but I think friendly expression C:

Yes, I really like how it turned out.

[goron-king-darunia]

Eggtober 28th 2023

"I Like it But Does it Come in Pink?": Monster Eggs

(Clip Studio Paint, Gouache Brush, Gouache Blender, a few Overlay Adjustment layers. 14 Colors. 45 minutes?) I cranked out 3 in a row today to make up for the fact that I kind of went on a Minecraft binge with my partner so I'm not sure of the times. You get 2 eggs today and one tomorrow while I figure out what I want to do for the final egg. Since I did them all back to back the time spent on each piece is a little wonky for me. I just kind of worked until I finished 3 eggs.

So, yeah, Monster Eggs are apparently just Halloween themed Tea Eggs. Still not sure if the pattern from the cracks looks properly realistic since a lot of my references were really lacey looking but I do like how the gradient looks better (to me) than the tea egg. Hence the title. Tea eggs are great but I very much like the red/pink monster egg in terms of aesthetic. Also I actually put some cast shadows in this one. Wild for me.

Hopefully @lady-quen's breadbugs like the look of these spooooooky eggs.

Hyping the Master @quezify with 2 pings today. We're almost there, man! I haven't been able to keep up reblogging all the eggs but I've seen them all and loved them all. That also goes for all the other artists participating in Eggtober. Super talented bunch and I've loved seeing everyone's work!

Speedpaint!

Can you tell that I really liked that red one and the way the food die leaked under the membrane and just went ham on that egg?

[inkedinfantasy]

FFXIV swap gift for @irisopranta! I thought the suggested fairy tale theme sounded perfect for Iris, so I hope you enjoy this loosely Cinderella-inspired take on her and Stephanivien's first meeting!

Iris adjusted the powder blue dress hanging on the mannequin, admiring the way the fabric caught the light with a subtle shimmer. Truly, it was one of the finest gowns she’d ever made, and it was almost a shame she’d already agreed to sell it.

It had started when a donation from one of Ishgard’s wealthier families had arrived in the Firmament, materials generously earmarked for the reconstruction work. Well-meaning, certainly, but rather out of touch, as it turned out. The lady of the house who had arranged the donation had sent over an assortment of lush, expensive silks and satins along with a note enthusiastically explaining that she’d wanted to provide the Firmament’s artisans with only the best to work with.

Lovely as they were, they were of little use to the weavers who were occupied with filling orders for sturdy work gloves and coveralls for the other craftspeople.

“We’ll see if we can sell it, I suppose,” one of the supervisors said. “At least get a bit of extra coin to keep things afloat.”

Iris ran her hand over the smooth richness of the cloth. It wasn’t every day she had the opportunity to work with material of this quality, and it seemed an awful shame to waste it. She glanced over at the note from the lady of the house, and an idea occurred to her.

“I think we could get even more if we made something from it. Fabric like this would make an exquisite gown, and we’d have no shortage of prospective buyers among the High Houses.”

The supervisor glanced at the ever-growing pile of orders the weavers had yet to fulfill. “As long as we’re able to keep on top of the work here, I suppose you can do as you like.”

“Of course.” Excitement bubbled up in her. She was happy to use her talents to provide what aid she could, of course, but it had been far too long since she’d had a project where she was allowed so much freedom. She was going to relish this.

* * *

What little free time Iris had was now devoted to dreaming up potential designs, allowing her imagination to run wild with the most indulgent possibilities to do the gorgeous material justice. She worked meticulously, rendering each stitch and detail with loving attention.

The end result was a masterpiece.

The generous donation had allowed her to craft a long, flowing skirt, delicate layers of fabric giving it an almost dreamlike quality. The material was a soft powder blue, decorated with white roses. More flowers decorated the bodice, the off-the-shoulder neckline of the dress accented with a small ruffle.

The supervisor who’d suggested selling the fabric had been popping in on her the past few days, checking up on her progress. Iris couldn’t help but feel proud at the grin that spread over their face when they were presented with the final product.

“I must say, you’ve outdone yourself. We’ll have no trouble finding a buyer, especially since we’re coming up on party season.”

That was true enough. Word had spread even through the Firmament of some noble family or another’s upcoming masquerade ball. Valentione’s Day was nearing, and it seemed that many of Ishgard’s wealthier families went all out with their celebrations.

Iris turned her attention back to the dress. With the freedom to design as she’d pleased, she had created the gown of her dreams, and only now was she seeing the drawback: she’d become quite attached. She’d just have to grin and bear it when the time to sell it arrived; she wouldn’t be able to afford to cover the amount they’d make selling it to one of Ishgard’s noble ladies.

She sighed wistfully. It would be such a shame not to have at least one opportunity to wear it…

Iris allowed herself to daydream over the next few days during her more tedious stretches of work: attending a lavish ball wearing her beautiful dress. A little fairy tale of her very own…

One morning, however, she was adjusting the placement of a slightly crooked button when the supervisor approached her. “Would you say your dress there is ready to sell?”

“I’ll give it another look over once I’ve reattached this button, but yes, everything else should be in order.”

“Well, if you’ve any other finishing touches or last minute repairs to make, you’d best do it tonight. We’ve got a buyer coming to pick it up first thing tomorrow morning.”

She felt an immediate pang of sorrow. This was it, then. Tomorrow she’d have to give the dress up to whichever generous buyer had been found for it.

A young couple passed by, chattering excitedly about the Valentoine masquerade, the young woman hoping she’d be finished with work tonight in time not to miss too much of it.

The masquerade was tonight? With how busy she’d been she’d lost all track of time.

Her eye was drawn back to the dress. She had a mad idea.

Surely, one night of frivolous fun wouldn’t hurt? She could borrow it for the evening, duck out before midnight, and bring it back to their workspace to make sure it was perfectly presentable before the buyer even arrived.

It was bold, certainly, but when would she have another opportunity like this, the ball and the dress coinciding at the perfect moment in time?

She tore her gaze away from the dress and began to plot.

Iris offered to stay behind and tidy up that evening, taking her time neatening up the workspace. When the last of the other weavers had left for the night, she glanced about to make sure she was truly alone before slipping the dress off the mannequin and changing out of her work clothes.

The weavers’ workspace only had a small wall mirror, but as she gave her reflection a once-over, her face broke into a wide grin. She looked like a princess. She put the finishing touches in place: a matching mask she’d spent the day hastily fashioning in between orders, and a flower plucked from the decorative bouquet one of the botanists had brought around tucked behind her ear. Giving herself one last look over, she stepped out into the night.

* * *

There were quite a few people still arriving as she reached the manor where the ball was being held, and she joined the crowd making its way steadily inside. The massive ballroom was alive with activity, the scene as bright and elegant as its occupants. She imagined she could content herself for hours just sitting and staring at all the lovely dresses on display as the other guests walked by.

But that wouldn’t do for tonight. She was here to make the most of her night of indulgence.

At first, she’d worried about getting caught in the act, as it were, but as she made her way around the party she began to relax and enjoy herself. Many of the people who stopped her for a chat or invited her to dance were quite kind, but no one seemed to recognize her. It was a bit awkward dodging the question of which noble house she belonged to, but she also received many compliments about her dress, which was a topic she was far better equipped to deal with. Eventually, giddy with excitement and nerves both, she stepped out onto a balcony to get a bit of fresh air just as the chronometer tolled eleven.

“Lively crowd in there tonight, eh?”

The comment came from a tall, richly dressed man leaning against the wall next to the door to the ballroom.

“Oh! Yes, it is. Forgive me, I didn’t know anyone else was out here. I suppose you needed a bit of a breather as well?”

“Indeed. These events can get to be a bit much around the holidays; everyone’s spirits are up and you’re racing to keep pace. Ah, but where are my manners?” He inclined in a small, polite bow. “Stephanivien de Haillenarte, at your service. May I ask your name? I don’t believe we’re acquainted.”

“I’m—” She stopped short, clamping down on the reflexive response. “I can’t tell you.” She could feel her face starting to heat. It felt terribly rude not to be able to answer.

Stephanivien, for his part, only wore a small smile. “Is that so? How mysterious. So, what brings you here tonight, flower girl?”

She reached up reflexively to touch the flower in her hair in a moment of embarrassment, her blush growing deeper. “A rare moment of indulgence, I suppose. Allowing myself a bit of fun and glamor. The company has been pleasant, and I’ve enough new ideas to keep me occupied for years from people watching alone.”

He perked up at that. “Oh? What manner of work do you do?”

“I’m a seamstress.”

“Ah, of course! Yes, I imagine such a setting would provide all variety of inspiration in that regard. Do forgive my enthusiasm; I so rarely meet other tradespeople at events such as this.”

“It’s no trouble. It’s enthusiasm that makes a craft worth doing, after all.”

“Would I be familiar with your work?” he asked. “I confess I do not often seek out formalwear, but I commission much of my work gear from the leatherworkers and weavers of the Jeweled Crozier and I know most of them personally.”

“Oh, I’m not in the business of selling things at the moment. Just volunteering my services to the reconstruction effort in the Firmament.” She wondered for a moment if perhaps she had said too much. There were plenty of artisans in the Firmament, plenty of weavers, even. Surely that alone wouldn’t be enough to give her away? She hastily changed the subject. “What about you? It sounds as though you do plenty of hands-on work yourself.”

“I’m the chief of the Skysteel Manufactory.”

“Oh my. That must keep you busy.”

“Busy enough that I’ve never quite gotten used to events like these,” he replied with a small laugh at his own expense. “But I haven’t lost all of my manners. Would you perhaps agree to a dance? You’re lovely company, and beautiful besides.”

Iris blushed beneath her mask. “You make quite charming company yourself. I’d be happy to.”

She took his offered arm, and they headed back into the ballroom. Their timing was excellent; a new song was just starting up. Iris enjoyed dancing, but she couldn’t claim to be an expert on the popular Ishgardian styles.

If Stephanivien noticed any nervousness in her demeanor, he did not show it, effortlessly guiding her into position. Thankfully for her, he was a skilled dancer, leading her through the steps with that same gentle touch.

“You’ve certainly attended enough of these parties to be good at this,” she teased as he spun her.

He laughed good-naturedly. “Comes with the territory of being the eldest of one of the High Houses, I suppose.”

Looking up at him, his blue eyes bright behind the handsome black and gold lines of his mask, she couldn’t help feeling a pang of regret over the anonymity required by her clandestine little outing. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing him again, she thought as the song slowed to a stop.

Stephanivien withdrew only the barest step to offer the polite bow that marked the end of the dance before he glanced up at her. “Ah, your flower is crooked, here, let me…”

He reached out and delicately removed it from her hair, taking a moment to smooth a few of the petals. The brief brush of his hand in her hair had been entirely chaste, but intimate, and she felt her face warm once more. Before he could replace the flower, however, the chronometer began to toll.

Her heart clenched in a flash of panic. Midnight already? She needed to leave.

Stephanivien was still holding her flower, looking bemused at her sudden change of mood. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m so sorry, but I need to leave. You’re very kind, and I’ve had a wonderful time tonight.”

She dipped in as quick and neat a curtsy as she could manage, and turned to hurry for the door.

“Wait!”

Iris did not stop, did not turn back as she wove her way to the exit.

* * *

She continued at as brisk a pace as she could manage through the deserted streets, making up for losing track of time. The magic of the evening was fast fading behind her as she reached the dark and silent weavers’ workshop, changing as quickly as she could back into her regular clothes. She turned her attention to the dress then, lighting just enough of the lamps to see by as she inspected it carefully to make sure no hems or buttons had been loosened or snagged, nothing had stained the fabric, everything was perfectly presentable.

She gave the dress on the mannequin a final once-over. It was pristine, not a stitch out of place, not a stray thread or wrinkle to be seen. She checked for anything else that might rouse suspicion—her mask was tucked safely away in her pocket, and the flower she’d taken…

Ah. She’d left the flower with Stephanivien.

A single flower couldn’t be too incriminating, could it? Small bouquets had been handed out all across the Firmament to brighten up the crafters’ workspaces. The flower could be anyone’s, really.

Iris sighed. She supposed there was little she could do about it now. Best to get some rest. It was back to work again tomorrow, after all.

* * *

The flower had started to brown and dry out by the next morning, but he carried it with him all the same. It was one of the precious few clues he had; the others led him in the direction of the Firmament now. The woman from the ball had never given him her name, but he had that much to go on, at least. His first impulse had been to consult Francel, but with so little information to work with, he couldn’t be much help.

The Firmament was bustling, even at the early hour. The reconstruction effort had drummed up quite the crowd of tradespeople, and he kept an eye out as he wove his way through the crowd. It was to little avail, for he spotted no familiar face, and the thought occurred to him that she might be working out of sight inside one of the stalls lining the plaza, or she might not be here today at all. He frowned to himself. He’d only wished to see her again, if she wished the same, though with so little to go on he was at something of a loss.

As he scanned the crowd once more, his heart leaped into his throat when he spotted a familiar color—not the rich violet of the mystery woman’s hair or the blue of her eyes, but the powder blue shade of the gown she’d been wearing. Curiously enough, the woman carrying it was clearly not the woman he’d met last night; she was shorter, her hair the wrong color. Still, he hurried his way through the crowd towards her. She looked up as he approached.

“So sorry to bother you, madam, but may I ask where you got that dress? The tailor’s work is exquisite.”

The woman beamed at the secondhand compliment. “Isn’t it just? One of a kind, I’m afraid, but the woman who made it works over there.” She gestured in the direction of one of the stalls lining the plaza.

“Right! Thank you very much.”

His heart sped up as he approached the stall, noticing a bouquet on the counter with flowers matching the one he held. By some serendipity, she appeared from behind a partition at that moment, carrying a folded stack of sturdy workmans’ trousers. She turned to face him as she placed them on the front counter and gasped, her cheeks going pink. He ended up saying the first thing that came to mind.

“Ah, I don’t mean to intrude, but I did wish to return this to you.” He could feel the heat rising in his face as well as he held out the sad, wilting flower. “Though it seems you have a variety of finer ones to choose from.”

That startled a laugh from her. “I…you really came all this way just to return it?” Her tone was warm.

“Not just for that. I wanted to see you again. And perhaps ask your name, if you’d be willing.”

She was smiling now, bright as the sunlight on the snow. “I’m Iris,” she said. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

[lenakluthor]

11,12,32,40 bc WHY NOT this is the last i swear

jfkdlsa i do not mind at all

11. What is that one set you made that just won’t die? honestly i don't think there is one. my older sets still get notes here and there, but there's not really a set that i still consistently see in my activity years later. HOWEVER, there was one gif i did that didn't die for YEARS until it finally stopped showing up in my activity in like 2019. it's technically not a set, but it's from a time where it was still pretty normal to post one gif on its own. it's this one.

12. What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever giffed? i don't really think i've ever giffed anything embarassing? although i was big into the bughead fandom and giffed a LOT of bughead and am a little ashamed to admit i ever went that hard for them, so i guess i would consider bughead the most embarassing thing i've ever giffed. (to be clear though, some of my favorite sets i've ever done were bughead sets so i'm not embarassed of the gifs. just the content.)

32. What is your favorite tool/adjustment layer in Photoshop? SELECTIVE COLOR. i am a SLUT for selective color layers. that is how i prefer to do most of my colorings. i am really not a fan of recoloring with masks or throwing a color over top and trying to mask and blend it. i prefer manipulating the colors with selective color. if i want the background a different color, nine times out of ten i'm doing it with selective color. i really do not like being able to see the subject of a gif move into the color layers sitting on top of it (it's one of my biggest pet peeves), so i want all of the coloring i'm doing to be within the scene, if i can help it. i also really enjoy the challenge of using selective color. a lot of the time, coloring that way means you have to change certain elements to WILD colors to isolate what you want and color just that element (usually it's separating skin tones from hair or skin tones from everything else, because almost everything always has some red or yellow), and then change the colors back after you're done. to me it's more fun and easier than trying to make sure the colors look good while also avoiding the character moving into it.

40. Why do you make gifs? i enjoy making gifs. it's a fun creative outlet for me. i love coloring gifs. i think gifsets are a really underappreciated form of art. it's a fun challenge, i get to play around with colors, and i get to engage with a piece of media i really love. and honestly, i'm more creative overall when i'm making gifs than the times i've taken a break from it. i'm always thinking of quotes or new ideas for gifsets and it forces me to view media in a different way than just simply watching it.

gifmaker asks!

[three-two-six]

PLEAASE BEGGING Silly Sinf Prompts: 4 with Machiabilly. I'm on my knees 😩

- @dela-muerte

This took me two hours. It is 1 am now. I have no idea how this got so much out of hand, but here we are, 1.3k words later. I wrote all of this on my phone. Is this what makes you happy, HUH /j

Sincerely now, thank you for the request! Enjoy the 1.3k words of uh... The uh... Yeah... Just don't think too critically about it and it might even be enjoyable <3

•••

'See you here in two hours.' Said Machiavelli. 'I'll go get us a room somewhere, and you could watch out a little for the environment.'

They've decided to wander the shadowrealms. At first, after the battle on Alcatraz, they moved all over the Earth - and now, Niccolo had a bright idea to try and switch up the realm a little bit. This might prove to be more helpful, since it was significantly easier to mask their trace from Aten if they're moving not just places but time-space continuums as well. 

With his intellect and Billy's natural talent to quickly adjust himself to new and unexpected situations, his plan would no doubt work excellently.

Or that's what he thought.

This realm that they've found themselves in was quite similar to Earth. The two of them were currently located on the main square of a significantly large city. Billy was excitedly looking all around himself – this was, to the older immortal's great surprise, his first time visiting another shadowrealm without his Elder.

'Billy.' Machiavelli said, seeing that the blond wasn't really paying attention to him.

'Hm?' Billy directed his head towards him, his eyes still wide from taking in all the new sights.

'As I said, you could watch out here for a short while. Try to see if anyone – and I mean anyone – is following us. If so, alert me immediately.'

Billy nodded. And for some reason Machiavelli wasn't all that ready to believe his over-excited eyes to keep their attention on the job.

Well, whatever. Billy sure wouldn't get himself into anything that stupid if he let him be alone for two hours. With that, he turned around on his heels and confidently walked off to where he knew the person renting him out a room was waiting for him.

***

Machiavelli kept nervously tapping his foot against the paved floor of the main square. One hand he had propped up on his hip, and on the other he was checking his expensive watch every five seconds or so.

Where the hell was Billy? He was quite sure that they had an agreement – they would meet at this exact place in two hours, no matter what.

Or maybe… Did Billy actually get into trouble? A thin layer of sweat formed on his face. The deal went well on his part – he had successfully secured a room for both of them – but those plans would quickly crumble if an Elder or one of their spies found out about their location.

His eyes were running wild all over the place. If Billy was fighting off their pursuers somewhere, surely he would be able to see or at least sense it. But if he wasn't, then he might even be captured, or worse even, dead… But if he was any of those, would the pursuers not be able to immediately get to him as well? So far, his surroundings looked normal – even though a lot of other immortals and otherworldly creatures mingled here, he couldn't smell the familiar scent of their Elder's auras.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a slight commotion.

'Ay, watch where you're going!' A rather hairy and muscular man yelled at a familiar blonde, rudely shoving him aside.

Billy, Machiavelli thought. Thank God he's not dead.

But to his surprise, Billy actually fell right on his back from the firm movement.

'Awhhhh…' He sighed absent-mindedly. This sound of pain sounded… Strange. It felt way too drawn out and lazy to be produced by a person in actual pain. And Billy seemed to have hit his back pretty damn hard.

'You-... Get out of my way…!' The blond slurred, trying and failing to get up.

Something was wrong.

'Huh?! Get outta here, you goddamn stoner! And ya better stop bothering people!'

Billy, unable to get up, almost started crying. 'Shut up, you- You- You discount bigfoot!'

As Machiavelli saw the unbridled rage flame in the strangers eyes and his muscles bulking from his arm like cannonballs to swing them in the direction of Billy's face, he decided that it's time to intervene. Were the knockoff bigfoot to punch the living shit out of Billy, the latter would probably have to use his aura, and then – well… Then they're busted. It's the equivalent of screaming 'I AM HERE', and that thing would alert their Elders damn sure.

'Dio ce ne scampi e liberi…' He gritted through his teeth, frustrated, as he dropped everything he held and ran full speed to stop the bigfoot's arm mid air.

'No instigating fights here!' He yelled, pushing the bigger man on his side. The latter crashed down on his ass with such force that Machiavelli had started thinking that it wasn't impossible that he broke the pavement.

He then turned to Billy.

'What the fuck is this about…!' He demanded, slightly panting. Goddamnit, he didn't run like that for a long time, and Billy just might be pushing him out of his comfort zone a little too much. He still stretched his arm out for Billy to grab, and then pulled him up his legs with all his might.

'I- Hah the- ' Billy slurred with possibly the most maniacal expression Machiavelli had ever seen. The brief argument had apparently given him an adrenaline boost, but he still… Looked about as far from normal as deep sea fishes look like scarps. With his unfocused, dilating pupils and bulging eyes, he might just be one as well.

'How the fuck do you even get drugs in a completely new shadowrealm, Billy– I swear to God, it's been like two hours– '

'I thought it hah candy!' Billy attempted to defend himself, all the while getting more disconnected from reality by the minute. Machiavelli felt as if he was going to lose his mind. 

Meanwhile, the discount bigfoot was slowly propping his two tons of muscle and hair back onto his legs, now angrier than ever.

Machiavelli's life flashed before his eyes as he barely dodged the deadly punch by a single millimeter.

And by dodging, he really just threw himself on the floor, trying his hardest to stay alive for at least the next couple of days he reserved the room for.

The nearby crowd was shocked silent, not daring to utter a word lest they become the bigfoot's new punching bag – but as Machiavelli was trying to get back on his legs as quick as possible, a single brave soul yelled:

'Fight! Fight!'

And before they knew it, the town square had unofficially become a giant boxing ring.

Billy watched Machiavelli trying to keep his dear life while fighting the guy. The immortal kept dodging punches left and right, too afraid to throw some of his own, worried that he might use too much of his aura. His only strategy was to dodge until the brute got bored, and his only goal to survive.

The blond perhaps felt a little guilty for throwing his partner in a brutal, bloody fight for life or death as the crowd cheers the murder on from the sidelines – but really, he didn't even know who he was.

'Hey, guys… What about peace and love on planet earth…?' He said, his eyes still unnaturally bulging.

'WRONG SHADOWREALM!' Machiavelli yelled, trying to vent out his frustration, but also barely fighting for his breath.

For a second, Billy appeared to be deeply troubled by that statement – at least judging by the brief expression of incomprehensible existential horror on his face – before he thoughtfully nodded and casually laid back on the floor.

After that, Machiavelli spent a lot of time in his newly rented room. Mostly by laying down in his bed wrapped in bandages, but one might agree that it was a good use of space nonetheless.

[overtake]

can i ask how you color and sharpen your gifs? they’re so vibrant 👀

Of course! I don't know how helpful I can be because I don't do anything special, so this is mostly an incoherent ramble and offers absolutely no insight. There's so many amazing coloring tutorials out there, so I would recommend any of those rather than reading the jumble of words below the read more lmao. The best resource ever is this blog. You can find tutorials for everything ever.

First, I crop by using width x height x resolution rather than just plain cropping and then resizing the image. I have no idea if that actually makes a difference in the quality, but I've gaslit myself into believing it's a difference maker. My settings are usually 542 px x 400 px at 135 px/in. The reason I do 542 is because then I go into canvas size and do 540 x 398 to cut off those tiny transparent borders that always show up after you crop (I don't think it's noticeable at all when you upload a gif but I'm just in the habit of doing it). Once it's cropped, I flatten my frames into layers and use a sharpening action. I have no idea what tutorial and specific sharpening action I downloaded because it was years ago, but there's so many out there. Here's just some random ones I found, but there's a lot if they don't work for you [x, x, x].

As for coloring, I color every gif from scratch each time. I know a lot of people use PSDs, and then might alter them slightly based on the gif. That looks great and is faster and works very well, and it can be a great option for you to seek out. I'm just a control freak who wants to manually adjust everything.

Gifs with a dark or solid, colorful background are my favorite to color because it's so much easier to make the person stand out. I can just talk you through my mindset for this gifset.

I used exposure, brightness/contrast, selective color, color balance, vibrance, and levels. Exposure was +.53 and offset was -.0015 (I like using offest and gamma correction when I have a very dark background I want to emphasize, but I keep them at very very very low levels). Brightness was 9, contrast 7. I don't really like using brightness/contrast too much, but a little contrast in the right color conditions does sometimes make things more visually interesting. Selective color in black under the black subheading was +26. I go wild to make a dark background darker. If it had been a pretty blue background, however, I would've been in the blue and cyans section just messing with the sliders until I got a nice shade of blue I liked, and then I would've gone to the blues under hue/saturation to make it even brighter. I didn't use any 'selective color: neutrals' on this gifset, and I kind of avoid them because it's really easy to wash someone out or give the gifset a kind of ugly color tone if you're not very cautious.

Specific color balance numbers would be annoying for you to read through, but make sure you work with all 3 of the shadows, midtones, and highlights. I almost never go more than a +/- 5 on any of the sections, and I always hide the layer after to make sure I actually like the colors I added because you might accidentally take a totally normal gif and suddenly, all the blacks are looking magenta toned because you went too wild in color balance. I just added a tiny bit of vibrance (+8) to make sure I wasn't washing him out, and then I finished off messing with levels to once again emphasize the dark background.

90% of the gif coloring I do is done in exposure, selective color, and color balance. Those three are the backbone of my gifmaking. I spend so much time messing around in selective color with all the standout colors in the gif. I wish I could drop a magic secret here, but I really just go through and adjust the sliders until I find a balance I like.

I think color balance is so important to making sure the person isn't a weird shade after you mess with other colors - it ensures sure they're not super yellow or overly cool-toned. When I have a colorful background that isn't a red/yellow/orange (because messing with those colors will mess with a person's skintone), I also usually make it brighter through selective coloring and hue/saturation. I cannot emphasize enough how much selective coloring changed my life. It's my world. When I finally do upload my gifs, I always save them to my drafts and view them from mobile and desktop to see if there's anything that looks super weird that I need to fix. Sometimes a gif will look great in photoshop but suddenly the person is bright red on mobile, so it helps me make adjustments.

I used to be very conservative in adding lots of color and I tended to wash people out and was too afraid to make a colorful background even brighter or a dark background darker. For example: this old gifest I made on my main just looks so .. dull? There's no life in that skin. What I would do differently now, just as a basic starting point, is brighten the blues and the reds in his skin through selective color + hue/saturation, add more exposure, and use color balance to make his skin tone more human. With just those adjustments alone on top of the gif (which did already have coloring on it!), it looks way better and brighter. I mean, does it look good? No, it's a screenshot of a gif from almost 2 years ago and I spent 30 seconds on it, but it's better!

My advice is just to not be afraid to mess with colors and make them stand out. I have zero comprehension of color theory and no artistic background, so I was flying blind when I started adding all these adjustment layers and was very timid about them. I really just think the best thing to do is to mess around in photoshop working on gifs with different colored backgrounds so you practice how you want to mess with those colors. I seriously spend so much time making gifs that will never see the light of day because it's fun to do and it helps me learn the adjustments. My understanding of color also significantly improved when I started trying to make more edit-y style gifsets, because I'd try to recolor the background of the gif with the brush tool and changing the blend mode and wouldn't understand why the color I'd painted over top an orange background wasn't turning out exactly how I wanted when I changed the blend modes.

I'm sorry that this is an absolute mess with no real advice besides "I like these adjustments" and "just mess around!" I know that's not particularly helpful, but I'm honestly too busy being flattered that I was even asked for advice.

[codgod-moved]

good luck thinking you’re not a toy after THAT, sheesh

hello i have harmed the boy . but do not fear! he’s fine probably

@veryfoolishgamers @t4tcecilos @empiressmp @the3rddenialist @moonlight22oa @rockydrago @funkily @renchanters @popcornsalty @suurrii @thatonesheep @cabbagetwunk @treeofwhimsy @weaselmcdiesel @peskybirb @flyingfish1234 @viridian-artist @cobrawaifu @griancraft @c0nstantparanoia @yanyawnyan @f4rlands @gayboybdubs @aquello-main @saiiboat @itsafangirlthing416 @booisghost @angiemelon

[waywardstation]

It’s Just a Cold

Ingo is entrusted one of Lady Sneasler’s late-hatching eggs to help it hatch, but he quickly falls sick. While the Warden believes it’s a passing cold, Pearl Clan’s medicinal woman Calaba believes it’s a curse tied to a superstition about eggs. Akari does her best to help Ingo get better so he can help Lady Sneasler’s egg hatch.

Giant fic!! Biggest one yet. Started as a 4K fic off of a sick fic request, but I decided to rewrite the beginning, which had been a short summary, and it grew into like the first 5-6K words there. But either way, it’s done!

OR read it on AO3 here!

Enjoy!

————

As the early morning sun rose on the cloudy Coronet Highlands, turning the dark purple sky a more mellow shade, wild Pokémon slowly began to stir. light snow drifted about in the air as Ingo trudged his way up the mountainside, rubbing at his nose as he sniffed and pulled his coat closer against himself.

The warden had woken up this morning not feeling too well.

Despite the crisp weather and the thick Mamoswine-fur blankets across his bed, Ingo had lugged himself out from under the blankets feeling a little cold.

The warden had found that a little peculiar; but he had not dwelled on the subject for long. Today was an important day!

About a month ago, Lady Sneasler had presented Ingo with a clutch of eggs. Sneasel and Sneasler numbers were already scarce, so Ingo had been very proud of his noble at the sight!

This week they were supposed to hatch, and after three days of continually checking, no egg had cracked yet. But every day, Ingo went regardless - he wanted to witness a rare event such as this, but he wanted to be there for his noble when it happened! She had expressed she wanted him there when they hatched, and Ingo could not let her down.

So ignoring the shallow chill settling into his skin, Ingo had gotten ready and headed out towards Lady Sneasler’s nest for the fourth day this week, hoping today would be the day. He had already let Jubilife Village know he would not be at the training grounds for a few days, but the time off was running out, and he was supposed to be back with Zisu again tomorrow.

He really hope the eggs hatched today.

Making his way further up the mountainside, Ingo sniffed again, rubbing at his nose - it was a little runny. Perhaps it was the altitude…

He didn’t remember the trip up the mountain being this exhausting.

Finally, Ingo pulled himself up the last rocky incline, and found himself outside Lady Sneasler’s den, a warm cavern that the noble had filled with various soft foliages.

“Lady?” Ingo whispered into the cave as he adjusted his coat and hat, a little more out of breath than he liked.

A short chirp from inside the cave called out to him, inviting him in; it seemed indifferent.

“Good morning, Lady Sneasler,” Ingo greeted his noble as he stepped into the dim cavern; the warmth inside was noticeable, but not enough to drive the light chill from him. “I take it none of the eggs have yet hatched?”

Lady Sneasler, who was sitting amongst the soft flooring of the cavern, frowned dejectedly and shook her head. She pulled back a layer of the bedding to reveal her clutch of eggs, none of which had yet hatched.

The sight pulled at Ingo’s heart. Lady Sneasler had been trying so hard. His noble preferred a less…fluffy living area, feeling quite comfortable amongst the rocks with nothing but a small area set aside for sleep, which consisted of a few layers of leaves. But once she presented her eggs to Ingo, the man had seen her completely reinvent her cave just for her kits. He had watched her prepare several new layers of bedding for her nest, now covering the entire floor with types of foliage, spare feathers, and tufts of fur she had gathered, both tufts left behind by wild Pokémon, and shed from her own body. Ingo had even brought some additional soft materials to help her.

Lady Sneasler was looking forward to welcoming her kits into the world (as was Ingo), but after three days of nothing…

“The little ones are a little behind schedule, yes,” Ingo reassured Lady Sneasler, “But I know they will arrive shortly. Today will be the day!”

Lady Sneasler let the layers of bedding fall back over the eggs, and glanced back at her warden, appreciation for the reassurance clear in her eyes.

Ingo sniffed again, and went to sit down on the cave flooring, back propped against the rocky wall. He was never one to really sit on the rocks like this, as it hurt his back, but the trip up had made him tired. He pulled his coat over himself tighter, and settled in.

“They will hatch soon my Lady. I will wait with you a while.”

Lady Sneasler hummed, sounding disappointed but grateful.

————

Ingo Must have dozed off, because he woke up with a start (and an awful crick in his back), to Lady Sneasler shaking him and chirping with an urgency.

“Lady?” Ingo jolted up, still half asleep as he readjusted his cap and stretched the knot out of his shoulders. What happened? Did something happen to the eggs? Did a wild Pokémon get into the nest?

Lady Sneasler tugged on his coat and dragged him over to her nest, where…there was movement under the bedding!

Ingo immediately understood the situation now, and what grogginess had still clung to his brain was immediately chased away, replaced by excitement.

“They’re hatching!” Ingo exclaimed with excitement, now matching Lady Sneasler’s anticipation.

The two watched as the bedding of leaves and fur continued to rustle, before a cracking sound was heard, then silence.

In a stretch of a few seconds that felt like hours, the noble and her warden were frozen, waiting for something.

And then, with a stretch of tiny claws and a little squeak, a perfect little Sneaslet pushed through the warm bedding, and was welcomed into the world.

With an exclamation of “bravo!” from Ingo (Not too loud though, Ingo didn’t want to startle the baby!) and a cry of happiness from Lady Sneasler, the little sneaslet was lovingly scooped up into the nobles claws, and she began to lick her kit clean as it mewed quietly, nestling into Lady Sneasler’s warm fur.

More cracks were heard, and soon, Ingo witnessed more tiny little heads and claws break the surface of the bedding, pushing through the soft materials as they cried out in search of their mother, not yet able to open their eyes.

Lady Sneasler carefully scooped them up as they mewed to her, and collected them in her claws, licking them clean and holding them close to warm them, eight kits in all. Her joy was apparent as she answered their mews with her own chirps, overjoyed.

“Excellent job, my Lady,” Ingo sniffed again as his noble took care of her kits. “I knew they would arrive soon!”

Lady Sneasler looked beyond happy as she placed the kits back in an area of the nest as she finished cleaning them. The ones placed back in the nest were already starting to wiggle around a bit, slitting their eyes open slowly as they adjusted to the light.

The sight moved Ingo’s heart, he was so proud of Lady Sneasler, and so relieved that the worry was over.

…that was, until Lady Sneasler froze having noticed something, and with a sound of surprise, started pulling back the bedding again, to reveal another egg.

To Ingo’s dismay, it remained unhatched. It wasn’t even wiggling!

Lady Sneasler placed the last of her kits, all cleaned, back in the nest, and pulled the egg out of the bedding carefully.

Ingo was alarmed at the sight, but given Lady Sneasler’s immediate distress, he did not want to make anything worse.

“I am sure it is running a little more behind schedule than the others,” Ingo tried to reassure his noble. “It too will hatch, we will wait a little longer.”

So time passed. Ingo stayed in the cavern as time went on, waiting with Lady Sneasler. The Sneaslets quickly had become accustomed to their environment, and had begun moving about on their own - all over the soft, childproofed cavern, Lady Sneasler, and Ingo (though he took care not to let their claws touch his skin). Lady Sneasler was clearly enjoying the company of her kits, and Ingo had to admit, as he played with the little sneaslets himself, he found himself smiling multiple times.

But when the kits got too rough and started play-fighting a little too close to the egg, or whenever Lady Sneasler glanced back at it concerned, Ingo began to worry more and more.

With all of the kits now in this space running around, Ingo was worried for the safety of the egg. And it didn’t even show signs of hatching yet.

Ingo looked out to see that the sun had long since reached its highest point in the sky, and was now beginning to dip lower.

“Lady Sneasler,” Ingo began. He was surprised at the sound of his voice - it sounded a little stuffy. “I should now depart if I am to reach my destination at the Pearl Clan settlement on time. I am afraid I must now leave.”

Lady Sneasler didn’t have to utter a sound for Ingo to see she wanted to know what he thought about the unhatched egg.

Watching most of the sneaslets running around, and Lady Sneasler constantly trying to keep them in one area while feeding others, Ingo realized that this would not be the safest place for an egg to be when it should have already hatched. Eight energetic kits were a lot to keep watch over.

Ingo glanced at the egg uneasily. He would have decided to just stay here with Sneasler overnight, but with how cold he was feeling now, Ingo was worried he’d freeze in this cave if he stayed. And he had to be back at the training grounds tomorrow.

“My Lady…it does not seem like the kits are being mindful of safety precautions towards their unhatched sibling.” Ingo started cautiously; Lady Sneasler was his noble and the two trusted each other, but how would she take this proposal? “Perhaps…I should take the egg back with me. You will not have to worry about the safety of the egg, and can focus on attending to your kits. I promise, with the egg under my supervision, it will receive the best quality care I can offer.”

Lady Sneasler did not seem happy with the proposition at first. She glared down a moment as her kits ran around her, mewing playfully. Ingo stood there awaiting her response, surprised to find himself shivering slightly - the cave felt colder than it had earlier.

“I will take good care of it,” the warden reiterated. “So you can focus on taking care of your kits.”

Another moment of pondering, before Lady Sneasler made a sound similar to sighing. Ingo watched her move her large claws to gently pick the egg up out of its warm spot, and hold it out to her warden.

“Thank you, my Lady,” Ingo expressed gratitude over the fact she took his proposition well. He carefully took the egg out of her hands, feeling the light weight of it as he brushed the bedding’s feathers and fur off of it. The shell was lightweight but thick, meant to withstand colder temperatures and hold in heat as long as it was insulated in some fashion.

“I will see to it that it hatches.”

Sneasler hummed, obviously still a little hesitant as she watched the warden wrap it in his coat to keep it (and himself) warm, firmly securing it.

“I will return as soon as the kit arrives!” Ingo announced, shuffling through the thick bedding of the cavern floor carefully so as not to step on any of the sneaslets running about. “Take care of your young, their unhatched sibling will join them soon!”

With a wave, Lady Sneasler chirped a goodbye amongst the choir of quiet mews, and Ingo exited the warm nesting cave, stepping into the colder crisp air. Snow still drifted down, but it was picking up. If there was going to be a snowstorm, Ingo definitely couldn’t stay here overnight.

He wiped at his nose again, annoyed with the incessant switch between being runny and stuffy, and readjusted the position of the egg within his coat, holding it close against his stomach to keep it warm.

He made sure to firmly grip it; Ingo didn’t even want to think about accidentally dropping it on the way down the mountain.

“We should hurry back,” Ingo conversed with the egg, starting down the mountainside carefully and taking note of the setting sun.

His body ached without reason.

Ingo reached the alabaster icelands, the Pearl Clan settlement in view just as the sun went down below the mountain line, and the falling snow picked up to the beginnings of a snowstorm. Within half an hour, it would be coming down full force.

Holding the egg close to him to keep it warm, Ingo trudged through the ankle-deep snow. Using his free hand to keep his cap on his head, his tattered coat moved with the flurry.

“It’s a good thing we departed when we did,” Ingo talked to the egg. “Or we would be getting caught in this at its worst.”

The egg said nothing, as expected.

It was hard to make out much of anything though, still. Ingo almost didn’t notice something large dart across the path in front of him.

Pausing, Ingo followed the blur to see a pair of piercing yellow eyes staring at him through the flurry, off to the side of the path.

Ingo recognized those eyes, and he had heard the stories about them, but he saw no danger in them. No threat. He saw only caution, and curiosity.

So Ingo turned, egg held tight, and continued on his path back towards the Pearl clan settlement.

The Zoroark watched him through the snowstorm.

If it hadn’t detected the precious egg nestled close against the man, it would have attacked.

————

Waking up the next morning, the first thing Ingo noticed was the pounding headache.

Well, that, and the pounding on the door of his accommodation.

Putting his hands over his eyes to block out the sunlight coming in through his window, Ingo groaned-

Wait, sunlight?

Ingo never slept in, he was always up before dawn broke!

Sitting up straight quickly, Ingo took a breath only to find his nose was completely clogged, and taking an open-mouthed breath instead, he coughed as something wet dislodged itself in his throat.

Slouched over, Ingo realizes he felt absolutely terrible.

“One moment!” Ingo called out to whoever was outside his door, stiffening at how stuffy he sounded.

He pulled himself out of bed and did his best to quickly get himself dressed, aching the entire time. Finishing the process by putting his cap on his head, Ingo turned back to his bed. Situated between the bed frame and the wall was Lady Sneasler’s egg, protected by all sides with layers of pillows and spare clothes that Ingo had set up last night, both as a barrier to protect it from cracking, and to keep it warm. He had tried to emulate what Lady Sneasler had put together in the floor of her cave.

Ingo picked it up carefully, holding it close to him within his coat once again, and then proceeded to answer his door.

“Apologies for the delay!” Ingo announced as he opened the door with the hand not holding the egg - he didn’t even know who he was addressing yet, but wanted to apologize for keeping someone waiting.

That someone was Lady Irida, who had been standing in the cold morning atmosphere in clothes that were suited much better for hot weather. As always, it never seemed to bother her though.

“Warden Ingo!” The Pearl Clan leader exclaimed, a bit more animated now that he had finally answered the door. “So you are home!”

She crossed her arms as if upset, but her eyes showed concern. “You missed the community meeting today, you’ve never been late to one ever, much less missed one entirely! We were beginning to worry that you got stranded out in the highlands snowstorm last night, we were about to send out a search party! Are you alright?…you look terrible!”

“Again with the apologies Lady Irida, I did not mean to miss the meeting!” Ingo began as he tried to rub the aching from his eyes. “I am…not feeling well this morning. I suppose I slept in longer than I meant to, that is all. I am ready to attend to my duties now.”

Ingo brushed it off as a minor issue. The training grounds were expecting him today and he felt obligated to go, but he really felt terrible. Irida could see it was worse than he let on from the terrible sound he made, sneezing loudly into his coat sleeve, and sniffing wetly with a thick cough.

“You sound like you’re coming down with something!” Irida fretted at the sight of him as he learned against the doorframe, already getting tired from standing up. “I’m sorry Ingo, but you need rest. I relieve you of your duties for now; go see Calaba at her medical tent.”

“But Lady Irida,” Ingo argued. “Who will be stationed at the training grounds today?”

“I’m sure Zisu can take care of things herself,” Irida told him. “Now come on, let’s get you to Calaba.”

Helping him stand away from the doorframe to head over to the medical tent, much to Ingo’s disagreement, she could feel him shivering. Pearl Clan Settlement was stationed in the Alabaster Icelands, but Irida had never seen Ingo shivering in the cold before. How sick was he?

Looking over at him, it was then that Irida noticed Ingo was holding his arm around something that rounded out under his coat, pressed against his side.

“What is…?” Irida started to ask, pointing to the lump in his coat, but Ingo already saw what she was talking about, and with a quiet “oh!”, Ingo pulled the egg out from under his coat, and presented it to Irida, holding it firmly in both hands.

“It’s one of Lady Sneasler’s eggs.” Ingo explained, a sense of pride in his voice. “Every egg of hers hatched yesterday, except for this one. It is behind schedule, so I am taking care of it for Lady Sneasler until it hatches, so she can properly care for her kits.” He sniffed. Curse his runny nose…

Ingo noticed a change in Irida’s steps as they continued to head across the settlement together.

“You took it back with you?” She asked, concern apparent in her voice. “You’re not supposed to take late hatchers! We really have to get you to Calaba now!”

“…what?” Ingo asked, feeling like he missed something important. Suddenly not liking the way Irida was glancing at the egg, he concealed it back into his coat, back where it was warm. “Please Elaborate.”

Irida’s eyes darted around a bit, as if trying to figure out where to start first. “Late hatchers, well…hmm, we don’t touch eggs or try to help them if they don’t hatch with the others. Those are for the Zoroark.”

“I don’t understand,” Ingo furrowed his brow, a look of concern on his face. In truth, he understood perfectly well the implications. And he did not like them at all. What he didn’t understand, was why?

“It’s a rule,” Irida explained, finding the topic a hard one to discuss (or did she just think this was common knowledge, and find it surprising Ingo didn’t know?) “If a Pokémon egg doesn’t hatch, it’s to be left for the Zoroark. If someone takes their egg, person or Pokémon, they will be afflicted with a Zoroark’s curse. It’s sad, about leaving the eggs, but it has to be done.”

Ingo internally rejected this thought immediately. This wasn’t a rule, this was a superstition!

During his time in Hisui, Ingo had come to notice similarities and differences between the Diamond and Pearl clans. Tradition was one of those differences. The warden had observed Pearl Clan was a lot more mindful of superstitions than Diamond clan, and as an outsider, he hadn’t grown up with any of them, and had come to know only a few.

Don’t look a Froslass in the eyes, or you’ll be cursed.

Don’t eat food cooked with a Typhlosion’s flames, or you’ll be cursed.

Don’t touch a Basculegion’s tail, or you’ll be cursed.

And now, don’t take late hatchers from a Zoroark, or you’ll be cursed.

Most of them involved being cursed, and this “Zoroark” myth was just another variation of the same superstition. Not like Ingo had believed these anyways.

Ingo had always felt the people of Hisui viewed the Zoroark unfairly to a degree as well, as if they were invasive, bloodthirsty demons from another realm.

“I see,” Ingo cleared his throat, even though he did not see at all. “And, how did you learn this? Has anyone else gotten sick like this after taking care of an egg that was behind schedule?”

“No, not for as long as I can remember,” Irida told him as she helped him start up a hill. With Calaba’s medicinal tent at the top, they were almost there. “But that’s because we have always tried not to touch late hatchers!”

Ingo thought that sounded baseless. How would they know if no one had ever done it-?

“But now that you took that late hatcher back with you, you’re sick!”

Ingo, who’s eyes had been half-lidded in a tired haze, opened in alert. Was Irida trying to tell him he was cursed? Surely she didn’t think-

“But don’t worry,” Irida reassured him as they reached the top of the hill, arriving outside of the medicinal tent. “Calaba has been a part of this clan for longer than any of us! She knows how to take care of things like this!”

“Lady Irida, I believe it’s just a little ill-timed sickness is all. Yesterday, I also wasn’t-“

Ingo was cut off, unable to finish his sentence as the tent flap opened, and a Bibarel stuck its head out, curious of the two voices it had been hearing. Calaba looked out a moment later, to see what had caught the Pokémon’s attention.

“Calaba!” Irida greeted her. “Good afternoon! Warden Ingo and I would like some assistance with something!”

“Oh yes?” The medicine woman asked, eyes shifting between the two of them from inside her tent. “With what?”

“Well, Warden Ingo has come down with something, and after he brought home a late hatcher last night, I’m a little concerned-“ the Pearl Clan leader began, gesturing towards the sick warden.

“-a curse!” Calaba cut them off, eyes wide. “I haven’t had to deal with one of those in ages!”

Her tone suggested to Ingo she was judging him, almost as if he broke a streak that the Pearl clan had worked so hard to maintain. As the clan’s only outsider, she often seemed to judge him a little more harshly than others.

She squinted at Ingo momentarily, looking him up and down and shaking her head at the sick sight. “And unless he’s always looks this disheveled, this one’s bad.”

“I can assure you, it’s just a common case of feeling under the weather,” Putting aside his indignant shock at her comment, Ingo tried to reassert his view on the situation, putting his free hand up as if to halt this spiraling conversation. However, it only made Calaba notice Ingo’s other hand was holding an egg-shaped lump sturdy inside his coat.

“You brought the egg with you?” Calaba gasped, apparently amazed he would do such a thing. She peeked around outside of the tent to see if anyone was around, before urging the two of them inside her tent.

“Come inside, quickly!” The medicine woman urged, opening the tent flap wide. “I don’t need anyone knowing we have a cursed warden walking around here!”

Irida must have noticed Ingo’s hesitance.

“She’ll help,” she whispered to him. Ingo sighed, and took a step inside the tent, Irida following after.

Ingo just wanted to feel better.

————

Ingo had previously thought Irida was the one who went a little overboard with the superstitions, but that was before he learned what Calaba thought about them.

“With all due respect, I firmly do not suspect it is a curse,” Ingo coughed, lying down on one of Calaba’s med beds while Irida stood close by, and Calaba searched through her shelves. Ingo still held onto Lady Sneasler’s egg. If he was being honest, he was worried Calaba might try and take it away.

“Who’s the medicine woman here?” Calaba reminded the warden as she pulled a collection of pages tied together from the shelves of ingredients, and began thumbing through the pages. “I think I know what I’m talking about.”

Approaching the med bed, Calaba’s eyes scanned the writings of a particular page. “Now, Zoroark’s curse in regards to taking a late hatcher…if you take an egg that was supposed to be left for it, it will harm your soul, corrupting it with a curse. This will leave you drained of energy, and feeling cold while also burning up. Have you been experiencing this?”

“Well, yes,” Ingo started, being quite the contrast to Calaba’s dramatic reading. “But a common ailment will also do that.”

“Hmm…” Calaba wasn’t convinced, and read on. “It fills the body with foreign gunk, a physical manifestation of the cursed soul. Now I know you’ve been coughing and experiencing congestion.”

“That can also be attributed to a common ailment,” Ingo tried his best to offer counterpoints, but felt that they were falling on deaf ears.

“Alright,” Calaba closed the notes back up like a book. “If you want to skip the symptoms, answer me this. If it’s a no, we can try your way and treat you for a physical ailment. But if it’s a yes, we must treat this as a curse. After you picked up the late hatcher, did you encounter a Zoroark on the way back to the settlement yesterday?”

Irida looked over at Ingo in concern.

Ingo’s mind drifted back to the yellow eyes he had seen in the snowstorm last night.

“Well-“ was all Ingo was able to get out.

“It’s a curse!” She asserted, cutting him off. Irida gasped at the news, and Ingo sat up, supporting himself on his elbows.

Surely not-

“Luckily, this is an easy fix,” Calaba reassured them. She pointed at the egg in Ingo’s arms.

“Come nightfall, all you have to do is leave that egg outside the settlement grounds, doing what you should have done before, and tomorrow morning, once it has been taken, you will be better.”

“I will not abandon Lady Sneasler’s Egg!” Ingo reinforced his grip on it. “I promised her I would take care of it, and she is counting on me to see to it that her egg hatches. I intend to keep my promise.”

“As long as you hold onto it, you will not get better!” the medicine woman warned, lightly bopping Ingo on the shoulder with her notes, “you have to put it outside the settlement and let the Zoroark take it.”

“I will not abandon Lady Sneasler’s egg.” Ingo coughed again as he repeated himself, and sighed as he laid back down, holding the egg against his chest. The sight worried Irida. As someone who believed in Calaba’s methods regarding curses, but also understood Ingo’s desire to keep his promise and nurture the egg, she wondered is there was a way to compromise.

“Calaba?” Irida spoke up. “Is there a way for you to remove the curse yourself?”

Calaba’s features expressed surprise for a moment, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her, and opened her collection of notes again.

“Hmmm…there are methods.” She said thoughtfully after a moment. “We can try them and go through this list of treatments, and you better hope one works. Because if they don’t…that egg is going outside the settlement. We will not lose a warden.”

The cautious relief on Ingo’s face brought Irida her own sense of relief.

————

It had been two days.

Two days of outlandish treatments for a curse Ingo was doubting more and more as time went on. He was being treated strictly for curses, but Ingo felt he needed help for a more physical type of affliction. Surely, what he was dealing with was an illness.

But despite wanting to sleep all day and stay in bed, Ingo was doing everything Calaba had asked of him…not like he had much of a choice though. Every time he brought up concerns on her methods to Irida when she came over to check on him, she opposed him.

“Calaba compromised for you, please try them,” Irida told him. “She will make you abandon that egg if you don’t.”

So he did anything she had listed out of her collection of notes. Luckily nothing seemed too strenuous on him, but he found them to be bizarre.

Sleeping under a blanket with tufts of shed zorua fur sewn in, with notes of good fortune stuffed into his pillow. It didn’t work, and Ingo had woken up, feverish and soaked in sweat in the middle of the night, it was so thick. It was a good incubator for Lady Sneasler’s egg, though.

Drinking a cold tea filled with (way too much) crunchy salt and infused with leaves from a wormadam. It didn’t work, and Ingo found it tasted awful. He gagged on it several times forcing it down, and all it did was further bother his already-upset stomach.

Rubbing a chalky salve made with powder from a ground up wyrdeer antler across his chest to apparently protect his soul, as he sat in moonlight. It didn’t work, and Ingo thought sitting in the cold night air like that only agitated his sick cough even more.

These treatments had all made the last few days miserable for Ingo, but the only saving grace in this situation was Lady Sneasler’s egg.

It had not yet hatched, but it had begun wiggling from time to time. And if it was moving, it was still trying. Ingo was determined to see to it that the egg hatched, and over the last two days he had grown quite attached to it, talking to it frequently. As his condition worsened, he did his best to keep the egg warm and incubated, but it was becoming more difficult.

As nothing provided immediate relief and Ingo regressed instead of improved - Calaba grew more and more perplexed. Ingo however, wasn’t too surprised.

The warden remembered next to nothing about where he came from before Hisui, but he didn’t think sickness had ever been linked to curses, and as such had never been dealt with like this.

Today, Calaba had ordered Ingo to go soak in the hot springs near the settlement.

Ingo had actually tried to stay in bed this morning, feeling too weak to get up to go to Calaba’s tent. Irida had barged in when Calaba reported he had not shown up yet - the Pearl clan leader half feared the curse had overtaken him. Instead finding him sweating under his covers with Lady Sneasle’s Egg on a pillow next to him, wrapped in several thick blankets, Irida had gotten him to get up and helped him to the medicine woman’s tent.

“If you’re still not feeling well, perhaps the accumulated gunk in your body from Zoroark’s curse is what’s keeping you from improving. A soak in the springs, with its medicinal effects, should loosen it.” Calaba explained as she read out of her collection of papers on ailments and how to treat them, more baseless hypotheses than proven treatments. “You’d better hope this works, we don’t have many other options left before that egg gets left outside the settlement.”

Calaba handed Ingo a folded thick garment, meant to dry him off and keep him warm after leaving the hot spring. On top of the folded clothing was a handful of dried blue fronds.

“Soak in the pool for an hour with this snow-nettle. Zoroark dislike the scent it gives off when wet - it should help the hot spring loosen the gunk afflicting you. After an hour, come back to me and we will try to expel it.”

Ingo had a hard time paying attention at this point, now three days into his sickness. But he agreed, and with Irida’s help, he trudged to the hot springs, Lady Sneasler’s egg in hand.

After Irida made sure he was alright on his own, she left, and even though Ingo’s fever had left him irritably cold the last few days, he began shedding his extra layers of clothes, leaving himself only in the clan’s black insulation underlayer. Immediately shivering as he tightly wrapped Lady Sneasler’s egg in his thick tunic, tattered coat, worn hat, and the thick garment Calaba gave him, the warden lowered himself into the pools.

The few Swinub that liked to regularly soak in the hot spring waded closer to the warden out of curiosity, but he barely noticed.

Ingo closed his eyes, feeling the pressure of stuffed sinuses under his eyelids as he submerged himself up to his nose within the steaming waters of the hot spring. He had to admit, even if he felt Calaba was treating him for the wrong thing, this felt pretty relaxing. He wasn’t sure about the “medicinal properties” Calaba went on about, but it did help ease his weary body.

The incessant aches that had been afflicting Ingo’s body over the last several days eased up slightly in the hot waters of the pool. They didn’t melt away like he hoped they would, but the hot spring helped relax the aches to a bearable amount. And washing off the fever-induced sweat he was constantly subjected to felt so nice.

Ingo sniffed and wiped at his stuffy nose, his breath visible amongst the steam lifting from the hot waters as he turned to Lady Sneasler’s egg. The snow-nettle Calaba had given him had been placed next to the egg. Ingo grabbed a handful of them and dropped them in the hot water around him.

With his stuffy nose, Ingo couldn’t tell what sort of scent the snow-nettle gave off, but by the way the Swinub lazily drifted away, he could tell it was working.

Releasing the last of the leaves, Ingo glanced to the side at Lady Sneasler’s egg, wrapped up snuggly.

Was it warm enough?

Ingo reached out of the pool, pulling his coat around it a little tighter. It wiggled once again, and Ingo steadied it, feeling it jostle. It was still trying.

Ingo thought back on Calaba’s words. He already felt the thought of choosing to leave late hatchers out in the cold, instead of helping them, was morbid enough. How many eggs had been lost because of this rule? Hopefully not too many, considering Pearl Clan wasn’t as well-acquainted with working with Pokémon as he was.

But Ingo could never imagine leaving this egg out, alone to most likely be snatched up by anything, not just a Zoroark. Not after it had been trying so hard. He couldn’t imagine showing back up to Lady Sneasler alone.

But if none of Calaba’s methods were working, and they ran out of treatments, would she force him to leave it if it hadn’t hatched yet? The woman seemed to be convinced it was a curse.

Not that he would give up on this egg, and maybe it was the fever-induced cloudiness in his brain, but Ingo was starting to wonder himself. He wasn’t sold on the idea, but…

…No, it wasn’t a curse.

Taking a shallow breath, as Ingo feared taking a deep one would earn him a fit of coughs, he allowed himself to slip further under the surface of the hot water. His throat felt thick, lined with the same gunk that contested his nose and clogged his heavy lungs. His eyes felt heavy, the heat in his brain pushing against the back of them. His arms and legs ached like he’d been overworking them, despite doing the opposite.

He wasn’t getting better. But for now, the hot water comforted him and numbed the aches. He let his consciousness start to drift.

Almost.

A shout calling his name broke the silence, and yanked Ingo out of his state of murky relaxation, and back into his achy, sick reality.

Did Ingo hear that right? Fever-induced delirium had set in last night, and Ingo had found that already twice this morning, he had turned his head to a sound, to see nothing was there.

But then he heard it again, a little louder and clearer. This wasn’t delirium, surely.

Ingo recognized the voice. Why was she all the way up here, looking for him?

“Miss Akari, I’m up here!” Ingo called out, not at all pleased with how hoarse his voice sounded when he raised it.

Loud footsteps approached as they followed his voice, and Ingo saw Akari come into view as she approached the hot springs, kicking snow up. She was breathing heavy as if she’s been running around the whole settlement; her breaths came out as big clouds that hung in the frozen air, the colder temperatures making her face red.

She was clearly not as used to this weather as the rest of Pearl clan was.

“There you are!” The young girl huffed as she caught her breath, slumping forward as she put her hands on her knees. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you! You were supposed to show up again at the training grounds, like, three days ago! It’s been only Zisu there! I was worried something happened!”

The worry in Akari’s voice tugged at Ingo’s chest, and he rubbed at the back of his neck with a dripping hand.

“Apologies, Miss Akari. I have not been feeling well, and lady Irida has relieved me of my duties until I recover. I did not mean to be out of commission this long; I had assumed someone would cover my duties at the training grounds at this point.”

“You’ve been sick? For three days?” Akari asked as she came and sat down on a rock near the pool, feeling the heat from the steam that rose off the waters. She could see now up close how sick he looked; the man was even paler than usual, his red stuffy nose being the exception, and had dark circles under his eyes.

“Shouldn’t you be better by now?”

“Ah, I would imagine so.” Ingo sniffed. “Calaba’s treatments have been a little outlandish though. I feel they are setting me back.”

Ingo left it at that, and did not elaborate. Akari shot him a look of confusion, and it took Ingo a moment to understand.

“She suspects I am suffering from a curse.”

“A curse!” Akari gasped, standing up off the rock. “From what! What did you do to get cursed?”

Ingo couldn’t tell if she was indulging in him, or actually believed in curses. But he decided to humor her in case she was genuine.

“From taking home this egg from Lady Sneasler,” Ingo grunted as he turned, reaching out behind him to grasp the egg and present it to Akari, which had been previously concealed in his clothes. “It’s behind schedule for hatching, so I took it back with me to provide additional care. Calaba believes taking home, hmm…’late hatchers’…places one under a Zoroark’s curse.”

At the sight of the egg in Ingo’s hands, Akari make a squealing sound, her eyes big and sparkly.

“A baby!!” The young girl jumped up and down in excitement, exploding into a list of questions as she forgot all about Ingo’s sick condition. “Lady Sneasler’s babies finally hatched!! How many are there? Can I see them? Can you take me? When can we go? Is the baby in the egg a boy or a girl? Can I hold the egg??”

“Eight at the moment, yes, yes, when I am back in commission, I’m not sure yet, and…yes, if you’re careful,” Ingo said weakly, interrupting his list of answers with a cough.

“Hold it carefully,” the warden held the egg out to Akari, his arms slightly shaking with the sickness having sapped his strength, and Akari grabbed it up with a type of energy Ingo wished he had.

“It’s so cute!!” The young girl squealed as she took in the sight of it, hugging it close. It wiggled in her arms, and she gasped. “And it’s moving! Is it close to hatching?”

Ingo still felt horrible, but the company of Akari had him quietly laughing for the first time in days; she had an infectious happiness that Ingo wished more people expressed.

“I hope it’s close to hatching. Lady Sneasler and the egg’s siblings are waiting for it.” Ingo sniffed again as he sunk back down into the hot water of the spring, the rising steam beginning to loosen the congestion and making his nose run. Maybe this is what Calaba meant by “loosening the gunk”.

Akari’s doting over the egg dwindled at Ingo’s sorry sight, her thoughts returning to his condition.

“So, how do you know it’s a curse?” She asked, holding the egg against her to conserve warmth for it.

“I have my doubts.” Ingo corrected her assumption, closing his eyes as he took in the warmth from the hot spring. “But because of my symptoms, and seeing a Zoroark on my path back to the settlement with the egg the night before I fell ill, Calaba is convinced I am under a curse, saying I should have left the egg for the Zoroark.”

“Seeing a Zoroark while holding an egg? That doesn’t curse you!” Akari burst out as if it was laughable. She pulled out her field notes she had written in her Pokédex, trying her best to page through it with one free hand. “Zoroark don’t even seem to do anything with eggs, unless it’s one of their own! I’ve never recorded them ever seeking out eggs, and I’ve seen them pass right by Pokémon’s nests before without a care!”

Akari shut her book and put it back away as she looked back at the egg in her hands. “I would say this isn’t a curse, you’re just sick! You seem like it to me, anyways. How has Calaba been treating this?”

“Rituals with items that seem to contain medicinal properties, and wards.” The man answered, realizing how silly these methods seemed now that Akari was starting to talk some sense into him.

“No wonder you’ve been so sick for three days!” The girl gasped, readjusting the egg in her arms. “You need rest, and medicine, and soup! Not rituals and wards!”

The thought of those three things certainly sounded much nicer to Ingo than the latter two.

“I admit I would prefer the former,” Ingo sighed, imagining how nice it would be to be sleeping back in his bed right now.

“Well then, come on!” Akari went over to Ingo’s things, collecting his extra clothes in her free arm. “You need to go back home!”

“Calaba requested I return to her after I finish soaking in the hot spring to finish this treatment,” Ingo stated, not budging from the hot spring. In truth, he knew the cold was going to bite him the second he left the warm waters.

“You won’t get better until you start taking care of yourself the way you should be,” the girl told him as she approached the edge of the spring, holding the thick garment out to Ingo so he could dry off and stay warm.

“Please do not come too close, Miss,” Ingo warned her, moving away from her as she approached him. “If I am just sick, I do not want to spread it to you.”

“Pshh,” Akari brushed it off. “If I get sick, I get sick! But you need to get back home and rest!”

Ingo hesitated a moment, before moving to the edge of the hot spring and pulling himself out - arguing with Akari on this would not amount to anything, and he knew it. Immediately shivering, he struggled to his feet and grasped at the garment Akari held out, pulling it around himself tightly to try and dry off and warm up.

Akari held the egg out to him so he could take it next, but Ingo waved it off.

“I am soaking right now- it would be better if you hold it and keep it warm,” Ingo sniffed, shaking as he slumped forward.

So Akari bundled the egg in Ingo’s coat and tunic, while putting his hat on her own head, and helped lead him down the hill, back to his house.

————

Placing Lady Sneasler’s Egg back into its spot on the bed, surrounded by pillows and blankets, Ingo eased himself back into his bed. sighing as he repositioned himself into it and pulled the thick covers back over himself, Ingo noted how good it felt to finally be off of his feet.

As soon as they had gotten back to Ingo’s home, Akari told him to go change into something comfortable and to get to bed.

“I’ll be right back!” She said, heading back for his door. “I just need to get some things from my storage box really quick!”

So she left, and Ingo was alone. He slipped back into a fresh tunic, and crawled back under the covers.

Calaba would not be happy with this, but Ingo found himself not caring too much. He felt so out of sorts at this point, and still did not remember much of how sicknesses were dealt with in his time, but Akari’s methods seemed to feel much more accurate compared to Calaba’s.

And Ingo trusted Akari; she had come from a time similar to him, hadn’t she? Surely she would know the right way to take care of this…

The door to Ingo’s home opened again, and Akari walked through, her satchel stuffed.

“I’m back!” She announced, closing the door quickly so as not to let too much cold air in. With the Pearl Clan’s homes seemingly being a combination between the wooden units like Akari’s back at Jubilife village, and tents, the whole living area was one large room.

Ingo made a noise to acknowledge and welcome her back, but he was too relaxed, now back in his bed, to say anything.

Ingo heard sloshing noises, and opened his eyes to see Akari bringing a bowl of water with small chunks of ice in it, setting it in her lap as she sat on his bedside.

“My mom always did this for me when I got sick,” Akari explained, feeling his (rather sweaty) forehead with her hand. He was absolutely burning up!

He’d been left like this for three days?

Akari fished out the rag and squeezed the excess water out of it, before folding it up. Ingo flinched when she placed it across his forehead; it was colder than he expected.

“Now, um, keep that there, and tell me when it gets warm. I’m going to try and make some soup now,” Akari said as she looked around the room, trying to remember everything one should do when someone was sick. “Where is your kitchen?”

“Cooking pots are in the corner by the coal pit,” Ingo told her, pointing to his “kitchen”, which was nothing more than a few shelves, containing the bare minimum of cooking instruments, and barely any ingredients to cook with.

“Hmm,” Akari browsed the shelves. He didn’t have much to work with at all; some potatoes and apricorns, and a few pecha berries. “Good thing I brought some of my own stuff!”

Taking her satchel off from around her, Akari dumped out everything she had retrieved from her storage box and brought with her.

Bugwort and medicinal leeks for their nutrients, kings leaves to boost the efficacy, various mushrooms and sootfoot roots for taste, and pep-up plants to add some spice. Mixed with Ingo’s potatoes, it shouldn’t be too bad!

Pulling out a soup recipe she had brought with her, she double checked all of the ingredients she had on the table were the right ones. Making soup was something Akari hadn’t done many times before, but she could do this!

The girl put the recipe down with the ingredients, before grabbing one of Ingo’s cooking pots and running out the door.

Ingo, who had succumbed to the comfiness of his bed, looked up from his pillow for a moment at hearing the door open and close. Where did she go?

Akari came back in a second later holding the pot, which had been filled with snow.

“I needed more water,” she explained as she hung the pot over the firepit, noticing she had caught Ingo’s attention. Ingo went back to his previous position, sinking back into his pillow as Akari poked at the coals, starting a small heat to cook the pot.

As Akari waited for the snow in the pot to melt, she sat there in silence, the room quiet, except for the sound of Ingo’s heavy breathing, ragged through congested lungs.

She went over to check the cool rag she had put across his forehead, and she found it was warm. He didn’t tell her it had warmed up!

“Ingo, I said to tell me when it warmed up,” Akari took the rag and soaked it back in the iced water again, squeezing it out and folding it back to place against his forehead again.

“Apologies, did not notice it change,”

This fever definitely needed to be broken…

Akari looked back over at her satchel, and went to root through it. Perhaps she had some…

————

“Ingo? Soup is done!”

Ingo, awoken from a murky sleep, opened his eyes at Akari’s words. He moved the rag off of his forehead, somehow still cool, (unaware Akari had kept changing it) and looked out over the covers of his bed. He saw Akari was pouring soup out of a pot into a bowl, steam rising from the hot liquid.

“Can you sit up?” Akari asked as she brought the bowl over.

Ingo did his best to sit up, before taking the bowl into his hands. “Thank you for preparing this, Miss Akari,”

“I hope it tastes ok!” The girl commented as Ingo took a sip from it. “I never really made soup before.”

The soup was hot, as soup should be - Ingo would give her that. It felt good on his sore throat, at least. But the taste and the texture was…not what he expected from a soup, to say the least.

“You did good with it,” Ingo lied, swallowing thickly. How did she undercook the mushrooms, but overcook the potatoes?

“I have more in the pot if you’d like seconds!” Akari gestured to the cooking pot hanging over the coal pit, to Ingo’s dismay.

“I’ll see how I do with this first,” Ingo looked back down at the bowl he already had to avoid eye contact.

“Oh! I also made this while the soup was cooking,” Akari left his bedside to grab something at his table, coming back to present it.

“I used some of the empty bottles I found on your shelves, I hope that was ok,” the young girl held out a bottle filled with a viscous light blue liquid of sorts. Several others were clutched in her other hand. Ingo took the bottle and looked it over as Akari kept explaining.

“It should help with your fever. I mixed some of my rawst berries and candy truffles, so it brings down your temperature and gives you some strength back. Try some.”

Ingo unscrewed the bottle, and sipped from it. Akari did a much better job preparing this than she had with the soup; mixing berries with candy truffles had left it tasting very sweet.

“Bravo, excellent job preparing this!” Ingo wiped at his mouth as Akari took the empty bottle back. “It tastes very good for a medicine.”

“My mom used to make them a lot for me too when I got sick! So I know how to make them too; it’s a lot more simple than making soup.” Akari explained, proud of her handiwork.

“Your mother sounds very caring,” Ingo commented. But perhaps he said something wrong, as some of the brightness in Akari’s face dimmed.

“Yeah,” she replied as she sat down on Ingo’s bedside, her smile more melancholy now. “She is. She would always take care of me when I got sick. No one was taking care of you, so I thought I’d try and do what my mom would do.”

Ingo knew she was recalling her family. He could not say the same for himself, being unable to recall explicit memories like she could, but he could recall fragments, and understood the feeling of missing someone.

“Well you did a good job,” Ingo cleared his throat, gently trying to pull her from the bittersweet memories, “As I am already feeling better!”

“Really?” Akari perked up at the apparent good news.

“Maintenance is still required before I am at my best, but I am on track to recovery.” Ingo replied, before taking another sip from his bowl of soup.

The fever was still here. The cough, and the stuffy nose was still here. The chills were still here. But Ingo’s mind was clearer, and his aches were diminishing. “Your methods are most helpful! This is the best I have felt in days.”

“Yes! I knew it wasn’t a curse!” Akari cheered. As if cheering with her, Lady Sneasler’s egg jostled around from its mountain of pillows and blankets on Ingo’s bed.

“See! Baby is happy too!” Akari reached over to pick up the egg and hold it, talking to it. “You definitely didn’t curse Ingo!”

Ingo huffed with a weak smile as he slouched against his bed frame. So he had suspected right, this really did seem to just be an ill-timed sickness!

A swift pounding at Ingo’s door caught everyone’s attention; even the egg stopped wiggling. The pounding sounded angry.

Akari looked at Ingo in silence, gesturing to the door and asking if she should open it. Ingo nodded slowly, and Akari went over, cautiously opening it.

Immediately, Calaba burst in, Bibarel following closely behind, and her sights locked onto Ingo immediately.

“There you are!” She shouted, shooting daggers into him as she marched over to his bedside. “What are you doing in bed? I’ve been waiting for you for three hours! You were supposed to come back to my tent after soaking in the hot spring!”

“Calaba, if you allow me to explain-“ Ingo shrunk into his blankets as if to escape her.

“Lucky for you, I brought what we need to complete the expulsion treatment! You’d better hope the gunk is still loose from soaking in the springs!”

Ingo shrunk even further into his covers to see Calaba pull out a braviary feather.

“Now lean your head back so I can stick this up your nose! The hot spring loosened the gunk, now you just need to sneeze it out and expel the curse! It’s going to be harder doing this three hours after you soaked, but with this blessed feather, if we do this now, maybe we can-“

“-he’s not cursed Calaba!” Akari grabbed the feather away from the medicine woman before she could do anything drastic with it. “He’s just been sick!”

————

Ingo was eternally grateful to Akari for convincing Calaba that indeed, he was getting better.

“He certainly looks better than he did this morning,” Calaba had commented when she noticed a little bit of color had seeped back into his skin.

She wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t cursed though. She felt that one of her previous treatments had worked, and had taken some time to really kick in.

“As long as you’re improving, that’s what matters,” Calaba had said, taking her braviary feather back from Akari. “But, keep doing what you’ve been doing, for good measure.”

There had been a pause, before another sentence.

“And if that egg hatches, congratulate your noble for me, warden! That’s a lucky kit!”

And with that, Calaba and her Bibarel had left.

Akari stayed with Ingo as the day went on and the sun set lower. She mostly wanted to be there to make sure Ingo stayed stable on his road to recovery, but she also wanted to see if Lady Sneasler’s egg would hatch.

“It might not hatch today,” Ingo told the girl as she talked to it, trying to keep her from getting her hopes up too high. From his bed, he watched her hold it as she sat at his table, swaddling it in a blanket.

“But it could!” She retorted, before turning back to the egg. “I know you want to hatch! I really want to see you!”

But as the hours went by, and the sun went down, nothing significant had happened.

The bowl of water Akari used to soak the rag had long since had all the ice melted.

The pot that held the questionable soup was now empty, Ingo somehow being able to endure seconds.

The rawst berry medicine had been finished off as well, working to break the fever that still burned in Ingo’s body.

But the egg still had not hatched. It still jostled around, but no cracks broke the surface yet.

“Miss Akari, it is getting late,” Ingo commented, observing Akari still staring at the egg from its blanket nest. “I suggest you get some sleep.”

“But what if the egg hatches during the night?” She asked sleepily, trying to cover a yawn with her hand. The only light still visible in the room was a single lanturn that Akari had placed at the table, and it illuminated both her and the egg.

“I will inform you if the egg begins the process,” Ingo reassured her as he pulled back the covers to get out of bed. “But you need your rest.”

Walking over to the table, Ingo picked up the egg, still in its blanket, and patted Akari on the shoulder, who made a face.

“You’re the one who’s sick though! You need rest too!”

“I will get some rest, don’t worry,” Ingo trudged back to his bed and placed the egg back amongst the mountain of pillows and blankets he had piled against the bed frame. “But I will notice if it begins to hatch, and I will be sure to tell you.”

“…ok,” Akari gave in after some hesitation. As Ingo went to extinguish the flame in the lantern, Akari began to put down layers of blankets and pillows down on the floor, making a bed for herself. “I’m trusting you!”

————

It was still dark outside, the early hours of the morning when Ingo’s fever broke.

His eyes shot open to stare at the dark ceiling, the room being illuminated by the moonlight seeping through the window, with the shadow of snowfall drifting against the light.

Then he noticed that he was absolutely drenched in sweat.

Disgusting.

The warden peeled his hot blankets off of him, stumbling cautiously through the dark to find that bowl of water Akari had brought for the rag.

Locating it on his table, he cupped his hands in the cool water and splashed his face, washing the sweat from it.

As gross as it felt, Ingo was relieved; the fever had finally broken. He’d still be tired the next day, but he would be feeling much better.

He dipped his hands in the water again, but froze as he heard a subtle cracking sound.

————

“Miss Akari!”

A harsh, urgent (excited?) whisper cut through the silence.

Akari’s eyes fluttered open, still heavy with sleep.

Everything was dark. It was still early morning.

Five more minutes…

“Miss!”

“What..?”

“Lady Sneasler’s egg is hatching!”

Akari was up in seconds.

“It’s hatching! It’s hatching!” She whispered excitedly as she rushed to Ingo’s bedside to see the egg, still in the mountain of blankets, while Ingo lit the lantern.

In the soft light that now illuminated the room, Akari could see the egg jostling about, but this time, there were cracks in the shell.

Another jostle, and a crack deepened.

Akari could hardly contain herself, and she latched onto Ingo in a side hug as she tried to contain her excitement, making all sorts of excited noises.

With another crack, a section of the egg’s shell broke off, and a tiny claw could be seen reaching out.

With a final crack, the egg opened, and a tiny white and purple face poked out, softly mewing, calling out to a mother that wasn’t there.

Akari gasped, and Ingo smiled a tired smile. He reached out and carefully scooped up the tiny sneaslet, holding it in his hands. He took a warm rag he had prepared, and gently started cleaning the little kit. It mewed quietly with its eyes still shut tight, leaning into the warmness of the rag.

“It’s a girl!” Akari pointed out the stunted ear feather as she watched from over Ingo’s shoulder, overjoyed, “she’s so cute!”

“Welcome aboard, little miss,” Ingo greeted the sneaslet.

[atinyarmyzen]

GOOD GIRL$ - JJS 

💋 ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs: ᴍᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ (+18)!! ᴅᴀʀᴋ ᴛʜᴇᴍᴇs, ᴅʀɪɴᴋɪɴɢ/sᴍᴏᴋɪɴɢ, ᴜɴᴘʀᴏᴛᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ sᴇx (ᴡʀᴀᴘ ɪᴛ ʙᴇғᴏʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴀᴘ ɪᴛ), sᴍᴜᴛ, ɪʟʟᴇɢᴀʟ ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠɪᴛɪᴇs, ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ, ᴠɪᴏʟᴇɴᴄᴇ, sᴡᴇᴀʀɪɴɢ 💋 ɢᴇɴʀᴇ: ʀɪᴄʜ ᴋɪᴅ ᴀᴜ, ᴍᴀғɪᴀ ᴀᴜ, ᴇɴᴇᴍɪᴇs ᴛᴏ ʟᴏᴠᴇʀs, ᴍᴜᴛᴜᴀʟ ᴘɪɴɪɴɢ 💋 ᴡᴄ: about 15k (oops) 💋 ᴛᴀɢʟɪsᴛ: @huangvibez ✧ @hwanghyunjinworld ✧ @julibeeeee ✧ @retrobabezzz ✧ @riajae ✧ @wonderfulkoreanpop ✧ @nowimnana ✧ @neocluefor ✧ @stayzenniesstuff ✧ @raven-rin ✧ @suhlmate​ ✧ @jacobsbatalon✧ @lighthyucks ✧ @jwoos-colored 💋 ᴅɪsᴄʟᴀɪᴍᴇʀ: ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴏʀᴋ ɪɴ ɴᴏ ᴡᴀʏ ʀᴇғʟᴇᴄᴛs ᴛʜᴇ ɪᴅᴇᴀʟs ᴏʀ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀɪsᴛɪᴄs ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ɪᴅᴏʟs ɪɴᴠᴏʟᴠᴇᴅ, ᴛʜɪs ɪs ᴘᴜʀᴇʟʏ ᴀ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ᴏғ ғɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ- ᴀʟsᴏ, I’ᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ sᴏ I ᴄᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ, ʙᴜᴛ ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ʀᴇɢᴀʀᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs ɪғ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ᴀ ᴍɪɴᴏʀ.

  a/n: hey y'all! it's been a wild year but I finally finished this damn fic 😭the original collab was cancelled, but I was already almost finished so I'm posting it anyway! thank you to everyone who wanted to be added to the tag list and who supports my writing, I was actually shocked at how many followers I gain during this inactive period <3 I hope you all enjoy and it was worth the wait!!

“Well look what the cat dragged in.” Johnny chided as the poor bastard who didn’t pay his dues was thrown at his feet. “Nice to see you again, old timer.” 

The grimy little shit managed to evade the commission for months now, but they finally caught him in his usual alley trying his cheap cons. 

“Listen, junior.” The older man said between gasps, “I’ve been around this town since before you were born. Just because daddy isn’t here-” He was cut off with a swift blow to the jaw by one of the burly men that dragged him in there. 

“You’re right my guy- he isn’t here.” Johnny said before his grin fell from his face into an icy glare. He leaned forward, his tone now dangerous. “So I’d watch your fucking mouth if I were you.” 

The con man spit out a tooth, “You can’t treat me like this! I’ve been too loyal to your father for too long!” He seethed.

Johnny’s grin returned to his features before he leaned back in his chair. “Oh, I beg to differ, old man. We know you’ve been taking clients out from under us to run your stupid little scams.” The old man’s eyes went wide with dread at the realization. “So,” Johnny continued. “This is just a little precaution to make sure you remember who you’re loyal to.” With that, Johnny gave a quick nod to the guard beside him who started towards the con man with a blade in hand, while the two bouncers grabbed him before he could run. 

“NO! Please! We can talk this out- I swear I’ll never do it again!” He pleaded. Johnny’s face was like stone, unblinking. 

“One finger should be enough” He told his men casually, lifting the glass to his lips to finish off his wine. 

“Hey y/n!” You turned to see one of your best friends running to catch up with you. “Hey!” you greeted her as she caught up to you. “You ready for club day?” She asked, chipper as always. “It’s the only thing I like about starting a new semester.” You smiled at her, Momo had always been able to cheer you up, no matter how foul your mood was from lack of sleep. 

“I think so, this year is probably going to be the biggest ever. There’s more femme students than ever this year, so it finally won’t be a just a giant frat rush.” Momo laughed at your comment. 

“Thank god.” She sighed. You both giggled while walking arm and arm to class in the cold autumn air.  

That’s when you heard the screeching of tires in the front of the school. What a jackass. You rolled your eyes and sighed as you turned your head to see the same shiny, black Audi R8 come to a stop in one of the priority parking spots. The door swung open and a tall, broad man stepped out. He turned around to shut the door, swinging his Dior bag over his shoulder as he did. He wore a black turtleneck and adjusted his leather jacket that he layered over it before pushing back the strands of black hair that hung in his eyes. You stayed glued in your spot, scowling at him and trying to make your distaste for his obnoxious entrance as noticeable as possible. You noticed he caught your gaze and lifted his shades to meet eyes with you. 

“What’s the matter, Miss President? Didn’t think you’d be so pissy this early in the morning.” Johnny said with a shit-eating grin.

You let out an incredulous laugh. “This isn’t a fucking car meet Suh, quit being such a jackass.” Johnny’s eyes glinted with delight at your annoyance. 

“Sure thing, dollface.” He sent you a wink before turning his attention to his guy friends who no doubt also had trust funds. God, I fucking hate him. 

“You let him get to you so easy, y/n” Momo laughed as you shot daggers at the back of his stupid head. 

“I’m the only one who seems to discipline him. Somebody has to remind him that he isn’t the center of the universe.” You grumbled lowly, watching him laugh it up with his little rich boy friends. “As long as I’m around, he’s not going to have it so easy.” You said before you and Momo started back in the direction of class again. 

You hated to admit it, but Johnny always got under your skin- even his very presence irks you to no end. Sure he was a cocky asshole who made it a point to give you hell, but it was more than that. He comes from money, and the privilege that comes with it is what really gets to you. You know he’s a good student, but you also know he could have just as easily bought his spot here too. You had to fight tooth and nail to get here, facing more obstacles than most of these trust fund babies could ever dream of- obstacles that shouldn’t even exist in the first place. Still, here you are at the top of your class, beating them all out as the student council president, and being very well-respected in doing it. 

Deep down though, what really bothers you the most is that- well, he’s ridiculously hot (not that you would ever give him the satisfaction of admitting it). You also try to forget that there had been one or two times you rubbed one out while thinking of him. It was almost a bit unnerving how much of a sweetheart he was to all of the professors and administration, and they adored him. It only made your distaste for him seem all the more unjustified to everyone else. He could turn on all the charm, the politeness, and the charisma to fool anyone into thinking he was an absolute angel. They never saw the cheeky grins, the snide comments, and the never-ending list of girls he left on read. 

The odd part was nobody really knew his private life. He would come to parties- sometimes even host them in his obnoxiously luxurious bachelor pad- but besides that it seemed like he kept everything else hidden. It was like even those he hung out with the most didn’t know who he was as a person since he never let anyone in beyond just superficial relationships. 

Not like you could really judge- considering your...unique situation. 

“Midterms review is next week, everyone. We will be covering chapters 1-5 in your text. See you all Tuesday.” Your economics professor announced to the class as everyone shuffled about to leave. You were particularly eager to get out of there today since your had to run straight to work. It was your first week so you couldn’t afford to be late. You pulled your coat over your shoulders and slung your bag over your arm, walking into the brisk evening air. It was twilight, and the campus sort of felt like a tiny little bubble of stillness compared to the controlled chaos that was NYC. 

Luckily the nearest subway station was just outside campus, and within a minute you were plunged into the concrete jungle. You made your way to your platform to hop on the A train down to Tribeca, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. You made your ascent up the stairs to street level, seeing the familiar streets flooded with flashing lights. Turning down the usually alley, you entered a building through the back entrance. 

The scene you encountered you still needed to get used to. Half-naked people bustled about the locker room, getting ready for tonight. There was an air of anticipation since it was Friday night and everyone was expecting to make a pretty penny. Some sat sat by the mirrors fixing their makeup, others looked like they just hopped out the shower, and others were securing their outfits and heels. 

You never expected yourself to be working here, but after an old friend told you what bartenders make- it was hard to pass up. Unlike many of your peers, you didn’t have mommy and daddy’s money to live off of. Your tiny little apartment in Brooklyn wasn’t cheap- even if it was a shoebox that you shared with your friend. You needed to make rent somehow, and if working at one of the most exclusive strip clubs in NYC as a bartender could do that without compromising your academics, well then why not? 

Your locker was right next to this girl named Nicolette, she was one of the dancers and looked like a supermodel. She was one of the first people you made friends with here. “Ah- well if it isn’t Madame Présidente.” She in her thick French accent, elbowing you jokingly. Nicolette came to New York with the aspiration of modeling, but with how competitive the industry is found herself here to make ends meet, much like a lot of the other staff. 

“Hey Nicolette,” You said with a warm smile. She had a comforting presence to you. “I love the shoes tonight.” You said pointing out the Christian Louboutin stilettos she was fastening to her feet. 

“Ah- yes, eet’s a special night, you know? We ‘ave some very rich company coming this evening, and I plan to max out some credit cards.” She said giving you a wink. You laughed, she was never afraid to hustle a man and you couldn’t help but admire her.  

You still had some time, so you decided to take a quick shower before sitting down to do your makeup in one of the vanity mirrors. A simple winged liner with a pop of glitter in the corners of your eyes did nicely, along with a glossy pink lip. You popped on your lashes and sat back to admire your work. You unclipped your hair to let in fall on your shoulders and decided to go with some retro-style waves tonight. 

The dress you were wearing tonight definitely did some damage to your bank account, but when you tried it on you simply fell in love. It was a simple black dress with a fitted bodice what made your boobs look fantastic, the sleeves draped over your shoulders and the skirt hugged your hips made for a lovely silhouette. You decided to top off your look with a pair of chic heels that had straps over your toes and around your ankle. 

The outfits always felt a bit extravagant to you, but then again you were interacting some of the wealthiest people in the world- so you had to look the part. Spraying some perfume on your neck, you closed your locker and made your way to the main floor. The lights were already on and the DJ was already setting the vibe with some music. You waved to the AV guy in the back of the room before walking behind the bar to set up. 

As soon as the clock hit 9 p.m. the rush never stopped. The club was packed to the brim with high-rollers of all kinds. Though you were new to the place, you had quickly made yourself a valuable employee. You had no respect for virtually any of the men that approached you, since you knew exactly just how easily they are able to exploit people with their obscene wealth. 

So, why not use your feminine charm to your advantage? 

“Hey baby, how about some shots?” An older man in a navy suit, and a gold wedding band on his ring finger. These men have no shame, do they? 

You put on your sweetest smile, and said in your most seductive tone. “Sure thing, honey. What can I get you?”

“One round of shots of your finest whiskey for my table over there.” He said, very conspicuously eyeing you up and down. “And one for yourself.” 

“Oh, what a gentlemen.” You purred. Your insides twisted at the man’s audacity- not quite used to the job yet, but you decided you were going to get a good tip out of him. 

You turned around and made a point to bend down slowly, arching your back as you grabbed a bottle from the bottom shelf. You lined up the shot glasses and expertly poured 9 of them, you made sure to pour them extra heavy since you knew the more inebriated they were, the more money they spend. 

“Here you go, sir.” Pushed the shots towards him, leaning over to show as much cleavage as you could. Nicolette came up behind the man, sliding her hands over his shoulders. 

“Come back over to us, darling. I miss you.” Nicolette said lowly in his hear before grabbing some of the shots to bring back to the table. 

“Thanks, babydoll.” He said to you, sliding a hundred dollar bill your way before walking away with Nicolette. She turned back to you, discreetly holding up a black credit card that you could only assume was his with an evil grin on her face. You gave her an exaggerated wink. 

You slumped through the locker room door, immediately reaching for the straps of your heels. The sweet relief of your feet against the cool tile was amazing as you walked over to your locker to grab your change of clothes. As you were zipping up your hoodie, one of the female managers came over to hand you an envelope with your tips. The tips were pooled and split among all the waitresses and bartenders. 

“Killer night! Thanks for being a trooper, honey!” She said as she walked away. 

“Thanks!” You called out. You peeked inside the envelope and saw it was about a thousand dollars cash, just another reminder of how much it was worth all the gawking, sleazy men. 

You heaved a satisfied sigh and shut your locker before bidding everyone a good night and walking out the back door. The streets were still busy- it’s the city that never sleeps after all- and you were content with your night’s earnings and ready for a shower and your bed. You turned the corner from the alley to the street before you stopped dead in your tracks and hid behind the wall. 

What the hell is he doing here? You thought before peeking back from behind the wall. It was definitely him. Except he was with some men you’d never seen before- they definitely weren’t from school. They were all walking towards you, Johnny walking behind what looked like a human version of a tank. He sauntered along with a hand in his pocket as he was looking down at his phone. From the glimpse you got, you couldn’t help but notice that he looked absolutely delectable in that Dolce & Gabanna suit. You held your breath and turned your back as him and his group walked by, thanking your lucky stars he was too distracted to see you. 

As soon as they were far enough down the street, you slipped out and started walking the opposite way to get to your station. You were able to hop on your usual train despite the delay, but you were lost in though the whole way home. What was he doing on that side of town? Who were those scary looking guys he was with? And god dammit- did he look good. 

You were snapped out of your trance by the voice announcing your stop over the speaker. It was a pretty short walk to your place. The door to your building just as sketchy and difficult to open as ever. You groaned at the ungodly amount of stairs.

Your roommate and friend Alex was sitting on the tiny couch scrolling through Netflix when you walked in. “’Sup Hanna Montana, how’s the double life going?” They quipped when they saw you drop your heels and work clothes. 

“Well judging by tonight’s tip haul, I’d say pretty well.” You said holding up your wad of cash.

“Shit, I should just quit my job then since my roommate’s a sugar mama.” Alex said now resting their head in their hands as they admired your earnings from the couch. 

You snorted. “Yeah, I wish. I doubt being a sugar mama is this fucking exhausting.” You yawned as you took out your hair clip and made your way to the bathroom. “Gonna take a shower!” You called out to Alex.

“Don’t use all the hot water this time!” They called back as they focused their attention back on the TV. 

You lay in bed running back what you saw over and over again. Anxiety started to eat at you with the close call of being found out- by him of all people. You decided you had to be extra careful from now on, you just couldn’t afford to be exposed. The image of Johnny didn’t leave your mind either, I mean for fuck’s sake he was just walking- but the suit, the posture, the hair, his insanely beautiful bone structure, fuck. He looked different this time, not like a regular university student- but someone who had an air of authority...maybe a little bit of danger?

You cursed yourself, letting out an exasperated sigh before you grabbed your little bullet vibrator off your nightstand. 

It was dawn when you woke up, you had to be on campus early this morning for a student council meeting before classes begin. It was times like this that your double life wore on you, constantly the first one up and the last to go to sleep. It’s not like you had much of a choice in the matter anyway, and besides at this rate you could probably make enough to afford a bigger place. 

The student council room was now buzzing with chatter, this was one of the meeting everyone wanted to attend because it was time to decide where the school is hosting its annual mixer- aka the biggest party of the year. 

“Alright everyone, listen up.” You called out to the room as it hushed at the sound of your voice. “I know this year is important because of the uni’s 100 year anniversary, so let’s make this one count.”   

“Okay-” You were cut off by the sound of the door opening. Johnny saunters in with an iced coffee in his hand, obviously moving on his own time. He looked strikingly different than the Johnny you saw last night. His hair was now a light brown and laid lazily in waves on his head that gave him a very youthful, soft look. He wore a large sweatshirt and jeans- the picture of a typical handsome university student.

“You’re late.” You said pointedly. He looked at you with a soft smile. 

“So sorry, President y/n. Parking was impossible this morning. I hope I didn’t disrupt anything.” Johnny said with an impressively believable tone of remorse. 

You couldn’t snap back at him without sounding totally out of pocket since everyone was watching the exchange. So, you were forced to be polite.

“It’s fine, no problem.” You said flatly, turning to your vice president to take it  from there.

“Okay so-” The vice president began speaking beside you. Everyone’s attention was soon on him and away from you. You stole a glance at Johnny who was already staring directly at you from the back of the room; he sent you a wink as he leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the desk. 

You wanted to flip him off, but decided to settle for shooting and icy glare his way. He smirked before picking up his phone and sipping his first iced coffee of the day. You were sure he had to have a caffeine addiction by now. 

You turned your attention back to what the vice president was saying. “....first thing’s first, where are we having it this year?” 

Everyone was quick to throw out names of exclusive clubs or hotels. “Guys the budget isn’t never-ending, let’s be sensible here.” You reminded everyone.

“I’ll volunteer.” 

Everyone turned their heads to Johnny in the back of the room. “My father would be more than happy to lend us our family home here in NYC, it has plenty of room. Plus we wouldn’t need to dip into the budget.” He said as if he was being humble. 

The room buzzed with excitement. “I heard it’s practically a mansion”, “Nobody has ever seen his family home.” People whispered.

“Well I guess that settles it then. Should we vote?” The vice president said in your direction. You swallowed your pride as you shot another glance at Johnny. He raised an eyebrow at you as if to say “What are you gonna do about it?”. 

You spoke in monotone. “All those in favor of the Suh family home?” To your dismay, a sea of hands shot up into the air, sealing your fate. 

Everyone was filing out of the classroom. It was decided the party would be black tie formal. Evening gowns, tuxes, the whole nine yards. You realized this meant you had to go hunting for a new dress, since none of your work dresses would do the trick. Anxiety began to set in about the whole thing. He did that on purpose, there was no way you couldn’t go being the president. You threw books into your bag and walked out the the classroom, closing the door behind you. 

“You know, you’ve been in quite the mood lately.” 

You startled and turned around to see Johnny leaning against the wall next to you, one leg bent and resting against it as he takes a drag of his cigarette. 

“Not funny. It’s sick how you wrap everyone around your finger when they don’t know how much of a greaseball you actually are.” You said pulling out your keys.

Johnny put his hands up in mock surrender. “Woah, chill out sweetheart. I was just asking.” He said with s small laugh. 

“Fuck off, Suh.” You spat as you locked the door. You froze when you felt his presence right next to you, his tall frame now feeling quite intimidating as he looked down at you. You lifted your gaze to him, keeping your face as neutral as possible to mask your now racing heart. His face looked deadly serious, the sudden change in demeanor made a chill run up your spine. 

“Oh? I’d much rather fuck you.” He was close enough to see your pupils dilate at his lewd comment, making the corner of his mouth lift into a smirk. Your mouth fell agape slightly, totally stunned at his forwardness. 

You blinked and snapped out of your trance before plucking the cigarette out of Johnny’s mouth and taking a drag of it, keeping eye contact as you blew out the smoke slowly. 

“In your dreams, Johnny boy.” You said lowly before sticking the cigarette back in his mouth, smirking at his stunned face before walking away.

Fuck. Was all he could think as he watched you walk away. He threw his head back with a groan of sexual frustration and admiration for your boldness. He found himself smiling fondly at your retreating figure walking into the distance. 

He let out an amused laugh. 

“What a woman.” 

Tonight was incredibly busy. Of course it was to be expected since it was a Friday night, but there seemed to be some more new faces than before. You were still relatively new so you hadn’t quite gotten to know who’s who yet, but the characters that were in the club tonight looked a bit...shady. 

Still, the you pushed through just like every other night, and boy did it pay off this time. You were giddy at the almost $1500 dollars that was now in your pocket. The other staff could make thousands in a single night, but you were happy just being behind the bar. 

You were one of the last ones out tonight since it was the end of the week and you had to take inventory. Your manager handed you the keys and told you to lock up for that night. She gave you instructions on how to lock the place up, and at the end she gave you a very serious look before saying:

“Don’t hang around here too late. It’s important that you just do your tasks and leave.” You were a bit taken aback at the sudden graveness of her tone, but just nodded. 

Whistling a tune as you finished up, you shut off the lights behind the bar before walking down the hallway. You stopped at one of the doors, it sounded like there was chatter coming from the other side. It was one of the big private rooms that people could rent out for the night, but everyone went home so you were confused as to who was in there. You pressed your ear to the door to listen to who it might be before you felt something prod at your back.

“You lost, honey?” A gravely voice said. “Don’t scream, or I pull the trigger- got it?” 

You came to the chilling realization there was a gun at your back. Slowly, you nodded your head. The man behind you grabbed your arm and opened the door, pushing you inside.

What you weren’t expecting to see was a room full of older men all seated at a table who were now all looking at you with very displeased faces. You started to panic, whatever was going on here, it didn’t seem legal considering they have armed guards standing around. 

“Caught this one eavesdropping” The man said, keeping his grip on your arm. You looked down at his hand and noticed the infamous tattoo of the numbers “127″ on his knuckles. 

It’s the fucking mob?

“Who is she?” One man asked. 

“I think thats the girl from behind the bar.” Another answered.

“Someone take care of her.” Said the man who sat the the end of the table. You could only assume he was the boss around here considering his position in the room. 

Your eyes went wide with terror- they were probably going to kill you. Tears began to roll down your cheeks and your breathing became ragged. 

“Please, I had no idea-” A hand landed on your shoulder.

“I’ll take care of it, dad.” 

That voice. 

You turned your head to see the unmistakable side profile of the royal pain in your ass. Johnny fucking Suh. He looked just like he did that one night you saw him on the street. His hair slicked back, showing off his incredibly handsome features. He was wearing a Armani suit that fit him a little too well. 

Before you could even react he practically dragged you out of the room and down the hallway, all the way out to the back of the building- you utterly confused the entire time. He didn’t say a word until you got outside. 

“WHAT THE FU-” You screamed before his hand came up to cover your mouth. 

“Keep it down, will you?” He said through his teeth. His eyes had danger in them, so you decided to yield. 

You ripped his hand off of your face, and shoved him backwards. 

“What the hell, Suh? You’re in the fucking mob?!” You whispered harshly. 

Johnny pinched the bridge of his nose, pacing back and forth. “Fuck,” He cursed under his breath. He turned around to meet eyes with you before stalking towards you, his expression deadly serious. You felt a your stomach flip, retreating backwards until you hit the wall and he stood over you.

His hand came up to hold your chin. “Listen, y/n.” Wow he really was serious- he never calls you by your first name. 

“My family is very powerful in this business. My dad practically runs the mob in this area. Since I’m the heir, I don’t have much choice in being involved. You put yourself in a pretty sticky situation here. Obviously I’m not going to let them murder you, but just know you’re a liability now. This is serious shit, y/n.” He said lowly, with a somewhat pleading expression in his eyes. 

You were speechless for several moments, Johnny looked anxious as you processed what he had just said. 

“So, nobody knows about you?” You said finally.

“No, except for you now I guess.” He said looking at the floor. 

It all made sense now, why the mysterious Johnny Suh hid his life. Why nobody really seemed to know who he really was. Why he left every girl that pursued him on read. 

“I guess we both have some dirty secrets, huh?” 

You snapped out of your thoughts to find that stupid smirk back on his face as he looked at you. You averted his gaze again. 

“What exactly is the picture-perfect good girl doing working at a place like this?” You heard him say before you saw his feet right in front of yours as you stared at the ground. Johnny took your chin in his hand before lifting your gaze up to meet his.

“I gotta say, you keep surprising me, dollface.” His eyes were burning. You cursed your attraction to this man. 

“I wonder what everyone would think of you?” He said in a teasing voice. 

Your heart sank. No one could ever find out, it would cost you everything. You fear then turned to anger as you pushed him by the chest. 

“Don’t you fucking dare, Suh. I can’t live off of Mommy and Daddy’s money like you can. I actually need to work to make it around here.” Johnny looked stunned, before looking a bit guilty. 

“Besides” You started stalking towards him now, your eyes boring into his and your tone dangerous. “I wouldn’t if I were you.” Johnny began stepping backwards now. “Remember, I can just as easily make your perfect little life some crumbling down with a snap of my fingers.” You shoved him into the wall behind him, running your hands up his torso and stopping on the breadth of his chest. Your lips centimeters from his.

“So I’d keep your fucking mouth shut.” You said gripping his collar now. 

Johnny cursed under his breath. You back away, smirking at your ability to fluster the guy who seemingly had no shame. 

Johnny snickered and pressed his tongue to his cheek. Looking at you with both lust and disbelief. 

“Alright, I got it. You don’t tell- neither will I.” He said sticking his hand out. “You have my word.” 

You nodded and shook his hand. You gasped as he suddenly pulled you into him.

“Besides I think I like seeing you like this anyway.” He had a shit-eating grin on his face. You scoffed and shoved him off you before walking back to the door. 

“You’re a pig. I’m going home.” You said as you opened the door.

“See you ‘round. Try not to get lost this time.” 

You made a vulgar gesture before letting the door shut behind you.

There was no way you were going to sleep tonight. So many thoughts whirled through your head at the revelation that Johnny Suh was a member of the mob. Not even just a member- a mafia prince, the boss’s son. It sure explained the insane wealth. You couldn’t imagine the kind of life he had. What does he do for the mob? Has he killed anyone? What does this mean for you? Are they going to be watching you now? 

“I don’t have much choice being involved.” 

What does that mean? Is this eventually what he will become- a mob boss just like his dad? He sounded somewhat sad at that statement. Why do you care? 

It wasn’t until around 4:30am when sheer exhaustion took over.

Johnny leaned his elbows on the balcony of his apartment. It was a penthouse that his parents had bought him when he went off to college. It was more space than he really knew he needed. Sometimes he filled the space with wild parties since it just felt so empty without the noise of people. 

He let out a puff of smoke before putting out the cigarette. He couldn’t get you out of his head. Johnny’s mind buzzed with thoughts. What would you think of him now? He already knew that you resented him for being so wealthy, but your comment about needing to work to get by struck a chord. His head fell into his hands and he raked his fingers through his hair. 

“I can’t” He thought to himself.

There’s too much at risk. This is why he can’t date or like anyone. Now on top of everything he had to keep you safe. Now that you had been exposed, there’s no way they would let you slide. You’re definitely being watched now and he has to keep a close eye on you. Not that he didn’t before anyway, but now there’s danger involved. 

It was times like this he just wanted to pack up and run. 

“I can’t.” He repeated out loud this time. 

Well, now that you know his secret, I guess there’s no harm in getting to know you a bit more. Besides, this was a side of you he definitely liked. He couldn’t stop having fun with you now, could he? Especially when you bite back the way that you do. 

Johnny smiled to himself. “You’re full of surprises, Miss y/n.” 

If Johnny was cheeky before you two knew about each other- it was nothing compared to now. There were times you actually snapped in front of everyone for his constant teasing. One incident in particular was when you were all in the student council room and everyone was talking amongst themselves. You caught Johnny standing in the opposite corner of the room with a group of his guy friends. You locked eyes for a second before he smirked and you and them whispered something to the guys next to him.

You felt your blood boil when you saw the three of them look over at your before laughing again. You stalked over to him before grabbing his arm and used fakest sweet tone you could.

“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute? It’s about the party.” You said with a toothy grin. The other boys looked a bit shocked at your politeness and walked away.

“Yes ma’am.” He said with a smug grin, knowing he got to you.

You dragged him outside before shoving him against the wall. You wanted to slap that stupid look off his face so badly. 

“Woah- didn’t realize I was in trouble.” He bit his lip to suppress a laugh. 

“I’ve just about had it with you, Suh. What were you saying to them?” 

“Oh, nothing you need to worry about.” 

You grabbed him by the collar and yanked him down to your level. 

“Don’t fucking play with me.” You said through your teeth.

“Calm down, Miss Ballbuster- I was just joking. I was just telling them that you and I hooked up.” 

“You WHAT!?” 

Johnny threw his head back and laughed. “Kidding- I just said you were hot.”

You rolled your eyes before he grabbed your wrists that were holding his collar and pulled you into his chest.

“What would you rather me say, dollface? Would you rather me tell everyone your little secret?” His face was inches from yours.

You jerked your wrist free of his grasp and pointed your finger at him. 

“Don’t forget the position you’re in, buddy.” You jabbed his chest with your finger. “I can pull the trigger just as easy.” 

Johnny’s face changed to that look that gives you icy chills. 

His voice dropped several octaves. “You wouldn’t” 

“Try me.” 

Johnny raised an eyebrow- the look in your eyes was dead serious. He usually was able to inspire fear in even the most powerful of men, but you were unwavering. He couldn’t help but admire that. 

Johnny loved to push your buttons, but he had a profound respect for you. As much as he teased you about exposing you, he knew that if you ever said a word about him, you would be as good as dead if the mob ever found out. The thought of that hurt him a lot more than he realized. 

“Alright, you have some guts, I like that.” He finally said, backing away with his hands in his pockets.

“Good thing I don’t care what you like.” You said with your arms crossed.

“Don’t you?” He said, narrowing his eyes before smiling and walking away.

“Here’s your drinks, boys.” You say sweetly.

Tonight was another very busy night, they had you waiting tables and making drinks. You weren’t really used to walking up to the tables, but the extra opportunities for tips didn’t hurt. 

You had just gotten back behind the bar to get started on other orders when one of the other waitresses came up to you. “Hey, the VIP table needs a round of shots- and one of them wants you to bring them.” She said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. “Getting popular I see.” 

You looked at her quizzically before scanning the room for the VIP table which was on the upper level, isolated from the rest of the room with its own stage. You your eyes stopped at someone that was already staring at you. 

Johnny leaned back on the couch, arms spread out and resting on the back of it lazily. He shot you a wink. You stared blankly back with a look that said “are you fucking kidding me?”, causing him to chuckle with amusement. 

It was gonna be a long night. 

You begrudgingly brought up the drinks for the 12 or some odd people up there. You put on your best fake smile and began setting down the drinks. You were starting to get used to the gratuitous stares of the men whenever you walked up to a table, but feeling Johnny’s eyes boring holes into you made your hands shaky.

Trying to make this interaction as short as possible, you turned to walk away.

“Going so soon?” You stopped in your tracks and cursed under your breath. You looked over your shoulder to see Johnny smiling. 

“Be a doll and come sit with us.” He said, motioning to the spot right beside him. 

You couldn’t flat out reject him without giving away that you already knew him, so you plastered on your best fake smile and walked over. You sat down on his lap, pretending to be interested in him for the sake of not drawing attention. You slung your arm around his neck, and he looked surprised at the fact that you actually complied. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” You said in a hushed tone through your fake smile. 

“Just having some fun.” He said, sliding an arm around your waist. 

“Well, don’t. I have work to do.” You got up to leave before he pulled you back down onto his lap. He held your jaw with one hand and kept his other around your waist.

“I’ll be happy to keep you busy.” Johnny leaned in, your heart started to race in your chest. You felt his plush lips graze the spot where you jaw meets your ear. “Miss President.” He said in a whisper. 

Dammit. You felt tingles run down your spine, and a familiar warmth where your thighs meet. You cursed lowly and you heard his breathy laugh in your ear, causing goosebumps to erupt in a wave down your arms. 

You grabbed his face with your hand. “Watch yourself, Mr. Suh.” His pupils dilated at the sound of you calling him that. You realized you had just created a monster. 

“Mmm I like the sound of that.” He licked his lips. You rolled your eyes and got up off of his lap successfully this time. 

“Don’t get used to it.” You said with a wink before walking off. 

Johnny definitely kept his promise, because every 5 minutes someone would come up to you saying the same words: “Mr. Suh wants you to-”. You were starting to get extremely annoyed since you could barely keep up with other patrons with him bugging you all night. There he sat all night watching you run ragged, taking great amusement in the fact that he could have you at his beck and call. He stayed until closing and everyone else had eventually left, but since his daddy basically owned the club and his little minions were there with him- he could keep you there all night if he wanted to. 

And he did. 

Everyone else had gone home by the time him and his mob buddies had decided they had a night. You saw Johnny get up and walk out to one of the back rooms with his posse. As soon as their back were turned to flipped him off and started to clean up. 

Fuming, you made a bee line for the locker room once you were done. It was empty since everyone had gone home by this point. He really had absolutely no shame. He knew you had leverage over him, but you also hated how he seemed to be so confident that you would never expose him. So much so that he wasn’t afraid to push your buttons all night long. You threw open your locker and kicked off your heels, sighing heavily as you did. 

“Rough night, huh?” a voice said directly behind you.

You shrieked and turned around. Your eyes met an unmistakable pair of lips curled up in their usual smug grin. Your eyes scanned up to meet his honeyed ones. They were prettier than you’d like to admit. 

“For fuck’s sake, Suh. I know your daddy basically owns the place but is nowhere sacred?!” You seethed, turning your back to him and towards your locker to pull out your bag. Before you could even reach for it, a hand grabbed your wrist and spun you around, you heard the sound of your locker slamming shut before your back hit it. 

It was times like this where you realized just how big Johnny was. He loomed over you, and this time when you looked at his face his signature smirk was gone. It was replaced with a chilling gaze that cut straight through your resolve to stay angry at him. 

“I’m getting a bit tired of your attitude, dollface.” He stepped a bit closer, his face inches from yours, his eyes unblinking as they bore holes into you. You tried to save what was left of your pride by saying “I’m not one of your playthings, Suh- and don’t call me that.” You realized you sounded a lot less confident than you wanted to. 

“Oh? And why not, Miss President?” He said lowly as his free hand reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. He made a painfully slow descent down your neck, you were sure he could feel your pulse racing under his fingertips. His fingers made sure to skim ever so lightly across the thin fabric covering one of your nipples, which immediately stiffened under his touch. Your breathing became labored despite your best effort to remain unaffected. “You’re so annoying,” You said very unconvincingly, given it sounded more like a whimper.

“I see, but if I’m so annoying to you...” His hand made its way to your upper thigh before pushing your skirt up to slide a hand into your panties. “Then why are you soaking wet?” 

 His long, slender middle finger gathered the slick from your entrance before gently rubbing it into your clit. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that pretty little pussy of yours is practically throbbing for me.” His finger was gliding across your now very swollen bud in small, languid circles. Your face was blushed a deep red both in embarrassment and anger that he now knew how wet he got you with essentially no effort. 

“Imagine what everyone would think if they saw their perfect student body president moaning like a needy little slut, just for me.” You shuddered at his words. Your brows were knitted together and you bit your lip in an effort not to let out a pathetic moan. 

Johnny took his hand that was gripping your wrist and brought it to the front of his pants. “This is what you do to me, baby.” You could feel how painfully hard he was under his pants, taking a mental note of his intimidating size. “You drive me fucking insane.” He said through his teeth. You felt tiny under his unrelenting eye contact. Your mouth involuntarily fell open, which he took advantage of by using his free hand to slip two fingers into your mouth. You felt utterly filthy for immediately sucking on them. Johnny groaned. 

“Not so tough now, huh baby? Look at you, being so good for me.” For the first time, you had no comeback. You wanted to offer some kind of rebuttal, but words were lost on you. He pulled his now coated fingers from your mouth to your chest, pulling the thin fabric of your dress down to gently run his fingertips over your very sensitive nipple. 

“Johnny, please.” Was all you could muster while the feeling of his hands consumed you, your eyes fluttering shut. 

And just like that, you felt him move away from you. Your eyes snapped open at the loss of contact to see him backing away while sucking your wetness off his finger, keeping his gaze with you the whole time. “What the fuck.” You gasped, trying to catch your breath. Johnny chuckled, “Looks like our president isn’t so innocent after all.” He grabbed his jacket and slung it over his shoulder as he walked out, before turning back to say. “Don’t worry doll, I won’t tell. Besides I like having you all to myself.” With that he let the door shut behind him. 

Fuck him. You couldn’t decide if you meant that literally or figuratively though. 

It had been years since you went shopping for a formal gown, the last time probably being when you were in high school. You knew that there would be gorgeous designer dresses galore at the party, given that nearly everyone you went to school with had that kind of money. You couldn’t lie- you were excited to see Johnny in a suit again. It only made you all the more nervous that you weren’t going to be able to afford something worthy of the occasion. 

You went to a lot of consignment stores thinking you could find something unique but nothing seemed to fit right- or they looked way too senior prom-y. After the 5th store, you just deiced to call it a day. Walking down 5th avenue on the way to your station, you passed by Barney’s to see one of the most beautiful gowns you had ever laid eyes on. 

It was simple, but so elegant. It was a blush pink floor length gown. The sleeves were made of sheer chiffon that hung off the shoulder slightly. The lengths of the sleeves flowed down the lengths of the arms that eventually blended in with the length of the billowy skirt that swept the floor. The bodice was fitted to make for a flattering waist line, and the skirt was a stunning cascade of the same weightless chiffon and pleated satin. A slit in the skirt climbed all the way up to the upper thigh, a sexy detail to the otherwise ethereal looking silhouette. 

“We just got it in.” One of the employees snapped you out of your trance. 

“It’s gorgeous.” You said, still not taking your eyes off of the gown.

“Would you like to try it on?” She asked.

“Oh, no.” You said with a laugh, “It’s not like I could afford it anyway. I don’t want to waste your time.” 

“Don’t worry about that- there’s no one else here. Besides we all deserve to feel beautiful. C’mon just try.” The sales assistant said before leading you to the fitting rooms. 

The dress just felt expensive. You came out of the fitting room and the sales assistant helped zip you up and led you to the huge mirror. 

“Wow, this looks like it was made for you.” She said before turning you around.

A small gasp left your lips- it was gorgeous. You had to admit that you felt like a million bucks. Your fingers grazed the delicate fabric, taking as much of it in as you could. You wished you hadn’t tried it on, because it broke your heart to take it off. 

“Thank you, that was very nice of you.” You told the woman after coming back out of the fitting room. 

“My pleasure, it’s a shame I can’t just give it to you.” You smiled at her kindness and bid her goodbye before heading home.

Class dragged on forever today, you were counting down the seconds since the party was tomorrow and were now scrambling to find a dress. As soon as the bell rang you made a beeline for the admin building where Momo met you, since you had enlisted her help this time. 

You were about to leave out of the front door with her before one of the secretaries stopped you. 

“Oh, y/n dear!” She shouted. 

You turned to face her.

“This package was dropped off for you. Looks like a gift.” She said handing you a rather large box that read:

Barney’s New York

Your heart skipped a beat.

“Looks quite generous.” The secretary said giving you a knowing smile before walking away.

“Holy shit- Barney’s? What do you think it is?” Momo said in a whisper.

“I don’t know but I’m a bit freaked out since I was just there yesterday.” 

You set the box down on the table in front of you undoing the ribbon and lifting the top off. A chill ran down your spine. 

It was the dress. There was a small note sitting on top of it that read: 

For the party Xx. 

You lifted it up, it was mostly definitely the same one you tried on. Momo let out a gasp. 

“Holy shit, y/n. It’s stunning.” She gushed.

“What the fuck.” You said dropping it back into the box, stepping away. “Momo, how could anyone have known I tried this on without being there?” 

“I don’t know, but whoever your stalker is has expensive taste.” She said.

You turned your head to look outside the glass doors of the building and suddenly everything clicked. 

Johnny stood there leaning against his black Audi that was parked on the street outside, smiling at you. He didn’t linger, he quickly got in his car and drove away before you could ask any questions. 

Momo looked at you utterly confused. “What was that about?” 

“Nothing.” You said quickly, trying to dodge the topic of Johnny. 

Momo narrowed her eyes at you. “Okay, I guess...well at least you don’t have to worry about finding a dress!” She said, picking up the dress to admire it some more. 

“I’m not wearing this.” You said quickly.

“And why the fuck not?” Momo said with furrowed brows. “Are you high? Who cares if some weirdo bought it- I wouldn’t ask questions if I was handed a free designer gown.” 

You rolled your eyes and smiled at her. Momo was one of the only people at this school that came from a background similar to yours, which was one of reasons you had bonded so quickly. 

“I can’t accept it. This cost at least a few grand.” You said, looking worriedly at the box. “I’m gonna take it back.” 

Momo sighed, “Suit yourself.”

“What do you mean I can’t return it?” You said, puzzled at the sales assistant.

“Sorry- there’s no receipt here, and I was given explicit instruction not to accept it if I got returned.” She told you.

You were stunned. How the fuck did he know? 

“Can I ask who bought it?” 

“It was a tall young guy, he looked like he was in his 20′s. He comes in here often to shop.” She told you.

“All I can assume is that he’s quite wealthy- and very handsome I might add.” She eyed you with a smirk. “He told me he was going to buy it shortly after you had left. I guess he must have been browsing around and noticed you. Do you know him?”

You stared at the box in front of you. Why would he do that for you? Just to show off? You decided it was not use trying to argue against it.

“He’s... and acquaintance. Thank you anyway for your help.” You said before making your way home. 

You tried it on again in your room. It truly did look like someone had tailored it just for you. You smiled softly in the mirror at your reflection. 

Your thoughts were interrupted by Alex barging into your room. 

“Hey can you help me with- woah.” They said before noticing you. “Holy shit you look amazing.” They said with their mouth slightly agape.

“Careful, you’ll catch flies.” You said with feigned boastfulness. 

“Is that for the party?” Alex asked as they walked over to feel the fabric of the skirt. 

“Yup.” 

“I’m sure Johnny’s gonna love you in this.” They said wiggling their eyebrows. 

You scoffed. “Like I want his attention.”

“Oh shut up, you and I both know you wanna jump his bones.” 

You couldn’t argue.

“Exactly. So I will be very disappointed in you if you come home tomorrow night without having a rich hot boyfriend.” 

You laughed despite you best efforts to keep it in. Alex’s energy always made you feel uplifted.

“Thanks, bitch.” You said. 

“Anytime, bitch.” They said back with a smile. “Now come help me fix the shitty wifi.” 

“Be right there.” You said before they walked out and shut your door.

You looked back at your reflection one last time. “Well no use in letting this go to waste.” You said lowly to yourself. 

“I think this is it.” Your uber driver said.

You looked out the window at the colossal building, it was no doubt one of those swanky apartments buildings that celebrities and millionaires lived in. 

Your driver had come around to open your door to help you out. You took his hand as you stepped out of the car, you couldn’t help but feel like you were famous or something. 

“Not like I get to do that often.” He said with a laugh. “Have fun at the ball, Cinderella.”  

You shyly chuckled. “Thank you.” 

You went inside and were immediately greeted by the receptionist. “Welcome, Miss Y/N I presume?” She asked.

You were a bit taken aback. “Hello, yes I am.” 

“This way to the elevators, take it all the way up. Have a wonderful night, Miss.” 

“Thank you.” You said softly, still perplexed as to how she knew your name.

The elevators have mirrors for walls and ornate decorations on the ceilings. It was definitely out of your element, but you decided to enjoy your Cinderella moment for tonight. 

The elevator doors opened to reveal quite a sight. You felt as though you has stepped into some kind of old film. Tall glass windows towered over the room, and a few huge french doors let out onto a terrace that gave a breathtaking view of the city. Gold chandeliers dripped with crystals hung from the ceiling, and vast marble floors reflected the people gliding above it in their finest evening wear. You stood at the top of the huge staircase gaping at the scene in front of you before you were startled out of your awe by a server.

“Champagne, Miss?” He asked as he presented you with a tray of champagne flutes. 

“Oh, thank you.” You said as you took a glass and sipped. “Of course,” You said sarcastically at the delicious taste- no doubt a bottle of this shit costs as much as your average payout every night. 

You spotted Momo and a few other girls huddled together at the bottom of the stairs. They also looked to be entranced by the decor as they pointed and swooned. You smiled to yourself, something about watching them made you feel so happy and free- then a pang of sadness settled in your chest. You wished you could be that carefree, but you have this lie to keep up- a secret constantly tugging at your sleeve. 

You decided to take a look around before socializing and started walking around the second floor. The soft clicking of your heels against the marble floor was all you heard as the music from the ballroom faded. You came to a smaller (but nonetheless extravagant) drawing-room. It had a few of those tall windows that allowed moonbeams to bathe the room in soft light. There was a quaint fire burning in the fireplace and a grand piano in the corner of the room. It was like you were in a blip where you were some kind of royalty considering the decor, your gown, the romanticism of it all. 

Your eyes traveled above the fireplace to a huge portrait. There was a woman sitting in the chair wearing some of the biggest diamonds you had ever seen around her neck; you noted the warmth in her smile and how it shone in her eyes. Above her was a very stoic-looking man with high cheekbones that cut across his face, he looked intimidating but not necessarily frightening, his look just commanded respect. He had his hand on someone’s shoulder and your eyes shifted to a face you recognized instantly. It looked recent since Johnny was actually taller than his father and has the same haircut he does now. He looked very much how you saw him that first night at the club- like a boss and not a college student. His hair was slicked back to reveal his cheekbones that echoed his father's, but his eyes her unmistakably his mother's. You found yourself smiling fondly.

“Caught you.” A low voice said in your ear.

You yelped, nearly spilling your drink. “Jesus- a warning next time?” You said holding your chest to calm your racing heart. You didn’t know if you could be in here, but judging by the amused look on Johnny’s face you assumed it was okay.

“Can’t help it- you’re too easy.” He chuckled before you noticed his eyes traveling down your frame. “Stunning dress if I may add.” He said with a smirk. “How did you get that fantastic thing?” 

You gave him a pointed glare. “I had nothing else to wear, don’t be too flattered.” Your glare shifted to a curious gaze before you asked, “Why?”

You were genuinely curious as to why (and how) he had bought the dress for you, considering your history with him. 

“Well, you looked stunning in it- and what can I say? I have an eye for the finer things in life.” He said with a crooked smile before he took a sip from his own champagne flute. 

“And how did you know I looked stunning in it?” You said with a raised brow. 

“I just so happened to be shopping and spotted you trying it on, you never noticed me since I was on the second level looking down.” He said matter-of-factly. “So naturally I had to make sure I would see you in it- and that lady was right, it looks like it was made for you.” 

You couldn’t help but feel your cheeks heat up. Sure he made his cheeky little quips but he was never this...romantic?

You rolled your eyes in disbelief at his comment and turned away before he caught your wrist. You sucked in the faintest of breaths as you looked at him, his eyes shone with a sincere intensity you hadn’t quite seen before. “I mean it, y/n”  He said barely above a whisper. “You truly look beautiful.” 

He seemed timid like he was putting himself out there- and he was. You felt your heart leap as you breathed out a “Thank you”, not quite knowing how to react to his sudden vulnerability. It was a bit amusing to see Johnny like this- stiff and a bit awkward. You decided to end the torturous silence by gesturing towards the grand piano in the corner. 

“Beautiful piano, I wish I knew how to play.” You said as if you were out of breath.

Johnny seemed to slide back into his normal, suave self. “I myself had no choice in the matter- come I’ll show you.” He said as he led you over to the piano.

He sat on the bench and placed his hands on the keys before he paused and looked up at you. “Come on, sit.” He said as you realized he left a space for you. You slid into the space next to him on the bench, as he straightened and began to play a familiar tune. 

“I know this, I heard my grandmother play it when I was little.” You said, not being able to place the melody that stirred your memory.

“Claire de Lune.” Johnny said softly as his fingers continued to glide gracefully across the keys. The way he played was so soft, so delicate and the music his lithe fingers produced was so beautiful you hadn’t realized the stinging in your eyes. It felt like a lucid dream. The room, the dress you were wearing, the beautiful man next to expertly playing a melody, the way it echoed throughout the room made it feel like you were moving through water. 

You were so lost in the impossible romanticism of it all that you hadn’t realized Johnny had stopped playing. “You okay?” He said with an intimate softness like a lover would. You turned your head to meet his eyes, they looked like molten honey. Gooseflesh littered your skin- you noted the dilation of his pupils the second you met his eyes with yours.

“Yes” you finally answered in a whisper. “It just didn’t feel real for a second there.”

Johnny let out the faintest of laughs, his amused expression dissipating quickly into and disarmed gaze. He lifted his hand to graze your jaw, up to your ear to tuck a strand of hair behind it before resting it to cup your neck.

You felt every nerve in your body zeroed in on his hand as he leaned ever so slightly. His eyes flicked behind you for half a second, then back to you. You felt him bristle and his gaze turn to daggers.

“Don’t move.” He whispered.

“Wh-” 

Before you could even verbalize your confusion, Johnny had a gun drawn and fired two shots just over your shoulder at whoever was behind you. 

Nothing registered for a moment. You heard no gunshots, your gaze now on the wall in front of you since Johnny was up and moving across the room. Whirling around to meet the sight of Johnny holding a handgun with a silencer attached and the now dead man he was standing over sent every thought in your mind skittering away. 

Johnny knelt down over the body, inspecting the failed assassin. He lifted the man’s arm to find the tattoo of a snake peeking out from under his sleeve.

 “Fuck.” He muttered gravely. When he looked up to see your gaze fixed on the dead body all of the thoughts about who was behind this dissipated as he took in your expression. You sickly white tone your complexion had taken on suggested you were in complete shock. 

You weren’t aware of your surroundings until Johnny’s face suddenly very close to yours. “Y/n” His voice sounded a bit muffled as if there were cotton in your ears. “Y/n, come back to me.” Johnny said squeezing both of your shoulders gently. 

“What the fuck.” Your voice came out and a strangled whisper. 

“Listen to me Y/n. You should not have been here or saw this- but since you have you need to listen to every word I fucking tell you okay?” His voice was low and leveled. You couldn’t do more than nod your head.

“Good.” He pulled out his phone and called someone. “Mark. Drawing room. Now.” His tone was clipped and you couldn’t help but notice the steely look in his eye as he moved swiftly- as if this kind of thing wasn’t new to him. 

After what seemed like 30 seconds after Johnny made the call another man strode into the room. He was quite a bit shorter than Johnny and had a boyishly charming look to him. 

“Fuck. Who is he?” Mark said as he stared that the dead man, blood now forming a pool around his head. 

“A member of the Cha family judging by the tattoo,” Johnny answered with a gesture to the man’s wrist. “Get him out of here without being seen. Burn the body as soon as you get a chance. Get Jaehyun to station guards around every entrance.”

Mark nodded and got on the phone, lowly relaying orders. You just stared at the whole scene as if you were watching a movie. Johnny turned his attention back to you and walked over to help you stand up. 

Johnny let out a sigh before meeting your eyes. “Someone is angry that we reprimanded a member of their family, and my guess is that bullet was meant for me.”

“Who did you ‘reprimand”?” 

“A rival family’s nephew. Not that I knew that at the time.” 

“What did you do to him?”

“Don’t worry about it, Y/n,” Johnny said as he popped a cigarette into his mouth and pulled a lighter out of his pocket. 

“Oh! Apologies Mr. Suh- it’s not like I just witnessed a murder.” You quipped before turning away from him. You were instantly whirled back around with a hand gripping your arm. Johnny’s chest was now pressed to yours as he peered down at you. 

“This isn’t a fucking game Y/n.” His voice came out like a purr and his eyes had the look of death in them. The timbre of his voice felt like a caress down your body.

Luckily he pulled away since you knew you wouldn’t have been able to. “Come with me.” 

Johnny led you by your hand out of the room and into the hall where the party was blissfully unaware of the murder that had just taken place. He leads you to the middle of the floor before swiftly pulling you into him and swaying gently to the music. 

He leaned his mouth to your ear. “Listen, Y/n. As much as I would have loved to have you against the wall, things could get really bad here. I need you to follow my instructions carefully.” 

You nodded.

“In exactly 5 minutes, meet me at the front of the building. From there, we’ll head to the club. Make sure nobody sees you leave.” 

You nodded again. Johnny stepped back from you and kissed your hand- giving you a quick wink. 

“5 minutes.” He slipped through the crowd with ease, leaving you to try and focus yourself on your instructions. You decided to nonchalantly make your way to the bathroom before slipping down the corridor to the foyer where you found the elevator. 

By the time you made it down the street, you stood there for barely 30 seconds before a black Audi came screeching to a halt in front of you. Johnny made quickly his way around to your door and open it.

“Get in.” He said in a clipped tone. That look of murder never left his eyes, and you didn’t want to push him, so you quickly sat in the passenger seat. He got back into the driver’s seat and peeled out onto the street towards the club.

“Some of the Cha boys will be showing up at the club very soon. I’m going to attempt to talk to them.” Johnny said in a level tone despite the fact his knuckles were white gripping the steering wheel. 

“Just listen to me and I promise you’ll be fine.” You heard him say, but your eyes were fixed on the road in front of you, you felt like your body was foreign to you, like you were actually there. The only thing that grounded you in reality was when Johnny reached over to grab your thigh and squeeze it lightly. 

“Hey,” He said softly. “I promise. I would never let anything happen to you.” 

The sincerity in his eyes almost broke your heart. He was deathly serious about keeping you safe, and you damned your heart for swelling at his words. You offered a weak smile and a nod- despite everything you knew you could trust him although you didn’t really want to admit why. 

The engine of the car roared as it pulled into the back alley behind the club. Johnny thew it in park before stepping out and slamming the door in one swift motion. Before you could even reach for your door it was already open and he was offering hand to you. You noticed your shaky hands as you took his and stepped out of the car. He led you into the back entrance and into one of the private rooms he uses for meetings. 

“Okay I’m going to be sitting at that table right there, you are going to be hiding behind that wall. If I make a toast, that’s your cue.” Johnny said as you felt him put something in your hand. You looked to see a small revolver.

“Johnny no, I can’t.” You said in a panic.

“Shhh, listen- okay?” He said as he brought a hand up to cradle the back of your neck. “All you have to do is point. Don’t fire, just point.”

You mustered all of the courage you could and nodded once before going to hide behind the wall, keeping your back pressed to it and your finger on the trigger of the revolver. 

Johnny quickly grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the bar and sat down that the table in the middle of the room- looking as relaxed as ever with his slouched posture and legs apart as he lit another cigarette. 

Before long two men walked into the room. They looked to be in their 30s and wore very finely tailored suits. They took their hats off upon entering.

“Gentlemen.” Johnny greeted before gesturing to the empty chairs. 

You heard your heartbeat roaring in your ears as you heard the two men cross the room and take their seats.

“It seems you've made a mistake, Johnny boy." One of the men said in a gruff voice. "Daddy's not here to help you this time."

"I'm well aware of what I did, and you can't blame me for self-defense when your man was clearly trying to kill me." You heard Johnny reply smoothly. "In fact, he really interrupted a tender moment." He added, you could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

"You know Mr. Cha won't forgive you for this." The other man said, clearly irked by Johnny's bored tone.

"I suspected he wouldn't." You could practically hear Johnny's smirk.

"Then I suppose you know this means war." You heard the gruff one say.

You decided to peek around the corner just enough to see Johnny raise his glass.

"Then to declarations of war, and to pretty bartenders." He said.

Every nerve in your body went numb. Before you even realized what you were doing you burst into the room with your gun drawn and fired two shots.

The was eerily quiet. Your ears rung and your hearing slowly came in to focus again. Suddenly Johnny's face was in front of yours, holding your face and neck. His eyes were wide with shock.

"Why'd you do that, y/n? Why'd you kill them?" Johnny's voice shook with concern.

"I didn't know I had it in me, I didn't know..." You really didn't, you had no idea how you had done what you just did. You just murdered two people. Dear god.

"Hey", Johnny said just above a whisper, "Just look at me."

You slowly brought your eyes up from the floor to meet his gaze. The previous look of concern you had seen before was replaced with a magnetic, animalistic stare. You had just killed two men, and yet the way he looked at you in this moment made that completely irrelevant. God, this was sick.

Johnny's voice came out in a low, chillingly calm tone. "My private room. Now."

Your back arched involuntarily at the command in his voice. Your heavy breathing was no longer out of panic but arousal.

"Make me." You whispered between pants.

With a yelp of surprise, Johnny had lifted you over his shoulder and started walking to the private room he always used when he came to the club.

"Getting bolder I see." Johnny chided before you felt a sharp smack to your ass. You yelped again. "I can't say I don't enjoy it."

You heard Johnny kick the door open before practically tossing you on the ridiculously large couch.

"I should feel disgusted with myself for doing this after committing homicide." You said.

He hovered over you, his lips centimeters from where your pulse raced beneath the skin of your neck. You felt his hand sneak up the slit of your dress and graze the soaked fabric of your underwear.

"And yet, here you are- soaking wet for me. I always knew you were fucking perfect." He nearly growled.

You felt him graze your neck with his teeth before he slid his hand under your panties to gently stroke a finger through your soaked pussy. You felt his nudge your thighs apart with his knees, allowed him to gain better access to your now swollen clit.

You let out a whimper at the wave of pleasure that sent delicious tingles up your spine. God, you wanted him so bad. After what seemed like months, hell even years of teasing- that night in the locker room when he left you a wet mess. You needed him inside you. Now.

You hooked your leg around his before using the leverage to flip you both over so that you sat astride him.

Johnny looked up- dumbfounded. You couldn't help but smile at the look of surprise on his face.

"I've had quite enough of your teasing, Mr. Suh." You said as you stepped off the couch with him still staring like a fool.

You slowly unzipped your gown and let the silky fabric fall down your body- it's caress causing goosebumps to erupt across your skin an your nipples to harden.

Johnny sat up and went stock still, his gaze slowly devouring your body from top to bottom. You felt a bit nervous in that moment, since he was silent for a bit. Slowly, he leaned back into the couch with his arms draped across the back and his legs spread apart. It was that signature Johnny slouch that made him look so effortlessly hot.

"By all means, please show me some discipline Miss President." He quipped with a shit-eating grin.

You threw your head back in a genuine laugh before slowly staling towards him.

"Gladly."

You straddled his lap and began to run your hands up his chest to get to the buttons on his shirt. You noticed him about to touch you before you put a hand on his chest and pushed him back.

"No touching. This is part of your punishment." You said in the firm voice you would always use when reprimanding him at school.

"Yes Ma'am." He replied, leaning back and moving his arms back to where they were.

You leaned into him, grazing his ear with your lips. Gently kissing down the sensitive flesh just below his ear earned a groan from Johnny that had slick now coating your inner thighs.

Your fingers got to work on his shirt buttons with each button that came undone you kissed his skin there, slowly descending down the corded muscles on his chest and torso. Finally, you stopped at the zipper of his pants.

He was painfully hard, you could see the outline of his cock straining against his pants. Slowly unzipping him, you began to stroking his length along the outside of his boxers- noting the wet spot where his head was leaking precum.

You looked up to see him fighting his own will to keep his hands to himself. He looked at you with his brows knitted together as if it was paining him not to touch you.

"Oh fuck, please y/n. Let me touch you." He pleaded desperately. Something about the Johnny Suh being a whimpering mess just from your touch gave you a new confidence (and a new kink) you weren't even aware of until now.

"Oh no, you haven't learned your lesson yet, baby." You lulled in a melodic tone before pulling him free of his boxers. Trying to maintain your dominant demeanor was a bit difficult considering you had never actually seen Johnny's dick before. You knew he was big, but wow was he perfect. He was thick, smooth, and curved just slightly upward.

You were salivating before gently taking the head of his beautiful cock into your mouth. Johnny's head fell back in a loud moan.

"Oh god y/n." He said, gripping the back of couch so hard his knuckles turned white- wrestling with the urge to fuck your mouth. You began to bob your head gently while using your hand to pump the rest of him in time with your mouth. Johnny wasn't shy about his pleasure, swearing and whimpering your name as you continued to take him in your mouth.

You felt his cock twitch and his legs begin to shake as he approached his orgasm.

"Wait." He said abruptly. "I am not letting myself cum before I taste you."

Before you could move Johnny lifted you from your knees and set you down on your back. He stood for a moment to relieve himself of his pants and boxers completely. You took the moment to look at him in all his glory. He was unbelievably perfect, the way he was tall and lean but clearly strong, you took notice of the tattoos on his shoulder and arm. A sunflower- you smiled to yourself at that.

Johnny kneeled in front of you, using his knees to spread your legs apart. You let them fall open to expose yourself to him.

"Fuck. You have the most gorgeous pussy, y/n." He said, not daring to take his eyes on your center. "Play with your pussy for me, darling."

You obliged him and slid your hand down to your impossibly wet folds, tracing slow, small circles around your throbbing bud. You let out a pathetic moan, finally getting some relief.

"Just like that baby." Johnny praised as he began to stroke himself.

You were so turned on it didn't take long to feel your climax approaching. You instinctively began rubbing faster, tighter circles on your clit. It was right when your were about to fall over the edge that your felt a sharp slap to your thigh.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, princess? Making you cum is my job." He scolded before hooking his arms around your thigh and hoisting you closer to him.

Johnny began to lay soft kisses up your calves, up your thighs, almost as if he was worshipping you and your body. He took his time before he got to your soaked pussy. His mouth hovered right over where you needed him, and he looked up at you with a teasing smirk. His hot breath fanned your center, you squirmed and push your hips towards his mouth. Johnny responded by using his forearm to hold your hips down.

"My turn." He said.

Johnny's pressed an open-mouthed kiss to your aching clit before beginning to flick it gently with his tongue. Your hands immediately flew to his hair, grabbing fistfuls of his soft locks as you let you a loud sigh of pleasure.

As if that wasn't enough, he slipped two fingers into your wet cunt and began to curl them upwards into your g-spot. Johnny began sucking on your clit and you screamed.

"Oh my god, Johnny. Fuck!" You felt the familiar feeling of your orgasm swelling-your abs tightened, your legs locked, your back arching.

"Come on my tongue, y/n" Johnny commanded. You shattered, screaming Johnny's name as your orgasm racked your body, lighting up every nerve.

"That's it, baby." Johnny coaxed every last bit of pleasure out of you as he continued to finger you through your climax.

You slowly came down from your high, although your legs continued twitching in the aftershock of the biggest orgasm on your life so far. Johnny tenderly began kissing up your torso to your lips. It almost broke your heart how soft he was with you.

"Come on, get up." He said softly, laying himself on his back and helping you straddle him again.

"Ride me, baby. I want to see every inch of you." His hand gripped your hips as he looked up at you with nothing but adoration in his eyes.

You couldn’t help but grin like a fool before you felt him guiding himself into you. Lifting your hips to help him, you felt the tip of his cock slide into you. Savoring the delicious stretch of his cock, you locked eyes with Johnny as you slowly sank down onto him.

You watched each other let own a groan of pure ecstasy as you finally joined together. He was divine, he filled you as if he was made for you.

"I can't believe you're fucking real." Johnny groaned as he tighten the grip on your hips. "I knew you would feel so fucking perfect."

You began to move on him, setting a steady pace where you could enjoy the feeling of his cock inside you, how you could see it bulging in your lower stomach. The slight of him being the deep into you made your pussy clench.

Johnny began to help you move on top of him by bringing you up and down on his cock, which encouraged you to pick up the pace. You felt your breasts bouncing with every stroke, and the curve of his dick grazing your g-spot. You threw your head back with a loud moan.

"You are so ridiculously beautiful. You're everything, y/n." Johnny said as he pulled you down for a kiss. You looked into each others eyes, sharing breath as you exchanged moans of pleasure.

You felt Johnny hook his leg behind yours before effortlessly flipping you both over so he hovered over you.

"As much as I want to make love to you for hours." He says giving you a soft kiss before pulling back with a primal hunger in his eyes. "I'm going to lose my mind if I don't fuck you."

Any thoughts you had dissipated as soon as Johnny hoisted your legs up onto his shoulders. He pulled almost all the way out before thrusting back in and setting a brutal pace, pounding you into the couch.

"Oh fuck, Johnny!"

"I know baby, I know. You're taking it so well for me, angel."

Johnny brought one hand up to pin your arms up behind your head by the wrists. The other went to your jaw to tilt your head up into a searing kiss. The pace of his hips slamming into your provided amazing friction to your clit. You could feel your second orgasm beginning to swell, the perfect curve of his cock grazing your g-spot with every thrust.

You cried out, your back arching as the sensation began to build.

"I need you to come before I do, sweetheart. Come on my cock."

You felt your orgasm begin to crest, your mouth opening in a silent scream as you teetered over the edge.

"I love you, y/n."

You climaxed in an enormous wave that washed over your entire body. The sheer intensity cause your vision to black out for a few seconds.

"I love you!" You chanted in a mantra as the your pussy throbbed around Johnny.

"Oh fuck!" He cried as his hips finally stuttered and he came inside you. It was an odd feeling, his cum painting your the walls of your cunt- but it felt so incredibly right.

There was no sound but both of your ragged breathing as you came down from your highs, reveling in the feeling of still having him inside you.

"Hi." Johnny said with a breathy laugh.

You giggled. "Hey there."

"This wasn’t exactly how I imagined this night to go."

"Neither did I, but I'm not mad about it."

Johnny chuckled before giving you a tender kiss. You stayed like that for few seconds before he eventually pulled out of you and you both slowly started to dress yourselves again.

"So, what does this mean? You're at war now?" You asked, your mind now wrapping itself around what had happened earlier.

"Yes, most likely. I'll need to take care of some things, but I'll keep us safe." Johnny cupped your face in his hands.

"Us?" You asked.

"Us." He grinned.

"I'll lie, cheat, kill, or die before anyone lays a finger on you, y/n." He had that deadly serious look in his eye, you knew he was being genuine.

"And I would do the same for you."

"After tonight, I know you would." He pulled you in for another kiss. You languidly enjoyed each other's lips for a moment.

"I think you should stay with me for the time being."

"But what about Alex? They could be in danger."

"Don't worry, I'll have someone watching your apartment. I swear to you they won't get hurt."

You nodded, you knew your life would never be the same.

"So, will I see you at school next week?" You asked.

Johnny laughed, his genuine smile was so beautiful.

"Yes Ma'am, I wouldn't even think of missing class." He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear.

"Good, don't make me teach you another lesson."

He pretended to think deeply for a second. "On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t show up then."

You giggled a playfully pushed his chest, only to have him pull you back in by the waist for another kiss.

He leaned his forehead against yours. "Let's go home."

It was a brisk morning as you made your way across campus. Life with Johnny as your boyfriend definitely changed your life as you know it. With everyone else still blissfully unaware of the double life you now live with him, you figured you could still keep up the charade of the upstanding student body president.

A pair of arms snuck around you from behind. "Good morning, Miss President."

You jumped at your boyfriend's voice in your ear. "You scared me dammit!"

"Don't worry love it's just me, I'd never let anything happen to you remember?" He kissed your temple.

You smiled. "I know."

"Listen, meet me after class today, I want to take you somewhere."

"Sounds ominous"

Johnny chuckled. "Nothing scary, I promise. At least I hope." He smirked before giving you a peck on cheek and sauntering off.

You couldn't help but watch the clock all day, the anticipation gnawing away at you despite your best efforts to ignore it. When it comes to Johnny, there really is nothing predictable.

When the professor finally dismissed class 5 minutes late you practically bolted out of the room. Taking a brisk pace, you found Johnny as he always was- leaning against his Audi, smoking a cig with his shades on. As soon as he caught sight of you he put out his smoke and swept you into a bear hug. His hugs were truly the best, his arms felt like the safest place in the world.

"Shall we?" He said after he put you down.

"You're not gonna kidnap me, are you?"

"Not unless you want me to." He winked.

You laughed and he opened the passenger door for you. Driving in the city was always hectic, but he took you back to his family's lavish townhome. You hadn't been back there since that night.

He led you up to the penthouse apartment, leading you down to a doorway you hadn't seen last time.

"This was my old room here. It has one of my favorite places in the house." He explained before pushing open the huge french doors.

It led to one of the coolest rooms you had ever seen. It practically screamed 'Johnny'. There was art and pictures everywhere on the walls, you could see where he kept a huge closet of all of his clothes- a lot of them still there. Books lined a whole wall, and you held back a giggle when you noticed the huge pile of stuffies on his bed.

"I like to collect them, ok?" He said, blushing slightly.

"How cute." You teased.

"Come on." He took your hand and led you to another set of french doors that let out to a balcony.

"Woah." Was all you could say as you took in the New York City skyline bathed in sunset.

"Time always felt like it stood still here." Johnny said from behind you. "It's the one place I'd come to escape it all- get lost in a book for a while."

You smiled as you continued to take in the view, imagining Johnny spending his time out here, catching sun rays.

"It's perfect." You said.

"You're perfect." You heard him say. You smiled to yourself. "Which is actually why I wanted to do this." He said.

Confused by his statement, you turned around to face him.

The last this you were expecting was Johnny on one knee, holding a gold ring that held a single diamond- it dazzled as it caught the sun's golden light. All you could do was stare. Johnny's looked up at you with so much sincerity you felt tears prick your eyes.

"Marry me, y/n."

[whltlock]

Bruised Strawberries (2/7)

CHAPTER TWO / MASTERLIST / Subscribe on AO3

Pairing: Jason Todd/Non-binary!Reader

Summary: You just wanted some god damned strawberries, but you got mixed up with a vigilante instead. Nonsense (and feelings) ensue.

Tags: idiots to lovers, fluff, snark snark and more snark, reader is a poc, reader is kind of a meta?

Word Count: 3010.

The polluted smoke curled thick on the streets. It burned a path through your chest and left an acrid taste on the roof of your mouth. A curt chill accompanied it, gnawing at your fingertips and turning your ears to an unsightly, dangerous ash. Every so often, the wind blew hair into your face and you slapped away the strands. Creaks and groans of gutters and ladders kept you on your toes, although you were hardly concerned with common crooks. You could turn the tables on them if you so pleased.

But you weren’t prepared for the world to go entirely dark. A person bounded up from behind like a ghost in the night and their gloves skimmed your cheeks as they stuffed something over your head. Your breath hitched and you jumped away, hands already scrabbling at the blindfold. Fingers found purchase in knit. At once, you recognised that damn pom pom.

Peeling the beanie further up your forehead, you found the culprit. Red leaned against the wall now, all cool and casual. You launched yourself at him with a strangled noise.

Easily, Jason dodged the swats, grabbing at your wrists. He had the nerve to laugh at you. You hit him in the chest.

“I’m going to rip your nipples off,” you seethed, fixing him with a deathly glare.

Jason’s tongue darted over his bottom lip. “You’re gonna have to figure out how to get me out of my clothes first, sweetheart.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” you said, brazenly squeezing at his hip, perhaps a little too hard to prove a point. “You’re already obsessed with me.”

Even under several layers of clothing, the touch singed. His chin tilted away, hoping to escape the uncertainty it filled him with. “Nah,” he objected. “I’m jus’ doing my duty. You’re cold.” And to prove his point, he leaned forward and adjusted the beanie. He bowed close, his face in front of yours.

Your eyes went wide as he nudged it over your ears and pushed your wild hair aside. He was gentle as he did so, merely a swipe against your skin. You stared, unblinking, taken aback.

Jason flicked the pom pom. “It’s more your colour anyway,” he mumbled, hands dropping back into his own space. Your face ignited where he’d made contact, but it was far from a bad feeling.

There was a long pause where you watched one another, measuring each other up because of this sudden, confusing intimacy with a stranger.

He swallowed, the intensity of your stare too much, then pressed himself against the wall like he hadn’t just touched you. He tried to sound nonchalant with his next words, “Steal anything lately?”

You clucked your tongue at him, making sure to crush his boot as you started walking again. For a moment, he watched the pom pom flutter atop your departing head, a small curve to his mouth at the innocent display. He trailed after you, joining your side.

The stroll was quiet as you wandered the Gotham streets with no destination in mind. You’d just been out to cure boredom. Jason kicked at litter all while.

When the silence ironically grew loud, you eyed the man. “What do you want?”

He was mute for a few more seconds before, “Do you take requests?”

Your brow pinched. “You can do your own bidding.”

He sighed. “It’s not for me.”

“Who’s it for?” you pried.

“People in the Narrows. The Bowery, too,” he said. “I do what I can, but clearly this is more your area of expertise.”

You peered at him for a long time, unable to discern much about the blank red slate. It didn’t bolster your ego to hear him admit defeat like that. But it was interesting that he cared—truly cared—about more than just the fight of it all.

His hand went into the pocket of his pants. There was a scrunching noise as he produced a slip of paper. Jason held it out to you.

Slowly, you took it. You unfolded it and read over the list of items. It was important things like medicine. Without speaking, you tucked it away, obliging him.

“Thank you,” Jason said, his voice low.

“It’s fine.”

You two kept walking, a hush sticky in the small distance between you. Both of you contemplated what this meant for your dynamic going forth.

More importantly, he couldn’t help but wonder, “Why do you do it?”

You inhaled, eyes scanning the streets before coming to rest on him. “Because…” you started, and there was a vulnerability in your tone that he hadn’t heard before. You looked down at the shade of your skin. “I know what it’s like to have so little. To survive only on kindness.”

He should’ve known your independence came from necessity.

Jason rubbed at his jaw, unsure whether to reciprocate the gesture of goodwill. Even a tidbit could be his ruin.

He settled on something simple. “I grew up on the streets, too.”

“Not a surprise since you have no manners.”

He rolled his eyes, arm bumping yours. “I apologised and brought you a gift, what more do you want?”

“The one I stole?” you said, brow raised. Subconsciously, your fingers nudged the hat, making sure it was still in place. For a split second, you re-lived the graze of his hand. Then, the corner of your mouth edged upwards, a million ideas brewing—some more devious than others. “You could replace my strawberries.”

“Hmph.”

Jason paused, stock still as his HUD lit up. A blitz of notifications tumbled in at once, signifying a downtown disaster. You stopped, too, looking over your shoulder at him.

“Gotta go,” he said, re-fastening his gloves and making sure his uniform was straight. He glanced up at you, hesitant to part. Despite your ineffable powers, you weren’t built like him. “You, uh, gonna be good to get home?”

You nodded.

Teeth dragged over his bottom lip. “You sure?”

Your smile bloomed, all bothersome. “What, like you haven’t chipped me by now?”

The joke tugged at Jason’s mouth. He didn’t offer you a reply besides, “Catch you,” as he hauled himself to a rooftop with his grappling hook.

Occasionally, your knees knocked against each other as you looked up at the sky. It was navy, a tiny smattering of puny stars overhead, an incomprehensible jumble because of the fumes and impurities. But it was peaceful to look at with the chill of cement beneath, rough against the curve of your spine. You connected imaginary constellations, forming your own tales. Gravity made your hair fan around you like a halo.

But he had to disrupt the calm.

“What do you do for fun?”

Your head swivelled to meet his. Jason lay beside you, admiring the sky just as you did. You blinked at him, wordless and slow; once, twice, three times.

Jason gawked at you from beneath the helmet as he realised what the silence meant. “You look after everyone but yourself.”

Your mouth became desert dry at the statement. There was truth to it. You did the bare minimum to keep yourself alive, and no more than that. So much of your time was spent planning heists to make others’ lives less miserable.

But what about your own?

Your eyes travelled skyward, unsure how to react to being called out. Wetting your lips, you shrugged as best as you could against the ground and retorted, “What do you do besides punch people?”

Jason made a displeased noise. A beat passed before he answered bashfully, “I like to read.”

You looked at him again, a smile playing on your face. He tracked the movement, then his eyes flicked up. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat.

Still with that teasing look, you asked, “What do you like to read?”

“All sorts,” he dismissed, not wanting to expose his literary indulgences. “I like technology,” he continued, just to persuade you from his previous revelation. “I made my suit.”

Curious for once, your brow lifted. “You did?” You poked him in the bicep as if that would disprove anything.

“You’re lucky I disabled the cattle prod,” he said drily.

Your eyes narrowed, imagination running wild at his words. “The what?”

Jason shrugged. “Can’t have people touching me if I pass out.” You shot him a look like that was all that strange. “Not all of us can jump away from our problems.”

You stared at him a moment longer before you turned away with a flippant hum. “I don’t know what I enjoy,” you admitted. “I’ve never stopped to think about it.”

“Well,” he said, flicking you in the forehead to which you scowled, “think about it now.”

Rubbing at your face, you did try to think it through. But nothing in particular jumped out. Hobbies were such a foreign concept to you, beyond the simple routines such as collecting small trinkets.

“I know someone who could show you the ropes of archery,” Jason offered.

You considered it, but you weren’t entirely sure you trusted him around a weapon like that just yet. Even if he had guns strapped to his body. “I’ll sleep on it.”

Sitting up, you nudged him with your shoe. He took the hint and rose. You pulled the hem of your pants legs up, revealing the colourful fabric beneath.

“I like odd socks,” you conceded.

Jason looked between your mismatched socks and your face, then his head tipped back with a laugh. “You’re stupid,” he uttered, but there was no malice behind it—if anything, it was appreciation.

Jason flinched when you appeared beside him. In front of you loomed an apartment that had gone up in flames. He thought it was likely arson, considering at least one of the occupants was a participant in a shady contract he was investigating, but it didn’t matter when the rest were innocent.

He looked to you and your wide eyes as you stared up at the raging fire. Thick, black smoke throttled and licked the surrounds already. It sat heavy in the air, obscuring his view.

His family members were on their way, but he’d save a few more lives with your help…

He was hesitant to ask, though. You weren’t equipped for this.

But you looked at him with determination in your eyes. “I can’t jump from here. I don’t know what it looks like inside,” you told him.

Jason swallowed the pungency that had settled in the back of his throat. He didn’t want to risk your life.

“Red,” you said, reminding him of how he wasted precious time.

He shook his head. “You can’t breathe, you get out pronto, alright?”

“Okay.”

Jason took your hand tightly in his and led you into the haze, hoping he wouldn’t regret his choice.

Once inside, you split from Jason. You charged through the hallways, now able to jump since you knew what you faced. You dodged hot, crumbling beams and other debris as you rescued residents. You deposited them safely outside with the fire crew. Really, you would give yourself a B plus for the handiwork.

The floor before you started to fall inwards, taking the room’s contents with it. You watched, almost in awe, as a television and couch disappeared into oblivion. It was obnoxiously loud, roaring in your ears. A new wave of smoke devoured the room and you couldn’t avoid inhaling it.

Coughing hard, your palm trailed the wall as you followed it to the exit. Although there wasn’t much of an exit left, so you simply stepped through the remnants of char. As you did so, you realised how your vision now swam, rippling from the intense heat. Dizziness became apparent too.

Breathing hurt because your lungs and throat burned. You dragged yourself along the wall, inhaling harshly. You shouted one last time, hoping there weren’t any stragglers left. Little exertion remained in you.

No reply came. You jumped before you passed out.

Jason found you in an alleyway a block down, seated against the wall, hacking your lungs up. He winced as his knees met cement. When you looked at him, he saw how soot covered your face and arms.

He sighed. “I told you to get out before this happened.”

“I’m here,” —you coughed— “aren’t I?” You blinked the dryness from your eyes. “Did we get everyone?”

He was silent for a moment as he assessed the hoarseness of your voice and the red in your eyes. He scanned your skin, searching for burns. You seemed conscious enough to not need dire medical help, but he still thought it best to get you checked out. Unfortunately for the both of you, he didn’t have X-ray vision. Your lungs might be all ash and you’d be none the wiser.

“Think so,” he said, his gaze moving beyond the alley to the ambulances that were lined up. Few lingered, having gone straight to the hospital.

A cough overpowered your, “Good.”

“C’mon,” he said, hauling you up by your elbow. He kept a hand on you to stabilise your walk.

You didn’t object until you were very clearly leaving the scene. “Where’re we going?” you asked, suddenly suspicious.

“Gonna harvest your organs,” he muttered, steering you.

Your eyes narrowed. “Has anyone ever told you you’re not very funny?”

Jason smiled thinly. “No, never.”

You let the doctor prick and poke you until the examination was over. Dr Thompkins was a busy woman and as such made little conversation. But her directions were sidled with care, so you knew it wasn’t a personal vendetta against you specifically. She made a couple of sideways comments to Red, but you were too worn out to listen properly. All you gathered was that they were acquaintances.

She stopped in front of you then, peering down at you with an air of authority. “The burns should all heal within a couple of weeks. The scans don’t show damage we need to worry about, either. You should be good with some rest.”

“Thank you,” you said. It was an effort to speak with how the smoke had carved its motif in your airways.

“Let me grab you a script and you can head out.”

Once she left the room, Red peeled himself from the wall. He came to sit next to you on the gurney.

“I’ll fill it for you,” he said, and you had to strain to hear it. You swallowed, unsure how to comprehend the kindness.

Your response was less than gracious. “So you can steal my meds?”

His tongue clucked. “Might just now, you brat.”

You stifled your smile as Thompkins returned.

Jason fought with you over the stack of pillows. You sat on the lounge in his current safehouse—forced by him, you would say—in a bundle of cloth.

“Leslie told you to stay upright,” he huffed, trying to rip the pillow out from under your head. You swat at him as he did so.

“‘Leslie’?” you repeated, eying him. He said nothing, but your lapse in attention allowed him to successfully wrench the pillow. You made an infuriated, whiny noise as you settled against it the way he wanted.

Finally able to rest, he dropped onto the other end of the couch with a roll of his eyes. A few moments passed of your shuffling before he asked, “How’s the headache?”

“Bad.”

He snorted at the bluntness of it. “You want more meds?”

You kicked him in the thigh, though there was a blanket between you. “Obviously.”

Jason should’ve known you’d be twice as annoying under the weather. But, as he looked over at you, observing the soot on your face and the sporadic gauze, he didn’t feel annoyed. Something else simmered beneath his skin, along with the urge to make sure you made it through the night.

With a sigh worthy only of an old man, he stood to fetch your supplies.

When he came back, he handed you the pills and water. Once you swallowed, he passed over a damp towel. You took it but stared blindly, blinked, and looked up again. Confusion marred your features.

The corners of Jason’s mouth quirked. “You’re dirty,” he stated. You glanced down and noticed your grotty fingernails for the first time. You scrubbed at them, then your face.

“Don’t forget your nose,” he said, watching you with an amused look as you pawed at your skin.

You made an aggrieved sound but otherwise listened.

“You did good, you know.”

Your chin lifted and the weariness of your expression wasn’t lost on him. “I don’t need to hear that,” you said. You were tentative as you continued. “But… thanks, I guess. You too, or whatever you weirdos say to each other.”

Jason’s head tilted. “Do people not usually thank you?”

“They do, but I don’t do it for the glory. People deserve help even if they don’t say ‘thanks.’”

Wondering if he should take offence, he asked, “You think I do?”

Your eyes flicked up, a poisonous smile following. “I think you do it so you can play the knight in shining armour.”

Jason scoffed, looking away.

“Oh, is it just me you take home?” you prodded slyly.

He shelved his arms across his chest. Ignoring the jab—which was one hundred percent true—he said, “I do it for the same reason you do.”

“To look sexy and mysterious?”

He clamped down on his bottom lip to stop a laugh from escaping. Instead, he muttered, “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”

“Yes.”

“As long as you know.”

You yawned and a mumble was lost to it.

He looked at you. “What?”

Heaving a sigh, you repeated, “Read to me.” When he didn’t swiftly agree, you continued, brows raised pointedly, “You said you like reading.”

Jason’s heart hammered as he stared at you. He contemplated it: an action so intimate and personal it would be strange to share from under the mask.

Eventually, he said, “Alright.”

You didn’t mind that he chose a random book, instead just content for him to lull you into a tranquil sleep.

Tags: @crumpets-are-better-with-jam @arkhxmknight

[ethvn-torchio]

Bucky x reader, except the reader is also a supersoldier who went through the same thing, so she 1000% understands. They both wake up from a nightmare and comfort each other, and end up having very passionate sex.

oH mY gOd iZzY!??!??!! good lord that is 𝓈𝒽𝓇𝑒𝓍𝓎.

Anyway babe, here's a bucky x fem!reader fic for ya. also omfg i love bucky barnes sm 🥺 hnngh mr barnes can rail me any day

Warnings: smut (duh), p in v sex ;) a little angst kinda? top!Bucky, bottom!reader (kinda?) unprotected sex

Word count: 1,398

You and Bucky were no strangers to nightmares; over the years, both of you were frequently plagued by them. They never became any easier to manage.

You live in the now, but there is one thing that will always and forever be a part of your past.

The Super Soldier serum.

The Soldier is part of who you are - who you both are. It's a part of Bucky, a part of you.

It wasn't an easy decision to make; to take that acceptance of what the past had set you on, and face forward.

Bucky shouts, bringing you out of your light, fitful sleep with a jolt. You throw yourself up and away from the bed with one quick motion.

It takes a moment for your vision to clear, and your breathing to steady. By the time your heart slows back down to normal, you're aware of Bucky was sitting up, leaning back with his hands braced on either side of his hips, breathing harshly, and panting as sweat dripped down his face and onto his chest, fingertips glistening with moisture.

Your pulse hadn't even calmed down enough for you to register what caused it to speed up in the first place when you exhale sharply, seeing Bucky crouched in the middle of the bed, face contorted in the middle of a scream. You can't see his eyes behind the glare the moonlight throws at you, but you get the feeling he's looking right at you.

He's looking at you.

"Bucky," you say, softer than you intend to, eyeing him as you finish sliding up onto your feet in the floor. "Hey. It's okay, Bucky. Breathe," you offer, holding your hands out open and out to your sides, to show you mean him no harm.

Bucky doesn't register your words and doesn't stop staring at you. His eyes are wide, his fists clenched.

"It's only me, Bucky," you breathe. It's then you notice how tense his body is; the tic of the muscle in his jaw, the tension in his arms, the way his shoulders hunch. He looks like he's ready for a fight, ready to grab his weapon of choice and take aim for the kill.

"Bucky, look at me," you request, the words coming out as soothing as you think you can get them. "Breathe with me. Come on. It's just me. You're safe," you reassure, still maintaining a safe distance.

It takes a couple of seconds, but you can see the way his shoulders visibly relax when he finally looks up at you, breathing deeply and still shaking. The sight of him in the state he was in made your heart ache.

You nod, ready to approach.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and you can hear him swallow audibly. "I…" he falters, pausing, and then he pauses again, exhaling harshly. "I'm sorry." he repeats.

"Do you...want to talk about it?" you ask tentatively, though you doubted he would. Neither of you liked to talk about your nightmares.

"No," he replies, almost immediately, though you can see him glance back at you briefly before his eyes avert back to their spot between his knees. "No, I don't. I don't want to…I don't want to think about it anymore."

"Okay," you agree, "Okay," you repeat again, slowly. "I don't expect you to." you add with a smile, though you doubt he can see it. You sit beside him on the bed.

You let the silence fill the space between you, letting him collect himself. 

Finally, he says, “I don’t want to go back to sleep.” 

You shift, tucking a loose hair behind your ear. “Well, what can I do to help?”

Dark, lustful eyes follow your silhouette. "I don't want to think anymore... just let me..." He whispers, the tone of his voice desperate. 

You wordlessly nod, allowing him to pull you into a kiss. There’s nothing quite romantic about the way he kisses you, insatiable and impassioned. The kiss feels longer than it actually is. 

Finally, you break apart, staring at each other for a moment longer before his eyes glance down to where your lips are still slightly parted, watching him. 

Without another word, his cold metal hand slides up your nightshirt, leaving trails of goosebumps in it's wake. He helps you out of your shirt, leaving you in only your sports bra.

His brow furrows. He growls, and you can hear the telltale sound of tearing fabric - and then you’re bare for him, nipples hardening in the cool air. 

You never liked that bra, anyway.

He mutters your name in appreciation, teeth grazing your neck. His hands trail along your body, like he was making sure you were real. 

You wish you could see his brilliant blue eyes, if only to reassure him more. 

He tugs impatiently at the waistband of your shorts, pressing his forehead to yours. You card your fingers in his hair, and before you know it, your shorts are uncaringly tossed to the floor. 

He pauses at the waistband of your underwear. You can feel his hot breath against your neck, his fingers hooked at the waistband.

"Bucky," you plea softly.

That's seemingly all the motivation he needs, and your underwear is added to the ever-growing pile of clothes on the floor.

He doesn't hesitate to touch your clit, rubbing tight circles on the bundle of nerves.

You mewl, spreading your legs for him, anything to get more attention on your clit.

However, he abandons your clit in favor of something else.

You can feel the cold metal of his fingers In your searing heat, and you squirm. “Bucky, oh, God-” you mutter, biting your lip. 

He shushes you, pressing a kiss to your lips. You quickly get used to the icy coolness of his fingers, it adds another layer to your pleasure. He buries his two fingers to the knuckle, pumping and curling his fingers just right, making you a wet, wanton mess. 

He hits your G-spot, and you throw your head back, moaning aloud. He hits that spot a few more times before he removes his fingers, making you whine at the loss.

“Suck.” is his simple demand, fingers coated in your slick.

You oblige, sucking his fingers, the faint taste of metal mixed with your own juices.

He groans, and then his fingers - wet with your own spit - go back down to your clit, rubbing it with fast, light strokes.

You moan, clenching around nothing, aching for him.

Eventually, he stops, and you can feel the head of his cock brush against your entrance. He pauses, pressing his forehead to yours. "-needed this so much, Doll. God, I-" he trails off.

You press a kiss to his cheek. "I'm here, Bucky."

He exhales shakily, and suddenly, he buries himself inside of you to the hilt.

The noise that he releases is primal.

You moan at the feeling of being full, and the delicious stretch that comes along with it.

He stays like that for a brief moment, letting you adjust to him before he rolls his hips.

He thrusts sharply, experimentally, before he finds his rhythm, setting a frantic pace, fucking you like he'd never see you again.

He peppers kisses everywhere he can, kissing your lips, your cheeks, your neck, your shoulders - as you writhe underneath him, incoherently begging for more. He grips your hips, holding them tightly, muttering slurred praises in your ear.

It was something carnal, something wild and desperate, and it was so fucking good.

His skillfull fingers find your clit once again, and the combination of the attention on your clit and the way he hits your G-spot makes you cry out his name, you orgasm steadily approaching.

You clench around his cock and he groans in appreciation, kissing and nipping at your neck.

There was surely going to be a hickey on your neck and bruises on your thighs when you woke up tommorow, at the rate he was going.

His hips begin to stutter, his breath gets shaky. "'M gonna-" he warns,

You were about to respond when he pinches your clit, and your orgasm hits you suddenly, quickly. You yell his name, milking his cock.

He groans into your hair, whispering your name as he gives a few short, choppy thrusts before he orgasms.

You both sleep nightmare free the rest of the night.

-------

Taglist:

@rizwritesfandom @motherfuckingstargirl10 @haydens-moles

yo sorry this was vv not good ngl 💁🏻‍♀️ but like I'm really tired yall I'm sorry 🗿✌️ hope y'all enjoyed<3 also the ending was trash

Edit; wtf deadass I forgot the part where the reader was supposed to have a nightmare too????? Literally ignore me sldjfhskek

[fanfiction-inc]

Can I get Arthur Morgan

But of back story having met a sweet but wild woman let’s say they meet during Colter. She’s literally lived in the mountain and survived and ends up with the gang.

First meeting hmmm he’s just like oh what in the heck is this crazy woman and she’s so nice to me and snuggly and sweet and wtf she just decked a man flat on his ass?!

ONTO REQUEST with back story in mind.

But they end up sweet on one another And the letter from Mary comes.

Reader ends up tagging along due to reasons and she can’t stand when Mary basically is tugging at Arthur’s emotions. He’s never seen the reader looking at anyone so angrily.

But they end up having first NSFW time and Arthur is a mess of I’m not worthy snd reader is like I say you are and if I gotta F-squeak toy sound-ck it into you I will.

DONT feel the need to go with everything I said I just like to give prompts and let people fly free! Love your writing!!!!

Feel free to ask back for anything RDR!

I had so much fun writing this request! 😍 I hope you enjoy!

(AN: As always, smut is under the cut!)

You have had enough of this woman, her very presence and mannerisms sickening you as you walked along behind your love interest and his former girlfriend.

This woman was working him through every emotional attachment that was left lingering, and she tried to play on the fact they used to have a relationship to persuade him to do this or that for her.

What finally had you huffing and puffing, glare like pure daggers towards the woman with every emotion spawned from the fires of Hell, was when she tried to convince him to run away with her.

To change him into an "honest man".

A "good man".

Arthur Morgan was as good of a man as he can be!

He was kind, smart, caring, and if this woman couldn't see it then it was her loss.

Arthur lost attention at times from Mary's woeful story, catching the gaze you gave to the woman as you walked on and helped him with the task he had been asked to do.

The rage in your gaze, the balling of your fist, and how your body was tense.

He's never seen you like this, always such the charming and sweet little thing when you two are together.

All giggles and smiles, kind gazes and warm embraces.

He didn't know what to make of it, even when you two return to camp and you haven't spoken a word to him.

It wasn't his fault that Mary was like this, he had no part expect being a passenger among your anger train towards the woman who didn't deserve him.

His mind went to ways he may have upset you when with Mary.

Did he stay too close?

Did he not make it known enough that he was taken in some form of relationship with you?

He followed you back to your tent, seeing how your hands were shaking at your side, his taking yours and causing you to turn quickly and face him.

The moment those big blue puppy dog eyes met yours, you melt, calming in his presence.

God, you loved this damn man.

"(First name)-" He was cut off by your words when your form pressed in against his own, lips brushing his in a gentle lip lock.

It took him a millisecond before he was returning the kiss, hands letting yours go in exchange for coming up to cup your cheeks and hold you closer.

It was like fire between you two, the kiss heating up even without words needing to be exchanged.

He only pulled away when your fingers looped in his belt, eyes catching your own.

"(First name), darlin'... What if m'not enough for ya?" Your questioning gaze meets his own and he swallowed thickly. "I don't deserve a woman like ya. So sweet on me, stealin' m'heart each time y'smile and that damn contagious laughter.."

He stopped speaking the moment your finger placed against his lip, watching your expression shift to a far more sweet and loving demeanor.

Yet lust still stayed in those eyes that left him dreamy, lost in thought as he stares.

"Arthur Morgan, if I have t'fuck it into ya that y'deserve me, I will." He felt his cheeks warm when you began unbuckling his belt, the audible gulp sounding in the air making you pause.

"Are y'sure?" He questioned in a breathy whisper, licking his lips when your hands move up his chest, grabbing the collar of his shirt to pull him against you so your lips rested against his ear.

"Absolutely, Mr. Morgan." He visibly shivered, melting when feather like kisses trailed along his jaw and down to his neck, now being hyperaware of just how you make him feel.

His hands come down to grasp your rear, soon hiking you up with a squeak from your lips so your legs wrapped around his waist.

So he could grind his growing hardness against your pants covered core and let you feel what you do to him.

His fingers came to the buttons of your shirt, working to get them undone ad yours worked on his vest, letting the article fall off his form unceremoniously to the dirt below.

He catches your lips following a tilt of his head, humming in satisfaction when your shirt is off and your bare breast are exposed to the humid air of the camp.

Arthur Morgan was savoring every second of this, loving how hot and needy your form grew when he laid you on the cot and busied his mouth with a perky nipple, earning the most delicious of noises from you.

Each breathy sigh when his tongue flicked over the bud and how his teeth just barely grazed the sensitive flesh earning a hitch in breath.

It was pure music to his ears.

Soon enough it was his turn to groan, the sound a low rumble rising from his chest when your hand snaked its way into his trousers, taking him in hand.

"My God, woman. You're drivin' me wild." He huffed out, motions pausing as his eyes flutter shut and savor the slow rhythm you had set with each pump of his member.

"Isn't that the point, Mr. Morgan?" You joked sweetly, giggling when his eyes open to send you a playful look, his lips moving from your breast to kiss down your abdomen and pause at the trousers blocking him from your drenched sex.

Your hand had to pull away from the way he lowered himself, his fingers looping in the waistband of your pants and gaze flickering up for a single second.

A silent question was posed.

"Go ahead." You cooed, body shivering in pure delight at the way his gaze shifted to something more...needy.

He has waited so long to do this, and now he was gonna savor every second of it.

He reveled in the view of you once your pants were off, a verbal moan leaving his lips when he stole a lap at your core, hands moving to catch your shifting hips.

He kept his gaze locked on your own, not giving a damn who heard your lewd noises that spilled out with each suckle and lick at your sensitive bundle of nerves and needy hole.

Savoring the way your chest raised with each quickened breath and how your eyes fell half way when he found the right pace to bring you closer and closer to the edge.

Each hungry lap led you closer and closer, fingers tangling in his hair and tugging with a sweet, delicious moan as the levee broke and he was flooded with your slick, cleaning you of every drop he could.

He rose up with a chuckle, your blissed out expression making his heart flutter.

It encouraged him, made him happy to know he could make you feel so good.

His tongue darks out, licking at what was left on his lips and back of his hand wiping at his chin.

God this man looked sinful doing such.

"Sweeter than honey." He commented, grinning at the rising blush decorating your cheeks.

Your fingers grab his pants again, pulling him in for a kiss as he moved to get his shirt the rest of the way off.

His pants soon followed, now nude to you for the first time.

Of course, you've seen him from the waist up when things got too hot for multiple layers.

Bare chest exposed and slickened with sweat from whatever activity he had been doing.

Your fingers traced over the flesh, resting over his heart to feel it racing as he positioned himself between your legs, gaze seeking your own for approval once more.

"Arthur, please just fuck m'like ya mean it." You pleaded with him when the tip of his cock brushed over your slickened folds, hitting your clit and making your thighs tremble.

He gave a smirk at your words, hips moving so he could sheath his length within you.

He's slow, savoring the way your core accepts every inch of his shaft until his hips are against your own and face pressed against your neck, delivering tender kisses to aid in the process of you adjusting to him.

You're like a well oiled machine, moving in sync to advance the process.

Breaths shared between open mouthed kisses and noises silenced by the other, excluding the wet, skin hitting skin noises that begin to overtake the tent.

Raw, needy, he fucks you like a man desperate to never lose you, to never be without you in his life.

Each pump brings him closer and closer to the edge, just like the feelings building like wildfire in your core.

"Arthur!" Your tone is breathy when it reaches his ears, the only warning besides the sudden clamp of your walls around him and the new octave your tone takes to your release.

He groaned out when he finished within you, your walls stealing everything he has and weight resting on his arms as he tries to combat the high and not crush you.

"I told ya y'drive me wild." He chuckled out, breathless and moving to his side, bringing you with him so he stays buried inside you for the time being.

"Do y'still feel unworthy of me, Arthur?" You questioned gently, fingers tracing designs along his chest, head resting against his shoulder.

"No, all because ya reassured me." He admits, kissing the top of your head.

"Good."

RDR2 TAG LIST:

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