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#and striking a blow against the rich

genre · 3 years

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Oh Greatest of Kings, indulge me in this friendly Christmas game. Let whichever of your knights, his boldest of blood and wildest of hearts, step forth, take up arms and try with honor to land a blow against me. Whomsoever nicks me, shall lay claim to this my arm, its glory and riches shall be thine. But, thy champ must bind himself to this: Should he land a blow, then one year and yuletide hence he must seek me out yonder to the Green Chapel six nights to the north. He shall find me there and bend a knee and let me strike him in return. Be it a scratch on the check or a cut in the throat, I will return what was given to me and then in trust and friendship we shall part. Who then, who is willing to engage with me?

The Green Knight (2021) dir. David Lowery

#userrobin #usermouffe #usercas #usersunny #tuserdana #usermarcy #userairam #userlex #userkd #filmedit #perioddramaedit #the green knight #dev patel #a24 #film*

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bunnyrhe · 2 years

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Rich Doctor! Kim Seokjin x Ocelot Hybrid Little

Summary: Jin loves to swim with his cub.

Warnings-rich Jin, little space reader, hybrid reader, needy reader, light teasing, caregiver Jin

Jin loved to take swim.

He lived for the rush of the biting cold on his back and shoulders. The water felt like freshly spun silk suavely gliding against his skin. The weightless feeling he got seeing his world turn blue when he dove down to the bottom of the cobalt waters was unparalleled.

That was the main reason he added the pool feature to his penthouse in the sky. Jin had champagne dreams and champagne money to enjoy every furlong of the finer side of life where the grass was greener and the air was cleaner. Afterall, one does not become a cardiothoracic surgeon to not live lavishly.

He lived on the top floor for the view of the blue distant mountains far beyond the dull monochromatic black cityscape. The mountains were serrated, their broken whitecapped peaks and domes shrouded in fine early morning mist. The swirling peach clouds among the mauve sky made a striking contrast . This was nature's palate in perfect juxtaposition.

The early morning sun worked magic on the water,turning it into a thousand glittering sapphires among the grey deck tiles on the veranda. The water subsumed colour from the sky, changing it to an astonishing lilac.

Jin dived deeply into the water, hearing the muffled sloshing as he breached. The dive sent glittering arcs of spray that fell back into the pool. He opened his eyes, seeing a yellow and black striped figure seemingly rippling at the water's edge.

He propelled himself to the surface. He wiped water off his face and blinking the chlorine away. He breathed in deeply, blowing water out of his nose. Even doing the most mundane of things, Jin Iooked fabulous. He flicked his wet hair back, eyes smoky like onyx and focused on you. The water beads rolling off his body creating a glossy polish over him. He was a polished marble Adonis in the first light of day.

He was watching you pacing and meowing at the pool's edge, softly and pathetically calling out for him.He splashed the water invitingly watching you mewl at him, a pair of needy emerald eyes staring at him wanting early morning cuddles. "Come on babygirl! Come swim with Appa! Come on you can do it!"

You shook your head, pawing at the tiles cutely. You wanted him to come to you. "Aish, a wildcat who can't swim." He teased, paddling over to you. His broad shoulders submerging and reappearing to reveal modestly rippling biceps. The long, graceful breast strokes created satisfying swish-swash noises.

Of all the wild, ravishing adventures his lifestyle allowed, his favourite journey was the one that led him to you. He had first met you when you and a handful of exotic tropical hybrids had been brought to the hospital.You had been smuggled in to be sold for your pelt, the ocelot fur had become a rare luxury now with the near extinction of your kind. He'd done a minor repair to your cardiac septum when you were in human form and then he couldn't take his eyes off of you.

You'd shifted back to a tiny ocelot form by the time he'd made post-up rounds the following morning. It scared him when he didn't find you in your bed. He searched the bathroom and the halls before moving to call a security code. Blue was for missing patients but you were so frail and unhealthy you were getting machines from the NICU. If he called pink security would find you faster if they understood the situation. He was hovering over the phone dial when your tail wrapped delicately around his wrist and he swooned.

You were still patched up, a tiny cut over your right eye and bandages down your middle. You were a tiny Ocelot. You weren't an Ocelot,"you're an Oce-little!" He chuckled to himself, clacking the phone down onto the receiver.

You recovered well, getting all your nutrition in the right amount and copius amounts of love and attention. The cardio nurses cooed at your interactions, your happy drawback to your hind legs and the tackling of his stethoscope. You'd pounce on his shoes, and he pretended your blunt teeth and puny claws hurt him and his L.V. loafers.

It broke him to leave you for surgeries, especially as you cried into your pillow waiting for him. You kept thinking he was abandoning you. Jin loved cool rare surgeries, it's what put his name on the map but they were so long. He couldn't put you in the theatre, not his baby. He'd begun leaving you clothes and toys and pictures of him before he left for surgeries.

It was no surprise when he adopted you. There was minimal resistance from authorities once he'd lined pockets enough. He signed some papers to make it official and got same day approval to bring you home.

You'd never left his sight since. Jin insisted that you be carried everywhere, your legs just weren'tstrong enough yet (no cub let Appa take you to the playroom...cub you're just not strong enough let Appa feed his baby...uh uh Cub can sleep with Appa tonight- Appa needs to monitor your heart rate). His cub needed him to carry her around like a baby bundled in blankets or with the stretchy carrier scarf meang for infants. It let him manoeuvre around the home tidying and relaxing while xou were swaddled and wrapped against his chest.

Jin cooked for himself most days, only sending for the Chef on days he worked late. He tried to keep those days to a minimum having read enough literature to tell him key parts of hybrid health was linked to being near their human. The baby carrier was the best investment he made so far. Being without you for long times still drove him crazy, needing go check the cub cams around the apartment every opportunity he got. It mainly was footage of you sleeping in sunshine or rolling around on his pillow but it tided him over till he returned to you.

" Come here, kitten, Appa doesn't want your collar to get wet." He pet your head, scratching the spot between your ears, hearing you purr deeply. You rolled onto your back showing him your tummy which he graciously tickled. He propped up on the edge of the pool letting you play with his fingers, nomming on Appa's fingers softly with your lips.

He knew you were feeling particularly small today, making a mental note to warm some milk for you for breakfast.

He unfastened your collar, setting it on the towels he'd laid out. You licked his nose softly, giving him your version of gentle kisses. Jin laughed squeakily, gloriously happy that his cub could join him. "My turn." He kissed your forehead softly,pulling away to watch you spin around excitedly. Jin cooed softly, eyes beaming down at you.

"My precious cub. I love you baby. Now don't drink the pool water okay?

You sank in slowly, barely making keeping your head above the water and paddling over to Appa. Jin could almost cry from sheer happiness. He cheered for you, swimming over to you then ducking underwater to pick you up close to his chest. "My brave little one! Oh! I'm so proud of you, my cub."

Next part

Taglist: open ✅ Ask to join Rhe's taglist @cinnamonspicedreader @soft-teddybear @importantnickelcloudfish @urluvl @cherrystaehy @choi-kim-misuki @sophiayoongi-hyung @chubbynadnad-blog @nlost21 @nothingeverdies @lady-amethysta @xanny91 @jvinnv @bokuatsubro @rosquilleta @shiverrick @hearts-4-yoongi @namutits @snowyydayys @maddiejo112 @kenkozsgf @kimahnjung98 @sunshinee0-0 @frinnabibi @guess-whos-now-a-mood @ejspencer14

#bts little reader #bts yandere #jin x reader #rich Jin bts #sugar daddy bts #namjoon x reader #hoseok x reader #jungkook x reader #taehyung x reader #yandere bts x reader #yoongi x reader #bts #jimin x reader #bts x reader #bts fanfic #bts imagines #bts hybrid fluff #bts x hybrid reader

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ecoamerica · 18 days

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youtube

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

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therukurals · 2 years

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@creatorsofcolornet event 9 → secret santa for @highwarlockkareena

Let whichever of your knights is boldest of blood and wildest of heart step forth, take up arms, and try with honor to land a blow against me. Whomsoever nicks me shall lay claim to this, my arm.It's glory and riches shall be thine. But... thy champ must bind himself to this: Should he land a blow, then one year and Yuletide hence, he must seek me out yonder, to the Green Chapel six nights to the North. He shall find me there and bend the knee and let me strike him in return. (Translated Original Poem)

The Green Knight (2021)

Happy Holidays Kareena, wishing you the best in the new year!

#the green knight #sir gawain and the green knight #diversehistorical #perioddramaedit #filmedit #dev patel #ccnet #gil's content #gc: gifs #gc: hollywood #gc: the green knight #the way i thought i was going to have a holiday....while at home....not realistic #sorry it was so late Kareena!#but it was a lot of fun to make! this film really was something #uncaptioned

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that-foul-legacy-lover · 3 years

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The Day the Ocean Erupted

Foul Legacy Childe x Reader Gender Neutral (no pronouns mentioned) Angst, Hurt/Comfort Warnings: Allusions to death, drowning, pain, storms, thunder, rain

~ * ~

You remember the day the ocean erupted.

You’d been in your office, at 2 PM exactly, pen in hand and ink spotting your fingers, the culprits a stack of papers in the upper corner. The sun had filtered through your window and casted shining streamers on your desk as you wrote, typical of Liyue’s golden summers. You tapped your pen against your chin- how to phrase this next sentence? Should you focus on one or two types of silk? You hummed contemplatively, then scribbled a few more words. Sturdiness- that was important to mention in a report, especially one about something elegant like silk. The room filled with a comforting silence as you wrote word after word on the paper in the delicate warmth of the sun.

The first drop came and went without attention. But it was soon followed by another. And another. And another, until the sky was shedding all its tears into the streets and ocean of the city. Your pen had fallen from your grasp with a resounding clatter as you stood to peer outside the window, your eyes narrowed. Rain? In Liyue? Now? It was ridiculous.

Then something burst out of the ocean and you fell backwards in shock, pushing yourself away from the window despite being on one of the upper levels of the harbor. You rushed downstairs and pushed your door open, catching glimpses of an enormous serpentine creature rising from the waters as people rushed up and down the streets in a panic. The rain poured down in buckets, drenching everything and everyone, and all around there’s a frenzy of screaming, shouting, yelling, the same phrase reworded a thousand times, The Fatui did this, it’s the Fatui’s fault, the Fatui are to blame, and you could only think of one thing- your associate, your acquaintance, your companion.

Your friend.

Childe. Where was he? Vanished to the Golden House, they told you, but not as Childe, as Tartaglia, the Harbinger. For business, he said.

But soon you were swept up with the waves of screaming, and the thought had been lost.

That was weeks ago, when the Traveler had harnessed the power of the Adepti and defeated the old god Osial, with a final blow from Lady Ningguang’s Jade Chamber to seal him in the sea. The entire nation held its breath as Fatui activity wavered, dropped, then fizzled out completely. Life returned to normal, the seasons rolling by like a sigh of relief as reassuring whispers spread the news that the Fatui were finally, finally stopping their irritating interferences with the harbor.

You finish your final words and set your pen down, a thoughtful frown prominent on your face. You’ve never really been affected by the Fatui. For the most part they simply existed, a rumored plague on the Liyue Qixing with their endless meddling, but to you they were simple guards standing near doors and on the docks. On occasion when you had to wait there you would make conversation, to which most of them would respond to either in earnest or slightly tense surprise. For all their supposed horrid tendencies and practices and nosiness, you had found that many of the Fatui were, quite simply, people; people from a different nation and far away from home. People who had their own interests and likes and dislikes. People who had their own reasons and dreams and realities.

People who had all vanished when the last ripple in the ocean had stilled. And among them, your friend Childe, the Eleventh Harbinger Tartaglia. He was the only Fatui you would really consider a friend, the others being mere acquaintances. He was always teasingly kind to you, offering to get you a meal or asking to spend some offtime together. You, ever-suspicious, had often refused, but he was persistent and determined to chip down your walls one by one. And when they shook and crumbled your friendship had blossomed, despite the odd melancholy in his eyes whenever he looked at you, a question you never knew the answers to.

All this he was. But he was gone now, you suppose, following the tall, elegant woman you had seen exiting the Northland Bank to the mysterious depths of Inazuma. He looked so exhausted, outwardly appearing as tired as you sometimes felt inside, and your brow pinches.

You sigh and set your pen to the side before rising from your chair, cursing yourself for contemplating old memories. You don’t expect Childe to return anytime soon, if ever, so perhaps some thoughts are best left packaged in their pretty boxes scattered around the attic of your mind. The door swings open as you slip on your coat- it’s chilly outside, and you walk to the teashop for a new blend and distraction from the conflicting turmoil in your head.

The rain begins just as you hurry back home, having forgotten your umbrella in a moment of carelessness. Liyue’s winters, while cold and biting, never froze the storms that encroached almost every other day, instead letting icy droplets of slush fall on people’s backs and clothes. The clouds shield the few stars in the sky from view, blocking out the moon and turning the raindrops an inky black. You shove your door open and immediately shut and lock it again with a sigh of relief, shaking out your clothes and rubbing your chilled hands together. Your breathing is the only sound in the house, and your bones soon settle with a deep chill as the pressing quiet seems more and more foreboding. You cock your head to the side and hear an ever-so-faint rustling sound, and you pick up your weapon before making your way down the hall.

When you reach the living room you blink in surprise. Unlike what you expected, nothing is broken, not a dish is out of place, no drawers are flung open and riffled through. Nothing is wrong, nothing is out of order, your limited vision tells you, but a cold breeze sends goosebumps down your arms and you make your way over to the ajar window, very nearly bumping into furniture several times. You fumble with the latch and pull the window shut, dragging the curtain closed as if to cover the rain with elegant patterns and cloth, and for a few moments, you listen to the steady pour outside as it creates a chiming melody on the roof and glass.

Something breathes next to you. You whirl away in shock, clutching your weapon tightly. Something is here with you, watching you across the room, observing your every move as you hurry to light a match for some semblance of sight, the lamps in your house completely useless right now. The match strikes and connects, a yellow flame bursting to life, flickering like a firefly. You hold it up and come face-to-face with a single eye. Enormous and pearly, it gleams softly in the darkness, although whether it is blue or purple you cannot say. Sharp, plated red armor surrounds it, mask-like and curling into twin horns. The creature’s skin is also armored and bony, shades of purple and black with occasional splashes of red or silver, covered by a pair of translucent, sparkling wings like the deepest sea. It towers over you, claws and teeth razor sharp even in the persisting gloom, and you gasp and stumble away in terror. The starry wings and deep, rich colors, and the feeling it emanates, of being crushed and drowned by shining waves…

An Abyssal creature, some sort of monstrous beast from the depths of your world. It must be.

You back away from it, your chest tight with fear and the thought of death, of dying at the hands of this monster, holding your weapon so tightly you fear it might crack in your grip.

You’ve never been a fighter, only practical enough to keep a weapon you could use nearby. Between you and the creature, the creature would win with a simple swipe of its claws, and you would bleed out on the floor until you didn’t exist anymore, just another body lost to the infinite ocean.

But there is no attack, no clashing, no burning, searing pain, only a soft, sad whimper. You open your eyes and see the creature reaching out to you, crawling across the floor like standing causes it agony, as it lets out a broken and desperate wail. You take a step back again, then a step forward, your fear seeping out of you. Holding the match higher, you lean forward and squint, dots of color bleeding into the environment.

Ginger. Wondrously fluffy ginger hair, although it's wet with rainwater, and a single streak of white like snow.

You know who, and you say who before you even think who, uttering out it’s, his, name in a hushed whisper.

Childe.

Your weapon forgotten, you stand shellshocked in a corner of the room, so still and frozen that Childe himself attempts to rise to his feet, only to fall back to the ground with a pained cry, a sound that snaps your thoughts like shattering ice as you rush to support him. He scratches his claws on the ground, hiccupping, sobbing, whining tearfully at a pain you can’t see. You place a hand on the side of his face and he leans into it, almost slumping to the ground as he brings his hand up to cover your own. He stares at you, pained and suffering, with the same melancholy as before, a melancholy you now understand means I cannot love you, even though I so wish to, it is forbidden by fate and stars, and your heart breaks.

You pick up a distant rumble of thunder, and Childe yelps in fear, wrapping his claws around you and pressing his face into your side, trembling. Your fingers stroke through his hair, running down the sides of his face and horns, and his sobs die to labored breathing as exhaustion finally overtakes him and lets his body relax.

You remember the day the ocean poured down from the sky. It was now, in a dark room with a pinprick flame of light, holding the consequences of the Abyss.

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inkykeiji · 3 years

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you’re like a drug to me, a luxury, my sugar and gold

character: gojou satoru

genre: smut with a sprinkle of fluff at the end

notes: aaaaah first jjk fic ever!!!! uhhh this is honestly just pure smut and punishment, satoru is a Bad Daddy, and it’s set in a curseless AU | title cred: handclap by fitz and the tantrums

warnings: 18+ minors dni, dubcon/noncon, slight size difference/size kink, belly bulge, spanking with a belt, rough sex, minimal prep, minimal aftercare (at first), toxic and unhealthy relationship (satoru is mean n a bad daddy!), daddy kink/slightly implied ddlg dynamics, praise kink, dacryphilia

words: 3.1k

synopsis:

And although you can—and do—get away with a lot, you can’t get away with everything. A little brattiness he can handle, a little brattiness he thinks is cute. But on the days when you’re really misbehaving, purposefully (or not) breaking every rule, acting out and refusing to listen, rejecting any bargain or compromise with him at all—well, he’s only human.

And he snaps.

Gojou Satoru is a bad Daddy.

He’s a sweet Daddy, a silly Daddy, a Daddy who’s almost incapable of saying no. He’s a Daddy with a massive sweet tooth, a Daddy who frequently allows both of you to have dessert before dinner—sometimes dessert for dinner—and a Daddy who gives his princess nearly everything she desires, weak to your pretty pout and puppy-dog eyes and please, Daddy?’s. He hates to deny you, aches at the thought of you being even just a teensy bit displeased, because he wants his baby happy, always.

It’s his fault, really, you’re saying, insisting, when he calls you a spoiled brat. Because, honestly, it is; Satoru is entitled—he always has been, born with a not silver, not gold, but platinum spoon in his mouth—and his little princess is entitled, too.

Because he gives you anything and everything you ask for the moment the demand leaves your mouth, dotes on you hand and foot, absolutely adores you, lavishing you in the finest silks and prettiest lace, always indulging you just as much as he indulges himself—as much as he has always been indulged, growing up filthy rich.

Because you weren’t always like this; or, at least, you weren’t always this brash about it.

But years of getting exactly what you want, exactly when you want it, has forced your attitude to change, to shift.

You haven’t changed, Satoru tells you one day, a tub full of melty ice cream in his lap as he shovels another spoonful into your mouth, waning sun bathing the penthouse terrace in translucent gold and coral, brilliant colours reflected in his crystal eyes. “I didn’t do anything—I simply revealed your true nature,” A devious little smirk spreads across his lips, eyes glinting in an almost ominous nature, and you shiver. “You’ve always been a selfish materialistic brat, haven’t you?”

Well, you guess he has a point.

And he snaps.

It’s always something little, after a day full of disobedience, that does it, that finally lights the fuse and forces an explosion. Something that would normally be inconsequential, something he’d usually laugh off with a coo and a loving pat to your head.

Because you fought him on bedtime last night, then fought him on going to university this morning. You demanded pancakes for breakfast and when he denied them to you, because he’s got an important meeting in the afternoon and thus hasn’t the time to make them, you refused to eat anything at all—only to whine and bitch and complain about how starved you were for the entire duration of his conference. And yet, throughout it all, he was the perfect picture of patience, endlessly cool and nonchalant in his responses to your multiple tantrums.

Until you rushed into the kitchen in a famished frenzy, diving straight for the cookie jar and shoving three in your mouth.

“Sweets are not an appropriate dinner, baby,”

The words are sighed out in pure exasperation, his thumb and his forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose, lids shut tightly.

Eyebrows furrowing, you tilt your head in confusion, speaking around your mouthful. “Since when?”

His eyes snap open, blazing azure glaring at you with such an intensity it makes you flinch, cookie crumbs turning to ash in your mouth.

“Since forever,” he seethes, mask of impassivity finally beginning to break.

“What?” you laugh around the word, but it trembles. “What are you talking about? You rarely enforce that rule—especially since you don’t even follow it yourself!”

“It doesn’t matter,” he snaps, nostrils flaring with a particularly harsh exhale. “I am the boss, and what I say goes,”

“Daddy!” A sock-clad foot stomps against the marble floor as you whine out the word, arms crossing tightly over your chest. “That isn’t fair! You can’t just—”

“Enough with this attitude!” he snarls, moving like a crack of lighting as he lunges at you, lithe arms embracing you in an iron grip. “I can, and I will,”

And then he’s hauling you over his shoulder, one strong arm wrapped around you and pinning you draped over his body, delivering swift, harsh slaps to your ass every time you kick your feet or beat your fists against his back, while every whine and complaint earns you another spank in his mind, mentally tallying them up and vocalizing the thought a moment later.

“You’re being a meanie,”

“That’s twelve,” he growls.

“I don’t care!”

“Thirteen.”

“So what?”

“Fourteen.”

“That’s nothing,”

“Twenty-five.”

And that—that gets you to pause, but not to halt, not to stop, potent brattiness mixing with fury as it boils in your chest, the need to defy, to disobey, burning through your veins.

“I-I can handle that,”

“Thirty,” his voice is calm—serene, almost—and ice cold. There’s an underlying challenge sown into it, daring you to try him again, to utter another word. He’ll go higher, you can almost hear his apathetic voice floating through your mind; he’ll go as high as he needs to in order to teach such an ungrateful little brat a lesson.

Thirty it is.

The buckle of his favourite belt jingles as he undoes it, that dainty clink! forcing shivers to pebble across your naked skin, pressing your chest further into the foot of his bed, fingers curling in cashmere.

You’ve developed a love-hate relationship with that belt; it’s so fun when you get to undo it yourself, gentle fingers tugging and toying as you squirm eagerly in his lap, yet the clank and clattering of that heavy buckle as nimble fingers skillfully unfasten it and pull it from the loops of expensive trousers is almost menacing, carrying with it portentous threats it fully intends to see through.

He never warns you when the first strike is coming, reveling in the way your muscles are coiled in tension, in foreboding anticipation; basking in the surprised yelp that bubbles up in your throat.

“Relax,” he tells you with a callous chuckle, leather squealing between large, smooth hands as he folds it. “And count,”

It’s his usual response, predictable and scripted by this point, but he never seems to tire of it, notes of delight lacing his voice.

And that first blow never counts.

Gojou Satoru may be a bad Daddy by most standards, but his punishments are harsh, brutal, and cruel, and they happen to be one of the only things he takes seriously in life.

There’s rules to each of his punishments—so many rules he’s made you write them out multiple times, until your hand ached and fingers cramped and the heel of your palm was swollen, so they’d stick in that pretty empty little head of yours, so you never forget—and his spankings are no different.

You are not to move until he tells you to. You are not to speak unless spoken to. You are to count each lash, loud and clear before the next strike lands. Each mistake, each misstep and slip-up and refusal to comply, will earn you one extra slap. The tool is to be decided based on the severity of the offence.

The belt, all rigid rawhide and sharp edges, cuts into the supple flesh of your ass with each easy, nonchalant flick of his wrist, abrasively snapping against you.

Each collision of leather against flesh sears a tingly sting into your skin, biting rapidly rising welts into your ass and sending spiky jolts of agonizing pain bolting up your spine, the pain fading to a dull throb for just a moment before another blow is delivered.

“Gorgeous,” Satoru murmurs to himself halfway through your punishment, the word nothing more than a little huff of breath. You don’t dare respond, simply crying out the next number as he lands another harsh blow to your abused skin. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard a more beautiful sound, he continues, voice appearing faint and far away, mingling with the combined symphony of the crack of leather and pathetic whimpers muffled by sheets.

“It’s incredible,” he says, louder this time, voice dripping with wonderment, as if he can’t believe he’s created such a magnificent piece—the streaks of blood staining once perfect, unblemished skin; the high-pitched whines and sharp cries of each subsequent number; the resounding slap of the belt against your bare ass that evokes it all.

The whole thing sends a surge of intense power rushing through his veins, the tingling buzz it leaves behind enthralling and invigorating. You don’t need to look at him to know this, don’t need to see the way his eyes shine with it, the way his chest heaves with it, the way his entire body trembles with it—you can feel it in the atmosphere surrounding you, can feel the shift as his ego saturates the air, as his pure superiority bleeds into it, dense and suffocating, stimulating and revitalizing.

It infects your body, seeping in through your skin and flooding your veins, re-instills the need to be submissive, the ache to be good, providing you with the strength to endure.

The punishment lasts for forty-five excruciating minutes, accumulating a total of thirty three spanks—the extra three tacked onto your original punishment of thirty, one for each time you broke a rule. He’s on you in less than a second the moment it’s over, belt dropping to the rug-covered floor with a distinct thump as soft, eager palms roam your sweaty body, lips crushed against yours, still trembling as they spill pitiful whimpers into his mouth.

The luxurious bedroom—all cream and gold and drenched in sunlight—is blanketed by backhanded praises, warning you not to be a brat and just take what he gives. He’s sadistic when he gets in moods such as these, a feral glint in crystal eyes as large hands hastily flip you over—so fast it knocks a gasp of his name from your chest—seemingly unconcerned about the fresh blood oozing from the thin swollen welts that embellish your ass staining his thousand dollar sheets.

“Daddy needs you now,” he growls when you try to protest, breathing erratic as fingers flex on your hips, squeezing and kneading before pressing down hard, a silent order to stay fucking put. “And you’re going to be a good little girl for your Daddy now, aren’t you?”

Of course. Of course, because you are a good little girl, his good little girl.

But he’s a bad Daddy.

And, like a bad Daddy, he defers aftercare—it can wait, he practically snarls as he drags you to the edge of the bed, folding your legs up on either side of your body, knees nearly nudging your jaw; and foregoes prep almost entirely—two slender fingers slipping between your slick folds, prodding your hole and deeming you wet enough to take him.

And you’d be lying if you said you didn’t absolutely love it when he gets like this, when that façade of indifference finally shatters to pieces, replaced with desperation, with urgency, with neediness.

Your head lifts from the plush mattress, neck straining a little as you watch him push his trousers down his thighs through bleary eyes, residual dewdrops of tears clinging to spidery lashes. His cock bobs a little as he kicks the pants off, and it’s just as pretty as he is, smooth and symmetrical and perfect in every way.

“This would be part of your punishment,” he pants out, speaking over your cry of discomfort as he begins to shove his cock into you, little cunt aching as it attempts to accommodate the sudden intrusion. “If you didn’t love it so much, fucking slut,”

“Daddy!” The pet name claws its way up your throat in a yelp, hands scrabbling against his shoulders, nails digging into his flesh through his Armani button-up in an effort to steady yourself, eyes squeezing shut against the severe burn that accompanies the stretch. “Gonna—Gonna tear me in half,”

“You’d think you’d be used to this by now,” Satoru muses, voice already returning to its apathetic playful lilt now that he’s half buried in your cunt, breathing already calmed. A malicious little smirk decorates his lips and he observes you as if awestruck, one of his hands moving to trace the curve of your cheek, cold fingertips soft against your scalding skin.

“So beautiful like this,” he whispers as he finally bottoms out, hips pressed flush against the back of your thighs.

And you are, fresh tears that glitter the way his eyes do in the waning sun streaming down your cheeks, leaving the prettiest streaks of salt staining your flesh; lips swollen from merciless teeth sinking into them, an attempt to silence yourself, to keep those whines and complaints of Stop, Daddy! and Hurts, Daddy! safely stored in your throat.

Your little hole flutters around him, still struggling to adjust to his girth, and his head droops forward, long tongue unfurling from his mouth to lap at the bitter water adorning your face, slow languid strokes from your jaw to your bottom lashes, replacing shimmering tears with viscous saliva.

Saccharine sugar stings your nose, sticky toffee bathed in decadent chocolate and garnished with a touch of vanilla enveloping you in a sickly sweet embrace.

Such a scent—his scent—starkly opposes the vicious snapping of his hips, setting a merciless pace from the very start, blunt nails biting deep half-crescents into your flesh as they hold you in place.

But the pain only heightens the pleasure, contradicting sensations clashing together with every one of his brutal thrusts, cashmere feeling as rough as sandpaper against your raw, wounded ass. Thorns of pain pierce through your abdomen and shoot up your spine, back arching off the bed, and the muscles in your thighs flex and clench with every slam of his cockhead against your cervix.

It’s potent and intoxicating, a heady exhilaration clouding your brain and flooding your veins, and soon there are tears leaking from your eyes again, dribbling into your mouth and mixing with strings of drool that coat the words you’re babbling out.

Blood rushes in your ears, procuring a deafening ring, and you’re not even sure what you’re saying anymore, voice vibrating indistinctly in your chest as saliva soaked mewls ooze from your mouth. Your Daddy’s staring down at you, condescension etched into his pretty features, eyes morphing from dainty crystal to the navy of a tumultuous sea, framed by strands of cream and ivory dripping with sweat.

And he’s so big, too big, stuffing you full to the hilt with each ruthless piston of his hips, mattress trembling beneath you from the sheer strength; and it’s so much, too much, you swear you can feel him in your tummy, can see the way your lower abdomen cutely bulges in synchronization with every pounding thrust.

You must say it in some way, in some shape or some form, because the patronization varnishing his features melts away, sharp smirk dissolving into a genuine grin, blue eyes lightening with pure adoration.

“Such a good girl,” you think he’s saying, through it’s hard to tell when your eyelids keep drooping, hard to hear when a symphony of broken moans and hitched whimpers and the sharp slapping of skin against skin blanket the room, reverberating off the walls of your skull. “You’re such a good, good girl for me,”

Yes, Daddy, you want to say, such a good girl for you, only for you.

“Y-Yours,” you manage instead, locking your arms around his neck and clinging to him.

“Mine,” he growls, possessiveness lacquering his eyes, brilliant and bright and shining with devotion. “That’s right, mine,”

It only takes another three thrusts before you’re gushing all over his cock, the intense spasming of your cute little cunt drawing the prettiest whines from the back of his throat as he rams into you.

“Beg for it,” he demands, and although it’s an order, it comes out more like a plead, desperation sown into his voice. “Beg for Daddy’s cum,”

You obey immediately, words spilling from your lips without a second thought, automatic and instinctual. Please, Daddy, gimme your cum? Please, please, pretty please, want your cum, Daddy, fill my belly with it, Daddy, I need it, need it so bad, please?

He gives you what you want only a moment later, cock throbbing almost violently as he fills you with thick, scalding cream—so much that you’re sure it’s dribbling out of you, trickling down your ass and onto his pristine sheets—and you roll your hips up, attempting to milk him for more.

“G-Greedy,” he pants out, but there’s a dazzling smile slapped across his face, and so much love in his eyes it’s nearly overwhelming, a fresh wave of tears casting a gleaming shield across your own.

He notices immediately, both of you wincing a little as he pulls out, a wrecked little whine escaping your mouth.

“My poor little princess,” he’s saying as he untangles his briefs—Balenciaga, this time—from his trousers, abandoned in a heap on the hardwood.

“Daddy,” you rasp, a frown marring his face, fingers encircling your ankles as he helps you unfold your stiff legs.

“I know, I know,” he’s murmuring as gentle hands pull the soft clothing up your silky thighs. “It hurts, I know baby, Daddy’s gonna make it feel better now,”

A shiver courses through your body, and he tuts, nimble fingers making quick work of the buttons on his shirt, shrugging it off before he hoists you up and drapes it over your shoulders, tenderly threading your arms through the sleeves.

It’s cozy, and warm, infused with his scent—melted sugar and expensive cologne—and you snuggle into it, weak arms pulling the material tighter around your body, swathing it in comfort. Tears prick your eyes again, blearily blinking them clear as you glance up to find him backing away. A noise of indignance sounds in the back of your throat, eyebrows knitting together as you make grabby hands for him.

“I’ll be right back, princess,” he reassures you as he laces your fingers together and allows you to pull him back towards you, voice soothing like a lullaby. Fingers trail along the curve of your cheek then trace the line of your jaw, palms smoothing hair back from your face. “Daddy’s just going to go get the first aid kit so he can clean you up, okay?”

“‘N then food?”

He coos with a little chuckle, cupping your head as he tilts it up towards him, eyes overflowing with fondness.

“Yeah, baby, and then food. Whatever you want, it’s yours,”

Gojou Satoru may be a bad Daddy, but he is also your Daddy, and that makes him the best Daddy.

#gojo satoru x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojo satoru smut #jjk smut #OKAY I'M GOING TO BEEEED NOW #IT'S LIKE FOUR THIRTY IN THE MORNING #tw daddy kink #tw noncon

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absurdthirst · 3 years

Text

Kinktober 2021: October 4th

Day 4: Spanking || Role Reversal || Knife Play

Marcus Moreno

“Are you sure about this?” The rich, warm timbre of his voice washes over you and you turn your head to see his slightly hesitant orbs watching you carefully. Not that he was not confident in his own abilities, Marcus Moreno knows how to wield knives. Just that this is the first time that you have asked for something like this.

You bite your lip as your eyes shift, running down to where his large hand grips the sturdy handle of one of the twin katanas that he wields as the leader of the Heroics. It’s perfectly balanced and as familiar to him as an old lover. You had seen the spark in his eyes when you had mentioned knife play, see the fire that it had sparked even if he had tired to bank it before you could see how deep the interest runs.

“Yes.” As soon as the words are out of your mouth his wrist comes up and turns, the whoosh of air following the sound of slicing material and the strap of your dress falls. Cleanly cut in two and you gasp out, the flood of arousal soaking your cunt. If you were wearing panties they would be ruined already.

Your eyes blow wide and jerk back up to find a slightly cock- no- extremely cocky smirk on your lover’s face. Marcus might not be the flashiest of the Heroics, but he knew what he was good at and it was wielding those swords and manipulating metal of any kind. His eyes run over your skin, satisfied that the razor sharp blade hadn’t even scratched your flesh. He didn’t want to put a mark on you like that. Knife play was thrilling but it wouldn’t do to have you bleed. You had specifically said no cutting and he was a man of his word.

“Hold your breath baby.” He coos and your eyes close when you see his hand move again. Another swiping motion and the blade sings through the air, the skintight dress you are wearing is neatly split in two, between your legs and over your pussy to between your breasts, a clean cut that ruins the material beyond salvaging and shows Marcus that you are wearing nothing but perfume beneath the dress you had picked out for him tonight.

“Fuck.” You pant out, chest heaving as you exhale roughly. Blood pounding in your veins as you are nearly dizzy from the combination of fear and excitement. Now his blade, the flat of it strikes against your thigh. A light slap that makes you jump and his chuckle is a little darker than you had heard before. Another way to make your cunt clench had been discovered in that sound.

“On the bed, baby.” He urges you, tapping your hip with the blade again and you let the dress slide down the one shoulder strap that is keeping it clinging to your body to fall down to the floor in a silent heap.

Marcus smirks, watching as you lay down and spread yourself wide, already able to see the wet folds of your cunt and his cock throbs at the sight. His katana is pushed out of his hands by his powers and he watches it settle in the rack where they rest when they are not strapped to his back.

He knows just how much that gets to you. To be able to call his swords to him and put them back. He wasn’t oblivious to the way that your pupils would dilate and your breathing would pick up. It’s an ego boost for him and so while you are still watching, he stretches out his hand to reach for the blade that is placed on the nightstand next to the bed. He didn’t want to use an awkward long blade when he wanted to be close to you.

You gasp and give a small moan when the knife whizzes through the air and lands in his palm. You shift, your throbbing folds needing some friction and you swear that you have never been so wet. You trust him, trust him with your very life but there is also a threat of fear that comes with having a weapon that could kill you so openly brandished with the intention of teasing your nerves with it.

Ambling over to the bed, he watches you squirm, watches you anticipate. Your eyes are drifting down to the edge of the blade. “Look at you.” He murmurs, sitting down beside you and holding the knife up for you to examine. “I think this excites you more than I do.” He teases, knowing that isn’t the case.

It makes you shiver, the drag of the knife over your skin. The scrape of it against your flesh and the goosebumps that it raises. The way that your chest pushes out when he trails it up your stomach and your gasp catches in your throat when he circles your nipple with it.

Just a bit more pressure and he would break the skin. Cause your blood to be split and a mark to be put into your flesh. It was thrilling and scary and just made you even wetter. Especially when he turns the flat of the blade around and presses it against your pussy.

He uses his powers when he does this. Making the blade vibrate against the bundle of nerves and it's only his precision control of the knife that keeps him from cutting you when your hips jerk up in pleasure.

“Careful.” He warns you, dark eyes on yours and gives you a small smirk. “I would hate to cut you there.”

He climbs up between your thighs and twists the knife over your hip, pressing in slightly. His cock is heavy and leaking, making you moan at the sight and the dark look in his eyes when he looks down at you.

“What do you want now, pretty girl?” He asks, the handle of the knife loose his hand and he lets his powers control the metal, letting it drag back down to your pussy and the shiver that runs through you when the weapon vibrates against your clit nearly has you leaping off the bed.

“You.” You whine out, closing your eyes right before your orgasm crashes through your system, magnified by the adrenaline and fear.

His chuckle mixes with the white noise in your ears while you tremble and shake under his body braced over yours. “Whatever you want - you get, baby.” Marcus tells you, the knife rising up through the air and moving over to the nightstand to clatter to the surface. While the knife play was fun, he needed to touch you with his hands now.

Kinktober List

MasterList

#tppkinktober2021 #kinktober #kinktober 2021 #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal character fanfiction #marcus moreno x f!reader #marcus moreno x you #marcus moreno x reader #marcus moreno smut #tw kinks

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mar-s-bar-s · 2 years

Text

holding kaeya by the waist (a series of one shots)

going through such intense kaeya brainrot right now

imagine grabbing his waist and pressing him towards your body, your hand fitting perfectly into the curve of his waist. imagine slow dancing with this man and sweeping him up in your arms and dipping him low whilst holding him close to you. you see how appealing it is???

i’m picturing this four ways and i shall share what goes on in my brain - these are all where the two of you are already friends and are comfortable with close physical touch

slightly suggestive, gn! reader

#4 is my favorite go read it rn

#1: fighting with him

you’re fighting side by side with him, weapons glinting whilst the sun bleeds out into the sea. hues of crimson and gold cast rich lights upon the two of you as you face treasure hoarders in the ruins of mondstadt. the two of you are in sync, blades whirling as they connect with your opponents.

you glimpse the metallic glimmer of a throwing knife about to be launched into kaeya’s back from the last hoarder standing, and just as the treasure hoarder’s arm releases the tension, you grab his waist and turn him so he’s standing on your other side, his chest pressed into your body as the knife whistles past where kaeya was just standing.

heavy breathing is the only thing that can be heard as kaeya makes no move to escape your hands that are ever so gently resting in the curve of his waist. he’s warm, you think, and your body heats up even more as he breathes his thanks against your ear, his voice like the rich wine he favors.

#2: in the tavern

the air of angel’s share is thick with secrets whispered and the drunken laughs of patrons eager to quench their thirst. conversations waltz through the air as you make your way to the second floor, where kaeya sits, enjoying the view. his eye watches you as you dance around the people crowded together downstairs, watching the way you carefully drift through the crowd with your juice in hand like a stray snowflake in dragonspine.

it’s less frenzied upstairs, and pleasantly dark, you notice. the honey-gold lights illuminate downstairs in a flood of light, but cast a gentle glow on the second floor. you take your seat next to kaeya, and wearily shrug off your overcoat as you sip on your drink, the coolness being a refreshing contrast to your tiring day. he gazes at you, and you ask if you can just lean into him and hold him, to which he nods.

your hand slips around his waist, head leaning against his shoulder. it’s warm, and kaeya smells like jasmine and orange blossoms. it’s comfortable, and you feel him shifting slightly to lean into you too, his hand carefully making its way to your shoulder. you feel your eyes slowly closing; maybe a quick nap like this would be fine.

#3: sparring with him

swords clash, the strikes ringing out in the training hall as you and kaeya exchange blows like harsh kisses, both equally matched in the art of the sword. kaeya’s smirk is wiped off his face as you unleash a flurry of blows, almost a blizzard of wood as you step closer to him.

you flash a grin as you begin to back him against a wall; his smirk returns at your determination to win this bout. the tension is thick as he parries the blows easily, gazing upon your fierce countenance. he feints, and you fall for it as you block your right side, noticing his blade coming from the left side almost too late. he grins.

“I win.”

the key word was ‘almost’ too late. your body moves faster than you anticipated, and like lightning, your blade disarms kaeya, holding your sword to his throat.

“not quite,” your low voice intoxicates kaeya, the smug cadence of your victorious tone is like music to his ears as all thoughts of sparring are expelled from his mind.

he drops his sword in surrender, the wooden blade clattering against the floor. he’s up against the wall at your mercy.

“should we end our session for today?” his eye is focused on your lips, and when you notice you smirk, trailing the tip of the wooden sword down his chest, before eventually dropping it too.

“oh?” you inquire, enjoying this immensely. his lips are parted, and as he gazes at you, he mirrors your smirk. you move closer towards him, placing a hand on his waist as your mouth moves closer to his ear.

“what are you thinking about, captain?” you whisper, noticing how his hand is brushing against your neck. “do you want me to kiss you?”

as soon as he affirms it, your lips ghost over his collarbone, before kissing a trail up. kaeya lets out a gasp at the sensation, and you know he can feel you smirking when you reach his jaw. you pull back, before caressing his neck with your other hand and leaning in for his lips. he uses both his hands to pull you closer by the neck, and you pull his lower body closer by his hips.

he’s warm, you realise as the gap between your bodies vanishes. the realisation is pleasant, and you sigh into the kiss. he tastes sweet, as if his kiss was the nectar of the divine. you run a hand through his ink blue hair, tugging it slightly and the groan he lets out is almost sinful.

the two of you break apart for air, bodies still entangled with one another. the flush on his face is clearly visible, and you feel your own face heat up.

“we should do this more often,” kaeya breathes out, still out of air.

“what, spar or make out?” you match his soft voice, resting your head in his neck.

“both,” he almost whispers, and you can almost hear the smile in his voice.

#4: dancing with him (i was listening to a muffled version of fallen down from undertale on loop whilst writing this, for reference, so if you want an audio accompaniment whilst reading this section that’s the song to go to)

it’s the yule ball, a time to celebrate winter, organized by jean. a venue which you and kaeya have arrived early for, after helping the other get ready. jean and lisa are busy with the final preparations elsewhere, and a soft gasp leaves you at how pretty the ballroom looks.

quiet music dances around the room, accompanied by the languid dust-motes waltzing in the soft streams of sunlight that make their way through the tall windows. it’s almost evening, but not quite, and the bright sunlight that refuses to die makes the afternoon seem like a crisp morning. decorations resembling snowflakes are carefully placed around the room, and it feels peaceful.

kaeya feels him hand clasped by yours, an inquisitive look on your face as you ask him for a quick dance. you claim it’s to practice for the real event tonight, and kaeya finds himself softening as he agrees in a low voice, trying not to break the fragile tranquility of the ballroom, devoid of souls except two.

your hand rests on the top of his hip, right in the curve of his waist. smiling ever so softly at you, he places his hand on your shoulder, his thumb brushing against your neck slowly. the two of you cradle the other’s hand, and you lead the way, in time with the gentle piano that chimes out of the gramophone.

slowly, you close the gap between your bodies, drawing him closer to your body ever so slowly. his eye lowers as he smirks at you, before his head leans into your neck like a puzzle piece. his breath ghosts against you as the two of you move in sync around the empty ballroom.

the song gradually fades into the next, sounds of the previous song accompanying the new song like ghosts. the song crackles slightly as the gramophone plays, and you feel weightless, even with kaeya leaning into you.

as the song continues, you dance with kaeya, feeling his lips brush over your collarbone. was it an accident? your brows furrow as you continue moving with him. the moment feels perfect, and you wish time could freeze together. holding kaeya like he’s a divine being that must be cherished, feeling him pressed against you, feeling his breathing hitch against your neck as you lean in closer, closer - it feels like a fragile dream spun in gossamer, one that you never want to brush away. if this moment is a trap woven to capture you, you would gladly take the fall.

as the next song starts to bleed out, sweet music coming to a close, you work up all your courage. you pull away from kaeya slightly, sighing at the loss of warm as you lean kaeya back, supporting him by the waist as you dip him.

“can i kiss you?” your voice is soft as you gaze down at kaeya. kaeya’s smile is oh so soft as he pulls you towards him by cradling the back of your neck.

he tastes like honey and strawberries, you notice as you kiss him, lips slotting together as you hold him. he tastes divine, you decide as you shut your eyes and pull kaeya closer to you.

the ballroom is devoid of souls except the two intertwined in the delicate waltz of a kiss.

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min-jpg · 3 years

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can i request zhongli , kaeya and xiao with a fem!s/o that comes from an extremely rich family and the boys get kidnapped and held for ransom and then out of nowhere their s/o comes and beats the group of people that kidnapped the boys , gracefully😋😋

Note: we stan a baddie s/o! Anyways, enjoy the drabbles with a word count averaging 0.5k for each character :) I'll make the setting at an abandoned warehouse, classic

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Kidnapped Genshin Boys x Fem Rich!reader pt.1

Part 2 (Childe, Diluc, Kazuha)

Characters: Kaeya, Xiao, Zhongli

Genre: fluff, established relationship, some woman kicking ass action, (TW: mentions of blood and violence)

---

KAEYA

Your boyfriend would deliberately act like a damsel in distress with no fighting aptitudes. Exaggerating his emotions to fabricate fear, he voluntarily let himself be held hostage, thinking they caught an easy target. Kaeya went along with his abductors' antics because he intends to bring them down once they reach the hideout.

While they were camping in the warehouse, Kaeya was not worried at the slightest. These people were no vision bearers, just mere greedy criminals that do not know who they were messing with.

Kaeya is aware of how affluent you and your family are. He already anticipated something similar to happen one day. Lowly tactics like these do not budge him at all, especially his unyielding loyalty towards you. As if the Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonious would be shaken by something as childish as this.

While he was improvising a plan in his mind, one of the men yelled, "Intruder!"

They all assembled at the source, but glanced at each other in confusion, "Intruder? Where?"

While an altercation sparked between them about the unseen intruder, their attention successfully diverted away from Kaeya. Thus, using the containers and blind spots to your advantage, you sneaked your way towards your boyfriend. While freeing Kaeya from the ropes that bound him to the chair, you giggled as well, "Are you lost, baby boy?"

Your unexpected appearance left him stunned, but it was a pleasant surprise, "Lost in those eyes, baby girl." He smirked back. By the time you finished, the men realized that the intruder was you.

Now that you are actually here, Kaeya's concerns began sprouting because he wanted to ensure your safety first before carrying out his plan since your arrival was not formulated in it.

You fueled his worries when you stepped forward towards the group. You dropped the bag you carried along in front of them, "Here. You wanted the money right? Take it."

"Well, that wasn't so hard." The gung ho group laughed boisterously among themselves, the leader leaning down to pick up the bag. You swung your foot, landing a clean kick on his face which caused him to stumble back. He pressed his nose, blood trickled down, "You-"

You refused to let him finish by sending another vigorous kick, this time at the center of his stomach, causing him to hunch as he grabbed onto his stomach and surpassing his coughs. To finish it off, you plunged your elbow down the back of his head and connected with an uppercut. The force was strong enough to send their leader flying back and never stood up again, completely knocked out.

The rest of the gang blinked. It was not even a fight. You took him down with only a few moves, barely breaking a sweat.

"You guys want some more? Or just take the money and leave us alone." You taunted them. They hustled along, grabbing the bag, and left their leader in the warehouse. Little did they know, the bag was not filled with money, but just some rocks to give it some weight.

Kaeya walked up behind you, clapping his hands, "That was superb, babe. I didn't know you were such a fighter." Needless to say, Kaeya is so proud of you and praised the way you executed your beautiful course of movements. He will also keep in mind to never mess with your temper too much in the future.

XIAO

Your boyfriend could take out all the adversaries he wanted to, driving them to regret that they wished they never premeditate this abduction. Unfortunately, his hands are tied because the group threatened that harm would come your way instead if he did not comply with their demands.

"You just have to sit here until your girlfriend bails you out. I'm sure she has some extra cash to blow to save you."

You did warn Xiao beforehand that similar incidents happened in the past and it is bound to occur again, to which he glazed over as a simple matter since he is confident with his combat experiences. But you did not explain how the incidents were settled. Xiao did not know that you have the capability to defend yourself, so obviously he reluctantly listened to them to protect you.

If they were to resort to hurting anyone, Xiao would rather have them hurt him instead if it meant they could spare you. He will never forgive them or himself if they even attempt to graze a single strand of your hair.

While worrying for your safety, he heard one of the men shouting a yelp, but it got cut off as his body fell, passing out cold on the ground.

The group huddled together, "Who's there?!" Their eyes darted around to search for the one responsible.

While they were bewildered, you jumped down from one of the containers at the warehouse, sending your knee flying directly towards one of the members to knock him down. In a kneeling position to pin the person below in place, you sent a swift strike to his neck, making him faint. As you stood up, the gang and also Xiao all looked at your abrupt appearance with wide eyes.

Glaring at the men in front of you, "Now, if any of you touched my boyfriend, one doctor visit wouldn't suffice." Without giving them any time to react or respond, your palm curled into a fist, dashing forward to begin taking them down one by one with your nimble feet.

Your calculative movements were sharp and precise, leaving no opening for your foes to attack. As the battle proceeded, your hair flowed gracefully behind along with your bold actions. Although Xiao was itching to help, he only managed to stare at you in awe, marveled by your bravery and poise stance that showed no weakness.

Before you both knew it, the fight ended with you emerging victorious.

You ran over to Xiao to free him immediately, "Oh archons! Xiao, are you okay?" Caressing his cheeks, you frantically inspected his face for any external injuries. Those men will face your wrath if they did anything to him.

Xiao was still processing what happened, his pupils fixed at you, lips parting, "That was really... amazing of you." He wanted to tell you that you looked so gorgeous that it made him breathless, but kept his mouth sealed after. For now, he enjoys the sensation of your hands that were used to unleash such fury now stroking his face so lovingly. It is also worth mentioning that Xiao has a new profound respect for your charming side that he never knew of.

ZHONGLI

Your boyfriend maintained a tranquil state of mind when he was kidnaped. Not portraying any signs of retaliation or profound panic, it even caused the group to be unnerved with how silent Zhongli behaved.

While held hostage, the head of the abduction blabbered about how they intend to lure you here, exploiting you through Zhongli's situation for some quick money grab.

Upon hearing that, Zhongli's eyebrows twitched in a displeased manner, "So you'd rather take advantage of someone for money instead of working for it? Don't you have any dignity left?"

"Obviously! If there's an easy way to earn money, who wouldn't want to partake? Someone as sheltered and rich as your girlfriend will never understand. Don't act like you never took money from her." They ridiculed his righteous morales by bringing you in the conversation, implying Zhongli only dated you for your status.

Zhongli leaned back against the chair with an inscrutable demeanor on his face. He knew that surely someone would point out the disparity in social status between you and him. But, if they thought he only valued your wealth and nothing else, then he will have to disappoint them.

"Oh, I'm very lucky to have a wealthy partner. Something you will never understand, yes? That's why you turn to disagreeable schemes such as this." Zhongli stalled time by making mindless talks with the leader.

Not appreciating Zhongli's remark, the leader raised his arm, ready to swing at full force to land a hit, except you obstructed him. Appearing out of thin air, you found your way towards Zhongli and held a tenacious grip on the man's arm from behind before he could potentially scar your boyfriend's precious face.

The group was alarmed by your arrival and the way you constrained their leader's strike. Applying even more force to twist his arm, you contorted his limb. It caused him to arch his back and bawled in pain as he attempted to wriggle his arm out of your grasp. In contrast, you reinforced your strength and kicked the back of his knees.

Once you let go, everyone watched him squirmed in agony on the ground with your grip leaving a red imprint on his arm. Turning your head towards Zhongli, you sent him a cheeky wink, "You're one lucky man indeed."

Now channeling your attention at the group, "Who's next?"

The group charged towards you, assertive that their strengths in numbers will have more odds in winning against you, a woman who stood alone.

Thus, to prove them wrong, not only did you beat their egos to pulps, but also the entire gang. Keeping a composed manner, your limbs carried your movement with great finesse and elegance. You dodged and blocked every incoming attack, never allowing them to get a clean hit on you. Your presence dominated the flow of the battle.

Eventually, only one victor is appointed, that victor being you.

You walked back to Zhongli to untie him. You placed your hand on your hip, huffing your chest to stand proud, "How was that? Not only is your girlfriend rich, but also powerful."

Zhongli nodded in agreement, softly patting your hair as he watched you with affectionate eyes, "That was a remarkable performance to remember down the road. Guess I have a lot of things to learn about you." Although Zhongli is fully competent to defend himself if things went wrong, he found it absolutely charming of you to protect him. You were reckless, but he acknowledges your ability to fight so gracefully.

#kaeya x reader #kaeya genshin impact #xiao x reader #xiao genshin impact #zhongli x reader #zhongli genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact headcanons

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127-mile · 2 years

Text

SHADYSIDE. before the witch's final breath, she found a way to cheat her death.

PAIRING: Camp counselor Doyoung x nurse female reader.

GENRE: Rivals to lovers, slasher, angst, light suggestive, fluff if you squint.

WARNINGS: Strong language, injuries, blood, Doyoung catches Johnny and the reader fucking in the infirmary's storeroom, there's rivalry between Shadyside and Sunnyvale and it shows (Shadyside and Sunnyvale are two towns, one is poor, one is rich), mention of past violence, non-explicit mention of a murder scene, violence, weapons, blow to the head, stabbing, a lot more blood, hospital, needle (from an iv drip).

PLOT: Working as a nurse at the Nightwing Camp with one terribly annoying Kim Doyoung and a killer is not how you imagined your summer.

WORD COUNT: +6.2k.

A/N: Inspired by Fear Street part 2. You don't have to know them to read and no spoil on the actual saga. | Part of the Drive-in collab hosted by moi.

"Doyoung I think I need help."

Doyoung turns around, hands around the heavy books of rules and he drops it when he sees the blood on Jisung's face. "Jisung, oh my god, what happened to you?" he gently cups his face, moving it around to see the wound. "Why are you here? You should be with the nurse!"

Jisung hisses when Doyoun's fingers ghost against the cut on his cheek. "I can't find her, she is not in the infirmary." he answers, eyes filled with tears of frustration. "I looked everywhere!"

Doyoung nibbles on his lower lip, letting his arms drop to his side. "Wait here, I'm going to look for her. Jaemin, Na Jaemin put that spider down and keep an eye on Jisung until I come back with the nurse!" he says firmly, glaring at the pink haired young man.

"I'm quite busy, sir." Jaemin mumbles, in awe in front of the spider he found in the forest earlier this morning. "Can't you ask someone else?"

Doyoung frowns. "You already have four strikes Jaemin, one more and you'll be kicked out from camp. I personally don't care if you are here or not, but your parents do care so your choice."

Jaemin seems to think about it, and after a few seconds, he puts the spider down on the grass, and he strides to Jisung's side. "I'll stay with him sir!"

"Stop calling me sir." Doyoung whispers, already heading to the infirmary.

He pushes open the wooden door, and he looks around. The beds are made, the meds are locked behind the glass cabinet just like he asked yesterday, but the infirmary is empty. "Y/n?" no answer. "Y/n you know I can get you fired right?" he tried.

Hand on the doorknob, he looks over his shoulder when he hears a thud. "Y/n?" he takes a few steps towards the door leading to the storeroom, and he opens it, a gasp leaving his lips before he can cover his eyes with his hand, or close the door. "What the fuck?!"

You roll your eyes when the door opens, hands gripping Johnny's shoulders, a leg wrapped around his hips. "Fucking hell Doyoung, what do you want?" you ask, breathless. "John, stop!" Johnny nuzzles his face in the crook of your neck, stopping his thrusts, fingers digging into the skin of your waist. "I hope you have a good reason to be here!"

"A good reason to be here? This is the infirmary, I can come and go as I wish, just like the campers!" he spits out. "Jisung hurt himself, he is looking for you, so please go take care of him before I fire you."

You heave a long sigh, patting Johnny's shoulder. "I have to go." you whisper and Johnny grunts, pulling out. "Fucking Sunnyvale." you let your leg drop back on the ground and you hurry to put your underwear and pants back on.

"You are going to pay for that." Johnny mumbles, getting out of the room, shoving Doyoung out of the way. "Fucker."

"I get that you Shadysiders have urges you can't quite control but could you please be present for the kids? You are the only one capable of taking care of them." this is why you shouldn't have told Taeyong about your nursing studies, you wouldn't have ended up in Summer camp. Fucking Sunnyvale, you can't tell them shit.

"Fuck you Doyoung, you Sunnyvale are no better." they may live in the nicest area, and have money but they are no angels. "Where is Jisung?"

"Near the art cabin with Jaemin. The kid with the pink hair." yes, you know who Jaemin is. "And wash your hands."

You roll your eyes, getting out of the infirmary, stopping by the bathrooms to wash your hands before walking to Jisung. The boy is sitting on the ground, head thrown back to avoid getting more blood on his blue t-shirt. He is lucky he is from Shadyside otherwise you wouldn't have been so quick. Yes, your hate for Sunnyvale is strong enough that you wouldn't mind letting a kid suffer. "Hi kid, what happened to you?"

You crouch down, inspecting his face. It's hard to see the wound with the amount of blood. "I was running in the forest and I fell against a rock." he answers, playing with his fingers.

"You fell against a rock? Are you sure you weren't playing with the pocket knife I told you to throw away the other day?" you ask, narrowing your eyes.

Jisung lowers his head, and you meet his gaze. "No?" even without answering you would've known he was lying, the boy's emotions can be seen through his eyes. "Okay, maybe. To be fair this is not even my fault. A kid was running away from a bunch of Sunnyvale in the forest, he hit me on the shoulder, and next thing I knew I had blood everywhere."

"This is why we should have two different camps." you mumble, helping him back on his feet. "Thank you for watching over him Jaemin, you can go back to whatever you were doing." you keep Jisung's hand in yours and you lead him to the infirmary. "Sit." you order him.

Jisung sits on the bed, and you notice that Doyoung is still there, sitting behind the old wooden desk. "Am I going to be in trouble?" you dampen a cloth with cold water and you gently wipe the blood off of his face. "Jaemin said you were going to kick me out." of course he would say that.

"You fell on a rock why would you get in trouble?" you don't want to give Doyoung another reason to get rid of another Shadyside kid. "And Jaemin should learn to keep his tongue in his mouth because he is going to get in trouble one day." you grimace when you see the cut on his cheek. "It's your lucky day buddy, it's not deep enough to require stitches."

Jisung seems to relax, but he tenses as soon as he sees the bottle of alcohol to disinfect the wound. "Do you really have to? I'm sure water would work as well." he whispers and you chuckle.

"It won't sting." you don't promise because you know how much alcohol hurts on a fresh wound and you don't like to disappoint the Shadyside kids even with something as small as this kind of promise. "Take a deep breath, I'll be quick." he closes his eyes, and when he takes a deep breath, you rub the wound with a gauze. "Here you go, all clean."

Jisung didn't move, he didn't even make a sound. "Will I have to come back?" he asks in a trembling voice.

"Yeah, you'll have to come back to change the bandage every morning after your shower for at least four days, I don't trust you to do it yourself." you don't want him to catch an infection because he touched the cut with dirty hands. "You are good to go, but first." you extend your hand, asking him silently to give you the pocket knife.

"Do I have to?" and you nod. He gets the knife from his pocket and you take it, hiding it in the pocket of your jacket. What Doyoung doesn't know won't hurt him. "Thank you nurse Y/n." he gets down from the bed and he leaves the infirmary.

"How long before he comes back with another cut?" you don't like it, because you know Doyoung is right if there is one thing you hate more than everything is for Doyoung to be right. "He is quite the stuntman."

"I don't know, hopefully a few days." you put away the bottle of alcohol, and you throw the bloody gauze into the trashcan. "Jisung said he saw a bunch of Sunnyvale running after a kid in the forest, you should check if they didn't kill him."

Doyoung scoffs, standing up from his chair. "Why would they kill someone? They are from Sunnyvale, they have manners." great, amazing, maybe you should've turned your tongue seven times in your mouth.

"They didn't have a lot of manners when they started beating up the basketball team players." you cross your arms against your chest, and Doyoung rolls his eyes.

"Oh my god, it was 8 years ago, we were kids, can't you let that slide?" he paces around the infirmary and you wonder why he is still here, especially for someone who claims he doesn't like confrontation.

"Kids? We were seventeen, so we weren't kids anymore! My brother was badly injured during the fight so no I have no intention of letting that slide any time soon."

Doyoung sighs, stopping in front of you. You can't even begin to describe how much you want to punch him. "You are such a fucking bitch." he mumbles and your eyes widen, a chuckle threatening to leave your lips.

"Kim Doyoung cursed? What is happening? Is the witch possessing you?"

Doyoung frowns, head tilted to the side. "The witch? That old urban legend?" he asks calmly which is quite strange because his demeanor when he is around you is never calm. He is always ready to bite your head off, and to be honest, you are too.

"It's not an urban legend, what the hell? It's very real and there are so many proof of that." everyone in Shadyside knows the story of the witch, how in 1666 she was excuted after being accused of witchcraft and that ever since she's been possessing locals. Ever since she's been turning innocent people in cold-blooded killers to get revenge on the town. This is why everyone says that Shadyside is cursed.

"Proof? Like what? Shadyside's crime rate has always been off the roof. I think people tell the story of the witch to have an excuse for the murders that happen every single day in your part of the town." this is exactly why you hate Doyoung.

And before you can force your brain, you open your mouth. "And that's why I hate you. You think we're nothing because we don't have daddy to pay for everything, because we actually have to work to be able to eat and to pay the bills. We don't live in Shadyside because we like to be in fear of being fucking murdered in the streets, we live there because we don't have the fucking choice, unlike you."

This is why you don't like to talk with Doyoung, because you get heated really fast and it always ends like that. It always ends with the differences between the two of you, and it gets tiring. "I hope the next person the witch decides to possess kills you. I'm tired."

Doyoung's shoulders drop. "You don't mean that." maybe you mean it, maybe you don't, there's no way for him to know.

"Of course I do."

You turn on your heels, but before you can make a move, Doyoung puts his hand on your shoulder. "What happened? You weren't like that before." yeah, you had to grow up and you saw how it was not good for you to be around a Sunnyvale. A Sunnyvale like Doyoung. "Are you still not over that night?"

"Shut up Doyoung." you shake his hand off your shoulder, and instead of leaving the infirmary, you open the door. "Leave now, like you said I have to be available for the kids and you being here is very much distracting. Not in the right way." Doyoung huffs but he obeys.

"Good fucking riddance." you say, closing the door behind him.

The rest of the day is pretty much the same as all the other days, the kids come after falling down a tree or scrapping themselves on the rocks near the lake, or after eating some fruits they found in the forest that made them sick.

God you regret agreeing to this. Even the money is not worth the time you have to spend with whiny and crying kids.

Sitting behind the wooden desk, you startle when the door opens. "Didn't your mother teach you how to knock?" you mumbles, but you break into a smile when Johnny enters the infirmary. A smile that disappears when you see the blood on his face. "Oh my god, what with bloody faces today!"

You stand up, and you help him on the bed. "My nose just started bleeding out of nowhere, and I have this killing headache." you hum, grabbing a tissue for Johnny to wipe his face while you take a bottle of painkillers in the locked cabinet.

"Did you get hit by something, or someone?" you ask, handing him the pills and a glass of tap water. "Or maybe it's the heat." you say to yourself more than to Johnny who shrugs.

"I have no idea." he mumbles after gulping the entire glass of water.

"You can stay here, I'm going to close the blinds, maybe it'll help." he lies down on the bed and he heaves a long sigh, covering his face with his arm.

"I'll come get you before dinner, okay?" he makes a noise of acknoledgment and you get out of the infirmary. If any of the kids need your assistance they'll have to find you in the camp.

You see Doyoung hanging near the cafeteria. "Do you need help with something?"

He turns his head towards you, and he shrugs. "Do you mind helping me settle the tables for dinner? I can't find Taeyong and Ten." you nod and you follow him inside, ignoring the stiffling heat inside of the cafeteria. "I saw Johnny covered in blood earlier, what's up with that?"

You put the plates on the tables, Doyoung following you with the cups and the cutlery. "It's just his nose, nothing worrying." you fuck Johnny but you don't have enough feelings to actually care about his bloody nose or anything else when it comes to him. Or anyone else. "I should be paid double for taking care of the monitors."

Doyoung chuckles and he sits down on a bench. "You should ask the director of the camp, I'm pretty sure he has more money than the entire town." yeah that wouldn't be surprising. "Are you going to participate in the battle?"

The battle, a game between Shadyside and Sunnyvale. "As much as I love pissing you guys off I don't think it's healthy to have a battle with the kids. Shouldn't we teach them to be friends instead of putting them against each other?" you can't believe you said that, and when you meet Doyoung's gaze, you understand that he can't believe it either. "I'm just saying."

"No no you're right but it's a tradition." he answers with a shrug.

You open your mouth to speak, but a scream tears through the camp and your eyes widen. "What the fuck was that?" Doyoung shakes his head and he stands up, leaving the cafeteria.

He pushes the door open and he looks around. The kids all look worried, trying to look for the person responsible for the scream. "Guys, go inside of the cafeteria." Doyoung says, it's probably nothing but you can never be too careful. "Taeil watch over the kids, I won't be long."

You should help Taeil but instead you follow Doyoung around the camp. If a Shadysider is in trouble you want to be here to help. "Where do you think it came from?"

"Maybe the forest? The kids like to scare each other when it starts to get dark outside."

You squint when you see someone running in your direction. "Jeno? Jeno!" when the boy runs past you, you grab his wrist to stop him. "What happened?" he looks genuinely scared and tears are threatening to roll down his rosie cheeks.

"It's Johnny!" he says, and you frown, did something happen to Johnny? That was not his voice, you know that for sure. "He went fucking crazy!"

Instead of telling Jeno to mind his language, Doyoung looks at him. "What do you mean he went crazy? Is someone hurt?"

"I don't know! But I saw him covered in blood with an axe! A fucking axe, who the fuck runs with an axe around a camp?" that's definitely more worrying that his bloody nose and his headache.

"Okay Jeno, go in the cafeteria with the other and tell Taeil to let everyone but Johnny inside, and to not let anyone out until we come back." you say and he nods, already running off. "Where did he find an axe? I thought only you had the keys to the shed."

Doyoung pats the pockets of his pants and his breath hitches in his throat. "My keys, I don't have my keys!" would Johnny be stupid enough to steal the keys and play around with an axe? You don't know him enough for that, except if he is cursed, like the other people.

"The witch." you whisper and Doyoung rolls his eyes, he doesn't have time to talk about the witch. "Should we look for him together?"

Doyoung shakes his head. "I know we need to figure out what is wrong with Johnny, but we need to find the other kids and also Taeyong and Ten." he is right, not all the kids are inside of the cafeteria with Taeil. "Let's start with the bedrooms."

Doyoung takes the boys bedrooms, and you take the girls bedrooms. You find three girls who didn't hear the scream and go to the cafeteria without trying to argue. Of course they are not trying to argue, they are Shadysiders, they know how to behave. Not like these Sunnyvale brats. "The bedrooms are empty on my side." you say when you meet Doyoung.

"Same here. I'll go to the bathrooms, you go to the art cabin." these two are next to each other which mean you won't have to be separated from Doyoung. Funny how a few hours ago you wanted nothing but to get rid of him, but in a situation like this one, when you have no idea if Johnny turned into a cold-blooded killer or is pulling a prank on everyone you don't want to be on your own.

And maybe you don't want Doyoung to be alone, but that's a story for another day.

You hear a gasp when you slam the door open, and your eyes stop on Jisung and Chenle. "What's up nurse Y/n?" Chenle asks as Jisung puts a hand on his heart, trying to calm himself down, he is so easily startled.

"You need to go to the cafeteria right now. Do not stop on the way, just go straight to the cafeteria and listen to Taeil, alright?" the boys nod. "You won't stop, promise?"

"Promise!" they both say and you smile softly, letting them out of the cabin. "Oh, Johnny!"

You turn quickly on your heels and yes, Johnny is a few meters away from you, holding tightly onto the axe. He is covered in blood, but not only his face, his clothes too. "Fuck." you whisper. "Go back inside of the cabin." instead of yelling his name, you go to the bathroom and you grab Doyoung's arm. "Johnny is here, Jisung and Chenle are in the art cabin." you could hide in the bathroom but not with the kids alone in the cabin. "Get ready to run."

Doyoung follows you without a word and he avoids looking in Johnny's direction, he doesn't want to give a reason for his brain to stop working. "Jisung, Chenle, under the table over there." he says firmly, locking the cabin's door. "Y/n, help me put the cabinet against the door."

The cabinet is heavy, like really heavy and you are breathless when you finally take a step back.

"Nurse Y/n, what is happening?" you almost forgot the kids were there.

"Nothing, nothing. Stay there and keep quiet okay?" you don't have time to hear their answer as the door shakes on its hinges. Doyoung is the one grabbing the hem of your t-shirt to force you back. "It's going to be okay guys, just stay quiet and we'll get out of there as soon as possible."

It's not much, but you remember the presence of Jisung's pocket knife on the pocket of your pants, so you take it out under Doyoung's worried gaze. "It probably won't do much but it's better than nothing right?" he nods, a weak smile on his face.

You press a hand against your mouth when the door's small window explodes under Johnny's axe. At least the cabinet prevents you from getting hit by the pieces of broken glass.

"She reaches from beyond the grave to make good men her wicked slaves. She'll take your blood. She'll take your head." Johnny sings-song, and you freeze. Doyoung looks at you weirdly and you know Chenle must be doing the same with Jisung who gasped. They were not raised with this rhyme, they were not purposely scared by their parents with these sentences.

Suddenly Johnny stops and you hold your breath when you hear the sound of his shoes leaving the cabin. "We wait five minutes and if he doesn't come back, we'll run to the cafeteria." you whisper and Doyoung nods.

This is the longest five minutes of your life, but at least, Johnny didn't come back. But you did hear a scream during those five minutes. Taeyong's. "Do you think we should use the back window?" Doyoung is smart, because taking the cabinet would take too much time and make too much noise too. When you don't refuse his proposal, he forces the window open and leans outside to check that no one is around. "Okay, Y/n you go first, then Jisung, Chenle and I'll go last."

Jisung and Chenle stand up, and they wait for you to climb out the window to do the same. You help them both back on their feet and you extend your hand for Doyoung who takes it. "Let's go." he doesn't let go of your hand as he runs to the cafeteria. "Fuck." he stops dead in his track when he sees that the door was smashed opened probably from Johnny's axe. There's blood on the ground and you are quick to bring Jisung and Chenle against you to put both of your hands on their eyes. Jisung already saw enough blood for a lifetime by simply living in Shadyside, and you would like to keep Chenle from having to witness any of it.

"What do we do now?" and with the sun setting it's going to be more and more difficult to see what is going on around especially without flashlights.

"Y/n, Doyoung!" Ten stops by your side, out of breath, t-shirt covered in blood. "It's Taeyong's." he says in a small voice and as much as you would like him to tell you everything, he notices Jisung and Chenle and decides to stay quiet on the matter. "Taeil brought the kids to the bus." that's smart.

"Can you lead Jisung and Chenle there?" you can't go with them, you have to see if there are any survivors inside of the cafeteria and everywhere else. Ten nods, taking their hands before leaving. "You should stay outside." you don't wait for an answer as you step inside of the cafeteria and what you see makes you gag.

"Oh my god." of course Doyoung didn't listen.

There are a few bodies on the ground, monitors who probably joined after you left. "We need to go to the bus," you start. "check if everyone is here." as much as you hate working here there's no way you are going to let any kids in the camp with Johnny on the loose.

"We need to go into my office to call the police." you nibble on your lower lip, the bus and Doyoung's office are on opposide sides of the camp.

"We need to split up. You call the police, I check the bus." Doyoung is ready to argue, you see it on his face so you shake your head. "We don't have time Doie, this is the only choice." he looks taken aback by the nickname but you brush it off. "Don't you dare fucking die." you mumble as you leave the cafeteria.

Running on gravel when you are trying to not get murdered by the guy who fucked you this morning is pretty difficult, it makes so much noise. You can see the obnoxious red color of the bus when something hit you pretty hard on the back of the head and you grunt, falling on your knees, ignoring the burn of the gravel on your skin, you have something more important to worry about right now.

You turn around to sit on your butt, and you meet Johnny's gaze. Even in the dark you can see how much anger there is in his eyes. "Johnny, Johnny, it's me." you say when he lifts his axe over his head, ready to strike. "Please, please!" you are not the kind to beg, but you are about to die, you have nothing to lose anymore.

“Before the witch's final breath, she found a way to cheat her death." he says with a wicked smile.

You feel blood dripping down the back of your neck and that's when you notice how much pain you are in. The pain is in your face, your neck, your back, everywhere. "Please, Johnny, it's me, it's Y/n!" he doesn't react as expected.

You only have time to roll on your side when he brings the axe down. "Fuck." you hiss, the blade way too close to your face for your liking. The blade of the axe seems to be stuck in the ground, which give you a second to get back on your feet, ignoring the dizziness that threatens to make you fall right back on the gravel.

You frown when Johnny yells, a hand behind him, patting at his back. When he turns, the moon reflects on the blade of the knife that Doyoung used to stab him on the shoulder. It won't be enough to stop him, but maybe it'll be enough to run away. "Quick." he says, intertwining his fingers with yours to run the last meters to the bus.

"Are everyone here?" Doyoung asks when Taeil opens the door to the bus. "Are all the kids inside?"

Taeil uses a flashlight to make sure Johnny is not following you, and he nods. "The kids are all here, but we are missing a lot of counselors." he answers, yes, probably the ones laying in a pool of their own blood in the cafeteria.

"Wait, Jaemin is missing!" someone suddenly says and Taeil's eyes widen, he was so sure he counted all of the kids. "He wanted to get his spider back before dinner, he is probably still in the forest." the kid adds immediately.

"I'm going." you say but Doyoung is quick to force you inside of the bus.

"You are injured, you have to stay here, I'll be right back." before you can refuse and get out, Taeil closes the door and sits you down on one of the seats.

"Let me go Taeil, he can't go on his own!" a sentence you never thought you would say about Doyoung.

Taeil's eyes soften and he puts a hand on your shoulder. "I'm sorry, I can't let you go, not in this state." he probably noticed the blood on your shirt.

What happens next is a blur, mostly because of the pain that makes you lose consciousness a couple of times, only being woken up by a gentle slap to your face by either Taeil or Ten. "You have to stay awake." they always whisper. All you know is that the bus is quiet, some of the kids have fallen asleep or are crying quietly on their seats. This is sad, they don't deserve that. Not even the kids from Sunnyvale. It's summer, they deserved nothing but the best, they deserved nothing but to have fun, to remember this summer for being the best they could ever dreamed of.

"They are coming." Ten says, and you straighten up on your seat, turning your head to look through the window. Doyoung and Jaemin are running hand in hand and it's easy to see the amount of blood of Doyoung's white shirt despite the darkness surrounding the camp. "Open the door Taeil."

Taeil obliges, and Jaemin is the first to get inside of the bus. "Are you okay?" Ten asks, but you are too busy looking at Doyoung to hear Jaemin's answer.

"Doyoung!" you scream when Johnny sneaks behind him, axe already lifted, ready to hit. "No!" if it wasn't for Taeil closing the door right in front of your nose, you would be outside, you wouldn't have to see the blade of the axe sink into Doyoung's forearm. "Taeil, go behind the wheel and be ready to drive off." you know you are injured but you feel good enough to have a clear mind right now.

Taeil starts the engine and it seems to attract Doyoung's attention, and fortunately for everyone, Johnny doesn't react to anything, too blinded by the want, the need to kill. "Doyoung, now!" you shout, and Doyoung runs, grabbing your extended hand to pull him in the bus the moment Taeil presses his foot on the gas pedale.

The door closes, and the bus drives away but are you really safe? Who knows what could happen on the way to the city.

"I managed to call the police." Doyoung says, still sitting on the ground, holding his injured arm. "They should be here in a few minutes."

You look around you, not paying attention to what Doyoung is saying next. "Give me your shirt." you say to a kid on the third row of seats and he throws it your way. "It's going to hurt." you mumble and it's when you wrap the shirt around Doyoung's wound that he notices that you were talking to him.

"You don't have to." he whispers and you scoff, tightening the shirt around his arm as sort of a makeshift tourniquet.

"I told you, you can't die on me." that's the only explanation you can give him as you relax when you start to see the lights of the city. You always found it quite ridiculous for the camp Nightwing to be so close to the city but you find it useful now.

"Someone will have to call the parents." Doyoung slurs his words and you notice the colors quickly draining from his face, there's a lot of blood flowing from the wound so it's no surprise. He is about to pass out.

Taeil stops in front of Shadyside's hospital, and he gets down to call for a few nurses. When he comes back, he seems to be explaining what happened without going into details. All you know is that when your back hits the stretcher, it's like the world stops existing around you as darkness surrounds you.

Doyoung was not the first one to pass out from pain and exhaustion.

When you open your eyes, the room is bathed in yellow light and you blink a few times. You can hear the beep of the machine and feel the sting of the needle in your arm.

"You are awake."

With a grunt, you turn your head. Ten is sitting on a chair, his body drowned in an oversized hoodie. "Are you okay? Are the kids okay? What happened? How long did I sleep?"

Ten chuckles as he stands up to sit on the edge of the bed. He smiles but his features are drawn, he looks exhausted and sad, of course he would be sad, Johnny was his friend too. "Easy buddy. Some of the kids have cuts and strains, but they're okay, as much as they can be after what happened but they are strong." you sigh in relief, a small weight being lifted from your shoulders. "You slept for two days which is for the best because apparently the blow you took was bad." oh. "And as for what happened, well, all of the remaining counselors have been questioned by the police."

That is not what you want to know. "Johnny? Did they find him?"

Ten nibbles on his lower lip, running his fingers through his messy hair. "They did find him, and they had to sedate him because it was impossible to calm him down." at least he is not dead. "They think a drug could be responsible for his change." you don't believe that, but you nod.

"How is Doyoung?" you wanted to ask about him immediately but you didn't want to seem to eager, especially in front of Ten who is known to tease a lot.

"I heard him order a nurse around when I arrive, so I guess he is fine." that's Doyoung. "He is three rooms down from yours if you want to visit him."

You want to ask him about Taeyong, but even though they were not technically friends, you don't want to make Ten sad by making him think about what might have happened. "I'm going to use the phone in the waiting room, Taeil asked me to warn him when you would wake up." he kisses your cheek and he gets out of the bedroom.

Before you can make a move out of your bed, a nurse enters the room with a bright smile, a tall glass of cold water and a tray of food. She takes the iv drip out, leaving only the needle in case more painkillers might be needed and when she leaves, you stand up.

"Oh god." you growl, your entire body is sore as if you had been hit on the head and had to run around a camp avoiding a killer. You almost want to chuckle at your humor but instead you walk down the hallway, sighing at the coldness of the tiles under your bare feet.

"I see that you are alive." you say, leaning against the doorframe of Doyoung's room. He has a thick bandage around his forearm and a few cuts on his face that you couldn't see in the darkness of the bus. "Good."

His smile is soft when he hears your voice, he even scoots to the side of the bed to make room for you to lie down next to him. "I can't die, I have things to do." of course he would say that. "How are you feeling?"

You shrug, dropping your head on his pillow. "Sore." he hums, he probably feels the same. "How's the arm?"

"It stings but it's okay, I can live with that." he wants to say that being alive is what matters the most but he doesn't say it. He takes your hand in his, and you close your eyes. "After what happened, do you think we could try to make this work?"

"Make what work?"

He heaves a long sigh, he should've known you would ask for more details. "Us. I know it didn't work the first time, but when I saw you laying on the ground after being hit by Johnny, I thought about us, about how my life turned to shit when you left and how I wouldn't be able to live if you died."

You roll your eyes, turning your head to watch him. His eyes are open, and he is staring at the ceiling. "You told me your life turned to shit when I entered it." you say in a small voice.

"Because I was heartbroken and as a Sunnyvale I couldn't stand getting my heart broken by a Shadysider so I lied. I shouldn't have, maybe it would've avoided us from going at each other's throats at the first opportunity." sure, it would've made things more simple but you had fun, because even if it was to argue and curse at each other, it still gave you the opportunity to spend some time with Doyoung.

"We can try." you say, you are stuck in Shadyside anyway so it's not like you have other things to do, other people to see. "But don't expect me to treat you differently because you are my boyfriend." technically he is not, not yet, but that doesn't change the fact.

Doyoung laughs softly. "I didn't expect anything less from you."

#ugh #nct #nct imagines #nct scenarios #doyoung imagines #doyoung scenarios #nct angst #doyoung angst #kim doyoung

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markresonates · 3 years

Text

birthday boy(s)

summary: You and Jeno sneak off from his fancy birthday party because he wants your special "birthday present" right now. Unbeknownst to you, he wants it one hallway over from the party and a few others want to watch the gift giving.

pairing: bf!Jeno x fem!reader (voy: Renjun, Haechan, Jaemin)

genre: smut

au/tropes: rich kids, birthday sex, 00 liner dreamies voyeurism bc i'm a creature of habit

word count: 2k

a/n: happy birthday Jeno!

warning: unprotected sex, exhibitionism, voyeurism, fingering, lil degradation, lil masturbation, dom!Jeno, sub!reader

“You want to sneak off from your own birthday party?”

Jeno pulls your back to his chest, lacing his arms around your waist and rocking ever so slightly to the dull music. “You just said it yourself: it’s my birthday party. Let me celebrate it how I want to, okay?” Jeno whispers in your ear from behind.

“What about cutting the cake? We haven’t even done that yet and someone will notice that you’re not even here to blow out your candles.”

“I told Jaemin, Renjun, and Haechan to stall for us. We have maybe 30-40 minutes.”

Your eyes sweep over the sea of celebrities, privileged executives and self centered entrepreneurs. This lavish party thrown by his famous, filthy rich parents was not to celebrate their son. It was for the sole purpose of networking and occupying page 6 tomorrow. You knew he was miserable and you knew exactly how to make him happy. You’ve been imagining all the various ways you could make him happy in this very room.

You spin around to face him with a sly smile. “Where to, birthday boy?”

He takes your hand, bringing it up to kiss the back of it. “That’s my girl.”

He leads you around two winding halls, coming to a dead end at a narrower one. Jeno drops his hand from yours, stepping back from where you stand in the middle of the dim hallway.

His hungry gaze sweeps over your body to the crystals at the bottom of the dress, then slowly bounce back up. The dress has a long slit that nearly extends to your hip bone. He stalls on your chest, paying special attention to the low-cut trim and silently appreciating the way it accentuates your breasts. The dress cups them so beautifully that they are squeezed against the material, showing just enough skin to tease the hell out of Jeno since the second he saw you tonight. Your nipple is dangerously close to popping out, a striking visual that is enough to leave his mouth watering.

His brain fabricated various scenarios of ripping the material to the side and sucking on them in front of all those people. Your bottom lip is tucked between your teeth as his eager eyes meet your equally as eager ones.

Reaching out to tilt your chin up gently, he uses just enough pressure to indicate he wants to direct you backwards. You let out a startled yelp as your back hits the solid wall with a thud. The noise echoes down the hall, audible enough to be heard around the corner. You feel slightly nervous that someone may disturb the intimate moment, but the thrill of being discovered in a compromising situation is a massive turn on. A faint laugh rumbles in Jeno’s chest at your reaction, sensing your core is throbbing from the semi-public aspect of being with him at this very moment.

“You’re so cute, y/n.” He glides his other hand up the side of the stunning gown. “Fuck, this dress is perfect.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. Here, let me show you my favorite part.”

He slips his hand underneath the dress that gave him such easy access to your heat. His fingers arrive at their intended destination, as the rough pads of his middle and ring fingers brush over your bare folds.

“Hmm, my naughty princess didn’t wear her panties tonight, did she?” Jeno rubbed back and forth, barely making contact with your drenched lips. “You are so extremely wet, y/n. And you let yourself drip all night? Just make a mess all over yourself and probably that pretty dress when you sat down? Fuck, what a slut. I bet it turned you on, huh?”

You don’t hesitate to nod and lick your lips. Similar to Jeno, your mind wandered off throughout the night. Your core accumulated an embarrassing amount of wetness that leaked down your thighs as time passed. You couldn’t help but imagine all the places he could be fucking you in his house; bent over the blood red colored banquet tables; pressed up against the Greek inspired columns in the foyer; legs spread wide open on the royal purple benches in the parlor.

“No coming until I say so, okay?”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Aw, good girl,” he coos sweetly, a subtle dark tone underneath.

His fingers dive deeper between your pussy lips, earning an impulsive whimper from you. The lewd, wet sounds of your juices squishing around his fingers are louder than your whimpering. Curling his fingers up at the optimal angle, he finds your sweet spot and milks more uncontrollable whining from you. Of all your relationships and hookups, you have never been with a person so skilled at making you feel this good with their fingers.

“Wait, so bad news. I don’t have a condom on me.”

“I have an IUD and I’m clean.”

“Great, so am I.” he mumbles as his other hand fiddles with his expensive, tailored, dress pant’s belt, button and zipper. Jeno palms himself through his Calvin Klein briefs for a handful of seconds. Next, he twists and adjusts the waistband to make it easier for him to pull out his stiff, large cock through the front of his briefs. He lets his pants shimmy down and pool at his ankles. Holding up his hand to your chin, he instructs, “Spit.”

You split into the palm of his hand, letting some of it dribble slowly from your tongue to tease him. “Fuck, that’s hot.” he says under his breath, coating his length in your split and stroking himself at the same pace he is fingering you. Your yearning to be filled up by his cock only grows stronger from seeing him jerk off in front of you.

You remove your arms from where they are wrapped around Jeno’s neck to adjust your dress, untying the silk ribbon just under your ribcage. Instead, you flip up the material and bundle it from where it is directly below your hips. You tug it up so that it’s bunched around where the ribbon was initially and, as best you can, tightly tie the rolled up, clustered material to your rib cage region. You secure the material with a double knot, hoping it’s high enough that Jeno can fuck you and see himself disappear inside your pulsating entrance.

“Look at my baby being so smart,” he praises, pecking your lips.

He lines himself up at your needy hole, nearly dipping the tip inside you. “Jump for me, princess.”

He snaked his hands underneath your dress so he could grip your bare skin before you followed his orders and hopped into his arms. You cling tightly to his neck and wrap your ankles together behind his back. Tightly gripping handfuls beneath your cheeks, he squeezes the outer region of your ass to get the best angle.

Jeno’s cock slides into you suddenly. The unexpected pleasure of him fully spreading your walls, bottoming out within seconds, compels a moderately loud moan from you.

His thrusts are consistent and steady, plunging deep inside with every bounce. Your parted, puffy lips are too tempting and he slams your mouths together. He fills you up diligently as you make out for a while, mildly quelling his insatiable desire for your kiss. His mouth pulls away from yours to leave sloppy open mouthed kisses on every inch of your neck. Once he locates the weak patch below your ear, it’s impossible to hold back more whimpering.

“Princess, unless you want an audience, you should keep quiet,” Jeno grunts followed by an airy laugh. “Let me suck on your nipples, baby.”

He abruptly jumps again, hiking you up higher against the wall. His mouth connects with the supple skin of your breasts, finally fulfilling one of his much awaited birthday wishes of mouthing your breasts like he day dreamed about. He nips at the skin to purposefully make you squeal.

“It sounds like you really do want an audience.” he taunts. He leans forward until his lips ghost over the shell of your ear. “Maybe I should go get the other guys at my party. I’m sure Renjun, Haechan and Jaemin would love to watch me make you scream.”

Fuck. Is it wrong that that just made you twice as wet?

“You know, maybe they’d love to join in themselves, you know?”

Seriously? Does he mean that or is it just part of the sex? And how are you not supposed to think about Renjun, Haechan and Jaemin for the rest of the time Jeno’s fucking you?

You wonder how he has so much stamina to go on this long while fucking you so hard. Then you wonder how long the other three could fuck you for.

Jeno’s thumb begins to circle your clit, rhythmically. This goes on for several minutes, building up a buzzing that feeds the tightening of knots in your stomach. The effect of the intoxicating stimulation makes you pinch your eyes closed. He smirks as your body twitches against his, the visceral trembling indicating your overwhelming climax approaching, but it’s all too soon for his liking.

“Does my princess want to come? Does she want to come all over my cock right now?”

“Y-yes, please let me come,” you murmur.

“Hmm, I can’t hear you. I think you’ll have to be a little louder.”

“But-But what if someone hears? What if someone comes over here?”

Your wide eyes dart to the end of the hallway to see the three friends he mentioned moments ago all peaking around the corner in shock. You wonder how long they’ve been there, watching their friend pound you into oblivion. You should be mortified, devastated, overwhelmingly embarrassed but instead, you wish that they had seen more. You wish that they had a better view, too.

“Do you want to come or not, princess?” he challenges with an irresistible dominance. “Go on, beg. Beg for me, louder than before.”

His filthy words have always had such an effect on you and with the added turn on of a real audience, it was easy to grant his wish.

“Jeno, please, I want to come so fucking badly. Pleassee let me come, please,” you sob, lolling your head to the side so his friends see your fucked-out expression.

“Go ahead, Princess, come for me.”

Your orgasm hits out like a tidal wave. You spasm as the knots inside you are tied so tight they snap. Clenching your hot walls as they swallow his cock triggers his climax seconds after. He fucks you through the euphoria until you’re both lethargic, panting messes.

He lets you down gently, leaning his forehead to yours. You cup your hand over your dripping folds to prevent further sex juices from splattering on the stained dress you’re wearing.

“I would’ve let her come earlier than that, birthday boy,” Haechan interjects.

Jeno’s head snaps to the prying eyes unbeknownst to him. He steps in front of you protectively with no regard to his own modesty.

“Relax, she wanted us to watch the whole thing anyways.”

Jeno turns to face you, shoving his softened length inside his briefs then helping you pull your dress back to its original form. “You saw them and didn’t say anything?”

You refuse to make eye contact with him for whatever reason. Guilt floods your heart, fearing if you peer into his eyes you will see hurt or betrayal swirling behind his alluring brown irises. He grabs your chin for the second time tonight to gain your undivided attention. His touch is surprisingly gentle.

“It’s okay, y/n, I’m not mad,” he reassures you with a slim kind smile.

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Leaning your head against his chest. You hear your name mentioned between the hushed, filthy words whispered amongst the three behind you.

“Actually, princess… what do you think about ditching this party and doing that all over again on purpose for them?”

kinda spoiling it but i’m working on an actual 00s fic right now and i'm super siked about it !!

➾my masterlist

#neowritingsnet #jeno smut #jeno #jeno nct #jeno scenarios #nct dream smut #nct dream scenarios #jeno imagines #jeno drabbles #lee jeno

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the-iceni-bitch · 3 years

Text

No Scrubs

Well a scrub checkin' me, but his game is kinda weak

And I know that he cannot approach me

'Cause I'm looking like class and he's looking like trash

Can't get wit' a deadbeat ass

Pairing: Steve Rogers x fem!Reader

Words: 3.1k

Summary: You try to keep Steve from dying of boredom at an Avengers charity gala.

Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (oral sex (f receiving), fingering, unprotected vaginal sex, squirting, public sex), little bit of a fight, SMUT!!! 18+ ONLY!!!!!

A/N: My official entry for @cockslut-padalecki’s “Not My Ninth” challenge!! My prompt was No Scrubs by TLC and Charity Gala. I picked our boy Steve for this one, but like post Avengers pre Winter Soldier Steve. Also, is Thor the best wingman? I feel like I’ve been using him in this role a lot. Happy 9K babe!

Check out my masterlist and join my taglist if you want!

Steve had never felt so uncomfortable in his life.

He hated talking about himself normally, and having to parade around in front of a bunch of rich people was a special kind of torture. But Tony was insistent that the whole team had to be there, and it was for a good cause so he couldn’t say no without being a complete asshole.

He downed the rest of his champagne as some other billionaire asked him the same damn question about how different things were for him now, how much he must miss the 40s, like the war was some golden age of Americana. He just smiled and gave the same polite answers he’d been giving all night, wishing he was able to get drunk. Maybe Thor had snuck in some mead, that could usually do the trick.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt, Captain Rogers, but Mr. Stark sent me to come find you. Something about the silent auction.”

Steve felt his face relax as he turned to look at you, his breath coming out in a deep sigh. You looked amazing in your silver gown, all shimmery and gauzy.

“Sorry folks, duty calls.” He said with a shrug as he followed you away from the stuffed suits. “What does Tony want? I don’t have anything to do with the auction.”

“Yeah, I know, but your jaw was clenched so hard I was worried you were gonna snap something, so I figured I’d come rescue you.” You said, grinning over your shoulder at him.

“God, you’re the best.” He sighed, following you to the bar and leaning against it as you ordered yourself a cocktail.

“I know, right? You want anything?”

“Not unless Thor snuck anything in. It’s only been an hour and I’m this close to ramming my head through a wall.”

“Sorry Cap, I hate these things too but it comes with the territory.” You said with a shrug, sipping on your Manhattan as you turned to face him. “Now, lets go find our Asgardian friend. As your handler, I can’t have you destroying property out of boredom, and I’m pretty sure I saw that giant sipping from a contraband flask a little earlier.”

He grinned as he moved to follow you, weaving through the crowd as you expertly turned away the whales that kept trying to approach him. You were his fifth handler since the battle of New York, and the only one that had lasted longer than a week. Mostly because you didn’t actually try to handle him, just let him be Steve and deal with any PR fallout that came with that. It helped that you had an easygoing nature that he found endearing, and you could always make him laugh. The fight you’d gotten into with Tony about changing his suit had really done it for him though, he hadn’t seen anyone make Stark back down so fast.

“Odinson!” You shouted, beaming once you found the massive blonde. He’d been cornered by a group of old blue hairs who were tittering and trying to touch his biceps. “Sorry ladies, the god of thunder is needed elsewhere, auction business.”

They all made sounds of disappointment as you extracted the relieved looking god from the group of old biddies, pulling him away towards one of the empty corners of the ballroom.

“What is this auction you speak of?” Thor asked once the three of you were separated from the crowd.

“A clever ruse, my good friend.” You said with a smirk. “You’re welcome by the way. The Captain here is on the verge of committing violent acts out of boredom, and expressed a desire to get drunk.”

“Yes, thank you Y/N.” He said with a grin. “I don’t think I can help the Captain with his problem though, maybe he should head to the bar.”

“Oh, you can’t help?” You said cocking your eyebrow at him before shoving your hand inside his tux jacket and pulling out a silver flask. “What’s this then?”

Steve chuckled as Thor tried to stammer out a reply as you just shook your head and tutted at him, handing Steve the flask.

“Listen, just be a good boy and share. Now, I need to go to the ladies room but if any of these rich assholes tries to come bother you again, just start talking about the horrors of war, and get graphic. They hate that shit.”

Steve handed Thor back the flask after taking a sip, already staring to feel a bit of a tingle in his fingers.

“That woman is not to be trifled with.” Thor said appreciatively as he took a swig, handing it back to Steve. “Have you slept with her yet?”

Steve choked on the mead, his eyes bugging out of his head as he tried to cough up a lung and Thor clapped him on the back, scolding him for wasting good liquor.

“Jesus, Thor! What are you talking about? I don’t want to sleep with Y/N!”

“Oh my god, you midgardians and your hang ups. Your hormones spike every time your around her, it’s very distracting.”

“What?!?! How do you know that?” Steve loosened his tie a bit as he felt himself starting to warm up, telling himself it was just from the booze.

“I’m not just the god of thunder, I’m a fertility god.” He said with a grin. “And every time you two are near each other, it’s like being around a couple of rabbits in the spring.”

“Oh god, please stop.” Steve said as he ran his hand over his face in embarrassment.

“No you stop. We’re in a hotel, just get a room and , what’s the phrase I’m looking for ‘fuck her brains out’.”

“Jesus Christ, who taught you that? Never mind, I know it was Tony.” He said, waving a dismissive hand at Thor as he gave him a wicked grin.

“Oh no.” Thor said suddenly, looking over Steve’s shoulder towards the ballroom.

“What now?” Steve said with a heavy sigh, turning to follow his line of sight to where you were standing, talking to an unsteady looking man in a sloppy tux. “Rumlow.”

“Yes, apparently your STRIKE team leader has been sniffing after your handler for months.” Thor narrated, leaning against one of the columns and taking another pull from the flask. “She’s always rebuffed him, though. I don’t think he’s ever tried when he’s drunk before. Wait, Rogers!”

Steve ignored him as he strode towards you, growling under his breath and loosening his tie even more as he watched Rumlow wrap his hand around your bicep and yank you towards him. Steve was close enough to see you roll your eyes, but couldn’t hear what you said to the man as he wrapped his other arm around your waist and smashed his mouth against yours.

“Hey!” Steve shouted, his brow furrowed as Brock pulled his face away from yours to see what the interruption was about.

You took your chance and head butted him, a curse leaving his mouth in a hiss as he released you. You gripped his left wrist around his thumb and drew it back hard, smirking when you felt a snap at the same time you drove you fist into his ribs.

Steve had to pull you off him as you started beating him with your clutch, opening it up at the same time to search for your brass knuckles.

“You don’t fucking touch me, you goddamn sloppy deadbeat motherfucker!” You screamed as Steve carried you away from the main floor, your limbs flailing as you tried to charge back at Rumlow. “Learn to tie a fucking tie you cocksucking son of a bitch.”

Steve did his best not to crack up at the shocked looks the blue bloods were giving you, a chorus of offended gasps following the two of you as you released a steady stream of profanity. He pushed open the doors to the balcony with one hand as he kept his other hand wrapped tightly around your waist as you were still trying to squirm free.

“Damn it, put me down Rogers! I’ll kick your ass too!” You hissed, turning to swat at his chest.

“Okay, okay, Jesus Christ!” He said as you started to kick him, catching him in the shins a couple of times. “Ow.”

“You’re fine.” You said with a shrug, taking a couple deep breaths to calm down.

“Yeah, well Rumlow definitely isn’t. Who gave you brass knuckles?” He said, pulling the weapon out of your clutch.

“Nat did. And it’s not like I even got to use them on that asshole.”

“Yeah but you would’ve.” He said, shaking his head as he handed them back to you. “He didn’t hurt you did he?”

You just snorted as you shoved the knuckles back into your clutch, leaning your back against the railing.

“Good.” He mumbled, suddenly not knowing what to say to you.

You somehow looked even better after your altercation. Your hair was a wild tangle now, loose strands blowing in the breeze. Your lips were swollen from the unwanted kiss, and Steve could feel the heat coming off you as your chest heaved with deep breaths. He hissed through his teeth when he noticed the torn skin on your knuckles.

“Shit, Y/N, you’re bleeding.” He growled, grabbing your hand to inspect the damage.

“Huh, guess so.” You said, watching him through your lashes as he brought your hand closer to his face.

You felt your breath hitch as he ran his thumb over the back of your hand softly, his brow still furrowed with worry. Maybe it was just the adrenaline from the fight, but all you could think about just then was sucking on his thick fingers.

“Y/N?”

“Hmm?” You must have zoned out for a second.

“You sure you’re ok?”

“I’m great.” You said, your voice a little squeakier than you would’ve liked.

He took a step closer to you and you gasped, suddenly feeling very light headed as you felt a rush of slick flood your panties. His hand left yours and moved to cup your cheek, his thumb tugging at your bottom lip where you had it pressed between your teeth.

“I think I’m gonna kiss you now.” He muttered, his eyes boring into yours, pupils blown wide with lust.

“Good.” You whispered.

His mouth devoured yours, his teeth pulling your lips open so he could slip his tongue inside, curling it against yours as he wrapped his arm around your waist and pressed you against him. You moaned as you felt his cock hardening against your abdomen, your pussy throbbing with need as he ground himself into you.

He started to sink to his knees and you followed him, your mouth still pressed to his desperately. His hand moved from your waist to dig under your skirt and he let out a growl when he brushed his fingers against your core, pressing them against the soaked silk of your panties.

“Fuck, I wanna taste you so bad.” He grumbled, his lips still pressed to yours. “Wanna see if you taste as good as you smell.”

“Oh god, Steve.” You moaned as he hooked his fingers through the side of your panties and ripped them off you, the elastic snapping against your skin and a shove going up your spine as the night air cooled the wetness between your thighs. “Do it.”

He grinned and gave you a quick peck on the lips before he started to move his mouth down your throat. His hand between your legs started rubbing you in big slow circles as he laid you down, putting just enough pressure on you that you were quickly turning into a wriggling mess.

“Hold still, honey.” He ordered, pulling the sleeves of your dress down just enough that your breasts could pop out, your nipples pebbling in the chilly air. “I’m gonna take my time with you.”

“Fuck.” You moaned as he dragged his tongue over your nipple in a heavy stripe before flicking it softly. Your hands dug in his hair as he sucked and licked at it, just barely brushing it with his teeth until it was raised to an overly sensitive peak before he moved to the other nipple and repeated the process, making you whine.

Once he was satisfied with his work, he pressed a soft kiss to each breast before moving his face between your legs. His hand was making soft wet sounds now as he kept rubbing your sex, and he groaned when he removed it to take a good look at you.

“Fuck if that ain’t the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.” He murmured as his lips brushed over your inner thigh.

Your cunt was pulsing with need under his gaze, your plump folds swollen and flushed with heat as he watched you clench around nothing. Everything between your legs was coated in a thick layer of your arousal, and he bit his lip as he watched even more leak out of you.

“I bet I could make you cum with almost nothing, sweetheart.” He teased as he nipped at the soft skin of your inner thighs, inching closer to your pussy before moving away again.

“Steve, please!” You whined, trying to arch your back into his face as you tugged on his hair.

He just grinned before pressing his tongue over your pussy and swirling it through your folds. He had to press his palms down on your hips to keep your body from curling back on itself as he ran his tongue over your sex, lapping at your pussy like his was the first meal he’d had in weeks.

“God you taste so good.” He murmured as he gazed at you through his lashes. “Like fucking peaches.”

You sobbed as he thrust his tongue inside you at the same time his lips wrapped around your swollen clit, making you come immediately. He curled his tongue inside you as your release flowed into his mouth, moaning into your pussy as you spasmed against his face.

Your breath was coming in ragged gasps as you came down, your muscles still twitching randomly as aftershocks shook through your abdomen. He grinned as he sat up over you, undoing his tie before moving to take off his belt as you writhed underneath his gaze. Your brain finally reset and you sat up between Steve’s legs, nuzzling yourself into his neck as you worked to unbutton his shirt.

“You back, honey?” He chuckled as you ran your teeth over his collarbone, dipping your hands under his shirt to press against his chest. “I was a little worried.”

“You’ll find I’m extremely resilient, Steve.” You murmured before sinking your teeth into his pec as you started to undo his fly.

“Shit, good to know.” He groaned as you drew his cock out of his pants and gave it a squeeze.

He gripped your chin and drew your face up to his, raising you up to your knees as he gave you a soft kiss. You moved his cock in your hand to line him up with your entrance, teasing his tip against your folds. Steve wrapped his hands around your waist and lifted you a bit higher before slowly drawing you down onto his length.

You let out a thin keen as he stretched you open, relishing the sting as your cunt fluttered around him, adjusting to his girth. He rested his forehead against yours as he started moving his hips at a languorous pace.

“Fuck, you feel so good.” He muttered against your lips before moving to bury his face in your shoulder. “So tight and warm and soft.”

You gripped the hair at the base of his neck tightly as his hips started moving faster, slapping against yours. You felt yourself clench around him as he ground against your clit, making you gasp.

“Shit, Steve! Right there!”

“Jesus, already?” He murmured, running his lips over your throat.

“Just... fuck, you’re so big, Steve. Oh my god, I’m cumming.”

He hooked a hand under your ass to keep you from collapsing as your entire body arched violently, almost bending backwards on itself as you swallowed a scream. Your cunt fluttered and spasmed around him as he lifted you to wrap around him, his breath hot against your neck.

“Holy shit honey.” He muttered as he pulled you down against him, making you whimper. “You ok?”

“I’m great. Don’t you fucking stop.” You said, tilting his head back so you could press your mouth to his.

He grinned against your lips as he fucked his hips up into you, keeping his eyes locked on yours as his cock dragged over every inch of you, nudging against your cervix and making your breath hitch.

“Right there?” He asked as you dug your nails into his scalp and bit at his lips.

“Fuck, oh goddamn it, Steve.”

You shrieked into his mouth as you came apart, your muscles seizing as your pussy strangled his cock. His hips stuttered and you were suddenly flooded with warmth, his spend sitting into you and coating your canal in thick white ropes. He sat back on his heels and pulled out of you, and you shuddered as your release squirted all over the front of his pants.

“Shit, did you just squirt honey?” He asked, giving you an appreciative glance as he started to tuck himself back in and button his shirt up.

“I think so. Fuck, that’s never happened before.” You said with a shrug.

“Well, damn baby.” He said as he stood up, offering you a hand to help you to your feet.

“Shit, we’ve gotta go back in there.” You said, running your hand over your face. “Oh my god, Stark is going to kill us. Hold on and give me a second to think.”

Steve just leaned back on the railing and gave a satisfied smile as he watched you pace back and forth, wringing your hands.

“Ok I think I’ve got it, just one second.”

You went to the door and opened it a crack, popping your head through, jumping when you found Thor leaning against the wall right there.

“Hey, Thor. What’s up buddy?”

“Just keeping the other guests from wandering out and seeing you and the Captain humping like rabbits.”

“Appreciate it. We need a distraction though, cuz we’re both a little messy, and I don’t really feel like explaining that to everyone.”

“Got it, what if I blow out the lights in that chandelier?”

“I think that’ll probably work.” You said, giving him a nod before turning back to Steve. “Alright Rogers, we’re making a run for the elevator. Thor, blow it.”

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@lizette50

@patzammit

@dwights-new-plague

@tenaciousperfectionunknown

@daughterofthenight117

@obsessivereaderchick

@before-we-get-started

@missmintyross

@mariaenchanted

@drabblewithfrannybarnes

@stargazingfangirl18

@starlightcrystalline

@jack-skellingtons-stuff

@chrissquares

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@sweeterthanthis

@gotnofucks

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ecoamerica · 18 days

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youtube

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

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orenjixstrider · 2 years

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Cockiness Killed the Cat (Fushiguro Megumi x Reader)

Word Count: 1,869 words

Summary: Your overconfidence gets you into some trouble and Megumi is fed up.

Warnings: Mentions of death. Honestly death is the main reason for this fic. There is also a fight in the beginning so beware of blood, injuries, and perhaps gore? I suppose also a spoiler warning if you’re like only a few episodes in?

A/N: It’s been a long time since I wrote anything and I’m trying to get back into it. Hope you enjoy, just a fun little idea I played around with. Also have a Nanami fic that I need to finish and then I’ll be doing some other fandoms such as Haikyuu, BNHA, etc.

“Your weakness isn’t lack of skill—you have plenty of that—it’s your overflowing confidence that gets you into trouble.”

Coming from someone like Gojo, that was rich. What irritated you the most about the comment was how it had earned a smile from Megumi, much to your dismay. Apparently, it was worth the teasing he immediately received from Gojo after.

But annoyance aside, you could not deny that Gojo had perhaps been onto something.

And with you staggering to your feet, grimacing at one particularly nasty first grade, it becomes excruciatingly clear that cockiness will be your downfall. You had reassured your classmates that you would be fine, that the task at hand was more important than this side quest. Megumi had been particularly against the idea and as much as you appreciated his concern, though you shrugged it off for the greater good, you knew the three of them needed to be present to take on the main threat. Plus, you were fairly certain that you could take on this cursed spirit with no problem, though you failed to mention it. In the end, Itadori, Kugisaki, and Megumi had ran ahead, leaving you to your own devices.

Sadly, you had underestimated the strength of this being and your confidence has caused you to slip up multiple times. At the rate this battle was currently heading, it looked like there was little hope of surviving. But you wouldn’t let it go without leaving damage, especially if it could encounter civilians or worse, your friends.

With your last fleeting strength, you charged at it and summoned what remaining cursed energy you could muster. The curse’s misshapen body recoiled before projecting a sharp limb. It managed to graze your shoulder but failed to stop your momentum as you came crashing into it. The power of your strike rips it to shreds and you gracelessly crash to the floor. You whip around to strike again before noticing the cursed spirit fading away before relief floors your body.

That is, until you feel as though you are bathing in flames. The injuries you have sustained pulse with a fierce pain and that final blow felt like it was about to do you in. As agony raked your breath, it took everything in you not to collapse to the floor like a pathetic rag doll. No, your pride would not allow you to die so pathetically. Instead, you slowly lower yourself to the ground, the concrete pressed uncomfortably at your back as you fight for your breath. Though your days, minutes, seem to be numbered, you attempt to stop the bleeding on your shoulder and fight back the unbearable pain that shoots through every fiber of your being. Within minutes, your vision began to flicker and the edges of your sight began to fold in onto itself.

Before the darkness consumed you, you could’ve sworn you heard someone calling your name. A part of you hoped it was Megumi. What you wouldn’t give to hear him one last time, even if he was reprimanding your idiotic behavior. But you were too far gone to detect its source and you slowly faded into nothingness.

The funny thing is you didn’t die. While you could give the spiel of waking up in an unknown place where you are barely clinging to life, white ceilings, loud and repetitive beeping, that terrible clean smell of disinfectant, and all, you don’t have the energy to do so.

What you weren’t expecting was Megumi sitting at your bedside, giving you a look that you’re convinced might actually kill you.

“You look like shit.”

You guess not even nearly dying can catch you a break with him. A sigh passes through your lips as you give Megumi a tired grin. He doesn’t return it, but looks at you expectantly.

“I feel like shit,” You josh back and he looks like he’s about to ring your neck. Before you give him a chance, you add, “What happened?”

“You almost got yourself killed?” He says it like it is the most obvious thing in the world, “If we had gotten there a few minutes later, you would’ve bled out.”

“Sounds like I’m incredibly lucky,” You weakly laugh.

The laughter dies as quickly as it starts. Megumi is not having any of it. Not that he usually puts up with your obnoxious jokes and playful comments. But ever since Itadori’s death, the one Megumi was forced to watch with his very eyes, his warnings have grown harsher and rightfully so. You understand him there: it is bad enough to lose one friend, regardless if he came back to life, but to lose another one because they decide to tempt death at every opportunity is not such a great feeling. You almost begin to apologize until he chimes in, “Incredibly stupid if you ask me.”

Understanding his concern does not quell the anger that stirs within you. Something about the way Megumi fired back at you was beginning to get under your skin. There was nothing different about the way he spoke. In fact, if you hadn’t been paying attention to every word that fell from those pretty lips of his, you might have mistaken what he just uttered for a dreary comment on the weather. But Megumi was starting to provoke a specific emotion out of you—that emotion being pride.

You can barely keep the attitude out of your voice, “What is your problem, Fushiguro? Did Gojo piss in your tea or something?”

“My problem is,” Megumi begins, his ferocity matching yours with mere ease before he reels himself back into his usual composure. You can tell his blood is still boiling by the vein sticking out on his neck as he clenches his jaw, but you chose to ignore it to avoid setting him off or else you’ll never hear the end of it (and it already seemed like you were in for it). He continues where he left off, “My problem is how reckless you are when you fight.”

This earns an eye roll from you, which causes his eyebrow to twitch in frustration, “So I make mistakes sometimes, everyone does.”

“Well not everyone is a jujutsu sorcerer,” Like you haven’t heard this one a million times, “Our numbers have been dwindling with each decade and here you are, willing to throw away your life because you can’t handle a simple first grade.”

You have never heard this bullshit from anyone, not even your own parents, more than you have from Megumi. Of course, there were some people like Itadori or Kugisaki who have briefly mentioned being more careful during fights because of concern for your wellbeing, but after several incidences, they let it go and chose to trust you to handle yourself.

Megumi is the only one who insisted on consistently pointing out your recklessness.

The irony of this is that you do care what Megumi thinks. You actually care a little too much. But what infuriates you is that he never quite looks past your shortcomings, your faults. To him, you feel as though you will always be that arrogant ass that seems to have death on speed dial. And no matter how hard you strive to be acknowledged as anything else, he always reminds you of your place.

“I don’t need the lecture,” You retort.

Oh, how you wish to wipe that stupid “you’ve got to be kidding me” stare off his face. You meet his gaze and even in your battered state, you match his intensity. One thing you both had shared was stubbornness and that commonality being the driving source of this now absurd staring contest. But even if this fight was being fueled by pettiness, you didn’t want to lose and it seems that neither of you were willing to give the other the satisfaction of looking away.

“Don’t you? It might actually save you your life one day,” Megumi says, not daring to break the eye contact you two were holding.

“Why do you give a shit? What is my life to you?” You spat back.

“Everything!” The sudden increase of his voice’s volume is not the only thing to startle you. Everything? What did he mean by that. He wastes no time to explain, “Maybe you’ve never noticed because your oversized forehead blocks the view, but I care what happens to you. I need to know that you won’t get yourself killed when I’m not there. You may not get to choose when you die, but I’d rather you not chase after death like some game of tag.”

A confession. This sounded like a confession. Your already furrowed eyebrows crease further as you try to wrap your head around what he meant. You would think this is a joke, some sick joke, but Megumi has never joked around with you, not even when you two were playing nice and even those are extremely rare occasions.

You choose your words wisely so to not betray your obvious confusion, “Is my life really worth all that?”

Megumi lets out an exasperated breath and runs a hand over his face. He didn’t have to be so dramatic about all this, especially when he was the one sending mixed signals, “If you don’t want to value your life, fine.”

“Fushiguro,” You start, but he doesn’t hesitate to talk over you.

“If you don’t want it, give it to me.”

Silence ensues. If you were turned around before, you were completely lost now. You can’t even fight back your disorientation, “What?”

If Megumi rubs his face any harder, you’re afraid it might come off. He doesn’t look at you, no matter how much you try to coax a simple glance, so you can gage the emotions that hide in those deep, dark pools of his eyes. Although he does not give in, he reluctantly lets the words fall from his lips, “I’m not saying you have to marry me, but be mine and I’ll give you my life in return. Not all of it, I don’t think I can trust you not to throw it away yet… but let me give you a reason to fight for your life.”

Now he’s looking at you, expecting an answer, something to show him that revealing his cards was truly worth the gamble.

Without realizing it, you reach for him. From where you’re perched, your fingertips barely graze his knee. Luckily, he gets the hint and inches closer to you. Your hand finds his and you hold onto it as if your existence depends on it. And maybe it does.

You don’t think you could muster a single word, not even a simple “yes”, without the fear of ruining this moment and Megumi going back his words. So you settle on nodding. It’s all he needs. His grip on you tightens and you can almost see a ghost of a smile on his lips.

He can have your life and you’ll gladly take part of his. The haughtiness persists as you feel that maybe one day, it’ll be all yours. You know how the saying goes, old habits die hard, but now you’ll try not to take it so seriously.

#jujutsu kaisen #megumi #megumi x reader #fushiguro #fushiguro x reader #fushiguro megumi #fushiguro megumi x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader

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gnocchighoul · 4 years

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Hmm.. kind of a random thing but that's how my brain works sometimes but hear me out! The Bros (plus undatables and Luke if you want) get turned into cats. What type of cat would they be, how would mc react, and how would they react to being a cat.

I had SO much fun writing this one. Thank you for this excellent prompt 💗

This is just the demon bros getting turned into cats, but I might make a part two with the undateables! :D

Lucifer

Oh he’s going to be so pissed off.

Seriously, even as a cat, his murder-death-murder-death stare is beyond intense. He will sit himself high up on furniture to glare down on everyone like the prettiest gargoyle you’ve ever seen.

Nobody is allowed to come near him. He will swat and hiss at anyone and everyone who approaches, unless they are approaching to turn him back into a demon.

BUT if you had nothing to do with this curse that’s fallen upon him, then he’ll probably let you near, as long as you’re not like, weird about it. Seriously, don’t baby talk at him, he’s not actually a cat.

Cat-Lucifer will probably just want to constantly stand on your shoulders and wrap his tail around your neck, which isn’t super comfortable because he’s not exactly small and dainty.

Also, every time you say something stupid he’s gonna bite your ear lol

Tbh he’s probably going to make you carry him everywhere like that and he’s gonna control where you go -- you know, kinda like ratatouille LMAO

Mammon

You know those cats that climb literally everything and anything?

Yeah.

When he first gets turned into a cat, he freaks the fuck out. But when he finally calms down and isn’t meowing up an angry storm, he’s gonna realize that this is a great opportunity. for evil.

He's gonna book it the second he realizes that he can literally be a cat-thief.

Nothing is safe from his grabby little gremlin paws.

He steals so much shit (wallets, Asmo’s jewelry, Levi’s limited edition collectors items--anything he can carry in his mouth or drag around) and then he stashes it all in your room, because unfortunately, becoming a cat didn’t make him any smarter.

Lucifer tasks you with just sitting in your room and keeping track of everything cat-Mams steals so that you can return everything to their rightful owners.

You quickly become used to cat-Mams sauntering in and out of your room every five minutes with his newfound riches.

So it’s a bit concerning when Mams darts out of your room after stashing a wallet in his hoard, and doesn’t come back after thirty minutes.

Naturally, you go looking for him.

You’ve only been searching for about twenty minutes, when pathetic meowing reaches your ears. You follow the sound, and--

You find him stuck in a cardboard box.

(before fishing him out, you take tons of pictures. He’s very upset.)

Levi

Levi is so distraught. He’s literally going to just wail and roll around on the floor until somebody picks him up.

He’s literally the crying cat meme.

Once he’s in your arms, do not put him down. He’s very sad and his reflexes really aren’t good. You know how you can just kinda toss cats onto the floor and they’ll land on their feet just fine?

He will not.

Is suuuuper jumpy and only trusts you (and maybe Beel, but he’s lowkey afraid that Beel is going to eat him.)

You should probably get him one of those bubble back-packs that cats can sit in and carry him around in that.

He has the worst time as a cat. He just wants to play his video games :(

(But if you give him lots of smooches, it’ll make his suffering a little bit easier to deal with. But like, he’s gonna turn into an overwhelmed ragdoll when u start giving him the smooches)

Satan

Honestly? He isn’t that opposed to being a cat for a little while.

But he’s also like. So hyperactive. Goes from 0-1000 in half a second.

He’s got the zoomies.

He’s gonna parkour his way around the house of lamentation, testing how fast he can zoom, how high and far he can jump (and how far he can fall without hurting himself)

He’s gonna do a backflip off lucifer at the speed of light and then sprint away as fast as he can to go wreck some shit

If you want to hold him, you’re going to have to catch him mid-air. If he doesn’t just squirm out of your arms and actually lets you pet him, he’s gonna stare you dead in the eyes, extend his claws, and then pat your leg with his lil toe beans.

You’re not entirely sure if that means ‘keep petting me’ or ‘stop it right now’ so you just kinda scratch his ears instead

Asmo

Even as a cat he’s beautiful and everybody has to see just how pretty he is.

He’s constantly striking poses.

Looking back over his shoulder. Stretching his leggies out so you can see how long and lean they are. Contorting his body in the WEIRDEST ways because he’s even more flexible now.

He does not run anywhere, he struts very daintily and model-like.

He’s gonna be so affectionate. Constantly rubbing his cheeks all over you, and leaning against you, but be careful while you give him pets because if you mess up his fur he’s gonna swat your hands away.

He’s also definitely going to be really annoying and constantly walk in front of your feet and trip you up. Where are you going, why aren’t you admiring him, dammit

You know how most cats hate water?

Not asmo.

He’s gonna make you fill the bathtub up to his chin so he can float around on his tiptoes with just the upper half of his head out of the water like a crocodile.

Then you have to blow-dry him until he’s all nice and fluffy and give him a good brush.

He will absolutely tolerate you dressing him up and taking pictures as long as you make him look nice. He won’t allow you to put him in stupid costumes (he’s gonna bite you when you bust out a lobster costume) but a pearl necklace? Hell yeah.

Beel

Feed him dammit, he’s starving.

Cat-Beel is going to gnaw on EVERYTHING. Furniture. Books. Clothes. Your hands and ankles.

It’s not anxiety -- honestly he really doesn’t mind being a cat -- he’s just so hungy.

Also he’s MASSIVE.

You don’t actually know that he’s been turned into a cat until you go to the kitchen for a snack and find an orange & white cat the size of a literal child raiding the fridge.

Which brings me to my next point -- he’s gonna be SUCH a snuggle bug. Like those really big dogs that insist on sitting in your lap and crushing you. If he isn’t eating then he just wants to flop on top of you and crush you with his love.

You can baby-talk at him if you want, as long as you give him treats and snuggle him.

He purrs so. Much.

Will also let u just roll him around and do whatever you want to him dkjncdsn he’s honestly the chillest out of them all

Belphie

God he’s so fucking upset at first, like claws out, hissing and spitting at everyone, full on tantruming upset, BUT THEN. but then. You pick him up and press a kiss to his sweet little triangle head and he bleps and it's all over.

Good luck getting anything done. Cat-Belphie is going to demand your full attention for snuggles CONSTANTLY.

No, he doesn’t care that you’re trying to research ways to turn him back, he’s gonna plop his little butt on the tome you’re attempting to read until you give him love, dammit.

Honestly, Belphie being a cat isn’t that much different from normal. The biggest difference is that now he can squeeze into weirder places to nap, which makes it very difficult to keep track of him.

After searching for two fucking hours, you, Satan, Levi, and Beel find him stretched out across the arms of one of the chandeliers in the dining room, like it’s some kind of weird hammock.

He’s fast asleep. Nobody knows how he got up there.

(To get down, he ends up yeeting himself into Beel’s arms.)

If Bells isn’t napping, then he’s hiding under furniture, waiting for his next victim to walk by so he can attack their ankles.

(also the most likely to bite u when he wants your attention)

((part 2 with the undateables))

#obey me headcanons #obey me hc #obey me shall we date #swd obey me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me #gnocchicanons

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mayihavethisdanse · 3 years

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“What is this, the Dark Ages?”

Or, Arthurian themes and allusions in the Brotherhood of Steel mythos as seen in Fallout 4. (But that’s a lot of words.)

Yep. We're doing this.

First, some obligatory caveats: there is no single Arthurian canon, just 1500 years of assorted fanfic based on the whims of whoever was writing at the time. For this extremely highbrow Tumblr meta, I have ignored most of it and drawn on my favorites. Also Wikipedia.

Also, I am not an expert in Arthurian literature (or Fallout lore, come to that), and I preemptively beg the pardon of anyone who is.

Finally, in no way am I claiming that all these parallels and thematic echoes are deliberate or even significant. In fact, I'd break it down into:

Clearly deliberate allusions, whether in or out of universe;

Probably coincidence, but could be someone deliberately capitalizing on a coincidental similarity;

Almost certainly coincidence, but fun to speculate about; annnnd

Blatant Monty Python references. (Because of course there are.)

I'll start with the big one.

Arthur Maxson, boy king and unifier

(source)

So across all the retellings and variations of King Arthur’s life story, there are a few consistent elements, particularly in his early life and rise to power. Some of these threads are echoed in the Fallout universe, specifically (and unsurprisingly) in the person of Arthur Maxson.

Both the legendary King Arthur and Arthur Maxson were born with a claim to power lying in their ancestry, both were fostered away from their families, and both proved themselves in combat at a young age.

King Arthur united the warring kingdoms of Britain into a single entity, making them stronger against outsiders and receiving general admiration and acclaim. Arthur Maxson united the divided factions of the BoS after the events of Fallout 3 and is held in similarly high regard by his men.

The name Prydwen is a reference to the ship of the original King Arthur. Presumably, Arthur Maxson (or someone in the BoS who anticipated his promotion) christened the airship in a deliberate homage to the Arthurian myth.

King Arthur is associated with his legendary sword. I think it’s notable that Maxson’s legend is associated with a bladed weapon, too. ("He killed a DEATHCLAW with a COMBAT KNIFE!”)

Probably coincidence, but fun: the historical emperor Magnus Maximus, who pops up a lot in early Arthurian legend, was known in Welsh as... Macsen. (⌐■_■)

Round Table, but make it dieselpunk

(Continued under the cut.)

Moving away from obvious allusions and into some looser parallels:

Like the Round Table, the Brotherhood is an exclusive knightly order with its leader being the one able to open it up to his chosen few.

Like the Round Table, the BoS sees itself as defending human civilization against forces of chaos. (I’ll touch on their tech-hoarding tendencies when I get to the Grail stuff.) This idea of civilization in the face of chaos goes back to the BoS’s founding, even though the level of isolationism we see in most of the Fallout franchise is not exactly what founder Roger Maxson had in mind: “Notably, Maxson's ultimate intention was to establish the Brotherhood as an organization that works closely with people outside of the Brotherhood, as guardians of civilizations, not its gatekeepers.” (source) In a lot of ways, Arthur Maxson represents a return to his ancestor’s original ideals.

Renegade knights? Internal politics? Traitors within? We gotchu.

In both the medieval legends and in all chapters of the BoS we’ve seen, there’s a big focus on bloodlines (ew). Ironically, it’s probably Arthur Maxson’s unquestionable ancestry that allows him to be more progressive than either of his East Coast predecessors when it comes to boosting Brotherhood numbers by recruitment (even though you can still see a clear division between “born Brotherhood” and recruited soldiers, but that’s a topic for another day). Maxson sees himself as an Elder who "cares for the people"—however misguided and patronizing that attitude might be—and whatever else you might say about the guy, you can't say he doesn't believe he has a duty. Which brings us to…

Know Your Enemy: Danse as Gawain

Before I start this section, an acknowledgement of authorial bias:

Gawain, as portrayed in the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is my very favorite of King Arthur’s knights. (Other stories aren't always as flattering, but like I said at the outset: I'm sticking to the ones I like.)

That poem is my very favorite piece of medieval Arthurian literature. In this section, I'll refer to the modern English translation by Simon Armitage.

...that’s it, I have no other biases to disclose.

What? 👀

(Art: Clive Hicks-Jenkins)

All right. So in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, you’ve got this himbo loyal knight of Arthur’s who finds himself caught up in... you know what, let me just paste in the Wikipedia summary. (The Toast, RIP, also did a pretty entertaining and more-or-less accurate recap.)

It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who dares any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving the lord and the lady of the castle where he is a guest.

Don’t worry too much about the plot details, though; for this post, I’m more interested in the thematic parallels. The Green Knight story is full of contrasts: order vs. chaos, civilization vs. wilderness, mortal man vs. Other... but let’s start with Gawain himself.

Some stuff to know about Gawain:

He was "as good as the purest gold, devoid of vices but virtuous and loyal". Gawain took his principles more seriously even than the rest of Arthur’s knights, not out of pride but out of humility: "I would rather drop dead than default from duty," he says.

He’s faithful and honorable and never even tempted to betray an oath, even when offered every variety of seduction and riches, except for a single moment of weakness in a desperate desire not to be executed for random shit by powerful forces for reasons he doesn't understand.

Even though he doesn’t really understand why he needs to die, he sticks to his oath. Gawain's one weakness is a moment of desperate, private, human desire for survival. He'll submit to the headsman’s axe if he has to, but he'd still rather live.

Above all, Gawain is the ideal of a human man: he might be the bravest and loyal man there is, but he’s still fundamentally human.

You can probably see where I'm going with this.

A few more fun facts about Gawain that resonate with Paladin Danse’s story:

He’s got a bunch of really shitty brothers. (No comment.)

Gawain (SPOILERS!) doesn't actually end up beheaded, but he does willingly kneel for his execution and gets a cut on the throat as a reminder of his sin. And, uh, Danse can also get his throat cut! It doesn’t end as nicely but it’s, you know, a thing that can happen.

Gawain might be a really good guy, and he tries really hard to be one, but in the end he’s nothing more than that: there’s nothing supernatural about him, he has no special powers beyond his own principles and devotion. He’s just a dude doing his Best.

Wait, why not Danselot?

Oh, that guy? Here’s the thing.

Lancelot personifies the continental ideals of courtly love that became popular in the High Middle Ages. Central to his story is the prioritization of personal relationships and romantic feelings in a way that you don’t really see in Gawain's, at least in the Green Knight tale. (Later stories hook Gawain up with an extremely delightful lady, but even that is a different flavor of romance than Lancelot's and has more to do with Gawain honoring his word and his egalitarian treatment of women (hell yeah). In the poem, Gawain is impressed by Bertilak's wife but resists her temptation; in fact, the biggest risk is not that he'll yield to her advances but that he'll be discourteous to her, i.e., violate his principles and cause dishonor to his king and his host.)

Lancelot is driven by passions over principles in a way that Gawain never really is (at least in the stories I’m talking about; later writers have committed character assassination to various degrees). Yes, you could argue that both Gawain and Lancelot betray their oaths, but Lancelot’s betrayal is never, um, blind. He knows what he’s doing and makes a deliberate choice to prioritize his love for the queen over his love for the king. It doesn’t make him a bad guy—he too is an ideal knight with one fatal flaw—but his character isn’t as comparable to Paladin Danse.

Yeah, Gawain is (in most stories) a prince and a kinsman of Arthur’s, but he’s ultimately a native boy who doesn’t break the mold of a Knight of the Round Table. Likewise, Danse is portrayed as competent and valuable to the BoS, but not exceptional or breaking the mold of what a BoS soldier should be: he simply represents the ideal. Meanwhile, Lancelot is a foreign prince who was marked from childhood as special and fancy, and his storyline goes alllll over the place. (Much like this post.)

For example, Lancelot goes to absolutely absurd extremes to prove his devotion for no other reason than to prove it. (“I’ll do any useless humiliating thing you want. I’ll betray every oath except the one I made to you. That’s what love is!”) Gawain would never. Danse would never.

Ultimately, Gawain's tests are of his character and not of his love. And like Gawain, Danse’s devotion is to service and his principles, not to another person—even Arthur Maxson.

All that said, there are some similarities: both are beloved by Arthur, both are held up as the ideal of what a knight should be. And even if their fatal flaws are different, both make the point that no matter how good and brave and loyal they might be, no human being can be perfect.

(Except Galahad. Who is, as a result, very boring.)

I’ll conclude this section with a quote from someone else’s take on the Greek Knight poem:

I like Gawain. He’s not perfect, but he’s trying his best which is all any of us can do. He’s not like the other knights in the Arthurian legends who occasionally ‘accidentally’ kill women on their little adventures and then feel hard done by when they have to deal with the consequences of that. Gawain holds himself to a high standard – higher, it seems, than Arthur and his knights hold him to considering how hard they laugh when Gawain tells them how bad he feels about the whole thing.

I think Gawain is very relatable in this story. We all want to be better than we actually are.

And that, more than anything else, is Danse.

The Grail myth

What’s that? Lost relics of power? Better send some large armed men after ‘em!

The parallels to the BoS’s tech-hoarding ways are obvious enough that the games themselves lampshade them (albeit by way of Monty Python). But it also ties into the larger themes of “purity” versus “corruption” and the BoS’s self-image as a bastion between civilization and chaos. (See Maxson's line in response to the Sole Survivor’s quip about the Dark Ages: “Judging from the state of the world, it wouldn't be a stretch to say we're living in that era again.”)

But the ultimate futility of the Grail mission is also worthy of note. The BoS might want the power of prewar tech on their side, but they’re no more to be trusted with it than any other group of human beings. No matter how they try, the “corruption” of humanity can’t be overcome as long as they’re striving to harness power for their own ends. You can only achieve power by surrendering control of it.

The death of Arthur

The nature of gameplay being what it is, it's not guaranteed that the Arthur figure will be fatally betrayed, bringing Camelot down with him—but it's not unlikely, either.

Awkward.

Some final spitballing:

Outside the Brotherhood, there are some fun parallels of the Arthur myth with the rest of Fallout 4. Betrayal by one’s own son, for example.

The key difference between the BoS and the legendary Round Table: King Arthur’s knights, for all their flaws and human weaknesses, are usually presented as unambiguous Good Guys. The BoS is... a little more ambiguous...

...but damn if they don’t think they're the good guys.

A-ad victoriam, fellas!

#fallout #fallout 4 #brotherhood of steel #arthur maxson #paladin danse #sir gawain and the green knight #sir gawain #gawain #knights of the round table #king arthur #elder maxson #fallout 3 #fallout lore #maxson #roger maxson #look mom I did a meta

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heartshyuck · 3 years

Text

Pairing: Jisung x fem!reader

Genre: fluff, angst,slow burn, strangers to lovers au, first love, early 1900s au.

Synopsis: Lavenders symbolise purity, silence, devotion, serenity and grace. All endearing characteristics of the gorgeous boy, you met in the fields of purple.

Placed in the late 1930s , just before World War two starts, you flee from your family who are forcing you into a marriage. You lie low in a small village where you meet Jisung in a field of lavenders.

Word count: 23k lmao

Warnings: female reader, misogyny and very backwards ways of thinking, forced marriages, world war two + historical inaccuracy for progression of the plot, drinking

a/n: this is the longest fic i have ever written and honestly it was a mission, it took about a month to write and I am genuinely so proud of it and really happy with it. Please don't be scared by the length but when I say slow burn, I really mean it!

Your legs seem to be moving on their own, feet hitting the ground at a steady and fast pace, you don’t look back and can’t seem to see what lies ahead but still you run until your lungs burn, run until the bitter metallic taste is at the back of your throat where bile threatens to rise. You run until finally your legs collapse, knees hitting the ground, grazing them and it’s the slight sting of the sediment seeping into the cuts that stop you from passing out. You’re not sure how far you’ve ran or how long you’ve been running, you don’t know where you're running to but you have to escape.

Escape the life they’ve laid out for you, the one they’ve planned without your input, you can’t live a life where everything is set out, where ’everything is expected and perfect. A life where you’d get married at 18 to a stranger who was of a worthy social class, attend formal lunches with the wives of your husband’s work colleagues and host dinner parties and occasionally large balls in a manor that always felt empty no matter how many paintings you bought to hang on the never ending amount of walls, no matter how many more bookshelves you tried to fit into one room, a place that you’ll always hate. Then to have children by 20, as many boys as possible of course to then not have any say in their upbringing and watch nurses tend to them, your husband educate them and then watch them get married, meet your grandchildren and when you’ve reached a respectable age, death will meet you in your sleep and you’ll be mourned and then forgotten. A life filled with regret, a constant numbness, no fulfilment and no meaning.

You saw your mum live that life, a smile that never quite reached her eyes, always plastered on at any given moment as she walked around the large hall with a glass of nothing but champagne in hand greeting the hundreds of guests that you were never able to comprehend how she managed to remember them all. She never spoke unless spoken to, never put in any input and always obeyed your father even when you could see the frustration bubble up inside her as her eyes glinted and her jaws tightened with the urge to say something.

She would buy gifts upon gifts and shower you in expensive luxuries, spoil you in riches as a form of love and yet it always held another meaning behind it. There was a slight sadness in her eyes as she passed a gift every birthday,christmas and any other reason she found, almost as if she was saying sorry for the life you were going to live and how she’d use these moments as blackmail for when that time came. You’d overhear her quiet sobs when you would sneak around the house late at night, read letters she received from someone you didn’t know and how they wished for her life to get better and for her to find happiness in a world where happiness didn’t exist. You saw your mother cry when your father died, eyes bloodshot red in fear rather than grief. Her life was now uncertain and that's when you decided that you couldn't live an empty life, regretting choices and wishing for death to come to you first.

Your father had always made sure that you would receive a proper education, one where you'd read hours upon hours of the finest English literature, works of science and learned of the past and present politics. He always said "a lady should know about the world around her but should never venture off on her own" you hated that phrase but it was better than what you overheard your friend's father saying to her when she asked for him to explain the concept of communism, "a women does not need to busy herself with politics, for your brain could not even begin to comprehend it" he announced with his nose high up in the air as if he had just said the most inquisitive statement known to man. It baffled you how one could even think that, let alone truly believe it enough to announce it so stupidly in the open, it was obvious that women were capable of understanding concepts like politics, maths and science for you were living proof.

You did better than your brother at grasping algebra, better at them with understanding Versalius's "De humani corporis fabrica" and it didn't take your friend long to understand Karl Marx's theory on communism once you explained it to her. It angered you that this was dismissed especially when your brother soon went off to universities for they had outgrown your father's enormous library and knowledge, there was no more he could teach them but there was still much to learn and you yearned to do the same but as you approached a suitable age for marriage, your everyday classes on Shakespearean English, Tudor monarchy, Greek mythology and Italian art had now been replaced with sewing, crochet, dining etiquette and the differences between napkins, white laced ones for formal lunches, gold embroidery for important dinners and regular silk for everyday use, you'd recite to your mother and the many maids who were on standby.

You've left that world now, left the bustling streets of industrialised London where a black smog always hung around the air and the smell of burnt rubber that stung your nose, you always hated both. Though you grew up in a large estate where there seemed to be a never ending amount of land on the outskirts of London, you never were allowed out to explore. Only allowed out with your mother to pick out fabrics in the markets, surrounded by military men that guarded the general's wife and daughter but now you were alone, no guards, no mother and no black smog to block your view of what lies ahead, only the sun and the ocean sky, clear of clouds as you breathe in fresh air that cleanses your lungs from the toxins that hang in the city air, surrounded by vibrant lavenders that arrive with a strong, sweet smell of pollen which you welcome to replace the bitter rubber your sense of smell only seems to know.

You close your eyes and bask in the warmth of late August , the sun gleaming down on you, rays striking against your skin with the wind between the strands of your hair, blowing the lavenders and they slightly tickle your arms. You’re not sure how long you were in your euphoric trance but you weren't ready to leave yet when the dark shadow was casted over you.

Your eyes lazily open and beauty lies ahead, the sun gleaming behind him, lights him on flames and he burns with a presence so strong you can see it as his aura swirls around you, engulfing you. His features,strong and yet his eyes are soft and even as he's turned away from the sun they sparkle infinitely as they hold the brightest stars, his stare pierces through you and it makes your gut clench as you feel small under his gaze but you don't turn away, daring him to continue staring down on you, well that's what you tell yourself as you can't help but get lost in the beauty of his eyes. His face wears a worried expression, his hand out forwards for you to take and place in his and it takes you a while to realise he's trying to help you up, even longer to comprehend the words that leave his mouth, as you just watch his cherry red lips move. You're dazed and for the first time you're not thinking straight, your legs won't move to carry you back up onto your feet but your hand instinctively moves towards him and your own mouth gapes open as it does, and again he repeats himself emphasising the words as his eyes widen further “are you feeling well?” you stare blankly at him, no response until you feel the burning sensation of his hand in yours. A heat that sends shocks through every nerve, it runs through your bloodstream lighting you on fire and as if you were burnt you pull back, shaking off the dizzy spell you rise to your feet, your body finally responding to your screaming brain. A sense of relief washes over you as the fear of losing your mind slowly seeps out as the haze in your mind clears, until your eyes meet his again. “Really y/n, not for a boy” you cry out in your head as your mind seems to be lost in awe looking at him.

You shuffle uncomfortably and it’s just now you realise how much of a mess you look as the embodiment of beauty’s eyes fall down. Your expensive dress torn up, what was once a full sangria and silver ball gown was now rags that wrapped around you with the bottom half missing as it stopped just above your knees, an uneven hem due to the rough ripping which took all of your strength, the white net underneath was visibly stained a brownish yellow, the cuts on your knee not being the only thing the dirt seeped into but his eyes don’t even seem to stop there, they didn't even seem to notice, only meeting a piece of paper that lied on the floor. He reaches down for it, his eyebrows perk up slightly before handing it back to you.“You dropped this” he avoids eye contact, continuing to stare down, his hand abruptly extends out in front of him and he clears his throat, adding to the excruciating awkwardness between you and you wince at the sudden sound.

“Oh thank you..” you can hear your voice waver and crack and for the first time in your life, your voice isn’t confident, seems like a day full of firsts, your mother would’ve been proud if she saw you acting like this, like a lady she would have put it. Quiet, reserved but really it was just a suffocating stiffness that lingered in the air.

“Jisung” he completes your sentence, a small, shy smile appears on his face as his eyes look at everything but you, the letter still in his grasp he shakes his hand at you slightly urging you to take it. Your fingers brush past his ever so slightly as you take the letter back into your possession, a spark is sent through you and your fingers twitch, as if wanting more but you stop them from moving any further, your eyes slightly widen as you catch yourself falling so easily and if Jisung catches the weird expressions on your face, he chooses to ignore them not saying anything. “You are not from around here, are you?” His voice is light and airy as he speaks softly, as if you were made of glass and any harsh tone could break you, you can’t tell if it’s because of the immense awkwardness or because of the pity he must feel seeing you in such a state. You hope it’s the former and decide that’s what it is, when he starts playing with the edges of his white shirt.

“No I live in London” the words die as soon as they leave your mouth, you used to live in London, you don’t anymore. This only adds to Jisung’s awkwardness and it reminds you no matter how beautiful he is, he’s only just a boy who’s probably around your age. So you smile at him, letting out a small breathy laugh in hopes of lightening the mood, it works as he visibly unstiffens. “Used to” Jisung doesn’t press on the matter any further, doesn’t ask anymore questions, just nods. The unsettling atmosphere sets in once again and your incapability of standing in silence for more than a second, you clear your throat "do you know where this address is?" your tone light and airy, you sound almost clueless and it’s now you realise the true meaning behind every etiquette class, the role of the women is the domestic war, the war on power. For one to rise they must make powerful allies and that’s what this voice is for, to obtain the power of a man and trick them into helping you; so you're glad when Jisung takes the letter back into his grasp and examines the writing at the front, it’s worked.

“I’ll show you the way” and you nod with a slight smile as a thank you, Jisung leads the way and you follow soon behind, with his face no longer in my sight you can finally observe the rest of him. Judging by his height and build, seems like he comes from a well off family. Though there wasn’t a day you felt hungry, you weren’t blind to the outside world no matter how hard your parents tried to shelter you from it. The world is living off rations but the wealthy still have access to more, Jisung must have some sought of status or most likely works for a household with high status considering it seemed like he was running errands, why else would he be in a field full of lavenders and it’s only reinforced by the fine silk that flows as wind rushes past you. Somewhat similar to the material that makes up your gown, or what’s left of it, it’s an expensive material imported from colonies in the empire. He walks with no flaw and so you guess he didn’t serve in the war, meaning he has to be around your age; this new life is exciting and scary, you’re not sure what you want yet but you certainly wouldn’t mind if the boy in the lavender field stuck around for a while.

Jisung’s steps slowed and soon came to a stop outside a large estate, it was nowhere near as big as your parent's manor but comparing it to the small petite houses in the village you could just about see; it definitely was the biggest house in the village. You turned to thank Jisung, mouth slightly opened as the words were prepared to leave until you saw him pull out a key and a heat rose up your neck onto your face, in both slight embarrassment and excitement as you realised that Jisung must live here and your mouth couldn’t help but confirm your thoughts, “do you live here?” you blurted quickly with a slight lift in your tone, which you hope wasn’t too obvious in exposing your excitement.

His eyebrows rise, a small smile appears but he doesn’t answer your question, continuing to unlock the doors and allows you to step in first, a women who barely makes it past Jisung’s shoulders calls out to him, embracing him as she tightly wraps her arms around his waist, Jisung leans back slightly as a way of hoping to loosen her grip as his face scrunches up in pain as the struggle to breath sets in but there’s a constant smile on his face right until he peels her off. It’s then she punches him in the stomach, making him crouch down below her, holding onto his stomach.

“How many breaths must I waste in having to tell you to make sure you fulfill all your duties before you head to the fields'' she nags him and a smile is brought to your face at the violent display of affection, you guess he must be a part of the service team that works for the master of this house, which was exceptionally beautiful in the inside; much bigger than what it lets off from the outside, your eyes can’t help but linger elsewhere and observe the hidden beauty in all the small intricate designs. “Young master” the lady continues to punish him for his action and you head whips around at her words, she hasn’t even noticed you but Jisung’s eyes are constantly on you watching your expressions change as more as more information is being released to you, a smile appears on his face and at first it seems like a smirk but soon you notice the constant pink dust across his cheeks and you realise he’s embarrassed. There’s a strange feeling in your chest, a warmth that spreads and has you clutching your fists as you think at how adorable he is, your eyebrows furrow and you shake both the thoughts and the smile off.

Finally after what seems like hours of you staring at Jisung but in reality was no longer than a few seconds, the petite woman turns to you and acknowledges your presence, her eyes widen in surprise and she rushes to your side. “Oh lord, my dear child are you okay?” she grabs your hands and ushers you down the hall into a secluded room that takes up a big portion of the ground floor of the house.

The kitchen, filled with plenty of workers,busy hands and food; she shouts at a maid to move a few things around and to make some space for you around the small table that holds vegetables and freshly cut meat. There’s the smell of spices that are definitely too exotic to be from these lands, parcels with German writing and several people cooking dishes you don’t recognise.

You're pushed down onto a small wooden chair that slightly rocks and it is by far the most uncomfortable place you’ve ever sat but you don’t dare complain even after the minutes pass and your legs begin to ache. The maids ran around you and even as you left that world behind, you still somehow ended up in the same position and then you realise it’s the fine silk you wear that sets you apart, the rows and rows of pearls around your neck and rings on your fingers. They don’t ask any questions, just wiping away at the dirt on your legs; the same women at the door pouring a type of alcohol over your cuts and it stings drawing out a hiss from you, “sorry” she whispers and blows slightly on the irritated skin. The kitchen quiets down and the other maids exit, leaving you and the same women who scolded Jisung, she didn’t bother to ask him any questions and quickly sent him away to carry on with the work he didn’t finish, she doesn’t ask you any questions either for it’s not her place to ask.

She wraps bandages around your knees and your eyes wander around, landing on a picture of her with three little boys, you recognise the smallest to be Jisung, she catches your eyes and smiles “the masters, when they were little devils” she remarks making you and her both let out small laughs, “though they aren't much better now” she smiles fondly as she continues to wrap the bandages, you see love in her eyes and can tell that she raised them.

“The smallest is Jisung, am I correct?” you ask just to confirm your assumption, she nods and smiles, “i can tell by his awkwardness, it’s radiant even in pictures” you scoff and she laughs. "Who are the other two?" Your curiosity seemingly has no end.

"The tallest is master Jeno and the one in the middle is master Jaemin" she says as she cuts the bandage. You take note of their names and match it to their appearances though you assume they've probably changed quite a bit. The tallest, Jeno has crescent moons for eyes as his smile pushes them up, it's adorable. The middle, Jaemin also has a bright smile, probably the prettiest you’ve ever seen but Jisung still stands out the most to you, maybe it’s because you’ve seen how he looks now; the change is definitely visible, he’s grown much taller and into his sharp features. He's definitely handsome, epitome of beauty but by the way he timidly walks you’re not quite sure he knows it.

“Will these do, ma’am?” her hands hold onto a set of clean clothes and you only nod at her as you take the clothes from her hands, calloused and rough from years of labour. "Please just call me y/n" you tell her trying to remove your status and she only nods in return. "And what may I call you" you ask her.

"Daphne" she replies and you notice that she smiles at you, a full smile nothing quite like you've seen before and you'd like to think this what a smile should look like. Genuine. Instead of all the small smiles you recieved, the ones with hidden agendas and meanings, the ones because of who your father was, the one because of your status, name, title, money and a persuasion for your hand in marriage. So many smiles yet none truly considered one. God you hated that life.

"Now y/n let me show you to a room" she leads you out the room and you follow her upstairs, all the maids rushing back into the kitchen after you have left. She turns left and right and you find that the upstairs is far more complicated to navigate, with many different rooms. When she finally reaches a long corridor, she stops to point at the room that awaits at the end. "That will be your room ma'am" and before she even could finish her sentence properly, "y/n" you correct her and she only nods, giving you a soft smile as an apology."Please call for me if anything isn't to your liking" she says and just as she's about to step away, ready to leave you to get comfortable.

You call her back, "Daphne, can you please tell me who this is" you lift up the small blue letter that leads you here to this address, to finally put a name to the mysterious woman who only seemed to want the best for you and your mother. She takes the small letter from your grasp, examining the small font that's slowly fading due to the number of years it's collected dust. Her eyes widen as she reads the letter, her head snapping up to look at you, her lips parting slightly as if her jaw threatened to drop.

"My god" she says as she continues to read, shock written all over her face, "this is from the master's mother, dear" she tells you and you join her in shock as your jaw hangs a lot more obviously in shock. "She worked for your family when she was young" she continues to tell you and the ripples of shock continue to pulse through your body. Your mother and her are good friends from what you've gathered, reading all the letters you found. Yet your mother never even allowed you to mix classes, always telling you to stick with your own people, people who can pay for your time, literally. Yet here she was being friends with a woman considered below her, even considering sending you away to her. The hypocrisy is what shocked you the most, for you didn't think your mother could build relationships if it weren't for a social advantage.

"Can I meet her?" you ask, excited until you see sadness seep into her eyes, she looks down and she shuffles slightly. Her eyes glossy with tears threatening to fall and your own shoulders droop down and a frown is formed on your lips. "I'm sorry" you apologise but she shakes her head and wipes her eyes slightly.

"Don't be silly, you didn't know and it's better you found out through me anyways." She tells you and you're glad that you found out through her too, you don't think you would've been able to handle it coming from Jisung. "If you do not mind me, but when did she pass" you ask carefully as to not break her.

"Last May" she tells you and you hear sadness in her voice , as it slightly cracks and you release a deep sigh as to rid your body from the contagious mood. With that she hands the letter back into your hand and leaves you to wash up, "Dinner will be ready soon, please wash up" she urges you to go into the room.

You walk down the corridor, steps heavy as your heart grieves for Jisung and as you're reminded of your own father's death, though he planned on marrying you to a stranger you didn't love and never truly wanting you to live happily. You loved and still love him with every ounce of your being, all making grief an impossibly hard process. For your heart hurt and your mind could not comprehend why. Your eyes stung with tears and your hands trembling with pain and still the mind was questioning why you felt sad. Then the guilt blooms, hovering above you, for this man raised you and cared for you and yet you question your grief as you sit by his deathbed. Yet you remind yourself that questioning your grief is better than not feeling any at all, you remember looking over towards your mother who wore black and instead of grieving her husband's death, she felt grief for her widow status that crushed her social status, for who was she without her husband.

So as you remove the many pearls and diamonds around your neck, gifted to you by your mother, you’re reminded why you left that life behind. You won’t be defined by your husband but by what you have achieved and for who you are. Yet you leave on the thin golden chain with a single pendant on your neck, as a reminder for where to come from and how far you’ve travelled. It was a gift from both your mother and father, the one gift you like to think wasn’t used as a symbol of your wealth to attract men in asking for your hand in marriage, the simplicity of this necklace led you to believe that this was a genuine gift of their love.

Changing out of your ball gown or the remainders of it, you feel anew. Stripping out of your old skin and into much comfortable and humble ones, you feel as if your new life is finally starting and though it’s far from what anyone would have wanted for your life to be like, it’s what you want. You’ve been here for just under an hour and instantly you're on cloud nine, floating to where only the sun is. The rays dancing on your skin and euphoria runs within your veins, this is life.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been in a daze but soft knocks on the door is what awakens you and you're quick to open the door, not wanting to leave the person on the other side waiting but you’re met with a fist, that seems as if it malfunctions as it goes down by the side of the same person who seems to waking you out of all your dazes recently. Jisung stands there awkwardly, legs crossed and hands behind his back, he stutters as he says “dinner is...um.. It is awaiting” and with that he cuts himself off, rushing the words out of his mouth and quickly turns around, rushing downstairs.

You can only smile at him, how was someone allowed to be that cute. Following soon after him you enter into the dinning room, the smile on your face completely wiped off by the shock of two other men sitting around the table. Your back straightens as your body stiffens, by habit, you’ve been taught to look most confident when caught off guard.

“Sit here y/n” Daphne takes out the seat opposite of Jisung and next to a man you don’t know until he smiles your way, you recognise that smile and it’s still as pretty as it looks in the picture hanging in the kitchen. You smile back at him as you make your way by his side and take your seat.

“Hello, I’m Jaemin” he turns to you, dropping his fork and it clatters as it hits the plate, a beautiful smile across his face and you finding it comforting to think it hasn’t changed at all. He then lifts your hand to his lips, placing them softly on your knuckles all whilst keeping that damn smile held across his lips and staring straight into your soul, heat rises up your body slightly thrown back and he can see the shock in your eyes . Your well crafted facade cracking. His eyes are still boring into yours and you can’t move, stuck looking into his eyes, hands stuck to his until a kick. Coming from across the table, a force hits Jaemin’s shin causing him to yelp, instantly turning away from you and dropping your hand, you notice a small smile on Jisung’s face as he tries to conceal his laughter. You turn to look at where such a force came from, fierce strong features and an intimidating stare yet when he turns to you crescent moons appear, his aura changing immediately and the child in the portrait comes to life. “I’m Jeno” his voice is soft yet clear and all you can do is smile back before replying simply your name “Y/N” you tell him and he nods your way.

Thinking that silence would now set in was foolish of you, for you should’ve guessed Jaemin isn’t the type to let there be silence and looking back now you could definitely tell he was itching to ask you so many questions. “I guess you have already met Jisung” he turns to you again and you only nod, looking up at the tall boy in front of you but he only stares at the soup in front of him but you know he senses your gaze as he twitches slightly in his seat, holding himself back from looking up and directly into your eyes. “He is not usually this quiet, he will warm up to you soon” Jaemin apologises on behalf of Jisung yet he grimaces at the words that leave Jaemin’s mouth but you smile at Jaemin ignoring Jisung’s expression.

The rest of dinner is filled with small talk between you and Jaemin, him asking you your favourite colour and trivial things like that, you discussed different authors and scriptors to which Jeno also chimed in on the conversation, both very impressed on your knowledge though you aren’t sure if they were impressed because you were a woman or genuinely impressed by the vast knowledge you had accumulated over the years spent in your father’s library however you brushed that thought aside, carrying on with the conversation, eyes drifting to Jisung at times who just sat there playing around with spoon, twisting it between his fingers instead of daring to look at you let alone to add to the conversation. Finally as Daphne takes away the plates, Jeno stands up dismissing himself from the table, “It was a pleasure to meet you Y/N, I hope you stay a while it was fun having you” he tells you with those same moons for eyes and you thank him for his hospitality “It was a great pleasure to meet you too, thank you for allowing me to stay” you say them at Jeno and Jaemin but they’re mainly directed to Jisung who brought you here.

“If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to tell me” Jaemin smiles, a hand on your shoulder as he stands next to where you sit and you only nod at him, he then comes to your ear, lips so close you feel them brush against the shell “Jisung will come around, I’m sorry if he’s making you feel uncomfortable” he apologises on his behalf for the second time that night and you wave him off with a smile. You could already tell that Jisung is shy and awkward but it’s not confused for hate or resentment, he simply doesn’t know how to act around a female and it’s clear the way he trips over his words and his very own legs but to be fair they are very long.

After everyone left the table and made their ways to their own rooms, you too made your way to bed. Laying there you think back to how far you’ve come, a few months ago this all would have been nothing but a dream and now it’s a reality and the euphoric feeling you imagine is everything and more. Freedom is worth anything is what you’ve learnt, the freedom to live your life the way you want. To be in control of all your decisions, living with the consequences but not a single shred of regret because you chose it and therefore it must have been for a reason. It’s new and exciting but so scary as the colony of butterflies bloom in your stomach, all the possibilities panning out in your head and for some reason as you drift off to sleep that night, you see Jisung in this future of yours.

The sun shined in through the sheer curtains of your room, sunlight dancing on your skin and the warmth made you feel alive as it tingled. The house was quiet and as you look out the window you realise that even the Sun has still yet to wake fully, still sleepy rising out of the horizon. The birds chirp and the lavender fields roar as the wind dances but there in the middle of it all is a figure. Jisung. Your eyes light up and your legs are quick to move, still in your nightgown, hair in a mess you rush to meet him there. The stairs creak as you step down them slowly, as if a child trying not to get caught, you try your best not to wake a soul.

Once out the door you run out towards the purple sea, the cold morning air refreshing to the midday humidity that sticks your clothes to your skin, instead the wind blows through you and you feel free as all boundaries and confinements are washed away but then it hits you, causing your legs to halt. Jisung barely knows you, how weird it would be for you to run up to him at the break of dawn? Very weird you decide as you slowly make your way back to the house, hoping to not make any noise that might draw his attention your way.

Stepping back inside, your back against the heavy wooden door you let out a deep sigh as your eyes fall closed in relief. Thank god he didn't see you, you think to yourself as you just stepped into the living room and your heart dropped down to your stomach, lungs stopping as you see him there. Jisung flicking through a book, his eyes come up to meet yours which are blown out in shock as you stare between him and looking back at the door, his lips fold into a line and you practically see the questions forming in his mind as he scratches the top of his head.

“Good Morning” you say with a smile but the embarrassment isn’t covered well, eyes everywhere but his. He softly replies with a mumble you’re unsure if he actually said anything back or if you just made it up but as your eyes land on the book in his hand and all thoughts are banished. You rush round the table, Jisung’s eyes wide now as it’s his turn to be shocked as you sit down beside him, taking the book out of his hand to have a look at the title. “Ah a classic” you say as your fingers run over the title and Jisung only nods at your words. “Is it your favorite Shakespearean play?” you ask in hopes of starting up conversation, all you get in return is nod of the head but that does nothing but urge you to talk again to fill the silence. “I like Hamlet but i think Macbeth is my favourite. The best character being Lady Macbeth, a strong ambitious women” you state and Jisung only laughs at this causing you to turn back to him.

“She had lost her mind” he laughs again and you smile

“Yes but as a woman she exerts power and it’s not really seen much in female characters in stories and real life” you tell him, explaining how a woman like her is admirable for her strong spirit.

“Yes but doesn’t Shakespear describe her to have a masculine soul that within a femine body, he is saying the ambition and power are masculine and therefore is she really a good embodiment for strong powerful females?” he argues back, questioning you and you can’t help but smile.

“But he uses her and the witches to plant the idea of murder in Macbeth’s head, he shows that they are powerful and can achieve what they want through manipulation which he explains to be a women’s method, they are in control of the men and it shows that if it weren’t for social confinments that they would pursue their ambitions for themselves, is Macbeth really the one in control?” you question him back and he smiles

“You win” he laughs and pride is struck through you, there’s no feeling quite similar to winning a debate but there's sadness at the bottom of your gut as you remember and miss your brothers who you would debate with until frustrations would burst out of you all and it leads to punches being thrown around.

“Let me guess, you hate Romeo and Juliet” he expects you to say yes and you know it’s because he probably thinks their love for each other is shallow but you can’t say you do.

“I don’t actually, aside from the whole love at first sight, I somewhat relate to it” you tell him eyes staring at him but unfocused as you think back to how your own life was in comparison to Juliet’s, “the being forced into something you don’t want and dying for your freedom, in this case her freedom was Romeo but i don’t think he was the only reason she chose to flee, I’d like to think ran away for herself and to allow herself her own choices in life” and then silence as Jisung took in your words, a perspective he had never really thought about, the story was always solely based on romance but then again he had never been put in the position of being forced into something so life changing such as marriage. Jisung couldn’t begin to comprehend how it felt to be used so obviously for social gain and being stripped and deprived of anything else that would hinder that.

Sensing stiffness in the air, you had to do something about it, you finally got Jisung to actually have a conversation with you. “Still Macbeth is the best” and again you manage to get a laugh out of him. The sound is so sweet that angels come down to listen to it, the heavens split open at the first bubble of laughter that leaves his mouth and your eyes light up as your body tingles with pride for causing it, you’re addicted to it and you're itching to hear it again. You need to hear it again.

The moment is cut off though with the entrance of Jaemin and Jisung’s eyes avert to his brother greeting him a good morning as quietly as he did to you and Jaemin sleepy replies in a yawn, rubbing his eye before sitting down opposite you. “Morning y/n” he greets you and you smile before greeting him back, turning back to Jisung to hopefully start up the conversation again. “So what else are you reading?” you ask and your eyes light up as you scan over the many books on the table before you.

“Oh y/n, you know how to read!” Jaemin jumps up, it wasn’t expected for someone to be literate to the extent they could read Shakespeare or any higher educational scriptures, unless of a high class, let alone a women but your father taught you all he could and then you leached off your brothers who were lucky enough to be sent to school but Jaemin had already been aware of this “Yes my father taught me” you tell him and he nods rapidly.

“Yes I know, I just thought you’d like to know that there’s a library upstairs if you ever get bored and want to read something” he tells you and excitement bubbles up inside you and the instinct to run up there and have a look at their book collection is something far harder to conceal then it should be and Jaemin laughs at your eagerness. “Jisung could use someone like you, he’s always trying to get away from his studies” and you hear Jisung let out a nervous laugh as you turn towards him, completely offended.

“You have the privilege of being able to study and you want to run away from it” you gasp and it causes Jaemin to laugh again but this wasn’t a laughing matter, you were completely serious. You would die to be in his position and something about the way Jisung holds an apologetic look makes you think he knows you would.

“I guess you’ll just have to be with him to help him study” Jaemin offers a solution and your eyes light up at this, the excitement running through your veins. You all know exactly what that means, yes it’s babysitting Jisung to make sure he gets all his work done but it also means you get to study whatever he’s learning and expand your knowledge as far as you can. Jisung seemed hesitant at first but after seeing how you visibly lit up at the suggestion he couldn’t help but agree to take you along with him when he had to study.

After breakfast Jisung led you up to the library, it was a large room filled from ceiling to floor with books, the sight alone made you dizzy with excitement, as you stepped in the beloved smell of old books filled your senses and your hands instantly rushed to run along the spines of every book. Your eyes sparkled as you looked over each one and Jisung watched as fascination completely engulfed you, he couldn’t stop watching as you pick out a book, couldn’t take his eyes off you as your eyes skimmed the blurb, he was mesmerized by what he wasn’t too sure of. His eyes didn’t seem to be able to move on from your figure until you turned to face him, time stood still as he watched more and more of the bright smile that was held across your face be revealed to him, you were beautiful. Once met with yours, his eyes scrambled away as they always do and he was quick to turn around and seat himself at the desk that sat in the centre of the room.

You too situated yourself on one of the more comfortable chairs, opposite to Jisung, you watched him begin to write, his head slanted and both arms splayed out on the table, he was the height of beauty and grace, the gods carved him from marble, so ethereal Aphrodite herself was jealous of his perfection, Apollo envied his grace. Though you were here to study, read as many books time allowed you, your eyes were distracted and little did you know they were distracting Jisung as well. Your gaze causes his breath to halt, his hands to sweat and pink dust to decorate his skin. You were dazed, stuck in a trace of his beauty and had to do something to get out of it, you clenched your hand; nails digging into your palms, pressing hard to wake you. You forced your head to the side, eyes looking at the bookshelf once again but your actions caused Jisung to look up, you can feel his stare on you and a shiver is sent through your spine, too scared to look back at him, afraid you’ll be pulled back into his trance.

“You have a lot of German books” you say, hoping your nervousness isn’t obvious and just to be sure you get up and head towards the books. You feel him staring at every step you take and you just pray you're the only one that can hear the loud thumping of your heart against your ribcage as a colony of butterflies bloom in your stomach. Fingers tracing over the German writing on the spine of each book, you try to distract yourself from him and try to compose yourself once again but then his voice echoes through the room, deep and smooth it sends shivers rippling through you.

“My father was stationed in Germany” he tells you as his eyes finally move away from your figure, a sense of relief washes over you as he continues to write once again. Yet you're still too nervous to turn around, too nervous to look at him, he who is the epitome of beauty.

“Still?” you ask, filling in the silence as you pull out another book, examining the words on the front cover but you instantly regret it as Jisung’s eyes fall back onto you.

“After the war he was assigned a higher position in the Rhineland and then after they were dismissed he was asked to stay along the French borders'' he tells you and once again your curiosity gets the best of you and you ask him another question. If you remember correctly, it’s been 10 years since the dismissal of the troops in the Rhineland.

“So when was the last time you saw him?” and instantly you regret the words that leave your mouth, your curse yourself a million times over. Jisung’s silence is all too overwhelming and your chest grows tighter as guilt takes over your body and just as you’re about to apologise, he answers

“He visited last year” Jisung simply states but you can hear the strain in his voice, the pain he’s tried his best to cover yet it seeps through and your glad you can’t see him right now because you couldn’t bare to see the sparkle in his eyes fade slightly as you remember the passing of his mother, that most probably led to his father returning back home. Silence settles again and your frozen by the shelves, the air so heavy it feels as if weights were holding you down, your mind hazy as you space out and as the common pattern goes, Jisung wakes you out of the depths of your mind with a voice as smooth as honey, it provides a comfort that sends shivers down your spine. “He’ll be back soon though, he’s officially been discharged for retirement” he tells you as if he can feel your stiffness and out of the corner of your eye you see he’s giving you a small comforting smile, just to make the air seem a little lighter.

Time seems to fly past as you both sit there, Jisung’s hands busy writing away as he refers back to scriptures and your eyes busy as you read up on German politics and the structure of the Weimar constitution, that revolutionised democracy, the sun was now high in the sky as noon approached. You didn’t even notice until Jisung let out a loud yawn, arms above his head as he stretched and let out mumbles of how you should stop for today or at least take a break. You only nodded in response as you stretched your own limbs out, you had ended up curled up in the chair with your legs tucked away as you leaned into what you were reading. Jisung couldn't help but smile as he looked up occasionally to see your eyebrows furrowed as you read and he can't help the soft laugh from escaping his lips now as he watches you stretch. "And what is it that you find so funny?" You question him, eyes narrowed but your lips are clearly fighting back a smile and the sight of it flusters Jisung, stammering over his words ``N-Nothing" he answers and you let out a small smile to let him know you were only kidding.

As you both leave the room, you can't help but follow Jisung "and what is it you do after you are done studying?" Your question startled him as he visibly flinched at the sound of your voice and he mentally tells himself to get used to your unquenchable curiosity. "Except for picking lavenders" you tease. He lets out a soft laugh, the same sound you've been itching to hear since this morning.

"Nothing much" he tells as he makes his way down the stairs. Following him down, he makes his way towards the drawing room, sitting himself down in an old velvet chair, you place yourself beside him in a matching one. Your eyes peering over towards his hands that pull at needle and thread and you’re astounded by the sight in front of you, a male who knows how to sew is as rare as diamonds, as impressive as gold. Jisung continuously stuns you, his nimble fingers work diligently as they pull the thread to make patterns across the once plain cloth.

He can feel the burn of your stare on his hands, his chest tightens and his nerves are lit on fire, he is hyper aware of every wander of your eyes. His mind clouded by the mere thought of you watching him, his mind so fixated on impressing you, for a reason he’s not sure of, he doesn’t pay much attention to the needle any longer; a mistake he realises once the sharp point collides with the soft skin of his index, drawing blood. He flinches back away from the sharp contact as you leap forward to cup his hand in both of yours. Pressing your thumb against his finger, applying pressure in hopes of stopping the seeping blood, you slightly blow upon it to relieve it of any pain but Jisung can’t feel any pain not when your overwhelming heat rolls of you and radiates on to his skin, with every touch sparks fly on top of his skin fizzling underneath and seeping into his bloodstream. A fluttering blooms in his stomach and Jisung has no idea what this feeling is, it’s new and exciting. He craves it as his eyes drift to your worried face and once your eyes meet his, the emotion is buried by the overwhelming nervousness he feels engulfing him, his cheeks flush and his breath is caught in his throat. He pulls away from you and quickly stands “I’ll” he pauses thinking what to say next “I’ll get a bandage” he spits the words out as soon as his mind comes up with the excuse.

“I’ll get it, sit down” you stand up and ready to head towards any one of the maids that could help you but your steps are interrupted by Jisung’s voice once again.

“No it’s fine, I’ll get it” he blurts out, hand stopping you as he places in front of you, your head moving back on reflex, and with that Jisung runs out the room; feet moving fast as his left hand tightly wraps around his right index.

You sit there for what felt like forever waiting for Jisung’s return but in reality it was no more than 10 minutes, you were never one to hold patience. So you rose to your feet, eager to find the tall boy that let awkwardness roll off of him. Heading to the direction you saw Jisung turn, you make your way to the familiar kitchen, many busy bodies work their way around preparing for dinner as the clock is nearing sun fall. Your eyes wander the familiar walls with the same pictures you stared at upon the first day of your arrival, until they stopped on the figure they seeked. There he stood by the wooden table that just about reached his waist. He poured flour into a bowl, followed by two eggs and your eyes watched his every moment again and as if he could sense you, his rose to meet you once again. You smile because it just comes so naturally when with him and he smiles back, how could he not?

Inviting yourself in, you step closer towards Jisung, “A cook too” you say, you’re impressed and it’s evident in your voice.

“It’s a basic necessity” he says yet there’s a pink coating that dusts his cheeks, you know he’s flattered by your words despite his own.

“Basic necessity?” you question as you sit down, legs crossed, on an empty wooden chair just by where he stands “I guess I should learn” you state nonchalantly, not expecting the reaction it would provoke from Jisung. His head snaps to turn to you, his eyes searching your face for any indication that you were only pulling his leg, that this was only a joke but those indications never showed because this wasn't a joke, you were serious.

“What? Does a girl have to know how to cook?” you question him in a scoff, an eyebrow raised as you question his thoughts that control his expressions.

“No they don’t but I can be surprised, I know you are surprised I can” he rebuttals, calling out your hypocrisy but to this you only smile, you were glad Jisung could stand his own ground, it wouldn’t be fun otherwise.

“More impressed than surprised” you state, earning a smile from Jisung once again, you pat yourself on the back each time you manage to pull out that sweet, healing smile that seems to wash all worries away.

“Who’s to say I’m not impressed” he questions you once again and continues to mix the batter, adding more ingredients, again you smile at his words and Jisung feels his heart flutter at every stretch of your lips. He craves to see it more.

“Can you teach me?” your question catches him off guard and his eyebrows leap up into the soft brown hair that covers his forehead, “what I’m not totally hopeless, I’ve read a book on it before” you pout. Laughter rings through the air as Jisung has doubled over, unable to hold in the snorts and his breathing unsteadies as your words register in his head and this only makes your pout more prominent and your eyebrows knit together.

“I’m sorry” Jisung laughs out as his eyes fall onto your expression but he can’t hold it in, a few bubbles of laughter spilling out as he tries to calm his breaths, his eyes glossy as tears threaten to fall and you try to fight back your own laughter as the corners of your lips slightly perk up. “Did you say you read a book on cooking” he can’t even get through the sentence without laughing but he’s quick to reign it back in to allow you to answer.

“Yes” you say proudly, head still held high and Jisung bites down on his lips as the splutters of laughter threaten to escape again. “It’s obviously not the same thing but I’ve read basic methods” you state in defence.

“You make it sound like science” he scoffs at your words and you roll your eyes at his.

“Is it not, the mixing of substances to achieve a product. It sounds like alchemy to me” you explain your thought process and Jisung nods in agreement. Though you can tell he has something to say.

“Alright then, let us say cooking is science” he begins and you raise your eyebrow in questioning as to where this is leading “reading a method for an experiment is not the same as doing the experiment, there are things that are not accounted for, practical errors, measuring errors. The method tells you what to do but not how to do it” and before he can even finish his sentence properly you jump up, startling him slightly as he flinches back.

“And that is where you come in to teach me, guide me through the experiment” you plead but it sounds like he doesn’t really have an option, you’re practically telling him. He sighs but he has to give, how could he not when you're giving him your sweetest smile and when your eyes are practically begging him.

“I’m surprised you want to learn” he questions you “I thought you’d avoid anything that would have been forced upon you” he explains as he hands you an apron.

Your smile extends ear to ear as you take the apron from his hands, tying in behind your back you explain your sudden want to learn “Yes but I’m choosing to learn, this isn’t about adding another quality of a wife to my resume. This about extending my knowledge and as you said it is a basic necessity.”

Jisung only nods at your answer as he hands you another bowl, some ingredients already placed inside “follow after me” he says as he cracks an egg and pours it’s insides into the bowl and then turning to you he see you struggle, knocking the egg against the table softly you try and mimic his actions “Did the book not mention eggs?” he laughs and so does Daphne who observes close by as you send him glares that wish him death.

“Like this” he says as he places his hands over yours, guiding you but your eyes aren’t focused on the egg in your hold, you’re focused on Jisung who’s so close, too close. You feel his breath on the side of your neck and goosebumps arise on the surface of your skin as shivers are sent down your spine. The scent of cotton, jasmine and of course lavenders invade your senses and blur your mind. You can’t help but stare at Jisung, perfection personified as he concentrates on explaining how to assure no shell falls into the batter. Yet the words enter one ear and exit the other as you watch his lips move, your eyes stuck and it’s only when his eyes move up to meet yours does he also realise the little space between the two of you. His hands still holding onto yours, his eyes move down. Slowly they trace the features of your face, the bridge of your nose, the dip of your cupid’s bow and then they stop at your lips. His breathing halts, his heart skips beats as it dances in his chest and when he feels unbearable heat take over him he forces himself away from you. Quickly flinching back, his warmth leaves you, he clears his throat and turns from your gaze that still stares, he continues showing you what to do and no more words are exchanged as the heaviness in the air sets in.

Many weeks go by where you and Jisung spend all your mornings in the library, which had now become your favourite spot in the house, you look forward to picking up a new book every morning, look forward to watching Jisung so focused on his work, telling him all about what you’ve learnt and occasionally sparking up a debate but you also find yourself staring out the window wishing for the sun to only raise itself higher and higher as you wish for midday to arrive, to run away with Jisung down into the kitchen where he continues to teach you how to cook, some days he would take you into town to pick out fresh ingredients or some days into the drawing room where he attempts to teach you how to sow. After a few failed attempts, your patience wearing thin and much blood being drawn from your fingers, you give up on sewing however cooking is a much greater achievement and the outcome was worth every bit of it. The smile on Jisung’s face every time he’d taste something he’d liked, every time you remember a part of a recipe and every time he would sit down at the dinner table and Jeno or Jaemin would compliment your cooking. He felt immense pride in you and it fostered a love for cooking within you.

Other days when the weather prohibited it, Jisung would take you out into the lavender field. You’d sit in between the rows and rows of purple, picking at the prettiest ones.The sun high in the sky, august warmth embracing you as the wind blew over the roaring fields, dancing between your hair. “Look I learnt this from a book” you sit beside Jisung, his head snaps up and his attention is on your fingers now as they twirl the thin stems in and around each other to form a knot. “Purity, silence, devotion and grace are what a lavender symbolise” you begin to tell him “and you Jisung” you place the intertwined lavenders behind his ear, he’s visibly flustered as his cheeks turn hues of pink and it only urges you on “are exactly that” you whisper to him as if the lavenders had ears and could hear your confession, for these words are for Jisung’s only.

Jisung’s eyes widened as each word that was revealed to him, his heart thumping in his chest and his mind set on fire as chaos engulfed him. His thoughts scrambled and instantly his mind went to countless different possibilities as to what those words meant but looking up at you his mind cleared for he only saw beauty. The beauty your eyes held, as they sparkled infinitely each time they skimmed over the countless words on a book, the beauty your smile held when someone complimented your new found cooking skills, the beauty in your voice each time you called on him as the new found nickname “sungie” which caused his heart to melt, the beauty you held in the way you carried yourself never letting anyone put you down. Jisung adored you in every way, embers in his chest that grew into a flame, which spreads through his entirety burning all. A blissful pain sits at the core of him, aching, he longs for you but do you long for him? Is he but a fool to fall in love with a stranger, the stranger in the lavender fields. Is he a fool for falling in love with you? Is this even love? His eyes fixated on your lips, he examines the curve of them, the colour, their beauty. As if they were magnets he’s drawn to them, slowly inching himself forward, so close he could feel the warm air that made it past them.

So close and yet so far is he to you, the sweet smell of lavenders is dizzying, the sunlight burns your skin but against Jisung’s it only illuminates his, he glows. The urge to place your lips on top of his, eats away at your skin, the want crawls under and down your spine, shivers resonate throughout your body as he nears. The world falls away, the slight buzzing of bees fade, the tickles of the grass dissipate and you only feel Jisung. His presence, the brush of his knee against yours and the warmth that radiates off him. Your heart stops, you stop breathing, anticipating what’s about to happen next until suddenly Jisung’s head snaps to the right and reality comes flooding in as you hear both your names ringing and ripping through the air. “Jisung! Y/N!” Daphne shouts and Jisung jumps up answering for both of you “We’re coming!” Left completely stunned you sit there, mind in chaos as your embarrassment engulfs you. Your eyebrows furrowed, you think to yourself how you could allow for yourself to fall into his spell. What were you thinking? That’s the problem, around Jisung you can’t think, everything happens on pure instinct and desire. Then as if you had rewinded time, a shadow is casted over you, a hand is placed in front of you to take and as he did on that first day, he snaps you out of your daze. “Are you feeling well?” he asks in that same soft voice. Your hand twitches to move towards him and it takes everything in your power to stop it from falling into his grasp once again.

“Fine” it comes out much colder than you expected it to as you rise up to your feet on your own, his hand is left hanging awkwardly to which he slowly closes before placing it behind his head as he bites his bottom lip and your eyes can’t help but fall on them again, they which were so close and yet so far. “Let’s go” and this time you lead him out of the lavender field.

The walk back to the house is silent, the same awkwardness that hadn’t made an appearance in so long settles in the air, it’s thick and heavy and you can feel it weigh you down. Upon arriving back to the house, a carriage awaits outside, a military emblem on the back and your heart drops, eyes widen and your steps stop. “It couldn’t be” you let out at barely a whisper.

But the slightest sound from you is enough to have Jisung’s head snap up towards you, for he’s been waiting for you to make a sound, any sound to rid this atmosphere. "What is it?" He asks also hushed, his eyes follow yours and there it leads to the carriage, a smile rips through his face and he runs ahead. Confused you rush your steps but the anxiety building up in your chest stays, the lump in your throat is still hard to swallow.

“Y/N!” Jaemin calls you whilst waving his hand eagerly, calling you to come quickly and as you step closer the constraining feeling in your chest dissipates as the figure that steps out of the carriage is an unknown one to you. You stand by Jaemin’s side, who radiates excitement off him and you can’t help but smile as the little boy in the picture is standing right before you, the same eager stance and pretty smile that even the sun envies. The man exists and immediately pulls Jeno into an embrace so tight and you swear you see Jeno’s eyes sparkle as tears threaten to fall. Jisung is much less subtle at concealing his tears, he sobs into the man’s shoulder and it’s only then you presume this is their father. Jisung’s eyes are red and he sniffles as his father let’s go of him and your heart clenches at his adorableness. Jaemin is as happy as ever, hugging his father as tight as ever, eyes closed in pure bliss. You’re smiling like a fool as the heartwarming scene unfolds in front of you, so busy looking at the happy smiles and the stray few tears that are still running down Jisung’s cheeks you don’t notice the new acquaintance step in front of you until he clears his throat and you jump to meet his gaze.

“You must be Y/N” he smiles extending his hand and you place yours in it, shaking it. “I’ve heard a lot about you in all my son’s letters” your eyes widen and your turn to the three boy, Jaemin with that damn smirk on his face, Jisung avoiding your eyes and as always finding his shoes much more interesting, thank god for Jeno who offers a comforting smile assuring it’s all good things. “Sir you’ve raised three fine men, who have all welcomed me” you bow your head in thanks and he smiles once again.

“I couldn’t possible take any credit for it, it’s all thanks to their mother and Daphne of course” he turns from you to her and she pulls him into an embrace “Thank you for looking after them” he says barely audible but Daphne catches it and just as softly replies “but of course”. As everyone heads inside you wait until Jisung is by your side to start heading in as well, “Crybaby” you whisper with a teasing smile you nudge him with your elbow, he scoffs as he’s wiping his tear stained cheeks but he can’t help smile back at you.

Seated around the dining table, as always by Jaemin’s side and opposite Jisung, their father sits at the head of the table and more food than ever is being served tonight in celebration. You’re much more quiet tonight despite Jaemin continuously making sure you feel involved in the conversation, you’re eternally grateful for him. “So Y/N, why did you leave home?” their father asks so casually it almost goes unnoticed by the boys but Jisung almost chokes on his water, Jeno’s eyes widen and Jaemin almost immediately tries to shut down the conversation “Father” he gives him a pointed look, jaw clenched, eyebrows furrowed as he shakes his head.

“Jaemin, it's okay" you smile towards him, "freedom i suppose sir" you answer the question and Jisung's father squints his eyes, as he lets out a hum in acknowledgement of your answer. "Even after all your family has done for you?" He continues to question "you come from the family my late wife used to work under, am I correct?" And you simply nod "yes I do".

"The late General's daughter" he states "I wonder if he's turning in his grave at this moment" Jisung's grip on his silverware tightens and you notice his knuckles turn white and once again Jaemin's stare is begging his father to stop as Jeno looks over to see how affected you are by his cruel words. You don't falter though, you know what you've done can seem selfish but it was necessary "I'm sure he is" you laugh out "but he's always known I'm never one to listen" you continue to pick away at the food on your plate and you can feel all there gazes falls onto you, as you look up Jisung’s eye bore into yours as he mouths a soft “sorry” to you and you smile back at him shaking your head.

“I assume you’ve run from marriage” Jisung’s father starts up conversation again and you only nod as an answer “Are you against marriage?” he asks and it’s if he wants tears to fall from your eyes as he keeps pushing where he knows it’ll hurt. “Of course not but I would like to pursue a higher education or experience the world first” you explain, still keeping your calm.

“You think a woman is capable of doing such things?” he asks again and it’s this question that really makes your skin crawl and your jaw tighten. Questioning your methods of gaining freedom is one thing but looking down on all women and claiming them unable is one you can’t stand for. “I think we are very capable, I think the suffragettes have made that very clear and sir didn’t you work with the Weimar Government, they were the first government to allow women to vote I would think their initiative would have rubbed off on you” and he only smiles at your answer.

“I was stationed in Germany and worked under the Weimar Government up until their collapse, you’re correct” he begins to tell you “I have to tell you that I agree with your view, I’ve seen much that women are capable of doing” he says and your eyes widen at his words “I think what you did was brave and admirable, my three boys could learn from you, I hope you can lend Jisung some of your courage” he smiles at you and your jaw still hangs as does everyone else's around the table and as you look up to find pink hues invading Jisung’s cheeks once again, if you didn’t know any better you would have thought it were always like that regardless. You nod at their father before answering back “I think I’m the one who’s learning a lot form Jisung sir” and the shades of pink darken

The atmosphere had lightened again somewhat although the topic on war was not a light one at all, as their father expressed his worry about sending his three sons off to war and how in ruins the country would be again, worry sat in your chest. Jeno and Jaemin are strong all physically, emotionally and mentally but Jisung is the sweet boy who wouldn’t hurt a bee. “What do you think of the current situation of our country Y/N'' Jeno taking you out of your thoughts, you head snaps up to him “I think the war is unavoidable despite our economic stance, Germany has already invaded Czechoslovakia and it’s only time before they invade Poland meaning our involvement in the war is definite whether we want it or not'' the table falls silent as they process your words and it’s not until Jisung’s father begins to nod and expand on your thoughts but you zone out as you watch Jisung fiddle with the knotted lavenders you had gifted him and your lips can’t help but curve.

The next morning a book awaited you on your vanity, a scarlet red cover with gold print, you ran your fingers along. “Sonnets'' it read and as you flicked open to the first page, familiar handwriting appeared “A collection of my favourite - Jisung” a smile spread across your face as it usually did when your thoughts ran to Jisung. You sat down flicking to the first poem “Sonnet 18” a giggle escaped your mouth and like a schoolgirl already aware of the beauty Shakespear's arguably most famous sonnet holds, the giddy feeling of butterflies blooming caused your heartbeat to quicken and a heat to rise.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And too often is his gold complexion dimm’d:

Annotations surround the poem as Jisung highlights and picks out certain lines. The second line is underlined and next to it he writes “Though you are lovely, temperate is definitely up for debate” he teases and you scoff at his words. You read on and lines four and five are underlined and his annotation reads “The eye of heaven is you who shines gloriously throughout the day and yet too often you allow yourself to dim. Don’t.”

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or natures changing course untrimm’d;

By thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

“You are my eternal summer, your beauty is one that isn’t possible to vanish, it’s infinite unlike summer which collapses in winter” you read on as lines nine and ten are underlined.

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

The the final annotation as the last three lines are highlighted, Jisung says “Your beauty shall remain eternal so long as my heart beats, so long as i live and breathe, so long as my eyes can see your beauty, I only seem to think of you now as i read this poem and in this poem the memory of you shall live on” you heart beats erratically in your chest, you’re breathless as his words halt your breathing. Forgetting such simple acts as thinking and even breathing seem to be a regular side effect in the presence of Jisung, just the mere thought of him. Your palms grow sweaty, your heart clenches reading over the words again and again, you pinch yourself. For this moment, seems like nothing but a dream, your heads in the cloud, you're living in the heavens. The feeling is suffocating, your own throat is closing in on you, the pain in your chest spreads like wildfire, your whole body aches with admiration for him. Yet the constant question looms over your head, what does he really mean by this? Is his feeling the same as yours? Or is he portraying the beautiful friendship you both have built over the weeks? One thing is sure and it’s that you can’t ruin that, can’t let the heavy air seep in once again and weigh you down.

The days folded out as normal, Jisung’s presence still as overwhelming as ever but you couldn’t help but find serenity in it, he was soft spoken yet his silence speaks the loudest for him, his grace and beauty as were one to be envied by all but you were nothing more than grateful for being able to witness it day after day, it were as if he had walked out of your dreams. The stolen glances, lingering stares as he smiled or laughed, he stole your heart and he wasn’t even aware it was his anyways. Sitting opposite him, you stare not caring if he or anyone catches you for your far past the point of holding any shame and allowing your eyes to do as they please.

"I have something to announce" Jeno suddenly speaks up, breaking the silence, all eyes turn to him and he audibly gulps. You’ve never seen him so nervous, fiddling with his silverware you almost mistook him for Jisung. He clears his voice before speaking, taking in a deep breath he prepares himself for the words that are about to leave him, “I am to marry” he says quickly waiting for a response, an outroar, a gasp and maybe a few tears but none of them come.

“About time don’t you think” Jaemin laughs out causing the rest of the table to release small giggles at Jeno’s expense, “You have been all giddy and heart eyes at that girl in the village since we were all but five- OW" Jaemin's face twists in pain, hands rushing to his shin as he's cut off by a harsh kick. Jisung and you burst into laughter not being able to hold it in any longer.

"And what are you two laughing at" Jeno punches at Jisung’s shoulder, immediately causing him to halt his laughter as he rubs his shoulder “Well brother, it’s not like it is a secret. Even Y/N knows” and you giggle again as Jisung enlightens Jeno on his obvious swooning.

“What?” Jeno’s eyes widen as he turns to you and you can’t help but laugh even more. “We visited the village and your eyes were stuck, Jeno you walked straight into Jisung” you burst out laughing as you recall the memory. Once the laughter, the teasing, the amount of huffs that leave Jeno quiet down your left with comfort, a bliss that you’ve never felt before, a smile that just won’t leave your face. It’s a beautiful feeling and you wish to memorise it for if numbness overtakes your body, you can relive this exact moment of the solace you found in those around this table.

“Is that three out of the four of us in love?” Jaemin smirks as he lifts his glass to his lips, looking around the table, Jeno scoffs at his words but confusion is written all over you and Jisung. Did Jaemin know that your heart only seems to beat for Jisung? How did he know? Who was the other person? Was it Jaemin or Jisung? If Jisung, who did he love? The questions ran through your mind in circles and it only spewed more questions to follow, your head was spinning stuck in the spiral of curiosity, but curiosity always killed the cat.

But cats have 8 other lives right? That is what you had decided later that night, sat beside Jisung on the stone wall, letting curiosity take over you - slightly. Your legs dangled, swinging them back and forth, whilst Jisung’s gaze was set on the crashing waves of purple as the moon pulled them back and forth; yours were stuck on him. The moonlight illuminated, captured his beauty in a way the sun couldn’t, it seemed the goddess of the moon saw greater beauty in Jisung than Apollo could ever begin to understand.

“I could not fail to realise that sonnet 23 was not amongst your favourite” your eyes darting out towards the fields as his turn to you, “It’s one of my favourites” you tell him.

“I’m sorry to disappoint but do you not think it’s a bit cliche” he laughs and your eyebrows shoot up in slight disbelief “and sonnet 18 is not” you scoff, finally meeting his eyes.

“Sonnet 18 is beautiful” he argues and he swings into you, nudging you slightly, rolling your eyes you nudge him back “Sonnet 23 is just as or dare I say more” and he smiles slightly, eyes turning back to the night sky, the clouds running over the moon and Jisung is left amongst the stars. “How so?” he dares to question.

“It is, for one, far more romantic” you begin “the thought of one loving you with so much passion, so unconditionally that it can not even be professed by words yet the love they feel is so strong they need an escape, to tell that person what they can not truly express fully, to let them show you how much they love you. To hear with eyes as Shakespear so beautifully put it” you nudge him again and he looks down at you, a smile as radiant as the sun,moon and stars combined graces you and again Jisung has stolen your heart in complete silence

“Yet what I love about Sonnet 18 is that it is not too romantic, that the love that Shakespear professes can be for a lover or a friend, he speaks of all the imperfections of summer yet still he loves it, he describes the person he loves as someone who defies all the imperfections for in his eyes they are perfect imperfections when it comes to them” he nudges you back with a slight giggle but you can’t return his happiness for you have been stung as his words seep into your mind.

“Oh for a friend” you whisper, he hears your words but not the sadness behind them as he continues with that bright smile “and that is why it was so perfect to give to you” his words are daggers to the heart, piercing through, it shatters and the fine pieces scatter throughout you and the sadness seeps through every fibre, cell and atom of your body.

“Are you feeling well?”he asks and worry sweeps the smile off his face as he finds the glossiness of your eyes, the slight redness as well as the unusual silence from you. “Fine” you answer jumping off the stone wall, “Just tired” you say looking out to the goddess of the moon one last time, unable to turn and look at the art she admired most. “Goodnight Jisung” you say as you turn back to the house, not sparing him a glance for he stole your heart and then broke it.

Though that night your tears mixed with moonlight until Morpheus took you to dream and then the next morning tears mixed with sunlight as Apollo pulled his golden chariot, with swollen eyes and a throbbing head you promised this wouldn’t affect the beautiful friendship that had bloomed. Jisung may not love you the way you would like but he still loved you, as a friend. The mere thought of the word stung, another aching rippled through you and your bones quacked.

Many dusks and dawns had passed and since,you’ve managed to create some distance between you and Jisung but as once said distance makes the heart grow fonder and you curse whoever uttered such truth. For every stolen glance and accidental touch seemed to make your dormant heart beat with every intent of being heard as it rose to your throat, suffocating you.

Jeno’s upcoming wedding being the greatest of all excuses to run away from the burning presence of Jisung, for you would flee to the village with Daphne and pick out materials, help Jeno’s fiance pick flowers, handwrite invitations with Jeno and accompany Jaemin on whatever errands he had been sent to do. No one questioned how you decided to spend your time, other than of course Jaemin who couldn’t help but let his curiosity lead the words that spewed out of him, to which you told him he’d regret someday.

“Just tell me Y/N” he groans as he carries the large basket of apples “Why spend your time with me instead of Jisung” he continues to pursue the answers you deny him of.

“Maybe because, and I dare to say, I like your company more” you pinch his cheek and laugh at the pout that forms on his face “What answer are you looking for Jaems, what would you have me say?”

“I want you to say you are helplessly in love with my brother who is just as in love with you however both of you are too busy quoting literature that is up for interpretation rather than professing your feelings because you lack the courage to do so” you freeze at his words and he also comes to a halt, turning towards you his eyes, sympathetic “you both are as obvious as Jeno” he lets out a small laugh.

“He does not love me Jaemin” your voice stern as you try to convince one who believes in fairytales, your steps quicken and he chases after you “and how exactly do you know?” he questions, curiosity endless.

“He said so, he said he gifted me Sonnet 18 as a friend.” You scoff at the absurd word that causes so much pain and you say it with spite everytime.

“Like I said he lacks courage and as my father said you, Y/N, can help him gain it” he tells you, eyes wide with hope and you admire Jaemin for being a hopeless romantic and you only hope he meets someone who completely fulfills his ideology of love.

“I don’t think I possess such courage anymore” you break it to him for Jisung has broken your heart once, how can you have the courage to allow him the chance to do it again.

Jeno’s wedding arrived much sooner than expected, as the weeks rushed past in much haste as the many busy bodies prepared for the beautiful evening and as hard as you tried to separate yourself from Jisung, the universe liked to disrupt those plans. To the place it all started, so close yet so far apart, you stood rows away from Jisung picking only the prettiest lavenders as per Jeno’s request. The air was thick and heavy despite the August breeze that ran through the fields, an unfamiliar heaviness sat between you two for even as strangers you were far more comfortable. Maybe it’s due to the curiosity you held back then, for the boy in the lavender field, beauty that wasn’t done justice by the word but now that you know him, adore him and are in love with him and now that your heart belongs to him but his not to yours. There’s a void left for the seeping awkwardness to fill, an uneasiness sat in your gut and every moment was excruciating to bare as your heart pains at every beat that belongs to him who does not seem to care.

“Lavenders wouldn’t be my first pick for a wedding” he speaks up first, the silence with you was something he wasn’t used to, you always made sure to replace it with continuous talking and contagious laughter and now that you weren’t, it didn’t feel right to him but you only nod in response not entertaining his thoughts any further. Jisung preferred silence, his thoughts more coherent, his emotions understandable, the silence was comfortable and not overwhelming but with you he couldn’t stand it, mind always wondering what you were thinking, what you were feeling, he needed to know.

So he carries on speaking, “If it were up to me, Irises and carnations” he expects an interrogation, your endless curiosity asking why that would be his pick but it never comes. So he continues speaking, giving you the answer you didn’t ask for “Irises mean faith, fitting for a lifelong vow” he laughs as he looks over to you stoic expression, cutting off his soft laughter he again begins to speak “and carnation, white ones that symbolise-”

“Eternal love” you cut him off, turning to him, finally speaking yet your tone is monotonous and there is no emotion evident on your face. There’s slight fear in him and it rises, a lump forming in his throat that he can’t quite seem to swallow “Exactly” he choked out, voice strained.

You let out a breath that seemed to be weighing you down, you couldn’t let him continue talking about the meaning behind the flowers, your heart couldn’t take it for aching stops momentarily and instead it flutters and swoons across your chest but then reality hit and it shatters all over again, the pain shooting through your bloodstream.

“Are you feeling well?” he asks as he always does and you answer “Fine” as you always do, even though you both know it’s a lie but he doesn’t push any further as always. The longing feeling for you to look at him and spill all your worries and feelings to him is so great but he doesn’t want to push you to nor does he expect you to trust him with that vulnerability when he himself does not have the courage to do the same back to you.

“I’m going to leave after Jeno’s wedding” you announce working up the little courage you have left, if you say it out loud then you’ll have to follow through. “Thank you for everything” you brace yourself to meet his eyes once more as you turn. “What? Why?” concern so evident in the way his voice wavers, eye glossed over as tears threaten to fall.

“I left to seek my own happiness in life, to make a mark on this Earth yet instead I ran from relying on my family to relying on you and yours” again your voice is completely void of emotions, yet every part of your body was screaming. Longing for the warmth, solace and peace you had found here and it’s at this point you curse yourself for memorising that bliss for all you will do is miss it.

“Did you not feel happiness here?” he screams out, harsher than he expected as he voice comes out rough and broken and you stand there eyes wide for this was the first time the pure,silent and serene boy that stands in the lavender fields has allowed so much emotion to course through his body and you can tell by the way he shakes, the way he struggles to breath and the shock that immediately washed over him upon hearing his own voice raised “I’m sorry” he mumbles in a heavy exhale.

“Thank you for everything Jisung” you offer him a smile as you leave, avoiding his question, leaving him standing alone in the lavender fields.

Leaving the basket of lavenders with Jeno, you rush up the stairs and only when behind the safety of your door do you allow the tears to come streaming down your face, sobs escaping and you hold your mouth to conceal them as you take deep shaky breaths to steady your breathing. Your whole body aches and shakes as it mours the end of your stay, the tears cloud your vision and as you lay down to ease the heartbeat in your head, you cry yourself into a slumber. Even as the dreams swirl around you, pulling you into the unconscious, reality never truly slips away, it haunts you as even in the world you build you can’t stray away from it. The ability to dream of anything further isn’t a possibility, he doesn’t love you and that’s the reality. Why bother dreaming of something that isn’t meant to be. Yet you can’t help but dream of him. His eyes, his smile, his warmth, the pink dust that always decorates his cheeks, his laugh and his existence.

In your days you are held hostage by the daydreams, the what ifs. It felt like you had loved him in every lifetime, you wonder if any had got it right? Had any been loved by him? Your body lies stiff, falling in and out of consciousness but your mind never leaves him. Days go by but time becomes nothing but a construct, eating only becomes a chore.

“Y/N?” a soft voice calls as the door narrows open, a steady stream of gold shining in. You don't move, your head feeling like it's weighed down but you can easily identify the soft voice that speaks. "I brought you something to eat" the footsteps near you, the heavy thuds vibrating through your head. Your eyes peek open to meet Jaemin who crouches down beside you. He moves the few stray strands of hair behind your ear, noticing the wet glimmer of your cheeks he wipes away the tears that stain them.

"What's wrong?" He whispers as if any harsher tone would break you, as if you weren't already broken. You shake your head as your only reply, voice too weak and broken to speak up. You would love to talk to Jaemin, to spill all your worries and heartache but this is a pain too painful to speak of. His hands hold onto your cheeks wiping away any of the stray tears that still fall. His warmth is comforting but it only makes you yearn for Jisung’s more.

Jaemin doesn't leave you that day, he sits by your side in silence. He holds your hand and wipes away your tears, he doesn't attempt to mend your heart, he just sits beside you as it cries out the pain. "It will heal, it will mend itself" he whispers to you as you drift off into the unconscious once again.

It’s the constant knocking at your door that drags you out of the depths of your slumber, pulling you back, the light that streams in as the sun is about to set and you wonder how long you have slept, what time it was and what day it is. Then another knock calls your attention from the window and Daphne steps in “Y/N” she says and her voice is high in surprise as she examines the puffy redness around your eyes. “I was expecting you to be already awake, it is almost time to head to the wedding” she chooses to ignore the wet stains on your silk pillow, choosing to bite her tongue. You choose not to answer her back afraid your voice was raspy and would break, you crawl towards the edge of the bed and swing your legs over as you make your way to the chair that neatly holds your gown for the night, the night that has finally arrived,your last night.

You can see her face change, each one expressing the internal turmoil within her as she questions whether or not to say something. “Just say it Daphne '' you sigh out in a weak smile as you change into the many layers that need to be placed under the gown.

“Ah well” she begins nervously as she fiddles with her loose strings of her apron, she stutters and stumbles over her words but you’ve been taught patience by Jisung as he’d do the same.You smile at the memory of him stuttering, blush across his cheeks as he got nervous causing him to stumble over his words more. You loved seeing him so flustered, loved seeing him progressively become so comfortable around you he never stuttered, became so confident and articulate it was as if he became another person but the same dust of pink never faded but the more you think of him the more it pains and your heart swells as it aches. “You see y/n” she finally spits out as if she had been wrestling the words “If this is your last night, would you not want to leave with a loving memory?” she asks nervously.

“So it seems word has travelled” you let out a small laugh as you turn to her to pull the strings of your gown and as her hands move to tie knots she laughs as well “Nothing gets past me” and her nervousness visibly dissipates. No more words are exchanged as she helps you ready for tonight, no more words are needed as she sees you slip into the depths of your mind, thinking of what your next act is.

As she places the same pearl necklace you wore the day you came here around your neck, clasping it, she finally turns to leave and through the mirror you see her hesitate but she turns back around a smile across her face “It was a pleasure to meet you ma’am” she says with teary eyes “Y/N” you correct her as you rise quickly, wrapping your arms tightly around her and from the corner of your eye you see Jisung standing at the end of the hallway, witnessing the goodbye he run back down stairs. You saw the glossiness of his eyes and though you would love to leave as a happy memory, would he allow it?

You nervously make your way to the drawing room, there he sits in a black suit, his hair neatly styled yet it looks not much different to everyday. He should not look this good but he does because he is the epitome of beauty. He is beauty personified. You let out a deep breath before you step into his line of view, preparing yourself for whatever is to come next. “Jisung” you call softly but he refuses to look up at you, you can hear him sniffle and his breathing is heavy and you almost could trick yourself into believing he loved you the way you loved him. You sit beside him and take his hand in yours, rubbing small soothing circles by the knuckle of his thumb you attempt to speak, “I am leaving” you choke out,the words are stuck in your throat and he rips his hands away from yours, turning completely with his back towards you. You sigh once again, “Let’s me leave with good memory” you beg, voice small and shaky. This was not the y/n Jisung first met, not the y/n he knows now and definitely not the y/n he fell in love with for you were never one to speak so quietly, yet here you are broken. So he puts away his own selfishness to feel sadness, anger or whatever pulsing emotion that runs course throughout his body.

He turns back to you, eyes glossy and a pout on his lips as he raises a long string of black silk. “I cannot tie it” his voice breaks slightly and you can’t help but smile at his cuteness. You take the silk from his hand and wrap it against his neck, slowly weaving it in and out of itself, you form a knot. “Learn this from a book?” he teases and you can’t help but scoff and roll your eyes. Falling back to where you were with Jisung was never hard, falling in love with him all over again was never hard. “my father taught me” you say as you pull the silk slightly causing his head to jolt forward. A smile perks at his lips as he lets out air from his nose as a form of laughter and you don't realise the lack of space between you two until you feel it brush against your skin and you near closer, eyes drawn to his lips. Your breathing stops and your heart sporadically jumps around in your chest, beating louder than ever.

Jisung’s eyes are closed as he waits for your lips to be placed upon his but they never come and his eyes jump open at the sound of Jaemin’s voice, your warmth escaping him. So close and yet so far, his eyes land on you who’s now moved as far as possible from him. “Y/N, do you know how to tie a tie?” he walks in looking down at the balck silk he holds around his neck but he cuts himself off as his eyes rise to find you and Jisung awkwardly sitting beside each other. “Oh am I interrupting?” he asks in a chuckle as he raises an eyebrow and you shoot up onto your feet, making your way towards him “No not at all” you wave your arms as if it would convince Jaemin. You grab onto both ends of the silk strand, repeating the same movements as earlier and looking down at the silk you can practically feel Jaemin’s smile that beams from above. You weave the string in and out of itself and pull tight around his neck causing Jaemin’s head to pull back “OW '' he huffs out in a pout, you pat down his tie and with a smile as gleaming as his was a mere moments ago, you apologise.

“Oh y/n you know how to tie a tie, thank god” Jeno rushes in with his father soon after him both holding the same black silk around their neck “Does nobody in this house know how to tie a tie” you laugh in disbelief. “Our mother used to do them,” Jeno whispers as your hands make their way up to form the same knot you’ve made twice already. He thanks you silently with a sweet smile, those crescent moons you adore showing up.You move on to their father, tying his tie neatly and much more carefully than the rest. “Thank you for everything, y/n” he bows his head to you and you whisper “It’s nothing” shyly. “It’s been a pleasure having you become a part of our family” he continues and his words are like a stake to your heart, the same aching reappearing as nothing fails to remind you of your departure.

“Thank you for welcoming me bu-t'' you're cut off instantly

“no buts y/n, you are family” Jeno interrupts and if it was anyone else you don’t think those words would have held such meaning for Jeno is a silent lover, showing his affection through sweet smiles, concerned looks and kind gestures; he was never one for words of affirmation. So you smile, ignoring the tears that prick at your eyes, ignoring the deep breaths that leave Jisung and the solemn sadness on Jaemin’s face.

“We need to go” Jaemin looks down at his pocket watch, as always sensing the tension in the room and ready to dissipate it, he urges everyone out the door and as you’re about to step out, a warmth engulfs you as Jisung catches your hand in his. Turning back you are met with a smile but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes that hold a sense of sadness as they glimmer in the setting sun.

Hours after the sun had sunk into the horizon, the moon well into its reign, music rang through the center of town as everyone gathered to celebrate the new chapter of Jeno’s life. A ceremony so beautiful, you were sure you witnessed true love when Jeno’s eyes set on his bride that walked the altar.

After all the tears, it was finally time for the bubbling of champagne to intoxicate your bloodstream and to allow the music to take control of every swayed movement of your body. Standing under the yellow dimmed lights, Jisung glew a gold you didn’t know existed but easily was the prettiest you had ever seen. His cheekbones high and lips painted pink, golden flute in hand and silk tie loosened you could easily say he was the prettiest here, outshining all. For Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty lived through him, simple acts such as greeting guests left you stunned. Eyes chasing every movement of his, from the way his hands moved as he spoke, to the way he smiled once seeing an old friend, the way he laughed softly in conversation and when his eyes travelled back to you when he thought you weren't looking.

And to pull you out of that trance was none other than Jaemin, “Would you and Jisung stop exchanging lover eyes and dance already” he whispers as he places himself beside you, you scoff at his words and slightly nudge him with your elbow.

“Are you so bored that your eyes follow mine?” you question and his simple and instant “Yes” make your eyes roll as far as possible but you can’t help but smile. “When will you find your own love story? This is one hopeless”

“So when were you planning to tell me you were leaving after tonight” his words don’t come as a surprise, nothing goes past Jaemin but it still doesn’t fail to make your every movement halt as guilt overtakes you, turning to him you begin to explain “I was going to tell you as soon as the night was over, it was unexpected I promise” you say softly.

“I don’t suppose i can change your mind in any way?” he asks hopefully, still with the knowledge he wouldn’t be able to. You shake your head slowly, unable to say the words that will so obviously ruin the both of you but Jaemin is never one to sit in sadness, always being his priority to make you feel better.

“Would you allow me this first dance?” he bows down asking for your hand and with that you place yours in his, placing a soft kiss to the knuckles he pulls you into the center of the floor. Legs moving to the beat, Jaemin’s hand on your waist he guides you through the waltz, breaths heaving and smiles plastered on your face he bends down once more to place a kiss on your knuckles as the music dies down declaring the end of the dance, a sad smile spreads across his face and he whispers “Goodbye” against your skin, looking up to meet your eyes who hold nothing but despair. Yet the hardest is to come when you turn and automatically your eyes find Jisungs, who just happened to be looking your way.

You offer him a smile before heading towards him “And why are you not dancing, I’m sure plenty of girls are just about dying to be your first dance” you tease him and he laughs along with you, hands rising they scratch the back of his neck as he prepares to confess to you “I actually do not know how to dance” he spits out fast hoping you don't catch his words but you do. Eyes widening and mouth agape, you let out a gasp

“Jisung you do not know how to-” you're cut off by his hand on your mouth as he looks around to see if anyone has heard the sentence about to leave you.

“Quietly, I think the whole of London can hear you” he says in a whisper still looking around. Removing his hand, you roll your eyes at his antics.

“Let me teach you” you whisper back and he turns to you, eyebrow raised as he assesses how good of a dancer you could be.

“I am not entirely sure, who did you learn from? A book?” he teases, still completely in character until you shove him and his laughter comes spilling out “You used the joke once already” you roll your eyes

“I was taught by trainers actually, do you forget I was to be wed” you scoff at his assumption and rise to your feet, hand extended for Jisung to take. He stares at you, watches the way the light bounces off your skin causing you to glow, your eyes glimmer, smile bright and the confidence and charm you carry in inexplicably attractive as you stand under the moon, offering to be Jisung’s first dance and it’s here he decides you’ll be his last.

The moment his hand is in yours, you drag him straight to the crowd, the music is quick to start and you waste no time in giving out instructions. “Place your hand on my waist” you order

“Your what?” Jisung’s eyes are wide as he cluelessly asks

“My waist” you repeat again, emphasizing each word and you drag his hand up and place it on your waist for yourself. Then putting your own hand on his shoulder, you pull him a little closer. “Just follow my lead” you reassure him as you witness the petrified look on his face.

“Left foot forward” you say to him as you move yours back, “Right foot forward, feet together” you continue to guide him through the dance as you spin around the room, ‘Now left foot back, right foot back, now feet together” you repeat the sequined dance around the room, music thumping through your body and you convince yourself it’s that you feel and not the heavy beats of your heart as the space between you and Jisung seems to close more and more. As he leans in so close you can feel the air that leaves him, fanning over you. You look up and his eyes are set on you, only adoration is held in them and Jisung thinks it’s now or never as he tries to fully close the gap between you two, to place his lips on yours but then you let go, head turning to the right “Now we switch you” you say as you land into another man's arms, repeating the same steps you did with Jisung moments ago with another. So close and yet so far is all Jisung can think whilst his eyes watch you twirl about the room.

Once finally back in his arms, the music seizes and he’s forced to remove himself from you. You can’t help but smile at him as he looks down at you, breathing heavily with a flush of pink to his cheeks yet he seems to be gleaming in the buzzing sensation of a waltz. The air is heavy with sweat and alcohol, the room is filled with chatter and loud laughs but that all falls away once you look at Jisung. So you dance to every song as if you were the only two people to exist, for this was your last night and this was your last dance.

Endless glasses of champagne later your dancing feet carry you outside, the cool summer nights air washes over you, clearing your mind of the foggy mist of alcohol yet the coolness of the moonlight is overwhelmed by the warmth of Jisung’s presence as he stumbles next to you, tripping over his own legs he lands in your arms. “I think you drank a little too much” you laugh down at him.

“No I am perfectly fine” He quickly stabilizes himself, straightening out his clothes and you can only smile as he shakes off your support. “If you say so” you turn to the night sky, looking up to the moon who you haven't had the courage to face since. The wind rushing past you, crickets croaking and the stars blazing across the sky, your legs about to give way as the alcohol circulates your body, you find purchase on a stone bridge, Jisung following soon after you. The water trickles down under you, the calming sound washes over you and the solace you so missed seems to make an appearance once again as you allow yourself to surrender to Jisung’s presence. Silence sits between the two of you but it’s not the one you wish to fill, insead you choose to let it engulf you not wanting words to taint this moment. Your last moment.

Jisung however doesn’t think he can hold it in anymore, the liquid courage is just about enough for him to declare his roaring love for you, a flame that won’t go out no matter how far he pushes the idea of you away. He wasn’t sure if this was love but the ache in his chest all these days proved it could be nothing but love. The longing to be by your side as you found happiness, found your own way into this world and to watch you become who you want, is unbearably strong. This is his only chance before the goddess of the moon takes you away with her, for when the sun rises, you'll set into nothing but a memory. So here Jisung turns to you, staring at your beautifully carved features, moonlight highlighting every perfection; deep breaths he calms his nerves. Adrenaline rushing through every nerve, he finally builds the courage and out the words he never knew would feel so good to pronounce “Y/N I love you” it comes out in a whisper but by the way your eyes widen, breathing halts, Jisung knows you’ve heard.

“Jisung you are drunk” you laugh off

“Drunk lies are sober truths” he says in all seriousness, his eyes are begging for yours to turn to him and so you give in to their silent cry. “I’ve loved you from the moment I met you, for I thought soulmates were nothing but a fairytale until mine spoke to me upon laying eyes on you. I denied my feelings towards you, for I didn’t know if it was love I felt for you or not but I do. Love, adoration, affection and warmth. The moon only looks beautiful with you under it, the sun only shines with you beside me.” he professes and the sincerity in his voice strucks you, for every fiber of your being longs for these exact words but can you believe him?

He inches closer, his scent and warmth trapping you in a trance and you can’t find it in yourself to back away as he moves towards your lips, his breath mixing with your own, the flush off his cheeks that are illuminated by the moonlight. Everything is perfect except he’s drunk. Though your heart screams for you to close the gap, place your lips on his and kiss him until he’s breathless, your head scream the opposite, move back, wait till the morning when his head is in the right place, don’t allow him to make a mistake that’ll hurt you and when were you ever one to not listen to your mind. “You are drunk” you whisper to him, so close he can almost feel your lips move against his, flinching back, ignoring the cry of your heart that desires nothing more than to feel Jisung’s confession. Jisung’s eyes open to find you pulled away, for once again he was so close yet so far.

“We should return” you jump up, step fastening back to the crowds of people who were still dancing and laughing. Jisung’s hurried footsteps rush beside you, his hand holding onto your wrist, he pulls you into him. Arms wrapping around you so tight, he’s afraid you’ll pull away and that he’ll lose you. You already pulled away from him once, you’re not sure you have the power in you to do it a second; so you let him hold you. His face hidden into the crook of your neck, he speaks into your skin

“Love for you fades the exhausting hours till Kingdom come, for even then my soul only speaks of you, my heart only beats for you. Let me love and let me give, for both are infinite” he confesses once again.

Your arms instantly wrap around his figure, you allow your love to course through your body to his, you hope he can feel your heartbeat, the steady pace that keeps you alive for his existence, and him only. For without him what was the purpose of living? You stand there under the moonlight, red strings wrapped around you, Eros’s arrow shot through you, and hold onto each other.

Walking back, hand in hand, smiling like fools. The air smells sweeter, the world seems brighter as your heart skips a beat every now and then “In all honesty” Jisung breaks the blissful silence, his voice deep and smooth and it sends shivers down and through you just as it did the first day. Once your eyes are on him, giving him your undivided attention he continues “I lacked the courage to gift you Sonnet 23 but I wanted to” he tells you “Promise” he makes sure you believe his words and you can’t help but smile.

“You still lack courage, this is the alcohol’s courage” you tease him, swinging your arms back and forth as you walk on. He giggles at your comment because he knows it’s true, if it wasn’t for the liquid courage he doesn’t think he would have been able to confess to you but he’s glad he has because if he hadn’t, would he ever get the chance to?

“So will you stay?” he asks, voice hopeful and eyes pleading as he pouts, in hope it would convince you but you didn’t need anymore convincing, for if you want to follow happiness and happiness just so happens to follow Jisung, who were you to seek for more elsewhere. “Perhaps” a smirk makes it way up your lips as you give him vague answers. “I will take that as a yes” he laughs out, holding onto your hand a little bit tighter, to ensure you really weren’t going anywhere.

Love is a complex feeling, one that causes an unbearable amount of pain; as if your chest had been slit open, heart pulled out and crushed. An aching pain resonates throughout your whole body, endless tears and you don’t think you can live to see another sunrise yet it’s euphoric in every way. From the tingling sensation at just the sight of your love, the shivers, the heat that takes over, the trance you left in as their words hypnotise you, the warmth of their presence and sweet scent. In Jisung you found peace,solace,serenity and love.

“Jaemin” Jisung calls out as he can just about make him out in the distance “Y/N said she has decided to stay” he shouts out like a child, excited he’s jumping up and down and you find yourself smiling and laughing again, for with Jisung it’s the only thing you seem to be able to do. Yet as you draw closer to Jaemin and the guests he happens to be wishing a farewell too, your smile and heart both drop.

“Y/N” one of the two men calls out as your figure becomes more apparent to them, disbelief held in their voice as they call out to you. Jisung and Jaemin eyebrows shot up in shock, eyes widening as they wonder how you are acquainted.

“How do you know our y/n?” Jaemin asks, always being the first one to dissolve the awkward silences, the men are taken aback clearly by the way their jaws hang slightly.

“She is our sister” the taller stutters out, your blood rushes cold as the words leave his lips, what would happen now? Would they allow you to just roam free? You thought for a second before you mentally scolded yourself, they would never allow that. They will force you back. “I am not returning” you spit out, not beating around the bush, you get straight to the point.

“But you must, mother is left worried" he tries to grab onto your wrist but you move back not allowing him to get a hold on you.

"Worried for me? Or that the season is almost finished?" You question him and guilt is evident in his eyes as your question takes him aback.

"Don't be silly" your younger brother tries to calm you, "we just want you home" he tries to convince you.

"I am perfectly fine on my own" you stand your ground even though you see the frustration in your older brother, creep closer and closer to the surface "I have no intention of returning" you continue to press forward.

"Do you not feel shame, what would father have to say?" He dares ask. Shame? The word linger in your head for you to wonder if your brother truly knows the definition of the word or were all those years at Oxford a waste. For how had this brought shame upon you or your father, how does a want for purpose,happiness and freedom lead to shame?

"For if father was alive, this problem wouldn't have occurred. He would have listened" you hissed, jaw tight as you teeth clenched and the words slipped out through the small cracks.

"How naive of you to think'' he laughs and finally latches onto your wrist, holding tightly he's prepared to drag you to the carriage until another holds you back. Jisung’s hand holds onto your arm, pulling you back, looking back you don’t think you have never seen such fierce eyes. A red you never thought you’d see engulf Jisung, he’s not prepared to let you go. "Let go" your brother's voice is stern as he clenches his jaw yet Jisung doesn't budge.

"Jisung this isn't our place" Jaemin whispers, defeat in his voice and he is right. What say do they have in this? If you don’t even have a choice, who are they to decide but then again you are certain a man’s opinion will most definitely be heard by your brother over your own anyday. “Let go of her,” Jisung threatened.

Your brother couldn’t help but scoff at his words “She belongs to me, I am her blood and she holds mine and my father’s name” his grip tightening around your wrist as he pulls you towards him once more, your eyebrows furrow and you wince in slight pain, Jaemin instinctively flinches forward before stopping himself, getting involved will just make it worse he reminds himself. You smile at him weakly in hopes it can put him at ease but as both your arms are being held hostage, both cuffs tightening as the seconds go by not one daring to back down.

“She doesn’t belong to anyone” Jisung spits back “She is free to do as she pleases and she chooses to stay here” he continuously argues in hope of changing his mind , yet what can he possibly do? Now that they have found you, what is left for you to do? They will not let you live on how you wish, they will not leave without you and even if they didn’t take you tonight, they will come back for you. It’ll only cause chaos, you will again become a burden on someone else. “You do not own her” he repeats.

The words you so despise form on your tongue and as you open your mouth to say them, Jisung’s eye beg you not to. He knows what's to come and even as every ounce of your being screams and cries as the words are spoken, you let them leave you regardless. “Let go Jisung” voice weak, shaking.

“But you said you would stay” his voice shaky, encased in sadness, his grip weakens but his hold stays, unable to let you go once he’s finally got you but you were always a dream to him, one that never seemed quite real and though you mixed with reality, almost coming true, he was but a fool to believe you could be his.

“I said maybe” your voice quiet, breaking a promise you didn’t make, breaking his heart and breaking yours that was just put back together.

“She said for you to let go” Your brother interrupts, a smirk on his face that Jaemin has a dying need to punch off but he retains himself. Jisung lets go of you hesitantly, his hand still lingering onto the skin of your forearm and you take in his touch one last time. He watches you leave, tears falling from his eyes for you were so close yet so far.

The tears from that night, months ago, have yet still to dry for every living and breathing moment is lived in agony, longing turning into nothing but numbness as it engulfed your being and became you. Days and nights merged, smiles are a forgotten act for it felt awkward even attempting. The large manor is silent, it perfectly resembles the void in your chest. You live as a ghost, sleepless nights and empty days your mind always occupied with the thought of Jisung.

His eyes that held the universe, his warmth the sun envied, his smile were solace was found, his laughter that was contagious, voice that was soothing, beauty unmatched, the gods were both proud and envious of their greatest creation. The years went by and yet the image of his is as clear as ever, preserved in your memories, you live on in your dreams that can’t escape reality. So close and yet so far from each other.

You sit in the empty rooms, walls bare for the art never compared to Jisung’s beauty, you never found art that could express the definition of art as well as Jisung did. Each time looking at Jisung you found a new feature to adore, hidden beauties that appeared when the moonlight hit his skin, features highlighted by the golden rays of the sun. No art seemed to do that, no art seemed worthy of showcasing.

Your library remains empty, clearing it out of all books, you couldn't bear to look at one again. For everyone of them taunted you with the memory of him. The way he used to sit in the center of the room, arms sprawled out on the desk, his head so close to the paper as he would write. Your eyes would follow every one of his movements, so distracted you would forget about the heavy book in your hand. Yet now with a book in hand, your eyes search for distraction. Yearning to find him, to make the pink blush, that you so missed, appear as he couldn't take your stare any longer. The adrenaline of when his eyes suddenly come up to meet yours, the scrambling of his when you catched his stare. You missed it all.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day” the performer begins, as you sit around the large table for dinner. Your every movement halts as the words leave his mouth, your mind runs back to the lavender fields, into the small room at the back of the house, finding the scarlet red book. “Thou art more lovely and more temperate” he continues on but no you are not temperate. Your heart aches, your eyes sting and a wave of nausea over takes you. Your fist smash into the table, legs standing up, you push the heavy velvet chair back

“Stop!” you shout, voice hoarse and broken, you can’t help the tears that roll down your cheek. You can’t help the way your whole body shakes upon hearing those words, you can’t help but miss him. The whole room stares at you, a heavy silence settles, the only sounds are your whimpers as you sob in your palms, falling to your knees. Their eyes lingered, terrified. No one dared to speak to you first, let alone the events of the night. Afraid they would cause you to break down once more but they failed to see it was they, who stole happiness away from you, stole freedom and ripped your heart out of your chest. You wandered aimlessly through the many halls, staring out of windows you wanted the sun rise and fall, watched the goddess of the moon shine down on the earth yet neither held the beauty they did when Jisung was by your side.

Summer has come to find you once again, those who say time heals have never been broken. Time doesn’t heal. Time forgets, the world may move on but you do not, you cannot share the same ecstasy the birds sing, the happiness in summer flowers, For now you hate flowers, you hate how their beauty and meaning are only reminders of your longing.

“How about lavenders for the drawing room ma’am, I’m told they are your favourite” the maid asks, her mission to make you smile, to rid you of the constant tear stained cheeks; nothing but a failure is awaiting her. Just the mere thought of lavenders causes your skin to crawl, for nothing symbolises him more than the vibrant violet. Yet you turn to her, a weak smile and you nod because maybe the scent will help ease your heart and just maybe you’ll find serenity in them once more.

Though days were long, summer left in a hurry for now autumn was here once more. The leaves had already begun to brown and the vase filled with lavenders, which sat upon the grand piano, had wilted now - their scent and comfort decaying with them.

And soon followed the day, the world knew would soon be coming, had arrived upon us, September 1st 1939:

“we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” you read Winston Churchill’s words in the papers, war has arrived. The heavy ring sits on your finger as you stare out the window reminiscing the day you were watching the carriage be prepared and though it is your two brothers and the Earl’s son leaving you can’t help but let your mind imagine Jeno,Jaemin and Jisung, For the war will take them further away from you, to barren land filled with death, guns pointed at them, bombs dropping at anytime. Though the war has imprisoned many,taken from others, you thank it’s timing for it has liberated you momentarily. The Earl’s son waved goodbye to you and though you raise your hand to send him off to a war you’re not sure he’ll return from, you have no intention of calling him your fiance whilst he is gone and if he returns you have no intention of calling him your husband. You pity him in that memory.

“Ma’am” a voice calls out to you, you don’t recognise who it is for every voice sounds the same but regardless it pulls you back to the world of the present for the war was already well into its sixth year. Though your body is here, your heart and soul never left Jisung for he had stolen that long ago. You turn to find a small envelope, blue like the ones that found you happiness. “To y/n'' the handwriting is familiar but to you all letters were painted the way Jisung’s hand did, for your eyes can simply not forget but it is what the letter contained that brought a soul into your lifeless shell.

As an unperfect actor on the stage

Who with his fear is put beside his part,

Sonnet 23 with annotations is what your eyes fall upon, the second line underlined it reads: “With great courage I put aside this fear to confess to you such words that I cannot express on my own.” Your hand runs over the lines, the smell of gunpowder but there is a scent that you so long for. The scent of lavender still lingers onto the parchment which ripples under your clutch. .

Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,

Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;

The next lines highlighted “For this feeling was just as strong as rage yet it was where I found peace, my heart weakened at the sight of you and from that moment onwards it belonged to you.” A smile naturally took over you, the flutter in your chest an ecstatic feeling you forgot.

So I for fear of trust forget to say

The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,

And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,

O’ercharged with burden of mine own love’s might.

O, let my books be then the eloquence

And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,

Who plead for love and look for recompense

More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.

O, learn to read what silent love hath writ.

To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

“Know that I cannot express the words my soul speaks, for we are worlds apart so allow the empty words of the English language, attempt to convey my love. Look not at my words only but at the way the fool I make in your presence for my mind is clouded with you, heart beats for you and soul yearns for you. For you are my sonnet 18 as a friend and sonnet 23 as a lover.” Tears fall unnoticed, for you hear his voice so clear in your head, for six years you waited for a single word from him and here he has gifted you a sonnet between lovers, so how could you possibly love someone else.

“Yours forever Jisung, the boy who waits in the lavender field”. You sob as you read those words, a fresh new wave of tears staining the parchment as the longing to be in his warmth and comfort is washed upon you as if it were that day you were forced away from him. Opening a wound that never could fully heal.

Waiting is a virtue of love, it proves your love, for it feels equivalent to death and yet you still wait but there is a point in time where you can wait no longer, where you must stop waiting and strive for love now. At this exact moment, it is time. For you are ready to give up the world to run to Jisung, to find the beauty in the moon once more, to find solace in the sweet smell of lavenders once more, to find the warmth of the sun once more, to find happiness once more. For happiness was the only reason worth living.

You're not sure how long you’ve been running, legs moving on their own, you don’t look back you’ve learnt never to look back, never return. As the metallic taste at the back of your throat rises, oxygen running thin and your legs almost collapse from exhaustion. It’s as if you jumped out of the past, gown torn at the train station, you’re left in rags but it’s different this time. For before you ran to find your happiness and now you run to where happiness lies. In a field of lavenders.

Every fiber of your being pulses with the need to see him, hear him, touch him. To feel his warmth once more, to have his voice send serenity through you, to see his eyes again and to smell the sweet scent that lingers around him. You’re not sure what souls are made of but whatever it is yours and his are the same. For your heart yearns for him, desperate, it aches every living second of everyday without him. For a life without love, is a life unlived.

The rows and rows of purple are in sight and there in the middle of it all stands him, waiting. Jisung doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is, he can tell by your footsteps, your breath, your scent and the sudden ease he feels. You are there. Yet he does anyways for the memory of you has haunted him for the past 6 years, on the battlefield, in the barracks, he would only see you, only hear you but he couldn’t touch you; for you were merely a dream mixing with reality.

But here you are standing in front of him, Your expensive dress torn up, now rags that wrapped around you with the bottom half missing. He smiles as nostalgia washes over him, was this real or were you just a fragmented memory. Was he simply remembering happier times, a time where you were in his grasp. “Jisung” you call out, voice soft and unsure, a hand reaching out for his own, to make sure what you saw in front of you wasn’t a hallucination, a cruel trick your mind played on you. Slowly a warmth overtook your hand, sparks sent through your skin and into your bloodstream and the beating of your heart returned. Tears formed but never fell because one of you needs to be strong, Jisung sobbed as he fell into your embrace, gripping onto you. “Never leave again” he chokes out, breathing heavy and uneven. “Promise me” he whispers into your hair.

Pulling him back to face you, his eyes are red and puffy yet they burn with passion, his cheeks stained with tears but the pink dust is always still there, you smile at him closing the gap and finally placing your lips on his. The taste of salty tears invade your mouth and your lips move against his and he kisses you back, placing his hand on your cheek he pulls you closer, thumb brushing over the top of your cheekbone. Your knees weaken and you grip at his shirt, desperately clinging to him as your knuckles turn white, as he kisses you with passion overflowing with each soft movement, sincere and full of the love he can't express through words. The scent of lavender is overwhelming and intoxicating, you press yourself against him. Your lungs burn as he kisses you breathless, sparks flying into your bloodstream and unbearable heat takes over whilst your lips move as one. Pulling away, chests heaving as you pull in as you regain all the oxygen you exchange, Jisung places his forehead on yours, his cheeks pink and in between breaths you whisper against his lips “I promise” and again he pulls you in, lips crashing on yours.

This is your first love, it may not be your last but it will be the one you remember most, for it taught you how to love, it taught you the struggles of love and it taught you to feel loved. In search of fulfillment and meaning, you weren't looking for love but it found you and soon after fulfillment and meaning came in the form of a boy in a lavender field.

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gaiuswrites · 3 years

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King of Cups || Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Tower

Archive: ao3 | masterlist | two

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Summary: You’re apart of the Refugee Relief Movement, an intergalactic organization providing aid throughout the systems, and you find yourself assisting at a resettlement camp in Lothal when disaster strikes, changing your life forever, intertwining your path with that of a certain Mandalorian bounty hunter.

Word count: 3.7k~

Rated: Mature

Warnings: descriptive violence, blood/injury mentioning, danger, mature language

Notes: Hi y'all, welcome. This fic is going to be set during Season 2 of The Mandalorian, and will be what I like to call ‘canon adjacent’. ALSo, this chapter is very much so Reader focused, setting up the scene and the general pacing of the story, but naturally, Din will be more and more featured as things progress. I’m a sucker for backstory and a slow burn, so ye be warned. Please feel free to reach out to me. :) I’d love to hear from you lovely little beans. Be safe out there, friends.

Lothal was a planet all too familiar with occupation.

You remember seeing a quote somewhere that read ‘Look no further than Lothal if you want to see what happens when the Empire takes control of an entire world’; and although the Imperial chokehold had loosened when the Empire fell, the planet, even all these years later, still found itself gasping for breath.

Off world migration from the Core Worlds had been popularized since the expansion of the Imperial government bureaucracy, which brought booming business opportunities for the fortunate few, but as the rich became richer, the poor grew poorer. The Lothalites were forced out of their homes, off their own lands—refugees on their own planet; forced to resettle and relocate with nothing but the clothes on their back and the possessions they could cram into their pockets. The only heirlooms passed on from generation to generation were that of poverty, tall tales of former splendor, and the greatest of ancestral traumas: disillusionment.

The truly desperate turned to crime, and what couldn’t be solved by back-dealings and blaster fire was managed with fear mongering and the bitter flair of xenophobia. There was always a species to blame, and it was always the one who seemed to be doing better off, no matter how slight the margin.

Greed. Fear. Despair. These are the currencies in which the galaxy trades.

And so it was then, and continued to be, cycle after cycle. History, always finding clever ways to repeat itself.

On bad days, pollution still loomed heavy over the atmosphere—remnants of the fires from the Imperial occupation still clinging on to Lothal’s weary bones. She had been stripped during that time; gutted and strung up by her feet to dangle from the Empire’s meat hook, exsanguinated slowly, drop by drop, until she had nothing left to give. Her resources and minerals and ore and water and seed, robbed. Pillaged.

She’s free from it now, but the scars remain— the planet remembers. Her people do not forget. Like muscle memory, they all ungulate to this synthesized rhythm they can’t seem to shake, day in and day out, wandering. Forever unsettled.

The planet had always had a diverse population and had become something of a safe haven for other abandoned people fleeing their home worlds, determined to find somewhere - anywhere - for them to survive. Lothal provided that for them. It wasn’t rich or bountiful by any stretch, but it was simple and safe—safe in the way hidden things in plain sight are. One could blend into the crowd of many, unique faces, of all races and backgrounds; you could be anonymous, if you wanted. You could be free.

That’s how you’ve found yourself here in Jortho. You had been with the Refugee Relief Movement for the better part of what felt like forever, and they had transferred you to this planet not six weeks ago. You were out on rotation; the RRM sends someone new twice a cycle for the span of a month or two to varying locations to supply rations, aid with the influx of refugees, organize resettlement lodgings, and generally be of assistance when and where you could. However, your tenure on this temperate planet was coming to a close, and soon you’d be flying back to the headquarters on Coruscant before being bounced to another post somewhere out among the stars.

You love your job. You know it’s unpopular to say, but you do. It’s fulfilling and impactful and indescribably special. The individuals you meet, the stories you hear, they’re invaluable— priceless and precious, like handmade trinkets crafted by the fingers of a child; you press them all to your heart, holding them there. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t get to you— the weight of it; the plights of all of these people, all of these lives, burdening your conscience. It isn’t always painless— you aren’t immune to it. Even so, on most nights you manage to sleep easy, tucked away aboard the transport freighter you flew in on with the batch of settlers newly assimilated into town knowing Maker, at least you were doing something— anything— everything you could.

And really, to call Jortho a town would be an insult to all towns everywhere—but ‘town’ has a certain charm to it that ‘refugee camp’ simply did not, and it gave the people hope. Pride, even. That they belonged somewhere.

You suppose that’s all anyone wants. To belong.

A feather soft gust of wind tickles the golden blades of prairie grass as the sun, bleary and tired, starts dipping from the sky. The crickbeets begin their song early, trilling, sensing Lothal’s moons still coyly tucked away, hiding somewhere along the horizon. A smile adorns your face, private and serene, as you bring a bowl of broth up to your lips, humming when the warm liquid meets your tongue. You sigh, contented, taking in the sights before you; how the dusk blurs the aromatic air, making it opaque, the shuttles docked across the way from you casting long purple shadows onto the flat plains, the snowcapped mountains in the distance bordering the cant of the planet’s surface, nestling Jortho in a shallow valley.

You feel calm, at peace, and take another sip.

An easy moment passes, and it’s the last one you get before silence stalks up from behind you.

You don’t notice it at first, like any patient predator, it goes undetected: the white noise, the nothingness— until finally, you do and then suddenly it’s everywhere. On top of you. Smothering you. Goosebumps stipple your skin and you bristle. The insects have stopped chirping. The breeze has stilled. The air hangs dead.

And then—

Chaos.

You’re hit with a blast of crushing heat, the sheer power of it picking you up off your feet and onto your side, sending your body careening into a nearby structure. Your shoulder takes most of the blow, but your neck still snaps backwards unnaturally, the back of your head colliding with the stone wall behind you with a dull thwack. You let out a groaned cry at the impact, the wind knocked out of your lungs as you crumple to the ground.

For an instant, your vision goes white, stars popping and fusing out in front of your pupils, and it’s like you can feel everything and nothing all at once, hollow but overwhelmed, and all you want to do is close your eyes and drift asleep— Maker that would feel like a luxury, just right here on the damn dirt. And you almost do, you almost let yourself slip under and sink— until you hear a piercing scream from somewhere close.

Immediately your eyes shoot open, desperately blinking away the blurriness that threatens to over take them, and you try pushing yourself up by the heels of your scraped hands, failing once - twice - before finding your footing. You’re shaky at first, uncoordinated and dizzy and redownloading bipedalism, before that sweet drug of adrenaline starts to course through your veins and finally, finally, you take in your surroundings.

The ships that once stood across the field are gone, obliterated, and in their place only metal ribcages remain—empty carcasses like dead birds splayed on their backsides, imploded from the inside out, their bits strewn all around you.

Your breathing comes hard and heavy, fighting down panic, and cloudy eyes search through the thick black smoke billowing up in stacks, trying to pin point the source of the scream you’d heard just moments ago. You cough a strained wheeze, sputtering against the charred air, and wade your way through the debris— it’s only then that you realize the magnitude of the explosion. It’s not just the landing bay, it’s half the kriffing village. The buildings that neighbored the airfield had been decimated, burning roofs and crumbling fixtures, homes collapsing onto themselves, scorch marks and shrapnel branding the outsides of the shanties left standing.

It looks like a battlefield. You’ve seen holovids of this—what war can look like, how it can ruin a people… But you’ve never had to stand in the middle of it, head on.

Your heart drums against your chest as you break into a hobbled run, desperately scanning the area for any signs of life, up and down, left and right, straining against the waning daylight. It’s then that you hear your name, urgent and frantic, and you whip your head in it’s direction, knees nearly buckling in relief. You immediately recognize your friend Hareem, brandishing her arms at you, waving you over to her.

“Thank the Maker, you’re alright!” the Balosar cries out, trembling hands finding purchase on your shoulders, bracing you. You don’t know if its for your benefit or her own, but either way you’re grateful for the grounding pressure; for the first time since the initial blast, you feel solid, like you won’t just float away, atomized and weightless. Worried, you look her over. A sliver of fresh scarlet blooms from her scalp, a small line trickling down past her temple, but she otherwise looks relatively unharmed. You grasp onto her wrist, squeezing firmly.

“What the hell happened?” You ask, voice low and pitched, wide fearful eyes drilling into her.

“T-There was a man-” And she shakes her head, mouth clamping shut, deep wrinkles framing her face.

“Hareem,” you reassure, giving her another squeeze. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.

She tries again with a steadying inhale, “I-I saw him. A-a man. He had a device with him, and he set charges, and Maker I don’t know— I don’t know— it went off a-and he ran towards the center of town!” The Balosar is in hysterics, tears spilling down her dirty cheeks, and it takes your brain a moment to catch up, to wrap your mind around the words she’s stuttering out.

A man.

Device.

Charges.

A bomb. This wasn’t an accident; this was an attack—and he’s still kriffing here. You cup her cheeks, thumbs rubbing against the pale skin, smearing away the blood that’s nearly dripped to her chin. Your friend’s gaze is flighty, everywhere and nowhere, and you try giving her a smile, but you’re not quite sure you manage it.

“Hareem? Hareem. Hey, shh, you’re okay. You’re alright…” You peel your eyes off her to glance around hurriedly. “We need to find cover.”

///

You’re holed up in one of the few remaining homes on this side of the encampment, crowded into the small space with three other survivors. All four of you, packed in and silent and petrified. Unsure of any further threat, you stay completely still. Helpless. Laying here, idle, for whatever awaits you behind that feeble, wooden door. You feel like prey for the wicked, just passing the time.

Minutes inch along like this—or maybe its hours; time moves eerily different when you’re attempting to become invisible—and eventually, you almost begin to relax.

Almost.

But a new sound breaks the din, hard to recognize at first, indistinct from all the commotion outside their hut, but you hear it. You all do. The youngest of you, a teenaged Devaronian, grips onto the hem of your shirt, knuckles creasing with anticipation. You tense, spine going rigid. Footsteps. They’re slow, guarded, but they’re getting closer. You bring an arm up, for all the good it’ll do, creating a human shield in front of the boy at your side. Closer. Someone behind you muffles a whimper. Closer. A Bardottan you hadn’t even met until today let’s out the faint whisper of a prayer, lips barely ghosting over the phrases. Closer-

and then, nothing.

They’re here. You can sense him, see his shadow sweep across the gaps in the entryway. You all hold your breath, as if the air is being syphoned out of the space… And the door is flung open, nearly breaking off it’s hinges as it slams into the inside of the house, shuttering the rickety walls with a jarring bang.

You don’t know who looks more astonished: you four, or the Mandalorian before you, dripping head to toe in silver plated armor, pointing a blaster directly at your head.

“Where is he?” He asks, hard edged and modulated, and it’s more of a demand than a question—but he lowers his weapon all the same, holstering it at his side. You gape at him, guppying wordlessly. “Volcur X’elo. The bomber. Where?” He hasn’t moved an inch out of the doorframe but he’s still managing to loom over you, completely filling up the archway, shoulders set and impossibly intimidating.

You gulp, finally finding your voice. “In town, i-in the center of town…” Kriff, you had not idea if that intel was good or not, but it’s all you think to say. Seeming satisfied with your answer he turns on his booted heel, cape whipping behind him, leaving just as soon as he arrived. The dust barely has time to settle as the door teeter’s on its hinge, its rusty squeaks filling the void in the Mandalorian’s wake.

“Fuck,” you hiss, exhaling a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, doubling forward, propping your palms up on your knees.

///

After deliberating it with your group, you all come to the agreement of braving it outside. Better to be out under the open sky than die under a concaving apartment, clambering over each other to get to the exit. After all this, at least your dignity was still partially in tact— normally, you reckon you’d chuckle dryly at that. But you don’t.

Can’t.

You lead the pack through the mazelike streets. The sights that once seemed so familiar after weeks of living here become like strangers to you, and you sleepwalk through Jortho, snaking down paths marred by rubble and fallen wreckage— you haven’t seen any bodies, but maybe that isn’t true. Maybe you’re just too scared to notice them. Maybe they’re there, hovering just outside of your peripherals, haunting the corners of your vision…

You keep your head fixed forward, jaw clenched.

Your feet move on their own like this, only vaguely aware that the red-skinned boy still hadn’t let go of your tunic. You forge on. Have to. You have to. Your only purpose on this kriffing planet was to help these people, to bring them aid, and if that means simply planting one foot in front of the other, then so be it. You take side alleys, double backing here and there, ducking under canopies, looping around yourself, only stopping when you catch a glimpse of beskar, the orange setting sun glinting off the surface of his helmet.

And he’s not alone.

You freeze suddenly, as do the rest, and the Devaronian bumps into you, stumbling under his lanky legs. Some paces in front of you, the bounty hunter has the other man, this Volcur X’elo, by a punishing grip on his shoulders, shoving him forcefully out in front of him; his wrists are bound and he’s fitful without the stabilization of his arms, his feet staccatoed and flailing wildly beneath him as the Mandalorian marches him forward.

The wind shifts, and on it you can hear the bomber rant madly, only catching snippets of the vile nonsense that spews from him.“- like swine, they are a plague to the system! And they must be purged from this planet, and the next, and the next— every last filthy one!” You spare a glance to Hareem, to find her watching the scene in hypnotized horror, but your eyes snap back at the sound of something maniacal, drawing your attention. It’s laughter. The zealot begins to laugh a twisted, mocking cry that makes you want to vomit. “You might have me in binders Mandalorian, but you’re too late. You’re too late. This isn’t over!” He’s practically giggling, gleeful and demented. Disturbed. “You’ve only found one.”

Your blood runs cold.

Only one? Oneoneoneone, one what-

The realization hits you with a punch to your gut. He’s only detonated one of his bombs. Somewhere, nearby, there must be another.

Without another word, the Mandalorian whips the smaller man around, pulling him sharply by his collar to collide with his breastplate, completely dwarfing him with his beskar frame. “Where is it, X’elo?” Nothing. Only laughter. High pitched, terrible roars. He tries again, patience ebbing. “The bomb. Now.” X’elo’s head tilts back and he howls another crowing shriek, keeping private his own sick joke, as if clutching a secret to his chest with slimy hands.

The bounty hunter had heard enough. He clearly wasn’t getting anything more out of him, and with a quick strike, he rears his blaster and pistol whips the terrorist with it. The body drops. Volcur X’elo crumples, unconscious, blood streaming from where he was struck. You hear the Bardottan behind you stifle a cry with her fist.

And with that, Lothal’s sun disappears completely, stealing away the last of it’s light as it furls into itself, shrinking out of sight. The dark ushers a new wave of dread, creeping over Jortho like a miasma, poisoning the very air.

The Mandalorian wheels around, searching for his heading in the labyrinth of the town. Others have gathered now, poking their heads around corners, stealing glimpses through windows. He turns, his head on a swivel. “Where is your power generator?” he demands, addressing the small crowd, but you’re all too stunned to speak. “Anybody. Generator. Now.” There’s something new in his voice, something muddled, and it takes you a moment to interpret it. It’s desperation, you realize, tinny and deep through his vocoder, and with a surge of adrenaline you move forward, furthering yourself from your group. You swallow. “I-Its this way.” Upon hearing your voice, he spins around, his visor latching on to you, and with a nod you both set out.

“Watch him,” the Mandalorian growls past his shoulder, stepping over the bounty’s limp body.

///

You’re still not really sure how he knew where it’d be, you wonder to yourself, gravel crunching under foot as you both trudge on, an eery quiet settling over them. You’d say it was a lucky hunch, but judging by the way the Mandalorian carries himself, you doubt luck had much to do with it.

You had led him to the power generator hub on the other side of the sad excuse for a city, traveling in tense silence, and when you came upon that tall, bulky machine he sprang into action, circling it until he found what he was looking for. The bomb. You stood back, rooted there, and after some grunting and rewiring— or maybe he just hacked at it with a vibroblade, you had no idea; his wide frame engulfed his work and you couldn’t tell what he was up to, all you knew was that his methods proved successful— the man managed to disarm the second device. You had thought you noticed his shoulders release, slumping with relief, after the red flashing lights on the rudimentary interface flickered and then went dark.

And so here you are. The two of you, bathed in the bright light of Lothal’s twin moons, their bellies hanging full in the blue-black night, illuminating the trail of blood staining the dirt beneath your boots as the Mandalorian roughly drags the body by his ankle behind him— through the exploded rubble, through the fragmented lives of the people around you, already displaced and estranged. They’ll all have to move, you think, pack up their lives, or what little is left of them, and relocate. Again. The thought sinks in you like a stone, sobering you.

Even with the weight of a fully grown man to lug, the bounty hunter is still a few long strides in front of you and your eyes are trained on the unconscious form, taking in the way his mouth lolls open like an animal, his hair matted with thick blood, eyes rolled back into his head. You’re talking out loud before you even realize it.

“How sick do you have to be,” you mumble, transfixed. Your voice, it’s not angry; no, shock has effectively robbed you of that— it’s not anger, but bewilderment. Quivering, broken bewilderment.

“H-How hoodwinked and warped you’d have to be, how disturbed... For you to think like that. To do all... all this...”

“Hey,” his gruff voice shakes you from your trance, and you blink up at him, tearing your eyes off the body. “Focus,” he urges, and you can only nod dumbly back at him, suddenly feeling a ripple of nausea slither through you.

The ramp to his ship is lowering as they come upon it and you plant yourself at the base, feet seeming to stop on their own accord, and frankly you’re not really sure why you’ve even followed him this far in the first place— always a step behind him as he hauled his bounty all the way through the vestiges of Jortho, across the arid prairie to where he first touched down. Maybe it’s because you feel untethered, unmoored, and all of his steeled surety is like a lighthouse, a beacon, guiding you away from the rocks.

He heaves X’elo up the ramp and you’re left standing there, staring unseeingly into the durasteel, becoming more and more aware of the ringing in your ears. The longer time passes, the more it’s as if you’re underwater, the background blurring into the foreground, sound gargled and far away. A high pitched buzz pinches your ear drums, and it takes you a moment to realize the Mandalorian is calling out to you, trying to get your attention.

“— Dala.”

Does he sound annoyed? Kriff, you think he might... If you had your wits about you, you might be able to recognize it. But as it stands, you don’t. You’re not here, not all of you. You’re splintered. Suspended.

“Hmm? Sorry, what..?” Your mouth is as dry as Jakku— parched desert tongue darting across your cracked lip, tasting soot and ash and something metallic. Brow furrowed, you touch a shaky finger to the flesh and when you pull it back, crimson red dots your skin.

Oh, you think, numb. Huh.

Your eyes skitter back up to the Mandalorian, towering over you, nearly at the apex of the incline, and his stance is broad and his fists are clenched. You’re almost positive he’s glaring down at you through his visor, and you don’t even know the man, can’t even see his damn face, but you can tell he’s peeved— Maker, just how long had you been ignoring him?

A scratched noise comes through his helmet’s vocoder and his next words are clipped, punctuated. “I said, do you have a way off this skug hole?”

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