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chosowarmer · 3 months

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Choso x Tailor!Reader [18+]

transgender!man choso [non-op] ; transgender!male reader ; semi-public sex ; nipple play ; eating out ; fingering ; 3.7k wc

After getting lost in the boutique, Choso is a bit relieved when you come and introduce yourself as a guide of sorts for the place. After helping him pick out clothes and complimenting him, he can't help but wonder what the odd feeling in his chest was and why he wanted to meet you again so bad.

A/N: took a break from a nanami fic to write about choso !! i love him so bad

“Agh…. Yuji…”

Choso watched as Yuji waddled off with his friends, leaving his older brother behind. He had never been to this boutique before and it was pretty vast. Every aisle looked the same to him, and it felt impossible to navigate.

Still holding the shopping basket Yuji had handed him, Choso turned his attention back to the line of hung clothes in front of him. Maybe he could try to keep looking himself and by the time he was done, his little brother would be back to help him out.

With a huff, he sifted through the garments, thinking of which ones may be a good fit for him. Although, most of what he found didn’t appeal to him at all, and the ones that did weren’t even a proper size for him.

After pulling out another shirt with a weird graphic on it, he clicks his tongue, clearly annoyed. With his little brother still not back yet he takes to wandering the aisles, hoping to find his way out. Every sign seemed to only direct him towards another clothing section for him to explore which was mildly nice to pick out things he liked, he would’ve much preferred to be out of here already. After walking past the shoes department for what felt like the third time in a row and growing more frustrated, he jumped in surprise at hearing a sudden voice behind him.

“Hi there, sir, is there anything I can help you with today?”

You had been watching him walking back and forth, muttering something under his breath like he was lost or something. Most other days, you’d leave customers like that alone unless they came to bother you directly, but you were having a good day today and he was pretty cute; might as well get a chance away from folding clothes to talk to an attractive guy.

He eyed you wearily, holding the clothes in his arms closer to him. You tilted your head, a polite smile still on your face but now slightly confused from this guy’s silence. Maybe you should’ve kept to folding and putting clothes away and let him stay lost.

You’re ready to excuse yourself when he finally says something.

“Who are you?”

Ah? That’s what had him so quiet? You bite your tongue, still keeping to your polite mannerisms lest your boss reprimand you. You wave a hand in front of your name tag that sat right above the boutique’s logo in plain sight.

“Oh, I’m so sorry about that, sir, I should’ve introduced myself first,” Even if it was obvious you worked there, “I’m Y/n, I'm the tailor's apprentice here. I couldn’t help but notice you walking around, and thought to stop and ask if you needed any assistance.”

He squints at you, the mark across his face slightly creasing. It’d be more endearing if this conversation were going the way you had wanted it to.

“You were watching me?”

Okay, yeah, now you were really regretting not minding your own business.

“No, no, sir, I’m sorry if it seemed like that! As an employee here, I’m just trained to spot any lost customers and guide them. You are lost, aren’t you?”

Thankfully for you, this seems to alleviate some of the concerns he had about you as he nods, scratching his neck.

“Oh.. yeah. I think I am, I was trying to find the way out of here, but…”

He trails off, looking away, but you get what he means. The regular customers know their way around here, but for any newcomers, it’s pretty confusing. You haven’t seen anyone like him before, and it’s not like your co-workers have mentioned a guy like him coming in here. You flash a smile.

“Of course, sir, follow me.”

As he walks alongside you, you remember the clothes he’s holding in his arms. You weren’t sure if he had bought those yet, considering he was still lost all the way here, but it would be pretty ugly to assume he didn’t if he actually did…

“Oh, and did you need a bag for those, by the way, sir?”

You nod towards the garments in his hand, which makes him frown.

“Ah… mm… No, I should put these back.”

“Oh! Did you change your mind?”

He nods, giving a frustrated huff, “My brother was helping me look for new clothes, ‘n after he left, I tried to pick out new ones too, but I don’t think I like any of them.”

You should just walk him to the exit and send him on his way. Especially after the earlier awkward conversation. But…

You glance back at him; he was still pretty cute, and whatever hostility he had earlier seems to have gone away or at least faded. If you went about it right, maybe you could get his number out of this…

“Oh, well, if you’d like, I’d love to assist you in picking out new clothes, if you’re still interested in shopping here.”

He blinks before thinking it over, muttering to himself, “I do need some new clothes.”

“Hm?”

“Oh, I’d… find that helpful, thank you.”

“Of course.”

.♡.

“You think it’s nice?”

Having exited from the small dressing room, Choso examined himself in the mirror before turning to you for your opinion, seeing as you were an expert in clothing to him.

You had already helped him pick out some casual clothing to wear; a few plain shirts that hugged his torso, lightweight bottoms that shaped his legs. He really was a handsome man, you realize while fitting him; if you were a proper tailor, you would’ve loved to have him as a model.

He was pretty compliant with most of the clothes you chose for him, though for whatever reason, he continually doubted if he looked as good as you told him he did. You click your tongue walking up behind him, as you pat out wrinkles. You had him in a fine two-piece vest suit, similarly colored to the gi he had shown up in earlier.

“Absolutely,” you hold up an arm of his as you straighten out the fabric, “If you don’t mind me speaking plainly, I think you’re a fine man, I don’t see why you should doubt that, sir.”

“...Oh.. Really?”

You glance at his face in the mirror, noticing the pink tent on his cheeks. You smirk faintly, it was always so cute to watch the guys you dress crumple at your words. Typically, you weren’t that interested in them, but this guy…

“Positively. Your body alone is quite handsome, if I may. Strong shoulders, a muscular build, powerful arms, even your hands, may I?” You had taken the time to lightly hold each part of his figure to emphasize your point and now took his hand in your gloved ones as you carefully knead over the calloused palm. It wasn’t too rough like a laborer’s would be, but they did look as if they had seen their share of rugged work. Maybe he was a sorcerer?

“Though to be perfectly honest, I’m no professional tailor or anything, just an apprentice, so my word may not hold much in terms of proficiency,” you move to adjust his hair, letting it relax as you undo his ponytails, noting how his eyes blink away to avoid yours, “But I do hope you take my words as fact when I say, you are one beautiful man.”

You flash a formal grin at him in the mirror, fixing his collar before taking a step back from him. He let his arms fall back down to his sides, as he fiddles with the cuffs. The blush on his face and ears almost rivaled the eye shadow around his eyes, contrasting the aloof expression he usually sported.

“I see, thanks.”

You smile, patting his shoulder as you gesture for him to change back to his original clothes while you gather the new ones he plans on buying.

“It was lovely helping you today, sir, why don’t you change then I’ll help you upfront?”

.♡.

After you sent him off with his purchases, you honestly weren’t expecting to see him again, or at least, not the very next day.

Although, he wasn’t alone, being accompanied by a younger teen pointing at you.

“That’s who you wanted to see, Choso? That guy hanging clothes?”

“Mm, thank you, brother.”

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna be at the store next over, so you can meet me there when you’re done here.” The younger teen waves to you, before heading off and out the door. A sly smile grows on your face as the man from yesterday makes his way up to you, noticing he was wearing one of the casual shirts you had picked out for him.

Setting down the hanger in your hands, you give him your full attention, “It’s nice to see you again, sir. Is everything alright?”

He nods, his eyes on your hands before moving back up to you, “I was hoping to find some new clothes today.”

“Oh? You weren’t happy with yesterday’s purchase?” you tilt your head, a hidden smile in your voice.

“No, I was! I just… mm..” He pauses, trying to think of how to explain this. You decide to give him a break, smiling warmly at him as you pat his shoulder and gesture to the dressing room.

“I think I understand what you’re trying to say, sir. How about you head on over to the fitting room and I’ll be right with you, hm?”

A light red tint brushes his ears as he nods weakly before moving; you turn on your heel, already certain what you’d pick out.

.♡.

“It really is a pleasure to see you again - move your leg here - especially so soon.”

You had picked out a silky dress pants and shirt for him; a modest number of petite jewels adorning the legs and collar, laced sleeves, and an open chest window. It was a personal project you had been working on yourself with the extra fabric you’d get around the store, and it wasn’t nearly finished but it was satisfying to have someone model besides yourself.

On one knee, you knelt by his leg, carefully tailoring the pant leg to fit him. You hummed to yourself, pretending to not notice the choked gasps that left him every time you let a hold his leg or run your fingers along the fabric.

“As I’ve already said, this is just a pet project of mine, you won’t be buying it, but if you’re enjoying it, maybe I will see you again?” You glance up at him with a smile, playfully ignorant of your hand resting on his thigh just right below his groin.

Choso can’t even breathe as his eyes meet yours. He wasn’t exactly sure of what he wanted from you when he came back, he just knew he wanted to meet the charming tailor’s apprentice again. The words he spoke, the way his hands had glided across the cursed spirit’s body so gracefully; it made Choso’s head spin, feelings he had never felt before surfacing in his chest.

He imagined the many different ways the day would play out as he touched himself the night before. Letting his hand slowly float down his happy trail to his pussy, trying to replicate your mannerisms, but to no avail. Your refined voice playing in his head like an orgasmic melody, as his breath grew heavier and heavier, kneading his sensitive dick. Finally letting a finger slip in, curling up as he tries to take it as painstakingly slow as you probably would. But none of it is like you, he knows, even after getting himself to cum on his fingers, he still ached for your touch on his skin again.

He just had to see that enchanting man again.

But now that he was actually here again, with you touching him like this, speaking so softly, it was like you put a spell on him. He gulped, remembering you had asked him something, though not at all remembering what it specifically was.

“Choso-san?”

You tilt your head, trying to hold back a laugh though, letting a chuckle escape as you stifle it with your hand. While the dazed expression on his tinted face was endearing, you did actually want to hear him speak.

Rising to your feet, you gently tap his cheek, garnering a surprised “Ah!” out of him as he realizes how quiet he’s been.

“Sorry, what did you ask?”

“Oh, you forgot already?”

You hum, sounding like music in Choso’s ears, as you let your gloved hand slide down to his neck before resting on his exposed chest. You meet his eyes with a smirk.

“Do you need a reminder, sir?”

.♡.

You weren’t preparing for this exact scenario, but nonetheless, you were more than overjoyed for it to be the case. You silently thanked yourself for choosing to tailor him in the more prestigious dressing room the store had to offer, considering it was not only bigger but had a small table for laying down clothes, fabric, and other things.

Like cute, two-ponytailed guys.

Choso bit his knuckle, trying to stifle his heavy panting as you traced a finger along his Adam’s apple, feeling his pulse quicken with your touch. You lean down, pulling him in for a kiss, as you let your other hand rest just above his chest.

“Is this okay?” You inquire, pulling away from his neck, eliciting a whine from him as he nods up at you, guiding your hand onto his breast.

“Y/n…!”

With a soft smile, you indulge him, massaging and squeezing while still layering pecks and kisses along his collarbone. He moans in your ear, grabbing hold of your shirt when you let a thumb run over his nipple.

“I’m sure you’ve never had service like this before, hm? Never had someone kiss you like this, touch your chest like this?”

Choso shakes his head, grip tightening with a mewl as you move your head lower, biting his soft tissue before licking over the mark. You continue this seemingly endless loop of biting and licking over and over, before finally giving some attention to his hard nipples. Letting your tongue lap over the sensitive buds has Choso a mess. Tears prick in his eyes, as he moans your name, trying to squeeze his thighs together. You don’t let him, though, as you hold his legs open with your other hand, watching him whine pitifully as he rolled his hips from your touch.

“Aht, aht. I don’t see why you should be rushing, aren’t you enjoying this pace?” A smirk evident in your voice, and it drives Choso crazy. You were so charismatic but so infuriating with how lightly you touched him and how leisurely you went about with him. He rolled his hips again, both out of need and in hopes you’d finally touch him. Instead, you tut your tongue, strengthening your hold on his thigh.

“So impatient... Why don’t you go ahead and tell me exactly what it is you want?”

It feels like his brain’s been reduced to mush as you run your tongue over his nipple again, another whine leaving his lips. He could easily press his thighs together if he wanted, but the way you held his legs open and controlled his movements had his head spinning as he bit his lip. He couldn’t think straight at all as you tapped his thigh to bring him down to Earth.

Right, you asked him a question. A question he didn’t even remember hearing if he was honest. He moaned again, rocking his hips.

“Haah… Please… y/n…♡”

You let your hand slide down his thigh to the zipper on his crotch, pulling it down as you exposed his pussy to the air.

You bite your lip, feeling blood rise to your cheeks. “No underwear?” you murmur to yourself. Did he take it off after changing? Or maybe he didn’t wear any at all today? Was he hoping you’d fuck him? Just excited? Fuck, and he was already so wet, just look at him. All for you.

You jolt a bit as Choso pulls on your shirt, moaning your name in the lewdest tone, trying to get you closer to him, to touch him. You pull him in for a kiss, your hand behind his head as you keep him close, desperate to deepen it. Choso groans, returning the kiss as he parts his lips for you, wrapping his strong legs around you now that you were closer.

Inviting your tongue into his mouth, you trail your hand down his chest to his needy cunt, letting your thumb rub over the head of his stubby cock. He closes his eyes, moaning into the kiss as his legs press tighter around you. As his dick grows wetter in your hand, you pull from the kiss with a gasp before moving down to replace your hand with your mouth.

“Y- Ah! ❤︎ Puh-please, pleeease! Haah… hah♡!!”

He grinds on your face as you suck slowly, so frustratingly slow. He fucks himself senseless, with this being more than he could’ve imagined even if you were teasing him. His breathing grows heavier as you begin to suck faster and harder on his cock, increasing your pace with every lewd whine that leaves him. His hand grips the back of your head when you give his dick one last suck, seeing stars as he comes right into your mouth.

It was better than anything he could’ve imagined last night, you were taking such good care of him right now, all he could do was blubber his words, begging for more. The way you touched him, and spoke to him, it was like he was drunk off of you alone. You found it adorable; if only the two of you were at your studio, you would’ve loved to fuck him senseless with your strap, seeing him dazed out of his mind like this. No matter, there was always next time, but for now…

Not giving him a chance to recuperate, you move back up his body to suck on his sensitive nipple as you let a gloved hand slide over his wet cunt. He brings his knuckle back to his mouth to smother his lewd whines, but you pull it away with a tsk.

“Haah…haah.. I want to hear you… don’t even think of hiding that gorgeous voice.”

The tint on his face deepens as he nods, his cock twitching at your words. His noisy whines fill the dressing room as you return to sucking on his nipple, slipping a finger into his needy cunt. You curl your finger up, slowly fingering him as you feel for something. You smirk when Choso screams, throwing his head back as his thighs tremble around you, having found that sensitive bud.

He’s a babbling mess as he begs for you to add another finger to him, move faster, touch him there gain, anything! You oblige happily, curling another gloved finger into him as he soaks the fabric through. His eyes roll to the back of his head as you increase your pace, plunging your fingers in and out of him, nothing but the sound of squelching and his mewling in the room.

“Mm.. haah..! CUH-close, so hah… close…♡!”

His thighs tremble pathetically as he gasps when you remove your fingers from his pussy, ready to beg for them back before almost crying out in pleasure as you thrust your tongue deep into his cunt.

You drink him in, lapping up his sensitive cock before diving your tongue between his folds. His sensitive walls press around you as fuck him crazy with your mouth. As he presses your face deeper between his increasingly shaky legs, you know he’s close as you toy with his cock with your hand.

“Oh! ♡ Mm- Muh.. ah…!! ♡ Haah… M’ gonna…. y/n…! I… HAAH..♡♡.. AH ❤︎!!”

The stimulation is all too much for the poor spirit as he cums hard, his legs locking to keep you there as you continue to tongue-fuck him through his orgasm, eliciting more lewd whines and moans out of him from the overstimulation. Finally, his twitching legs relax as he pants, tears at the corners of his eyes. You pull yourself from his pussy, kissing his thighs. He moans softly as you run your hand over the hickeys on his breasts, kissing each one gently as you hold him. He sighs pleasurably as you peck each one, enjoying the feeling of your soft lips on his chest once again.

When you pull away, he’s still panting trying to catch his breath a bit as you kiss his cheek. You smile down at him, pulling off your stained glove as you speak, “And how do you feel, sir?”

He feels heat rise to the tips of his ears, suddenly feeling shy as he comes down from his high, “Good.. I.. It was exactly what I was wanting..”

“Oh?” You take your bare hand to cup his face, “Exactly what you wanted, you say? So I can guess you’re satisfied then?”

He’s blushing, he can feel it. He glances down at his decorated body, how you absolutely ravished him, how your fingers alone had him coming. But he also catches sight of the wet patch on your pants and gulps, feeling his cock twitch.

“I want that again. But I want to make you feel good, too.”

You raise an eyebrow; that was a first, usually the guys you played around with always left you high and dry, leaving without much of a thank you or anything. You tilt your head, smiling teasingly.

“Well, usually I like to be wined and dined before getting ate out, but I suppose if you insist…”

“I can do that! Where do you want to go?”

You almost laugh in surprise; you were only teasing, yet he was so serious about taking you out. It was… touching. And cute. So he wasn’t only just attractive, he was thoughtful too. You were going to love him.

You press a kiss onto his lips before pulling away before it got out of hand, “How about you go change, and I’ll have an answer when you’re out?”

He nods, heading for the small changing door, before stopping and turning to you, a light tint on his that accented his cute mark, “You can just say Choso. You don’t have to call me sir.”

The smile on your face beams, “Alright, Choso.”

#m! reader #male reader #jjk smut #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #choso smut #choso x reader #choso x male reader

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emmyrosee · 1 year

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[23:39 pm]

Rolling up into the driveway of your home, Kita smiles, sleepily, as he sees the tv flickering in the window leading into the living room.

He’s told you time and time again that the blinds should be drawn closed for worry of people watching through the windows- you said you’ll be damned before you become ‘that house.’

Call him paranoid, but he’s seen those horror movies with Osamu; it’s been a blessing and a curse.

With a small grunt from his sore back, Shinsuke slowly slips out of his truck and grabs his filled lunch bag in the passenger seat. He doesn’t want to eat after he’s been baking in the sun, but a hearty breakfast and a few protein shakes have been fine with keeping him around.

Although, up until this point, he hasn’t had you to corner him and scold him about it.

Maybe that’s why you’re still awake. Crap.

He fiddles with his engagement ring before he unlocks the door to your home- thank god you at least remembered to lock that- before entering in as quiet as possible in an attempt to not wake you if you were asleep.

To his not-so surprise, you are not asleep, and instead wide awake watching someone on YouTube while scrolling through your phone on tiktok. He tells you all the time that’s bad for your eyes. You do not care.

There’s a face mask smeared on your face and you just look so cozy that he wishes he could’ve been home sooner to curl up with you.

“I’m home,” he says, setting his bag on the hook before coming into the living room to see you. You look up at him from over the couch, chewing the last bit of whatever you were eating before grinning up at him. “What’re you still doing up?”

You offer him a shrug, “wanted to make sure you didn’t eat alone.” You nudge your head to the fridge, “and I know you haven’t been eating when you’ve been coming home, so I really wanted to make sure you had something.”

“I eat plenty when I get home,” he says, chuckling.

“And I think you’re full of it- go shower and I’ll finish off my snack and make you some food.”

“Mm?” He hums, leaning his weight on the armrest to kiss your head. “And what are you eating now?”

“Chips dipped in ice cream,” you mumble around a bite.

“…chips dipped in ice cream?”

“Yeah,” you hum, looking up at him. “I wanted something a little salty, but I knew it would make me want something sweet afterwards, so I figured I’d mix the two.”

“God, I adore you, but that’s feral.”

“And you are scared of innovation.” Despite your tease, you load up a ruffled chip with chocolate ice cream, passing it to him with a sweet smile. “Try it.” He eyes it suspiciously, and you scoff. “You don’t get to judge me on something you’ve never tried, Shinsuke.”

“Have you yet to read Hamlet?”

“Don’t you get me on my own hypocrisy,” you scoff. “Do you want the chip or not?”

He stands up and makes a sour face, but despite this, he extends his hand to take the chip from your fingers. He grimaced before hesitantly plopping the snack on his tongue when you bat your eyelashes at him.

One chew.

So far, so decent.

Two chew.

Okay. Now it’s funky.

Third chew has his jaw slacking in horror while from the couch, you start cackling.

“It tastes like bile,” he grimaces, his face scrunching up while you snort.

“That might be the sour cream part of the sour cream and onion.”

“This is foul,” he gags, quickly making his way to the sink to, quite literally, wash his mouth out. He hears you snickering off into the distance, and even if you have the taste of a sociopath, there’s not another thing he’d change about you.

Everything from your strange little cravings, to the way you stay up for him to reheat some dinner with him,

“What’s that thing called, when you like watching someone in pain and distress?” You ask over the running faucet, and he can practically hear the smirk of sadistic pleasure in your face.

He spits out some of the water pooled in his mouth with a retch, “oh, psychopath.”

You snort and he wipes his mouth on a paper towel, shaking his head before approaching you and capturing you in a kiss.

You pull away with a giggle before pecking him again, “you taste like chocolate ice cream.”

“And you taste like a questionable choice I made when I proposed.”

“And clay?”

He inspects your halfway dried face mask and licks his lips, “yeah. And clay.”

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blossom-hwa · 2 months

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a yellow scarf in winter | w.jh

pairing: Jun x gender neutral!reader genre: fluff, angst, magical realism warnings: mentions of minor character death (offscreen) word count: 7.3k notes: this is a rewrite of something from maybe a year ago - it's gone through extensive edits and while the original premise is the same, it's changed a lot, so even if you read it before I hope you find something new :) When your grandmother passes, a spirit arrives on the sun and the snow, asking for a place to stay. As the years pass, you learn grief, love, and the complicated art of letting go.

Original Ver. | Seventeen Masterlist

When he arrives on your doorstep, hands cold from the snow and eyes warm as the sun, the moon has already been dim for a year.

The knock comes gentle against the worn wood of the old inn’s door—so gentle at first that once, twice it sounds before you truly hear it. By the time you’ve put down the pile of pale yellow wool turning into the beginnings of a scarf or a shirt or something in between, it has sounded a third time, and when you finally open the door, his hand is raised like he was bracing for a fourth.

You stare. He is the first to have approached your grandmother’s inn in the weeks since you moved in, and you do not recognize him from the town. Brown eyes stare back at yours, slanted almost mischievously at the tips yet deep and soft and sweet, while pale blond hair the color of your wool seems to sparkle like the sun on the snow outside. Light pink lips curve in an awkward smile, showing a hint of white teeth, and it’s not so much that he glows himself but that sunlight glints off the pale skin of his face, reflecting a soft sparkle around him that only makes it seem brighter. About your age, perhaps—late twenties, early thirties. Maybe a little younger. His eyes look like they have seen many more years than he seems, though.

It’s been too long, this silence, but still you have to look for a moment more. For it feels like you know him, even though you’ve never seen him before.

—Hello, you finally say, cautious, quiet.

—Hello, he replies, lowering the hand he had raised. The gesture, awkward and almost bashful, brings a curve to your own lips. Someone in town told me I could some here for a place to stay.

Words rise in your memory, unbidden. Never turn a stranger away from your door, child. A wink, with one wrinkle-lined eye. They just might be a god in disguise.

Your hand tightens around the worn doorknob. The inn has been closed since your grandmother left it to you, and locked inside you’ve kept the stories she told—of deities who once walked this plane, spirits who left remnants of magic in the earth beneath your feet. In the weeks since her death you didn’t allow yourself to remember, didn’t allow yourself to acknowledge the sparkles of magic that she used to point out to you day after day—the bright green laughing grass now covered by the snow, the howl of the wind whirling in the breeze.

You haven’t reopened. You’re still not sure you will, not when the ache of her absence continues to fill every room. Those of the town should know the news by now, but perhaps they thought this might still be all right.

Part of you urges to shake your head, give an apologetic smile, and close the door. He’s a strange man in a strange place, and where exactly could that go? But as a chilly wind whips through the tall stranger’s hair, his long fingers fidgeting quietly as fading sunlight catches on the single silver earring in his left ear, you wonder if, after all these years, a spirit has finally made its way to your grandmother’s inn once more.

Stories and legends, tales you could never tell were true or not. You fight back a tear as a thought surfaces—that your grandmother sent this spirit to you, to make sure you would be all right.

—Of course. What is your name?

When he smiles, it seems as though the rising moon regains a touch of its original shine.

—Thank you. My name is Jun.

. . . . .

And—that’s it. For a time. It’s all he tells you about himself anyway, just his name and nothing else. What you learn in passing comes from casual action and conversation, things he lets slip as he accompanies you on your wanderings through the many rooms of your grandmother’s old, empty inn. It’s not so much him letting things slip, though, as you noticing the way he simply falls into place like the last pieces of a puzzle you never realized was unfinished—the shyness of his laugh sparkling through the dust motes spinning through the air, his long fingers drawing back the heavy drapes that once covered the lobby windows. He takes the room across from yours on the first floor, and when you open the door the next morning to see him stumbling out of his, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, it feels like you are only saying good morning to an old friend when you smile.

Which makes no sense, of course. Because you don’t know him. You’ve never seen this man once in your life before he showed up at the inn’s front door. What could you know about a man as enigmatic as the moon, who reflects all the light in the room and makes it brighter all on his own? But as the days go by, as you learn his shyness, his gentleness, the way his crescent smiles come soft and slow, a waxing and waning curve of his lips that reflects the sunlight streaming through the inn’s large windows and cuts through the dark chill that had seemed to fill the inn before, it doesn’t feel like you’re learning much at all. More like…remembering. Settling. Reacquainting yourself with the characteristics of a good friend you haven’t seen in ages. Somehow, though he is only one person sleeping in the same one room every night, the stately old place your grandmother left you doesn’t feel nearly as empty as it once did, not with his comfortable presence around.

He’s quiet. Calm. Prone to confusion when you use a phrase he doesn’t seem to know, and giggling fits when he sees something he deems cute or strange. He’s eager to help when you slowly rouse yourself to sweep the dust from the rooms, and he doesn’t ask when you pause in front of a larger door on the top floor, then turn away without a word. He has a lovely little laugh that sounds like the first spring flowers coming into bloom, bringing warmth to the silent hallways you’d long forgotten how to walk, and joy etches itself in the tiny wrinkles around his eyes that appear when he smiles. You find he has a special affinity for the cats that sometimes show up on the inn grounds and perhaps, you think, it’s because he’s a little like them himself—closed off and skittish at first, but soft, and sweet, and so, so warm when he finally turns to you with his truest smile.

In the cold remnants of winter, you learn his favorite tea, how he drinks it slow, sip by tiny sip. The long fingers that twist and fidget and eventually like to tangle with your own become still when he wraps them around his favorite mug of yours, white porcelain with the figures of three kittens playing around the edges. Those same fingers lift up the lid of the lobby grand piano one day, untouched since your grandmother last played, and begin to dance on their own across the yellowing keys, spinning starlit melodies into the air. His hands always seem to be cold, or at least take a while to warm up after being outside, but the tea helps. So does playing scales. And, eventually, holding your own hands that he always says are so much warmer than his.

When spring tints the air and flowers begin to bloom, you almost wonder if Jun’s warmth will fade, somewhat, in a season marked by the sun, by the blue sky, by the days that grow longer at the expense of the moon’s soft glow. It doesn’t, though—grows, even, as you walk with him through the soft grass on the outskirts of the town, his smile tossing sunlight kind, carefree, into the air around him. On walks like these you come to learn his favorite blossom, the pale jasmine he settles gently behind your ear, and how he never picks them, only gathers up the blooms that have already fallen on the ground to create lovely bouquets you set at the dining table later in the night. When summer hangs cheerful in the sky you begin to leave the lobby windows open, the heavy curtains brushed to the sides by Jun’s delicate hands, and you learn how far the cheer of his laugh can carry and how his voice accompanies the piano as he sings, melodic threads twining sweetly in the air. You show him midnight recipes—cold noodles, cookies, cool milk that you share with the cats milling about outside—and his hand in yours is always warm, but somehow, despite the heat of the sun on your skin, you can’t find it in yourself to pull away, not when he reflects the sun’s glow in his waxing and waning smiles, not when he squeezes your hand tighter and pulls you closer to him.

Finally, when the last dregs of autumn begin to pass and the first year winds to a close, you learn how Jun’s laugh softens with the fading sun, how, no matter the biting chill in the air, he still reflects the sun’s quiet glow until he seems to be the one who warms the room (and perhaps he is, with his moonlit melodies and starlit smile). Under the gentle rays of the sky’s fading light, the fast-growing chill of the billowing wind, the curve of Jun’s enigmatic crescent smile steadies you as dead leaves crunch beneath your feet. And as the first snows begin to swirl through the wind, mimicking the dust motes Jun helped you sweep away, you look outside at the moon that had faded, and you can’t help but think that perhaps, over the year, its smile has finally grown a little brighter.

. . . . .

And so the first year comes and goes, and when the chill of winter fully returns, you don’t worry as much about the empty rooms, the once-faded moon, the memories of your grandmother that still fill the air. There is Jun, and there is his warmth, and for now that is all you need.

But then he disappears. For a few hours, first. Then a few days. Until twice a month he leaves without notice, and with such irregularity that it slowly becomes regular.

He always returns, you learn. But the first morning you wake up and he doesn’t greet you with sleepy eyes smiling as he opens his door, you panic. Because what happened to him and where did he go and does he need help and what if he left, left you alone, left you in this empty house to cope again with the memories just like your grandmother did when she died—

—Where were you? you ask when he returns the next night and you can finally speak without wanting to cry? Where did you go? Why didn’t you let me know?

—I’m sorry, he replies, his long fingers fidgeting again. The dimness of the barely crescent moon outside casts dark shadows across his face, only a thin sliver of his cheek illuminated by starlight. I didn’t realize you would worry this much.

—How could I not?

—I don’t know. No one really has, before.

Candlelight flickering, silence hanging oppressive in the air.

—I was worried.

When he smiles, heavy and tragic, it is as though the moon’s darkness never left.

—I know.

(That night, when you crawl under the covers in a room too big for you and the questions you don’t have answers to, you remember where you live, where Jun came. And you remember something your grandmother told you when you were old enough to know, to understand.

No one stays forever at an inn.

No one.)

. . . . .

You think—hope—that might be the end of it. Or that, at least, he’ll tell you before he next goes. But despite his apologies, he still leaves a second time, and a third, and then a fourth and fifth, all without warning. And though you never truly grow used to the way each room echoes with a renewed emptiness in the hours and days he is gone, you force yourself to accept it. That his irregularity is his regularity. That he cannot—or will not—fight against what drives him to leave.

(Acceptance doesn’t stem the fear that someday he will go, and there will be no warning, and when that day comes, he will not return.)

So winter fades with its ice and snow, and spring comes, then summer, with their warmth and flowers. And on a night where Jun isn’t here, where the faded moon shines fully in the dark sky, you find yourself in front of a room on the top floor that you ignored when you two cleaned the inn the first time. The room where you stopped. Thought. Passed without a word, where Jun didn’t pry.

This time, you open the door.

Your grandmother’s presence folds around you like a warm cloak of boxes and drapes, warped wooden floorboards and old furniture sitting on top. Almost immediately your knees give out. You catch yourself on the floor, sending up a cloud of dust, but for all your watering eyes you don’t really notice because she is so strong here. So warm. So comfortable. As though you could reach out a hand to the air and she would materialize before you, her fingers clutching yours, her eyes already wrinkling into a mischievous smile.

For a long time, you only sit. Stare. Take in the things she amassed during life, the things she packed away that were never the inn’s but hers, and hers only. An old, moth-eaten armchair. A couple of trunks tied with dusty rope. Boxes with spidery handwriting on the sides labeling things you can’t quite read through the tears bubbling in your eyes, a few tarps draped over it all.

—Did you send him? you ask the dust swirling through the air.

(And if you did, why did you send someone who had to leave? Who couldn’t stay?)

She doesn’t answer, of course. But you sit there, waiting as though she will, until the gray light of dawn begins to peek through the folds of curtains you didn’t part, and you finally pick yourself up from the floor to return downstairs and wait for Jun to return.

. . . . .

He returns that evening amidst summer showers, rain glittering on his face like little diamonds pressed to his skin. You’re back in the room on the top floor, sitting, staring, and only when a soft knock sounds at the cusp of afternoon-evening do you find it in yourself to move again.

—Hi.

Jun’s eyes, deep brown and cratered wide. His graceful nose, his pale face, his thin lips, still covered with the thin diamond sheen of rain. You can hear droplets pattering against the window from where you still haven’t managed to push the drapes away.

—You’re shivering.

You hadn’t realized you were, but when he says it, you become aware of the slight tremble in your shoulders, at the vague chill in the air from the day’s confusion as to whether it is still summer, or if the winter will be coming soon. At the concern on his face you try to smile.

—I’m all right.

You don’t expect him to believe you. But you also don’t expect him to take a step closer and fold you into his arms.

He’s warm and cool at the same time—peaceful, a tiny respite from the overwhelming presence of your grandmother in all the boxes and drapes in this old room. His long fingers tap soft rhythms into your back, his breath quiet against your ear, and when you finally pull away, your eyes are wet not just with the remnants of rain but with tears again, too.

Jun smiles quietly. That little silver earring that has never left his ear glints in the evening darkness, a piece of light reflected in his eyes. Outside, you think the moon has begun to rise, faint light pooling right where he stands.

—Do you want help?

. . . . .

It takes several long days to bring the room to a semblance of cleanliness, dust swept from the corners until your nose no longer itches, the floor mopped until you no longer fear tracking grime into the halls when you and Jun leave. But one night, it is done. Mostly. The boxes remain unopened, the tarps not yet pushed away, but the floor is clean and you can breathe a little better.

Jun rubs his nose, which is red from sneezing. His eyes follow you as you kneel in front of one of the trunks, reaching for the knot in the rope tying it shut. For a moment you fumble with the tie. Then it falls away, and your hand grazes the edge of the lid. Ready to open. Not ready to open.

You pull the lid up.

A cloud of dust wafts up and you whip around, coughing into your arm as Jun laughs from a few feet away. When you stop choking you find that he has come to you, his eyes bright and cheerful, and for all you wanted to scowl at him when he started laughing, you find you can only smile.

—What’s all this?

You hold up a candle carefully, squinting into the trunk’s contents. Immediately you know, though you’ve never seen any of the books before.

Music.

Jun’s sharp intake of breath brings you back to earth. When you look at him his eyes are shining bright with wonder, and you think to his hands waltzing across the lobby piano’s yellow keys, drawing sounds from its depths the way only your grandmother had been able to, years before.

—Let’s take them. You pick up a few books of your own, their dusty paper covers rough against your skin as you smile. I want to hear you play.

He plays piece after piece that night, some that you recall from childhood, others you remember having learned yourself, even more you have never once heard in your life but that your grandmother must once have known, learned, and cherished when she lived. And after you see Jun to his room that night, you take the stairs softly up to the room again. Take in the sight of the dusty, empty trunk still sitting where you left it.

It feels a little easier to breathe.

. . . . .

As summer winds to a close, as the slight chill of fall begins to take to the air, you slowly empty the boxes and trunks in the old storage room, airing out their dust, unearthing the bits and pieces of your grandmother that she left behind for you to find. Pictures of her and your grandfather, who died before you were born. Small trinkets from travels she told you about when you were little. Financial papers yellowed with age, letters bound in ribbon that you can’t find it in yourself to read, novels with worn covers and crinkled pages. And music. Not quite as much as the stacks of books you found in the first trunk, but sheets scattered here and there that Jun happily picks up, adding to the miniature concerts he plays for you in the evening to ward away the chill.

He helps you through it all—works at the knots in the ropes with you, folds up the tarps you lift away, sweeps up the dust that falls from newly opened boxes and trunks, holds you when the memories overwhelm and you find it hard to breathe. And in those moments when he is there, you almost forget that this is an inn, and that he must leave. But he always does. New moon. Full moon. New moon. Full moon. And as the moon grows brighter when he is gone, like it is happier without you, you begin closing your window against the light that still permeates your room anyway.

The words slip out on a night when it is more fall than summer, after the remnants of dinner have been cleared away and only the stars are awake to hear you speak. Bravery or stupidity, courage or fear, you don’t know—a desperate bid for something, anything to hang on to when Jun next leaves and you’re left to cope with the memories, music haunting your ears, ghosts tracing the walls.

—Where do you go when you’re gone?

He pauses at the piano, long, pale fingers stopping between the turning pages of his music. Silence reigns for a while, long enough for you to nearly backtrack and say never mind, never mind, despite the need to know curdling in your veins.

—I go to a place I once called home.

Your throat threatens to close, but you get the next words out, somehow.

—Do you not still call it home?

In response, he takes a single sheet of music from the piano, one he just played—a soft melody that barely lasted two minutes, but that resonated through the room, deep, heavy nostalgia that had drawn the question from your throat. Every piece he plays is beautiful beneath his fingertips but for some reason, the echoes of this piece stay with you, merging into your breath, tickling its way through your ears, as he hands the score to you.

—The composer was far from home when he wrote this, Jun says quietly as you trace the black notes on the worn, yellow page. He needed to run. To escape. He never saw it again after he had to move, but…in the end, he only ever wanted to go home.

Dark eyes flicker to the window, pale skin reflecting the starlight and the glow of the full moon. It’s your turn to watch him, this time, as the faint moonlight lends a familiar golden tinge to his face that you have never seen but that you know, anyway.

Only a few physical feet separate the two of you in this moment, the distance between Jun’s piano bench and your armchair easily traversable in just one step, maybe two. For all the look in his eyes right now, though, you could be centuries apart.

—I once wanted to escape. I was so lonely. I wanted to find someone who could care for me. Who could make me feel worth something.

—Did you?

He looks at you now. Traps you in the moment, his blond hair illuminated by the moon, pooling around his feet. An enigmatic smile dances on his lips.

—I did.

Silence falls gentle, heavy, the leftover notes from the melody fading softly into the air, the dust of the old sheet music settling on the floor. Against your will, you stare at the piano with its worn and yellowing keys that your grandmother once showed you to play. You were never as good as she, though Jun would have been a match.

What might she have thought of Jun if they’d met now, in the physical plane? She would have liked him, you think—liked his soft-spoken voice, his sweet, awkward nature, and the way he seems to amplify the warmth and light of the room with his cratered eyes and waxing-waning crescent smile. Their musical styles are different, from what you remember of hers, but she would have enjoyed his interpretations of the same pieces she loved.

Tears nearly spring into your eyes. Yes, she would have liked him. She would have liked him very much.

A question burns on your tongue as he stands, as you stand, as you both walk to your rooms and bid each other goodnight. You don’t ask. But he must hear it anyway, lingering in your eyes and on your tongue even as you shut your door.

(Where is your home?)

You’re not sure if you can hear his answer, not when you don’t have one yourself. Because while you’re still trying to escape, Jun has already made peace.

He knows his home, even if you don’t.

. . . . .

Still, though, he stays. For you or for something else, you’re not sure. But through the end of summer and the billows of fall, still he comes and he goes, wanders and returns, and though his presence comforts, something about it—you’re not sure what—has begun to hurt.

He’s playing the same piece when autumn has begun to give way to winter, when you find a familiar pile of yellow wool in the drawer of one of the little tables beside the lobby couches. Part of it has been knit into some shape, but only barely—easy enough for you to decide it will be a scarf, a decision you didn’t get to make two years ago, and easy enough for you to pick up the needles from where the universe left them and for their gentle clicking to accompany Jun’s music flowing about the room. Not so easy anymore when the cat Jun let inside begins batting at the pile of yarn, little claws catching on the wool, but easy enough. Easy enough.

The night before, when Jun was gone, you went up to the storage room yourself. Though the room has been mostly cleared, boxes opened and some things rearranged around the inn, others pushed in neater piles against the walls, your grandmother’s presence still wrapped around you the second you entered. Something in the walls, you suppose, in the notes of dust that still flicker, magical, in the air. The fact that this room was hers, the way the rest of the inn was and wasn’t.

You didn’t open the curtains. You thought about it, even touched the heavy cloth with a single hand, felt it fold beneath your palm. But the moon was so bright then, so full. It hurt so much. So you kept it closed. The memory of those closed curtains, unable to shield you from the glowing contentment of the moon, helps you meet his eyes as his hands leave the piano, the knitting needles flashing between your fingers, their rhythmic clicking steadying your heart.

—Where is your home, Jun?

The lobby echoes with the silence after your question, broken only by the kitten batting at your wool. Her little head butts against your hand and you stroke it gently, eyes still trained on the spirit sitting in front of you.

He draws breath. Sighs. Looks down at his hands, down at yours, and looks back at you.

—Wherever I am not lonely.

The clicking between your fingers stops. Silver needles bury themselves in the yellow yarn like the cat’s claws, the cat that now detaches itself from the wool to jump into Jun’s lap instead, purring softly. You stare at it, at the yarn, at the empty spot on the couch it used to occupy. The spot someone else used to occupy, once, smiling fondly as you played with her own yarn on her knee. Someone who belonged here far more than you.

—Where have you been lonely?

—Many places. Jun’s smile turns small, wan. Not all are as welcoming as you have been.

Your mind returns to the first time he disappeared, the first time he returned and you couldn’t speak for several hours without crying.

I didn’t realize you would worry this much, he had said. And you had found it so hard to believe no one would—that no one would worry about this lovely spirit disappearing without a word. But it’s true. Not all are kind. And perhaps, before your inn, Jun had encountered more unkindness than you were willing to believe at the time.

You swallow.

—Are you lonely here?

—No. The answer is quick, certain. So is his next question. Are you?

His eyes won’t allow yours to flicker away, moonlight holding you captive as it flows around the two of you, encasing you in pale light. The cat purrs in Jun’s arms, but he only looks at you.

It hurts to admit it, but you do.

—Yes. When you’re not here.

He nods. Nods again. And then he sets the old page back on top of the piano, and you speak no more until the music has stopped for the night and he asks a final question to you.

—Who’s that for?

You look down at the half-finished scarf, and the needles you’ve just stuck into the rest of the unknit pile. I’m not sure.

But as you lie awake in bed that night, staring out of your window at the full moon and its familiar golden tinge, you realize it was a dumb question, with an even dumber answer. Because it’s obvious. Even though the universe had you begin the scarf with no thought of its future owner, as it grows longer and longer under nights of soft music warmed by the reflection of sunlight on Jun’s lovely face, when you look at the man whose smile waxes and wanes with the phases of the moon, you know, and the world knows.

Of course the scarf is for him.

. . . . .

In the days after, as the scarf grows longer, as the wind turns colder, as the moon fades to black and Jun disappears again, you think. Ponder. Try to confront the fear in your heart that sprang fully formed when you realized who the scarf was for, because as the woolen links drape across your lap and the cushions of the lobby armchair, you can’t shake the feeling that giving him this yellow scarf, this warmth woven of sunlight reflecting off of sparkling snow feels…final, almost. Like something ends with the tying of the last knot, something you’re not ready to give up just yet.

Jun is ready. You know that, and it hurts and terrifies you. Because he must have suffered—must have gone from home to home, begging, pleading for someone to recognize the lonely spirit he was, and found nothing but a frosty chill instead—but he found the strength to continue. And eventually, he found you, who would love him. Who would cherish him. And somehow, that is enough for him—enough that he no longer feels lonely, even when he is away from you. Enough for him to pull away, because he knows this is not the plane on which he belongs, even though it is yours.

But you’re not ready. You still—you still need him. Need his warmth, need the moonlight reflectance of his smile to guide you through the day. Without him, how do you return to the emptiness of the inn where everyone leaves and no one stays, where the polished wooden floors and walls echo with the silence of your footsteps, memories haunting everywhere you look?

Deep inside, you know he cannot stay. That the spirit plane, however it may intersect with the mortal world, is separate from yours. And it makes you laugh, a little, when you remember how you felt you had learned Jun during the first year of his stay—because you will never know the moon. Will never understand his enigmatic smiles, never parse the way his fingers trace so cool and so warm against the skin of your cheek, never dissect how he can stand to be so selfless, returning to you from each of his trips home because he knows you cannot live without him.

—How do you continue, Jun? you force yourself to ask under a waning gibbous moon, three days after his last foray to a place he once called home. The autumn-fading-winter wind blows crisp through the air, ruffling Jun’s hair where he sits beside you in front of the inn, petting one of the stray cats that has settled on his lap. You trace the lines of the cracked stone on the ground, ripples of time rough and bitter beneath your fingertips, hoping he knows what you mean from the five brittle words you managed to speak.

(How do you move on? How do you make peace with the memories? How do you let go of the grief, how do you remember someone as who they were and forget about how they left you, forget how they will never be able to stay?)

He’s quiet for a moment. When he looks at you, you brace yourself.

—I cannot answer for you, he says, and your heart plummets. That is for you to find in yourself.

He takes your hand, though. Presses it between his own, and even through the despair closing up your throat, you find it in yourself to take comfort in his moonlit warmth.

—But I will tell you this, he says quietly. To me, to know that there is someone who I love, and who loves me—that is enough. Even if I am not with them. Because my home is in the memories we share.

His smile is blinding, bright as the moon and more. And through the gnarled desperation twisting in your heart, you allow a piece of that brightness to prick its way into the brambles.

. . . . .

Letting go, you decide, is an art. A painful art, disentangling the nettles from the brambled wall you’ve built around your heart to shield you from the pain of reminiscence, but an art all the same in the way you carefully examine each thorn, stinging your fingertips and palms as you pull the branches apart, pinpricks of blood scattering across the canvas of your pain, your grief, the loss you feel every time you look up at the dim sky and the empty rooms around you, your grandmother’s presence lingering in every corner and crevice.

Some days, when Jun is gone, you nearly give up. Nearly decide the thorns in your hands aren’t worth it, that the brambles prevent more pain than they bring, that letting go is an art you will never master—because you can’t, and you won’t. You can’t give up the only person, spirit, who’s brought you comfort in this time, you can’t willingly give up what you have now because you need him here or you’ll drown in the emptiness of these large, quiet rooms.

But that’s unfair. Because the moon doesn’t belong on earth, and the earth doesn’t belong on the moon. For all the semblance of home Jun has found with you, you are not the only home he carries with him. Where he lives—what he is—it’s not here. It’s not here, not in this old, empty inn, with you, because an inn is never a permanent home for anyone but the owner. For anyone else, it is rest, respite, temporary comfort. More temporary for some than others, but it is a place of letting go.

Nights pass. The scarf grows longer, the storage room cleaner. And though the pain of Jun’s absence still aches in your chest, the cool silver needles and the heavy window curtains begin to soothe more of the sting. When you look up at him on the days he is here, his own fingers gliding across old piano keys, you breathe, and you remember, and you let yourself into the thorns and nettles of memory once more. Because what is Jun’s home cannot be yours.

And so you will find your own, in a place where you once never felt lonely.

It’s slow work, slower than you would have liked. In what world does anyone not want to dash the pain away quickly, strip off the bandages in one fell swoop and find the skin and tissue already unscarred and whole beneath? But with every disappearance you’re running out of time so you work at the thorns, slowly and slowly and slowly, and as Jun’s enigmatic smile grows a little wider every time the scarf grows a little longer, as a hint of something soft begins to chase away the aching sympathy in his eyes when he looks at you under the faded night sky, you find in his smile a quiet balm for the pain in your fingers, in your palms, in your heart.

When you pull the final branches away, there are scars etched in your chest that will never fully heal, patterns of time to mimic the lines carved on your skin. Memories of thorns still prick your palms and something aches awful in your heart as you stare at the mess you have made of yourself in forcing memories out of their old home to avoid the pain you thought they would bring, but then you look at the moon as you tie off the final knot on the pale yellow woolen scarf and when you do he smiles back, something akin to pride, and maybe gratitude, in his eyes.

That night, after seeing Jun off to bed, you walk upstairs to the room where your grandmother stored her memories. The moon is almost full and its light shines bright, strong enough to just barely filter through the heavy curtains still draped across the glass.

Taking a deep breath, you take one curtain in each stinging, thorn-wounded hand. Push them aside. Let the moon’s smile bathe the room pale light.

No blood stains the fabric, even as your heart aches at the sight.

. . . . .

You give him the scarf the next day, a night where winter is stronger than fall, loop it around his neck when he leaves the piano to sit at your side. He played that piece again, the composer’s reminiscence of home, and its notes still linger in your ears as you settle the scarf at his throat.

Jun doesn’t react at first, only touches a finger to the wool, the color of the sun on the snow the day he first knocked on your door. It’s as though he knew it was made for him, even before you did. The way you knew his crescent smile, the wax and wane of the brightness in his eyes, the reflection of the sun off his skin, before he even arrived.

He stops you before you go to bed that night, puts a hand on your shoulder and gently turns you around. For a moment you only look at each other, candlelight reflecting off your faces, a glow that joins the pale moonlight pooling on the ground.

Thank you for the scarf, he says quietly, his fingers tangling with yours. His breath ghosts past your cheek, eyes crinkling at the corners into a soft, slow smile. And for letting me stay.

You go back to the storage room when he closes his door, sit on the moth-eaten armchair and stare out the window at the full, full moon. Sometime later the first snow begins to fall, floating pitter-patter against the glass, and, lulled by its soft rhythm, you allow yourself to sleep.

When morning comes with the shimmering sun on ice, Jun is gone.

This time, he doesn’t come back.

Reality seems to blur as the days go by, one without Jun, two without Jun, three, four, six, ten. Sometimes you sit in the inn’s empty lobby and squint at the grand piano still standing in the middle of the floor and for a moment, you can’t quite recall whether it’s always been there, or if it simply came into existence when Jun’s music followed him into your home. Everything feels dim, faded, like the shadow that had settled over the moon for so long, and sometimes you debate leaving. Leaving the inn and memories of a loving grandmother and laughing spirit that lie here, burying what you had with those you loved and running away from the remnants that chase you.

But where would you go? There’s nothing in the world you have except this inn and those memories, and for all remembering hurts, they were treasures. Treasures that sparkle with a happiness that hurts a little too much right now, but that you wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. Treasures that will be a balm, in time, to the scars they left behind.

Treasures that tell you, someday, you will have your home.

Sometimes, sitting at the old piano, you wonder if he was real. If he really existed, the spirit with cratered eyes and hair the color of the sun on icy snow. But it doesn’t matter, really. Because you remember him—the sleepy eyes, the wide smile, the soft voice that waltzed with long fingers across ivory keys and spun music to life, tapestries of notes that settled gentle, ephemeral in the night air before a single breath blew them away. You remember him, and you remember an album of pastel memories and watercolor laughs, pages left to dry under winter sunshine, the color of a pale yellow scarf that a laughing man wears around his neck, its ends fluttering in the breeze.

An album leaf. A page of memory. Loved in the moment that it was there, and someday, later on, turned over and smoothed with care. Remembered.

And when you look out of the window at the full moon glowing brightly in the sky, you know the memory will be treasured, too.

One evening, when the seasons have passed and winter has come to your inn once more, you sift through the music you had unearthed from that trunk so many months ago, the music now stacked around the piano in haphazard piles. You pull a single yellow sheet from the depths. The few guests who have settled at your inn since its opening retired to bed hours ago, leaving you alone to sit on a restored armchair pulled out of storage and trace black notes printed on old, crinkled paper, letting their melodies shiver through your skin, your ears, your memory.

That night, you take a walk along the streets of the town. Lamps light the way, but you follow the path of the full moon on powdered snow, not a single shadow draped across its cratered surface. There’s music in the wind and you walk with it, fingers tapping where they rest in the pockets of your coat.

A flash of movement catches your eye. You turn and there’s a little cat slinking through the powdery white streets, moonlight glinting off its smooth, pale fur. It looks at you, and you look at it, and then you crouch down and extend a hand as it shyly pads closer through the snow.

You smile, remembering a shy man twisting his fingers at your door. Hair blond, not white, but gentle and sweet just like this creature cautiously butting its head against your palm.

—Hello there, you murmur. The moon looks lovely tonight, doesn’t it?

The cat purrs, like it agrees. Like it also knows the man you knew, and knows that he is where he needs to be, like you.

Smiling softly, you glance up at the moon and its reflective glow. It seems to brighten as you stare at it, moonlight pooling softly on the glittering snow.

The cat purrs again and you turn back, soft with the moon and the memories. Sweet laughter, dark eyes. A crescent bright smile, an album leaf.

A gentle melody humming through the air, and a yellow scarf rippling in the wind.

Reblogs and comments are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed this, and have a lovely day :)

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britcision · 4 months

Text

In honour of a combo Wednesday and then post-midnight Yule, have a WIP Wednesday friends! We haven’t seen Sam for a while and Hanukkah was early this year (finished on the 15) but we are here now!

This chapter’s already gotten intense as hell for Danny and Jason with Lady Gotham but we’ve been tragically without our resident fashionable goth (sorry not sorry Bruce) and we are definitely still a muppet movie, so enjoy Sam-Miss-Piggy creating some extra chaos behind the scenes 👀

No promises about how regular these updates will be because again, plot chapter, I like letting those drop without spoiling the reveals too much, but we shall see

——————

Chapter 18 part i So That Just Happened

Back in her own room on the other side of the country from Gotham, Sam Manson reclined back into giant, coffin shaped body pillow her beloved girlfriend had given her when they moved and contemplated her phone.

The brand new Wayne-chat was blowing up satisfactorily, although apparently Tim was a massive stalker too. That was probably a good thing; it meant she hadn’t actually nuked Tuck’s chances with his nerd-crush. Now they could bond over their mutual stalker tendencies.

But, did that make her revenge less effective?

It wasn’t like she was actually out to ruin his life, but she’d kinda like to leave a mark. Something that would make him think twice about letting her think he and Danny had fucking died in Gotham in her absence.

Or. Well. Gone radio silent in Gotham, which was probably actually worse because if they were dead she’d know exactly where they were.

The Wayne chat were all pretty sure Tim and Tucker were together too, and Sam’s new best friend Babs had even pulled up the feed from their living room tv somehow. Sam wasn’t exactly the tech wizard Tucker was, but… after seeing that, she disconnected her and Val’s TV from the wifi.

And settled in to remote watch Tuck get his ass kicked at Spiderheck, apparently. At least for a little while; until something else on her phone caught her attention.

It was… almost funny. While she knew she was a whole two timezones away, she’d never really felt left out before. Like maybe she should have stayed on the east coast…

Not that she regretted it, of course. She had a good job, a good school, a wonderful girlfriend who’d been so excited to get into a good school and really go to town on the business department.

(Apparently there were posters of Val’s face in the ethics classrooms. Sam refused to ask if they were golden example or dire warning.)

She was just… a long way away. Even a long portal away, and… being back with the guys, even in Gotham, made the quiet of their comfy little apartment seem lonely.

Huffing, she turned and traced her fingers through the leaves of her mimosa plant on the windowsill beside the bed. They curled gently shut at her touch, and made her smile. Just like always.

She was happy to be home. She wasn’t technically liminal enough yet that it was her haunt, but… well, for all the jokes Val made, Sam had to admit she’d put down roots. She loved her job at the greenhouses, and her internship at the botanical gardens.

She loved scaring the hell out of the dudebros in Val’s business classes who thought ethics were a waste of time. She loved sharing messages with Jazz about the boys, laughing that even three hours ahead, Tuck and Danny still couldn’t get up before them.

She was kinda considering texting Harley about Timblr too. Not like, for any particular reason; if Tim’s family weren’t gonna embarrass Tucker enough, Harley probably wouldn’t either. She’d probably think it was adorable.

Or, y’know, worrying evidence of obsession. Psych types worried about stuff like that, usually.

Sam was kinda also considering sending Harley Jazz’s number. Jazz might still be skating just on the neurosurgery side of the line, but she’d always been big into psychology. Big enough to try and double major, and only drop to major-minor after the third pre-exam meltdown.

And she could use having someone else do the shrink bit on her a little more often. Although really, for that Sam should make her a professional appointment; friends didn’t ask friends to psychoanalyze their overprotective pseudo-sisters. And Jazz could use more friends.

Jazz could use a transfer to a specialty that would let her sleep once in a while, a more stable supply of fresh ecto, and about six weeks in a meditation retreat to get the accidental telepathy under control, but more friends would be good too. And less stubborn insistence on her second try for double majors.

Maybe the switch to psychiatry full time would be good for her? Or psychology. Sam was a little fuzzy on the difference, which one Jazz was minoring in, and which one Harley did.

(Jazz’s current second major was neurosurgery, which Jazz insisted was totally less taxing alongside a neurology major because it was the same body part. She was the only person in her class attempting the double major though, so.)

Humming tunelessly to herself, Sam flicked back into the group chat. Babs was still sharing the feed… brows drawing in, Sam frowned at the little spider figures still fighting to the death. Now, she wasn’t as big of a gamer as she used to be, but she was pretty sure Spiderheck didn’t actually offer red berets.

Snorting a laugh, she flicked back out of the chat and opened a new one, adding both Jazz and Harley. All it needed was the perfect name… something that would grab both of their attention.

Obvious. Child’s play.

Snuggling back into her coffin pillow, Sam grinned down at her phone screen.

Danny Has A Boyfriend chat was live.

——————

And in at the last minute, Jazz! We’ll see if she shows up in person this chapter, I’m hoping it’ll be the last big lore dump before the first plot arc begins but We Shall See…

Chapter 20 is right around the corner though, and I like my divisibles of 5 so I miiiiight shoot for that Red Hood Reveal then… 👀

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778 @why-must-i-be-like-this @tkiesai @greenpyrowolf @frivolous-pastel @honeysuckletook @adorkable1291

#dp x dc #dpxdc #danny fenton dead and loving it #wip wednesday #chapter 18 part i #sam manson is back bitches #AND SOON WE SHALL HAVE VALLLLLLLLL UGH cannot wait for val

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purefrostbyte · 1 year

Text

“You have Work to do Princess” -Shoto Todoroki

Warnings: Cock warming, dom/sub, swearing, mention of stomach bulge

It had been a long week of hero work, 2 bank robberies, 5 villain attacks and 3 drug busts all only accruing on your shifts. You cursed whatever god was out there who seemed to have it out for you, making your way to your office to start on the, no doubt, mountain of paperwork accumulated from the week’s events. You sigh as your suspicion is confirmed and your desk is piled in paperwork and reports needing to be filled out. You stretched, hearing the soft pop of tension being released in your back before heading for your desk to set to work.

It was 2:30pm when you had started however you were still at it by 7:45pm. You groaned, looking at the pitiful third you had managed to complete in the span of 5 hours. You rolled your neck before reaching into your pocket to check your phone. You weren’t surprised at what you saw, Todoroki Shoto, your boyfriend of 8 months now, had left your message on read. He was supposed to take you on a date tonight, however the mountain of paperwork had made you have to postpone….again. You groaned, clutching your head as panic fills your head. You had only been dating for 8 months, but you had had a crush on Todoroki since 2 year

Originally, neither of you did anything about your feelings. The start of a new career is stressful and both of you had your own goals to achieve. However now that you two had finally gotten together, after a rather confusing and awkward confession from both sides, now it seemed the universe was hell bent on splitting you up. You sent another apology, swearing that you’ll take him out after everything has calmed down, but that too was left on read. You sigh sadly, putting your phone away and getting back to work when the sound of the elevator down the hall dinged, signally the arrival of someone in the office. You furrowed your eyebrows as you had seen no one in the office when you had left to get a cup and of coffee. This meant someone had come back to the office, but who would come back at 7:48pm?

Just as you got up to investigate, the door to your office swung open revealing none other than your boyfriend holding a packet of takeout from his favourite soba place. “Shoto?” you gasped, rushing around your desk to hug him. As your arms clasped around his neck you realised just how much you had missed him, the scent of mint and cedar fulling your senses. “Hello Princess,” he said as he kissed your forehead. “Figured I’d bring the date to you since we haven’t had any time together these last few days.” You smiled up at him, he’s so sweet. “Thank you,” you breathed, kissing his cheek and enjoying you comfort of his arms around you. “Come Princess,” he moved you to the couch in your office, “Let’s eat something.”

True to Shoto, he had brought you your favourite Yaki Udon from the little corner restaurant by his apartment. After a conversation of the week’s events, continuously talking with your mouth full because you’re so hungry yet so excited, you settled down with a quiet laugh. Shoto smiled softly at you before glancing over to your paper clad desk. You followed his gaze and sighed, “Thank you so much my love, but I have to get some more paperwork done before I can go home.” You watched as something in Shoto’s eyes changed and a small smirk spread across his cheeks. “Why don’t I stay with you, keep you a little company?” his voice came out raspy and you couldn’t help but silently nod in agreement. Shoto stood up, taking your hand and leading you back to your desk. You didn’t realise what was happening until Shoto was seated in your chair and patting his lap.

You blushed, it wasn’t like you and Shoto hadn’t done this things before, it was the setting of it all. You moved to sit down, cautiously at first but Shoto grabbed your hips and planted you right on him, leaving no room for argument. He pulled the chair closer to your desk before settling his arms around your waist. “Go on Love,” his whispered into your neck causing a shiver to run down your spine. Shakely, you set to work determined to finish so you can go home with your boyfriend, but Shoto seemed to have a different idea. It wasn’t long after you started that Shoto started to leave wet, lazy kisses up and down you neck, seemingly bored with the situation. You started to lose focus, it had been awhile since Shoto had been able to lay his hands on you, and your body desperately missed the feeling. “Shoto,” you whisper breathlessly, “You can’t do that, I can’t focus if you-“

“Stand up,” his voice left no room to argue, and instantly you stood up. You could hear the smug smile, even if you couldn’t see him. However, before you could complain or ask what he was doing, the shorts of your hero sort were pulled down. You gasped, whipping your head round only to see Shoto’s smug face and his sweatpants pulled down enough for his semi hard dick. Your breath hitched as he looked you dead in the eyes as he stroked himself. “Come on Princess,” he rasped as he became fully hard, “Take a seat.” You whined, “Shoto, we can’t. It’s the office and I need to concentrate-“

“Sit Y/N” He ordered and like an obedient sub, you did. And god if it wasn’t everything you needed. The stretch burned, but god the feeling of being filled by him was worth it. “Good Girl,” he whispered in your ear, hands rubbing circles into your hips. “Go on Princess, you have work to do, and if you can finish what you need to tonight, I reward you.” The way he said it made you clench, the promise of more if you could just push forward with the next 6 reports. “Ok,” you breathe, picking up your pen and trying to focus on the papers in front of you.

You were 1,5 half reports in when Shoto threw another curve ball at you, reaching his hand up you shirt to play with your breasts causing you to falter and drop your pen. “Ah ah Princess,” he taunted, pinching your nipple. “You’ve got work to do Love, if you want that reward,” his voice was a haze, your body a live wire. “But Shoto,” you whined as you grinded your hips down, “I can’t, you feel so good Shoto I can’t-“ your plead fell on deaf ears. “You can and you will.” He demanded, gripping your hips until they stilled. You whine again, but he only bites your shoulder as a response. “Work Princess, now.” Your breathing was heavy but you obeyed, picking up your pen and slowly resuming your work.

Shoto however was relentless. He teased and teased, pinching your nipples, sucking hickeys into your neck, even grinding up into you on occasion to get a reaction out of before shutting you down and commanding you to work. However you were finally done as you signed off the last report and placed it into the envelope with your stamp of approval. “Im done,” you sighed grinding down into him with a delighted moan. “Good Girl,” he praised as he too grinded up into you, just to hear your delighted and relieved moans. “I think my Princess deserves a reward,” he punctuate his statement with a thrust which caused you to moan and clench around him. “Please Shoto. Please, I’ve been so good for you,” you pleaded before you were forcibly bent over your desk. “Don’t worry Princess, you’ll be rewarded.”

Shoto began to thrust in and out of you, holding you down by your neck as the force of is thrusts rocked you and the desk. “Fuck Shoto,” you moaned, he reached so deep in you, fulled you up until a slight bulge was seen in your stomach. “Fuck baby it’s been so long,” he grunted as he landed a smack to your ass, “Fuck you always take me so well baby, feel so good on my cock.” You choked a moan as a particularly deep thrust brushed your g-spot. “Fuck Shoto please, right there, please, please,” you begged as Shoto started to abuse that spot over and over, “Fuck baby, if you keep- keep squeezing me like that I won’t last-“ He was close, you could hear in raspy and whiny his voice became. He reached around your hip, rubbing tight circles into your clit which caused you to sob in pleasure. “Please, Shoto Please,” You chanted it, holding onto the words like a mantra until your orgasm lit up your nerves. “Fuck Princess,” he groaned before pulling out and pumping his cock until he came on your ass.

Your breathing was heavy, eyelids half lidded as Shoto pulled you off the desk to once more sit on his lap. He littered kisses all over your shoulder, as you both came down front the high of your orgasms. “Come Princess,” he whispered softly, “Let’s go home and rest.”

#bnha smut #bnha #shoto todoroki #shoto smut #shoto x y/n #todoroki smut

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danvillecheese · 1 year

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why do u think act ur age is fucked

[cracks knuckles] alright. essay time. you asked for it.

I’ve done a similar response to this before here and mentioned something else about it here but I’ll go over it again since those posts are both from a while ago. also bear in mind I haven’t seen aya recently bc I don’t like it. okay let’s get into it

[also im gonna preface this saying maybe i sound very pessimistic but im ranting and its just gonna sound like im complaining because i am. i mean no real malice by the way. im simply a person with a blog.]

first off. they don’t use the show don’t tell as well as they could. in the what might have been montage, sure, they showed potential scenarios and how phineas felt (very briefly) when isa stopped visiting his backyard but it just feels so rushed. I get that they only had like 11 minutes to show it but idk there has to be another way to write it. or just not have it at all idk its just from a writing point of view the whole episode feels rushed and out of place from everything else continuity-wise. why not use little easter eggs planted in the show beforehand? operation crumbcake? pharmacists? meapless in seattle? god theres so many episodes with evidence that phineas liked her back even if he didnt know. just. continuity!!!!

second. why did their friends not try something sooner. it’s not like they didn’t know. like phineas seems to be okay with saying “i wish! i am so in the friend zone there” in front of his friends (that quote alone makes me lose my shit but that’s a whole other point) so clearly they knew about phineas. and isabella also wasn’t quiet about it (source: pnf s1-4). they had like four years of high school to do something and they planned it the day isa left for college? nah its just the least realistic thing ever for me. also them being 18 is like yeah okay maybe the slow burn was worth it and theyre way more grown up (i love a good slowburn) but ohhhhhh my god SURELY their friends were getting sick of them dancing around each other. just me?

third. and I’m sorry to ash simpson but oh my god I hate the character designs like They Would Not Fucking Look Like That. it almost feels like it completely disregards their arcs during the original summer. like yeah child chub disappears over ur teen years but sometimes it stays a little longer! make phineas less twiggy!! make isa look more like her mother! (am i about to redesign them again? whoops)

four. and i know this is no fault of dan and swampy but the show was about to end anyways and yet the entire friend group was paired off into hetero ships?? get fucking real. none of those kids are straight. realistically, i know it was a different time and gay marriage wasnt even legal in the us yet so it wasnt all that common to have queer romance on screen let alone on disney channel but like i said, the show was about to end. what were the disney channel execs gonna do? cancel it? lmao

five. "I am so in the friend zone there." "we are guys. we do not talk about our feelings." WHAT!!! i cant believe this shit is real. these lines of dialogue are canon. what the hell. what kind of message does that even send to younger, impressionable viewers? if ur a 10 year old boy watching that (ok fine maybe that isnt gonna stick with you forever but listen) and you go 'oh its okay to just bottle everything up and not tell my friends about my feelings about anything ever' that is insane! thats not how things should go!! like i get the whole "im so in the friend zone" and yes, this also has to do with the era but like if they wanted to be a more progressive cartoon that kids look up to and enjoy maybe they just. shouldn't have put that whole conversation in.

i barely have any problems with the b plot. in fact id watch the episode just for the kazoo solo. because that plot lines up with the continuity. i can totally see heinz having bowling night with perry and carl and monogram every week! i can totally see perry and monogram retired! and carl running owca and getting payed for it! that all checks out! that one makes sense and works with the canon! if they got that plot so right how did they get the a plot so wrong?

i can answer this question: fanservice. its an awful word, i know. act your age is a fanservicey episode which is why i think it crashed and burned. mml season 2 is rooted in the same issue: doof is very present and takes away from the original plot of the show. like, the one he wasnt even in until the last episode of s1. slightly getting off topic but it is the crux of the issue. fanservice doesnt make for good storytelling. even if it brings in the big bucks. at its core, telling the story the way it should be told is the best one. even if it pisses people off. a good portion of the viewers will still appreciate whatever ending the creators come up with. and no, im not saying phinbella shouldn't have become canon, in fact i really like the ship and all their dynamics, i just think they went about it the wrong way.

as someone who's written and published fic about them getting together in different universes (granted, they were from when i was younger so its mildly terrible. take them with a grain of salt) there are a lot of other ways to tell that story canonically. honestly, i think the best way of doing it was to keep it ambiguous. dont tell that story. let the viewers pick their own ending for phineas and isabella. maybe they dont get together after all. who knows!

thanks for the ask! hope you had fun getting lectured <3

#phineas and ferb #phinbella #act your age #ask #this was fun you guys should ask me more stuff like this #dwampyverse analysis

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randombush3 · 2 years

Text

Floss Got Hot IV

florence pugh x reader

[series masterlist]

summary: exes and ‘oh’s…

words: 9216

warnings: smut, drinking, brief panic attack

notes: IM SORRY ABOUT THE WAIT MY LOVES

“As in your ex-boyfriend Zach?”

Flo looks horrified. And mortified. She feels sick.

“The actor Zach?” You keep going every second she’s quiet; “the old one? The one you lived with? The one that looks like—”

“Stop fucking holding that against me! I’m genuinely upset, Y/n.” You love her, but you’ve got to laugh.

“I don’t mind meeting him.” Maybe this is the side of you that needs to be humbled, Flo wonders. Your ego has got to be big if you’re not annoyed. “But why?”

She shifts her weight on her feet, uncomfortable. It’s a stupid reason. It’s such an LA reason. “We’ve got to do the dog handoff.” There’s no way you can’t laugh at that. She finds a cushion quick enough to hit you when you’re vulnerable. “I’m stressed about it.” Your girlfriend climbs over the back of the sofa onto your lap. You groan. You get hit by a cushion again. “You’re a terrible girlfriend.”

“Never sleep with your heroes.”

“I hate you.”

“I’m not scared of your ex, Flo. Is he coming to Budapest?” He better not be staying with you. You wouldn’t appreciate that at all. She nods fretfully.

“Staying for a night and then flying out to London. He hasn’t asked to stay with us but…”

“I have a whole hotel!”

“It feels rude. He’s bringing my baby, and he’s agreed that she can live with me most of the time.” Toby would crucify his sister for sharing custody over a dog, so Flo then asks you to keep it quiet. She won’t live it down at family dinners. They’ll be ruthless. “Can he… Can he stay?”

“Can we have really, really loud sex when he does?”

That’s your third strike. Next time she’ll hit you without a cushion.

“I agreed so you can’t be cross with me.” She can and she will. “Was that why you broke down multiple times today?”

“I’m nearly on my period.”

“You overthink.”

“Not all of us are perfect.”

Flo has noticed that nothing fazes you. You work and keep her feeling loved, you can drink too much and carry on like it never happened the next day, and she feels a little insecure. She feels that way because you’re intimidating. Someone that put together is intimidating.

“Flossie, how can I be perfect?” You sigh as she adjusts how she’s sitting, now with her legs either side of you and her forehead pressed against yours. “You haven’t seen me have a bad day yet. When I have them, everything goes to shit. Trust me.”

“I don’t believe you,” she mumbles, snaking her hands around your neck.

“One time I lost it and cried in a board meeting.” It was embarrassing. You had needed them to take you seriously but your emotions thought the opposite.

“I bet you were a baby.”

“It was six months ago,” you correct, smiling when she giggles. “And once I tried to talk to a Japanese investor in Japanese — we needed a lot of money from him and he needed more convincing. I thought I had told him his office was lovely, I said that I was horny by accident. They don’t even sound similar.”

She laughs outwardly. No longer trying to miserable, grinning. “That’s awkward.”

“Worst part was that he’d already tried to get in my pants the previous evening at dinner.” You swear you hear her say who wouldn’t try that, and find a way to fight off your blush and take the piss simultaneously. “You’re so in love with me.”

“Am not,” she declares. A futile denial but a funny one.

Bemused, you counter, “Has it been decades?”

“Decade,” replies Flo, rolling her eyes. “I’m not the one building a hotel for my girlfriend.”

“I hate the term girlfriend,” you groan, smirking. “I don’t want Zach to think you’re my girlfriend.”

“I’m not getting engaged to you.” Worth a shot. “You can’t ask me like this. That’s not romantic, you need to be romantic.”

“I’m not a romantic person, Florence.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t I know that.” Flo sinks into your lap now, getting comfortable. You know she’s aware of how tense you become, how your body temperature lurches up a few degrees, how if she grinds down ever so slightly you’d probably moan. In fact, she actively decides to be super still, no matter how uncomfortable it becomes, until you initiate something. You don’t like begging, but she loves being irritating.

After a minute, she breaks the silence. “Babe” — she never calls you babe — “can you turn on the TV?”

You’re drawn out of your fantasy in which this situation is a lot more favourable, forced to reach for the remote and carry out her wish. “Any channel?” A Hungarian news network suffices, lunchtime news won’t be aggressive.

“Y/n,” Flo says, voice low, “I’m giving you the most perfect opportunity to take my clothes off.”

You manoeuvre your head around her body, shrugging her arms off your neck. “I want to watch the news,” you dismiss. Through the reflection in the TV, you watch Flo remove her t-shirt (your t-shirt). She isn’t wearing anything underneath.

“No, you don’t.” You can feel her pressing into you, her bare skin against your organically-sourced, overly-expensive navy sweatshirt.

“You’re right,” you quickly amend, grabbing her hips and using them to recentre your view to her. ‘My eyes are up here’ would be a very appropriate statement right about now. “I don’t,” you breathe, “I really, really don’t.”

“Hm.” It’s a triumphant little sound. Definitely Flo one, you zero. “What do you suggest we do?”

“…Each other?” That’s one way to put it.

She pauses, as if debating whether you should be allowed near her after saying that, but concedes with a sigh, dipping her head down slightly to reach your lips. You smile into the kiss, only because you’ve managed to annoy her and frustrate her very successfully – not because being kissed by your girlfriend makes your brain go fuzzy and send you up to heaven. It could never be that.

Your hands were once modestly on her waist, but that is forgotten the moment you bring them to palm her breasts, teeth clashing against each other as you both realise how long it has actually been. Today, neither is too exhausted to tap out early or succumb to the other’s ‘let me take care of you’. It’s now a competition.

Flo has always put up a fight; right now it’s to stay on top. To make it so that your shorts are coming off first, not hers. She needs it, probably, to quell the insecurity that secretly nibbles at her, but you conclude that if you are going to truly make her feel better, you will need to be a challenge worth doing. Not that you’re ever not worth doing in her eyes.

Her lips, her tongue, her teeth become your everything, everywhere, all over you, biting down, sucking, running her tongue over your skin. You are consumed by her well-conveyed desire, all the while still kneading at her chest. She sits up on her knees as you lean into the plush back of the sofa, moaning softly at the sight of you. This is not a side of you many get to see, because not many have actually made you feel the way she does. Unrestrained, wild. Alive.

Panting and then catching your breath, you pull her into you, not caring if her elbow jabs your ribs. With, “we need to get away from these windows,” and a chaste kiss to her collarbone, you stand up with her legs locked around you, enjoying the display of strength. She waits only a second – the time it takes for you to pass the offending glass and reach the more private corridor – to continue her assault on every inch of your exposed body, and when you get to the master bedroom she is halfway through the removal of your sweatshirt. It’s disappointing to find that you’re wearing a bra, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a swift motion of her fingers. Flo has always been way better at taking bras off than putting them on, a fact she discovered when she first wrestled on Womanhood.

You grunt softly as your back hits the firm mattress, feeling the coolness of the sheets rush over the heat of your body until it is beaten the moment she’s on top of you again, this time with nothing else on. Willingly, you relinquish all control of your body to the woman kissing her way down your sternum, paying no heed to any neighbours as moans fall through your lips into the otherwise silent apartment. Well, silent save the murmur of Hungarian news. Her fingers dance their way up your inner thighs, but when your hips rise in pursuit of what should be there, they meet only emptiness and a throaty laugh from Florence.

“Don’t be mean,” you find yourself snapping at her. She draws her wandering hands back, and you feel a sudden shiver of coldness.

Though it does take a moment to see past your sexual frustration, you recognise the expression sweeping her features as one that you often catch in photos of you together. She has stopped to admire you. You want nothing more than to break the bed if she is going to keep looking at you like that.

“You are so beautiful,” she whispers, quiet because it doesn’t feel right to be loud and abrasive near you.

“Would I look more beautiful between your legs?”

And it hits you that this might be the first time you have sex and not need to be touched to gain anything.

Oh, and Flo almost dies.

By the time she has recovered from the life-threateningly intense emotions she just felt, you’re no longer underneath her. Nimble and experienced, you have rolled her onto her back, but she has to crane her neck downwards to find your body and face. You are patiently waiting for your girlfriend to come back to Earth, using the time to gather your stamina and regain control of your breathing.

“Y/n?” Flo asks weakly. You hum in response, and she feels your exhale wash over her entire body. “Please fuck me.” That does the trick.

Your arms hook around her thighs, both of you burning hot, pulling her closer into you. Her hands slide out, anchoring her by bunching up the bed sheets and holding on for dear life. The TV’s soft hum is interrupted by your phone ringing, but you ignore it without hesitation. Whatever it is, it can wait.

Finally, Flo’s head lulls back as your tongue slips over her, a soft moan escaping from her lips. You chuckle to yourself, very aware of the vibrations that slice straight through your girlfriend. Your tongue is steady and assured until you skim her clit, changing from heavy to light with a simple movement. She gasps and almost gives into the urge to push your head down but has no time to when you slide your hands up her thighs and pull her even tighter into you. With frightening ferocity your tongue falls again onto her clit, swirling, sucking, adding to the wetness that is beginning to drip down the insides of her thighs.

She twists and writhes and arches her back as your attack on her begins to become too much, your magical mouth doing things it hasn’t done to her before. A sharp whine surpasses her lips as they fall open, and they don’t stop until she physically has to breathe. Even then, her breathing is ragged and heavy, as if she can’t function with you between her legs.

She can’t function with you between her legs.

A hand tentatively lets go of the sheets, but suddenly your tongue is inside of her and she needs something to hold onto. It’s an accident when she pulls your hair so hard that you whimper, though your eyes immediately look up into hers and dare her to do it again. She can’t carry out your request, because all the tension builds to a point where a graze of any part of her body would have her crying out. Her hips buck into your mouth as you move your lips back to her clit and replace your tongue with your fingers. You’re no longer holding her down, meaning she can grind into you, chasing her orgasm as if you hadn’t been getting her there all this time. Flo hears herself just before she comes, the moans, the whimpers.

You think you’re going to suffocate when she comes. Her thighs clench around you, freezing in position save the shudder that runs through her. White heat explodes in Flo, setting every inch of her body on fire, and her breath catches painfully in her throat, eventually released when she reminds herself she hasn’t yet ascended to heaven (it sure felt like it).

“You’re good at that,” she pants. She then realises you’re trapped.

When you can breathe again, you kiss her fiercely. She can taste herself all over you, on your neck, your jaw, your tongue. You break only to ask if she’d like some water, both of you downing a glass each, and spend the next few hours tallying orgasms and attempting to beat the record of fourteen for her and twelve for you. It isn’t hard when you’re driven by the fact her ex-boyfriend will be staying over in two days.

- - -

In the early hours of the morning, you both wake up, having fallen into appropriately deep sleeps around dinner time. She claims neither of you will go back to sleep considering 4am is too close to six for proper rest, and then threatens to smother you with a pillow if you try to convince her that that is not your stomach rumbling.

You pull on a hoodie and joggers when she forces you out of bed, letting her do her morning routine while you pick the clothes up from the bedroom and living room floors, turning the Hungarian news off. Your phone has vibrated its way onto the hardwood, lying face up with four missed calls from her mum.

“Mum hasn’t called me in a week,” Flo mutters behind you, shaking her head. “That woman has favourites, I’m telling you.” You laugh, setting a reminder to call Deb back at a more reasonable time. She wraps her arms around you, burying her face into the black fabric of Toby’s merch. “He charged me for my sweatshirt so I refused to buy it. I’m in the fucking song, but that’s not enough clearly.” He had been such a dick about giving you his hoodie for free, so you told him not to get you a birthday present. You gave him a slap around the head for his birthday that year.

“I’m going to lie on the sofa and pretend I’m not awake.” She calls you dramatic. “I can’t believe you think this is logical. Millie is going to think my laptop has been stolen if I log on this early.” You’re a late-night workaholic by choice. The only acceptable business that you’ll wake up for is travel, and that’s because you were banned from the private jet when you used it to fly five alpacas from Southern Peru into Luton airport to keep as pets. What your parents should have taken away from that incident was that they shouldn’t instruct staff not to question their children, but you don’t mind being distanced from the beastly metal bird seeing as it has been renamed after your step-mother. So much for it being called Y/n.

“Let me have my tea and then I’ll make us coffee and breakfast.” You nod sluggishly, climbing onto the sofa and closing your eyes. “Did you charge the speaker?”

You groan. “I think I might give you back to Zach.” The music’s good, but it’s fucking loud, and you’re aching. “I’ll find another woman who sleeps well into the afternoon. You’re going to make our children morning people if I don’t get rid of you now.”

“Oh yeah?” Flo doesn’t want to admit how much your throw-away sentence means to her, instead trying to focus on successfully pouring the boiling water into a mug. “How many kids are we having?” she calls from the kitchen, looking over at you from behind the island in the open-plan apartment.

“Two!” you shout back, smiling at the thought. “Toby wants two as well and I want to have the better pair of your parents’ grandkids.” So far the best is Bella’s baby because it’s the only one they have.

“With the better Pugh!”

She doesn’t like the sound of your grunt. It’s akin to a scoff. “The best Pugh is Raff!” You’ve known Raffie pretty much her whole life now that you think about it. Flo sits on one of the dining table chairs as she drinks her tea. “Oh, what are we getting her for her birthday? Millie says she’d like that Vivienne Westood necklace that everyone apparently has, but I got her a necklace for her eighteenth.”

“I was just going to get Saoirse to send her a text,” Flo says casually. “Y/n, darling, you need to be a proper billionaire and get your assistant to sort it out. She’ll be too drunk to care on her birthday.”

“I’m not going to Venice. Your publicist told Millie, and Millie’s already scheduled my meetings.” Flo’s publicist is a formidable woman who is going to call you at seven in the evening today to discuss this further.

You carry on explaining your gift dilemma as she finishes her tea and starts on coffee. She needs lots of coffee to comprehend all the information you’re giving her, because once you get started on something, you won’t stop. Flo much prefers your quiet moaning and groaning to this newfound early-morning chattiness.

“What time are you going to set?” you ask after she kisses you to shut you up. “I’ve got a meeting at one, and I want to see what all this fuss about your acting is about. I don’t believe you’re that good,” you tease her. She is not impressed. “I won’t slag you off to Toby, I swear.” Flo raises her eyebrows. “I won’t!”

“Timmy has been pestering me to introduce him to you. He’s convinced he could steal you from me.” You clear your throat. “Sorry. Not from me, but… You know?”

“But Timmy is a man,” you state plainly. “There has to be a lot of stuff in my system for me to do men.”

That reminds Flo of a burning question. Your answer might really ruin her mood. “Have you slept with Toby?” She has had guy friends, and some of her friends from her teenage years were definitely more than that. Your face is a relief, thank god, because the sheer disgust in your eyes and the fact that you don’t even try to hold back your gag indicates strongly towards the negative. “Good.”

You debate telling her, and then it slips out, “I’ve slept with Scarlett.” Flo looks intrigued. “Not when they were together, before that. And, you know what, I think I might have made out with Hailee Steinfeld at one point. We were so drunk, and Toby and Sophie completely egged us on. She’s a really good kisser.”

“She’s…?”

“I don’t know,” you answer, shrugging, “anything goes after shots. Hence why I try to avoid shots.” That and gin. Bad things happen after you’ve had a few gin and tonics. “Since we’re on this topic, did you lose your virginity to the boy you met on the beach that one time in Greece? Toby and I have long wondered whether it was him or the girl you were kissing the year before at one of those entertainment team discos.”

Flo blushes as she’s yet again reminded that you were there for all her bad holiday mistakes.

“Um,” she falters, almost spilling hot coffee on herself. “The girl, but she ignored me afterward. I think her family was really religious, because she ran away muttering something under her breath.” Flo remembers hearing the beginning of a prayer and almost dies inside.

“Did you not recognise her in Paris?” you question. Flo is glad that all hot drinks have now been consumed, seeing as you down your coffee because you don’t like the taste and she downs it because she needs more caffeine to have this conversation.

“No,” she groans with a frown. “She was there? Did she recognise me?”

“Yeah, but she didn’t want to say anything. They all know we’re together.” You are talking about the social circles your family are in, of course, not the general public.

“How do you suggest everyone else finds out?” she asks, seeing as it’s easy to bring it up in the conversation. You should be on the same page if you’re going to call her publicist, to be fair.

“We film a sextape and put it on Twitter. Simple.”

“I see why she asked you not to go to Venice.”

“We should still film a sextape.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“If it gets leaked they’ll know Harry Styles has nothing on you. The world’s not ready for your talents.” She rethinks her statement, correcting it. “Bar the hundred people you’ve had sex with.”

“Can’t believe the whole world got to see your boobs,” you complain. “It makes me feel very unspecial.” She rolls her eyes. You’ve made this point before. “I buy you a five thousand pound necklace and you–”

“Oh, be quiet. I love you. You’re a billionaire and you’re going to freeload in my flat.”

“I’m building you a fucking hotel!”

“Don’t you dare get down on one knee right now.” You smirk. Maybe… Just to spite her… “No, Y/n, because I’ll say yes. And I’m not ready to say yes, but you make me incapable of saying anything else and I’ve held out long enough.”

“I’m going to propose after we have really, really loud sex when Zach’s here.”

“Never meet your heroes is such a fucking true statement.” By ‘meet’ she means ‘sleep with and date and marry and have babies with’. Not that the latter have happened yet. “And we’re not doing that when Zach’s here because Billie is used to sleeping beside me so you’re on the sofa.”

“Why isn’t Zach on the sofa?”

“He’s our guest so he gets the spare room.” That makes you feel fucking fantastic! “It’s one night. You’ll be fine and I’ll go out and buy some Hungarian lingerie the minute he leaves.”

“Fuck that,” you declare much to her surprise. She thought you’d be easily compensated with the prospect of ruining more of her underwear. “If I’m on the sofa then I’m going to my hotel. Budapest is the only city hotel with a spa. I’ll ask for their prettiest masseuse.”

“You’re so petty.”

“You’re such an actor! You’ve got shared custody of a dog.” She laughs. “I might have to buy a Union Jack dildo to fuck the Brit back into you, because Billie is a dog.”

“Where are you going to find a—”

“You’d be surprised, Floss.” She shakes her head, not wanting to know anymore. You look down at the sizzling of the pan, smiling. “I wanted my eggs sunny-side up, not burnt. Looks like we’ll have to feast on those granola bars in your trailer.”

She frowns and raises the spatula to your face threateningly, swatting the air when you clear out of her way. “Text my assistant to tell him you’re coming. Is your meeting in person?” You say no, because it’s Aunt Board Member who’s calling from Surrey. “Fancy working in my trailer then? I won’t disturb you.”

“Sure,” you answer, both agreeing to her request and disagreeing with her statement. “Millie and I are having a late lunch at Onyx as my apology for blowing off yesterday, so I’ll leave then. I should probably buy some wine for when Zach comes? And a bed for Billie?” Flo doesn’t have the heart to remind you Billie’s sleeping in your bed.

- - -

Regrettably, the day of Zach’s visit pounces on you. Flo has an early morning shoot, but around lunchtime she calls to tell you it’s morphed into the whole day. The cast, who you met the day before, pick up on who she’s talking to and deafen you by screaming down the phone about drinks and dinner and various well-wishes as if they didn’t see you yesterday, though you remind everyone of how busy you will be this evening. You tried to escape it with no success.

Because you love your girlfriend, you agree to take over the task of picking your guests up from the airport. Millie laughs as you explain the situation, setting up a driver who she knows plays music seeing as there most definitely will not be much conversation. Flo instructs you to take lots of pictures of Billie and to be polite to Zach. You’re always polite. Etiquette classes cost hundreds of pounds, and your parents were prepared to pay that.

She gives you his number and forces you to send him a text so he knows it’s you. The same number tells you his plane has landed, so you set off in the car with an extremely scary scowl (the driver almost retracts his hand from the door when you look at him) and tell him you’ll be there in twenty minutes.

The first thing you notice about Zach is the dog beside him.

Billie is excited, tail wagging, mouth open and panting. She bounces at your feet, ignoring Zach’s command to calm down, unrelenting in her attempt to tackle you to the floor. You suppose you stink of her mum.

Zach inwardly cringes as he takes in your outfit when Billie’s paws begin to crease your clothes. Most days you opt for business-casual, but today happens to also be the day you met with the hotel management for Budapest, and you’re not complaining about completely outdressing him. While he is in tired jeans and a t-shirt, you are in a very expensive suit and stilettos. So what if it’s a little childish?

“I’m Y/n.” You smile. He can tell it’s phony.

“Zach, and,” he nods to Billie, who has finished her assault and is now rubbing against you, “this is Billie.”

You gesture to the driver, who is by your side at once, taking Zach’s bags from him. The two of you follow him to the car, Billie pulling hard on her leash in excitement. “Floss is still filming,” you explain because his disappointment that it’s you who’s picked him up is very evident. “We’ll go to the flat and hang there until she’s done.”

“Is there a place I can get something to eat?” His accent amuses you, but you keep a straight face.

You glance at Billie settled in the boot, before getting into the car. Zach sits, and you leave the airport.

“There’s a café next door?” You and Flo often pop into it to get coffee when neither of you can be bothered to make it.

He nods, “sounds good.”

When you get to the apartment, Zach lets Billie off her leash with your approval. She sniffs around, tail thumping against walls and cabinets and doors as she sweeps the place thoroughly. Zach, on the other hand, is very contained in the square metre of space he takes up, standing still. You remove your heels, shrinking a few inches, and Zach follows suit, sliding off his trainers and placing them neatly beside the door. The driver (whose name you didn’t catch) doesn’t ask where he should put the bags, instead using his initiative and scary knowledge of the floor plan to drop them in the guest room and slip out unnoticed.

Zach is unnerved by how used to staff you are. He won’t yet admit he’s intimidated, but the emotion is creeping up on him.

“So we’re sort of in the heart of Budapest, which is really good,” you begin, talking to him because you’ll have to eventually. Billie trots back to you having completed her independent tour. You pat her bum, and ask if Zach would like a tour. He says yes. You smile at him.

You take him round the rooms. It’s nothing special, really; two bedrooms, a bathroom and an en-suite, the living area. You like repeating ‘our bedroom’ to see him tense, and he likes how non-threatening the place is. He expected, when his ex-girlfriend insisted he stay with her, to be housed in your hotel in the basement somewhere.

After an excruciating few hours, Billie alerts you of Flo’s arrival, scratching at that door and barking loudly. Zach holds in the urge to down the beer he’s been nursing, and so do you. You found common ground in not wanting to talk to each other, instead staring at the football match on TV.

Flo’s too focused on Billie to notice how far apart you’re sitting, but when she does she laughs. Zach gets up to greet her, and to everyone’s surprise she pulls him into a hug. “Thank you for bringing my baby,” she says. “Did Y/n show you everything? Have you eaten?”

“Yeah, yeah, she did,” Zach replies. Flo looks surprised and very pleased. You’re slightly offended that she doubted your maturity that much.

“I thought we could eat at my hotel tonight,” you tell them. “We can bring Billie to the apartments and I’ll get one of the chefs to make something. It would save the hassle of going to get ingredients.”

It’s a power play. Your hotel.

Your girlfriend isn’t too ecstatic, but there’s a price to pay for the situation she has put you in and she knows that.

Before she can reply, Zach asks, “so are they actually your hotels?” And you smirk.

“They are. Hence why Billie can come. She could even get a spa treatment if I asked.”

“Don’t brag,” Flo warns, only half serious.

“I’m joking! I’d let Billie stay even if I wasn’t sleeping with her mum.” Billie sits at your feet to prove your point. Your phone rings, and you find yourself disappointed that this conversation has to end. “Shit, I can’t ignore this,” you apologise, excusing yourself and shutting the door to your bedroom behind you.

“Have you heard from Mummy?” your brother’s worried voice sounds out, uncharacteristically caring.

“No, why would I have—”

“Dad’s done it.” There are millions of things he could have done, but the tone narrows it down to two. He’s either gotten your stepmother pregnant or killed your mother. The former is the worst case scenario.

- - -

“I think he’s terrified of you.” Flo climbs into your bed, instinctively cuddling you when she feels your warmth. You’ve been answering emails for a while, letting her and Zach have a private conversation. Somehow, she thinks through bribery, Billie is adamant to sleep near you, meaning if you’re not in her bed neither is Billie. She can’t sleep without at least one of the things she loves most in the world.

“Mission successful,” you whisper, turning onto your side to face her. She frowns. “He’s nice. I don’t hate him.”

“You’re very mature,” she teases. “What was that super important call about? It didn’t seem very professional.”

God.

“Unnecessary family drama. I’m going to be an older sister.” Your girlfriend gasps, amused and shocked and every other emotion she can think of.

“Really?!” Billie raises her head at the noise.

“Shh,” you scold. “Yes, really. It’s awful news; the only baby I want in my life is my nephew.”

“Our nephew.”

“He likes me way more than he likes you!”

“Shh,” Flo copies. Billie growls half-heartedly, her collar jangling as she adjusts her position. “What has your stepmother said?” You laugh. As if she or your father were going to tell you until the thing popped out and in the crib. “Wait, so how did you find out…?”

“Mum’s gone astray because of the news, my brother called me asking if I knew where she was and had to provide me with some context.” He says he thought something was up at his gala, because he swears he never saw your stepmother drink a drop of alcohol. “I spoke to her when she finally picked up. She finds it hilarious, says she feels sorry for me for being related to her ‘goat of an ex-husband’.” Your mother has no intention of being near this baby. “I might swoop in and save the poor kid when it’s older, but I’m too busy for a baby that’s not my own.”

“What about Bella’s?”

“I’m not her go-to babysitter,” you dismiss quickly. “Our schedules are packed, Flossie. It’s a wonder we make time for each other.” Flo’s work is intense and short-term considering she isn’t on a series like Grey’s Anatomy, but yours is constant; a low hum that never leaves the background noise. You have the power to postpone to your heart’s content, but that catches up to you, so no matter how many times you tell them you’re following your girlfriend across the globe and can’t possibly be there in person, they capture you eventually. And when they do they’ll tie you down with something unbreakable, like a little sister whose favourite is you.

Flo feels selfish for forgetting your job. Surprisingly, it’s not the third member of your relationship down to the fact that you are one and the same with being CEO. You don’t usually tell her that you’ve left a meeting early to catch her before she sleeps in her time zone, or taken the day off to visit her on set, but sometimes she goes on your phone to change the song or take a picture and is hit full-force by your notifications. “You can go back to—”

“I own hotels, Flo. It’s not law, I’m not fixed in place.” You’ve never been like that. Holidays when you were little, boarding school, travelling, work; nothing was ever holding you down.

“What about our flat?”

“Your flat.”

“No, I want it to be ours,” she corrects your correction. “I want to set up a joint account just for bills, and I want you to pay some of them — an equal share. I want you to have a say on what bedding we have, or what colour our rug is, and for you to have your own pictures in our picture frames. And, one day, I want to lug everything out of the flat to a house we’ve bought to have those two babies in.”

“Preferably near family,” you add, playing along with her fantasy. “In Oxford, but if Toby’s moved somewhere snazzy then we’re following him. No way am I going to be the one with a boring address.”

“In Florence?”

You smirk. “I do love being in Florence.” She rolls her eyes and shuffles threateningly, as if she’ll turn over and face the wall instead of your beautiful, beautiful face. “You walked right into that one,” you defend, giggling. “This dream might take a while to materialise, Floss. I can’t give you most of it.”

“Y/n, I thought I was going to marry Zach.” The sudden change of tone draws your eyes right to hers, showing her you’re listening. “I loved him.” Her face begins to flush. A tear falls onto the pillow, colouring the sheets a darker shade of itself. “I… I was so angry at myself for ruining everything, because, you know, I thought he was it for me. And then,” she laughs, “and then you were at Toby’s stupid after party. No one had fucking told me you’d be there, but Mum knew Zach and I were fighting. They all knew.” You were there and she had said she wasn’t sure if she was single. “Zach had told me he couldn’t do it anymore. He’d spat it like it was sour milk in his mouth, like the thought of being near me was so despicable, so disgusting that he couldn’t bear it. But when you left the next day, I called him and I… I agreed. We talked it over, decided we wanted it quiet and private and, obviously, we talked about Billie.

“I had a dream that Zach and I would have a big wedding with all of our friends, and that the press would fawn over every detail. I had a dream that I’d marry him and it would be like marrying Leonardo DiCaprio. Y/n, I don’t care if you think you can’t have anything nice for yourself and have it be permanent at the same time. I’ve changed my dream before, okay? And if you… If you can’t give me all of it, I’ll change my dream again. This,” she brings her hand up between the two of you, “is enough for me.” You offer her a fleeting smile, and then your expression changes. Her brows furrow, and she mutters, “don’t.”

“I’m not going to—”

“Don’t propose.” You so were. “You can’t do it again, I mean, that much rejection can’t be good for the soul.”

“No, it’s not,” you gripe, teasing her. “Women throw themselves at me but you won’t say yes.” She wipes the rest of the tears that pooled during her monologue.

“I did say yes.”

You shake your head. “You said, essentially, ‘in a bit’.” It’s not the same. You pause. The apartment is quiet; Zach must be asleep, Billie’s snoring is muffled by her nose buried in the blanket you used to keep her warm. “Do you want to have—” Billie whines in her sleep, waking up. She stands, back arching, until she eventually leaps off the bed with a soft thud. The dog settles in the dog bed you bought earlier, yawning with a high-pitched howl before grunting and falling back asleep. “Hey, Billie’s basically just given us her blessing.”

Flo chuckles, her displeased frown not staying for long, replaced by a smile as you crawl on top of her. “Once. And quietly.” Her instruction goes right over your head as you brush your lips against her neck. It’s a startled noise, the one that she lets out, but you raise your eyebrows all the same. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

She’s about to disagree, but you lean down to kiss her before she can. Billie pretends not to hear her mum and this strange new woman (whom she actually likes very much, to Zach’s disappointment and Flo’s surprise), and Zach decides not to ask what you were doing in the morning.

His ephemeral visit comes and goes, and soon you are attempting to soothe your girlfriend as she frets about her impending movie premiere, for while she’s unbothered to the public, she’s quite worried in front of you.

Flo doesn’t care to recognise that the movie is what has her on edge, instead focusing on the small triggers of each burst of anger or sadness or any other emotion really. Three hours before her flight, she is leaning over her suitcase, wheezing, in the midst of an increasingly common panic attack. If Billie were here, she’d immediately alert you of your girlfriend’s state, but both Billie and you are strolling around the local park on a dog walk (though neither of you are walking; you’re on an important call with an investor, and Billie is chasing ducks). Seeing as she is very alone at the moment, she has no choice but to resort to deep breaths and get on with her last minute packing.

You come home to the apartment being overturned: Flo is trying to find her favourite pair of sunglasses. She won’t need them, you assume, because her stylist will have meticulously chosen each and every accessory, but you say nothing more than a tip-off that they might be on the dresser.

“Do you think I haven’t looked there?” she snaps, and Billie thinks she’s just been barked at and begins to respond. You stand still, taken aback. Flo would like to apologise, but you’ve walked away before she can, leaving her just as confused as you were moments before.

Not a second later, you return to your girlfriend, holding the sunglasses out to her. “I think you should get some alcohol in you.” It’s not responsible advice at all, but it’s good. She needs to hear honesty, not kind words or reassurance that everything will be fine. It probably won’t be fine, and there’s nothing you can really do about that.

You never fail to stun her, Flo thinks, blinking at your command dressed in an opinion’s clothes. “We have beer left over from when Zach was here.” She begins to make her way to the fridge, but you stop her with two hands on her arms. “Got something else in mind?”

“Want a shot of tequila? Sit.” Flo laughs. You’re such a bad influence. A couple of months ago, she wouldn’t believe her childhood idol would be getting her drunk instead of asking her to talk her feelings out, nor would she believe that said idol confessed to spiking board members’ coffees with rum at big board meetings. In your defence, how else is work supposed to be fun?

As instructed, Flo takes a seat at the dining table, absently running her hand up and down Billie’s back as the dog waits for scraps of food. You’ve got to hand it to Billie, she does have Flo wrapped around her paw.

“Two shots of tequila coming right up.” You grin as you set them down on the table, forgoing the use of the mandatory coaster just this once. Flo raises the shot glass to toast, then wonders why you’re not doing the same. “Both are yours, I’m working.” She smiles, toasts to you and Billie, and knocks back both shots with ease. It would have been an insult to set out salt and a wedge of lime for her.

“What have you got planned while I’m suffering in Venice?” Flo asks once you’ve taken the shot glasses back to the kitchen and put the bottle of tequila away.

You shrug and look at Billie. “We’re probably going to sit in the park again tomorrow. My friends asked if I’d like to join them on their holiday, but I don’t think Billie would appreciate being on a yacht for three days.”

“I’m sorry that I’m making you babysit.” You don’t mind dogs. You had two cocker spaniels growing up, and, of course, your mum has Rupert. “You’re the best step-mum a dog could ask for. Even if you convinced me to have sex while the dog was present.”

“Billie was asleep,” you defend, fighting to keep the (little) dignity you have left. Dogs don’t care, surely. “You’re hardly gone for long. Not much will change. Maybe you’ll sleep on the sofa because Billie’s taken your spot, but that’s all I can think of.” Flo scoffs and says you need to let that go. “I shall take no other to my bed aside from Billie and you.”

“Unless Hailee Steinfeld pops round. I give you permission to finish what you started centuries ago.”

“I’m not that old!” You think about what she’s said. “And you’ve just reminded me to text her about who I’m dating.”

Flo raises her eyebrows. “Who are you dating?”

“This really, really annoying sister of a friend.” She grabs your t-shirt and pulls you into her, ignoring your groan about stretching the fabric. “I never thought I’d like her, but I made a bad decision after too many drinks and slept with her in her childhood bed.”

Her lips taste of tequila, but they’re comfortingly soft (how are they soft, she complains they’re chapped all the time?!) and you’ve got to hand it to her that she’s good at kissing. “Bad decision, huh?”

You shrug, “bad decision that led to many very satisfactory orgasms.”

“You’re so lucky I love you, because I’m sure all eight million of my fans would jump at the chance to date this bad decision.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“I fucking will!”

While you laugh at the determination in her voice, she finally notices the buzzing of her phone. There have been a lot of texts she’s missed for your short-lived bartender career, stuff like flight details and the fact that there’s a car waiting outside for her this very minute.

Knowing her well, you recognise the regretful smile. “I’ve got another call in half an hour. I’m sorry I can’t see you off.” Flo nods, she understands. “Bye, Flossie.”

“See you later,” she replies, because she will, won’t she? It’s two nights at most. “I’ll be sure to send you lots of pictures, and it’s not like the family group chat will be quiet.” The family group chat has most of the Pughs you can think of, you, and Scarlett. “I packed Raffie’s present from you, so don’t worry about it, and there’s lots of food in the fridge so you’re not going to starve. I turned the place into ready-meal central for you.”

“You stress-cooked,” you state.

“Doesn’t matter. You know how to feed Billie, and she’ll be—”

“I know, I love you, get your bum to Venice.”

- - -

Billie grunts when your phone buzzes in the late afternoon.

It has finally stopped being used seeing as you’ve crept onto the sofa and are half-watching reruns of Friends, but you wonder whose contact has surpassed your Do Not Disturb.

“It’s probably Mama,” you tell your girlfriend’s dog, questioning your life decisions when you hear your own tone and phrasing.

Reni: Date cancelled and now I have a spare ticket for tonight’s opera. Best seats in the house. Come?

Well, that can’t be good.

Irén (you desperately need to change her name in your phone) is your ex-girlfriend. Things crashed and burnt, but you were twenty-one; young and stupid. You’re both so much more mature than you were then.

Billie tilts her head to the side, puzzled as to why you suddenly reek of fear.

You: Be prepared for how sexy I will look.

She’s still a friend, she has to be. A year together shouldn’t be worth throwing away memories with a girl you’ve known since you were eleven. Boarding school is supposed to make friends for life, not exes who hold grudges.

“I’m not trying to convince myself of anything,” you respond to Billie’s silent criticism. “The opera is fun, I have nothing to do, and she’ll have spent hundreds on the tickets knowing what she’s like.” Her father owns an oil company. Like you, she attended your school because it was known to house heiresses like the London underground houses rats, and, like you, she will one day fully inherit the family business. Though she’s never had to compete with a sibling for that.

Reni: Come to mine in two hours. Chef is here, I shall dine you privately where you will not be papped.

So she knows about Flo. That’s good. That means she’s not allowed to wine and dine you properly, nor turn on her almost irresistible charm and convince you to sleep with her. Which you wouldn’t do. Because you love Flo.

Reni: Can’t wait to see if you’ve aged nicely.

She’s funny. Irén has always been funny.

“Bills, you’ll be fine here on your own?” You ask her as if she can respond. “Flo would be okay with that,” you state, unsure but assuming she would be.

You proceed to walk Billie for half an hour, spend another hour getting ready, and the remaining time in a car to her flat in the heart of Old Town. It’s small and cramped, but Irén likes it that way.

She greets you with a hug, to your surprise, but when she pulls away it becomes clear that she didn’t expect herself to do that. You hold up the bottle of champagne you decided to bring her, and she grins. “You haven’t changed,” says Irén, with a glint in her eye.

It isn’t long before you take in the details of her apartment. It’s messy and unorganised, with cupboards that groan at the chaos inside of them and side tables stacked with Vogues. Every month, Irén gets all of them —from every corner of the world, you’re not joking — and she has always sprawled out on the floor to thumb through the pages. Ever since you were eleven.

“Neither have you,” you reply, sitting down on her velvet sofa. The apartment looks shoddy, but the furniture is ornately carved or stitched, not matching each other but never clashing. “Antique sales?” She nods. “You’re a collector.” It’s not thrown out as an insult, but she jokingly takes it as one.

“I’m going to go into fashion, finally,” Irén squeaks. “He’s fucking let me! I told him I’d sell the oil for a penny and run away if he made me be… Sorry, Y/n. Hotels are cooler. It’s different.”

“I had a choice, you didn’t.” Your consolation is received curiously. “I like where I am in my life, Irén.”

You like that you have a girlfriend, and a best friend, and a job. What more could a person ask for?

“Bleh,” Irén says loudly, above the buzzing of a light that is in need of fixing. “Irén is so formal, babe. You never used to call me Irén.”

“Ten years ago.”

“Things change, but you can still call me Reni.” She’s being nice. “Baby, you can’t be so uptight.”

“No, no, no, I’m not uptight. Flo left for Venice today, and I’ve been swamped with work. Drinks?” Irén nods with a smile, and you expertly open the bottle. She sets down two crystal champagne flutes. “What time are we going? I’ve left the dog alone.”

“There is no way you have a fucking dog,” she snorts. Before you dated, you lived together, sharing a house with a few other girls at university. Irén spearheaded the movement for a dog, but you, the one paying the most rent (they all went to your school, you all knew whose parents were paying and whose weren’t), vetoed her motion every time they so much as tried to bring it up.

You like dogs. You don’t want one.

“Flo’s dog.”

“Ah, I see.” What does that mean? “You really love her enough to house her dog?”

It isn’t possible for her to miss the way your eyes shine. “She’s… incredible,” you answer, “and I think it’s worth it. The dog’s not too bad.”

Irén pauses, trying the champagne in her glass. “We leave in an hour. I’d drive us but…” She finishes her drink and you smile proudly, glad that she likes your choice. “Let’s just get a taxi. Keep your driver posted because there are unlimited drinks from the bar, and I don’t like throwing up in taxis.” You shudder at the memory of too-many-shots Irén in a black cab, keeling over and ruining your shoes.

After a bit of a catch up, she excuses herself to finish getting ready, claiming she has to now match your level of attractiveness, if not beat it. You smirk at her before she leaves, and when she’s gone you settle on her sofa to read the hundred-and-one messages from the Pughs’ group chat.

It mostly consists of Raffie asking where they all are, and Flo sending little videos of her getting ready.

Privately, she sends you a video of her dress. A first look. A secret one, just for you.

You tell her that she should wear ball gowns more. And that you are really skilled at taking them off. And a few other borderline dirty sentences. Your texts eventually cease, and she responds only with a picture of her on a boat. Her looking divine on a boat. Never have you wanted to be a boat before.

“It’s beyond me how Flossie is her.” Irén makes you jump, almost so that your phone clatters onto the floor, but it lands on a pile of August Vogues which cushion the fall. “How is Toby taking it?”

“Better than expected.” Much better.

You’re proud of him.

- - -

The opera is almost too casual when you get there, but someone guides both you and Irén to a cordoned off area that is clearly something to do with the amount Irén paid for the tickets. You haven’t yet asked about the date that cancelled, but if she wants to talk she will.

You sit in your seats while the house lights are still on, enjoying the view of everybody filtering in. “This reminds me of when we’d sit on the main stairs and watch people run to their lessons,” Irén says quietly, not disturbing the tranquility of being lost in a sea of other people. You wonder what they’re talking about.

“I missed you,” you confess. “We need to do this more.” A waiter clears his throat and hands you the glass of prosecco you requested earlier. Flo said she was having the same one, you thought it would be nice to drink somewhat together in celebration of her getting through Venice.

“It’s hard to track you down, you know. I was tapping through fucking DeuxMoi and you popped up. You little celebrity.”

“They scrolled to the bottom of my instagram, what can I say.” She chuckles. She’s in a lot of those posts. “Why aren’t you staying with your parents?”

“Why weren’t you at your father’s wedding?” You were inconspicuous. No one should have noticed. “We all have family problems, baby, but why should we dwell?”

“No, I’m not dwelling, I—” but before you can finish, the lights leave you in darkness and applause ripples through the building.

Irén leans her head on your shoulder. “You were right. We should do this more.”

She takes your hand in hers, and keeps it like that until the interval, only letting go to use the bathroom and then order some more drinks. Irén knows you well, so she orders some salted pretzels too, which are promptly delivered by a waiter who eyes the two of you suspiciously. The staff have been weary of your private booth.

When it finally finishes, you find that you’re almost asleep in her lap. She giggles quietly, not wanting to attract attention now that everybody can see you. “Are you going to use me as your bed while your girlfriend’s away?” You let out a drowsy groan, not quite hearing her as your head is nestled into the jumper she took off half an hour in. A hand cups your cheek, turns it so that you’re looking up at her. She lowers her head, lips hovering above yours, and you’re certain she isn’t going to do it. There’s no way. She’s your friend, and she knows it didn’t work out, and she knows you don’t want her. Irén isn’t stupid, but Irén is kissing you.

In front of lots of people.

You shake your head and tell her to stop. “Reni, we’re not… We don’t…”

“I regret making you choose. They’re your family, in a way, aren’t they? Flossie must be like a younger sister.”

tags: @pewpughpew @ridleypugh @jeyramarie @flosbelova @kassies-take @delfiore @yelenabelovasbxtch @sophie-xox @slut4milfs69 @sunshadesnrainbowz

#florence pugh fanfiction #florence pugh x reader #florence pugh #floss got hot #florence pugh x you #florence pugh one shot #black widow #fanfiction #florence pugh imagine #marvel #mcu #florence pugh x y/n #florence pugh fluff #florence pugh smut #florence pugh angst

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electronicgrowth · 1 year

Text

Can’t Get Enough Pt. 11

That awkward moment when it’s been 1+ year since I posted the last part. Is anyone even still interested in reading this? Lol. This is a baby sized chapter.

The next three days were quiet around the house. Billie didn’t leave the house for those days. Joy and the rest of the family came. Joy came over two nights in a row to make dinner. By the third night Billie was feeling well enough to cook herself.

For three days Lee watched her like a hawk, any little sign of discomfort he was there. On the third day, Billie went with Lee down to the station to answer questions. Lee intended to have Larry prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Billie was quiet at home, Lee became very concerned, he’d only ever seen her like this after those boys had attacked her when she was eighteen.

Seven days after the attack, Lee came home at lunch. Beth was in the living room playing with her dolls.

“Where’s mama, sweet pea?” He asked her.

“In her room. I think she’s sad,” Beth answered. Lee kissed her hair and went on a search for his wife. He found her curled up on their bed, tears streaming down her face.

“Honey,” he said quietly, “What’s wrong?” Billie hid her face behind her hands, but Lee forced her to look at him. Her eyes were red and swollen. How long had she been crying for?

“I’m so sorry,” she cried.

“Billie, why are you sorry?”

“I got my period,” she sobbed. New tears cascading down her beautiful face.

“Baby,” he hummed, “Let’s not worry about that now. We’ve got plenty of time to worry about having more babies. I’m not mad.” Billie crawled into his lap and he held her. He held her tightly and told her repeatedly that everything was going to be okay.

With one step forward, there was always two steps back. After one month, Billie seemed to be doing better when the Ross County district attorney told Lee he wouldn’t prosecute Larry. Larry walked away with a simple restraining order. Lee told him if he ever came back he would kill him, but the bastard just smirked. It helped that nearly the whole town had been there the day he went after Billie. The town wouldn’t let him ever come back.

Two months after the attack, Lee found Billie on the floor of their bedroom. She was curled up in the corner of their room, crying. Beth was playing in the living room. Nothing had changed in the house, Lee tried many times to coax Billie into buying things for the house. Things she had insisted on before the attack. Nothing he tried worked. Billie moved through life like a zombie. She cooked, cleaned, paid visits to her mother’s house. Billie was hesitant to let Lee see her after the attack. She insisted on keeping a nighty on when he tried to make love to her. But he was just grateful she was letting him touch her at all.

“Honey,” he cooed when he saw her, “What’s wrong?” He walked over and knelt down next to her.

“I don’t know,” she sobbed, “I can’t do anything right. I was going to be better when we got married but I can hardly function since Larry came to town. I’m so scared.”

Lee held her close and soothed her. He just let her cry.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he promised.

“I know,” she nodded at him, “I’m sorry. We should be focusing on literally anything else.”

“It’s okay. This weekend why don’t we go on a date? Beth can stay with your mom and we can celebrate being married. We haven’t gotten the chance yet,” Lee suggested.

“I would like that,” she smiled, “We should probably stop by Sears or Macy’s and get a catalog.”

“That’s a good idea honey,” he hummed.

@greeneyedblondie44 @bxnnywriting @kitty4860 (Hope ya’ll don’t mind me tagging you even though it’s been 84 years since I last posted this story.)

#lee bodecker #lee bodecker smut #tdatt #lee bodecker x ofc

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trash-writer-kenzie · 2 years

Text

Always in my Heart

4/5-6

Divorced Parents AU (Percy Jackson/Annabeth Chase)

The following evening, Annabeth's friend Selina convinced her to go out for drinks with her and her husband, Charlie.

She stared at herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized herself. The last time she'd dressed up like this was to go out. The black dress she wore hugged her body tightly and went down to just below her butt. The deep v-neck showed off much more skin than she was used to. The heels strapped to her feet were six inches high, and the heel was so thin in diameter she didn't know how it hadn't broken under her weight.

“Annabeth, are you ready to go?” Selena called from outside Annabeth's bedroom. She was getting impatient.

“I'm coming, I'm coming.” Annabeth opened the door. Selena was dressed similarly to her, only the dress was dark green rather than black.

“You look hot, Annabeth!” Selena grinned. “I'd hook up with you if I weren't married.”

“I heard that!” Beckendorf came into view.

“Come on, don't her legs look great?”

“I guess,” he shrugged.

Annabeth fake scoffed. “I guess I'll just have to find someone who thinks my legs are hot, then.”

“Honey, you already found them.” Selena shook her head.

“Who?” She asked, confused.

“Percy, that's who,” Beckendorf said. “I'm surprised you two haven't hooked up since your divorce.”

Annabeth blushed and looked away. Her face and ears were burning hot.

“No!” Selena exclaimed. “You didn't tell us?”

“I didn't think it was relevant,” she shrugged. “Besides, it was only last week. Can we go now?”

“Um–yeah,” Beckendorf said. The two followed a jabbering Selena out of Annabeth's apartment.

Annabeth had no idea where her friends were. The club was huge, and it was packed with people. A guy who looked to be about fifty had just tried to grab her ass, and someone had just passed out on the floor in front of her. She was decently drunk and sweaty and getting claustrophobic.

As she turned to go to the restroom to get a bit of peace, she ran into the last person she'd expected to see here, tonight.

“Percy?” Annabeth was mad. Percy was supposed to be watching Jordan, yet here he was, his expression that of a deer caught in headlights. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Before you ask, Jordan is with my mom.” Percy pulled her aside so they could talk in the corner away from everyone. “She convinced me to let him stay the night and go to this thing some friends from work wanted me to go to.”

“And this ‘thing’ is clubbing?” Annabeth asked, raising her eyebrow.

“Well–yeah,” he swirled the drink in his hand. “They told me I was too much of a dad.”

“They aren’t wrong.” She downed the rest of her drink and looked up at the ceiling. “I did not expect to see you tonight.”

“I could say the same for you. Any excuses, or did you just come for fun?” He nudged her shoulder, grinning.

“Selena and Beck took me out. I’m third-wheeling. Haven’t seen either of them in over two hours.”

“They are right over there.” He gestured to a table where sure enough, they’ve been sitting.

“I'm an idiot.” Annabeth slumped down against Percy, surprising him. “I’ve been looking for them for hours and they are right there.”

He rolled his eyes, “Would you like to go see them?”

“Are you drunk?”

“The buzz is wearing off,”

“Then we can go talk to them.” She pulled Percy along with her.

“What do you mean ‘we’?” He asked, panicked. “Last time I checked, Selena hated my guts.”

“Oh, they love you, come on.” Annabeth persuaded her ex-husband to join her friends with her. For such a populated club, it was quiet enough for them to have an (almost) decent conversation.

When Selena spotted the two coming their way, she gave them an awful look, something along the lines of, I know you are in love but don’t be stupid about it.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” Beckendorf chuckled.

“Be good to our lady,” Selena said bitterly. Percy timidly sat as far away from her as he could manage. Annabeth took a seat next to him.

Annabeth huffed, “I’m not ‘your lady’.”

“Yeah. You're Percy's lady.”

“She's not!” Percy exclaimed, looking slightly disgusted. “Annabeth is way too smart for that.”

She buried her head into his shoulder. “No, I'm not.”

Tomorrow, she could blame the alcohol in her system, but tonight she knew exactly what she was doing.

“On another page...how was it?” Selena grinned mischievously.

“How was what?” Percy asked.

“Getting together after two years?”

Annabeth looked up, causing stars to her eyes. She flushed heavily, turning away.

“Oh,” he scratched the back of his neck. “Good.”

She wanted to jump up on the table and scream how amazing it was, but the last shred of her sobriety kept her in her chair.

Beckendorf glanced down at his watch and grimaced. “We’ve got to get going, but it was great hanging out with you two. Annabeth, are you coming with us, or are you staying a little longer?” he smirked at the pair across the table.

“You two go ahead. I’ll get home just fine.” Annabeth shooed her friends away.

“Think they’re going to hook up in the back of the taxi?” Percy asked, raising his eyebrow.

“They are so in love they can’t stay off each other.”

He took a sip of his drink, shaking his head. “Serves them right, making fun of us. Now, look at them.”

“They still make fun of us, you know.” Annabeth looked up at her ex-husband. “Beck told me to save my gorgeous legs for you.”

“Lucky for you, I do think you’ve got hot legs.” Percy kissed her forehead, purely out of old habit.

“Mm, lucky me,” was all she could get out. Just being around Percy…It made her feel like she was on fire. When he touched her, he was always gentle, even now. Many people she’d talked to who were divorced found it odd that she and her ex-husband still kept in touch. They found it odd that they’d divorced at all. This always led her back to the same question; why did they get divorced anyway?

Around Jordan’s first birthday, they’d gotten into an awful fight. Annabeth had been mad at Percy for leaving their son alone in the bath while he went to go do some things, and it had escalated from there. In the end, Annabeth had left in tears, spending the night at Selena’s house. After that night, their marriage had been strained. She didn’t fully trust him, he didn’t understand why, and they were both too stubborn to see the other side. When they’d finally gotten a divorce, they managed to work through it. Living separately had helped to some extent, but it had also broken both a little bit. Annabeth longed for Percy, he longed for her. But they were afraid. Not just of getting back together, but the false hope it would give Jordan. They were afraid of what would happen if they got back together and had to rip their son’s fantasy away from him.

Annabeth often thought that their problems with each other started back when they decided they wanted a baby. Percy at twenty-six, Annabeth at twenty-two, they later discovered that they had been nowhere near ready to have a child. She thought about what would have happened if they had waited another few years until they could communicate better. Married only a year prior, they still had many kinks in the relationship to work out. Now that they had, love was seeping back into their veins and intoxicating their lives. Annabeth couldn’t ignore it anymore.

She very well could have blamed the alcohol for her actions, just as she had so many other things in her life. Only this time, it was all her.

Annabeth looked Percy in the eyes, searching for any sign of love. Sure enough, his gaze burned into hers with equal passion. In a heartbeat, he was on her. They made their way out of the chairs and against a wall. Her lips were swollen from kissing him, yet she couldn’t have cared less. Annabeth didn’t hesitate to let her hands slink up his shirt. Percy smiled against her lips, something he often did(when they kissed). He moved to her jaw, pressing kisses to every inch of skin he could reach. Annabeth pulled him back up to her mouth. As much as she loved her lips against her skin, lighting it aflame, she wanted his mouth on hers now.

“Hey, I forgot my purse…” Selena trailed off, her eyes wide. “Holy shit.”

Percy and Annabeth sprung off each other, Annabeth doing her best to cover up the already forming bruises on her neck and jaw. “Selena it’s not-”

“Um, yeah it is!” she squealed. “Go back to making out, it was hot.” she skipped out of the area gleefully, presumably to tell her husband all about what she’d just seen.

“I hate her,” Annabeth grumbled.

“She is just a little excited, that’s all,” Percy smirked. “Now as for this…” he traced his thumb over Annabeth’s lips, causing her to shiver.

“Want to go back to my apartment?” she whispered in his ear, nipping at his earlobe.

“Of course, Beth,” he said in a husky voice; the same one he got after waking up in the morning. Annabeth needed to put that on the list of many things she missed about Percy. “I can drive,” he offered. “I’ve only had one beer, we’ll be fine.”

“Sure.” she got into the passenger side of Percy’s white Toyota and buckled herself in tightly. “Don’t kill me and maybe you’ll get something from it.” she caught a mischievous glint in Percy’s eye, always a good sign. She grabbed ahold of his hand, stroking her thumb over his knuckles.

“I woke let you get hurt,” he said, not taking his eyes off the road.

“Good.”

They rode in silence for only a few minutes before they were back at the place Annabeth called her home. Her apartment wasn’t the nicest, but it was perfectly fine for her and her son. A nice area of the city to live in meant safer parks, meaning happier children. It played out very nicely.

Percy pulled Annabeth out of the truck, and she lead him inside. As she unlocked the door, Percy wrapped his arms around her waist(another thing he did a lot when they were together). She fumbled with the keys, resisting the arousal shooting up her spine.

As soon as the door was unlocked, she pulled Percy inside, shut the door, and pressed him up against the wall. In response, he kissed her heavily, nothing like the sweet kisses they’d exchanged only last week. No, this was hungrier, more desparate. It went both ways, too. She wanted him, he wanted her. To the average onlooker, you would be able to tell in an instant that they were both head-over-heels in love.

Annabeth led Percy to her bedroom occasionally kissing his neck along the way. Never in all the time, they’d been dating or even married had they had such intimate moments. Sure, the love had always been there, but now it had evolved into a fiery burning passion that couldn’t be put to rest. And they were okay with that.

Part Five

#percy jackson #annabeth chase #percabeth #percababies #percabeth fanfic #percy and annabeth #annabeth has hot legs #jordan is adorable ok #divorced parents

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feltrain · 1 year

Text

beat: hangyul drabble ft. mikey and brian

“You can’t be serious.”

Hangyul is used to certain personalities at this point. Ac3s got him used to multiple, though maybe that was why they all were where they are. Even now, years after the group’s disbandment, and Mikey and Brian have met him for coffee. Hyosung would support anything he did, so would Hyun, he was sure. But Ac3s co-captains always had something to say. Like now.

“Maybe it’s just not meant for me. I mean, i’ve debuted twice already, and they both failed. Maybe I’m not meant for this.” Hangyul stirs his iced coffee, looking between the two boys.

Brian’s eyes are gentle, but they always have been. Less of a spitfire and more of someone to think every move out. He’s kind, but calculated, something that Hangyul picked up on early. He was the sweetest guy but that wasn’t to say Ahn Brian didn’t have a more calculating side to get what he wanted. He could have management yelling in his face and still smile and that was scary enough.

Mikey is the opposite. Dark eyes are alit with flame, a passionate person who was more than protective of his friends and family. It was why Sky House existed, why nothing touched them; because Mikey Lee made sure nothing dared. Loyal, sharp wit and sharper tongue. His arms are crossed, his brain wracking over the next words, his fingers tapping his arm, wedding ring bright against his finger.

“You’re not serious. You’re going to just let your contract die and leave?” Mikey blinks a few times, dark eyes incredulous.

“Mikey, you don’t have to be mad for me. I want to do music, I do. But maybe it’s not time yet.”

“Bullshit.” The curly haired male muttered, looking away. Brian sighed, looking between them. “Hangyulie, you know Mikey. He’s…”

“Protective?” Which gets a scowl from the other who the group very early on affectionately nicknamed “grumpy cat captain.”

“It’s not fair.” His voice is quieter now, staring at the coffee. Hangyul notes that Mikey looks older, even more so. The tattoos on his forearms, the tiredness in his eyes. The only time he’s ever seen that exhaustion diminish was when Solbin or Jinwoo or Sky House was involved. And before that, Ac3s. But that look of exhaustion is prominent on the other man’s face.

“Mikey, it doesn’t matter if it’s fair, you know that netizens will destroy him.” Brian’s voice is quiet as well, the blond male reaching over and lightly kneading Mikey’s shoulder. “This is my fault, though. All of you guys have some sort of mark on yourselves because of Ac3s. Because of what I did.” Mikey rubbed his temples. “Sometimes I think about if I had just stayed, even if I was unhappy. I could have waited till my contract was up and just left, not walked out halfway through our second year. I know…I know that Uncle KT has your best interests at heart, Hangyul but you know how hard it is for me to keep my mouth shut at these meetings? I want to sign you myself, you’re so talented, if anyone deserved to never have to do this a third time, it was you.”

There’s silence. Hyosung and Hyun are lucky. They both happened to get the “good deal”, the one that made sure that netizens didn’t find reasons to talk about them on their down time. Netizens pitied Hangyul. Netizens scolded Brian. Netizens hated Mikey. And yet, Hangyul notes, Mikey had to deal with that daily. The constant hate, the knowledge it would never stop. “You’re pitied. Netizens will eat that up, from a social media side. They love an underdog. Nothing was ever your fault. If I tried, which I don’t want to, I’d be ripped into. So would Brian.” Mikey shrugs to get Brian’s hand off, which the other does reluctantly.

There’s a soft smile from Hangyul. “It’ll be okay. I haven’t seen you guys so…let’s just have coffee like old times.”

#drabble;#song hangyul;

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risukadarlin · 2 years

Text

[teikoku star] vol. 3: sanji - track nine

9; a place to go home to

masterpost

✿

[00:14] Have you calmed down?

We ran for quite a long time…

We should be safe here.

They won’t follow us all this way.

They don’t have time for that.

Singing under the stars like that was surprisingly fun.

Holding hands with someone special to me too…

Hey.

It's too dangerous to go back now.

Let’s rest here for a while.

There’s no light as far as the eye can see.

I’ve never seen the capital this dark before.

It was always annoyingly bright.

Even the view from the stage.

Even the streetlights I saw on the way home.

But, look at it now…

There aren’t any lights but the stars are so bright.

I completely forgot.

I haven’t looked at the sky like this since I was young.

I don’t really have that many memories from when I was a child.

Apparently, my real dad was a socialist.

They posed a threat to the country so both of my parents were arrested, had false charges forced onto them and were executed.

I was left behind in the slums.

I’d look up at the stars and think about how I’d be alone forever from now on.

But…

Now…

You’re by my side.

I finally realised something.

This is what loving someone feels like.

You taught me that.

Hey…

Can I kiss you?

Please…

Tell me I can.

It’s kind of embarrassing.

I’ve done it so many times, I should be used to it.

But it’s not the same at all.

I think I can say it properly now.

I love you.

Can you say it back?

I love you.

I love you a lot.

I never felt like this before.

I feel so fulfilled.

The truth is…

I’ve wanted to do this for a while now.

Why couldn’t I just be honest?

Hey…

Hug me.

You’re so warm.

It’s so warm.

I’ve never… been held like this before.

Why is it making me cry?

I didn’t understand until I met you.

How happy it was to be with someone like this.

I had no clue….

Lift your head up.

Hey.

Look at me.

I want to see you up close.

I want to feel your warmth.

More…

I want to feel…

…every inch of you.

Hey.

That’s okay, right?

I’ll let you feel me too.

It’s okay.

Leave everything to me.

I won’t be cruel to you anymore.

Show me that cut.

I did this to you on that rainy day, didn’t I?

It left a scar…

That day…

I treated you horribly, didn’t I?

Not just then, but always.

And yet you still love me.

You’re unusual.

You’re stupidly kind.

Telling me you couldn’t just leave me alone…

But I was happy.

This scar isn’t going to heal, is it?

Does that tickle?

I’m sorry.

Looking at it does make me feel bad…

But I feel happy too.

You’re going to have the scars I gave you forever.

That feels good…

I’m joking.

If I was going to leave marks on you, I’d do it somewhere else.

Like this…

Marks like this will disappear really fast, but…

I feel much better giving you these.

You look so shy.

Are you doing it on purpose?

If you look at me like that…

…I’ll forget how to act.

Hey…

Show me your everything.

I won’t hide anything from you anymore.

You’re so beautiful.

I’ve never seen you make that expression before.

Don’t call me a liar.

I told you, didn’t I?

I’m not going to hide anything from you anymore.

I mean it.

You’re beautiful and warm.

Touching you makes me feel warm too.

Run your fingers over my skin more.

Hey…

Can you feel my warmth too?

Doesn’t it make you happy, sharing each other’s warmth like this?

I can feel it.

Touching you like this… I know you mean it when you say you love me.

I’m not alone anymore.

Don’t go anywhere.

Stay with me forever.

I love you.

✿

[13:50] I fell asleep?

Did you just wake up too?

Are you cold?

Good.

It’s so quiet.

I wonder if everyone’s sleeping.

I can see the stars.

I wonder what’ll happen to us from now on.

To the capital.

To the country…

No, I’m not worried at all.

Because…

I have someone very precious to me, right by my side.

I have nothing to be worried about.

I need you, not anyone else.

And I need you to stay with me.

You’re my light.

You’re like a star that guides me through the darkest nights.

You’re right.

I’m the Star, huh?

The third Teikoku Star.

The theatre might be gone, but…

I wonder if I can still be a Star and light up people’s worlds.

If possible, I want to become a light for children, so they don’t end up like I did.

I don’t need to shine too brightly.

Just bright enough so they don’t lose their way on the darkest of nights.

A gentle, quiet star.

I wonder if someone like me can do that.

That’s right.

If you say so, it must be true.

Now I know I can.

Hey.

Can I tell you something?

After this, there are definitely loads of children with no home to go to.

I want to make a home for them, one day.

So that they’ll always feel warmth.

So they have someone to say “I’m home” to.

A warm place like that.

I don’t know if I could build anything like an orphanage.

But I know it’ll be a lively, happy home.

I’ll be a father.

I want you to be the mother…

Or do you not want to?

Thank you.

I’ll definitely make it a happy place.

A place I can go home to.

A happy home, where you’ll be waiting for me.

I promise I’ll build it.

Especially if I’m with you.

✿

[18:59] Oops.

Come on, you guys.

I just got home.

You’ll all get the chance to jump on me if you wait your turn.

I haven’t said hello to your mum yet.

Come on, don’t cling to me like that.

I’m home.

#teikoku star #taishou guuzou roman teikoku star #drama cd #drama cd translation #kaji yuki #yuki kaji #rejet

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bluejayblueskies · 3 years

Note

oh if you did a little something for jonmartin and "hiding their face in the other’s neck" i would be so 🥺💕

touches prompt list

a little post-circus kidnapping hurt/comfort! cw for wounds/injury, mild blood, mentions of non-consensual touching, and mentions of kidnapping

There is a stranger’s elbow digging into Jon’s side.

He shifts from one foot to the other, trying to relieve some of the pressure on his side while surreptitiously giving the stranger a glare that he hopes adequately conveys his dislike of the current situation. The tube is packed, as it always is at this time of day, and there are… so many strange hands. An elbow, at least, is better than the hand that had pressed to his back as the individual it belonged to had instinctively tried to maintain their balance.

After all, Nikola didn’t touch him with her elbows.

Jon doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to think about any of it. He wants to lie down in a soft bed and get his first good night’s sleep in a month and finally have the space to process. Alone.

Instead, Martin stands next to him on the train. His hand rests just beneath Jon’s where it grips one of the metal poles, and Martin takes care not to brush against him despite how crowded the car is. Jon considered telling Martin, when they first got on the tube, that it was okay—that his touch would be… well, it wouldn’t be bad. But he’d stayed silent, allowing Martin to cultivate a careful space between them. They’ve been silent for the past twenty minutes as they’ve passed by station after station on their way to Martin’s flat in Brixton.

“I have a flat,” Jon had said uncomprehendingly when Martin had suggested (or rather, gently begged) that Jon come back to his flat with him. “It’s, um. It’s nice. Spacious. S-sturdy locks.”

“You… you don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Martin had said, sounding and looking very much like he wished Jon would anyway.

“I’m fine.” Jon was not fine. But he could be fine until he got back to his flat. It was always good to have a short-term goal.

Martin gave him a look that clearly said that he thought Jon was full of shit. Jon was, but it was still unnecessary. He was just trying to keep it together. What did Martin want—him sobbing and crumpling to the floor right here in the Archives? No, that wouldn’t do at all.

“You were kidnapped. Twice now. I really don’t want it to happen a third time. Besides, I…” Martin trailed off and fluttered his hands at his sides. “I—I should take a look at your hand. And your, um. Wrists.”

Jon looked down at his arms. They were, indeed, quite red and raw and scabbed over and likely to scar. Nikola had been irritated when she’d seen that he’d been tied up so tightly, but she’d decided there was nothing to be done about it. She would just ‘make do with what she had.’ And, well. She had never stopped Breekon and Hope when they’d cinched the ropes just a little bit tighter each time.

“I have first aid supplies in my flat,” Jon lied. He was fairly certain that he had a backpack of What the Ghost merchandise and a single mattress to his name at the moment. “I can take care of it.”

“So can I.” Martin took a deep breath. “I just… I don’t want to see you hurt, Jon.” His cheeks were flushed a rosy pink, and he looked over Jon’s shoulder at the wall behind him. “J-just for tonight, at least? I want…” Martin swallowed. “I want to make sure you’re safe.”

And then Martin had turned those lovely blue eyes to his, and, well. Here they are.

Jon adds 24 hours onto his mental countdown of the time he has left until he’s allowed to break down and tells himself that he can manage. It’s… important to have long-term goals as well. He splits this one into steps.

Step one: get to Martin’s flat without crying. He achieves this easily enough. He finally escapes the cloying presence of strangers as Martin’s door shuts behind them, and then it’s blissfully quiet. Martin flips on a light, illuminating the space in pale yellow. It’s a little bit messy but otherwise spartan. The walls are painted a dull eggshell white, the floor made of cheap lino. Martin sits Jon down on the couch and disappears into the bathroom. Jon stares at the wall and focuses on breathing evenly and thinking about anything other than how smooth his skin feels when he slowly rubs his fingers together.

Step two: let Martin bandage his wounds without crying. This is… more challenging, if only because it hurts. Martin apologizes profusely as he wets a cotton ball with isopropyl alcohol and gently cleans the inflamed areas. Jon sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and bites down, focusing on anything other than the stinging, burning sensation in his wrists and hands. Funny—he’d thought that at this point, he would be used to the pain, but he’s not. All he knows now is what to expect.

Martin carefully wraps his hand and wrists in bandages. For a moment after he’s done, he delicately holds Jon’s hands in his like they’re porcelain. His hands are warm and soft, and Jon imagines how lovely they would feel against his cheeks. He thinks briefly that Martin is going to raise his unbandaged hand to his lips and lay a kiss across the back of it, but Martin doesn’t. Instead, he sets Jon’s hands back in his lap and stands, mumbling that he’s going to go make some tea.

Jon scrubs his uninjured hand across his eyes, just once.

Step three: sit on the couch with Martin and drink tea without crying. Martin presses a mug of steaming chamomile into his good hand and lays a plate of biscuits between them. “Th-they’re your favorite,” Martin says with a small, nervous laugh, like Jon’s not already staring at the plate with something choked sitting in the back of his throat. “I—I figured you probably haven’t really eaten today, and… I don’t really know what you’ve eaten lately. So, um. Yeah.”

Jon thinks of the things that Nikola had called food, then chooses not to think of them at all. He tucks the memory into a box next to cold hands and exposed skin and burning ropes and slams the lid before it can all come spilling back out again. “Thank you,” he says earnestly. He gingerly takes a biscuit in his stiff, aching hand that hasn’t had the time to heal properly and probably won’t get the chance to do so in the future and pops it into his mouth whole so he doesn’t get crumbs on Martin’s couch.

Step four: eat a biscuit that tastes like the best biscuit you’ve ever had and is the first palatable food you’ve had in weeks without crying.

“Jon?”

Jon blinks and comes back to himself. He’s staring blankly at Martin’s face, at eyebrows folded in concern and mouth curled into a small frown. Martin’s freckles are smudged into smears of tan, and the lines of his jaw waver like a mirage in front of Jon’s eyes. That’s odd, Jon thinks. Then, he feels something wet hit the top of his cheek.

Oh, no.

Quickly, Jon reaches up and scrubs the tears away from his eyes. As soon as he lowers his hand, more spring up in their place. He curses and sets his mug of tea down heavily on the table, taking one more look at Martin—whose eyes are now wide with worry—before turning away and attempting to pull himself together.

Step five: stop crying. Stop crying. Stop crying.

(Stop crying, his grandmother says as he stands in the living room, hands and knees dirty and hair a mess. He’s managing to say words between his sobs, words like book and stole and spider. She’s frowning at him, but her voice is still patient and calm when she says, You’re not making any sense, Jonathan. Stop crying, please, and speak clearly. You had a nightmare?)

“Jon, what’s—” Martin catches himself, which Jon is thankful for. He thinks that if Martin had finished that question—asked him what’s wrong—Jon wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from saying, what isn’t? “What can I do to help?” he says instead, a hand hovering carefully in the air between them like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to touch Jon or not.

“Don’t look,” Jon manages to say. He immediately feels ridiculous and follows with a quick: “S-sorry, it’s—I don’t k-know how to—I’m not—I’m n-not good at—”

“I’m not looking,” Martin says softly.

Jon cuts off, takes a breath, and turns his head back toward Martin. True to his word, Martin has his eyes closed, though his hand remains in the air between them. Jon presses his good hand to his mouth for a moment to hide how the sight rips a new, more ragged sob out of him. Then, tentatively, he reaches forward and takes Martin’s hand.

Martin inhales sharply. Jon almost lets go, but Martin curls his fingers around Jon’s hand and squeezes. He holds Jon’s hand tightly yet so achingly softly, and Jon could weep. (Or rather, is weeping.)

“Can I hug you?” Martin says abruptly, like he’d been fighting an internal battle about whether or not to say it and had just lost. His cheeks darken, but he doesn’t say anything else or take it back. His jaw shifts as he pinches his lips together and worries them back and forth.

Jon is… not the kind of person who initiates or seeks out hugs. He always makes them too stiff, or he holds on just a bit too long and makes them awkward, or he doesn’t know what to do with his hands and ends up just dangling them uselessly in the air. He’s also never really seen the point of them if he’s being honest. As a form of greeting, surely handshakes or waves or head nods get the point across just fine. Right now, though, there is truly nothing in the world that Jon thinks would make him feel safer than having Martin’s arms around him.

Jon nods, then remembers that Martin can’t see him and whispers, in as composed a voice as he can muster: “Please.”

Step six: hug Martin Blackwood without falling apart completely.

Martin’s arms are soft and warm around him. His chest is flush with Jon’s, and he’s holding him so close that Jon is practically on Martin’s lap. All Jon can think is that it’s been so long since he’s been held by something not made of sawdust or plastic. He grips the back of Martin’s jumper with lotion-soft hands and cries tears that have been collecting for a month into the fabric as he buries his face in Martin’s neck. Martin’s hands rub large circles across Jon’s back, and he’s whispering gentle words into Jon’s ear. Things about safe and okay and time and here.

By the time Jon feels thoroughly wrung dry, his cheeks are sticky and his head is throbbing and he’s desperately in need of a glass of water. He takes a few deep breaths, then carefully extracts himself from Martin’s arms. Martin lets him go easily, though his hands remain resting lightly on Jon’s elbows as if he can’t bear to let him go completely.

Jon thinks he knows the feeling.

Martin’s eyes are still closed, and Jon is hit with such a swell of affection he can hardly breathe around it. “Y-you can open your eyes,” he says, a bit sheepishly. Martin does, and if he’s affected by the state of Jon’s face, he doesn’t show any indication of it. “Sorry,” Jon mumbles, twisting his ring—now on his left middle finger instead of his right—around and around mindlessly. “I just…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, Jon.” Martin squeezes Jon’s elbows gently. “I understand. Any time you need me to look away, I will. Okay? I just…” He takes a breath. “I’ll always be here. F-for you when you need me.”

If Jon weren’t thoroughly out of tears, that would make his eyes water. Instead, he nods and offers a small, weak smile. “I know. Thank you, Martin. It… just. Thank you.”

Step seven: fall asleep safe against Martin’s side in the bed that he insists is big enough for two, face pressed into Martin’s neck once again and hands curled loosely in Martin’s sleep shirt.

He’s so drained by the time they’re there, so wrung-out and empty and relaxed, that he manages to do so almost immediately. He thinks he hears Martin murmur, “Sleep well, love,” as he drifts off. But it disappears into the fuzzy border between sleep and wakefulness, slipping from Jon’s mind entirely as he fades to black.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #willoftitanium #my fic #my writing

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amourdivine · 2 years

Text

♡ 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐒 ♡

welcome to my third reading, my loves! i have chosen something lighter and happier to work with today. i have been dealing with some heavy feelings this week, but i wanted to do a hopeful reading for everyone else as well! we’ll be looking into some hopeful messages from spirit / the universe, as well as some guidance & praise for you. much love. ♡

feel free to choose more than one pile! take only what resonates & remember you can always come back to choose a pile later. remember that you are the leader of your own life & you don’t have to take any messages that are not meant for you. as always, use your intuition and follow your heart.

from left to right: pile one ♡ pile two ♡ pile three ♡ pile four.

ＰＩＬＥＯＮＥ．

cards: page of swords ♡ four of cups rx ♡ the world ♡ queen of wands ♡ three of wands rx ♡ wheel of fortune ♡ the empress ♡ nine of wands ♡ eight of pentacles ♡ seven of pentacles.

𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒌𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒆.

pile one, my hard workers. have you been tired and even withdrawn from your current projects? i sense there’s been a delay in your manifestations, your dreams and your accomplishments. you might be wondering what you’ve been doing wrong, or if the wheel is never going to turn in your favour. you could have possibly started out as a page of swords, but now you’re in a slow moving, three of wands energy. let me explain: you could have taken up writing classes or started out a business with the biggest enthusiasm, and you saw a lot of potential in it, you put in the work, the hard, hard work and yet, you haven’t seen the results of your efforts. you mastered a skill or have been working to master it, but you’re wondering when your the fruits labor are going to come into fruition. you might feel exhausted or hopeless, even might be questioning if it was all worth it. with the seven of pentacles clarifying the three of wands in reverse, spirit is telling you to rest. to put your mind at ease and remember why you started.

what i found interesting in the spread is that the nine of wands is looking at the empress card right beside him. he looks worried, almost if he’s wondering how he’ll get into the same energy as her. listen, my pile one, the wheel of fortune is neverending. it spins and spins. have you ever heard of what goes around comes back around? the universe has not forgotten you, loves. in the middle of your spread we have the world - it’s all about completion, about accomplishment. your shining days are coming, my angels, so please don’t be so hard on yourselves and don’t stay in your comfort zone for too long. soon it will be time for you to get back in your enthusiastic, excited energy in which you started and remember that life has its ups and downs. you could be feeling overworked, exhausted, underestimated and drained, just overall hopeless, but you are so, so close, my loves. please have faith in spirit, for you are at a very important, critical point in your life. if you pray or speak to your spirit guides, they’re encouraging you to keep doing so. also, if some of you enjoy candles or frequency healing music, you should definitely keep focusing on that. anything that might help you cleanse and refresh your energy, your soul & body is always worth it. remember to breathe, my loves. don’t forget why you started and what keeps you going. you are going to be so, so successful. there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but remember you can’t have rainbows or sunshine without a little rain every now and then. many hugs to you, pile one!

your song: rainbow by kacey musgraves. channeled messages: keep going, golden sunset, breathe, 222, calm, peace & quiet, 9 to 5, job interview, ‘i watched it begin again’.

ＰＩＬＥＴＷＯ．

cards: queen of pentacles ♡ eight of cups ♡ the empress ♡ the star ♡ ten of cups ♡ six of pentacles rx ♡ the tower ♡ three of pentacles ♡ seven of swords rx ♡ queen of wands.

𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒌𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 - 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆.

pile number two, my beautiful swans. spirit wants to commend you on how far you’ve come. this is such a beautiful, beautiful energy. even i’m smiling and i’m reading it for you, not myself! you got such a powerful energy, why are you doubting yourself, loves? have you been suffering from impostor’s syndrome, feeling like you’re a fraud and not really “the star” people think you are? because that’s not right, pile two! look at your ten of cups and everything you deserve. do you feel you are not deserving of your friendships, your accomplishments and the recognition you’ve received? you might still be in a bit of a tower mode, fearing everything will come crashing down on you. or, you might have rebuilt yourself after a tower moment, leaving so many things behind to reach your empress energy. but you still feel that you’re not worthy, am i right? you have so, so much potential, pile two.

you’re a star, is what i’m getting. but there are still many shadow aspects of yourself you haven’t shared with people and you could be scared of sharing your flaws or your dark side with others because you don’t want to be seen as anything less than perfect, is what i’m hearing. well, pile two, you’ve poured onto everyone else’s cup so much. how about yours, now? i’m seeing someone with such a beautiful soul, a wonderful heart and a life that’s bound to be amazing.. but you’re not sure if this is what you deserve. it’s like you’re being given a pot of gold, but you think it’s just “luck” and not really you that brought yourself to this moment. you need to remember who and what brought you to this moment and to give yourself credit for getting to this point. i think you have survived so, so much and you may not be seeing yourself accurately right now, so you could be doubting your accomplishments or your worth as a person. but look, you’re the star, the empress! there’s so much more abundance waiting for you, if only you reach out and take it fearlessly. the queen of wands is self-respecting and confident. she knows her worth and she’s not afraid of being feisty, determined and optimistic. stop selling yourself short, pile two. you have built and fought your way into a lovely life, now is not the time to doubt it. enjoy and rejoice in the wonderful, magnificent being that you are, my loves.

PS: stay on the lookout for a new person coming in. it could be a friend, but i’m getting more so a new love coming your way that you’ve been trying to manifest! 🌟

your song: love again by dua lipa. channeled messages: ‘there is so much more’, ‘i was wrong’, road trips, fireplace, summer holidays, instagram followers, social media influencer, beautiful smile.

ＰＩＬＥＴＨＲＥＥ．

cards: the fool ♡ temperance ♡ seven of cups rx ♡ ace of swords ♡ five of wands ♡ the emperor ♡ knight of wands ♡ ace of pentacles ♡ four of cups ♡ three of swords rx.

𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒌𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒋𝒐𝒚.

pile three! hello there! okay, i know you might be scared of the three of swords in the reverse, as i was drawn to it immediately, but i think you’re stuck in a difficult, painful cycle of negativity and being really harsh on yourself. you could be overwhelmed in the choices you need to make and in dire need of healing. you have this underlying energy of the knight of wands and a lot of opportunities coming your way with the ace of pentacles. but you might be feeling stuck and unsure how to proceed or how to move. i’m sensing a lot of anxiety coming from this pile, a lot of hopelessness and uncertainty. let’s take a deep, deep breath, okay? in and out. deep breaths.

it’s interesting that the channeled word for your pile is joy, because i think that’s the last thing you could be feeling in this moment. but you need to know you’re going through a major breakthrough and that is not something to be feared or loathed. you are coming back to yourself in the most beautiful way - and you’re not taking the easy route. there could be a lot of conflict, change and difficulty in this moment. you could be facing a lot of inner turmoil and even feel restricted by the authorities or the rules in your life, or simply lack in self-discipline. you might feel lost, pile three, but not all those who wander are actually lost. spirit wants you to know that things are happening for you, not to you. and things will turn out in your favour soon, my loves. focus on what you want, on what will make you happy and what will light up your life. there is a lot of messages about healing, about self-evaluation, about your inner self and finding your balance once more. “the time is now”, i’m hearing. this is the time to rediscover your truths and find new ways to feel alive, pile three. don’t let the negative self-talk and the inner turmoil cloud your judgment: soon the sky will shine again and there won’t be a single teardrop left to remind you of this pain. for now, spirit wants you to meditate, to breathe in & out, to reevaluate your choices, your actions and to release every ounce of pain and hurt. you deserve forgiveness, you deserve beauty and you will find so much love after this, my angels. there is joy after pain and there is laughter after crying. in the morning, you will rise again. sending you my warmest, fondest hugs, my loves.

your song: this is me trying by taylor swift. channeled messages: behind the clouds the sun is shining, pain is only temporary, 333, 555, twists & turns, sky full of light, cry your heart out, fear & loathing, crystals, healing.

ＰＩＬＥＦＯＵＲ．

cards: judgment rx ♡ the world rx ♡ the emperor ♡ six of cups ♡ the chariot ♡ ten of cups rx ♡ five of pentacles ♡ justice ♡ six of swords rx ♡ four of wands rx ♡

𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒌𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆.

hello, my sweet angels, pile four! i want to know if you’re okay. it seems as if you’ve gone through a lot of losses in 2021, even a loss of a loved one and you’re seeking closure from this relationship. you could be feeling isolated and that life has been unfair to you in some way. you might even have lost faith in spirit or be resisting the changes being pushed your way. it’s almost like you just want to go back to the past, when things were easier and you didn’t have to face so many losses and worries. you could also be facing a lot of financial difficulty and be stuck in a “lack” mindset, where your actions and your desires come from the things you don’t have, instead of a place of gratitude and abundance.

now, i know it’s easier said than done, but you cannot forget that certain things remain in the past for a reason. nothing lasts forever, remember? but it doesn’t mean it was not good or any less impactful. you don’t have to forget to move on. all you need to do is surrender, is to forgive yourself and remember to take action towards your goals in a positive manner. you cannot resist change, unfortunately. but change is not always bad, pile four. spirit has been desperately trying to communicate with you, because there’s so much joy and hope for you in the future, but it’s like you don’t want to hear it. are you afraid, pile four? this reminds me of a scene in donnie darko where this very self-righteous teacher is telling her students about the differences between choices made in love vs. fear. there’s one part where donnie goes off on her, telling her it’s not that simple & that choices come from very complex places. what i’m trying to tell you, pile four, is that you can feel many things at once, but you can’t forget the importance of hope & faith. choosing to be brave when you are scared is one of the many things that will lead you to success and joy. choosing to take action and take control of your life, even if you’re unsure or not feeling ready, will be better than staying in a lack mindset.

you can hope, pile four. you can love. it’s okay. you are safe and loved. and life may be difficult, but you are so much stronger than you’ll ever know. don’t look back, okay? you’re not going that way. from now on? you’re going forward & that’s where you need to look. ahead. so you can see all the blessings coming your way.

your song: take control by kodaline. channeled messages: lack of faith, unclarity, uncertainty, stuck in the mud, 999, 888, mirror hours, encouragement, “you can do it”, warm hugs, swallowing your tears, “hungry for a meaning.”

#pick a card #pac reading #pick a card reading #tarot pick a card #tarotblr #daily tarot #tarot daily #astro community #astrology #divination #astroblr #pick a pile #pick a pile reading #spirituality #healing #tarot community #tarot reading #tarot #*: 3

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twistedmusings · 3 years

Text

Wake Up From Your Dream

A/N: I don't even know what I can SAY to this one except...I think I was so angry at not writing that I wrote smut outta SPITE? Can I be so angry with myself that I write Malleus smut to just get something out there? I guess I can. Anyways this ask certainly let my imagination fly q wq

Warnings: Non-con making its way into dub-con, manipulation, impregnating sex and Malleus realizing that family is really important.

You needed to find your way back to Night Raven College.

It has been so long since you’ve been back there, laughing and walking around as if there was no trouble in the world. Nevermind that you weren’t anywhere close to home and nevermind that your family was seeking you out.

As long as there was a possibility of you finding your way home, you had pretended that everything was going to be alright.

You were still a stranger to this world, you had no ties to this world and there would be no reason for you to stay once Crowley found your way back home. It was wonderful making friends with such a variety of people and watching them all grow in their own way. The way you knew you would grow from this experience as well.

Watching Ace and Deuce really come into themselves and their Unique Magic, watching the dorm leaders step into their positions of power and truly start to make a name for themselves that would help them out in their own version of the ‘real’ world. Riddle had gotten a wonderful position befitting of his family name, Leona was actually graduating, Azul was said to open a Monstro Lounge in the Coral Sea while Kalim had started investing time in his father’s trade without having Jamil help him. Even Idia was starting to take strides in his own field!

And you were proudest of Malleus. One simple conversation outside of Ramshackle had turned into a friendship you thought you would never forget. It was so wonderful to see him interact more with students, shyly following after you as you pushed him to talk more to others despite his position. That was what college was for, right? To experience new things and find your future--

You just didn’t think that Malleus would take it that far.

Was it because he was spoiled? No, even though he was born in a monarchy he still did his best to remain kind to others, especially his subjects. You were sure he was going to make a kind king in the future, even if you never got to see with your own two eyes.

You pull the hood over your head as you enter a bath house, the fae receiving you with a curious look and a smile as you hand her 2000 madols.

“Will you be booking a room tonight as well?”

“Just a simple shower and bath, that is all.”

If you were to make a guess, you were in the borders of the Valley of Thorns, a more rural area compared to the now rather modernized capital. You had stolen enough money to get you by for a few trips and you knew that places like these were the best at getting you directions. It had been a bit of a grueling trip, testing your knowledge of the fae language as well as avoiding questions about who you were and why you so desperately needed to make your way back to such a prestigious college. In a sense, you kept it minimal.

You needed to get back home.

“It’s fine. You’re fine. It’s fine. You’re fine.”

The mantra you kept repeating to yourself was whispered under your breath as you removed your articles of clothing slowly, still looking around to see if anybody had followed you in. But this is what was raising all of the hairs on your body, wasn’t it? This constant vigilance that didn’t let you sleep at night. You needed to relax, no one else would come this far.

You feel the fatigue melt as several days of walking are washed right off your body, a smile slowly creeping up on your face as you wash the dirt and oil from your hair.

It would be fine.

You would make it to Night Raven College and sneak into the Hall of Mirrors before wishing yourself back home. Crowley had said that they had pinned down the world you lived in and only after you make your wish would the connection be broken. This most likely meant that the connection was still intact since you didn’t even get a chance to to look at the mirror before you were whisked away.

Everything was going to work itself out, that’s the most you could promise yourself.

The bath is heavenly, the temperate water cooling you down from the hot shower as you look around.

There were no other patrons.

“Good.”

You lean back and press your head against a soft pillow of towels, enjoying the silence as you feel your worries soften while thinking back to what you would do when you were back home. It had been so long since you’ve seen some of your friends, your family was probably worried sick and you still had your own plans you wanted to get through.

If you had time, you could maybe drop by to see how your first year friends were doing?

Or were they in their third year now?

Wouldn’t that be a sight to see?

Your eyes close as you let yourself relax entirely, almost succumbing to sleep.

Only for a hand to grab your throat, the other covering your eyes as you hear a familiar chuckle that tenses your body up and breaks your heart.

“I am afraid we will have to postpone this shower.”

Tears well up in the corner of your eyes as you hear the sound of footsteps into the area, most likely the royal guard.

“Lilia--”

“You’d do well to stay put lest they chase after you.”

The hands covering your eyes pull back as you see a teasing smile looking down pitifully at your fresh set of tears.

“It has taken far too long to find you, Your Majesty.”

-----

“HUMAN!”

“[Y/N]-san!”

Lilia smiles as he leads you by the hand, the royal guard following close behind as Sebek and Silver join him.

“He might have already woken up, Father.”

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? DO YOU KNOW WHAT MY YOUNG MASTER HAS GONE THROUGH?”

“Sebek.” Lilia looks at his charge, “Quiet. Malleus might still be sleeping.”

Silver takes one peek at you, trying to meet your gaze but pulling away when he sees that the veil Lilia had put on you is blocking anybody’s stares from seeing your face. In fact, the second in command had put you in one of the traditional outfits for fae royalty, complete with a light veil that flowed down from the silver circlet placed on your head.

“Excellent.”

Lilia turns his attention to you and laughs.

“He has been absolutely miserable since you left. It was quite a surprise to all of us when you managed to leave the palace walls. None of us thought that you had really done it, especially him, and it really was a hassle to search the palace up and down to see just where our little human had run off to.”

His voice drops to a whisper as he brings your hand up to his lips.

“I’ll make sure to punish you for that later.”

The older fae leads you along as you finally reach your destination, smiling as he knocks on large wooden doors while pushing you slightly to stand in front of everybody.

An answer he was going to get by the end of the night.

“Malleus.”

No answer. He tests the doors and nods when he sees they are unlocked, opening them as he leads you to step inside so that you both could see the figure drenched in moonlight, looking out the window as if awaiting for an answer.

Lilia waits for his other charge to say anything but shrugs as he looks at you with a smile and a bow.

“We are glad to have you back, Your Majesty.”

The door closes with a loud click as you turn your eyes to look up at the imposing figure, your nails digging into your fingertips enough to draw blood as you try to hold back from screaming and shouting at him to stop acting like such a child. Yet you do not wish to anger him, at least to save yourself from any sort of harsher punishment.

So instead you make your way over to the bed--

Only for the fae to turn around, grab your wrist and slam your back into the rough stone wall. Bright green eyes glare down at you as you wince in pain, still looking away from him but letting out a yelp when Malleus’s fingers grab your chin and force you to look at him in the eye.

“Why did you run?”

He really had no idea, did he?

“Because I don’t belong here--”

Malleus tightens his hold on your wrist.

“We’ve discussed this before, child of man, you belong here just like anybody else, you are my Queen--”

“Malleus wake UP!”

You push against his hold but the fae’s hold gets tighter, most likely leaving a mark. But that wouldn’t deter you, not anymore, you were going to tell him.

“I’m not from this world! Coming to Twisted Wonderland was just an accident! A stupid, stupid accident that no one bothered to fix! And just when we were close to making it right you---you--!”

Shit, you’re crying again.

“I have people waiting for me. Just like you had a family waiting for you. I came to the Valley of Thorns thinking that I was supporting you during your coronation but you just--made a decision entirely by yourself and announced me as yours! Why did you lie to me? To them?!”

Malleus’s hold softens as you finally let your tears flow freely, wishing to wipe them away only due to how weak they were making you look.

“...did you not say you loved me?”

“I did! I did but--Malleus after what you did I can’t--”

He lets go of your wrist only to cup your face as he leans down to press his lips on your cheek, his tongue licking up the warm tears as you grab hold of his wrists to try and push him away.

“Do you miss your family?”

You nod as he moves to kiss the corner of your eyes.

“More than anything…”

The dragon fae hums, letting his lips stay where they were a few seconds longer before chuckling as he pulls you close.

“I see--I really have been cruel to you, haven’t I?”

Your heart nearly leaps out of your throat at his words, hands clutching at his robes as you quickly nod. Maybe this was it, maybe it had taken you breaking down to let him see reason?

Please. Please!

“...A family.”

Malleus’s words are like dripped honey as a thought formed in his head, the thought taking shape and form as his hands clutched you tighter.

“Then we’ll just need to make a family of our own…”

-----

Hands clutch at his sheets as Malleus takes in the shape under him.

How beautiful could you be? How complex? To him it was as if not a day had passed since you first met. What had been mere curiosity had delved into deep affection and blossomed into a love that Malleus would only read about in fairytales. The sort of books that led him to believe in soulmates, in happily ever after’s and the possibility of spending the rest of your life with the one you loved.

And yes, you weren’t a fae, but the power of his magic was grand enough to keep you tied to him for the rest of eternity.

His lips can’t help but seek out yours as he thinks about how he is the one who will decide when you die.

This love hadn’t started out like this. What he felt for you had been a bit more relaxed, a lot softer and dreamier. You had confessed to him after his Overblot incident and he had gladly accepted your feelings. He was still keen on finding you a way home and promised himself to not let any moment be wasted in thinking how you soon would be far away from him.

Every day was spent happily with you, the rest of the school year flying by as you both enjoyed the time you still had together.

But Malleus was still a dragon at heart, a fae that yearned and longed to take and take.

So when thoughts about you leaving started to make their way to the forefront of his mind, not even your constant love and affection could keep him from his instincts.

You would leave him to go back to your world. Go back to the normal and the familiar. As you walked your path, you would eventually find someone that enchanted you the way he had, all ending with you walking down a beautiful aisle to your now beloved.

A person that wasn’t...him.

As the days of his third year started to run to a close, his hold on you had become a lot tighter, his kisses a lot more possessive and in the end he had invited you to watch his coronation as he entered his fourth and final year.

With his announcement of making you his Queen.

“Malleus! Please I can’t--I’m not ready--!”

He let Lilia make up some story about you not returning to Night Raven, fooling Crowley into believing that you had found your future in the Valley of Thorns with him. The announcement of you taking up the role of Queen had been surprising but Malleus had woven the story in such a way that there had been talks of having it printed for others to read.

It was a wonderful ending to your love story, you ending up in his arms. But something was missing…

Malleus was glad that you had given him the answer.

Both of your knees were on either side of his waist, your hands clutching at whatever they could as his cock buried itself deep into your cunt. The veil was long forgotten as his robes and your own are thrown carelessly around the room while you wail and scream at being broken into by such a thick length. The small sight of blood on his cock made Malleus smile as he pushed in further, the tightness that was pushing him back slowly opening up for him as he watched you do your best to fit him inside.

It would be fine, you would be fine.

With a growl he finally bottoms out, two hands holding your hips and forcing you down to take all of him as the tip of his cock pressed right under your womb--

He shivers as you tighten up again, leaning down to lick up the trail of tears on your cheek before eating up your tiny whimpers with a hungry kiss.

“Here...right here is where our family will start.”

A large hand takes yours as Malleus puts it right over the small bulge on your stomach, your eyes growing wide as you realize just how deep inside he is. He kisses you again, not daring to break away as he lets a trail of saliva dangle from his lips to yours, the clear liquid disappearing into your mouth as your body relaxed and your eyes grew hazy.

“Do you love me, child of man?”

It was a simple question, but your brain seemed muddled from his kiss. Dragons tended to excrete a certain liquid as they got ready to mate, the experience painful even within his own species but being eased with the help of saliva, sweat or cum.

And with the way he was pressed against you, his sweat matted on your skin as he let more of his spit drip down his tongue and onto yours...surely the answer would come the more you two worked to start your family.

Malleus hardly gave you any time to recover as he started to move, his eyes entranced with the way he disappeared into you with each thrust. Your mind was still muddled but your body was already eagerly accepting him, your legs wrapping around him slowly before locking him in place as he repeated the question.

“Do you love me, child of man?”

You open your mouth but the only word that comes out is a plea for him to go faster.

Which Malleus gladly listens to.

It didn’t take long for him to start pounding into you at a brutal pace, every thrust having the tip of his cock slamming against your womb as your toes curled from the pleasure of taking him so deep. His cock disappeared inside your tiny cunt, shaft now coated not just with blood but with your arousal as well. The bed creaked in protest while the sounds of the bed frame hitting the wall helped him keep time, Malleus leaning back down to kiss you again as your lips this time part eagerly and sucked on his tongue while your hands clutched his shoulders and horns.

Cries turned into happy moans, your sad and abandoned look now one of pure ecstasy as your pussy flutters and tightens around him, pushing him to go harder and harder so he could---!

“[Y/N]--!”

Your legs close tighter around him as you bury your face on the crook of his neck, your orgasm being ripped from you unexpectedly as Malleus halted his movements with a stiff body. He drops his head on your shoulder as your legs keep him in place.

“Malleus...ah--!”

He groans as he paints the inside of your walls white, the warmth of his cum filling your womb to the point that what you hadn’t taken merely dripped out onto the now stained sheets. Malleus lifts his head to look down at you, smiling as he sees your eyes staring up at him eagerly despite how much you had protested before.

“A family…”

You smile as Malleus nods, your hands going all the way to your stomach as you feel the warmth start to twist your brain even more.

“A family with you…how wonderful…”

Arms wrap around him as Malleus kisses a trail from your shoulder to your lips. He just needed to ask you one last time.

“Do you love me, child of man?”

With a hum, your answer is whispered into his ear as Malleus closes his eyes as he realizes that this is where his happily ever after would finally start.

“I love you Malleus, more than anything else.”

#twisted wonderland #malleus draconia #malleus x reader #twst mc #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twst smut #twst imagines #fem reader #twst x reader #adult section #requests #//and to those who have been sending me nice messages #//thank you q wq

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