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#I remember in my old house there was a shit ton of them and one would not leave my shower for like 6 months
rosielovesf1 · 20 days
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adventures in baby-sitting | LN4
sorry can't talk, at a tea party
word count: 1.1k
warnings: so. much. fluff.
author's note: thank y'all so much for the love on my last post!! sharing stuff i write has always been difficult for me, so it means a ton. hope you enjoy this one!!
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“Maybe we should’ve chosen the pink one.”
“Lando, my love.” The corner of y/n's eyes crinkled as she turned to face her boyfriend. He was turning over a small stuffed dog in his hands, fiddling with the soft fluff on its ears. “She’s four and loves animals. She’s going to be ecstatic.” 
He grunted and kept his gaze focused on the stuffed animal. 
“You’re so cute,” she couldn’t help but laugh at him, even in his distressed state. He finally looked up and met her eyes at the soft touch of her fingers under his chin. “Don’t be nervous, lovie.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” he whined, despite melting into her touch. “I’ve been less nervous to walk into big meetings. I don’t know why the thought of Maisie not liking me is making me shit myself.” 
“Because you have a huge heart, you’re kind and caring-” Lando’s eyes locked onto hers and softened, the fading daylight bringing out flecks of brown and green. “And happen to be intimidated by a four-year-old.” She kissed his nose playfully before he could pull away. 
“Now come on. She hates when people are late.” That got him moving, pulling her closer to him so he could squeeze her hand as they walked up her sister’s paved driveway. “Ready?” 
He nodded and she kissed his cheek before knocking on the door. It opened pretty much immediately, Lando sucking in a breath as the couple had to look down to see their host. Maisie stood in the entryway with a toothy grin on her face and her hair pulled up into two wispy pigtails. 
“Auntie y/n!” she squealed, launching herself forward to wrap her tiny arms around y/n's legs. 
“Hi, sweetpea.” y/n bent at the waist to hug her back. “I brought a friend with me, too! Oh-”
y/n's sentence was cut off as Maisie ducked behind her legs, peering up at Lando from between them. 
“Maisie, darling, remember that you only open the door with Mummy or Daddy,” y/n's sister, y/s/n, clucked affectionately at her daughter. 
Maisie didn’t look the least bit sorry from her hiding spot. 
“Hi, you guys,” y/s/n said, squeezing y/n into a hug before moving over to hug Lando. “Thank you so much for babysitting!”
“Anytime, y/s/n,” Lando smiled, his eyes darting curiously back and forth between y/s/n and Maisie. 
“Mais, Auntie y/n and Uncle Lando are going to stay with you tonight, okay?” y/s/n said, beckoning her daughter out from behind y/n's legs. Lando’s cheeks warmed at y/s/n's verbal confirmation of his place in their family. “Can you say hi to him?” 
Maisie waved shyly, still clinging to her mum. 
“Hi, Maisie!” Lando said, bending down to her level. y/n couldn’t help but giggle at the change in his tone of voice. “Your auntie and I brought you something.” 
He brought out the dog from behind his back, and Maisie’s eyes widened. She let out a squeal of delight and rushed forward, happily accepting the stuffed animal from Lando’s outstretched hands. 
Maisie hugged the dog tightly, tucking it under her arm. “She’s pink!”
y/n bumped Lando’s shoulder as he stood back up, saving her “I told you so” for later. 
“Lucky girl. Alright, I’ll be back by nine, and all of the emergency info is on the counter.” y/s/n beckoned them into the house and grabbed her purse from the table by the door. “Thank you both, again. Call if you need anything.” 
“Of course,” y/n said, running a hand over Maisie’s hair. “Say bye to Mummy!”
Maisie waved goodbye, the door shutting softly behind y/s/n after she blew her daughter a kiss, and all of a sudden the house was quiet. y/n waited one, two, three seconds and blew out a sigh of relief when it seemed that the risk of the little girl crying at the departure of her mum was low. 
Maisie looked up at them, seemingly taking a second to assess their presence. Her mind made up, she grabbed both of their hands, leading them over to a tiny table with two chairs and a pink teapot. “You sit here with doggie,” Lando was led to the chair on the left, and she placed her dog carefully in his lap. “And auntie goes here.” y/n sat down in the chair next to him, shifting to get comfortable in the toddler-sized seat. 
“This is Maisie’s tea party!” She exclaimed excitedly, dashing around to fill their cups from the teapot. She waited expectantly for them to drink and they both compiled, lifting the tiny cups to their lips. y/n winked at Lando over her cup, and he nudged her foot with his under the table. 
Their moment was interrupted by their host, who chastised Lando for not pointing his pinky out while holding his cup. Lando happily complied, and the trio enjoyed their tea party as the clock ticked closer to Maisie’s bedtime. 
After y/n and Lando had their fourth cups of tea, y/n set hers down and turned to face her little niece. “Hey goober. We gotta get to bed.” 
“Can doggie come to bed, too?” Maisie asked, sticking out her bottom lip at Lando. 
“Of course,” he replied, passing the stuffed animal over to her. 
“Okayyyy.” Maisie got up from her chair at the head of the table, one hand securely wrapped around her stuffed animal, and the other reaching up to grasp Lando’s. His eyebrows raised in surprise at y/n, and she grinned at him, mouthing “I think somebody likes you.”
Lando smiled down at the little girl and let her lead him over to her ocean themed room, complying with her request to be tucked in. He took extra care to make sure that the dog was securely tucked under the blankets as well. y/n just hung out in the doorway, her heart swelling at the sight of her boyfriend being so tender with her niece. 
As Lando said goodnight and y/n turned off the lights, Maisie mumbled out a sleepy “Good night, Uncle Lando.” 
“Good night, Maisie,” he called back, a wide smile breaking out across his face as he walked to stand behind y/n in the doorway.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. “She called me Uncle.” 
“I did, love,” she smiled, turning her head to meet his eyes. “You’re so good with her.” 
The corners of his eyes crinkled at the compliment, and he moved so he was facing her. “Maybe Maisie needs a cousin,” he said with a cheesy grin. 
“Hmm, maybe.” She stood up on her tiptoes to brush her nose against his, before capturing his lips in a kiss. “It’d be fun to have another little one running around.”
“I can’t wait.”
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@landonorris: sorry can’t talk, at a tea party 🫖
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@y/nl/n: auntie duties 🫡
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eunoiathewriter · 2 years
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hi !!! i absolutely love your writing ! would u mind doing another harry potter imagine? thank u </3
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H. POTTER X F!READER
Synopsis It's hard to stay cool when the girl you have a crush on is right there beside you.
Word Count: 2.2k
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Harry and Ron yawned in unison as they walked through the woods, following Arthur Weasley, who was in the lead, with Charlie and Fred and George close at his heels, Ginny and Hermione in the middle, and lastly, the two boys. Now, both of them were excited for the Quidditch World Cup, don't get them wrong, but this whole waking up before the crack of dawn to Hermione throwing pillows at them was not exactly their favourite part of it all.
The morning, however, had been all but calm, Molly had heard Fred and George trying to smuggle Ton-Tongue Toffees out of the house to sell, even after they got scolded for what happened with Dudley. Harry's cousin having eaten one that Fred and George dropped with the intent of him eating it, causing Dudley's tongue to grow in size. This made Molly yell at the two twins just before they left.
The woods were calm in the early summer morning, with fog still on the ground. Birds had started to wake up, and you could hear them sing as they flew above the tree tops. Harry had to admit that the woods close to the burrow were quite cozy. But he was broken from his own thoughts as Ron poked him and pointed out how far back from the others they were. Jogging to catch up with the others.
"Arthur!" The boys then heard a man call out. "It's about time, son."
"Sorry Amos, some of us got a bit of a sleepy start." Arthur jokingly looked back at Ron, who yawned.
It then dawned on Harry when they came closer that it was Amos Diggory and Cedric Diggory who stood there. Harry had talked to Amos once before when the man was happy over Hufflepuffs' win last year. However, this meant another person should be there, so Harry started to look around for her.
"This is Amos Diggory, everyone. Works with me, at the Ministry. " Arthur said proudly and then turned to the brown-haired boy beside the man. "This strapping young lad must be Cedric, am I right?"
Cedric smiled at the man and extended his hand to shake hands with Arthur, smiling brightly. "Yes, sir." He answered before looking up at the big tree above them.
"y/n? Are you coming or what?" Cedrict asked his sister, who had gone unnoticed, where she sat up in the tree. When Harry spotted the girl, he smiled.
y/n grinned at her brother before she tossed down her backpack for him to catch and jumped down so she landed beside Amos. Making sure her stance was stable before she straightened out.
"Well, that's quite and entrance y/n." Arthur put a hand in her shoulder and she smiled.
"Thank you."
"Alright, this way." Cedric spoke up as he started motioning towards where they were going to go. So everyone started walking, and just before Cedric got too far, he tossed the backpack back to his sister.
"You carry your own shit," He told her.
"Cedric," Amos warned the boy, and he held up his hands in retreat and showed the others the way.
y/n was just about to join in and walk with Harry when her dad stopped him. He was amazed to have Harry Potter himself with them, and she could see Harry glancing over at her. She shrugged at him and joined Hermione and Ginny.
"I don't remember your brother being so good-looking, y/n." Hermione hooked her arm through y/n's.
"Ew, Mione. That's my brother. Plus he's way too old for you."
"Who says he's too old?" Ginny asked with a raised brow, and it made y/n groan.
"Are you aware that we can hear you?"Fred then turned to the girls.
"And if we can, then Cedric probably can too." Geroge chimed in.
"Yeah, well, ego boost for him then, I guess." y/n rolled her eyes and unhooked her arm from Hermione when she saw her dad walk past to catch up with Arthur. She slowed her steps and, quite quickly, was at Harry's side.
They both started to engage in conversation with one another. They talked about everything from the joke candy and things that Fred and George had been making or trying out during the summer to this mystery thing that was to happen at Hogwarts during the year. Harry joined in with all that he heard from Arthur and y/n told all that she had gathered from her dad. They're both thinking about what it could be.
But the topic soon changed to Quidditch. Of course, Harry was proudly standing with Bulgaria, but y/n were strongly against this. She was rooting for Ireland. They talked back and forth about why their team had to win. "Bulgaria has Viktor Krum. He's the best seeker of all."
"Oh please, he's all looks. Plus, Bulgaria play dirty most of the time; they're like the equivalent of when Flint was still captain of the Slytherin team. "
"No they don't!" Harry argued back, and it made Ron turn.
"You have no idea what you're talking about y/n, Viktor Krum will make sure Bulgaria wins." Ron spoke proudly, the boy being starstruck by the well-known seeker.
"Well, Ireland has Connolly," Fred piped in.
"And Quigley." Geroge also joined in.
"See!" y/n motioned towards the twins. "Fred and George are on my side; Ginny and even Hermione, who's not into Quidditch all that much, are rooting for Ireland. You and Ron are literally the only people who are hoping Bulgaria wins just because you're in love with Viktor Krum. "
A whole argument started between all the Weasley kids, Harry and y/n. All of those who were for Ireland were arguing back and forth with the two boys and counting up reasons as to why Ireland was going to win. It was all just fun, ending with all seven of them starting to laugh.
After a little while, they had been walking for a good hour already. Harry was about to say something to y/n but instead when he turned to her, he instead got fixated on her. Eyes looked over her features, having missed her over the summer. He could feel his cheeks slowly growing warmer and warmer the more he looked at her, and soon enough he had to avert his eyes from her as it felt like his face was on fire. Harry was quite sure his cheeks were red, but he hoped to Merlin they weren't.
Surely enough, they reached the portkey, although it made Harry frown as they walked closer, as he had no idea what a portkey was. "Just over there." Amos told everyone, and Harry's frown deepened at the sight of an old boot.
Harry tugged at y/n's sleeve before asking her. "Why are they all standing around that manky old boot?"
"That isn't just any manky old boot, mate," George cut in before y/n could answer.
"It's a portkey," Fred finished as he, George, and y/n moved into position.
"Time to go!" Arthur called.
"What's a portkey?" Harry was confused.
"Ready? After three. One, two," Amos started counting, but y/n quickly looked up at Harry.
"Harry!" And with that, Harry grabbed onto the boot.
"Three."
It all started to spin, or more like they all started to spin. Slowly but surely, they lifted up from the ground up into the sky, still spinning around. Everyone except Cedric, Amos, and Arthur screamed at the continued spinning. Though the twins were screaming in cheer.
When Arthur then suddenly told them all to let go of the boot, they all clinged onto it like a life line, making all except the older Diggorys go wide-eyed. Hermione immediately protested, even though she was slowly feeling sick to her stomach from the continued spinning. They all, however, did as the man had instructed them to and all dropped to the ground. Then, hitting the ground, all of them groaned and huffed at the sudden impact of the ground.
y/n looked up from where she lay on her stomach, coming to find that Harry was only about a metre away from her. "Ouch,"
Harry sat up and nodded at her, and when he turned he could see Amos, Cedric, and Arthur, all three coming down much more gracefully than any of the others. They are certain to land on their feet. All of them were grinning from how funny all the others had landed. "I bet that cleared your sinuses, ey?" Arthur asked as the three of them landed.
Cedric was quick to help Harry get on his feet, extending an arm for him to get pulled up. Earing a smile from the younger boy as he went to help his sister. "Oh, how nice of you, Ced."
"Aw, did my baby sister get hurt?" Cedric asked sarcastically. He pulled her up to stand too, and both of them laughed. The bantering between them was just a big joke to them.
"Come on!" Arthur called as he started to walk up the hill to where camp was. It made y/n smile brightly as she immediately grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him along. "You're going to love this!" It made Harry flush a crimson colour as she pulled him along with her to join the others.
Oh god did he like her.
——
The sun had begun to set over the field where the Quidditch World Cup was being held. The sky turned orange and was slowly becoming a dark blue that would make the stars and constellations of other solar systems visible. It was still pretty warm out, not overly warm but warm enough that not a lot of clothes were needed to keep warm.
People were making their way to their seats. Many had chosen to sit in the boxes in the middle of the stadium. It was a stadium bigger than Harry had ever seen. Now, he was not exactly looking to play Quidditch professionally, but to play at a stadium like this would definitely be something unforgettable.
All of them were looking around in amazement while making their way further up, Arthur in the lead. They were on their way to the top, which was a wise decision.If they were to stay by the boxes, they would have to squeeze together with other people. But if they were to be furthest up in the stadium, they would not have to fight for space with others and would have better sight than others.
"Blimey dad, how far up are we?" Ron asked as they stopped from having been climbing from the lowest level and were about thirty stories below the top.
Just as Arthur was about to answer, another man's voice cut in. One that they all knew very well and one that made Harry roll his eyes. "Well, put it this way, if it rains, you'll be the first to know." Lucius Malfoy smiled evilly at them.
y/n and Harry stood by the railing, looking down at Lucius and Draco, who were on the lower level. It was unusual to see Draco without his slytherin uniform. Instead, he was wearing a black suit, which did not seem at all practical. Draco laughed at his father's statement.
When they started to continue walking, Draco looked up at the others and smirked. "Father and I are in the minister's box, by personal invitation from Cornelius Fudge himself."
"Don't beast, Draco." Lucius stopped Draco with his cane, making the boy rub the spot where the cane had laned. "There's no need with these people."
Draco then looked up at them again. When he saw y/n however, a sly smile made its way to his lips. It was no news to most people that Draco Malfoy had taken an interest in the Hufflepuff girl. However, y/n had zero clue about that. The look Draco gave y/n made Harry roll his eyes. A feeling of annoyance was bubbling up inside him. No, not annoyance, but jealousy.
Before the two Malfoys could say anymore, Harry grabbed y/n's shoulder and started to turn her around so they could wall off. But Lucius Malfoy was not done as he slammed the snake part of his cane down on Harry's hand before it could leave the railing. It made y/n and the others turn just like Harry.
"Do enjoy yourself. While you can. " Lucius smiled unkindly at Harry before relinquishing his hand and walking off with Draco at his heels. But Dracos' eyes still stayed tranced to y/n.
"Are you all right, Harry?" Arthur asked.
"Yeah, just fine."
"Well, let's keep moving then. "We don't want anyone taking our place, do we?"Amos called from where he stood, and everyone began working their way up the stairs.
"Are you sure you're fine?" y/n turned to Harry as they waited to start climbing the stairs.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine. Nothing big. " Harry stuttered as he once more felt his cheeks heat up. But this time, it seemed like y/n noticed and it made him avert his eyes from her.
y/n smiled as she quickly gave him a peck on the cheek, taking the boy by surprise. "Good, now come on."
Harry couldn't fight the grin that broke out on his face when y/n turned and grabbed a hold of his hand to start wall up the stairs.
Oh boy.
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minhosimthings · 29 days
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A La Folie ft. Jay || Part 2
Synopsis: Wounds came and went. All in the circle of life am I right? The greatest warrior among all the kings, Park Jay. For him, seeing blood was like seeing the sky. It was a daily routine which he could not escape. Yes sometimes he had grave injuries, which he wouldn't stop to take care of, with him being a workaholic. But sometimes healers do more than heal physical wounds, and for Jay, you did exactly that.
Pairings: King!Jay × healer!fem!reader
Warnings: fluff, angst, suggestive at the end, SMUT IN THE NEXT CHAPTER MY BABIES, mentions of food, mentions of abuse, reader has scars, mention of blood and violence, hurt/comfort, reader has a panic attack, Heeseung suffering a shit ton lmao I'm sorry hee
A/N: I am legit so sorry for the long wait my babies I wanted to make this as perfect as possible! Thank you for the notes on the first part YAY!!! And the next chapter has smut hehe 😏😏
Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3
The French Quotes Series Masterlist
Memories are said to be core parts of a person's life, no matter good or bad.
The only memories you had were of blood, broken glass, and destroyed homes.
Laughter had always seemed so frightening to you, it reminded you terribly of your mother and father's drunken laughter, as they put the belt to their daughter, just because she was a daughter.
Laughter was no longer how your older brother used to comb your hair, how he used to engulf you in his arms everytime the house was filled with things that a seven year old shouldn't be hearing.
Laughter and love, no longer seemed to exist, as you looked down on the bruises on your skin, and wondered when the last time someone had noticed it under all your setting powder was.
Oh right.
Just over an hour ago by the goddamn king of the place you lived in. The possibility of something going wrong was approximately zero, and yet your powder just had to melt off.
Now you were slumped against your bed, almost about to tear your hair out at how much you were regretting even signing up for an apprentice's position in the palace. At the time, when you were fifteen, it seemed the only possible solution, to get away from your home.
To get away from Jooyeon, atleast.
Knock knock knock.
You let out a loud groan at the sound of tapping on the door. Who on earth was calling for you now?
Checking the clock on the wall, you seethed. Begrudgingly getting up, you dragged yourself to the door, and opened it only to find-
"Your Highness!" You gasped, quickly bending into a curtsey at the light footed man standing before you, "Um..am I of any requirance?"
Heeseung chuckled, and pressed his hand to his chest, returning the respect but bowing to you and sweeping away a stray hair from his forehead.
"Jay just sent me over to you to find out if you were alright, Miss Y/N." He said, with the air of a holy messenger, "You seemed to have rushed out the door on his saying something. Did he offend you perhaps?"
"Oh." You breathed a sigh of relief, not realising your facial expression until you saw Heeseung's amused face looking at you, "Oh no! No absolutely not! No, it's um—its really my fault, sort of. Um—is-is he quite mad?"
Heeseung mused over the question for a bit, quietly laughing to himself at how flustered you were.
"Well I wouldn't say mad." Heeseung finally answered after what seemed like an eternity, "But I would say extremely confused and possibly bleeding out his bandages again."
"Fuck." You cursed under your breath, hoping Heeseung didn't hear what you said, "I'll see it to the matter straight away, Your Highness."
"Oh please, Miss Y/N, call me Heeseung." He winked flirtatiously at you, to which you wanted to slightly gag.
"Is it a custom for all Paradoxica kings to allow their nurses to call them by their names?" You chuckled, remembering how Jay so magnificently told you to call him by his name.
"Maybe just for the handsome ones." Heeseung jested, throwing you another wink, which you tried hard not to frown at.
As Heeseung's footsteps faded away, you turned to the door in front of you. Taking a deep breath, you strode forward and slowly opened the door, having the scent of musk hit your nostrils with a bang again, as your eyes fell upon Jay, sitting calmly against the bedframe with his bandages drenched in red.
"May I come in, Your Majesty?" You forced the sentence out, not daring to meet Jay's eyes. You heard a slight hum of approval, to which you sighed a breath of relief and strode in, immediately going to the tiny table you had set up in the corner of the room and getting your supplies to change Jay's bandages, not noticing how Jay's eyes were following your every movement.
Silence filled the room for many minutes as you went on with your routine of pressing the ointment against his wounds and wrapping them up in clean linen. You hadn't dared to lift your lids up to Jay, all the while you were touching his stomach.
"Who did that to you?"
The air stilled drastically, at Jay's cold question, which he offered in a bittersweet voice, and you knew he could see how you visibly froze, from the hair on top of your head down to your little toe finger.
"Pardon me, Your Majesty?" You said, pretending not to hear the question and quickly wrapping up your tools. But Jay was quicker.
"I said—" he leaned forward, to your figure sitting on the stool and he whispered dangerously in your ear,
"Who gave you that mark on your shoulder?"
Jay's suspicions proved true at your flinch at his tone. Leaning back to look at your face, he saw nothing but pure fear and a few tears. His thoughts immediately started to run wild.
"Forgive me." He sighed, "That was too far."
"It was." The words ran out before you could stop them, and a bit harsher than you had wanted.
"May I be please be excused?" You asked him, trying hard to ignore the pit in your stomach and the urge to throw yourself onto a bed and sob.
That night, you tried everything to fall asleep. Empty packets of chamomile were all strewn over the floor, the heavy scent of lavender candles floated in the air, and yet nothing was knocking you out.
Sleep came very late into the darkness and sleep came disturbed. You had no idea how many times your eyes cracked open and stared at the ceiling above because the nightmare just seemed too damn real to be a figment of your imagination. You wondered how it would have been like if you had stayed with Jay all night in his chambers, you had heard that Mrs.Chun often stayed with him when he was injured.
Secrets and secrets never to be untold, you started to write in your diary again, to kill your time, and hopefully drowse off as soon as your poem was completed.
Little did you know, a certain king was doing the same thing next door.
"So let me get this straight-" Sunghoon ran his fingers through his hair, "You have a very attractive woman your age tending to you, almost touching your abs, talking to you like you want to be talked to, smells like lavender, and an apparently suspicious bruise on her shoulder and you want to find out where that thing came from but she won't tell you?"
"Well when you say it that way." Jay glared at his fellow king, "And anyways I'm pretty sure she's upset with me right now, she practically ran out on me yesterday."
Sunghoon snickered and ran a hand through his hair again. "How are you holding up? With the injury and all?"
"It's much better than Y/N expects me to rest for." Jay scoffed, "Have you seen her out of her chambers when you were coming here?"
"I think she's in the infirmary." Sunghoon scratched his head, "One of the maids told me that she was busy."
If you were in the infirmary, the infirmary was where Jay would go. With a heavy breath, he lunged himself off of the bed and onto his feet, to the concerned brow raise of Sunghoon.
"Alright you should return to your palace now, doesn't the kingdom need you and all?"
"I don't think so." Sunghoon threaded his fingers into his locks, "It's a bright sunny day, Jongsoeng brighten up a bit!"
"If you touch your hair one more time Park Sunghoon, I will brighten up your funeral."
The infirmary was a place of healing. For both physical and mental wounds. For most of your teenage years, Mrs Chun had set about trying heal the latter, by immersing you into the art of healing others. It had been fascinating, you thought, the quiet of the stone walls and the cold air brushing against your skin with kisses you preferred. It made you forget your home.
So it wasn't a surprise that this was the place you came to early in the morning when the king had ordered your presence. You were currently working on a nightmare potion for yourself, trying to mix in some additionalities to make you dream about something else.
Your carefully measured out drops of cranberry juice caught your attention as the vibration from the sound of heavy steps coming from outside made it quiver ever so slightly.
Sighing to yourself when you heard the door knob's knock, you abandoned your chemicals and went towards the door, thankful for your infirmary outfit of trousers because they didn't drag behind you. Why couldn't you have worn this when you were tending to-
"Your Majesty!" You all but screamed, quickly bowing to the man in front of you, "uh....hi." you added awkwardly at the end.
"Hi." Jay replied back, "And I told you not to call me that. Just call me Jay it's fine."
"You're the goddamn king, I can't just call you by your first name." You retorted as Jay walked in and dropped into the chair by the table where your nightmare potion lay, "Do you need anything?"
"Entertainment." Jay replied promptly, curiously poking at some herbs, "Why don't you wear that often?"
"Pardon?" You said before looking down and realising what you were wearing. You quickly grabbed a blanket and covered your lower portion, "That wasn't meant for anyone's eyes."
"You look good." Jay winked, nibbling on the cilantro you had saved for the potion, "Is that a nightmare potion?"
"Mrs Chun told me you were horrible at potions." You laughed, letting do of the blanket and striding over to Jay, plopping down on the chair opposite to him, "Kudos to recognising the potion."
"She's exaggerating, you know how old women are these days."
"How old do you suspect I am?" You asked, curious as to the king's opinions on women's ages. Jay thought for a moment before speaking.
"Depends." He leaned forward and smiled, "How old do you think I am?"
"45." You answered with an air of pride to your voice, to which Jay gasped dramatically and put a hand to his chest.
"You wound me Y/N." He chuckled, "Healers are supposed to heal aren't they?"
"Well depending on how you take your tea with a jar full of honey, you're certainly an old man." You were uncontrollably laughing now, "We're the same age, 22."
There was a moment of silence, in which you silently took the potion away from his radius and into your hands, your eyes widening dangerously at the bubbling liquid.
"Damn it!" You said, wincing at the hot touch. You looked around frantically for something, anything, which could calm the potion down, while Jay looked on, confused at your doings. Nevertheless, he got up and started to look for whatever you wanted.
"What are we looking for?" Jay asked as you ripped open the cupboards, the potion was bubbling aggressively by now.
"Something that can calm the potion down!" You cried, trying to get your mind to think, something to neutralize liquid, "like a lemon, alkali something."
Jay knew nightmare potion was dangerous when it wasn't neutralized, poisoning the skin of those whose grasp it reached. He racked his brain, trying to remember what Mrs Chun had taught him.
"Oh how about that baking soda there!" Jay pointed, wincing slightly as he felt pressure against his wounds but he tried not to show it, "It's alkali is it not?"
You had no time to respond as you grabbed thd baking soda at the speed of lightning and poured it all into the potion. The aggravated liquid seemed to calm down, as the bubbles slowly faded away and the colour changes from green to its normal azure.
"Thank the fucking heavens." You sighed, plopping down on the table much to Jay's amusement, "Thank you, Jay."
"I don't think Mrs Chun would like the state of this room right now." Jay motioned to the floor, where powders and cupboards lay ripped open from your frantic try to find an alkali. He was right of course, Mrs Chun would have killed you. The baking soda was also finished.
"Ah damn." You said, not realising the amount of times you swore in front of the kind today, you had to go out and get new ones now. You started to pick up the bigger jars which were thankfully not broken and arrange them back, not noticing Jay doing the same thing behind you. When you did notice however you were horrified.
"Your Majesty sit down!" You commanded, forcing Jay down onto the chair, "You'll worsen the injury."
"But I want to help." Jay visibly pouted, adorable, you thought, "Please?"
"Absolutely not." You responded, five minutes away from tying him to the chair, "If you're that bored, we can talk, but under no circumstance am I allowing you to bend and work."
Jay considered his options and came to the conclusion that talking was the better option. He wanted to find out more about your mysterious ways of enchanting him so well, about that scar too....
"Shall I start then?" Jay asked, as you nodded and started on the mess again, "Favourite food?"
"That's the best question you could think of?" You scoffed playfully, nevertheless smiling at him, "Apricots. Alright my turn. Hm..allergies?"
"Peaches, which is a pity because I love peaches. Hobbies?"
"Most of the time, reading, but I like experimenting here in the infirmary." You said. You liked this conversation, it was peaceful, bouncing back on each other with questions of all kinds. There was laughter, teasing and perhaps the most happiness you had felt in a lot of time.
"Birds can take over the world, you can fight me on that."
"If I fought you over it, I'd probably lose." Jay laughed, holding his stomach from the amount of bird jokes you both had made in the past fifteen minutes.
"So any siblings?"
Jay's question made you freeze again into that familiar pose Jay had grown to hate now. He wondered whether it was something related to your family that you were making the nightmare potion for.
"I'm sorry, you clearly aren't comfortable with discussing it I won't bring it up agai-"
"No it's alright." You sighed, letting out a breath that felt like it had been caged forever somewhere, "I-Well I don't speak with my family anymore they weren't exactly the loving type, a-and I ran away when I was 14."
14. That was the age when Jay lost everything.
"Well I guess we have a lot in common then." Jay sent you a comforting smile. God he had a gorgeous smile, you wished you could see it on his face at all times of the day.
"That would be a horrible similarly wouldn't it?" You forced a kindred smile. Jay nodded at your statement, and picked up the cilantro again, bringing the smaller leaves to his mouth to chew.
"Well I'll leave you to your work." Jay slumped off of his chair, the pain in his bandages had decreased now, "Good day Y/N."
"Good day Your- I mean Jay."
Jay had no idea how he managed to reach his chambers, his feet managed to trace the path back, all that was on his mind was how much if a mystery you still were.
That night, he opened the glass case in his room for the first time in seven years, taking out the ruby dagger and admiring how much it felt like your touch.
"Hyung are you serious?" Jay's fingers massaged his temple, as Heeseung smirked.
Both of them were sitting outside, in the warm afternoon Sun after you had allowed Jay to go outside on making sure his bandages were healed. It had been a few days since the infirmary incident, and Jay had constantly sneaked up so many times and messed with your potions that you had to threaten to rip apart the infirmary and blame it on him when Mrs Chun returned. Jay had heard worse threats in his life, but never before had he actually listened to them than now.
Plus it was the only thing that could allow him to see you in your shirt and trousers fit which he adores so much, even if you glared at him while he made suggestions for a potion while sitting next to you. Granted, he had been useful sometimes, particularly the time, he carefully bandaged your hand when you got a nasty burn from some dragon scales.
Unbeknownst to him, you though he looked adorable, with his tongue stuck out in pure concentration, as he carefully pressed his fingers across yours. It bought a blush to your face.
"It's the only favour I ask of you Jay" Heeseung tried to put on his best boba eye impression, to manipulate Jay into asking you out on a date. To Heeseung's wedding.
"Why can't you ask?" Jay sighed, talking a sip of his lemonade.
"Because Y/N isn't making my heart beat at the pace of a cheetah, she's making yours." Heeseung smirked, "Wait isn't that her?"
Jay's head whipped around to look behind him, making a crack sound as it went. His eyes landed on someone in the distance, wearing an olive dress and a straw hat, carrying a wickerwork basket, possibly to pick some on the daffodils growing in the garden. Royal healers were always allowed to pick herbs in the garden, so that's what you were probably doing.
God you looked beautiful, Jay thought. It reminded him of earlier, happier days, of days when laughter echoed high through the walls and flowers bloomed. Especially lavender. Lavender, like his mother....
"Jay, you're staring." Heeseung coughed loudly, snapping Jay out of his euphoria.
In the distance, you were willing away your time by plucking out tiny bristles of daffodils, they would do you good in makin the nightmare potions again. It wad a pleasant day today and you hadn't expected Jay to come out, but there he was, sitting alongside Heeseung in a loose white shirt, open slightly at neck. You hoped fervently that there weren't any mind readers present at the scene, lest they read all your extremely unholy thoughts.
The last few days, were fun, happy even. You liked Jay making conversation with you at the infirmary. Sure he annoyed you sometimes, but you didn't think you had laughed this much in ages now. It felt like home, true home, which you hadn't ever known the feeling of.
The sound of loud coughing made you flinch as you turned around to see both the royals snap their heads into the distance from staring at you. Giggling to yourself, you began to walk towards them, basket full of daffodils in hand.
"Fuck she's coming here." Jay whispered, pretending to look busy in fishing the cilantro pieces out from his glass.
"And I thought I was the lovesick one." Heeseung rolled his eyes, quickly putting on his brightest smile, as he saw you approaching.
"Miss Y/N!" Heeseung bowed to you, trying to sound like he wasn't about to possibly ruin Jay's love life, "Are you doing well?"
"Perfect, Your Highness." You curtsied, noticing Jay still hiding his face, "Congratulations on the betrothal, Your Highness, or should I call you Heeseung?"
"You remember?" He shot you a cheeky smile, sitting down on his chair agin, as you sat down on the one a servant brought you, "Well I assume you are coming to the ball? I would be devastated if my darling Queen didn't meet you."
You chuckled and quietly shook your head. "I don't believe I was invited. Plus, i have no family or friend to go with."
"Oh what a coincidence! Jay doesn't either!" Heeseung said, in a fake cheery voice, as Jay groaned silently to himself and fervently wished to disappear from this moment. This was by far the weakest he had ever felt in all his life.
"Oh...um... That's sad?" You were uncertain on what to say. Heeseung took a deep breath, and reminded himself that he had to play Cupid properly.
"Yes it's so sad, don't you think it would so nice if you two went together?"
Perhaps the most frightening thing the birds heard that day was the sound of Jay's cough at Heeseung's sentence.
"Jay! Oh my god-" you panicked, bit Heeseung merely rolled his eyes and harshly patted Jay's back.
"Calm down idiot." Heeseung grumbled, and then turned back to you with a bright smile on his face, "Anyways, as we were saying, how about it Miss Y/N?"
"Well, for starters-" you said, with the air of a true healer, "I have to go out to town and get some supplies, the infirmary is nearly out. And secondly, it is a royal ball. I don't believe I have anything royal to wear."
"Oh pity, I think Jay knows a really good seamstress in town don't you Jay?" Heeseung smirked at a red eared Jay who was doing everything in his power to appear not flustered, "Plus weren't you going to go on your undercover rounds tomorrow Jay? Oh that's perfect! You and Y/N can go get the supplies in town, and get some measurements for her dress and voila! A perfect date to my wedding!"
That night, both you and Jay went to sleep peacefully, without scented candles or chamomile teas.
That night, a healer and a king couldn't wait for tomorrow's gift.
(And Heeseung slept, giggling next to his annoyed but loving wife)
"You look rather dashing." You giggled, clutching a basket tightly in your hand, and leaning against the door, admiring the figure of the man in front of you. Jay was clad in simple clothes today, a workman's attire. And he still looked more handsome that the devil himself.
"Oh shut up." Jay rolled his eyes, "You definetly look prettier."
"Where did you learn to impress a lady like that hmm?" You questioned, as Jay tried everything to adjust his collar and failed, "That's not how you press the fabric down idiot."
"First of all-" Jay glared playfully at you, "I didn't learn it just comes to me naturally" you scoffed at that, "Second of all you just called the king of tis kingdom an idiot. And third of all-" his eyes went round like the ones he used when he wanted something, "Can you adjust this collar please?"
"Idiot." You laughed, putting your basket down and walking over to him, your hands going up towards his unruly collar, "My idiot, unfortunately."
"Since when do healers get to own people?" Jay jested, feeling his entire world freeze at the soft touch of your hands. God you smelled like lavender and love.
Love? That four lettered word? Please, Jay mentally scoffed, it didn't exist.
But as Jay watched you, felt your fingers touching his neck, and your waist pressing against his, as you carefully adjusted the collar, in that very moment, he saw the most beautiful aspects of his life, and he knew he was helplessly in love. He craved your touch, your presence, your eyes stuck to his, anything with you. Was this the love his mother always spoke of?
"And I'm done!" You breathed a sigh of relief, the collar was hard to pull down, and you were relieved when it finally flattened. What you weren't expecting however, was Jay staring at you with widened eyes when you looked up from his neck.
"Um...Jay?" You said, waving your hand in front of him, "Earth to The great King Park Jongsoeng."
Your voice seemed to break Jay out of his temporary trance, as he quickly blinked his eyes and popped his lips together. "We should go." He said, much to your relief.
"Hey wait a second." You stopped him from exiting. Your fingers went up to his hair and quickly ruffled it, making it look messy and unruly
"There." You presented proudly, "now you look like a true town person."
Something in Jay told him that this day would go in a second as all good days went.
Jay had never before gone on his monthly undercover trip to the town, accompanied by anyone else. He feared it would blow his cover to the people. The trip always benefited him, he would get some delicious food, a day without guards, a day with peace, and a free survey of the citizens' wellbeing.
Today was different. He had no interest in looking at the wellbeing of the people, nor on the food. All he cared about was you.
You, with your head held high, easily chatting up the store owners, bargaining for the price of powdered dragon scales and smiling wide at the tiny child who had run up to you and have you a tiny sunflower blossom.
His heart was weak, fragile around you, it contained lovesick blood which he hadn't ever held before. Your hearty laughter, your hair moving in harmony with you and the contagious joy you spread to the people in the bustling market, it made Jay's knees buckle.
"Jongsoeng come on!" You cried, walking perhaps fifteen steps ahead of Jay. He had to jog to keep up. You were calling him by his actual name, since most people outside of royalty didn't know his real name.
"Did you get everything?" Jay panted, peering into your full basket. You nodded.
"Yep! I even got the cilantro you like chewing so much like a cow." You giggled, holding up a few leaves to his mouth, "Say ahh" you teased him as if you were feeding a child.
"Ahhh" Jay opened up his mouth and pushed the cilantro into his mouth, much to your surprise. You flinched slightly at his cold touch.
"Delicious." Jay smacked his lips together dramatically, "Anyways shall we get going?"
"Please don't tell me we're going to some shoe shop, I detest the smell of leather." You groaned, earning a look from Jay.
"That is by far the weirdest thing I've ever heard." Jay chuckled, "And we're going to the best seamstress of this kingdom darling, so keep your socks on."
Your heart fluttered uncontrollably at his nickname.
"Ah my King. Welcome!" A well dressed woman, with her hair tied into a fishtail greeted Jay and you. You assumed she was the Chaeryoung from "Chaeryoung's Seams", signboard outside which indicated her grand castle of a shop. This, according to Jay, was where all the aristocrats obtained their clothes.
"Chaeryoung, I assume you are well?" Jay pressed a kiss to her hand, a custom for most unmarried men, but delivering a pang of jealousy to your heart.
"I do not care about my wellbeing right now, Your Majesty. All I care about-" she shifted her pretty, cat-like eyes to you, "-is this beauty standing before me."
You felt your cheeks heat up at Chaeryoung's complement. You? A beauty? Impossible it seemed, especially next to a pretty woman like Chaeryoung.
"I am Y/N." You curtsied, "You are quite gorgeous yourself, Miss Chaeryoung."
Chaeryoung let out a giggle and blushed red in her ears, turning to Jay. "You found someone quite like yourself, Your Majesty."
"Oh please." You scoffed playfully, "I am much more handsome than him, don't you think?"
To Jay, that was more of a complement than an insult, especially when it came from your mouth.
You stayed in Chaeryoung's shop until the sky darkened. She wouldn't let you go until you tried on every combination she asked you to.
Jay was quite useful in this, you thought, giving Chaeryoung recommendations on necklines and earings and whatnot.
A memory which stayed particularly on your mind, was when you stepped out in a beautiful dress, which hugged your body perfectly, with a neckline that could send any man to heaven if he looked at it.
Any man meant Jay too, who thought he would combust if he saw you on any more dresses. He swore he could have seen pixies sparkling their magic dust over you.
"How does this look?" You stood in front of Jay with a big smile on your face.
"Spin for me." Jay said, standing up, to assess the dress more properly, as you spun, the fabric seemingly obeying your every command and spinning with you like a Scottish Fold's tail. Could you get any prettier?
"I swear to god if you don't get this dress, I will open my bandages." Jay said dramatically, much to Chaeryoung's pleasure who nodded and rushed out of the room, to get your measurements.
"Do I look good?" You asked again, a bit uncertainly this time.
"Good?" Jay scoffed, "You look like the prettiest person on earth."
"You sure know how to make a girl blush, are you sure you haven't had practice?" You giggled, spinning one more time in the dress to admire yourself. You loved the way the fabric felt against your skin, it hugged it in a way that all your scars didn't hurt too much. A perfect dress, you thought.
Perfect. Until you looked down at your collarbone.
Fate has its ways, dear reader. And it has many ways for misfortune.
"Oh no-no no no." You swore under your breath. Well that is, if you were even breathing. You were panicking, and panic attacks weren't exactly cotton candy flavoured for you. You could feel your throat tighten up and your peripheral vision blend out.
You felt cold all around, you felt the harsh words of little girls and the screams of your parents. You felt Jooyeon too....
"Hey hey Y/N, calm down." You could hear Jay's voice faintly behind you, but you couldn't bring yourself to focus on anything.
Jay was worried, extremely worried. He hadn't ever seen you panic like this before. Sure you had a few stressful mishaps in the infirmary, but this? Never before. Jay was confused as to why you were currently supporting your entire weight on him but he took one look down at your collarbone and he knew.
"Y/N, darling, I need you to breathe for me." Jay whispered in your ear, unsure of what to do. His hands trailed down to your waist, while one supported your shoulder.
"Shh, I'm right here, I'm right here calm down." Jay coached you, tracing shapes along your neck, which worked effectively.
"I-" you kept your sob in your throat, "I need something to c-cover..."
You felt a warm sort of cloth wrap around your shouder, Jay's jacket.
"Calm down now." Jay whispered again, hearing faint footsteps in the distance, "I'll distract Chaeryoung, you run."
"Your bandages aren't bleeding much, I think they're healed.." You clicked your tongue, pressing against Jay's wounds.
"You sound worried though, darling." Jay said, his eyes never leaving you even as you got up and settled your supplies down.
"You know I won't ever stop worrying about you." You chuckled, sitting opposite him on the bed, with two cups of chamomile. Drinking tea with Jay at night seemed to relax your nerves.
"So..."
"So?"
"Would you like to talk about what happened?"
You bit your lip at his question, savouring the taste of the chamomile for a while.
"Would you really like to know?" You sighed, putting your tea down, "You've been curious over it for a lot of days."
"I would like to know whether you want Jooyeon killed or tortured." Jay calmly sipped his tea.
Jooyeon.
How did he know?!
"How-" you raised your eyes to him, "Do you know about Jooyeon?"
"I'm a King, darling." Jay chuckled, his eyes seemed more dangerous than ever, "I know everything."
"If you knew everything, then why did you ask me?" You said, your tone laced with venom.
Jay's eyes softened. "I know who he is but I don't know what he did to you, darling." He toyed with his empty cup, "and I wanted to know why you hide that scar."
"Because it's ugly!" You cried out, slamming your teacup onto the table next to you, you were surprised it didn't break, "Because everyone I've ever met in my life recoils from it whenever they see it and for some fucking reason you didn't and it's just so weird!"
The air stilled again in that familiar manner, and flashes of memories came into Jay's mind.
'Mum why do you hide your shoulder?'
'its not as beautiful as the rest of me, Jay. Why do you ask?'
'You're still pretty to me mum!'
Your memories on the other hand, were entirely different.
The sound of glass....
The smell of blood....
Jooyeon's grip on your thigh.....
"Y/N, love-"
"I'm sorry, I-I shouldn't have-"
Jay's hand buried you into his chest, as your sob ripped through the air like a siren. He could feel his shirt become damp but he didn't give a single damn. All he cared about was how you were practically shaking apart in his arms.
Your shattered words of 'Im sorry!' broke his heart into tatters and he felt like he was 13 again, listening to his mother son and him not being able to do anything.
Except this time, he could.
In the quiet moments of vulnerability, you shared your fear with him, trusting him with your deepest secrets. And as Jay held you in his arms, he realized that he had become your safe haven, and his love for you blossomed in that tender embrace.
"Y/N, love, look at me?" Jay tilted your head up to him, grabbing your chin with his finger. Your tear stained eyes looked up at him with nothing but calm trust. You did trust him. And love him too.
As your eyes met, a sense of familiarity washed over you. It was as if your souls had known each other in a different time and place. In that profound connection, you realized that the fates had pulled their strings again love unfurled within you.
"I-I want to-"
"Do it."
That's all Jay needed, for him to crash into you and create a magnificent firework display, maybe only he could see all the sparkles and colours. Jay could taste sweet moonlight and honey on your lips. Blood rushed to his heart, which pumped it ever so fastly, it was about to explode out of his chest.
He craved this, he craved it as a battlefield craved blood or as a nightmare potion craved alkali. Ribbons of love and hope rushed out of his neck, where your arms wrapped, sinking into him, with pure trust and love.
Was this the love the poets spoke of?
Maybe not, Jay thought, but he didn't care anymore. This was the love he now wanted, he never wanted to let go of it.
Perhaps he never would.
Silence fell like darkness, as you pulled away slowly, still keeping your eyes close for a second. You couldn't believe what on earth had just happened. Jay couldn't either.
“That felt like a crime against humanity.” you broke the silence, with your serious statement.
The seriousness didn't last long, when Jay looked into your eyes, you looked into his, and the both of you burst out laughing.
"Was that your first kiss?" Jay teased, his fingers were threading through your hair, relaxing you.
"Yours too?" You retorted.
Amidst the moonlight, no one would have suspected that a healer and a king would be laughing raucously, looking at each other with nothing but love, something they never experienced before.
“I mean, I could do with some more of that.” you said shyly, feeling a blush creep up to your face.
"Why don't we then, darling?"
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Next chapter coming soon!
Tags: @amazzwon @heeseungshim @kvmariii @mwahvvis @hottiewifeyyyy @sacrificeatmeup @perfectnighttt @yawnzzhoon @yunabi436 + send an ask to be tagged!
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lukeywritesstuff · 5 months
Note
Jealous Jack at the umich football game. A bunch of college guys are obsessing over the reader and Jack can’t take it anymore.
Fucking Loser
Jack Hughes x reader
Note: Okay bare with me on this one, I only slightly know football as I’m only starting to get into it, and by starting I mean I absolutely have no idea what’s going on and I just find one player so sexy I want him.
Warnings: jealousy, Weird drunk guys that can’t handle the word ‘no’, sexual assault mention, older man being creepy to a 20 year old, underage drinking, cursing
Jack invited me to go to the Wolverines home opener football game with him and his brothers, what he didn’t tell me was I had to sit with the crowd as they only had 3 field passes.
I came to this hoping I was gonna spend time with my boyfriend before his season started with the devils and he has to travel a ton for away games, but no, here I am in the crowd surrounded by a couple of horny guys who can’t keep their hands off me.
“Can you PLEASE for the love of God stop FUCKING TOUCHING ME!” I yell at the 2 guys either side of me, the stadium wasn’t too loud at that point so a bunch of people heard and it got the attention of Jack and his brothers, Luke and Quinn, making them come to the bleachers where we were.
“What’s going on here, why the fuck are you touching my girl when she’s asked you to fucking stop!” Jack said clearly angry with the two losers.
“We were just trying to get her grumpy ass into the spirit. Maybe you shouldn’t have left her alone here. Then maybe nothing would’ve happened.” One of the guys said.
Jacks face turned red and he was about to yell at him until Luke butted in.
“You have way too much confidence for a guy in his 8th year of college just so you can still be part of a team nobody cares about. You’re not going pro, give up on that. It’s never going to happen. You’re gonna have to leave college and get a normal job one day. Nobody’s gonna remember you, and if they do, don’t make them remember you as the loser who can’t listen to when a girl says no and assaults her. You’re almost 30, fucking act like it. How am I 10 years younger than you yet I even know better than that.”
The weirdo looked absolutely flabbergasted at what Luke said and just huffed off and walked away.
“Remind me to never leave your side, ever. I was so fucking stupid leaving you here with a bunch of FOOTBALL fans. Literally the worst breed of people.“ Jack said and started saying other shit about how stupid he is.
“Okay jack, shut the fuck up. I still love you. I will always love you. Yes I’d rather you have stayed with me, or found a way to get me another field pass. But now it’s in the past, he’s gone. His friends gone. We can either enjoy the rest of the game or we can go back to the house and relax by the lake, maybe even force Quinn to go on a relaxing boat ride to calm down after this.”
Jsck just nodded and grabbed my hand before we left with Quinn. (Luke stayed back because he was hanging out with his ex-teammates after the game)
We went out on the boat Jack and I had some coolers that he bought on our way home (even though I’m not legal for another month) and we spent the rest of the day relaxing until Luke and a hoard of college boys took over the backyard and started a fire.
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rinstrumental · 1 year
Text
under the mistletoe grapevine
diluc / 1,035 words
a/n i started writing this at work last year and remembered about it like an hour ago lol
# friends to lovers, mutual pining (all that Good Shit), assumption that diluc has/had extended family and a mother, gender neutral reader, love confessions, not proofread
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The Ragnvindrs had a special Christmas tradition. Instead of the usual mistletoe branch overhead, a grape vine would hang in its place - to honour the family’s legacy, nothing more.
However, this custom was also observed at the Ragnvindrs’ open house holiday parties, which of course were always packed to the brim. there was an age old rumour that any lovers who kissed under the vine would be blessed with a content and long relationship. Loosely following that belief, many people ascertained that confessing to your beloved under the grapevine would make them reciprocate their feelings. Numerous couples were formed every christmas thanks to that, though only a handful proved the myth to be true.
Diluc did not believe in or care for this tradition, despite it being the way his own parents began dating. Sure, his parents were happy together until his mother passed, followed by her husband, but they were one out of a hundred. Year after year, Diluc watched countless teenagers cry dejectedly under the vine and relationships quickly fall apart by the new year. He wasn’t the only witness to the drama - everyone knew about it. So why did people still believe in it?
People yearned love, and this was just another silly gimmick believed in by those desperate enough to put such delusions in their head to obtain it. Whatever. He had more pressing matters to worry about.
His bright red eyes flickered up and caught yours, surprised to find them staring at him. It was Christmas Eve, the night before the festivities were due to begin, and you were helping Diluc with the last-minute preparations like you did every year.
Your gaze shifted towards the list in your hands, slightly embarrassed that he’d seen you looking.
“That’s the tree done… just one more thing to do. Drum roll please…” you rapped your fist against the table. “The grapevine! Your favourite!”
Diluc snorted. “That’s my least favourite.”
“I know. That’s the joke.”
He yawned. “Well. it’s your favourite. I think i’ll give you the pleasure of putting it up, and i’ll go to sleep. I’ve got a ton of small talk to do tomorrow.”
“Come on, humour me.” You turned in your stool to look at the man beside you. Without a word or a second glance, he slipped off his seat and began walking away.
“Wait!” you yelped, grabbing his arm quickly. “Please?”
Diluc felt his body get warm at your grip on his arm and the look on your face. He knew you knew that you could always get the better of him with those eyes.
You cleared your throat when he didn’t respond, deciding not to tease Diluc for the painfully obvious blush on his face. “Besides, I need you to hold the stepstool for me. don’t want me breaking my leg on Christmas Eve, don’t you?”
“Fine,” he muttered finally. You let his arm drop with a triumphant smile and marched off to the living room.
The ceiling there was not as high as the one in the main hall, just the perfect height for hanging decorations from it. Diluc unfolded the stepstool it in the furthest corner of the room and held it steady by the legs.
“Whenever you’re ready, Y/N.”
You began your ascent, grapevine tucked precariously under your arm. Once you had clambered to the top, you stood up slowly, careful to not lose your footing on the small surface.
Diluc watched you tensely. He trusted that you were being cautious, but he couldn’t help but worry. “Careful,” he called out.
You didn’t respond, focused on securing the vine to the ceiling. after a minute of silence, you finally exhaled, arms dropping back to your sides. “That’s my workout the rest of year.”
“Alright, get down from there now,” Diluc sighed.
It all happened so quickly. You missed the step on the way down, and you all of a sudden your balance was lost and you were toppling backwards. A shout of terror ripped from your throat, anticipating the crash.
You felt yourself land on a… body? You looked around frantically to find yourself in Diluc’s arms, his left hand cradling your back and his right hooked under your legs.
“Fuck, Y/N,” he gasped. His face looked just as shocked as you were, concern etched into his features. You could feel his heartbeat against you - fast and worried. “You’re lucky I managed to catch you. Are you okay?”
“I’m… fine.” you gasped, still trying to calm down from the scare. You couldn’t seem to get your pulse to slow, and how long has it been since you’ve been in Diluc’s arms? A minute? Ten?
His gaze kept flickering around your face, searching for any indication that you were hurt. Even in a moment like this, he couldn’t help but think about how beautiful you looked… and how close you were.
It was a collision, the way your lips crashed against each other. The kiss was initially intense, passionate, years of pining finally bursting past the brim. Then it eased off slightly, gentler as Diluc let your feet reach the ground and his hands slid down to meet at the small of your back, pulling you closer. He tasted like gingerbread.
The way he chased your lips, the way his arms wrapped around you, it was all you ever could’ve imagined and more. Finally processing what was going on, you pulled away from the kiss.
“I love you.” You said it quickly, before you lost your edge.
“I… love you too,” Diluc whispered, surprising himself. He didn’t think he would ever say that out loud to you. Hell, he didn’t even dare admit it to himself. “I have for a long time. I don’t think I can ever stop.”
The two of you stood, basking in the feeling that is having someone reciprocate your love. The room seemed a little more colourful.
“Do you realise what you just did?” You were the first to break the silence.
Diluc groaned, rubbing his forehead. “I kissed someone under the grapevine.”
You laughed breathily. “Back to your grumpy self already? Should I kiss you again, Luc?”
He cracked a smile, despite himself. “I’m not against that.”
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leafostuff · 7 months
Text
Cuddle Party [Ft. CSR]
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Tags: 8-some fluff, super sweet, sleepover, cheeks madness, very wholesome Word count: 8k~ words Author's notes: this monstosity of a fic is finally out, 8k words of pure fluff and wholesome stuff, CSR is my favorite group and i had a ton of fun writing for them, hope you all will enjoy the fic Credit: @4m1rz for being my trusty beta reader and @libraryoferos for not only helping me with the beta reading but also providing some of the scenes plus the inspiration for this fic, without him this fic wouldnt exist so make sure to give him some love
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“Why am i even here”
you thought to yourself as you were in your mom’s car on your way toward one of your classmates Gu Yeham’s house for a sleepover, honestly, you didnt really expect to get an invitation to a sleepover at all, especially when all of you are 17 years old, so when you found yourself looking at your phone which the same girl who is hosting this sleepover was the one who texted you her invitation.
“Are you sure this is the place?” your mom asked, you tried to look out of the window to check if this was the correct house however it was so dark that you couldn't really recognize however as you look at the address Yeham gave to you it was all correct and this indeed was her house.
As you nod to your mom she sighs in relief, “Okay, you remember what we talked about before?” she asked as honestly, it was hard to forget the number of rules your mom gave you in order for her to let you go to this sleepover, especially one with him being the only guy full of girls.
“Yes Mom, no sleeping together with them, i must inform you at 11 PM sharp that everything is fine” you say, started taking your bag out of the back of the car-” you were saying however your mom cutted you
“and what is the most important rule?” she asked as you were confused, you couldnt remember anything else besides those two since you were pretty zoned out
"Wear protection?" you asked as your mom laughed as she gave you a kiss on the forehead and a warm smile
“Have fun” she said as you left the car, in front of the big house, as you find your way through the dark path you finally manage to get toward the door of the house, the small light from the entrance illuminates the doorbell. pressing the doorbell start get your thoughts racing through your head
“Ok dude, relax its all good, its just a sleepover, you did those before, granted it was at age 10 and this sleepover is only girls but i should be fine, nothing to-” your thoughts came to a halt as the door suddenly opened, revealing Gu Yeham in front of you, her face lit up as she saw you in the door.
“oh shit” you thought to yourself
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You couldn’t think of anything anymore. She was beautiful.
Quick. You searched in every corner of your brain of a compliment to give Yeham but found nothing—smooth hair you have, no, you have pretty skin, no no, your cheeks are very round? You fumbled every word possible and in the end stuck with a “Hello, Yeham?”
“Welcome, welcome~” she said with a smile, “What are you waiting for? Come in, unless you want to freeze outside by yourself” she jokingly said, inviting you to her house
It looked big from the outside but it was even more majestic inside: the walls were high and spacious, brightly shined decorations of gold and silver while the crystal chandelier sparkled. You didn’t feel exactly comfortable. You were not used to this kind of environment and felt stiff and uptight to be in such a luxurious place but your friend eased you into it. Yeham took your hand and guided you to the kitchen. Remembering that it was her place made you a tiny bit more relaxed.
“You’re late, was it difficult to find my house?” she asked. 
“Yeah, It’s a bit far from the city area. It didn’t help that it was really dark and I… didn’t expect it to be like this.”
“Don’t you like it?”
“No, no, I do,” you were quick to correct yourself. “I like it a lot. It’s very beautiful. Maybe it’s too beautiful. I’m afraid I will destroy something if I step in the wrong way.”
She chuckles. “You’re too tense!” Yeham gave you a pat on your back. “I’ve never seen you this way.”
“Yeah, it’s just that… uh…” you stopped yourself. It was embarrassing to admit it but stupid were you to even start it. Yeham’s eyes raised toward you in a curious manner, they studied you and she said, “It’s what?”
“Nohing. Nothing.” you quickly lie, looking away at her to try and hide your embarrassment, however she quickly walked in closer to look at your eyes.
“Oppa…Don’t lie now. Don’t forget you accepted the sleepover. We won’t go anywhere unless you tell me now and I have all night~” Yeham playfully told you with a devious smirk. She crossed her arms and looked at you through her eyebrows, fierce and bossy. You knew you couldn’t convince her.
“Aish… It’s that…”
“That?”
“That it’s my first time being at a girl’s place.” you quickly blurt out, being embarrassed even more
Yeham’s gaze immediately softened and her hands dropped to her sides. Her eyes turn into pleading puppy eyes as a fuzzy feeling fills her chest. She affectionately tugged the hem of your sweater to meet your eyes. “Awww, don’t feel nervous. I’m just… your friend! You should be comfortable around me,” she said. “Or is there something that’s bothering you? I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine really. I guess I just need to get used to this.”
“Really? Are you sure? You’re looking at me weird,” she laughed.
“It’s because you’re…. very pretty today,” you said, your cheeks turn a shade of pink as you earned yourself a soft punch on your shoulder. Yeham’s steps quicken to rush to the kitchen. She doesn’t look lie she’s blushing but the reddish tint on her ears reveals what she’s really feeling.
You sighed in relief and followed her. 
You almost enter the door when suddenly you hear Yeham squeal. You stepped inside. There were bags everywhere and all the cupboards were open with some jars upside down and everything else in a mess.
Your eyes cross a girl on the ground. Her cheeks were full, with bits of chips on her cheeks and lips, while her right hand held a bag and the other hand was still half way into the bag. She hides the evidence behind her back. You’re not sure what her intention was.
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“Hello?” she said, flashing a guilty smile.
“I told you to TAKE OUT the snacks, not EAT all of them!” Yeham scolded her. “Seoyeon Unnie, what is this mess?”
“Well, you said to take out all of the snacks right? so I had to make sure I really did get everything out.” she explained herself as Yeham just looked even more confused than before.
“And why are you eating?”
“Uhh…quality control?” she simply asked in a rhetorical question as Yeham shook her head in disappointment.
“You’re unbelievable,” Yeham sighed. She pinched her nose bridge and gave you a look of defeat, the one that tells you to “deal with this yourself.” 
“I’ll go see what the other girls are doing,” she said and left, you could feel the annoyance from Yeham's Aura toward her unnie. Splendid. Your first task is to clean.
It was your turn to sigh now. You looked around the room, it looked like a tornado just passed. Seoyeon smiled at you, squinting her eyes, and waving her hand, happy that she has someone to help her clean. 
You look around and grab a tissue before crouching down to her level. You grab her chin and start cleaning her face. “You can’t even eat properly, Seoyeon. Look at you.”
Seoyeon just giggled and closed her eyes. You let go of the napkin and used your fingers to swipe away all the little crumbles. In the midst of the action, you realize how soft her cheeks were. Sure, they did look soft but you didn’t know they actually were this soft. It really felt like holding a marshmallow.
You didn’t realize you were just squishing her cheeks until Seoyeon told you. 
“Oppa… are you finished?”
“Oh! Sorry…” you said pulling away your hands. You looked away.
She laughed. “So caring of you to clean me like this, have anyone told you you are boyfriend material?” she asked, looking at you with a cute grin, lost in her eyes, your mind couldn't comprehend what seoyeon was saying.
“What are you even saying, Seoyeon.” You stood up, quickly shaking yourself of the trance and patting your pants. “Help me clean.”
Seoyeon started by picking up all the bags she scattered on the ground, while you went to get a broom. That little rascal couldn’t even bother to eat normally and left crumbles everywhere as if she was Hansel. You have been her friend long enough to be accustomed to this side of her. You weren’t surprised, of course you weren’t, and you wondered why Yeham even left her alone in the first place. 
Seoyeon was a bright a girl. She was optimistic and could get along with any stranger, making them feel close and accepted. Her extroverted demeanor eventually caught you as well and that’s how you two became friends: she was a bit too energetic when she went to greet you and accidentally knocked down your lunch tray. Fortunately, some of the food was still intact but she felt guilty and wanted to apologize properly. Then followed several days with Seoyeon chasing you around and you running away, because you were scared to talk to her.
Walking out the kitchen, you couldn’t help but observe the house. You already saw it before but it still fascinated you how big it was. About two families could live comfortably in there. Yeham didn’t have any sibling, it must feel lonely sometime. It was also true that she had lots of friends.
To your surprise—even though it was obvious—the room with all the cleaning equipment was huge. It was almost as big as your little bedroom. 
So you went and looked. It looked like a whole cleaning supply store squished in there. There were all kinds of brooms, dustpans, mops, microfiber cloths, two vacuum cleaners, stacks of buckets, squeegees, toilet brushes. Those were only the tools: on the right, there was a shelf with all of the cleaning solutions. From the all-purpose cleaner to the glass cleaner, antibacterial spray, tile cleaner, bleach, toilet bowl cleaner, white vinegar, baking soda. Not to mention a whole row of laundry detergents that you couldn't recognize. In the corner, there were also products for pets, like paw wipes (you didn’t know she had a dog), urine neutralizers, brushes, etc.
Why did she even need that much stuff? Wouldn’t her family have hired a maid of some sort? Judging from where she lives, it wasn’t like she couldn’t afford it. You so lost looking into he room that you didn’t realize someone sneaked up to you.
“Who is it?” you barely heard behind you. “Why are you taking so long?” She kept your eyes covered with her hands but judging from her voice and her words, she must’ve been…
“Seoyeon.”
The hands leave your eyes as you turned around to see… Yuna. Yuna standing in front of you, angrily pouting all alone, her arms folded over her chest, and a burning gaze. Yuna was happy to see you but she did not like that you arrived at the house half an hour ago, you’ve barely spoken or looked at her, and now you even got her voice wrong.
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“Oh, it’s you,” you said. “Hey, Yuna.”
“Oh, its you…” Yuna whined then sighed heavily, maybe even a little dramatically. “Go back to Seoyeon.”
You shook your head and chuckled, finding her grumbling adorable but also a bit worried by her sudden change in behaviour.
“Are you mad?” you asked. Yuna respond didnt. “perhaps...jealous?” with this question Yuna immediately reacts, as her she starts to tense up and her face started to turn pink
“Ha! No,” she scoffed and folded her arms again, this time looking away to the wall.
“Anyways, I’m sorry I didn’t recognize your voice but it’s because you said something like what was taking me so long and the only one who as waiting for me was Seoyeon to help her clean. So I thought—”
“I was waiting for you too!” Yuna puffed. “We haven’t hanged out for so long but now that we can meet again you’re only paying attention to Seoyeon.”
“It’s only been a couple of minutes.”
“A couple?!”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” you quickly assured her as you put your hand on her head and patted her. “I’m sorry. We’ll definitely catch up later, okay? I’m really happy to see you again.”
Yuna couldn’t help but smile.
“Okay,” she mumbled. “Go and clean fast so we can talk.”
“Alright.” you grabbed the first broom you could find and went back to the kitchen. It was incredible. Impressive. Desperate. The kitchen was in a bigger mess than before. You saw Seoyeon sitting with her leg crossed in a sign of defeat on the floor. Her head was looking down sadly. “Explain yourself,” you simply said.
“I… I knocked down the cereal box,” Seoyeon mumbled with embarrassment. She hid herself away from you. “I was just trying to put the bags away—it’s not my fault—it just fell…”
You facepalmed yourself and didn’t say anything. You just sucked it up and started cleaning. With the right attitude, it didn’t take too long. Seoyeon had to really follow you or else she’d get a whooping.
"You two finished? The girls are waiting for us" Yuna asked after twenty minutes, you two nodded and started heading upstairs, on your way you found yourself looking at Yuna on the other side of the room, which she quickly noticed and gave you a small wink. You could feel your face turn pink but you quickly shrugged it off, now you finally arrived to Yeham’s room, finding 5 girls sitting on Yeham’s, all of them looking at you.
“Great, you finally got here,” Duna said, she was dressed in a casual pink pajama with bunnies as the decoration, she was looking at you with a smile “we all waited for you Oppa, now can we start no?” she asked as Yeham turned her gaze toward, now smiling at you as she leaned closer to you
“Ready for the best sleepover you ever had in your life?" She playfully asked, it was a simple question and for this there was only one simple answer.
“You bet” you simply said.
At the start you couldn't lie that you were a bit afraid of this sleepover, especially since you are a guy and they are a girl it will turn awkward very quick since they couldn't share girl secrets, however instead you felt happy as you all of you had fun, starting from random video games all of you would play together, to Playing Uno, that being where to problems started.
“Sihyeon, a-are you sure you want to play UNO with the damn UNO empress herself?!” Gaeumhee stuttered, sweating from the hellish pressure around the two rivals. 
“Why not? I gotta show this little girl who’s the real deal,” she casually replied. There’s confidence in her eyes, firmness in her voice, no trace of fear or doubt. She shuffled the deck swiftly, ignoring the havoc around her. Geumhee sighed.
“I’ve played with you for how many years? And you wouldn’t even take on your manager. What makes you think you can take on the almighty Sua herself—”
“Don’t worry, Geumhee. I got this. Just watch.” Geumhee rolls her eyes. Sua is risking herself at this point, she knew it and accepted it already, and there’s nothing she can do to stop her. She backed into the crowd of people and the contender sat down in the center of the room, in a floor that now was the Colosseum’s pit, Madison Square Garden’s ring, the place where the everything ends.
You gulp. In the years you’ve been friends with these girls, you’ve heard all sort of stories about Sihyeon and her goddess-like UNO plays—how they had to hold a guy down because he went insane after losing five times; how she casually beat the second best player in the world during her lunchbreak—and now you were going to witness the legend.
Apparently, her ancestors invented UNO itself.
“Just you wait, pathetic girl! You will beg for forgiveness after my last move!” Sua shouted passionately. She sat herself in front of Sua. 
The game started. 
The rest of the game was no more than a memory in your head. The succession of moves was never seen before. Every turn felt like the last one, you could only watch, without saying anything, breathing anxiously. After ten long minutes, it looked like a winner was clear.
5 cards to 1. The fate of Yoo Sua depended on her next move.
“How did it come to this…” Sihyeon sighed.
“Make your last useless move so I can end this duel, Sihyeon.” Sua sneered. She was holding only one card, she truly thought that game was over. Sua had nothing to say, she just shook her had, smiling wryly.
“You have no idea what I have in my hand.” Sihyeon said, then, she played a yellow skip on top of the previously played yellow four. After that, she played a blue skip, a green skip, and then a red skip… “Uno.”
“No way!” Sua’s face took a complete 180 as she realized what was about to happen.
“And… that’s game.” She said, playing down a red six.
Sua’s chin lowered to her chest, her eyes still on that six, her hand went limp, letting her lonely card fall out, a yellow nine. She shook her head helplessly. How could she lose? The empress, the girl that beat every player of RBW entertainment and POP MUSIC, lose to a no one like Sihyeon. She lets a long low sigh as Sua came closer.
“You know what’s next, Sua,” she said, “I will take the one thing you desire the most. Last time, the first time I challenged you, you took my title and that’s why you’re the leader of this group. This time I will take him.” Sihyeon pointed at you. You looked at her with a confused look.
“Me?” you innocently asked.
“Yes, her cru—”
“Wait! What are you saying! You’re clearly wrong.”
“I’m not wrong. I know how you always talk about him. You love—” A pillow crushes on Sihyeon’s face. The whole room freezes from the sudden hit while Sua’s cheeks turned tomato red from embarrassment as she could just be asked to bury herself right now however… “PILLOW FIGHTTTTTTTTT!!!!” Geumhee shouted on the top of her lungs as everyone rose from the floor and grabbed their weapon; however it wasn't just a simple fight, It was war and you either take a side or you take the floor.
10 minutes later and the fight was intense. All of you split into two factions: the bunnies and the ducks. On your bunnies side were Sua, Duna and Yuna while Geumhee, Yeham, Seoyeon and Sihyeon were out for your head. It was tough, everyone was better than you thought but who the most brutal was Geumhee. You could see the girls running away on the other side in fear. 
With a roar, Geumhee got into your line with her great pillow… her huge cushion was whirling again, making space, and your line went back and the ducks followed her, determined to win this battle and make a name that would be remembered in all the land of the dreams. 
You just started to find your prey to hunt when you saw Sua fall down beside you. Her body flopped lifeless right in front of your eyes, her pillow lied there with her broken spirit. 
“Sua, no!” you screamed and ran to her.
“It was a hard blow…” Sua whispered. 
“No! It can’t be!” you begged and looked at your teammates, they were struggling and still going back.
Sua caressed your face. She looked at you like it was her last time. “My prince,” she started, “the proud warrior of this nation and my beloved.” Her breath itched at the last word, but she ignored it and continued. “Unfortunately fate decided that my last day was marked by the pillow of evil Geumhee but don’t let our story end here. My dear, the trumpets of eternal glory did not sing yet and they await for you.”
Her hand went around your neck. You lowered your face, closing the distance with her lips, it was her last moment, it would also be her last ki—
Too soon. Sua blushes and rolls under a blanket. You guessed she buried herself.
Duna, who saw the whole scene, ran upon a mattress and called the attention of her remaining comrades. “People fall everyday. Friends… family. yeah, we lost Sua tonight. But she’s still with us… in here,” she said, pointing right to her heart. “She didn’t fall in vain! But you you will! Sua’s heart did beat for us! For all of us! It’s not over!”
You could feel energy rush into your body again. You feel the smack behind of you coming from Sihyeon, as you turn your gaze at her she immediately tenses up, realizing she may made a mistake. You immediately start heading toward her, a pillow in hand ready to return the favor as suddenly you could feel the hit being blocked.
It was Geumhee, her teammate in this war, you look into each other’s eyes already knowing what must happen as you start hitting each other’s pillow, blocking each swing like you two were professional fencing players, suddenly you could feel being backed into a corner, feeling like geumhee will get her hit on you, finally knocking you out of the war.
There was no way to avoid it, and blocking her this hit may cause you to fall down as you open you arms, accepting your fate.
*Boom*
“YESS!!! I GOT HIM” geumhee shouted in joy with complete disregard to the entire enviorment, her smile was large and confident as you simply get up, looking at Duna, Sua and Yuna, they all lost their 3 hearts in the beginning so they really relied on you to win them the war.
“Well at least i was close” you simply said.
“Yeah, you almost clutched and got us the win” Yuna simply said, happy.
“Almost,” Sua said angrily, she was very competitive and you could feel it through her sulky voice, meanwhile geumhee walked toward you.
“Good games, you really made me sweat up here since the other girls are very easy to beat,” she said as you could faintly hear Yuna saying “HEY” angrily from somewhere. Geumhee raised her hand for a handshake as you raised it as well, giving her a sportlike handshake.
“Ok, so it's 10:30, how about we will get down to the real business, and really get this sleepover to how it should be?” Yeham said as she begins to smirk, as quickly all the girls realized what she was talking about causing their smiles to rise as well.
“What?” you asked, confused since it was a while since you had been in a sleepover as Yeham just giggles as she leans closer to you.
“It's truth or dare time,” Yeham replied in your ear, honestly it would be the first time you will play truth or dare at all since you didnt have much friends and those who you did had the chance to have sleepovers with didnt like to play truth or dare so an experience like this would be a first.
as you all sat on the floor of Yeham’s bedroom in a circle Sua takes a water bottle and puts it on the floor, you found yourself sitting near Yeham from the right side while Duna sat near you on your left “Ok who spins first?” Seoyeon asks as Geumhee just leans toward the bottle and spins it clockwise.
a couple of spins later the bottle starts to slow down more and more as finally it stops with the front of the bottle facing toward Yuna and the back of it facing toward Seoyeon, Yuna in response just curses quietly while the short-haired girl shows a happy grin.
“Okay Yuna, truth or dare?” Seoyeon asked, making Yuna hesitate for a couple of seconds, not sure what to say as she gulps and finally spoke the next words.
“I choose dare” she reluctantly said, waiting for the worst to come as Seoyeon smiles, knowing that she has a plan.
“I dare you, to lay on Oppa’s lap for two minutes” she said as Yuna’s face turned bright red, looking at your face which seems to be more confused then ever, “Is this something that happens regularly in truth dare?” you asked yourself while Yuna walked to where you seat, sitting between you and Duna, which looked at you a bit annoyingly however you couldn’t focus on it since Yuna slowly fell toward your lap as finally her fully blushing face was on your lap, making the entire population of the room squeal in excitement as the girl in your lap gets more and more embarrassed.
“ohhhh i got to take a picture of it” Yeham said cheerfully as she rushed toward her study desk to grab her phone, as the sudden surprise of Yuna on your lap relaxes you scout the room. first there is Yeham, the organizer of the sleepover with her camera on taking pictures of the entire situation, Geumhee Seoyeon. Sihyeon and Duna were looking at you with big grins and giggling at you however Sua looked weird, she was looking away with red cheeks though sometimes she will try to glance at you but she couldn't bring herself to it, “is everything ok with her?” you asked yourself as suddenly you find yourself staring below you
you see Yuna just laying there,getting comfortable on your lap with her smile being as big as ever. however something you wouldn't notice before were her cheeks, [Insert Cheeks Ramble]
“And….time” Seoyeon said as Yuna rose up from your lap and looked at you with a big smile and then turned toward Sua, showing her a big grin causing the girl with orange hair to look furious, leaving you a bit confused at the situation however it quickly stopped as Yuna started talking
“MY TURN!!!” Yuna said as she spun the bottle again, spinning more and more with each second passing as now it stopped facing Seoyeon with the back of the bottle in front of…you? that will be interesting as Seoyeon gulps,
“Seoyeon, truth or dare?” you ask the girl with short hair as she starts to get stressed,
“Uhhh Truth?” she simply said.
“Well Seoyeon, is it true that…you already confessed to whoever you like?” you say, simply as a joke to try and lighten up the mood since you saw Sua sour’s face from before, however the results were not what you expected as the entire room now froze in place.
First to speak was sua, which did stop her from being gloomy but instead made her face go so red even #FF0000 was nothing compared to Sua’s face, “UNNIEEEE, YOU ALREADY CONFESSED?” Sua asked Seoyeon, looking furious than before while Seoyeon was just confused.
“N-n-no, what are you talking about, we are not even crushing about the same guy” the short haired girl stuttered, confused and embarrassed.
“Uh huh, just like i saw you with him in the kitchen as he touched your cheeks” Yuna joined the argument which made you freeze for a second “wait she already met her crush today? i seen at school like all day and i have no idea who they are talking about”  you thought to yourself.
“I swear to god, why no one told me Sua liked him too” Sihyeon just asks, annoyed at the whole situation 
“wait you like him too Unnie?” Duna suddenly spoke as for you the confusement turned up to 11 with all of the 7 girls arguing with each other, you couldn't handle it anymore as you finally asked the question no one asked before
“Who is HIM?!” You shout, puzzled from this entire interaction.
“YOU OPPA, WHO ELSE?!” Yeham answered as the whole room stopped, realizing the truth was already out, and there was no way to deny it as Yeham walked closer and started speaking, her face blushing a bit
“Oppa…we all have feelings for you…apparently, and from what it seems each one of us thought we were the only to have feelings for you, and…now this happened….were sorry” everyone looked down in embarrassment, now the room finally gets quiet, giving you the time to think
“They all liked you? for how long? why?” a billion questions ran through your head, while you try to find each girl’s eyes they turn away their face as if they shamed their family. In your head there was also another question: who should you chose
And as if you were communicating with telepathy, Sua immediately answered.
“Well, i think i should be with Oppa, since like…i was the first to crush on him and all” she blurted quietly as Geumhee paused herself and looked at Sua.
“What? no, i was the first one he met from our friend group since i showed him the school, i should end with him” you could already sense this was going to start another argument however Yeham joins in, calming everyone down
“Girls, we can't choose for him who he should end up with, we need to let him choose himself, Yeham pointed at you as like a moth attracted to light, the 7 girl's eyes drawn themself to you.
7 choices, 1 for each girl as you really had no idea who you should have the happy ending with. It wasn’t an easy choice. Each girl you found yourself having a fun time, like Geumhee’s occasional invites to her gaming's session online with you, or Like duna whom you were watching mukbang during school lunch, with each girl you could find one interaction you had that you were fond of.
However, you had an idea for an 8th solution, something that while it not make everyone happy in the end, it can make the playing field fair.
“5 Minutes” you simply as all of the girls were confused, letting you continued “this is how much time you have to charm me, besides doing something naughty everything else is fair game, is it ok by everyone?” you ask as all of the girls look at each other’s and then looked back at you with a smile, this was the first smile ever since your stupid truth.
“Yeah” Seoyeon answered but it was clear the answer was agreed on by everyone, realizing how far they took this stupid argument, by instinct the girls turned to each other in a circle, doing rock paper scissors, which after a minute or so Yeham steps closer to you, signaling she will start in this now contest to make you theirs.
On her knees, Yeham looks at you with a mixture of embarrassment and desire. Her eyes flicker between the floor and your pupils, her cheeks clearly red, make you wonder if her blushing was for you or for what was about to come. She gently puts her hands on your legs and gets closer. 
It’s hard for her to look at you in the eyes. Her head is turned to the side, leaving her neck and collarbone on full display. The skin is thin, pale, delicate, how easy would it be to leave a hickey, to cover it in kisses and smudges—how sensitive would her neck be, to whine and hiccup at your lips? Compose yourself.
Yeham hasn’t started yet and you’re already doing her work for her. You can feel her fingers tracing paths on your thighs, wherever they were going, they were too close to you. In a stummering fall, you put your hands behind to support you. Yeham doesn’t let you get away. She takes a further step and looks straight into your eyes. 
Now, she was more embarrassed than flirty but that didn’t matter. She bites her lip. Fingernails itch your skin, she caresses your chin, down to your neck, to your chest. “Do you know how long I’ve liked you for, Oppa?” she whispers. “It’s your fault I can’t sleep at night. I keep thinking of you and If I do fall asleep, you follow me in my dreams. It’s such a torture to see you this close to the other girls.”
Your hand try to grab what they can, creasing the moquette, marking the floor. Her poison is taking effect. You steal glances at her lips. They are pouty, shy, trying to roll back and hide themselves, yet the few glimpses of their pink shade instills the most deep desire in yourself.
“You can kiss me, oppa,” she reads your mind. “I won’t mind. But then you’ll be mine. It’s such a simple gesture and I’ll be yours. What do you say?”
To see your most caring friend that needy, at a kiss away, made you feel unexplainable new emotions. It would be a lie to say you never thought about her that way. To say, you were not considering her offer right now, would be absolutely false. You hesitantly open your mouth, “I… I think I want to—”
“That’s it!” Sua screams, grabs Yeham’s shoulder and forcefully pulls her away, rolling down with her. You let out the breath you’ve been holding until then, your eyes are wide open. You forgot about the other girls.
The background of chatter is of jealousy and envy. They realized how easy you were to persuade—you almost gave in to Yeham and she only had to offer yourself to you—if they wanted to win over their friends, they had to step up their actions. The first contender was hiding behind a big pillow, she was a blushing mess and didn’t dare to watch you again. She exceeded all her limits. Whose turn was now?
Yuna stood up, walking toward where you were sitting, she looked confident unlike Yeham’s which from the start was embarrassed but Yuna was simply smiling as instead of sitting in front of you she instead sat on your lap, right from the first second you felt embarrassed but what Yuna was about to say made you in shock
“You can touch them” she says as now its your turn to blush, looking at her chest you cant believe a girl would let you touch her in a place that special, however you find yourself looking at the girl, her face matches your color of red from the blush. giving you a smack on the head as you now realize that wasn't what she meant as her hands now point toward her cheeks.
Your hands slowly magnetize toward her face, one inch by one inch while Yuna is closing her eyes and her blush seems to be gone, ready for what was about to come.
You have been admiring Yuna’s round cheeks for a long time, but had never found a chance to feel them. Now that your friend was this close and openly inviting you, your desire was stronger than ever. One finger first, you wanted to test your expectations. Just at the touch, her right cheek enveloped the tip of your finger. You didn’t have to put much pressure they were soft enough. 
Your thumb joined your lonely index, to gently pinch her cheek. It was easy to compare her skin to bread dough—it was smooth and pale, not exactly firm but not soggy either, bouncy and springy. When your left hand cupped her face together with your other hand, you started kneading her cheeks. You were delicate and careful, you didn’t want to make her uncomfortable or ruin her skin.
Yuna was surprisingly enjoying it. She was smiling widely, eyes closed. It probably felt like a face massage to her, it was heaven for you instead. 
She wasn’t stupid. She’s seen you observing her long before you started liking her and when she caught you looking at her pictures on your phone, it was always her poking her cheek or pouting. Yuna put the pieces together and understood.
Cheeks are the greatest gift to a woman’s face. 
Cheeks alone can determine her whole demeanor, look, and expectations: take a runway model for example, they don’t have cheeks, rather, their chin is sharp and their cheekbones are pronounced resulting in a slim face; this makes them look more elegant and assertive, contributing to their overall confidence. Girls with soft and plump cheeks, on the other hand, are cute, they look more innocent and nice. We have a natural desire for cute humans, just like how we all like babies. Then it was obvious why you preferred round girls—they are sweeter and cuter. 
Following this argument, Yuna was a loaf. Yuna must have been the most gifted together with Yeham. Her face shape wasn’t pointy or large, but smoothly round to compliment her plump features. She had the softer and fuller kind of cheeks, that naturally looked pouty, in contrast to Sua, whose cheekbones were more pronounced.
After a minute, your hands were numb, or just lost in the cloudy skin. Your mind was blank, just happy thoughts. Yuna’s face was a large grin, satisfied and happy. If she had a tail, it would be joyously wiggling right now—it was true that she kind of resembled a puppy at times. Her plan was succeeding: feeding into your deepest desire got her a lot of points.
"Times up Yuna, your turn is over" suddenly your trance is over as you hear Seoyeon say, Yuna quickly left your lap with a big grin. "That was brutal" you thought to yourself while looking around you find how the girls are trying to think, Was it for planning their way of charming you? who knew but you didn't have much time to think about it since now Sihyeon rises and walks over to you.
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“Is it okay…never mind, just forget i said anything” Sihyeon quickly shutted her mouth and looked away, however you got curious.
“Its ok Sihyeon, you can say it” you reply as she found your gaze again, her eyes shining from excitement, so much that without saying anything she leans closer, making you a bit nervous while the girl in front of you continue to lean closer and closer until both of your noses touch each other.
as you look at the black haired girl in front of you feel your face getting hotter by the second as Sihyeon just cutely giggles, you heard of nose snuggles being done in TV shows but you never experience it yourself.
While you were not as close to Sihyeon to the other girls you still had some interactions in school, like how you two are lab mates in Chemistry class and had some very funny moments together, while all of this was happening you had one thing on your mind that you can't take off: for the whole time you've been friends with all of the girls, they all liked you.
Many questions run through your mind right now, for how long they liked you? Who was the first one to like you, WHY do they even like you, its not like you were someone special, you were just a teen, a guy who just became their friend through  circumstances.
However while you were inside your thoughts you couldnt notice the time was up, as you open your eyes you see the girl, looking at you with a cute smile while giggling, “Time is up” Seoyeon said rolling her eyes, for the first time in forever she looked a bit annoyed as you could only be curious if she wasn't just annoyed, but instead Jealous.
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Duna stood up and walked toward you, grinning from to ear to ear as she simply leaned into your cheek and gave you a small peck, which result in the entire room freaking out including you however unlike the others your freaking out was inside your brain as it ended up completely frozen.
“If you choose me, you will get more then just kisses on the cheek” she said, winking in order to get you flustered even further.
It was safe to say that after this Duna was disqualified from the contest.
While she did charm you really well, she may have done it too well, causing you to basically freeze for 2 minutes, and if it wasn't for the hot choco Yeham gave you, you wouldve been frozen for longer
“It was worth it” Duna said, pouting lightly as now you were ready for the next girl to charm you. You couldn't lie that all of this was really fun for you, so fun that you even forgot to message your mom to say how you were doing at the sleepover, luckily after Seoyeon’s turn which she simply just cuddled you with a smile you remembered to check your phone, texting your mom that you are fine in which she simply responded with a thumbs up and a good night
“So its between Geumhee Unnie and Sua” Yuna said as you were a bit curious of how each of them will approach charming you since Geumhee never really had the chance to flirt without any guy until now and Sua was in her words the first one to fall in love with you.
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Geumhee wasn’t as exciting as her members. She wasn’t an extrovert, a dork, or a confident supermodel, and couldn’t offer you any of the things her friends did. In her mind, she was the most average girl ever, which wasn’t true in everyone else’s eyes but that’s what she thought.
What she could offer you, however, was peace.
Until now, the contest of the girls had been hectic and your mind and heart was so confused who to choose, because each girl made her best to charm to make you fall in love with her, Geumhee however thought otherwise: she decided to be your checkpoint, to stop and relax because after all a good girlfriend is also a girl that let you relax and escape from the world when needed.
“Come put your head on my lap,” that’s what she wanted to say in her mind, however. “cmeputhyyuheommmap,” is what she actually blabbered out of her mouth. Just the mental image of you, sleepyhead, laying on her lap under her chest was enough to send shivers through her spine and color her face a bright rosy red.
“What did you say?” you ask.
“Uhhh…Lap pillow?” she says, gently patting her lap. You glance over at her with a confused look, too tired to recognize what she’s asking at first, and she stares back with a gentle longing in her eyes. She can only continue patting her lap again and stare patiently.
After a second, it clicks.
“You want me to… uh….”
Geumhee quickly nods and smiles warmly.
Your first reaction is an awkward crawling to your friend, who was already sitting on her knees, with a pillow under her feet. You look at her for one more time to see if she was sure and she offers you a small smile.
Your head stummers down to her legs and then it plops down on her lap. 
It feels so comfy. It’s almost instantaneous how all the built up fatigue hits you and your body relaxes to accommodate better your new found pillow. Diligently, as a good girlfriend does, Geumhee ran her fingers through your hair with a fluid, continuous motion, combing out any tangles, and lightly stroking their fingertips along the back of your neck.
Your eyelids flutter and gently close as all you can feel at the moment is pure bliss
Her hands on your head feel like the gentle rocking of a lonely ship on the sea. Her lap feels like the soft embrace of a cloudy heaven. And your body is stuck in between land and water, what you suppose heaven on earth feels like.
“You love it, don’t you?” Geumhee said, behind her shyness. She giggles jokingly, with the smug of a satisfied kid. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
Your face slightly slips to the crook between her thighs. You feel the smoothness of her legs, helped by her pajama shorts, on your cheek and it’s nice. Really nice. It’s warm, comforting, flustering.
“Where did you learn this stuff?” you eagerly asked her.
“Well, I read some stuff.”
“Some stuff like what?”
“Uhm…” Geumhee is embarrassed to admit the amount of research she did while fantasizing to be your girlfriend. She wanted to be perfect for you. “so… webtoons, romance books, and some of the stuff that Yuna reads.”
“Yuna’s stuff? Like hentais?” you joke and laugh.
“Hey! Yuna’s voice is like a little pebble to your head.
“No, no, no,” Geumhee stutters. “It’s rom com mangas.” she explains herself as you giggled from her embarrassment, causing the girl to join you as well. You were so relaxed that time passed very quick. “We need to finish” Geumhee says while you were leaving her lap
“It was fun” you replied “Now who is the last one?” you asked
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“Me” Sua exclaimed, standing up as her face had a mixture of both anger and sadness, you could even spot some tears in her eyes, "I have waited enough '' she said, quickly she lunged toward you, pulling you into an embrace.
"Watching all of the girls touch you, feel you…it hurted me" she added as her hands moved over to your chest "but now I finally have you, around me in an embrace as all I want now is to say is" she hesitated for a second, looking down however she looked at you back, full with confidence.
"...I love you, I…always loved you. From the first day we met"  Sua exclaimed, leaving you shook, its weird to think that someone fell in love with you of all people in first sight, but here was Sua, looking at you with her eyes full of tears, all you could really do was hug her.
At that moment you could care less about the competition, all you cared about was to comfort your heartbroken friend as much as you could.
Looking around you could see that even the other girls didn't look at the two of you in jealousy anymore, but instead in looks of guilt, making you feel happy that even the girls thought like you
"Well uhh…times up" Yeham awkwardly said as slowly you released your hug from sua, instead you leaned your forehead, touching hers just like bunnies do when they want to forgive someone
"So oppa? Who won?" Yuna asks while leaning closer with a very cute smile, probably and try to charm you with a last ditch effort
"Well…i-" you were about to say when suddenly geum hee stopped you
"Yuna ya, how about we let Oppa sleep about it, he needs time, and besides, its 1 AM and we are tired" the oldest explained before Yuna sighed and reluctantly agreed
Soon enough after all of you brushed your teeth and organized your mattresses you were all ready to sleep, however while the other girls quickly fell asleep your head was full of thoughts
And honestly who wouldn't be after 7 girls confessed to them, however throughout those flow of thoughts there is only one question: who will you choose
This was really a mystery for you since you liked each of the girls that it was hard for you to choose, you could suggest all of them to be your girlfriend but you quickly shutted that idea not only they will revoke your friendship status with them, but you find harem disgusting from the few anime you've seen.
"Well, I guess it's a good thing to sleep on" you thought to yourself as you started breathing in and breathing out, relaxing each part of your body until your eyes close themself by force, letting you drift to sleep
However during the dream you got an enlightening thought, the solution to the puzzle of who should you choose to be your girlfriend
"I think I will choose…"
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well this took a long time to publish, considering a lot of stuff, but yeah, this fic was very fun to write and i hope you all enjoyed like i did, hope you will have a great day ahead of you and see you next update leafies
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returnofnonya · 1 year
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From Thief To House Husband Part 1
Sometimes, life just deals you a shit hand. My parents both died when I was young, and I had been on my own since then.
I survived by being a petty thief. I’ve been caught a few times, but it’s all that I can do. I know the Holidays are times where stores step up their security, but I needed to steal some things to sell just so that I could make this month’s rent. I chose a high end mall where boring rich people shopped, knowing their security would be a bit more relaxed due to the usual clientele. I found a decent department store that sold a ton of knickknacks and chose the gems.
Everything was going well, until Mr. Suburbia found me…
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He seemed to be some boring house husband shopping for his kids. He kept cracking jokes to the staff that seemingly knew him well and caught me stuffing my bag. He pointed it out to a security guard who quickly stopped stuffing his face with homemade candy and started to approach me. This would be my last strike, and they’d charge me for a felony!
I quickly dug through my bag and found a familiar black case. Inside of it were five vials filled with a dark blue liquid. One day, a guy traded me these for some stolen goods. Said that he was working for some shady company as a lowly janitor. Allegedly these would allow you to push your consciousness out of your body and into someone else’s, taking control of them. I tried pawning them off immediately and failed, so I kept them around for emergencies. In a panic I took a vial and tossed the case aside so they couldn’t take it with me. I locked eyes with the stupid dad who ratted me out, deciding that becoming my body would be a fitting punishment for making me abandon this one. I popped the lid open and drank it in a hurry before I collapsed…
…then woke up seconds later, watching security swarm around my old, now empty body. I looked down and saw the tacky penguin button-up and knew that it worked. They knew this guy well though, which meant that I had to get out of here before they noticed I wasn’t acting like him. I scurried over to where the case dropped, sliding it in my pocket and quickly rushing out the store, leaving his cart behind.
When I was in the parking lot I pulled out his wallet, finding a picture of him alongside his wife and college aged kids. “Rick Smith…what a boring name for a boring man. But it’s mine now I guess.” I sighed and pulled his phone out, using Face ID to unlock it. I checked his planner and sure enough, it was filled out with his agenda for the day. In fact, it has the entire family’s!
His wife was out of the country for business, and his sons away with friends for the day. He was getting his shopping done apparently, but I didn’t really care since I didn’t feel the love for these people he did. After finding a pic of his car I searched for it and got in, driving to the address on his phone.
I gasped in shock at the mansion I drove up to. Just yesterday I was trying to get my landlord to fix the lock on my shitty door, and now I had a house that looked like it could be worth billions!
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I parked the car and rushed inside, heading to his bathroom first and stripping down to take a look at my new body. “Kind of basic, but there’s a certain fatherly charm you’ve got going…” I said and grinned as I looked at myself.
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I was about to get to know my new body when the doorbell rang. I sighed and rolled my eyes, not bothering to get the rest of his clothes on and walking down to the door to open it.
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I was greeted by a good-looking young man around the age of my body’s youngest son.
“Hey Mr. Smith, I’m glad you remembered-“ he cut himself off as he saw me standing in my underwear. “Remembered what?” I smirked a bit, looking him up and down. “T-that we were going to discuss Blake’s Christmas gift…are you sure you remembered? You told me you’d put a bunch of fake things in the family planner so he wouldn’t know I was coming…” Well, what a lucky coincidence.
“Of course I remembered, come on in, stud.” I winked at him, earning a quick blush. I sauntered towards the living room, making sure he got a good look at my body’s likely virgin ass. He followed slowly, trying to collect himself. “So as I was saying earl-“ I cut him off, “You know what I think, cutie? I think my son just wants to see his Dad happy. He’s that good of a son to me. And do you know what would make me happy?” I asked, spreading my legs open. He gawked, tugging at his collar. “N-no, sir…I’m not sure…” he said bashfully. “A good pounding.” I said simply, but confidently.
“I-I’m sorry?”
“A good, honest-to-god pounding. Like I used to get in college back before I got tied up to the missus.”
“O-oh…”
“So come here, and give my son his gift by making his Dad happy.”
The boy slowly came over, placing a hesitant hand on my thigh. I just chuckled and pulled him in, kissing him passionately and hungrily. Within seconds he dropped the shy act, stripping all of his clothes off and pulling my underwear off. He got on his knees, placing my legs on his shoulder and dragging my hips towards the edge of the couch. “I’ve wanted this for so long sir! I just thought you would never want this, you seem so happy with Misses Smith!” I grinned from ear to ear, petting his hair. “Well, I put on a good act. Speaking of good, you better get to it. If you can eat my ass well enough I’ll let you skip the prep and start pounding right away!”
That was all he needed to hear. He leaned in and slid his tongue into my hole, starting to swirl and move it ravenously. He ate me like he was starving and needed this to survive. My new voice’s moans filled the room as I titled my head back, enjoying the sensations of my sorely neglected hole feeling a pleasurable touch for the first time. My cock stood rock hard at 11 inches, surprising me. “Good for you, old man…” I muttered under my breath, the boy too enveloped in fulfilling his fantasy to notice.
Soon I had gotten all I needed, grabbing him by the hair and pulling him up, making him lay over me. “Now give it to me, boy. No holding back!” He smiled from ear to ear, a dopey look in his eyes. “Yes sir! With pleasure!” I saw his cock fully hard now, standing at a girthy 10 inches. What was in the water here? He shoved himself in eagerly, earning a loud moan from me as he leaned down, starting to kiss over my neck and slide his hands all over my body.
As I enjoyed the pounding all I could think about was the fact that this son of a bitch would absolutely hate this if he could see what was happening. His body getting fucked by one of his son’s good friends, defiling his marriage right in the living room! And most of all, some dirty poor thief holding his life in his hands!
“Harder!” I commanded, enjoying the pounding immensely. The boy was already sweating and panting, practically a dog in heat as he pounded into me, defiling his friendship with my new son. Both of us were sinners, and both of us were getting lost in pleasure. Soon enough he found my prostate and earned a piercing cry of pleasure for me. Like a dog with a bone he continued to pound into it, determined to impress me with his performance.
We lasted for a half hour this way until I finally came without ever touching my new cock, all over my chest and even getting a few splashes on my face. He didn’t last much longer after that and tried to pull out, but I quickly moved my legs to his waist and forced him to stay inside, moaning in another wave of ecstasy as I felt him shoot a load into me. Once he was done cumming I released him and pushed him out of me, chuckling and panting. “Mm…good job boy, you’ve made his dad very happy. Now…don’t tell a soul about this, and get the fuck out of my house. Send me an Amazon link to whatever he wants and I’ll get it, money is not an object.” I smirked as I laid there, inside of Rick Smith, a loving house husband now painted in and dripping cum from a man half his age in the house he raised his children in.
The boy was shocked by the new side of his best friend’s father, but obliged and quickly got dressed, fumbling his way to the door. “W-will do sir! Thank you, I hope we can do that again!“ he said before rushing off, leaving me to lay in ecstasy.
“Ohhh…thank you for reporting me, Rick. I never knew using those vials could bring so much pleasure. I wonder what I’ll get into next with your body. Or should I say who…”
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privateanxieties · 8 months
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forget my mercy, take my blame (chapter 2)
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Summary: You thought the events of the day couldn't get worse than one robbery and a cryptic conversation with a mysterious stranger. You thought wrong. This, you realize, is how it all starts.
Words: 3.3K
Series Masterlist | NEXT CHAPTER
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Many hours later, guilt is eating its way through a considerable portion of your conscience, as it usually does following the clash of hot temper and arrogance— both of them yours. You're no longer insistent on pinning your shortcomings on the mysterious stranger with molten brown eyes, though you're still grumpy about his bold assumptions and oddly skewering way of getting a point across. 
Just let it go. Don't do what I know you want to do.  
You split the four hundred dollars he left between your two employees, but for some reason, the crumpled up singles still rest in your jacket pocket. The money takes up a lot more space inside your head as you drive home, radio turned up above its usual volume. It doesn't provide much of a distraction, because the faintly illuminated road ahead is the perfect canvas for a busy mind to fill. 
Traces of the past hide inside misshapen trees and uneven asphalt, and if your grip were a little tighter, it would leave the same dent in the steering wheel that it did the night you drove back from that slate quarry in your hometown. Nineteen years is a long time to still remember the smell of overheated excavation equipment. It's far away, yet surfaces so abruptly that your nose almost floods with it. Your lips press together in displeasure.
Well, at least you're breathing. You suppose Mark couldn't from beneath all that gravel you buried him under. Did he suffocate or was he crushed? Maybe a question you'll always have in the back of your mind. You know the answer wouldn't give you peace, were it to arrive from an omniscient being. What does it matter how he died? Yours is the will that killed him. Turning an event around and over and upside down two decades after it took place is just another way of engaging your guilt and letting it gnaw on more mental acuity. You need your wits about you, so you don't forget what all this is even for. You're alive. You have a life that needs living. Sometimes, there will be people who won't let you live it, and you can't just throw everything away to settle the score. 
Scoffing at the bullshit mantra you’ve tried feeding yourself all day, you take the last right turn before you're finally on the road that leads home, hand reaching out to lower the volume on the stereo. Whatever. You made it through today, and you'll try your hardest not to think about the little shit who stole from you and his neon green jacket. You’ll also do your best not to think about your encounter with the strange man and his gruff voice, lest he become the thing you lose sleep over tonight. 
It'll be hard to avoid it, because you kept his message. Maybe as a symbol, or maybe as an excuse. There is some part of you that wants to believe he was meant to be there today, if only so you didn't truly screw up this time and become a criminal. Shooting someone while they're robbing you and hunting them down to do it afterwards are actions that the law tends to distinguish between unfavorably. Just like it might distinguish between killing someone inside an old quarry and killing them after they'd already taken you there for murder.
The self-defense angle always felt shoddy in your mind. Maybe what you did to Mark would've looked like self-defense to a jury, but you sure know you didn't bury him under seven tons of jagged rock because you wanted to protect yourself. You didn't burn down his house because you were feeling reasonably threatened. You just wanted him to get what was coming his way. Karma, your hands. 
You might have a problem, but you're alive. You survived that and you're going to survive more, just as soon as you take a cold bath and chase away the heat settling in your bones. That's what mid-August spent in an ancient car with no working air conditioner will get you. Replacing the shitty truck will have to wait, because news of the robbery will spread and you don't want to be telegraphing the fact that the bakery isn't your main source of income. 
This may be a nice town, but today was a good example of a gap in people's decency— yours included, because you were so fucking rude to that mysterious stranger, and what did it accomplish? He replenished your losses and left without another word. The longer you look back, the more guilt advances on your psyche. It stills momentarily, however, when a suitable distraction finally appears as you find yourself a couple hundred feet down the road from your house. It’s true that you wanted something else to focus on, but this is so unwelcomed that it sends a wave of nausea through your body. 
The scene is flooded with the red and blue lights of two police cruisers and one ambulance, all parked along the narrow cul-de-sac housing only two buildings: yours and Hazel's. Your mind kicks into high gear before you even lay eyes upon the crowd that has gathered on your front lawn. The sky turned dark not long ago, the hands of the clock approaching a kind of twilight zone of your neighborhood: nobody is typically out at this time of night, and yet, at least twelve people found enough interest in the unfolding scene to leave the comfort of their homes. 
The commotion is centered around your property, but the ambulance suggests someone requiring medical attention. You live alone. Hazel is in her late 80s, and you've known her to need a doctor now and then. However, the police being here is the part of the equation that you really don't like. You try to slow down a mind that by nature has already zeroed in on potential scenarios, making a decision to pull over right outside the cul-de-sac instead of crowding it with another vehicle. In a neighborhood this small, your arrival is noticed. 
You don't linger, unsticking yourself from the clammy leather seats and stepping out of the truck. The air outside is marginally better than inside the car, though heat still scalds with the gentler hand of a dry climate. At least you're not pouring sweat and disheveled, because it appears that bath will have to wait. And, after only a few moments of approaching the scene, you realize just how long that wait is going to be. There is black tarp on your porch. 
The closer you get, the more your spine tingles. Pairs of wide eyes settle on you as you pass them, and it isn't long before Sheriff Randy O'Hare nails you with his own bulbous gaze. He looks like an idiot, and not even one that's in charge. You glance at the porch again. 
Tiny surface area. Not much room between the ground and the black material taking up space. Small, lithe. Your house. 
The sheriff is having some sort of internal conflict you wish you weren't here to witness. He shuffles from one foot to the other and clears his throat as you stop in front of him, several feet away from the stairs leading up to your front door. It's spattered with blood, visible even against the dark brown oak. Fresh. 
Randy says nothing for several more seconds. You have many things to say, none which are appropriate. You've never been good at playing the emotionally fragile. There's a body on your front porch and you need this fucking idiot to speak or— 
"I'm so sorry. We're… We're all still in shock. I've known her—" He stops, wiping his mouth and looking away as if something startled him. "—my whole life, I swear. She never did nothing to nobody. Jesus help me, if I get my hands on the one that did it—" 
"Who is that, Randy?" you interrupt. It's a question you've asked law enforcement before in your life. The air pressing down on your skin is even warmer now. 
"Look, I can't imagine how hard this is. She meant a great deal to everyone in this town, but you knew her best. Ain't nobody ever have a kinder word to say than her. I can't believe—" 
"Randy, who the fuck is that?" 
If you snap, it's not of your own volition. You're not here. Not really. You aren't with Randy O'Hare, Sheriff of Apolline County who apparently can't utter a simple name. Your mind has traveled backwards in time, and the house you're standing next to isn't your own, but it's painted just about the same. It’s easy to slip away into memory. The awning and the windows are fashioned into the same mold as your childhood home, because those were the things you’d loved most about that house— a mistake. You made a mistake. Your eyes are drawn to the ground, mind working in all directions.
"Hazel Bergman." 
You think you hear another name for a brief and cruel moment. The sight of polished black boots atop lush grass only works to further blur the line between past and present. 
"I'm so sorry, honey." 
"What happened?" 
You haven't been so aware of the nuance in your voice since it last betrayed you by shaking as it now is. It's so, so warm outside, but not humid. Not like Auckney. It's not as bad as it was when you were standing in front of a similar house, aged nineteen and wondering why the woman who raised you wouldn't get up from her rocking chair. 
You need to get a grip. Look O'Hare in the eyes. You need to know if he lies to you, like cops always do. His face is melting under the cowboy hat. Even his eyeballs are sweating. He's emotional. He should be truthful. 
"Daniel Roywood said he saw her arguing with somebody on your porch. He ain't hear what they were talkin' about, just that she looked upset. I've never seen that woman upset once in thirty years. She must've had a damn good reason," Randy explains, looking torn between grief and inoffensive anger. You're not torn between anything. 
"Who was she arguing with?" 
O'Hare sighs, a curt movement of his neck telling you he doesn't know shit. 
"Nobody Danny knew. He couldn't get a good look— the damn house is too far away. But he just said they were arguin', and that was it. He shot her. Just some punk in a green jacket." 
It's a miracle you don't react in any meaningful way. For that small interval between the words hitting you and your brain processing them, you're as impassive as before. That brief amount of time is all you get, however, because putting a face to that vague description happens in the blink of an eye. 
You look away, covering your face with both hands. You slow your breathing as much as you can, trying to not make any noise as blood rushes through veins that have no hope of containing the pressure. It pounds at your temples and raises your temperature, and suddenly the only lever that hasn’t been flipped on your temper is labeled self-preservation. You can’t do this with people watching, and you’re briskly reminded of that as an unexpected weight settles upon your shoulders. It makes you flinch and move away, and you hear O'Hare apologize before he clears his throat again. A silence follows that isn't long enough. 
"Look, I know this is hard. But you know I need to ask you some questions, right? We need to find the son of a bitch that did it and if you have any idea who—"
"I don't." 
You've clipped your tongue with how hard you were biting it, but at least you've got your breathing back under control. Facing Randy is easier with a constant trickle of pain and metal. He looks torn, apologetic. 
"Come on, honey. I know you don't want to think about anybody you know doin' something like this, but we need something to go on," he pleads. You don’t like the implication behind his words or the ring of truth around it. 
"Randy. Everybody knows everybody here. I promise you, if Roywood didn't know him, then I sure as hell don't. I don't have a boyfriend. I'm not divorced. I generally don't keep male company. There is no one! " you seethe, and you're certain that he mistakes your outburst for lingering shock and anger about what happened. It is, but not in the way he seems to think. 
The Sheriff frowns, so obviously pitying you and finally seeming more at ease now that you're the emotionally vulnerable one. It's fine. It works in your favor. Tonight will be long and you will benefit from not raising eyebrows or invoking anything other than sympathy from both police and neighbors. The Sheriff looks around for several moments, lips pressing together like he's chewing on the words he hasn't yet said. Soon enough, they part. 
"Listen, I hate to ask right now. But if we have any chance in hell of catching this bastard, we could really use the feed from your cameras," he says, gesturing left. Your gaze follows his to the perimeter of the house, covered at every angle by wireless surveillance systems. 
Just like that, a spark. A needle to thread. Another choice presented. 
Crumpled up bills in your front pocket. 
Warm steel at your back. 
A splattered front door. 
The maligned prescience of four words. 
Ain't worth dying for.
"Randy, I…” You enjoy the first real breath since you've arrived. It really doesn't take you long to make a decision. “I'm sorry. I left those up for show more than anything. Couldn't afford the bills after a while. They don't work." 
O’Hare deflates. There’s no suspicion you’ve told a lie. It's as if the grit he's supposed to have is flowing through you instead, lighting up your eyes and triggering the itch in your fingers. It's the challenge, the defiance, the guilt that sears through your veins now. The air is almost cool compared to the heat of your skin and the surge in your temper. 
The Sheriff imparts more condolences you don't care to hear before walking away, but he's soon replaced by Deputy Dipshit, who you hope is wise enough to only offer pertinent details for the unfolding scene. You aren't interested in what Brent Rivers has been up to, and he usually insists on making it everybody's business. All you want to know is how long before you can enter your house, but pretty soon you realize he won't provide any clarity. It has to be his first murder scene, because he stumbles around simple words after greeting you with a mumbled hi . 
He talks and talks, and nowhere does he utter that crucial piece of information you’re waiting to be told. Too long into his jumbled speech, you find the right place to interrupt. He had the nerve to comment on how you’re holding up. 
"I'm sorry. I just don't think I'm all ears right now. All I want to do is…" A shaky breath rattles your chest. "… get away for a few days. I don't think I can sleep in my own house knowing this happened. Um, is there any way I could grab a few things and get out? I don't want to be alone once you leave." 
Along the way, your words are punctuated by little tells of vulnerability: eyes downcast, vocal chords trembling, excessive blinking. Your shoulders pull in. Brent nods up a storm, mood lightening up as his arm comes to rest around them uninvited. 
"Yeah, 'course. I can take you—" 
You break away from his grip with an apologetic smile, rubbing your neck to keep your hands busy. 
"Can you wait for me at the door? I'll feel better knowing someone's downstairs, and I already have a bag ready. You know, for uh, emergencies and stuff." 
The Deputy is less pleased than before, but he acquiesces to your request with a nod and a motion towards the house. You pretend to hesitate before taking the wooden stairs slowly, keeping your eyes averted as you plant your feet on the porch. The edge of the tarp is barely an arm's length away. From this spot, you can see both the pool of blood seeping out from under it and the drops spread across the brick wall. You retrieve the keys from your jacket as Brent stops behind you. 
"I'll be right here," he reassures in a too-gentle tone. 
You walk inside without a reply, and to Brent's briefly glimpsed surprise, shut the door after you. The security system needs a two-step deactivation that would raise eyebrows after you've told O'Hare you can't afford the bills for the cameras. You breathe deeply for another moment, finally alone. 
You only told a half-lie. There is a bag for emergencies, but not for the kind that people usually have. Downstairs as well as upstairs, you keep two duffels properly stocked and periodically checked. They're similar in contents, and yet your preference has always been clear. The bedroom closet. Upstairs. You move untethered towards your target.
Throwing two changes of clothes inside along with a plain pair of sneakers, you zip it back up and lift it over your shoulder. It feels familiar. This bag could be your life. Your life could be this bag. If things go wrong, you'll be good for a while. Back downstairs, where you arrive in the same haze, you make sure Piper and Mae will be good for a while too, replenishing the bird feeder and their respective water drippers, bidding them goodbye soon thereafter. You try not to linger in the house, but a glint draws your attention to the kitchen counter in your peripheral. 
The casserole you stuffed your face with this morning and forgot to put back inside the fridge is resting exactly where you left it, the blue sticky note still attached to its side. You remember the message word for word, as well as the curving of the letters you've always been impressed by, though never more so than by the kindness behind each gesture. Hazel couldn't grip the pen quite as well as she used to in her old age, but she liked to practice in the notes she left for you. 
She made you food. Cared for you. Made life feel less lonely. 
She's outside your door for the last time because you didn't do the right thing today. 
Ain't worth dying for.  
You don’t realize you’ve walked over until your outstretched hand hesitates before the small note. It's the final one you'll ever get. 
'Don't work so hard! It's Saturday, live a little!' 
More copper flows into your mouth, this time springing from the lip you tore into so a sob could be stifled. You fold the paper with care and it goes into the same pocket as the pair of singles, just as your mind goes to the same place it's always been more comfortable resting. Maybe, the only place it can have any peace. 
Keeping your head down as you exit the house, your eyes find her almost by accident. They're drawn to the tarp. You figure they have to be, since you put it there. You put her there, because you didn’t put a bullet in the right person. You didn't do what you knew you should've.
"Hey. Did you get what you need?" 
Ain't worth dying for.  
Your eyes don't stray, glued to a puddle of blood and the greedy floorboards swallowing it up. The eyes want to remember, just like the ears remember a thundering rock slide and the nose remembers diesel and construction equipment. 
You tell the truth, and it sets you free. 
"No."
.
.
-to be continued-
A/N: No Frank in this one unfortunately, but plenty of him in the next one and let me tell you, they are not the best of friends. Chapter 3 is scheduled for August 13th. If you'd like to be tagged for updates, you can reblog any of the previous chapters!
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sommerregenjuniluft · 1 month
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can you believe on twitter people are starting to make regulus be fem
*GASP* THEY DID WHAT??
dunno if fem stands for identifying as female or presenting more feminine but yeah i sure can and Actually what a coincidence, would you look at that nonny, i dug this out of the depths of my docs just for you~
enjoy 1.7k of fem regulus (that i wrote for the jegulus microfics a few months back that took a life of its own and i never finished lol)
It had started with a debt.
No, that’s not true– actually, it had started with Professor Slughorn.
He’d sat down on his desk—yes, on, not at, long colorful knitted robes fluttering as he maneuvered himself into a pretzel. He’s a very strange man, that one, Pandora wagers he’s possessed by multiple old spirits, Shakespear and Van Gogh being only two of them—and had tapped a finger against his temple conspiratorially, “I’ve cooked another something up for you guys in here.”
Whenever Slughorn cooks something up in that cauldron of a head of his it’s either brilliant bordering on manic genius or it’s entirely stupid.
The given assignment is to write a song and produce a music video for it. Their final this semester.
Which sounds easy enough, but Slughorn had stressed multiple times that he wanted to be wowed as he’d slurped on his open coconut.
Which means they’re gonna have to put in a shit ton of effort.
“Form groups of five and figure it out,” he’d clapped his hands twice and then slid off the desk and went to leave as students started moving around the room and erupting into hushed discussions.
They’d pretty quickly figured out that Barty and Regulus would come up with the lyrics, they’d done it often enough, sometimes by accident when the brownies Pandora occasionally baked were a whoopsie too strong. Evan had leaned back with a grin and told them not to worry about the soundtrack and Lily and Pandora had already fallen into a tangent about cameras and equipment and location, possible props and friends they could rope into staring.
That’s when Regulus had taken her snake bite piercing between her teeth to smother a mean grin at the idea that popped into her head.
She plops down on her brother’s usual table in the yards, chunky platform heels propped on the bench and long legs on display under her mini skirt. Drives a hand through her wild mane and smiles sweetly, “Hi Jamie.”
As expected, his jaw drops slightly as James’ gaze breaks eye contact and takes on sliding down Regulus’ form where she’s propped herself deliberately right next to his meal.
Another voice at the table pipes up before the object of Regulus’ attention gets the chance to, “What do you want, Reggie?”
Regulus tilts her head, curls falling over her shoulders, eyes not letting off her target, “That’s none of your concern, Sirius.”
James licks his lips, “Hi Reg, how can I be of assistance to you today?”
Regulus leans forward with a smile, noticing the way James’ eyes flit down her low cut shirt for a second, “Remember that one time you’ve dared me to let the whole hockey team drink body shots off me?” Voice honey thick, the Just so you could get a taste goes without saying.
Behind her Sirius chokes on his lunch.
But James’ grin widens and he raises an eyebrow intrigued.
Regulus cards her pale fingers through James’ messy, black hair, makes it just a bit more messy as he looks up at her through his rounded glasses with those baby cow brown eyes of his and the corners of Regulus’ lips tug, “I’ve come to collect my debt.”
Evan produces a banger beat over the course of a single all-nighter that Regulus and Barty write their songtext to, tipsy as fuck on vodka lemon sodas out on Regulus’ small as fuck student housing balcony in the dead of night, moonlight just bright enough to see the pen of what they scrawl down onto the paper of their sketchbooks.
Regulus had left Lily in charge of the planning of availability on the location and the hockey team and Pandora to come up with a range of outfits to choose from for Regulus and the boys.
Evan finishes the song in record time for Regulus to record the vocals to and when it’s mixed and ready Evan’s grin is so bright Barty drives the girls out of the studio to do whatever debauched things to his boyfriend on the couch in there which one, Regulus doesn’t want to worry her pretty little head about too much since it’s her fucking voice– and two, means the song fucking slaps.
Barty also comes up with a slutty and good enough choreo that’ll give the video the dynamic it needs and together the four of them sweat away a few afternoons blending into evenings in front of the mirrors while Lily does whatever magic she does organizing.
Regulus hates that she’s not into girls in times like this.
It takes some time, obviously, you don’t just finish a song overnight and it takes a few weeks until almost everything is ready for the video shoot.
Regulus is sitting curled up on her desk chair while Pandora absolutely just takes her fucking closet apart, Ipad in one of her tiny hands, the Greedy Pinterest board open.
There’s already a pair of trainers and another pair of pointy, glittery heels thrown haphazardly on the end of her bed over the formerly neat sheets as well as a pair of black overknees and a cute lace-y, sage green bra that Regulus didn’t even know she had.
“Here,” Pandora blindly throws something over her shoulder at Regulus. They’re some older, white basketball shorts with black highlights. “Put these with the heels and the green top.”
Regulus does as told, albeit an eye roll that’s nearly painful as Pandora throws some white Nike socks after her. “Those too, babe.”
Another few beats pass where Regulus is bored and Pandora is rummaging and then she says, “Oh. my. gods,” and turns with a shiny faux leather bra hung loosely on her index fingers and a bright smile on her face, “You absolute slut.”
Regulus takes the compliment and gives her a sweet grin and a wink.
Pandora’s eyes take on a milky quality and then she asks, “Can you still do a split?”
Regulus takes a step into the middle of her room and falls into a nearly perfect split without any warm-up.
Pandora rolls her eyes at the showing off, badly containing another smile, “Again, I love you,” and then, a more contemplating expression, “How much do you think you think you can milk James of that debt of yours?”
Regulus scoffs, pointedly looks down at herself where she’s still sitting wide legged and at ease on her bedroom floor.
Pandora’s grin sharpens, “Text him you’re gonna need an old jersey and matching uniform shorts of his.”
And Regulus does just that. And if she sends the demand on Snapchat with a picture of her still in a split that’s none of anyone’s business but hers and Jamie’s.
James, as captain of the hockey team, is courteous enough to let them in with his own keys early in the morning of the shooting day.
They check out the rooms and halls for good spots and start bringing in bags and setting up equipment.
And James is just…helping.
Sticking around the whole fucking day actually.
Xeno and Mary have joined at some point with coffees, donuts and breakfast bagels, bless their fucking souls.
And when everything is as set in place as it can be it’s time for Regulus to change into the first outfit and start filming and James is still just…there.
Hovering with the crew, jostling elbows with Barty and Evan and peaking over Lily’s and Pandora’s shoulders and throwing Regulus glances and toothy smiles from across the room, showing no intention whatsoever to leave and come back later with his fucking team.
——— NSFW
James encourages the jerky movement of Regulus’ hips against his thigh, grip unrelenting on her waist as he leans impossibly closer, dragging his thumb along Regulus’ plump bottom lip, “You’d come like this, wouldn’t you, princess?”
Instead of answering Regulus sucks the thumb into her mouth, laving her tongue around it sloppily and making James breath stutter on the exhale.
“Fuck, good little slut– so desperate for it,” James says as he watches the movement of Regulus’ lips transfixed, continuing to get her off against his leg, “Want me to fuck you, don’t you, baby?”
And Regulus’ mouth drops around the sudden moan as her pace stutters, her eyes pricking with tears of the overwhelming toomuchnotenough and the degradation and sweet pet names and James’ lewd fucking mouth.
He pulls his thumb away and grabs at her ass with both hands, pulling their fronts flush together, two hard lines pressing at each other, “C’mon, princess, words.”
Regulus’ hands ball into fists at the front of James’ soft cotton shirt as she nods hopelessly, brows knit and voice husky, “Want you to fuck me.”
In the next blink James has her turned in his arms, palming at her stiff cock and pulling her ass back into him, his other arm coming around her front. Trailing faintly up her stomach, eliciting goosebumps, then grabbing at her breast and pressing a wet kiss on the side of her neck as a thumb brushes over a hard nipple behind the lace and Regulus groans.
“Be a good girl and stay down for me, yeah?” James rumbles into Regulus’ ear, nuzzling at the curls around her ear and the next moment there are calloused fingertips pressing into the nape of Regulus’ neck and she’s being pushed down against the counter.
James spanks her once across her right ass cheek for good measure it seems, another stay, and Regulus is helpless against the whine that crawls out of her, long hair falling into her eyes when her temple thumps against the marred, red countertop as James sinks to his knees behind her.
The hockey player palms at the swell of her thigh, right under the seam of her ass and kneads, warm humid breath puffing against Regulus’ entrance and she shivers against the exposure of the chilly air, whines something that sounds too close to Jamie and the man does nothing but keep looking and fucking chuckle. Bastard.
And then, “Oh, baby,” a groan and a bite to Regulus’ ass that has her whimpering pathetically, “Prettiest pussy, gonna get you all nice and wet for me.”
Regulus moans, and James hums as he dives in face first, grip strong around her thighs and tongue wet, slowly coaxing the tight ring of muscle open.
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oliversrarebooks · 8 months
Text
The Rare Bookseller Part 8: Joe's Story
Masterlist
September 1925
TW: Imprisonment, conditioning, restraints
There was a bright light in Oliver's eyes. The sun? Had he left the curtains open? He reached for his nightstand to grab his pocket watch and a glass of water to soothe his parched throat, but his hand hit a wall. 
A wall? Where...?
His eyes flew open as he remembered where he was. For one brief, blissful moment he'd believed himself to be home. Instead, he'd awoken inside of a cell in a vampire's prison -- his fitful dreams of vampire fangs weren't just nightmares, but his terrifying reality.
"Oliver? Are you up?" said Emily from the cell next to him. "I think they're serving breakfast soon."
"I'm up. Good morning, Emily," he said. He stood up, filling the pitcher with water and taking a long drink before splashing some on his face. He needed coffee, but he suspected he wouldn't get it here. That'd be a headache later.
There was shouting coming from the cell on the other side. "You fucking bastards! You can't do this!" Cage bars rattled. "Hey! Is anyone there?"
Oliver recognized it must be his new cell neighbor. "Joe! You're awake! How are you feeling?"
"Like I got hit by a ton of bricks," he said. "Was hoping last night was just a dream. Who're you?"
"My name's Oliver, and I've been kidnapped, too," he said. "What do you do for a living, Joe?"
"I'm a construction foreman. Just got promoted, too," he said, with obvious pride. "I was on the site late at night when all of a sudden this woman grabs me. Strongest woman I've ever seen in my life. She drugged me, took me here, then she drugged me again when I woke up and tried to fight her off." He shook the door of his cell. "Say, are they really...? It sounds crazy but..."
"I think they really are vampires."
"...Shit," he said simply. "I always expected an accident would get me like it did my old man. They're really vampires? That woman said she was going to sell me at an auction."
"Yes, I think that's what they told all of us."
"So what's your story, then?"
"I'm a bookseller, and --" 
He was distracted by the sight and smell of a tray of food being placed in his cell.  Oliver hadn't even realized that the breakfast cart was in front of him, piloted by the same cheerful human thrall as the dinner cart yesterday. He had so many questions he wanted to ask. "You're a slave here? How do they treat you? Do they drink blood from you?" spilled out of his mouth as she poured a cup of hot coffee and set it in his cell.
"Here you are! Please enjoy!" she said, ignoring his questions and moving on to Joe's cell.
He looked down to see a steaming hot bowl of porridge, an orange, and the mug of coffee. He was surprised to have any coffee at all. 
He talked to Joe and Emily as they had breakfast. The porridge didn't taste like much, but it filled him, and the coffee tasted like brown sludge, but it would help wake him up. They filled in Joe on what had been happening in the prison, and Joe told them a little about himself.
He had no spouse or kids, and was primarily devoted to his work -- same as Emily, who had fled an abusive home life to pursue art in the city; same as Oliver, whose close kin had died years ago. Oliver was beginning to sense a clear pattern: people who were somewhat isolated, who didn't have close family to look for them. Oh, Joe would certainly be missed, since he was the foreman and, in his estimation, well respected by his fellow workers. But Joe's workers and Oliver's customers and Emily's patrons weren't family or lovers or close friends. They didn't share the kind of bonds that would cause them to pursue an investigation deeper than a cursory police investigation, or to seek revenge against the vampires.
Oliver's heart sank with the realization. The vampires knew exactly what they were doing, choosing people who flew under the radar. That's how they managed to spirit this many people away to their auction house without being caught. For all he knew, the police were even in on it; for all he knew, some police were vampires. 
The sound of heels down the hallway caught their attention. The vampire who had kidnapped him, Colette, was walking down the line of cells with another petite woman in tow, both carrying clipboards and looking all business. They stopped in front of the cell next to Emily, the one with the waitress who didn't talk or sing any more.
"...already had one session..."
"...one more should be enough, either today or tomorrow. Frank can handle it. Good work. For prep work, she can go with the group slot 7pm Tuesday."
They stood in front of Emily's cell next. "Lot twenty-seven. Pet conditioning. Keep it light and natural."
"Got it," the woman with Colette said.
"Let's get a half slot for her, Tuesday 8pm."
"A half slot? Her blood's not anything special."
"I'm willing to take a chance on her. I think she'll clean up real nice, and with only light conditioning, some of our patrons would jump at the chance to fully break her mind in."
"What do you mean?" Emily demanded, shaking the bars of her cell. "What are you going to do to me?"
"Sell you to the most appropriate owner," said Colette. "Be glad we're spending this much effort on you. Now do quiet down. We have gags readily available, you know."
"Go ahead and do it!" Emily yelled. "Coward!"
Colette paid her no mind at all, instead moving on to Oliver's cage.
"I'm not afraid of you," he lied, hoping to match a bit of Emily's defiance.
"This is Lot Seven, of course," said Colette, ignoring him. 
"The star of the auction. I can see and smell why," said her assistant. "What are you thinking for him?"
"What makes me the star?" Oliver demanded.
"He's best suited for being a long-term servant, so... let's go with a medium course of conditioning. Two or three sessions at maximum, heavily focused on obedience and docility."
Oliver's chest tightened, his worst nightmare coming true. "You can't do that to me."
"Use your gentlest approach. The last thing we'd want to do is damage him. I already have some prospective buyers in mind for this one. The sorts of vampires who like their humans' minds intact."
He could hardly feel relieved by that, given that they were still discussing his conditioning and sale. And there were already prospective buyers? For him?
"His blood hasn't been graded yet, but he's obviously better than A grade, so let's switch his diet to something more appropriate. And I'll schedule him a full hour of prep just before the auction display, Tuesday at 8."
"Certainly. I should start on him tonight, then," said Colette's assistant, writing it all down. "I can't wait to see how he turns out."
"I'm not your goddamn project or your merchandise, you monsters!" Oliver yelled, his head spinning with everything he'd just heard. A course of conditioning. Blood grading. Prospective buyers. A full hour of prep.
"We have no shortage of gags," said Colette, finally acknowledging him. "I can retrieve one for you, if you'd like."
"I don't care."
"How tiresome. I don't know what you're hoping to accomplish. You'll be much more agreeable once Lily's dealt with you."
"I look forward to it," said Colette's assistant with a smile that almost seemed pleasant if he didn't know better. Lily didn't look at all the part of a vampire, with her dusty blue sundress and mouse-brown hair pulled back into a sensible ponytail, the kind of woman you would barely notice even if you were looking straight at her.
"She's our conditioning specialist," said Colette casually. "You truly will feel much better once you've spent some time with Lily. I promise."
Oliver's knees trembled and his hands went cold. They really were going to try and do something to his mind, some kind of training or torture or hypnotism -- from the sounds of it, later that night. He might have only a few hours left as himself.
"Nothing to say to that? Just as well," said Colette, turning away from his cell to move on to Joe's.
"Do your worst," said Joe with clearly false bravado.
"Lot forty. Erase him."
"What?" Joe and Oliver cried out in unison.
Lily sighed. "Another erasure? Dull..."
"Erase me? What the hell does that mean?" said Joe, pulling at the door of his cell. "You're fucking crazy, is what you are. Fucking crazy!"
"You should get started on him, sooner rather than later," said Colette, unfazed.
"Do I have to? I'd rather play with Lot Seven."
"Take care of him first and then you can spend the whole rest of the night playing with Lot Seven. I'll reschedule Lot Twelve to Frank."
As Joe loudly cursed them, their words sank into Oliver's mind. He felt sick.
"We have to stop them! They're going to erase Joe," Emily was shouting.
"...What can we do?" said Oliver, despairing. Those bars were no closer to budging than they had been at any point, and their vampire captors were still so much stronger than them.
Nothing to do.
Nothing to do as Colette and Lily called in a few more vampires.
Nothing to do as they pulled Joe from his cell, kicking and screaming.
Nothing to do as they slapped on restraints and dragged him away.
And as Oliver watched him disappear, he felt guilty, and not just because there was nothing he could do. It was because, even though he felt sorry for Joe, all he could really think about was that he was next.
Part Seven >> Masterlist >> Part Nine
Thank you for reading this story of people who are about to be erased. If you'd like to know more, my ask-box is open.
Tag list - please note if you'd like to be added
@d-cs @latenightcupsofcoffee @thecyrulik
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ray-gurl · 9 months
Text
How much real estate does Magneto own? I don't mean the expansive, ridiculously melodramatic hideouts he constructs (in the arctic, on asteroids, in the Savage Land jungle, and across multiple Islands). I mean the houses, apartments, and coffee shops above secret lairs.
The man has to have a TON of assets in the form of real property, and not only in the U.S. (though that's my focus for this). He digs up the deed and fake id/passport or has a reasonably competent underlining act as his 'lawyer' and sells a place whenever Brotherhood liquidity is low and he's in too hot of water to reappropriate funds himself. As opposed as he is to funding the U.S. government, to look 'legit' he has a tech-mutant pay his city bills and taxes.
This is a job no one envies:
"Magneto, can I get some more information about this property - all you gave me was a blood-soaked napkin labeled '1972' with an address, name you used to purchase it, and for how much."
"I had assumed that you were competent enough to figure these things out unassisted."
Underlining, sweating: "Ah, no, no Sir - I mean yes! I can do it, no problem!"
Charles offers the use of his accountants/attorneys when they're 'allies' (i.e., un-divorced), but Magneto is too stubborn/wary and doesn't want Charles' people having access to his funds in case of another break-up. Also, they were mean to him when he pulled the same b.s. with his 'records.' This changes during the Krakoa era.
I'd love to see a Charles and Max adventure wherein they travel across the globe to sell ALL the old properties. Magneto struggles to recall where each is, and he and Charles bicker over maps like a lost couple on a road trip:
"Can't you simply work out the location telepathically?"
"Visuals are well and good, darling, but I can do very little if you don't remember the address."
Bonus for them having to deal with the trials of banking/real estate plus the whole "Holy SHIT, Magneto owned that the suspiciously empty nice corner property this whole time?"
Also Max being impatient:
"I am a head of state, you know."
"Congratulations, Sir. I still need you to read this and sign on that line there."
"Fine."
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meow-town · 1 year
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Hello~ I just found your blog and I was wondering if you could write a headcanon about dee having a twin sister, and what the rest of the family's intentions would be with her, this one wouldn't be as feminine but more than Vicky, at least thanks to glam .
(sorry if my grammar is a bit weird, english is not my first language)
Of course! Ty for requesting! (Ps, my device completely died on me the second I finished writing this, and I hadn’t saved since I started, and I lost everything :) yayyyyyyyyyy, remember to save each post regularly, kids!)
wrote this as a self insert!
-You we’re born a mere 4 seconds after Dee, and he’s still insists he’s the older sibling. Which is technically true, but he abuses that power so much!
-saying that he should be in charge whenever the parents leave the house because he’s older, or insisting that he’s the more responsible and mature.
-You have more musical talent than him though, so he can suck it.
-He gets so pissy over it, too. You could mumble a song that’s been stuck in your head recently and he’ll ‘tsk’ each time.
-Very good twin brother, however. He’ll help with homework and always put in effort in group projects (I mean, he doesn’t need to put in effort, he’s Dee, but yknow). Teachers nearly always pair you two up together. He’ll also tutor you in his free time if you ask him :)
-If anyone picks on you, Dee will stalk them on the internet for weeks just to ruin their lives. He’s not letting that shit slide.
-Glam and Victoria always tried their very best to be good parents. They never got physically punishing (except for the occasional playful punch from Vicky as a warning) and would parent as gently as they could, at least, from Glam. He’s had bad experiences in the past and doesn’t want you to go through that things he went through.
-Glam will flash his creepy stare sometimes as a way to intimidate you, but he doesn’t dare go any further than that to scare you. Victoria may seem super tough but to me she seems like she is a super protective mama bear who will tug you into her arms if you arrive home 5 minutes late. God forbid you don’t respond to one of her calls, or you’ll have thousands of other calls and texts. Your phone will absolutely blow up with texts like these.
‘Are you okay??’
‘Where are you??.?.+’
‘Come home’
‘(y/n)’
-The first time Hevay came home in his little baby basket, Dee was staring absolute daggers into him. Looking at the guy like he wanted to strangle him. Heavy just grabbed at anything he could, wrapped in Victoria’s old bandana.
-Dee would snatch his toys away from Heavy, so you had to offer him yours constantly.
-Heavy was a rowdy baby, not the type to cry constantly, but he wasn’t ever quiet and still. He’d be jumping up and down or head banging (Victoria taught him how to) almost constantly. -Heavy will send you cat videos every literal four seconds and if you don’t respond to each of them he’ll get mad.
-He is the chaos child in the family, but he’s highkey the nicest so
-Teasing Dee about Lif is literally so funny 😭
-He’ll go all red and completely ignore you for hours on end if you keep it up-
-Ches was completely clueless while babysitting. He would frantically look through the pantry thinking ‘what the fuck do babies eat? Carrots? Granola bars? Can I feed them beer?’
-He’ll also accidentally swear on front of you a ton, and pretend like he’s not at fault when one of you yells ‘FUCK’ at the very top of your lungs.
-You, Dee and Heavy all developed your swearing thanks to Vicky and Ches-
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69gotime · 2 months
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Fuck cola, time to party with tina again!….and then get the locks changed….well fuck!!!
So after a couple years of cocaine and crack, I really wanted to get high on crystal again. I remembered that several years ago I had called one of those chat lines and found this chick who I hooked up with (she became my connect and fuck buddy for a while) and she got me way high. so I gave that line a call again and what do you know, I started talking to another chick who enjoyed a good party herself. I took that first hit off the pipe and it was pretty fucking awesome. She was in her mid-20s, not that attractive and she had a boyfriend, however, she made a phone call and next thing you know her mom shows up who was hot as fuck we spent the week together getting high and fucking for hours at a time. Only thing here is after a week of that. I was getting low on cash. I decided to go home and my roommates (one of them was my so-called best friend Jeff and his girlfriend) had changed the locks on me. They wouldn’t answer the door nor would they return my calls. After about a week hours, finally able to go over there and move all my stuff out. Now for the past 12 years at the time, Jeff and I had done a fuck ton of coke, crack and crystal (in my next post or two give you more details on good old Jeff) but for some reason it was taught prudent that I not live there anymore. I guess they felt I wasn’t going to be able to pay my rent since it was right around the first of the month so they just locked me out. Crazy thing here is even though I didn’t live there for that month, I still sent them the money for the month, even though I didn’t live there that month… Go figure that one out! Now Jeff is real piece of shit, and I ran into him a couple years ago, and he denies ever receiving the money I sent (even though it was sent express mail in the form of certified funds with the tracking number). See during that time, when we were snorting lines and smoking crack, his girlfriend had no idea what he was into. Well, myself, and those of us who do know him know exactly what he did with my money I gave him to make good on my obligation….. he put a right of his nose. in any event, this was a very tough situation for me as I had never found myself to be without a home until now. Fortunately I moved into the last place I wanted to move into….my parents house. I was clean for maybe a week and it felt good to sleep.
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love-byers · 9 months
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🚨CALLING ALL BYLER TRUTHERS THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!!!!!🚨
i literally have not posted in months because i've been EXTREMELY busy preparing for college, but things have calmed down a bit so i'm making time for some good old byler
now i don't know how many of you were involved in byler twt in august-september of 2022 but there were a couple of huge theories that are still talked about today
the ones i'm gonna be talking about in this post are:
birthday gate
will byers/harry potter parallel
will and mike teaming up in s5 & getting stuck in the upside down
if you don't know what birthday gate is, you've been living under a rock, but to summarize:
in s4 when el is being bullied by angela and the other kids at the skating rink, there's brief clips of the scene through a retro handheld camera with the date in the corner. the date in that scene is march 22nd, 1986.
march 22nd is wills birthday. we know that because in s2 when will is possessed by the mike flayer, joyce attempts to bring him back by asking him if he knows what march 22nd is; his birthday.
that would mean that the day when mike, will, and el go the roller rink is will's birthday—and no body, not even joyce or jonathan, mention it. the duffers said that it was an accident and they haven't watched s2 in years. this is complete horseshit. there are several direct references to s2 in s4, such as max saying "that's presumptuous of you" to lucas just like she did in s2. also,
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idk about you but REALLY seems like they're teasing us about his birthday not really being forgotten.
there's several other theories about what this means but the most popular is that vecna has taken the other's memories about will to target him and make him feel like no one cares about him. all of vecna's victims are carrying some sort of trauma, and he can only target them when they're emotionally vulnerable. why is he targeting will? that's a whole nother rabbit hole.
this is where the harry potter theory becomes relevant.
i don't know where the picture is but the duffers posted their inspo board for s4 and there's a shit load of movies and tv shows, including harry potter and the chamber of secrets.
there's a shit ton of parallels that i won't get into, except these:
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(all of these harry potter plot points are in both the book and the movie)
in chapter one of chamber of secrets, harry is sad and angry because it's his 12th birthday and no one remembered. the dursley's have never acknowledged his birthday, but he expected ron and hermione, his new best friends, to send him letters like they promised, but they haven't. not only did he get none on his birthday, he's gotten none all summer.
sound familiar?
if birthdaygate is true, this is an obvious parallel. will's birthday was also forgotten and it makes him sad. however, in chamber of secrets, it's revealed by dobby that ron and hermione have been sending letters all summer—but dobby stole them so that harry would think no one liked him and he wouldn't go back to hogwarts. some people think that vecna could be paralleling dobby as he took the others memories of wills birthday. but since i'm a byler loser, i wanna talk about this: there's another theory that mike was actually trying to call will awhile they were apart, but the phone was always on hold because of joyce's telemarketing job. wills thinks mike doesn't care about him, but mike was really trying to reach him the whole time. i made a post about this that's pinned on my account, feel free to read and come back
there was another theory on byler twt/tiktok that will and jonathan will move into the wheeler's basement since they're back in hawkins with no house. this was just supposed to be a fun 'what if', but i realized that this could also parallel chamber of secrets.
ron weasley realizes that something must be wrong since harry hasn't written back all summer. he and his brothers take their dads enchanted flying car to rescue harry from the dursley's. after that, harry stays with the weasley's for the rest of the summer. in the movie it's only like a day or two, but in the books it's about a month. if will byers moves into mike wheeler's basement i'm going to lose my shit.
here's where it gets fucking crazy
when september first hits in the camber of secrets, harry and the weasleys go to king's cross train station to go to platform 9 3/4 where the hogwarts express is waiting. ron's parents and siblings go through first, then harry and ron. well, ron and harrry try, but they just run into the wall. the platform is closed and they're stuck on the other side.
HELLO???????? WILL AND MIKE ARE GOING TO BE STUCK IN THE UPSIDE DOWN FUCKING CONFIRMED
ron and harry stupidly decide to take the flying car to get to school instead and catch up with the train, which ends in a bit of a disaster (they crash into the womping willow).
this could play out in s5 in a lot of different ways, but here's my theory
maybe all of the gang will be in the upside down for some reason and mike and will are left behind. this is really interesting if vecna is actually paralleling dobby, because dobby is the one who closed off the platform. there's a theory that vecna is targeting mike as well because he knows mike makes will the happiest. maybe he traps them both in the upside down to take out mike first. or maybe, like dobby, mike (ron) is trapped by accident. i also think it makes sense that mike and will being in the upside down would parallel ron and harry flying next to the train. in stranger things we all know that the upside down looks like hawkins, but isn't. there are several times that we see characters in the upside down communicate and work together with characters in the real world.
do you see what i mean about it just making sense? mike and will in the UD working together with the others in the real world to get to the same place or goal, just like ron and harry got to hogwarts with the others on the train, just in a different way.
anyways i'm losing my fucking mind byler is endgame
also, the duffers are rarry shippers CONFIRMED
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gayandfairycore · 1 year
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[Sacrifice] Simon kalivoda x reader
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A/n: hi!!! This is my first fic in like four months oh my god! I’m a terrible perfectionist when I wrote so I tend to start wips and never finish them! But I just recently watched fear street for Halloween and fell head over heels for Simon so I decided for my first fic in awhile to be of him! My man deserved better 😭🫶🏻 (this is my first lr second time writing angst? I believe! So apologies of it sucks lol!) I also have to update my master list I don’t write for half the people on there anymore! Also bold and small text means it’s a flashback! And italics mean it’s kinda in simons pov! This is my first fic of Simon so he may be a bit ooc! This is also not proofread
Summary: coming along with the group to save Sam, unspoken feelings arise as it becomes apparent it may be your final night alive. Tho you are determined to not let any of your friends die if you have anything to say about it. Y/n a brash girl decides to fight for love, and her friends lives. Even if it kills her.
Warning: angst, major character death, decapitation, brutal bread slicer, murder, bashing in someone’s skull, OD-ing, drowning, (probably more)
Saving Sam had been the right thing to do you knew this, you voted on not leaving her for dead in the hallway but it didn’t stop the fear of knowing you could be going to your death in a fucking grocery store.
You weren’t even sure how you got mixed up in this, oh wait. No you do remember, you were hanging out with Simon and Kate whilst they babysat doing nothing but talking about stupid shit, with Simon and watching jaws, and sitting in between his legs.
Everything had been fine Until deena had called Kate telling her that sams boyfriend had broken into her house for some dumb prank wearing a skull mask.
No one had expected the same dude in a skull mask to be in the house Kate babysat in, Rummaging through laundry? It was safe to say y’all were freaked.
Honestly none of you were prepared to fight century old murderers you all were along for this ride, but there was no way you’d be hopping off this ride. Not when your friends lives had been in the line, Fuck that.
So here you were standing in a grocery store in bad smelling lost and found clothes, watching as Simon told Sam exactly how to od.
Safe to say you didn’t think you’d watch Simon, your simon, your best friend and crush since diapers teach your other friend how to od on a Friday night. But there’s a first time for everything.
The epi-pens had been bunched in your hands as you listened to simon tell the group when each pile was to be taken.
“You need to take these in order. Now pile one takes the edge off. You’re gonna feel kinda like you’re being fucked by a unicorn!” Simon spurs off his hands gesturing wildly as he smiles at Sam and Deena through his eyelashes
“Pile two is gonna bring your core temp way down, you may feel slightly sick?” He shrugs, a deep serious rasp is in his usually carefree voice.
“Now you need to take a five minute interval between pile two. And pile three. That’s really important, okay?” A deathly serious look takes over his eyes as he stares at Deena and Sam
“Pile three brings you down and out, so you gotta take that “take five” or it’s all gonna go to shit!” Simon instructs his hands gesturing towards the pile rings glistening.
“How many of these do we have?”kate questions gesturing towards you carrying the epi-pens
“Y/n darling pass me the pens” Simon speaks softly, turning towards you, with a toothy grin; before taking them from your grasp lightly
And stating, “Tons like a thousand!”
“Wait? Epi-pens?” Deena asks her eyebrows screwn in confusion
“Epinephrine? Also known as adrenaline. This is what brings her back.” You pipe up determined smile on your face, a proud glint glistens in Simons brown eyes.
“This is Jesus!” He adds shaking the pile of epi-pens.
It was only when you were Smearing sams blood on yourself did you truly feel the fear set in; fear, determination, and anger was all that flowed through you. As you all took different corners in the grocery store a feeling of grief overtaking your heart. As you took the front entrance near The fruit and veg aisle.
Even tho no one had died yet, your old selves would surely have to die if you wanted to survive this. It wasn’t fair, why did you have to lose yourselves,
What did you and your friends ever do to be here today, in this grocery store leading killers away from your other close friend who was meant to be fucking murdered. It wasn’t fair, on anyone.
Century old killers had come to strike again and hurt innocent people, like Simon. He was the sole provider for his whole family, sure he’s a bit of a junkie but it doesn’t mean he should die.
It didn’t mean Kate should die, or josh, or deena, or Sam. No one deserved this not the victims who came before you, or the ones that would come after if you failed. You felt filled with determined to end this. Or die trying.
The fluorescent lights seared a deep blue through the deserted store. Your heavy breathing could be heard as ruby lanes singing surrounded your corner of the grocery store your feet planted on the floor in a crouch of the fruit and veg aisle the cool spray of the water that kept the lettuce wet could be felt on your skin it was oddly refreshing, you’d die wet, and with veggies. Tasteful.
Your forehead felt damp with a mixture is sweat and dew, as ruby’s singing growing louder and louder, your hand gripped your mouth with the strength of whitening knuckles to silence your breathing. As ruby crept closer and closer. Until the singing stopped?
Just as you let out a sigh of relief, the brunette girl had pulled you from your crouched position by your hair, springing up she swing her razor towards your face, knicking your cheek as you felt the sticky red substance leak from your newly acquired cut.
“You bitch!” You exclaimed the pads of your fingers stained a bright red, anger blazed in your eyes, as your fingers tangled in her up do.
Pulling her hair back with enough force to rip a chunk out of her head, the pale girl begin to kick and scratch at you, her razor blade discarded with the shock of her hair being pulled.
Her heels stepping on your converse clad feet, before she whirled her fist back, the sound of her fist colliding with your nose and cheek, her punch was enough to stun you as the bright red blood trickled from your nose, towards your lip, you could taste blood. Bringing your toungue up towards the top of your lips you licked the excess blood leaking from your nose. Breathing heavy your hair messy, and matted.
You Spat the excess blood from the punch into the linoleum flooring you begin to back up, slightly stumbling over your shoes.
In that time ruby had grabbed her razor and started singing, walking slowly towards your retreating figure, the cool leg of a ladder had pressed against your back. Not taking your eyes off of the girl you slipped through the middle in attempt to get away from her.
“Cmon ruby Don’t you know it’s bad luck to walk under a ladder!” You nervously chuckled the brunette just smiled at you. As your eyes searched frantically for anything to help you
a tool box had laid discarded by the maintenance ladder. The yellow rubber of the handle of a hammer caught your eye, like a angled beacon of hope.
“Alright bitch, let’s level the playing field.” You whispered your face hardened with anger as you crouched down for it, your hand almost reaching it.
before you felt your leg being pulled out from under you, as your body hit the linoleum floor with a SMACK! Groaning you turned over to face ruby, something unknown glinted in your e/c eyes. Pity? Anger? Or was it Sexual tension?
“Damn ruby” you smiled “take me to dinner first!” You wheezed out your body had hit the ground with enough force to make you see stars.
As the brunette psychopath smiled at you she brought her razor blade down towards you, whisky you wriggled underneath her weight, the sledge hammer sitting so close but yet so far away from you. Your finger tips only just scraped it, whilst Rubys razor cutt deeply at your arm, and then your stomach, a scream had left your throat as the white hot pain of being stabbed seared within your flesh. The girl had turned her razor blade whilst it had still been in your stomach. Tears leaked from your eyes, as you inhaled sharply stretching just fat enough to grip it by your side.
Your vision dotting with black spots as you closed your eyes and focused on what you could control, you tried to suppress the shock your body was going into by remembering Simon. And where you were and the pain you felt.
Feeling the pain meant you were still alive, focusing on what was happening meant you’d be alive to save Simon.
You refused to die here, in the fruit and veg aisle with a psychopath topping you, and stabbing you repeatedly. You knew what you had to do you had to breathe, as a million thoughts pounded through your skull.
Time it just right y/n-the side of her head -I have to save my friends-I have to save Simon-breathe y/n-I think I’m dying-I’m losing too much blood-fuck being stabbed hurts-
Rubys had tilted her head down, savouring this moment. it was the right time. Whirling the hammer as hard as you could into her skull blood spraying when the force of the hammer collided with her skin as it split the first few layers smashing her skull in the process,the deafening crack of rubys skull echoed throughout the store.
You didn’t even remember the war cry that left your lips as you smashed her. her black blood spluttered against your cheek as the pale girl tumbled off of you.
“Good riddance bitch.” You exclaimed, spitting the blood that got in your mouth on her dead corpse.
your hair messy and tangled,and bruises were sure to start forming on your body, as red pools of blood had stained your shirt, your body aching in protest with your movements adrenaline swirling through you. As you wondered your way further down the store.
Your bloody hammer in your hand, you were in desperate need on a fucking Band-Aid.
Kate’s screams weee the next to quieter the atmosphere of the store with fear, but you couldn’t worry about Kate. You needed pain killers.
Simon heard your screams, the blonde haired boy had known it was you immediately, stifling his sobs he held hope that you would survive.
Until he heard the crack! And then deathly silence. His ears rang with anxiety “oh no, no, no! She can’t be dead, she can’t be.” he found himself thinking at the insinuation of your potential death. Tears welled in his blue eyes as thick spit began to moisten his throat with his stifled sobs
He didn’t care about the chaos around him only you. Kate’s screams had been the next to fill the grocery store. The silence after hers had felt less forgiving.
the sticky substance had cling to you seemingly everywhere, your white band shirt had been sliced and covered in bright red pools of blood. Majority yours.
the sight of your disheveled appearance in a reflection of a fridge at the bottom of the aisle had you double checking it was you, blood covered seemingly every inch of you your adrenaline levels high, despite your desheveled appearance and your wounds you didn’t feel it.
You couldn’t you were running on adrenaline, and your only weapon a god damn hammer.
But you didn’t have much choice you decided, taking a shaky breath and moving further into the store, deena and sams discarded pill bowl was the next thing you saw.
Kates screams went quiet, and your shaky breathing filled your ears as your frantically beating heart slammed against your rib cage. As you crept towards where Kate was stationed.
Your hearing seemingly deafened, when you saw Kate’s carnaged head sheathed through in the bread slicer. A shaky “oh…my…god” left your lips as the souring ting of her blood stained your throat.
And you thought being stabbed was bad.
Every inhale stung with the bitter taste of blood that filled the air, it tasted bitter and stale, as the sound of running could be heard behind you. When both josh and Simon had piled out of two aisles not long after you. Them Too witnessing the carnage body of their friend.
The sight of Kate’s mangled body had stifled the boys “I think I’m gonna puke” Simon whispered, “me too.” You chuckled uncomfortably, simon could’ve sworn he had never turned his head so fast he almost had whiplash
When he saw you it was like everything melted away as Simon saw you, alive and breathing. Simon let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“Oh fuck- y/n!” Simon exclaimed shakily, when he realised it was infact you, Simons heavy breathing filled your ears as he pulled you into a desperate hug, his pale hands clutching your head and lower back, as you wrapped yours around his back and shoulders Holding on for dear life.
Both of you had been shaking. “Oh my god y/n! Are you okay?!? Whose blood is that?” Simon rambled out, when he pulled back from the embrace.
“It’s mostly mine, but don’t worry I got a few good hits on her too.”
“Mostly yours?!?” He exclaimed giving you a once over “oh my god” he was so excited to see you, he didn’t even assume that you could be hurt. His fearful brown eyes turned to look at you it was enough to break your heart.
As you brought him into another embrace, inhaling sharply, when you realised
Your sledgehammer had been discarded next to you during your reunion, and the sight of a rapidly approaching Tommy slater was gonna put a damper on things, it was apparent time was of the essence.
So you did the only thing you could do. You pushed Simon out of the way with all of your might, watching the blonde boy slide away from you, his horrified expression sending a sharp stab to your heart.
Or that might’ve been Tommy’s axe that was planted in your shoulder, yours ears rushed with blood, your heart beating frantically in your chest, your friends had called out your name as your knees hit the linoleum with bruising force.
A delayed scream ripped from you, as Tommy’s axe sucured itself in your shoulder, you called out to your friends, your head staring up at Tommy’s bagged head anger apparent in your eyes as you brought yourself to your feet calling to your friends.
“GO RUN!” Before pain stakenly slowly pulling his axe from you left hand shoulder flipping it over in your right hand you looked Tommy right in his bagged face where his eyes should be and whispered a
“Fuck you.” Before swinging his own axe into his neck successfully decapitating him, his body cluttered to the floor as you stared at his flannel clad headless body before turning towards the way simon went.
Simons choked sobs had been enough to make you start crying more then you already were, as the blonde boy had began muttering to himself “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit” as he was sitting with his knees to his chest in an aisle fully believing he had just sealed the death of the girl he had loved.
“Si?” You spoke from the top of the aisle, the fluorescent lights made you look stunning, the blue and pink of the lights framed you as if you were an Angel.
“Y/n?!?” Simon called out his tearful eyes glistened in the lights, Simon was just happy to see you made it out from the clutches of Tommy, he didn’t care you were covered head to toe in blood, h/c knotted, and bleeding profusely. He still thought you looked beautiful leaning your bleeding body on the axe that could’ve killed you.
He pulled himself to his feet, running over to you, and pulling you into his arms, before sliding down to the floor, your bloody body being moved gently sideways in his lap.
“You-you saved me?” And “oh god why would you do that?!?” He whispered softly as he held your cheeks with such gentleness as he rocked you both, it felt safe being in simons grip.
Sitting in his lap had felt like everything would be okay. Like you finally didn’t need to fight anymore. Like he was going to fight for you. Simons other hand had been frantically putting pressure on your shoulder wound.
You were losing too much blood, your head felt woozy, and your eyelids had felt heavier then they ever were, your breathing had begun to shallow. Simon prayed that deena had finally killed Sam and this was all over.
And luckily for him one of those were true, Deena had succeeded in killing Sam, and bringing her back. And an ambulance and police cars had been dispatched.
With every rock of your body simon had held you with increasing tightness it was like he was forcefully holding ro this earth, for just a minute more.
He felt as if his prayers went unanswered when you gripped his pale hand he held to your face and whispered
“simon…si-“
“No! no, don’t speak save your strength” simon whispered gripping your blood covered hand.
“Simon-” Your grip, tightened.
“-im d-dying, I want you to have this.”
Simon had felt like he had just been stabbed you couldn’t be dying! How could you just accept that you were dying?
Wheezing as you gripped the cool silver of your locket, tearing it from your chest, your chest rattling with each breath.
“Si I want you, t-to have it.”
your eyes drooped before lazily staring up at him through your eyelashes.
Letting go of his hand on your cheek you Brough your hand to his cheek before smiling up at him your teeth covered in blood, your body groaning in protest as you begin to move your head forward to place a lazy kiss on his lips.
Slumping back slowly to your previous position in his arms blood began to trickle from your mouth as you choked out a
“Oh si- p-please don’t cry…”
He didn’t even realise he had been crying.
As Your hand shakily held his cheek throughout your love confession placing a bloody hand cheek on his pale skin, you attempted to smile a bloody smile.
“Remember…I’ll always…be… with you-“
“I love you”
Before your grip on his cheek loosened, falling to the floor limply, before…nothing? The grocery store grew silent, It was silence for the last time that night. There was no sound of your breathing, or his friends screams, or the sound of splashing water or the sound of shoes running on linoleum, only his own choked sobs.
“Y/n? Y/n please answer me” He cried wiping his cheeks of his tears your blood staining his hands as you lightly smacks your face.
“Cmon y/n” smack! “wake up!” Smack!
“Please y/n…” simon muttered in defeat, his sobs loud enough to alert his friends what had happened.
“Please don’t leave me” he cried his grip tightly holding your cooling cheeks your head lulling to the side limply with any movement.
You had looked so peaceful in his arms, your eyes closed, a ghost of a smile on your face, it was apparent you had no regrets.
You were prepared to die for your friends, and die you did, you were brave in life, and braver in death.
Though it didn’t stop simons distraught thoughts to cloud his judgement, he was looking for someone to blame, was it Sams fault? She disturbed the witch, was it deenas? For asking you all to save Sam sacrificing yourselves in the process? Was it’s Kate’s? For being so sure that this plan would work? was it Josh’s? For telling us about Sarah fier, or was it his own. For bringing you here and not turning you away? Telling you to run for the hills and never look back? Or was it your fault? For pushing him out of the way. Simon knew it was wrong but be blamed every single person there.
None so much as he blamed himself, clutching the locket he gave you it reminded him of the time you told him that you’d never take it off, you’d rather have died then taken off the locket.
The chilly night air of the park had bitten your skin as you sat on an old park bench, wrapping your arms around your shoulders and attempting to rub out the goose bumps that had begun to form
Checking your watch every two minutes “god I swear! If simons left me out here in the cold I’ll kill him.”
You spoke staring up into the stars angrily, kicking your foot off of the park bench and jumping down you decided to start your walk home, in the cold, dark night.
In shady side, alone. Yep you were definitely gonna kill him. You had made your way half way down the path near the cover of trees before you heard hurried footsteps and heavy breathing.
As they wheezed out an exhausted “y/n!” Before yelling again a little louder, “y/n!” You knew it was Simon but you were still a little mad at him for making you wait thirty minutes in the cold alone at night so you decided to you with him.
“HELP SIMON!” You yelled out mustering hopefully enough faux fear to fool Simon that you were actually in trouble before you let out another blood curdling scream.
“Oh god y/n?!?” Simon called out running in your general direction, stifling a chuckle as you hid yourself behind a tree, laughing at simons scared expressions.
You actually started to feel a bit bad when he called out for the 3rd time in a row voice wavering as he did so, so you knew it was time to throw in the towel and come clean.
Jumping out at simons turned figure shit eating grin on your face at the scream he let out “holy shit! You should’ve seen your face!”
“Oh haha, very funny y/n! I see how it is” Simon sulked sitting down on the dew covered grass breathing heavily, hands on his knees.
“Oh come on! You can’t really be upset?” You asked, planting yourself next to him on the grass, kicking his leg with your leg.
Truth be told he wasn’t upset, he was just relieved that you were okay, and just scared about what he felt when he didn’t see you at the park bench.
“Yes I’m upset! I thought something happened to you!” He exclaimed shaking his head, chuckling at something that popped into his head.
“Whatre you laughing at?”you asked, smiling wildly before placing a hand under your chin and smiling cheekily “My devilish good looks?”
Simon scoffed, “pfft- no! They are no laughing matter!” He said kicking your shoe clad foot lightly “but what I was laughing at was if you ever did get attacked? Can you imagine that? God they’d go crying back to their mamas if they ever faced you!”
“You’re a kicker!” Simon exclaimed toothy grin on his face as you let out a mock gasp “ah! I am not!”
“You so are!”
“Am not!” You pushed
Simon smiled “Are too”
“Am not!” You frowned pulling up some grass and throwing it at him
“Are too!” He replied “but I love ya anyway”
“Oh shut up! You blushed
“what did you want anyway? You called me to the park at the middle of the night and then left me for 30 minutes!”you spoke turning to look at the blonde boy
“Ah! Right, I wanted to give you this.” He replied looking suddenly bashful as he searched his pockets for something.
“I uh…think I lost it when I was looking for you?” Simon spoke scratching the back of his neck as he searched his pant pockets coming up empty handed aside from a button, a stick of gum, and a tissue.
“Simon!” You exclaimed in exasperation“what was it anyway?”
“It was uh, it was a locket!“ a blush littering simons cheeks as he grinned an embarrassed smile his tooth gap on full display.
“Awww Simon, That’s so sweet. thank you! If we ever find it I promise I’ll never take it off!”
Both you and Simon spent three hours in that park in the middle of the night searching for your locket, no flashlights, just the light of the moon.
It didn’t matter if you both caught a cold a couple of days later, both you and Simon had spent hours together searching, you didn’t find it.
If Simon was being honest majority of the time he was just looking at you, in the moonlight, your hair falling in your face, as you chuckled at how dumb this whole thing was.
“Hey y/n why don’t we just call it a night and go back to yours?maybe watch a movie if something?” The blonde boy asked slightly disheartened by your disappointed expression
“Aww okay!” You called back hands on your hips and frown on your face, as both you and Simon walked back to your house, the warmth of the pretty much empty house was already better as you both snuck back into your room turning on a vhs of some random movie you had throwing off your shoes and getting under your covers
Pulling Simon down with you, as you laid your head on his chest, at first the boy didn’t know what to do his hands stayed away from you until you looked up through your droopy eyes
“What…areee you waiting for? Put your arms round me” you slurred sleepily Simon brought his arms to rest around your midriff as he called out your name
“Y/n?”
“Mm”
“I actually didn’t lose the necklace…”
“Hmm then Why did we spend hours looking for it?” You asked your head still planted firmly on his chest, eyes closed on the verge of sleep
“I just didn’t want the night to end…”
“I didn’t want it to end ‘ither, god I love you…” you yawned out giving in to the bliss of sleep
Simon froze at your words his eyes blowing wide, he just pulled you more into him holding you close to his body.
“I love you too.” He smiled placing a kiss on top of your head “I love you too…”
The memory just made him want to cry over and over again.
Until the red and blue lights off the ambulance and cop cars arrived, his tears shone in the reflection of the lights as he stifled his sobs, his hands gripping your body tighter as the paramedics piled in.
he wouldn’t let go of your body, clinging desperately too you. His friends hands on his shoulders were the only thing that got him to let go. Even tho he physically gave you over, your weight felt like it was still there, choking him.
Joshs face has been watching Simon his hand on his shoulder concern clear in his features “simon…”
Simons red and blotchy face wet with tears glanced up at him
“she’s dead, josh.” His voice hardening anger and despair setting into his voice as he continued;
“she’s dead because of me…”
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I need more punk Arthur in my life😭
So I got hit by a ton of fucking bricks, and I have NO idea where this came from except I was having a lot of feelings about my brothers. They're little fuckers, and my usual with the NA bros or the wee Anzacs didn't go anywhere, so.... 2.5k of feelsy Arthur and Rhys just SPRANG out of me like fucking English language amoebic dysentery. Like I am genuinely going to be trying to figure out how this happened in therapy after the holiday. What in fuck. this better not flop because my ancestors are spinning like fucking tops in their snowy graves. fuck I need a shower and a fucking exorcism. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM.
But also, @rebelsandtherest, you deserve a nice treat so come get your fucken lads. Also, here on ao3. Don't ask me when it's set it could be any time between 1975 and 2022, I don't fucken know either. And if the England stans want to have a row over it, just know I have no fucking idea whats going on either. tw for discussion of drugs, alcohol, benders, STDs, bad piercings, ill-advised tattoos and unprotected sex, emotional constipation, and disturbing levels of general Britishness that lowkey gave my french ass hives to write.
Contemporary Era
Cardiff, Cymru.
"How much of what did you snort or shoot up before this happened?" Rhys took tweezers on hand and gestured to the obviously infected safety pin rammed straight through Arthur's ear, woven through the cartilage a worrying amount of times.
"Bold of you to assume I remember." Despite the cost in holes, he gave a shit-eating grin, obviously content with his bender. "I don't even remember getting on the train. Last I knew I'm closer to Heathrow than I am the house and I think, 'Aye, haven't seen Rhys in a moment' and next thing I know, I'm in your loo."
He shouldn't have asked. He shouldn't have been surprised. But he sighed anyway. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the navy getting rid of the tot was the worst thing that ever happened to you."
Arthur gave a gentle sound of agreement, swaying in his perch on the shut toilet seat, closing his eyes against what Rhys would have bet a year's salary was a fierce wave of nausea. He was now dressed in joggers, socks, and an oversized rugby shirt that hardly fit Rhys when his winter body appeared. It hung off his brother's shoulders and made him look young and slender, like an Arthur who would still listen to the old stories Rhys told him rather than the one who had anglicized them and, in turn, held his children in rapture by the fireplace. Rhys cuffed him gently around the other side of his head, a love tap to keep him still and tutted.
"I suppose it's commendable there's just this mess instead of you stumbling home after three years abroad with scurvy and six types of intestinal parasites like you used to."
"Oh, God, don't mention intestines." Arthur groaned. He inhaled; in anyone else, it would have been only that, an inhale. But the move was practically a gag in his brother, and Rhys knew it. If the collective hangover of what seemed to be a solid week of drink (at least judging by the stink of him when Rhys had let him through the door) hadn't knocked the life from him before, now it seemed too completely.
"If you're going to be sick, do it now, love. Because that's got to come out before you sleep, or you'll wake up in the morgue with lock jaw on the death notice."
"There's nothing in me to bring up," Arthur said, bracing himself on the sink with grim resignation.
"Right then," Rhys said. "On three." He smoothed down his brother's straw-coloured hair, still damp from the shower. "One." And on his next breath, he ripped out the offending not-earring. And like he'd pulled the pin from a grenade and not his poor whinging cunt of a brother, there was an explosion of gagging, coughing and cursing that only got louder as Rhys doused a face flannel in hot water and laid it over the problem at hand. He gave the ear a squeeze with it and let the heat relax everything as much as it could.
A few pinches to get the worst of the fluid out, more profanity, and unexpectedly, Rhys felt Arthur topple. He barely managed to sweep the begonia and books off the dusty chair that held his bathroom reading before he sat and let Arthur collapse with the good side of his head on Rhys left knee.
"For Christ's sake." Rhys tutted. "You're still high, aren't you?"
He didn't answer, but eyes shut and looking an inch from death, Arthur had the smug look of a well-fed cat. He'd obviously had fun, whatever he'd done. Rhys shook his head. Hopeless. Four children, two thousand years, two world wars, and Arthur was still Arthur. As bad as a tomcat. When the ear was as pliable as it was going to get and all the rust and grime was removed from the skin, Rhys picked up the bottle of peroxide.
"This might sting a bit."
Arthur eyed the bottle suspiciously. "Is that.... strictly needed?"
"It this or I take you to A&E,"
"That feels rather dramatic."
"Do you want to get tetanus the week before Christmas? Fancy one of your spawn scraping you off the floor again when you keel over keks first on the good tourtière?"
"... No."
"Then don't be chopsy with me and hold still." He tilted Arthur's head up and propped it on a towel so the peroxide would flow the way he wanted after pooling on the shell of his ear. Quick as you please, he flipped the cap on, and dumped chemicals out.
Arthur bucked and cursed because he always did when no one else was around to give him reason to hold his lip stiff. Keeping hold of what he was doing, Rhys instinctively cradled Arthur's head. A spare hand cupped his neck like a newborn, and Rhys had the bizarre feeling of when he was one of three siblings, their mother told him to mind the baby's head when it was his turn to hold the tiny, squawling bastard mother kept so carefully wrapped up. He held Arthur like that now, shushing and holding him fast. Arthur cursed him up and down for it, striking the counter weakly.
He laughed as Arthur's profanity came to a halt and he only seemed half-conscious. "Fuck me, mate. I think you just told me to go fuck myself with a tree in Cumbrian."
Arthur hummed weakly, lolling against Rhys. "Did I?"
"So you did," Rhys wiped some of the sweat off Arthur's brow and looked at the mess of the ear, gingerly lifting the fabric. "You're lucky this wasn't worse."
"Hmm," Arthur replied noncommittally. He'd gone a bit pale and seemed nearing the end of his tolerance for general and liver abuse.
"Are you going to go down swinging if I go and try to find you some paracetamol and dioralyte?"
"Can I have some whiskey?"
"No."
"Fine." Another noncommittal noise. The absence of cranky insults was as good an admission a pain as any.
"Bloody hurts, does it? Must if you're being reasonable."
"You're... Reasonable." Arthur retorted lamely, his eyes shutting and the weight on Rhys' body increasing as he got closer to sleep.
"Yes, I am." He chuckled. "Christ alive, you're still high." Rhys shook his head. "Idiot."
"Only a little." Arthur still hadn't opened his eyes, but he tapped Rhys on the forearm and squeezed. "Oh... er... now might be a good time to mention..."
"Lord, what'd you do?"
"Might have a tattoo I don't remember getting... or where I got it."
"And let me guess, there's not a licensing board in the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that can vouch for the cleanliness of the needles."
"... Maybe."
Rhys groaned. "I take it back. I miss the scurvy. At least back then, bloody malaria did me a solid and took care of the venereal disease with you. Is the tattoo at least something good this time?"
"Stratocaster." He said, tapping his thigh to indicate to right from above his knee to his hip, awkwardly bent on the toilet still.
"Jesus Christ. You're going to the clinician in the morning. I can practically see the bacteria. And if you're going to make a habit of this shit again, you're going on PreP."
"On what?"
"We'll discuss it in the morning. Come on, get your sorry arse off my shitter already. " He heaved Arthur up by the shoulders. Grateful he'd only ever gotten an inch on Rhys and not half as much as his Welsh bulk, he kicked a stack of mail off one of the mismatched chairs and threw his brother down. "You're eating whatever I put in front of you and going to bed, and if you've scuttled off again before seeing a doctor, I'm telling Lilibet."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Try me, you miserable fuck." Rhys chirped, flicking the kettle on and ducking into the fridge to remove leftovers. He smeared some on bread and whacked it into the oven, and dumped a bowl into a pot as Arthur practically melted into a fat fucking mug of tea and a handful of painkillers. Twenty minutes later, he looked significantly perkier as they each had a bowl of cawl and a few slices of welsh rarebit in front of them.
"Bugger me that's..." Arthur looked surprised, blinking when he stabbed a bit of leek into his mouth and had a pleasant human sensation while not off his tits on a litany of substances. Funny how the human senses worked.
"Actually food, yes. Shocking." Rhys replied.
"Lamb?"
"What do I look like? A heathen?" Rhys laughed. "What the fuck else would it be?"
"No, no. It's lamb. I know its lamb. But its... Oooohoo, fuck me, mate. That's from New Zealand."
"The fuck it is."
"The fuck it isn't."
"How on earth can you tell that?"
"The entire island made its living shearing sheep since before I was born and I have two children who have more sheep than people!" Arthur replied, incredulous. "How could I not?"
If only the man ever talked to his children like a normal person. Rhys thought and sighed. "New Zealand lamb was on sale."
"No, it wasn't. It probably had better marbling. I'd bet a tenner it was the best on the rack. You're a right fuckin snob, and you know it."
"Listen here, you little shit." Rhys shook his head. The stones on his brother, honestly. "You haven't got any room yourself on that front."
"When was the last time I turned up my nose at food?" Arthur said.
"The last time your son made burgers?"
"I did not. The pineapples are a lovely addition. Quite fond of the beetroot as well, truth be told."
"Not that one. The other one."
"Ah, Alfred. He put peanut butter on it. On a burger."
"Did it look that bad, or were you hungover?"
"That's irrelevant."
"Picky, picky." Rhys laughed. "Still as fussy as when you got cranky over us going and making you put any fruit we picked in the basket instead of your face."
"Oi, fuck you." Arthur gestured flippantly with the spoon, but it had no real heat to it.
"Can't blame you." Rhys laughed. "You've always been a half step from scurvy."
"I have not."
"World's largest maritime empire, and if I didn't make you eat an orange every time I saw you, you'd keel over dead with that hole from waterloo wide open and poor Matthew having his third worst day that week. You've always been a terrible eater. Even bit mum when you were still on the tit."
He had no retort for that and went a little soft, something sad melting around his eyes that rarely did.
"Did I always make her miserable?" He asked, the words as quiet as his voice ever got. He fixated on a bit of leek on his fork, staring at it like it'd shot one of his children, and he was about to take its head off in the course of dinner.
"No." Rhys cleared his throat, summoning his earliest memories. Everything from before Mother's death was a little faded in colour in his mind, like the waves of the centuries had stolen a bit of the vibrancy. But the sounds were untouched. He could hear even words he couldn't remember knowing and didn't understand now if he conjured them. "No, you made her happy too. You always wanted to run, even before you could crawl. She'd chase after you laughing because you'd yell like a hellion even when you lost your footing and tumbled down a bit of the hill fort and ruined your tunic. You almost went careening into the water trough once, and she had to take off her cloak and plunge her arm to the elbow, searching around for your torc, and you yelled at each other, laughing your heads off for half an hour until she found it, dried it off and clamped it back on you."
Arthur still stared at the bit of leek, but something about his face had eased, and he shovelled it into his face, still not making eye contact.
"Saying you only ever made her miserable is the same as saying Alfred only made you miserable. Precisely untrue." Rhys said, pushing another piece of rarebit at him. "Eat that; it's Gloucestershire cheese this time."
"Thank you," Arthur said, looking up to accept the food and meaning much more than that.
"Course," Rhys said, clearing his throat and ducking his own cheese toast into the broth. "Can't have you half starved to death when your spawn invades for Christmas. Alfred's already half convinced you're a half-step and a communist program jump from starvation."
"After all this, again?" Arthur sighed. "He still thinks everything is communism."
"It's just how he shows he cares." Rhys said, diplomatically. "Do you want more?"
"You're going to have to roll me back into the gutter as it is."
"It's where you belong." Rhys grinned but deposited their bowls into the washing-up basin and offered his brother his hands. "C'mon, spare beds made up and it doesn't even smell like wet Scotchman."
"Is that better or worse than wet sheep?" Arthur took his arms and let him swing him to his feet.
"Oh, when he's been in the Buckfast? Worse. Almost as bad as you when you've been in the... what was it this time? Black tar heroin and gin?" They stumbled down the hallway. "I could smell you before I opened the door. Eau de homeless."
"Your guess is as good as mine." Arthur yawned and slumped bonelessly on the bed.
"Do I have to check you for track marks in the morning?"
He got a noncommittal grunt, sleepy and fading. There was a boneless thump as Arthur met the mattress, and Rhys made a note to check his pulse in the morning. Idiot.
Rhys sighed and threw the duvet over Arthur's prone body. He curled into it like a child. He stood there a long moment. Two millennia of watching him curl onto his side when he was safe, when he was home, when he was himself and safe and within reach. He swallowed something and, needing to do more, pulled another blanket off the end of the bed and tucked it around the gremlin, now hugging his knees, one hip twisted up out of alignment. He'd never understood how Arthur could sleep like that. He paused there.
"You know you could talk to me instead of going off the rails like this. You're my brother, and I do love you, you arseclown."
"Dw i’n lyfio chdi." Came the words, unexpected and sudden as a beam of sunshine in their weather. Rhys stared into the darkness for a long moment, stunned. Of course the bastard used the version with the English loanword. Rhys grinned. Cunt. He stopped a moment, brushing his fingers through the same straw-like hair he'd brushed his hand through for his entire life without knowing what to do with the baby, and then the boy and then the man it'd always belonged to.
"I love you too,"
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