#catching winter bass

[formulaforza]

—the seasons of love

or: the enemies to lovers situationship fic charles leclerc x female reader summ. winter, the first time. the start of the year, the start of it all. minors dni, nsfw warnings under the cut. 7k words part two part three part four part five

18+ because: brat taming, fingering, oral (f receiving), name calling, spit, unprotected sex, overstimulation, booty call!, masturbation (f receiving), voyeurism, mad sass, fucking porn without plot basically.

There’s nothing special about the club scene in Monte Carlo. If you’ve been to a club in any major city, anywhere in the world, you’ve been to a club in Monaco. It’s all neon lights and kaleidoscope colors and poorly lit dance floors and mid-tier DJs who think they’re the next coming of Jesus. 

Tonight is no exception. The air is thick and heavy with the scent of floral perfume and alcohol, the entire room shaking with the pulsating beat of the bass, reverberating off every single corner and shaking the liquor in your glass. Bodies move—yours included—half in sync with the music, half in step with their drunken stupor. Perched in the safety of Charles’s section, away from the swaying forms of laughter and shouting and screaming, your entire body thumps alone to the beat from the DJ booth a couple meters away. 

Across the section, Charles sits stoic on a couch, taking up a seat and a half and frozen like some magnetic force. His eyes are stuck on you in a way that pulls goosebumps from your skin, makes you irrational angry at him. You’re feeling particularly bratty today, egged on by the tequila and his visible annoyance. 

You’re on your way to interject into his pity party when your sister catches your arm, pulls you by your bicep to dance with her. Her palms are sweaty and cold and you hope that it’s the condensation from her cold glass that’s got her all clammy. The two of you have always been quite a sight after a few drinks. You get your tolerance from your mother, are both disastrous lightweights, feel the need to give any and everyone around you a show. 

The two of you twirl to the music with little effort, laughing like you’re seven and the hazard littered floor under your feet is the old brown carpet from the family room you grew up hosting dance parties in. It’s all hair and giggles and hands in the air like you just don’t care. Everytime your glance catches his, he’s staring back, nursing his drink and half participating in a conversation with your brother-in-law and Jo. 

“What’s his fucking problem?” you ask, leaning over to shout into your sister’s ear.

“He can’t dance,” she slurs. You snort. He can dance.

You whistle, loud and commanding and cat-call-ish even though he’s already watching you. “Charles! Get out here and dance, you fucking buzzkill!”

Your sister joins in on the fun, playfully swaying her hips to the music, tossing out an imaginary fishing line to her husband and reeling him over, calling along teasingly to Charles. “Yeah, show us what you’ve got, Il Predestinato!”

Charles rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly. “I don’t dance,” he calls back with a soft chuckle. He tries to play it cool, like always, but everyone in the room knows you’re pushing his buttons. You always are. The reason he keeps you around is the same reason you stay around; your families’ relationship predates any animosity between the two of you. That, and the friend group was founded before you loathed each other and it would be too much work to try and split it up now. You’d probably never see Joris again. 

You dance closer to him, putting on a dramatic show and a poor fight against the urge to continue challenging him. “Come on,” you tug on his arm, just out your bottom lip into a pretty little pout. “Live a little.”

He’s never been able to turn down one of your challenges, however thinly veiled they might be. It’s his own personal sore spot, the one that you poke and prod as often as you can. Competition has always been the foundation of your mutual annoyance, it’s not going to suddenly change after some eighteen years of consistency. Finally, he relents, lets you think you’re pulling him to his feet, dragging him to dance with you and your sister. 

His moves are stiff and awkward, almost hard to watch. You laugh, because he’s wound up so fucking tight in two weeks you’d have a diamond. “See!?” your sister laughs, the contagion of it spreading to even the brunt of the joke. “I told you!” she continues, slinking her arm around her husband’s neck sloppily. His arm grips her side to hold her steady. It makes you feel sick. 

A smirk tugs on his lips, and for a brief moment, there’s a hint of something more in his eyes. Not annoyance or frustration. Something seven, something innocent and childish. It’s fleeting, and you take a deep breath because the music feels quieter now. You down what’s left of  your cocktail to clear your head, to calm the sudden flutter of nerves. 

The more he drinks and the longer he’s forced to dance, the lighter and more magnetic he becomes. “You know, Charles, I never thought I’d see the day,” you tease. He’s been in a near constant state of pity-party for weeks now, ever since his dumb ass got dumped by another girl wildly out of his league. 

He rolls his eyes, but his tone is as amused as it is drunk. “Don’t get too excited. It’s the liquor,” he retorts, a piss poor attempt at downplaying how much fun he’s having. He wouldn’t dare to give you the satisfaction. You lean in closer, brush your body against his, fueled by the noise and the alcohol. 

“The liquor doing the touching, too?” you ask. 

He’s always been a touchy drunk. Since before you and your friends were allowed to drink, he’s been hands-on. And maybe it’s because this is the first time he’s grabbing your hips, the first time his broad hand is flat over your stomach, but you’d never noticed him as this touchy with his girlfriends or his girls that appear when he’s around. Whatever it is, the more he drinks, the more comfortable he is with his hands on you, and the less you find the nerve to care. 

It doesn’t matter how many times he does it, though. Every touch burns your skin. It’s a sick little game you two play. Sick and twisted and so, so unlike the two of you. 

Watch yourself—he warns, hand on the small of your back. You play with fire. Well established and well documented, though; you never back down either. No, the thrill of annoying him is enough to dive head-first, to push his buttons until they stick. “Am I?” you ask, as innocently as the tequila can muster, taking hold of his wrist and moving it so his arm is wrapped around your midsection, fighting to settle in the space between your waistband and shirt hem. 

You respond to every one of his careful touches, ever lingering finger on your arm and your waist and your back. When you close your eyes, you imagine the nonsense patterns he draws on your skin like it’s on canvas in a museum, hung front and center just for you. Your inhibitions are slipping too, and you let yourself trail wandering fingertips over his body, too.

This isn’t the Charles you’re used to, the one you go head-to-head with every fifteen minutes. This is something entirely new, so far into uncharted territory you’re not even sure which way is north. There’s something particularly intriguing about the nerves bouncing around your gut. 

Everything fades away into the dark and crowded club. You don’t know if your sister and brother-in-law are still standing there, if any of your friends are. All you know if the electric charge of this, of every teasing remark and touch that draws you closer, forces you to test the waters of the newfound layer of tension. 

Everything is building, it feels like, to some grand crescendo of emotion and desire. Before there’s room to explore it, though, to dive deeper into the unspoken shift, the moment is interrupted by the return of the friends you didn’t notice leaving. 

The night drags on, the lines between annoyance and attraction blurring into some chaotic muddle of intoxication. Nothing is clear, nothing except the sobering and unignorable pull. It lingers in the air above you, in the space between like a secret just begging to be unraveled. 

You’ve got another drink now, because you can only think of one decision that would be worse than more tequila. In due time, you’re worried you’re a lost cause when it comes to that choice as well. His eyes stay on you, even from a distance, and you revel in the glory of his attention. Embolden by it all, you continue fucking with him. “Having fun yet, Charles?” you ask, knowing smile, voice dripping in subtle suggestion. 

He raises a brow, the corners of his lips quirking up. You don’t think you’ve ever spent much time looking at them, the soft shade of pink and the softer skin. “I suppose I can tolerate it,” he replies with teasing eyes. He’s irritated by your laugh, by your proximity, by your lips brushing against his ear when you whisper; you’re not the only one here trying to have fun. His jaw tightens but he doesn’t take your bait. Instead, he pulls you closer, sways in rhythm with you and replies, “I’m here to enjoy myself, not entertain you.”

He sends your brattiness running full-tilt. Forces you to carefully consider every movement, every ounce of playfulness that you allow to seep into your demeanor and the proactive sway of your hips. You grin at him every chance you get, sly and calculated, daring him to resist.  

You lean in close, brush against his ear and can blame it on practicality, on the bass and the music and the DJ if anyone were to question your actions. You rest a hand on his chest. “I know you love my attention.”

His breath hitches at your audacity, heart racing so quick you can feel it in your palm. He pulls you closer, dangerously close to your lips and says, “you talk too much. Maybe it’s time someone shuts you up.”

You scoff, low and teasing. “I’d like to see you try.”

[18 minutes later]

You step into the well-lit lobby less than a pace behind him. Your hands are interlocked, have been for every block of the darkened streets—since he grabbed yours and pulled you out of the club. “Admit it,” you giggle. “You love having me push your buttons.”

He remains stoic, jaw set as he pushes the button on the elevator. The tension is at a boiling point. You’re either about to kill each other, to be on the news for some grand double murder, or something so, so much worse is going to unfold. 

He leads you to the apartment without a word, but as soon as the door closes behind him, all is lost. Your head is bumping into the drywall before you even realize what’s happening, his lips harsh against yours, the pent up frustration and desire snapping like a dried twig. 

It’s fierce and passionate and while you never, not for a single moment in your life, imagined what he would taste like, you somehow knew it would be like this, cool and fresh and drunk. He licks into your mouth, messy and intense, teeth clacking and both of you fighting for some nonexistent upper hand. 

Fireworks are going off outside. They shake the windows with explosive gravitas as you’re blindly led by his backwards steps down the hallway. You realize that in an entire lifetime of knowing each other, this is the first time you’ve been in his place. It’s not what you expected, from what you can gather—all clutter and red cars and a boy who never had to drop his dream. “They’re going to look for us,” you say between sloppy, open mouthed kisses. 

He mumbles against your skin, strong hands on either side of your jaw. “Let them look.”

You walk through a doorway, into a bedroom clad with clutter and blue sheets. He would have blue sheets. There’s another firework, loud and booming, it makes you jump. You check your watch over his shoulder, pretend your hand doesn’t shake. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Okay.” Your knees bump into his and he sits on the edge of the bed.

You laugh, climb onto his lap, your arms strewn around his shoulders, broad and strong and you laugh again–this time into his mouth. What the fuck is going on. Seriously, what the fuck is this? “Happy New Year.”

He sighs, pulls his mouth from yours long enough to roll his eyes, to speak annoyedly into the hot air between your lips. “Yeah, whatever. Happy New Year.”

“Charles,” you mutter, hand on his chest. You think he’s going to regret this more than you will. People have always told you he’s the best kind of person. You’re not held in the same regard, and you know it. Some people are made to regret and others are made to be the regret. 

“Jesus Christ,” he laughs, but it’s curt and passive. Annoyed, as always, even when he palms at your ass, traces his hands along the bottom of your hiked up dress and pulls you down against him with a bruising grip. “Shut the fuck up.” You tug at the hem of his shirt, pull it off over his head in a swift movement. 

“You’re doing a piss-poor job at making me.”

He moves you like you’re a fucking doll, like it’s lightwork, tossing you down against the mattress and swapping your positions in a swift movement. The strength and agility of it makes your head spin. He’s not supposed to make your head spin, he’s supposed to make it ache. 

But no, no. You do ache for him. All of you aches for him, for his calloused hands and the roughness of his jeans against your thighs and the soft contrast of his lips against everything else. It’s embarrassing. You can’t believe he’s got you like this, hands pinned above your head while he buries his tongue in your mouth, grinds his hips against yours. The coarse denim is almost painful on your sensitive skin, but the growing bulge pulling the fabric tight is more intoxicating than any cocktail. 

“You’re such a fucking brat,” he says, bites a bruise against the skin just above your clavicle. “Spoiled little shit.”

He sinks to his knees, big blue or green or whatever fucking color his eyes are today watching you intently, boring into you with blown, hungry pupils.  His fingers trail along your underwear, pulling the thin, lacey fabric to the side, and then removes them all together. He gloats when he runs his thumb through your folds. “So fucking wet.”

“It’s not for you,” you goad. 

“Oh?” He nods slowly, spreading your slick with the steady digit, watching you carefully for reaction. “For who then?”

Your eyes flutter shut when the pad of his thumb presses against your clit, circles it slowly, teases you. He’s unfocused, his mind lapsing and giving you a much needed in, a clear shot to piss him off. “Your teammate.”

“Fuck off.” You first. 

“You’re right, Charles,” you speak slowly, careful to control your breathing, to hide every tell you might have. “Someone should shut me up. Do you know anyone?” Without warning, he thrusts two fingers inside you, curls them like someone had given him a diagram of your body. You gasp at the suddenness of it all. Yeah, he mutters, utterly delighted with himself. Yeah, I think I know someone.

You roll your eyes, push his head down, down, mouth onto your core. There, in the midst of licking a long stripe through your cunt, he fucking laughs, shakes his head with a subtlety you’d never perceive if it wasn’t for the tip of his nose bumping your clit when he does it. At least he can follow basic fucking instructions. 

His dick must hurt pretty damn bad, all hard and swollen in his pants, because he’s unbuttoning his jeans and freeing himself from the constraints of the fabric while lapping at you, the other hand still fucking into you with steady pace and hazy curl. You can’t see it, view obstructed by the mattress and limbs and hair, but you can tell by the way his shoulders move that he’s trying to get himself off at the same time he works on you. 

You’re not going to make his job that easy. You require all of his attention, pure and undivided and hopefully just as infuriated as you are. You reach down to the apex of your legs, pull his head up by his chin. “Just fuck me, already, you prick.”

He rises to his feet, shakes his head, “you’re a needy little thing,” he remarks. Needy? You haven’t fucking seen needy. 

He guides the head of his cock through your folds, spreading slick and spit and smacking himself against your cunt. 

Your lips purse into a sharp line. “Don’t tease me.”

“Why not?” He taunts, “you’ve been teasing for hours.”

“It’s different,” you grumble. 

“How?” You could strangle him, him and all his questions. What’s a person have to do to get fucked properly around here? You already sacrified your morals by pulling tight against the navy blue sheets.  A woman can only make so many sacrifices. 

You groan, heavy and exasperated. He’s such a pest. “It just–oh, fuck you–” without warning, he plunges into you, buries himself in your cunt until he bottoms out, skin on skin and the sore sting of him stretching you. Your fingers bruise into his arms, nails scraping over his shoulder blades with a gasp. He gives you no time to adjust to him, rutting into you with deep, measured thrusts. What was that, he prodes. Somehow, you find the poise to stabilize yourself, to reply smugly. “it just is.”

His objective isn’t your pleasure, no. That would be his prerogative, a side privilege, a requirement in his quest to get you to close your mouth and stop pestering for once. Making you come is just another box to check. 

You don’t fuck someone if you’re not going to finish, though. Sleeping with Charles might be a lapse in judgment, but being someone’s play toy, letting him reap without sowing, that’s a complete disregard of your dignity

Your fingers find your clit, circle it in just the right sequence, combining with the curve of his cock to push you closer, closer, closer to the edge of the fucking world. Your entire body burns, everywhere, all over, all at once you sweat. Tell me–he insists, voice short and breathy. Tell me when you’re going to come. “I thought you were trying to shut me up?”

“Just, fuck, just tell me.” He palms over your breasts, still covered by your bra and the fabric of your dress, however thin. “So many fucking clothes,” he grumbled, stalling inside you, hands slipping under your back, between you at the mattress to pull you off the bed. You hastily pull the dress over your head, toss it somewhere onto the clothing cluttered floor. Better? You ask. “Better,” he nods, bites your bottom lip roughly, licking against your teeth. One of the hands that explore the skin of your back make quick work of the clasp on your bra, dropping the straps from your shoulders and your back is against the sheets again, his hands groping at you, pinching your nipple between his middle and ring finger, working over it until you’re humming profanities and huffing into his mouth. 

Hate and desire is such a fine, blurry line. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar. 

“M’gonna,” you choke on your words. “I’m–shit–I’m coming.”

“Yeah,” He picks up his pace, maintains a steady, toe-curling rhythm. “Come for me,” his voice heavy and growled. “Come on my dick.”

You do. You come for him, hard and long, wrapping a leg around his hip in a failed attempt to still him, to just be full of him and nothing more. He’s stronger, though, and fucks you through the whole thing, faster, harder, big hands braced on your hips for leverage. You explore the idea that a person really could be fucked in half, forced right open. 

“Good try,” you sputter, shaky and broken words leaving your lips before you’ve found a gravity that isn’t him. You lean up to kiss him, wrap your hand around the back of his neck and pull him to meet you halfway. Your fingers tickle the short hair at the nape of his neck, raise goosebumps to his skin. “Maybe next time,” you hum into his open mouth. 

He spits a long string of saliva into your mouth when you move to close the gap. You laugh around it, down it in a single gulp and lick your lips, sticking out your tongue to showcase your empty mouth, big innocent doe-eyes watching his reaction, his eye roll and devilish smirk.

“Like I said–” you start, but he’s flipping you over, tossing you around like a ragdoll.  You giggle, high on the teasing and the taunting and then he’s fucking your face into the mattress. He’s got your hair gathered up into a ratty ponytail, uses it like a handle, forcing your back into an arch, your ass to perk up into the air. 

God, he’s so fucking deep, turning you into a mess of bruises and sweat stricken skin. Your hips bounce back against him, angle in any imaginable way in an attempt to feel him deeper, to feel him in your stomach and your chest and your head. To feel him everywhere that counts. 

“Putain, taking me so good, baby” he groans, lets the praise and the pet name slipping past his lips in a moment that goes unnoticed by neither of you. He smacks your ass with a firm hand, trying to mask his words after they’ve already been spoken. Your eyes roll back into your head and you come again, without warning. You decide before you get to think about it that it was the stinging imprint of his hand that pushed you tumbling over the edge. Whatever the real reason, you’re up two-nothing, or, depending how you look at it, he’s the one winning. 

That’s all any of this is, one big game. A power struggle. You’re always fighting to win, and this is not different. If there’s a way to lose at a game where everyone is supposed to win, one of you is going to fucking find it and force it on the other. 

You’re the one doing the flipping, now. The pushing and the shoving so he’s on his back. You straddle him and he gives you this look like he’s fully pussy-drunk, sick and euphoric and floating somewhere far from here. You’re so winning at this. “Jesus Christ,” you poke, “wipe your fucking drool.”

His entire face contorts when you sink down onto him. Everytime you think you’ve reached a limit, he finds a way to hit a spot impossibly deeper than the last. His hips lift up off the bed to meet you halfway, rutting into pleasure spots you didn’t even know you had, hand moving to your cunt, thumbing lazily at your clit, leaving you fuzzy and drunk in a mess of mumbled moans above him. 

When you come for the third time, messy and sweaty, nothing that leaves your lips is distinguishable, a mess of French and English and curses and nonsensical mewls. “Fuck you,” he moans, breath shaky when he pulls himself out of you. Your body clenches around air, aches for him to return. 

He does, after he moves you back into the position it all started in. “So close,” he tells you, sinking slowly into you, his sigh hot and alcoholic on your shoulder. His pace is slow, then fast, then slow again. He’s as rapid as his breath is irregular. You better pull out–you groan, every muscle in your body strung out and exhausted and you’re coming again. It’s blinding white behind your closed lids, ears ringing and muscles flexing involuntarily. He’s wrecked you, finally, left you a mumbling mess. 

He pulls out almost in sync with your orgasm, jerks himself no more than twice between your legs before he’s coating your stomach in hot stripes of cum, loud, guttural moans leaving his lips in a way that looks and sounds practically pained. “Christ,” he heaves, watches on as your fingers dance through his orgasm, spreading it over your skin and coating your fingers. You don’t break eye contact when you stick two of them into your mouth, swirl your tongue around them tauntingly, sucking them clean and pulling them from your mouth with a pop. You hold the clean hand up for him to see, palm facing him. When you turn it, you pull down all but your middle finger, flip him off cockily. 

He swats you hand away, “Never fucking again,” he tells you. 

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me,” you scoff. “I never want to see the inside of this apartment again.”

“Why are you here, then?” He remarks, turning the corner into what you assume is the bathroom, tossing a towel to you from across the room. You clean yourself up before anything dries, before coming up with a quick rebuttal. 

You don’t come up with one, mind as tired as the rest of you. This game has been exhausting. “We’re never talking about this,” you say, pulling your dress over your head, stuffing your bra into your handbag because you aren’t sure you have the strength to clasp it closed. “Ever.”

“No shit,” he says, tosses your underwear in the general direction of you. 

You bend over to pick them up, step into them with the snap of the elastic. “Promise me.” You have no idea where your shoes are, but he’s already ushering you out of the room, herding you down the long hall with wide, swooping waves of his arms. 

“I promise.”

“Pinky,” you say, spot your shoes haphazardly stepped out of in the entryway. You don’t have any memory of them ever being on.

“Absolutely not.”

“Charles,” you lean against the wall to slip your heels on, hook up at him with a sober glare. He closes his eyes like you won’t be able to see them roll behind his lids, pinches the bridge of his nose and squints before dropping a heavy breath, holding out a pinky to you. You interlock it with yours. “Thank you.”

He pulls his hand from yours, turns the lock on his front door and swings it open, fingers wrapped around the edge, other hand gesturing out into the hallway. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

“With pleasure,” you say, stepping past him and into the well-lit hallway of sprawling marble floors. You stop in front of the elevator, press the button and wait for his inevitable comment. 

“The whole brat-schtick you’ve got going on isn’t as believable when your leg shakes underneath you,” he calls down the hall. You don’t turn your head to face him, just extend your arm in his direction and flip him off. You hear his chuckle as he latches the door shut behind you. 

Everything about today has been dreary–from the near constant mist that falls over the city, to the chilly temperatures, to the poor excuses for men that grace the screen of your dating app. This is not how Fridays in your twenties are meant to be spent, sulking in the dark of your bedroom after a miserable day at work. 

You’re supposed to be out, partying with friends and making drunken decisions that have you waking up in a stranger’s bed after a good night you hardly remember. 

God, you need to get fucked. It’s been months. Two months and ten days–not that you’re counting. Because you’re not. Counting. You aren’t. 

You’re just restless, basking in the loneliness of the night, unable to shake the weight of your thoughts, of two months and ten days ago. Of Charles and how infuriatingly good he’d made you feel. The complexities of your relationship, the shift in the very DNA of what you know, it makes your heart race–a messy muddle of annoyance and desire that yearns to be untangled. 

You give up on the dating apps, know that even if you do match with someone, there’s nothing that can be done to solve your problem tonight. You opt instead to scroll through social media aimlessly, searching for any distraction from the ache in your gut. Your hand unconsciously slips under the hem of your shirt, cups your breast while you scroll and scroll and scroll. It does little to quell your struggles. In fact, the game is over the moment you become conscious of your hand’s placement, the moment you start to massage your breast, to run your fingers over your nipple until it’s hard and perky. 

You switch to the other breast, fingers gently tracing over the skin, sending chills up your arms, pinpointing the ache in your core. Your hand slides down your stomach, dips below the waistband of your shorts, into your underwear. You’re so worked up–pent up, reaching a boiling point. 

Your middle finger glides through your folds, grazes over your clit, teases the slick at your entrance before dipping in, collecting enough to spread it around. Your clit is swollen, needy like the rest of you, and the pad of your fingers do little to relieve the pressure. Your fingers move clockwise, then counter. Vertical and horizontal and every combination of every direction and even though you can’t remember the last time you were this horny, this desperate to come, you can’t. 

You slip in a finger, and then another, try to find the right curl and the right spot–to no avail. Now, you’re thinking about his fingers, about how much bigger his hands are, how his nimble fingers pumped in and out of you with sheet-gripping, whimper-inducing pace. 

Your phone taunts you, his contact behind the locked screen just waiting to be messaged. 

You try to resist. You hate him. He hates you. God, he knows how to fuck you, though; veiny hands and thick cock leaving you a writhing mess. Fuck. Fuck, why can’t your fingers move the way his did?

You cave, reaching over to grab your phone and text him. Hey. What are you up to tonight? It’s a mistake, you know that it is. He’s so damn annoying, there’s nothing about him that doesn’t drive you up a wall. Frustration makes the heart go fonder, you suppose, or maybe the cunt ache harder. 

Within moments, your phone is buzzing against your palm with his reply. Chilling at home. You coming over?

You roll your eyes. No.

Ok.

You bite your bottom lip so hard you think you might accidentally draw blood. It’s phantom, almost, the way you can so perfectly imagine the sting of him stretching you out, the soreness of his bruising kisses, the swollen, wet head of his dick slapping against your clit. Come over.

You couldn’t pay me.

Door’s unlocked.

Give me 20.

You’re in the bedroom when he knocks. Three times, you wonder why he isn’t just walking in. You ignore the banging, let the universe decide for you if he’s meant to turn back and walk his happy ass out of your building. The universe decides he won’t be doing that, though, because he knocks again. Louder this time. 

You pull yourself out of bed, feet creaking on the hardwood floors as you move to pull the door open. “I told you it was unlocked,” you grumble. 

“Eh,” he shrugs, dumb fucking grin on his face. “Wasn’t up for your games.”

You internally debate just how bad you need him here, if it’s worth all the trouble that is him. It’s not, almost certainly it isn’t. You invite him in anyway. 

“So, what’s the deal? Can’t get yourself off, so you call me?” He teases. Your frustrated blush gives you away before a witty comeback can slap the smirk off his face. “Oh my god,” he chuckles. “I was fucking around, but really?”

There’s no point in trying to lie now, not when your face has already betrayed your trust and revealed the truth. “Calm down,” you groused. “The last thing this world needs if your head to get any fucking bigger.”

He continues laughing like this is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to him. You want to smack the smile off his face, dimples and all. “The last thing this world needs is for this–” he gestures between the two of you, “–to become a thing.”

You mock his movements, the dumb look on his face. “This is not a thing. It’s just two friends–”

“–We aren’t friends.”

You sigh through gritted teeth. “Two not friends helping each other out.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, chews on the inside of his cheek while his eyes trace your finger, head to toe and back to head again. “You do know how ridiculous you sound, right?”

You breathe out in resignation, heading down the hall towards your room. “Can we just get on with it?”

“No.”

You stop in your tracks, turn on your heels. What the fuck is he here for, then? “No?” You close the gap between the two of you, plant your hands firmly on either side of his jaw and kiss him, all tongue and spit and rough lips. You knock him off balance, falling out of step when he kisses you back with a matching intensity, hands hovering over your hips. He doesn’t rest them there, you can feel the warmth in the space between your skin and his, the force that pulls you together. 

When he does settle his hands, it’s not to deepen the kiss, to swallow any more frustration. It’s to put distance between your mouths. “I want you to–”

You nibble on his earlobe, cut him off with your hushed words. “I don’t give a fuck what you want, I want–”

“Show me how you touch yourself,” he commands, voice failing to waiver to your hushed level, an air of snugness to him.

“Charles,” your voice cracks with his name, a hint of your under the surface insecurity peeking through, putting themselves on display for him. Here! Here! Look at me! 

“Show me, or I’m leaving,” he says, and it’s all throaty and husky. 

(Eleven minutes later)

Legs spread for him, two fingers moving busily against your core, circling your clit, teasing your hole. 

He stares at you like he can see your fucking soul, watches from his spot across the room, leant against the old wooden dresser, arms folded and ankles crossed. You stare back–harder, maybe–like if you win the little contest your cheeks won’t burn so bright, you won’t feel so exposed, so vulnerable, so embarrassed. 

Those feelings fade, they do, with each flick of your wrist. With every glance of his hungry eyes to your fingers, to your cunt, tracing their way up and down your body, you feel calmer and calmer. And when he runs his hand over his mouth, along the stubble of his jaw and off his chin, you’re closer and closer. 

It pulls whimpers, soft and slow and sweet, from your lips. There’s a sick thrill to it, to him seeing her like this, all needy and open and sensitive. It’s empowering, almost. 

He breaks no more than twice, watches every brow quirk, lid flutter, and lip twitch with raw, intimate eyes. He’s less interested in what you do to yourself, the curve of your fingers or the noises they create, than he is in the way you react to the movements. 

“You’re not even fucking watching,” you say, the letter sounds falling to your breath, hitching as your fingers angle just right. 

“Watching what matters.”

“Oh? And, uh–” you huff. “What’s that?”

He laughs, dimples digging deep into his cheeks. You’ve always thought they made his smile so childish, like you can’t take anything seriously when it comes from someone with primary-school dimples and giddy eyes. You don’t struggle to take it seriously, now. “You’re thinking about me.”

Your eyes flutter shut, a soft sigh parting your lips. “Says who?”

He pushes himself off the dresser, saunters over with heavy feet, stopping at the foot of the bed. “What are you thinking about?” He humors. 

Your eyes roll. You’re thinking about a lot of things. Half a dozen, atleast. About your fingers, the way they move against your swollen cunt, sticky with creamy slick, and how his fingers are that much longer than yours. About how loud he walks, how his heavy feet stand at the end of your bed, crossed arms that pull his t-shirt tight across his chest. About the fact that you’re not sure you locked the door behind him because you were so distracted by the way his sweatpants hung from his waist. About how he doesn’t bother to adjust or hide the protruding bulge under the fabric right now. About the curve of his cock, about how pathetic and full it makes you, utterly unable to spend time thinking about anything but how well he stretches you out. About his hair, flat and straight and wholly unstyled, how your hands would mess it up so nicely, tug and twist until he has something smart to say. Beyond frustratingly, he’s right. As you quickly approach a high, breath quickened and movements desperate, all you’re thinking about is him. “Things.”

“Mmhmm,” he hums, ever the rake, unsatisfied with your response. 

You add a third finger, steady pace and a held stare. The muscles in your leg twitch. You’re so fucking close. “What are you thinking about?”

He sways, rocks his weight from his left foot to the right, runs his tongue over his teeth. “Things.”

A coy smile upturns the corner of your lips. “Mmhmm,” you mock. 

He moves around the bed, trails his fingers over your skin; from your ankle, along the bone of your shin, a bruise on your knee. They stall on your thigh, trace small, soft circles on the inside of your leg. “You really want to know?” 

He’s such a tease, keeps moving up, up, up, over your stomach and through the valley of your breast. “I–ah– I,” you stutter through your words, fingers working tirelessly to push you over the edge. Restless, further irritated by his delicate touch, his fingers up to your jaw now, slotting themselves there, you nod. “Yes.” 

He leans over you, your lips inches apart, open and hot breathed. “Too bad,” he whispers into the space between, closing the gap and kissing you with an insatiable kind of fervor. Your fingers still, your other hand reaching to grip the back of his neck, to pull him deeper into the kiss. It’s a kiss that’s half as good as the sex, the breaking of the unbearable tension that’s filled the room while he’s watched, the promise of what’s to come. A lustful implication. His hand leaves your jaw when you pull apart for air, moving over your stilled hand. “Let me?” He asks, and it doesn’t feel like much of a question, the way he’s already slipping his fingers under yours before you can even squeak out an answer. 

There’s something entirely different about his fingers, like the way that you can’t tickle yourself. You can’t predict his moves, every movement of every ridge of his fingerprints is something entirely surprising. “Yeah, fuck, you make, ah, make yourself…” You give up on the sentence, your body failing your mind in its ability to spit out a comeback. Yeah, you wish you could tell him. Yeah, make yourself fucking useful.  

He laughs, slides his long middle finger inside you, pumps it twice and slips in another. You gasp at his sudden movement. “You’re embarrassing yourself, baby.”

Your back arches off the sheets. “Don’t call me that,” you seethe. 

“But,” he curls his fingers against the spot you’ve been trying to reach all night. A moan tumbles from your mouth and he smirks. “It makes my job so easy.”

“Fuck you.”

“I was going to let you come first, but,” he chuckles. He’s so proud of himself it makes you ill. “If you insist.” 

His hand stills, threatens to pull out of you entirely, but you’re covering it with your own, holding him there when you look up, hips instinctively grinding against him. “I’ll kill you. I will.” 

You’re pushing him out of your apartment by the end of night, locking the door behind him. Your leg shakes when you slide down the door onto the floor. This is the last time, it has to be. Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence. Thrice. Thrice would be a pattern. You won’t let it become a pattern. 

You wake up at seven-thirty and your hair is still in knots, your body still aching from him. You find a new bruise every time you look in the mirror. You can’t shake the image of his messy hair, of the feeling of the brown locks between your fingers and the sound he’d make when you’d tug on them. 

It won’t be happening again.

#oi #this is getting me sent to hell. #charles leclerc smut #charles leclerc fic #charles leclerc series #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc #cl16 #charles leclerc imagine #f1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 smut #f1 x reader #f1 x you #ferrari

[wynnyfryd]

Trailer park Steve AU part 48

part 1 | part 47 | ao3

cw: mentions of smoking/sexual activity

Chapter 11

February

For two and a half months, Steve’s life goes perfectly. He didn’t realize how far into a pit he’d fallen until Eddie showed up to help Robin and the kids lift him out, but the difference is jarring. Golden hour sunlight after catching a matinée.

Steve spends two months blinking.

He sloughs off his sadness like a snake shedding skin; spends the winter getting back to being Steve, restocks his favorite hair products and restarts his fitness routines — morning runs through the woods, afternoon pick-up games with Lucas and some of his teammates when the weather doesn’t suck. Weightlifting in the evenings because Eddie says he likes how Steve’s arms look when they get a little big, says it’s more fun to pin him down when he knows it’s just for show.

And he tries new things, too, just because Eddie likes them or because the kids think they're cool. He reads a Vonnegut novel. He eats Indian curry. He even learns a song on guitar.

...Sort of.

Eventually.

(Actually, that whole thing goes pretty horribly and takes for-fucking-ever. Eddie spends an afternoon patiently encouraging him and doing his best not to tease while Steve clumsily moves through a beginner chord progression, and then breaks down wheezing when, after the sixth attempt with no improvement, Steve puts the guitar down in a huff and threatens to demote his pinky finger from his hand if it doesn't start cooperating. Eddie laughs so hard he tips face-first into Steve's crotch, and it takes them a sticky-spitty-sweaty half hour to get back to the lesson.)

Anyway, he likes the way their lives entangle. As easy as weaving his hands through Eddie’s hair.

He gets invited to band practice; he sits in on D&D. Sometimes he watches sports with Wayne when he's got a day off, then he heads out with Eddie for long joyrides through the countryside.

Eddie blasts his metal music when they get out to the backroads, and he talks too loudly over the bass and laughs even louder and rants about nothing and smokes cigarettes while he headbangs to his favorite guitar solos — almost lights his hair on fire on more than one occasion, fucking dumbass — and he does this silly, lewd shit that makes Steve's chest just ache. Makes it clench around the word that's been burning a hole in his tongue since New Year's Eve. Eddie wags his brows and palms himself through his jeans and asks if Steve wants to take another joyride when they get home, and Steve thinks:

God, I love you.

I love you.

How could I not love you?

And really, how could he not? And how much longer can he keep not telling him so? When it feels like the word is going to burst out of his chest Alien-style any second.

When it feels like Eddie's the reason he even has a home to get to.

Slowly — so slowly, hours spent thrifting and bartering and keeping an eye out for free stuff left out on the curb, even more hours sanding and painting and caulking and sweating to death between trips to the hardware store — they redo Steve's whole trailer. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, they exorcise the haunted tin can. They make it his; they make it theirs.

Eddie injects life into every inch of the space, fills it with weird art and funky lamps and a big, comfy leather couch that he likes to bend Steve over. Comes inside him in every room when they get done working on it as a reward; gasps in Steve's ear about how he always wants to be inside him: in his home, in his body, nestled deep inside his heart. "Keep me right here, baby," he breathes as he fucks Steve against a wall, his left hand gripping Steve's chest while he fills him from behind.

It’s perfect.

It's perfect.

Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts unless Steve asks.

And then, because this godforsaken town and everyone in it are fucking cursed, one day it isn’t anymore.

—

part 49

tag list in separate reblogs under '#trailer park steve au taglist' if you'd like to filter that content. if you want to be added please comment and let me know (must be over 21; please either verify in the comment or have your age visible on your blog)

#trailer park steve au #steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #my writing #my fic #oh giant joseph head we're really in it now

[bonefall]

what are the main prey animals that Shadowclan eat in better bones? because in my rewrite, i can only find like 5 british marshland birds, the frogs like canon, and a common lizard, while the other clans have dozens of prey species. I don't think 7 prey species can feed 50 cats for the generations i need them to, yknow?

This is hard to find out because of the unfortunate reality that wetlands are an "unpopular" natural biome. It's hell out there. No one appreciates their local swamps and marshes </3

But I'M here, NUMBER 1 GOO FAN. Quickie on some of the most common species ShadowClan will be hunting, in an English wetland. 5 for your convenience.

Small intro/recap to BB!ShadowClan's food culture; For a mixture of several reasons, including early collaboration and trade with WindClan, living in an area heavily affected by seasonal changes, and cultural pride in being able to eat anything, ShadowClan has one of the most varied diets of any Clan. Mammals, fish, birds, if they can get their mouth on it, they will eat it.

(Yes. This means predators as well. Other Clans will avoid eating predators for culture and taste reasons. ShadowClan finds it offensive to just let good meat rot.)

The most important reason in that list must be stressed; winter is CRUEL to ShadowClan. The RiverClan river is a moving source of water which rarely completely ices over, most animals in ThunderClan don't hibernate, WindClan's rabbits are active in the snow. For most Clans, they will not feel the "bite" of winter until towards the end, when the prey populations crash. ShadowClan feels it immediately.

That's a problem because Prey Item Number 1 Will Surprise you. The most popular prey in ShadowClan is...

1: Ducks.

And with the most common species, mallards, at about 2 pounds on average (with males being slightly larger) you're looking at 5,442 calories each. Enough to feed 15 warriors for a day.

(Note: This estimate is low; actual value would probably be higher. This measurement is taken from this chart which measured whole carcasses and caloric value rounded from 5.9 to 6, and this particular duck was "dressed"-- so its organs, the most valuable part of the animal, were already removed.)

Ducks are SO valuable as prey it's hard to oversell them. They're huge, they're highly nutritious (thiamin, vitamin a, vitamin b, iron), and they're PACKED with fats. They also lay eggs, TONS of them, which ShadowClan will happily snatch from inattentive hens.

The problem with ducks is, they don't stick around in the winter. Mallards might stay if the weather is mild, but if the water starts freezing, they're a-leaving.

That means that right when ShadowClan needs them the most, they'll vanish. If the marsh freezes, which is VERY likely because it's stillwater, they can't access ANYTHING under the ice. So Prey Animal Number 2 ALSO becomes an issue;

2: Carp

Their size and weight varies immensely, but the european carp is a species that AVERAGES 6 - 15 pounds. Using our rough estimation numbers and only a 6 pound fish, that's 10,884 calories. That's a whole Clan fed, if it's rationed perfectly.

Many carp are larger and heavier than cats. Here is a picture of a human fisher with two 5-pound bass so you can get a feel for just how big fish are

The biggest problem with carp, aside from the fact that icy winter conditions will block access to catching them, is that their gallbladders are poisonous. Carp bile is the only dangerous type of bile Clan cats encounter (that I know about so far). When being eaten, Clan cats must take care to gut them gently and remove the organ without spilling toxic green slime everywhere.

(ShadowClan actually collects and uses this bile for other purposes. Dried and diluted, it can be used as a medicine for treating parasites, and wet and mixed into a poultice it can be used to dress wounds. If gargled, it can also dissolve and loosen stuck bones in the throat, VERY important for unknowing kittens who tried to eat cooked bird bones.)

These two are the most common animals in the highly varied ShadowClan diet. Hunt in the shallow marsh, and you're bound to bump into either a duck or a carp at some point.

But when winter rolls in, they start to rely on mammalian prey.

3: Rats

While some rats can breach 2 pounds (SHOUT OUT TO ALL MY NEW YORKERS) most of them only clock in at about half a pound-- 250 grams. That's 1,250 calories. About 3 cats fed.

(NOTE: These estimations of how MANY cats they feed assumes that these bites are being distributed evenly, such as if the animal was being put into a soup or meticulously portioned. It's more likely that a single rat is eaten alone or only shared between two warriors who then bulk up. The sensation of "fullness" is determined by weight rather than caloric value.)

Rats are highly adaptable omnivores, but most of their diet is actually plants! Humans associate them with garbage and filth, and yes, the rats from carrionplace would certainly taste awful. But most of the rats ShadowClan catches would be living in natural conditions, eating nuts, fruits, and smaller animals. So it doesn't make sense that canon sees ALL rats as dirty-- they should actually be a HUGE part of a warrior's diet!

Especially in ShadowClan, where the invasive brown rat has all but eliminated the native black rat population. Brown rats are huge, thick-tailed, excellent swimmers who stick around in the winter and find themselves right at home in a marsh or swamp.

In fact, ShadowClan thinks hunting them is a two-way blessing. A cat stays fed through the winter, and more resources are freed up for the rarer, but more delicious water vole. ThunderClan isn't the only Clan that understands population management.

And speaking of...

4: Squirrels

Significantly smaller than carp and ducks, gray squirrels are usually about 500 grams. I've heard it said that they triple in mass over the winter, but since I'm not sure if that means they triple in weight, I'll simply rule that a wintertime gray squirrel is 1000 grams. Which means about 5,000 calories, enough to feed 14 cats.

...but also. don't underestimate how big a squirrel is. You are a 200-pound bipedal ape, these are 10 pound cats. They are also eating all the organs you, a human, would usually toss.

The general term, wetland, refers to all land that is... take a guess... wet. The difference between a marsh and a swamp is that a swamp is wooded land, which means squirrels can live there!

ShadowClan often finds itself in conflict with ThunderClan over squirrels. The native, endangered red squirrel is a cultural icon to ThunderClan and they believe it's important to protect it at all costs by killing gray squirrels whenever possible. ShadowClan, meanwhile, agrees red squirrels are beautiful, but isn't willing to be aggressive with gray squirrel populations to protect them.

5: Cheating

In true ShadowClan fashion I do what I want and use number 5 to babble about several animals they turn into grub

And SPEAKING of grubs, they love to forage for larval treats. They regularly make snacks out of chafer grubs, stag beetle larvae, cutworms, and if they can manage it, baby honeybees. Chafer grubs are their absolute favorite, which is another reason why WindClan is so passionate about maintaining their moorland; when it turns into grassland, ShadowClan is energized to fight for grub foraging space.

The "problem" with the meat of predators is that it's said to be tough and taste strong and unpalatable. ShadowClan doesn't entirely mind it, but if they end up with a predator in spring and summer, they like to use the seasonal stream (called a syke) that cuts across ThunderClan to soak the meat in running water for a few days.

Not to mention that they really will just grab at any animal, in addition to those lizards and frogs they're notorious for. Hedgehogs, crayfish, waterbirds, snails. There's all sorts of spices they'll use to try to season a strange meat, between mushrooms, pellitory, juniper, rosemary, so on.

It's harder to find something they WON'T eat.

#better bones au #clan culture #Warrior Bites #BB!ShadowClan

[lunarbuck]

Kinktober Week 2: Formal Wear

header: @jen-with-a-pen

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x f!reader (any race)

Word Count: 2k

Prompt: Formal Wear

Warnings: bucky is your ex bf, unwanted touching (by someone else, not bucky), sexual tension, oral (m receiving), smut (p in v), praise, pet names [dove, pretty girl, baby], light spanking, swearing, possessiveness

a/n: y'all...... you're not even ready for this

my masterlist | kinktober masterlist | @lunarbucklibrary

You slide your hands down the smooth satin of your dress, relishing the way it glides against your skin. Tonight’s party is one you’ve been looking forward to for some time now, and you can’t wait to see the look on his face when you walk through those doors.

You’re dressed for revenge, and you don’t care how petty it is.

After a quick ride to the venue, you pause just outside the doors to the ballroom. You take a deep breath, rolling your shoulders, before pushing the doors open. Your heels click on the marble floor, and you flash a smile at the familiar faces that greet you.

This isn’t your first Avengers gala, and it certainly won’t be your last, but tonight is different. Tonight isn’t about greasing palms and fake smiles. No, tonight is about one thing and one thing only.

Making sure Bucky Barnes knows just what he’s missing out on.

He broke up with you a week and a half ago. You spent the first week feeling like your heart had been ripped out and stomped on, unsure if you’d ever recover. The past few days, though, have been spent getting ready for this moment right here.

You find your way to the bar and order a vodka soda, letting your eyes wander around the room. You can tell the moment he spots you. His gaze licks down your back like fire, making you shiver. 

As you sip your drink, you feel someone approach, but you can tell it’s not Bucky. “You look gorgeous tonight,” a man tells you. At first glance, you don’t recognize him, but a moment later, you place him as an investor you’ve sweet-talked a few times before. His hand slides along your lower back, and you’re quickly reminded of how handsy he tends to be.

“Thanks,” you reply, cringing inwardly. 

“Wanna dance?” He doesn’t give you a chance to answer, tugging you away from the bar and to the center of the front of the room where people are dancing. The bass thumps in your chest as you dance with Mr. Handsy, ignoring the way your skin crawls at his touch. 

A flash of metal catches your attention, and suddenly, he’s right there. Bucky Barnes, in all his tuxedo-d glory, stands just four feet next to you. He’s not dancing, not even swaying with the music. He’s just standing there, staring at you. 

Your body hums under his heated gaze. You watch his eyes drag over your figure and suppress a smirk. His eyes darken, and his tongue darts out, wetting his lower lip. 

Mr. Handsy presses himself against your back and slides his hands along your hips. Bucky’s eyes flash to the man touching you, and you see him clench his metal fist. He looks so fucking good right now, bathed in the low light. Bucky’s tux is perfectly fitted to his mountain-like, sculpted body.

You can’t help the desire that pools in your lower belly. Despite the way your brain is screaming, your pussy can’t seem to hear it. Even though he broke your heart, you remember how amazing he made you feel.

Mr. Handsy’s fingers brush your ribs, and you’re rudely snapped awake from your memories. You turn around in his grip and push against his chest, trying to put space between you and his unwanted touches, but his fingers tighten around your ribcage.

You open your mouth to tell him off, but you’re abruptly pulled backward and into a familiar, muscular chest. His cologne invades your senses, woodsy and masculine. Mr. Handsy frowns but ultimately decides that you’re not worth fighting the Winter Soldier over.

“You wear this dress for me?” Bucky’s low voice growls in your ear. You stand up straighter as his hands slide across your hips to your lower belly, pressing your ass against him. 

“No.” You silently curse the way your voice wavers, and you don’t have to be looking at him to know that Bucky is smirking. 

“Don’t lie, dove. You know you’re shit at it.” You bristle at the pet name, the one that has always made you swoon.

“‘M not lying.” Bucky’s metal fingers drift up your body, tracing between your breasts to circle your neck. He doesn’t squeeze, he wraps his fingers enough to remind you how much you liked it when he held you this way. 

“Little dove, you’re just asking for me to fuck the truth out of you.” You press your thighs together and shudder, wetness pooling in your panties. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. You were supposed to flaunt how well you’re doing in Bucky’s stupid, perfect face, get drunk, then go home feeling great. 

He isn’t supposed to be talking about fucking you, and you aren’t supposed to be grinding your ass against him. 

You shake your head, unable to come up with the words to tell him to fuck off.

“You know what I think? I think you got all dolled up just for me. You wanted to show me how big and bad you are, but all you’ve done is show me how much you miss me. That right, dove?” Your body betrays you, but the more time you spend in his arms, the less you seem to care.

Bucky gives the column of your throat a light squeeze, and your lips part on a gasp. “I bet you’re fucking soaked right now. If I slipped my hand into your panties right now, they’d be wet.” The slit of your dress goes high up your thigh, so high that he could do just that if he wants. Part of you silently begs for him to find out, for his fingers to drag over your clit. 

Without another word, Bucky slides his hand to cup the back of your neck in a possessive grip and guides you off the dance floor and toward the doors. You’re in a trance, hypnotized by his words and intoxicating presence.

Bucky walks you to the elevator bank, jabbing the number for the top floor, then turns to you. He towers over you, blue eyes blazing, and your breath catches in your throat. A bell dings, and he walks you backward into the open doors of the elevator. Your back hits the wall, and he leans over you, hands landing on either side of your head.

“You look good enough to fucking eat, dove,” he rasps. “You really gonna tell me you don’t want this?” Bucky slides one of his muscular thighs between your legs, pressing it where you need him most. “Gonna sit there and pretend you don’t want me?”

As much as you want to push him away, shout at him, tell him that he’s full of it, you know it’s a lie. You want him so badly you’re buzzing with it. You need him more than air.

When the elevator reaches the top floor, Bucky’s fingers circle your wrist, and he tugs you to his room, shutting the door behind you. The moment the latch clicks, you know you’re a goner. 

He approaches you slowly, and you try to keep the space between the two of you, walking backward until your legs hit the bed. You wobble on your heels and can’t catch yourself before your ass hits the mattress. 

Bucky stands over you, stealing your breath, as he slowly removes his tux jacket. He smirks, the look full of heat and hunger. His hands cup your jaw, thumbs brushing over your cheekbones. You gaze up at him, unable to keep your eyes off his face. 

“So beautiful, dove,” he tells you. Without thinking, you slide off the mattress, knees landing against the plush carpet on the floor, so you’re kneeling in front of Bucky. He raises an eyebrow as your fingers fumble with his belt. You manage to tug it free, popping the button on his slacks before pulling the zipper down. 

You pull his cock out, not bothering to get rid of his pants, and you salivate. Before Bucky, giving oral was a chore, but with him, it brought you so much pleasure. That hasn’t changed, it seems. You drag your tongue over his tip before taking him into your mouth. Bucky’s fingers slide along your scalp, gripping your hair. You bob your head, taking him as deeply as you can, gagging when he hits the back of your throat.

“Shit,” Bucky groans. “Missed your fucking mouth, dove.” Your clit pulses at his words, and you squeeze your thighs together in an attempt to alleviate the pressure. Your tongue teases the vein on the underside of his cock, and you hum when he moans. 

You know Bucky’s body like the back of your hand, and when his hips jolt, thrusting his cock further into your mouth, you pull away. You can’t help but smirk at the disheveled look on his face. He was getting close, and you just ruined that for him.

“Wipe the smirk off your face, little dove. You’re gonna regret that.” Bucky hoists you up onto the bed, and you land face down, bouncing with the impact. His hands slide along your legs, pushing your skirt up to expose your panties. You shout when his fingers wrap around your ankles, tugging you backward until your feet hit the ground. With the height of your heels, your ass sticks out and up in this position. 

Bucky’s fingers trace along the outline of your panties, sending chills down your spine. He tugs the waistband, drags the garment down your legs, and helps you step out of it. Your mind spins as the cool air caresses your heated pussy. 

“You’re such a liar, dove. You’re soaked, and it’s all for me, isn’t it?” You clench the comforter tightly, trying not to squirm under his gaze. A light smack to your ass makes you yelp. “Answer the question, dove.”

“Y-yes,” you whimper. “It’s all for you.” Bucky chuckles and grips your hips until you feel his cock drag through the wetness between your thighs. 

“Your pussy knows who it belongs to, isn’t that right, dove?” You shake your head, hiding your face in the blankets, but that earns you another slap. “Don’t fucking lie to me, pretty girl. You and I both know how much your pussy fucking loves me.”

The tip of his cock presses against your entrance, and you stifle a moan. Bucky is big, the biggest you’ve ever had, and in just the week and a half you’ve been broken up, you’ve craved this more than you care to admit.

“You can tell yourself whatever you want, baby, but your perfect cunt is telling me all I need to know.” He slides into you, stretching your pussy around his cock, and you moan loudly. He doesn’t give you a moment to breathe or adjust. He just sets a brutal, deep pace and fucks you like he owns you. 

Bucky fucks you into the mattress, your back arching to take him deeper. You’re putty in his hands, unable to resist the pleasure he pours into your body.

“That’s right, dove,” he whispers huskily. “Take my fucking cock like a good girl.” Your pussy clenches when he calls you ‘good girl’, and you know he did it on purpose. He knows how much you love that. 

“You missed being my good girl, huh, dove?” 

“Yes, yes, yes,” you moan, not caring how pathetic you sound. Bucky leans down, clasping the back of your neck with his metal fingers, and pushes you further into the mattress. Your orgasm comes barreling toward you, and though your mind screams at the betrayal, you fall over the edge.

“Shit, yes, dove. Come all over my cock. You’re squeezing the shit out of me, baby.” You shake with the aftershocks of your orgasm, and you can tell Bucky’s getting close. His hips stutter, rhythm faltering as he fucks you harder and harder.

“Fuck, dove, gonna fill you up.” Bucky comes on a loud moan, squeezing the back of your neck tightly before pulling out. You feel his fingers drag along your inner thigh before pushing into your pussy, forcing his cum deeper inside of you. 

Your breaths are shallow as you come to terms with what just happened. As much as you wish you regretted it, you don’t. And as much as you hope this will be the last time this happens, you know it’s just the first. Bucky is your drug; you’re addicted. It’s going to take a long time before you’re able to quit him.

@flightlessangelwings | #fawktober 2023 list

I am discontinuing my taglist. Please follow @lunarbucklibrary and turn on notifications to get notified when I post new fics.

#jane’s writing #kinktober 2023 #fawktober 2023 #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky x reader #James bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fic #marvel fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes marvel #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #fem!reader #marvel fanfiction #James buchanan barnes #the winter soldier x yn #the winter soldier fanfiction

[ephemeramedia]

The World Shines (As I Cross The Macon County Line)

banner cred to @cafekitsune!!

Will Graham/Reader

Synopsis: You convince Will to cuddle with you because it's cold and you love him.

A/N: Okay so this is my first real FF that I'm posting ever and it's not beta read so if there's mistakes just pretend they're not there mkay thanks. Not rly a songfic but there is a song in it and that song is Going To Georgia by The Mountain Goats. Also this is my official bid for someone to buy me an I Heart Bingo mug. Also also gonna post this to AO3 as soon as i get my acc sorted, and ill link it here.

Word Count: 1105

Warnings: an embarrassing amount of domesticity

---------

The canopy of darkness was beginning to lift from the closed yet sheer curtains that shifted when your shoulders brushed against it. The Virginia morning winter was harsh and you knew it would only get harsher as the hours passed the day away. In some way, you felt bad about moping around the kitchen while Will was out at work, but you knew it would only be a matter of time before January cleared and you could start again trying to convince one of the libraries in Maryland to hire you for over the minimum wage. 

What would not happen nearly as fast as you pleased was the water that was stuck under 100 °C in the kettle, boiling. Sighing, you turned up the stove. 

Music drifts throughout the almost frigid air, around tinny, plywood walls, and it meets your ears in a soft resounding pattern. After the kettle starts to whistle, you sing along in quiet victory. 

“...The most extraordinary thing in the world, I have two big hands and a heart pumping blood,” You pour the water into your ‘I ♡ BINGO’ mug. Today would be an English Breakfast day, just like every other day. A good day. 

You feel the dogs settled beside your feet rise and move toward the front of the house, shortly before hearing the door open. A few beats pass counted by soft thuds on the floor growing louder and Will moves to meet you where you stand. His rough hands wrap around your waist from behind you, and his chin nestles in your shoulder. The song begins its second verse. 

“More bass today. Not bad for this weather, I think,” He breathes into you. You turn to face him, and his hands never leave your body. 

“Your hands are cold,” Will tries to move away but you free one of your hands to trap him against you. He turns his head to huff a laugh but you catch his face and press his grinning lips to yours. You hum into him. 

“I think it might be up to us to keep each other warm,” You take another sip of your tea. “Maybe I could convince you to stay in for the rest of the day?”

Will brings his head up to glance at the ceiling, the look he gives when he’s already resigned himself to you. 

“I’ve got to chop wood for the fire, darlin’. You know I can’t-” You shush him. 

“Again, I’m not sure having a fire will matter when we’re-,” Your only free hand reaches down to palm his ass, “So close already.” It was really an unnecessary ploy on your part, because as you began speaking he gently pulled the mug from your hands and set it on the counter behind you. Grabbing him didn’t help his case of not dropping it on the floor, but the blush that freckled his cheeks gave away how eager Will was to follow you anywhere. 

“Well,” Will huffed out a breath that condensed in the air, “You certainly make a convincing argument.” You giggled at his eager tone and hooked one of your fingers around his belt loop. With an incredible amount of concentration, Will managed to follow you away from the kitchen and into the living room. 

The living room, or the first room in the house, was where the bed was. It was where the only bed was. When you moved in, you had tried to convince Will to, at least, have an air mattress upstairs. After cost-benefit analyzing it, you gave into having the bed right in front of the front door on the condition that Will took the drafty side. Honestly, it wasn’t too uncomfortable, and the stairs creaked anyway. 

As you led Will to the bed, both you and him took considerable steps to avoid the plethora of dogs littered about the floorspace. 

Once you were at the foot of the mattress, you looked back at Will. His cheeks were pink and looked frostbitten, but you knew better. Will Graham doesn’t blush at the cold, he blushed at you. It did help that it was 7 °C, regardless. He took a step towards you and you pull him under the covers. 

Wordlessly, Will places gentle kisses on your skin, starting at your cheekbones and going lower until he reaches your collar bone, and then lets his face rest on your shoulder. You preen at the physical attention, and then shiver. 

“I wish I could stay like this forever.” You hear him mumble into your shirt. You smile softly and tug him further into you so that your bodies might become one. There’s a lot of blanket shifting before one of his hands reaches up under the hem of your shirt. 

“Jesus Christ, you’re fucking freezing,” You jump. You lower your head to meet his eyes looking up at you, and you decipher the mischief in his grin. 

“You’re the one who suggested this, darlin’.” Will pushes himself forward and your lips meet, slowly and then all at once. 

With the comforter pulled up over both of your shoulders, you ended the embrace by tilting your head down so as to separate your lips but then connect your foreheads. Hot breath covers your face and you blink. You hum. 

Moving again, Will’s hands travel back down and grasp your waist firmly. Then you’re weightless, his seemingly infinite strength lifting you up and over him until you’re straddling his hips. The sudden shift lets a breeze into the space between you and Will, and you lower your chest to meet his and close the gap. Will sighs. 

“Now I’m never getting up,” He laughs into the top of your head. 

From the other side of the room, Winston barks at something outside the window, a bird, probably. He barks again at the start of a new song that drifts through the house. 

A cloud passes through the sky and uncovers the bright sun, which does nothing for the cold and everything to blind Will through the thin curtains. Will removes one of his hands from you and drapes it over his face, shielding his eyes. You stay like this until another cloud comes, when Will tilts your head up to kiss you. You lean into it, and you bring one of your hands up to pass your finger through Will’s curly brown hair, gold in the sunlight. A few beats pass. 

‘My tea is going to be so cold.” One of Will’s thumbs smooths out the wrinkle of concern between your eyebrows. 

“You can always make more.” Your lips meet again. 

“I know.”

#hungry like the wolf #fanfic #will graham/reader #will graham x reader #my writing #writing

[suhnshinehaos]

treacherous : act three, part thirteen

…a spin-off to crush culture ! synopsis : after a couple of instances of accidental matching clothing, yangyang finds himself in a dating rumor with possibly the most famous person on campus : yn, the bassist of an up and coming band. yangyang doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. unfortunately yn, who has also built up a reputation for being cold as winter, does. pairing : liu yangyang x gn!reader genre/s : university au, student council + band au, fluff, angst, humor

act three, part thirteen : sparks wc : 1.5k song rec : sparks by coldplay

previous  ➤  act two, part twelve next  ➤  act three, part fourteen treacherous  ➤  masterlist 

yangyang wades through the crowded room with only one goal in mind : finding you.

the air is thick with idle chatter and the low hum of an instrumental of a dreamvision song playing over the speaker. the press conference had ended just about ten minutes ago, and all he could think of was the fact that you were going on tour. 

the first thing he felt was pride. you had come a long way from playing events at your university. he loved seeing you perform on stage, doing what you do best, with a smile on your face and light in your eye. he loves watching you, but not nearly as much as he loves you.

precisely why the second emotion, and the one that’s currently filling his veins in panic, is fear. yangyang knows what he feels. it’s the one thing he’s always been sure of. he knows how he felt in the weeks the two of you worked on a random project in your final year of university. he knows how he felt when he cut off contact with you, even if it was the last thing he wanted to do. he knows how he felt when you walked back into his life a year after.

but you’re about to leave. you had told him how you felt before he cut you off. now he wonders if he could finally speak his mind and heart, and if you still had space for him in yours.  

“hello everyone.”

dejun’s voice cuts off his train of thought, his attention now towards a makeshift stage. it had been used for the press conference earlier, and he had been so focused in finding you that he didn’t even notice that instruments were being set up.

yangyang notices you scanning the crowd, looking for someone.

and when your gaze meets his, he knows that you found what you’ve been looking for. because he did too. 

he raises a hand to let you know that he sees you.

you nod back with a small smile, letting you know that you see him before you turn your head towards dejun.

“we hope you’re enjoying the night so far, we just wanted to perform a couple of song off our new album. out later at midnight.”

yangyang watches you play the bass for four songs. he notices when you close your eyes, completely lost in the feeling of the songs - a couple upbeat and freeing, a couple angry and cathartic. he notices when you turned your body towards your bandmates, mouthing the words dejun and mark were singing. you were electric, you belonged on stage. 

if anyone���s eyes were on him instead of the band, the would have noticed the stars in his eyes.

“this will be our last song for tonight. you can hear the rest when the album drops.”

yangyang hears you speak into the mic, the first time since you started performing. you end with a little laugh, looking down at your instrument before looking up to meet his eyes; like you knew exactly where he would be in the crowd.

because you did. 

you let out an exhale as one of the stagehands gives dejun his acoustic. he nods at you before strumming the beginning chords.

“i hope you like this one.” you speak before playing your part, your voice shakes at the word you. for a second you remember the softness in yangyang’s gaze, you know you aren’t referring to the crowd. you take a breath, and you begin to sing,  

‘ did i drive you away ? ’

you catch a glimpse of the time you two studied at ncit, at all the times you blatantly ignored his attempts of becoming your friend. you remember pushing him away, up until he brought food and medicine to your apartment when you had a headache. 

and you remember the time he was the one who pushed you away, but you couldn’t blame him either. you, more than anyone, knew what it meant to be with someone in the public eye. 

‘ i’ll always look out for you ’

dejun’s voice joins yours and you can’t help but remember the day he walked in your shared apartment, asking if you knew that yangyang was now working in a magazine. you subtly shake your head as the flashback goes on for farther, to the time you distanced yourself from him because of all the hate he was getting.

‘ my heart is yours, it’s you that i hold onto ’

you close your eyes, sing the words as sincerely as you can, hoping the words get through to the only person who’s meant to hear them.

he does, and yangyang feels his chest clench at the weight of his own emotions.

‘ yeah, i saw sparks ’

the moments flash by your eyes in one giant supercut : from the moment he stepped into the classroom with a hoodie that matched yours to the moment he shook your hand when the interview ended, the way his hand held yours a little tighter, for a few seconds longer.

the song ends and both of you are breathless, looking at no one else but the other. you knew there are cameras around, but you couldn’t care less about them.

you get off stage and immediately make a bee-line for him, politely declining conversations from reporters and other celebrities alike. your eyes search far and wide for his familiar face, your steps growing faster and heavier with each passing second. you don’t even notice that you were practically running into someone, causing you to stumble back.

“hey, i got you.” yangyang steadies you with his hands on your shoulders, and he doesn’t let go even as you’re now standing perfectly still.

you’re breathless, looking into his eyes. “i was looking for you.”

“i’m here.” he chuckles. “you can stop looking.”

“i know. it’s crowded here, don’t you think?” you shrug off his hands from your shoulders and walk past him, hoping that he follows you.

very subtle, he thinks to himself and shakes his head with a smile, but he follows you anyways.

you lead him to the company building’s rooftop. no cameras, no press, no label staff. just you and him, and the bright stars shining down to watch the two of you. instinctively you wrap your arms around yourself. the air is harsh and cold, and the nearly sheer dark-blue shirt your stylists gave you wasn’t doing you any favors.

you feel something draped around your shoulders, and almost immediately the comforting scent of yangyang’s perfume engulfs you. 

he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his slacks, standing beside you. “your presence is warmth enough.”

you roll your eyes and nudge his side with your own, before you could open your mouth to speak, he turns to you to ask a question.

“when are you leaving? for tour.”

“couple of days from now, but there’s still a lot to do… so this is technically my last night of freedom.”

“how long will it be?”

“a few months. there’s already a demand for additional shows.”

yangyang lets out a low whistle, turning his head towards the several buildings that surrounded the two of you. the lights are nearly blinding, the city below is alive, but it’s your arm brushing against his that overwhelms him.

“when you get back, i’m taking you out on a date.”

you look at him, and if he had looked back at you, he would have seen the complete shock on your face. he doesn’t, it is only you who sees the completely determined look on his face.

“it’s going to be long wait.” your voice falters. almost immediately you’re worried. the timing. the distance. everything else in between. while you could call and text every day, there’s no guarantee of that. and it wouldn’t be the same.

yangyang looks back at you, his gaze the gentlest you’ve ever seen, you feared you would melt on the spot. “i can wait. anyone who feels the way i do about you, as strong as i do, could wait an entire lifetime.” 

“i-” your words get caught in the back of your throat, not expecting that amount of overwhelming earnestness from him. this wasn’t the same yangyang you knew in university. you know it, and he knows it too. he’s grown into the person you need, and he’s not leaving any time soon.   

he drapes an arm around your shoulders and pulls you closer, planting a soft kiss to your temple. his lips hover just a couple of centimeters from your ear, his voice a low whisper, “i’ll be waiting for you, so come home to me. okay?”

you pull away from him the slightest bit, only enough so he could see your face and the sincerity in your eyes, “i’ll come home to you.”

from reese, with love <3

gy3 my beloveds,,,, to be loved like the way they love each other.... that is THE DREAM !! tysm for reading, only a couple more parts left for this series. as always, i'd love to know what you think- your thoughts/rbs/replies/asks are much appreciated ! hope you're all doing well and taking care :)

#🌙 — treacherous! #wayv x reader #nct x reader #yangyang x reader #wayv imagines #wayv fluff #wayv smau #wayv scenarios #nct imagines #nct fluff #nct smau #nct scenarios #yangyang smau #yangyang fluff #yangyang imagines #yangyang scenarios

[doodleduck]

Dsmp characters as fish because a special interest of mine is northeastern game fish 👍

c!Ranboo - Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis)

Basically the loser of the fish community lmao. They are really sensitive to their surroundings. They need the water to be a certain pH and temperature in order to survive. They are migratory in order to fulfill those needs. They are also bullied by other fish (specifically brown trout) to the point where populations are dropping. They are one of the more timid and docile species of trout. They stick in small groups. They will become aggressive when feeding or defending their spawning nests. Brook trout also have some of the most unique and colorful patterns. Brook trout hybrids are common occurrences

c!Tommy - Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides)

Largemouth are the fish that is in everybody’s business. They are very much in your face all of the time. Simultaneously both very smart and very dumb. They commit to one spot to make their nest and will defend it fiercely. They are picky where they put their nest and spend a lot of time maintaining it to keep it in good condition. They typically will live in the same body of water and not migrate out, but will change depths depending on the seasons and where food is located.

c!Tubbo - Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu)

Basically the Largemouth’s little brother. They are very similar but the smallmouth are typically smaller and bit more docile. They are also arguably a bit smarter than the largemouth as well. They are also very territorial and will defend their nests. Their nests are also well kept. When defending or hunting, they fight like a tank. Although smaller than the largemouth they pack a bigger punch. Smallmouth are also more cold tolerant than other fish.

c!Phil - Walleye (Sander vitreus)

Walleye remind me of crows. They have terrific eyesight, which is why they have big eyes. Their unique eyes allow them to hunt at night. They have one of the greater lifespans and can live to be a couple decades old. Walleye spend time in schools with members similar to them. They like to lurk in deeper cooler water. They are more active at night and more docile during the day. They become aggressive when seasons change and they have to stock up for the winter

c!Techno - Bullhead catfish (Ameiurus melas)

Bullhead are similar to walleye and live in similar conditions. They like cooler murky environments to reside in. They are docile if left alone. They will become predatory and territorial if provoked or feeding. They have venomous spines on their fins which hurt like a bitch if you get stung (not fatal). They scavenge more than hunt and scrounge around the bottom looking for food. They fight hard and hit hard. And once they have something they are very determined to not let it go

c!Wilbur - Brown Trout (Salmo trutta)

Brown trout are actually invasive and are not native to North America, they originate in parts of Europe and Asia. But they have now established themselves as part of the ecosystem. They compete with the native species and often pose a challenge. They are typically bigger than other trout species and their competitors get shoved around a bit. Browns are smart and cunning, and are very successful hunters. They are arguably the most territorial species of trout

c!Quackity - Musky (Esox masquinongy)

Easily one of, if not the smartest gamefish. They are nicknamed “the fish of ten thousand casts” because they are very picky and know how to differentiate lures from real bait fish. They are hard to catch. Muskies are ambush predators and will eat anything that fits into their mouth. This includes waterfowl, rodents, and frogs. They are elusive and like to stick to themselves. Musky are very dedicated to their territory and will fight any intruders out

Yay fish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#disclaimer I am no professional biologist and I have heavily personified the fish lmao #this was fun I might do it with other characters #I ♥️ fish #yknow what fuck it I’ll main tag this one #c!ranboo #c!tommy #c!tubbo #c!philza #c!technoblade #c!wilbur #c!quackity #dsmp #text

[april-is]

April 17, 2024: You Belong to the World, Carrie Fountain

You Belong to the World Carrie Fountain

as do your children, as does your husband. It’s strange even now to understand that you are a mother and a wife, that these gifts were given to you and that you received them, fond as you’ve always been of declining invitations. You belong to the world. The hands that put a peach tree into the earth exactly where the last one died in the freeze belong to the world and will someday feed it again, differently, your body will become food again for something, just as it did so humorously when you became a mother, hungry beings clamoring at your breast, born as they’d been with the bodily passion for survival that is our kind’s one common feature. You belong to the world, animal. Deal with it. Even as the great abstractions come to take you away, the regrets, the distractions, you can at any second come back to the world to which you belong, the world you never left, won’t ever leave, cells forever, forever going through their changes, as they have been since you were less than anything, simple information born inside your own mother’s newborn body, itself made from the stuff your grandmother carried within hers when at twelve she packed her belongings and left the Scottish island she’d known—all she’d ever known—on a ship bound for Ellis Island, carrying within her your mother, you, the great human future that dwells now inside the bodies of your children, the young, who, like you, belong to the world.

--

Also by Carrie Fountain: Will You?

More like this: -> The World Has Need of You, Ellen Bass -> Why I’m Here, Jacqueline Berger -> from Burial, Ross Gay -> Poem to My Child, If Ever You Shall Be, Ross Gay

Today in:

2023: Mammogram Call Back with Ultra Sound, Ellen Bass 2022: Catastrophe Is Next to Godliness, Franny Choi 2021: Weather, Claudia Rankine 2020: The Understudy, Bridget Lowe 2019: Against Dying, Kaveh Akbar 2018: Close Out Sale, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz 2017: Things That Have Changed Since You Died, Laura Kasischke 2016: Percy, Waiting for Ricky, Mary Oliver 2015: My Heart, Kim Addonizio 2014: My Skeleton, Jane Hirshfield 2013: Catch a Body, Oliver Bendorf 2012: No, Mark Doty 2011: from Narrative: Ali, Elizabeth Alexander 2010: Baseball Canto, Lawrence Ferlinghetti 2009: Nothing but winter in my cup, Alice George 2008: Poppies in October, Sylvia Plath 2007: I Imagine The Gods, Jack Gilbert 2006: An Offer Received In This Morning’s Mail, Amy Gerstler 2005: The Last Poem In The World, Hayden Carruth

#how strange it is to be anything at all #motherhood #breastfeeding #poetry #poem #carrie fountain

[asahicore]

moonlight - psh (teaser)

pairing. dancer!sunghoon x fem!reader synopsis. In August 1963, your monotonous summer vacation becomes a lot more exciting when you meet a group of dancers that work as the entertainment staff of the resort you and your family are staying at. Your fascination with them, and particularly dancers and close friends Sunghoon and Chaewon, pushes you to help them out by taking Chaewon's place at another hotel's show when she's unable to dance. The week you spend with Sunghoon as he teaches you to dance and the events thereafter give you a lot more than the ability to mambo. genre. dirty dancing au, rom-com type beat, summer au (yes in the dead of winter shut up), poor boy x rich girl trope, full fic will contain the Big 3 (fluff angst n smut) word count. teaser is at 2502 words, expected full fic 30-40k? release date. lmao a/n. i'm back. did y'all miss me.... i hope you guys will like this! i plan on editing and reposting my old stuff but i wanted to post a brand new fic first !! if u enjoy lmk, if u hate it lmk, just lmk it'll make me a very happy girl :)

You were on your way to the bungalow, you really were - but just as you reach it, light from a tall lodge about three hundred meters away catches your attention, and you’re too curious about that building you barely noticed before not to investigate. And so, you continue walking up the small hill where all the guest lodgings rest, until you find yourself before a sign that reads “STAFF QUARTERS - GUESTS KEEP OUT,” which you promptly decide to ignore.

In just a minute, a wooden bridge reveals itself, enabling you to cross over the current that separates you from the other bank, where the lodge stands. If you looked to your right, you could’ve made out some more, smaller and dingier-looking bungalows than the guests’ that hosted the staff behind all those trees, but you run into a familiar face before you notice them.

In just a minute, a wooden bridge reveals itself, enabling you to cross over the current that separates you from the other bank, where the lodge stands. If you looked to your right, you could’ve made out some more, smaller and dingier-looking bungalows than the guests’ that hosted the staff behind all those trees, but you run into a familiar face before you notice them.

“Hey! I recognize you. Baby, right?”

“Yeah, and you’re Jake!” you beam, surprised not only at seeing him again here, but at the three huge watermelons he carries in his arms like oversized triplets. 

“Yeah…” he trails, squinting his eyes at you, his enthusiasm turning into suspicion. “You can’t be here. Max would kill me. Go back to the dance, Baby.” He can only take a few steps forward before you grab a watermelon from his unsteady hold, putting your most convincing smile on.

“I’ll help you carry these!” you state more than offer, and march forwards across the bridge. Behind you, Jake sighs and shakes his head, then rushes to stop you in your tracks.

“Didn’t you read the sign? This area is staff only, you can’t be here,” he repeats, punctuating his words. He stays unwavering even at the receiving end of your very menacing glare, so you simply huff and stack the watermelon back on top of the other two and turn away. It takes him approximately two seconds to change his mind. “Can you keep a secret?”

Jake doesn’t prepare you for what you’re about to see when you enter the staff common lodge, but you don’t think anything could. The smell of a room full of people sweating and moving about hits you instantly, the heat it creates hanging heavy in the air. The breeze coming in through the open windows is practically useless in bringing the temperature down, but you aren’t curious to find out what it’d be like with the windows closed.

The music, a genre your father always bristles at when he hears it on the radio, is now blasting in your ears rather than whistling through the wind, and it takes you a few moments to adjust to the volume and intensity of the bass and drums bouncing off the walls of the room. The guitar sound is sensual and almost yearning, the singer longs for his lover, and the tempo is just fast enough for the dancers to find a swaying rhythm.

As if the lyrics themselves aren’t enough to make you blush, the way the staff dances makes you feel like you’re intruding on something. You try to look away as a couple thrusts their hips into each other’s, only to find another lowering themselves to the group until they’re crouching then slowly rising again, using each other as support the whole time. Skirts bunched up around hips, shirts almost fully unbuttoned or even discarded, hands grabbing onto the partner’s clothes or bare skin - you’ve never seen anyone dance that way. Far from the choreographed performances you’re used to, here, they’re simply letting their bodies move to the music without any second thoughts or a care in the world. You hadn’t even known this could be considered dancing, but surely, when your body molds itself this perfectly to the melody and to your partner’s hands, then you can only be dancing. 

Watermelon in arms, you follow Jake as he snakes his way to the back of the room through sweaty bodies holding each other close. You recognise a few people here and there as the entertainment staff who host activities, teach dance classes or help guests find their way around. They peer back at you, expressions either confused or disdainful - you aren’t sure whether that’s because they don’t know who you are, or because they do and don’t like seeing you there. Even if they don’t know that you’re Baby, your dress at least is a dead giveaway of your being a guest. Your mom had picked it out for you - a white sleeveless summer dress that reaches almost to your knees and cinches in at the waist before flowing out over your hips. And no cleavage, of course. Along with your impeccably curled and styled hair, your prim and proper attire is a far cry from the short skirts, tight t-shirts and denim that the staff wears, revealing sunkissed skin and toned muscles. And if all of that still wasn’t enough to tell you apart as someone who isn’t used to this kind of setting, then your wide eyes like a kid seeing fireworks for the first time should do it.

You finally reach the back of the room and set your watermelon on a bar counter. Jake rests his hands on his hips and watches the dancers, a smile on his face, the kind of smile you wear when you can never get enough of a sight even though you witness it everyday. You watch them too, but you look a mix of fascinated and terrified - sure, they all look terrific, but if your dad caught you here, you’d be dead.

“Where’d they learn to do that?” you lean in to ask Jake as the next song starts playing, your gaze not leaving the dancers who switch easily to the more upbeat tempo, not even needing a second.

He looks at you, stunned. “Don’t you know? This is how the kids dance these days. This is what American basements look like on Friday nights.” His surprise turns into amusement and he steps in front of you, facing you with one hand extended for you to take and a mischievous look on his face. “Wanna try?”

Your eyes immediately double in size and you shake your hands in front of you, but he grabs one of them anyway and starts leading you back into the middle of the room. As if saved by the bell, the doors suddenly burst open, catching everyone’s attention, and in run Sunghoon and Chaewon, wearing the same clothes from earlier, although Sunghoon has ditched the suit jacket and popped the top buttons of his shirt open. Your stomach flips at the sight of his flushed cheeks, hair slick with sweat and expression like he’s on top of the world.

Jake chuckles when he sees how transfixed you are by the two of them, dancing so differently from earlier, their moves far more sexual, hands not so polite anymore, completely free to do whatever they wish. Rather than a smile, Sunghoon bears a small frown and bites his bottom lip, deepening his dimples, and it all seems to make each of his moves that much harsher. The sheer sex appeal that exudes from him is absolutely undeniable, and it makes you feel things you’ve never felt before - things you’re not quite unsure how to name. You let out a small gasp as Chaewon jumps and hooks her legs around his hips effortlessly, then as she leans her upper body back until her head almost touches the ground, Sunghoon’s hands tight around her waist and his biceps apparent under the thin fabric of his dress shirt. You realize how strong Sunghoon must be when he carries her all the way to his shoulders, letting her rest her knees there as she plays with her skirt and swings her head from side to side. You’ve never seen anyone look so good while seemingly having so much fun.

“They look great together,” you blurt out without thinking.

“Don’t they?” Jake says, looking out at them with a fond smile. “You’d think they were a couple.”

This piques your interest. “Well, aren’t they?” you ask, head pivoting towards Jake.

“Not since we were kids, no. They’ve just been dancing together for so long that they’ve developed this chemistry and understanding of each other.” 

“Do you know them well?”

“Sunghoon’s my best friend from home. He met Chaewon when he started working here when we were 16, and then he got me this job when we were 17. The three of us are 22 now.” He meets your gaze and his smile grows wider. “Why, you interested?”

The sudden question (and the very obvious, very embarrassing answer) takes you aback and you stammer out a few nonsensical syllables before frowning at him. Your reaction just seems to amuse him. “No, I’m not. Just asking,” you manage to say.

He looks back at them, and you follow his gaze. “Well, good, cause we’re not allowed to get involved with the guests anyway. Which is why you shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

Just then, the song ends and Sunghoon and Chaewon laugh before they separate, finding another partner to dance with. As Chaewon heads towards someone else, Sunghoon catches your stare and walks to where you and Jake stand, eyes fixed on your face. You feel small under his gaze, but you will your knees not to buckle underneath you, although that’s hard to do when his eyes sweep your figure, giving you a once-over.

“What’s she doing here?” he questions Jake without looking away from you.

“That’s Baby, she came with me,” Jake says, not really answering the question.

“I carried a watermelon,” you blurt, not really answering the question either, but that seems to satisfy Sunghoon. His eyebrows raise slightly before he heads back to the dancefloor and starts dancing again. You release a breath you hadn’t known you were holding, but another one catches right in your throat when, after barely thirty seconds, he pivots back around as if there was still something he was curious about. His eyes stay focused on you, unreadable.

And then, he bows his head slightly, looks up at you through his eyebrows, raises his hand, and beckons you to him with his index finger. As if spellbound, your feet move on their own until you find yourself in front of him, his hands reaching immediately for your hips and holding on tight there. All the nerves in your body are on edge and your heartbeat speeds up, almost matching the fast tempo of the song resonating throughout the room. Simply remembering to breathe becomes an arduous task. Jake’s voice is a faint sound as he says, “So you go dance with him, but not me?”

This kind of dancing is completely unfamiliar to you, so you have no idea what to do. Thankfully, Sunghoon doesn’t seem to expect anything else, and he knows how to guide you so that you get the gist of it. “Keep your eyes on me,” he commands softly, gesturing with two fingers for your gaze to stay on his. “And move your hips in a circle, just like that,” he adds, executing the move for you to mirror. “Just relax, you’re too stiff. Relax your arms. Put them around my shoulders.” His hands brush down from your shoulders to your wrists, sending a trail of fire all along your arms, grabbing them and resting them on his shoulders himself before settling back on your waist. His arm snakes its way around it, bringing you closer to him. You aren’t sure what’s more electrifying, his gaze or his touch.

You start to focus on the music and on getting your body to move along to it, and it feels like a miracle when your hips, firmly pressed against his own, sway side-to-side in rhythm. Remembering what you saw earlier, you lean back slightly, hips still moving in small circles, trusting him to keep you from falling. You lean back as far as you can, and something about it is so liberating, you feel the adrenaline rushing through your body as if it’s the only thing keeping you alive. When you come back up, your palms are flat against his chest and he looks at you with a proud but surprised smirk that lits your insides up. “Just like that,” he whispers, but his face is close enough for you to hear him over the music.

He spins you around a few times, and as quickly as he appeared, he’s already gone, having weaved his way through the crowd back towards Jake. It takes you a few seconds to register his absence, but when it does, it’s like all the warmth he filled you with is gone; you’re left only with the heavy heat weighing the room down and you with it, when you’d felt light like air not a moment ago.

Before you can decide on what to do next, someone taps your shoulder, and you turn around to find Heeseung frowning down at you. In the fraction of a second, you can tell this is the snarky Heeseung that you’d seen when you were snooping around the day before rather than the polite Heeseung that had waited your table that night.

“Baby, right? I don’t know what you’re doing here, but your sister and parents are looking all over for you. If I were you, I’d go now, and quick.”

Alarm shoots through you as you realize you’d been here for twenty minutes at least, the sort of absence that wouldn’t go unnoticed by your family this late at night. You thank him rapidly and practically run towards the door before risking a look back at Jake and Sunghoon, still standing in the corner of the room. Jake looks worried, so you send him a thumbs up, but Sunghoon simply peers at you, sipping on a beer as his back rests against the wall, that same unreadable look from before back on his face. You don’t linger to figure it out and rush to your bungalow, coming up with an excuse that you got lost on your way back for your parents to believe. Because their Baby would never do anything she isn’t supposed to, right?

That night, as you toss and turn in bed, trying to fall asleep, your mind wanders off to those warm, big hands firmly planted on your waist, and how they had guided your body until it moved on its own accord, until it let itself go and only followed the rhythm. How far can you go until your body no longer belongs to you but rather to the music, or to the person holding you close, you wonder? And if that happened, would you, for a moment at least, no matter how fleeting, be freed of all your worries for your future and of all the pressure on your shoulders?

Your feet already ache - from dancing or from wanting to dance some more, you can’t quite tell.

perm taglist: @drunkjaked (ask to be added!)

© asahicore on tumblr 2022. please don't copy, repost, or translate my works! feedback and reblogs are appreciated :)

#enhypen smut #sunghoon smut #enhypen x reader #sunghoon x reader #enhypen fluff #sunghoon fluff #enhypen angst #sunghoon angst #enhypen fanfiction #sunghoon fanfiction

[two-white-butterflies]

Hi !

If you'd like too could you please write a Daemon Targaryen x Reader fic where she's his ex lover, she is highborn and she and Daemon used to sneak around but he was catching feelings for her and he was afraid she will start seeing the worst parts of him like everyone else so he broke up with her and she left, because she was very heartbroken by what he did because she was already in love with him. Maybe Daemon ends up not being able to sleep because he knows he has hurt her and misses her and he goes to her home some months later and tries to make it up to her but he gets another shock as he realizes that she's pregnant.

Thank you ! You don't have to write this if you don't want too. Have a nice day !😘

The Heaven I Can't Follow | Daemon Targaryen x Highborn!Reader

Daemon knew that the moment he reached heaven, there could only be one other direction — down. Daemon was afraid of the descent, hence he was the one that let go first. Leaving his beloved tumbling on the ground. It was an act of cowardice.

"Prince Daemon is engaged to Lady Laena Velaryon. Why must you continue sulking? He has clearly gotten over you." her brother remarked bitterly, finding great pain in his sister's heartbreak.

A sigh escapes from her honeyed lips as she continues sewing a gown. She came from a highborn family, and despite their wealth, her father was a stingy man, thus she's left to sew her own dresses.

"He is just an event that I've already forgotten," she lied not bothering to look up at her brother. Lies. Her mind told her, as she could still remember the taste of his tongue — and how he's taught her a secret language that she couldn't have with anyone else.

Daemon Targaryen had ruined her, simply by existing. She could hear her brother scoff and he sits beside her, allowing the bed to shift due to both of their weights. "We all know that you haven't." he pointed out as she sighs dramatically.

Why must everyone think that she's a lovesick fool?

"But I have. I rarely even think of him." she boasted with slight pride earning an eye-roll from the man. "Y/N, you are sewing a Targaryen sigil." he pointed out as she flipped the gown — hiding the intricate design. Perhaps he was right. She had been thinking of Daemon, every living minute.

"What kind of food did he give you? Why are you so enamored?" he jested as she throws the gown in the other side of the room. Daemon had done something to her. He had shown her colors, and left her in black and white.

She ignores him, and he stands up. Disappointment looming over the both of them. Her brother was the only one that knew about her endeavors with the Rogue Prince. There was a time where he was the one who encouraged the match. But as he sees his sister's pain, he could see that there was a grave mistake.

"Can you please stop worrying about it? Father is already trying to find a match for me." she pleaded and he hums in content. They had to forget about Daemon, one way or another. "And I'll make sure that your wedding will be better than his." he promises as he walks towards the door, gently twisting the knobs and walking away.

\

She couldn't believe what kind of match her father arranged. She was engaged to a Stark, whose eyes were as cold as snow. He even refuses to speak to her, he only spent his days wondering around their castle and eating their food.

"Lord Stark, is our castle to your liking?" she questioned trying to find an answer in his eyes. "Yes," he replies for the first time, letting her hear his bass voice. He was different — maybe, the same protectiveness as Daemon but his voice held no life. As if it was as barren as winter.

They continue walking, with only their footsteps as melody. "Surely, Winterfell is as beautiful." she inquired hoping that he'd calm her fears. "Winterfell is cold, my lady. Don't expect much from it." he said plainly, not attempting to comfort her.

She sighs softly, hoping that he wouldn't notice her discontent. Honestly, she wanted to get on the first ship to Pentos. Lord Stark was kind, but only because he refused to spend more than twenty-minutes with her.

"Well, surely the cold has its beauty." she tried to save herself again as he only bites back a dark chuckle. "Whatever delights you, my lady." he replied once more, not trying to start a fight.

She was used to this cold facade, her father had mastered it all his life. But Y/N didn't want this unfamiliarity with her own husband. She wanted to know him. She wanted to know how strong he liked his ale, or how sweet he liked his tea. She wanted real love. Not an alliance.

"But do you think that your home is beautiful?" she asked and he nods. Yes, it was beautiful, but only because of the people that made it be. "It is," he answered, his gaze already beginning to soften around her presence. "Amazing," she replied as she nods her head. If this was how their conversations would be. Then she'd rather gauge her eyes out.

\

Lord Stark paces around the Maester's office as the man checks his fiancee. She had been sick for the past few weeks. She always vomited in the morning, and her breasts were swollen more than usual. Sure, he sees her as a lady cut from the same cloth as the rest, but he was still worried about her.

"How is she?" he asks trying to hide his emotions, and Y/N offers him a kind smile. He was not the man that she wanted, but he was a good friend. The Maester moves around nervously, "It seems like her lady is with a child." he chuckled nervously as her hand clasps her mouth in shock.

Lord Stark's eyes widened at the sudden news. "Lord Stark—" her voice began to crack as her eyes brimmed with tears. This was a scandal. A kind of thing that her father would kill her for. He takes a step towards her, quickly shooing the Maester away from his own office, and sitting beside Lady Y/N.

"Hush," he says not trying to spend most of his words. He knew that this would stain the Lady's honor, and as a Stark it is the most important virtue of all. She leans her head in his shoulders as memories of Daemon are brought back to her.

His beautiful white-locks and silver-tongue. He would've been delighted at the news of her pregnancy, yet he's abandoned her in the quest for power. "I understand if you wish to call of our engagement." she breaths out and attempts to wipe her tears away. Maybe her father would send her to Oldtown and turn her into a Septa.

"No." he remarks quickly, as he continued rubbing circles on her back. "I'll marry you." he mumbles, hoping that it would restore her honor. "I cannot ask this of you, please." she cried as her grip around his tunic tightened. Her fiancee — reduced to a liar.

"I know who the father is." she cried out and he only gives her a bitter smile. "It's Daemon Targaryen — your house rebukes him. He has no honor. If this child comes out with pale hair and purple eyes, they'd all mock you." she breaths out and he only sighs.

"No one reaches winter. We can hide the child." he tried to reason but she continues shaking her head. "An honorful man like you, shouldn't reduce yourself to the likes of me." she bites her lip and he shakes his head.

He didn't love her. But he had to save her. "I will marry you." he finalized.

\

Daemon couldn't sleep at night. There was a gap in his bed that no pillow could take. He missed her, he craved her and needed her. But he didn't deserve her. She didn't deserve a Prince whose known nothing but treachery all his life. But without her, he was a smoldering fire — barely even combusting. He could hear Caraxes roar in the far distance.

He knew what he must do. He must claim what is his.

comment to get tagged in pt. 2

also can't reply to the comments for some reason 😭

#daemon targaryen x reader #daemon targaryen #prince daemon targaryen x reader #hurhenyratargaryenasksandsuch

[anjaelle]

White Light | Part II

Characters: Ghost!ATJ + Black Female!Reader Rating: T+ (For language. Again...pretty tame so far) Word Count: 2.8K Summary: You've learned three very important things: 1) Ghosts are apparently real. 2) They can touch you if they're determined enough. 3) They will live with you for months and not pay rent, but reap all the benefits. A/N: Thanks for everyone that read part one. It would be super encouraging if people who read my story actually reblogged/commented on it, as it's hard to gauge what I could improve on or add more of without feedback.

[PART I] | [PART III] | [Masterlist]

--

The year was 2002.

He'd just moved to the city from England, eager to make his mark in the US with his band, Crimson Zombie. It was a shit name, admittedly--they had a plan to work on it. They'd heard from friends of friends that there was a bubbling underground music scene, and a couple of pretty damn good venues with well-known patrons. They were a group of four incredibly over-eager Uni dropouts who jumped first and asked questions later. The housing market wasn't too bad, considering the fact that everyone was trying to get the hell out of the downtown area after 2001. They had to couch surf for a couple of weeks before finding a space they could all live in on a budget. It wasn't much, but it was something.

He wasn't the lead of the band, a fact he was perfectly content with. He preferred standing in the back with his bass guitar, getting lost in the noise of the crowd and the melody without the pressure of looking perfect while he did it. That responsibility was left to his best mate Gavin, who had the looks, charisma, and talent as the frontman to make the band memorable in a sea of guitar playing white guys.

It took six months for them to gain a small following. And as they transitioned into the new year, they began getting a ton of attention they hadn't expected. Maybe it was the novelty of their Britishness. Maybe they were finding their sound. By the winter of 2003, they were well on their way to signing with an indie label and finally releasing a record.

That's when he met Talia.

Aaron was genuinely surprised when she initially approached him at a gig, since Gavin was usually the one women flocked to, the other guys were way more outgoing, and Aaron was more reserved. She was fresh out of college and working at a coffee shop, but making art on the side. The band tapped her to design their EP covers and merch, and then gave her a cut of the profits. Aaron and Talia grew closer after a few late nights of brainstorming and no-strings-attached fucking. He was beginning to catch feelings, and began to notice the growing animosity Gavin had towards their relationship.

"You don't fall for the groupies," he once said over a bottle of Jameson, "You're fucking mad if you think you'll survive touring. She'll cheat on you the minute your back is turned."

Aaron defended her which led to a shouting match. Gavin didn't speak to him for over a week, but he didn't care. He just knew that he loved her.

It was an unseasonably warm night in March when he plucked up the courage to finally ask Talia to be his girlfriend. They'd just finished an opening set at a sold out show, and were celebrating in their apartment with booze and some assorted party favors the other band mates called in. Ordinarily, Aaron would be right alongside them. But that night, he'd been nervously chain smoking out the living room window as he waited for her to come to the party after her shift at the shop.

He remembered Gavin giving him the cold shoulder all night, and snorting every last bag of coke off of their coffee table well into the evening. He remembered their band mates telling him to slow down before he OD'd. Aaron could hear them arguing from the kitchen, but he kept his eyes trained on Talia's silhouette crossing the street to their apartment building. The arguing moved into the living room. Aaron was about to call down to her from the window. There was a shout, a shove, immense pain in his head.

And then he died.

-x-

"JESUS FUCK!" You screamed, jumping out of bed and rushing to the door. With shaking hands, you managed to pull your front door open and scream out into the hallway, "SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!"

Then you ran out, clad only in your pajamas and a pair of fuzzy socks.

He sat frozen on the bed, completely unsure of what to do or say to right the situation. From your perspective, a random man just showed up in your apartment and started touching your hair. Admittedly, he was being creepy. He couldn't blame you for being afraid. But he didn't know how to tell you that you were about to look absolutely insane for your accusation. When he came back to his senses, he found himself cradling the hand that touched you. Like it was sacred. It might as well have been.

In your haste to escape the danger of a dead guy, you left your front door wide open. For a moment he contemplated closing it--if he had the strength to anyway. But then he decided that it'd be better to just leave it alone in case you returned.

And you did! Eventually. It took several minutes for you to come back with your neighbors and the building's security guard in tow. He felt immediate guilt when confusion crossed everyone's face, as they peeked around the corner and saw no one there. But you stared right at him with fear etched onto your features. You parted your lips to speak, but nothing came out but a slow shuddering breath.

"They can't see me," he admitted, holding up his hands in an attempt at reassurance, "They can't hear me. It's just you...for some reason."

"No, no, no this can't be fucking happening." He heard you mutter to yourself, holding your head in your hands and turning your back to him. Your neighbors flurried around you to ask you questions about whether you wanted to file a report, and what the perp looked like. Several minutes of babbling passed, and you disappeared into the hallway again, closing the door tightly behind you without passing another glance his way.

It was odd. For the most part he couldn't really recognize anyone, and he was hit with the realization that everyone he knew from the building probably moved away. The feeling of the world moving on without him was still something he had trouble accepting.

Despite the initial shock of being seen, Aaron decided to play it cool. He felt around for his one loose cig that never seemed to disappear, no matter how many times he smoked it. He couldn't taste or smell a goddamn thing, but the fact that he died with one last cigarette in his pocket gave him an ounce of hollow comfort.

"Okay," he sighed to himself, propping his chin in his hand and tucking his cigarette behind his ear, "So...assuming she doesn't immediately move out, I need to figure out a way to explain this to her."

He snorted. He could barely explain this phenomenon to himself, let alone a living woman he's been mildly enamored with for months. He became hyper aware of the fact that the tingling in his hand disappeared after you left, and he wasn't sure if he missed you because of it. Or maybe he just missed you because he could finally talk to you and had so many questions to ask.

In fact, this was the first time he'd spoken to anyone. He instinctively grabbed the phantom cigarette and lit it with the phantom lighter, choosing to enjoy the illusion of relief it brought him.

Would you smell it? You smoked, too, but only rarely. And never cigs. Could you smell his smoke this whole time?

If you could, he decided he was a massive dick.

It was approaching dawn when you returned, and his heart leapt into his throat. Like he was an eager dog awaiting his owner.

Disgusting.

He had to remind himself that he knew you, but you knew nothing about him. Instead, he remained silent, choosing to stand close to the living room window far across the room. Your eyes met, and he noticed that you didn't look so afraid anymore. Instead, he noticed the exhaustion. He had to fight the impulse to voice his concern.

"You don't look so good," he plainly said, scratching the back of his head, anxiously.

You licked your lips and squinted at him, shutting the door behind you.

"You and I need to talk."

You explained to him that you spent hours speaking to your grandmother to make sense of things. You weren't a stranger to the supernatural--your family was full of spiritually sensitive people. But you were convinced that it skipped you. That you wouldn't ever have to deal with the craziness that seemed to follow every woman in your family. Yet here you were, sitting at your dining room table across from a guy who died in your apartment. Despite the slightly nervous nature of his demeanor, you were surprised at the level of calm you were both exuding.

He tucked his cigarette between his teeth and you clocked how unnaturally bright it was, and how slow it burned. You could faintly smell it. But it smelled like someone was smoking in a room down the hall, not right across from you.

You took a deep breath and he licked his lips.

"Ok...what do you wanna know?" He asked, resting his chin on the table.

You didn't expect him to seem so real. So human.

"Do you know you're dead?" You asked. It was a dumb ass question, but he smiled patiently at you and shrugged.

"Yeah. I kinda figured that when I couldn't leave out of the front door anymore. For like a few years."

You swallowed hard at the intensity of his eyes on you and looked down at your hands.

"Have you been watching me this whole time?"

There was a pregnant pause and he hummed to himself.

"I didn't...mean to," he admitted, "But, as you can see, there's not much room in here to avoid you."

"Avoid me?"

He shook his head, "I wasn't trying to get in your way. I was just...here. Can't really be helped, you know? What was I supposed to do?"

You considered this for a moment, then thought back on the conversation that you had with your grandmother a few hours before.

"Why are you still here? Why didn't you move on to the other side?"

He shrugged again, choosing to ruffle his curls in thought. "Fuck if I know. I might be dead but I don't know anything about death and spirits and shit. I was just...a guy. I had a band. I hate being stuck here--or, I used to anyway," his eyes flickered to you for a moment before focusing on the table again, "I just thought I was being punished or something."

The entire time you spoke to him, you had your cell phone on the table recording the conversation. You hoped that it was catching his voice as well as yours, but it was an absolute shot in the dark.

"Punished for what?" You gently pushed.

"Beats me. I was pretty boring when I was alive." His eyes glanced up at you again, but he didn't look away. Instead a slow smile pulled at the corner of his mouth and you felt your face warm up.

"What?"

"Nothing," he chuckled, "It's just nice to have someone to talk to."

You didn't even think about that: How lonely the last few decades must have been before you moved in. How much he missed before he even hit 30. How angry he must have been about his situation.

You sighed deeply, "Do you know what year it is?"

"2022." He stated, plainly. You were surprised.

"How do you know?"

He motioned to the window, referencing a billboard propped on the roof of a building across the street. At the moment, it had a fading image of a thin, blonde woman modeling a pair of very expensive pink stilettos, with a bottle of perfume propped on the heel.

"The time and date are at the bottom," he explained, "I think that's the only thing that's been stopping me from going mad. That, and being able to see life happen outside on the street. That's about it."

You sat in that for a moment, allowing you both to indulge in the comfort of new company and much needed silence. You kept noticing him stealing glances at you, like he was studying your face. You briefly wondered how often he did that before you noticed him.

"Why were you touching me? HOW were you touching me?" You suddenly questioned. He blinked rapidly like he was being pulled out of his own deep thoughts, and you could swear that you saw a blush creep along his cheeks. He cleared his throat.

"It--I...didn't, like--I wasn't really TRYING to touch you. Like, I-I thought...I don't know what the fuck I thought, really."

You blinked at him, but couldn't help the chiding grin that formed on your face by how flustered you seemed to make him, "You know I find that hard to believe, right?"

He blushed a deeper red and rubbed the back of his head again, "I've never been able to do that before. Bloody fuckin' hell, I'm sorry. I promise I wasn't...I'm not a creep. I swear I'm not. I just--fuck me."

You quirked a brow at him, but remained silent as his wide blue eyes seemed to exude a mild panic. He deserved it, since he apparently watched you for months without you knowing. Though you understood that some of it couldn't really be helped, you still wanted to make him squirm a bit.

You should've been madder. Maybe. But taking into account how sweet and anxious he was made you a little more lenient.

It took a moment for him to catch on to the fact that you weren't that angry, and he squinted at you, which made you giggle.

"Are you fucking with me?" He asked with a slight sigh of relief.

You scrunched up your nose at him.

"A smidge. But you and I both know that you deserve it."

As the conversation progressed, the sun began to peek through your window, letting you know that you'd been speaking for hours. Of course, you were exhausted. He obviously didn't need sleep. But concern crossed his features as you rubbed your tired eyes.

"You should get some rest," he said, propping his chin in his hand to watch you carefully, "You've had a long day."

Though you shook your head, you yawned, earning a laugh from Aaron.

"I think you're in denial," he said, standing from the dining room table, "C'mon. Get to bed. I'll be here when you wake up, obviously." He crossed his arms over his chest, and you were suddenly aware of how muscular he was. Or maybe your sleep deprived mind was playing tricks on you. Either way, you blinked your tired eyes slowly at him and pursed your lips.

"Fine, you win, I'll take my ass to bed."

As you dragged your feet across your living room, and collapsed face first into your pillow, a thought occurred to you which had you prop yourself up on your elbows to speak to him.

"I just realized that I asked you 1000 questions, but I never really gave you the chance to ask me anything." You yawned again and rested your head on your folded arms, "You get one question from me before I pass out for good."

At first, you thought he'd reject the offer. He seemed reluctant to ask of anything from you. But then he shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking of what to say.

"Can you look up something for me on your cell phone?"

He sat beside you on the bed--an eerie experience, considering you couldn't really FEEL him there, though he looked just as real as a normal, living person. As Aaron peeked over your shoulder at your phone screen, his eyes widened in wonder.

"Well shit, that's--wow," he ran his fingers through his hair, "So you just touch the screen part? Like, there's no buttons? At all?"

"Not really."

He whistled, "This is like some Space Odyssey shit."

You were charmed by his enthusiasm and made a note of his nerdiness for a later date.

You typed the name out in google.

As the results showed up, you watched from the corner of your eye as Aaron's jaw worked. A few pictures popped up of the man he knew on stage singing to a massive crowd in Leeds, on a red carpet beside a beautiful, pregnant dark haired woman with sleeve tattoos, and a portrait of him from when he was a teenager.

Gavin Kensington Roth was an English singer-songwriter, producer, and musician who was the lead singer of the band MARCOS.

Born: May 8, 1980 Died: December 31, 2018 Children: Daisy Kensington Roth, Lola Kensington Roth, Brody Kensington Roth Spouse: Natalia "Talia" Jade Kensington Roth (2004-2018)

Before you could finish reading the results, Aaron shot up from the bed, and disappeared into the void.

#jaelle writes #aaron taylor johnson #atj x black!reader #aaron taylor johnson x reader #aaron taylor johnson x black!reader

[malibudarby87]

How To Bury Your Love - short story

#Content Warning for spooky stuff and mild body horror#

I recognise Xander the way I would a wax figure. An uncanny approximation of my friend standing in my kitchen, familiar in ways both unnerving and kindly. He is Canadian by catabolism now. His long British vowels drowned in maple; the sharp gravel of his bass notes softened to a pine-fire purr. Even the mass of him, his imposing granite shape, square shouldered and reaching the height of the doorframe, is softened at the edges. Smooth and autumnal, with an un-English gentility.

He is back for the winter, he tells me, and leans in for a hug. His body is a thick, rustic object, made for labour, but his eyes show the softness that kept him indoors; molasses brown with a ring of cinder toffee, cracked and dispersed into the surrounding syrup. Raised eyebrows and the flash of a canine in his smile as he pulls me into him. Skin prickles at the warm-stone kiss on my cheek, campfire and salt on his collar as I breathe him in, and something else. A dryness like mould on bread that catches in the back of my throat.

I raise my arms and hold him firmly, unsure for the first time in my life of his solidity. I press the flesh of my cheek into the buttons of his coat and my fingers find warmth beneath the green corduroy and I know, inflexibly that he is here in my kitchen, holding me. The evidence of his hands, large and square like paws on my neck and lower back, and the soft purr of his comforting coo that vibrates in my hair, is unshakable against the equally inflexible truth that Xander Hollinsworth – my best friend and great unrequited love of my life – had died a week prior.

I step back from the hug and begin to ask him how he got in, appearing as he did seemingly from nowhere in the doorway of my galley kitchen as I absentmindedly finished making two cups of tea instead of one. As if some part of me expected this strange company. An odd behaviour made odder by the knowledge that I don’t get much company – undead or otherwise – anymore.

He waits for me to finish, one eyebrow cocked in anticipation, but the words stick in my throat and instead I turn my gaze to the counter. I stare at it for a while before quietly handing him the prophetic second mug of sweet, milky tea.

‘Cheers, darling,’he says, and my chest blossoms.

In the past, my friends in the know had scolded me for letting him call me that. Tutted their tongues and shaken their heads when I explained how it made me feel like a wildflower shrapnel bomb had exploded in my gut whenever he called me darling, or sweetheart, or handsome.

‘He’s leading you on. And what’s worse, you’re encouraging it,’ they would say, exhausted by the repetitive, futile explanation, like the tired owner of a dog that won’t stop pissing on the rug. ‘It’s not healthy. He’s never gonna fuck you, Ben.’

I would agree with them, only in part to keep them quiet but also firm in the knowledge that they were right. Then later, in the proximity of him and his all-encompassing solidity, all such pretences would be shed, and I would go out of my way to be dutiful and attentive enough to illicit those words.

When he announced his permanent departure to Canada, more than four years ago now, there were some among my friends who couldn’t contain their glee at being proven right. He was never going to fuck me, and now he’d be too far away for me to keep pretending like he would. This, for reasons I could never quite explain, would not be the case. My imagination, despite my own protestations, knew no obstacle it couldn’t overcome, and I pined and hoped harder in his absence than I ever did in his presence.

Weeks turned to months and years, and I still held out a childish hope that he would one day return and sweep me off my feet and we would fall madly in love somewhere with green mountains and caramel doughnuts; the scent of sandalwood and acoustic guitar following wherever we went. This was not – as I was reminded for a time until my friend’s patience depleted – a healthy way of being for a thirty-three-year-old man.

There is a significant part of me, standing in the kitchen, watching my dead but not dead friend sip his tea in awkward silence, that feels a grim smugness at being proven right.

Conversation is stilted as I ask awkwardly how his journey was and he laughs dryly. I join in the laugh after a few moments of quiet shock, shaking my head as I try to rationalize the situation. Xander is dead. He is also in my kitchen, swirling the dregs of his tea in a Starbucks Pumkin mug, and shooting me glances with those molasses eyes of his. Both things are true. I decide that to examine things much further is a waste of sanity, and lead him to the living room to sit on the sofa.

The silence here is gentler. A warm, familiar thing that was always easy to come by between us. We could sit for hours in each other’s company, never saying a word. I would sometimes, as I did now, count the freckles on his neck, imagining constellations in the flecks of brown, and he would, as he did now, pull my legs onto his lap and make cat-like biscuits on my calves in a feeble half-massage.

As I chart high-sailed ships and bears swiping at salmon and juggling jesters, I notice the skin between the freckles is paler than I remember, with a shimmer of oyster shell like spoiling ham. I hear the tendons of his fingers, mashing into the flesh of my calves, crack, and grind like stones in sausage casing. I choose to ignore these things, for now.

+

I don’t remember how we met. We seemed just there, in the periphery of each other’s lives. Planets in the same system. Friends of friends of friends. Over the years the Venn diagrams swelled and contracted, twisting in a spirograph pattern until we became our own little circle in the middle of the page.

I do remember, however, the moment I fell in love with him. It came long before our planets fully collided; long before we were the one person the other would call in a crisis. I suppose there was a perversity in me allowing us to grow so close in friendship, knowing what I did.

It was the week before my Birthday, not one of the big ones, and I had been a sulking child for the better part of a month. I hate Birthdays, specifically my own, and had been oscillating wildly between not wanting to bring it up for fear of anyone making a big deal of it, and wanting to tell everyone so I could demand they didn’t.

I’d just finished work, an evening shift at a massive arts and crafts store. I walked to the bus stop in a grim silence, rubbing at the knots in my shoulders, and didn’t even notice him until we were separated by a mere few feet. He stood by the bus stop bench, just under the shelter. The structure was dwarfed by him. His height, his breadth. The measure of him made everything around him look so small. But it wasn’t just his size. It was something else. A weight of being. The world was smaller for him being in it.

He held a golden balloon decorated with white smiley faces in one hand, his other behind his back. A dopey grin spread across his bearded face, flash of white in the dull glow of the streetlights, and I couldn’t help but smile in response.

He started singing Happy Birthday. Loudly. Voice like coffee grounds and whiskey. I cringed, eyes rolling. I turned on my heel and started to walk in the other direction. He rushed to follow, feet dancing on the pavement, balloon bouncing against his wrist as he continued his song. Hot breath on my cold ear. I started laughing, calling him a dickhead and swatting at the balloon when it flew too close to my face.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, slowing to a stop as he circled me. He didn’t answer until he’d finished the song, ending with a bow and a flourish, revealing a gift-wrapped rectangle in his free hand.

‘Happy Birthday, Ben.’

‘It’s not my bloody Birthday, Xander,’ I said, taking the present and the balloon offered to me. I felt foolish, stood on the pavement of an industrial estate, clutching childish party favours.

‘I know,’ he said, pulling a menthol from a half-crushed packet and lighting up. ‘But, I’ve heard you don’t like to celebrate your Birthday.’

‘I really don’t,’ I said, breathing in the smoke as it drifted towards me.

‘Well, that’s a problem for me. Because I always have to make a big deal about my friend’s Birthdays. It’s a sickness. I’m a sick man, Ben.’ He paced the narrow pavement back and forth in front of me, gesturing like Columbo giving his final thoughts. ‘So, if we celebrate it today, when it’s not your Birthday, I get to fulfil this admittedly selfish, irrepressible need I have, and you can’t be mad about it.’

‘Oh, I can’t?’ I asked, with as much impunity as I could muster through a smile.

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head grimly. ‘It would be completely unreasonable of you. And rude. And possibly homophobic? I’m not sure, but just come with me for one drink, which I will buy, and we won’t have to speak about your day-of-birth again. For exactly one calendar year.’

I laughed, tapping the present against my thigh, and weighing up his disturbed logic.

‘One drink,’ he pleaded, eyes catching jewels of amber from the streetlamps. ‘And you have to be very pleased with the present or I’ll cry. It’s a copy of Frankenstein. One of the posh ones. The book is posh, not the monster. Or the Doctor. Scientist? Creator.’

That was the moment. Him stumbling over his words in the middle of nowhere, in the dusk of an unremarkable day in April, pleading for me to celebrate my existence solely for his benefit.

+

He asks me how I’ve been since we last spoke. It’s been a little over a fortnight since our last call. A week before I heard the news. He’d said ‘Love you, buddy. See you soon.’

I look around the room, at the collection of coffee and tea mugs, two dozen strong; the Pot Noodles with forks still embedded in the crusted remains; torn scraps of brown envelopes, notes and numbers scribbled, languidly. Pen strokes dragging across the paper. Details for his funeral in Canada that I couldn’t afford to attend. An appointment date for free grief counselling.

‘Stupid question, I guess,’ he says, and I’ve missed his smile so much. I’d thought about it often the past week. Imagining it in my mind. Picturing the way his mouth pulls up unevenly, higher on the left side. One rogue canine sliding out from his under his upper lip. I’d gotten it almost perfectly in my memory, though his lips are darker at the corners than I remember. An aubergine purple, almost fading to black.

‘You need to look after yourself better,’ he says, drumming an arrhythmic beat on my shins. If he knows he’s dead, he hasn’t yet mentioned it. ‘Honestly, I go away for a few years, and you really let yourself go. Hideous.’

It takes me a moment to realise he’s joking. His voice is flatter than I remember, the edges round and indistinct.

I wonder why I’m not scared. Shocked, yes, but searching my body I find no trace of fear. Even the shock is a dull emotion, tempered by the nearness of him. The weight of his forearms resting on me. The sound of his breathing. I’m crying. Not a hysterical thing. Tears, thick and heavy roll down my cheeks and collect in the scruff of two-week stubble.

I pull myself closer to him across the couch. My hands moving under his jacket to grab at him hungrily. Xander yields and shrugs himself free from the extra layer. He shushes me gently, stroking my neck and thumbing at the dampness in the corners of my eyes, but does nothing to stop my grasping.

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ he whispers.

I push my face into his chest, breathing him in. Fire and ash. Wood and leather. Dry mould.

‘Xander?’ I start. Unsure of where I’ll end. ‘Why? Why are you here?’

He holds me for a long time in silence. My salt tears dampening his chest hair and the ribbing of his shirt. Eventually, he answers.

‘I owed you that much, I think.’

He doesn’t elaborate, and he doesn’t need to. We both know what he means, in some way. ‘You don’t owe me shit, dickhead.’

Fingers firmly on my chin, he raises my head. Our eyes search for each other’s in the dim light. His dart rapidly, as if struggling to focus on mine. Carousels of brown and gold, flickering like tracking on a VHS. The edges are cloudy, like cigarette smoke.

I remember the last time we were this close, in this way. The electric anticipation of possibility that went unfulfilled.

‘Can I?’ he asks, barely more than a whisper. I should say no, or at least think further. But before I can find protestations, something slick and warm in my bones moves, and I shakily nod my response.

His lips touch mine and I crack open. A tectonic shift of plates under pressure, finally yielding after years of friction. I am split in two. In this moment we are both of us dead men. I know this like I know anything. How to breathe. The sound of thunder. Universal knowledge that lives in the blood.

I am certain that beyond this kiss, the man I was, who waited and craved, will be no more, and the man who knows a hunger sated will continue. This dead man doesn’t know which is more cursed.

Xander’s mouth tastes like curdling milk.

+

I was always terrible at flirting. I came out too young and learned too quickly to fear the violence of threatened masculinity, and so I never felt comfortable around men.

Well, most men.

Xander had an ease to him. An assurance in the way he carried himself. I’d watch him flirt and seduce, casually slipping from relaxed, friendly conversation to something more primal without a hint of fear.

I wasn’t even jealous, most of the time, but fascinated by an aptitude that seemed impossible to me.

I remember seeing him strike out only once, though I’m sure there must have been other times. It was less a miscalculation through incompetence and more the effects of mixing Tequila and Prosecco.

It was New Years Eve 2015, and we’d spent the night hopping around house parties in Nottingham before finding ourselves outside some tiny black-box gay club down by the canal. The entry price was more than either of us had left to spend, and Xander instead had the bright idea of seducing one of the door staff; a stout, burly bald guy with ginger stubble.

Xander dwarfed him, practically having to lean at the waist to speak into his ear over the din of whistles, fireworks, and general homosexual commotion.

I kept my distance, steadying myself on a safety railing, swapping between swigs of water and drags from one of Xander’s Superking menthols. I expected I’d soon be watching them make out by the river. I was wrong.

I didn’t hear what was said, but I saw the shove. This guy with the stubble, not much more than five feet tall caught Xander off balance. He tumbled onto the cobbles, rocking like a see-saw on his head before crumpling into immobility. It was a strangely morbid spectacle, but oddly impressive. Like watching a tower block fall while a lone resident waved from a balcony. It wasn’t a fight. One push and it was done.

I stood frozen, as if unable to process what I’d just seen. By the time I’d summoned the courage to walk over and help, Xander had somehow already charmed the guy into apologising.

Throwing out some apologies of my own, I promised to get Xander home and waved off the forming crowd. His weight on my shoulders as I walked him down the street was a beautiful burden. My cross and my cause in one drunken package, slurring nonsense into the cold air.

Later, we sat together further down the canal. Shoulder to shoulder with a greasy slice of pizza between us, feet dangling through the safety rails over the still water.

‘Don’t think either of us is getting lucky tonight,’ he said, wiping blood from his hairline with a balled up pizza napkin. I ignored his commentary and took the napkin, and gently tried to clean up the blood that he’d missed.

He smiled at me, glassy eyed.

‘One of these days,’ he began. I could tell what was coming. Something that always happened when he was drunk, and horny with no one to shag.

‘Don’t say it,’ I said, wanting him very much to say it.

‘No, shut up,’ he said, grabbing my wrist and looking me dead in the eyes as though delivering some important speech. ‘Ben. Ben, one of these days, I am going to ruin our friendship so hard.’

‘Shut up, you’re drunk!’ I laughed, pulling away.

‘So hard! I’m gonna-‘ his voice dropped to a pantomime whisper. ‘I’m gonna do things. To you. Weird shit. Like, crazy animal shit. We’ll never speak again, and you’ll hate me, but it’ll be so good.’

‘You’re an idiot, Xan,’ I said, pulling him to his feet and he wrapped me into a hug.

‘One day, handsome,’ his voice, hot and wet in my ear. Thick and sour with alcohol. ‘One day.’

+

We don’t mention the kiss. We settle back into our comfortable silence, his hand stroking my head as I curl into a ball in his lap. The motion of his hand feels stunted. Mechanical. His fingertips are cold

‘Now what?’ I finally ask. The tears have stopped now. I can still taste him on my lips. Sweet and sour.

‘No idea, handsome,’ he says with a soft chuckle. He makes a strange sound that might be a yawn. I hear something snap as he does.

For the first time since his return, I’m scared. A cold, weightless fear that lives at the base of my spine and swims in circles.

I wait for the night to turn black. Then a little longer. Finally, I suggest getting some rest and reluctantly climb off of him. As he stands his bones and flesh crinkle and crack beneath his clothes. A cruel percussion that makes me wince. He cracks his knuckles and one of his fingers splinters like a cinnamon stick. Neither of us mention it, but he gives an apologetic smile and strokes my face with his remaining solid hand. I don’t even flinch at the cold.

‘Lead the way,’ he says, and I take him by the hand, across the hall into my room.

I haven’t slept in my bed in two days, curling on the sofa instead; sleeping with a mindless drone of YouTube playlists of our favourite bands for white noise. I’d forgotten the state I’d left it in.

Xander walks around me, beelining for the bed and the pathetic shrine I’d been sleeping in since his first death. Pictures of the two of us; the copy of Frankenstein, the gold leaf embossing almost entirely worn away; the wrapping paper it came in, unfolded and refolded a thousand times; postcards, letters, Birthday cards, and gift tags. A littering of desperation.

He smiles as he brushes his fingers across them one by one. I wonder what this must be like for him. His expression gives away nothing. He looks tired.

We clear the bed and undress. His feet and hands are blue now, pearlescent and shiny, with thick grey veins visible up to his knees and elbows. When he’s done he helps me peel of my last layers. Somehow still delicate with hands of stone.

We lay down and pull up the blankets. I curl instinctively into him, my feet finding place behind his knees and my hands snaking beneath his shoulders. It feels natural. A slotting of bodies that makes a strange sense, and I imagine a world in which we did this every day.

The cruelty of it pulls me back into the present moment.

As if sensing my mistake, he pulls me closer. Stone-lipped kisses on my forehead. I stroke his back and a piece of him falls away.

The fear snakes its way up my back and I know I’m not ready for what’s to come. I wish that pieces of myself would crumble. I wish that we could turn to dust together.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. His voice sounds distant, and hollow. Bouncing off the insides of him.

‘Don’t apologise. Don’t you dare fucking apologise.’ I whisper into his chest, stock still so as to not break him further.

His breaths grow quick and rough. A rumble of quiet thunder that feels like a lullaby.

+

‘Don’t apologise,’ I’d said to him, staring at the nauseating shapes on the carpet of the cinema lobby. Xander had just told me his latest trip to Canada would be permanent. He’d taken me to a Halloween horror night at the Odeon to soften the blow, and it ended with me crying into the dregs of a bucket of popcorn, skeleton facepaint smeared into a lopsided rorschach.

He hadn’t been able to look me in the eye since he told me. He was standing by the window. He never sat when he was nervous.

The sounds of the busy lobby buzzed around me. They droned, distant and muffled, as if underwater, and for a moment I imagined I was drowning.

‘Say something, handsome,’ he said. He was keeping his distance. I wanted to ask him to come hold me, but I was afraid he’d think me weak. I was afraid he’d think I was manipulating him to stay.

God how part of me wanted to manipulate him to stay.

A bigger part of me knew I couldn’t, and that hurt somehow more than the knowledge that he’d be gone.

‘I’m happy for you,’ I said. And it was true enough. ‘I’m gonna fucking miss you, Xan. Really fucking miss you. But I am happy for you.’

I forced a smile. He was crying. I stood and it felt like the world was off its axis. I stumbled and he grabbed me. He held me. The solidity of him righted the globe. Soon that would be gone.

‘It won’t be forever,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back.’

+

I open my eyes and he is still. The world expands.

I must have fallen asleep, and for a moment I fear that I’d imagined it all. But he’s still here, in my bed. Pieces of him. Solid, but broken. His hands still hold me, unattached to his wrists. Cold stone fingers gripping me tight enough to bruise.

I whisper his name in the darkness, knowing there will be no response from his fractured face. His mouth and nose have rolled off the pillow. One eye, set solidly in place in a petrified lid stares at me sightlessly. No molasses. No cinder toffee. The sweetness of him a memory.

I leave him there in my bed for too long. Resting next to him each night, stroking at the remains of him until he turns to smooth edged stones that glitter like snow and smell of fire and mould.

When the spring comes, I sweep up the jewels of the man that I love, and bury him in a ring of stone. I water the soil until wildflowers grow.

#lgbtq writer #queer writers #lgbt fiction #short story #gay fiction #horror fiction

[lover-boy-june]

Here have this

Winter Dewdrop Cuddles

I felt the small bonk of Dew headbutting me.

"What is it, Dew?" I turned, asking the fire ghoul who just glared at me.

"Cuddles. 's cold."

"And your own body heat isn't enough?" I raised an eyebrow. He hesitantly nodded. "Let me guess, it's lonely in your room?" At that, he nodded and hid his face.

"I-I understand if you don't want to... I know it's weird and you haven't done cuddle piles before, but I felt really lonely and I wanted to cuddle with someone," He spoke softly, obviously vulnerable.

I sighed and nodded. "Come on, Dewdrop. We'll go to my room. Do you want me to go get some more ghouls?" He shook his head, whispering that he only wanted me there. "So, you're feeling lonely, but don't wanna be overcrowded so you got the newbie. Got it."

We got to my room, and I felt him relax as I closed the door. My room had one of the big window walls, luckily the sun shined through when it was setting, which woke me up when I needed to. The rising moonlight shined in, creating a comforting atmosphere. I grabbed some extra pillows and blankets from the closet, setting them in the floor.

I pulled Dew into the big pile, and he adjusted himself. He moved so that he was laying on my chest, his arms wrapped around my torso. Swiss always talked about Dew's cuddles being top tier, and he was right. I covered us both with the blanket, rubbing his back as I stared out the window. The moon's light was bearable, so I was able to zone out and focus on Dew's breathing.

I listened intently on the chatter throughout the cathedral. The ghosts of past Papas arguing over what color was best, the rats in the walls, the other nocturnal ghouls discussing things like tour dates and all.

It was nights like these I liked best. No chores, no job to do, just a chill night. Dear Satan, winter is amazing.

Papa Emertius IV let's the ghouls have more time to themselves in the winter, knowing how the fire ghouls, especially Dew, couldn't stand the cold. I felt honored to have Dew laying on me now, since he was always distant with me.

I smelled the fain scent of weed, and knew that it was really gonna be a chill night.

I looked back out at the moon, my hands finding their way to Dew's hair.

The moon was my symbol. It was decided when, the first night I stayed here, I laid outside and watched the moon. I liked the history, the phases, and the current events that go on including the moon.

I looked down at Dewdrop, his purrs catching me off guard. I thought I was the only one who purred.

He was comfortable, that I knew. He snuggled into my chest, his purrs mixing with his soft snores. I ran my fingers through his hair, looking up and closing my eyes.

My mom would be so fuckin disappointed in me, but I don't care. I did what I loved, and got rewarded for it. I sang my heart out that audition night, and I expected to be rejected, but they loved it. They loved how my voice mixed with the Papa's, and that led to me joining the band as a backup singer, acoustic player, and backup bass player. I love this place and the people here. I love my new life, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Why leave when I get to have night like these? When I get to be open with others? Sure, I'm 18 and the youngest member, but they don't treat me that way. They treat me like I'm older, and I want that. I don't want to be treated like a child.

"Spark? Buddy, you there...?" Dew's groggy voice snapped me out of my trance.

"Yeah, sorry. Zoned out. What's wrong?" I looked at him, tilting my head to the side.

"Nothin man. Just realized nobody's actually chosen to cuddle with you before. So, I wanted to be the first to say it," He looked up at me. "You're really fuckin comfy, man."

"Thanks Dew. 's nice to finally hear it."

#the band ghost #random writting #dewdrop ghoul #nameless ghouls #oc ghost #oc

[memories-beneath-the-skin]

Does ice fishing give you the same vibe as fishing in the summer?

I've been fishing but nothing special and not in winter

If fishing for you is nothing special and lackluster I promise you that you'll hate ice fishing. Just the way the question is asked leads me to this.

Here is the secret to fishing (all tumblr world perks ears) it's about catching fish... But... It's not about catching fish.

Whether you sit in a lawn chair or on a boat it's about the nature.

It's the view and the wind, the trees and the sky, it's the ability to be in it.... Now...maybe some only fish in busy, highways of water... Then yes it's a job or chore.

I am blessed to have about 20 lakes and 3 rivers within an hour of me. I have places no phone reception, no car noise, no houses on the lake, you feel pulled out of time. THAT'S why I fish. Now.... When you have a Mepp 5 on and a bass slams it deep from below, the water explodes and this dude fights with all it's fury.... It's addictive as fuck, your heart pounds, it never gets old feeling a fish hook on.

To be clear unless the fish is wounded, I catch and release.

Fishing isn't putting rod in and instant fish. Ice fishing is slowed down by a billion... But.... It's about getting out, getting together, snacks, chatting and yes... Bringing up a fish and releasing.

#asked and answered #anons welcome

[adelaidedrubman]

wip woo an hour left of wednesday 

i was tagged by @socially-awkward-skeleton @wrathfulrook @inafieldofdaisies and @direwombat to share for wip day! sending tags out to @henbased @unholymilf @florbelles @ishwaris @shallow-gravy @purplehairsecretlair @poetikat @harmonyowl @roofgeese @deputyash @schoute @confidentandgood @derelictheretic @afarcryfrommymain @trench-rot @voidika @sukoshimikan @josephslittledeputy @strafethesesinners @strangefable @corvosattano @v0idbuggy @jackiesarch @fourlittleseedlings and anyone else in the mood for sharing!

look. wildfire will get written. but right now it’s more hook, line, and sinker.

Skylar shook her head. “Jessie, you don’t even like Silver Lake,” she grumbled under her breath. “Ya always called it an ‘overcrowded, overrated tourist trap.’”

Jestiny felt a sharp stinging ripple behind her eyes, fury bubbling up in her throat — of course she liked Silver Lake. A person didn’t fish somewhere for nearly seven months straight and not even like it. She might even say she —

She slammed her fist against the table again, this time hard enough for ice cubes to clink against the glass of Sherri’s whiskey from the force. “In summer it’s an overcrowded, overrated tourist trap,” she ground out, sucking a breath in through her teeth. “In winter it’s the only fucking decent place to catch trout!” 

“It’s a big lake.” 

“Not big enough for the three of us!” 

“I’m not gonna stop fishing at the lake I run my own damn business at,” Sherri said, the slightest hints of a scowl beginning to furrow onto her face. 

“Oh, well!” Jessie cried, shooting up to her feet with a grating scrape of the legs of her chair against the hardwood. “I would fucking hate to crush your goddamn entrepreneurial spirit!”

The sarcastic exclamation was apparently loud enough to even draw the attention of the wasted asshole in the tacky duster, who finally fixed his unfocused gaze on her — but blessedly only increased the volume of his own manic rambling in response, eyes of the crowd turning their heads back towards him. 

“— because he can’t even stick a landing, by the way. Always veers to the —”

“Hell, I might as well give you the fuckin’ shirt off my back, huh?” she laughed, tugging at the collar of the graphic t-shirt bearing the outline of a bass splashing out of water beneath the slogan ‘My Fishing Line Isn’t The Only Thing I Get Wet.’ “Since I bought it at Can of Worms, too! Guess it’s all yours, now that it’s over!”

She actually thought she bought it the first day they — never mind that — she yanked the hem from beneath the waistband of her shorts to begin pulling it over her head. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jessie!” Skylar barked. “We did this in a public place because we were hoping it’d make you less likely to make a scene.”

“Oh, I —” she threw the shirt down onto the table, pressing fingertips against the worn polyester of the sports bra covering her chest in gesture to herself. “I’m making a scene?”

“Big fucking scene,” Sherri agreed. “You always make some kinda —”

“This is not a scene!” she interrupted, waving a hand over the table. “This —” She grunted, swinging her arm back to point towards the creep prattling on at the next table so loud she couldn’t hear herself think long enough to form a proper argument about why she should get exclusive use of Silver Lake. “That fucker is making a fucking scene!”

“— an absolute disgrace of a cockpit —”

“Hey, asshole!” she shouted over Skylar and Sherri’s heads. “I’m trying to have a calm fucking discussion with my girlfriends about fishing spots over here!”

“Ex-girl —”

“So could you shut the fuck up?” Jestiny demanded, stomping a foot down. “What’s your fucking problem?!”

Blue eyes locked onto her, this time properly, with something more than hazy, drunken focus — breathy, sputtering laughter following in their wake. 

“Problem?” he half-slurred in a rising huff. “Oh, no problem here.”

He stumbled a few steps forward towards her, until she could smell the stench of expensive liquor and cheap weed clinging to him, and feel the hot puffs of his laughter falling against her face as he leaned in with a clumsily sway. 

“In fact, I’m celebrating,” he hummed with the rise of his eyebrows — reaching forward into her space to grab her beer bottle off the table, raising it up in cheers. “I’m going to be a father,” he said as he brought the bottle to his lips to take a swig. 

#wip #this is fun & goofy to write but exploring jessie’s brand of repressed emotional volatility outside john/the reaping has been interesting #and look. do i think the nixed rye baby rumor would have made perfect sense in canon? maybe not. #is it funny to make part of this au where i’ve fucked up my own canon and timeline anyways? absolutely. #v: hook‚ line‚ and sinker

[suhnshinehaos]

treacherous : act two, part eight (2/2)

...a spin-off to crush culture ! synopsis : after a couple of instances of accidental matching clothing, yangyang finds himself in a dating rumor with possibly the most famous person on campus : yn, the bassist of an up and coming band. yangyang doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. unfortunately yn, who has also built up a reputation for being cold as winter, does. pairing : liu yangyang x gn!reader genre/s : university au, student council + band au, fluff, angst, humor

act one, part eight : campus lights wc : 1.2k

previous  ➤  act two, part eight (1/2) next  ➤  act two, part nine treacherous  ➤  masterlist 

yangyang ends the call, but you keep your eyes closed. you’ve developed a mantra of some sorts : inhale, count to three, exhale. rinse and repeat until you somehow manage to get your heart rate down.

but you hear it in the distance. the crowd’s cheers. the music blasting from the speakers. you expected the huge crowd; along with the homecoming festival, ncit’s campus lights is one of the university’s most popular traditions. being asked to perform, let alone headline, is an honor that only a select portion of the student body would actually experience.

maybe that’s where the pressure is coming from. or perhaps it was just the fact that you made the idiotic decision of going through twitter backstage.

[ we all know why dv hasn’t performed in so long ]

[ if the performance crashes and burns let’s just blame gy ]

[ dv are probably so out of practice for performing live ]

the words drill into your brain, one after the other. but you attempt to keep your breathing even, to keep your counting consistent. your fists clench and unclench themselves, taking a few more seconds to yourself.

you know you can’t stay away forever; you’d eventually have to go on stage to perform. you can’t let dejun, mark, and hendery down. they’ve been nothing but understanding and supportive of your hesitance to perform live, it’s time to repay the favor. you can’t let the student council down. they’ve placed so much trust in the band for asking them to perform on the one of the university’s biggest events.

you can’t let yangyang down, especially when he’s believed in you all this time. well, at least since he’s decided that he wanted to be your friend and meant it.

your eyes flutter open, the corner of your mouth twitching upwards into a ghost of a smile. how is he actually going to stall?

regardless, you couldn’t let him carry that burden alone. there’s only so many jokes and stories he can tell with shotaro and the crowd playing along. you take one final sharp intake of breath, shake off the nervousness that lingered in your limbs, and make your way backstage.

the first thing you see is your bandmates waiting for you, their eyes going wide when they finally catch sight of you. perhaps it’s just your imagination, but you think you see mark letting out a very heavy breath of relief.

“i’m sorry for leaving like that,” you don’t even meet their concerned gazes, eyes trained on your feet when you finally stand in front of them.

dejun smiles, gentle and reassuring, keeping his voice as soft as he can, “don’t worry about it. we knew you’d come back anyways.”

“exactly!” hendery nods enthusiastically, slinging an arm around your shoulders, “you ready?”

he shakes your shoulders lightly, forcing you to look up at him. you can’t help but chuckle, “yeah, i am.”

mark grins, handing you your jacket, “you left so quickly, you forgot to bring this. i’m surprised you didn’t freeze out there. thought i’d have to figure out how to play the bass and guitar at the same time.”

“shut up.” you roll your eyes but take the jacket nonetheless, shrugging hendery’s arm off your shoulders to put it on, “thanks.”

“you’re up next.” a stagehand approaches the four of you, letting you know that it’s almost time to take the stage.

you take a deep breath, your bandmates guiding you to wait in the wings with them. you watch as an ensemble of music majors make their way off the stage and yangyang and shotaro make their way to the middle of it.

“give it up for that wonderful quartet!” shotaro greets the crowd, the entire field of students drowining his voice in excited cheers.

yangyang places a hand over his heart, “wow. that was really heartwarming, right taro? i was actually about to cry from how beautiful that music was.”

“here, let me get that for you.” shotaro moves to wipe the non-existent tear that was rolling down yangyang’s cheek.

you join as the audience erupts in laughter. dejun nudges your side with his own, raising an eyebrow when you turn to look at him.

“don’t.” you mutter, shaking your head and bringing your attention back to the stage. for the briefest of seconds, yangyang’s eyes meet yours and you send him a quick smile, letting him know that he didn’t have to stall as much.

he nods to himself, turning to address the audience once again, “now our next act… where do i even begin with this next one?”

shotaro doesn’t miss the light pink flush that colored his friend’s cheeks, “the second we announced the date for campus lights, you guys would just not stop asking us about this particular band. lucky for us, yang over here is quite close to the members… right, yang?”

the audience erupts in cheers, knowing exactly who would be performing next. you feel your heart about to beat out of your chest.

“very lucky.” yangyang chuckles, “our next performer is one of the most talented, if not the most talented, groups in music right now. i know we’re all excited so i won’t keep you guys waiting. please, put your hands together for…”

“dejun, mark, gyeoul, and hendery… DREAMVISION!”

shotaro joins yangyang’s voice they practically scream in introducing the band, gesturing towards where the four of you were waiting by the stage. your heart skips the smallest of beats when you realize shotaro called you gyeoul in his introduction, but yangyang didn’t. he called you by your name. for the smallest of moments, your feet are glued to the ground beneath them and you can’t blame your nervousness in entirety.

yangyang and shotaro make their way the side of the stage just as the dejun, mark, and hendery make their way out.

just as you were about to follow them out, but your shoulder brushes against yangyang’s. he grabs your wrist, his touch soft and gentle.

“good luck.” he speaks lowly, in a voice just loud enough for you to hear, “if the crowd is too overwhelming, just find your way back to me. i’ll be right here.”

yangyang lets go of you, his words replaying in your mind until you reach your place.

however, it’s cut off by the crowd’s screams. the bright lights shine directly at your features and you grip at your instrument tighter. it takes a few seconds until your eyes adjust to the light and you finally see just how big the audience is.

your breath gets caught in the back of your throat, gaze frantically looking for something - anything - familiar. you find dejun sending you a reassuring smile as he grabs a hold of mic, mark sending you a thumbs up before taking a pick from his pocket, hendery giving you his brightest grin before raising his drumsticks. finally, you find yangyang in the side of the stage. he’s right next to shotaro, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

‘ you got this. ’

he mouths to you, just as hendery begins to count down, signalling the beginning of the set.

if they believed in you, everything is going to be okay. 

from reese, with love <3 ohhh my yangyeoul heart sighhh thank you sm for reading! id love to know what you think of this written part hehe hope you’re all doing well and taking care :))

#🌙 — treacherous! #wayv x reader #nct x reader #yangyang x reader #wayv imagines #wayv smau #wayv fluff #wayv scenarios #wayv series #nct imagines #nct smau #nct fluff #nct scenarios #nct series #yangyang imagines #yangyang fluff #yangyang smau