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fiber-optic-alligator · 18 hours

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Desperation vs. Domestication (Pt. 2)

Pairing: IDW Drift x Human Reader

WARNING: This story contains soft vore. If this makes you uncomfortable, please do not read this story.

Word Count: 4431

Summary: Though you have been lulled into a deep sense of security by Drift's kindness and comfort, you still haven't completely lost the need to be free. A terrible nightmare refuels your desire for escape...but Drift isn't someone who wants to let you go.

HEEHEEHEEHEE I REALLY WANTED TO WRITE A PART 2 OF THIS...so I did. It's because Drift is my all-time favorite Transformer and I absolutely LOVE putting my favorite characters through angst. If you enjoyed reading part 1, then I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Likes, comments, feedback, and reblogs are never expected, but always appreciated! Enjoy! :D

Here is the link to pt. 1 if you haven’t read it!

Two months later…

You dream of Earth tonight.

There are fields; you are standing in one. Long Bermuda grass tickles your ankles with the gentle presence of the planet recognizing its own. The endless green is splattered with occasional droplets of color: pink poppies, yellow sunflowers, marigolds, dandelions. It is warm. There is a slight wind blowing, playing with your hair. You turn your face towards the sunlight and bask in the relief of knowing you are home.

All of a sudden, you hear a sound. Thumping. Steady, rhythmic. Loud. You feel the wind die down and suddenly the sun is gone, and there is only darkness. A massive shadow blots out all of the light. You see a figure looming over you, red-and-white with bright blue eyes that stare into your soul and make you feel terror.

You try to run, but find you cannot move your legs. There is nothing you can do when you watch a giant hand reach down in slow motion and pluck you up, holding you between titanic fingers. The monster’s mouth opens, and then you are tumbling down, right into an abyss of metal and isolation. The Earth melts away forever. You are trapped. You are alone.

Shooting forward out of your nightmare, you hear yourself scream. The squishy floor underneath you makes you lose your footing when you scramble upward in a blind panic and fall into Drift’s stomach wall. Everything moves, the organ grumbling unhappily at you being awake. Your hands scramble at the mesh cables. Little pink bubbles of cybernetic blood pop anxiously beneath their semi-transparent surfaces. The walls close in to squeeze, holding you in a secure hug, attempting to keep you still. But you cannot think. You are scared, and you feel trapped, so you desperately begin to thrash and fight against the stomach.

Drift’s voice booms above you, panicked. “Little one? Little one?!”

“Let me go!” you shriek. “Please, letmegoletmegoletmego!”

The walls loosen up, freeing you. You collapse into the fetal position, gasping while sweat beads your brow and your heart goes crazy.

Drift presses his hands over his middle. “Little one, little one, shhhh, shh, shh, shh,” he hushes frantically. “Safe, safe…safe, all is safe...no need for fear…”

Gradually, you calm down. Only when you are no longer trembling does Drift tentatively begin to squeeze you again. In and out, slow kneading, like he’s silently coaxing you to continue breathing at a healthier pace. “Little one…okay?” he asks.

Your voice quivers. “I-I’m fine. I’m okay. It-It was a bad dream. A nightmare.” You sit upright and lean into the stomach wall. Drift holds you close, the undulating muscle relaxing you with its constant massage. His biolights pulse and flicker, a clear sign of his stress. You woke him up with your screams. It makes you feel bad, so you snuggle his cables further. The robot’s stomach is not a big place, but Drift likes to be conscious of you. The support you provide him in completing this task is obviously appreciated, because he hums softly and pats his hand over where you are.

There is peace again. Peace and warmth. But you don’t feel the usual safety. There is a lingering pit of dread growing deep within your gut, foul roots clawing their way through your body, leaving you jittery, uneased. Your nightmare is the first one in months, and it’s a sure sign things are not right.

It has been such a long time since you thought of your possible escape plan. You don’t know how long, but you do know that you can’t be comfortable here anymore. Your mind is sending the signals loud and clear.

No more stalling, you think to yourself. No more being complacent.

You are not domesticated yet.

When Drift lets you out of here…you will go through with the plan to take an escape pod home. For real this time.

It takes you weeks to perfect your plan. And when you do finally have it all figured out, you come to the conclusion that things may end up being more complicated than you thought. Escaping a spaceship filled with giant alien robots is hard enough, yes. But then there’s the issue of what will happen when you return to Earth. You don’t know how long you’ve been abducted. It could be months. It could be years. What if all of your family and friends are long gone by the time you get home? What if things are so different that you’ve been completely left behind?

No. You can’t think like that. A sharp patting to your cheeks snaps you out of it. Keep it together. This is the moment you have been waiting for. Regardless of what awaits you on Earth, you will be there to face it.

You’ve packed everything you own into a small fabric knapsack your mech gifted you during your first days here (Who knew robots are such good knitters?). It’s not much, not much at all: snacks Drift gives you, strange pellets that clean your teeth, three cans of filtered water…but that’s all you really require for the trip you are going to embark on. You don’t believe it will be particularly long. The escape pods need to have some sort of device that allows them to leap through lightyears to their destinations. You believe this because you’ve watched the mothership do it from the observation windows Drift likes to bring you to sometimes. Hyperspace will occasionally be activated, with stars and planets blurring together into dazzling white paint streaks before coming to an abrupt halt in a totally new galaxy.

Now, do you know how lightjumping works? Absolutely not. Last time you were on Earth, no such human technology had been invented yet. So you don’t exactly know how you’ll get the escape pod to lightjump like the ship does. But you’ll find a way. You have no choice.

Now for the hard part: getting away from Drift long enough to activate the escape pod and blast away. He’s not going to make it easy for you. Drift doesn’t like letting you out of his sight if you aren’t in his room, and hardly lets you roam free. You’ve spent hours, both within his stomach and out, pondering how to go about this. It’s left you with the agonizing decision that you’ll just have to wing it somehow.

The door to his room slides open. You’ve been sitting on his berth with your hands beneath your head and one leg crossed over the other, thinking, thinking, thinking, that at first you nearly didn’t hear him come in. You sit up to greet him with more eagerness than you’d like to show. The nightmare didn’t stop your affection for Drift from rearing its persistent head.

There’s no waiting for him to give you his time today. When he enters the room, his focus is immediately on you with no prior distractions. Drift walks with a spring in his step, his finials perking up like an enthusiastic dog. You notice a small white box he holds in one hand, and think nothing of it. Drift’s room is decorated with countless knickknacks from other planets. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s brought some strange little souvenir home.

“Hey, big guy,” you murmur happily when he kneels down before you. He settles the box to the side and cups both hands behind you, humming his typical car engine-purr greeting. You hug him when he draws you forth so he can nuzzle his nose into your middle. “I’m guessing you missed me?”

Drift beep-boops excitedly. He gives you an affectionate tickle to your side, causing you to giggle. Your reaction delights him. He keeps it up, and pretty soon you are laughing so hard your stomach hurts. “D-Drift, s-stop! I-I can’t breathe!”

He gives you one last light prod, then ends the bout of torture with more cuddles. You recover from the laughter, feeling airy and light like nothing else matters except for the giant robot holding you.

“Little one,” he coos. “My little one.”

“Mhm,” you mumble goodnaturedly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m yours.”

He suddenly looks like he’s remembered something very important, and he straightens, chirping rapidly. You watch as he grabs the white box and, to your surprise, presents it to you. You glance at it, then turn to him. “For me?” you ask, pointing at yourself.

He chirps again and nods.

You take it from him and open it with a slight air of confusion, because he’s never given you something like this before. You think it might be a piece of jewelry, or some sort of charm. But what you see inside is neither of those things. You suck in a sharp breath of pure disbelief and go numb.

It’s a collar. A damn collar. Sleek and narrow, its solid red with a single white stripe circumnavigating it. On one side is a strange symbol of a boxy red robot’s face-the same symbol he has on his chest. These are his colors, you realize. He’s making us match. He wants the other mechs to know that he owns you.

Drift rumbles expectantly. When you remain frozen, unable to pry your eyes away from the collar, he gently pries it out of your now slightly shaking hands. With extreme carefulness, he clasps it around your neck. It fits comfortably and locks with a quiet click.

“My little one,” he repeats. “Mine.”

He’s not trying to scare you. You know he isn’t. Yet your throat is dry, and the snug weight of the collar makes you feel sick.

You need to get the hell off of this ship.

You spend the night feverishly trying to break the collar off, working yourself up like a caged animal driven mad by captivity. But no matter how hard you yank at it, it remains stubbornly fast around your neck. You refuse to eat the food given to you and cry yourself to sleep within a very concerned Drift’s belly, who can’t seem to console you no matter how hard he tries.

Drift doesn’t know what to do with you.

You’ve been moping ever since he gave you the collar. Over the next few days, any sort of drive to escape has left you. You're depressed and disappointed in him for what he’s done. You don’t want to talk to him. You don’t want to accept any of his gifts. Blanket after pillow after plushie-all made by him, with the crude markings of homemade love-are ignored. You shy away from his touch and reject his attention. When he swallows you at night, you give him no inclination you care. You sit like a stone within him and just…stare off vacantly, unable to ignore the collar around your neck.

He’s brought you to the ship’s doctor multiple times. On the first trip, the old red medic bot looked you over and finished his checkup with a shrug and dismissive chuff. The second time, he growled at Drift and waved him away. And on the third time, he didn’t even let him through the door. There’s nothing physically wrong with you. But mentally, how could they know? How could he know he’s hurt you? You trusted him to treat you with some level of respect despite your situation, and he had, until now. The collar was your breaking point. There truly is no way for him to ever see you as anything more than a pet, and it hurts you, because by god, you love him.

“…Little one?”

Drift calls out to you with a soft, sad tone. You huddle up tighter beneath one of your blankets and give no answer.

You hear him shift at his desk. There’s silence between the two of you that is not wanted. He heaves a low sigh and tries again. “Little one…please?”

Damn your heart, you can’t keep giving him the silent treatment when he sounds like he’s about to cry.

You push the blanket off of your head. Drift slouches in his chair, back bent like an old man’s. His finials are drooping, and the glow from his biolights is dimmer than usual. He’s obviously been letting his personal hygiene go for the sake of finding a way to help you, and it hurts to know he’s in this state because of your shitty attitude towards what he simply sees as a gift. The collar is a curse, but you can’t exactly tell him that, can you? This entire situation is all your fault.

It's the treacherous part of your mind which attempts to convince you of this. It partially works. Giving in, you sit up slowly, drawing the blanket tightly around your shoulders and tilting your head while giving him a questioning look.

He’s surprised by your action, like he genuinely wasn’t expecting you to respond to this extent. But he takes advantage of it. Drift offers you a hopeful smile and picks something up from his desk. He stands and walks to you, going slow. You don’t flinch when he crouches down to your level. The warm light of his eyes leaves a kind feeling on your skin.

Tentatively, Drift extends his hand. In his palm is a piece of chocolate, one of the many treats he has at his disposal to provide you with when he feels you are being especially good. It’s an olive branch. A reach in the right direction.

You hesitate…and then you think, Oh, what the hell. Staying mad at Drift when he has no clue he’s done something wrong in the first place won’t get you anywhere. So you accept the candy and take a small bite.

He sags with relief, exhaust whooshing from his nose as he watches you eat with a smile. When you're finished, he moves his hand closer, twining the palm around you and resting the tips of his digits against your head and sides. You hold his index finger, resting your forehead against it and closing your eyes as a sign of trust. But you feel guilty.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, knowing he won’t understand. But you say it anyway. “I love you. I love you so, so much. But you're destroying me. I can’t stay here anymore.”

A tear slips down your cheek. You don’t notice it until Drift gently brushes it away.

“I have to go.” Your voice breaks. “I need to leave. I hope you’ll learn why. And I hope you won’t hate me for it. I-I don’t think I could handle it if you did. Please don’t hate me. Please don’t think I hated you.”

Drift coos. His reply is indecipherable. You think he’s trying to comfort you…but you’ll never know for sure.

He doesn’t swallow you tonight. You don’t know why; maybe he thinks you need a break. Maybe he just wants to hold you in a different fashion this time. You stay awake hours after he falls asleep, your little form nestled in the crook of his neck while he snoozes on his stomach with his arms crossed beneath his massive pillow. You peer off into the darkness, listening to his quiet breaths.

For the longest time, you’ve thought of this room as yours and his. A space the two of you share together. Ours. It's fed into your delusional ideations of a future in which the two of you learn each other’s languages, where you stand on equal ground, you belonging to him and him belonging to you. A future where mechs and humans join hands and say “I see you. I know you. I understand you and you understand me. Neither of us is higher than the other.”

But it will never happen. The collar around your neck is physical proof. There is no future between the two of you anymore. If you want to be you again…you need to let Drift go.

You shuffle away from the bot’s neck and stand. The only parts of him that are lit up right now are the red symbol on his chest and the soft blue of his mouth. He’s so peaceful. This giant alien, who you know has fought in many battles from the scars you can see, is soothed by your presence. You, an insignificant little human being. The dynamic is honestly quite hilarious. You're like his very own version of a chihuahua.

You want to hug his nose, knowing you will never have another chance again. But Drift is a light sleeper, and you're testing the waters enough already. You can’t risk it. It pains you, but you drop your arms and turn away.

Using the metal ladder he made for you so you’d have easy access to his berth, you climb down and grab your knapsack. Quietly padding across the long expanse of the room, you make it to the door. It senses your presence and slides open. You force yourself not to look back when you walk out.

You wonder if he will cry for you when he wakes up and finds you gone.

The spaceship is ominous at night. The only thing you can hear as you traverse the hallways is your heartbeat pulsing in your ears. You're trying to be quiet; passing by multiple rooms with slumbering bots inside has you holding your breath and then letting it out in a forcefully slow, reedy wheeze. You are, after all, a mouse in a prison filled with cats; slow and steady and silent wins the race.

You survey the elevator when you get to it, at a loss of how you’ll possibly find a way to operate it due to how small you are. A miracle finds its way to you, however, in the form of a mech. This one you don’t recognize. He has a similar color scheme to Drift, but is noticeably bulkier, with a strange cannon sitting on his right shoulder and a blue eyepiece over the adjacent optic. All of his focus is on the datapad in his hands as he summons the elevator. You wait for the doors to open and for him to step inside before darting after him. Luckily he doesn’t look up fonce on the short journey. Your cover remains unblown when the doors part again and he heads off. You go in the opposite direction, because like hell are you going to follow the strange robot to someplace where there are probably more strange robots.

You slip in and out of sight, staying far away from any mechs who are awake. They do not see you, which means you are doing this right-though there are some alarming instances where you think you’ll be caught. One such occurrence happens when a tall, thin blue mech with a chest like the front of a helicopter nearly sees you duck into an open storage room for quick cover. Its single orb ominously scans the darkened room. You watch from beneath a large shelving unit, terrified out of your mind. You don’t move, nor do you make a sound, keeping a shaking hand over your mouth.

Finally, after what feels like hours, the mech stomps away. You let your head fall forward respitefully.

You know you're nearing your one-way ticket to Earth when you see bright yellow signs plastered on the walls with loud black alien words telling you to hurry left with the help of large arrows. Escape pod symbols, accompanied by a funny little robot mascot, are the giveaway. You feel a sort of giddy euphoria swell up within you. You're almost there. You're going to escape. You're going to go home. It all seems far too good to be true; sure, you’ve imagined this scenario happening over and over again, but you never really did believe it would happen.

You pinch your arm multiple times just to make sure you aren’t dreaming. This is not in your head. This is happening. You really are going back to Earth.

Your collar suddenly vibrates. And then it starts to screech.

You nearly jump out of your own skin. The alarm is loud, piercing, and undeniably going to alert someone to your presence. You slam your fists against it multiple times, but it doesn’t let up. Your heart sinks when the realization of what's going on hits.

Shit. He put a tracker in it.

You need to run. You shove yourself forward into a full-on sprint, dashing down the last remainder of this hallway, then turning the corner and seeing the numerous escape pods all lined up in the wall. You choose the first one, grabbing the edge of the circular door and pulling with all of your might. The tendons in your neck strain as you grunt and slowly bring the door back with you. Clamoring in, you give it one last heave before it shuts on its own and seals you inside. You hear the lock click into place. The entire cabin flickers to life, with the lights on and the control panel booting up. As you expected, everything is far too big for you to reach. But it seems you won’t need to. A loud robotic voice emanates from the central console, speaking to you in the native mech language.

Your collar is still going off. You don’t have a lot of time.

“I-I can’t understand you!” you yell over the din. “I’m a human, from Earth! I speak English!”

The voice pauses. Seconds later, to your amazement, it talks, and you can understand. “Language notifications made. Destination updated. Scanning…” A panel on the ceiling pops open, and a blue light filters out, washing over you. “Scanning complete. Species: Homo Sapien. Homeworld: Earth. Milky Way Galaxy. Status: Critically endangered. Suggesting immediate travel to Earth.”

You clap your hands. “Yes! Yes, that’s it! Earth, set the destination to Earth!”

“Destination set. Awaiting command to launch LOST LIGHT LIFEPOD 01.”

You are about to give the order when something slams against the door. You whirl around, your heart stuttering when you see who’s there. It’s Drift. He’s made it. And he looks horrified. With trembling fingers, he yanks on the handle. When the pod remains fastly shut, he pounds on the circular window with so much force the entire thing shudders and you think he’s going to rip it right off of its hinges. “Little one!” he screams, voice muffled beyond the barrier of glass. “Little one! Open…!” The rest of the sentence comes out as sharp metal shrieks.

You stand there helplessly. The pod once again inquires for your command, yet you can’t find it within yourself to speak.

Drift is doing everything he can to get to you. He’s like a rabid beast, clawing at the window, teeth bared in visible frustration. His biolights are going mad when he roars and sends his whole body into the door. This time, it does give a little. You can see some dents in the gray metal.

This…is a side of Drift you have never seen. It is desperate, vicious. And it terrifies you. You stumble back to the opposite end of the pod and curl up, hugging your knapsack to your chest like a child squeezing their favorite stuffed animal. Drift continues his futile attack on the door, but pauses when he makes eye contact with you. His face falls. His fists relax and slide downward to press palm against the glass.

He’s quiet as he seems to reflect on how he just presented himself front of you, then whispers heartbrokenly. “...Sorry.” Tears stream down his cheeks. His hot vexation melts away and exposes his remorseful center. “Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Little one. Y/N.”

Oh my god.

All noise ceases when you register what he just said. Your name. He said your name. He’s never done that before. You didn’t think he knew your name.

He learned to say it. For you.

Drift whimpers like a kicked dog, moving to crouch lower. “Y/N. Y/N, please. Stay. Stay with me. Please don’t go. I love you.”

You’ve changed his life. You don’t need to be told this. You know you’ve brought him a sense of joy he hasn’t felt in years. You didn’t come here of your own free will. But you freely chose to love him. You gave yourself up and became his everything while he became yours. Isn’t he your home? Isn’t he the one who saved you? Can you really leave someone who cares about you so much?

Your legs move on their own accord. Your heart beats with his and you take tentative steps towards the door. Drift twitters and gives you an encouraging nod, gesturing for you to keep walking.

Why do you want to leave him so badly? Why would you want to throw away this perfect life?

Your little human hands come to rest right over his massive robotic ones. You two are separated, but you think you can feel the warmth coming from him. Drift bonks his forehead against the window anticipatingly. “Come on,” he whispers. “Come on. It’s…okay. You're okay. Please.”

Your hands are human. You will never see another pair again if you return to him.

Your life is not supposed to be perfect. A human’s life is messy, and disastrous, and chaotic, and beautiful. His life is too, but not in the same way as yours.

“Goodbye, Drift,” you murmur, voice breaking. “LOST LIGHT LIFEPOD 01…take me to Earth.”

The escape pods hums and rumbles. “Command accepted,” it announces. “Preparing ejection in three…two…one.”

The last thing you see and hear before the pod lurches forward and rockets out of its dock is Drift’s agonized expression and his wrenching wail.

Your vessel speeds away. You get a fantastic view of the ship in all of its stunning glory. It felt so gigantic when you were inside, but from out here, you can fully comprehend its overwhelming proportions. You watch it rapidly shrink as you gain distance from it, until it's just another speck of light in the universe. And when you can’t even see that anymore, you allow yourself to collapse against the floor eagles-spread. You gaze up at the ceiling, feeling surprisingly hollow. There is no victorious sense of triumph, no excitement to return home. You don’t even know where home is anymore. Somehow, after everything you’ve gone through, you’ve come out even more lost than you already were.

The waterworks start shortly after the escape pod jumps into hyperspace. Heaving sobs, messy tears, you lie there and weep to the stars, not noticing when your collar finally stops beeping.

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spencerreidswhore187 · 3 months

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Hymn for Her (1)

Ava x Beatrice (Warrior Nun)

Summary: The discovery of a resurrected Ava, believed to be lost, sends ripples through Bea's reality, filling her heart with both joy and trepidation. However, the reunion takes a harrowing twist when Ava, transformed by otherworldly forces, becomes an unexpected adversary, unleashing violence upon the Order of the Cruciform Sword. Ava finds herself entangled in a relentless battle against the forces of darkness, the mystery behind her descent into darkness deepens. Meanwhile, Bea grapples with the conflicting emotions of love and despair, haunted by dreams that connect her to Ava's tortured soul.

T/W: Descriptions of violence, blood and gore. Brief mentions of alcohol, guns and other weapons. Please let me know if I forgot to add something.

Word Count: 1.1k

Part One: An Unholy Darkness

Part Two: Echoes of Darkness

Part Three: Whispers in the Shadows

Part Four: Dance with Shadows

Part Five: Embrace of Light

The dimly lit corridors of the ancient convent echoed with Camila's hurried footsteps as she moved through the shadows, her senses heightened by an unsettling premonition. The flickering candlelight cast eerie patterns on the stone walls that followed her as she moved. Camila knew she wasn’t alone. She clutched the hilt of her knife tightly, her eyes darting between the veiled archways.

As she turned a corner, she froze. There, standing in the gloom of the corridor, a figure cloaked in shadows.

“Turn around,” Camila demanded. Her voice was strong and commanding, long gone was the hesitant rookie. She’d died when Adriel killed almost every member of the Order of the Cruciform Sword - her family. Her sisters.

The ominous figure turned slowly, raising their arms to lower their hood.

Camila's heart leapt with joy, and without hesitation, she rushed forward to embrace them.

"Ava!" She exclaimed, relief flooding her as she wrapped her arms around her friend. "I thought you were lost forever.”

Camila's heart leapt with joy as she rushed forward to hug her.

Ava's response was a tight embrace, her body cold and rigid. Camila felt a pang of unease but dismissed it as exhaustion. However, when she pulled away to look into Ava's eyes, she saw an unsettling emptiness within them.

“Ava?" Camila asked, a note of concern in her voice. “Are you alright?”

Ava's lips curled into a wicked, hollow grin, and her eyes gleamed with malevolence. Before Camila could react, Ava's hand shot out, gripping Camila's wrist with an unnatural strength. Panic flickered across Camila's face as she realised that something was horribly wrong.

In an instant, the corridor erupted into chaos. Lilith, adorned in snake-like scales, emerged from the shadows with a cunning smirk mirroring Ava's. The air crackled with dark energy as the two warriors launched their vicious assault.

The fight was swift and brutal. Fists, knives, claws flew; Camila fought desperately to understand the nature of Ava's transformation, but her friend's attacks were relentless and devoid of mercy.

The convent's halls echoed with cries of pain and the distant chants of prayers.

Beatrice, clad in her battle attire, moved through the dark corridors with a determined grace. As Bea approached the heart of the convent, a subtle shift in the air caught her attention. A feeling—a whisper of intruders trespassing on sacred ground. Her senses heightened, and her hand instinctively reached to lower the silver chain-link mesh that covered her face whilst she fought.

Bea's eyes widened as she watched a figure phase through a wall in front of her. A silhouette, both familiar and haunting, stepped into the light.

"Ava?" Bea's voice, a mixture of surprise and joy, echoed through the sacred space. The silhouette, bathed in the soft glow of the halo, turned to face her.

Ava's form, once a source of comfort and camaraderie, now exuded an aura of dissonance. Her eyes, once warm and familiar, held an emptiness that sent a shiver down Bea's spine. The joy that had momentarily flickered in Bea's heart now gave way to growing distress as she took in the subtle changes in Ava's demeanour.

"Ava, you're back," Beatrice's words, a hopeful plea, hung in the air like an unanswered prayer. Her hand tightened around the hilt of her knife hidden behind her back, its divine essence pulsating in tandem with the uncertainty that now clouded the sacred space.

Ava regarded Bea with a dismissive glance. The love that used to linger in her eyes had been replaced by an unsettling detachment. "Beatrice," Ava's voice carried an air of indifference. "This doesn't concern you."

Bea, her determination undeterred, stepped forward. "Ava, what's happened to you? We can face whatever threat together. You don't have to do this alone."

A scornful laugh echoed through the chapel. "Alone? I'm not alone, Beatrice. I've found a power greater than anything this order could offer. A power greater than anything you could offer.”

Ava stepped forward, gently stroking Bea’s cheek as she drew her face close to hers, their lips were almost touching.

“Drop the knife,” Ava whispered.

Bea's hands shook as she released the knife. It clattered on the stone floor. This was her opening, Bea knew she would hate herself for attacking Ava but it would be worse if she did nothing. It would destroy her to let this evil thing that controlled her, swallow Ava whole.

Beatrice's movements were swift and purposeful, her strikes guided by the discipline instilled by years of training. Ava met her blows with an otherworldly finesse. They moved as one as if they were both part of the same heart-breaking dance.

Beatrice's pleas for reason fell on deaf ears. Ava, consumed by darkness, countered with cryptic taunts and dismissive laughter.

"Ava, why are you doing this? What has taken hold of you?"

Ava's response was a mocking smile. "The OCS is blind, Beatrice. Blind to the true power that awaits those willing to embrace the shadows. You could join me, but I suppose that's too much to ask of someone shackled by their allegiance."

Bea, her resolve unwavering, pressed on. "I won't abandon our family for a path shrouded in darkness. There's still light within you, Ava. I won't let it be extinguished."

Fuelled by a love that transcended the shadows, Bea fought not just for the Order of the Cruciform Sword but for the soul of the girl she loved. Bea clung to a glimmer of hope, a belief that the Ava she once knew could still be saved from the abyss that threatened to engulf her.

Ava kicked Bea’s leg out from under her, causing the girl to collapse onto the floor. Ava climbed atop her, resting a leg on either side of Bea’s waist, pinning her down.

There was no sound in the room except for their heavy breathing. Bea’s chest rapidly rose up and down. She knew she should be scared but it was hard to be anything but enamoured when this close to Ava’s sun-kissed face.

If Ava wanted to kill her, she would be dead by now. And Bea would let her if it meant staying this close to Ava for another moment.

Bloodied and bruised, Bea gazed at her with a mixture of sorrow and determination, but Ava was gone before another plea could leave her lips.

As the dust settled and the wounded groaned in agony, the motive behind Ava and Lilith's unholy alliance remained shrouded in mystery. The battle had just begun, and the war between the nuns was about to reach a terrifying crescendo.

A/N: Thank you for reading ◡̈

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transmechanicus · 3 years

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Intimate gestures in dreams hit so much better than they seem to in real life ngl

#my stuff #granted they’re from different people in this comparison but like #hugs in dreams feel like meshing souls #kisses even more so #WANT

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dameronology · 3 years

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it's no use, i just do {bucky barnes}

'if i just wanted someone to hold, then really anyone would do/i'd close my eyes and really try not to turn them into you, but it's no use, i just love you' - no use i just do, hayley williams

(a.k.a: the one where bucky needs a hug, but specifically from you)

eugh more bucky stuff from my drafts? yes. i think so. truth be told, I started writing this like 3 months ago (whenever flowers for vases came out) but it's been sat collecting dust. enjoy :-)

- jazz xx

p.s this is spoiler free!

The nights were always hardest for Bucky Barnes.

The dark always reminded him of the furthest corners of his mind; the ones holding his worst memories, skeletons collecting dust, rotting away until he forgot about them completely or forced them out with intensive therapy. Both were options that he was completely dreading - so he forced them down, forced them to the back and did everything within his power to ignore. It was easy enough during the day, when he was surrounded by his friends, occupied by work and the buzz of New York City.

Then the sun went away, and with the rising of the moon came the echoes and ghosts of Winter Soldier's past. Thanks to the likes of Netflix and YouTube, the modern world was filled with enough things to distract Bucky from the grips of his own mind. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

And tonight was one of the nights where it didn't. Every time he shut his eyes - squeezed them shut and gripped onto his thin blankets like a flimsy anchor to the present - he got flashbacks. Reminders of the things he'd done and the people he'd hurt. They always had the same look in their eyes, whenever they flashed into his mind. He couldn't see it then, but now he could feel again, he knew it was fear. The same look he had in his eyes every time he was clamped into a chair and forced to have the last remaining ounce of his humanity wiped.

Bucky's hold-ups about his feelings for you seemed almost comical compared to the problems he dealt with then. But he could feel more now, which meant his brain was so hyperaware of every little thing he felt for you; love, attachment, fear. All things that were enough to send him into a spiral, even if the feeling of your arms around him and lips meshed against his was the first reminder of his humanity since nineteen-forty-fucking-five.

Distance had felt like the answer. Cutting you out completely and acting like he hadn't fallen into your bed every night for six months seeking comfort. It was kind of a dick move, but it was one you understood. Actually, no, it wasn't, because you didn't understand a single thing the man ever fucking did. That's probably why you'd let him go so easily - people came and went. Maybe he was just supposed to be the latter.

How was it going, you ask? Given that Bucky had elbowed his way into your apartment complex at 3AM and was pacing outside your front door - pretty fucking terribly. Normally, he wasn't that bad at resisting the urge to seek you out, but tonight had been hard. Too hard. His hands were still shaking, shirt still sticking to his back with sweat. The nightmares had been...visual, to say the least. He felt like a monster, and you were the only person he trusted enough to convince him otherwise.

"Hey, dumbass. I have a Ring doorbell - what the fuck are you doing out there?"

Bucky jumped at the sound of your voice. Technology: 1. Barnes: 0.

The front door swung open, revealing a tired-looking you. Your hair was pushed back off your face, large nightshirt swamping your body. He knew you got mad when your beauty sleep was interrupted, but you got even madder when he suffered in silence.

"I..." Bucky trailed off.

"Nightmares. I know." You stepped aside. "Come in."

You didn't push any further, or berate him for his radio silence over the last few weeks. He was grateful for that. You were the only person who didn't ask so many questions all the time. Bucky didn't mind talking, but recounting his entire life story to Sam Wilson whilst they drove to Walmart wasn't his idea of fun.

Your apartment still felt homier than his. The walls were covered in photos of you and your friends and family, and shitty little drawings done by your various, younger relatives. Your fridge had postcards and letters hung on it, and there was clutter all over the kitchen counter. The thousands of pillows piled high on your sofa were practically a safe haven. There was a soft scent of vanilla hanging in the air from all your little diffusers, making him smile slightly.

"You got new curtains?" Bucky helplessly pointed to your window.

"How very observant of you." You placed a hand on his arm as you brushed past him. "What's going on, Buck?"

"With my life, or just tonight?"

"I don't think we have time for the first one." You fell onto the sofa. "Sit."

He took a seat beside you; not on you, but close enough so that your knees were touching. "Every time I close my eyes, I remember."

"That wasn't you." You gently reminded him, reaching out to push his hair back. "Not then and not now."

"I still did it though." He held his hands out in front of him. "These are the hands that killed innocent people. This is the brain that felt no empathy or remorse."

"No." You firmly said. "Those are the hands that fought in Wakanda, for the good fight. This is the brain that comes up with the worst jokes I've ever heard and regularly forgets to buy toilet roll."

His blue eyes wavered from the floor, capturing your gaze. He suddenly fell back against you, wrapping his arms around your waist and burying his head in your chest. Everybody else went out their way to make him seem like a monster or a saint - but you? You just made him seem like a human. There wasn't a single perfect one of those. Steve Rogers probably came close, but he was a fucking terrible driver.

"I..." Bucky trailed off. He knew what he wanted to say. Just didn't have the courage to verbalise it. "I appreciate you."

"I know." You murmured, carding a hand through his hair.

Bucky had gone to therapy. He'd taken up exercise (and boxercise and jazzercise) and yoga. He'd tried those stupid fucking cleansing smoothies that his neighbour had sold him - at the time, he had yet been introduced to the idea of multilevel marketing schemes - and gone to meditation classes. None of it worked. Not for a single second.

Then you came in the picture, and he began to see colour etched into the edges of an otherwise black and white world. Where there had been nightmares and flashbacks, he'd found a peaceful night's sleep and pleasant dreams (normally of you, truth be told). The simplicity of it was what made it so complex - because he didn't understand it. Couldn't get his head around the fact that you actually, genuinely wanted to help him.

And he knew it wasn't just your touch or the softness of your skin against his. He'd tried it - sleeping with strangers and staying around the morning after to cuddle. Anything to find human contact with the emotion and the commitment; the very two components that were the secret ingredients to the two of you working so fucking nicely.

"Thank you." Bucky murmured.

"For what?"

"For just..." He glanced up at you, blue eyes holding an emotion you couldn't quite place, "treating me like everyone else. Like a normal person."

"You are a normal person." You softly smiled. "Maybe with a little more baggage, but to the right person, that won't matter."

"Does it matter to you?"

"That's a trap." You thinned your eyes at him. "But no, it doesn't."

He tightened his grip on you, the fear and anxiety draining from his soul. He knew now more than ever that the comfort didn't come from the way he was being held, or the way he was being spoken to. It was who was holding him, and who was speaking to him. You came out on top, every time.

That was why it worked.

It was you. And there was nothing he could do about it.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes imagines #bucky barnes x gn!reader #bucky barnes fluff #avengers x reader #avengers x you #avengers imagine #avengers imagines #marvel x y/n #marvel imagine #marvel imagines

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ziracona · 3 years

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T2 was okay and it could have been really good—had some real moments. But it needed more script iterations, and it was too goofy. Goofy is fine in general, but Terminator works best as a sci-fi action-drama-horror mesh. That’s the peak atmosphere. Also just, they gave their new Terminator scary powers to keep him relevant, but there’s just...no way to really make anyone on screen look like a threat to Arnold Schwarzenegger you know? And they never overcame that and it throws off the whole underdog atmosphere. He just. Wasn’t scary. Not when he was trying to kill heckin Arnold the brick house.

I’m not gonna talk about T3 bc I feel like I don’t need to and I think I have a lot of support for that in the fandom, and I’m not gonna talk any Genysis bc no one ever should, and I know I have support there.

Dark Fate was fine, but I felt like they really didn’t have to kill off their Kyle expy like at this point the surprising thing and interesting one would be /not/ to kill him. That role has died in /every/ other film. Like we get it. But plot rehashes are only good if you have some kind of spin. Mostly though I just...would have liked T800 man’s personality in another context but you couldn’t ever sell me on him after watching him gun down a 10 year old in the open. Like what, he found a soul by being...bored? If you want to convince me of fundamental change in a person, you /gotta/ motivate it better. Show me. Don’t tell me and expect me to take your word. And there just wasn’t enough meet in some spots. I wanted more firm lore and a little less action. Like I’m not even a science-heavy leaning sci-fi fan but it still wasn’t enough. I liked it more than most of the others but it just wasn’t quite...meaty enough. Sarah still a queen. But T800 man didn’t sell and that was a real weak spot, and so was expecting us and Sarah to just...like and forgive him bc he had accrued a family. But also like. I enjoyed having a new protag, but feeling like so much, no, /all/ of the work and suffering of everyone in other Terminator films was for nothing bc it’s not even Skynet anymore it’s some other robots?? It kind just...didn’t really work. It makes everything more hollow like it’s not even Terminator anymore there’s no more Terminators. They should have just had it be Skynet but a different rebel leader, or more. Sarah goes on to mentor Dani instead since John is dead, /something/ to make it more the same franchise and not so hollow. Or if it’s gonna be gutted, go all the way and let us feel that, don’t blip it as a plot point once and keep rolling. There’s decades of character attachment for fans; either make that matter, or make it mourned because it’s dead. Don’t skim it and make it cheap. Also on a meta level it was kind of weird how they handled time travel compared to the norm for the franchise but I’m not going into that.

BUT. The Terminator? A cinematic classic. It’s just...such a good film. The characters work is solid the whole movie, and Reese and Sarah are both truly excellent protagonists also given ample time to explore and exhibit that. There’s so much you get in moments that show tiny things about them. The way Sarah handles getting canceled on and goofing with Ginger, her having a pet iguana she loves to cuddle, talking to the statue at work? And she’s smart and normal (I mean normal in a very complimentary way). Kyle is introduced almost immediately running from the cops, but even in the middle of a chase scene, he’s stealing clothes in a mall while evading flashlights, and little things like hopping while he runs to check shoe sizes give you so much right away. He’s clearly out of his depth but he’s smart and methodical and he holes up in a car he hotwires and has a ptsd moment waking up from a dream because of some heavy construction machinery. You don’t have him say much about himself at all but you get him taking a second to be nice to the kids and guard dog on his way back before a T800 attacks. Even though if you’re watching it classic, you have no spoken goal for Reese and all you know is he’s armed and /also/ looking for Sarah, like the man who has killed three people already is, you kind of aren’t very scared of him by the time he’s creepily following her into a night club. That scene is iconic too damn. Anyway. Her reactions to everything are so great. Only film I ever saw where I 100% felt the person on screen was reacting like anyone would to almost being killed and then getting kidnap-saved by some other guy claiming to be from the future like I’d bite him too, but you know, I’d also be pretty happy he saved me and also decide he was crazy and not like, dangerous, and try to keep the cops from killing him. It’s so cute he thinks anyone is going to believe him like hang in there Kyle baby, king. Love as soon as the Terminator hits the police station, he breaks out and goes to find Sarah, and she’s immediately like ‘so fuck this actually’ and looking for him too. The deleted scene in the motel woods. The slow character build. Him falling in love with her because of the picture where she always looked a little sad and he wondered what she was thinking about and you don’t find out till the last scene it’s him she was thinking about in that picture. A family can be two complete trauma disasters making pipe bombs in a motel. The top 5 cinema shots moment where you think they won and they think they won and they’re both injured and stagger to each other and collapse laughing and crying and hugging and it holds for like ten seconds before that fucking thing gets up and you see the rubble in the fire shift and Kyle sees it first. And the hopelessness and despair. Sarah just screaming no in rage because it’s so unfair. The little scaffolding fight?? Kyle doing what he does? Sarah winning with a broken leg? The picture? The heartbreak? A work of art.

Also just. They’re both attractive but like, they are not remotely airbrushed Hollywood pretty. Kyle’s got that big scar on his lip and they’re both sweaty and bloody and dirty and gross the whole film??? God yeah.

Terminator Salvation? Also a classic. You have a film not about the core cast exactly, but it’s very ensemble. You get early days war. And it’s from the very open a solid narrative about second chances and what it means to be human and they really do explore that the whole runtime. Markus dies and comes back more confused than you are in the apocalypse. Baby Reese is absolutely perfect. You get formerly executed for murder Markus somehow adopting like 20 year old Reese and 13 year old kid Star and they’re amazing. Rebellion drama, lore reveals. Reese’s devout faith in the cause and how fast he looks up to Markus and starts learning and Markus is like :[ but then he’s like ... :] because he god assigned two family members now. The tag team fights—how incredibly talented Star is. Guilt trip on a look to dropping cars, she’s super effective. Tbh Markus is just O_O to >:-[ the whole movie as soon as Reese and Star are taken and I feel it. You’ve got a guy who was killed for straying too far from human, come back as a machine, but he doesn’t know it, wondering if he deserves another chance and if he can change, and it’s really neat the way it unfolds. Even after losing so many friends to Terminators that look human, Blair refuses to believe he isn’t a human even if he’s also a machine and risks her life to save him, when they barely know each other. Markus getting like, tortured by the rebels, and still choosing to help them and be who he has decided he wants to be this time, even towards John. Even with better alternatives. And you have Star never having a moment of doubt, or Reese, and him getting to save them both, and them trying to help the other humans in line for extermination before he arrives. The hand hold with Star when his hands just metal. And he decides to die for someone he doesn’t even /like/ and who has personally hurt him a lot of times, because he knows the rebels need him to win. Anyway death row to death row but completely different people in the same body facing that same death differently are amazing if done well (see TWDG I mean ow) and it was a very simple core theme to latch to and very enjoyable executed and it got snubbed by fans when it’s the best sequel Terminator ever had.

#thus concludes my spoiler heavy rant for why Terminator Salvation and The Terminator are the best two Terminator films #the terminator #terminator salvation #ramblings #spoilers #twdg spoilers #long post #sorry I had no idea how long this was

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socialwriter · 4 years

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Circles

*Not my gif, credit to original post*

Pairing: JJ Maybank x Female Reader

Summary: You meet the blonde surfer boy you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with

TW: Cursing, my inadequate knowledge of surfing, underage drinking, smoking

1.7K words

A/N: @kindapinkskies and I apparently both love soulmate AUs so I wrote this oops.

Ever since the age of thirteen, you had had the tattoo of a small circle on your hip bone that matched your soulmate's somewhere in the world. Middle school girls would gush over their dream soulmates and the beautiful tattoos that graced their bodies, whereas of course you had no godly idea what your soulmate even looked like and your tattoo was a fucking circle. How lucky were you?

You see, you aren’t able to see any other person’s soulmate tattoo until you grow to love them, whether it be platonic, familial, or romantic. Scientists thought that it was so that everyone would be more experienced in love by the time that they actually met their soulmate. You thought that it was a way to simply torture you with the what ifs and not knowing if the guy who you’d just gone on a miserable date with also had that little circle on hip.

Recently, you and your mother had moved to the Outer Banks, and she was convinced that this would be where your so-called soulmate would find you and you would live happily ever after. You, however, were not convinced. It had already been a week and you had yet to make a friend in town. It's not like you didn’t try, it's just that everyone that you came across was either busy working or a pompous asshole that stuck their nose up at you. So here you were, day 7 of wandering aimlessly around the Outer Banks, hoping that someone would take notice of the lost puppy dog look on your face. No luck, however, so you decided to grab a bite to eat since it was a little bit before noon and your stomach had started grumbling about ten minutes ago.

You decided to stop at a place called ‘The Wreck’. If what you’d heard from casual conversations around the island was true, then your meal here should be at least halfway decent. You enter an almost entirely empty restaurant, given it was just before the lunch rush. You ding the bell at the hostess desk, causing one of the girls in a group of teenagers around your age sitting at the back of the restaurant to stand and approach you. “Hi, welcome to The Wreck. How can I help you?”

You give the girl a small smile, she seemed pretty nice. “I, um, I was just stopping by for a bite to eat. I’m starved.” You tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, suddenly aware of the fact of how sad it was that you were here to eat alone.

“You a touron?” She questions, causing you to give her a very confused look.

“I’m sorry, a who now?”

She chuckles, shaking her head. “That’s what we call the tourists around here. So, you visiting?” She asks. You make an ‘o’ shape with your mouth at her explanation before shaking your head. “No, me and my mom just moved here about a week ago, so I just don’t really know anyone on the island or anything about it.” You explain.

She nods, a smile beginning to grow on her lips. “Well why don’t you hang out with me and my friends.” She gestured over to three guys and a girl sitting in the back, already watching. You send them an awkward wave, which some of them reciprocate. “That would actually be really nice …” You pause, realizing that you didn’t even know this girl’s name.

“Kiara. Carrera. But everyone just calls me Kie.” She informs you, holding out your hand for her to shake.

“Y/n L/n.” You tell her, shaking her hand before she leads you over to her friends.

“Guys, this is Y/n L/n. Y/n, this is Pope, JJ, John B, and Sarah.” She says, introducing each one of her friends, pulling up a chair for you before quickly going to grab you a bite to eat.

You suddenly felt very awkward under the eyes of these four strangers, willing yourself to disappear before Sarah decides to start up a conversation with you. “So, Y/n, did you just move here?” She questions. You appreciate her attempt at small talk.

Nodding, you tell her “Yeah, my mom and I just moved here like a week ago. We used to live on the mainland but she got a job offer we couldn’t refuse, so we moved to the Cut and now here I am.”

“Sweet, you’re a pogue.” One of the boys, you think his name was Pope, said. Before you could question him on what a pogue actually was (you were guessing there was more weird slang that you would have to learn), but before you could, the blonde, JJ you thought, spoke up.

“So you surf?” He questioned, leaning forward. You had to admit, he was pretty attractive, his blonde hair tousled in a perfectly imperfect way and his blue eyes seemingly piercing into your soul. You shake your head, never having the opportunity to learn. You answer seems to disappoint JJ, causing him to deflate and mumble “disappointing” under his breath, which earns him a whack on the back of the head by the third boy, John B. “Be nice.”

Kie then returns with some french fries and a sandwich for you to munch on, and the conversation moves on to something about a boat.

---

After the not so good first impression with JJ, the blonde had apologized to you and insisted that he be the one to teach you how to surf. While his apology seemed genuine, you were still slightly terrified of surfing. However, JJ assured you that it wasn’t nearly as dangerous or terrifying as you thought, and promised to be with you every step of the way.

He taught you how to swim out to the waves, when the perfect time to get up was, and which waves were a no-go for a beginner like you. Eventually, he had convinced you to actually take a spare board that John B had and go into the water, waiting until a wave that you could ride actually came along. He yelled at you from the shore to go for it, giving you a thumbs up and cheering you on while you nervously rode the wave. At the end, you smiled to yourself, loving the pump of adrenaline that came with surfing. You swam back to shore, squealing and pulling JJ into a hug, which he reciprocated with a chuckle. “I did it!!” You exclaimed, excited by your success.

JJ pulled back from the hug, smiling. “Told ya you could, I am the best surfing instructor you’d be able to get after all,” he said with a smirk, causing you to playfully shove his shoulder and roll your eyes. Something about JJ just felt right, like the two of you meshed together. You were two pieces of the same puzzle, and this feeling only continued to grow the closer you got over the coming weeks.

---

Sarah had insisted before your outing on the HSM Pogue the next day that you, her, and Kie have a girls night at her place. So here you were, up at 2 am, talking about nothing before the topic of soulmates inevitably comes up. Sarah tells you that her and John B had had a long love hate relationship before eventually getting together and discovering that they were soulmates. You had figured as much, if the subtle PDA and looks they’d sent each other at The Wreck earlier were anything to off of. Kie, similar to you, hadn’t found her soulmate, but told you that she was actively looking for them like you. “So what does your tatto look like Y/n? Where is it?” Sarah questioned, shifting on her bed which she was currently laying on.

“Oh, mines so stupid. Its a little circle, right here on my hipbone,” you said, pointing at the tattoo that you didn’t even know if they could see yet. At your description, however, the smiles on Kie and Sarah’s faces falter, both girls tensing and glancing at one another. “What, is that like a bad omen or something that I don’t know about?” You question, nervous by their reaction.

Kie awkwardly laughs it off, shaking her head at you. “No,no, its nothing bad. Just, I think you might find out who your soulmate is sooner than later.” She states, causing your brows to furrow. But she drops the subject quickly, and you don’t question her on it for the rest of the night.

---

All six of you were on the HMS Pogue goofing around. After Sarah and Kie had pulled John B and Pope off to the side before getting on the boat, the four had been treating you and JJ a little odd. You just brushed it off, thinking that you were just imagining the change in attitude. You were currently sipping a beer, resting your head on JJ’s shoulder while he smoked some weed. When you had finished, you stood looking at the rest of the group. “Anyone else in the mood for a swim?” You questioned, already pulling off your t-shirt to reveal a bikini underneath.

“Yeah, I’m just gonna dri-” JJ starts, dropping the newly opened beer in his hand when he looks at you. You look at him like he’s crazy, shuffling your feet to avoid them getting covered beer. “JJ, what the fuck!” you groan in annoyance, but he seems to not notice the mess he’s made, eyes fixated on your stomach. Everyone else looked on with knowing expressions, but no one dared say anything.

“Is no one going to clean up this mess but me?” You question, looking at every like they’ve gone insane. JJ moves to pull his shirt off, and you can’t help but roll your eyes. “J, we are not cleaning up the beer with your shirt,” you tell him, giving him a look.

“No, I..” he points to his hip. At the small circle tattoo that matches yours. Your eyes widen, and you look up at him, a silent conversation seemingly happening between the two of you. This boy, the one who you’d grown so close to, who you’d felt so complete with, was your soulmate. Suddenly everything became clearer, like your life had just started making sense. Knowing it was him, provided you with a sense of clarity.

You both slowly approached each other and JJ gingerly grabbed your hand, running him thumb over your knuckles. “Hi.” You said softly, a smile forming on your lips.

“Hi.”

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niksixx · 4 years

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Sunrise

Requested: My idea

Pairing: Nikki Sixx x Female Reader

Description: A soft Nikki fic for your hearts

A/N: Reblog/comment/leave your own tags!!! I love reading them :)

*GIF is NOT mine. Found on Google. Credit to the owner.*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If there’s one thing Nikki Sixx is, it is a hard worker.

He puts all his effort, his time, his energy, his heart and soul, into making music that the world will remember for years to come.

Music is his passion, and sometimes, it’s difficult to get him to take a break as his brain is always working in overdrive. Most of the time, he’ll work all day, rarely saving time for anything else.

This morning is no different.

After waking up to a cold, empty bed, you pad tiredly around your apartment, yawning frequently, until you spot Nikki sitting on the balcony with the door half open.

You join him on the balcony quietly, squinting as the sun hits your sleepy eyes. With his bass lying across his lap, Nikki scribbles a pen across a wrinkled piece of paper that lies in front of him on a small glass table. His eyes are narrowed and focused, and only does the tension in his shoulders leave his body when your arms come around his neck from behind.

He doesn’t say anything, but he relaxes into your touch, smiles, and dusts a few kisses across your bare arms. The feather light touch leaves goosebumps on your skin, and he lets out a breathy chuckle.

“You’re up early.”

You shrug, lips by his ear. “I sleep better when you’re next to me.”

Nikki has always been an early riser, never sleeping past seven in the morning. He loves watching the sunrise from the balcony as the bright colors in the sky mesh together to form what feels like a warm hug. He appreciates the simplicity of nature, and being outside for even a second just to watch as the sun peeks over the horizon before ascending into the sky is a moment he’ll never take for granted.

“Come back to bed with me.”

“I’m already awake, baby. I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep.”

You whine a little, arms dropping at your sides. Sighing, Nikki lets the pen fall to the table, gently placing his bass aside before tilting his head toward you, patting his thighs. “C’mere, gorgeous.”

A tiny, satisfied smile tugs at the corners of your lips as you wiggle your way into Nikki’s warm embrace. His mouth finds your cheeks first before placing a sweet kiss on your puckered lips.

“Has anyone ever told you that you work too much?”

Nikki grins, leaning his head on your shoulder. The ends of his hair tickle your neck, so you brush them away, letting your fingers delicately run through the dark strands. “You make it a point to remind me everyday. I can’t help it, you know. Music is in my blood, my bones. When I get going, I can’t stop.” Nikki gives you a smirk, eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

You swat his shoulder playfully before your arms snake around his neck once again, crossing one leg over the other. “Well since I can’t convince you to come back to bed, maybe you can tell me what you’re working on?”

Some musicians were territorial with their craft, never revealing the finished product until it was perfected. Nikki was different. Being a perfectionist was in his nature, but he allowed others to help him achieve his vision. He was never the kind of man to shy away when someone presented him with a fresh perspective. He accepted help, criticism, and he listened.

He maneuvers around your body to reach the sheet of tattered paper. Some lyrics are scribbled out, others are replaced. What catches your eye though, is the name of the song.

“Without you?” Your mouth falls agape slightly, paper resting against your legs. “Are you writing a love song?”

He shrugs, tightening his one arm around your back. “I guess that’s what you could call it. If we’re being honest, I had a dream the other night that you’d left me. I haven’t been the same since, so to get it out of my head, I wrote it down on paper.”

“That sounds more like a nightmare,” you say back, palms planted firmly on his chest. “You know that will never happen, right?”

“Oh, I know,” Nikki assures you. “But I think it will make for a pretty good song. Only issue is, I’m struggling to find the right words.”

You bring the sheet of paper closer to you, running over a few of the lyrics in your head before whispering them out loud. “Without you in my life, I’d slowly wilt and die. But with you by my side…”

“And that’s where I’m stuck,” Nikki sighs and rubs his forehead. Lyrics usually always come easy to him. This verse, however, has given him trouble all morning.

You read the verse again, this time trying to devise a line of your own. “But with you by my side, I’ll never feel alone? No, wait, that doesn’t sound right. Let me try again.”

As he laughs, Nikki’s eyes scan your face, admiring not only your features, but your willingness to help him.

“But with you by my side...You’re...the reason I’m alive?”

Nikki thinks it over, saying the words on a loop out loud before retrieving his pen from the table to scribble down the lyrics on the paper. He reads them over, and grins excitedly. “It fits perfectly.” And then he gazes at you lovingly. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

You blush sheepishly, arms snaking around his neck to pull him close for another kiss. Nikki melts into you. “I have a wonderful man that tells me every single day.”

“Let’s go back to bed, baby. I can write a little more later.”

Your eyes turn toward the sky, now resembling a painting with pinks and oranges messily brushed against the canvas. The sun is just barely breaking out over the horizon, and there’s a feeling of warmth and gratitude that comes with it.

You’re lucky enough to be alive, to experience these quiet, calm moments. As life passes by, with everyday bringing new challenges, the sunrise was there to remind you to stop and breathe, to take a moment of your time to just...be. To exist in this glorious world.

“I think I want to watch the sunrise instead. Will you stay here with me?”

Nikki presses a kiss to your cheek, pulling back just as a ray of light shines on your face, lighting each curve, each perfectly made feature. Your eyes are forward, squinted, as the golden sun rises to welcome a new day. It’s a new day with you, and he’s going to make it a great one. “I couldn’t imagine myself being anywhere else.”

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definegodliness · 4 years

Text

The Dream Girl

It was the night before the moon shifted phases from old to new that I was visited by a girl, so beautiful, in a dream so vivid. I asked her who she was, and she answered in seven poems, accompanied by seven pictures. Each poem was of an unfathomable esoteric allure. Each photograph compelling like a Pre-Raphaelite painting. And when I had finished taking it all in, I felt like she had shown me her very soul. The core of her being. Her rights and wrongs. There, in that realm of unbridled fantasy, I loved her. And I could not help but create something similar to what she had shown me, here, in the world of the waking. Fitting together the little pieces of her I had left after waking up. Her art could never be approached, so this is merely an ode. To her. The dream girl.

Sky-lamb

“Soft. Ethereal. High above where the wind plays with messy hair and flusters cheeks a healthy apple-red. Innocence. Sometimes I disperse in blue to let the universe in unfiltered. It often hurts. But when I then return to that endless sky-meadow, I am so grateful. Always so grateful. Tears of joy stream over my face as I frolic among my kin. As if everything will turn out fine. As if every day could be the equinox of spring. I am that cloud, ephemeral. That lamb so vulnerable and small. But when I drift away in aether, I reify unwavering hope.”

Light-eye

“The mountain, the cottage, the skylight. The attic where a child hides to read ancient books in silence. She must have read a thousand. A thousand wondrous worlds. A thousand escapes from ours. I let in the sun whenever she feels darkened. To hug her warm with arms of amber. And when there blows a gentle zephyr, I let it seep through the cracks in my window. It stirs the dust and cobwebs that, with a little help from the daystar, shimmer a spectacle in sepia. It keeps her from being disenchanted. She lives in me and I protect her.”

Apocalyptica

“Imploding stars. Antimatter. Within my rib-cage, mother Titan inverts. Creation malforms into obliteration. A vacuum of nothingness. I am dead, and yet, I am less than dead. There's no memory of me or who I was. I've turned into a shade of light-absorbing pain. Below my sternum all collapses. My diaphragm mimics the spiraling maw of the world-eater. I dare not move. I dare not touch. I dare not sleep with all this rage surging through my veins. Is this the real me? Stay away! I'm so afraid. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to hurt again.”

Gaean healer

“My hands are soft. They ache to touch. I am moss, overgrowing the lifeless grey of ancient ruins. Returning what man robbed from nature to the grand cycle of symbiosis. Mine is the life abundant. I am made of root and earth. In my arms I cradle fledglings. And butterflies surround the flowery vines of my hair. My cheeks show streaks of sunny pollen. Painted by bumblebees clumsily bumping. I care. For the toad that hops on my head when it rains to croak. For the salamander and newt that hide in my coat. For fragile things. For life unconstrained.”

Star sower

“Mother moon birthed me. Primordial breath, exhaled. And I, within the dark of nil, exploded into being. Shimmering in brilliant chaos, a light-catcher. Intangible, incomprehensible. Yet I am. Small and grand. Traveling in limitless expansion, searching diamonds of life-giving evolution within the never-ending. I soar. My butterfly-net of sparkling mesh, a comet's tail illumining the darkness. I've sewn each star caught on Nyx's cloak. And when after aeons the earthen sky was finished, I left mother moon for space. Shaping brand-new constellations and nebulas. I catch and sow the brightly orbs, forever expanding the last frontier between veil and void.”

Atlantean wayfarer

“Water. Soothing weightlessness. I drift in dreams depicting crystal clear images of Antediluvian civilizations. Tranquil, I am. Yet ever flowing. Ever exploring the depths of our planet's chalice. Diving into the deep blue cornucopia. Come. Come with me. Feel. The sensation of flying. Hear. The stillness only broken by the distant whale's melancholic song. Don't worry, we can breathe here. See? My cheeks are still touched by the vagabond blush. Flustered in wonder. Warm is my blood. Here, in the womb of creation. Where curiosity's never sated. Where we, if we dive deeper, may dream the answer of our everlasting.”

Euphoria

“Connection. Heightened senses. Hands brushing in a passing by. Foretasting electrification. Hold mine and feel the sparks fly. Energy surging in undulating waves originating from our linking palms and interlacing fingers. Squeeze harder. Feel our heartbeats synchronizing. Pounding. Eagerness incarnates in the space between our atoms. Souls sparkle signs of life to prove their existence. Look into their pools. Pleading. Consume me. Fuse with me. I am the moan in your throat. The silvery thread of spit connecting our rawly kissed lips. The reaffirmation of a million lives simultaneously lived and unlived together. The emollience of the whole. The affection.”

--- 26-3-2020, M.A. Tempels © Special thanks to @lorienfae (Star sower), @aubriestar (Sky-lamb, Apocalyptica, Atlantean wayfarer), and @undertheheart (Light-eye), who so generously offered their absolutely stunning photography to accompany these poems. Helping to create what I envisioned, dreaming.

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asphora · 4 years

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untitled | jww

angst; one-sided love

“For love, I will handle your sins.” “And for justice?”

Wonwoo’s arm is a sturdy warmth around your shoulder, both your eyes glued to the television screen in front of you. It’s 2 a.m. on a Friday night and you and your best friend are up to your usual plans: dramatic romance movies, popcorn, the two of you wrapped up in warm blankets, curled up on your couch with your head on his shoulder, his arm around yours and the usual sleepover that would ensue soon after.

There must be lifetimes where the two of you are more than this, you muse, but this is the way it’s always been, and despite your hidden feelings for your dearest friend, you wouldn’t change or trade your friendship for the world.

It’s true; you’d be a liar if you said you hadn’t ever wished things were different, that if maybe he or you were different, things between the two of you could be different. But this is the lifetime you’re born into; one where you are only his friend, but even then, your gratitude outweighs your yearning every time. So as always, you keep your eyes on the movie, ignoring the way your heart races at his touch despite its familiarity. You let yourself cry through the angsty bits of the movie and even shed a few tears, secretly meant for yours and the main character’s one-sided loves.

Especially now that he had a girlfriend, you’d keep this secret to the grave. Finally, this dork of a best friend of yours had finally managed to snag the girl of his dreams: the long awaited, beautiful girl who you were convinced had probably saved a country in her past life to be this lucky. Admittedly, it hurt to see them together, but despite this, you were thankful for her. She brought joy to light of your life and for that, you’d be forever grateful. So much so that you barely even ever registered the pang of pain in your chest anymore.

Wonwoo had been particularly restless that night, but as his best friend, you knew him well enough to know that if it was something he wanted to share with you, he would and that prying just wasn’t the best way to go about it. So, as he fidgets every few seconds throughout the opening scene of the movie, seemingly looking for a comfortable spot, you let him. You carry on as usual and remain unbothered, completely trusting that when he’s ready he’ll tell you.

Somewhere along the line though, your worries diminish as he finds a comfortable spot, head resting on your shoulder with the blankets snugly pulled up and encasing the two of you in shared warmth. The movie ends and the credits roll. You press the soft cotton of the blanket to your eyes, dabbing the dampness from the tears away. Then, looking up at Wonwoo who at some point had managed to become engrossed enough in the movie to finally focus on it, you saw he was now fighting back the obvious tears in his eyes. Honestly, he did this for every movie, fight back his tears, often saying that he didn’t want to get his glasses wet. Being the wonderful and understanding best friend that you are, you simply let him believe that you believed his reason. But you knew the truth, you knew that he had to stop himself or he’d be an even bigger sopping mess than you by the end of the movie.

“That was so good,” you tell him, offering him the same portion of the cotton blanket you’d used to dab your own tears.

“Yeah,” he agrees, lifting his glasses up to his hair as you move to dab the moisture off his face like you always do, but before you can, he moves back as if recoiling from your incoming touch and he takes the cloth you’re offering, then dabs his face on his own.

You almost raise a brow at the sudden and unusual gesture, but you let it slide. You really weren’t the confrontational type anyway, maybe he was feeling particularly antsy tonight and just didn’t want to feel like a bigger crybaby than his best friend (which to be completely honest, you knew he was and your entire shared friend group knew it too, not that you’d ever tell him though). Instead of saying anything though, you indulge him, grabbing the now empty bowl of popcorn from his lap and getting up to rinse it in the sink.

“Hey,” he says your name in a tone you haven’t heard since high school when he’d accidentally lost your favorite book and just didn’t know how to come clean about it. The sound makes you stop the circular motions of soaping on the bowl in your hands and look right at him.

In the darkness of the room, the only source of light from the moon outside the window and the quiet flashing of the still turned on television with the credits rolling to soft music, you see his expression clear as day. It’s tense and almost stoic. You can tell he isn’t angry at you, but he’s upset and from the twisting of his facial features, you knew he was struggling to get the words out.

You rinse your hands and walk over to him, drying the dampness on the fabric of your hoodie. “Hey, Woo,” you take a spot next to him, an arm instinctively wrapping around his shoulder and a hand from the opposite arm rubbing soothing circles onto the space on his chest where his heart was.

“It’s okay, you can tell me anything.” You say and he believes you, but it isn’t his belief in you that feels tested, but it’s in himself. Could what his girlfriend said to him possibly be true? And if it was, where did they go from there? Where would you and he go from there? Would he be able to bear what he might hear?

Braving his internal panic, he lets the question out, not meeting your eyes as the jumbled mesh of words tumble from his lips: “Do you like me?”

His question catches you of guard and your hands freeze their ministrations on his chest. You look him in the eye and for the first time in all the years you’ve known Wonwoo, you’re at a loss for words. He is too, finally staring back at you and reading the panic and fear that flash across your features. He was so sure you’d say no, but he knows that your silence is answer enough.

He shakes his head, looking down at where your hand is still frozen on his chest and he takes it in his own to remove it and untangles himself from you, shifting slightly on the couch to sit further from you and put enough distance that neither of you are touching. The sudden loss of contact feels cold and foreign to you, but you don’t protest.

“Y/N.” disappointment. You hear it so clearly in his tone that your eyes shift as quick as light to look down at the potted plants on your coffee table in the middle of the living room. Anywhere else but at his face where you know his beautiful, soft features are marred by the same disappointment that drips in his tone.

“I have a girlfriend.”

You’re offended by the way his says it. As if you had any malice or ill intentions towards him, when he was the one who asked first; as if all these years have been some kind of ploy to get him into your bed instead of years built on mutual understanding and adoration that had grown into something deeper than romance.

Hot tears threatened to pour from your eyes. You were going to be sick; how could he think so lowly of you? How could he diminish the sturdy foundations of something built on years of friendship in so few words? It must have been a talent, you thought bitterly, to be so eloquent that he could reduce a soul’s connection to another with so little, so easily.

He on the other hand, reads your tears as an admission of guilt. He watches you, shoulders and frame shaking as you try to fight the sob that wracks through your chest. “To be honest,” he speaks trying to fill the silence as he usually does in moments of uncomfortable confrontation, but you just wish he would stop. The more he spoke, the more his disappointment seemed to seep out of him, spilling out onto the carpet of your freshly made and cleaned apartment, staining everything.

“I didn’t believe it when I heard it at first. I thought Sohee was just being paranoid, but now…” he trails of, letting the pause settle and spread around the room into tension so palpable that even a knife couldn’t cut it, it rang in your ears so much so that you felt that maybe your ears might pop.

“Now, I don’t know.”

You don’t respond. You don’t say anything because like him, you also don’t know. Any attempts at defending yourself seemed futile at this point, especially when it seemed as though he’d made up his mind. Unfortunately, it wasn’t made in your favor.

“I think I should go,” he says, getting up from the couch, pushing the blanket off his lap and gathering his things from a corner of the room.

When he reaches the small hallway in your apartment leading to the door, he turns to face you, finding that you’d quietly followed his movements and were there to see him out despite the tears still streaming down your cheeks that you had left unchecked.

He looks at your shaken form; you devastated from the suddenness of it all, him devastated by what he saw as your betrayal of his trust and at a loss for what would come next. Watching you like that, his heart ached, and he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around you in a comforting embrace.

Crying into his shoulder, soaking his shirt, you wrapped your arms around his waist and shoulders recognizing the hug exactly for what it was at this point. You’d known Wonwoo long enough, had been in love with him long enough to know every meaning and reason behind every movement he made.

This was pity.

You spill a few tears for the friendship you feel like your losing, and for the shear pathos of your situation; how low was low enough at this point? How much more pathetic could you get?

As you cry, you feel him squeeze you before his words break through the sound of your sobbing, “We shouldn’t see each other,” it feels as though his sentence is incomplete, the way it hangs in the air, as if he’s left the last word out before he abruptly adds, “you know, just for a while, while things calm down.”

He says for ‘a while’, but you know that a while piles up; a while could be minutes, even days. A while could also mean years. You knew your best friend like the back of your hand and exactly what he meant by a while. It was a kind let go, a caring send off to you; a while, in this case, was a kind goodbye. A while meant never again.

You push of and out of his grip, angry but still gentle in your touch. “Are you serious? Over this small thing, Wonwoo I would never, I’m not that kind of person–”

“It isn’t a small thing,” he cuts you off, a little too aggressively, voice a little too loud, eyes a little too furrowed for your comfort. That’s when you realize, it’s those miniscule changes that make someone so familiar, look so easily like a stranger.

“It isn’t small, please don’t trivialize it.” You try to process his words and almost think that maybe he’s feeling guilt over all the years he hadn’t noticed your feelings, but the next words out his mouth prove otherwise. “It bothers Sohee, and I doubt that would go away, especially now that you’ve admitted it.”

Should you have lied instead? You wonder. As if this situation is on you when you’d never even dared or thought of making your feelings known.

“So, for her sake, for her comfort, I don’t think I can see you right now.”

You feel frozen in place, but your feet feel like their failing you, like you’re being engulfed in quicksand, you already couldn’t move, and just as the cherry on top, you were sinking.

“So that’s it then? An entire lifetime’s worth of friendship, down the drain, just that easily?” You ask, your voice barely above a whisper, not wanting to sound or seem like you were begging for him to stay.

When he doesn’t answer, you try again, “C’mon Woo, we’ve been in each other’s lives for as long as we could remember.” At the words, you feel your resolve to remain dignified failing, “I don’t know this world without you, all our friends are the same, our families are so close, I can’t exist without you, and I-I know it isn’t just me.”

You look into his eyes and watch tears start to pool in them from behind his lenses as you speak, and just when you think you’ve gotten through to him, an apology slips from his lips. “I’m sorry, it isn’t permanent, at least I don’t think it will be. Just till things blow over.”

You feel your firsts clench at your sides. ‘Till things blow over?’ As if this friendship of over fifteen years could ever just blow over, as if the feelings you’ve harbored and taken such great care to hide and protect him from would ever just blow over, for him to minimize this as though forgetting the intertwinement of your lives and souls was as simple as waiting for a storm to cease. Maybe for him it was that simple, but for you, it would be like rebuilding a house after watching it burn down, or losing a limb; you could replace it, remake it, but it would never be the same or as good as what it was before the loss.

With that, he faces the door again. This time his hand is firmer on the doorknob. Even the metal in his hand knows of his certainty and resolve to leave. How lucky it is, you think, to be the last thing he touches, prints embedded into the cold surface, permanent to the memory, but invisible to the eyes the moment he would let go and leave.

At that moment, you feel yourself overcome with a sudden surge of anger that washes over you like a bucket of cold water waking you from your immobility, and the words leave your mouth before you can even think to stop them.

“So what if I love you?”

The tone you use is sharp and Wonwoo doesn’t think he’s ever heard that sound come out of you, let alone directed at him; so striking with how full of hurt and burning rage it was. The sound is something akin to a wounded animal and it makes him stop dead in his tracks.

Slowly, he turns to look at you. He says nothing, but his eyes are a silent question; mixed emotions of a clarification begging to be answered, laced with a fear that seemed to take over his features at the realization of your words. If he let himself speak, if he found enough of his voice to even attempt to ask you what you meant, what would that mean for the two of you? Even for him and Sohee? He desperately wanted to know your answer to his unspoken question, but he also knew that once he knew, once the words released into the world, they couldn’t be unsaid.

At least now, if he didn’t hear you, he could always excuse himself and you; say he never knew exactly how you felt, that it was just mere infatuation that would subside. But if he knew, in his mind, he knew there would be no going back from the words you would say. He wouldn’t be able to bear the weight of your truth, the gravity of what you truly felt for him.

You, on the other hand though, do not back down. You’re angry and understandably feeling very betrayed, so you let the negative feelings flood out of you; if he wanted out of your life – out of this friendship – then he would also have to deal with being treated like someone who didn’t belong in it. He wouldn’t be spared the aftermath of destroying the one thing you held sacred in this life.

“So what if I love you?” You repeat, “So what I’m in love with you and have been for most of my life?”

The heat in your eyes warns you of the traitorous tears that are threatening to spill over, this time tenfold of how they had the first time, but you power through it not caring if you looked like an idiot in front of him. You believed in fighting for this, for your friendship and for him. If there was ever anything that would ever be worth fighting for, you knew with every fiber of your being that it was this. Between him and the world, you would choose your friendship. You would choose him every time. (It was just unfortunate that for him, that didn’t seem to be the case).

You can see his trapped expression, like a deer caught in the headlights, while you were a freight train headed right for him. All it would take is one step, one twist of the doorknob already in his hand and one swift motion for him to leave to escape the impending danger that seemed to be rushing at him. Worst of all was though, he didn’t even know if he wanted to step out of your path of destruction.

“The fact of the matter is,” you feel the moisture finally escape from your eyes, the words becoming muddled as they mixed with your sharp intakes of breaths and sobs.

You’ve never been religious, but you find yourself praying desperately to any and every divine being there is in the universe that this last hail mary would pay off. You may not have been a believer of gods, but you had always been a believer in this connection with Wonwoo and you would exhaust any and all options before you let it go just like that.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel, because it all comes down to you.” You choke on the last word, knowing just how painfully true your words seemed to ring.

“Because you have never,” you push back a sob, your own tearful eyes boring into his own that now seem to be filling with moisture. Wonwoo may not have been as empathetic as you, but he knew you and with just the shaking in your voice and the pain in your eyes, he could already tell that years of agony and rejection seemed to spill from just the few words you had said.

It wasn’t at all what he had expected. Instead of pushing your romantic feelings onto him, what was happening seemed to be worse than what he had initially thought. Instead, you were resigned to this fate; a yearning so deep but unsatisfiable, a thirst that only he would quench, but couldn’t. The realization of true cruelty seemed to wash over him harder than he had ever thought possible, its result personified and facing him directly in the form of your broken form and unsightly begging.

He was wrong. You were not a freight train headed straight for him. It was him. He was an impending crash; the driver of a car you were a passenger to, as he headed straight for a cliff he would willingly (but unknowingly) drive the both of you off of, and yet, with every means for you to escape, you simply refused to. You would happily stand in front of him if he was a freight train; gladly bear the leap into the unknown abyss of a ravine, if it meant you would go down with him. You would set yourself on fire if it meant he could be warm, and nothing broke his heart more.

Eyes shut, as if anticipating the impending collision, you swallow the lump in your throat, and push yourself to continue, “and could never, feel the same.”

There it was. The reality you’d learned to live with. You had come to terms with it long ago, even if just on a subconscious level, but saying the words out loud, speaking into the universe was something else entirely. The agony of admission, of the truth coming to light, spilling from your mouth for the very person who was responsible for your hurt to see and spectate, was a pain unimaginable before this point.

You thought that after experiencing living through and with your unrequited love you could manage anything, but this was a kind of torture even more excruciating than the last. Your bleeding heart laid out on the floor, mangled and bloody for Wonwoo to examine every crevice of its selfish and wounded ventricles. Even more torturous was how he watched it, not so much as even an attempt to retrieve it from the ground; from his end there was nothing. Despite how long you seemed to wait for him to say something, anything, for him to be the best friend you knew he was and tell you that it would be okay.

It’s only when you find the courage to open your still teary eyes that you hear the first sound that breaks through the thickness of the silence:

Click.

Your eyes barely register his quick movements, only catching a glimpse of his shadow as he exits and closes the door of your apartment behind him.

It was over.

“For justice, I will show you mine.”

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shiedagabe · 3 years

Text

The Dream

Today was the day. Today was the day Heath had finally invited you to go to the local carnival, and it appears it was just in time, for today was the spooky month. You could see all types of decorations sprinkled and scattered around town: haunting ghosts hanging from street lamps, jack-o’-lanterns laying on the heavily decorated porches, ready to give unsuspecting kids a good scare, houses decorated like abandoned mansions, each one of them filled with enthusiastic and joyous actors; it couldn’t get any more perfect than this. You latched onto his tall arm, resting your head on it. He was surprised, even startled at first, but he looked at you with his brown eyes, ones which perfectly encapsulated the universe in its entirety. In them you could see everything, from the reflection of the nearby neighborhood and its decaying trees, which leaves fell smoothly because of the calming breeze. Each one of those leaves was unique in their own way; their color brought calm respite to those who admired them; to the immense forest that seamed ever-growing, for each time you looked at him you could see another tree in his immense greenwood, another dream in an innocent soul. He smirked at you, reassuring you that everything was okay, and even though you weren’t in any danger or expecting to be, that smile brought your heart to a calm rest. You decided to pick this neighborhood not only because Heath knew a lot of people that lived here, but also because you wanted to admire these small little trinkets that the town left around, they filled your heart with glee. You knocked on some doors, with your inner child mind jumping around happily, trick or treating the unsuspecting town folk, all in good spirit. They were surprised to see you together, they had no idea you had started dating, but they were more than happy to know that. Most of them invited you two to have dinner at their house since they hadn’t seen you in such a long time because “You had something more important to do”, his words, not yours.

You had finally arrived at the carnival and your bags were already filled to the brim with sweets and treats. You had so many rides to try out, so many haunted mansions to visit, you honestly thought you were only going to leave at the break of dawn, and you relished that idea immensely. You decided to start at the skeet shooting gallery, one that fascinated you because you never had any experiences with firearms, but always had a strong feeling towards. “Are you ready?” the carnival man asked, looking at you with a terrifying smile. He had makeup on, like, too much makeup, but it sure did set the mood for this wonderful night. He looked like the Devil incarnate, but you could see that his eyeliner was already fading; maybe he did this sort of thing as a way to get money and regretted his decision immensely, but you were too afraid to ask. You grabbed the shotgun and as soon as the plates started flying, the recoil hit your face. Heath laughed for a bit, but he noticed that you had a huge red spot on your face, so he caressed it slowly and told you how to hold it properly: “Look, you have to hold up the stock up to your cheek and you have to wedge its butt in your shoulder pocket, like this.” – He said, as he grabbed your hands and placed them properly, you could feel the difference in temperature, fluctuating in a battle against something you had ever known. His palms were hot and warm; they reassured you that what you were doing was right. His fingers, however, were rigid and freezing, cursed by Demeter to be forever cold, yet, somehow, you found comfort in them, and they enveloped your hands and put them where they should be. After trying for a couple of times, you finally managed to shoot down a plate or two. You were happy, really happy, and so was he, he gave you a big hug and whispered something into your ear – “Now watch and learn”. He paid the carnival man to give him another shot and he managed to shoot every single plate down, well, except for one. He blamed that the wind had gotten into his eye, but the man didn’t care because he had finally seen a happy couple, so he let this one slide and asked him to pick a prize. He turned his head to face yours, with a look that said “It’s all yours, pick what you want”. You excitedly asked for the giant fluffy mind flayer plushy, its dark robes and tentacle-like nature fascinated you, for you have never seen one before, and you found it really cute, although mysterious. You decided to try a couple more rides before the big finale, such as the whack-a-mole and the bumper car ride. Now that you think about it, the latter was the most fun attraction you had had in a while. You had to sit in different cars because the operator wouldn't let you ride them together, but you had a blast while doing so. Every time you crashed into each other you looked at each other in the eyes and laughed it off, but whenever someone crashed into you, you two would tag team that person and effectively turn them into a metal sandwich. You were making jokes and were constantly laughing, the night couldn’t have ended in a better way, but both of you wanted to try the miniature London Eye out. It was a perfect replica or the British attraction, but it was sized down as to give everyone a chance to ride it. He once again bought the tickets, and it just now hit you that he had been paying for everything the entire time. You pulled and tugged his shirt, but he already knew what you were nagging him about. He merely placed his finger over your lips and, with a quiet shush, reassured you that it was okay. You never had much money to begin with, but you felt bad letting him pay for every single ride at the carnival, but with that small little gesture you felt at ease and comfortable around him.

As you sat on the ride, you were jumping on the seat, excited to finally see the beautiful landscape that lied beyond the light-infected streets. As you reached the top you could see everything you had ever imagined. The city, which lit up amazingly with its yellow sheen, reminding you that every single one of those lights had a purpose, a meaning; they represented each individual that lived there; the forest, immense in its nature, dark and gloomy, hiding secrets that will forever be unknown to humanity. As you saw the ever-distant trees you turned to look at your significant other and he, too, was appreciating the beauty of this gargantuan view. “Isn’t this amazing?” – He asked, without turning his head to face you. “It really is.” – You replied, placing your hand on his firm leg. He looked at you, his eyes were darkened because of the poorly lit atmosphere the ride had, and his gaze reminded you of the timberland below. You held his hand to pull him in for a kiss, but you noticed that it started flaking off rapidly, revealing something which you couldn’t even imagine. His flesh was made of void of indiscernible quality, pure and fresh. You freaked out and screamed, because you had never seen such a thing before. “Are you alright?!” – You screamed, turning to look at his face to see what reaction he would have, but it was no longer there. What lied was an amalgamation of faces and countenances, all screaming in agony, trying to leave this immortal bastion. All of them were unrecognizable, they meshed together, malformed and contorted, and uttered of unspeakable horrors they had suffered, simultaneously. You threw yourself into the corner, trying to get away from this…, wicked and fowl beast, but it grew larger and larger. He, or better, it started scratching what was left of his skin, revealing something unnatural, eldritch, even. It had an uncountable amount of tentacles and eyes, faces and screams, all of them made of pure and unadulterated void, black and unalloyed as the night, and all of them had their eye on you. You closed your eyes and covered your face with your hands, waiting for this nightmare to end, but you suddenly felt a limp appendage touch your shoulder. You peeped through your hands, only to see his face in the millions of others that had joined his and, in an uncoordinated choir, it only managed to say this: “I love you, it wasn’t your fault”.

You jumped out of your bed, startled and afraid, grabbing your plushy as soon as you saw it. You held it near and dear to your heart, squeezing it as hard as you could because you were glad this nightmare was finally over. After being consoled by your tiny little companion, you turned your head to the left to look at the weather, it was raining, heavily, and you weren’t able to admire the urban beauty for a single moment. You turned your head down and realized that the queen sized bed was missing something, or rather, someone. You grabbed the pillowcase that lied on the fresh sheets, unwashed, and smelled it once more. You tell yourself you can still smell his essence, but there is nothing there, not anymore, only a cushion filled to the brim with sorrow and dried tears. You would have readied up to go to work, but you had been fired for mourning for too long, but you decided to get up anyway, dressing anything that would bring back his memories. The drive to the local graveyard was a small one, but one that emotionally took so long. It reminded you of every good memory you had, every kiss you shared, every glance you partook in. Sigh, it’s just a shame to see it all go. You opened the graveyard door, rusty and creaky; and greeted the security guard, but he already knew your name, after all, you were a local. You slowly walked in the mud which consumed your feet, little by little, and sat next to his tombstone, telling him about your day and how you had this weird dream, which he starred in, but the story was all the same. I guess some things never change. I guess some people never let go.

#heath ledger #heath ledger x reader #heath ledger imagine #fanfic #fanfiction #eldritch #horror #psychological horror #halloween #halloween fanfiction

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curly-bangtan · 4 years

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A Drop of Heaven III: Broken Skin (M)

[Series Masterlist]

Pairing: ot7 x reader // this chapter: Yoongi x reader, Seokjin x reader

Series summary: Seven vampires have secretly been roaming the darks of your world for millennia. Each brother selects a Feed who becomes supernaturally bound to him, whose blood will be fed on until their inevitable mortal death. They have spent their eternity hunting for the exorbitant rarity that is angel blood - the most heavenly of food for vampires that fuel them with desire, lust and satiety. So what happens when they all find you, the first angel-blooded being they’ve encountered in two centuries?

Genre: vampire au, poly au, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (e2l)

Warnings in this chapter: blood drinking, soft!Seokjin, mentions of depression and suicidal thoughts (gets a little dark), graphic violence, Yoongi being abusive and sadistic, dom!Yoongi, rough unprotected sex, BDSM I guess?, spanking, biting, choking, hair pulling, feeding during sex, degradation, ass job, hate sex, own cum consumption

Word count: 11.4k

A/N: I do not condone Yoongi’s behaviour at all, it is horrible and not intended to be romanticised!! He is obviously a vampire so violence is a habit built from centuries, but it’s also still not okay. And everything that happens is consensual. I’m honestly so scared that this is too much but I might just be overreacting. I hope you like this update because there were parts that were so difficult for me to write. :(

[prelude, i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, epilogue]

❦

Kissing Seokjin feels like sinking into a cloud after plummeting from the heavens, soft, cold, delicate. You don’t think you’d truly realised how plump his lips are until they are on yours, catching your every breath. You sense his initial shock, feel the fumes of confusion swirling in his chest. Because still, you haven’t stopped feeling, just feeling, him.

His body is tense at first, unmoving. Yet his lips contradict its language by slowly moving around yours, the motion so natural, so fluid, that it doesn’t feel like the first time you’re kissing.

Despite the coolness of his skin, all you feel is a warmth enshrouding your every sense, but mostly your heart. The sire bond doesn’t stop forming, building brick by brick between your souls like a bridge crossing the vast ocean. You see him on the other side, so far, yet so clearly. You’re walking towards each other, no, maybe even running. Full speed.

And then you collide.

And coalesce into one entity.

You don’t register it until your leg has swung around him and he has pulled you onto his lap, hands so gentle that you wonder if you’re imagining his touch. There isn’t a single thought in your brain right now, just a humming, faint colours swimming.

Every single movement is slow, heavy, as if you’re underwater and a pressure is resisting you, but pleasantly so because it makes every movement feel more impactful. Your eyes flicker open just a moment to confirm that this isn’t a dream, and you’re met with such dazzling beauty that makes you question your reality more.

This doesn’t feel real.

Yet at the same time, you’ve never felt anything more real.

Especially as your hands travel to his face, cupping his smooth cheeks, fingers gripping onto him so not to get washed away by the current. Every time you touch, you melt into him.

Not to mention all his sensations overwhelming yours, the way you feel his turmoil at his own conflicting emotions for you. How he cares deeply for you already, wishing just to be close to you in any shape or form because he craves the humanness of love. Yet also how he knows that love, be it platonic or romantic, has long since been vetoed as an option in his life, and given your dynamic, will never not crumble.

Seokjin shudders under your caress, as if he also cannot believe this is true. His hands sliding up your legs on their own accord, not greedily, but not of innocence either.

Then he’s guiding you onto your back and up the bed until your head meets the plush of your pillow, tongue rolling over yours like evening waves. Neither of you think to stop, take a breath, assess the situation. Because the bond between you doesn’t allow you to do anything except be together.

But when his fingers reach up your top, he freezes. Rather than your skin that he was expecting, is the rough lace of the bodysuit you are wearing.

You had both forgotten about that amidst all this. And suddenly, the few minutes before where he had entered the room to the sight of you trying on this raunchy undergarment feels like an eon ago.

His eyes lock onto yours, fingers stroking the patterned material as he softly asks, “Can I?”

“Yes,” you sigh into him, “please.”

Heartbeat unsteady but strong, you feel your whole body tremble under him as he smoothly slides your cotton joggers down to reveal your bare thighs. And when you pull your sweatshirt over your head too, Seokjin thinks he’s forgotten how to breathe.

His insides feel warm from the feeding of your blood, but his groin feels even warmer. He doesn’t think he has ever experienced such a strong physical desire for any of his Feeds in the past. Never anything so potent, compelling. He feels as though he is flotsam, swept away by the ocean into the depths of you.

You look up at him, eyes wide with a confounding innocence that you somehow have maintained throughout the affliction you’ve endured. The thin white material of the lingerie hugs your body so dearly, the floral lace like grapevines across your torso and up to your breasts. The sheer mesh does little to hide the colouration of your nipples. Seokjin feels his bulge growing painfully.

Your hand droops down his front, an action of harmless intent, yet sets fire to his gut. He falls back into you, mouth finding yours as his fingers dart up your legs, marvelling at your soft spotless skin, the same skin that used to be painted with scars and bruises and cuts that dig deeper than flesh, but have miraculously been wiped clean. It had felt like a rebirth.

It is evident from his hesitant touch how nervous he is, his throat quivering. It has been so long since he has remotely felt so alive; it moves him beyond his comprehension.

And it is as if you can sense that he wants you to do so, you break the kiss to flip him around so you are straddling him once again. From the way you sat over his crotch, dressed like a doll in white, Seokjin knows that he’ll come undone under you.

Rather than sealing his lips again, you just watch him for a moment, chest rising from the fervour. Your thumb traces his forehead down to his chin, then brush the corner of his mouth. His eyes fall shut, quaking under your touch, trying to calm the storm in his mind.

Then it darts down his chest like a little mouse to palm his arousal over his slacks. Seokjin gasps, a sound that you enjoy too much. He feels hefty in your hands, already, throbbing at the friction you rub. Your core is blazing at his reaction, his whimpers.

But then, in a flash, he sits up and holds up a finger for you to stop, eyes that are trained on the door shifting immediately. “Wait here.” is all he says before he zooms out from beneath you and through the door that joins your room to his.

You don’t even have time to register that he’s gone until you’re plopped onto the mattress, alone.

What?

Sense is slowly starting to ebb back into you. Had you done something wrong? Wait, well of course, you hadn’t even asked his permission to kiss him. But that doesn’t explain why he had asked you to wait before leaving so hurriedly. This scene reminds you of…

And lo and behold, as you creep up to the door to his room, you hear someone knock. Your attention quickly turns to the second door that opens to the hallway, but you realise that the sound was too muffled for it to be coming from there. No, someone knocked on Seokjin’s bedroom door.

Ears straining to listen as you press the side of your face against the wood, you hear powerful steps enter the room.

“Good night. What can I help you with? Why do you look so troubled, Namjoon?” Although the words are barely audible, his name rings sonically into you. A strange yet familiar rope tugs on your soul.

You think you hear him sigh, and you can imagine exactly the frustrated frown he must be plagued with. “I… I don’t even know how to begin to talk about it, hyung. You know what I’m like… with words…”

“Yes, of course.” It could be your imagination but there is still the smallest hitch to Seokjin’s breath, yet to his credit, he is hiding it well. “Your debility in expressing your true feelings is second to Yoongi. What’s the matter?”

“Have you felt it yet?”

A pause.

“Felt what?”

“The bond.” Namjoon’s voice is a husky rasp.

You tense because it almost sounds as though it pains him. Unconsciously, your hand grips at your chest, the memory of its violent cinching when your soul was first tethered to his haunting you.

“Th- Why…?” Seokjin sounds as though he’s been asked a deeply personal question. You suppose it is.

“Hell, it’s so- so intense this time. In our centuries, I don’t think any Feed bond has ever been this powerful. When I fed on her yesterday, it felt like we were physically bound together, like the Gods tied us together and I couldn’t walk away from her no matter how much I struggled. I didn’t feel myself, I felt so… human.”

Your blood freezes. You hadn’t known, or even considered, how the sire bond must have felt for him. Do vampires feel everything more heightened due to their superior senses? Or less because they have been numbed over time? That bond with Namjoon felt vastly different from Seokjin. It’s true what he said, it was like your souls were bound by rope. Supernaturally unbreakable rope. And though the initial impact has eventually worn off, everytime your mind lingered a second too long in the thoughts of him, you felt its reminder tugging at your core again.

“I…” Seokjin seems slightly dumbfounded. Whether it’s because he finds himself relating so much to that feeling, or because he’s surprised it had been that strong for his brother too. “Maybe it’s because we haven’t tasted angel blood in too long; it has always driven us a little wild in the past, this time only exacerbated by how much we’ve missed it.”

“Possibly… But, I mean, I really wasn’t myself. I k- I lost control. I felt things, emotions that I can’t make sense of. I can’t even begin to describe them to you.”

“You mean, you felt affection for the girl?”

Silence. You hear your own heartbeat.

Affection?

There was a longing in the way Namjoon had kissed you, like all the anger and frustration you had riled up in him had somehow melted into a flood of desire. And you, yourself. Something had felt warm, pleasant, in your core. You hadn’t wanted him to stop, not even an inkling.

Such contrast to the spiteful words you had been throwing at each other only a minute before he fed on you.

It’s definitely the bond.

“Affect- No- Don’t be ridiculous. Why would you say that?” Namjoon splutters. You can imagine his cheeks staining in colour.

“Namjoon. I know you like to distance yourself from your Feeds, maintain a dynamic in which you always view them as your prey. But you are allowed to grow fond of her. It’s happened to us all before.” There’s a resignation in Seokjin’s tone, like this is a conversation that has been had many times before.

“I’m not growing fond of her! It’s the bond, it’s overriding my sense.”

“Namjoon-ah.” He sighs, exasperation crisp in his muffled voice. “Yes, it is all very much the effects of the sire bond. But you know that the bond manifests in such that reflects on the vampire right? Its shape and form, its intensity, its hold over you. It tells you more about yourself than you’re willing to admit.”

You perk up straight. You don’t think you want to continue listening. You don’t think you want to face the knowledge of what this magic means; it would elicit too many unwanted thoughts, confusion, dilemmas. You don’t want it. You don’t want to think about the deeper reflection of Namjoon’s feelings, and yours too.

So, stealthily, you sneak back onto the bed in your best efforts not to make a sound that would announce your eavesdropping to the vampires next door.

Sat near the edge of the bed, you stare at your wrist, at the fresh wounds that Seokjin’s fang had punctured. It’s starting to hurt now, as you stray away from the state of euphoria that came with the settling of the bond between you. You hadn’t noticed before when you were kissing him, but your hand is slathered with dried crusted blood.

You pick at it. Even licking it to see if your blood truly tastes that divine. It tastes metallic all the same.

Don’t think about the magic. Don’t think about Namjoon. Don’t even think about Seokjin. Just stop thinking for a second. Stop questioning. Stop wondering. Stop before you go crazy.

Thus you sit there blankly until Seokjin finally raps softly at the door after his conversation.

“Come in.” You remember you don’t need to speak up for him to hear you - he’s got vampire hearing.

Visible bother is worn on his expression as he enters. He gazes at you differently now. And once again, it’s like you’ve both awoken from a trance. No longer leaping into each other. The realisation sits bitterly in your stomach.

It wasn’t real, was it?

“Let me heal you first.” It’s the gentleness in his voice that make you sad.

And so you obediently lap up the rich scarlet liquid oozing out of his own wrist. You try to ignore how its taste threatens to tip you over and fall back into him again. You try to ignore that warm embrace you feel around your heart.

Is any of it real?

Soon, the two holes disappear along with the growing sting of your raw flesh. As good as new.

You refuse to look at each other at first, as you put on your clothes to conceal your suddenly very self conscious body and he fiddles with the embroidered collar of his shirt. This isn’t regret, but there might possibly a drop of shame, at what you had been doing.

“Um… That was Namjoon…” Whether or not he knows that you were eavesdropping, he doesn’t show.

“Oh.” You simply utter.

The tension is a tangible thing between you. The residual buzz from the bond is still present, tingling under your skins. If you focus hard enough, you can just about hear whispers of his emotions, but only barely.

After a silence that pains you both to be a part of, Seokjin clears his throat. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of the kind of person I am. I’m not usually… The sire bond that fixes between a vampire and an angel has never been very well understood in my time no matter the research I’ve done. It’s guarded not only by witch magic and demonic powers, but also celestial strength of the heavens. It… warps the mind and senses.”

It’s a factual statement, yet you feel many underlying implications. It warps the mind and senses. As in what you did wasn’t really of your own wills, is that what he means? It stings, because it had felt so real. It was real. For you anyway.

“But…”

He realises your interpretation, and his eyes soften. “It’s complicated, the paradox of reality. I don’t wish to offend you in any way. I… care about you. I don’t wish to confuse you. So, it’s best if… it doesn’t happen again. For our own sake.”

He’s right, you know. But it feels bitter. Because just as you begin to taste a sweet thing in your mouth, just as you feel yourself healing through a person, it all just vaporises. But there’s no way of knowing if that was all just a trick of the mind anyway.

Or maybe Seokjin’s withdrawal is because of Namjoon. There’s too much confusion, muddle of emotions and incomprehensible feelings. And the more you try to wrap your head around his words that you overheard, the more you find yourself falling into a vortex of unknown.

It’s best not to start down an uncertain path, than realising too late that you’re falling off a cliff’s edge.

You had hope in Seokjin, that you could be close, because he holds that normalcy that you crave amidst this chaos. Could you still be friends? From the way you’re avoiding each other’s eye, you’re not sure.

“I understand.” You stare at a fleck of blood on your hand.

You’re staring at your pristine, spotless hands, folded around each other atop your lap. Sitting in the middle of the mattress’ end.

Waiting. Trembling.

It’s Wednesday.

The very day you’ve dreaded the most since learning about the vampire who you’ll be sired to today. The vampire who will enjoy inflicting pain onto you. The vampire who hasn’t a single drop of empathy left in him.

Yoongi.

You’re not unaccustomed to men with power complexes who like to seek validation from harming those weaker than he is. So you’re not sure why you’re scared right now. You should be immune to such fears at this point, but you guess it’s the little human instinct left in you that’s invoking it.

Your life hadn’t always been a saga of continuous abuse; you were a normal teenager once, with a loving family, many friends, a regular content life. But one stroke of bad luck, one tragedy, and your cloudless blue sky was ripped apart. It was a stormy Friday night, you suppose that was your first foreboding from the gods. You had begrudgingly agreed to stay in because your parents were adamant that you shouldn’t go to that Minho’s party again after they heard that he dealt weed to everyone. Still, you had snuck out with the help of your then boyfriend without a single ounce of guilt and scurried off together to Minho’s. Your parents didn’t usually check up on you, so when you had received a furious phone call from your father a little past midnight, you were shocked. Oh fuck, you remember thinking, accompanied by that distinctly horrid heart-sinking feeling.

There wasn’t much you could say to persuade them not to come pick you up right that instant, even as you begged them with tears of humiliation as your peers looked at you in pity, you knew their mind was set. And though it wasn’t very justified at all, you had felt a surge of anger towards them. Resentment.

You had slammed the car door particularly hard when you entered the vehicle, your boyfriend’s worried expression in the corner of your eye as you couldn’t bare looking at him. “Y/N. You lied to us.” You stayed silent. “We asked one thing from you, and that was to stay away from Minho, and you couldn’t do that.” “Minho is my friend!” “Minho is a bad influence!” “I don’t even smoke weed! Have you ever seen me high? No. Do I smell like weed right now? No. Why do you want to control me so badly?” “We weren’t banning you from all parties, it was just this one party. And you couldn’t do that for us.” The disappointment in their calm voices riled you up even more. “And why not? Why can’t I go to this one party if I wanted to? Everyone went to this party tonight, everyone. Did any of their parents stop them? No. Because none of them are as controlling as you!” “Because none of them know about the weed!” “Oh next thing I know, you’ll be saying that my boyfriend is a bad influence too and that I can’t date him anymore.” “You know what, that’s true.” “Oh, For God’s sake! you guys are so annoying. Why do you have to be like this?”

Every time you think back to that argument you had in the car, your nails dig into your fists. If only you had just shut up. If only you had just accepted that you were in the wrong. It was just one party, one stupid fucking party, that means so little in the grand scheme of your life.

“Y/N, mind the way you’re speaking to your parents.”

It had started pouring down heavily on the drive back home. You couldn’t even look out the window because everything was a rain-blurred mosaic. The windshield wipers were wiping vigorously, that unbearably annoying sound now forever etched in your mind in this memory.

“I can speak however I want to.” You watched the digital clock on the screen of the car switch to 01:01. “You guys are the worst parents in the world. I wish I wasn’t your daughter. I wish-”

In movies, car crashes happen in slow motion; the audience sees the shock register in the driver’s face, then watch the whole vehicle flip in 0.5x speed. In real life, all you feel is a violent collision, a loud ringing, a flash of light, all in a split second. Then everything is black.

01:01.

You had still been staring at the time. It was the last thing you saw before your world was torn into shreds.

You had barely made it, by the miracle, or perhaps more accurately punishment of God. You were unconscious for 72 hours after the crash; you parents were unconscious forever. They gave it a day before they broke the news to you.

You had cried until you fainted again and woke up another 20 hours later.

It took months for your injuries to heal, during which you had all day and night to replay that last scene in the car over and over again in your head. Those words you said to them before they died.

Your elderly grandmother who was living with you and your 2-month old sister at the time took the burden of the family. She hadn’t scolded you, blamed you, nor resented you. She just came to the hospital every day with warm porridge and soup and your sister carried on her crooked back, smiled at you and told you to keep fighting.

You didn’t have many relatives; your father was estranged from his family, while your mother only had your grandmother and your uncle. Your uncle was a kind, supportive figure once. But you could tell he didn’t see you the same way after the accident everyone knew you’d caused. You didn’t blame him, you hated yourself too. Still, he moved in to help your elderly grandmother; babies are a lot to handle after all, especially for those who can’t even walk up the stairs without wincing. Your uncle became the breadwinner of the family, working hard every day to pay for your medical bills. You had admired him once, had been so tremendously grateful.

But then your grandmother died.

Heart attack due to stress, fatigue and exhaustion. It was the day before you were set to be released from the hospital.

Everything fell apart. It was like a switch was flipped because all of a sudden there was hatred in your uncle’s eyes every time you saw him look at you, something that burned so deep that it didn’t feel human. It was a demonic sort of evil that emitted from his gaze. Alcohol was his remedy for his sorrows, you were his relief.

The first time he hit you felt like you deserved it. The second time, maybe fair enough. But by the fiftieth time, it felt like it had evolved into something of a habit. It became a spiral of abuse, he became less and less human, more and more a senseless drunk monster. There was a basement where you were locked in as he insisted it was the only way to keep you from causing another tragedy in his life; you weren’t permitted to leave the house, you couldn’t and it wasn’t to do with a lack of trying. Sometimes you were fed and watered, if he was in a good mood. Sometimes your face was burned on the stove if you tried to dispute.

And for a while, you’d found some sort of excuse, justification for him. You killed your parents, his sister. You killed his mother. They had all died in consequence of one bad, selfish decision you’d made. But as the abuse worsened, it became more apparent that he enjoyed watching you bleed, he enjoyed painting your skin with bruises and burns and cuts. In a sick twisted perversion. None of it should be excused or justified.

Your sister grew up in a house of violence, watching your torment in her big round eyes, not uttering a peep. On her second birthday, you had given her a stuffed bear that you found in the basement. She smiled so widely and hugged it so tight to her chest. And you remembered why you were staying alive.

Escape was never an option - your leg, broken from the accident, was never allowed to heal properly before it became your uncle’s favourite batting post. Suicide - you’d thought about for a very very long time, every morning, every night, every waking breath. But if you were to kill yourself, you would have had to kill your sister too. And you couldn’t, you just couldn’t. One evening, while she was asleep, you had held a pillow over her head, centimeters away from suffocating her. But then your uncontrollable sobs woke her up, and she asked in her small innocent voice, “What are you doing? Why are you crying? Did he hurt you again?”

You couldn’t do it.

And so you endured years of being a prisoner of a mad man. Waiting for your deaths. Physical pain became tolerable when you learnt to shut off your mind, transport your consciousness to elsewhere. If you didn’t think about how he was kicking your head, you wouldn’t notice your skull cracking open.

It was only when your uncle realised your attachment to your sister that he found a way to hurt you. That, you couldn’t be immune to.

Growing footsteps at the door rouse you from your deep thought. You feel a dampness in your cheek and you hurry to wipe it away. The footsteps are slow, light, almost a drag.

He’s coming.

Deep breaths. Just remember: state of inertia. Pain is an illusion, a choice. You don’t have to feel it if you don’t want to.

The door opens softly. Inhale. He pads in, black hair a ruffled mess. Exhale. His eyes land on you, sat tensely on the bed of his Feed room, awaiting him. Inhale. He walks closer, each step absolutely soundless. Exhale.

When he arrives in front of you, you scan his face: paper-white skin, droopy eyes heavy from sleep- But wait. His eyes are already shifted; they don’t contain a grain of white.

Just a pitch dark ocean.

His touch is ice when he tilts your head to the side as he slumps onto the bed beside you. Without a single word, he yanks your neck to him and bites into you.

To you credit, you don’t cry out. Eyes clamped shut, you try to focus your attention elsewhere. Don’t mind his rough fingers around your throat. Don’t mind the excruciating pain that feels like a saw digging into your neck. Don’t mind the gush of blood surging out, droplets flying from the pressure. It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt.

Pain is fake. Pain is an illusion. Pain is a neurological response. Pain is fear. Pain is a choice.

Think about something else.

You recall the conversation you had with Seokjin early this morning before you went to sleep, after he had tried to resume a normal dynamic between you, and brush what had happened under the rug. He had told you about the origin of the seven vampires.

Yes, think of that.

“It was over two millennia ago, when the Roman empire began to dominate the word’s seven seas and cruel dictators lead our people. We were seven brothers, sons of a rich influential man, fortunately born into a wealthy family that was favoured by our ruler. We were never particularly close to begin with as siblings, each of us absorbed into our lives. Namjoon was a fine public speaker, a clear born-leader, an intellectual, favoured by our father who had high hopes for him. I was a literature student, and despite being the eldest, politics was very evidently not my set path; I had always been more of an advisor. Yoongi had always been an odd, quiet one, but an extremely talented musician. My father didn’t particularly approve of the arts, yet we had so much fortune that he didn’t need all his sons to work. Hoseok was wild, popular amongst the people, held the best most-renowned dinner parties with endless entertainment such as dancers, drinking games and one time even an elephant he’d bought from Africa. Jimin was a hopeless romantic, a lover not a fighter, chasing lady after lady, promising that he was foolish last time, but this time he knows that she is the one. Taehyung loved art, an extraordinary painter and sculptor, even helped us design our new house once. Though he tended to spend too much time with men and women at inns and left a trail of broken hearts after him. Our youngest, Jungkook, was an Olympic athlete; anyone who competed with him accepted their defeat. He was the long-reigning champion, the pride of our family.

“Life was incredible for us seven, perhaps too incredible. Because soon, we realised that we didn’t want to stop living. Namjoon in particular was so magnetised by the idea of immortality, it became his mission, his obsession. This only worsened after the death of our father, as it made us realise that death is inevitable, even for the greatest. But to Namjoon, it was incredibly unfair. Why must the greatest die? The greatest deserve to live and rule for an eternity. That only made sense.

“There were rumours from ear to ear that the Olympian Gods worshipped by all were living among us, hiding. Pluto, or more commonly known as Hades, was said to hold the key to immortality. He was the God of Death after all, if you managed to find him and prove your excellence and worthiness, he shall grant you eternal life, youth and health. Of course, we were all entranced by such possibility. Though, whereas we saw it as folklore, Namjoon saw it as a goal.

“It was four years of seeking, four years of endless obsession, four years of dead ends. But he alas found something - a rumoured family of witches, descendants of Pluto according to the people from their village. They were outcasts for their strange ways and the weird happenings around them. It was said to best leave them alone, lest you wish for malfortune upon your kin. Namjoon paid the warnings no heed, had our slaves cease them from their home and brought to ours.

“At this point, Namjoon’s sanity was toppling. This family was tortured for answers, whipped like slaves for answers and cooperation. And when they continued to refuse, Namjoon had the husband slain, and threatened to kill the two children as well. The female witch who remained finally gave in and agreed to perform a spell of immortality for us.

“Witch magic is a complex matter, even for us now. We discovered that a witch’s promise is irrevocable, magic irreversible, so Namjoon was careful with his demands. He asked for immortality, eternal health, youth and beauty, which had been our original wishes, but he grew greedy and also asked for superhuman abilities such as speed, strength, stealth, healing, heightened senses and much more.

“To our surprise, the witch complied and promised to grant us these things. She concocted a spell which put us into a hibernation of seven days, and sure enough, when we awoke, we were different. We could run at lightning speed, lift boulders, jump the heights of arenas. We could fight lions and bears, and we would win. And so the witch was released with her children, never to be seen again.

“However, as the days passed, more and more began to shift. The taste of food grew bland in our mouth, light from sun grew increasingly blinding and sensitive to our skin, and the canines of our teeth felt like they were remoulding… Then came the unquenchable thirst. For blood.

“One night, Yoongi and Hoseok had gotten in a fight at an inn with some travellers. At the scent of fresh blood, they turned from angry men to black-eyed demons in a split second, ripping into the throats of every single person with a pulse. They had killed nearly a hundred people that night, in the span of an hour. Namjoon masked the incident as a bear attack. But then the same ill fate fell upon us all - a sudden loss of control, then an unstoppable feeding until our hunger is satisfied. It became too much to cover up. And soon, for some reason, the sun began to burn our skin.

“It became apparent that, though the witch did grant our wishes without fail, she had also bestowed a curse upon us. For the rest of our immortal lives, we would never be able to step foot in the sun again, and will be plagued with a monstrous thirst for blood. That was our punishment for our greed and cruelty.”

Yoongi finally releases your neck, carelessly ripping his fangs through your flesh and tendons. You fall lifelessly onto your back, head faint and spinning frantically.

You made it through. You hadn’t felt a thing. You managed to block it out.

But now, a searing agony overtakes your senses, so concentrated on your neck that you think you’re going to lose consciousness. Your vision is dark and blotchy as you stare at the ceiling, unmoving.

Is he going to heal you? Or is he going to watch you suffer first?

You lay there, trying to muster some understanding for the vampire who had just tore through your neck and drained what feels like half your body fluids. He hadn’t asked to be a vampire, he is a product of his brother’s greed, which he has to live with eternally.

But that doesn’t give him any reason to be this cold, this heartless.

Blood is pouring out of your wound incessantly, like a perpetual waterfall onto the bedding. You think you’re going to die. But it’s not the first time you’ve thought you’re going to die only to be disappointed, so you don’t have high hopes this time.

And sure enough, as your eyes begin to fall and breathing shallow, a wet warmth is pressed onto your lips. You refuse to open your mouth and be brought back to life, but calloused fingers force your jaw open and the potion flows into you once more.

You hate how good it tastes, how your body knows that this is what heals you. But something tastes different about Yoongi’s blood - there’s a zingy bitter aftertaste, like what petrol smells like. You want to spit it out.

Finally, gasping, you sit up. Yoongi carelessly wipes his already healing wrist on the covers, and you wonder if his reasoning behind getting white bed sheets for his Feed room is for the purpose of staining it red with blood, a display of his wreckage.

You glare at him, watch him pick at his nails. “Fuck you, you wanted me to suffer.”

He meets your eye, and you feel a spear of eyes pierce into your soul. “And what about it?” His voice is low, a hum, a purr, indicative that he’d just woken up.

Unbelievable. He’s fucking sick in the head.

“Not even a hello? A self introduction? You could have at least warned me.” You rub at your right neck where he had terrorised, the ghost of the brain-melting agony haunting you, and you don’t think it will ever stop haunting you.

“Do you talk to your breakfast before you eat it?” He grunts.

Truly, you’re at a loss for words. Gawking at him, you’re incensed to see the indifference in his pupils that have returned to normal now. He doesn’t back down from your gaze. For many, silence is an awkward discomfort, a moment where your brains are scrambling for the next topic of conversation. With Yoongi, silence is powerful; the silence speaks volumes, it tells you more about him than when he is speaking.

“I’m not a fucking waffle. I’m a living, breathing human; I have feelings, I-”

“I don’t care.”

His eyes are still locked onto yours as he climbs further up the bed. It takes every fibre in you not to shrink back against the headboard. You can’t show your fear, you can’t let him know the power he has over you.

“You think you have a hold on me, that I’ll give you the reaction you want,” he’s hovering over you now, your frame trapped between his arms, “but I know men like you. You-”

“There are no men like me.” Yoongi rumbles, his shadow towering over you but you refuse to lay on your back, refuse to cower.

“You act so cruel because you think the world owes you. You act like you don’t give a fuck about anyone except yourself. You abuse the power you have to hurt other people because it validates you. But it’s men like you who have the weakest minds, who are the most afraid and lonely.”

The growl that rips from his throat silences you. You wonder if you’re pushing too far. But what have you got to lose anyway? Might as well gamble with your life. “Shut the fuck up, you know nothing about me.” He clutches your throat in one swift motion.

“I know that you’re just a scared little boy inside who is trapped in this immortal body with no escape from his bloodlust.” You choke out despite his constricting grip.

“Shut up!” Yoongi lifts his other hand at you, but halts before he swings.

You don’t even flinch. Because you know you’ve won. If the game he plays is abuse and violence, you’ve definitely won, you’ve been practicing for it for years. Staring deep into his eyes, you know he knows too. So his arm slowly droops down, and he lets your neck go with an unnecessary shove. You splutter a cough.

He gets off you and hops off the bed, making his way to the window where he flings open the curtains and stares through the window into the dark night. Though he is facing away from you, you can tell that his mind has transported to some place distant, some place in the past, you wager.

He was going to hit you. He was going to hit you.

But he also didn’t. He stopped himself. Why? May there be a shard of hope left for his redemption? Maybe he does have a seed of humanity buried deep somewhere, awaiting its saviour droplets of dew to liberate it from centuries of misery, so it can sprout into a fresh green sap.

But why are you hoping? Why are you giving him the benefit of the doubt? He has no respect for you, or anyone; he views you as beneath him, not even worthy to speak to. He’s worse than Namjoon. Your pain fascinates him. He’s unsaveable.

Just try. He needs you. A voice sounds in your head, so clear that you look around for its source. Save him from himself. It’s your duty.

Duty? You frown. He can rot for all you care.

“What happened to my uncle?” Yoongi’s trance is stirred by your blunt question, though he doesn’t turn to you.

“Dead, Jungkook killed him.” He says it so casually, as if it was nothing more than a fleck of dust, as if he’s pretending not to know the impact it would have on you. Your chest caves in.

Dead.

Why is he dead while you are kept alive here, as a prisoner, as a toy? Why was he allowed to be set free from his crimes just like that while you are being endlessly punished by the one sole mistake in your past?

Drip. Drip drip.

The tears flow out soundlessly. You watch them splatter onto your shirt into dark splotches.

Yoongi notices and peers over at you, frowning. “Why are you crying? Don’t you hate him?”

“I… I fucking despised him. I wanted to be the one to kill him, but only after I do to him everything he did to me. It was my right, my right, and you guys took that from me.” It’s getting harder and harder to breathe as your pulse rises. You’re on the brink of hysteria, you feel it. You’re going to crack open and finally detonate.

If there was one thing you wanted, it was revenge for your suffering at the hands of your uncle. And you couldn’t even get that. What do you have to look forward to anymore?

A scoff leaves Yoongi, almost humoured, but dark. “You wanted to kill him?” He meanders back towards the bed. “Little girl, let me tell you that we did you a favour by killing him for you. Killing is an irremediable curse. It would have robbed your innocence, tainted your purity and haunted your dreams for the rest of your life. Revenge on your enemy is poison for your soul. Be glad you have never and will never kill.”

You suck in your breath, and hold it there. The significance of his words sink into you like a heavy vessel, pushing through the screams of madness wreaking havoc in your brain right now, and planting itself into your heart.

Killing is a curse.

Of course, of all beings, Yoongi would know best.

You sniff and look up, to be greeted by the soft cotton of his sleeve roughly wiping your eyes. “Stop crying, you look ugly.”

“Wh-”

“Plus,” he jabs his sleeve at your drying cheeks, “angel blood runs in your veins. You’re supernaturally inclined to virtue and righteousness. You wouldn’t have been able to commit such sin.”

Is that true? Your angel blood forbids you to sin? Thinking back, you had always been a good chaste child, obedient, caring, sweet and innocent. It was only towards the very end of your parents’ lives where you became more and more corrupted. And if you’re not wrong, it was only that very last month where rebellion arose from you and your relationship with them deteriorated out of the blue.

Where was your angel’s virtue that night they died?

01:01.

“God, you’re going to be a fucking pain.” Yoongi rumbles and the scene dissolves. “You’re lucky the seven of us are sharing you, or I would be making your life more of a nightmare than it was before.”

You ignore his comment; you’re learning that the less of a reaction you give him to his attacks, the more it will bother him. “How come I’m not sired to you yet?” For Namjoon and Seokjin, the bond had formed on the second time they fed on you, while it hadn’t happened with Yoongi yet.

“I don’t fucking know. Sireship is a tempermental thing, I guess. It has always taken me longer. If you’re so prone to be sired to me, I guess I’ll just accelerate the process.”

“N-” You protest as you register what he means but it’s too late. Yoongi has once again clambered over you, disregarding your discomfort as he situates his knees on either side of your lap and bites into your neck.

This time, you can’t suppress the surprised squeal of pain. And fuck there should be a new word to describe the hot white inferno at the laceration of your flesh because agony is a pin prick in comparison. You try to shove him off; it’s been too soon since his last feeding, your skin still feels incredibly raw. But instead, your efforts only cause his fangs to tear through you even more, and you scream at the rupture.

His rough hands hold you in place, pressing down onto your throat until you’re struggling for breath. You pray for the sire bond to come, to alleviate you from the pain even if it will leash you to this demon and cloud your judgement about him. You didn’t think you would ever rather be magically submitted to Yoongi than have to endure his vicious methods every time, but God. The pain is toppling your mind; you’d choose anything and everything so not to feel it right this moment.

But the bond doesn’t come. The universe enjoys watching you suffer, the heavens stand by idly watching.

Fuck, you really think you’re going to die this time. You really just wish you would already.

Yoongi’s body sits on top of you as he pulls you up, closer into him, one of his arms slithering behind your back. Adrenaline filled, your hand flies towards his head in attempt to slap him, though it would’ve been futile anyway. But his own hand releases your throat and catches it in the air, speed frightening, as he slams your wrist against the headboard.

The pounding in your head is growing, the familiar blurring vision as your eyes are fixed on one point in the ceiling, blank. You stop struggling.

He can’t hurt you if you don’t let him. So don’t let him.

Distract yourself. Think about something else. Someone else.

Seokjin.

Imagine it’s him feeding on you right now, rather than this monster. It doesn’t hurt when it’s Seokjin; it doesn’t hurt now. Let him drink as much as he wants because he will most likely starve himself as much as he can postpone the next time he feeds.

Seokjin just wanted to be human. He never hopped aboard on Namjoon’s quest for immortality, he was never greedy and sought power. He just wished for a normal life, with his studies and his beloved brothers.

It’s okay for Seokjin to feed on you. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

No pain. No pain. No pain.

You picture his soft curved features, round button nose, smooth cheeks, plump tender lips. His lips. You two shouldn’t have kissed, but it means something that you did.

Ow. Yoongi pulled away only to bury into another spot nearby again, this time closer to your shoulder, his fangs scraping your joint.

Seokjin’s lips. Think about how safe you felt with him, how understood, how respected. Your sire bond had not only allowed you to feel each other’s emotions, it had also been in the form of a bridge. You felt like equals.

You heart clenches at the memory of his words. “I don’t wish to offend you in any way. I care about you. I don’t wish to confuse you. So, it’s best if it doesn’t happen again. For our own sake.”

Why must you feel this way for him now? Why must you confuse the sense of security he provides with affection? Why do you want more?

God, you want more. You want so much more. You want to feel alive from the rush of kissing someone. You miss the bliss of falling in love.

Why must this world be so cruel? Why must it rob you of all things that keep you sound and grounded? You have nothing left - truly nothing left. You’re just lifeless vacancy.

Your thoughts are going in loops, a downwards spiral. Yoongi devours his meal that is you, delighting in the whimpers you unknowingly let out every now and again. Your back has slid down against the headboard; he is now completely on top of you, your wrist pinned onto the pillow, his face buried in your neck, his body laid between your legs.

Yoongi noticing your consciousness waning again as you chant something over and over again under your breath like a broken doll, so he releases your neck for a moment. Your lips are paper white, eyes glazed, blood surging out of your right neck area like a riptide. It’s a lovely thick crimson, Yoongi’s favourite shade. And he’ll admit that it’s possibly the best he’s ever tasted.

He bites into his own wrist and feeds it to you. The six of them would be dreadfully unhappy with you if he manages to kill you on his first day. This time you don’t resist his blood; it trickles down your throat as you continue to mouth those inaudible words to yourself. Maybe he’s fucked you up for good already. Psh. The thought arouses him.

You choke on his blood as he knew you would because you hadn’t known to swallow, coughing out of your daze. You try to say something, but it comes out as a splutter of his plasma.

“What are you muttering?” Yoongi eyes down at you with a quirked brow, smearing red all around your mouth until it’s dripping off your chin, mirroring him. What a pretty sight.

“M-more.” Your voice is hoarse, as if you’d been screaming. But you hadn’t been.

“What?” He frowns, thumb freezing mid-stroke across your lips.

You think you’ve lost your mind. No, you’ve definitely lost your mind. There’s a hollowness within you that stretches beyond physicality, an outcome of torment after torment, tragedies that keep digging this hole of depression inside you. And you’ve never given up trying to climb out of this crater, you just kept trying and trying.

Until now.

“Give me more.” The lack of emotion in your voice sounds foreign yet familiar. “Make me feel more, fucking please. Because I honestly feel nothing, I don’t even feel the pain anymore. I’m so fucking numb and empty and I just want to feel something again.”

Yoongi blinks at you. Of all things, he hadn’t expected this. He knew you would be an interesting one, given the hell they had found you in. He thought the angel blood would have compelled some shred of purity and naivety in you still, even after your unfortunate past. He had been excited to strip you of your hope and sanity. But it seems like that has already been done.

“What the fuck do you want me to do then? Rip your arm off?”

“I don’t care. Just make me feel more, more than this bleak fucking void.”

He himself is all too familiar with this feeling - of being beaten down so much by the world that nothing even fazes him anymore, nothing even hurts. Unsure of what to do at first, he leans back down, hovering over you. He can’t read your eyes, or perhaps there’s nothing for him to read. You’re just blank.

Should he rip you open? Maybe you’ll feel that. But he knows you mean something deeper.

You watch Yoongi hesitate over you, sniffing at the drying blood on your skin. You do feel something right now: anticipation. What’s he going to do to you this time? Or is he even going to follow your request? Why should he care that you’re just a husk of a person now after all? You’re just his food.

But then his eyes flicker up at yours again, and you hadn’t realised that there are different shades of black until now. There are bright blacks that strike at you, soft blacks that soothe the soul, then there is true black where the darkness is so strong and absolute that it captivates you. Yoongi’s eyes are true black.

“Be careful what you ask for…” The danger in his low voice sends a creature crawling down your back. “You want to feel something? I’ll make you feel something.”

“Just-”

You don’t have time to react when he cuts you off by pressing his lips onto yours. Mind empty. Chest clenches.

Anyone would suspect he was a heartthrob if they felt his lips without any prior knowledge of the kind of person he is. They’re soft, inexplicably soft. You don’t understand how a monster like him has such soft lips… Another thing you don’t understand is why he is kissing you. Why the fuck is he kissing you?

You place your hand against his shoulder and push weakly. Not even a push. Your muscles are numb from the shock. He pays you no attention.

But then, soft as they are, his mouth soon begins to move roughly to claim yours, sucking on your bottom lip as you can’t help but shut your eyes and allow yourself to drown in this feeling. Because, God, you are feeling something, feeling more. You feel the rush in your blood, that exhilarating surge of adrenaline. And you hate that of all things, this is what makes you feel - kissing the man who delighted in hurting you. It’s a joke how damaged you are.

Kissing Seokjin had felt safe, secure, like curling up in bed after a long day. Kissing Yoongi feels dangerous, fatal, like injecting something deadly into your veins just to experience that high, not knowing if this will be the time you’ll overdose or not. It’s precarious. It’s the not-knowing that brings the thrill.

Yoongi bites down on your lip, not at all delicately; you wince as you taste your own blood. It’s twisted but when his tongue flicks out to lap at your cut, something in your core throbs. His hand comes around your throat, digging his fingers into you. Your breath hitches and he takes the opportunity to kiss you deeper. Your own hands stay lingering on his shoulders, not daring to touch him more because that would feel too affectionate.

And this is anything but affectionate. It’s raw, carnal. Tongue laced with hatred, but need for relief.

With his body positioned between your legs, he doesn’t hesitate to announce his arousal as he grinds into your core. Even as you think about how much you despise this man, your traitorous cunt leaks at the feeling of his hardness rubbing against you.

“I can smell how responsive you are.” He growls into your mouth, hand running down your front to slide into your pants. You feel the hairs on your neck rise as his cold fingers meet your pubic bone. “It must pain you so much, how much you hate me, but how wet I make you.” Something in you sets on fire when he finds your clit, pulsing under his thumb.

Fuck, you’re definitely feeling more. More than you bargained for.

“It’s because I’m thinking about your brother.” You spit back.

He slaps you- down there. The wet clap resonates embarrassingly loud. Cool air licks up your thighs to your dripping cunt when he rips off your bottoms, literally rips, and tosses the fabric carelessly onto the floor. “I’ll fuck you until you’re crying my name, you slut. I’ll fuck you until you’re begging me to stop because you can’t feel your legs anymore.”

Your foreheads are pressed together, as you stare at each other ferociously, warm breaths infusing, blood oozing from your lip. His threat sends another thrumming through your veins, which settles itself in your clit. You know he means every word he says. You know you should shove him off and yell for him to stop because that’s the sane thing to do. Instead, you say:

“Fuck me then, you piece of shit.”

In a brute vigor, he flips you onto your stomach. You hear the ring of the smack before you feel his palm collide on the tender cheek of your ass. The tingling sting imprinted on your skin is laced with a sick pleasure. Of all people, you should be the last to enjoy someone hitting you. Yet here you are, as a groan slips out you mouth.

“Do you fucking feel something now?” He spanks you again, this time on the other cheek. “You want to feel something so fucking badly.” Spank, this time harder than last. “Then I’ll make you feel.” Another spank. You bite down onto the pillow that your face is buried in.

You hear him tug down his own cotton joggers and your heart squeezes in anticipation. And when you feel him fit his stiffened velvet length between your ass cheeks, your heart plunges all the way down to your cunt.

Fuck. Your entire body is practically trembling for him, and you fucking hate it. “I hate you.”

“Good.” Yoongi grumbles into your ear as he grinds himself into your rear, gripping onto your hips so hard that it will surely bruise. “I hate you, too.”

“You get hard from watching someone bleed, you’re a sick fuck.” Even as you say that, you’re tilting your head back so the sensitive shell of your ear brushes his lips. The touch drills a twisting pressure in your pussy.

“And you get wet from kissing someone who made you bleed, you dirty fucking slut.” Cock still burrowed between your cheeks, you feel his tip dribble a trail of warm precum. Purring, he nips at your lobe, piercing through your skin as if it were paper. You yelp.

Abruptly, he sits up again and spanks you once more. In the absence of his cock humping into your rear, your backside feels barren. But you soon realise what’s coming next. “Get on your hands and knees.” He commands. When you fail to move quick enough, he wrenches your hip up to the height of his twitching member, liquid still streaming out his slit profusely as he lines his head to your damp entrance.

You’re all but whining for him to put the damn thing in already when he takes your hair and wrap it around his fist like a rein, yanking your head back. Still, he toys with your apparent impatience, slapping and running his bulging tip through your wet folds. Your exhale comes out as a quivering pant.

Just as your string of irritated curses at him are on the brink of tumbling out, he sinks his entire length into you without warning.

“Fuck!” You cry out. It’s been so long since the last time that your walls feel as though a train has run through them, stretching so thin to encompass his size.

And there it is - the vulgar, mind-twisting, irreplaceable feeling of being fucked.

Sparing you no time to adjust, Yoongi slams into you again, and again, in a stable strong pace, pulling your hair back harder until your back is bent upwards sorely. The ache in your cunt is trying to claw its way into you and fester in your flesh. Your knuckles whiten as you close your grip around the pillow cover, creasing the fabric in your fists. Grunting, he tears off your shirt from your back, freeing your breasts to the cool air.

His thrusts are merciless, the slapping of his hips to your rear echoing in the air. Fuck, he feels massive, cock punching into your weeping walls while you clench around him from the pain and the pleasure - two indistinguishable sensations. He tugs on your hair so hard that you have to yield and lift off your hands so you’re balanced on your knees, his greedy hand taking this chance to fondle with your breasts, pinching your nipple and twisting them roughly between his fingers.

Then his hand snakes around your neck once again, squeezing the air out of your lungs. Wheezing, you grab onto his thigh behind yours in retaliation and dig your fingers so hard that you feel his skin crack.

“You’re fucking asking for it.” He snarls. You twist to look at him just in time to see him bare his fangs, then digs into your neck. The sensation of his cock pounding into you at the same instance as your blood being drained into his mouth sends a shock through you. He seems to tense at the impact too.

Wait, no, it’s not a shock.

You feel every single cell in your body quake, dissociate. When you shut your eyes, your soul is sucked into a hurricane of darkness, whirling you deeper and deeper into the black hole. Closer and closer to Yoongi. Even when you try to open your eyes, all you see is black. Endless black. True black. In a state of matter and antimatter at the same time, it feels as though you’ve been transported to a dimension between Earth and Hell, human but not quite, substantial but not quite, real but not quite. You’re a mere essence, a whisper of a soul, yet you can feel the ground beneath your feet. There are chains around your ankles and wrists; you can’t see anything aside from the darkness but the shackles are still ever present, holding you down.

Something trickles down your face - a tear. You touch it, but it feels too thick. You taste it, and it tastes of Yoongi’s blood. Bittersweet. You tug on the chains but they don’t budge, so you follow them, padding through the darkness as you pass metal link after link through your hands. Until you reach a mass.

Not a mass, a person, hunched over. You can just vaguely make out his silhouette that reflects a particularly sad darkness.

His shoulders are shaking.

Dazed, you bend down. Put your arm around him. Nuzzle his neck. And whisper ‘it’s okay’.

You stay there, chained to one another, tears of blood still streaming from your sightless eyes. Huddled together in the darkness.

With a gasp, you return to your body, mind distorted by the magic. And though you’re no longer in that place, wherever that is, you still feel the phantom shackles secured around you. Yoongi is still drinking you in large gulps, but his breathing is noticeably different.

He felt that too, the bond.

His fangs feel different to your flesh, no longer a sharp weapon to break your skin. They feel like an anchor, holding him onto you, letting him enter your soul. You shudder at the intimacy it imbeds.

Despite the trance he appears to be in, his pounding has not once faltered, but more even, as if the bond has driven him on. If he was an animal before, he is a beast now. The weight of his body forces you down, face pinned onto the pillow under him while his hands assail your breasts.

This new sensation is so raw, so undiluted, relentlessly filling you with a fervorous want for Yoongi. Your cunt is furiously clenching around him, the pressure begging to be released from its cage.

“Fuck-” He groans as he finally stops drinking. “This stupid fucking bond feels- Fuck.”

Each thrust he slams into you, you feel another unbreakable chain forming, binding you to him. And each time you close your eyes, you’re back to the darkness where you’re holding the crying boy. Something is clawing your heart, scratching it, tearing it, ripping its chambers open. You realise tears, actual tears this time, are rolling off your temple. You can’t tell if it’s because of the penetration of sadness from that boy made of darkness, or the penetration of Yoongi’s unceasingly brutal cock.

Then finally - ignition at every nerve ending in your core, rupturing through your entirety as if you are a mere vessel. You think you’re screaming but you can’t hear over the roaring of your pulse. The pillow you’re pressed onto suffocating you. Your walls squeeze as the pleasure wrenches you completely.

Yoongi watch you come undone beneath him, pace fastening to chase after his own climax. You’re panting, crying, bleeding from your neck down to your spine, yet features twisted in such pleasure. The juxtaposition. His member is throbbing inside you, veins bulging out on the sides. Hell, he is going to burst. And the moment he feels it coming, he pulls out and watches himself shoot onto your back, splattering your red hand-printed ass with his milky ejaculation.

“Fuck…” He moans, stroking out his high as he feasts on how you are still convulsing under him. Your trickling sweat mixes with your tears.

You don’t think you can move at all, even as Yoongi gets off you. His fingers play with his cum on your ass, smearing it along with your blood to paint himself all over you. You suspect it’s a mark of possession, a mark of victory. Because you definitely feel defeated.

You feel alive, but dead. You feel ashamed.

His tongue trails up your back, tasting himself along with your scarlet liquid. Angel blood has always been a favourite of his, because he loved how crazy it made him, how feral. But now, after the sireship, its taste is… untaintedly holy, like ambrosia, the food of the Gods. Unmatched by anything he has ever drank. He doesn’t think he can go back to drinking any other moral’s blood after this. You’ve ruined him for good.

And the bond… Yoongi stops licking. There are foreign emotions whirling within him right now, and one of them, he thinks is fear. Fear of the strength of this bond. Fear of the intimacy it threatens between you.

He had felt you - your arm around him, your gentle voice tickling his neck - during that complete blackness where he had fallen back to a deep dark past. It was a vulnerability that he had never experienced before. He was powerless against your intrusion.

So Yoongi pushes himself off you and clears his throat. “You dead yet?”

No response, no movement.

He rolls his eyes and commences to heal you. Mortals are annoyingly fickle creatures, you drink too much of their blood or fuck them too hard and they pass out, he thinks.

This time, it takes you a while to regain your consciousness, during which Yoongi dresses himself, but doesn’t bother cleaning you up. You sit up, naked and shamefully exposed. When you meet his obsidian pupils, you don’t know how to interpret the confusion in them.

“What the fuck?” You ask as if you hadn’t willingly took part, even though you both know you clearly had. There is a raw soreness blaring between your thighs, and you’re embarrassed to find yourself glancing over at his crotch.

“You asked me to make you feel something. Why are you acting surprised?” His lids are half closed, bored, as he surveys the puddles of red on the bed. Your eyes follow his, trying to process how the sheets had been spotlessly white not three hours ago, yet now they only possess one corner that isn’t stained in crimson. It looks as though cattle had been slaughtered here as a sacrifice to the divinity. It’s all your blood.

And when you lock eyes with him again, you feel the weight of the chains hanging from your limbs. Bound forever.

“You feel alive now, don’t you? Dead inside still, but at least your heart was racing when I was fucking you.” He taunts, slowly rolling off the bed in an indifference that boils your blood.

You hate how true his words are. That was the very feeling you wanted, the thrill that you were seeking to break you out of that inertia. You hate how it was with him, of all people. It could have been anyone under this roof, yet you picked this monster. And you hate how, even now, you don’t think you regret it, not even with the disgust and resentment raking at your chest for this vampire.

“You should get used to it. Sex is a faultless coping mechanism for those of us who are too hollow to feel anything else.” Yoongi continues, as he heads towards the door. “Wash yourself up and stay here until I come back when I’m hungry again.”

A response still trying to formulate in your brain, all you can do is stare at his back in silence. Quietly fuming.

Yoongi pauses before twisting the doorknob. “Oh, and don’t think I did that for you. I couldn’t wait to fuck you as soon as I tasted your blood.”

It was all you could do to restrain yourself from leaping across the room and hammering his face. Not that you would’ve been able to anyway. Motherfucker is so insecure that he couldn’t risk you thinking that he would ever not act out of self interest, so he masks it with spiteful words to try to hurt you.

“You tried so fucking hard to break me, but I was already broken.”

His head turns, shadows casting over his profile. His lips purse into a smirk that holds no amusement at all. “Join the fucking club, you’re nothing special.”

“I fucking hate you.” You spit back at him, the venom imbued in your words is more than you thought you were capable of and it surprises you.

He gazes at you over his shoulder, unfazed. Cold and unfeeling. And somehow the words he reply inflict an ache in your heart that shouldn’t be there because, all of a sudden, you see a flash of the small broken boy before you.

“I fucking hate me too.”

Then he slams the door behind him.

❦

@taexxxiiaa @serendipity-secrets @killcomet @askingtheimportantthingshere@blackpanther4550 @comingjimin @unatempesta-dipensieri @dapppphhhhh @unatempesta-dipensieri @beach-bitch-bitch-beach @queerloser17 @linyi-lovbts @somewhereinthestarss @xxqueenwxtchxx @whitefeatheredwyvern @embrace-themagic @brokencrownqueen @i-dont-even-know-fck @bangtandimples @kalkeegan @beetaeass @confessionsofascientist @chimycthulhu @hisunshiine @shooklier @livetay84 @runlikeabuffalo @nanna022 @berryjam17 @thelouhvre @bluemooncnblue @enigmaticlove-03 @lanu-la @bangtanfancamp

❦

23/11/2019

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alias-b · 4 years

Text

sins of my youth. 013

Billy Hargrove x OC! Evie Fenny~ Also posted to my AO3

Summary: It was common knowledge that Billy Hargrove hated Hawkins. Hated Cherry Lane. Even loathed the strange girl next door. Evie Fenny wasn’t too fond of the chaotic Cali transfer either. An awful high school tradition sparks a chain of events that changes everything, ultimately bringing two frayed souls together.

Hey all!! Evie attends a party to get back into the swing of being a messy teen and the night doesn't go as expected. Billy opens up about his past in California with a story Evie finds all too familiar. TW: Slight sexual refs, teens drinking/smoking, talk of past s*icide/death, and addiction. TAG LIST OPEN. Always open to chatting about the fic, thanks!!

Chapter 13: Almost Paradise

“Are you sure about this?” Heather spoke over Evie’s shoulder.

“We always hit the mid-winter break parties. Why wouldn’t we, Heath?” Evie applied her favorite shade of cherry in the mirror. Makeup still only covered so much that next night. But, with the swelling down, she hoped it wasn't that bad.

“Figured you’d be hanging with Billy.”

“We haven’t done anything...much. His dad is grinding him to stay in. He'll...also be at the party I'm sure.”

"That why you put on the new bra?"

"It's not new..." Evie fixed her sleeve to hide the black strap. Blushed a whole garden of strawberries. "Like I said...haven't done anything."

“Haven’t had the chance, hm.” Heather plopped down and stole some mirror space. Relenting as she applied a lustrous pink shade to her lips that matched the scrunchie holding her curls high. “I know you’re hopelessly into him. All the eye fucking over the movie last night. If you hadn’t have passed out on the couch-”

“Would...you be mad?” Evie looked up.

“I’m just coming around to him again. If you trust him, I will.” Heather smiled. “I just have to be the bitchy best friend. Make him sweat it out for my own enjoyment. Cute how he tucked you in last night through, looked like he might not leave you.”

Evie lowered a brush doused in gold glitter from her eye.

“I am sorry...about the whole-”

“You don’t have to be sorry about him, Bowers is the one that should be sorry.” Heather frowned. “I’m not mad you didn’t tell me. Honest. I get it. I can’t imagine what I would have done.”

“You wouldn’t be in that situation because you’re smarter than me.”

“No, I’ve made poor boy choices too. We both know that.” Heather beamed. “Can I borrow your earrings? The little cherries you made.”

“Sure, keep them. You get more mileage out of them than I do. I can make more.”

Heather squealed and went to steal them. Evie thought it funny, her friend would rather wear her craft projects than the baby diamonds in silver and gold her parents were always buying.

“Hey, I… My mom’s been lying to me. About my dad.” Evie admitted. “He’s trying to call and give her money, I think. I don’t know if he asks about me. Where he is. I’m just… I don’t know what to do with it all, Heath.” Her voice broke and leveled out. Slowly the brush came up again. “You ever feel like you remember things differently? Like maybe we never see things as they are, we just see things as we are?”

Heather turned to see, still putting the earrings in.

“I’m sure Mona’s trying to protect you. She’s always been so much.” She pressed her lips and tilted Evie’s face to check her work as she always did. “Covered it nicely. How’s your head?”

“No pounding anymore. Not getting dizzy, I think I barely avoided a concussion.” A beat. “I just wonder what exactly she’s protecting me from. It’s eating me.”

Felt like too appropriate an expression.

“We’ll figure it out, but you put way too much pressure on yourself like you’re alone, Eves, and you’re not.” Heather pulled Evie in to hug her. “You have me and Steve. Friends at school.”

Blue hopped up on the desk to meow loudly, both girls broke to giggle.

“Yes, you too, cutie.” Heather scratched the kitten’s chin. “And Billy, I guess. Whatever.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what we’re doing. But, I don’t mind it so I guess I’ll chase that.” Evie thumbed Heather’s lipstick at the corner. “You’re set.”

“You, too. Let’s head out.” Heather winked and stood up.

Blue trailed after them so Evie filled her dish. Grabbed a prized jacket she used to be too afraid to wear for how loud it was. Red leather and fringe. Bitchin'. A signature piece of clothing. Undoubtedly Evangeline. Fredrick didn't like it so it was packed away with all her sharp edges.

Heather beamed as her friend donned it. Completed Evie's look with a black skirt and graphic shirt tucked in. Vaguely mesh pattern tights and her warm boots. Gold hoops gleaming and her little music note necklace. Plucked piece of juicy fruit and a hard pit for good measure. Curls bounced, almost obscene.

“Think Brock and his shitheads will crash?” Heather waited for the door to be locked before they got into her car.

“I’m not worried about Brock after what happened with Fredrick.” Evie stared at the empty place in the Hargrove driveway where Billy’s Camaro usually sat. No doubt he was already there raging. Evie got annoyed with the flame in her stomach that flickered at the thought of running into him there with all the dancing they’d been doing. Every little maybe and almost. Syllables rolling off tongues to tangle.

Loch Nora rangers were undoubtedly the best.

Evie still liked parties. Liked the stimulation. The noise. That beautiful overlapping noise to wash her world out. The drunk idiot teens wandering to dance or do dumb shit. All technicolor. Even liked them better than what Fredrick would take her too. Annoying how Fredrick had become this constant life point of comparison. Physically out and still here to set the scales.

Time for some liquor.

She peered around and realized Steve never came to them anymore. Heather even asked him and he just declines too politely. Three drinks sank into her stomach so Evie went out back to where some meathead with no shirt was pouring. Moved through sprightly bodies to get another cup. Smoke and sweat in the cool night air.

“Fenny, you hear Tannen got a DUI?” Nameless meathead poured.

“No, shit?” She took her plastic cup back. Black and gold glitter nails clicking the artificial red.

“Swear to god! His dad’s basically paying everyone to make it disappear.” The guy chuckled. “Lucky, the idiot didn’t crash into anyone.”

“Yeah, he’s a mess.” Evie tipped her cup in thanks and watched teens bop around the covered pool to booming music. Rich house on a hill, no one was calling the cops. Cold and slush weren't stopping the festivities, it only made them turn up the noise and heat. Her outfit combated the lingering winter well enough. Perks of being a bigger gal. Thick skin to combat the weather and assholes. “Thanks.”

“Plenty more to go around.”

Evie caught a bunch of metalheads thrashing around a huge trampoline. Jumping from the lowest part of the roof to it and climbing all over. Billy among them spitting beer and cackling. A hungry wolf against the bright moon. Readied to toss his head back and-

“Evangeline!” He howled and she rolled her eyes below, drinking. Cup lifted to acknowledge them. Billy flashed his teeth, glowed there at her. Still among his following.

"You clean up well, Fenny!" One boy cooed so Billy shoved him into one of the many seat cushions that had been stolen to line the perch.

"Why not join us? Stay awhile." Billy crouched at the edge. Admired Evie glittering and that outfit. Tassels constantly in motion, she looked like a song leaping off unworthy pages. They echoed the calls and she laughed outright, went back inside to a chorus of whines wanting her to stay and indulge them in their debauchery.

“They out of the hard stuff already?” Heather approached and offered a tiny joint to Evie that she caved and puffed. “Tammy’s asking. I’m switching to water.”

“Beer only it looks like. It’s raining boys out there though.”

“Oh, maybe I’ll catch myself one.” Heather winked and wandered outside with the smoke.

Evie got squished in between her and Tammy moments later. Talking school and beauty and graduation getting closer. Across the way, Billy had a whole room entertained with his California stories. Evie lingered to see his eyes flicker over to her.

The strange radar he had when she was around. Always on high. He smiled bright and animated his tale, kept them all hooked and laughing because he was just too badass. Too good. A firework in this boring town. Perched on the table with a smoke in hand.

Spinning tales around the way he spun her under confetti.

And they kept peering at each other. Billy got more persistent as Evie made it a point not to look. To stay reeled into Tammy gushing about the car she was almost saved up for. This baby pink bug she dreamed about. Robin joined them and Tammy blushed as they shared a freshly rolled joint. Heather and Evie shared knowing looks.

Billy decided he wanted attention from Evangeline and left the stories behind to cross toward her. Evie felt sparks when he plucked up her hand, nodding aside. One tug and smoldering eyes. She didn't move and played a pout.

“I’m having an important discussion with the girls about the principal's clearly fake mustache, Hargrove.” She lifted her eyes, biting her lip as if that might curve her intoxication. Curled a smirk he matched.

"Thrilling. Something tells me it ain't getting mileage." Billy didn’t take his eyes from Evie. “Ladies?”

“We just finished actually, Evie was about to get herself another drink. You look like just the soul brave enough to help with that.” Tammy, oblivious but a wingman to the end, cut in so Billy pulled Evie up.

Heather flashed a guilty smile as they went off because Evie was aimlessly bickering. They didn’t go out back for a drink. Billy climbed the steps with her hand. Slowly Evie adjusted to lace their fingers. They moved over bodies and went down the hallways into a vacant TV room with beaten couches and thick screens.

“What are you doing?” Evie dropped her arms as Billy bit his tongue with intent eyes and crossed into her space for a kiss. Tasting of some green apple schnapps the boys outside had downed with all the hard stuff.

“Just something I thought about for a while.” He cupped her face for another and Evie felt dizzy for the first time after her drinks. Billy and his lips. Tasting her. Pulling her back into a couch with him.

“You mean like a day?” Evie had giggled. Breaking the kiss to see his pupils spread.

“Hey, it was a long, long day.” Came a shrug, eyes on her pretty tights that were sending him. “I can only say so much over the phone.” Hands worked under the skirt. Melted Evie down while she came in for more of him.

Straddling Billy’s hard thigh, she combed his hair back and ravished him in turn. What could she say? She liked to kiss him. Liked his mouth and his palms and his heat against her. Scorching. Billy adjusted, taking her hips to press his leg up into her.

Evie rocked unconsciously. Gave him a little moan. Let him untuck her shirt. She came out and felt his hand on her bra. Fingers sunk under the fabric while they locked eyes. Rolled her nipple until another moan lulled. Evie still pulling at his hair, lips opening.

“No bad kisses yet, hm?” The hum hitched as Evie pressed into him. Kissed him deeper. Not worried she might squish him with the shameless, signature way he touched her.

“Let’s try a few more.” Evie about whimpered into his tongue. Brow furrowing. Breath quicker. Something ready to churn in her belly.

Billy gripped her hips to encourage her on. Shifted down the line of her jaw. Silken mouth trailing to release warm sighs. Evie had her hands pressed against his grey tee. Skimming under the leather jacket to feel the hard lines. Miles of him to trace and explore. Shifting, one hand came to his left shoulder. Finger pressed and Billy gave a jerk, breath catching as he pulled back to hiss.

Evie narrowed and yanked away the moment he looked in pain. Avoiding her eyes as if he wasn’t just trying to turn them over and finish this.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Billy leaned back in for a kiss she barely responded to. Thoughts racing. “It’s nothing.” He cupped the back of her head. Lips all over Evie’s neck. Fingers slipped to push his jacket aside and Billy grasped her wrist. “Evie, it’s nothing.”

“You’re hurt.” She frowned. Billy gripped her arm still, searching. He opened his mouth to speak and the door burst open, giggles sounding at the same time Evie threw herself out of Billy’s lap. Practically to the other side of the couch. Shamefully tucking her shirt back in.

“Oooh, this one’s taken,” Tommy backed up and processed who was in there again with Carol under his arm, “Billy and Fenny? No fucking way, you two. Ha!” He cackled and Billy gave an agitated breath.

“We’re busy, shut the door, man.”

“No shit, you’re busy. I’m shocked. I thought Fen wasn’t speaking to you ever again after-”

“Hagen, we’re talking.” Evie slid her eyes to Carol who’d gotten dead silent. Eyes bright and full of hate. Piles and piles. A tremendous build of fire and loathing directed at Evie for existing in the same space.

“Talk away. Have fun, kids!” Tommy only found it funny. Jeering in his annoying way before Carol shoved off him and stomped out. “Hey Carol, what’s your problem?” He smacked the door shut following his upset girlfriend down the hall.

“Shit, asshole.” Billy rubbed his shoulder. “Where were we?” The purr made Evie turn her head, thoughts elsewhere. Billy crawled to kiss her again and Evie stood. “Hey, where’re you going?”

“I just, I feel weird now.” Evie stumbled around the coffee table. Cheeks bright and rosy. Not sparing him a glance because Carol’s eyes gnawed her. Created an incessant buzzing around her brain. Billy jolted to follow but she was out the door. Looking around for Carol and Tommy’s loudmouth. Boots hurried down the steps after Tommy, still trying to coax his girl back to the festivities.

“Carol, hey,” Evie pushed beyond Tommy once Carol was out a sliding door, “Hey, can we just talk?”

“You are such a fucking loser, you know that?” Carol spun on her heel to direct some teenage rage in Evie’s direction. A few outside by the kegs noticed the tiff, pausing to see.

A crack.

“Why do you hate me so much?” Evie dropped her shoulders. Billy slipped out and stepped up behind Tommy, pausing at the standoff. Carol staggered. Clearly intoxicated. Cracking a huge, watery smile. Reckless. She stepped toward Evie so a burst came. “Why! I'm not mean to you! I've never been mean to you! I only talk back and I still feel guilty, but you're so... Why?”

"You're nice to me?" She made it sound unreal and laughable.

"Yeah, actually! I don't understand it, I've tried to be kind to you." Evie felt a tear slip down and stayed level. "No one deserves to be treated the way I see you treat others. So, why?"

“Because!” Carol shot back, welling too. “You’re so fucking kind and...playing innocent...and you're good! And I..." She stopped with another deafening crack. So loud, it rang. Carol really stopped to reflect and hated what she saw looking back at her. But, Evie was here looking too so the hate rerouted.

"Good?" Evie breathed and so much ugly spread in her veins like a disease.

"And...And you get all this attention! Acting like you don’t know! And just look at you! Do you really think you’d get that attention if these boys didn’t feel sorry for you?” Carol stumbled and pointed a finger in Evie’s face, furious and shaking. Too close.

Evie got silent. Dropped everything she felt.

“You’re the one I feel sorry for.”

Carol buzzed with rage and reeled back to slap her so hard, the force sent her into Tommy.

"Girl fight!" Came some yelps.

“What the hell, Carol?” He caught Evie on pure instinct, not understanding either. Billy charged forward and Carol kept pushing as Evie found her footing.

A chorus of shocked gasps and awe came from the drunk teens near the pool. The music blared.

“Hit me back, you bitch! Yeah? Do it like you did to Tannen. Think you’re any better than me!” Carol was near sobbing. Eyes crinkling with tears as she shoved before Tommy got in front of her. Looped an arm around her waist.

“That’s enough, Care, c’mon.” He and Billy separated the girls, but Evie wasn’t trying to hit back. Just stared with huge eyes and a palm against her hot cheek.

"Hey. Hey, you okay?" Billy stood in front of her now, tugging. Evie wasn't budging. Enthralled. Stuck. Sinking. Not good. "Let's go. She's wasted."

“Evie!” Heather was racing across the grass to help. “Carol, back off her.” She planted her feet between them and Carol sneered, struggling against her boyfriend.

“Ooh, Princess Heather to the rescue. Admit it, you just like being the pretty friend.” More hissing channeled out.

“Just, shut up!”

“How about you tell Fenny why Tannen even tried to chase her skirts that night? Yeah?” Carol broke free and tackled Heather into the grass. "Tell her what a shit friend you are, baby!"

“Another girl fight!” Teens howled across the way. Billy and Tommy shoved in to pull the clawing women apart as they rolled around and pulled at hair.

Evie heard herself shouting to stop, barely audible over the crowds that closed in on them to cheer and chant.

“Tell her, sweet pea? Tell her that her dear B-F-F set her up with some animal. I was at that party, I heard you, bitch!” Carol skidded as Tommy pulled her off. Billy had Heather by the arm, trying to yank her up from the grass. She began to sniffle. “Perfect Heather. Little priss who can do no wrong. Perfect body. Perfect life. The teen dream. Tossing bones to us lowly folk when you're done.”

Carol laughed and cried all at once. Even the crowd slowed to watch her. Evie felt a coldness spread at the display.

“Oh yeah, Heather, you’re a real carpenter’s dream!” Carol mocked relentlessly. “Flat as a board and needs a screw! Go on and tell Fenny what a great friend you are. You brushed Tannen aside and pawned that puppy off on someone easier.”

“I didn’t know he was like that yet, okay! It was stupid.” Heather admitted, tears falling. Evie froze at that, didn’t move toward her.

“Heath, what’s she talking about?” Evie hated how wounded she sounded.

“I just thought maybe he’d cheer you up, we all were drinking and, Tannen, he...he was nice at the time. So I thought. I just...you know-”

“Just, what?” Evie leveled out. Billy let Heather go once he brought her up from the grass so she came to Evie. Crowds all but hushed.

“Can...Can we not talk about it here?” Heather tucked her hair aside, sounding too small.

“No, I love an audience! Talk.” Evie’s spine went rigid.

“I just...nudged Tannen your way. You just broke up with that guy over the summer and your dad left. Tannen was, I don’t know, it was stupid. He was nice and...and good looking. I thought he’d make you feel better. I didn’t know he was like that yet. I just was trying to hook my friend up.”

"Please, you alluded to owing him a favor after. He ate that up. You talked up a desperate animal in need of a hot beef injection. You said Fenny could barely thread a needle these days." Carol bellowed. More shock. More awe.

"I was super drunk!" Heather covered her eyes to rub them

“So, you told him to try fucking me! Told him I was desperate for it!” Evie’s voice rose and Heather quelled with shame.

“You were so sad...I thought he’d give you a good night.” The tone trailed off.

“I’m fat, but I can get laid on my own, thanks. I don’t need your fucking help, how little do you think of me?” Evie’s curls shook around with the same fervor. Heather just held herself and stared at the grass. “Do I really seem that pathetic to you?”

“No, it’s not that at all-”

“It feels like that,” Evie stepped back, “keep me around because I make you look like the Queen Bee and toss some asshole with a reputation my way out of pity if I cease to function.”

“Evie, it’s not like that!” Heather wept and got her hand shoved off when she tried to touch her friend. Evie wiggled through the crowd because it split for her fury.

“Get off me,” she went around the house, “get away from me, Heather! I don't need you!"

Heather stopped on the lawn and just stood there to see Evie follow the street lamps off.

Carol watched them go, sagging into Tommy who was definitely too drunk for this.

“Jesus, what’d you do?” He pulled her in another direction. Back to the house. Away from the excitement resuming. “Shouldn’t start that shit.” They got back inside so he led his girlfriend into an empty bathroom. “You okay?”

“I am now. Bitches. I just...I can’t fucking…” Carol sniffled and cleared her throat. "I don't know why I hate her, okay, I just do! She just gets...everything."

“This is about your mom getting back with that asshole.”

“It’s not about that!” Her defense went up. “I’m just tired of Fenny acting like she can get everything she wants. Throwing herself at Billy, fuck. Wondered why he all but dropped everyone else. I thought he and Vicki had something. Gotta be kidding me.” Carol crossed her arms to lean back into the counter as Tommy washed his face with cold water, nauseous.

“I don’t even think Fenny’s gonna go for him when she’s already got a thing with…” He perked. Lips sealing. Carol noticed.

“Thing with who?”

“Nothing, I just...I saw something...and I’m drunk. I’m fucking drunk, Care.” He got his shirt tugged.

“Tommy.” She sucked her cheeks in and he knew he’d be caving. “What did you see?”

“Evie’s been seeing Bowers, I saw her leaving his place all roughed up. Not the first time, I live a street away. Saw them in his driveway shouting at each other once. It was so dark. They kissed and she...well, her head dropped down for a bit. Thought I was having a nightmare there. I tried to forget it and just act like... I didn't believe it was her until I saw her on that bus. I'm drunk, fuck...” Tommy blurted in one breath. Carol’s lips opened.

“No fucking way.”

“Listen, I could be wrong-”

“We can’t let them get away with that. I mean, he’s a teacher. What if he really hurt-”

“You’re not doing it to save, Fenny, you’re doing it to make her life worse. Just...forget I said anything. I’m fucked up. Shit. I fucked up. I fucked up so bad.” Tommy rubbed his eyes. Let them dart. Carol slid her gaze away and crossed her fingers behind her back.

“Fine. Whatever you say, T. We'll forget it.” Another pull brought him in for a kiss. Tommy caressed her arms and felt Carol trying to make herself small. “Can I stay at your place tonight? I can’t go home to Jason on our couch again. I just...I can’t. I can't do it, Tommy.”

She trembled so he tucked her under his chin.

“You know you don’t have to ask, babe.”

*** ** **

Evie was down the hill still stomping under barely lit streets. Teens ranging to music still in the distance. Forgetting her. Intent, she marched over frozen sidewalks covered in slush. The tip of her nose and ears grew chilled pink. Heather had shouted after but stopped the pursuit at the end of the lawn. Ruefully, Evie wouldn’t weep, she already cried enough this damn week.

She just wanted to be better. Higher. Then all of it.

The unmistakable rev of Billy’s Camaro rolled up behind her.

“Evie, don’t make me come out to steal you. Just get in.” The window came down. “You can’t walk home in that skirt with the snow. We don’t have to talk about it.”

She paused to hear him. Eyes on the wind sweeping frosted shrubbery about across the perfectly trimmed lawns. Rich people. Cozy in their homes burning bags of money on nights like this.

“Are you going to be all the same to me, Billy? Tell me right now, I swear to god. Pretty face trying to get its way with words that are just...empty. You gonna get mad if I don’t put out and try to grab at me like Tannen? Why are you bothering with me?” Evie sniffled, hands out and dropping as he watched her. Brow furrowed. “You saw them looking at us funny.”

“Evie.” He reasoned. “Where am I right now? Am I back there shotgunning free liquor or am I freezing my balls off coming after you? Again.”

“You’re here with me. But, how do I know this isn’t some weird game for you with a prize at the end. Kids like us, we don’t go together. Are you trying to win a prize so you can move to the next? Can’t blame me for thinking it.” She approached the car. Still guarding herself. “I can’t let that go.”

“I like you, Evie, and I can tell you that a hundred times. But, it means nothing if you won’t let me.” Billy leaned over to click the door open. “You don’t let anyone like you.” He waited as she didn’t move, hands gripping the wheel before he sighed. “Didn’t notice the other kids, if you really care. I’m the Keg King.”

A cold breath puffed out her nose, almost amused.

“I was enjoying the view.” Billy drew those glittery blues to her expression.

“What makes this a view?”

“You.” A shrug pulled along with her heartstrings. “Get in, let’s go somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere you like. Just as we planned, remember?” Billy winked at her and Evie’s walls lowered. She looked back at the house party echoing and got in to buckle herself.

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Relax.” He sped off. “Barely anything and I even drank water. You proud?” He fiddled with the radio. “Wasn’t feeling it tonight.”

“Looked like a party on the roof.”

“Well, I still gotta impress the following.” Billy gestured to the glovebox. “Put a tape in, will you?”

“You and your hair metal...and...oh?” Evie skimmed the selection while they whirled away from Loch Nora. “What is this? Fleetwood Mac. I’m so impressed.”

“Ugh, that must be Max’s, she keeps leaving her tapes in my car. Throw it out.”

“Wow. Apologize to Stevie.” Evie gasped and mocked. Cupped her hands over the sacred tape. “He didn’t mean that.” Billy peered over to crack a laugh at her jabbing. “Alright, alright. Can’t go wrong with a little Queen.”

“Fair enough.” Billy let her slip the tape in and mess with the volume so they could still hear each other. “You really mad at Heather?”

Evie went flat.

“Yes and I’ll stay mad at least until school starts back up.” She crossed her arms, relaxing as the heat picked up. Too good just as Carol said.

“Where am I taking you?” Billy turned down another road, flying beyond the trees and Evie stared at his profile. Intent on the road for once.

“You opposed to a little more cold?”

“I have blankets in back. Might have to get cozy.” He slid those eyes over and Evie sucked her cheeks in.

“Take a left up here. I know a secret spot.”

** ** **

“You didn’t say anything about hiking through a dark forest,” Billy whined with his arms full of blankets. "If Michael Myers reams my ass-"

"Maybe I'm a Thing like the movie and I'm taking you somewhere to assimilate." Evie teased ahead of him.

"I actually like the sound of that, Angel. Proceed. Assimilate with me all night long." Suggestive.

She just laughed, loathing him.

“It’s not far. I'll protect you, Billy. You hear the water and ice cracking? Chicken.” Evie flicked a flashlight they snagged from his car after parking in the thrush. “Just up there. C’mon. I promise it’s worth it.” She hurried up, leaving him behind to watch her silhouette in starlight

“Someday, I’m gonna stop chasing this girl,” Billy uttered under his breath, hurrying to follow because that was the biggest lie he'd ever told himself. “The whole ‘no murder’ deal stands.”

“Naturally.” Evie giggled and stepped over a log. “Here.”

They walked along the train tracks going both directions. Came upon the cliffs where the bridge was laid out. Billy looked out at the frozen water yards below. At the moon and stars bathing the space in an ethereal glow. Frozen water framing the rocks. Looked like a castle full of magic.

“Down here.” She went to the edge and climbed down under the steel and wood tracks. Into the space that was suspended over the great fall.

“This is your spot?”

“You'll see why.” Evie reached for his wrist so he didn’t trip. Snagged the blankets from him. “Prettier with all the icicles. Look.” Billy did. Admired the iridescent, dewy glimmer. “And now we wait.”

“Wait?” He came to Evie, lighting a cigarette. “For what?”

“You’ll see, I said.” She settled a blanket around her shoulders and gave him one. Playfully covering his shoulders.

“Wait to freeze to death.” Billy had grumbled as Evie paced farther, stepping over boards and balancing on steel beams.

He saw the moonlight stream through the tracks into her curls. Admired her when she peered back to press a genuine smile. His cigarette dropped. Cherry glowing all the way down. Air whistled.

"Tell me more about yourself, Billy Hargrove." Evie cocked her head at a dewy spiderweb. "Favorite fruit? Favorite insect? Are you fonder of chocolates or-?"

"You think I'm interesting." He decided.

"I think you're here with me." Evie curled around a steel post to see him.

"Tangerines," Billy replied after a beat, "and favorite bug? Do scarab beetles count? Just think they look cool as shit."

"Naturally. Good choice, I suppose." She sized him up and tapped her chin when Billy gestured across the way. Neither moving. "Pineapple and luna moths."

"Luna moths?"

"Yeah," Evie hummed to herself and hid away behind the beam, "I always thought they looked like they were fluttering straight out of our dreams. Don't you?"

Billy took one step. Really watched her shift in ethereal lights. Luminous and bathed utterly.

"Evangeline." He mused as she teetered across a board and came to the edge. Eyes on the water far below. "Why a singer?"

"Hm?" She faced away from him. Seemingly in a dream herself. Billy imagined moths glowing around her pretty hair. Fluttering to follow her into the dark. He wished she'd extend a hand to him so he could join. Follow her right into it.

"Why do you want to be a singer?"

"Always liked it. Growing up, I just felt right, I guess. The most like me. This girl I wanted to be and she's on a stage under too many lights. Singing her heart out to miles of crowds. Touching them all in a way. Connecting." Evie trailed her fingers over chains that hung down, clicked them together like wind chimes. Billy edged up after her. Not getting too close. Wondered about what was ticking in Evie's soul.

"Nice to be heard when you put music out into the world," Billy observed and she seemed to like that. Curls bouncing softer with her voice. Evie unfurled for him there and she was breathtaking.

“I wanna write music that lifts people so high, they’ll have to look down to see heaven." Evie gasped gently, heart-soaring while she came to the other edge on the opposite side. Almost leaning too far.

"Yeah?" He felt her tug tender cords in his soul. Didn't take his eyes away.

"I want to write something that makes others understand they’re not alone. Not small. You know? One great song before I...” Evie trailed off with a sober sort of melodic call beckoning and looked far below to the great fall that was one stumble away. One step. Fingers opened. Her arms lifted enough to drop the blanket behind her and feel the wind. “You think I can write a song powerful enough to help me fly over this bridge, Billy?”

One hand lifted higher, lips open and unable to stop. Unable to look away from the edge. Steady as can be, Billy slid his palm against her. Skin awakening. Reminded her that she was here. That he was with her. That they weren't alone and the song was alive. Fingers laced and Evie seemed to reel back to him, brown eyes glinting to see his face there. Freckles all glowy. Curls spun of gold shifting just right.

"You're beautiful." She observed there.

Billy surely would have followed her to the edge, but he didn't want her to go. Stay.

"You're strange." He'd found this sentiment before and it sounded all the more lovely tonight. Billy gently pulled her from the edge. “Come here, Angel, warm me up.”

Billy draped himself in the other blanket again. Shifted her under it as if it were a cape. A shroud that would keep them both from harm's way. From the edge.

“Okay, Dracula, easy.” She stumbled into him. The diamond lines of Billy’s chest cut into her. “Wait, you feel that?” She watched his earring shift while he looked around. “The vibration.”

“Yeah, I do.” He muttered suggestively.

“Not that kind. Just listen. Feel it.” Evie stepped out, almost giddy as she plucked her blanket up and felt around. Billy welcomed it in his chest. The smooth vibrations generating from above. “Get ready.”

“Ready?” He laughed, coming toward her again. Billy stepped into her space as Evie reached back to curl her fingers into his leather jacket. Head tilted up toward the tracks.

“Lie down with me.” She began to tug and Billy felt this drunkenness take him over at Evie and her smile brightening. They reclined together wrapped in blankets and Billy realized it as the horns called over Evie’s wild laughter.

“You’re full of surprises, Fenny.”

“It helps to scream it out, whatever you want. Just let it go with the train.” She kept snickering as the bridge really began to shake. Billy watched her face. Alight and wild. Red lips against the moonlight pooling to spill over her and illuminate the glitter in her makeup.

“You’re beautiful.” He said then. Unsure if she really heard him over the howl of the oncoming cars.

Billy laughed with her. The roar of a train began to charge above. Blaring horns and steel wheels cranking fast. Her nose crinkled as the windswept their hair. Lips opening to scream with it. Billy couldn’t help joining her. Both of them calling out against the rumbling that never seemed to end.

Icicles fell around the edges and reminded Billy of confetti. Falling so slow and sweet to decorate the space. Shattering colors. That night he first danced with her and kissed her long and hard. Spinning round and round.

Evie pulled herself up and climbed higher into the beams. Head tossed back to give a call like a siren.

“Fuck you!” She saw Billy stand and peered at him. “Keep yelling! Anything you want at anyone! Really let ‘em have it!”

“You first!”

“You left mom and me, you selfish fucking prick!” She raged up into the air for her father that wasn’t around. Hair whirling up into the gust of wind. The train took her syllables with it. Shouting back. "You can't just make people and then abandon them! They'll think they did something wrong forever!" Billy felt his chest tighten. Joined her. Heart bursting.

“Why didn’t you just let me fucking save you! Why wasn't I enough!” He didn’t yell for Neil who beat him senseless. Perched upon steel Evie saw Billy tense. Burst again. “I hate you!” He cried that. Evie's fingers pressed harder into steel. Lost in him. Billy heaved for fresher air. Having never faced it all.

The train ended as they stared at each other. Both breathing into the frozen air. Heaving to gasp.

Evie slipped down and tossed her arms around Billy’s shoulders. Kissed him back into cold steel as if she was trying to comfort him. Kiss him all better. Luna moths landing delicately on their bodies to open and close their lovely wings.

"Why'd you do that?" Billy asked of her for the first time. Evie beamed at the turn in the phrase.

"Because at that time, you weren't going to." She brought him back in. Wanting more. Cupping his face. “Feel any better?” Evie drew out, leaving him to look fluttered. Unsure, Billy swept in so he didn’t have to reply yet. Miles of kisses hot like the cherry of his smoke he let tumble below.

“Felt good.” He murmured, pulling her into him. “If anything.”

“You can’t tell anyone about this place. It’s my secret. Our secret.” She pecked his lips and Billy drew out because they both were too cold to continue. The heat in her belly wasn’t enough.

He tilted his forehead against hers, lulled forth when her weight shifted back and the loss. The loss of her ached Billy down to his marrow. This almost paradise they constructed together.

Curls fell into his face before he lifted to glimpse Evie once more. Wondered how she’d look swaying with lush moonbeams in her hair always. Pretty goddess draped in starlight. Painted in pearly shimmers.

Enough to take his breath, Billy gasped for it back and gave this distant chuckle. Nodded to promise he wouldn't tell a soul. Evie caught him wincing as her hand moved over his shoulder again so she left him completely.

“Sorry.”

“It’s nothing.” He turned to go, eyes elsewhere. Anywhere else they could dart. Not on her. “Let’s just head back.” Billy felt like he was in a dream. Spinning and dizzy all the way back to the car. He realized as the locks clicked that Evie had been speaking.

“Are you alright?” She swallowed and Billy looked at the car keys in his hand. Little scorpion keychain glinting. “Were you talking to your mom back there?”

“Yeah. I just…” Billy shook his head and turned the engine on. “I don’t know where it came from.”

“I thought it’d be Neil.”

“I guess I can’t even stomach dreaming of him.” He replied. “I know it’s not a dream if he’s there. Even if he’s getting his. You know?”

“Yeah. I, uh… Do you…?” Evie squirmed in her seat, worried he’d close up on her as he stared at the road and drove at a steady speed for once.

“Do I, what?”

“Hate her?”

“No.” He skidded at a red light, almost sounded defensive. Shoulders fell. Knuckles went white on the wheel. “Sometimes.” Evie felt her cheeks burn and tried to sound even, it still came out as an airy whisper.

“What happened to her, Billy?”

“She just died.” He sighed to calm his own tone from sounding hot. “She died when I was fourteen.” Finally, he corrected himself. “She killed herself.”

“I’m sorry.” Evie tried not to stare at him. Fear it made him uncomfortable quelled, but she couldn’t look away. Billy closed his eyes at the next red light to breathe, opened them.

“It happens.” He said. “People wake up one morning and decide they don’t want to wake up ever again...and they act on it. And they succeed.” It felt like he started to drive slower the closer they got to Cherry. “Doesn’t matter who they leave behind.”

Evie carefully extended her hand over to touch his in his lap. Because it does fucking matter and it always will. The fingers on the wheel flexed and Billy didn’t tear away.

“She had a lot of problems. Like my dad. Maybe they tried to fix each other once. I don’t know.” Billy continued. Too tender about it all. “They divorced when I was nine. All the back in forth. The visitations. Courtrooms making me choose and I just...I wanted her. I wanted it to stop too. I know she was messed up, but she tried to get better… You believe me, don’t you?”

His blue eyes glistened. Jaw tensing. Billy pulled up between their houses and neither moved as he cut the engine.

“Yes, I believe you.” Evie found the syllables around her tongue.

“You believe people can get better, Evie?”

She almost welled with him. It struck her heart with lightning.

“I really hope so.” She had to or she was lost just as well. Evie sniffled and tried to be stone again when all the emotion came into her voice to cloud it.

“She never hit me though. Dad drank and beat the shit out of her. Made her drug habits worse and worse. Liked when she was some coked-out zombie. Pills and needles, it just… Fuck, Evie, she just kept falling back. They fought for custody the whole time and I really thought she was getting better. Dad acted like a fucking hero, rescuing me from an evil druggie.”

“You’re worth getting better for.” Evie felt Billy slip from her hand so he could clear his throat and rub his eyes.

“I found her, you know?” He shuddered and stared at his open palms in his lap. Saw red on them. “It was her weekend and I took the bus home from school like I always did. We were going to go to the boardwalk.”

His head tipped back and he gave this grim smile. They never made it to that boardwalk, Evie realized.

“The smell of that house, I’ll never… Just rotten...and I couldn’t even see her face at first because of all the flies.” It was Billy who reached out aimlessly for Evie’s wrist. Something to stay rooted, she figured. “My mom was beautiful and she always smelled like oranges. Like the big orchard she worked at. But, the fucking house just smelled like shit and piss and vomit and rust when I came in. Like death. I found her in the bathtub all bloated and ugly and the water was already brown. She sat in there alone decaying and no one...”

Billy kept rubbing his eyes again until they were too swollen to cry. Evie had his hand in both of hers, clamped tight to keep him alert. Unwavering.

“I didn’t know what to do so I called for help. I couldn’t lift her out, I wasn’t strong enough and I kept screaming... Then, I tried my dad three times, and...fuck, I ended up calling Susan. They’d started dating a couple of months before and I didn’t like her. Or her kid. But, she was too nice and gave me a number to call if I needed her after they’d gotten serious. I don’t know why I kept it in my backpack. She came when they were loading my mom up. Kept trying to hold me and I wouldn’t let her until I was too weak to fight it.”

“She does care about you. She’s scared, too.”

“My dad cleans up his act well from time to time. Plays the perfect father and boyfriend, she fell for it. In too deep now with no way out. He'll bleed her dry, too. My dad, he likes it when people don’t have a way out. Mom found a way though, spite him.” Billy dropped his head back again, chest sinking before he looked at Evie. Quivered there. “I just get...so mad.”

“I know.” She sank into the seat a little to watch him.

“She left a note that said sorry. That she loved me. Left this for me, too.” Billy fingered his pendant. “Wasn’t enough. Sometimes, I walk into my own house now and that smell… I can’t escape it. I’m always in that house. In that room with the flies covering everything.”

That shook Evie. They weren’t perfect kids, but they didn’t deserve to be trapped in that house. In that room. Where trauma was fed on a loop. A haunted house where they were the ghosts doomed and trapped to wander. To relive what killed them from the first.

“I tried so fucking hard to make her better, I took care of her and I wasn’t there. I let my dad drive her to-”

“Billy, it’s not your fault.” Evie had his hand pressed against her chest at that. “It’s not.” Both painfully sober, they just looked at each other. Leveled out. “I’m sure she tried so hard for you. Some people, they just… Addiction is…”

Evie felt this ice swell up her stomach. Addiction is a harsh cycle. It never really ends, you work at it and fight it, but it’s always there in the back of your memories urging. Once you start, you’re always an addict. Recovering or not. You can’t stop.

You can’t stop.

“Getting help is so hard when you’re sick.” Was all Evie could manage. Unable to portray how profoundly she understood. “Your job was to be a kid.”

“All I wanted was to go back to California and now, I’m not sure if I ever can. Just knowing she won’t be there again. Sometimes when I’m here, I just pretend she’s alive and still picking oranges on long, hot days.” Billy swallowed. “My dad just...shut down for the first time when he showed up to get me from Susan’s. I asked him if he was gonna hug me. Susan had for a long time. And he just tensed and told me not to be soft. That I can’t act like a pussy and mom was just too fucking sick to get better. But, I knew she had a chance. I knew it was enough. I...” Billy’s voice cut over. He tried to gasp for some clear air so Evie pulled him over the seats into her arms.

“You’re enough.” She said. Plain and simple. So easily.

Billy vibrated in response.

"Sometimes I think you navigate the world like something bad is coming for you and you're waiting for it, Evie," he muffled into her, "and I don't want you to go, too."

"I won't go." Evie held steady, eyes flickering beyond him at dead space. "Promise."

Hands came up like he might shove her off before Billy shattered. Melted into her heat. The soft slopes of flesh. Arms went under his so she could hold him close. Billy hitched a sob and stopped anything else that dared creep up his throat. Fingers wrung into her clothing. Evie let him squeeze her tight. Within inches of breath. Make her a balmy slice of paradise he could sink into.

Billy closed his eyes. Face pressing into the line of her collar. Inhaling perfume and lotion. Flames bubbling up from her skin.

“Come to bed with me,” Evie’s lips touched his ear, “nothing funny. I just don’t want you to sleep alone tonight.” Billy felt himself relent, only nodded into her hair.

They snuck out under street lamps and went into the Fenny house. Cleaned up without words to dress down for bed. Blue wiggled in with them atop the pillows and Billy faced away.

Evie wished she had something better to say, but she just told him goodnight. Gently murmured it against his spine as she tucked in behind him.

“Evie.” Billy shifted after a long beat. Turned over to face her there. Barely awake at that point, her eyes cracked.

“Hm?”

“Thanks.” Billy moved again on his back because it always seemed to get her nuzzling into his side. “What I told you. Don’t tell anyone else. Please.” Arm stretching so Evie could take her place and mumble something he didn’t catch, a nod followed. Nose pressing to the cotton tee he left on, Evie slipped away first. Left Billy to his thoughts as he watched the dim lights pull between the blinds and curtains to make patterns along her ceiling.

He knew he was consumed and he wasn’t sorry. Not one bit. Evie tumbled deeper into her dreams. Not stirring as fingers played with her curls. Petting them softly. Billy mulled over it all and he just wasn’t ashamed and he couldn’t figure out how to make her see it. But, he was willing to keep trying. Evie was worth trying for, too. Plain and simple. Sighing out, Billy let himself begin to slip too.

“Anyone…” He couldn’t help uttering, almost melodic. Lashes fluttering. “...who knows what love is…”

Billy peered down at Evie’s face, peaceful and relaxed against his chest. Cheek pressing hot through the fabric as his fingertips ran a barely-there line down the silky skin.

The rest of the lyrics never came. Tangled into his heartstrings where they made a cozy home.

Billy immersed himself in burning amber, closed his eyes to follow Evie into absolute darkness. Almost paradise.

~~~~~~~

Thanks guys for being so lovely! This is probs my fav chapter to date. Leave words in my ask or replies if you have them! Love to hear from you all xoxo

TAGGED:: @80sbxtch @nottherightseason @orxhidshavana @alagalaska @alongcamedolly @kellyk-chan @10blurredsmoke10 @stanley--barber @charmed-asylum @unmistakablyunknown

#billy hargrove #Billy hargrove x oc #Billy Hargrove imagine #billy hargrove fanfiction #stranger things fanfiction #Billy x Angel #mine #writing #somy #angel fenny

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cas-rivaille · 3 years

Note

Hello! Can I get a matchup for jujutsu kaisen please?

Appearance : 5'4 ace/heteromantic girl ambivert.Dark brown hair/eyes (I wear glasses but they are also sun glasses because bright lights give me a headache) a little chubby/muscled and pale skin+permanent smirk/smile/ neutral face. Plump lips. My style varies a lot (always comfy) but I never wear dresses heels/makeup. I love to imagine outfits with symbols from fandoms or my own drawings so I have a rather unique style (most of the time I wear a NASA jacket and leather boots/sneakers, I also love sleeveless turtleneck) who changes a lot. I have malleable cheeks and tiny hands/fingers/wrist.

MBTI: INTP-T and chaotic neutral/good

Zodiac: Gemini sun, Taurus rising, libra moon

Enneagram : My dominant is type 5 then 8. Quizzes says that I am a 5w6 or 8w7

Personality : .Sarcastic,a little naive but I have a backbone (don't bother flirting with me and if you feel that I am flirting with you which happens a lot then it's just my personality and on the rare occasion I notice they have to confess or I won't believe it) ,calculative,protective,creative,expressive,manipulative,a devil's advocate,prideful,charismatic, smartass, bookworm, daydreamer, a little insensitive/blunt because I'm more on the logical side ,vengeful, mischievous, a huge tease, open minded, very curious, gets annoyed easily, impatient (unless it's in drawing because I am a perfectionist there) so kind of a bad temper, observant but not romantically,sadistic to a point but my conscience prevents me from doing these acts. Indifferent to many things, morally...unique as my moral compass is on the neutral side I don't believe in absolute evil/good.

With my friends I am either laughing, goofing around or annoyed. I love to give bad puns or cursed ideas who are gore/weird and saying I know y all love me. Those who don't talk to me see me as a nerd aggressive smart and blunt person ( even prideful) and strangers as polite and kind. I notice a lot of details because I don't let my guard down even if I daydream plus I have a photographic + sound memory and they work very well in all situations which can be a bother when I try to concentrate which is difficult for me because I get distracted easily. Also I have very weird reflexes so...anyone who approaches me by surprise gets hit, any sudden movement and I already have my leg/arm going their way which got me into a lot of trouble.

Dislikes: I fight for my beliefs. I have trust issues so I never talk about my problems and will use humor when confronted. Bright lights. Cooking. Slow things or people. When I get teased in a mean way (otherwise I actually like being teased it's a fun fight after). People who change side easily and hypocrites. Overly serious people. I tend to be aggressive and expose an annoyed face easily (I am moody), plus I hate orders and love pressing buttons it's funny(in a fun way rarely in a mean one) unless it's a sensitive subject. When I feel that I am unwanted or someone insults me or take me for granted I become very cold and distance myself and the relationship becomes strained the more they take time to ask for forgiveness, something I might give but will never forget.

Likes: I love cats/laughter/sweets/pranks/dark humour/ a true crime and Supernatural enthusiast and I love science especially concerning space, chemistry, robotic and psychology. Books, sleep, drawing and video games too. Cherries. Sushi.Oh and debates I love them. Surprises too I hate routine and runs away from it. I like making character analysis which I often get right but never show to the people around me because I know they will trust me less.

Hobbits : Reading, getting lost in a book, drawing, learning, debating, daydreaming, sports (I practice karate and shooting), art (piano/drawing/writing especially poetry) and video games

I have some bad habits like biting my nails (I just got rid of it by painting them black)/lips and moving my leg up and down because I am always nervous, disorganized room/sleep and eating schedule plus I am lazy. Also I might try to hide it but I am very competitive and a sore loser

Fun fact : I dream a lot and write my dreams. I don't mind nightmares on the contrary I welcome them because I find them to be a nice experience and they give me ideas plus the amount of emotions you can feel is amazing. I also tend to curse while talking.

I rarely get motivated but when I do I give a very good work and put my soul in it, if I don't reach my goal I feel down for a while and become very snappy.

I am a lazy student (hell if I don't feel like writting I don't especially exercises that I understood) but also at top of my class so none says anything (i can befriend people easily if I want to, teachers included). My projects are often done last minute or just improvisation but I get a good mark at them which means that yes sometimes I can become arrogant and I don't really know what it feels like to study really hard and fail sorry. But I know it will bite me later. I often argue my way out of a situation with anyone : I know the exercise why should I write it? If I told you the answer then I know how I got it and you know it too no need for me to write the correction. Mum the brain is a muscle too so I am in fact exercising.

When dealing with an emotional person I don't know what to do I will try to give them words to keep going, it succeed but I am rather harsh plus I try to make jokes to cheer them up.But if a friend breaks down before me I will do my best to cheer them up (ahem jokes and reminding them of all the success they achieved) and if I am comfortable and they want a hug I will give it. I hate people who denies that others helped them.

My love language is gifts, quality time, a little act of service and affection in private if comfortable. I also love to send memes saying it reminds me of us/you and holding pinkies.

Please can you not consider geto,mahito, nanami, todo and junpei as matchups I am uncomfortable with them.

I am stubborn, moody (one day I can be really cold/snappy to the person because I am in a bad mood but I apologize after) and can be perceived as unloving even if it's not the case, well sometimes but I usually love affection despite me never saying affectionate things.

Thank you very much for your time! 😋

AHHH THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST !! this is my first jjk one i hope you like it !!

i won't be answering it in order lol i do it on memory then go back to make sure i got everything i hope that's okay !!

as for your matchup.... ITADORI

so a lot influenced my decision on this, first thing being

your mood, you said repeatedly how you can get moody and we all know itadori our precious bby is a ball of sunshine and very easy going. he would totally understand me give you space if you needed it and just try his best to help you feel better if something is bothering you :)

he would LOVE to link pinkies with you and spend quality time with you

our baby is a resident ISFP so you two def have similar aspects

he would love your pressing buttons/hating orders part of your personality bc i feel like it would lead to several clashes between you and some of the teachers and he would think that's SO FUNNY OMG

he also loves your sense of humor and there is never a dull moment between you two

if you were comfy with it, he would love to hear about your dreams because he thinks it's so cool that you write them down

please let him paint your nails he would love it

he would send you memes too x10 this boy has endless memes in his phone, you're guaranteed a laugh when you text him.

he would totally appreciate your way of cheering people up because it's exactly what he needs

you best invite this boy to anything karate related because he thinks it's SO COOL i mean we all know he has natural abilities but putting it into a martial arts form is s o amazing to him and he really admires you

don't be surprised if he asks you to draw him

IF YOU LEAVE HIM POETRY OR A LOVE NOTE HE WILL MELT ON SPOT. GONE. ASCENDED. EVAPORATED.

he loves your style and think you look so badass

i totally hc itadori somewhere on the ace spectrum, probably demi

dates??:

VIDEO GAME DATES

going and getting sushi together in the middle of the night low key just sneaking out

ARCADES

nights in watching crime shows or supernatural he absolutely LOVES occult stuff as we know he would probably make the two of you try a ouija board

COOKING DATES you two would make dinner for the first years and gojo every now and then and all the praises go to your cooking it's so good

all in all, itadori is the calm to your storm, you two mesh together very well and he loves you with his whole heart

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED LET ME KNOW IF I MISSED ANYTHING HAVE A GOOD MORNING/DAY/EVENING/NIGHT !!

- cas :)

#mars on earth #itadori #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk itadori #jujutsu kaisen itadori #jjk requests #jjk matchups

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meganshinsou-tm · 5 years

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two peas in a pod. (f)

☙ pairing: izuku x reader

☙ theme: pro hero/expecting father deku

☙ cw/tw: profanity, mentions of sex, fluff pure fluff, dad deku, domestic, yukio midoriya*

☙ a/n-request: after re-watching BNHA one day and seeing baby deku, i felt compelled to give him his own adorable own mini me.

“P-p-pregnant!”

Deku’s emerald eyes were wide with shock, his hands waving in the air as he continued to sputter and full on panic. Sweat was crossing his brow and his freckled cheeks turned red.

“B-but how?”

You smiled and ran a hand through Deku’s unruly green hair before grabbing and rubbing his shoulders to try and calm him. The hero took a few deep breaths as he walked back and sat against the big oak desk in his office. His index finger tugged at the collar of his hero suit as the other fanned himself.

“Izu, you and I both know how it happened,” you chimed quietly and cupped his cheek, tilting his face up to look at you.

There was no possible way for the hero’s face to get redder but like always he proved you wrong. A yelp came from his mouth as he hid his face in giant scarred hands, a fucking yelp! Even at over 6 ft. and a hulking 200+ pounds, Izuku Midoriya could still become a mumbling trembling mess from embarrassment. As always it was adorable.

“Oh, oh man, y-yeah … of course,” he blushed harder before feeling you taking his hands away from his face.

“I can’t imagine what’s going on in your head right now and I’m sorry to just barge in on you here at work but … I just couldn’t wait to tell you, maybe I should’ve waited till you got home -”

The heart in Izuku’s chest dropped and he gasped, realizing how his reaction probably wasn’t what you were hoping for. Man he could be so dumb sometimes, letting his over-dramatic tendencies get in the way at the worst of times!

“No, no, no! I-I’m sorry sweetheart, that wasn’t how I meant to react … I mean I don��t know how to react. We’ve never talked about this, how are you feeling?”

You shrugged, holding Izuku’s hands and looking down at them.

“Well, I feel a little nauseous and tired but that’s normal, other than that I don’t know? You’re right we’ve never talked about, well kids. To be honest on my way here I thought about how I didn’t even know myself if I want kids or if you want kids. I actually cried, I was worried, scared.”

Izuku wrapped his fingers around your hands, securing them tightly in his hold with a reassuring squeeze.

“I mean a kid is a lot of responsibility Izu, it’s an entire other small human whose life we’re responsible for, not like I don’t believe we can’t manage but it’s a lot of work. A lot of time, patience, sleepless nights and long hours. You being a hero, having a kid … I don’t want that to be too much for you is all.”

Too much? Izuku chewed on the inside of his cheek, the sting of tears brimming his eyes.

You were thinking of him, despite what you were saying, the underlying point is that you were thinking of him - before yourself. You, the one with this lifeform developing inside of you, the one whose body would be going through changes to accommodate to that, all while he would just be there. Izuku may have been a self-sacrificing person but he was no competition when it came to you.

“Hey,” Izuku spoke softly and cupped your cheek that fit perfectly in his massive hand, “Forget about my job. For you I’d quit and leave this place without a single regret if that’s what you wanted. Forget about this being too much for me and think if it’ll be too much for you. Baby - you’re the one who would be carrying this child for 9 months, not me. If this is something you want, know that I’ll be there every step of the way to take care of you, make sure you don’t miss a single doctors appointment, rub your back and feet when you need it, get you weird foods at ungodly times, I’ll take off work whenever you need me to. I don’t need these people, this agency, I just need you! I need you happy and healthy, I need you to put yourself first this time. I love you so much with my entire heart and soul, no matter what you choose.”

Your eyes blinked at the hero, tears starting to stream down them and teeth chewing on your lip as you nervously nodded.

“With you … yes, if it’s not too much to ask. Together I know we could do it.”

Izuku smiled, sniffling as he cried softly as well and held your small face in his hands, leaning in and placing a kiss to your lips that was so full of love and joy. Your hands held onto his wrists, standing on the tips of your toes to deepen the action with a growing smile before parting and pressing your foreheads together.

“You could never ask too much of me sweetheart. I’ll do anything, get anything, be anything just for you,” Izuku hummed as he placed a hand on your hip and let his thumb brush over your stomach. “And our baby.”

Did Izuku cry at the birth of his bouncing baby boy? You bet he did, way more than you in fact. When the nurses handed him over into the hero’s arms the waterworks were unstoppable.

“He’s so small! I want to hug him but I’ll probably crush him, how will I ever be able to love my own baby if I crush him!”

You giggled thinking about the day as you loaded the washing machine full of clothes, watching as Izuku and Yukio played heroes and villains in the living room. In your husband’s hand was a Godzilla toy, your son held a Ground Zero and Shouto action figure in both of his own tiny palms with a menacing smile on his face that matched the one of Izuku’s fellow work partner.

“Die, die, die!” Yukio yelled with all his might, green unruly locks like that of his father’s bouncing in front of matching green eyes.

The kid was an exact copy of Izuku, just more freckles. His personality was brave and unwavering, there was no fear in his little body whatsoever. He’d climb the furniture and stand at the highest points with his arms flexed out and yell, “I am here, prepare to die!” Just a little mesh of Izuku and his Uncle Kat’s famous phrases.

The greenette had no idea where his own son’s unabashed spitfire bravery came from, being that when he was a toddler himself he was the exact opposite. Maybe some of it came from you, you could be sassy and a lot to handle at times but Yukio took that to another level.

However though, your kid had his sweet and precious moments that were no doubt all from his dad. He had the same adorable looks, his passion for hero’s or anything else he was interested in was just as fanboy-ish. Of course Izuku encouraged all those things, he never wanted his son to be ashamed of himself but for him to have that burning desire to fulfill his dreams and become whatever he wanted to be. There was nothing that could stop his son but himself.

You walked back into the living room, catching Yukio running and jumping on top of his father with a war cry and releasing his action figures. Izuku laughed and caught the toddler with ease, hugging him close and tickling his sides as he attacked every last freckle on his cheeks with kisses.

So much for being scared of crushing his own kid anymore, now Izuku was a confident father, a wonderful one, more than you could ever ask for.

The two rolled around on the floor laughing and rough housing, they were plain and simple boys to their core and you could never get enough of watching the two interact. Finally, sitting up and crossing his legs, Izuku grabbed Yukio from under his arms and tossed him up into the air as if he weighed nothing, the boy giggled, eliciting a high pitched squeal as he was caught safely in big protective scarred arms. Izuku smiled a lot before but now, it’s as if the smile never left his face, it was permanent. Brushing back his son’s hair, the hero kissed his forehead sweetly. Emerald eyes sparkled at emerald eyes before both sets were looking at you.

“Hey mama,” both voices spoke in sweet and happy unison.

#midoriya izuku #deku #deku x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #bnha #mha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #oc child #yukio midoriya #fluff

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daily-dose-of-imagines · 4 years

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(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Matchup ♥

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hi hi admins! I hope you both are doing well and taking good care of yourselves~ im kinda new to Tumblr and youre one of the first blogs I followed and I absolutely love the writing from both of you, its so amazinggg. this is also my first time submitting a matchup request and I have no idea if im doing this right at all, so I apologize in advance if I made any mistakes. I go by charlize/cj, and i use a female pronouns so she/her works for me. for the matchup I would prefer to be matched up with male characters. im 5'3 with long brown hair, brown eyes and a tan complexion. im and introverted extrovert so I tend to keep to myself unless im around people im close with, then I can be really loud and an extreme crackhead. I have been told that I have a competitive nature and that I have an intimidating aura, and I can take charge when needed. im very passionate about the things I do and always want to make sure that I am constantly improving, but I have a bad habit of becoming hot-headed at times :/ im an infj-a for the myers briggs personality and also an achiever for the enneagram test. according to my friends I come off as quiet and reserved, but if I am talked to ill be polite and hold a conversation (basically ill only talk if I have to T-T). I also make sarcastic remarks at times, but at other times I can say random stuff like “does lightening McQueen need life insurance or car insurance?” type of thing. my favorite things are dancing, kbbq, listening to music, drawing, trying new boba places, and photography. I have several aesthetics and incorporate a lot of black into them, but my go to aesthetics are street wear/hype beast, grunge/e girl/ alt. im fine if theres nsfw in the matchup (if there are nsfw themes in matchup im not sure, like I said im new to Tumblr I am so sorry T-T) lastly, I would prefer to be kept anonymous.

can I be matched up with (male) characters from mystic messanger, free, and haikyuu please?? thank you so much for reading my long ass match up request, anyways stay hydrated, get enough sleep, and dont stress yourselves out too much!

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

Hello and thank you for requesting with us! Thank you for following us and I hope that you like the boys that I paired you up with!

>Admin 𝕋

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

𝐼 𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓅 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽...

You and Rin would be such a perfect match for each other! Just solely on the fact that you are competitive, for one thing. Rin is competitive too, and I would feel like if you and Rin were to be together, both of you would be able give each other a push to be better, to thrive to be the best person you can be. Be it from daily life or to a career you want to pursue; just make sure it stays healthy and doesn’t ruin the relationship! He is also a bit extroverted himself, so he will like with how you are an ambivert, someone who can be both. He’ll like how you can go from quiet to rambunctious all in the same breath. He wouldn’t ever get bored!

For appearance, he will definitely like the fact that you are shorter than him, he’ll boast about it constantly. Having brown hair, brown eyes, and a tan complexion is something he will definitely see and like. Let’s be honest here, Rin wouldn’t care much for appearances, but when he sees you with brown hair and brown eyes, and you tan skin, all of a sudden, it’s his favorite look. Now, whenever he sees people like look like you, he is instantly attracted to them. In his mind that is a compliment!

Rin himself is quite a character. He is also pretty intimidating when people first meet him, much like you, but then see he is such a big softie who needs constant hugs, to which you will just have to give him! He will love your crackhead energy, thinking it would be such a bother to have someone who couldn’t match his energy whenever he is excited, or whenever he just wants to be lazy!

He will love your sense of style and definitely will want to try and match it with his own sense of streetwear. He would want to look like a bad ass couple with you, and be your hype man, tell you how awesome you look, and how cool you’d seem to be! His favorite type of colors would be darker colors, so you incorporating black all the time would be better for him, since he can match better with you!

For nsfw stuff, he’d be dominating, and would want to have you submit to him, but like I said before, he is a big softie, so what would really happen is that he would get too embarrassed by the whole ordeal, then you would be the one on top!

He would absolutely hate you puns and jokes though, so if you see him angry, that’s probably why.

I picked Akaashi for you because of his limitless sarcasm, that I think you would appreciate. Also with the fact that with you being an ambivert, you can definitely match his laid back and quiet attitude, and then pick up the slack when you and him around your friends, since you know that he won’t! Another thing, it that he will love how intimidating you seem to be, but you are actually a big softie. He will really love that dynamic you have going on!

Appearance wise. Bruh, that would be at the bottom of his list as to why he loves you. But, the most appealing thing about you physically to him would be your eyes. Only because they hold your soul, and he loves how they glimmer when you smile or laugh. Other than that, he would love you more so because of your personality, and how well you mesh with him.

He will love how passionate you are to your dreams, and how much you want to succeed. And he will be there when you go too hard on yourself, telling you that you need to pace yourself and make sure that you are properly taking care of yourself. He will be quiet and cautious when taking care of you, using more of his actions more than his words, so don’t take it for granted!

He would like your aesthetic, how you have so many different types and how you can pull off all of them! He would also like how many likes you have from dancing to photography. Akaashi would ask if you could take of things he likes, or if you could take selfies of yourself so that he has pictures of you for him to put in his wallet, so that he can have you with him at all times!

For nsfw, he would be very dominate, unless he’s lazy and doesn’t want to do all the work! But for the most part he would want to be the one to give all of the pleasure you deserve, inside and out!

And for your little puns and jokes, he would roll his eyes at them, would hate listening to them, but he sees how you laugh at them, and sometimes they are not as bad as they seem.

Bah, freaking Zen, literally so much like, so perfect for you! He isn’t as intimidating as you are at first glance. If anything, he is the opposite of you, Zen first looks like he wouldn’t harm anybody, but then you will the intimidating parts, such as his anger or his lust. Another thing about Zen, that I think would be perfect for you would be the fact that he is extremely extroverted, but can also become easily drained. And with the fact that you are both, you would be able to help him with his ups and downs, when he is extroverted, but then when he is drained and would rather be more introverted. You would essentially be his battery! Since you are both!

Appearance wise, Zen would be the type to care a little more than the other two, but nonetheless he would still love how you look! He would love how tiny you are, and would love how you are kind of the opposite of him, with your brown hair and brown eyes and tan skin! He would love all of it! Wouldn’t even think about the bad sides of you, if there were any!

Like the other two, he would love the fact that you are so passionate to succeed! But he would be the one to worry most, whenever you overwork yourself! He would tell you to take a breather, make some tea for you, and then force you to relax when you don’t listen to him the first time! He would make you get into a little play fight with him so you can get your mind off of stuff, and he would be really sarcastic with you too! All for you, so you can ease the tenseness in your mind and body!

He will like how you love boba and photography and dancing! Literally all the things he likes! He is a star after all! He would want to learn choreography with you, or get boba with you, or maybe even start photography with you so he can take better selfies with you and for himself! He thinks it is very admirable that have those types of ambitions! For how you dress, ho boy, he would absolutely love the hype beast outfits, literally his favorite thing to see you in!

For nsfw stuff, this boy has a beast of his own and would not let you sleep, he would love your body and would want to touch all of it, constantly wanting! He would not let you go until he was satisfied, or you were completely exhausted!

He would be the only one out of the three that would like hearing your dumb jokes and puns, thinking it makes you cuter, trying to hard to make him laugh!

#Matchup #submisisons #matchups #submission #anime matchup #mystic messenger matchup #haikyuu matchup #free! Matchup

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olicitysecretsanta · 4 years

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Hi @redpensandhoodies! this is my little gift for you.

I hope you enjoy this story. It takes place in 2008, during the holidays. It’s an AU, mostly fluff with a side of feelings.

For clarification: Oliver is 23, and Felicity 20.

Thanks for reading!

By @lucyyh

The words that I could never say

(Gonna come out anyway)

December 20, 2008.

He trips over the words for the thousandth time in the last fifteen minutes or so, and with a groan of frustration, Oliver closes the book and hits the kitchen counter with it.

The loud bang, amplified by the silent loft, makes him jump a little, and he stays still, his eyes fixed on the stairs leading to the second floor, listening intently for any sound that could alert him that Felicity woke up with the noise and is coming down the stairs.

He knows it is practically impossible, but Oliver’s nervousness has been steadily growing every passing hour since this morning.

He doesn’t know how he will survive tomorrow.

After a few minutes where he doesn’t move an inch, he relaxes a little, now sure that Felicity is still sleeping peacefully. He opens the book again, trying to go back to reading, but he can’t concentrate on the words. They mesh together forming just one big pile of letters that don’t make any sense, not anymore.

Standing up, he goes and grabs a glass from one of the kitchen cabinets and fills it with water from the faucet. He drinks a few sips, washes the glass and leaves it in the dish rack. Leaning on the counter, he looks around the loft, not knowing what to do. He’s too wound up to even consider going to bed now. He’ll just lay there, looking at the ceiling and panicking over everything he has planned for tomorrow.

Rubbing a hand over his eyes, he sighs and goes to sit on the sofa. Turning the tv on, he changes the channels for a minute, but he has no real interest in watching tv, so he just leaves it on and stares blankly at the wall behind the tv.

Logically, Oliver knows he has nothing to worry about. He is organizing this particular celebration for the first time, and he is bound to make mistakes. But the part of him that will do anything to make Felicity happy, wants every little detail to be perfect.

Hence why he is so stressed and frazzled.

“Hey,” her sleepy voice startles him, and he quickly turns towards the sound of her voice. She is standing at the foot of the stairs, rubbing her eyes to chase the sleep away. “It’s like three. You can’t sleep?”

He shakes his head in answer. “And you?”

“I had a stupid nightmare. For some reason there were kangaroos here in Starling, and they were just standing there, looking at me with their little, beady black eyes, waiting for me to move and attack me.” She shakes her head several times, as if she is chasing away the images of her dream.

“I will never understand why you are so scared of kangaroos.” She glares at him, and Oliver raises his hands in defeat, “they are cute!”

“They are not! They are big jerks who kick and punch you at the first opportunity they have.”

His lips turn up on a smile. “Felicity…”

“Do I have to show you the videos again?”

He groans, “Oh please don’t. I can’t watch anymore of those videos.” Felicity puts her hands on her hips and arches an eyebrow, waiting. He rolls his eyes, but dutifully says, “Kangaroos are evil, cunning little assholes and we hate them.”

Felicity nods satisfied and flops besides him on the sofa. She curls into his side, hugging his arm, her lips lightly touching his shoulder.

The intimate gesture makes a swarm of butterflies flutter wildly on his stomach. He is overwhelmed by his feelings for her and the strong urge of telling her once and for all that he is in love with her. But he can’t.

With a lump forming in his throat, he buries those feelings in the depths of his heart, too scared of ruining their friendship. Of losing her and watching her walk away from him for good.

She is too important for him. Oliver won’t jeopardize the place he has in her life, just because he couldn’t help but falling in love with her.

(He wonders if anyone who has ever met her has any chance of not loving her in some way.)

—-

He met Felicity over two years ago. He had flunked out of his second college a few months before, and his parents sent him to Boston hoping that if he was away from Starling and the lifestyle he had led until then, it would help him mature and with any luck, he would straighten out his life.

In truth, it wouldn’t have mattered. Oliver had a gift for getting himself in trouble, didn’t matter where he was or who he was with. The difference this time was that he wanted to change. He was tired of his playboy, trust fund baby façade. Of the careless boy who didn’t care about any one, who lived for the next party, or the next woman. Not one of those things (or those women) filled the void in his soul, that took away a part of his self-worth and identity every day.

He wanted to discover who he was and what he could achieve without his parents fixing all his screw-ups.

Boston provided a great opportunity to do just that.

It was easier said than done. He was applying himself on his classes, arriving on time and paying attention, but his parents had paid his way through high school, and now at college he realised he was behind in so many subjects that he was barely managing to keep up.

He had been close to giving up and accepting he was a failure.

His saving grace came in the form of a flyer, pinned on the notice board in the common room of his dorm building.

It was a list of students advertising their tutoring services for a variety of subjects. One particular name caught his attention. There was nothing special in her description. Just her contact info and a short list of the subjects she could help students with. It was just her name. In a list full with normal, typical names, her’s stuck out like a sore thumb.

He called her, later that day.

And that’s how he met Felicity.

At the beginning, Felicity was all business. She was there to help him, not to make small talk. She was never unkind or curt, but she didn’t treat him as if he was dumb either, so Oliver was okay with her requirements, even if he sometimes had to basically clench his mouth shut, so he didn’t blurt out any of the personal questions he was dying to ask her. (He had a lot.)

Oliver thought she was one of those people who just didn’t like to talk.

Boy was he wrong.

In their fifth session, she was explaining some things for his economics class, and while giving him an example, she said something about length and thickness, making a surprised laugh escaped his lips. She blushed hard and then started babbling, trying and failing epically to explain herself.

She stopped, eventually, embarrassment coloring her face. She told him then, the reason why she didn’t speak much was her tendency to babble. More than once, her ability to transform the most innocent sentences into innuendos as well as her rants, had driven away a student. There had been one or two that had gotten angry and said hurtful things that made her doubt if she should keep tutoring. So, Felicity told Oliver she understood if he chose to stop their lessons, and that she would happily recommend another tutor.

He had touched her shoulder, smiled and assured her he didn’t mind her babbles. He actually liked that she finally had talked about something other than math.

She furrowed her brow, told him that if she went off the rails he had to stop her. He agreed and she smiled, a big, beautiful smile that made his heart beat a little bit faster.

After that, they became friends.

Oliver discovered little by little, all the good traits of her character. Her strength, kindness, loyalty and honesty made her the object of his admiration and respect. The fact that she didn’t put up with his shit only strengthened their relationship. It was a nice change having someone who wasn’t scared of telling him when he screwed up, when he was being a jerk. It was even better having someone who supported him, and believed in him.

Along the way, he fell in love with her.

He can’t pinpoint the moment, he just knows it happened between studio sessions and quiet conversations over a cup of coffee. One day, Oliver realized his feelings for her had changed, and that was it. He never questioned it or tried to look for reasons why it happened.

He didn’t need to. Felicity always made things easy. Even falling in love with her.

——

“What are our plans for tomorrow?” her sleepy voice brings him back to the present, and he looks at the mess of blonde hair leaning on his shoulder.

“We could have brunch at one of the cafeterias close to the Starling Bay. After, I was thinking we could take Thea to the ice rink. She has been sending text after text badgering me about going there.”

“Well then, we must do what our little Queen requests.” She laughs at her lame joke, poking his ribs until she manages to make him chuckle. “And later?”

“You’ll light your Menorah, won’t you? We need to be back here before nightfall…and that is at like four.”

“I will, but later later? That won’t take more than one hour…are we planning to stay in?”

Oliver stiffens a little, suddenly at a loss of words. It’s ridiculous, how he can come up with a believable excuse, when he used to be so good at lying. It shouldn’t be this difficult when it is necessary if he wants to really surprise her tomorrow. “Movie night? I don’t feel like going out.”

Felicity looks at him suspiciously, making him squirm a little. He has never been able to hide anything from her and knows he will blurt out everything the moment she calls him out on his strange behavior.

He holds his breath, waiting for her to say something, praying she can’t see that he is about to freak out.

After a few seconds of intense staring, she sighs, rolls her eyes and shrugs. “Whatever you want. I will pick the movie though, because if I have to watch ‘Die Hard’ one more time, I will throw you out of the window, Oliver.”

“You can barely lift a box with a few books. I doubt you can throw me out of the window.”

“Hey!” She slaps his arm, but he barely lifts an eyebrow, “Ugh, your arms are crazy hard! Look at my poor hand, it’s all red!” She shakes her hand a little, murmuring about him and his ridiculously fit body, making him snort.

“Whatever. If I can’t throw you out of the window, I will hack your laptop and change your playlist to porcupine farts. And your cellphone ringtone.”

“No ‘Die Hard’ then, noted.” She nods happily, then turns her attention to the tv. “What are you watching?”

He looks at the tv, a little confused. “Nothing. I don’t even know why I turned it on.”

Felicity grabs the remote, turns off the tv. “Come on Oliver, let’s go to bed.” She stops, cringing at her words, “I mean, to our separate beds. I wasn’t implying we should share one…I’m not saying there’s something wrong with two friends sharing a bed! I wouldn’t be opposed-I, well, if we were in a situation where we have to share a bed…you don’t snore, I know that because I’ve watched you sleep…not creepily! You know that! It was that time when you passed out on the couch, while we were watching that horror movie, that was so lame, remember? I didn’t want to wake you, so you just slept through the rest of the movie and didn’t snore at all…yeah ok, there’s no way I can save this, I’ll just shut up now, yep.”

He laughs heartily, shaking his head. “Don’t worry ‘licity, I know what you meant. And you are right, we should go to sleep.”

They climb the stairs in silence, and he thinks that he wouldn’t have been opposed to sharing a bed with her.

————-

December 21, 2008.

He’s weird.

No, that’s a lie. Oliver is a dork, sometimes a little bit of a jerk, a huge sap, but never weird. He is acting weirdly, that’s a better way of describing how he has been behaving since yesterday. He is jumpy, looks at his watch every two minutes, speaks on the phone with someone in hushed tones, and talked with Raisa when they went to pick up Thea at the mansion, which is not exactly unusual, but the fact that he jumped a foot when she interrupted them, it wasn’t normal at all. He had started stuttering an explanation, but Raisa looked at the ceiling and said something in Russian. Oliver shut up at once, blushing so hard that even his hair was red.

They are at the ice rink now. Thea’s been spinning and making all kinds of pirouettes on the ice, while Felicity is holding one of the fences, refusing to even move an inch. She already tried, but she is a klutz and fell on her butt four times before she decided she was going to stick to the border. So now she is stuck here, watching with envy as Thea skates with an elegance and easiness she won’t reach, not in this life, or the next.

Someone swooshes past her, close enough to graze her jacket. She squeaks, tripping over nothing, desperately trying and failing to grab the fence to avoid face planting on the floor.

Luckily for her, Oliver arrives just in time, grabbing her waist and helping her recover her balance.

“You okay?”

“Yes, thank you for saving my teeth.”

He chuckles, and she stares for a moment too long at his face. She can’t help it, Oliver is so gorgeous she is actually surprised she doesn’t look at his face all the time. Of course, other parts of Oliver are worthy to stare at, like his abs, and his legs, and his…

“Get a grip you dumbass,” she scolds herself.

“Are you sure you don’t want to skate? It’s not difficult. I can teach you, and I won’t let you fall.”

“Ugh no, I will probably manage to make us both fall on our butts, or worse, we will end up face first on the ice.” He rolls his eyes. “Help me get there.” She points at the ice rink exit. I will take off the skates and rest my butt.” Scrunching her nose, she adds, “Does that sound weird? Yeah, I think it does. Maybe. Anyway, It’s true. My butt needs rest because it’s hurting, and I think I might even have a few purples already.” Without letting go of her waist, Oliver gently steers her to the exit. “Maybe I shouldn’t sit, if my butt is already bruising, it will only hurt more…” A woman passes close to them and gives her a disgusted look, making her blush in embarrassment. “Ok, I will stop talking about my behind.”

Oliver doesn’t say anything, probably because he is trying so hard not to laugh at her, the jerk. Finally, they get to the exit, and Felicity starts to untie her skates right there, instead of sitting on one of the benches, like Oliver suggests. Once she is free of them, Felicity looks for a place to sit, and once she is satisfied that her butt doesn’t hurt when she sits, she stretches her toes, groaning in pleasure.

“Be nice and bring me my boots?” She bats her eyelashes at him, and Oliver complies. He is back soon and helps her put on her boots. She blushes a little, the brush of his fingers making her heart jump on her chest.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna try?” Felicity shakes her head. “We’ll be here for another hour, I don’t want you to get bored.”

“Just one hour?”

“Nightfall Felicity. And we have plans for movie night.”

“I know. Are you sure you don’t wanna go out? Grab some drinks? I feel like having a drink.”

“Yeah-” He scratches his head. “I have a few bottles of wine at the loft, we can drink them.”

“Okay…” He is acting weird again. “I was in the mood for dancing too, hit the club…”

He stutters a little, and jeez, what is wrong with him?

“I don’t dance Felicity…”

“Well, I can go on my own..”

“No!” he says forcefully, and then takes a deep breath, plastering a cheerful (super fake) smile on his face. “We can go to a club another day, okay? I really want to stay at home tonight.” Before she can reply, he changes the subject. “Are you sure you don’t wanna try again?”

She gives him an annoyed look, “I won’t. I’ll just watch you guys twirling around,doing triple axels.” He rolls his eyes good naturedly. “And I wanna call my mom. We haven’t spoken since Thursday, and I wanna know how she’s doing, wish her a Happy Hanukkah and all that,” she flippantly says, but Oliver’s expression tells her he knows she isn’t feeling very festive right now.

“Ok. If you need anything…”

“I’ll tell you, don’t worry.”

He gives her one last smile and goes back to the ice rink.

She watches Oliver and Thea for a few minutes, joking around and teasing each other. It’s amazing how good their relationship is, even with the almost ten years of difference between them. Oliver always talks about his sister, “his Speedy” as he calls her. He loves her so much, and it shows in everything he does for Thea.

Thea loves her brother too. She adores him and thinks her brother is the best. Even now, as a teenager, she still shows her brother how much she admires and loves him.

(It’s not to say that she doesn’t teases him all the time. She does. Thea is always looking for new ways of annoying her brother. It’s glorious.)

Everytime Felicity sees them interact, she wishes she had a sibling. Growing up with a mother who worked more than sixty hours a week, resulted in her being a lonely child, whose closest friend was a computer.

Shaking her head, she takes her phone out of her jacket pocket, and searches for her mother’s phone number. Her finger hovers over the call button, wondering if she should call her now or later. In the end, she switches off the screen, and pockets her cellphone. She’ll probably cry if she talks to her mom, and she thinks it’s better if she does in the safety of the loft, and not in an ice rink full of people.

“Not crying in front of strangers, that’s a good new year’s resolution,” she repeats as a mantra, over and over again.

Still, a few tears roll down her cheeks.

—-

Felicity had plans for the holidays. Plans that involved her mom, too much fried food, and maybe some tv show marathons.

For the Smoak women, Hanukkah has always been their most beloved celebration. When she was little, Donna always took time for celebrating, asking for days off at her jobs, and making sure that Felicity enjoyed the holidays, even if they never had much.

Once Felicity started high school, it was more complicated. Donna knew Felicity’s dream was attending MIT, and even if she got a full scholarship (as Felicity’s teachers assured her she would), her daughter was going to need money for all the things the scholarship didn’t cover. So Donna got a third job, started working over sixty hours a week, and all but said goodbye to any vacation time.

It meant, too, that she couldn’t always be at home for lighting their Menorah, or having dinner with Felicity.

When Felicity went to college, it was even more difficult.

The distance made it hard for Felicity to go home during winter break. Plane tickets weren’t cheap, and with Donna working so much, it was a waste of money for her to travel to Las Vegas, and spend her days in an empty apartment.

This year was going to be different.

At the beginning of the year, Donna got a raise in one of her jobs, and since Felicity’s work as a tutor allowed her to earn good money, her mom didn’t need to work herself to death.

With that in mind, Donna told Felicity that they could spend Hanukkah together. She was going to ask for vacation time, and Felicity had enough money saved for the plane tickets.

It was going to be their first Hanukkah together in years.

Of course, nothing went according to plan.

At the end of November, one of Donna’s aunts died. She went to Illinois for the funeral, and to support Rachel, Donna’s favorite cousin, a shy, nervous woman that had spent the last six or seven years taking care of her sick mother, with no help from her other three siblings.

She was only going to stay in Illinois for a week, but soon that week turned into two, and then into three. Rachel was a wreck, and the fights between the siblings increased when they found out their mother had gifted the house to Rachel, at least three years before she died. If it hadn’t been for Donna, they would have walked all over Rachel, bullying her into giving them the house. When they realised they wouldn’t achieve their goal, they left, screaming at Rachel that she was a bad sister.

Things had calmed down then, but Donna stayed so she could help Rachel sell the house, since the poor woman didn’t think she could stay there anymore. She was looking to start anew in Florida, where one of her few friends lived, far away from her horrible siblings.

And just like that, Felicity’s plans went down the drain.

She told Donna she could travel to Illinois and meet her there, but in the state things were, Donna didn’t think it was a good idea. She was sad they were going to miss another Hanukkah, but she thought it was her duty to help her cousin.

So Felicity resigned herself to spend another winter break in Boston, alone.

Until Oliver invited her to Starling City.

She hadn’t hesitated in accepting, spending time with Oliver was one of her favorite things to do, and visiting a city like Starling, where some of the most important technology companies in America have their headquarters, it was a dream come true. She would hopefully tour a few of those companies.

It would help her soothe her sadness too.

She had her reservations though. His parents didn’t like her much, not since she had blurted out something about Mr. Queen’s ‘assets’ when Oliver had introduced her during one of their rare visits to see their son (she was talking about technology, not…other things). The dinner invitation they had so kindly extended was withdrawn with an excuse of wanting to spend time with their son, and she was left feeling horrified at what had come out of her mouth, and wishing for the earth to open up and swallow her whole.

(Oliver had been furious with his parents. He had refused to go to dinner with them, even though she had tried to change his mind. She was equal parts upset that he didn’t see how that would only make his parents dislike her more and touched that he had her back.)

Anyway, Oliver assured her they wouldn’t stay at the mansion, and they would see his parents only during the annual holiday party, and maybe at Christmas dinner. He had told her then, about the loft he had purchased during summer break, how he thought it was time he left the mansion and look for his own space, away from his parents’ expectations and demands.

“And they agreed to buy you the loft?” She knew he didn’t have access to his trust fund until his 25th birthday.

“Of course not. Mom lost it. Well, as much as she can lose it…”

“Then how?”

“Grandpa Queen left money for his five grandchildren. We could have control over the money once we turned 21.” They were waiting for their take-out in a crowded BBB, sandwiched between the bar and a group of obnoxious teenagers. “It wasn’t much. He said it was mostly for us to have fun and enjoy life before our parents dumped a shit ton of obligations over us.”

“He said that?”

“Word by word. He made a video with the will. It was hilarious. He told my dad to calm the fuck down and pull the stick out of his ass.”

Felicity burst out laughing, but she quieted down when some people turned to look at her.

“You didn’t follow his advice.”

“How so?”

“Well, you said he didn’t leave you much, and instead of partying or travelling around the world, you bought a loft…”

“I still have money left. The loft cost me…1.5? He left me 10.”

Felicity gaped at him. For an insanely long time.

“HE LEFT YOU TEN MILLION DOLLARS!?”

All the people in the diner had looked at them, some amused, others annoyed at her loud voice.

Embarrassed, Oliver cleared his throat, and asked her, “Are you coming or what?”

And she had come. To Starling! She wasn’t talking about any other type of coming…

Oh google, not even in her stupid memories could she stop the innuendos.

——-

He was acting weirder.

When they dropped Thea at the mansion, Oliver had run to the kitchen, had another secret conversation with Raisa, another strange phone call, and then dragged her out of the mansion, completely ignoring the maid who told him his mother wanted to talk to him. She tried to slow him down, but he kept repeating they didn’t have time, even if she told him, grumpily, that they still have time before nightfall.

“I don’t wanna drive without daylight.”

“Is not even 3:30 p.m, Oliver.”

“Yeah but there’s traffic.”

She looked out of the window. “It doesn’t seem like we’ll get stuck in traffic. ”

No answer.

“Oliver?”

“Mmm?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you are hiding?”

He tries to smile, but instead his mouth curves in a grimace. ”I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been tense all day. Every time I ask you something, you give me super crappy - even for you - explanations. You got all jumpy when I caught you talking with Raisa, and you run to another room every time your phone rings. The only possible conclusion is that you are hiding something.”

He purses his lips but doesn’t say a word.

“You are sooo hiding something, Oliver Queen!”

Again, silence.

“You know I hate mysteries!! They bug me. I will discover it and…”

“We are here.” She looks out of the window, and sure enough, they are entering the garage of the apartment complex.

Oliver parks the car but doesn’t unlock the doors. He looks at her, intensely, and she wonders what is going through his mind right now.

“I…it is a surprise. I’ve been planning it for a couple of weeks, that’s why I didn’t tell you. Please don’t be mad?”

There’s a mix of insecurity and hope in his eyes, one that makes her nod without saying a word. She has a lot of questions, but she doesn’t need to ask them. She’ll find out soon enough what this surprise is, and why he has been so nervous about it.

They get out of the car silently and ride the elevator in equal silence. She wants to reach out and squeeze his hand, give him some sort of reassurance that she won’t get upset, that whatever he did, she will love it.

For some strange reason, she can’t.

The elevator stops, the doors open, and they walk side-by-side to the loft. He stops for a moment before unlocking the door but doesn’t say anything.

Once the door is open, he motions for her to get in.

It’s dark inside, the dim lights of dusk barely illuminating the space. She looks at Oliver, who’s still standing at the door. He gives her a small smile and turns on the light.

“Baby!!”

The scream makes her turn around fast. Her heart pounding in her chest. Her mother is jumping up and down, in a tight pink dress and high silver stilettos. Tears spring to her eyes, and she barely has time to choke out an incredulous ‘Mom?’ before Donna engulfs her in a tight hug.

She cries then, big, fat joyful tears. Her mom is saying something, but she is too overwhelmed to understand her.

It takes her a few minutes to calm down and be able to talk.

“How? I-I thought…”

“I know darling, and I was planning to stay in Illinois until after the New Year. But he,” she points at Oliver, who’s still standing close to the door, “called me and offered his help. He arranged for someone to take care of all the paperwork and legal proceedings of selling the house, and helped Rachel settle in Florida. She’ll stay with her friend until she can get her own place.” Donna dries her tears with her fingers, smudging a little of her mascara. “Once Rachel was on her way, he bought me a plane ticket and told me he wanted it to be a surprise…” She opens her arms and screams, “Surprise!”

Felicity’s laughs reverberate on the walls. She hugs her mother and both of them jump a little until Donna stops and says between laughs that she’ll break an ankle if they keep jumping around.

Oliver clears his throat and takes a hesitant step in their direction.

“I take it you aren’t mad?” His lips curl in a small smile.

She shakes her head in answer, unable to give him a verbal response.

“Good.” He points in the direction of the big windows, “It is time already, isn’t it?”

There is a small table by the window, close to the door that leads to the balcony. On top of the table sits her Menorah, ready to be lit.

“Oliver…”

“Raisa made food.” She can see he is still nervous, “I was thinking on cooking myself, but as I wanted it to be a surprise, I asked for her help. That’s why we were having ‘secret conversations’.” There’s a pause, where he seems to think for a little while what he wants to say. “Are you happy?”

Her smile gets bigger, and she nods. “I am. Thank you, Oliver.”

“You don’t need to thank me.” He hesitates for a moment, and then in a whisper he adds, “The only thing I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy.”

He is looking at her intensely, an open, vulnerable expression on his face. It hits her then, and she wonders how she never noticed before.

Bringing her mother, making sure they can celebrate Hanukkah together, and all the little things he has been doing to cheer her up was his way of telling her he loves her.

She realises then, that he has been telling her he loves her, for a really long time.

In that moment, all the fears that have kept her from confessing her feelings for him, disappear.

How can she be scared of loving him, when he loves her as intensely as she loves him?

She wants to tell him that she loves him. That she has loved him since the first time she saw him in the library and he asked her if she was willing to help him. That her love only grew as she got to know the kind of person he is. How his courage, kindness, generosity, and thoughtfulness makes him a better man than the one he thinks he is. The best man she has ever met.

She wants to tell him that and so much more.

But not now. She’ll tell him later, when they are alone.

She grabs his hand, and walks towards the Menorah, where her mother is already waiting for them.

She doesn’t let go of his hand while Donna lights the candle, or when she says the blessings.

She doesn’t plan on letting go for the rest of the night.

She hopes they won’t let each other go, ever.

—-00000—-

Finito.

—

Sorry for the lack of Tommy! he wouldn’t cooperate!

#arrow #olicity #olicity secret santa #goodbye olicity #submission

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