#i get so much secondhand embarrassment watching it but i love it dearly | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

joontier · 3 years

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“V” | part one

synopsis: You zinged. With the captain. Who was human.

pairings: kim taehyung x female reader

rating: R (18+) | genre: smut, fluff, angst, crack, minor angst (as of now) ,fantasy, (unknowing) enemies to lovers trope; captain! taehyung x vampire! reader, based off Hotel Transylvania and Girl’s Trip! | warnings: plenty of sexual innuendos, explicit sex) (groping, fingering, exhibitionism,

word count: 13.1k

g/n: im splitting this into a two/three shot because i really wanted to post this bc the coward in me is afraid that if i finish and post the whole thing this app might crash on me ajfoiawjefiajwfa n e ways, enjoy this first part and please let me know what you think!

one. | two. | three.?

navi | m.list

Albeit recorded as one of the smallest countries in terms of area and population, the country of Tersnoa proudly boasts its multiple attractions and rich culture. As the nation’s economy depends heavily on tourism, Tersnoa is considered a hidden treasure amongst the genuine travelers - human and monsters alike.

Santa Shelea - the monster capital of Tersnoa, is located beneath the lush woods of the small country, hidden to the human eye. Entrance to the city you grew up in is a privilege given only to monsters, though it wasn’t always like that.

The city used to nurture human and monster liaisons, with relations surpassing mere diplomacy. Humans and monsters shared friendships that run deeper than their contrasts in physical attributes and their innate characteristics. It was a time when both parties realized they were so much alike in plenty of ways and respect was observed by all despite the differences in appearances and culture. Admittedly, monsters had more to sacrifice with these accords due to your more primal urges, but your kind made it work, for the sake of peaceful coexistence.

The other party, however, did not seem to share the same sentiments for long.

Santa Shelea was one of the few places left on Earth where monsters sought refuge as your kind of people were constantly drawn out of the places they used to peacefully live at by the humans themselves. You thought Santa Shelea was different - that these people you once even considered family wouldn’t push you away just like what the others did, but it wasn’t before long that the human citizens of the once-glorious city were going to change their minds.

These selfish, pompous humans conducted an uprising to protest against the presence of monsters in ‘their’ land. It was an awful time to have grown up in, being called a ‘monster’ in all senses of the word, especially from those people you have even considered friends. The human citizens conducted an uprising in Santa Shelea, protesting the presence of monsters in ‘their’ land, ultimately disturbing the peace of the city.

Humans burned your houses down to the ground, including your helpless mother in their supposed quest for peace. After having kept the harmonious liaisons for quite some time, your kind had gone back to your primitive instincts, fighting for your rights along with an army of beasts, hybrids, witches, and members of the undead. It was catastrophe epitomized, a day that no one wishes to relive.

It isn't fair to say that the monsters emerged victorious when so many had perished, your mother included. Eventually, these mortal beings realized there were no match for formidable creatures and soon took their leave of the once prosperous city. Soon enough, humans became history to monsters and vice versa.

Rebuilding your beloved city from scratch was no easy task, proving to be even more difficult with the agony that came with burying the past. To prevent any more man-made disasters in the future, the witches had agreed to cast a spell over Santa Shelea: that your city will forever remain invisible to the human eye.

And it has remained such until the present, appearing as part of the picturesque mountain ranges Tersnoa has to offer. Far from the city and beneath the mountains of lush forestry, Hotel Tersnoa stands tall in the middle of Santa Shelea - the city where monsters thrive. If you could only speak for yourself, the city could easily pass as the eighth wonder of the world.

Hotel Tersnoa isn’t the only legacy handed down from your great-great-great-grandfather (“G4 for short”, he’d offered one day, explaining that he had to ‘blend in with the now’). During the past millennia, he had also established a conglomerate of enterprises across the world. He’s even founded BloodHub, an international focus group centered on blood diseases and blood donations but you wouldn’t want to delve on the beginning and end of that.

The responsibility of taking over the hotel had been passed on to your father since then and his ardency for the hotel was unparalleled, the bequest of the hotel has surpassed the original Hotel Tersnoa of which your grandfathers had initially envisioned it to be. Your father would spend hours on end surveying every detail, nook, and cranny of the beloved establishment, barking orders left and right.

On top of being a father, he had busied himself with the responsibilities of a hotelier. Yet you knew deep down it was all but a façade to mask the void that your mother left in his heart. There were many nights you’d caught him staring into the distance in a secluded place, away from the hustle and bustle at the hotel. You loved your father dearly, wanting nothing else for him but the happiness he truly deserves.

When you had turned of age, you insisted on taking over the hotel in your father’s stead. You knew that your mother’s passing had been a toll too great to bear for your father, especially in a place where he is constantly reminded of her. You wanted him to enjoy his life, to bring back the life in his eyes, however ironic it may sound as part of the undead.

Your father had disapproved of the idea at first, reasoning out that it was too big of a responsibility to hand over. He’d told you that you were still young and he wanted you to enjoy your life while you still could. With your adamancy and endless prodding, you had finally convinced him to cave in. Besides, you’re pretty sure you’ll stay young for a long time.

As you have taken on the commitment of being the lady of the house, or hotel rather, your father spent his time moving from one place to another, taking on different identities so as not to reveal his real one. When you were just starting out with your duties as the new hotelier a few years back, he couldn’t leave you behind for a day, checking up on you every two hours just in case an emergency occurs. As if something drastic could happen when more than half of your customers are already dead.

Years pass by and hourly check-ups became daily ones and then weekly afterwards, until he calls you from halfway across the world every once in a while, just to tease you if the hotel was just as great as he left it. You hadn’t actually seen him in a year, apparently ‘busy’ with his new business venture in Amsterdam.

That’s why when you pick up his scent nearby, you momentarily stop in your tracks. It isn't exactly unusual for your father to have impromptu visits, but you’ve learned that it’s highly unlikely for your father to drop by at such a time like this.

He avoids peak season at Tersnoa like the plague, let alone a Friday the 13th special like today, in addition to the most anticipated week-long celebration of the hotel’s six hundred and sixty-sixth anniversary. Your father steers clear of times like these at all costs, always making up excuses to avoid the crowd and the stress that comes with it. So much for being the past manager.

You can’t really hold it against him, as it surely has been an arduous feat having run the hotel for almost two centuries. Even though you both laugh it off whenever you tease him about it, you know deep down he genuinely enjoys attending to his customers and making sure they get the best customer service.

A scoff escapes your lips when you see the infamous Drac-cape nearing. You’re mildly tempted to ignore him altogether, not wanting to be involved with someone who wore something that has run out of style decades ago. Secondhand embarrassment is a thing, and it’s very real.

You have already lost count of the times you’ve told him to get rid of the ridiculous piece of clothing, yet he dismisses you every time, clinging onto the nostalgic feeling that comes with the cape. In consideration of your request, your father had gone so far as acquiring the services of a handful of stylists to make some alterations to the design, and you have to say you’re pretty impressed with the outcome. What else could you have said? The Drac-cape was old but gold.

You’re about to greet him when a staff approaches you, holding out a folder with papers that require your signatures. Your father stands a meter away with a proud smile, watching you with fondness in his eyes. Once you finish with the papers, he calls out, “Ah, my princess,” arms wide open to greet you with a hug. He’s the first to pull away, hands still resting on your shoulders as he takes a good look at you. “You grow up so fast!” he says jokingly with a wide smile plastered on his face as he pinches your cheeks.

There’s something off though, something suspicious behind that painstakingly dubious grin on his face. Smiling wasn’t something your father was fond of doing especially in public - too deep into portraying the character of the dark and brooding Dracula depicted in human children’s stories. Plus, your fangs sometimes get in the way, so smiling isn’t really a preferable option.

Before you get the chance to ask about his sudden visit, another staff member approaches you, another folder in hand. Your father shoos you away before you object, dragged away by your duties for the millionth time tonight.

“What is it now?” you ask the skeleton beside you, every sound of his movement resembling that of a marimba. “Your presence is being requested by Ms. Catherine at her party, Countess.”

You’d almost forgotten your cousin Catherine had rented out the hotel’s rooftop to celebrate her engagement to her long-time boyfriend Jericho. You’ve already congratulated and apologized to her plenty of times prior to this day, already knowing that you won't be able to celebrate it properly because of the events being held at the hotel. With the hectic schedule you were running on, you just realized that you hadn't visited her all day.

It had been a very long week, and you were tired to the bone, but the guilt of not being physically present at her party was gnawing at you endlessly. Almost reaching the point that you forgot your father was just in front of you mere seconds ago - and now he’s disappeared, again.

Heeding to your cousin’s call, you decide to leave the area, leaving a puff of smoke behind you. You reappear the same way at the rooftop, just beside Catherine herself, who looked like she was hiding from someone, crouched behind a table.

“Who are you guys hiding f-” Unable to finish your sentence with Cat shushing you, you crane your neck up a little, glancing at the others who were in similar dispositions. Weren’t they all too old to do this in an engagement party? Or was this a new trend Cat wanted to start?

Your heart clenches nevertheless at the hilarious attempt to hide from whoever or whatever it is they were hiding from. It was quite the scene: an orange tentacle slithering its way to steal a cupcake by the buffet table, Barry Blob thinks he can camouflage as jelly, and Bigfoot was… well, let’s just say he was never meant for a game of hide and seek. The only monster one would have expected to be good at this was your uncle Griffin who was born invisible but he was always the one first spotted because he thinks wearing disguises like a hot pink wig (his choice of the day) would make him unnoticeable.

And yet this is what they supposedly call ‘hiding’.

“Is this the new norm during engagement parties? Hiding from the responsibilities of married life I see,” you suppress a snicker with your palm, and when Cat looks back at you to shut you up, she screams with such fright, alarming everybody on the rooftop.

“Surprise!” Mandy Mummy, one of your closest friends, appears from the other side of the table.

“You guys were meant to surprise me?” Your brows furrow. “Are you all sure? What’s the occasion?”

Frankie Frankenstein emerges from behind the bar, throwing a suspicious look at you. “You’re kidding me, right?”

You look at the others in the hopes of finding a hint behind what was really going on, but Cat beats you to it, extending her arms out as she beckons you closer, “I don’t know how a monster could possibly forget the day she was born, but we’re here now so, happy birthday my dearest forgetful cousin!” Cat gives you an extra slap on your ass in greeting.

Realization finally hits you, reminiscing the short moments throughout the day that had hinted on your birthday. You did see a few of your staff nudge each other in your presence, but you only thought it was because they were hesitant to say something when they knew that it had been a hectic week so far, tight schedules and all.

The rest of the crowd clear out, revealing themselves from their hiding places. Your father appears from one side, carrying a dangerously huge three-tiered cake.

Mandy approaches first, narrowing her eyes at you, “Wait, you seriously forgot your own birthday?” Cat answers in your stead, “She did,” while she points a finger to her temple, reiterating her capability of subjective precognition to the rest of the group.

“Uncle Drac! Can you remind me again how are we related?”

“I wanted to ask the same thing!” Your father exclaims, grabbing a glass of champagne from a gargoyle waiter and trailing off to greet his friends.

“Cat, you know I’ve been busy for so long, I don’t exactly have a birthday countdown every year to remind me of something that is...not really that significant.”

“______, I know we’re practically dead, but that doesn’t mean you have to live like one.”

“Why don’t you try living in my shoes then, hm?”

“I would, if they were Valentinos.” Unable to rack your brain for a smarter response, you roll your eyes at her instead. The guests start singing happy birthday in chorus as they near you. The night continues on a light note, people wishing you another year of happiness and prosperity, likewise congratulating your cousin for her engagement and her soon wedding.

As the conversation eventually moves on to wedding preparations, Frankie spills on the details of Cat’s plans for her bachelorette party. You weren’t so keen with the idea - not when this was the first time it had been offered by the people closest to you.

Bachelorette parties were primarily a human thing - some sort of commemoration of debauchery as you had understood from Google when you had looked it up a few years ago. These kinds of celebrations weren’t exactly included in your traditions but judging by the photos you’ve seen online; you’re sort of glad this wasn’t classified as the norm in your world yet.

Cocktail parties with half-naked bartenders? Masseurs drenched in vaseline? Topless butlers serving dinner? What was with having male nudity as the baseline for such an occasion?

You didn’t think this was going to be a trend in the monster-verse anyways, as your kind comes in different shapes and sizes and these parties just might end up with one seeing a lot more than necessary.

When you try to confirm the plans with Catherine, she just shrugs at you three, telling you all that it was going to be a surprise. You, Mandy, and Frankie groan in unison at her reply.

“Impatient much? You still have the whole day tomorrow to pack your things.”

“We’re going on a trip?! And you’re telling me about this just now? A day before our leave?!”

“Yeap. How long does it take you to pack your clothes?”

“Do you not realize that I have a whole ass hotel to manage? I mean it’s not like I don’t want to go but surely, all my responsibilities cannot be handed over in a span of twenty-four hours? Plus, our week-long six hundred and sixty-sixth anniversary special isn’t over yet! You could have at least told me two weeks ahead?”

Someone places a hand on your shoulder, and you look up to see your own father smiling at you. “You’re just like your mother, darling. Stop worrying so much!”

“Exactly why I told him instead,” Cat raises her eyebrows at you as she points to your father. “Catherine’s right. So, I’ll be taking care of the hotel while you girls have some girly time by yourselves,” he says, taking a sip of his drink.

“Are you sure you can handle Hotel Tersnoa?” Your father almost spits out the champagne as he looks at you incredulously. “Excuse me? Need I remind you who handed the hotel over to you?”

“I know, it’s just… a lot has changed. We’ve expanded the hotel, there’s now a theme park, and a new island has just been opened… it can be a lot…”

Your father dismisses your worries with a wave and a kiss on your forehead. “Nothing I’ve never done before. You’ll be back before you know it. What could possibly go wrong?”

Right. Your father’s words echo in your head.

What could possibly go wrong?

“A cruise?!”

You’d gone through hours of travel, your ass was hurting from the prolonged sitting, and Catherine had not once told you where you were headed, mouth zipped shut. And yet here you were, mouth agape in shock – the betrayal, the treachery, the deception.

Docked in front of you is a humongous white ship, honking its siren with all its might. You’re struggling with attempting to even comprehend the entire situation. Your cousin did not just drag you out of your hotel to another… hotel...on water.

“Welcome to the Bermuda Triangle, where you’ll embark on a monster cruise of a lifetime,” announces a fish-man or man-fish creature clad in a sailorman’s outfit (well he was definitely a fish, but had the limbs of man). All your expectations for this trip had just been obliterated by a singular monotonous, unidentifiable being.

“Psst. Why is your face like that? I heard the fare was astronomical!” Frankie whispers when Mandy squishes between you two, trying to get a brochure from a stall nearby.

Everybody knew Cat was more than willing to spend her money on anything she has set her eyes on (just like that exclusive collection of Hermes bags she has back home) and actively looks for other ways to spend her money (such is a costly cruise) so this trip didn’t surprise you as much as it did Frankie. You’re wondering though, how she found out about this cruise and why she intends to celebrate her bachelorette’s party here.

If a disinterested man-fish was tasked to welcome its guests, well, you can tell there’s really nothing much to look forward to here. You just hope this cruise will give her money’s worth, or rather, at least half of it.

“Hey! This looks amazing!” Mandy exclaims, flipping the colorful brochure over a couple times. “There’s even a waterpark, multiple dining options, bowling alleys, a theater…”

“Sounds like everything you can do…at the hotel!” You can’t help the rising pitch of your voice by the end of your reply while your friends laugh at your indignance. Mandy and Frankie ignore your protests, while Cat whispers near you, “Wait ‘til you see the itinerary!”

“Not you too?! Seriously though, I don’t get why you’ve chosen to do it here, instead of our own hotel…” you pout, head hung low.

Cat pulls you aside, letting the other passengers move forward, “Listen to me darling, alright? All these months, years, all you did was work and work and work again, we barely had any time to hang out together just like the old times, so I figured a break from all your customer service shenanigans and let yourself be served for once. Take a vacation from running everyone else’s vacation. Is that alright with you?”

Giving her an apologetic smile, you pull her into your arms for a tight hug. She wasn’t lying though when she said you had barely spent time with each other. Back when your father was still running the hotel, you’ve spent your early years always practically attached at the hip: from crying over your first boyfriends, through that emo high school phase, to pursuing several degrees, and to spontaneous trips halfway across the world when you were bored.

“Plus, Jer and I intend to start a family as soon as we get married, so these girl trips won’t come by often all the more.”

“You know I love you to the moon and back right? And will you stop making me feel like an aunt when I’m not yet one?! But, to be honest with you, that would be really cute though! Little you and little Jerichos running around… but you know, if Jer will come close to laying a finger on you, just say the word…”

“We zinged, darling. You have nothing to worry about. Maybe you’ll find your zing on the cruise too.”

You roll your eyes at her fondly. As if.

It doesn’t change the fact that you still have second thoughts about this trip. Begrudgingly, you climb up the stairs, sulking as you watch your friends and the rest of the group of the monsters huddle in excitement as they ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ at the cruise’s features.

When you spot a few of Hotel Tersnoa’s beloved patrons in the group that arrived with you, your heart sinks a little, refusing to believe a fancy cruise could ever question their loyalty to the greatest monster hotel known to your kind. Guess nothing ever truly lasts, even with the undead.

You had initially expected the ship’s interiors with no sort of identity at all, resembling an array of badly mixed cocktails, individually appealing yet when put together looks like a lousy rainbow (you swear it’s not the spiteful hotelier inside you that’s speaking). Much to your chagrin though, the imaginary cruise you had inside your head was definitely not the case at all.

The rest of the monsters behind you continue to marvel at the cruise ship. And, quite frankly, you too are quite impressed yourself, as much as you hate to admit it. You’d never though such modern, minimalistic styling could fit a hotel on water but this cruise just seems to carry it pretty well.

The moment you set foot on the carpeted floors of the cruise, you’re awed at what seems like a celebration of the beauty of mother nature with nearly all furnishings made out of organic materials and colors exhibiting earthly hues. To add to the experience, preserved palm tress line the corridors and chandeliers made of LED lights litter the varnished high ceilings. It was like land on water – if that made any sense at all.

Man-fish continues to lead your group through the hallways, until you arrive at the main deck, just as picturesque as shown on the brochure Mandy held onto earlier. You were starting to realize why your cousin was into this whole cruise.

The creature half your height goes on to share a little history on the cruise ship – known as the Legacy. Similar to your hotel, cruising lines was also a family business for decades but it was only this year that the owners decided to extend the lines from taking human passengers to making a whole ship exclusively for monsters.

As this was the vessel’s maiden voyage and with your group being the first batch of guests to ever board the ship, a welcoming event was to happen tomorrow night, and the creature mentioned something about having the official invites placed in your rooms along with your luggage.

Right on cue, the moment you lean on the railing to overlook the deck below, a marching band appears from the side – a whole parade of man-fishes clad in band uniforms and red and gold. There’s even a few of them who start doing acrobatics, the sight of which has Frankie giggling to herself as she comes up with the term ‘fishcrobats’. She claims she’s the punniest monster in the universe.

The lights on the deck dim suddenly, and bright bursts of color start shooting up from a deck above you, fireworks lighting up the evening sky. It was a breathtaking display, with the others spiraling upwards while the rest exploded into a thousand more sparks. The display continues for a few more minutes, until the band makes a drumroll and a spotlight moves across the length of the ship and points at someone across the deck.

“Woah…” Mandy gapes, words drawling out to a low whistle. “Who. Is. That.”

A man in an all-white dress uniform emerges from the upper deck. “Ahoy there! Welcome aboard! Bienvenido, Zdravstvuyte, Guten Tag, Bonjour! I am V, captain of the Legacy…” Applause follows as the fireworks die down completely. “And yes, I’m human, but don’t hold that against me.” The captain’s eyes scan the crowd until they meet yours. He winks.

As soon as the blonde-haired captain looks away, Frankie squeals in your ear. “He totally just winked at you!”

“No, he didn’t,” you retort, never having been so grateful for not having a pulse, else Frankie would have your heart beating out of your chest.

“Yes, he did.”

The two of you were about to start bickering about the wink when the captain continues, “I’m very excited to have each and every one of you onboard for our very first monster cruise!” As unusually graceful as nobody else could probably do, he slides down the railing of the stairs as if he were just gliding through thin air.

“You’ll enjoy gourmet dining, thrilling adventures, and non-stop entertainment – all on our way to our final destination: the lost city that isn’t lost anymore – Atlantis!”

Your jaw drops – not because Atlantis had ‘apparently’ been found, in fact, it was never lost in the first place; they just cut ties with surface dwellers because of damage brought about by water pollution. In your defense, it was the humans were uncontrollable with their despicable habits but you can’t really put the blame on the Atlantians. It was their home after all, and they only wanted to protect it. Just as you would with Tersnoa.

What truly surprised you though, was how he managed to snag a partnership with them when you had vying for one since you took over the hotel. Well, your business proposition was never officially offered on the table, but still! Perhaps, if you made an entrance as grand as him, you would have succeeded though.

It was getting crowded where you stood, and Mandy tugs at your hand, pulling you down to the lower deck. Begrudgingly, you go down the stairs, sulking as you watch your friends and the other monsters huddle in excitement. You even recognize a few of the other passengers who are likewise patrons of Tersnoa. Or at least they were, now. Guess nothing truly ever lasts, even with the undead.

He reaches the lower deck in no time, greeting the other monsters with a wave and a smile. When he nears and you get a better look at him, you feel your entire body shudder – in a strangely delightful way, wave after wave of this electric feeling reaching until the very tip of your toes.

It feels as if every vein inside of you is pulsating, despite being practically dead. You felt…alive. A million thoughts rush through your head, with your gut feeling telling you something that is almost unmistakable. You have never, ever felt this way before but your intuition tells you this is the exact embodiment of the stories you’ve heard so many times in your lifetime. Could it be? Was it even possible?

The sensation was inexplicable, foreign too, yet it felt right. Like… like it was meant to be, perfectly destined in the most peculiar of ways. Digging through your purse, you retrieve the small mirror inside made specifically for vampires. Taking a quick glance of your reflection on the glass, you take notice of your irises that have turned purple, almost lavender in color. Gulping, you return the mirror into your purse at once, confirming your suspicion.

You zinged.

With the captain.

Who was human.

Frankie nudges your shoulder when she notices you stiffening beside her. “Is everything okay?” You feel your friend’s blue, stitched hand land on your shoulder. Giving Frankie a short reassuring nod in response, she shrugs it off, not before hearing her mumble about noticing something different with your eyes. Thankfully, the manifestation of the zing comes in different ways with every monster specie, so Frankie wouldn’t get the hint that you’re in deep, deep trouble.

Years of listening to stories of your culture and traditions rush to your head, all with the same words resonating throughout your brain. ‘It can make you cry; it can make you high; but, one thing a zing never does is lie – for it stays with you until you die.’

Shaking your head, you attempt to rid your thoughts of this man. He shouldn’t be your zing; he can’t be your zing. This was a huge mistake. The must’ve made a mistake. How could the very kind of people who murdered your own would also be the one designated for you – a soulmate, in human’s terms. You don’t even know how you're supposed to react to such a thing. Was it a curse? A blessing perhaps?

You continue to watch the man in silence. Sweet baby Jesus, the visuals this man was bestowed with. Maybe the man up there was real after all, and he had spent all seven days to craft this ethereal being. Even if he was meters away, his mere presence already makes you weak in the knees – considering the fact that you really haven’t officially met the person.

With his almost unrealistic face, you’re left wondering if your bodily reactions were caused by your zing or the captain really holds such prowess over creatures of all kinds. You wonder if it’ll be easy to forget your painful past and move forward? Trust the zing like all monsters do?

After promulgating the greatness of the monster population and how big of an honor it is for him to hold the first ever monster cruise, he also apologizes afterwards on behalf of his fellow humans for the mistreatment of your kind, drawing nearer and nearer to your group, eyes trained on you when he’s not busy welcoming the other monsters.

In an attempt to keep yourself from trembling, you clasp your hands together. Momentarily taking his eyes off you as he greets another guest, Mandy leans toward you and nudges your rib, “That, my friend, is what you call: a hottie. Go get him, tiger!” Blinking your eyes, you recollect yourself, giving her a dubious look, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Honey, anyone with a single working eye can confirm to themselves that the captain has been hand-sculpted by the gods themselves. And don’t tell me you don’t notice the bed eyes he’s giving you the whole time,” Mandy chortles bandaged shoulders bumping against your own as she does. “Deny it all you want now, darling, but I have this gut feeling that the love boat will be sailing very soon.”

Just then, as if on cue, the captain makes a beeline for your group, a small sultry smile playing on his lips. You feel like your insides wanted to crumble into sand and disperse into thin air. God, the things this man does to you…Rather, the things you want him to do to you. Now, your own brain betrays you with inappropriate thoughts and he’s currently in front of you looking like a whole course meal. He has such pretty eyes too and oh- this is bad. This is very bad.

“Ah, if it isn’t the one and only Countess Dracula,” he says, voice low as his eyes bore themselves into your soul (as if you still had one). “May I?” The captain takes your hand in his and gingerly places a kiss on the back of your palm. You’re rendered speechless by the small gesture, while the rest of your friends gape at the captain like he had suddenly grown three more heads.

“I’m known as V around here,” he keeps your hand in his, and you’re instantly all too conscious of everything – what if your hand was too cold for him? Or too clammy perhaps? All your worries are diminished when he doesn’t seem to take notice of any of your present worries, tugging you closer to him as he inches towards your face, warm breath fanning against your cheek, “but you can call me Taehyung.”

He pulls back just as slowly, sending you and your friends an innocent boxy smile. “Guess I’ll be seeing you lot around! Please enjoy the cruise. And remember, if there’s anything you need, feel free to approach me anytime.”

Walking away to attend to his captain-y duties, the three other girls gather around the moment he’s out of sight. “What. Was. That.” Catherine questions, punctuating each word with numerous blinks.

“I’ve already sent a prayer to Anubis to take care of our dear ______’s departed soul,” chimes Mandy, waving a hand in front of you in the hopes of taking you out of your shock.

“Whoosh! There goes _______’s undies!” Frankie adds as she throws her head back in laughter. Your cousin tsks at them to get them to stop teasing you, but with the smirk she’s sporting on her face, you’re certain she’s going to bring this up sooner or later.

With a deep sigh, you hang your head low. This was going to be a long vacation.

Right after Taehyung stages the entrance of the century and greets the cruise’s guests, he discreetly makes his way to a less crowded part of the ship and walks briskly along a dimly lit hallway. Pushing forward an inconspicuous panel on the wall leading to a secret passage, Taehyung silently makes his way done to the lower level of the ship.

The stateroom is almost pitch black as he enters; Taehyung feels his way through the room, solely relying on muscle memory to head to the bedroom. When he turns on the light to check on his great-grandfather, the old man squints, croaking out Taehyung’s name. Rushing to the elder’s side, the dutiful great-grandson pours water on the glass by the bedside table.

Taehyung perches himself on the edge of the bed, taking his great-grandfather’s frail hands in his own. “Dracula – is he on board?” the old man rasps, voice almost whispery. “No,” the younger man shakes his head in denial, “but his daughter is.”

The former winces a little when he tries to shift in his bed, “Even better. Tear him apart by slowly taking his loved ones away from him one by one. Let him feel the pain we had to go through.”

The blonde-haired captain sighs when his great-grandfather coughs again, wheezing as he does. “Promise me you’ll avenge our family, Taehyung. I’m not sure if I’m going to make it any longer, but if I won’t…” he coughs, the strain on his voice evident. “Grandpa, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay.” The old man waves his hand, dismissing Taehyung, “Promise me…for your mother, for your father, and the rest of our family. You and I are the only ones left, my dearest great-grandson. We have no one else to rely on but each other.” The old man’s hand clasp weakly against Taehyung’s.

He tucks his great-grandfather in his bed, and waits patiently for the old man to fall asleep before leaving the room.

You and the girls roam around the deck for a little longer, before deciding to call it a night and head to your rooms. It’s quite the walk all the way there, but as you get farther from the hustle and bustle of the crowd and onto a more secluded part of the vessel, not to mention the rooms are getting father apart from each other, you suppose Cat had picked the best suites available on the cruise. Typical.

Not putting much thought into it with exhaustion taking over your body, you tiredly take a half body bath and head to bed.

Rising a few hours later, you plan on checking out your cousin’s accommodation choices. Just as man-fish had mentioned the night before, there was in fact an invitation placed on top of your bedside table, the gold linings too attractive to miss out on. How could you have possibly missed it though, is all up to your fatigue last night, far too tired to even scan the room.

Heading to the kitchen first to make yourself a cup of coffee, you’re greeted by the beautiful glow of the sunrise as you exit your bedroom. You’re momentarily stunned by the beauty of it, as it was your first after a long time to see the sun, or at least a quarter of it. Contrary to popular belief, sunlight doesn’t incinerate vampires, nor does it make you vanish into thin air. In fact, the closest stories had gotten to your biological truths was that sunlight made you weaker – sort of, because the only explanation for it was that you get really bad sunburn under its rays. But that’s nothing a small bottle of Witch Republic’s Suncream Lotion SPF 5000 can’t fix.

Equipped with a 60-inch smart television mounted on a wall, an equally large painting was hung across the room, serving itself as the background for the sitting area.

The fittings are generously provided for, if the room truly claims it to be a suite for couples: a settee is placed in front of the television for viewing purposes, and another is placed vertically across for lounging and enjoying the view of the balcony.

The balcony – was magnificent in all senses of the word. From a picture on the tiny ‘Legacy’ booklet you grabbed from the table, there really wasn’t much to a panoramic view of the sea but as you pass through the wide windows, the beautiful orange glow from the dawn adds a lovely burst of color in the predominantly monochrome furnishings of the room.

You inhale deeply, breathing in the fresh sea air. You spend a few more moments there, leaning over the balcony until Frankie ruins your moment from a couple of meters away, calling you loud enough for the rest of the ship and the Atlantic Ocean to hear. She drawls your name out, screaming her excitement over your rooms. “I haven’t slept like this since I got my arm re-stitched!” You laugh at her before waving and returning to the sitting room.

A part of you was taking mental notes – possible additions and improvements to your hotel, yet the other half of you wants to allow yourself to enjoy small pleasures like these. Maybe Cat was right all along, that you needed a break from running the hotel and truly relax for a while. With the size of this suite though, you can’t help but wonder if Cat got you all the couple suites solely for your enjoyment or hers.

You decide to take your mug of coffee with you to the balcony and breathe more of the satisfying sea air until the sun rises in its entirety and you retreat back to your room, wanting to sleep in the warm duvet of your bed once more. Maybe this vacation won’t be that bad after all.

Shopping with Catherine was never an easy task. If you could say so yourself, shopping with your cousin was a whole workout on its own.

It’s been three hours since she’s dragged you, Mandy, and Frankie out of your rooms and offered you a shopping spree and free lunch. Who was one to deny such graces? Even when all three of you knew you all would end up following your cousin wherever she went until you’d all complain about how she has to take too long when she always ends up buying everything she sees anyways.

As you stare at your seated self by the full-length mirror, you start to have second thoughts about discontinuing that beginner’s program subscription in yoga before you let Catherine drag you out of the comfort of your room. Sighing in defeat, Frankie turns to you with a similar expression on her face.

Starving, the three of you leave Cat momentarily to look for something to eat, and at the sight of a frozen yogurt stall across the hallway from where you’re seated by the Chanel windows, you and the rest of the girls immediately saunter towards the quaint stall.

While you wait for the girl to finish up your orders, your eyes are busy wandering all over the place in an attempt to count how many shops and boutiques they managed to allocate inside the cruise ship. Guess your hotelier side is already one with your true self.

As you watch a loud group of male monsters exit the arcade nearby, you catch sight of someone awfully familiar: the last face you’d want to see when you’re stuck inside a cruise ship for a few weeks.

Your eyes follow the group, wanting to make sure your eyes are not playing tricks on you. Like a hawk, you watch the group closely – one man in particular, yet he won't seem to look in your direction. You wanted to forget all about it and pretend you didn’t see anything, but you figure this is going to cause you a number of sleepless nights if you don’t. Quickly, you resort to a plan that will have to cost you more energy than just observing, but you were determined to make sure that it was really him.

Focusing your vision on a nearby potted plant, you make the clay vessel move an inch as you try to catch his attention. The first try doesn’t work and neither does the second. Hell bent on your resolution, the third time works the charm (obviously with a more significant amount of distance the plant has moved).

Your suspicions are confirmed – it’s truly him.

Just like that, all sorts of emotions course through you and you feel the corners of your eyes starting to well with tears. He laughs at something one of his companions say, and you feel your heart clench as you look at the same smile you fell for years ago.

It’s takes you a while before you process somebody has been calling you name several times, then you see Mandy waving her hand in front of you. “You okay there? What happened?”

Etching an ingenuine smile on your face, you turn to face her as she hands you the dessert, “Nothing…just thought I saw someone familiar…”

“Mhmm,” Frankie hums, scooping a large portion of yogurt into her mouth, “as long as it’s not you-know-who, then it’s irrelevant,”

“Actually, I think it is him.”

Frankie chokes on the sliced strawberry topping she just ate. “What?!” Mandy places a hand on your shoulder, an apologetic look on her face. “Don’t tell me that fucker is also here?!” Shushing her quickly, you reach out to her to tug at her arm to keep her quiet.

“What fucker are you talking about?” Catherine questions, approaching the three of you with two extra paper bags in her hand. Frankie keeps her mouth shut, thankfully while Mandy comes in to the rescue. “Frankie was just talking about how fucking tasty this froyo is. In fact, I think so too – would you like to try some?” The girl offers her cup, eventually feeding Cat with a spoonful of fruity toppings.

The subject is quickly diverted and as your cousin rummages through her bag to look for the cruise’s official pamphlet, both Frankie and Mandy give you a knowing look.

“Lunch anyone?” You propose to the other three, already wishing you’d soon be forgetting about even seeing your ex-fiancée earlier.

You’d gotten back to your room around half past five, nearly collapsing to the floor after hours and hours of shopping with your cousin. The girls had agreed to use your room to prepare for the party later (one discussion you don’t remember agreeing to) and had gone around the sitting area, placing their bags done and going through their purchases.

You, on the other hand, had gone straight to the kitchen to look for something to drink. Besides, you just know they’re going to ask for something too later on, so you just grab a few bottles of water for the girls. As you rested against the cool fridge while opening a bottle of your own, you spot a punnet of strawberries sitting on top of a counter.

“Did any one of you bring strawberries here before we left?”

When they chorused their replies of denial, you check the strawberries warily, lifting them off the marble top. You hear something slide down when you open the container. A card came in with the strawberries.

Returning to the living room with strawberries in one hand and the card in the other, Frankie stands from the settee and snatches the card away from you. She waves the small piece of paper in the air, claiming it was a love letter. “Dear _______, I really think you’ve got a wonderful smile, but it’d be better if it was the only thing you’ll be wearing tonight!” she says, pretending to read the note.

“What?! You’ve already made a move without telling us about it? Lemme see!” Mandy exclaims, running after your stitched friend.

“Oh!” Frankie says, pointing to the sky, “Looks like we might be expecting a few inches tonight, hmm?” she adds, snickering as she pokes the inside of her cheek with her tongue repeatedly, and rather inappropriately.

“Y’all disgusting really. ‘M going to shower.”

“Make sure you don’t have too much fun with the showerhead!”

“Fuck you Mandy!”

“I would if you were my type!”

Catherine waits until she hears the water running before turning to her two friends left at the sitting area. “I’m worried.”

“About?”

“My cousin.” The eldest of the girls says, tapping her nails against the couch – a nervous habit. Frankie sets the card back down and nests herself on the carpet just across Cat. “What is there to worry about?”

“This thing between my cousin and the captain?” Carding her fingers through her hair, she closes her eyes before continuing, “Does the fact that he’s human not bother you…at all?”

“The dude’s harmless! And he better think it through when he tries to do something – he’s literally in a ship full of monsters. Do something dumb, he can get his head bitten off in no less than two seconds.”

Catherine is not convinced.

“Plus, I’m sure it’s just a one-time fling – surely, ______’s smart enough to know that. I just firmly believe that one must get laid regularly because penetrative sex is medicinal. And who knows? There might be cobwebs down there already!” Frankie adds.

Cat flings a brochure at Frankie before scrolling through her phone’s gallery then stopping at a portrait of you and her. “I’m just concerned about _____’s wellbeing. This is the most time we’ve spent together for the past two years, and I’m not even sure if she’s fully recovered from what she’d been through with you-know-who.”

“Even worse, what if she falls for the dude? Or she zinged? Or they both zinged?!”

“Hey, hey…” Mandy scoots over to Cat’s side and wraps an arm across her shoulder, “you’re overthinking now babe, and! This is your bachelorette party, stop worrying about stuff. _____ is a strong, independent woman. If she can handle the best hotel in monster history, then handling a man will be too easy.”

“Come out already!” Mandy whines impatiently from outside, knocking impatiently on your bathroom door. You smooth a few creases on your dress before you open the door to reveal your outfit. Shock was a heavy understatement. Cat’s usually beautiful features twist into one of distaste, Mandy pretends to gag at the sight, and Frankie avoids your gaze as she purses her lips.

You can’t help the nervous laugh that escapes your throat when they look at you up then down, scrutinizing your fashion choices.

“What. The hell. Is that?!”

“Why are you too covered up?”

Their hostilities continue as you give them a twirl, genuinely confused with their reactions when there’s absolutely nothing wrong with choosing a long-sleeved rayon blouse with ruffles in the front and a green pleated skirt.

“You didn’t tell me you’re meant to apply for the queen’s secretary?” Frankie questions, rummaging through your luggage.

“You mean Queen Elizabeth I?” Mandy adds, snickering along with the rest of the girls.

“Hey! G4 says she was pretty! And educated for her time too!” you cry in protest.

“Same with you darling. But it’s a party we’re attending and not a royal appointment, so will you do me a favor and wear this instead?”

Your mouth falls agape in shock.

“What?! This dress is… is barely covering anything!” You look closely at the satin blood-red piece of clothing as Catherine hands it to you. Needless to say, just looking at it was a cultural reset.

“Glad to know you’re unaware of that point.” Mandy butts in, “you’ll be happy to know that this dress will get you a man in no time either way.”

“Either way?” Frankie questions before leaving your room to looks for heels to go with your dress.

“Yeap,” the mummy replies, touching up her make-up, “Either you get a man who will cover you up or you’ll find one who will gladly take it off for you later tonight

Catherine coughs, “The captain,” winking at you while she pushes you towards the bathroom, “Chop chop now dear! We still have a party to attend to tonight!”

The party is already in full swing by the time the four of you arrive. The crisp, chilly air hits your face as you get to the main deck, and as you wrap your arms around yourself, you know you're already regretting having worn Catherine’s dress. Arms bare, half of your back out in the open, and a thigh-high slit? Really? A towel could’ve afforded you more modesty than this dress.

Mandy immediately heads to bar, leaving you all to ‘pick your poison for tonight’. Pursing your lips at your mummified friend, you trail after your cousin as she looks for a table to settle yourselves in. You scan the crowd, watching the other monsters move to beat of the music, and also, just in case someone you don’t want to see decides to show up again out of nowhere.

Mandy finds you shortly afterwards with a waiter trailing behind her, carrying a tray of ambiguous looking chalices. Oh boy.

This night was headed straight to hell.

Nearly an hour later, you practically waddle back to your table, breathless and throat parched as the desert. Catherine clings onto you like her Hermes Himalaya Birkin, just as exhausted as you were. Why do you always seem to forget that Mandy dragging your asses to the dance floor has never been the smartest choice?

The moment you get back to your table, you reach for the bronze goblet and down the rest of your drink. The distinctive burn has you keening, tightening your fingers around its stem. Beside you, Catherine coughs after she takes a sip of hers – “What the fuck is in this drink?? Methane?!”

“Throat…on fire…I feel like a fucking dragon,” you attest, voice raspy.

“That, my dear girlfriends, has been mixed by yours truly,” Mandy announces with a proud smile on her face. “I call it the Devil’s Piss.”

You shake your head at her, rubbing at your temples. Starting to feel the sweat break at your hairline, you want nothing more than to return to your suite and sleep the night away. Closing your eyes, you draw a calm scene inside your head: watching the sun set by your balcony as you sip on your hot chocolate –

Your dreams of orange skies and the soft breeze are cut short when you feel a tap on your shoulder. “Countess, the captain requests your presence on the bridge.” Your eyes follow the direction of where he was pointing and see a pair of eyes staring back at you.

Perhaps sleep could stay second on your list tonight.

Cat wiggles her eyebrows suggestively as you bow your head in embarrassment, your cheeks flushing when the rest of the girls whistle and howl as the man-fish stoically escorts you to the bridge. Once you arrive at the top of the stairs, the man adjusts your grip on his elbow as he gently takes your hand and stretches it forward for you to continue on by yourself. “The captain will be waiting inside, Countess” He bows curtly, and your left on your own to walk towards the bridge.

“Countess.” There’s the low timbre of his voice again, sending shivers down your spine effortlessly as you close the door behind you. He doesn’t speak after that, just taking in what you’re wearing tonight, subconsciously biting on his bottom lip as he takes in the outfit your friends have chosen for you.

Every step you take is wobbly, like your legs have turned into goo. The chilly breeze up here is likewise not helping your skin already prickled with goosebumps.

“_______,” Taehyung grabs your hand and gently places a kiss on the back of your palm. Another strike of electricity shoots up your spine at the small gesture. Goodness, what the hell was going on with you?

“Y-you don’t have to do this e-every time we meet.” Inwardly cringing at your shaky voice, you look away and exhale deeply in an attempt to calm your nerves.

It doesn’t help.

Especially not when the captain is less than an arm-length away, and being able to see him this close is doing dangerous things to you. “This is the first time I’ve been on a ship’s bridge,” you comment lamely, keeping the conversation on a sane note. The thirsty ass hoe inside you doesn’t seem to approve of the idea though, unfortunately.

“Really now? How is your first time on the bridge then?”

“It’s…different.”

“Different? How so?”

“Different from trying to run a hotel I guess, which was all I was doing for the past few years…It’s an unlikely comparison, I know, but being here…it’s like you get to oversee everything from the bridge, which I never get when I’m back home, like…you know you’re in control?” You were merely blabbering at this point, but then again, your brain loses control of your bodily functions when you're in close proximity with this man.

“You like being in control then?”

The tiny creaking sound coming from the floor tells you he’s taken a step closer to you, and the warmth coming from him is driving you insane. Damn this bloody dress of Catherine. You’re at a loss for words, neurons short-circuiting at both his question and how it’s equally chilly and hot at the same time in this small space.

It’s too much for you to handle, too much that you can't seem to find the appropriate words to voice out a reply, instead, you just turn around to face him. A gasp escapes your lips when you accidentally bump into his chest when you do so.

“Oh! Crap! I-I’m sorry…” You apologize meekly, fiddling with your hands and refusing to meet his eyes at all costs. The captain places your chin between his fingers and lifts your face for him to look at. He doesn’t say a word either, instead, just leans down and captures your lips in a feverish kiss.

Surprised – was an understatement. You hadn’t really expected him to call you over to the bridge and the next thing you knew he’s already kissing you. He immediately pulls away when you don’t reciprocate, apologizing profusely and mumbling about misplaced affections.

“No!” You exclaim, causing the captain to jump a little. You gather your courage and rub at your temples. “I mean…Captain V, your affections have not been misplaced, it’s just this…monster thing that has me acting like this the whole time, and I really have zero control over it and…”

You don’t get to finish your sentence as you feel his warm, moist lips on yours again. His strawberry-tasting lips glide over yours smoothly that you find yourself leaning towards him as you melt into the kiss. You’re first to pull away this time, breathless. “Forgive me, Countess…I’ve been wanting to do that since I first laid eyes on you on this ship,” he says, cupping your face as he rests his forehead against yours. “So beautiful,” Taehyung whispers against the shell of your ear and trails a finger from your cheek and eventually down to your collarbones as he ogles the cleavage Cat’s dress had generously given you tonight.

“Taehyung.” He places a lingering kiss on your shoulder. “Call me Taehyung, please.” He smooths his hand over your hips, tightening his grip as he pulls you closer and kisses you once more. You feel something hard against your stomach – oh. Your mouth parts when he starts to grind, slowly and devilishly against you and he takes this opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth, deepening the kiss.

His gaze darkens when he sees the expanse of skin the slit of your dress reveals as you shift your legs, thigh now out in the open. Attaching his lips to yours again, Taehyung distracts you from the way his slender fingers dance their way up dangerously near your core.

Your head bows in embarrassment when you remember Mandy checking if you’d worn the right underwear earlier, ‘If they’re not lace, they have to go.’ So when she busted inside the bathroom as you were changing into Cat’s clothes earlier and saw your favorite cotton panties (with an embroidered flower on the front), she quickly rips the material in distaste, strongly suggesting that commando is the way to go. It won't be long until Taehyung discovers –

“No panties huh?” Taehyung observes, voice low and deep. “Yes,” you reply breathily, closing your eyes as you ignore how you're throbbing all over in such a short period of time. You try to regain your wits back, your first zing too overwhelming that everything seems like a haze.

With a new, albeit questionable, surge of courage, you move your hand to palm him through his pants. When Taehyung bares his neck to you to elicit a groan, your head subconsciously dips towards the spot where you feel his pulse the strongest. In an instant, your primal instincts begin to take over you, baring your fangs and grazing them dangerously against his skin.

Holy fuck.

This man was going to be the cause of your death.

It’s been a while since you’ve been in close proximity with a human, and being this close to the captain has stirred up something inside of you that you never knew still existed.

Back in the days when humans had mingled freely with your kind, witches had placed suppressants in the Tersnoan atmosphere so that a monster’s primal instincts won't ever be able to take over your diplomatic selves.

Now that you were much older with fully developed senses, being this close to a human with no suppressants whatsoever had inevitably awakened your inborn vampiric tendencies.

Needless to say, your generation of vampires had gone ‘vegetarian’ in a sense. Your lifestyle no longer consisted of hunting down people for food, but you opted for a healthier alternative and a more convenient source of food: coconut juice. Besides, human blood never really came in highly recommended by the older generations, claiming it tasted like loneliness and despair.

What they failed to warn you of, however, was how intense the urge was once you were only a hair-breadth away from a human being who is very much alive. The temptation was getting stronger by the second, and the pulse coming from Taehyung’s jugular vein was ringing loudly in your ears.

Both the desires of hunt and lust were slowly taking over you, your judgment, and your irises, and your lips quake ever so gently at the excitement coursing through your veins. As you feel your irises change its color from their natural ones, to purple then to gold afterwards, the surprise in Taehyung’s eyes has gotten prominent, yet, with astounding self-control, he manages to keep the rest of his body calm and collected.

He gulps at the small smirk that plays on your lips, “To answer your question, I like being in control,” you say lowly, grazing the tip of your nail against his jawline, “but only when the need arises so.”

For a moment, you sense his fright with your golden eyes and fangs on display, but you feel it dissipate quickly when you bunch his shirt in your fists and pull him closer to you. Taehyung then takes this as a cue to continue his torment of his featherlight touches, causing you to lean against the wheel as your head falls backward at the sensation.

Brazenly, he hooks a hand under your thigh and wraps your leg around his hip, allowing himself to grind harder against you, the friction of his dress pants against your bare heat sending you to a state of near delirium. The moment is cut short however as you both hear footsteps approaching the bridge. The captain puts your leg down as abruptly as he hooked his arm underneath it earlier.

As you wait for the two man-fish creatures to pass by the wheelhouse, you and the captain keep a modest gap between each other, letting the staff move across the bridge and until they take their positions by the front portion of the deck. Just as if the captain wasn’t groping you merely seconds ago.

The moment they’re out of sight, Taehyung closes the distance between the both of you, resting his weight on you as he presses you further onto the wheel of the ship. Subconsciously, you bite your lip as you feel his boner practically begging for your attention.

His actions are hastier this time around, and quite frankly, you're glad he has managed to equal the same level of urgency you had. You don’t know how long you’ll be able to hold onto your sanity with the heat pooling in the pit of your stomach. Else, you’d be taking the matter in your own hands.

Every contact of Taehyung’s skin with yours has you skin ablaze, and you’re unsure if it’s due to the (partly) shameful fact that you haven’t been this intimate with someone for the past few years that you're this responsive. He’s fondling your breasts with one hand, unabashedly tweaking and playing with your nipples. The other hand is busy squeezing your thighs, fingers dancing lightly across the exposed skin of your leg.

Your breath hitches as he unexpectedly cups your bare mound, digits swiping against your folds. Body quaking at the feeling, your body leans forward, but Taehyung has other plans, tugging you back harshly to his chest. “You think you can stay still for me sweetheart? You wouldn’t want my staff to think we’re christening the bridge, do you?”

Maybe, just maybe, the thought didn’t sound so bad?

“Oh?” Taehyung hisses when he feels your quick intake of breath at the thought. He finds your clit seconds later, rubbing the nub languidly, “you seem to like the idea, hmm?”

“Taehyung, please,” you beseech, leaning towards his touch and grinding your hips against his palm in desperation. You’re uncertain if this was an effect still caused by the zing but at this point, you just wanted a release from his relentless teasing and you’re more than willing to work for it if you have to.

The captain revels in your responsiveness and as a reward, he complies with your request, quickening his pace and toying your clit with more vigor than ever. Your hands, previously just as busy groping Taehyung, now shoots out to grip at the helm, your high approaching rapidly. He inserts a long, dexterous digit to accompany his other hand, helping you reach your climax faster. A second finger has you reeling, gripping the helm even tighter than before, knuckles turning white at the sheer strength. One kiss on your neck is all it takes, orgasming so hard that Taehyung has to hold you still lest you lose your balance.

You're still panting a minute later, having turned around and resting your hands on Taehyung’s chest for support. You both stay like that for a moment in each other’s arms, until you’re brought back to reality by the captain’s boner brushing against your tummy. “Can I?” you ask as you look up to him, thumbing the waistband of his dress pants.

“_______, darling, as much as I’d want to you right here, there’s too many of my staff roaming around the bridge for the night. And if these creatures walking about isn’t bothersome enough, it’s the fact that fish don’t blink either…so there’s that…” Taehyung states before placing a kiss on your shoulder. “If you desire so, I’d gladly continue this in my room…” the captain offers, looking at you expectantly as another pair of the fish men round the deck.

“I think we should go with that.”

He nods briefly, placing a wet kiss on your temple before taking your hand in his. Giddy as a teenager at the sight of her crush, you let him lead the way to his stateroom, unable to hide the shy smile on your lips. Once he leaves the wheelhouse to one of his first mates for the night, he squeezes your hand and continues on, palm contrastingly warm against yours as you walk to his room together.

“Did you enjoy the strawberries I had sent you earlier this evening?”

“Definitely. They’re one of the sweetest bunches I’ve tried in my life! Thanks for them by the way.”

“You did? They’re handpicked from our very own greenhouse on the ship!” Taehyung looks back at you with the brightest smile, eyes crinkling with the purest delight. Your heart crumples at the sight. How could the zing have possibly chosen this man for you – or worse, how are you supposed to deal with this type of duality?

One moment he’s brazenly fingering you inside the wheelhouse with blinkless staff roaming about and the next he’s talking about growing strawberries and how farming has been therapeutic for him. How is one man so devilish and wholesome at the same time?

Just like that, conversation flowed natural between the two of you: the similarities of having to run a hotel (as well as a heated debate on whether or not a hotel on land or on water is easier to manage), hobbies you enjoy on a spiritual level, and a few bits and pieces of him as Kim Taehyung and not the captain of The Legacy.

You’d just learned he doesn’t drink coffee, nor does he drink alcohol; he plays the saxophone and claims he’s pretty learned with the instrument; and that he loves taking photographs. In addition, he’d also told you about how he was born and raised in Korea hence the faint accent, but he’d grown up moving from place to place with his great-grandfather due to their family business, and that’s how their voyages helped him practice his English and even pick up a few foreign languages.

Your getting-to-know each other session is brought to a pause when the blonde-haired captain stops in front of a door in a dimly lit corridor. Quietly, he fishes for something inside his pockets, takes out his keycard and taps it against the door lock. Taking a peek from outside, you wait for him as he turns the lights on before following him inside.

Mouth agape as you enter, your eyes wander around his stateroom, marveling at the sheer grandeur of the captain’s living space. Just when you thought Catherine had given you and your friends the luxury of staying in a suite large enough to house a family of five, the captain’s stateroom on the other hand could easily pass for at least ten people.

Taehyung’s suite exactly looks like it came from a magazine spread, akin to a million-dollar apartment…at a high-rise residential tower…located in the middle of the busiest city in the world.

The captain lets you roam around his stateroom, a small smile playing on his lips as you gape over every detail in the room. It was modern interior design taking to a whole new level.

Monochromatic in a way, yet for some reason, he had it strategically designed to make it look more dynamic, alive somehow. You were no expert in the field of interior design, but with your modest experience in running a hotel (from choosing what type of cotton will be best for the beddings to organizing parties with more than a hundred participants), you could easily tell every nook and cranny of this room was heavily planned out.

Pointing at the stairs, you wordlessly ask for his permission if you could go up and check out the upper level. Taehyung doesn’t follow right after, momentarily heading to his kitchen. Significantly smaller than the lower floor, the second level houses his bedroom, with a heap of curtains serving as a divider and cover from those staying below.

His bedroom speaks more of him than any other part of the stateroom. Just as he mentioned earlier, there’s an open saxophone case on one corner, next to another black violin case. You also take notice of the makeshift tie hanger he’d made using the coat stand.

What truly catches your eyes though, is the array of photographs hung on the walls. It’s a mosaic of some sort, with photos spread from a corner then occupying half of the adjacent walls. Some are framed, some are printed on canvas, and a number are on photo paper and pasted on the beige wall. They’re caught on film, you reckon, with the distinct grainy resolution common amongst the photos.

Swiping your finger against the wooden frames of the pictures he’d hung, you study each photo thoroughly, trying to figure out the story behind each picture. There’s three more situated on his bedside table, Picking up the one with Taehyung smiling widely beside a boat’s mast.

“Ah, my first sail,” Taehyung says, taking a step near you. The tiny hairs on your nape stand at the feeling of his warm breath against your skin. All of a sudden, you realize he’s standing too close – too close for you to remain sane.

You keep the framed photo in your hands, yet your thoughts have ultimately flown far away from whatever story was behind the picture; like how you hear his heart beat a little faster.

“Enough about me, countess,” the captain whispers as he places a hand over yours and guides yours back down to the bedside table. For a second there, you’d forgotten

For a second there, you’d almost forgotten he literally had the same fingers inside you just a few moments ago and that you’re now reminded of the main and sole purpose why you’re here in his bedroom.

“What about you?” Taehyung sets the strawberries down next to the photograph, then tucks a few strands of stray hair behind your ear. Each teasing touch is driving you closer to madness, like every move of his is calculated as if he knows he has this effect on you.

Lamely, you echo his words, “What about me?”

“Do you still want to look at more of my photographs or shall we continue what we started earlier?” It’s so awfully quiet inside the room that you basically hear yourself gulp at his proposal.

Weren’t your bodily reactions enough to serve as an answer?

You wanted to act less naïve (and appear a whole less desperate) that you’d imagined giving him a proper answer in your head, but here you were, stiff as a gargoyle statue, cowering beneath the warmth radiating off Taehyung.

Thoughts too haywire, you're unable to rack your brain for an appropriate reply, so you return the question to him: one with a double purpose – for him to ponder on and for you to recollect yourself. “What do you want?” Slowly, you turn to face him, bracing yourself for the hormonal uproar you are to experience.

The captain pouts cutely while in thought before darting his tongue out to lick at his lips. Taehyung gently brushes your hair over your shoulder, fingers subsequently tracing the outline of your collarbone. “I want,” he starts off, toying with the strap of your dress and wrapping it around his finger, “to take this off.”

Letting him slide the straps off your shoulders, you inhale deeply, anticipation doubling by the second. With your shoulders tense, the straps fall only until your elbows. Taehyung notices your hesitation and tenderly takes your chin between his thumb and his forefinger, tilting your head up so he could face you properly.

“Hey, we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Feeling sorry for him having to deal with your worries, you cup his beautiful face in your hands, “I want to. I really do – it’s just…it’s been a while.”

You're grateful when he leans toward your touch, sending a soft smile your way. “Of course, darling, we’ll take it slow.” Relaxing your shoulders, the thin straps of your dress fall down the length of your arm with the rest of the fabric following shortly after.

Core throbbing immensely with want, you take initiative this time, claiming his mouth with a newfound sense of courage and urgency. Your knees threaten to give in when he matches the intensity of your kiss. With haste, you thumb at the zipper of his pants, causing him to trip on his own feet and fall forward.

The blonde-haired man brings you down to bed with him, stretching his arm out just in time to break his fall, making sure he’s not resting too much of his weight on you. “What happened to taking it slow?”

Taehyung is just as breathless when he helps you with your predicament with his pants. “Fuck it, there’s plenty of time for that later but I need you,” you pant, unable and unwilling to keep your hands to yourself – brushing against his clothed erection, sliding them against his defined chest, wrapping your hands by his neck to pull him closer to you…

“I need you now, inside me, please Tae…”

He withdraws from your body and kneels by the edge of the bed. Legs already shamefully spread and ready, Taehyung rummages through the drawers of his bedside table, looking for something. At the mention of condoms under his breath, you wave at him, trying to catch his attention.

He turns to you, eyebrows raised. “No need. Human sperm can’t get us pregnant anyways. Are you clean?”

“Got checked three weeks ago, that good with you?”

You nod your head, beckoning him over. Taehyung wastes no time, taking his boxers off to free his dick from the confines of his underwear. He crawls over to you and places a kiss on each of your thighs before taking his cock and sliding it against your wet folds.

He uses yours and his essences as lubricant, jerking himself off first before pushing the red tip of his shaft slowly. In consideration of your own pleasure, he doesn’t rush his entrance, just pushing slowly then drawing it back to prep you properly.

Taehyung continues with that, until your hand shoots out to grab him by his wrist, giving him a tug to let him know you’re ready. Silently, he nods, this time pushing his cock inside until he’s fully seated inside your warm walls. “So t-tight.” Taehyung shivers when you experimentally clench around him.

“Babe,” the captain breathes out while heat rises to your face at the term of endearment. “Please don’t do that again, fuck, I might just cum early if… if…” Taehyung falls silent again, groaning as you clench one more time, “you're just one naughty girl aren’t you?”

When you shrug your shoulders in reply, it’s like something inside Taehyung snaps because he gives you a playful smirk before thrusting harshly. You mewl at the feeling, fingers tugging at his hair in encouragement.

“Y-you're so big,” you cry out as he ruts his hips, the tip of his cock deliciously brushing against your sweet spot with every thrust. “Fuck,” Taehyung hisses, continuing the fluid motion of his hips, “your pussy was made just to take me then.”

He goes almost animalistic, thrusting even deeper, stronger as he chases his high. “Think you can cum with me sweetheart?” Taehyung queries, pushing his hair back when he feels the edges of his fringe tickle your cheeks.

Taehyung deftly finds your clit while he’d continued his torment with his hips, a single moan coming from your mouth is all he needs before proceeding with abusing your nether nub. It doesn’t take you both much after that, both your orgasm crashing over you like a tidal wave, one after the other.

A few more hours into the evening and you find yourselves still tangled in each other’s bodies, worshipping each and every inch of skin as you get overcome by lust over and over again.

Taehyung collapses to your side after what seems like… in fact, you’ve actually lost count of how many times you’ve climaxed. Panting, he looks at you with a smile reaching his eyes, “That was…” He’s at a loss for words but when he hears laughter bubble out of you at his cuteness, he joins in.

The laughter dies down, yet you’re still staring at each other – no words needed to explain what had just transpired between the both of you tonight. You stay still and contented, basking in the euphoric bliss. He says he can't stay awake any longer, bidding you a good night’s sleep and sweet dreams.

You manage to stay awake though, on the contrary, swearing to yourself you’d just seen his eyes flash lavender before falling into a deep slumber.

Send me your thoughts? x

#bts smut #ficswithluv #bangtanhq #btsguild #btswritingcafe #ksmutclub #btsghostie #houseofddaeng #taehyung smut #taehyung x reader #kim taehyung #kim taehyung scenarios #bts x reader #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts au fanfic #bts fluff

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jonahlovescoffee · 3 years

Text

Mistletoe | J.M.

a/n: i suck at writing. the only thing im good at is procrastinating my procrastination so send help pls :/ this fic was supposed to be up before Christmas but i just finished writing it today and i’m not even proud of it :’) anyways, happy reading and be sure to tell me what you think in the end <3

summary: all you wanted to do was kiss your boyfriend under the mistletoe, but things didn’t work out as planned.

warning: secondhand embarrassment, fluff & some mildly suggestive themes in the end bc i couldn’t help it lmao

word count: 2407

“And that’s what I call a perfect plan,” Emily threw her arms up in the air excitedly, thankfully not getting the attention of anyone else in the cafe. She had just finished explaining the details of her stupid plan to make your boyfriend finally kiss you that was admittedly not so stupid after you ran through the whole thing once again in your head. What’s the worst possible outcome of her plan? Him hating you forevermore? You highly doubt that’d happen so maybe this plan was actually worth a try after all.

“Do you think this is a good idea though, I mean I don’t wanna come off as too needy or anything...” you rambled on nervously, your hands fidgeting with the hem of the beige sweater you were wearing.

“You always overthink everything,” Emily landed a firm reassuring pat on your shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’ll be completely fine. Couples kiss each other all the time! And it’s about time for that dip to do the same to you too.”

You and Jonah had been dating for quite a while now — nearly a month and a half to be exact — but you both had never kissed. His previous girlfriend had left him heavily scarred and this was your first romantic relationship with anyone, meaning that you were too inexperienced in this relationship department to know how it works, so of course both of you had agreed to take it slow. Don’t get you wrong, he did shower you with affection all the time through other methods, mainly through intimate gestures but he didn’t make a move to take it any further and you being the useless coward you were, you didn’t even dare to initiate it either even though you’d gotten comfortable enough with Jonah to the point where you do want to kiss him. Very badly.

Now, you knew that each and every relationship was different and there was nothing wrong with not choosing to express one’s love through something as absurd as kisses, but after Daniel accidentally let the fact that Jonah actually kissed his ex on their first date slip during one of your conversations with him, you started to wonder whether you were the problem. Were you not pretty enough? Not capable enough?

Your worsened insecurities didn’t go unnoticed by your best friend, which was exactly why she dragged you out to a cafe that late autumn day to offer you her so-called ‘foolproof’ plan that couldn’t go wrong.

So when winter rolled around and it was time to put up Christmas decorations around your house, maybe it was because of the indescribable Christmas magic in the air, or maybe it was because of the delightful festive cheer, you eventually decided to follow her advice and hung a mistletoe above the door. Now all there’s left was for you to greet him at the door, inconspicuously gaze at the mistletoe above you, say something along the lines of, “Wow, I wonder how that mistletoe got there!”, and then hope he’d get the hint and was ready for a cute Christmas kiss — If he did go along with the plan, that is.

Which explained why here you were right now leaning against a wall of your living room, shifting your weight from one foot to another repeatedly while biting your nails as you stare intensely at the clock, trying your best to soothe the nerves in your stomach. You had just invited him over for dinner like usual and was now waiting for his arrival anxiously like something big was about to happen although you knew very well that a kiss was hardly considered that big of a deal.

The loud chime of the doorbell that sounded moments later disrupted your train of thought, startling you a little. You hurriedly smoothed your attire and took a deep breath to calm yourself down before making your way to answer the door. You flung open the front door with a cheeky smile plastered on your face.

“Hey, ba....Corbyn?! What are you doing here?” Your voice raised a pitch in the end of your sentence from how shocked you were when you were greeted with the sight of Corbyn standing on your doorstep instead of your boyfriend whom you were expecting, your eyes widening in disbelief so much that you swore they almost popped out of your sockets.

“Just here to pass your present before I return to my hometown tomorrow for Christmas,” he answered, passing you the rectangular shaped present that was beautifully wrapped with vibrant Christmas-themed wrapping paper. Under normal circumstances, you would’ve thanked him profusely and proceed with guessing excitedly about what he might’ve gotten you (because he is an amazing gift-giver) but this time was different. You had a mistletoe dangling from the ceiling above your head and your friend was not supposed to be here now. Out of all the times he could’ve passed you your present, he had chosen today to do it. Great.

“But isn’t that Jonah’s car?” You asked, pointing at the black Audi that was parked in your driveway, completely ignoring the present that was now in your hand.

Please don’t see the mistletoe. Please don’t see the mistletoe....

“Not even a thank you?” Corbyn cocked a brow but sighed and gave you a reply to your question when he realised you were scowling at him. “Yeah, I caught a ride with him since we’re heading to the same place and he wants me to wash his car afterwards. This dumbass is too lazy to do anything by himself,” he explained and rolled his eyes.

“He’s in the car now talking on the phone with our manager, so yeah,” he added, still not noticing the mistletoe, even when he looked up a little and scratched the back of his head. Luck was definitely on your side today.

“And I bet you have tons to pack for your trip tomorrow, don’t you? So you better hurry home and get ready,” this was the best excuse you had to get him to leave before things got awkward.

“Hello? It’s me you’re talking about,” Corbyn ruffled your hair with his hand. “My stuff is all packed and ready a week ago.”

“But I guess I should get going anyway,” he said, clapping his hands. Jonah can be seen walking towards you both. “The last thing I want is to third wheel your date so see ya’ soon,” he bid his goodbye and you felt a weight lifted from your chest when he still paid no attention to the stupid plant.

But someone else sure did. You watched as a smirk grew on Jonah’s face when his gaze lifted higher to see the mistletoe above you. He was about to walk away when Jonah stopped him by putting an arm over his shoulder.

“Hey, Corbyn, don’t you think it’s extremely rude to leave a girl standing under a mistletoe without a kiss?” His simple question had you internally cursing him with a long string of profanities as embarrassment flooded your veins instantly, heat spreading from the tips of your ears to all over your face.

“Oh,” He dragged out the one syllable word when he finally took notice of the mistletoe as realization hit him. “No wonder you were acting all weird just now! Because you wanted a kiss from me but you didn’t have the guts to say it, huh?”

“No, I absolutely don’t want anything from you!” You waved your hands frantically in front of you in denial.

“Including your present? So give it back to me,” Corbyn instructed, wiggling his eyebrows playfully, in which you responded with another deep scowl.

“No, the present is mine now so you can’t take it back!” You practically screamed at him as you tightened your hands around the said object protectively. You friendly banter went on for a while more, with Corbyn teasing you and you shooting your crafty retorts back at him.

Jonah watched the exchange between you and his best friend silently with an amused smile and couldn’t help but burst into laughter when Corbyn suddenly said “you’re so annoying! It makes me want to kiss you to shut you up” in the midst of your playful bickering, making your cheeks redden even more and from the way you open and close your mouth without any words coming out of it, it was evident that you were at a loss of words too.

“Then kiss her, bro,” Jonah urged him with a nudge of his shoulder. “But not on the lips. Those are mine,” he said in a serious tone, the former cheekiness all gone. It was merely a simple sentence but little did he know butterflies erupted in your stomach just from hearing it.

“As much as I’d not want to kiss you, this is tradition and we can’t break it,” with a hopeless sigh, Corbyn scrunched up his nose in disgust but proceeded to lean in and give you a brief kiss on your cheek before pulling away almost immediately. “There, that’s settled. Hang your mistletoe elsewhere next time. The last thing I want is to fucking kiss my best friend again,” he left with a wave of his hand at you and Jonah.

“I guess it’s just the two of us now,” Jonah stated the obvious as his car pulled out of the driveway a moment later by Corbyn.

“Shut up and get lost, I don’t wanna talk to you,” you crossed your arms in front of your chest, looking away from him, still mad that he made your friend kiss you. It was nothing more than a kiss on the cheek but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t awkward.

“But why are you still standing here then? Right under the mistletoe,” he moved closer and wrapped his strong arms around your waist, kicking the door shut behind him. You were engulfed in his uplifting and clean scent of autumn that you loved so dearly, considering that autumn is your utmost favourite season of all. “Wonder how did that get here. I don’t remember seeing the mistletoe the last time I visited.”

“Fuck you, Jonah.”

“Here? Against the wall? Damn, darling, you sure are one kinky girl,” he joked, earning a playful smack from you.

“Stop,” you whined and buried your face in his chest to hide your blushing face that was already as red as a tomato or even redder at this point. He chuckled, his hand moving to cradle your face and pushed it backwards gently before tilting it upwards.

“Sometimes I forget how delicate and innocent you actually are,” he breathed and you could feel heart doing jumping jacks when your gaze met with his intense one. Your mind went totally haywire when he started to lean in, your breaths mingling with each other’s. “And you have no idea how much I’ve thought about doing this.”

When your lips connected at long last, the wonderful sensation was like nothing you had experienced before. The kiss was soft and moist and hot and breathy, not trying to win a battle but seeking union and closeness and the sharing of one breath, one sensation, one timeless and passionate moment. You yearned for more — you wanted so badly to feel so, so much more of him — so you didn’t hesitate to comply to his wish when he bit your lip lightly for permission for his tongue to slip into your mouth.

The heat rose in your cheeks as your tongues entwined, quick and electric and delicious, then firmer, more determined, more curious about the heat that lay within, seeking to chase down that elusive liquid lightning that reached through both of you. Instinctively, you grabbed fistfuls of the soft material at the front of his coat to pull him closer and deepen the kiss. He groaned when you bucked your hips against his as his grip on your waist tightened to prevent you from repeating the same action because his self-control was reaching its limit. One more time and he might not be able to restrain himself from pinning you against the wall and ripping off your clothes to devour you.

Plus, he knew that you weren’t ready for that either.

“That was amazing,” you said in awe when you finally pulled apart to catch your breath, breathless from the heated kiss-turned-makeout session with your boyfriend. “If I can get kissed like that everytime I stand under a mistletoe, I think I might go against Corbyn’s advice and hang more of those around my house.”

“You don’t need a stupid mistletoe to kiss me, idiot. You can do it whenever you like,” he replied, his thumb caressing your cheek gently, as if you were his most prized possession that he was more than reluctant to let go of (which you were).

“But why haven’t you done that before?” You asked, staring quizzically into his hazel eyes that were the softest brown infused with green, as if he held the new spring growth inside.

“I wanted your first kiss to be special,” he tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “There’re a lot of things that I want to do with you and do to you that I haven’t done yet, love, so you gotta be patient,” he promised and took your hands in his, squeezing them once.

“But what if I want you to show me what you want to do to me now?” You wanted to take the question back right after you said it out loud. His lips curled into a smirk which made you even more embarrassed than you already were, not saying a word. “No, I mean what am I even talking about...” you trailed off, pulling your lower lip between your teeth tentatively, not on purpose but because that was what you did everytime you were nervous, only to find his jaw slightly clenched as you did so before using his thumb to softly pull your lip back out.

“Desperate now, are we?” He teased, holding your hand as he led you towards the dining room where the various dishes you had prepared for dinner sat on the table. “Maybe I would, but let’s have dinner first, okay? Dessert will come later.”

It took you a moment to understand what he meant and when you finally did, your face turned red all over again.

#corbyn besson #daniel seavey #jack avery #jonah marais #wdw #why dont we #why don’t we #zach herron #wdw imagines #jonah marais imagines

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loki-hargreeves · 4 years

Text

Loki x Reader - You Dedicate A Song To Him (Karaoke)

Warnings: alcohol consumption, vulgar language, secondhand embarrassment, fluff? just some fun (?) content and soft!Loki for a change Word Count: 3,000+ Summary: After moving to Midgard, Loki joins the Avengers. You’re an Avenger too and after a mission gone well, you decide to celebrate. That’s when Loki sees your drunken side. You seem to be both intoxicated with alcohol and the god of mischief himself. Author’s Note: Please know that everyone is different when they’re drunk. I wrote this based on what I’m familiar with. For once, I tried to keep angst out of this. I tried. Besides, writing soft!Loki is actually fun. Please enjoy! 😊

Third POV

The night had gotten a wild start and the chaos didn’t seem to be ending any time soon. Y/N had returned from a mission with her teammates after spending a week in the cold woods of Siberia. Once they reached their mission target and came back home, they were more than happy to celebrate their victory. After all, it felt great to be back after such hard work.

Loki was one of her teammates. He was new to the Avengers and they still didn’t trust him, nor did he believe they ever would, not completely. Despite the fact Loki had told them about Thanos, it didn’t seem to change much. Luckily, Y/N seemed to appreciate him. Even the kid, Peter Parker, dared to at least attempt to try to Loki. Even if the god didn’t vocalize it, he appreciated both of them. Especially Y/N. They had gotten much closer during the mission. They had split up and worked in pairs. Luckily, Loki had worked with her and they learnt a lot of each other. Y/N was much older than she appeared. The root of her powers was older than any living human on Midgard. Centuries ago, her family had been cursed by a witch. The rest of her family had unfortunately died, but Y/N, back then still a child, had fallen into a deep sleep. She had woken up from it after being disturbed by HYDRA. The evil organization had tried to take use of her powers. At least, she learned how to control them, but under the wrong circumstances.

That’s why she was so happy to be an Avenger. She could put her powers to good use. Besides, she felt understood while talking to Loki. He too had gone through terrible things.

So here they were, at a bar in the city that never slept.

But Peter was too young to drunk, which meant Loki would celebrate with Y/N. He did not expect the night to turn out the way it did.

The mortals had taken shots of something that smelled awfully sweet, which was why Loki had declined. Midgardian booze was nothing like the booze they had on Asgard. Unfortunately, Asgard was destroyed and the inhabitants of New Asgard back in Norway couldn’t magically get the ingredients from the destroyed realm. Alcohol wasn’t important for Loki, so he didn’t mind. He had a glass of red wine and he did his best to keep up with Y/N and the rest.

After several drinks that had burnt her throat, she began to loosen up and relax – if embarrassing herself counted as relaxation. It took a while for the alcohol to take a toll on her, but once it did, she was wild. It even surprised Loki, who had seen a lot in his long life.

“It’s my turn!” Y/N seemed beyond excited when the man called her name on the karaoke stage.

Loki had no clue what would happen. “Have fun,” he wished her sweetly, watching her get up and squirm through the people in order to reach the stage. Some people whistled when they saw her, which Loki didn’t necessarily like, but he had learned it was common in such places that were full of drunk people. People could be dirty. Some were simply dumb.

The song began to play and right off the bat, the people that recognized the song hurried onto the dance floor. For some reason, the lights on the dance-floor turned pink, making the aura of the place feel very intense, almost romantic. Loki didn’t think much of it, not yet. Although, Loki knew she would probably be embarrassed in the morning, he was happy to see her happy. When she was sober, she was definitely more closed off.

“Hey, Loki!” Y/N yelled his name in the microphone as the music blasted in the background. It threw him off guard and he tilted his head to look at her, afraid she’d say something foolish. “This one’s for you!” She continued proudly, making heads turn into Loki’s direction. Some people cheered her on.

Dear gods…

For me? He thought, confused. Was she serenading him? Was this normal Midgardian behavior?

Loki felt his cheeks heat up from embarrassment. He wasn’t used to people showing him any signs of affection this publicly. Bucky and Sam, who were nearby, couldn’t resist their laughs as they heard Y/N. The duo were good friends with Y/N and they did their best to get along with Loki. It wasn’t the worst, but sometimes they got on Loki’s nerves. Just like they did now. To make it worse, they headed to Loki’s direction and squeezed into the booth, sitting with him. They really wanted to make the most of the moment, didn’t they? They were practically gleaming!

Instead of brushing her off completely, Loki simply smiled and hid his embarrassment by taking a sip of his drink, hiding his face while doing so. Loki had fun, knowing he would remember this perfectly the next day, but he also wished he could be swallowed whole by the booth he sat in.

“I didn’t know there was something between the two of you,” Sam teased Loki a little bit, hoping not to push his buttons. Honestly, he was too drunk to really care.

Loki only shot him a cold glare, clueless as to what he should say. What lead Sam to the conclusion that there was something between them? Sure, they were close – that was undeniable, but it wasn’t romantic. Or was it? Nothing was set in stone, so Loki assumed what was between them was purely friendly banter with some innocent flirting. Alright, he had to admit he did feel for her, but he would never act on it. She was so…good.

That’s when she began to sing.

(True – Spandau Ballet) “…So true, funny how it seems, always in time, but never in line for dreams. Head over heels when toe to toe. This is the sound of my soul, this is the sound-“

Y/N wasn’t drunk; she was wasted.

Yet her singing sounded good. Loki would’ve focused more on her beautiful voice if it wasn’t for the lyrics. It had only been a few seconds, but he could feel his heart pounding against his chest. What was happening?!

“…I bought a ticket to the world, but now I've come back again. Why do I find it hard to write the next line? Oh, I want the truth to be said!” Y/N sang surprisingly clearly, never taking her eyes off Loki. It appeared the alcohol gave her a boost of courage. Loki couldn’t imagine ever stepping foot on that stage. He’d rather stay in the safety of the booth nearby.

By now, some of the drunken people had begun to sing along. Although it seemed like everyone else was having fun and ignoring Y/N’s feelings, Loki noticed it. She seemed serious, although she was drunk. He felt that she meant some of the things she sang, she basically poured her emotions into it. Could it truly just be the alcohol?

“…With a thrill in my head and a pill on my tongue, dissolve the nerves that have just begun. Listening to Marvin (all night long!). This is the sound of my soul, this is the sound-

Always slipping from my hands, sand's a time of its own. Take your seaside arms and write the next line, oh, I want the truth to be known…”

As odd as it was, Loki began to relax a little bit. Perhaps, it wasn’t that bad. There was a saxophone break in the song and Y/N stood there in silence for a while, as a sweet smile decorated her face. She seemed to happy. Whatever it was she was doing, she enjoyed it and Loki adored that. Even if it was just a drunken thing, it was nice. Surely, it would make him question things later, but Loki would try to push his thoughts away. He was a master at that.

“…This much is true, this much is true (huh huh), this much is true, I know, I know, I know this much is true…” as the song came to an end, some people applauded cheerfully, having clearly enjoyed the song Y/N had chosen to perform. She got off the stage after handing over the microphone to the man controlling the karaoke system.

“Wherever you are, Loki, someone sure adores you!” The man said into the microphone, clueless to who Loki actually was. Just like that, someone else got on stage and another song began to play. Loki didn’t have time to think over it as Y/N returned to the table, squeezing her way next to Loki, which she had to do by crawling over Bucky and Sam. She looked a little clumsy doing so.

“I hope you liked it!” Y/N said loudly over the music and grabbed her drink, sipping on it excitedly. Her behavior fascinated Loki.

Loki felt someone kick his leg under the table. The next moment, Bucky just smirked at him, as if he was trying to silently hint something. It was a different side from the man Loki was used to seeing at the compound. Ignoring the super soldier, Loki returned his attention to Y/N. “It was amazing,” he told her, seeing how happy it made her. Loki might’ve been cold to others, even frightening, but over time he had learned to let his guard down with her and he enjoyed it.

“That was so cheesy Y/N,” Bucky joked, making the woman roll her eyes.

“What? The song is iconic!” She argued playfully, not minding Bucky’s comment. They were friends, after all.

“If you want an iconic love song, you should try Careless whisper!” Sam butted in, almost wishing she would sing it. That would definitely make the mighty god flustered!

Sam’s suggestion seemed to thrill Y/N. “Sam, you’re a genius!” She slurred. “I should totally sing it.”

Bucky had to cut off her joy, “too late, doll. It’s too late to sign up.”

“Fuck!” She cursed, making the men laugh, and then she leaned against Loki’s shoulder, as if it was the most normal thing to do. Loki tensed up when he felt her head against his body. What was she doing? Why didn’t he mind it? He wished dearly that she wouldn’t bee too embarrassed all sobered up. “You’re soft.”

“What?” Loki spat out in shock. Bucky and Sam exchanged surprised looks, making it very clear they were drunk which definitely made them think like teenagers. How infuriating.

“Your jacket! ‘s so soft, Loki,” Y/N mumbled and rubbed her fingers up and down Loki’s arm. She seemed enthralled by the material of his clothes.

Loki looked at her drowsy smile and knew she would fall asleep soon if she stayed like that. She was quite comfortable by Loki’s side. Perhaps too comfortable, because falling asleep in a bar wouldn’t be ideal. Loki put on a tough face and acted like he didn’t care too much, “Are you tired?” He asked her. He would gladly take her to the safety of her own bed. It was getting quite late.

“Me? Tired? You must be joking!” Y/N denied the obvious truth, her cover breaking even more as she yawned. With anyone else, this type of behavior would annoy Loki, but he had to admit she was quite precious like this. It was the contrary of her Avenger self. She could be scary while in action. He had also figured out she was a skilled actress, or liar as some would say, which clearly didn’t apply to her drunken state.

“Thor and the others already left,” Bucky informed them casually. It meant that they were the only ones still at the bar.

If even Thor had left the party, it must’ve been quite late!

“I’ll just finish… er- I’ll finish this drink,” Y/N bought herself a little more time while holding onto her half-empty glass. It was fair enough.

By the time she had finished her drink and they had gotten out of the warm and loud bar, Y/N had to hold onto Loki to stay on her feet. Loki, Sam, Bucky and Y/N could’ve called for a safer ride to the compound, but the three drunk Avengers got into a cab and Loki had to join them. He was too worried of what kind of trouble they would get into if he let Y/N out of sight. Sam sat in the front, chatting with the driver as the rest were in the back. Y/N was in the middle seat and she still leaned against Loki. He didn’t mind it. Loki had his arm wrapped around her shoulders, which made it easier to sit in the small car. It was definitely a tight fit.

“You smell good,” she kept mumbling the weirdest things. Loki didn’t show it, but her words affected him more than she’d ever know. He knew she was drunk, and it could all be drunken nonsense, but her little compliments felt oddly nice.

They finally arrived at the compound and surely enough, the alcohol had lulled her into a heavy sleep. Loki sighed once he realized he had to carry her. It wasn’t a problem for him, but he knew he would hear about it for weeks if his brother caught a sight of them. Thor was an oaf who knew exactly how to piss off Loki if he wanted to. He supposed it was just part of brotherhood.

The path was clear, which was a relief for Loki. Her body was limp in his arms. Loki wondered how many people would ever dare to put their unconscious bodies near him. It was clear to him that she trusted him, which meant more to him than he wanted to admit.

It was nearly five in the morning once Loki had put Y/N on her bed. Kindly, he took off her shoes and wrapped her blanket above her so she wouldn’t wake up cold. Knowing she would definitely have a headache in the morning, Loki decided to put a glass of water on her nightstand. Just as he was about to leave, she caught his attention once more.

“I like you…so, so much…” The woman mumbled, half-asleep.

Loki looked at her in shock. He told himself she was just drunk, but nevertheless, her words made his heart swell and blood rush through his body. It was sweet of her. Deep down, Loki wondered if she spoke the truth. If she did, he would be really thrilled about it. Nervous, too. It had been a very long time since Loki last cared for anyone romantically. “Sleep well, Y/,” He brushed his thoughts away. She had already fallen back to sleep. Then he retreated to his own quarters. Despite how strange the night turned out to be, he had a good time. Who would’ve thought? Prince Loki of Asgard had a good time in the middle of drunk mortals.

Morning came and Loki decided to get up. He hadn’t gotten much sleep, but he was a god, so it didn’t affect him too much. He decided to use the gym while the rest were still asleep or taking care of their hangovers. During the entire morning, Loki failed to get Y/N off his mind. He wondered how she would react to him now that she was sober. How much did she remember? Would she be embarrassed?

A ’swoosh’ sound of the doors sliding open caught Loki by surprise. He hadn’t expected company at the gym. He took a break from running and he turned to look at the door.

Y/N stood there, frozen in shock as she looked at the god – covered in a thin layer of swear, only wearing green top and black trousers.

Memories flooded to her mind at the sight of him. She faced away from him, seemingly embarrassed. “Oh…hey,” She broke the silence. Her voice was a little harsh, probably because of last night.

“Good morning, Y/N. How do you feel?” Loki wondered. He was genuinely curious to know how that amount of alcohol affected her.

She avoided eye-contact with him by playing with her water bottle. “Well, it could be worse. It’ll pass,” She answered his question.

Loki knew she remembered, possibly more than he expected her to. If he didn’t ask her about it, she would probably act like this around him for a long time. With a sigh, he stepped off the treadmill and walked closer to her. Loki was a little nervous to mention it, but he knew how to hide his own feelings. “How much do you remember?

His question made her eyes open wide and she seemed to get flustered. “Too much,” Y/N was quick to say. “Look, I’m sorry, Loki. I must’ve put you in such an uncomfortable situation. I understand if you don’t want to see me right now.”

Was she serious?

“Don’t be silly,” Loki was quick to reassure her, “I’m alright. It was quite amusing, I must say.”

A smile grew on her tired face. Loki could almost feel her relief radiate to him. He had no clue she’d be so nervous. Did it mean that she had meant the things she said? Or was she simply embarrassed?

“Thanks for getting me inside. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you either. Gosh, I was so drunk!” Y/N quickly saw the humor in the situation and giggled at herself.

Did she have any idea what she was doing to Loki? “I couldn’t just leave you, now I could I have?”

A/N: I really wish you enjoyed this! Your feedback and/or a reblog would make me so happy <3 I heard the song on my playlists and that’s where I got the idea for this fic.

#Loki #Loki Odinson #Loki Laufeyson #Loki x Reader #Loki imagine #Loki x You #Loki x Y/N #Loki fanfiction #Soft!Loki #tw alcohol #tw alcohol consumption #Loki x Reader imagine #Tom Hiddleston Loki

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howtosingit · 4 years

Note

Pass the happy! 🌻🌈 When you receive this, list 5 things that make you happy and send this to the last ten people in the notifications.

Thank you for the positive vibes, it’s very much appreciated!

Friends - both in-person and online. You all get me through the days, and I love you dearly for it. Enough said, or I will cry, and I’ve done enough of that this week.

Writing - which also makes me feel very stressed and stupid sometimes too, but at the end of the process it’s one of the most rewarding things that I’ve done, and sharing it with all of you is the icing on the cake. (And getting comments and feedback is a drug all its own.)

Fic - just, let me live inside words focusing on two people in love, getting the happiness that they deserve. Fic brings me so much peace, so thank you fic writers for all that you do!

Coffee - I’m not someone who’s addicted to coffee, and I’ve been able to go months without it before, but I do like starting a day with it when I can. During quarantine I have discovered the at-home magic of Dunkin’ Hazelnut Coffee and it’s like a fucking hug in a cup.

Rafa - if you’ve been around here for a minute, this won’t be a shock at all. I actually watched his live from April (I’ve avoided it until today because I knew he was nervous and honestly secondhand embarrassment cripples me), and let me tell you: I hate him so much. 😂 But really, honestly, he inspires me to want to do better and be better, be braver, keep learning and growing, fight off my own self-doubts, and find my own path towards happiness. He exudes this positive energy that I think is very genuine but also so rare these days, and any moment that he shares makes me love him more. (I’ll stop here before I write a damn essay, no one needs that. I’ll keep my crazy in my tags.)

#asks #mtnofgrace #I absolutely did not need to write this much for an ask #I'm just trying to live inside my happy outlets as much as possible these days #thank you for this ask!

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vexie-chan · 5 years

Text

Fire Proven

-does the Jester-open-the-door dance- It’s another scene re-write fic!

Scene rewrite of Caleb and Nott’s conversation at the beach, from Caleb’s POV. TW for slight images of character death and burning people. Spoiler warning for episode 71, clearly.

Don’t know how I feel about the title. Will likely revise if I do an Ao3 revision.

Caleb watches the Brenatto family walk hand-in-hand-in-hand down toward the beach. The small boy who had seemed so frightened and unresponsive in Felderwind is now bouncing happily between his parents, pulling their arms and talking excitedly about the tricks he’s going to teach Nugget. Luc is a completely different child than the one they met unsuspectingly in that ruined town. A child who has been reunited with his family, who feels safe in this tropical haven. Memories of the scary woman from Soltryce and the day his father was taken away are barely recalled under the bright Menagerie Coast sun.

It’s bittersweet. It bothers the old wound where he is the child from the ruined home. He is the boy who will never hug his mother and father again. Caleb is used to pushing those thoughts aside. Nott-Veth has everything she has been looking for. Caleb has not missed the warm looks she exchanges with her husband. The way the two of them move together when they are at the Xhorhaus. Their conversations are fast and low. Though they speak common, they almost have their own language of references and inside jokes that cause both of them to laugh while the rest of the room is lost. What they have is special. And Caleb could not miss her expression when Luc came running into her arms. Veth’s whole world was returned to her today, as she stood embracing her husband and her child in the warm morning light. And yet...

As if summoned by his thoughts, Nott slides away from her husband and son to stand by Caleb. She looks at them nervously, then up at Caleb. The look on her unfamiliar halfling face is very familiar—an uncertainty and nervousness he’s seen on Nott’s goblin face a million times.

“Can I…talk to you?” she asks, tilting her head to indicate that they should step away.

“Of course,” Caleb says.

Here it comes, he thinks. Time to say goodbye.

She’s going to tell him she’s decided to stay with her family. Caleb has been dreading this moment since he saw how much Yeza still loves her. Why would she choose to stay with Caleb when she has someone as wonderful and pure and loving as him opening his arms for her. Nott takes a deep breath.

“This is…this is great, isn’t it?” she says hesitantly. Caleb follows her gaze down to the shore where her son plays under the watchful eye of her husband. Her family.

She’s going to dance around the topic, Caleb realizes, glancing down at her troubled face. She’s been tip-toeing around the topic for days...ever since they rescued Yeza, really.

Let her go, you selfish bastard, Caleb instructs himself.

“Why would you ever come back with us?” he asks, gesturing toward her family.

Nott’s eyes fill with tears as she laughs.

“I don’t know!” she cries, her voice full of the relief that he brought it up for her. “I have no idea…”

Patches of green start to spread across her tanned halfling skin, the soft hands lengthening to the deft goblin claws. Nott’s eyes, flashing to golden, widen. She quickly recasts the spell, reversing the spread of green and restoring her halfling guise.

“Except…I only have four hours of this before I…before I turn back into a goblin,” Nott’s voice falters, she hangs her head.

“Does he know everything? Your son, I mean?” Caleb asks, knowing the answer.

“That I’m a goblin? No,” Nott shivers, looking horrified at the thought.

“But your husband accepts you,” Caleb presses. It’s still you, right? Yeza had said, stating that Veth being Veth was all that mattered to him. Caleb had watched him that first night. He would not have stood for any prejudice toward Nott. But though he was exhausted and overwhelmed, Yeza had never looked at Nott with anything other than awe and pure adoration. An open, unafraid love that made Caleb’s chest ache.

“He hasn’t thrown rocks at me, anyway,” Nott says, crossing her arms over her chest. “But there’s a distance there.”

Caleb frowns. If anything, Nott had been the one keeping her distance. Yeza was always right there next to her, smiling at her, touching her. When they sat at dinner, his arm brushed hers constantly. If they stood in a room, his fingers hovered right next to hers, or touching her elbow. When Caleb had peered into their room early that first morning, Yeza was curled next to Nott on the floor, his arm tightly around her.

“There was no distance when you were hugging,” he says carefully, not letting Nott know how closely he’s been watching her.

“Hugging, sure. But we haven’t…y’know,” she holds out both hands, then refolds them awkwardly. Her spell doesn’t let her blush, but Caleb imagines the dark green flush across her goblin face. His ears also heat up a bit, catching her embarrassment secondhand.

“Oh,” he says, not knowing what else to say. He raises his eyebrows. “So just because of that, you’re going to come back with us?”

Nott shakes her head, frustrated.

“No, listen.” She puts both hands up into her hair in a familiar, frustrated gesture. “I don’t know if I can leave them. I haven’t seen…I haven’t been together with them in years. This is all I wanted. And they’re happy and we’re safe. It’s…it’s everything I wanted. But it’s not…it’s not real…right?”

Her voice is small. Caleb is reminded of that day—it seems so long ago now. Now that we’re out of that prison, you want me to leave, don’t you? He takes a breath, but the words are tumbling out now.

“I mean, I’m lying to them. I don’t even look like this….I’m a goblin…”

“Do you think,” Caleb interjects, keeping his voice steady, “that you could find the courage to show them? Because you are real.”

He doesn’t say that to him, Nott the Goblin feels more real than Veth the Halfling…than Veth the stranger. That to him and the Nein, Nott the Goblin is who they grew to love so dearly, and that her family will love her, too.

“Maybe…” Nott says, wiping a hand across her eyes, catching the tears that have leaked out.

“Would you care for him? Would you be a mother to him?” Caleb asks, already knowing the answer. Her actions toward her son in Felderwind and here, today showed him just how much she loves her boy. She would give him the moon if she could, just so he knew a fraction of how much she loved him.

Bittersweet.

“Of course I would,” Nott says, looking up at him in surprise, stunned that he would even have to ask.

“I’d care for him for twenty-five years, and then I’ll be dead,” she continues, her face hardening.

Caleb stops, the comforting words he was about to say frozen. Dead. Of course. Goblins have such a short life span compared to halflings, who outlive humans. He had been so focused on whether her family would accept her as he’s accepted her, he hadn’t even considered the biological implications.

“Maybe I could convince him to accept me. But something’s still not right. This isn’t my body. People liking you is nice. And people accepting you is nice. But if…if you don’t feel right in your own skin then…then you can’t be a good mother or a good wife, or a good anything, really,” Nott continues.

Caleb looks down. He notices for the first time how her round halfling feet don’t match the long, crooked-toed footprints in the sand leading to where they stand. It’s not real. To live as something you’re not every day isn’t easy. And to do so with no way of escape, even with everything you want so close at hand must be unbearable.

“Well…” he begins hesitantly. He’s not ready to talk about this yet. He’s been studying all he can since Felderwind, but this is a new subject. “What if we found a way…”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Nott says, looking up at him. Her face is a mixture of hope and shame. “I’ve been reluctant to talk to you before, because you’ve been on your own path and I don’t want to distract you from it. But I’ve been…well, not lying, but concealing—when we first met we were, well, we were there to keep each other alive and protect each other of course, but we had our other motives, too.”

Caleb waits out the storm of her confession, already knowing what she’ll say. He was trained to read between the lines, to find out what people want. From the moment Veth’s story had come out, he had connected the dots—all those times Nott had proclaimed that she would help him become powerful, that she wanted to see him get strong. She’s been hoping he can transform her. From the moment he conjured Frumpkin to comfort her in that jail cell, Nott realized he could potentially help her.

He doesn’t hold it against her. Everyone has a motive. Everyone wants something. And this is a worthy cause. The same night she had revealed what had been done to her, he had begun poring over his notes and everything he had read about transmutation, trying to find a way to help her. He has been focusing on learning to transform one thing into another, changing his own form into an eagle or a gorilla to lay the groundwork for more permanent transformations. He has a long way to go, but he’s made a start.

“For me, part of the reason I instantly wanted to hang out with you is because you had these amazing magical abilities and you know—I care for you deeply now and I wouldn’t leave your side for anything and I mean…I love you,” Nott continues. “But back then, and even now I hope you’ll become strong enough to one day do me a great service. And I haven’t been explicit with you about that but I’ve seen you do amazing things and change things into other things.”

Nott, I would do anything for you, Caleb almost interrupts. He can’t express how she saves his life with her love almost every day. How much he’s missed her as she’s distanced herself from him in preparation for this decision. But he holds his tongue as her expression changes. Where she had looked sad and nervous, she looks afraid and desperate, somehow. He waits.

“And…and I’ve also seen you be ruthless when you need to be,” Nott says, her voice growing serious. “You know how I became this way. They drowned me in water and turned me into a another body. But I’ve been…praying that one day, when you learn the spell or find the book or whatever it is, that you’ll be strong enough to kill me with fire and change my body like they did.”

Time comes to a stop.

Caleb can’t hear the ocean, or Luc’s delighted giggles, or Nugget’s barks. He can’t hear the buzz of his friends talking and laughing. He can’t hear the seagulls or the wind.

It’s almost silent, except for the distant sound of flames and voices screaming his old name. Caleb looks past Nott to see a familiar cottage. He sees flames engulfing the house. A blackened, disfigured hand presses to the window, then disappears into the flames. He sees Nott’s tiny, burned goblin body as Beau rushes her out of the lava bed. He sees her broken form as he holds her gently in his arms, fear coursing through his bloodstream.

Could he do it? He imagines her standing before him. He smells the sulfur as he pulls it from his pouch. He feels the delicious warmth of the fire forming in his chest and running through his arms, pouring from his fingertips to engulf her. He imagines her screams—would she scream his name or call for her husband? Would she scream her own son’s name, like Caleb’s mother had? (Was she screaming for help or accusing him? He’s never been able to decide) Or would she stare at him with the same determination she has now, embracing the flames that eat her goblin body in the hopes that he could restore her to her halfling form.

The sound of her body giving out, that tiny thump against the ground amid the crackling flames almost brings him to his knees. It’s not real. It’s just his mind. It’s a vision he’s seen many times before in his nightmares, especially since the mind control incident. But this time…

Could he do it?

Nott, I would do anything for you, but please do not ask me to do this, he thinks desperately, his heart thundering in his ears, his stomach twisting.

Nott is looking up at him, fear replaced with a strong hope, the desperation clear as day.

“I think you could do it. You’re very powerful,” she says, and he knows she believes it.

He wants to laugh, though there would be nothing humorous about it. If power alone were the only thing, perhaps it would be possible. But to ask this thing of him…knowing what he’s done. Could he truly do it?

“Well,” he says, forcing the word out, forcing himself to speak to her. “The fact of the matter is, I owe you everything. I would not be here. I would be dead in a field outside Alfield without you. And many times over.”

But do not ask me to do this. Please.

“Ja. Anything is possible,” Caleb says, keeping his voice reassuring.

Nott grabs his hand.

“But is it though? I kind of need to know. I want to tell my child something and I don’t want to lie. If I tell him I will be back, I want to know that it is truly possible. Is that something you can do for me?” Nott demands, goblin fingertips digging into his palm through the disguise.

Caleb doesn’t have an answer. Not wholly. Not like she’s looking for. He’s been looking, been starting to study, but to truly change her is outside of his reach. And the thing she is asking…if he can find a way around it, he will.

“Not now,” he says softly. “But I am on the edges of such things.”

Nott’s grip loosens a fraction. She stares at him hard. He can almost see her gold cat-eyes through the illusion.

“You could…kill me?” she asks.

A shiver of fear works its way through Caleb’s spine. No, he thinks. Then, in another voice, the ever-present voice that taunts him whispers yes. It would not be the first time he killed someone he loved dearly. Why not return to his true nature? This is what he does, is it not? He could kill any one of them. It would be easy. Fire has always come so easily to him. He could burn all of them if he wanted to. If the need arose. He could set the Xhorhaus on fire as they slept, returning full circle.

Caleb swallows hard. He cannot answer.

“And bring me back,” Nott continues.

“You want to be you,” Caleb grabs her hand back, kneeling down to look her in the eye.

“Yes,” Nott says. All of the fear and loneliness and exhaustion and hate she feels is wrapped in that little word.

“We can find a way to make you you,” Caleb says firmly. A way where he doesn’t have to burn her. Already, he’s running calculations and thinking to every book he’s ever read. “But nothing comes without risk or hard work, and I can’t do it tomorrow. I need books.”

He emphasizes the last word, forcing a small smile onto his face. How many times have they entered a town and he immediately searches for a bookshop? By now, the Nein all keep eyes out for him without his even needing to ask.

Caleb’s small joke works. Nott returns his smile. It’s small and watery, but it’s there.

“But if you’re asking me if I will help you…of course I will help you,” Caleb says, taking her other hand. Of course. Because he loves her. He can’t say it. It isn’t allowed, but it’s true. He would do anything in his power to make her happy and safe. He tries to put all of that feeling into his words. He will be useful to her—he will do whatever she needs him to do.

“This is…a spell you know? Or have heard about or read about? You know it’s possible?” Nott asks.

What she speaks of sounds like necromanctic magic. Nothing he has ever touched. He has begun to study transformation, but nothing so far is as full of a transformation as she is seeking. He can change forms or cause others to change forms, but it is always temporary. To truly change someone…he has not yet discovered a way. But with hard work and study, there is always a way. There is always some path. If transmutation does not have the answers he seeks, perhaps he can find something in dunamancy. He thinks of Waccoh’s library and sets himself with grim determination. He will study in that library, if he has to kill the Laughing Hand himself to prove his worthiness.

He looks down into Nott’s waiting face and steels himself. And if he cannot find what he needs, he will make it himself. He will find a way to restore her to her true form. To make her happy and whole again. He owes her that much and more. He finds the lines of his familiar goblin companion in the face of her halfling self. They’re not as dissimilar as she thinks—or perhaps it is just how familiar she has become to him. He would recognize her expressions even if she were a slime.

Caleb squeezes her hands.

“I do not want to burn you,” he says softly. Her face starts to fall. “But if we follow the road long enough, I think I can return you,” he promises. I will return you, he thinks.

“I’m sure you can do anything,” Nott says, a bit of her old insistent adoration returning. She glances toward her family. “But…how long do you think that road is? Is it…hypothetical or real?”

Caleb shakes his head.

“Veth, I do not know,” he says. Nott’s face falls again. Caleb shakes his head. “I do not know if we will be alive two weeks from now. This is a very personal choice. Maybe you would prefer to have twenty years with your boy, or you can struggle into the unknown for a while and see what it gets you. Maybe you’d die sooner. I don’t know. All I can give you is my, um…”

My love. Caleb’s mind insists fiercely. The word sticks in his chest. He tries to force it out but it won’t go.

“My loyalty,” he finishes, wincing. It will do, for now. “And I have great loyalty for you.”

I will follow you anywhere. I will risk myself for you. I will help you with anything I can. I love you. He doesn’t say these things. How can he? The words are pinned to his chest by the pieces of his broken, damaged soul. There is not enough left of him to give like that. He should never even feel these things, but he does. But his loyalty, that he can give. That, he was trained to give. Those words were practiced, were expected.

Bren thought he meant them. Loyalty to his nation, to his emperor, to his order, to his master. He had felt the pride and weight sitting comfortably in his chest like a glowing ember. His loyalty encouraged and justified his every move.

This is not like that.

This is not loyalty based on lies. This is not loyalty practiced and required of him—he had been more than happy to give it of course, but it had been asked of him. Required of him. Burned into his skin and mind.

Caleb’s loyalty to Nott comes unasked for. It does not come with practiced oaths or recited promises. It does not require proof or action. Nott chose Caleb, even when she didn’t have to. Even after he told her she could walk away. Even when she should have walked away from him. She stayed. So he stays. She had every right to leave him for dead in that field. She had every right to let him walk away from the group and leave her behind. She had every right to walk away from him when she learned what he was and what he’s done. But she never did. She’s never faltered. And he will choose her, always.

She has asked nothing of him, until now, and he will give her all he can. He tries to feed this information through his lame, meager words, through the touch of his hand.

“All right,” Nott says. She’s looking back toward Yeza and Luc.

Caleb follows her gaze. His heart sinks. Why would she ever choose to risk losing this life instead of spending every precious moment she can with her wonderful family? If Caleb were in her shoes, it would not even be a question. If he could have one surefire day with his family again, he would choose that over every risk.

Losing his family was not worth the promised prize.

Losing Nott would be almost as bad, he realizes.

“And,” he hears himself say softly, before he can stop himself. “I would hate to see you go. But that is being selfish.”

Nott turns back to him, her eyes not leaving her family until the last moment.

“Well…thank you for your honesty. I’ll think about it,” she says.

“I promise I’ll do all I can for you. If you want me to,” Caleb says, voice just above a whisper.

“Thank you,” Nott says. She moves as if she’s going to hug him, the way she used to, but she stops herself. “Thank you,” she says again. She pauses, then turns and walks back toward the water.

Caleb watches her go, his heart sitting in the pit of his stomach like lead.

I want you to kill me with fire and bring me back.

I have everything I want…I don’t know if I can leave them.

Caleb watches Nott—Veth cheer her son on as he smashes a crab with the grappling hook, laughing as Yeza drops his head into his hands. Yeza soon relents, smiling, taking her hand.

You have my loyalty. You have my love.

Caleb begins preparing for the goodbye that will come in the morning now. How could she choose to stay with him when she has this? It won’t stop him from finding a way to help her. He will come back for her. He will help her, just as he’s promised. She doesn’t need to stay with him for that. She’s done enough.

He will carry the rest.

#critical role #cr spoilers #caleb widogast #nott the brave #veth brenatto #critical fanfic #vexie writes fanfic

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