#i tried to have them look similar but idk if it worked out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

The average Tumblr user visits about 67 pages every month.

#i tried to have them look similar but idk if it worked out

mactavishsgfandwife · 3 months

Text

Possessive/Dominant Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley Headcanons 🎀

i don’t know if possessive/dom is the right word but idk 😋 he’s just big and scary and loves his favourite girl sexual references so mdni!

ghost who secretly loves those cute little girly dresses you wear - him in the black polo shirt that hugs around his thick biceps and you in that mini skirt. he loves how sweet you look, seeming so innocent and vulnerable as if you just need a man like him to protect you and save you from those bad men who wouldn’t treat you right. it doesn’t matter that he’s a bad man as well, that doesn’t count. and he thinks you look so pretty with that skirt around you ankles, too. ;)

ghost who will always have a hand on you in public - he needs people to know that you belong to him, that you’re his sweet favourite girl and he’s your guy

ghost who, on a similar note, bought you both matching rings - so that even though you’re not married, and he is away on a mission, you’re still together. he’ll send you photos of him wearing his ring while he’s at work, in the same style photo as this

ghost who idk but this is so him

ghost who is so protective over his little girl… a man comes up to you in a bar and starts flirting, not making much effort to hide his long glances at your body. just as he tries to grope at you, a sleazy smile on his face, a dark shadow swoops over him - a man, more like a giant, with a firm, muscular hand gripping tightly around your waist. military boots, long black cargo pants that can’t quite hide his meaty things (and that bulge between them) with a black bomber jacket draped over one of his broad shoulders. dog tags dangling from around his neck and a full sleeve of tattoos, including numerous black-eyes skulls that started out from his rough skin. this guy was terrifying. safe to say, that creepy guy left you alone.

ghost who has a dedicated album of photos of you on his phone - mostly, he just uses them to look at when he misses you or when he’s bragging to the others about his pretty little bird, but sometimes he likes to use them for other purposes. god, seeing your sweet little face, happy and smiling at the camera… you’re such a good girl for him…

ghost who’s definitely the kind of guy to fantasise about protecting you from danger

just a quick silly one, thanks for reading! xx (I think my love of big protective sexy scary older men shows through way too much here this is very self-indulgent lmao)

1K notes · View notes

aethelwyneleigh27 · 6 months

Text

Little Ghost

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader Drabble

Thanks so much to @puff0o0 for drawing this and feeding me more ideas for GirlDad!Simon "Ghost" Riley.

(I didn't give the baby a name, I would've opt for Charlotte but idk what y'all want to name your children)

ꕥ HOPE YOU ENJOY! ꕥ

Your little toddler asking you, her momma for help. She had several drawings of her dad, you and her. She's been pointing non-stop while babbling at her drawing of her dad, with his mask on.

"Yeah love, that's dada.." You said to her with your head tilted, trying to understand what she was telling you. The little one whined in frustration, she wanted so bad to communicate what she wanted but she was only able to say a few words.

She had to demonstrate to you what she was referring to in the means of actions, she took her baby blanket on the couch and placed it over her head, somewhat resembling a mask.

You further encouraged her later on by giving her one of Simon's older masks and it seemed to have cheered her up, even though her head was too small for it and the mask's eye hole goes through her head perfectly like a shirt.

That's when you had the bright idea to surprise Simon, taking inspiration from the baby carrier you and your husband bought for your baby (he couldn't do anything but grumble about the fact that it was pink), you decided to make her a mask tailored to her.

It wasn't hard finding the materials, you already had a pink stretchy fabric from your old shirt and that plastic skull decoration you got from last Halloween. Oddly enough you got it because it was similar to Ghost's mask, it was time you repurposed it.

• ──── ✦ Time Skip ✦ ──── •

Ghost finally found himself home after being on a mission for almost two months, he opened the door, prying his keys off them and gently nudge it closed.

He looked around throwing his duffle bag on the ground near the shoe rack, he found himself smiling at the two pairs of shoes there. Yours and what he thought was the tiniest pink shoes, a space unoccupied at the right side to be completed by his pair of combat boots.

"Dada!"

Simon turned his head, looking further in towards your shared home to see his little girl stumbling towards him. Only to his amusement, she was wearing a pink version of his mask. Simon let out a chuckle, a proud boisterous one.

"Lovie, did you make that for her..?" Simon asked you after seeing you turn the corner to almost tackle him in a hug, the amusement in his voice still quite clear. You nodded your head before replying "Well I only helped, our mini Ghostie did most of the work". That earned you a forehead kiss from your husband.

He lifted your little one up after she looked at him and said "Up-py dada, uppies please", her tiny arms gripping his shirt while he carried her. The little mask reminded him of the time you surprised him with baby mittens with skeleton hands printed on it.

You kissed both their cheeks sending your little one into a fit of giggles while she tried to kiss her momma back. Simon just stared at the sight, feeling happier that he's home to his family.

Yeah he's definitely going to bring that pink mask along when he takes the little one to see the Taskforce again..

(The Taskforce interacting with little baby Ghost...)

#cod x reader #aethelwyne lia writes #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost x you #ghost x reader #dad!ghost #dad!simon #cod fluff #cod headcanons #cod drabble #cod mwii #simon riley x plus size reader #ghost x plus size reader

2K notes · View notes

ghost-proofbaby · 2 months

Text

IT WILL COME BACK (E.M.)

"honey, don't feed me - i will come back."

summary: when eddie came back from the upside down, he was different. and you finally come to realize just how different the man you saved truly is one night, when push comes to shove.

pairings: kas!eddie munson x reader

warnings: mentions of BLOOD (in sexual manner), mentions of BITING (in sexual manner), allusions to possible coercion (consent is still explicitly stated - trust me), mentions of death and trauma, mentions of eddie's canon death, taking a lot of creative liberty with expansive vampire lore across all media, mentions of murderous dreams? (eddie dreamt about killing reader idk), oral (f receiving), smut. MINORS DO NOT INTERACT - 18+ ONLY.

wc: 7.7k+

a/n: i told y'all i'd write a serious biting/blood kink fic one day - today is the day. very lazily edited so beware.

When Eddie came back from the Upside Down, he was different.

There were subtle changes at first. Small, minute details that were easy to ignore. Everyone could turn a blind eye to them — everyone figured they would fade once the boy healed. His healing was first priority, and whatever lingered after could be dealt with.

Get Eddie better. Then question all that lingers.

A simple plan. A genius plan. A torturous plan.

The two of you had been friends, if you could even call it that, prior to it all. Teasing in the hallways, working on school projects here and there when in shared classes, he was your favorite (and only) dealer when you craved something to make sleep come just a little bit easier. He had been familiar — an old ghost you'd grown comfortable with, long before you’d seen those large and wet eyes looking back up at you in the boathouse.

Long before he’d pieced together the puzzle pieces as to why you’d needed the weed to cancel out the nightmares. Long before he’d processed exactly what those nightmares entailed.

But then, you’d fought for him. You’d fought with him. And most importantly, you’d bled with him.

God, you had bled for him.

Something admirable had blossomed in that short time. Eddie’s entire life had fallen apart, thread by frayed thread, and that new planted emotion had been the only solid thing to emerge for him to absolutely cling to. You were more than a fellow classmate to pass by in the hallways. You were more than his favorite customer, always weaponizing fluttering lashes and puckered lips for a discount he’d have given you regardless.

You were a force to be reckoned with, and had ignited a hunger in him like no other.

That’s all he had thought it was when he’d awoken in his living room — not the distorted version but the real one — to you screaming for the others to help you as you’d sealed his wounds. That’s all he had thought it was when you’d come to visit him as wounds turned to scars, and stabbing pains turned to hungering pangs. So he had tried to bury it, listen to Harrington and Wheeler and Buckley when they told him to take time to readjust. He’d locked away that hunger and focused on his healing, just as everyone else had, and told himself it was just residual feelings.

Residual feelings had been bound to happen after seeing someone bloody their hands, with your own blood, for your survival.

And in his burial, he’d never considered a similar hunger igniting somewhere deep within you.

You visited far more often than you should have. Returning time and time again to change his bandages, taking on one too many shifts at the hospital during his unconscious spells and baring your teeth for anyone who got too close. The sweet blood on your hands hadn’t washed away in that first shower; you swore, if you looked closer, you could still see the stain of nearly losing him across your knuckles.

Physical wounds were easier to heal than the internal ones. It was easier to lather on antibiotic lotion than it was to sleep soundly at night. Both of you came to realize that quickly in the weeks that followed Eddie’s return from the dead.

His nights were plagued with bad dreams, with thirst and cravings he couldn’t quite name. He’d wake up, burning up from the inside out with a fever that never existed. Tearing skin. Puncture wounds. Blood spilling across floors and his lips alike. He could never tell if the shivers that traced his spine had been from the cruel visions that had become his nightly visitors or if it was due to his perpetual drop in temperature that had worried Nancy since the very first night home from the hospital, that had concerned the nurses who piled blankets atop him during his week long sleep of recovery.

Your nights were even less kind. Horrific memories were the demons that haunted you — remembering the way you had watched Eddie cut that sheet rope, remembering finding him bloodied on the ground, remembering the warmth of his blood seeping across your palms and how when your ear had turned just as heated with it as you pressed it to his chest. Only to hear nothing. Emptiness.

His heart had stopped for minutes. Plural.

It had been your steady rhythm, your desperate hands and your gasping breaths breathing into his lungs. You’d sunk your claws into him, caught them right between his ribs and had decided he couldn’t leave you.

Some nights, when you wake up screaming, you can still taste his blood on your lips. You sometimes still swore that when you’d checked for a pulse after that, you hadn’t heard anything. Still worried that Eddie Munson’s heart never really restarted and resumed beating.

The worst was when you’d stare through the faded grey of mornings plastering across your room’s walls, and could still remember that initial look in his blown out pupils, once honey brown swallowed in pure black as he’d taken his first breath on his own.

Hunger.

You’d felt it, too. Shame riddled you on the nights you’d come down from the nightmares and remember it; it was as though the Universe had snapped back into place the moment you’d watched his chest first rise. A need so ardent to remain at his side. A chain clicking into place, binding both yourself and Eddie to one another, unaware of just what price had been paid to keep the boy that had laid under you in this world. Unaware of the hunger you had struck the match too that would become both your downfalls.

And so it had been buried. Something alive, even with your doubts of Eddie’s liveliness, and choking on dirt while six feet under. You and Eddie, two sides of the same coin, had decided to not speak of it. He never told you how he had come to be able to pinpoint your heartbeat in every shared room he entered, throat burning as his gaze always settled on you, and you never told him of the matching aches that had shamefully sparked within your chest and between your hips for him.

A hunger to be near one another. A hunger to devour. Neither of you really understood the heaviness.

“How are you feeling today, Eddie?” Steve asks as he sits on the edge of the new bed in the new apartment in the new part of town the Munson men now occupy.

Government money could go a Hell of a long way. Especially after your home had been devastated by the aftermath of alternate dimensions and unheard of evil being defeated.

“Fine,” is the only response Eddie can muster.

In reality, every time anyone came near him now, he burned. His throat tightened till it was surely raw, he swore his teeth sharpened until a mere slip of his tongue against his canines could bring the taste of metallic blood to his mouth. His entire body would tense with every person that walked through his door.

Control. Whatever was happening to him, Eddie needed to exercise control.

“Just fine?” Steve continues on, not catching the drift as he puts down the bag of things he’d bought at Eddie’s request. Basic things — painkillers, packs of cigarettes, a 6-pack. Some habits die harder and can’t be controlled, “You look like shit, Munson.”

“Gee, thanks, Stevie.”

Everyone had assumed the dark shadows beneath Eddie’s eyes would fade. They assumed his cheeks would eventually fill back out. They assumed he could wash away the ashen shade his hair now flatly flowed in. It was as if the life had been drained from Eddie since that day, and they had all assumed it would eventually flow back into him.

It never did. Just as his new hunger lingered, so did the look of Death.

“Sorry, man,” Steve throws his hands up, shrugging a bit before he stands, “Just being honest. It’s the best policy.”

“Is it? Is it really?”

If honesty was the best policy, Eddie could have filled the room with it. He could admit about the nightmarish wants, needs, he’d been keeping at bay. He could admit the way his irritation had been growing this last week every time another body, another friend, walked through his doorway and it wasn’t you. You, who had begun to plague the night terrors. You, who Eddie was beginning to crave far more than he had before he’d stared the afterlife down the barrel of the gun.

Steve just looks at Hawkins’ newest zombie boy, sighing, “Look, I don’t know what’s got you pissed off-“

“The whole dying thing, for starters.”

“-or why you’ve insisted on being an asshole to all of us these last few weeks-“

“Again, I died.”

“-but you’ve got everyone but me scared to visit you. We’re all scared of you biting our heads off, dude,” Steve finally finishes with a scowl.

Everyone. It’s unspoken that you’re included in the generalization.

It occurs to Eddie that maybe, just maybe, he should be kinder if he ever wants the ache of yearning to see you again to fade. If that’s what he could call this ache.

By the time Steve has left, Eddie’s still thinking about his warning. About the way he had been unusually cruel since coming back to life, since waking up handcuffed to a hospital bed. It made sense initially. But he wasn’t handcuffed to a hospital bed anymore — he was home, or as close to home as he could get, and he was technically safe.

The issue was that he’d accepted his safety. Everyone who had wanted Eddie Munson dead was now six feet under themselves. No, the bigger issue at hand was everyone else’s safety.

Your safety.

Once he’d realized you were the staring lead in his violent fantasies, he had stopped calling. Half of your absence last week had been his fault.

No one really bothered to look deeper into it. Steve didn’t press as to why Eddie’s fridge had remained empty, Nancy didn’t take second glances at the odd books on vampire tales that were now littering all the free real estate of Eddie’s room, and you hadn’t questioned the coldness of his tone whenever he spoke to you. The chill of his words had grown icier than his own palms, desperate to keep you at arm’s length until he figured out what had changed in him that day he came back to life.

He wanted you near. He wanted to rip your throat out. He wanted your blood to stain his mouth and neck just as his had stained your hands. That was an issue. That wasn’t normal.

Something had changed in Eddie Munson, and it had terrified him to his twisted core, and no one had cared enough to notice. Not yet.

–

It took you two weeks to be fed up with the radio silence.

Eddie stopped calling even Jonathan (the only one of the group he found he didn’t want to devour whole, as it turns out). When everyone had mentioned it in passing, it had only reminded you of the sleepless nights you’d be enduring. That small voice in the back of your head that had called out to you in the dead of night, the whisper of come to me that echoed all the way across a broken town.

Come to me.

Sometimes you swore it was Eddie’s voice calling to you. Sometimes, you nearly left your own new apartment in the dead of night, and let your legs guide you to the undead boy you had single-handedly revived.

Tonight was one of those nights. Your stomach was twisting, your head was pounding, your bones were aching. Every single inch of you hurt as it listened to that soft calling, and at some point, you gave in.

Hunger. You were insatiable with the need and drive to be at Eddie’s side. Warnings from the others be damned.

One thing leads to another. You find your coat, you find your car keys. You find yourself driving the deserted streets of Hawkins in the middle of the night. You find yourself on the Munson doorstep, knuckles shaking and aching with the knowledge that just beyond the wood of the door, he was there. You don’t have to see him to feel him; his thrumming presence, his anchoring existence.

Come to me.

The door swings open before you get the chance to knock. This string tying your two souls together is not a one-way channel, it seems.

“Why are you here?”

You watch him wince as the harsh words leave him. Immediately, you know that the abrasiveness is on instinct. Just as something claws inside of you to be near him, there is something within him howling to keep you far from him.

The polarity of two magnets. Some nights, surely, his twists in a way that would draw him to you, just as yours will twirl with the sensibility that whatever has changed within him should give you cause to run as far away from him as possible.

But tonight, your magnetism only yanks you closer to him. He doesn’t even invite you in, and yet, you find yourself stepping over the threshold of the new apartment.

“You’ve gone quiet,” you whisper as an answer. It’s not what he wants to hear, grimace deepening, nearly a scowl now, “I just… It’s been weeks. I…”

I missed you. I needed you. I heard you in my dreams and I’ve never had much self-control when it comes to you.

Magnets are a useless metaphor for whatever is happening here between you. A better comparison would be the cliche image of a moth to a flame; he’s dangerous, threatening to burn you alive, and you still find your heart fluttering after him hopelessly. You’re going to get scorned, and you’ll still never learn. You’ve fallen victim to a tired narrative that you’d rolled your eyes at in a plethora of books. How many times had you sworn that wouldn’t be you? Just how many eye rolls had you exhausted at the mere idea?

And now, here you were, on his doorstep. Grasping for something you’re not sure either of you can give.

“I’ve been dealing with a few things,” he mutters as he shuts the door behind you, shielding you both from the chill of the night. The room is still cold, especially in his radius, “Didn’t think it would make much of a difference.”

“You didn’t think I’d care if you just stopped calling?” you turn slowly, taking in the state of the living room. Wayne was clearly gone for the night, work most probably, and several books littered the coffee table. Eddie had been the one reading them, lounging on the couch.

The last time you had seen him, he couldn’t even sit up in bed on his own.

He’s keeping an unusual distance, nearly leaning back out of your vicinity, “Figured you were busy.”

He’s never been this short with you. His words are choked up, his body tense with pain. You assume it’s just his injuries bothering him.

You couldn’t be more wrong, but you’re completely unaware.

“I brought you back from the dead, and you think I’d still be too busy for you,” you laugh humorlessly, fully in disbelief at his pitiful excuse, “Eddie, we could find out Vecna didn’t really die, those damn cracks in the Earth could open right back up, and the first person I’d care about finding is you.”

The animal inside that had been yearning for his presence is satiated for now, but you can still feel it lurking in the darkest depths of your mind, ready to call out a new request at any moment. It’s the distraction that has you spilling pathetic truths.

The only response he offers you is a dead stare. With eyes wide, pupils nearly swallowed up by darkness.

“You could have called,” your voice cracks, body shaking with the effort not to take a step closer to him, “You could have just let me know you were still alive.”

“I-”

He cuts himself off when he’s the one taking a step closer. His entire face twists with pain, and you give up keeping your distance. In an instant, you’re at his side as your hand reaches out for his bicep.

He flinches away. Something inside of you burns.

Your hand is hovering in the air between the two of you, and in this lighting, you swear the skin is still stained with the blood that won’t wash away.

“Please don’t,” he begs, “I’m fine, but… please.”

You don’t know what he’s begging for. Distance, for you to pull your hand away, time – you don’t know what he needs.

“We should sit down,” you insist, finally pulling your hand as far from him as possible but making no move to put the space back between you two, “Has anyone helped you with your bandages? If your wounds got infected-”

“They didn’t.”

“If you didn’t change the bandages, they definitely could have-”

“They’re not infected,” he grits out, but he’s still walking over to the couch regardless, “They’re healed.”

Healed.

Mere weeks ago, those wounds were still deep enough to keep you from ever achieving a full night's rest. Deep enough to worry you to the core that you would wake up to them finally having consumed him. Deep enough that you all assumed it would take him months, not weeks, to recover.

“What do you mean they healed, Eddie?” you whisper, almost reaching out for him as he sits down.

Your hand twitches, but the echoes of his begging and his flinching keep it at bay as you stand before him.

“I mean, they healed,” he huffs, nostrils flaring as he takes deep breaths. He’s looking anywhere in the room but at you, his gaze subverting you with purpose. As though the mere sight of you, the mere proximity, is painful to him, “Don’t know how, don’t know why – they just did.”

“So why are you still in pain?”

A sharper intake of breath. A hush of silence falling over the apartment. Even the buzz of the building’s AC unit has faded from all your senses. It’s just you and him, and a heavy quietude like no other.

Until he finally breaks the surface tension, breathing out, “You.”

Your heart drops. That tug inside your chest, the one taut as you look at him right within your reach yet still so far away, almost snaps.

“Me?”

He nods with a harsh swallow, “I- Look, I can’t explain it, but when I came back, I came back…”

“Different?”

He doesn’t have to explain it. You’d felt it.

The moment his eyes had opened, just moments after what should have been blissful victory. The taste of his blood heavy on your tongue, a terrible sweetness that had choked you rather than its initial metallic twang. The whispers of his voice in your mind.

He wasn’t the only one changed from whatever had occurred that night.

“Different is a good way of putting it,” he nods, looking up with apologetic eyes, “It’s not you. It’s cliche as fuck, but it really isn’t – it’s me. I died, and you brought me back, but I don’t think either of us knew the cost.”

The yearning. The nightmares. The unmanageable needs. The hunger.

“What was the cost?”

He almost doesn’t hear you. Your voice is a whisper, tone weighed down with the curse of knowing.

You might not have known the cost when you were pressing your palms into his chest through your wretched sobs, functioning as his heart and lungs for nearly a minute, but you think you might have a clue now.

All that had been tethering you to him since he’d come back to you, all those webs and strings that had formed their knots around both of your necks. He’d changed, and you had plummeted right into the chasm of the unknown with him.

His blood on your tongue, sweet as honey.

Blood shouldn’t be sweet.

He grabs one of the books off the coffee table, motioning for you to join him on the couch. Under the weight of your realization, you’re nearly under a trance. All he has to do is wave a hand, and you follow.

You’re at his beck and call. Just like you had been when he’d been calling out for you, yearning for you.

“Don’t make me say it,” he mutters under his breath, tossing the book into your lap the moment you’ve sat down. This time, you’re mindful to keep your distance.

This time, you’re painfully aware of the compromising situation the two of you have found yourselves in.

The book is older, leather-bound and worn from years of readers’ careless hands breaking the spine. The corners of every page are weather, close to disintegration. The entire thing could easily pass for a Halloween decoration.

It’s not. You flip open to the title page, and if Eddie didn’t appear so deathly serious at your side, you would have scoffed.

“Dracula?” you question carefully, running a finger over the delicate script of the title, “Eddie, I don’t-”

“I’m not insane,” he interrupts you, “I’m not fucking- I swear to you. I’ve gathered up every goddamn book about it that I can. Fictional, nonfictional. Just- there’s obviously a Hell of a lot more fictional material to work with, okay?”

A vampire. He’s convinced he’s a vampire.

And even worse – you’re convinced right along with him.

You turn your head to look at him, trying to find the right words, but all you find is Eddie burying his face in his hands, head nearly hung between his knees.

“I can’t eat normal food anymore,” his voice is muffled, “That was the first sign. Couldn’t stomach it, made me throw up for hours when I tried. And then all those nurses kept talking about how I was healing faster than they expected. Most of my smaller cuts – those healed in under a day,” he finally lifts his face just enough to turn and peer at you through all the stray curls that fall into his vision, “My vision and hearing were the next things I noticed. Remember how I had a nonstop migraine those first few days?”

He doesn’t need to convince you, but the argument is compelling, “It… wasn’t a migraine.”

He shakes his head. “Not even close. Just turns out that it’s a killer to get used to fucking superhuman night vision and impeccable hearing. I still can’t handle being out in the sun very long. I don’t… burn up or any of that shit, but… it just…” he trails off, shoulders falling in defeat before he throws himself back against the couch. When he continues, his tone is flat, devoid of all emotion, “I keep having these dreams about you, too. Bad dreams. Terrible dreams.”

You shut the book, toss it back onto the coffee table, and decide to Hell with keeping your distance.

You need it. Even if he’ll only allow you to get an inch closer to him, you need it.

“What do you mean by terrible dreams?” you ask, breath catching at the end of your question as you scoot yourself closer on the couch. Even with such a small movement, Eddie is quick to notice, eyes flicking to you quickly with a sense of urgency flashing behind them.

“Don’t,” he lowly warns.

“What’s happening in your dreams, Eddie?”

Another inch closer. His jaw clenches.

“Sweetheart, do not-”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. Your knee bumps into his thigh, and you watch him go rigid. Hands turning to fists, eyes pinching shut and face twisting with the same pain he’d worn the ghost of when you first arrived at the apartment.

The moment you touch him, you see it. The flashes of his nightmares, all those terrible actions haunting him every time he closed his eyes. You. Your blood. That hunger.

Like a blackhole in the center of your stomach, it burns viciously as it sucks the air out of your lungs. It threatens to cave your entire being into itself until there’s nothing left. Not even a crumb of who you once were.

But it's not yours. It’s Eddie’s.

That pain on his face is only exhibiting a fraction of what he was feeling. That dizzying craving that he’d miraculously been keeping at bay since you’d simply entered the building, not even yet knocking on his door. You hadn’t even been in the same room as him yet, and he had still known. Had smelt you, had felt you.

He could almost taste you.

“You…” you have to shift your knee away from him, break the touch, break the connection, “You haven’t fed since you woke up.”

“I haven’t fed, period.”

With the connection severed, he somehow finds it in himself to open his eyes once more. You don’t know how – if he’s feeling what you’d just been privy to, you’d be an incoherent mess on the floor. Something feral and unrecognizable.

Although, maybe he was nearly there. You couldn’t see his pupils. That same look when he’d first woken up – a man swallowed whole by hunger.

“You’ve been dreaming about ripping my throat out,” you say it as a matter of fact, not a lick of judgment in your tone.

It wasn’t you scrutinizing him. It was what you had seen, with one simple touch.

His voice is hoarse as he echoes in confirmation, “I’ve been dreaming about ripping your throat out.”

You should probably be afraid. All your survival instincts should be kicking in, your feet should be carrying you towards the door, you shouldn’t be leaning in closer.

“You know what really sealed the whole vampire ordeal though, sweetheart?” he breathes out, your eyes fluttering shut at the lull in his hushed tone.

Just as you’ve been leaning in, he’s been slowly turning his body to face yours, hands twitching at his sides. He’s no longer retreating from your presence, sucking down breaths in harsh gulps the closer you grow to him.

He’s losing control. You’re losing control.

That thread, vibrant red as it draws you near him, is clear as day now. A noose around your neck. A road to your damnation.

A road to your hunger.

You hardly hum in response, completely entranced now. Had he ever been capable of this before? Of holding you beneath such an inescapable spell with such ease?

Probably.

He doesn’t use his words to answer. Instead, he finally takes the plunge.

His head ducks down towards your neck just as his hands lose the war, grabbing onto your hips, dragging you dangerously close to him until his lips hovered just over your pulse point. And by some strength that you certainly don’t possess, he stops there. Letting his lips barely brush against your soft skin, breath coming out in pants for you to feel, to relish, to get lost in. And just as soon as those pants, those waves, become a comfortable pattern to succumb to, you feel them.

His fangs.

Grazing over your sensitive skin. Sharp tips nipping at a surface they could so easily break, pierce with one wrong move. Your pulse is thrumming beneath the surface, heart racing painfully as Eddie’s grip turns bruising.

Come to me.

“Please.”

You’re the one begging now. It goes against every rule you’ve ever seen applied in fiction. If a vampire is baring their fangs against your neck, you should be reaching for a stake. The only noise escaping you should be a scream for help, not the pathetic whimpers beginning to slip out.

“I can’t,” you feel his gasp more than you can hear it. Your blood is too loud, roaring in your ears as you feel the fangs slip with his words, “I can’t.”

That hunger you felt, the one that had called out to you through the night and led you right to his doorstep, is unavoidable now. You need him closer, you need him to do this. For the first time since you had saved his life and tasted his blood after the Upside Down, everything seems to click into place. All he needs to do is let them sink into you, take that final leap of faith and reprieve that ache you’ve battled for weeks now.

You’re so close. So close.

“Eddie, please,” you’re nearly sobbing, hands gripping onto his shoulders, trying to pull him in closer.

But you’re no match for his strength. You don’t know if it’s a new addition with his vampire business or if there was always more to him than met the eye, but he easily stays stoic against your attempts, not moving a centimeter. Still hovering, still just barely making contact with your heartbeat.

“I-” his head drops slightly, tip of his nose beginning to trail down the side of your neck, mouth no longer dangerously close, “You saw my dreams-”

“I trust you.”

You do. You trust him even more now than you had when you first stumbled upon him in the boathouse. More than when he had pleaded his case, promised he hadn’t been the one to kill Chrissy Cunningham. The trust comes easier than breathing as his nose nuzzles into the junction of your neck and shoulder.

“You shouldn’t,” he mutters, fangs now brushing your collar bone, “You really, really shouldn’t.”

He doesn’t stop you when you move to straddle his hips. Your weight settles onto his lap, and he only fights to keep his face burrowed there in your shoulder, arms now moving around your waist to hold you tightly to him.

His self-control is impeccable. You’d admire him and all this impressiveness another time, when something inside of you wasn’t lamenting his resistance.

All at once, it occurs to you how to give him the final push.

“Did I ever tell you how sweet your blood was on my tongue after I brought you back?” you start, sighing, rolling your shoulders to expose more of your neck, grip on his shoulders tightening, “All that blood, all those tears, and I still can’t forget how welcome that warmth of you was in my mouth. How I needed more. How I pictured it every night, after every nightmare-”

He breaks.

One moment, his nose is buried in your skin. And the next, his fangs are.

You weren’t sure what to expect, but relief would have been low on your list. You gasp out in initial shock, but as you feel his teeth dig in, it’s as though something has snapped. The ache has been satiated, preening as you feel the warmth of your blood contrast the chill of his chin pressing into you.

If there’s any pain, you don’t feel it through the haze of pleasure.

Ice shards spread through your bloodstream, but the point in which Eddie’s mouth is connected to you radiates heat. He’s pulling you into him, letting go completely and relinquishing all that control as he nearly purrs against your skin in satisfaction. That connection is back, two minds linking with a heavy click, and you can feel all his pleasure mingling with your own. Satiation, desperation, adoration – the plethora of emotions all swarm your head and block out any better judgment.

You’d let him drain you dry, if that’s what he needed. If nothing more than to hear those soft moans as his fangs sink even deeper.

He pulls back too soon, though, suddenly and unexpectedly. Just as quickly as he had given in to both your desires, he’s putting an end to them. He hadn’t taken much blood, but your head is swimming from the loss all the same. Your grip has gone slack on him, hands slipping down to just barely cradle his biceps while his own touch stays unyielding around you.

You can hear his thoughts. Or rather, maybe more aptly put, you can feel them.

He wants to devour you. Wholly, ruthlessly.

He looks up at you with pupils still blown wide, chest heaving and a small scarlet drip trailing from the corner of his mouth. For the first time since he’d come back to you, he looks alive. Hair fluffed in a halo around his head, skin tinted with a healthy glow and unmistakable blush, bags beneath his eyes faded for the time being.

You were never quite sure if Eddie Munson’s heart had ever restarted, knew for certain that it hadn’t now, but you swear you can feel its pulse finally thrumming for you.

I need more.

It’s his voice in your head, echoing in the empty space as you look down with wild eyes to match his.

But it’s your voice in his head when you respond instantaneously.

Then take it.

Something unspoken lies there in the need. He doesn’t move back to your neck, doesn’t bite down and drink his fill of your blood. He only stares for a few seconds, watching the welt of blood that pools from each puncture wound of his making. His eyes follow when it runs down your skin, as though he might lose it should he so much as blink. Down, down, down. Following the trail that his nose had followed minutes before, across your collarbone until it stains the neck of your loose shirt.

My pleasure.

His hold proves helpful when he quickly changes positions, roughly throwing you down onto the couch before he’s settled between your thighs, crawling his way up your body. He pays close attention to the maroon trail on your throat, his tongue cleaning up after his mess, savoring the taste of you on his tongue.

Sweet as honey.

His tongue only pauses for a moment over the bite wound, pressing into it, making your back arch as you press yourself fully into him. Your head digs painfully into the cushion behind you as you expose your neck, wanting and begging and pleading all without words.

“I think we should take this off,” he plucks at the hem of your shirt, tugging hard before he begins to carefully lift. His freezing knuckles brush against your burning skin, eliciting a whimper from you, “Before we make an ever bigger mess. Don’t you agree, sweetheart?”

A sultry tone you’ve never heard from him before. Honeyed words, familiar to how he once spoke, but entirely new in the way they curl around you. There’s a confidence there, a baiting that he’s luring you with.

“Yes, please.”

He could ask anything of you in this moment, and you’d be eager to comply. Fueled by your desire for him before the events of spring break, worsened by his new condition. A bright, red, vibrating thread. You couldn’t severe the tie if you wanted to.

And you most certainly did not want to.

Your shirt is removed, his hands careful despite the way they shake. His words may be smooth, but each move is jagged, the only sign you had that he’s still exercising control.

“And these?” he whispers, lowering his lips to your sternum as he toys with the band of your pants. His fangs scratch down the center of your stomach as it quivers with each breath, careful to not break skin as they make their presence known. You nearly lose all capability to speak until he says, “Use your words, baby. Tell me I can take them off.”

Yes.

His eyes flare, looking up to you, “Use your words. Not your mind. I want to hear how badly you need me – I want everyone to hear you beg.”

The words strike straight to your core. Lashing out in your lower stomach, burning deliciously.

It’s more than putting on a show. He needs to know you want this.

“Take them off,” you gasp out, hands wandering to tangle in his hair, “Take- Take it all off. I’m yours, Eddie.”

Shaking hands perform a dance you had long since fantasized about. In easier days, when Eddie had been uninvolved in the episode down, heart still beating along as he would bounce his knees in front of you and his fingers would idly fiddle with his pencils and pens. A yearning, a wanting, you’d always held for the boy.

He used to be an escape from it all. A pretty thing to daydream about when you weren’t worried about monsters. And now – he was one of the monsters.

Your monster. Tied to you inexplicably, brought back by your hands and your stubborn efforts.

His lips and fangs are one in the same, trailing along your body as he finds a home at the apex between your thighs. Even in undeath, he’s the most beautiful thing your mind could conjure.

You’d forgotten how he was privy to your every thought until he reacts.

“You’re too sweet,” he murmurs, smirking salaciously as he mouths innocently at that sensitive skin of your inner thigh, tongue darting out to lick a cool stride before he breathes out against it. It has you writhing beneath his hold, “You’ve wanted this all this time, sweetheart? Wanted to see me, between these pretty thighs, making you scream my name?” His mouth falls open a bit wider, the sharp canines pressing but not sinking against where he had just licked. He holds there, eyes locking with yours, until he pulls back to cockily say, “Could’ve just said something, y’know. Didn’t have to bring me back from the dead to have me devoted to you.”

Finally, finally, he lets his fangs sink back into you. The soft meat of your thigh is more pliant in his mouth, and he doesn’t linger as long as he had on your neck. One nick, just enough to start the blood flow, before he’s pulling back and licking hungrily at the scarlet liquid. Less for feeding, more for marking.

Marking you as his, just as you have with him. His methods just appeared a bit more physical.

He’s quick to avert his focus on your cunt, no warning before the tongue still covered in your blood is taking long strides over your entrance and clit. Devotion. That was the only word to describe the way he was unraveling you, alternating between indulging in your sweet cunt and returning back to that bite, going as far to even sink his teeth in a second time to take a proper drink of you. His chin and lips grow slick with it all – with the blood, with your wetness, with his own saliva. A starved man with a feast before him.

The way he’s rutting his hips into the couch as he slings your legs over his shoulders doesn’t go unnoticed.

It’s a mess. A wonderful, satisfying, enchanting mess.

Beautiful. So beautiful, all mine.

His voice has you teetering on an edge of new carnal pleasure. Completely consumed by him, your hands tugging viciously at his curls. His face is round once more, eyes and cheeks no longer sunken in, vitality being breathed into him with each taste of your blood.

Let me touch you. Please.

You beg over that connection, trying your best to not buck your hips mercilessly against his tongue. You feel his wicked grin.

“You’re already touching me, sweetheart,” he reaches up, untangling your fingers from his hair for emphasis before he’s pinning them to your sides, “And what did I say about using our words? Hm?”

“Need more,” your voice is wrecked as you tilt your head back, wrists straining against his hold, “I need more.”

You’re fully light-headed now, the blood loss finally catching up. Maybe you were about to let him drain you dry.

And what a beautiful way to die. At the hand, at the fangs, of the one you had fought so urgently to bring back to you.

One last timid lick to the wound on your thigh, and he’s crawling his way back up to you. The mess doesn't phase you as he kisses you hungrily – the blood remains sweet rather than metallic, the remnants of your juices still on his tongue – and you meet him with an unbridled fervent. Nipping at his lips with your own dull canines as if you were the one looking for a bite of vivacity.

You don’t know when he lets go of your wrists, or when your hands find their way up beneath his shirt. The specifics don’t matter once he’s naked before you, clothes discarded messily to the ground with your own. The only thing that matters is the weight of him, the reminder that he was still here as his hips roll into yours and the head of him catches on your entrance.

He had been dead. For minutes. And you had brought him back to you.

The process had taken longer than the mere CPR administered, had taken weeks of whatever waiting game you two had tortured yourselves with, but you had him now. He was yours. You were his. There wasn’t a deity, a monster, an omniscient being in this world that could take that away from you. Not even Death herself.

“Last chance, baby,” he whispers against your lips, holding himself up so that not a single inch of his skin pressed to yours. You nearly cried out, missing that connection, missing him. Your hunger, the hunger for him entirely, rattles your bones once more, “Say the word, and I’ll-”

“No,” your hands pause their exploration of skin jagged with scars. Reminders of those few dreadful moments in which the world existed without Eddie Munson in it, that would fade in time but never fully disappear. Always there, just like the stain of his blood on your palms. Always there, just like your desperation to have him at your side. “I meant it when I said I’m yours. I’m not changing my mind. I want this.”

His skin is back on yours, body laid fully along your own road map, and it all comes flooding back. The pain of seeing his lifeless body, the nights spent in an eerie hospital room, baring your own teeth at any one who came too close to the man you had pulled back from the ledge of Death. The anxiety, the fear, the relief, the yearning – it all accumulates as he’s pressing into you, brimming you so full that there’s no room for memories of nightmares.

He’s here. He’s yours. You’re his.

His heart didn’t need to beat for you to accept that truth.

You can’t decipher which chants of your name fall from his lips for others to hear, and which ones whisper in the depths of your mind for only you to bear witness to. Each curse, each grunt, each moan – there for you and only you anyways. You’re entirely unsure if your lips even separate once as he thrusts, cock brushing somewhere deep in you that has you clenching around him.

And if his fangs wander, it only adds to the pleasure.

Blood, sweat, and tears all mingle between your bodies. He’s holding you tighter than water, as though you’re at risk of disappearing from him at any given moment. But that link between your two minds, your two souls, is unwavering. It’s the only thing grounding you to the moment as your half curls around his waist and your heel digs into his lower back. Urging him, pressing him, taking him.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he says it out loud, this time. You feel his lips brushing against your ear as he does, “Gripping me so tightly. This pussy was fucking made for me.”

Every movement only unlocks something more feral inside the two of you. Your nails rake down his back, leaving angry red lines to trace over once it’s all said and done. There’s enough shallow bite marks across your neck that you’ll be wearing scarves for weeks, months. The others might question it, strangers might stare, but the pride you feel as he marks you is unmatched for any anxiety about it.

That black hole of hunger is no longer swallowing either of you whole. That debilitating pain, that animal inside, has been tamed.

When his hips begin to stutter, mouth no longer capable of the strength to properly bite you as his lips only smear the soft spattering of blood pooling at the base of your throat, you’re already there. Squeezing him tightly, sucking him in, voice raw as you let everyone know who’s ravishing you.

Eddie.

Hawkins’ newest zombie boy – Hawkins’ newest vampire.

The climax is just as pleasurable as the lead up. The haze lingers long after his spent has dripped out of you, long after he’s collapsed into your body with exhaustion and contentment. The blood dries, the wounds clot – but that haze doesn’t falter.

As long as his skin presses to yours, you feel that caress of his mind against yours.

“Did…” you’re breathless as his face nuzzles into your nude chest, a few mindless hums of gratification still slipping from him as you bring a hand to toy with the curls at the crown of his head, “Did any of your vampire books say anything about… that?”

The connection. The bloodlust. The spell you swear he still has you under, even as it’s all said and done.

He snorts against your skin, “Not that I, uh, recall.”

“What? You mean to tell me in all your research, you never dived into any vampire smut?” you tsk jokingly, a calm smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. He lifts his head, and you swear, those honey-brown irises have threads of a deep maroon now, “You’re slacking, Munson.”

“Why read about it when I can just experience it?” he coos, letting his nose and lips drag across your still hot skin before he rests his chin on your sternum, “Besides, I mean – we’ll need to do this again, won’t we, baby? For research.”

Your head still spins. Your body aches in a welcome manner. There will be a need for explanations to others, for actually researching his condition, later on. But for now, it’s enough.

The pounding behind your ribcage, the one you know Eddie feels for the both of you when his ear presses to your chest, is enough.

Of course, lover.

That thought stays between the two of you. The world doesn’t need to know what can’t hurt them.

eddie's taglist: @capricornrisingsstuff @thisisktrying @hideoutside @vol2eddie @corrcdedcoffin @ches-86 @alovesongtheywrote @its-not-rain @feralchaospixie @cheesypuffkins87 @thebook-hobbit @babez-a-licious @eddies-acousticguitar @aysheashea @kellsck @cosmorant @billyhvrgrove-main @micheledawn1975 @eddiesxangel @siriuslysmoking @witchwolflea @tlclick73 @magicalchocolatecheesecake @mizzfizz @nanaminswhore @mikiepeach @ali-r3n @hawkebuckley @alwaysbeenfamous @darkyuffie-blog @vintagehellfire @lilmisssiren @elvendria @loveryanax @stylexrepp @princessstolas @fangirling-4-ever @eddiesguitarskills @babez-a-licious @josephquinnsfreckles

join my taglist!

#ghost's stories #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #kas!eddie munson #kas!eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson angst #reader essentially became soul bound to him womp womp #don't drink a vampire's blood kids #i really didn't edit that intensely i spent two hours fucking with photoshop #if it's bad it's bad #finally dipping my toes into kas!eddie tho wahoo #vampire!eddie munson #someone requested eddie with this song forever ago but i lost the ask #eddie reading dracula to figure out if he's become a vampire is actually so fucking funny to me

911 notes · View notes

awoogayanderes · 10 months

Text

LEARNING ABOUT JAPANESE CULTURE WITH BSD MEN

➪ requests : “Can i request atsushi, dazai and tecchou with foreign gf?” - anonymous

“Hey, love!! Could I request Chuuya and Kunikida (separately) with a gender neutral s/o who isn't native Japanese and struggles with talking Japanese and things like chopsticks? <3 - Anon 🥂” - anonymous ( 🥂 ? )

➪ other notes : these prompts were very similar so i decided why not combine them ! this is actually the first time i get very similar prompts at the same time, but i feel as if i didn’t do this enough justice so i apologize, non edited

Atsushi Nakajima :

- god he’s so patient with you, even if you’re not a fast japanese learner, he’ll always help you out by smiling and gently correcting you

- i feel as if his orphanage offered some type of short term class to learn english even if it was just the basics

- so while he teaches you japanese, you’re teaching him more english

- the first meal he ever introduces to you is chazuke, a comfort food to him that he hopes will also satisfy you

- if you struggle with your chopsticks, he would softly place your fingers where they’re supposed to be, with a pink blush on his face

- when both of you go to festivals, he’ll help you pick out a kimono or a yukata

- even though he thinks you look lovely in every color, his face will always soften when you wear purple, preferably iris or periwinkle

- atsushi tries his best to teach you money currency but will sometimes disregard it since he grew up with no money

- “struggling with kanji?” atsushi said with an accent as he sat next to you

- you nodded, trying to find the correct words to express your frustration in japanese

- you sigh leaning your head on his shoulder, he knows you’re mad so he soothes you

- 9/10 experience with this sweet boy, he has his mini flaws but he’s all around perfect

Osamu Dazai :

- he’s definitely the type of guy to quiz you on japanese and when you get it right, he gives you a kiss as a “prize”

- he definitely knows english, he just chooses to act dumb at times

- he definitely makes you eat canned crab with him but there’s times where he’ll splurge on real crab for you, a purchase he doesn’t regret

- when you’re struggling with your chopsticks, he’ll come from behind you, molding himself against you to fix your hold on your chopsticks

- do not take him shopping for a kimono or a yukata, he’ll make you try on all of them

- i feel as if he’d love to see you in a saphire blue or a french blue, he’d giggle with a coy smile

- he teaches you about money but only when you spend it ( he’d definitely leech off of you and take advantage of your lack of knowledge )

- due to him knowing english, you normally don’t speak japanese with him, but when you do, he encourages you

- “here let me help you,” dazai says in english wrapping himself behind you casually

- he places both of his hand on your dominant hand, fixing its posture

- he places a kiss on your cheek from behind you, lingering onto you as you try your best to say “go away” in japanese

- 7/10 experience, despite his slight lack of care for your money, he’s a sweet guy to be with

Tecchou Suehiro :

- honestly i can imagine him forgetting that you’re not fluent in japanese, like you can be having a conversation and you look at him perplexed and he realizes what the problem is

- i think he knows english but isn’t really fluent but he still tries his best for you

- DO NOT EAT ANYTHING HE MAKES FOR YOU !!! you will get food poisoning from his awful creations of food

- honestly you’d need to ask him to help you with your chopsticks, most of the time he wouldn’t notice it

- but he’d basically demonstrate where your fingers are supposed to go rather than move around your fingers

- due to his work, he can’t really take any time off to shop for a kimono/yukata, though if he did, he’d just follow your every move

- he likes seeing you in kinda like a maroonish color with maybe a yellow sash

- idk what you expected, he’s the weirdest guy in this list who likes random combinations including your clothing

- he doesn’t really teach you about money but if you ask, he’d explain it to the best of his ability

- “i made some food for you,” tecchou said, sounding out the words

- “thank you,” you smile back at him, knowing you weren’t about to eat the abomination of food he just made for you

- 8/10 experience, he’s all around perfect except that you might get food poisoning

Chuuya Nakahara :

- another patient guy like atsushi when it comes to you except that when he gets annoyed, he blows up at you accidentally

- he’s another guy who knows english due to the port mafia, but he prefers not to speak it as he can’t fully show his emotions

- chuuya doesn’t particularly have a favorite meal to share with you, what he does have is expensive bottles of wine that would create the perfect late night date

- but if you don’t really like wine, then he probably provides you with any high quality food, i personally think he has a thing for rice

- if you ever ask for help with chopsticks, he either does what atsushi does and fix your fingers or he would tell you to get a fork

- he would literally order custom made kimonos/yukatas for you, he wants then to be perfect for his beloved

- you cannot tell me he’d love to see you in black, can’t really take out the mafia in this guy

- another person who doesn’t teach you about money because he insists he’ll cover all of your costs, you just need to pay with his cash or swipe his card

- “money ? nah you don’t need to learn about it, i’ll pay for anything and everything you need and want,” chuuya says taking a sip of wine

- “are you sure ? i don’t want to make you feel like i’m taking advantage of you,” you said slowly still learning japanese

- “yeah don’t worry about it,” the orange haired man said inviting you to take a sip of his wine

- 9/10 experience with chuu, he does get annoyed when you don’t understand him the first few times, but he makes up for it

Doppo Kunikida :

- you probably learn japanese the fastest if you’re with him, he quite literally forces it down your throat so you can adapt quickly

- agree with me or not, i think he doesn’t know english BUT he would learn it so quickly to make communication with you easier

- this guy definitely cooks you home made meals, oden being his first dish he introduces you to, something you both thoroughly enjoy

- if you struggle with chopsticks, he’d give you a clear description on how to properly use them

- he also tends to give you books on japanese culture knowing that the more informed you are, the better

- if he has time, he does take you kimono/yukata shopping, often looking for good quality at a deserved expense

- he absolutely loves seeing you in green, typically emerald or basil, his face turning red as if he sees you try them on

- he’s the only man on his list who genuinely teaches you about money and living cost

- “are you sure i need all of these books,” you question as he stacks them up in front of you

- “i want you to become independent as soon as possible in the occasion i might not be here to help you,” he says, pushing his glasses up

- you deadpan but still thank him for caring about your needs more than you even do

- 10/10 experience with kunikida, he’s quite literally the ideal boyfriend in this situation, not leaving you ignorant in a new country

#written by terra #sincerely terra #engraved with tenderness #bungou stray dogs x reader #bsd #bsd x reader #atsushi nakajima x reader #atsushi x reader #osamu dazai x reader #dazai x reader #tecchou suehiro x reader #tecchou x reader #tetcho suehiro #tetchou x reader #chuuya nakahara x reader #chuuya x reader #kunikida doppo x reader #kunikida x reader #im so sleepy

2K notes · View notes

sailoryooons · 3 months

Text

Red | KNJ | (m)

☾ Pairing: Werewolf!Namjoon x f. reader

☾ Summary: For as long as you can remember, your village has been relatively normal. But when people begin to turn up dead right after a group of newcomers arrive, pieces of your past start to fall into place, and something feels familiar - particularly the quiet man who can't take his eyes off of you.

☾ Word Count: 21,148

☾ Genre: Supernatural, thriller, smut

☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

☾ Warnings: Fantasy violence, light depections of murder and animal attacks, mentions of gore, discussions about community displacement and violence, Yoongi is an asshole, animal attacks, depictions of blood, tbh reader and Namjoon don’t know each other THAT well when they fuck so idk, implied protecting from a far but not in a stalker way, explicit language, intense sequences of fear and anxiety, reader is attacked by a wolf, there is a mention of animals being hurt/killed but not in explicit details, dead bodies, arson, sexually explicit content invluding vaginal fingering, nipple play, vaginal penetration, a little bit of mention of fluids but not really.

☾ Published: Sunday, January 21 2024

☾ A/N: I wish I could explain to you how this got to be so long. I wrote it over several weeks and each day I picked it back up, I just kept adding dialogue and scenery and setting. Like half of this isn’t even Namjoon and reader reacting - what was I doing? I wish I knew! I hope you like my spin on Red Riding Hood anyway! I tried to do this in a way that it doesn’t seem creepy that Namjoon was silently looking out for reader but like… I could understand if someone finds it creepy I am so sorry lmfao. I did read through this to edit but I 100% missed stuff because I'm a rougher editor and this is unbeta'd.

☾ A/N 2: This is a Red Riding Hood Retelling that is similar in vibe to the 2011 Red Riding Hood movie directed by Catherine Hardwicke.

Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

| Masterlist | Ask | Make Me Your Villain Collab | Taglist

Father always said not to go into the woods at night. Like him, though, the woods have always called to you, feeling like a second home. You’ve never been able to explain it, and you’ve stopped trying to.

It’s a little chilly outside, the first breath of harvest air nipping at your skin. In a few weeks, it will be freezing outside, forcing you into cloaks and furs.

Grass crunches beneath your feet as you slip through the small yard and toward the tree line. Your house already sits at the edge of the village, the dark trees stretching high above the rooftops. Soon the trees will be dusted in snow, but for now, they sway gently in the autumn breeze, turned silver by the moonlight.

You’ve always loved the woods. The sounds of the crickets singing and rabbits dashing underfoot are calming, the smell of sticky pine and fresh air invigorating. You especially love them at night, hidden beneath boughs and walking through the shafts of moonlight that slip through the trees.

The best part is that you don’t feel so alone out here. There is a feeling you cannot place each time you enter the woods, like you’re a little closer to discovering yourself. You’ve been chasing that feeling since you were a little girl, hungry for finding whatever it is that drives you out here.

Hands tucked into your pockets, you walk the same route you always follow. It isn’t deep into the woods - you aren’t silly enough to believe you’re safe alone in the dark - but it’s enough of a walk to clear your head.

Howls echo up into the night, a wolf pack on their hunt. The sound of them makes the hair on your arms stand on end.

The wolves don’t come very close to the village anymore since the vicious wolf hunts when you were barely old enough to remember them. The relationship between the men of your home and the wolves in the wood is violent, a chill cooling your skin every time they’re mentioned by one of your neighbors.

A terrible howl splits the night. You feel your body go cold with fear, warmth leaching out of you as you press yourself against a tree, heart in your throat. The sound is something like a howl laced with utter anguish, chilling you down to the marrow. It tapers off into a whimper before falling silent again.

Pressed against the tree, you wait. Your heart is beating so harshly that it feels like you might vomit in fear. Soft whimpering drifts on the wind. You hold your breath and strain your ears. It almost sounds like an injured dog.

It tugs at your heartstrings. You bite your lip, weighing your options. The noise sounded like it came from the south a little off of your path and toward the ravine that splits the part of the woods that is relatively safe from the deeper part where the animals are more lethal and more frequent. You could easily find your way back if you made it to the ravine, and as the whimpering vanishes entirely, you can’t help but imagine an animal in pain.

The most difficult part about working with Dr. Kim at the veterinary clinic is always the animals that he can’t fix. You’ve held the hands of loved ones who couldn’t save their aging dogs, and you’ve hushed lame horses as Dr. Kim prepared draughts to send them to sleep and then to death.

Pivoting, you turn and march toward the initial sound. It may perhaps be the single worst idea you’ve ever had, but you suddenly don’t care. You’ve worked with Dr. Kim enough to know how to triage animal wounds, and the thought of leaving something alone and suffering replaces any sort of fear you originally had.

You’re careful not to lose your footing as the ground slopes steadily as you get closer to the ravines and canyons of the south side. Leaves shift underneath your feet as you go. It feels overly loud in a forest that is suddenly so quiet, only filled with the softest sound of labored breathing.

A small dip in the ground catches you off guard. You gasp, a scream stuck in your throat as you lose your footing and slide down the slope, your back and ass hitting the ground hard as you slide, leaves hissing underneath you. You scramble to grab a hold of something, but the hill isn’t very high and you hit the bottom of it quickly.

Heart pounding, you lay in the damp leaves for a second, panting, hand pressed to your heart as it rattles under your palm. Just as the fear settles down, a growl makes your blood run cold. Slowly, you begin to turn your face toward the left. You realize you’ve slid down a dell, and a few yards from you is a large, shivering form covered in fur.

You blink. Once. Twice. You realize that the large mound of fur is a creature - a wolf. It lays on the ground shaking, a ride of jet black hair standing up on its spine, hackles raised. The wolf’s ears are pinned back and its yellow eyes are wild, nearly consumed by the dark pupils drinking you in. Its teeth are bared, foam and drool lining pink gums as it snares, nose twitching.

It’s the biggest wolf you’ve ever seen. You can’t move. You can only stare at it, wondering why it continues to snarl and stare at you, but not move. Your eyes rove its trembling form from maw to tail, and you realize its front leg is wet and held at an odd angle.

“Oh,” you gasp, realizing that the wolf’s foot is stuck in a claw trap. “I’m so sorry. I… can I help you?”

The wolf stops growling for a moment as if it understands. You stare with wide eyes, not daring to move as it assesses you. It leans toward you and sniffs, the sound of snuffing loud in the silence of the dell. For a few moments, you just watch as the beast regards you.

Then, it chuffs and looks at its own foot, whining. You sit up slowly in amazement. The creature watches you with what you can only describe as a caution. You get up carefully and make your way toward the wolf. It watches your every movement. It can surely smell your fear as you get a few feet away, crouching down with your hands held out to let it know you’re not going to cause harm.

You pause, waiting for permission to examine the wolf’s foot. It gazes at you and for a moment, you lose yourself in that burning, golden gaze. The wolf’s eyes are so human that it’s hard to see it as a simple beast. There is something alive and intelligent there.

As if sensing that you’re waiting for the all-clear, the wolf chuffs and lowers its head toward its foot, gesturing. You smile a little at that, marveling at the communication skills. Carefully, you look at the trap around the wolf’s foot. It’s a metal contraption that is pressure-engaged, with metal teeth. You cringe seeing the red on matted fur and metal.

“You must have stepped on the pressure plate,” you tell the wolf, though it probably doesn’t understand. You gesture to the round plate at the center of the trap. “It would have been in a circle and when stepped on, snapped closed like jaws.”

The wolf whines and bows its head. You wince. “They’re really strong,” you admit, chewing on your lip. “I don’t think I can pull it apart all the way, but I might be able to open it enough just for a moment for you to pull out your leg. Can you do that?”

A huff. Somehow, you think if it could, the wolf might roll its eyes. Your mouth twitches in an almost smile as you get onto your knees, wiping sweaty hands on your pants. This close to the beast, you realize just how large it is.

“This is going to hurt,” you insist. “Please… Please don’t bite me, okay? I want to help you.”

The wolf lowers its head until it's lying on the ground, gold eyes watching you. Its muscles are tense and the hair along the ridge of its back is still standing, afraid and alert.

“Okay. I’m just… I’m just going to touch the trap and try to get a grip first, okay?” The wolf doesn’t answer. It blinks at you, waiting. Licking your lips, you whisper, more to yourself than anything, “Okay, I can do this.”

Slowly, you reach out toward the wolf’s injured foot. You flick your gaze over to the wolf looking for a reaction. It just watches you, though you feel tension. The metal is wicked cold to the touch. You hiss and the creature flinches a little, a whistle-whine escaping its nose. You mutter an apology, fingers pressing to the ridges of the cold metal.

It’s slippery with blood. You chew on your lip, prodding your finger in the space between the metal teeth on the edges where it’s not clamped around the wolf’s paw. You wiggle your finger a little, testing the strength of the closed jaws of the trap. It doesn’t budge and you curse.

Sweat beads on the back of your neck, freezing in the cool air. You lift your other hand, very carefully trying to find a good grip on either side of the jaws to pry them open. The movement jostles the trap a little, the wolf snarling in pain. You flinch and rip your hands away, looking at it. Gold eyes burn and the wolf huffs, as though telling you to be more careful.

“Sorry,” you mutter. “I’m nervous and it’s hard to get a grip on it.” The wolf snorts. You glare at it. “I’m sorry, do you want to do this instead?” Your only answer is a rumble as it looks the other direction. “That’s what I thought.”

Sighing, you turn your attention back to the metal. Anyone a little stronger and older could probably pull it open. Seokjin for sure could - even Hoseok who is as old as you are, but plenty stronger. You try not to think about how weak you are, and instead wiggle your fingers through the gaps in the teeth.

The cool metal stings your hands. It’s not a great grip and your fingers are placed in bad positioning due to the teeth of the trap. Taking in a big breath, you try to pull the metal jaws apart.

Nothing happens and you let your breath out, panting lightly as you stop trying to pull. The wolf flicks its tale but makes no other sound. With the way you’re gripping the jaws, you realize that pulling it apart is going to be difficult. It would rely on your forearms to peel the metal jaws backward… But if you were to push down and push apart, you could use your body weight as an extra boost. It would be pushing the jaws apart from above instead of trying to pry them apart with sheer strength.

Leaning high on your knees, you position yourself straight over the trap, your weight settling in on your forearms. You take another deep breath and this time when you pull, you push your weight down on the trap. For a second, it seems like it’s not going to give. You hiss through your teeth, muscles clenching, fingers burning as your skin presses against the metal as hard as you can stand it.

Then, the jaw opens a little. You grind your teeth harder, the ache in your arms growing as you push as hard as you can. Your forearms are trembling. You feel the vein throbbing in your neck and forehead. Just when you think you’re going to fail, the jaws give way again. You growl, feeling a surge of energy go through you at the small victory and you shove your body weight down on it hard. The springs creak a little and open more.

Little by little, the trap opens up. Your vision pulses red as you pant, strength waning. And then it’s like you hit the let-off point of the contraption, pushing it enough that the rest of the way it just falls open. You let go of the trap and the wolf yanks its leg from it. It now lies open and bloody as you collapse on the ground next to it, breathing hard, breath misting the air.

Your heart beats in your ears, pulse thrumming in your neck wildly. For a second, you forget all about the wolf. You laugh up to the dark trees, a giddy feeling shooting through you. You did it, even though you didn’t think you would be able to.

A dark presence alerts you. Slowly, you turn your head to face the wolf. It’s standing almost above you, looking more imposing than it did before. You swallow hard, mouth going dry as it blinks down at you. It favors the injured leg, but stands nonetheless, watching you.

“Please don’t kill me,” you whisper, limbs trembling not only with exhaustion but fear.

The wolf doesn’t kill you at all. Instead, it leans its head down and presses its cold, wet nose to your arm. You flinch, squeezing your eyes shut for a minute. Then the beast chuffs, making you peak at it. When you meet its gold eyes, you get the sense it is vaguely amused.

“Oh,” you breathe, relief sagging your aching body. “Cool. You’re not going to kill me.”

Standing, you realize that the wolf is still taller than you. You tilt your head upward, staring. There’s no way this is a normal creature, but you don’t know what else it could possibly be. You recall the legends of werewolves and dire wolves told by the men of your town, but you’re unsure if those are real.

“Let’s take care of this,” you mutter, grabbing a branch and jamming it into the pressure plate of the trap. It snaps shut with a loud clang, snapping the branch, but otherwise ineffective now that it’s re-sprung. The wolf flinches and whines at the sound, no doubt remembering the feeling of the instrument on its leg. “Sorry.”

Silence stretches out over the woods, the night growing deeper and cooler. You shiver, rubbing your hands up and down your arms as you turn to the wolf, which watches you keenly.

“Will you be okay?” the question comes out as a whisper. The wolf huffs and steps forward, pressing its snout to your head. It’s cold and wet, making you shiver as it snuffs against your skin. “Good. I um - should start climbing this hill.”

It swivels its head and turns, waiting. You grin, realizing it will accompany you back up, at least. Though injured, the wolf is able to walk with three legs, the wounded leg lifted off the ground. Its gait is awkward and hobbled, but the two of you make it up the hill together, your breathing labored.

At the top, moonlight shines through the trees and you both pause. A series of howls goes up in the night, startling you. The wolf looks up, ears twitching as it tilts its head, listening. Slowly, it turns to look at you, gold eyes sparkling.

“I guess you have to go, huh?” it bows its head once. “Stay safe, okay?”

The wolf steps forward. Presses its muzzle into your temple and huffs, making you grin. You smell pine and bergamot, pleasant and calming. “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

Slowly, the wolf clambours off, vanishing into the dark woods, leaving you to hurry home yourself.

“Wear this at all times for protection, especially in the forest,” you murmur, holding the neatly scrawled note. You frown and look down at the fine cloak folded on the dresser. It had appeared overnight as if by magic, a funny feeling flipping your stomach. “Where did you come from?”

The cloak, of course, has no answer. You lift your hand to feel it, breathing out a dreamy sigh. The inside is lined with soft bear fur. Outside is some of the finest cloth you’ve ever seen, gentle but sturdy to the touch and dyed the most delicious shade of scarlet.

Carefully, you lift the cloak. It’s a little big for your size, but not unwearable. You slip it over your sleeping gown, loving the way the material ripples like blood over your shoulders, the fur lining keeping you warm. It smells like pine and bergamot, making you pause.

Certainly, a wolf did not bring you a cloak. Still, the timing is quite odd. You don’t know who else could possibly make a cloak so fine in the village, and the smell… you shake your head. A wolf did not bring you a cloak, but it did seem perhaps you had a secret admirer.

THIRTEEN YEARS LATER

“Boo!” You scream and drop the collection of logs in your hands, whirling around. Hoseok bursts into laughter, doubling over as he slaps his hands against his knees, hot breath misting the air. “You should see your face!”

“You rotten bastard!” You growl, picking up a log and throwing it at him. It doesn’t hit him, but he jumps away from it anyway, careful not to let it drop on his toes. “That isn’t funny!”

“It’s a little funny.”

“It’s not!” You crouch down and start picking up the timber. Hoseok at least has the decency to help you, starting with the log you threw at him. “There was another animal attack last night, in case you didn’t know.”

That makes him pause. “There was?”

“Yes,” you hiss, snatching the last log and standing. “So stop lurking around corners and scaring me. It isn’t funny.”

“Well, an animal isn’t going to attack you in the village. Unless you’re talking about Mingyu’s fiancee, anyway. That one is feral indeed.”

You level Hoseok with a look and he gives you a grin. His nose and ears are red from the cold - and maybe a little guilt for scaring you - and he offers to take the timber from your arms. You let him, shoveling it over to him and marching around the front of your house.

Wind howls between the houses, ripping at the ends of your red cloak. It catches your hood, throwing it up over your head as you shiver and tuck your hands into the fur lining. A shiver rattles up your spine as you kick the snow from your boots and rush inside, Hoseok quick on your heels.

“So what happened?” Hoseok asks, following you to your room.

“The Matheson Family,” you mumble. “They were attacked. San went down to collect new saddles his father ordered and found them slaughtered - their hounds too.”

“They have hunting hounds - what the hell can kill those?”

“Perhaps it’s the wolves again. Dr. Kim was going with the city council to investigate.”

Hoseok sighs. “The timing isn’t good. It’s about time the traders arrived. What if they bypass us entirely if the road is too dangerous?”

It’s a thought that has been plaguing everyone in the village. Because of the remote location on the north side of the woods, your small spec on the map relies on traders at the beginning of every winter for things that you’ll need to make it through: salt, extra grain and fruits, tools too advanced and large for the local smithy, repairs on houses and wagons.

Arrival times of traders fluctuate every year. Sometimes there’s a cold snap, burying roads in heavy snow that are unnavigable. Other times, there is unrest in the woods when a rogue band of thieves gets the idea to rob travelers and hide in the woods until the city council sends a team of men to deal with it.

Now, though, it’s getting into the late period of their arrival. The entire village holds its breath waiting for them, people looking out the open gates down the snowy road hoping to see a courier come ahead to announce the arrival of wagons and troupes of people.

“Do you really think it’s wolves?” Hoseok asks. “I don’t think I’ve heard of wolf attacks like this since…”

Hoseok winces. “It’s fine,” you assure him with a smile. “It’s not like I remember that time, much less remember my dad.”

It’s true. Early memories of your childhood are murky at best. You remember being happy and loving your dad. You remember a period of fear and general uneasiness in the town, wolf attacks rampant and frequent. There had been plenty of men and women who died during that period, including your father.

That was a long time ago, though. For the most part, life in your small village is uninteresting. Some winters are harder than others, like the current season, but you’ve always managed to get by.

“Do you remember much of that time period?” you ask him quietly.

“Not really. Just that everyone was afraid. It was a really harsh winter and it drove wolves down from the mountains. I remember it being strange.”

“Strange how?”

You chew your lip and shake your head, trying to encapsulate the thread of memory you have. Of feeling the tremor of fear in the air, the cold feeling of dread… like something violent was in the village. Something wrong.

“I don’t know. I was so young.”

“Hmm.”

The talk of wolves makes you think about your wolf. Your lips curve at the memory of how gentle the wolf was, the somber eyes, and the smell of pine and bergamot.

It would be a lie to say you had not gone out to the woods several times since that night to try and find the beast again. You haven’t seen him since, but you’ve always had a feeling he’s there somewhere. Watching. Waiting.

“Either way,” Hoseok sighs. “Dad seems worried this winter will be like that time. He’s been doing a lot of will and testament papers at the office. He works late every night and is gone early in the morning.”

“Really?”

“Want to hear what Mr. Hillshire is leaving for his kids?” Hoseok leans forward, conspiratorial. “You won’t believe it.”

The bell over the door rings as someone enters the salon of Dr. Kim’s veterinary practice, drawing your attention. You straighten when you see San walk in.

“Hi, San,” you greet. “Here to pick up Maple?”

“Yeah, is that alright? Mom is busy at the shop.”

“Of course.” You wipe your sweaty hands on your skirts and gesture behind you with your thumb. “I’ll go fetch her. Dr. Kim is on an errand but she’s ready to go.”

The back of the building with the kennels is quiet. The Choi family cat and two other sleeping dogs are the only occupants of the practice, making it an easy day. Maple is dozing in her kennel, chirping in protest when you open the cage and scoop her into a carrier. She’s a lazy thing, a calico with pretty eyes and a newly stitched ear.

Carefully you carry her up front. San is standing patiently in the lobby, hands behind his back as he looks around nervously. You raise your brows as you come around the counter, handing over the carrier. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm?”

“You look nervous. It’s just me and the Lowells’ hounds back here.”

“Oh, yes.” His ears blush pink as he accepts the carrier and steps back. “Just a nervous energy in general. I have been since um…”

Oh. You had forgotten that it was San who discovered the Matheson family disemboweled by some kind of animal. The constable had thought that maybe it was a pack of wolves but was concerned by how big the claw marks and destruction were.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt.

“For what?”

“That you had to see that, I guess? It must have been terrifying.”

“A little,” he admits, looking at his shoes. “I walked the path to the Mathesons all the time. I don’t ever recall seeing something that could… do that.”

“Was it that awful?”

He nods. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen. Don’t get me wrong, I go on hunting parties. We’ve seen the leftovers from bears and wolves. This was something worse. It felt like…” He shakes his head and looks up at you. “It felt angry.”

“Angry?”

“Yeah. I know that doesn’t make sense. It was probably just a beast coming down from the mountain because it was starving. You know how harsh winters are.”

You hum in agreement.

San dismisses himself, thanking you again for helping with the family cat and throwing a wave over his shoulder. You return it half-heartedly, already distracted with thoughts of what the animal attacks could mean.

You think about your wolf and how kind and intelligent it was. You don’t remember ever feeling a sense of impending doom like you do now, a heaviness to the air as you stand idly behind the counter.

Dr. Kim's return startles you at the counter. You press your hands flat against the top of the desk, leaning up on your tiptoes as you see his son Seokjin enter behind him. Your heart flutters a little at the sight, still overwhelmed by his handsome face.

Seokjin is tall and broad, with dark hair and a beautiful face. His sharp eyes find you and he gives you a half smile, though there seems to be something on his mind as he follows his father into the backroom, Dr. Kim barely saying hello as he goes, his brows furrowed in deep thought.

The two of them disappear and you watch the door swing shut behind them. Curious, you trail around the counter and softly walk over to the door, pulling it open a smidge.

It’s difficult to pick up on their words, but you can hear Dr. Kim’s timbre speaking in low tones from somewhere in the backroom. You hold your breath and wedge the door open a little more, pressing your ear toward the gap between the frame and the door.

“... again. They’re going to want to start hunting parties again soon.”

“So what do we do?”

Silence. Then, “Send a message….”

“... brought it on themselves… it’s time to make things right.”

Behind you, the bell rings at the door. You gasp, letting go of the door to the back room and spin around, heart hammering in your chest. Hoseok stands at the door, raising his brows in question.

“What are you doing here?” you demand, suddenly angry that he’s startled you and ruined your sleuthing.

“I promised your mom I would walk home with you at the end of your shift, remember? Dangerous out there.”

You blink and look out the window, realizing that the heavy gray of evening is setting over the road. You hadn’t realized it was so late.

Nodding, you grab your cloak in a hurry. You pop your head into the back room, both Seokjin and Dr. Kim looking at you as you do. “I’m leaving for the evening, sir. Is there anything else you need?”

“No, thank you for watching the place while I was gone. Tomorrow we have to make a house call to the Marrow farm. Lame horse.”

Seokjin frowns. “Do you think that is wise?” Dr. Kim looks at his son under heavy brows. “With the current conditions.”

“We’ll be fine.” Something passes between them, son and father locked in a heated gaze. You stand there awkwardly, glancing between the two.

Seokjin breaks his stare from his father and flashes you a grin. “You have someone to walk you home?”

“Yeah, Hoseok is here.” You hug the cloak tighter to your chest and Seokjin’s eyes drop to it. An unreadable expression passes his face before he nods. “Have a good evening!”

“You too.”

Leaving them behind, you head to where Hoseok waits for you, examining drawings of animal skeletons and anatomy. You pull your cloak on, feeling safe and warm under the red material. Hoseok looks up at you, thrusting his thumb at one of the drawings of a horse. “I don’t look like that, right?”

The red cloak tied around you wicks the sweat from the back of your neck. Your fingers work quickly as you tie it, knowing you’re already late to meeting Dr. Kim. Thankfully, you don’t make a habit of being late and you’re sure he won’t mind too much.

Strange dreams had plagued you all night. Images of wolves, blood and mist. Echoes of howling, screaming and thunder. Now as you hurry out of your home and into the wicked wind of winter, you cannot shake a sense of premonition.

Dr. Kim is already on the doorstep when you arrive at the veterinary office, a heavy coat on his shoulders and a bag of tools in his hand. He nods when he sees you and comes down the steps, turning toward the south exit of the village.

Neither of you speak. Beyond the fact that you don’t think you’d be able to hear Dr. Kim over the howling wind, it doesn’t feel like the kind of trip that requires speaking. The evergreens on either side of the road loom over you, bows heavy with snow. Every so often, a branch cracks with the weight of frozen icicles, making you flinch with the sound.

It feels like you’re being watched. Every so often, you swivel your head this way and that, glancing at the trees. The trunks are too close together and the branches to tangle to see beyond them on either side of the road. Still, your skin tingles from something beyond the cold, you just don’t know what.

The Marrow farm is only a little over a mile from the main village, but the snow covered roads make it slow going. As you near the edge of where their acres begin, your boots are already heavy with melted slush and your calves and thighs burn from dragging your feet through the path.

Perhaps it was not a good day to do a house call.

Passing white-covered gates, you’re thankful that at least the wind has died down as the morning turns into midday. The sun is hidden by clouds, but there is a hint of warmth in the air. The Marrow farm is made up of three buildings: the small house in front, the large barn to the back left where they keep their animals, and a giant silo for grains.

As you near the house, a loud banging reaches you. Both you and Dr. Kim pause, listening as the sound carries on the wind. It doesn’t sound like hammering, but rather like a door slamming over and over again.

“Barn door?” you suggest, looking up at Dr. Kim. His dark eyes look at the house, expression grim. “But why would they let it slam relentlessly?”

“Keep your wits about you,” he murmurs, ignoring your question. “Go to the main house. I’ll go round to the barn. Perhaps they’ve forgotten the appointment.”

No smoke comes from the chimney. No snow is cleared from the footpath to the door. The shutters are closed, which makes sense to keep the cold out. As you approach the steps leading up to the porch, you note that none of the hounds are baying. The Marrow’s have several bloodhounds, all of which keep noisy providence around the threshold of the door.

Spine tingling, you lift your hand and knock. There’s no answer. You strain your ears, leaning forward for any hint that the Marrow’s or one of their two sons are coming to the door. Not even the dogs alert them of your presence.

You think about San finding the Mathesons butchered and your stomach drops. You knock again, knuckles stinging with cold as they rap harshly against the wooden door. Tucking your hand back into your cloak, you wait.

Nothing comes.

Taking a deep breath, you reach for the door and twist the handle. It opens easily, swinging inward to a cold, empty home. Inside, the air is still and dead. Behind you, the breeze brushes the edges of your cloak and the hood on your head.

Silence hangs. Licking your lips, you lift a foot. It hands over the threshold, fear making you pause. There is nothing inside the home, and yet you find that you’re utterly terrified of stepping inside. Your stomach knots and for a few moments, you just stand there with your foot in the air, staring with unseeing eyes into the dark interior.

You step into the room and pause. Nothing happens. The air inside the home is stale, like the doors and windows have not been opened for a few days. The cold is bone deep, clinging to the undisturbed air. You scan the room for any sign of life, but see nothing that stirs.

Everything looks lived in. There are knitted blankets tossed across the backs of old arm chairs, boots by the door, unlaced and soft with age. Mugs have been turned upside down and placed on a towel near the basin for drying, and there are dice on the kitchen table.

Navigating slowly, you move to the hall with bedrooms. Doors hang open, revealing unmade beds and clothes on the floor. Here too, the air feels undisturbed. You hear the breeze outside and the soft creak of the house, but nothing else makes a sound, save for the loud beating of your own heart.

Shivering, you make your way to the front of the home. Something foul hangs in the air and you want to be rid of the feeling, quickening your steps to leave through the front door and-

Fear stabs deep into your stomach when you see the wolf standing in the doorway. It stands half in the home, half out, only the front two paws over the threshold. The beast barely fits in the door frame, wide as two men standing side by side and tall as a horse.

You don’t move. It stares at you with bright, burning eyes. Its fur is dark, though there is a jagged ring of light fur around the right, front paw. You swear you smell pine and bergamot. Something nudges at the back of your mind as the two of you stand off - and it clicks into place.

“You,” you breathe. “You’re the wolf I helped!”

For a moment, the bright yellow eyes stare at you. They’re unreadable, and yet… emotive. Intelligent. Understanding. The wolf dips its snout in a nod.

“What are you doing here? Where are the Marrows?”

The wolf’s ears flicker. Slowly, it backs out of the house. Throwing caution to the wind, you rush after him, nearly tripping over a wolfskin rug in the home.

Outside, the wolf stands below the porch. You step on the porch and pull up short, heart racing as you see the pack of wolves standing in front of the home.

The wolves are a variety of colors and sizes. You dare not move your head, but you scan them with your eyes, drinking in the different creatures. The only thing that they have in common is that they are freakishly large.

Your wolf - for in your mind he’s yours - stands in front of you. He growls, hair on his spine raising as he regards the other wolves. There’s a silent standoff of sorts, the wolf you saved facing the others. You cannot understand their body language, but the air seems charged.

The smell of smoke is in the air. You don’t dare look for the source, too afraid to do anything to disrupt the standoff. Breathing in deeply, you think you smell cedar. Oil. Something else that you can’t identify.

Footsteps crunch the snow. You whip your head to the side, a warning on your tongue as Dr. Kim rounds the house, a haunted expression on his face. He stops abruptly, looking at the display in front of him behind frosted glasses. He says nothing - does nothing but glance between you, the wolf in front of you, and the others.

Finally, one of the other wolves chuffs and shakes, dispelling snow. It has an all white coat and intense, dark eyes that look at you with… annoyance, if wolves can look annoyed. It turns to leave and the others follow - all five of them - as the white wolf leads them at a loping trot toward the silo and the woods beyond.

Your wolf turns to peer at you, ears flicking before it breaks off into a run, trailing after its pack to leave you and Dr. Kim standing in silence, watching them go.

Slowly, you turn to Dr. Kim. He scrutinizes you, eyes squinted. “Where did you get that cloak?”

You look down at the rich, red cloth. “I… well it just appeared, one day when I was younger. I don’t know.”

He regards you suspiciously. “I see. Come. We must leave right away.”

Dr. Kim begins walking at a fast pace back toward town, clutching his tool case. “Wait! Where are the Morrows?”

Instead of answering, Dr. Kim continues on. You scramble after him, careful not to slip on the icy stairs. The wind picks up and you smell a fire again, making you turn back as you try to catch up. You almost stumble over your feet, eyebrows shooting up as you see orange flames consuming the barn.

“Dr. Kim!”

Again, he says nothing. You stop and stare, watching as the fire eats away at the barn. The smoke burns black. Fueled by oil, you think. Looking over your shoulder, you watch Dr. Kim’s retreating back and wonder what exactly it is that he’s done.

“Did you set that fire?” you demand, chasing him. He gives you a withering look. “What is going on?”

“Speak nothing of this,” he snaps. “We arrived here to make a housecall and discovered that the barn was on fire. We suspect that Mr. Marrow was burning to melt the snow around the barn and that the barn caught. The Marrow family died inside trying to put out the fire.”

“But the wolves-”

“Do not mention the wolves, girl.”

“Did they kill the Marrows?” His jaw works but he doesn’t answer. “Did they kill the Mathesons?”

“This village has a complicated history,” he says finally. He pulls his coat tighter. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I do expect you to stay out of it. Say nothing of the wolves and stay away from them. You’ll make it through winter.”

Two weeks pass, the secret heavy on your tongue. You work with Dr. Kim as though nothing happened, and when people ask about the Marrow farm, you recite vague details. You don’t know why you do it but… the image of the wolf - your wolf - floats in your mind each time you spit out the lie.

Thoughts plague you as Hoseok lounges on the porch of the office that belongs to Hoseok’s father, who acts as the town’s scribe and legal affairs recorder. A sudden warm day has brought everyone outdoors, lounging on their porches and trying to take advantage of the melting snow around the buildings. The streets are muddy and murky as kids run by, feet splashing.

A group of men prowl around the outskirts of the village. Sun shines through the slats of the overhang in front of the inn, warming where you lean on the porch railing. Hoseok rattles on about gossip he’s heard from his mother’s tea parties and his father’s work on will and testaments with the growing fear of death in the village.

“Plagues, serial killings, blood feuds and animal attacks,” Hoseok sighs, staring up at the ceiling where he lies. “Good for father’s business. Bad for my cramping hand trying to help him.”

“Hmm,” you hum noncommittally, thoughts lost as you stare out into the street with unseeing eyes.

Shouts make you flinch. You stand rod straight, gripping the railing as you look for the source of the disruption. Hoseok stands up immediately, joining you at the railing as the pair of you lean to look toward the entrance to the town.

At first, you think that it’s about another wolf attack. People rush into the street, looking toward the commotion. Then you see it. Gleeful cheers spring up to the buildings closest to the town’s entrance as the first few traders enter the road. Your heart soars when you see donkeys pulling a cart behind them, followed by more people carrying packs and towing small carts.

“The traders!” You breathe, feeling a sigh of relief sweep through you. “They’ve made it!”

Excitement ripples through the village. People come flocking from the buildings to welcome cart after cart full of people. Some traders tow full carriages with riders at the front, the shutters on their carriages tied shut, hiding their wares inside.

Hoseok lounges back down, letting out a sigh of relief. You feel the same, leaning on the railing again to watch as the carts are towed down the road, pulling down different streets to set up shop and find accommodations.

Most of the traders look vaguely familiar to you - you see the Robin’s with their cloth cart and Morty with his towering carriage of unusual wares and charms. The Yang twins set off small, popping fireworks from the back of their cart, making the children squeal.

Something catches your eye. “There are more traders than usual,” you tell Hoseok, frowning as your eyes settle on the large men who walk among the carts, all of whom wear weapons belts and look from side to side as they walk. “I think they’re warriors, Hoseok.”

“Warriors?” he laughs. “Strange.”

“No really, there are several men with blades at the hip and bows on the back. They look… guarded.”

He tilts his head, eyeing where your eyes flit from person to person. “Perhaps the road is as hard as we suspected this year.”

You hum in agreement, watching as the caravans stop and unload, the muddy streets filling with people and chatter and bubbling with excitement. It feels like the bubble of anxiety looming over the town has popped - at least temporarily - relieving the pressure that had been building with every passing day.

Leaning against the rail, you’re content to observe. All manner of people and things are pulled from carts. Vendors start setting up right away, people forming lines for ingredients, cloth, and wares. The largest line of all is for weapons and metal tools, Old Man Heo barely has time to park his cart before the men of the village ask how much for iron arrowheads and blades.

A shiver goes through you as your eyes sweep back toward the town entrance where more people pour in. Fewer caravans come through - now it’s just people with pack mules or bags over their shoulders.

The hairs on your arm stand up when you see him. Wind lifts the edge of your cloak, making it flutter around you. You watch as he walks down the main street with the other travelers, eyes flicking around as he drinks in the buildings and the crowd of villagers coming to welcome the traders.

As though he senses your staring, his head snaps to you. You feel frozen to the spot, your fingers tightening on the rail as you meet his eyes. They’re unfathomably dark and yet… a tingle of familiarity slithers up your spine.

He stares at you in turn. You’re sure he’s looking at you, paused near the cart he stands next to, dark gaze focused on where you stand on the porch.

You’ve never seen him. You’re sure of it. You’d remember a handsome face like that anywhere. His long, dark hair is pushed back from his face, revealing a sharp jawline, a strong nose, and intense eyes. His lips are red from the cold - pretty against tan skin.

He’s tall. Taller than most men in the village and broad, with strong shoulders and thick arms, though it’s hard to tell underneath his tunic. Like the other hardy men accompanying traders, he has a weapons belt snug around his waist and the bulk of his frame implies that he knows how to use them.

The man doesn’t break eye contact. His mouth begins to tilt in what you think might be the start of a smile when Hoseok sits up abruptly, startling you. You break eye contact, looking at Hoseok who bites into an apple, offering you one.

“You frightened me,” you snap, a little irritated at being distracted. When you glance back up at the man, his attention is elsewhere.

“What were you staring at anyway?” he asks, crunching bits of apple.

“Nothing,” you murmur, eyes on the flexing back of the man as he helps unload a wagon near the inn. Something niggles at the back of your mind. I know you. “Nothing at all.”

“Want to visit the vendors later when they’re all set up? I would love to get some spiced wine and listen to Marla’s stories tonight.”

“Yes,” you answer without hesitation. “Let’s do just that.”

Every minute that passes by feels like an eternity. Incurable energy simmers under the surface as you wait for the day to fade to evening. You clean the entire house, you collect wood from outside, you dress and then change into something else, and you ultimately end up pacing back and forth in your room while you wait for Hoseok to arrive.

Your thoughts are consumed by the mystery man you had seen earlier. His handsome face swims in your memory. The clear image of his face is accompanied by some feeling you cannot identify, something that almost feels like nostalgia. How can you feel nostalgia for someone you don’t know?

Hoseok finally arrives, letting himself into your house cheerily. The brief respite from winter is already bleeding away, the wind carrying a painful promise as it lifts your hood outside. The traders, it seems, arrived at the perfect time, the cloudy sky promising snow in the morning once more.

Energy sizzles in the air. It’s as though the momentary fear of the wolf attacks is momentarily forgotten with the arrival of the vendors and travelers. The noise echoes from every street, torches, and fires lighting up the alleyways and down as people hang lamps in the windows and carts string up tea lights.

Though you’re nervous, you are temporarily distracted as Hoseok pulls you through a tangle of carts toward Sal’s Sweets. Your stomach grumbles when you catch the scent of melting sugar and sweet confections, joining the line at Hoseok’s side to pick up hot, sticky sweets.

With hot, sweet rolls drizzled in honey in hand, you and Hoseok explore the vendor carts. It is an explosion of color and lights, glittering jewelry hanging from displays, hot meats sizzling in pants over fires, the flash of powder and light as the Yang twins set off more fireworks, and the smell of spices as you pass by herb carts and tents.

Everywhere you go, you see the men from before, looming near carts with weapons and steely expressions. But not even the eerie sight of them can bring down the spirits of the villagers, kids running with new kites and jars full of fireflies.

As you stand in line with Hoseok who wants new inkwells, you listen to passing chatter. From what you gather, it was a hard trip this way on the caravans this year. The winter was just as harsh on the road as it was in the village, and the traders' voices become quiet when they talk about thieves and monsters in the woods.

You exchange a glance with Hoseok and he nods. Wolves.

Wordlessly, you wait as Hoseok points out the inks that he wants. You begin to crane your neck, looking for the familiar stranger that you had seen before. The square is crowded and packed tight with people, making it nearly impossible to make out much beyond a few feet in front of you.

You spot Dr. Kim walking next to Seokjin, both of their heads bowed as they speak to one another. You narrow your eyes, remembering the way Dr. Kim had silenced you at the Marrow farm. You watch them as they head toward the road that the veterinary practice is on, pausing as a man pushes off the wall to join them.

It’s him you realize. You recognize the broad shoulders and the dark hair as he turns his back to you, walking with the Kims down the road. You don’t even have to think twice.

“Hey,” you tug Hoseok’s sleeve. “I’m going to go see Dr. Kim about something really quick. I’ll meet you at the inn?”

“Sure.” He frowns. “Is it safe to go alone?”

“With all of these people?” You’re already backing away and shrugging. “Definitely.”

Without waiting for Hoseok to respond, you turn on your heel and rush into the crowd. The bodies of people immediately swallow you. The sound and sights and smells become a blur as you push through the crowd, shouldering people aside. You get some nasty looks from the force at which you move, but they immediately forget you as more people press in.

Less people pass you by as you walk up the street, pulling your cloak in tight. The lights in front of the building are off. You creep up the stairs and try the handle, finding it locked. It doesn’t matter, you sneak around the back of the building to the rear entrance and press your ear to the door. When you hear nothing, you try the handle and it twists.

Victorious, you open the door and slide through. The hallway is narrow with four doors on the right leading to examination rooms and two doors on the left. The first door leads to the kennel area where you hear voices. The second leads to the front lobby and desk.

The front lobby is the safest option, lest you get caught eavesdropping in the hallway when they leave. Carefully, you creep by the door, holding your breath and praying the floor doesn’t creak. Your heart pounds as you inch past the door, hearing deep voices on the other side as you go by.

Clearing the door, you hurry into the lobby and to the door behind the desk that leads to the kennels. Crouching down low to hide yourself from anyone walking by the windows, you carefully pull the door open, unwilling to open it any further than the width of your index finger. Pressing your ear to the open gap, you listen.

“We talked about discretion,” Dr. Kim says, his voice frustrated. “This isn’t discretion. This is harassment and fear-mongering.”

“I told you,” a deep, smooth voice answers. You assume it must belong to the stranger and you shiver, eyes fluttering as the sound of it washes over you. “It isn’t my decision to make. I do not lead. Yoongi made it very clear how he wishes to proceed.”

“Yoongi is a lunatic.”

“He’s the alpha.”

You frown. Alpha? You’re familiar with the concept of alphas in packs of dogs and herding animals, but you don’t know what that has to do with people or who Yoongi is.

“The hunts will begin tomorrow.”

You think Dr. Kim means the hunting for the wolves. It makes sense now that the traders are in town and they can stock up on weapons.

“As is the way of things,” the stranger answers with a sigh. “You know why Yoongi has chosen this path.”

“Is revenge worth it?”

“Perhaps your kind do not understand.” The stranger’s voice hardens. You wonder what he means by your kind. “You have one foot in the forest, one in the village.”

“We understand, but we’re also not reckless.” Charged quiet hangs in the air. You hold your breath, your heart thundering in your chest, waiting for the sound of footsteps at the end of a conversation. “Why are you here, Namjoon? You came alone.”

Namjoon. The name washes over you, a warm feeling like the first spray of summer rain. It must be the stranger's name.

Namjoon answers, “There is… a protected here. But I still fear for them. Yoongi and the others are angry - I wish to further keep them from harm.”

A frown twists your mouth. This Namjoon is here to protect someone from Yoongi. You wonder what this has to do with Dr. Kim. Could… Perhaps someone is using the wolves as tools? You’ve certainly seen a hunter train wolves or wolfhounds before, though it’s a dangerous business.

Dr. Kim sighs. “That is the only saving grace of you being here, I’m afraid. Seokjin and I cannot help you. Not without exposing ourselves. I’ve already done what I can.”

“You have my greatest thanks for that. You and yours will always be safe. And not just because of your blood.”

Shuffling makes you lean away from the door immediately. You slowly drop it back in place before crawling over to the desk and hiding under it, straining your hearing as the footsteps go into the back hall and out of the back door. You remain there long after you hear the back door shut, waiting just in case they’re still outside.

When you’re sure they’ve gone, you crawl out from underneath the desk and hurry into the hall and out the back door. The alley is empty when you stick your head out, sagging with relief. You hurry out and close the door behind you, spinning around and-

“You know, most people who don’t want to be seen don’t sneak around in a red cloak.”

The man - Namjoon - looms over you, looking down at you with an amused expression. Your scream is cut off when he winces and cups your mouth with his hand. “Well don’t scream! You’ll summon Giho and Seokjin back this way. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Namjoon waits for a moment, your chest heaving as you nod, signifying that you won’t scream for help. Maybe it’s silly, but you trust him not to hurt you. At the least, he is there to protect someone in the village, so he doesn’t seem like he’s there for nefarious reasons.

When he drops his hands, you press yourself against the door, trying to put a little distance between you. Namjoon’s presence is demanding, a tickle prickling at the base of your spine as you look up at him, mystified.

He’s so beautiful. Up close, you can make out his features far better than earlier that day. His eyes are dark and framed by beautiful, silken lashes. His nose is broad and his jaw is sharp. A dimple appears when he gives you a lopsided grin, dark eyes sizing you up.

The same sense of familiarity from earlier comes back to you, and though you’ve never seen his face before, you swear you know him. Warmth radiates from him, the delicate smell of pine and bergamot reaching you. He feels like… yours. Like some part of him completes you. It is the strangest feeling.

“You okay, Red?” he asks, tone earnest. You furrow your brows at the term and he grins - genuine and warm. “Your cloak. It’s a very bright red. Pretty, though.”

“Thank you?”

He raises a brow. “Are you asking me?”

“I’m… you’re awfully close.”

Namjoon takes a few steps back from you. You suddenly regret saying something as his warmth vanishes, replaced by the cool wind. “Sorry,” he says, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“Why didn’t you alert Dr. Kim if you knew I was snooping.”

“You don’t seem to be a threat. Plus, he’s a bit of a grouch. It didn’t seem worth it to hear him chastise a pretty girl.”

You flush. “How do you know the Kims?”

“Family friends.”

“What were you all talking about?”

He cocks his head to the side. “Just because I’m not chastising you for listening to our private conversation doesn’t mean I’m going to divulge the details of said private conversation.”

You divert your gaze, feeling flushed. He has a point, but if he’s put out by your line of questioning or your eavesdropping, he doesn’t show it. “Come on,” Namjoon says. “Let’s go back to the square. I need a drink and it’s dangerous to walk around right now.”

“Because of the wolves?”

He stares at you. “Because it’s dark and there are a bunch of strangers in your town, and you’re a woman alone. In the dark.”

“You’re a stranger in my town.”

His grin spreads and his dimple deepens. Your stomach flutters. You’re not unaffected by him, a little dizzy and nervous when he sticks out a hand. “Namjoon. I’m a part of the Kim family.”

“Like… Dr. Kim?” you ask, reaching out your hand and giving him your name.

“We’re related, in a way. Pretty name. I think I’ll stick with Red, though.”

Namjoon takes off walking. For a second, you just stand and stare at him. He shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn’t look back. You lick your lips, heart pounding. You cannot shake the sense of something peculiar about him, something familiar. He’s a Kim - perhaps you know him.

Determined to find out, you take off after him, scurrying to catch up. You fall into step with him and look up to find him smirking down at you before focusing back on the growing noise and lights of the main square.

“Have you been here before?” you ask, watching him from the corner of your eye. He shakes his head and you frown. “I feel like I know you.”

“Perhaps I have one of those faces?”

“No, I’d remember a face like yours.”

Namjoon turns to you, arching a brow. “A face like mine, huh?”

Multiple fire pits dot the streets, groups of people clustered around them to keep warm as the chill seeps back into the village. The inn is bustling with people, the door propped open with a chair as people walk in and out with platters of food and tankards in hand. Multiple villagers have pulled out tables and chairs from their homes, setting them up in the street.

It feels good. The air hums with euphoria and the promise of better days ahead, like suddenly there are not several families mourning their loved ones. The atmosphere reminds you of a festival, and you suppose it kind of is a festival.

The smell of burning fat and ale hits your nose as you walk into the inn. Voices roar over one another and the workers are busy behind the bar. A fireplace crackles in the far corner where you spot Hoseok guarding an extra chair.

“I fear this is where we part ways,” Namjoon announces over the din of voices. “Try not to do any more eavesdropping tonight.” You hesitate, wanting to protest. There are a million burning questions you have for him. He must see it in your face, because he smiles and says, “We’ll run into one another again. Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

You were actually, and you know he knows by his smirk. “Goodnight, Red.”

You watch Namjoon go. He moves toward where the innkeeper stands at a podium looking over reservations, blending into the crowd. Just before he reaches the podium he glances over his shoulder at you, catching you watching. He shoots you a grin and you scowl, pivoting on your heel to charge toward Hoseok.

Hoseok raises his eyebrows when he sees you storm over to him and yank the chair out from the table, sitting down in a huff. Without a word, you snatch his tankard of ale and take several, cold gulps before setting it on the table, letting it wash through you.

“Who was that you came in with? And then stormed over here after speaking to?”

“Some relative of the Kims,” you mutter. “I find him very… frustrating.”

“He’s very handsome.”

You glare at Hoseok and see the beginning of a wicked smile. “And frustrating.”

He lifts his cup, shrugging. “Cheers to being frustrating.”

A scream wakes you up in the middle of the night. You lurch up from bed, head spinning as you try to gather your wits about you. Blankets tangle your limbs as you try to peel them from sweaty skin. Another scream makes you stumble out of bed, the world tilting on its axis as your body tries to catch up with your sudden lucidity.

In the main room of your home, your mother is stumbling through the kitchen too, lighting a candle and grabbing a holder. You feel relief as you realize the screaming isn’t coming from your home, but your neighbor’s.

Together, you and your mother rush out into the cold in nightgowns, not bothering with shoes or coats. The cold is bitter, immediately stinging your skin as the Liang family joins you in running to the Hutch family home where it sounds like Mrs. Hutch is screaming like a wild animal in her house.

“It’s Leanne,” your mother breathes, words turning to steam in the air.

“Come on,” you urge, pulling your mother as you go, driven by the shrieks.

The front door hangs open as Mr. Liang enters the home first, an ax in hand. It occurs to you that neither you nor your mother have weapons, but Mrs. Hutch has always been kind to your mother, making the both of you charge into the darkness of her home empty-handed.

A metallic tang hits you immediately. You recoil, recognizing the stench of blood immediately. Villagers spill into the home behind you, alerted to the wailing coming from the bedroom. With torches and candles in hand, you spot the red on the dark wood floor in the hallway.

Mr. Liang stands in the doorway of the bedroom, staring with a haunted gaze at what he sees there. Your mother pushes through the people in the home to look over his shoulder, her hand flying to her mouth as she gasps.

“Oh Leanne,” she murmurs in horror, shoving by Mr. Liang.

You don’t go to the room. The smell and the weeping coming from the bedroom give you an inkling of what lay inside. You stand in the living room as people fill the hall, gasping and murmuring. Someone shouts to wake the constable.

“Why?” Mrs. Hutch screams in her room, the despair in her voice rattling your bones. “Why?”

“His throat has been cut,” someone murmurs from the hall. “Murdered in bed.”

Murdered? That throws you for a loop. You had assumed somehow it was an animal attack but… you shiver. Murder is different.

Mr. Liang begins shooing people out of the house. You slink out into the cold and hurry to your own home, bare feet freezing in the cold, wet earth. Your mother stays with Mrs. Hutch, leaving you alone.

The dark presses in on you, every creak of a floorboard making you jump. The shadows seem menacing now and you’re quick to find and light a candle, orange light flooding the home.

Cloth and candle in hand, you return to your room to wipe the cold mud from your feet, skin still burning from the frigid air. Voices carry in from outside, the entire town waking and gathering as the shock of murder ripples through the streets, a stone in a pond.

With sleep nowhere near possible for the remainder of the night, you get dressed. You pull on thick woolen pants, a tunic, and multiple socks, sticking your feet in your boots. Your cloak goes next, fastening it around your throat as you look out your bedroom window.

Your home sits at an angle in a row of houses that circle the village like a ring. You can see the wall of the home next to you, and a sliver of the backyard as well. It’s that tiny space in the backyard that catches your eye, watching as someone moves from the edge of the home out of sight.

Heart in your throat, you grab a candle and run outside. The crowd in front of the Hutch’s has grown, but you ignore them, skirting around your house to the alleyway between you and your neighbor. Nothing catches your eye as you run to the backyard, swiveling as you search in the darkness for the shadow you saw.

The wind howls, drowning out the voices in the street. The treeline behind the houses is dark. You squint your eyes and lift the candle in your hand, the flame barely flickering as the wind makes the trees sway. There is nothing in the darkness and you begin to turn when you see a shadow in the tree line.

It’s barely there - perhaps a trick of the light, even. You take a step forward, boots crunching in the snow. A gust of wind makes your cloak snap at your ankles, candle going out and leaving you without a source of light. You had not realized how dark it was without it, the shadow vanishing from your line of sight.

Fear nestles in the pit of your stomach. Your breath gets stuck in your lungs as your limbs lock, realizing how stupid it was to come outside if there was a killer among the trees. Soft snow crunches somewhere close to you. You squeeze your eyes shut, tucking your chin to your chest as panic makes you shut down, unable to move and-

“Red.”

Namjoon’s voice makes you spin around. He holds a torch level with his head, the flame casting an eerie glow on his face. For a moment, he looks lupine and terrifying, your heart nearly stuttering to a halt.

Then his face twists in concern. “What are you doing out here alone?”

“What are you doing?”

“Dr. Kim sent me over to check on you. No one answered the door so I came around back.”

“Why?”

Namjoon seems confused. “Why did I come around back or why did he send me?”

“Both.”

“I could see the light of your candle and because a murder has just happened.”

You relax a little at the logic in his answer. Snow begins to fall from the sky. You look up at the moonless black, thick clouds floating as the bits of snow drift on the breeze. You shiver and look back to the trees, seeing nothing but tightly packed pines. Still, there is an instinctual sense of trepidation that sits heavy in your gut.

“Come on,” Namjoon says gently. “Let’s go inside. I’ll wait with you until your mother comes home.”

Reluctantly, you follow Namjoon. Eyeing him, you realize he is dressed differently than previously that night. Now, he’s in black breeches and a black linen shirt. The weapons belt is gone and he’s without a coat.

You frown. “Aren’t you freezing?”

“I run warm.”

It’s the only answer that he gives you as you walk back into the street which is filled with people and torches. In the distance, you hear the baying of hounds. It chills you, goosebumps exploding up and down your arms as you watch a cluster of firelights gather far off down the road.

“The constable is leading a manhunt. They’ll come to question us too.”

Wordlessly you gesture for Namjoon to join you inside of your home. He closes the door firmly behind you and strides to the fireplace, using the torch to coax the simmering logs to a full flame. Cedar pops as he adds the torch to the fire, orange embers drifting up the chimney.

Rubbing your hands together, you offer him tea and he accepts with a soft smile. It doesn’t meet his eyes as he looks around the only place you’ve ever called home. Suddenly shy of your less-than-luxurious surroundings, you clear your throat and gesture to one of the mismatched armchairs by the fire as you grab a kettle.

Namjoon hardly fits in the chair. You press your lips to keep from laughing, which feels inappropriate with a man dead just a few yards away. With careful hands, you hang the kettle next to the fire, the flame close enough to heat the water as you scurry back to the kitchen and fill tea bags with herbs.

“What kind of tea do you like?”

“Yarrow, if you have it.”

“I do.” You grab the jar, popping the top. “Are you in great pain, Mr. Kim?”

“Call me Namjoon. Mr. Kim feels far too formal.”

“Well, we are strangers, after all.”

Namjoon certainly doesn’t feel like a stranger. You cast him a sidelong glance as you say it, looking for his reaction. He turns his head from the fire, meeting your gaze head-on. His lips curve in a secret smile, making your nerves dance.

“I suppose that’s true.”

Is it? You wonder. You’re not so sure.

Instead of asking him, you bring the mugs with bags of tea over to where he sits, handing him one. Steam rises from the spout of the teapot. With a thick towel, you lift it off of the hanger. Namjoon holds out his cup and lets you pour carefully into his mug, the smell of yarrow and mint wafting toward you. After pouring your own cup, you set the kettle down and sit across from him.

Your cold hands leech the warmth from the mug. You settle comfortably in the chair, relaxing and inhaling the chamomile in your cup. After a few moments of silence, you realize how comfortable and safe you feel with Namjoon, though you’ve only known him for a few short hours.

“Why have you come to the village?”

Namjoon watches the fire as he answers, “You were eavesdropping at the veterinary office. I’m sure you heard me.” You look down at your steaming cup and Namjoon chuckles, raspy and deep. It’s a nice sound.

“You said there was a ‘protected’ here. And something about a Yoongi.”

Namjoon’s face darkens at the mention of Yoongi. You chew on your lip, worried you’ve pushed him too far before you’ve even started to ask him real questions. His jaw works as he contemplates what you’ve said, sipping the tea a little.

“A protected just means someone under protection by my family,” Namjoon says finally. “My extended family is… large. We are a very close group and we consider those in our community blood.”

“It is… not always like that here.”

“Your mother assists Mrs. Hutch, though. That seems like family, in a way.”

“Mrs. Hutch is kind. Not everyone is.”

Namjoon nods. “It is not like that where I am from. We bear the sins of our neighbors and we share the responsibility of keeping everyone safe.”

“That must be nice.” You sip your tea and scald your tongue, hissing and setting the cup down. Namjoon leans forward as though to help you, alarm on his face. “Tea is too hot. I don’t know how you drink it.”

He smiles and shrugs. “I run warm.”

“So you said. How are you related to Dr. Kim?”

“He’s my uncle. He’s my father’s brother. His wife was best friends with my mom.”

“Oh.” You blink in surprise. “She passed away when I was very young. She… died the same winter as my father.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Namjoon frowns and cocks his head. “What did your father do?”

“He was a hunter.”

One of the logs pops in the fireplace, making you flinch. You give a nervous laugh and glance at Namjoon, who has gone stone-still. The firelight dances on his face as he peers at you. Your smile falters a little at the gravity you find there.

“He only hunted fowl and deer,” you find yourself explaining. You don’t know why you say it, only that suddenly that feels important. “He didn’t like to hunt bigger game or predators. Mother says that he believed they were best left alone and that a true hunter knows his betters when he sees them.”

Namjoon hums. “Smart man.”

“I don’t know. He died in an animal attack when I was very young.”

“You must resent the woods.”

“Not at all. I think…” You bite your bottom lip, trying to find the right words. “I think that he wouldn’t blame the animals. The woods are their home. My mother says he was always very adamant about that. They don’t usually attack villagers, though.”

“Usually?”

“There are animal attacks happening. I’m sure Dr. Kim told you…?”

“Ah, yes. You think they’re without reason?”

“Perhaps hunger? I don’t know. It does not happen often.”

“Wolves are not known to hunt people.” Namjoon’s fingers drum against his mug, a steady tap. He seems thoughtful as he regards you. “They’re intelligent creatures and their packs are important to them. They take the threat to their land and their family seriously.”

“Like your family?”

He laughs. “Like my family.” Namjoon sips his tea again. “This land used to belong to several packs of wolves, you know?”

“Really?”

“Yes, until settlers drove them out. Not that long ago there were hunting parties for sport. They slaughtered entire packs, destroying bloodlines and nearly wiping out the wolves here entirely.”

“I always found that incredibly sad.”

“Why is that?”

“They’re incredibly important to the ecosystem here. And I guess I always agreed with my dad. I don’t remember him much, but I like to remember that he was good at heart.”

Namjoon hums but says nothing else. You sit in silence for a while, enjoying the warmth of the fire. Namjoon’s presence is steady, keeping out the cold and the fear just beyond the door. You wonder how he does that by just sitting in a chair, or how it feels so natural.

Outside, the world begins to turn gray. You yawn as exhaustion begins to set in and you feel yourself sagging. Eyes burning, you rub them with the back of your hands, blinking a few times to fight the explosion of colors in your vision.

“You can sleep,” Namjoon says softly from where he sits. You glance at him. “You can trust me.”

A hint of pine and bergamot drift toward you, making you drowsy. Namjoon grabs a blanket from the back of his chair and stands up, bringing it to you. He takes your mug and you watch him with sleepy, round eyes as he places the blanket over you.

“Sleep.” His voice is soft, distant. “I will be here.”

Your eyes flutter shut and you drift to sleep, remembering the warm sound of his voice. It… reminds you of your wolf.

Gentle voices pull you from the clutches of sleep. You wake slowly, a cramp in your neck making you reluctant to get up. You smell the fire and the hint of pine and bergamot. You hear a low, raspy voice that you instantly recognize as Namjoon.

How swiftly I know his voice, you think.

“You must wake her,” a male voice says. You recognize it as Dr. Kim. “The constable is coming for questioning.”

“She’s already awake,” Namjoon answers, a smile in his voice. Your eyes snap open at being caught, meeting his dark gaze as he smirks from near your door. “See?”

You scowl at him. How did he know that? Sitting up and stretching, you appraise the two men lurking near your door. “Is my mother still with Mrs. Hutch?”

Dr. Kim nods and steps swiftly into the room around Namjoon. Namjoon reaches out a hand, catching Dr. Kim with his arm and stopping him from entering the room properly. You watch in puzzlement as there’s a silent exchange between the two of them, Namjoon’s face dark as Dr. Kim raises a brow.

Then, Namjoon lets him go. You cock your head to the side, wondering what that’s about. Ignoring Namjoon, Dr. Kim approaches and says, “The constable will be here shortly. Say nothing about the farm.”

The farm. The memory of the wolves brings a chill to your arm, the smell of smoke and burning oil. The confusion and Dr. Kim’s refusal to answer your questions.

“What is going on?” you demand, eyes flickering from Dr. Kim to Namjoon. “Animal attacks, murders, you covering up something at the barn. I’m being lied to.”

“Say nothing about the farm,” Dr. Kim says again, voice firm. Namjoon makes a noise that startles you. It’s almost like a growl, your eyes going wide as he glares at Dr. Kim. “I told you this village has a complicated history. I’m looking after your safety.”

Heavy footsteps sound on the porch. There’s a loud knock on the door, the constable announcing his presence on the other side. Namjoon opens the door for him, standing back to let him in. The constable looks him up and down with confusion before looking at you, a question in his eyes.

“They came to check on me,” you offer. The constable has known you since you were a child, it’s no wonder he’s confused at the presence of a stranger in your home. “How can I help you, constable?”

“I’d like you to answer a few questions about last night. Mr. Liang confirmed you were one of the first people to Hutch’s last night.”

Dr. Kim walks to your kitchen and busies himself making tea. Namjoon moves to sit in the chair across from you, his warm presence from the night before replaced with something mildly threatening. You cut him a look but his dark eyes are focused on the constable as though he’s a threat.

The questions are easy enough. When did you wake up? Did you notice anyone around your home when you came home? Did you notice anyone outside? When did you come home?

You leave out running into Namjoon behind your home. You don’t know why, but you feel the need to not draw attention to him. You also leave out the strange incident at the farm, glancing sideways at Dr. Kim when he brings you lemon tea.

When the constable is finished, he eyes Dr. Kim. “Be at the station at four,” he instructs. “We’re splitting hunting parties. One to look for the culprit, the other to get rid of the damn wolves.”

“The wolves were there first, you know?” Namjoon speaks up, looking at you and not the constable. “Have you ever tried figuring out what they want?”

“And who the hell are you?”

“Please ignore my nephew, constable. He likes to insert himself in conversations he doesn’t belong in. Come, let’s look over the hounds before you send them out tonight.”

Together, the constable and Dr. Kim shuffle out. Before he shuts the door, Dr. Kim levels the pair of you with a heavy gaze. You don’t know what that gaze means, but you know that something is going on in this village and that he and Namjoon seem to have some idea about it.

As soon as the door shuts, you turn to Namjoon and demand, “What is going on?”

He sighs. “Would you listen if I just said to wait it out?”

“Do you know who murdered Mr. Hatch?”

Namjoon hesitates and shakes his head. You narrow your eyes, unbelieving. “I really don’t know who did, Red.”

“Why are you really here? Why all the secrets?”

“I told you, my family protects those who belong to their community.”

“What did you mean about asking what the wolves want?”

“I told you last night. There were wolves long before this village existed. Seems to me that if the wolves are suddenly killing the townspeople, perhaps it’s because they want their land back. Or maybe they’re angry from years of being hunted.”

That shuts you up. You can’t argue with that, exactly. But… “Are you saying that the wolves are capable of revenge?”

Namjoon stands and gestures to your cloak. “How often do you wear that?”

“Every day. It’s… sentimental to me.”

His eyes lighten and he offers a half smile. “Good. Red is a lucky color.”

“Where are you going?”

He opens the door, cold wind hissing past the opening. “Your mom is coming. I’ll see you later, Red.”

Without another word, Namjoon slips through the door and shuts it firmly behind him. You stare after him, openmouthed and confused. As promised, you hear your mother come up the steps, light feet scuffing before she quickly lets herself in, shutting the door firmly behind her.

You offer to make your mother breakfast, happy to help as she dozes in the chair. It isn’t until later that you wonder how Namjoon had heard her coming at all.

Little Lucy Larkin

In a little wood

Little Lucy Larkin

Up to no good

Little Lucy Larkin

In her little hood

Little Lucy Larkin

Ware of the woods!

Little Lucy Larkin

Stole a little bread

Little Lucy Larkin

In the woods of dread

Little Lucy Larkin

Is a little thief

Little Lucy Larkin

Die by wolf’s teeth

A sense of unease slithers up your spine as you pull your cloak closer. The voice of the children playing the Little Lucy Game echoes down the street and you pause to watch as the little boy playing Lucy steals the rock from the middle of the circle and the little boy playing the wolf gets up to chase him.

The other kids scream and giggle as the boys give chase, the sound of their laughter eerie in the cold gray of twilight. Shaking it off, you turn and duck your head as you walk up the steps to the Tall Tales Inn.

Warmth and the scent of food greet you. It’s a thinner crowd than the day before but still more people than you’re used to without the traders in town. There is a clear divide in the dining room with traders on one side and townsfolk on the other, the murder quick to make the locals distrust the new people in their streets.

Tense conversations hum in the gold light. You navigate around tables until you find Hoseok sitting with Seokjin. The sight of Seokjin gives you pause. He seems to sense your presence, glancing up and meeting your questioning stare. He gives no reaction, though, turning his attention back to Hoseok who is murmuring quietly.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, Jin,” you say by way of greeting. Hoseok gives you a look at your clipped tone. You ignore it, sitting down and leveling the older man with a stare, his father’s mysteriousness weighing on you. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

He narrows his eyes a fraction. “Just enjoying the company of friends.”

“Shouldn’t you be helping the constable?”

“I’m on the late-night shift.”

Grinding your teeth, you sit roughly. Hoseok just watches you, brows raised. You say nothing as you order a drink and a meal, picking at the splinters of the tabletop, eyeing Seokjin. If he’s put out by your rudeness he doesn’t show it, drinking heartily from his tankard and watching you with dark, even eyes.

You know Seokjin knows whatever it is his father and Namjoon have been talking about. You yourself have not been able to work out what’s going on in the village, but you’re sure the Kims know. And if Dr. Kim asked you to lie to the constable… well perhaps Seokjin is leading him astray as well.

Hoseok pipes up, steering the conversation everywhere he can to avoid the tension building between you and Seokjin and the topics of murders. You participate as little as possible, mind trying to put together the puzzle pieces of the blooming mystery in your home.

An uncomfortable thought starts to take root in your mind. Is it possible that the Kim family is behind the murders? Dr. Kim has plenty of weapons at his disposal, and they had been talking about revenge, and Dr. Kim had covered up what happened at the Marrow’s farm… but what did that have to do with wolves?

You’re not sure. But you do know that the Kims are purposefully hiding things, that there is a murderer somewhere in the town or near it, and that there is a sense of doom that you cannot shake, a dark itch like stinging nettle in your bones.

Seokjin excuses himself to take an afternoon nap before his hunting party heads out for the evening. Your eyes track him as he goes. Seokjin certainly doesn’t seem evil, but there’s no telling what’s behind his pretty face.

“What is wrong with you?” Hoseok asks, leaning over the table and whispering harshly. “You’re behaving rather odd.”

“Something is going on.”

“Yes, your attitude.”

You turn and glare at him. “No, Hobi. Something is going on with the Kim family. I don’t know how to explain it.” You grip your cup tighter. “But I intend to figure it out.”

Hoseok questions you about what that means. You keep your answers vague, not wanting to rope him into your plan. Too often as children did you lure Hoseok into trouble, and with how dangerous night is becoming in your town, you know it’s a bad idea to endanger him too.

T sun sets over the village. You stand at your bedroom window, watching through the frosty window as the sun turns the sky into a smear of blood. The clouds have cleared away just for this sanguine sunset. It makes your stomach turn, a sense of foreboding heavy in the air.

Still, it doesn’t deter you. Red fades to gray-blue and gray-blue fades to black. Wind rattles the glass in the window pane. Turning from the window, you find your thickest pair of pants and fur-lined tunic. The fabric feels scratchy on your skin.

Dressed, you look at your red cloak folded on the bed. Any other night you would take it with you. It has become your safety net, something that keeps you warm and keeps you safe. You cannot recall a day you haven’t worn it since it mysteriously showed up thirteen years ago, but tonight, you need obscurity.

Instead, you reach for an old, thick cloak that used to belong to your father. It's dark brown and worn at the edges, a little too big for you as the hem brushes the ground. It will serve its purpose in keeping you hidden in the dark of the woods, though.

All you grab is a hunting knife that you don’t know how to use, a wax candle, and a solid piece of flint and sharp rock to light it with. The candle and flint are for emergencies only. You hope it won’t be so dark that you cannot see, but you’re unsure what the clouds are going to do.

Outside, the wind is sharp. Your nostrils burn as you breathe it in and duck away behind your house. No new snow has fallen during the day, which is a good thing. You don’t have to worry about dragging your boots and tiring your calves. It also helps that the sky is clear tonight, the moon a sliver of sharp light.

Baying hounds echo through the village and the forest as the hunting dogs lead the men into the woods. You’re quick on your feet, dashing into the woods and heading north. You don’t want to run right into the hunting party, but you do want to find their burning torches and keep them in your line of sight.

They are easy to find, hovering like orange fireflies in the distance. Careful to make your way in the dark, you follow them. Your breath mists in front of you, hands shaking more from the adrenaline than the cold.

The torches spread out. You chew on your lip, unsure which group would belong to Seokjin. You take a gamble, heading after the group closest to you.

Everything feels too loud. Each snap of a branch under your foot and crunch of dry leaves feels like it’s going to give you away. Still, you’re good at sneaking for the most part, having spent plenty of time skulking through the village to take nightly strolls in the woods.

Voices carry to you. Through a system of running a few steps forward and dodging behind a tree, you manage to follow the men at a distance. You think that you hear the constable’s voice, which is a good sign. If he’s around, perhaps Seokjin is too.

The deeper you go into the forest, the colder it gets. The ground beneath your feet slopes. The evergreens are packed tighter here, needles tickling your hands as you keep your hands held out from your sides as you slide downward.

This is near where I saved that wolf, you think.

It’s true. You recognize the slope of the land and the general area. You cannot tell if it’s exactly where you met the wolf, but it’s close enough that your senses tingle and your eyes sweep the land, expecting something to happen.

A sense of foreboding trails you as the men move deeper into the wood. You turn around and look for the other torches and see nothing but a dark, compact forest. Your stomach flips uncomfortably but you continue, unsure now if it’s safer to turn back or to keep going.

Ahead, the group of men decide to take a break. The hounds sniff the area around them, pulling at the leashes as they go. Crouching low, you watch as the hounds go in circles, following the scent of something that seems to confuse them.

The men take long droughts of water, making you wish you’d thought of that. Mouth dry and hands cold, you huddle against a tree, bark digging into your back.

A few minutes pace by. You close your eyes, resting your head against the tree, breathing cold air in deeply. You don’t know what you expect the group to lead you to, only that you-

Something snaps behind you. Your eyes fly open and your limbs lock. Heart beating like a steady drum, you hold your breath and strain your eyes. For a moment, there’s nothing but the dim voices of the men taking a break. You think it’s nothing until you hear something again, a gentle susurration of leaves.

One of the hounds lifts its head, ears twitching. Your eyes scan the surrounding area back and forth, searching for what you know is there.

It happens so fast that you don’t even see the wolves enter the ring of torchlight until they’re there, snarls rattling the trees. You clamp your hands over your mouth to mute your gasp as the sounds of screams and tearing flesh explode in the night. Hounds screech, their growls savage and choked as the wolves descend.

You don’t know how many there are. Torch lights go down and drown you in darkness. Squeezing your eyes shut, you curl in on yourself, panting through your hands as the sounds echo in your ears. A new fear has stabbed its way between your ribs, making it hard to breathe.

Time moves slowly. Or quickly. You cannot tell which. One moment the sounds of a nightmare turned real are just a few hundred yards away. The next, an eerie silence blankets the dark forest.

You don’t want to open your eyes, but you have to. Very slowly, you crack an eye open. At first, there’s nothing. Your vision swims with flashing colors, your eyes trying to adjust. Then, there is the vague outline of trees. Ahead of you, where the men had been, lay shadowed piles.

Shaking, you glance around. You see nothing - hear nothing. You stand slowly. Each inch you gain feels like you’re being too loud. Sweat gathers on the back of your neck. The cool air makes it feel like an icy finger brushing down your nape.

When you’re sure that there’s nothing else around, you take a step toward where the attack happened. Leaves crunch beneath your feet. You stop breathing, waiting for signs of anything. Nothing happens and you let out a trembling breath, taking one more step. Again, you wait to see if your footfalls will trigger something.

You repeat this to the edge of the slaughter - for that’s what it is. A slaughter. Bile rises in your throat as you reach the first body and stamped-out torch. The constable and his hound lay in tatters, only recognizable by the batch on his cloak.

It is carnage. You don’t dare breathe through your nose for fear of breathing in the scent of death, circling the scene with weak knees, hand pressed to your mouth to keep in the whimpers. You see the faces of men you’ve known since you were a child. Ripped, bloodied, gored.

Finally, you lean over and empty the contents of your stomach. It burns on the way up, choking you. Pressing a hand against a tree, you breathe raggedly. The adrenaline coursing through you makes you twitchy and unstable, each nerve feeling like it’s on fire.

Leaves crunch a few feet away. Your head snaps in and you zero in on the source of the noise, mouth hanging open when you see Seokjin standing amongst the trees. He stares at you, frown on his face.

“Who are you?” he asks, voice gentle. You realize he can’t see your face under the cowl of your hood and you’re not in your traditional red. He sighs. “Doesn’t matter.”

You hear shuffling behind him before you see a white wolf. The white wolf from the Marrow farm. There are others, then. You don’t know how you missed them, the darkness of their fur blending in with the darkness around them.

The white one is spotted in red, muzzle matted, teeth slicked. Your stomach lurches. It isn’t hard to guess where it’s from. You take a step back and the wolf growls, lips pulled back. You freeze, looking amongst the pack of wolves that fan out around Seokjin, desperately looking for your wolf with the kind, intelligent eyes.

You do not find him there.

With a growl, the white wolf steps forward. Your instincts kick in and you turn and run, letting out a wild shriek as you do so. If Seokjin recognizes your voice when you scream, you cannot tell. The wolves are after you and you’re barreling through the trees with no hope of outrunning them, especially uphill.

A wolf nips at your ankle and you scream, tripping over your feet in your terror and going down hard. You’re jarred as you hit the ground, bones rattling as pain shoots up your limbs from the impact. Before you can scramble, there are teeth around your ankle, not biting down hard enough to snap, but hard enough to drag.

Your scream is wretched even to your ears. It is a curdling, nightmarish sound. You feel the scrape of leaves and sticks against your skin, cloak picking up dirt and twigs as you go. Your nails dig into the ground but the soil is frozen solid, fingers scraping bluntly against it.

With a surge of self-preservation, you kick your free leg backward as hard as you can. You hit the wolf in the muzzle, making it cry, and let go of your foot. You manage to crawl to your knees, slipping in the foliage as you try to stand before it’s tearing at your cloak, determined to drag you one way or another.

Sliding again as it drags you by the cloak, you try to undo the ties at your throat with shaking fingers. It comes away and frees you from the hellish drag to your death. This time, you’re faster to your feet, turning and running in the opposite direction. You don’t know where you’re going, just that you want to get away.

Your foot slides on the incline and with a shout you go down. This time, your head hits the ground hard. Your ears ring and your vision pulses. Blinking, you roll over and stare up at the canopy of dark trees. The world spins dangerously and you feel nausea churn deep in your stomach.

“Yoongi!” you hear the deep voice but it sounds warbled like you’re hearing it through water. Your head lolls to the side, the ringing in your ears still going as you see feet pass you. “Enough!”

Your field of vision narrows to a sharp point, edges pulling with black. You realize you’re about to pass out, oddly just thankful that you’re already on the ground. Just as your world begins to face, the face of the person in front of you appears.

Namjoon.

“Hey,” a gentle voice calls to you. There are soft hands on your head, brushing against your forehead. It smells like pine and bergamot as you snuggle into them. “I hate to wake you, but you need to wake up every few hours.”

The memory of the wolves comes to you. Your eyes snap open and you blink a few times before your vision adjusts to see Namjoon leaning over you. Cringing away from him, you press yourself into a warm, soft mattress that isn’t your own.

“Easy,” he cautions, holding his hands up. “You smacked your head very hard. I think you have a concussion.”

“Where am I?”

The room isn’t so much a room as it is a shack. There is a single fireplace in the far corner, a pile of logs, and the bed that you’re in. Despite the tiny space, it looks well-built and it’s warm, your heart slowing down as Namjoon leans to sit further from you and give you your space.

“Random shack in the woods near your village. I think it used to be a hunter’s stead for the winter.” He jerks his thumb toward the fireplace. “Hasn’t been used in a while. The wood has rotted.”

“Seokjin - you - what is going on?”

Emotions spill out of you like a broken dam. You don’t know which to acknowledge first: anger, fear, curiosity, gratitude.

Namjoon’s sigh is heavy. He visibly looks wearing, running a hand through his hair. You wonder how soft his hair is, followed immediately by feeling ridiculous for the timing of said thought.

“Just…” he winces. “Try to lean back and take it easy, I’m worried about how hard you hit your head. I promise I have no intentions of hurting you or letting anyone hurt me.”

“You called that white wolf Yoongi. Who is Yoongi? Why was Seokjin in the woods - those people - they’re dead.”

He nods slowly. “They are.”

You lean back carefully. The bed is comfortable and Namjoon keeps his distance, worried eyes on you. “I will try to explain the best I can. It will require a little bit of faith that I’m not lying to you and that I’m not insulting your intelligence by telling you things that will sound insane.”

“Like what?”

“Like werewolves exist.”

You stare at him. He doesn’t laugh, crack a grin, or do anything to make you believe he’s joking. Your first instinct is to blow him off. Werewolves were a tale for children and a way to help the children of the village cope during periods of wolf violence.

Thus far, all Namjoon has done is protect you. Strange as it seems, you know that fact to be true. He didn’t tell Dr. Jim you were eavesdropping, he kept you company after Mr. Hatch’s murder, and he stopped the wolves from taking you.

Namjoon is… there is something between you. You know it.

Hesitantly, you say, “Alright. Werewolves exist. Keep going.”

He is visibly relieved that you’re not questioning or berating him. You don’t exactly believe him yet, but you want to hear his story.

“There were communities of werewolves who lived here long before humans did. When people migrated to this area, they drove them out and forced those communities to become smaller and smaller. When the werewolves asked for their land back or to share resources, they were hunted and slaughtered.”

Namjoon’s throat bobs and emotions flicker across his face. His features settle on pain, and you stop yourself from reaching out to take his hand. “What you vaguely remember as wolf attacks and wolf hunts as a child was those families being exterminated. There are a few families in the village who remember that werewolves exist. They took it upon themselves to remove the problem forever.”

This village has a complicated history.

Dr. Kim’s words float through your mind as you chew on what Namjoon has told you. He lets the information settle, giving you a few moments to think. You don’t recall anyone seriously ever talking about werewolves but…

“They’re angry,” you murmur, remembering how San described the massacre at the Mathesons. “The wolves now - those aren’t wolves. They’re werewolves who are getting revenge. You spoke of revenge with Dr. Kim. Is that why the animal attacks have been happening?”

Namjoon nods grimly. “There is a very small concentration of people in the village who keep the secret about the massacres and the knowledge of werewolves. Those families have been… targeted recently. They still hunt werewolves when they can.”

“Who is Yoongi?”

“Ah,” he lets out a humorless laugh. “He leads the last remaining community of werewolves. His family was murdered by your constable when he was a child.” You blanch. “Yoongi is angry, vengeful, and very influential. When he was voted pack alpha, he decided to eliminate the last remaining threats.”

“He’s the white wolf.” Namjoon raises his brows but nods. You think that makes sense, remembering the white wolf at the Marrow farm and the one who dragged you in the forest. “Why was Seokjin there? Did he lead the constable to-”

Namjoon hesitates and nods. “The Kim family are wolf friends. It’s largely the reason Dr. Kim is a veterinarian. They’re what we call one foot in the forest. There were two others in your village that were wolf friends. Your neighbor was one.”

You twist your fingers in the blanket. “Did Yoongi-”

“No. I believe he was murdered by one of the men who knows what Yoongi and his people are.”

“So that’s why Seokjin led them to Yoongi?” Namjoon gives a curt nod. “This is…. A lot to take in.”

“It is. Sleep a little more and we’ll talk about it more when you wake up. Your head is already swimming enough, yeah?”

Namjoon’s grin is gentle and you shoot one back. “Do you promise to tell me why you’re really here? And why it feels like I know you?”

“Of course. Sleep, Red.”

Namjoon wakes you again a few hours later. This time, it’s with water. It’s cool and fresh, soothing your aching head and waking up your sleepy senses. He lets you drain the entire thing, sitting thoughtfully at the end of your bed.

This time, you feel more alert. Sitting up carefully, you cross your legs and examine him. He’s dressed in simple clothes and a jacket, the fireplace throwing an orange glow on his face. Again, you’re struck with how much you could swear you know him, like his eyes are something you know and love.

He waits for you to get settled, placing your hands in your lap. You fiddle with the edge of your tunic, drinking him in. Strong shoulders, rough hands, tawny skin. Your heart does a flip before you shove away thoughts of how pretty he is to think about what he’s told you so far.

“I have questions.”

He smiles and it’s as warm as the fire behind him. “Of course you do.”

“Did the werewolves kill my father?”

You get the tough one out of the way first. It was a thought you had just before you slept, wondering if your father had been someone who helped the constable murder Yoongi’s family. Though you have decided to dislike the white wolf very strongly, you can’t help but pity him.

“No,” Namjoon says vehemently. “After you told me about your father, I did some asking around. He was a wolf friend. That’s why he didn’t hunt big game, Red. He knew about us.”

A tight feeling works its way up your throat. The relief and anger you feel is a double-edged sword, happy that he didn’t contribute to the displacement Namjoon is speaking of and angry that you know with every bone in your body that he was murdered. The instinct speaks to you the same way it tells you that you know Namjoon.

You look up at him sharply, realizing something. “What do you mean ‘he knew about us’? Us?”

Namjoon’s eyes are dark. He regards you intensely, making you shiver. Slowly, Namjoon begins to roll one of his sleeves. Your eyes drop to his hand as he does, long fingers meticulous. He bares his skin and holds his hand out to you, displaying the jagged, white scar that lopes around his wrist.

Without thinking twice, you reach out to him, pulling his hand toward you. His skin is warm, sending a tingle through your fingertips. His palm is large and rough, your fingers delicate as you flip it to face the ceiling, eyes glued to the scarring around his wrist.

You move your fingers over his palm gently, scraping the calluses as you go. He lets you do what you want, touch stopping at his wrist bone before glancing up at him. His eyes are impossibly dark and he nods, urging you forward.

The scarring is rough. Thick, ropey lines encircle his wrist like his hand was ravished by teeth. It makes you faintly think of Yoongi’s teeth around your ankle or -

“You,” you breathe, eyes meeting his. They are the same warm, intelligent, and welcoming eyes of the wolf you’d saved all those years ago. The wolf who had stood between you and the others at the Marrow farm. The wolf you dream about every night. “I saved you?”

His throat bobs. “You did.”

“I… that’s why it feels like I know you.” Your fingers trace his scar, almost fondly. Namjoon’s eyes flutter. “I do know you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

He smirks. “‘Hi, my name is Namjoon and I can turn into a wolf whenever I want and you saved me a few years ago and I’ve been thinking about you ever since’ is not exactly a great opening.”

“Better than ‘you know most people who don’t want to be seen don’t wear a red cloak’.” He scrunches his nose. Cute. “I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s alright. I’ll talk if you’re willing to listen?”

You nod, not letting go of his hand. Now that you know who and what he is, any residual fear is gone. You scoot toward him, wanting to be closer. “I want to know.”

“Giho is my uncle like I said. He’s not a werewolf, though. That trait passed through my mom’s side of the family. Still, he was family and he knew about the werewolves that my father married into. He's a wolf friend and does what he can to help us, including making house calls and stealing us goods in harsh winters.”

“Huh. I always just thought he was a quiet, grumpy vet.”

“He is very much that, but he has also been a lifeline. He helps Yoongi far more than he should. It puts him in danger. His wife was killed for being a wolf friend. Giho was left alone simply because he is useful to the village.” Your fingers squeeze his hand at the hurt in his voice. “That night you found me… I was pretty young then. Fourteen, to be exact. I was nosing around the village that everyone was so afraid of and never saw the trap. I cannot emphasize how much you saved my life.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do. I was afraid but you were… hurt. And your eyes were so kind. I don’t regret it.”

“What a relief.” You smile, genuinely happy. “I was worried you might after finding out my family were sort of… killing people.”

“When you put it that way,” you wince. “But I do believe you. That humans drove you out. That people are hurting you and your people. You don’t deserve it and I… don’t think I am in a position to offer moral arguments to what you’re doing.”

“I knew I liked you.”

“You barely know me.”

Namjoon turns his hand and catches yours, lacing your fingers. Your heart skitters as he pulls you a little close and leans, eyes narrowed playfully. “Hmm, sorry. I wasn’t really allowed to come hang out around your town, Little Red.”

“Why did you finally come? Is it to help Yoongi?”

He shakes his head. “I only have one goal.”

“Which is?”

“To keep you safe.” That quiets you. Namjoon doesn’t meet your eyes when he continues, “You showed me such kindness, I just wanted to repay you. I liked to keep an eye on you when I could, always from a safe distance. You might not know me, but I grew up knowing you.”

Your mouth goes dry at his words. For someone who poses such a threat, Namjoon is gentle. Soft. Kind. You swallow past the lump in your throat. “Did you give me the red cloak?”

“Yeah. It was to mark you as a friend. We give them to those who are under our protection.” He narrows his eyes. “Which is why Yoongi swears he didn’t know it was you in the woods tonight. Seokjin’s eyesight is too piss poor to realize it was you. Idiots.”

“Well if you know about me, tell me about you. What’s your favorite color? What do you like to eat? What's your favorite thing about being a wolf?”

So Namjoon does tell you. You both end up sitting on the bed next to one another, arms touching as he traces the lines on your palm. Your backs are pressed against the wall, feet dangling off the edge of his bed as he tells you about his childhood.

It is fascinating hearing about the dynamics of his community but it’s also sad. Hearing how they live in fear, hearing how so many of the people he knows are gone. Realizing that the things he tells you match up with things you realize about your own community.

Sadness sinks to the bottom of your gut like a rock. It isn’t pity that you feel, but something far more profound. It’s regret that you didn’t know any better. Frustration that he has suffered. A radical feeling of anger and desire for justice knowing you lived in comfort while Namjoon and his family suffered.

There are good parts, too. Namjoon recalls happy moments and blushes when he recalls seeing you a few times. It doesn’t feel weird or strange, knowing someone was looking out for you. It feels comforting, like old friends catching up.

Namjoon’s eyes sparkle as he tells you about his favorite books. You don’t know when you stop listening to him and start staring, but it’s inevitable. You love the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, dimple making an appearance as he recalls a story about putting Yoongi in the dirt with his brother, Taehyung’s help. You love the way he gestures wildly with his hands, every word evocative and enthusiastic.

He’s the kind of person you would have been friends with had he grown up with you. And maybe a little more, you think, watching Namjoon watch you. His gaze is even and heated, making you squirm. His mouth twitches and you’re so sure that he knows he makes you nervous.

“I never thanked you,” you mention. He hums in question, letting you go back to tracing his scare delicately. He twitches and you grin. Good. “For saving me from the jaws of Yoongi.”

“Ah, that. I think he knew it was you. There’s a reason he dragged you instead of killing you on the spot.”

“Huh. Well, that’s very rude.”

“He’s good at that.”

“You sound fond, still.”

He nods. “I love Yoongi. Is my brother, in a way.”

“Well still. Thank you.”

You look up at Namjoon. You’re sitting so close, shoulders pressed against one another. He smells like pine and bergamot, your favorite scent. It’s heady, awakening a foreign ache in you. Your heart speeds up as you lean into him just a little more, watching him through your lashes.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he rumbles, voice deep.

Your toes curl. “Like what?”

“LIke you wanna do more than just thank me.”

“Maybe I do.”

“I know.”

Ah. You start to pull away and turn your head, realizing that he’s not interested, but Namjoon catches your chin with his other hand, tilting you back toward him. Your heart stalls when he looks down at your mouth, then back up to your eyes. “I’ve known you for all my life. Not how I wanted, but I’ve known you nonetheless. But you haven’t had the chance to know me.”

“I want to. I feel like I have known you. Like I knew you were always there.”

“Is this what you want?”

This. Namjoon. Whatever is crackling between you. The thing that has sparked since the moment he caught you eavesdropping. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have to make sense.

Namjoon makes sense though. The way his gaze softens when he sees you. The way he looms on the edge of your life, a silent protector. The way he could do so much damage but is soft instead. The way everything about him feels like the sun on a summer day, like a field of wildflowers in spring.

He must sense you tipping over the edge. His grip on your chin becomes firm and he tilts your face toward him, leaning down to press his warm, full mouth against yours. The effect is instantaneous. You melt into him, sighing as a feeling of belonging slots into place.

The kiss is chaste. Namjoon pulls away and your lashes flutter. You hadn’t even realized your eyes closed. His gaze is dark and half-lidded, his face close enough that you feel his breath. His lips have stoked a fire in you and you want more, you want to spill out the years of longing for something you didn’t know was there, for the sudden confirmation that he’d been there all along.

Surging forward, you press your lips to his again. This time, it’s searing, your mouth fierce as you push up off of the bed. Namjoon falls in your rhythm easily, hand leaving your chin to grab you by the waist and pull you into his lap.

Knees slotted on either side of him, you pour everything you have into the kiss. Your fingers card through his thick hair, silky strands sliding between them like you knew they would. His lips are soft on yours, mouth warm as you break the seal of the kiss with your tongue.

Namjoon lets out deep, throaty sounds. It coaxes the flame inside of you to a roar, tongue tangling with his. It’s wet and messy and a little impractical but you don’t feel embarrassed or nervous. It’s Namjoon. It feels like home.

Pleasure tingles down your spine. Namjoon grips your hips, fingers digging into your flesh. It feels hot and your skin is burning up, static trapped between your chests where they’re pressed together. Your hips twitch, tentatively seeking friction in his lap. Namjoon responds immediately, pulling your hips toward him and letting you roll.

Your mouths part but Namjoon doesn’t stop kissing you. You pant while he presses his mouth to your chin and jawline, tongue tough against the softness of your skin. “I’ve wanted you for so long,” he growls. You tilt your head back, letting him pepper your throat. “You have no idea.”

“I always felt like something was missing. I think it was you.”

Namjoon moans at your admission. The heat between your legs is almost painful. One of Namjoon’s hands goes from your waist to between your legs, cupping you. You gasp back bowing as he presses firmly, deft fingers providing mind-numbing pleasure.

“That feels good.” You fist the collar of his shirt and squeeze your eyes. You feel tense, color exploding behind your closed lids. “Don’t stop.”

“Whatever you want,” he whispers. He pulls you in close, fingers curling. Your hips buck and you realize it isn't enough. You need the barrier of clothes gone. You want it more than anything. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

“Yes.”

You do know. It’s second nature. You knew even that day in the street when you’d first seen him. Just like Namjoon knows what you want and need, land leaving the apex of your thighs to help you off his lap and onto the bed under him.

There’s a confidence in his movements that makes the room spin. Long forgotten are the wolf attacks and Yoongi’s teeth around your ankle. Here, it’s only the rasp of your pants against your skin as Namjoon pulls them down. It’s only the heat of his skis as you yank on his tunic, desperate to feel him.

Namjoon does run hot. His skin is burning up as your hands explore his firm chest. He captures your lips again, sucking your bottom lip in his mouth as he spreads your legs open with a knee. You shake under his touch, equal parts eager and stimulated.

He’s so, so gentle as he caresses your inner thigh. When he brings his fingers to your sticky center, you let out a pitiful whine. Namjoon pauses, fingers pressed to your swollen kiss as he laughs and breaks the kiss, forehead pressed against yours.

“Don’t laugh at me,” you pout, leaning your head up to bite his chin. “It feels good.”

He gives you a quick kiss. Once. Twice. “Good. I want to make you feel good.”

Namjoon circles his middle finger lazily around your clit. Your feet press into the bed, hips pulling up off the sheets. It feels amazing, pleasure sparking in your stomach. “That,” you gasp. “I like that.”

He dips his head down, attaching his mouth to your neck as he teases your cunt. You don’t have to say anything else, Namjoon’s inquisitive fingers learning what makes you squirm and sigh. You’re a mess beneath him, chest heavy, beats of sweat making your shirt cling to you.

You claw at it, pulling it away from you. Namjoon leans up and lets you take it off, eyes dipping as he smiles appreciatively. He combines the efforts of his fingers with his mouth, bending low to catch a pert nipple with his teeth.

“Shit!” you squeak, making him chuckle again.

His fingers circle your clenching hole, pussy leaking onto his fingers. He presses a finger in and you let out a long, quiet whine. The feeling of his finger pressing against your walls is perfect, your cunt clenching as he shallowing thrusts the finger.

Everything he does is perfect. He sucks at your nipple hungrily as he fingers you slowly, making sure to press up inside your cunt in a way that has you seeing stars. Your fingers tangle in his hair, unable to think about anything except his teeth scraping your sensitive bud and your pussy clenching around his finger.

Namjoon is attentive. The heel of his hand presses to your clit and he eases another finger in, slower than the last. He looks up at you, mouth slick with spit to watch your mouth fall open. You nod, urging him further, sound stuck in your throat.

The wet squelch between your legs as he fucks you with his fingers is obscene. You like it though, driven by the fact that it’s Namjoon doing it. Namjoon who you saved. Namjoon who watched over you.

You open your eyes and look up at him, cradling his face in your hands. His forehead is damp with sweat from the heat building in the little shack. His skin is flushed and his hair hangs in his face. You pull at his bottom lip with your thumb and he gazes at you, hungry and wild, pupils blown.

Greedy, you pull him to you. The kiss is more teeth than lips, the two of you panting. Your leg hooks around his waist and you nibble his bottom lip, hips rolling to meet his thrusts, an orgasm starting its ascent.

“I want you,” you breathe against his mouth. Your lips are sore from arduous kissing. “Please.”

He kisses you. “Okay.”

It’s that simple. You ask for it and he gives it to you.

Namjoon retracts his fingers from your cunt. You feel the sudden loss, fidgeting as you wait. He makes quick work of his pants, kneeling on the bed and bringing his hands covered in your juice to pump his cock. You feel your eyes bulge at his thick length.

He notices and grins, slowing his movements. You watch as his hand smears precum down his shaft, twisting lightly as he gets to the top, his thumb brushing over his dark tip. “You can take it,” he pants, grinning wolfishly. “I know you can.”

Instead of answering, you nod, lifting your hips eagerly. He hums, pleased as he lets go, cock bobbing heavily while he shuffles over and leans over you. He places his hands on either side of your head, arms flexing as he holds his weight to bend down and steal a quick kiss.

You kiss back feverishly, one hand traveling between your sweaty bodies to grip his length, trying to stroke him the way he did. He sighs, breaking the kiss and dropping his forehead against your chin as a shiver ripples through him. You smile, continuing to pump him.

“Want to be inside,” he mumbles, barely coherent.

You open yourself up more, gently guiding the blunt crown of his cock toward your trembling entrance. You hold your breath as his hips follow your hand, breaching your ring of tight muscles and pushing in.

Immediately your muscles spasm and resist, overwhelmed by Namjoon’s girth. You blow out a long breath as he enters you so, so slowly. It’s heaven and it’s hell, it’s pleasure and it’s pain. Namjoon presses his mouth to you, tongue distracting you as he bottoms out, stuffing you full.

Nothing has ever compared to how stretched you are. He doesn’t move, letting your cunt twitch around him. He holds himself up with one hand, the other brushing up and down your side, squeezing bits of flesh comfortingly as you try to still your beating heart under him.

The pain fades. You get greedy, wiggling your hips back and forth experimentally to feel the way Namjoon’s cock rubs against your walls. He blows out air sharply, a half laugh before his hand drops down to your hip, pushing you down into the bed with his weight as he slides backward.

“Ohhhh,” you sigh, head lolling to the side. The pressure of Namjoon pressing you down as he sets a slow pace of fucking into you is just right. You close your eyes, letting him set a slow pace in silence. “Yeah.”

Namjoon’s breath is unsteady. Every little sound he makes sets you on fire. You’re pliant beneath him as he picks up his speed, properly fucking into you. One of your hands reaches up to grab his bicep, nails digging in, the other shooting to his hand on your hip, squeezing his wrist.

Everything feels right. Connected. Overheated. The air is so thick you think you might suffocate, sheets sticking to your balmy skin, toes curling as Namjoon’s cock hits that spot inside of you that drives you mad.

Nothing but this matters. Nothing but knowing your wolf isn’t really a wolf at all, and that he’s been there all along. Just like you’d hoped.

“Fuck,” Namjoon pants. “I never dreamed I’d have you.”

“I dreamed of you,” you gasp on a particularly hard thrust, your nails dragging down his arm. “I just didn’t know it.”

His mouth crashes to yours. “Mine,” he growls. “My savior, mine to protect.”

Your orgasm spins like an out-of-control spool of thread, winding tighter and tighter. Namjoon can tell, chasing your orgasm with reckless abandon, throwing his gentle movements out the window and fucking you hard into the bed.

The sounds and words coming out of your mouth are useless babble, your thoughts turning murky as that spool tightens so much inside of you that it bursts, unspooling and spilling out of you around Namjoon’s cock.

You can’t even breathe as you come, feet kicking, nails digging into his skin, teeth clenched. Your heart beats in your ears, the only thing you can hear for a few seconds as you spasm, eyes clenched shut. You are vaguely aware of Namjoon coming shortly after you, your name ripping through clenched teeth as he does.

There are a few minutes of nothing punctuated by your stilted breathing and rapid pulse. Finally, you blink, stars swimming in your eyes as you look at Namjoon, who hangs his head on your chest. You reach a hand up and run your fingers through his sweaty hair.

Your wolf. Somehow you’d always known it. Even when you thought you were crazy.

Gently, Namjoon pulls out of you, fluid spilling between your legs. You don’t care, limbs too heavy to move. Your skin is still burning up from exertion and you roll your head to the side to watch Namjoon as he lays next to you, pulling you toward him.

For a little while, it’s quiet. You listen to the beating of his heart, closing your eyes and breathing deeply. You’re content just to lay there feeling whole just for once.

After a while, Namjoon sighs. “You have to go back eventually.”

“We.”

“Hmm?”

“We have to go back.”

Namjoon pulls away and frowns at your tone, eyes reading your face. Your mouth is set in a firm line and you look at him with all seriousness. “We’re not letting them get away with what the humans did to you and your family.”

“You want to help?”

“Yes.” You pause. “I think it’s what my father would have wanted. It’s what I want. Even if Yoongi bit me.”

“Yoongi will never bite you again,” he vows fiercely. Then, a little more gently, “But he… would be glad to hear your sympathetic stance. I’m glad to hear it, Red.”

“Good.” You snuggle closer. “You’re mine to protect too. And I will make them pay.”

For Namjoon. For your father. You’ll paint the village red.

#namjoon smut #kim namjoon smut #bts smut #namjoon fic #namjoon fanfic #kim namjoon fic #kim namjoon fanfic #namjoon x you #namjoon x reader #werewolf namjoon #collab

698 notes · View notes

cryptidghostgirl · 2 months

Text

Rhapsody (Alastor x Cursed!Gn!Reader)

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Description: Alastor and Y/n have been taking down the overlords of Hell together for years but Y/n has had a secret and Alastor knows it.

Warnings: ANGST. Listen, when I get to write stuff not for requests, it's usually angst. Idk what to tell you.

Word Count: 1,545

Part Two: Ritornello

Master Lists:

Master Lists

Hazbin Hotel Master List

Rhapsody Master List

Alastor had met Y/n in the early years of his career in Hell. As two agents of misfortune set on taking down the overlords of Hell, the Radio Demon and the Bard became fast friends. Before either of them really realized it, their care for one another had become a bit more than platonic.

It had been difficult to handle at first. Both had been let down, utterly betrayed by people that they had let into their lives in the past. Both were reserved but, it was inevitable.

Alastor was always causing trouble, making problems. He kept things interesting. Y/n liked that, liked him and his spirit. They were on the shyer side, having stage fright even though all their powers were based on music and performance. It was an amusing contradiction, the first thing that had really pulled Alastor in.

When he had finally worked up the courage to tell Y/n how he felt about them, they had been working on writing a new piece of music while Alastor wrote the script for his next broadcast. He hadn't been able to take it anymore. Watching them work, the concentration on their face, hearing them pick tunes on their instrument, the intimacy of the moment had over taken him.

They had look up in surprise, and he had apologized, controlled by a sudden fear of loss. Y/n had shook their head and gotten to their feet, allowing their lute to disappear. They had walked over to him, turned his face to theirs. They had kissed him, gently. Alastor was a goner.

He had never loved nor felt love like the one he shared with Y/n. It wasn't fire and passion, it wasn't destruction. No, the love was soft and gentle. It was a kitten they had adopted off the streets. It was a soft evening fog: all consuming and lovely.

None of the overlords were really all that surprised when they heard the news. Alastor and Y/n had similar goals, similar patterns of living. From what they knew of them, the pair balanced one another out perfectly, made one another stronger, better. Where Alastor was loud and omnipresent, Y/n was more reserved and watchful. Where Y/n could manipulate and control the world around them, Alastor handled people. Even the manifestation of their abilities was similar in some respects, Alastor with his microphone and Y/n with their lute. In combining their abilities and territories, they managed to control nearly a third of Pentagram City. Alastor was the face of their little operation while Y/n was the power. The overlords knew they had to act soon, otherwise their downfall would be inevitable at the hands of the most powerful duo of sinners in Hell.

They kept no secrets from one another, save one. Y/n, in all their quiet chaos, would disappear on occasion. It was something that began happening a year or so into their relationship, a few years after they had met one another. They would jump up and leave in the middle of conversations even on occasion. Whenever Alastor tried to ask about it, they always brushed him off. He never got more than a brief excuse out of them but, he trusted them. It was okay. He knew they weren't working against him or anything malevolent like that, it wasn't in their nature.

It wasn't that Y/n didn't want to tell Alastor what was going on, it was that they were scared. The truth of it all showed fragility, made them into something monstrous, made them weak. They trusted Alastor but, not enough to let him in. They trusted no one enough to let them in on this front. The secret put a strain on their relationship, but Y/n was certain it was better than the alternative.

The couple's favorite spot in all of Hell was on the outskirts of Pentagram City. There was a field there of red grass. A hill at the center bore a tall, twisted tree with bark so dark brown it was nearly black. It was where Alastor and Y/n went to simply exist, to escape the self imposed disarray of their lives.

Alastor had asked Y/n to meet him there that day and so they did. He had told them nothing other than that he had something important to tell them. As they climbed the hill, they spotted Alastor seated beneath the tree at the top reading a book.

Y/n smiled fondly at the sight. He was so engrossed in his book that he didn't even realize they were there until they were already seated beside him.

"Hey." Y/n smiled, leaning up against Alastor's shoulder.

He jumped slightly, turning to face them. His eyes softened at the sight and he closed his book, putting it to the side.

"Hello song bird." he cooed, pressing a soft kiss to their lips, "How has your day been?"

"Alastor, you saw me this morning. It's only like two in the afternoon."

Alastor shrugged and Y/n laughed lightly, pulling their knees into their chest.

"It's been okay. Nearly figured out a way to take that dinosaur overlord out, I forget their name. Should be done by the end of the week."

Alastor furrowed his brow, he looked down at his lap.

"Hey, are you okay?" Y/n asked, noticing the change in their partner's demeanor.

"Y/n, why do you always run off places?" he asked suddenly, "It's been happening more often, are you alright?"

Y/n sat up straight, taking their head from Alastor's shoulder.

"I'm fine."

Alastor shook his head.

"You're lying again. Sometimes... sometimes I feel like I don't really know you. So, I've made a decision."

Y/n's eyes went wide, his words a bullet through their chest. Sure, things had been a bit rocky between them of late. Alastor was right, they had been leaving him more frequently, hiding from him. They always figured things out, Y/n was sure of it. They had done it before and they would do it again and one day, once they figured out how to stop the curse, how to break it, they would tell him. Everything would be okay.

Their heart pounded against their ribcage, begging for release. They took a shaky breath.

"A decision?"

Alastor looked away, pulling a knee into his chest. Unable to meet their eyes.

"I'm joining the overlords and..."

"Oh, theres an and?" Y/n scoffed, "Joining up with our sworn enemies, the demons we've been trying to take down for years, that I've spent my afterlife fighting against, isn't enough of a betrayal?"

Y/n felt the anger rising in their chest. They pushed it down. Any strong negative emotion was a danger, the anger was a trigger and Y/n's body the loaded gun.

"I think we should see other people."

Y/n's heart dropped, crashing through their diaphragm. Their breaths quickened, becoming heavy and panicked. They had been in Hell longer than Alastor, it was true but, they loved him. He made their afterlife complete. There had been a before, the last thing they wanted was for there to be an after.

"I'm sorry, Y/n. It's over."

A sudden pain wracked their body. Y/n looked down at their hands to see the familiar claws sprouting. They jumped to their feet, turning their back on Alastor.

"Are you okay?" Alastor asked, concern lacing his voice.

"Oh yeah, fine!" Y/n stated, though their tone was anything but convincing.

Alastor got to his feet, noticing the way Y/n's body was beginning to change its shape, become more monstrous, more animalistic in its nature. He had never seen them do something like this before.

"Y/n, what's going on?"

They didn't answer, simply letting out a quiet, pained groan.

"Is this why you always have to leave?"

Y/n's panting became more intense as they tried struggled to keep their normal form. They pressed their hands to the sides of their head. Their eyes had gone black by now, not that Alastor could see.

"It's fine." they uncomfortably laughed, "Everything is normal. You can leave now."

Alastor sighed. His eyes lingered on their form for a few seconds longer before he too turned his back to Y/n, crossing his arms.

"I can't do this anymore. It's like you live two lives, one I am in and one I'm not. I..."

Alastor let his sentence trail off in indecision. He wanted to tell them he loved them. He did love them, a lack of care wasn't why he had to break things off. It just didn't feel right, to say it here and now, even if it was still true. Everything had become too much and the overlords had given him a truly tempting offer. Alastor had to think about himself, his future. He had to do what was best for him, not them. Not when they were the reason he had been in a constant state of upheaval for the past several years. Not when it seemed to never stay good once it got better, not when the times it was bad became worse and quicker every time

"I'll... see you around."

----

A/N Listen, I am obsessed with The Owl House, okay?? And Raine and Eda are the cutest and just shhhhh. Okay?

NEXT PART: Ritornello

277 notes · View notes

doobea · 9 months

Text

CHILLY - SAE ITOSHI

synopsis: he has a bad habit of saying things without thinking.

contents: established relationship, gn!reader, sae being stubborn, rin and sae have a healthier sibling relationship, sfw, hurt and comfort, word vomit, kinda proof'd word count: 1.3K a/n: idk i wanted to write a sad sae fic but it ended up being hurt/comfort. turns out he has a weird special place in my heart. also not sure if i like this one or not bc work has got me fk'd up with long train rides back

It's been almost two days since Sae's last conversation with you, but it honestly feels like weeks.

On the first night, the two of you slept with your backs against each other with neither turning around or uttering a word. Sae remembers barely getting any sleep that night because of the heavy sinking feeling in his stomach, and he was positively sure that you were in a similar state. He thinks that he should've slept in the living room to grant you the needed space, and maybe it would've been better the next morning, but Itoshi Sae is a selfish person.

He half expected you to roll into his arms in the middle of the night, apologizing and saying that he was right and you were wrong and that everything would've ended on a good note with a kiss. But you continued facing the wall while he stared at the window.

Sae doesn't want to admit it but he's scared. He feels like he's walking on a tightrope and isn't sure if this fight, out of many, was finally going to be the last.

During the second night, he attempts to start the much-needed conversation. He brings his arms slowly around your waist, fingers almost burning at the touch, but you remain still. At any other given night, he would've thought you were asleep but he knows that you're currently wide awake and as tensed as he is.

Sae swallows the lump forming in his throat and fights off his nerves, "I'm sorry."

You inhale sharply and he swears that he could feel your eyes glaring at the wall in front of you, "Is that it?"

He recoils at the sound of your voice, a voice that he hasn't heard within the past day. He feels like retreating under the covers but stands his ground, the grip on your waist tightening just ever so slightly as he carefully rests his chin on top of your head.

"No," but he struggles to find the rest of his words so he lets go.

You finally turn to face your boyfriend, eyes swelled and reddening from suppressed tears. You keep yourself mute, getting out of bed and exiting out of the room. Sae thinks you were going to rest in the living room but jumps at the sudden loud slam from the front door.

He tells himself he'll get used to the silence.

Two more days pass by and Sae tries to stay out of the shared apartment as much as possible. He only goes home to shower when he gets back from the gym and sleeps in a separate room, hoping that you would take the bed. Outside of the house, he spends his free time at his younger brother's place and, surprisingly, Rin understands the situation without Sae explaining much.

"You're an idiot." Rin flips to the next page of his comic, body sprawled out on his bed.

Sae leans against his brother's bedframe on the floor, "I know."

Another flip and Rin continues, "So go talk to them."

Sae sighs while looking through his camera roll at your photos, "I'm going to."

Rin doesn't glance up from his reading and only hums in response. A silence falls over the brothers but it's a silence that Sae can cope with. A part of him doesn't want to acknowledge it, the fact that he hasn't been speaking about it only makes him fall deeper in denial, but he feels like he needs the time to collect his thoughts or rather lack of them.

Sae slides down and lies on his stomach on the floor, grabbing one of his brother's older horror comics that were lying around. He's never bothered understanding Rin's hobbies and now he understands why. While their parents and friends may say they're similar in many ways, this wasn't one of them.

Their peaceful solitude is soon interrupted by soft rapid knocks from the front door and Rin gets up with a small groan, mumbling something about his delivery arriving late. Sae shrugs, too occupied with trying to understand what was occurring in the comic to care until a familiar voice calls out from the hallway. He feels himself freeze and holds his breath.

"Is Sae here right now?"

"He's in the back." Rin says hesitantly before offering, "Do you want to come in?"

Sae couldn't hear the rest of the conversation from how hard his heart was beating against his chest. He tries to calm down the sudden anxiety but it becomes increasingly difficult when he hears footsteps coming in his direction. Rin steps back into the room with his thumb pointing at the front door.

The younger male throws Sae a look, as if he was telling him to not fuck up, and says, "They're here. You should go."

"Oh," that's all Sae manages before getting up from the floor, suddenly painfully aware of his disheveled look in the bedroom mirror on the way out.

Well, it was too late for that either way. He knew he wasn't going to stall this time, not when you went out of your way to talk to him. Prerecorded words empty from his head as soon he sees your solemn figure against the doorframe.

"Hey." You offer lamely.

"Hi." He cringes at his cracked voice.

"Let's talk outside?"

And he nods.

You both say goodbye to Rin before walking in an aimless direction around the neighborhood. Sae notices you keeping an arm's length away and doesn't push it. He shoves his sweat-covered hands in his pockets, looking at the ground as you begin to talk, ready to hear whether or not you were still his.

"I had to think about this for a while," You begin, thumbs fiddling, "...and you were right."

Sae almost trips over himself, "What?"

You release a long sigh, "I didn't agree with how you handled things but you were right. I should've set clearer boundaries with some of the guys at the party. I didn't mean to make you upset, that wasn't my intention."

Sae finds himself frowning and grabs your hands, forcing you to stop with him, "Don't apologize. I shouldn't have gotten mad and caused that scene." He grimaces at the recent memory of the way he chastised you in front of his teammates and the press.

"Yeah, I know," Your harsh tone made him flinch but he relaxes as your thumbs caress his palms, "but, I'm the bigger idiot for not being comfortable to say no. I promise it won't happen again."

"Just... make sure to delete their numbers." He murmurs.

What happened at the party was unnecessarily mean on his part, considering how Sae didn't bother to pull you aside privately to explain the matter. But, to his defense, he didn't even know he would've felt that jealous in the first place and also didn't expect half of his team to flirt with you.

You silently agree with a squeeze into his hands. Slowly, he takes a step forward, closing the distance and placing a shy finger on your chin, gently lifting it to meet his gaze. Your eyes are laced with vulnerability, matching his own.

Sae pulls you into an embrace, arms wrapping tight around your shoulders as if he was afraid to lose you again. He feels your body hesitate, taking a moment to realize what was going on before mirroring the gesture back tenfold.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, voice barely audible to his surroundings but loud enough for you, "I don't like fighting with you."

You muzzle deep into the croak of his neck, "Me neither."

Sae takes in your scent and closes his eyes. He sighs through his nose in relief at the fact you both are back to what it was before. The way that things should always be. He slouches into your touch as your fingers run through his hair and, the silence that follows after, is one that Sae finally feels comfortable with.

#blue lock #bllk #bllk x reader #blue lock imagines #blue lock x reader #doobea writing #sae itoshi x reader #sae itoshi #itoshi sae x reader #itoshi sae

903 notes · View notes

moremaybank · 7 months

Note

“make yourself cream all on my cock. fuck, i love watching you play with yourself in front of me,” the way you write jj is so 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

like imagine masturbating in front of each other and reader is humping a pillow and jj’s just transfixed on her while he’s jerking off. i need him

idk if this was a concept request but i’m making it one bc yes. also ily thank u for the love baby (18+) i have a full fic that's similar to this concept! read here!

"Enjoying the show, J?" You taunted, rutting your core against the pillow beneath you. Your hands brushed your hair out of your face, and ran down the sides of your neck to your tits. You groped the plush flesh, helping them bounce further in front of JJ's eyes. "You wanna touch me?"

JJ nodded roughly, his eyes locked on your movements. You were wicked. Making him watch you get yourself off, not letting him touch you. Every ounce of his blood was simmering inside of him as he tried like hell to obey you, but it was so damn hard. How the fuck was he expected to do so when you were waving yourself in front of him like a perfectly-cooked steak?

His hand worked harshly, rubbing and stroking himself as he tried to mimic the way you'd feel around him. Of course, nothing was as good as the real thing.

"Let me touch you," he demanded. "You'll regret it if you don't."

"Not yet, handsome. You look so good fucking your hand." You bit your lip with a cheeky smile. "You thinking about fucking me? How tight I am?"

"Stop it," he gritted through his teeth.

But he didn't want you to stop. Fuck, he wanted you to do anything but stop.

He watched your tits as they jiggled, his mouth watering as he thought about having them in his mouth. The flat of his tongue against your nipples, leaving hickies all over them. Then his eyes trailed downward to your pussy. Your clit was so swollen, protruding out from your core and moving against the cushion.

Pre-cum was seeping out of him, and he rubbed his thumb over his tip as he continued to jerk himself. He shuffled impatiently in his seat, gripping himself harder. The pleasure was building up deep inside of him, and it was almost too much that he needed to close his eyes. Then again, if he did, he wouldn't get to see the hypnotizing view in front of him.

You turned around, spreading your ass cheeks for him so he could see how soaked you were, as if the large wet spot on the pillow hadn't been enough. You leaned forward, your pussy stretching in plain sight as you bounced against the cotton material. Your moans of ecstasy filled the air.

"Watch me cum, JJ. 'M so close," you whined. "Don't you wanna see how creamy I'll get? Promise I'll let you taste me."

JJ snapped, getting up from his spot. He grabbed your hips forcefully, shoving his cock inside your sopping walls without warning. He let out a satisfied and content groan, finally finding home within your pussy.

Your movements halted and you gasped in shock, feeling so completely stuffed by him. "J? What the f-"

JJ helped you move back against him, slicing you right open with his thick cock as your clit continued to rub against your pillow. "Don't stop on my account. Keep going. You're gonna cum, baby. You're gonna cum on me. As many times as I want you to. Is that clear?"

concepts ; concepts (ii)

405 notes · View notes

daisy-milk · 29 days

Text

Non Dimenticar

three times in which you needed minho, though it wasn't in you to ask

➠ lee minho x reader

➠ wc: 1.7k

➠ summary: both you and minho are independent induviduals, and that aspect thrives in your relationship. though it makes it hard for you to reach out to him when you need it. you and him learn that sooner or later you both will have to learn how to ask for help.

➠ warnings: slight angst (maybe its normal level angst idk its pretty sad), mentions of passing out, mentions of injury, mentions of hosptial/emergency room, overworked reader

➠ masterlist

➠ a/n: i am currently a little tipsy and therefore this is not proofread

he gets it. he really does. he understands because he is the same way. all his life, he has had the same mentality, but now that he’s met you, he has learned; and perhaps it was because you were so similar in that sense that he learned what it looked like from an outside perspective.

it was your inability to ask for help and openness to receiving it.

minho, as well, struggled with this. throughout his life he had that mindset. one of, ‘whatever is happening will pass. you must power through. don’t drag others down with you,’ and he knew what it felt like from a personal level. pretty much, you both lived a very much ‘just thug it out’ lifestyle. minho never saw it as too much of a problem though. it didn’t seem to hurt others, in his eyes it kept them safe even, ignorance is bliss, no? but that was until he met you.

minho saw in you, the struggle that was deep within him. the one many urged him to overcome, because he never would see any issue in it.

the first time he began to become aware was when the two of you were working out. you were both doing bicep curls, your attention on the mirror in front of you as you counted your sets. minho and you took turns and he was using a heavier weight than you, so naturally you dropped yours in favor of letting him switch the plates. you must have been distracted however, and in switching, you accidentally dropped the heavy plate onto your big toe. minho wouldn’t have even noticed if his eyes weren’t trained on you at all times. you didn’t even make a sound when it dropped on you, just an airy hiss, and through your reflection in the mirror you tried your best to play it off. the weight was heavy enough to raise concern, there was no way that didn’t affect you. therefore, minho spoke up,

“hey, you good? that looked painful” he grabbed your arm as you stepped away.

you shook your head, “nah. i’m fine. i’ve had worse,” a chuckle leaves your lips in an attempt to put your boyfriend at ease.

minho gave you a look. one of uncertainty. though he didn’t want to pry. he knows that even if it was hurting there is a reason you aren’t asking him for help.

perhaps he should have asked though. you didn’t say anything further but he couldn’t help but notice the quite obvious limp you wore as you walked out of the gym. he noticed, as he peeked at your uncovered foot when you got into bed with him that your toe began to swell and bruise a nasty shade of purple. he noticed the way, even after days, you struggle to put your full weight onto your foot. he urged you to see a doctor, but you brushed it off, saying that it’ll heal on its own, you’ve had worse.

again, he didn’t pry and you never brought it up. though he knows now to keep a close eye on you at the gym.

the second time was probably the most brutal. what started as a simple stomach ache soon became an even worse pain that had you doubling over in pain. be it cramps, your pesky lactose intolerance, or food poisoning, you always had an excuse for when minho began to worry. because naturally he would become worried at the sight of you rendering unmovable due to the pain. though no matter what, each time you would ease his mind with a new excuse and a wave of your hand. the excuses lasted a while. though it was only a matter of time until something worse happened. he had gotten a call from you late into the evening, “hey…” your voice was low, it sounded as if you were far from the mic, “can you… can you uh pick me up. i’m at that pho spot near your place. i’m- i… uh don’t think i can drive home.”

“did you drink?” he had asked. you had told him no, but offered no further explanation. he could tell there was something you didn’t want to tell him; he knew there was a reason you sounded hesitant to ask for his help.

minho had been right because upon arrival he was met with your nearly passed out form, drooping from the driver’s seat of your car. he rushed to you, and you were conscious, luckily. though you did let out a loud groan in pain, your hand clutching your abdomen tightly. without another thought, he rushed you to the emergency room.

fate was on your side that night. appendicitis. the doctors had told you that you were lucky that you hadn’t waited. if it were perhaps a day later, your appendix may have ruptured. the two of you shared a brief look as the doctor debriefed you. it was a knowing look.

during your surgery minho thanked every star in the sky that night. he also made sure to schedule himself a check-up with his physician as well. he had to take care of himself to take care of you, is what he told himself.

the third time wasn’t a physical injury per say. minho caught you in your room. using the spare keys you gave him, he welcomed himself into your apartment as he normally did, though you weren’t expecting him this time. he wanted it to be a surprise. he knew you were studying hard and came in to surprise you with your usual coffee order and some homemade pastries felix made.

instead he found you at your desk, uncomfortably splayed out before your computer. surrounding you were litters of paper and textbooks, most with notes and formulas, but as he looked closer there were papers completely scribbled out, torn, crumpled; it looked like a disaster. he couldn’t count the amount of tabs open of your computer, the chaos that reigned the screen made his head hurt just looking at it. there were at least 2 empty coffee cups on the floor and another on the table, the ice melting into the now lukewarm americano. his hand cropped the one he brought you a little tighter.

“sweetheart?” he questioned carefully, kneeling down to reach face level with you.

though you were curled up, he caught a clear glimpse of your face. you looked nearly lifeless and his heart shattered. minho knew it was just finals. he knew that you were probably fine, but what made him break was the fact you were going through it all alone. it had been days since you contacted him, and it wasn’t an issue for him, the two of you were good at maintaining your own personal time, and as per usual he never pried. but the thought of you, pulling through like this for days left his stomach falling into the deepest pits within himself.

“my poor baby…” his finger traced your cheek, now squished against the table. your skin was dull, eye bags too present, day old makeup faded and smudged all over your eyes. minho kicked himself for not coming sooner.

minho’s arms curl under you and he pulls your body into his arms. you’re so knocked out that you barely notice the movement. as if it were second nature, you curl into his hold as he hoists you up. his face softens a little as you do so, relieved that even in this state you know to trust him completely. his arms bring you to your bed where he carefully tucks you in, giving a gentle pat on your head as he moves to clean up your desk.

scattered papers and endless notes littered the surface of your desk. it wasn’t just your desk though. your room itself was left in a messy array, the days of stress piled up and you couldn’t bring yourself to clean, as litter and clothes became too much to handle. without a second thought, minho cleaned, folding clothes, tossing garbage until your room was spotless. he finished at your desk, beginning to pick up your papers as you woke.

silently, you approached him, your hand resting on his from behind as he gathered some sheets of paper,

“minho…” you said groggily, “don’t worry about it… i-i’m not finished with those. gotta finish them then i’ll clean it up”

you attempted to grab the notes but he stopped you. his hand took the papers from your own. without a word he continued to gather the papers and pile them neatly to the side. you didn’t have any energy left to stop him, to argue. you just let him do this thing. after he powered off your computer, he finally turned to you. his hands now rested on your cheeks, gently brushing the soft skin on your face. his head tilted at you as if you were one of his cats, his thumbs brushing the crusty makeup around your eyes.

“did you sleep well?” finally he spoke

”i have a lot to study…”

”did you eat today?” he continued

“there’s only one more day before my project is due…” he remained quiet and continued to caress your face, “… i won’t have time to study after my classes and…” you began to lean into his touch, softening up from both your sleepiness and his affection, “…and…” you could melt into the way he looked at you right now, “…and i have to finish… i’ll rest when i…”

”you must be so tired, hm?” there was no other infliction in his voice aside from affection

“…yeah,” you admit, “…i’m really tired.”

tears began to well in your eyes as you dipped your head down. he didn’t let you though, using a gentle finger to tilt your head back up. new tears traced down the same path as the ones that were now dried on your cheeks.

“let’s go take a shower?” he asks and you nod. his hand leads you to your bathroom as he begins to use your makeup remover to gently wipe the makeup from your face.

his hands are too gentle, you think, as he cleans your skin.

”after this, we can study in bed, yeah? together.” he gazes down at you as he tosses one wipe for another, “next time… please call me. i know you want to do this alone, i get it, i thought the same way too. but now that i have you, i could never want to be alone again. trust me when i say, i will never be tired of being with you, helping you, no matter what it is. just please, call me when you need me,” he presses a soft kiss to your forehead, “i promise i’ll call you when i need you too.”

please leave feedback please please please

#skz #stray kids #lee know #lee know angst #lee know x reader #minho x reader #minho angst #minho stray kids #lee know stray kids #lee minho #lee minho stray kids #minho

157 notes · View notes

cameronspecial · 4 months

Note

Hi!! since ur requests are open, I have this idea in mind. Basically:

Zach and reader, and they just started dating. Reader is like an art major or smth similar and she is always seen walking around with all her art projects, she is really clumsy and always has paint over her etc. Because she is oblivious too sometimes Zack tries to gain her attention but she is just really focused on her work and idk u can come up with the rest 😭😭 like a fluff type of thing. I hope I make sense.

The Artistic Girl

Pairing: Zach MacLaren x Reader

Warnings: Suggestive Ending

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 0.6K

Masterlist

His first memory of seeing her is when he was playing soccer with his friends in the quad. She had been walking back from class with a thin large bag thing. It was practically as big as her. Zach was so intrigued by the object in her hand that he stopped his game to ask her. “What’s with the bag?” he questioned, running up to her with an interested face. Y/N was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear him. He ran after her, gently tapping her upper arm. He smiled when she turned toward him, “Sorry. I just wanted to know what this big bag is. It’s almost as tall as you. It’s kinda a funny-looking backpack.” “It’s a portfolio bag silly,” she giggles, opening the bag for him to see her drawings. “I’m coming back from my figure drawing class.” He looked up to her to ask for approval to look through her work and she nodded. His hands flipped through the amazing art pieced with awe. She brought so much life into the two-dimensional medium. “These are amazing. I’m Zach by the way. Could I get your number? I would love to see more of your art,” he flirts. She beams at him, “I’m Y/N. I would be delighted to show you more of my art.” The rest of their story creates a beautiful painting.

———

Zach walks into their shared apartment to find Y/N at her pottery wheel. Her hands are cupped around the wet clay, creating a bulge in the once-straight cylinder. Her hair is in a messy bun and dried clay can be seen all over the bottom of her face and neck. Her clumsy personality means that her art supplies often find themselves all over her skin. It’s adorable. He remembers one time she accidentally sat on her paint pallet. The paint was all over her butt and it was hilarious. His eyes dart to the clock and he takes note of the time. Doesn’t she have class now? “Baby,” he calls to her. No response, instead, her tongue sticks out and her eyebrows furrow. He lets out a soft chuckle. When she gets into her artistic zone, it’s almost impossible to get her out of it. He’s only found one way so far to pull her attention away from her art. He removes his jacket, puts it on the coat rack, and then approaches her. She doesn’t look up at him. He is now standing beside her and he moves his face in front of hers. Her eyes are still glassed over in concentration, so he leans in for a kiss. Once her lips feel him, she snaps out of her thoughts.

Her dirty hands fly to his hair and she laces her fingers through his hair, forgetting the clay that dusts them. They stay like that for a few seconds before he pulls away and rests their forehead together. “You are late for class, Baby,” he whispers, turning their head toward the clock on the wall. She turns his head to her again, which gets some clay on his jaw. She leans in for another kiss, “Well since I’m already late, I don’t think there is any reason to go now. Plus, look at you. You are all dirty with clay. Someone has to help you get cleaned up.”

Zach smirks at her teasing words, loving where this conversation is going. “You are so right. And look at you. You have clay all over you too,” he plays along. She nods, standing up with him. “Well, let’s go get cleaned up,” she suggests, tugging him to the bathroom with her laughter filling the air.

Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @nonbullshit-toleratingkindagirl

#the other zoey #zach maclaren #zach maclaren x reader #drew starkey #drew starkey fanfiction #drew starkey imagine #drew starkey x reader #drew starkey one shot #drew starkey fic

228 notes · View notes

a-small-writer-in-a-big-world · 1 year

Note

heyyyyy idk if you do this sorta thing

if not totally fine but I still wanted to ask

Can I request something like headcannons of how ghost would react if maybe like a German reader met and got along w könig and maybe he would get jealous or possessive or something or just how would that go

take that to mean whatever you want 😈

sorry and thank you again

Jealous Ghost

I'm not one for like toxic possession or toxic jealousy, however there's a good middle ground so I tried.

A little suggestive at the end, jealous!Ghost, probably projecting my own abandonment issues here

It took a while for Ghost to get close with you, but just like Soap you somehow wiggled your way through his walls

You two became friends, sharing a lot of your spare time together

Both of you bonded over your different cultures too but it never really became something that either of you focused on

Soon, Ghost caught feelings and because of that he forced himself to keep them locked up tight no matter how much he wanted you

That was until König showed up

Ghost treated him the same as he always did with others, baseline respect and enough politeness to keep him as a co-worker

Then you met König and things started to change

You talked with him often, bonding over similar cultures and mostly speaking in German to each other

You both brightened up, you started spending time with him too and he couldn't help but think you felt more comfortable around König than Ghost

Ghost started to feel weird whenever he saw you two together, a mixture between sadness and anger, almost betrayal yet he told himself you had no obligation to stay friends with him

He started to pull back from spending time with you, suggesting you should go find König or he was busy

He felt out place when you both hung out and then König showed up

He started to resent König for no other reason than the fact that it felt like he was stealing you from him

Yet, Ghost said nothing to you. If you were happier with König then he had no right to ruin that for you

However, you noticed him pulling back and you were determined to fix whatever happened because you missed him a lot

You finally cornered him after his countless attempt to get you to go away

"What's going on with you?" You demanded as Ghost stared at you.

"I'm busy." He lied and it would've convinced you if you didn't know that he was done with all of his work for the day

"You're avoiding me."

Ghost didn't say anything, knowing that he was caught because you're too smart for him to trick

"Ever since König showed up, you're been acting weird." You said, feeling sad about the fact that your friend was slowly pushing away from you. "Why?"

As much as Ghost wanted to continue to lie to you he had to come to terms with his feelings

"You both have a lot more in common and he makes you happy. Guess I was just letting you both be together." He said and you looked up at him with shock.

Ghost was smart, but you've come to known that he forgets to just use his brain

You liked him too and you had only seen König as a friend

"Idiot." You rolled your eyes and Ghost glared at you. "I like you not him."

"What?" Ghost wasn't sure if he heard right or not until you repeated it. "Oh."

You both stood there for a second, unsure of what to do before you tugged on the sleeve of his jacket

"Are you going to kiss me?" You wondered, hoping he would

He didn't hesitate to and after a long make out session, you broke apart breathless, an idea in your mind

"Make me yours." You whispered in his ear

And he didn't disappoint

#simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #cod ghost x reader #ghost x reader #ghost x you #simon riley #simon ghost riley #cod ghost #ghost mw2 #mw2 ghost

813 notes · View notes

elizais · 2 months

Text

my good looking boy

tachihara michizou x reader headcanons reader is the same age as tachihara, reader's organisation is unspecified he won this poll which was SO CLOSE!! i put the hirotsu thing on as a joke and expected it not to get votes but i do have one rotting away in my drafts. and tecchou will come next, i will deff write him next but idk if i will post a draft before that.

tachihara michizou, a double spy but also your boyfriend. who tells you the drama from both organisations. who tells you about how freaky he finds gin but can't place who she looks awfully similar to.. when you suggest a resemblance between her and akutagawa he claims you are seeing things that aren't there.

tachihara michizou, who is the life of the party. and you get to go to both port mafia parties and hunting dog parties as long as you keep his secret! from jumping off of balconies into pools with you on his back, singing karaoke together and truly showing how young you both are.

tachihara michizou, who picks up scrap metal and manipulates it to make you intricate pieces of jewellery. speaking of manipulating metal, he will lift up your necklace when you least expect it.. entertain you by pulling tetcho's sword away from him.. anything for a smile.

tachihara michizou, who has you dye his hair. you tease him about willingly being a ginger (sorry to all the gingers) but you think it suits him so much!

tachihara michizou, who has a rebellious side that you enforce and you both cause chaos to whoever you work with. if you went to highschool together, god bless your teachers! but, he also shows his calmer side around you.

speaking of a calmer side, tachihara michizou, has a 10/10 cuddle game. you heard it here first! he has to see a lot of violence from the port mafia so getting to relax is his favourite time and he pushes his lively self away for when you two can have sleepovers.

tachihara michizou, who is great with kids. he doesn't need to babysit a lot but if you have younger siblings? he can entertain them for hours. whether it be an 8 year old or a 15 year old, he has stories to tell from his school days.

proof:

tachihara michizou, who tells you about shunzen. about what happened and how much he looked up to him. i like to think michizou also wears a dogtag like shunzen.

tachihara michizou, who plays with your hair. like in the screenshot above, when he hangs out with elise he probably talks about you so she tries to teach him how to do hair.

tachihara michizou, who wants to be as built as tetcho. i know they don't have any canon interactions but TRUST.

tachihara michizou, who matches earrings with you!

tachihara michizou, who is one of my many bsd bfs and i hope this post converted you to be a tachilover as well.

#MY BOYFRIEND #michizou tachihara #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs x reader #tachihara x reader #tachihara michizou #tachihara michizo x reader #michizou tachihara x reader #bungo stray dogs x reader #bsd x reader #marry me tachihara #or jouno #in conclusion i have a crush on everyone #my first tachihara post #i used to hate him for being rude to gin but hes a fav now?

148 notes · View notes

noforkingclue · 3 months

Note

Bestie, I just saw the Calvin Klein ad for JAW, and he got me thirsty for some Carmy. I'm thinking childhood friend he was head over heels for before he left and never told them. friend comes to the Bear and something cute occurs?

idk bestie my brain just fried itself coming up with just that, message me if you want more info and I'll pull something out of my ass

Note: requests are currently close

Ugh, same! That ad was certainly something!

I hope you like the fic :)

Title: Reunion

Everything tag list: @greenrevolutionary, @byebyebreezywrites. @spngingerbread21, @layazul, @lov3vivian, @simonsbluee

It felt strange coming back to the restaurant after so many years staying away from it. You popped in occasionally after Mike’s suicide but it never really felt the same. You hadn’t really been a regular since Carmy left (not that he was ever in the restaurant that often) but now you had a reason to come back. You smiled as you walked through the doors and into the familiar restaurant, however you couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness. You really shouldn’t have stayed away for so long.

“Oi, y/n, where the fuck have you been?”

The lunch rush had died down and you beamed at Richie who was behind the counter. He gave you an unimpressed look but you could see the amusement in his eyes.

“Missed me?” you asked teasingly

“Fuck no.”

“Then I guess I’m not welcome here.”

“You don’t get to leave this fucking quickly. Not after being away for so fucking long.”

Richie practically pushed you into a seat and you rolled your eyes teasingly. Maybe you shouldn’t have stayed away for so long. You looked over your shoulder as you heard the door slam open.

“What the fuck- y/n?”

Ah. And there was the reason why you decided to visit again. Carmy was staring at you wide eyed. You smiled softly and stood up.

“Heya Carm.”

“Y/n… you’re here… I thought…”

The colour started to rise to Carmy’s cheeks and you stood up and walked over to him. He seemed mildly startled and stumbled back.

“I’ve got to, y’know, go to the kitchen. Start cooking.”

Carmy practically ran into the kitchen and you couldn’t help but feel deflated. You had always been too afraid to tell him your feelings and when he went away you knew your chance had been lost. You had tried to move on (emphasis on tried) but seeing Carmy again ignited all your old feelings. You went back to your table and slumped into your seat. Well, that certainly cleared things up about Carmy’s feelings towards you.

What you didn’t know was that Carmy was having a similar dilemma in the back. Syd stood in front of the door to his office. She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows at him.

“What’s going on out there.” she said

“Nothing.”

“Didn’t look like nothing.”

“Cousin here was always fucking in love with y/n out there,” Richie said as he slung an arm over Carmy’s shoulders, “but he didn’t have the fucking balls to tell her before he left.”

“I wasn’t in love with her,” Carmy snapped, shrugging Richie’s arm off of him, “she was a friend.”

“But he always wanted it to be more.” said Richie

“No I fucking didn’t!”

“Well y/n certainly did,” Tina said from the kitchen, “you never noticed the looks she kept giving you.”

When nobody responded Tina looked up from her chopping. Richie was giving Carmy an amused and smug look while Syd looked intrigued, clearly wanting to hear more. The colour had drained from Carmy’s face and he was looking paler than usual.

“What?” Tina said, “It was fucking obvious.”

“I didn’t know.” said Carmy weakly

“‘Course you fucking didn’t.” Tina said rolling her eyes

“Then now’s your fucking chance,” said Richie, “to stop your fucking pining.”

“I don’t pine.” snapped Carmy

“Well maybe now would be a good time to-” started Syd

“I have work to do,” said Carmy, “we have the dinner rush- hey, what the fuck are you doing!”

Richie grabbed Carmy and practically pushed him out of the kitchen. You looked up when Carmy stumbled out. An awkward silence settled between you and you thought that Carmy was going to run away again. Instead he took a deep breath and went over to you and sat down opposite you. You smile gently at him but Carmy was looking down at the table.

“So,” you said, “long time no see.”

“Yeah.”

“I missed you.”

“I…”

Carmy cut himself off, unable to tell you how he really felt. You pursed your lips but didn’t press the issue. You knew Carmy too well to push him too far.

“Not in the kitchen then?” you asked

“No I-”

Carmy ran a hand over his face. He couldn’t exactly tell you that he was forced out here. How he really wanted to be here with you but didn’t know if he could do it.

“To tell you the truth,” you said, “I’m glad you’re out here.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. I-”

This time it was you who cut off mid sentence. You tried to find the right words as Carmy looked up slowly, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“I wanted to catch up.” you finished lamely, the courage you had originally felt disappearing

“Catch up?”

“Well, among other things.” you muttered, face hot

“Such as?”

“Oh you know.”

“Would you like to get dinner?”

You looked at Carmy wide eyed and even he seemed shocked at his outburst.

“Only if you want,” he said, retreating back into his shell slightly, “If not just forget I said anything.”

“Yes,” you said quickly, “Yes I do.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

It took Carmy a second to realise what you had said. In a flash he was on his feet and offering you his hand which, much to his surprise, you took.

“Shall we go somewhere else,” he said, “I don’t think we’ll get complete privacy here.”

You glanced over at the kitchen and immediately heard people running back into the kitchen. You heard the familiar yelling of Richie and smiled.

“Sounds like a plan.”

#fanfiction #the bear #reader insert #request #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto #carmen berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto x reader

163 notes · View notes

antariies · 2 months

Text

how to build a chair........... director's cut ∠( ᐛ 」∠)__ this is about to be a very long very self-indulgent post where i just talk about my own writing. i also doodled on all the pages i think it makes the whole thing more fun to go thru. welcome to my ted talk

SIKE before i begin. credit where credit is due, this post was the start of it all. it changed my brain chemistry my jaw was dropped i was in awe i was obsessed and before i even finished it i knew that i would eventually have to make something similar for the commander or else i would be cursed to think about it for the rest of my life. and i Was cursed for like two years every day i would just be like........ is today the day i sit down and draft the commander chair fic of my dreams....... maybe tomorrow......

and then i got accepted as a writer for the gw2 zine ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ the chair idea was actually my backup option in case my first idea didn't pan out, and thank god it didn't, bc this one worked so much better. (still working on my initial idea, just turning it into a full fic! it was wayyy too long to be a zine submission.)

this is the chair i used. i downloaded the assembly instructions and tried out a bunch of different free pdf editors until i found one i liked, which ended up being sedja. if anyone's interested in doing something like this, i recommend printing out the pdf and writing directly on it! it was a lot easier for me to just figure out everything on paper first and then digitalize it after :P here's a picture of my physical copy

okay actually getting into it for real this time !!!!!

1. yeah i could've just erased the ikea logo and left a blank space but then i realized i could turn it into an in-universe joke. and then i ran with it.

2. i ripped this straight from the product description on the website. thanks ikea

3. i'm not sure if anyone went and looked it up, but it's a real item code!

hehe :3c

4. if your commander willingly goes to therapy i'm happy for them but TO ME? you'd have to drag the commander kicking and screaming. it's not that they don't know that something is wrong with them, they know, and they know YOU know. you're just never supposed to talk about it. they don't look at their own psych eval results bc that's none of their business.

5. i normally avoid specifying the commander's race when i write them bc i enjoy the challenge, but for the zine i was assigned to write about a norn commander! as a human main i was uhhhh very ill-equipped. but that just meant i had to study up on my norn lore (•̀ᴗ•́)و i spent hours on the wiki, then went around interviewing norn mains for their opinions, which was great fun :D it all helped me narrow the focus of my piece: joining the war on commander objectification on the side of commander objectification (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡ and no one self-aggrandizes quite like the norn commander!

and to balance that i knew my narrator had to be patronizing as shitttt. they've clearly been following the commander since the beginning and seem to know a lot of intimate details about their life, despite not thinking very highly of them. wonder who that could be :3c

6. i can't stop making references. so the original part number is actually #122620 in the manual but i've changed it here (and on the previous page!) to #082812, as in 08/28/12, the date gw2 was released! no real reason for it, @dalennaugw suggested it for funsies and i liked it. if you're my pal and i show you a wip and you have a cool idea for it, chances are i Will put that shit in. hi dale if you're reading this

7. another thing about me. i loveeee repetition. here the word "over" is repeated four times to match the picture. honestly a lot of the creative process for this piece was just staring at the pages and figuring out how to tie the pictures to the commander in ways that weren't extremely corny or trite. idk why i enjoy writing like this when i could be frolicking in the beautiful prosaic meadows of a word doc instead but. it's like i see a tiny little restrictive box and i'm like OH BOY can't wait to think inside of that thing!!! i like when the format matters just as much as the content and in some cases informs the content. am i making any sense here. well all you need to know is that i'm a virgo and my favorite book is house of leaves

7. aw fuck just realized i wrote 7 twice. whatever i'm not changing it this is 7 part two now. the theme of my piece is glory, what it means to the norn commander, and how far they're willing to go for it.

8. does norn culture place emphasis on seeking individual glory Yes are norn also very community-oriented Also Yes. i think it's common to see norn kids napping together in a big pile, usually after they've worn themselves out playing games outside. it makes sense practically (apes together warm) and socially (pack bonding good) but that's just my hc. growing up i used to share a bed with my cousins all the time so it's normal to me.

a young, naive not-yet-commander, with no real combat experience, has no point of reference to compare a "blaze of glory" to. but the way everyone talks about it, it must be a good thing. a wonderful thing. a reward fit for a life well-fought and a legend hard-earned. so they imagine it must feel like falling asleep surrounded by the people they love, who love them in turn.

9. .........i was playing a lot of ace attorney when i wrote this page. i wish i was joking 👍🏼

10. ohhh shit the truth come OUT this whole chair thing was all a ploy just so i could write about the departing. again.

will i ever stop thinking about her. reply hazy, try again later.

11. out of all the pages, this one has the most emphasis on text placement, like comparing the enlarged picture of the screw to a sword, the numbers counting the screws, and "up up up" being arranged to mimic a wisp of smoke.

i also wanted to lean into the viking/norse mythology influences with my word choice.

12. more nods to norn culture. i didn't know they referred to the six human gods as "spirits of action" until i was doing the research for this piece :O

and the domain of the lost is called a hall of ghosts....... cause valhalla.....

13.

i'm sorry this so funnyyy. SAYS the guy who literally clawed their way back to life for a rematch.

me when i'm in a sore loser competition and my opponent is the COMMANDER!!!

14. arms as in "limbs" and also arms as in "armaments" :•]

15. haha get it because the picture makes it look like there are two mirrored speech bubbles while the text paints two opposing interpretations of the norn commander. one that's selfless and humble versus one that's selfish and vainglorious.

16. and the best part is IT DOESN'T MATTER which one is true bc at the end of the day no matter what their motivation, balthazar is dead by their hand. ofc i'm of the opinion that the most compelling interpretation of the commander is both, simultaneously. contradictions are good for the soul.

17. i could've name-dropped kas, the only person present that would do something like that, but i felt it was better to leave it ambiguous.

18. low-hanging fruit. the metaphor was so obvious here but i had to do it. for the culture

19. the alternate title for this piece was "THIS COULD BE GLORY". "how to build a chair" was only supposed to be a placeholder title til i figured out a better one, but the innocuousness of it grew on me. also i came up with the other one too late and had already advertised under the chair title lol

20. my first instinct was to end it with something more reassuring, like "what you have built so far is enough" but that would've been an ooc switch-up for a narrator who has been nothing but snide and detached this whole time. gotta stick to my guns

21.

obligatory chair joke as the last line. for realsies though it’s meant to be an earnest appeal to the commander to take a break, to have a seat, but it’s also a challenge. are they willing to lean on their friends? are the bonds they’ve forged strong enough to hold their weight? are they willing to put their faith in someone else’s hands? are they brave enough to try? well. only one way to find out.

also guess what that wasn’t even the real last page of the manual. it's THIS

but no way i was letting this be the image we ended on. IT LOOKS LIKE A DICK AND BALLS!!!

and on that note, THANK YOU if you made it this far!! a very special shout-out to @hawkepockets, my lovely boyfriend and beta reader, without whom this piece would not be nearly as polished. i would bring him pages to look over and he would say Scrap half of those lines you can do better than that. kill your darlings. i would complain and argue for a few minutes then we would revise. rinse and repeat until we had honed this thing to perfection. i can't stress enough the importance of having a second pair of eyes on your work throughout your creative process, even better if it's someone who challenges you. i don't even pay him 🫶🏼

and if there was anything i didn't cover that you still have questions about, please feel free to shoot me an ask! (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡ thanks for reading! see u later dudes ;P

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #my writing #for once i have nothing to say in the tags bc i already talked so much in the body of the post.#ummmmmmmm meows cutely !

133 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

verdisangel

Verdi

viril-macho

Viril Macho

peachylimez

Pure-ish

baliportalnews

BALI PORTAL NEWS

lawsandother