#nor would it be a surprise to them that you have or haven’t

[avocad1s]

Trial By Combat - 6

Requested By: No one. Original Work

CW: manipulation?

Summary: Arlecchino’s got a secret…

Note: You all asked and I will provide! Here’s part six <3 this chapter is a bit slow but I promise it’s leading up to something great!

Part One —> Part Five

-

Fontaine, for the most part, had finally begun to go back to normal. Although no trials have been held since the Creators trial, many shops have reopened their doors to the public once more. It’s as if Fontainians want to disregard the event entirely, treating it as a work of fiction like the Prophecy. However, this doesn’t stop The Steambird from posting every single update regarding the Creator, nor does it stop every copy from selling out.

Despite the lack of trials, it hasn’t prevented the Chief Justice from sending criminals to the Fortress of Meropide, and only hours from now, Paimon and Aether would be a part of the group sent there. The two were the only customers dining at Cafe Lutece this afternoon, the owner seemed almost eager to provide the gluttonous amount of food the duo had ordered.

“Oh Paimon is feeling a bunch of nerves right now and it’s just making her more hungry.” She whines while rubbing her stomach. “I’m just hoping that the food in the Fortress is actually tasty.”

Aether lets out a soft chuckle, “it’s a prison Paimon. I doubt that the food will be any good”

Paimon pouts crossing her arms. “Hopefully will be rightfully compensated for our due diligence. Oh! Maybe even something from the Creator themselves!”

The traveler gives her a look, “you shouldn’t think like that Paimon, not when they are currently missing right now.”

The travel guide immediately covers her lips, muttering out a small apology.

“Speaking of the Creator,” Paimon says, “do you really think Childe might know something? I mean, we’ve heard how he’s talked about them before.”

It was true, during their time in Liyue when they had met Childe, he had expressed how heavily he revered the Creator. Not just him, all of the harbingers they’ve met have mentioned the Creator in a positive light. Aether even recalls when the Wanderer told him that the only thing all of the harbingers could agree on was their ultimate respect for them.

“Based off our interactions with the Fatui before, they might have some respect for Their Grace. But we still have no idea why they want the Gnosis, maybe it’s connected to the Creator.”

Paimon nods in agreement. “You’re right. If the gnosis are what connect the Archons to Celestia, then maybe the Creator has something similar?”

“Hopefully if the Fatui got their hands on Their Grace, they haven’t left Fontaine yet. We should still be able to rescue them.” Aether adds.

“Paimon hopes so too! Oh I can only imagine the type of horrors they could be putting them through!”

“Are you talking about Their Grace?!”

A familiar girl with a pink bob holding a camera in her head pops out of a bush quickly approaching the table. It was Charlotte, and she had a large smile on her face.

“Do you two have any nuggets of information about Their Grace? Oh please share it with me, I’ll make it worth your while!”

Paimon and Aether share a look before looking back at the journalist.

“We don’t have any new information on The Creator.” Paimon explained, “we didn’t even know they had returned until Monsieur Neuvillette told us.”

Charlotte makes a look of surprise, “wait seriously? It was such big news! I’m sure everyone in Teyvat wrote the piece I had written.”

Charlotte places her camera on the table taking a seat across from them. “I’m just hoping for Their Grace to have a speedy recovery. I would love to interview them if they let me, it just seems like all of the big names in Fontaine never have the time for an interview. Monsieur Neuvillette and the Duke of Meropide have been on the top of my list for ages now!”

“Oh right, you’re a journalist Charlotte! ” Paimon exclaimed, “do you have an information about the Duke?”

Charlotte ponders for a moment, “not really, just the same regurgitated information I get from people who leave the Fortress. Why do you ask?”

“We actually are going to the Fortress later today.” Aether answers.

Charlotte’s eyes get as big as saucers as she’s jumping in her seat. “You two are going to the Fortress?! Will you two please get some information about the Duke for me?

Noticing the restrained looks on their face, Charlotte quickly adds, “I’ll pay for your meal! Yeah…! Let’s make it a deal, you get information on the Duke for me and this meal of yours is on me!”

Paimon grins, “it’s a deal!”

Charlotte shares Paimon’s enthusiasm as she pulls out a small bag of mora ready to pay for the meal. At that moment, the owner returns with multiple plates and bowls filled with various amounts of entrees and desserts wheeling it to the table.

“H—how much did you order…?”

———

Many journalist stood outside of the Palais Mermonia demanding answers from their Archon who had entered the building earlier that morning. Luckily, gardes stood outside preventing anyone from entering.

Inside of the chief justice’s office was him, the God of Justice, and the Champion Duelist whose hair was damp with sea water.

“I checked the surrounding area,” Clorinde says, “there is no traces of Their Grace anywhere. The only logical conclusion is that the Fatui must’ve done something with them.”

Neuvillette nods. “Thank you for looking Clorinde, your help is appreciated.”

Clorinde nods, “it’s no trouble. We all want Their Grace to be found safe and sound.”

Furina had a worried look on her face as she paces back and forth in the office. “W—what are we supposed to do now? We looked all over Fontaine and they aren’t anywhere.”

“Lady Furina.”

Furina stops pacing, turning her gaze over to Neuvillette who looked calm considering the situation. “I think it’s time to meet with the Kanve, wouldn’t you agree?”

“T—that Knave?” Furina stammers, “ha, why would we meet with her? Don’t we have more important things to worry about?”

Neuvillette clears his throat, “until we find Their Grace, we must operate like normal. If the others find out that we lost Their Grace—“

Furina lets out a breath putting on a confident stance, “yes! Right of course!” She interrupts, “I was thinking the same thing… I will prepare for the two of us to discuss relations with her as soon as possible.”

“Who said that I would be joining you?”

Focalors lets out a short gasp as she quickly approaches his desk, her gloved hands balling into fists. “Y—you expect me to attend the meeting alone! No! You must go with me!”

Neuvillette closes his eyes as he shake her head, “I must focus all my attention on the Creator, we must locate them before the rest of Fontaine and Teyvat begin asking questions. As the Archon, this is something you should be able to handle. Correct?”

Furina tenses slightly but lets out a sigh. “But… wouldn’t attending the meeting be the best thing for Their Grace?”

Neuvillette furrows his brows, “What do you mean?”

Furina’s confident flair was back just as quickly as it dissipated, “Attending the meeting will give us the chance to indirectly interrogate the harbingers before she even knows that we suspect her.”

Noticing the look on the chief justice’s face, Furina lets out a boastful laugh. “Naturally I, the God of Justice, would be the first one to think of this! Worry not Neuvillette, I believe that after this meeting, the truth shall be revealed!”

Clorinde mutters how she needed a towel and Neuvillette lets out a sigh.

“Very well... I will participate in the meeting.”

In between Fontaine’s Lumidouce Harbor and Chenyu Vale, a large ship was anchored the familiar insignia imprinted in the sail. There was a plethora of Fatui agents stationed on the ship that it was overwhelming, it would be impossible to infiltrate the ship without being spotted.

Many of the agents weren’t even aware why there was such an urgency to return to the homeland. Curious glances and whispers spread throughout the ship like wildfire, wondering what could the Knave possibly be doing in the lower deck that no one else was allowed to enter unless they brought news from Fontaine. All of them knew better than to question their harbinger, but she hadn’t been seen since the night before.

“Your Grace.”

Arlecchino’s soft voice cuts through your thoughts. Fontaine was in danger and you were the only one who could help, at least that’s what she believed. It was only a matter of time before the nation was completely wiped off the map, Lady Furina has done nothing but bury her head in the sand.

You glance at her face, despite her sharp features she still had a soft yet powerful air around her. Maybe that’s why the children from the House of the Hearth trust her so much.

“Are you hungry? I have chefs on board, they can prepare anything you desire.” Her hand rested on top of yours, her long nails rubbing against your knuckles in a comforting way.

You were famished. You knew she was capable of, but she was making you feel so welcomed. It felt as if you could trust her, tell her anything and she would understand.

You nod slowly and she smiles.

“I’ll be right back.”

She stands up from her spot next to you leaving the room. Her luscious black and white hair that was pulled into a low ponytail flowed behind her. Arlecchino returned quickly letting out a soft sigh.

“They are preparing a Snezhnayian specialty, the food is quite delicious. I hope it’s to your liking” She commented placing her hand right back on top of yours.

“We will be heading towards Snezhnaya at sunset.” She says. “Although leaving Fontaine wasn’t originally apart of my plan, but considering the circumstances, changes had to be made.”

You furrow your brows. “The circumstances?”

Arlecchino nods. “Your power…or rather, lack there of.”

“I have a colleague, I do not trust nor like him very much but I cannot deny his intelligence, I believe he may be able to figure out the answer… or even Her Majesty may know.”

So there was a colleague within the Fatui who had extreme intelligence that might be able to help you. Maybe he would even know why you were healing so quickly? Or does that tie into your “godly” abilities too?

“Is that why we are leaving so quickly? Because of my supposed amnesia?” You ask.

The Knave shakes her head, “not necessarily. It’s mainly for your safety, you don’t wish to stay in a nation that tried to kill you, right Your Grace?”

You were forced into a corner with that question. Wanting to stay in a nation that almost killed you was bad, but wanting to go to a nation that had the capability to kidnap you wasn’t any better. Yet you had to pick your poison, and in that moment you decided—

“Right.” You reply. “Leaving Fontaine is the smartest option.”

“I knew that you would see it my way,” she praises, “I only want what’s best for you and all of Teyvat.” She gives your hand a squeeze a small smile spreading on her red lips.

A small knock on the door interrupts the moment, Arlecchino looks at the door her gaze becoming icy. “You may enter.”

The door opens and a young lady whose face is obscured by a mask enters and she immediately kneels.

“Y—your Grace… Lady Harbinger.” Her voice was almost breathless, her gaze transfixed on you. “I have news from Fontaine.”

Arlecchino lets out a sigh crossing her legs. “News? What is it?”

“Focalors has agreed to have a political meeting with you. The chief justice Neuvillette will also be attending.”

The Knave doesn’t even try to hide the smirk that spreads on her face, “Very well then. Was there a time mentioned for this meeting?”

“In the next few hours Lady Harbinger. We’ve already got a boat ready to return back to Fontaine’s harbor.”

Arlecchino stands, her gaze becomes soft once more when she looks back at you. “Your Grace, I will return as soon as I can. If you have any needs anyone on the ship will be more than happy to serve you.”

She exchanges a few whispers with the agent before giving you one last smile leaving the bottom deck. The agent looks at you one last time before stuttering out.

“I—I’ll go get your meal immediately Your Grace!” She rushes out of the door leaving you alone once more.

The Fortress of Meropide was more grand than Aether had anticipated. Surrounded by Fontaine’s sea, there was no escape from this prison besides the path they embarked, which was at the rear of the Opera Epiclese.

After heaving their mugshots taken, Aether and Paimon are escorted onto a ship where they meet their tour guide, who is also just another prisoner within the Fortress. The entire tour he was standoffish and dry only giving the required amount of information. If the two asked for more information about credit coupons, secret rules, or about the Creator, he would say they’d have to pay for that.

The prisoner leads the two down the large hallway of the Fortress when multiple gardemeks came around the corner. The traveler immediately takes a stance ready for a fight when a voice eases his worries coming around the corner with the machinery.

“Welcome to the Fortress of Meropide,” the man greets. He had dark clothing and dark hair with a scar under his eye.

“Y—your Grace!” The tour guide quickly says, his standoffish nature immediately disappears. “Lovely weather we’re having!”

The man glances over at the tour guide, “Hm? Oh yes, I guess the weather is nice. If we could see it.”

The prisoner lets out an awkward laugh as the Duke looks back at Paimon and Aether. “I’m Wriothesley, but you can call me Your Grace.”

“You’re the Duke of Meropide?” Paimon asks in a shocked tone. Wriothesley nods.

“So, how was your tour?” He asks, “was everything up to standard?”

Aether glances as the tour guide for a moment before giving Wriothesley a firm nod. “Yep. No complaints here.”

“Wonderful.” Wriothesley smiles, “I think we should be able to reward you with more credit coupons then?”

“T—thank you Your Grace! Thank you!” The tour guide says. He then looks over at the traveler, “and thank you for such kind words! If you ever need anything! Anything at all! Please come find me!”

Once he rushes off, the Duke turns his attention back onto the newcomers.

“So, is it normal for you to greet all newbies in person like this?” Paimon asks.

Wriothesley lets out a soft laugh. “No it’s not. I just heard that you two were friends with Neuvillette so I figured I finish the tour myself.”

“Wait, how do you know that?” Aether questions.

“The Fortress might look like it’s cut off from the rest of the world but word still travels fast. Just like what happened to Their Eminence.”

Paimon glances at the traveler briefly. Wriothesley continues, “Many people in the Fortress were ready to leave just for a chance at seeing the Creator. But since they are still in the hospital recovering, I managed to keep them under control.”

“What else do you know about the Creator?” Aether asks.

“Nothing really.” He responds, “I haven’t had the time to leave the Fortress and go visit them myself. Unless you’re talking about the basic information, there’s books all around the Fortress that can tell you that.”

Wriothesley continues on with the tour, showing the where the so-called cafeteria was, the Pankration Ring, and where they would report to work everyday. He also mentions Sigewinne, the nurse who looks after anyone who gets hurt or sick.

Lastly, he shows them where they’ll be sleeping. As he explains the procedures for their room, Aether gazes falls onto someone walking nearby. An oddly familiar magician.

Lyney stops walking and looks back at him, but once Wriothesley notices, Lyney lets out a soft laugh doing a dramatic bow.

“Well hello there Your Grace! It’s lovely to see you out of your office!”

Wriothesley crosses his arms, “it’s good to see you too, but shouldn’t you be reporting to work?”

The magician gives him a cheeky smile as he stands back up, “of course! That’s where I was heading right now! But these two must be very important to get a personal tour from the Duke himself.”

Wriothesley says nothing in response but Lyney quickly excuses himself, his gaze falling onto Aether once more before walking out of sight.

“Come on,” Wriothesley says, “there’s one last stop I’d like to make.”

———

The three sit at one of the tables in the cafeteria, the chef bringing over three welfare meals. They remove the lids revealing the delectable meals inside causing Paimons mouth to water.

“Oh is this what the food is like in the Fortress?” She rubes her hands together, “Paimon could get used to this!”

“Actually, I managed to pull a few strings to get this meal, after today, you might not get another meal like this.”

The fairy didn’t seem to be paying attention as she keeps shoving more food into her mouth. The traveler rolls his eyes at his companion, looking back at the Duke.

“So you said there was books in the Fortress about the Creator?” Aether asks, his fork pushing around his meal mindlessly.

Wriothesley nods. “There are groups within the Fortress to make people feel more welcome or comfortable. There’s quite a few revolved around Their Eminence. Prayer groups, wanting a stronger relationship, or just normal worship in general, they’re actually pretty popular.”

Paimon swallows the food in her mouth, “How do you feel about them?”

Wriothesley ponders for a second, “I don’t know anyone who has a negative view on Their Eminence, including myself. I would be honored to go up to the surface soon and share a cup of tea with them.”

Aether didn’t say anything in response, but he had a feeling that Wriothesley knew more about the Creator than he let on. He did say word travels fast from the surface, is it possible he already knows the Creator is missing?

“Anyways,” Wriothesley says, “I have other things to attend to, enjoy your time in the Fortress and try not to cause any trouble.”

The Duke gives one last farewell, leaving the table without another word. Aether and Paimon continue eating their welfare meals preparing themselves to adjust to their new situation and figure what exactly Childe may know about the Creator.

———

“You were right.”

In a dark corner of the Fortress, the twins from the House of the Hearth spoke in quiet whispers.

“Paimon and the Traveler, I just saw them.” Lyney explained.

Lynette’s ear lay flat on her head, her tail swaying slightly. “Monsieur Neuvillette must’ve told them and they’re here to investigate.”

“We have to do what Father told us to do.“ Lyney adds, “although playing ignorant to figure what they know won’t hurt either.”

Lynette lets out a sigh. “…and what about Tartaglia?”

Lyney shrugs, “what about him? He’s not here. We have to focus on the Creator. Without Their Grace, the Fatui won’t be able to—“

“I know.” Lynette interrupts. “Let’s just focus on the traveler for now.

“I must say, the timing of this meeting seems almost convient…” Arlecchino narrows her gaze as she brings her teacup up to her lips.

“I’ll just cut straight to the chase. I’m here about my colleague, Childe and of course, Their Grace.”

The table inside of Neuvillette’s office was covered in sweets from Snezhnaya, something the Kanve brought to ease the tensions within the meeting. Yet, it doesn’t seem to be working.

“Childe was declared innocent by you, the Iudex, yet was still given a guilty verdict by the Oratrice…” Arlecchino explains, “and only days after that, you declare that Their Grace is an imposter and almost kill them.”

Furina shifts uncomfortably in her seat, “Y-yes… we are aware of our… transgressions. The Creator is being well looked after and is healing quite quickly.”

Arlecchino perks up, “Oh? They are? So is it possible for me to see them for myself?”

“That won’t be possible at the moment, I apologize.” Neuvillette quickly adds in.

Arlecchino brings a forkful of cake up to her mouth as she lets out a scoff. “An outright refusal? I must say, I am surprised…”

Neuvillette crosses his arms, “this meeting wasn’t called to talk about Their Grace, but rather Mr. Tartaglia, correct?”

“That is correct. Then am I able to enter the Fortress to check on the wellbeing of my colleague?”

“That also won’t be possible.”

Arlecchino sighs, “so I cannot see Their Grace and I cannot see Childe. What exactly will this meeting accomplish?”

“We already have a course of action for Their Grace.” Focalors adds, “but we cannot share it with you or any other nations for now. This meeting was just a… common courtesy”

“And as for Mr. Tartaglia I am investigating matter.” The chief justice adds.

“A common courtesy?” The Knave questions, “everyone in Teyvat is wondering just what exactly will Fontaine do after committing the biggest sin known to man… and all you can say is that it’s confidential? Not to mention the prophecy you refuse to address.”

Furina shoves another bite of cake into her mouth, scooting her chair closer to Neuvillette.

“As long as Their Grace is in our nation, they are under our jurisdiction.” Neuvillette explains.

Arlecchino clicks her tongue. “A disappointing outcome indeed… but I cannot say I am shocked.”

Arlecchino finished her tea, “the Fatui is willing to extend our help if you need it. You all seem to have a lot on your plate at the moment. Maybe it’s best to pass some of the responsibility onto someone else?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Neuvillette states.

The Knave stands from her seat, brushing her bangs out of the way, revealing her red X eyes. “I think it’s safe to say this meeting is concluded, I have to return back to Snezhnaya immediately.”

Furina raises a brow, “returing so soon? W—why such a rush to leave?”

It falls silent in the room for a few seconds.

“Her Majesty cares very dearly about the Creator, I am expected to report any and all news directly to her.” Arlecchino explains, her back facing the two.

“Snezhnaya as a whole cares deeply about Their Grace, and once they heal completely we will welcome them with open arms… not a trial.”

Focalors looks down at her lap as Arlecchino leaves the office returning to her ship anchored near the border of Fontaine and Liyue. A sinister smile spread on her lips while Neuvillette and Furina sit in the office in silence, a sour taste lingering in their mouth even with the baked goods in front of them.

-

© avocad1s 2024

Note: Good luck to all my Arlecchino wanters! I got her and her sig weapon so I give all my luck to you <3

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#genshin cult au #sagau #genshin impact sagau #genshin sagau #sagau x reader #self aware genshin

[strawberrysodaslut]

idk if you can do this but can you do a poly!marauders x gn!reader, and the boys’ reactions when yn wears a binder one day.

i'm not trans nor have i ever worn a binder, so i hope this is an accurate portrayal!! feel free to correct me on anything i've messed up.

Getting a binder was a long time coming. After months of research, hesitations and all the time spent waiting, going to the store and getting one, you never thought wearing something to bind would make you feel so damn free. Finally, understanding what people meant when you heard about gender euphoria.

You hadn’t told the boys about your latest purchase. In fact, you hadn’t brought up the concept to them. Not that they hadn’t been supportive of you, they really were. In a world of magic, pronouns were something that hardly needed grasping, and they would correct anyone who messed up politely, sending you a soft smile as they did. But- you couldn’t help but be anxious about them finding out. What if this was too much? What if they get freaked out?

So, you kept your binder to yourself.

At first, you didn’t think they had noticed. You wore looser clothes or sports bras earlier, so it probably wasn’t as big of a difference to others. It wasn’t until dinner that night where you noticed Sirius staring at you from across the table.

“What?” You said, chomping down on a bread roll to hide the way self conciousness ebbed in your chest.

Sirius squinted his eyes, looking like James when he tries to read without his glasses. “You look different.” He says. “Did you do something to your face?”

James laughs from next to you. “Did they do something to their face? What kind of question is that, Padfoot?”

“Well, I don’t know!” Sirius exclaims, “Admit it though Prongs, something about them is different!”

You find it hard to not instinctively crawl under the table to hide. So you curl in on yourself, pressing your chin to your chest to calm the heat across your cheeks. As if he can sense your anxiety, Remus places his hand on your shoulder.

“Guys stop.” He says, light concern lacing his voice, but he’s clearly trying to hide it. “Obviously they’re just relaxed now that the holidays are coming, isn’t that right?” He says to you, giving you a slight smirk and raise of his eyebrows that only happen during his most devious pranks. ‘go with this’, he silently urges you.

You smile, nodding your head. “Yeah, I’m glad classes are almost over.”

“Well,” Sirius starts, “We should have holidays more often then. Haven’t seen you this confident in- I don’t even know.”

“I’ll start the petition!” James pipes.

You smile, glad to be supported by your boys, but still relieved that your secret remains yours.

Little did you know later that night, the boys had a plan to throw a movie night with you in the common room. So at nighttime, when you had changed out of your binder so you wouldn’t sleep in it, James surprised you by barging into your room.

“Oi! It’s movie time- oh sorry.” James said, cutting himself off to cover his eyes as you put on your sweatshirt.

Remus followed him, quickly closing his eyes and turning around when he saw you, “Jeez Prongs! They’re changing!” He scolded.

“I know! That’s why I’m…” He trails off, gesturing to the hand that’s covering his eye- going completely unnoticed to Remus with his eyes shut tight.

You shake your head, a soft giggle escaping from your lips. God, they’re dramatic. “It’s okay guys, don’t stress.” You throw your sweatshirt over your head. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

James makes a soft grunt, before removing the hand from his eyes and taking you in. “Well, sorry again.” He says. His eyes slowly drift behind you to something on your bed, and tilts his head. “Hey what’s that?”

You almost jump, turning behind you to see your binder laid out on your bed, ready to be put away. You shudder a deep breath before trying your best to gesture nonchalantly. “It’s uh-” It’s hard not to cringe at how your voice trembles. Okay, nonchalant isn’t working. So you instead opt to be candid. “It’s my binder.”

James looks between you and the binder, his brows furrowed. “Binder…?” He questions before his eyes go wide. He paces towards you in a frenzy. “You’re not binding your magic, are you? Listen, you shoul-”

A giggle almost slips out again as you interrupt him before he explodes, “No Prongs! It’s for my chest. It binds my chest.”

Despite the reassurance that no, you were not binding your magic, James doesn’t look any less confused. If anything, he looked even more. “Why would you want to bind your chest?” He asks, his brows furrowing as he makes his way from you to the binder.

Candid, you remind yourself. You’re being candid. “So it would be flatter.” You say.

A beat passes before James replies, still looking down at the material.

“Oh.” “Oh?” You ask. Your heart thumping in your chest with anticipation.

He makes a small squeak as he turns back to you, “I-I just didn’t realise that was something you worried about.” He says, his voice sympathetic but laced with concern. “It’s not…” He pauses, “Is this where we’re supposed to say something to make you feel better? Because you don’t have to do that for other people you know...”

“No, I get that.” You say, a small smile making its way to your face. “This isn’t for other people, it’s for me. I’m more comfortable with myself when I wear it.” You gesture to the binder, as if it hasn’t been the subject of the past couple of minutes.

With that, James’ whole demeanour changes. The tension in his body disappears as he smiles wide. “Well then, we’re thrilled for you. Aren’t we moony?” He says, nudging Remus who has just been staring at you since the conversation started.

As if he has just awoken from a nap, Remus startles to attention. “Oh- uh yes! I’m supportive of whatever you choose as long as you're happy.” Remus replies, smiling at you before chuckling “Sorry it’s just- I knew that’s what was different.”

“You staring at their chest are you?” James teases Remus. “Perv.”

“No! I-” He exclaims, a red tint painting his face.

You smile at him, about to reassure the boy, when a crashing sound comes from downstairs before a yell echoes through the hallway. Remus mutters a small ‘fuck’s sake’ as the cause of the noise comes bounding towards your room.

“Sorry gentlemen- gender neutral, of course. The popcorn has burned.” Sirius announces before he’s entered the room, reeking of burnt popcorn with a few pieces lodged in his hair. Sharing James’ nosiness, his eyes quickly fixate on your binder. “Hey, what’s that?”

James scoffs before turning to Sirius. “It’s a binder, Padfoot, and they’re very happy.” He says with pride, his chin lifting. “Catch up.”

Remus’ attention, however, has drifted away from the binder and he asks the real important question, “How the hell do you burn magic popcorn?”

Sirius jumps to the defensive, “Hey! I’m the one who told you not to put me in charge of food!” He says, throwing his hands up. “I’m obviously more suited to the pillow gathering region.”

With a dictionary worth of swear words, Remus stomps down the hall to make some unburnt popcorn. James quickly following behind, arguing why him being the pillow gatherer was the best choice.

With Sirius and you alone, he turns to you. “Hey, it’s cool that you have that now. Reg used to use one a while ago.” He says, before grabbing your hand, “Now, let’s watch some movies on a subpar pillow arrangement.”

You laugh as you both go to follow the other two boys. “Sounds good.” You say, feeling more secure with them than ever. Your binder sitting blissfully on your bed, ready to be used again tomorrow.

poly marauders masterlist

#marauders #harry potter #poly!maraduers #marauders x reader #poly!marauders x reader #marauders fluff #marauders x y/n #marauder x you #marauders fanfic #sirius black x reader #james potter x reader #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin fluff #james potter fluff #sirius black fluff

[ozzgin]

Yandere! Werewolf Headcanons

I've been stalked by the guilty feeling that my Romanian Werewolf boy got a lot of backstory but not much romance or interaction. So there you have it: some headcanons featuring the ancient Beast, a post-kidnapping sequel.

Content: female reader, obsessive behavior, monster romance, mild NSFW at the end, ridiculously older yandere

You followed the gargantuan stranger back into the city, leaving the bloodbath behind as if it was just a distant dream. Admittedly, you’d expected to be dragged into some mountainous cave or an abandoned mansion, not the cozy - albeit a little dusty - apartment on a main, historical street. On second thought, he did function as a human outside of his monstrous escapades, so it made sense. “Is this your place?”, you sheepishly asked while he wiped the thick layers of blood off him. “One of them, yes”, he answered curtly. “It’s central”, you remarked, trying to make conversation. “Well, I didn’t know about it back then. It’s been a few decades.”

Your ears perked up at the words. Gazing at his features, he didn’t seem necessarily aged to you. The deep creases contouring his face felt more like a sign that he’s lived sorrows beyond most people’s comprehension. “How old are you?” You finally asked as curiosity replaced your initial fear. He abruptly stopped his movements and leaned back, brows furrowed in deep contemplation. “I’m not so sure anymore. I was born in the 80s”, he concluded. “That’s not too far back, is it?” You inquired, this time more relaxed. “80 BC, I meant. You do the math.”

He freshened himself up as you counted the millennia on your fingers, frowning in confusion. He chuckled at your intense focus, then quickly looked up into the mirror. When was the last time he smiled like this? The reflection was a foreign sight to him. “We’ll get you everything you need tomorrow”, he continued, still in a daze. What a strange idea, having someone to speak to after an eternity. And suddenly, it occurred to him just how rusted his communication had gotten: “I’m so sorry, I haven’t asked for your name once”, he said, embarrassed. “It’s (Y/N). And you are...?" Might as well introduce yourself to your benevolent captor.

The dreaded question. How did they call him back in the day? He hasn't had anyone spell it out for him, nor did he feel the need at any point to say it himself. Why would he? He hadn't anticipated meeting you. With pursed lips, he searched his mind. Eventually, from the depths or memories, from days of yore, it made its way back: "Daos."

Given your first gory encounter (where he quite literally murdered everyone else), you were surprised to find out he's otherwise a calm and polite individual. Well, he's had centuries to mature, you suppose. You've also noticed he has that rather old-fashioned chivalry to him. He's very attentive despite his stoic demeanor, and often follows with acts of service.

"You're insulting me. I can carry this myself with ease", you'll argue. "I never doubted you can. Nonetheless, it is my wish to do it for you."

As the days pass, your reluctance seems to vanish as well. In fact, you've become particularly cheeky, encouraged by his warm, unperturbed behavior. Maybe you haven't gotten the worst deal out there, after all.

"You know, you talk like an old man", you've teased him once. He was visibly taken aback by your statement, and you could discern a faint blush on his face. "Do I? My apologies, I haven't spoken to anyone in a long time. I'm not familiar with modern speech. Have I embarrassed you somehow?"

He spends his free time reading, though he will frequently take you on walks. It's an interesting affair to say the least. You can feel the curious eyes of the passersby and hear their not-so-discreet whispered gossip. You can't truly blame them: Daos is enormous even as a human. He towers above everyone else with his imposing appearance. To match, his voice is deep and coarse as a result of not using it much until recently.

The ancient werewolf is a living history book. If asked, he will narrate to you important events or details you might be curious about regarding his culture. Once, when he'd been in a good mood, he even shared fragments of his life before turning into a creature. He'd been a high-ranked Dacian warrior, spending his days training or fighting. He still remembers the flag he carried with bitter fondness, yet another irony to his fate: a wolf-headed serpent. It was meant to showcase their way of life; barbarians with no fear of death. They'd greeted the Roman Empire with nothing but a sword and a shield, no shred of doubt.

He might've been betrayed by his people, but the pride remains. The pride of a soldier who's never known defeat. You learned quickly that his beastly form doesn't count as a significant change by any means, save for appearances. The man has brute strength even as a human. You'd once strayed from his view, and a stranger approached with a daring whistle, gawking you up and down. Before you could react, Daos clawed him by the throat. You heard the twist of the skin and the creak of the bones giving in to the immense pressure of his large hand.

"It's the second time I have exposed you to such unpleasant sights", he said, discarding the body as if it was any other garbage. "Forgive me, but I will not have you disrespected like this."

He is very much aware he's taken you away from the world out of his own selfish desire. The fact that you accepted it is more than he could ever ask for. That's what he keeps telling himself, even as his eyes wander to your lips whenever you speak. Or as his hand lingers a moment too long against the curve of your back. Or as he hungrily takes in your scent whenever you're nearby.

He might be unhealthily possessive of you, but Daos will never do anything against your will. No matter how obvious his urges are. In fact, no amount of flirting or teasing will shake his resolve. You will have to be very direct with your approval.

Once the reality settles in, he'll become extremely affectionate, bordering on obsessive. To think he could have you in every way possible. Oh, he's waited thousands of years for you. All the suffering, the loneliness, the anger, they're stripped of any meaning now that he has you.

The city strolls at an awkward distance have since become a habitual excuse to hold your hand and show you off to the mortals. The quiet evenings of passing time with a book now include your merely noticeable weight cuddled into his lap. You didn't expect him to be this adoring. Being touch-starved for millennia counts as one reason, naturally, but there's more to it, so much more. And it all leads back to you.

He is a little taken aback when you ask him to do the deed in his werewolf form. "Don't be foolish. I can't overcome my instincts as well when I'm a creature. I could harm you", he'll lecture you. "Besides, you can barely take it as it currently is", he'll add, smirking at your baffled expression. It seems he's picked up on your cheekiness.

After a lot of pleading and waiting for the right moment - when he's ravaging you in a daze - he finally agrees. True to his word, his tune instantly changes. The tender hold turns into a desperate grasp sinking into your skin, and the thrusts become irregular, almost frantic. His drool cools your burning cheeks as you hold onto the coarse fur, feverish and overwhelmed.

His golden eyes rest on the small human squirming underneath him, and suddenly, he can't help but notice: you have the perfect birthing hips.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x darling #yandere x you #yandere monster #yandere monster x reader #yandere werewolf #werewolf x reader #monster x reader #monster x human #monster romance #yandere headcanons #male yandere x reader #yandere imagines #yandere scenarios #yandere oc #yandere oc x reader #yandere smut #monster smut #monster boyfriend

[jinkiezzsstuff]

Hello dear!! I have a request for the Radio Demon

Do you mind writing sub!Alastor? Imagine your in lobby of the hotel with your beloved Alastor (on his lap) and you decide to do some frisky cockwarming with him.. well in the beginning he has control but then maybe Charlie or Lucifer u walks in.. you decide to tease him until he can't take it anymore and ends up having to cover his moans as he gums in you..

Welp! That's my request🎀 you can delete this ofc but do as you will ~

from windigo anon🦌

i’m drooling, frothing at the mouth, going insane, i love this idea!!! eeeee thank you so much i hope this was good enough i struggled a bit with cockwarming so i hope i did well

Warnings: 18+ SMUT, cockwarming, SUB!Alastor/DOM!Reader, creampie, possible breeding kink, exhibitionism, Lucifer knows what you’re doing, he’s the devil, and you use him to tease Al, jealous lucifer, lucifer is a cuck lowkey, reader wears a dress but no gendered terms or anything, maybe threesome elements?, OOC ALASTOR, NOT proof read, LMK what i missed! xo

word count: 1.9K

You and Alastor have been a thing for a very long time, and throughout the years he’d become rather comfortable with sexual intimacy. Alastor always held the reigns no matter where in life he was, that is excluding the bedroom. Alastor had made a foolish deal with you long ago, he wanted your soul and you were a fairly powerful demon at the time so there was a sit down conversation about such endeavours. You agreed to sell your soul and tie yourself to him, complete all tasks he needed done, so long as he was your bitch. Well, that wording wasn’t used back then, nor was there any sexual innuendos in the mix.

Before it simply meant he couldn’t try to place fear into you, he always had to speak truthfully when it came to you, and if plan involved you, essentially to the outside world he was allowed to look like the boss but behind closed doors he wasn’t allowed to pull that stunt. You two ended up getting along quite nicely as the years went by, your magic side of the deal made it so if he broke his promises, the deal would be off and more then likely fatal to the both of you, so it wasn’t too surprising things went well.

What was surprising was the relationship you developed, Alastor was unable to lie to you about most things due to your deal and most of the time you approached him as a peer lacking judgement. Even when you disagreed with his plans you still still gave your genuine advice and thoughts which made him trust you. Slowly through this weird bond of trust and leaning on each other, Alastor developed romantic feelings and thank god you felt them back.

Alastor was slow to warm up to affections, which meant you normally took over, letting him keep his poise and smile you’d always make the first move, asking for consent to push further whether it was a simple hug, kiss, or a little more frisky. Eventually though, things got to the point they’re at now, where Alastor craves you like his lungs crave air. He is ravenous for your touch, your kiss, your head surrounding his cock. It’s a tough couple months during mating season because he begs and begs for you like a starved man.

Because of his eagerness for you, and to please you, he’s very kindly broadened his horizons leading to absolutely tasteful trying of kinks. Recently the two of you have been planted at the hotel, Alastor called upon you the day he got there, and privately when alone explained his plans with the Devils child, your man had always been an ambitious one, but you couldn’t say no to him. So of course you stood alongside his plans, and now you’re not only dealing with the Devils child, but the devil himself.

Lucifer moved himself in after the big ol’ brawl, and thankfully things have gone somewhat smoothly between Alastor and Lucifer, as in they haven’t killed each other yet, but Lucifer made it his absolute mission to try and “steal you away,” like he did with Adam. Obviously you were committed to Alastor, but your mind would wander to sinful places about all the ways you could show Lucifer how much you loved you deer man. Oh and you just knew how.

Alastor sat in the lobby, looking through a newspaper as he sipped his coffee, music humming softly in the background. The whole lobby was vacant, even Husk was gone for the moment, you made sure of it. Walking into the lobby from the kitchen, your dress flowing around your legs, you walked up to Alastor with a warm smile on your face. “What’re you up to my dear?” You ask softly, making him hum eyes shifting from his newspaper to you, dragging up your form. “Just a little bit of reading, nothing much my doe,” Alastor seemed sleepy almost in the state he was in, his voice was soft and lacking his usual enthusiasm, however it wasn’t a state you were unfamiliar with knowing him for so long.

Slowly you lowered yourself sideways onto his lap, he complied with your actions wordlessly by whisking his newspaper away with his magic, allowing you to scootch yourself right up on him. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you played with the short hairs at the base, causing him to visibly shiver. Alastor smiled down at you softly, watching you tenderly. “I feel,” You whispered with a pause, mimicking somebody taking a thoughtful breath. “Needy.” You breathe out with a cheesy smile plastered on your face. Alastor jolts a bit still entirely not used to forward language such as that, but he didn’t say anything simply blinked at you.

“I think i’m gonna lift this dress up, and your gonna unbuckle these pants, and i’m gonna seat myself nice n comfy on ya,” You purred hands messaging all around his chest as you spoke, trailing down to the button of his slacks and back up to his shoulders. You felt him twitch against his pants, the blood obviously was already flowing to his groin. “Dear we’re in public.” Try as he may, Alastors words were wobbly and his smile looked more like a grimace.

“No baby, we’re in private, in our new home, at the hotel, where no one can see.” You cooed condescendingly, pulling your hands away to hike up your dress. Alastor dared to looked down as you bunched your dress at your hips. Alastor closed his eyes, head falling back at the sight of you bare, nothing but your dress skirt keeping you covered. Turning yourself around, you put your back to him, grinding yourself down on him teasingly.

“Y’know what to do, don’t make me say it dear.” Your voice was stern compared to the tone you held before, Alastor blew out air at your words, head still thrown back at rest on the back of the sofa. Finally he brought his hands from the resting position next to him, and freed himself from his slacks and boxers. You sighed happily as you slowly inched your way down on him, Alastors hands gripped your hips harshly, and his legs kicked out and spasmed every inch you took down.

Once buttoned out, you fixed your gown to flow around you, and backed yourself up against his chest, head rested on his shoulder. Brining his head up to gaze down at you, Alastor gave you a questioning look, sweat already gathering on his forehead. “Dear please-” Alastors words got caught off by a boisterous call, and the front door swinging open. Fixing his posture, Alastor snapped into position, positioning his legs up right feet on the floor, straightening his back, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you up with him.

“Hellloooo everybody! Just had an amazing meeting, everything went in my favour, as always.” Lucifer waltzed in swinging his cane. He briefly paused scanning the room to see only you two sitting stiffly. You were more relaxed, eyes littled with an easygoing smile, Alastor however was tense; his smile was tight and unfriendly, with his eye twitching. “Well hello there you two, lovely to see you here.” Lucifer smiled happily plopping himself on the couch next to you, making you two shake.

The small bit of motion from Lucifer throwing himself down, made you clench, your arousal leaking down Alastors cock and onto his pants. Clearing his throat to suppress a moan, Alastor then gave a tiny ‘hello’ to the devil. Turning your body more toward the devil, you made sure to pick yourself up off Alastor a bit, and lower yourself back down, making him sink his nails into you.

Wrapping one arm around Alastors neck, you leaned sideways against him, facing Lucifer, your skirt successfully obstructing the entire view of your sin. “Do tell Luce.” You urge pretending to care, Lucifer caught on to the strange behaviour immediately however he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it yet, so he pushed on shrugging and explaining his meeting. You coyly moaned occasionally throughout his explanations playing it off as “oh”s and “ah”s to his story rather than Alastors twitching cock.

Leaning forward Alastor stuck his blushing face in your hair, breathing heavily into it. “Is he doing okay?” Lucifer asked suddenly, quirking a brow at Alastor. Around your waist Alastors arms tightened, and his legs once again spread and splayed out a bit allowing him more space. Alastor felt pitiful, but in a way he loved it, only you had this power and nobody else, he could live with that. Alastor was too blitzed out to realise he’d subtly humped up into you, needing some sort of release. Playing with Alastors hair, you shrugged your shoulders at the devil, your poise still in tacked.

“Yes, I do believe he’s a little sickly.” Lucifer noticed the twitch in Alastors hips now, his eyes growing in size every so slightly. “Yknow i just want to stay something Lucifer,” You begin to say, eyeing Al from your peripheral, seeing his eyes closed. “I really think we ought to stop with the battle, Alastor treats me very well, very good,” You purr fixing your posture, making Alastor groan into your hair.

“I think it’s time to stop with the whole ‘i could take your partner’ shtick.” You say sharply, with finality, Lucifers eyes at this point were flicking back and forth between the two of you, a prominent blush on his face. You grinned cheekily once again and shifted again trying to fix yourself to face forward again, as you did so you heard Lucifer take a breath to speak, but it got interrupted by a guttural groan from Alastor.

Without warning Alastors legs flexed his hips jerking involuntarily up against you, it caught you off guard and made you gasp and moan. It didn’t stop after one thrust, Alastor sunk his teeth into your shoulder jerking his hips up into you, panting and groaning without care. With one forceful thrust and growl, you whined feeling him force himself against you fully, cumming far up into you, stealing your breath. Lucifer watched bug eyed and taken aback, he never saw Alastor so pleasured, now he felt a ping of jealousy; before this moment he wanted to steal you away to show you how much better he can fuck you compared to Alastor, now he wanted you to fuck him and make him feel the way Alastor felt now.

Alastors form grew demonic, stretching and contorting, you still in his lap. You didn’t move an inch as he contorted, not afraid of Alastor what so ever. Alastors neck snapped inhumanely to Lucifer. “You are to never speak of this again.” Alastors voice didn’t sound like his own when he spoke, and whether or not Lucifer was truly scared didn’t matter as he fumbled, stuttered and then stumbled off covering his eyes and apologising. With the snap of his fingers, Alastor magicked the two of you in the safety of his radio tower, where no one dared to enter unwelcomed. “Dear, that was unacceptable. But amusing, you get away with this little fiasco only because it was Lucifer you did it in front of.”

Alastor growled at you demonic form on display, smile stretched, he had your cheeks tightly pinched in between his nails. Shrugging your shoulders, you tiptoed up to give his teeth a coy kiss. “Whatever maybe now he’ll leave us alone.”

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel imagine #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel oneshots #alastor hazbin x reader #hazbin hotel alastor x reader #alastor x reader #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel smut #alastor imagine #alastor smut #lucifer magne x reader #hazbin lucifer #lucifer hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel lucifer morningstar x reader #lucifer morningstar x you #lucifer morningstar x reader #lucifer morningstar #lucifer x reader #lucifer smut #lucifer hazbin x reader #xreader #x reader

[andejoe]

No one wanted to ask. Someone had to. It was terrifying. But it made sense.

Of course humanity finally abandoned its planet. Everyone was surprised they hadn’t abandoned it sooner. Still, the concern was there.

What made humanity abandon their planet in a mass event? What thing was finally found to scare them off their favorite death world?

Of course not every last human abandoned the planet, but enough did that Earth was no longer considered ‘inhabited’. Humans flocked to other worlds, most choosing death worlds with similar biomes to the ones they preferred. (And there was a suspiciously armored ship heading towards Disney planet.)

The concerning thing was the humans kept going back. Never landing. Never breaking the atmosphere. Just driving by.

Finally, a delegate was chosen to ask the human council member. Poor Laeri was nervous, but they had been called friend by council member Daryl before. Surely this question wouldn’t be an offense.

“Daryl, may I speak with you a moment?”

Daryl paused, and nodded, careful not to smile. He was well practiced in the art of not offending. “Of course Laeri. What is the matter?”

“Humanity has recently applied for habitation permits for a dozen planets. As soon as the permits were awarded, humans left very quickly.”

“Well sure. The permits took three earth years to be approved. Most of the planet had been preparing for over five years at that point,” Daryl explained.

“Yes, that is not my question. The question is why?”

“Why were they ready?”

Laeri shook their head. “Why did they leave Earth? Humans have made it a point to ‘stick it out’ despite better options being available. Why leave now?”

“Oh, that. Well.” Daryl paused. He knew he didn’t have to report officially yet, but his friend wanted to know. “Will you keep it a secret from the council?”

Laeri paused. The answer being a secret did not occur to them. What could the humans possibly be hiding? Would they be able to hide it as well?

“I do not think I can keep any dangerous thing a secret,” Laeri finally admitted.

Daryl nodded. “Nor would I ask you to. It’s not dangerous, just a little experiment more like.”

“If it is an experiment, then you should speak with-“

“No Laeri.” Daryl interrupted calmly. “This isn’t something we want help with. That’s why we haven’t mentioned anything to the Viyon Academics. We just need time to see if it works.”

Their curiosity finally got the better of them.

“If what works?”

“A new society. A new civilized species.”

Laeri didn’t speak, but either from awe or concern, they weren’t sure. Daryl continued.

“We believe a species evolves when they start to take care of their injured and impaired. It means they have compassion. Well an intelligent species on earth has been observed showing compassion. We simply want to give them the space they require to evolve.”

Laeri considered the intelligent species that lived on earth. They were suddenly very concerned. Had the humans been duped?

“The dolphi are showing compassion?” Laeri asked.

Daryl almost laughed. “Not even close. No, we wouldn’t break the agreement we made. They’re not escaping earth anytime soon.”

Laeri felt immediate relief. “Then which species is it?”

Daryl smiled. He couldn’t help it. He liked birds. “Corvids.”

“But, but they’re so small.”

“We know. That’s why some humans are still there, zoologist types to help them grow, learn, and show them the way.”

“What if another species wipes them out before they get the chance?”

Daryl shrugged. “Well that’s why we left some warriors behind, to help keep the corvids alive while they grow. And of course to keep the dolphins contained. We do take that assignment very seriously.”

Laeri was excited now. Another avian species may be joining the galaxy soon. They wanted to tell everyone.

“Promise you’ll keep the secret?” Daryl asked.

Laeri felt their excitement dash upon the cruel rocks of reality. “I will.”

“Good. Here.” Daryl held out a small computer drive.

Laeri took the drive. “What is this?”

“The live feed of the experiment. You really think we wouldn’t watch? As soon as they reach civilized status, I have to report them. Until then, they’ve been completing some very complex puzzles and problem solving lately. You’ll want to start at the beginning but they post new information all the time.”

Laeri clutched the drive to their feathered tunic. Suddenly the small drive was priceless. “I, must go now.”

Laeri took off as fast as would be ignored by others. Daryl watched his friend, surprised by how excited they were. His watch gave him an alert.

“Ooh, a group puzzle. Wonder if they managed it this time.”

Daryl walked off to his own private quarters to watch the newest update on the corvids.

#humans are space orcs #humans are weird #humans are deathworlders #humans are space australians #humans are dumb #sorry I’ve been gone so long #the writing thing just wasn’t happening #no creative juices were flowing #but then this one hit me out of the blue #hope you enjoy

[luveline]

If you’re still up for requests — could you maybe do one where peter or remus comes home after a visibly bad day and the reader misinterprets his behavior and assumes he’s upset with her instead ?? like she’s walking on eggshells, silently fussing around trying to figure out what she did, meanwhile all he wants to do is hold her and decompress 🥺☹️

absolutely no pressure! <33

“Oh my god.” Peter lets out a pained groan at the door, followed by the plastic crinkle of shopping bags hitting the floor. “My back. Jesus.” 

You look up in surprise from your book at the table. “I thought we were going together?” 

“I couldn’t face coming home and going out again.” He drags the bags to the fridge and pauses. “I figured you’d be okay with not having to go?” 

“Sure,” you agree immediately. He has a black cranky fog around him, you can practically feel it as you get up to help him unpack the bags. He doesn’t seem best pleased with you.

He rubs his eyes, rubs his mouth, and turns to the sink. He runs the faucet, pulling one of the glasses back off of the draining board to fill, and wincing at the harsh sound when he turns it too fast. Peter forgets his own strength every now and then —usually when he’s not feeling well. 

Peter gives you a funny look as you step into his space. You quickly step out of it and start to load groceries into the fridge and cabinets, pleased to find he’s bought the things you would’ve gotten yourself and even some things you’d have wanted but not allowed yourself. Maybe he’s not that mad after all—

“God damn,” he says, rolling an empty bag into a ball in his hand, “I forgot the fucking laundry detergent again.” 

“That’s okay–”

“It’s not okay, you’ve asked me to get it three times this week.” 

“I was just reminding you,” you say, fingers tingling with the potential of an impending argument. “It’s fine. We haven’t run out yet, we can squeeze another wash out of it. I’ll get some tomorrow.” 

He sits down in the chair you’d been sitting in and moves your book and plate of snacks aside, neither gentle nor rough about it. “Damn,” he says again, dropping his face into his hands.

“Pete…” 

His eyes must be sore by now he’s rubbing them so much, hands held to his eyes and fingers scratching into his hair. He tips his face toward the table and lets himself sit with whatever it is that’s getting him down. Me, you think worriedly. I shouldn’t have asked him to get groceries today. You knew he had a longer shift than usual, and that he’d want to do some Spidering afterward. 

You’ve sorry on the tip of your tongue when he lays his face heavily in one hand, elbow on the table barely keeping him up, and holds the other out toward you. Rejecting him doesn’t even cross your mind. 

“Fuck, I missed you today,” he says, taking your hand as soon as you offer it and dragging you toward him. You peer down at him with wide eyes as he wraps his arm around you, his nose quick to hide in the linen of your shirt. His voice tickles, “I just wanted to be with you. I knew this would make me feel better.” 

There’s a little dry barb at the back of your throat you can’t speak past. Peter doesn’t notice, rubbing his cheek in your side as he repositions you for optimal hugging. He lets out a self-pitying whine, second arm joining the first in a lock behind your back. “You smell amazing.” 

“I do?” you ask finally. 

“I think you’re just made for me, angel,” he says, voice dragging with fatigue. “You always smell good.” 

You squint with lips pursed, blinking in confusion as you bring your hand up to his hair. “Thanks for going to the store.”

“You’re welcome. I can’t function without groceries either, anyways.” He sighs with the particular Parker brand of lovelorn contentedness, a familiar sound. He makes the same noise when you’re tucked up in bed together on the weekends with nowhere to go, or holding hands on the subway travelling home, knee to knee or intertwined. “Can’t believe how quickly you make me feel better,” he murmurs. 

“I kinda thought you were mad at me,” you confess, matching his tone.

“You have some strange wires crossed in your brain,” he says. His sympathy and affection for you is palpable; his hand tracks a soft line down the curve of your back. 

“Yeah, I know. Do you want me to rub your shoulders?” you ask, pressing your face to the mop of his thick hair. 

He hugs you tightly. “You’re my dream girl.” 

#tasm peter parker #tasm peter x reader #tasm peter parker imagine #tasm peter parker x you #tasm peter parker x reader #tasm x reader #peter parker x reader #tasm!spiderman x reader #tasm!peter x reader #tasm!peter imagine #tasm!peter parker #tasm!peter parker x reader #tasm! peter parker x reader #spiderman x reader #peter parker oneshot #peter parker blurb #peter parker imagine #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #spiderman x you #spiderman fanfiction

[gay-dorito-dust]

Just Jason being the human version of a house cat.

Someone on here said that Jason is just a massive lap cat and I can’t help but agree because just imagine it; an absolute beast of a man finding solace in resting specifically on your plush lap, his strong, warm arms caging your waist as his face is burrowed pleasantly into your stomach in content, groans in displeasure whenever he feels you move even the slightest of inches.

How dare you move when Jason was just getting comfortable, apologise now for your transgressions.

Jason’s warmth would be advantageous to you during the colder months but an absolute nightmare during the summer, more so if you’re the type to get warm really easily and it ends up irritating you. But this is neither here nor there.

‘Jaybirdie?’ You ran your hand through his hair, scratching his scalp now and then.

Jason groans, showing that he was listening.

‘I’ve got to get going soon or else they’ll call and ask why I’m late.’ You tell him as you felt his arms tighten and you smile. ‘And I can’t exactly say that my 6’2 boyfriend is sprawled across my lap like a stubborn house cat that is refusing me to leave. Now can I?’ You finished, moving your hand away from his hair and focusing on rubbing his upper back, wishing you could see his muscles beneath the black t-shirt. You could only being to imagine the way his beautiful muscles would contract and relax from your touch as though they were like the waves you’d see at the beach, webbing and flowing; it was borderline enticing.

‘Then don’t go then. Simple as.’ His muffled voice said against your stomach.

‘I can’t, I promise to help out at work because someone called in sick…again.’ You muttered out the last part. You didn’t know why your co-worker wasn’t sacked for having so much time off but you knew you weren’t the only one that didn’t like them, and from what you’ve been told by older co-workers, this wasn’t the first time they’ve done this and even then you were surprised that they still even had a job to come back to. So because of them, you and your fellow co-workers were being worked to the bone to cover their hours on top of your own.

‘Again?’ Jason asked, lifting his head up from your lap, having been kept up to date on the goings on in your workplace. ‘How haven’t they gotten pulled in for that shit?’

You shrugged your shoulders, genuinely as baffled as he was about the whole thing. ‘Honestly have got the slightest clue Jay, but It’s all the more reason for me to go.’

Jason groans as he reluctantly lets you go but now you were the one upset at the sudden loss of his warmth and that must’ve been apparent on your face as Jason smirked mischievously as he reassumed his position on your lap, his strong arms went back to holding your waist tightly and his face burrows back into your stomach as he sighs in content once more.

‘See, now you don’t wanna go now because your Jaybirdie won’t be there to keep you warm.’ He teased as you tugged at his hair, causing him to groan.

‘That’s not-‘

‘Oh don’t play the coy card with me sweetheart, we’ve already been through that stage in our relationship.’ Jason cuts you off. ‘because if you wanted to leave that badly you wouldn’t be rubbing my back or running your hand through my hair like you are right now.’ Jason then looks up at you with a raised brow as if challenging you in daring to say otherwise when you both knew the truth.

‘It’s just- we don’t typically get enough time together.’ You began. ‘Crime in Gotham has been on an increase as of late, which is taking much of your time, and work has been asking everyone to pitch in and help cover until our co-worker decided to comes back at their own accord.’ You paused to stroke Jason’s cheek, internally melting when you felt him press his face further into your hand, gingerly kissing your palm. ‘It just doesn’t give us enough time for moments like these, the moments we crave most.’

‘The moments where we’re just together.’ Jason finishes for you and you muttered a small ‘yeah.’

A silence befalls you both as you tried to engrain this moment into your memory because neither of you knew when the next time you got to peacefully exist in tandem, whether that be doing your own thing or doing something together, just as long as you were with each other for longer then a fleeting five minutes.

‘So do you still want to go to work?’ Jason asked. ‘Or do you want to be selfish for once?’

You gave it some thought and soon after began to reach for your phone and punch in the work number as Jason squeezed a thigh in his large hand. ‘Selfish it is.’ He murmured with a smile as he gotten himself comfortable before feeling you run your fingers through his hair once more.

#jason todd imagine #jason todd fluff #jason todd x you #jason todd x reader #jason todd imagines #jason todd fanfic #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd fic #dc x y/n #dc x you #dc comics x reader #dc x reader #dc imagine #dc fic #dc fanfic #dc fanfiction

[humanpurposes]

Mine All Mine

Michael doesn't have a lot of friends, nor does he want them. Now he thinks he might have found his perfect match, and he has no intentions of letting her slip away

Main Masterlist

Michael Gavey x unnamed female character

Warnings: 18+, smut, Michael Gavey being a little shit (affectionately), possessive behaviour (yk the drill here)

Words: 7k

A/n: This ended up leaning into more of a cuter side, I definitely wanna do something creepier with him at some point! Also available to read on AO3.

He gets to the room early, before the tutor has even arrived. It’s his first tutorial of the year and his first ever at Oxford. He stands straight with his head up and his hands unmoving, a picture of neutrality. He has his problem sheet in his satchel and runs through the questions in his head, not because he needs to, not because he doubts himself, but simply because he can.

He doesn’t even like maths all that much, but he’s always been good at it. He had considered doing something a little less straightforward, physics or economics, but then what would be the point in getting into Oxford to be anything less than perfect?

He knows his tutor’s name from his schedule, Stephen Breyer. He arrives only a few minutes later and they go inside. The tutorial room is small, with three of the four walls covered in bookshelves. In the centre of the room there is a table, an armchair on one side and a small sofa on the other. 

Michael takes the seat closest to the door. It puts him in a slightly more direct line of sight with Stephen. It also means his tutorial partner will inevitably have to climb over his legs to sit down and the thought amuses him.

“How are you finding it so far?” Stephen asks, unpacking a thermos flask and a notebook from his bag.

“It?” Michael repeats.

Stephen pauses and looks at him, slightly bewildered. “Well, the course, the college, Oxford. All of it.”

“Right,” Michael says. He takes his time taking out a pencil and his problem sheet before placing them on the table. He sits back against the sofa and rubs his lips together in thought. 

He supposes it’s been exactly as he had expected. Lectures have been fairly straightforward, Lincoln college looks the same as it had in the prospectus, and so far, most of the people seem insufferable. So many of them have no sense of urgency, no drive to truly succeed because to them, Oxford is a rite of passage rather than an earned privilege. He’s met maybe one person he’d consider worthy of his time, and even then, Oliver Quick is only a literature student. He might as well get a degree in overthinking.

Stephen is looking at him like he is still expecting an answer. Michael stares back. He’s never been one to bother with smalltalk. 

“Alright then,” Stephen says, then nods to the empty place on the sofa. “Do you know if–”

The door opens and a girl walks in, closing it gently behind her. “Sorry I’m late,” she says, eyes flickering around the room and settling on the space beside Michael. 

He’s seen her before, in lectures, in the dining hall, walking around the college with her little group of friends. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were all Cheltenham girls by the way they talk and dress in the stupid outfits rich girls wear to make themselves seem like normal people.

He watches her as she walks towards him, the awkward little smile she gives him before she steps over his legs. 

“Sorry,” she says again, falling onto the sofa. Michael almost winces at the sudden jolt of movement and the faint scent of a sweet perfume drifting from his left. “Had some trouble finding the room.”

“You’re right on time,” Stephen says, “we haven’t started yet.”

She’s better at the smalltalk than he is. She has a constant smile on her face and a bright look in her eyes, already having plenty of humorous anecdotes to share, despite the fact it’s only their second week. 

As they go through the questions on the sheet, comparing calculations and answers, Michael is horrified to find that he’s a little nervous. His throat feels dry and he can feel his heart pulsing in his chest. It’s her fault, he thinks. Everything about her is distracting, the sound of her voice, the satisfied little hum she makes when she realises she’s got another question right. Her black tights, the way her skirt rides up her thigh when she crosses her legs.

He wants to think she’s vapid, a pretty face dressed up in black boots and a denim jacket, but to his dismay, all of their answers are the same, down to every detail in their calculations.

That is until they reach the last question. It’s terribly complex and he had almost struggled with it. Almost.

He steals a quick glance at her sheet and notices their answers are different. Because she’s missed a step, he realises. He feels a smile creeping across his lips.

He proudly goes through his working out, delighted at the surprised look on her face as she goes over her own sheet.

“I got something different,” she says with a shrug.

Stephen invites her to talk through her answer. Her voice is quieter and softer than it was before, but not as defeated as he’d like.

“She has you beat there, Mr Gavey,” Stephen says.

It’s like being punched in the gut. “What?”

“Overextend yourself a little,” he explains, drawing a line through the last few calculations on his paper. “Make sure to read what the question asks of you.”

His blood is boiling and his fists are clenched. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever been wrong. A dangerous impulse in the back of his mind wants to scream his throat raw and tear his paper to pieces.

Then he feels a warmth settle over his knuckles. She’s placed her hand over his.

“It’s a compliment, really,” she says to him.

He looks up at her, only more infuriated by the gentle expression on her face. But he knows better than to let anger get the better of him. It will only leave him feeling ashamed. So he forces a smile and nods. “Thank you.”

She smiles too, sweet and reassuring. 

He can’t bear the humiliation. Once they’re dismissed he packs up quickly, practically storming out of the room before she even has a chance to stand up. 

He spends the rest of the day in his dorm, looking over the same problem and pulling at his hair, because now his mistake seems glaringly obvious. How could he be so useless? So careless as to not even read the fucking question properly?

His room is on the second floor, overlooking the quad. There are always people around, walking between classes, sitting on the grass, their voices and the smell of cigarette smoke rising and drifting in through his window. He hates it. He hates the noise, the distraction.

But as he goes to close the open window he spots her. It’s only for a moment. She’s walking towards the library with her hands in the pocket of her jacket and her backpack slung over one shoulder. She’s not with any of her preppy friends, in fact she looks rather solemn. 

He feels a slight twinge of guilt in his gut. Perhaps he had been a little unfair to her in their tutorial.

He keeps noticing her, especially at meal times and during lectures. Whenever he enters a room he finds himself searching for her, and if he cannot find her, he waits for her to appear. He plays guessing games with himself, waiting to see what outfit she’ll wear, the pretty mini skirt or a pair of faded blue baggy jeans. If she’ll be with her friends or if she’ll be alone.

He never approaches her. He waits for her to look at him, and once they’ve made eye contact she’ll smile at him.

He likes watching her, and comes to the conclusion that she is charming and polite, but not overbearing, and that’s what's so intriguing about her. She knows how to talk to people, even the most insufferable of their peers, but she’s not nearly entitled enough to truly be one of them.

It’s a Friday evening the next time they actually speak. The library tends to be quieter at this time and he has a textbook to look over before his next lecture. Only, when he goes to find the book, he discovers the last copy has been checked out a matter of minutes ago. Fucking typical.

He goes to stalk out of the library, debating whether or not he can be bothered to ask Oliver if he wants to grab a drink in The King’s Arms, when he sees her.

She’s alone, with her chin in her palm, writing in a notebook as she looks at the textbook open in front of her. He’s willing to bet that’s exactly the book he needs.

He approaches her slowly, waiting for her to look up and notice him, but she seems utterly absorbed in what she’s doing. Only when he puts a hand on the back of her chair and leans over her shoulder does she react to him.

He sees her jump when he gets too close. “Jesus Christ!” she hisses, clutching her hand over her chest.

“Sorry,” he mutters, still hovering over her. “Did I frighten you?”

She hums a laugh but composes herself quite quickly. She turns her head to look at him. “I’m guessing you want the book?” she says, her breath fluttering over his cheek.

He straightens his back so he can look down at her. “Will you have it for long? Only I think I’ll get through the reading quite quickly.”

“Oh yes of course, you’re a genius, right?” she says with a grin.

Irritation scratches under the surface of his skin, hot and restless. That’s how he usually introduces himself, but it’s the truth. 

“We could just share,” she says, gesturing to the empty seat beside her, “that is, unless you don’t think I’ll be able to keep up.”

There’s something exciting about the way she holds his gaze, the hint of a smile on her lips.

She offers to go back a page so he can catch up and admittedly, he skims through, only writing down a few notes before he tells her to move on. He can find the book again if he really needs to.

He has to lean over his left arm rather significantly to read the book properly. She notices this, and pushing it closer to him, shuffling her chair over to follow. They’re close enough that he can smell her perfume again.

“None of your little friends around then?” he asks quietly, so as not to disturb the other students.

“What?”

“That group of girls,” he says, “I’ve seen you sitting with them in the dining hall.”

She brings her chin back to her palm but doesn’t look up from her notes. “They live on my floor. I don’t need to spend every waking moment with them.”

“Touchy subject?” he asks, perhaps a little too hopefully.

His heart leaps in triumph when she looks up at him. “No. I’m just not sure I’d count them as friends, necessarily.”

“Why not?” he asks.

“Not my kind of people,” she says.

“Why not?”

She frowns briefly. He thinks she might scold him for being so direct, for asking so many questions, for being too intrusive. But she doesn’t.

The textbook is forgotten. She tells him about the village where she grew up, a sad little place by the sounds of it. She spent most of her schooling surrounded by the same twenty or so kids.

“For a long time, I knew there was something people didn’t like about me,” she says. “I didn’t understand why. I was never rude or cruel, I just kept my head down and did my work. The other girls told me I was a freak, the boys used to tease me, pull my hair, tear pages out of my books. Mum said people hated me because I was clever. Dad said I should stop complaining. So I did.” 

He can’t help but draw a comparison to himself. He can feel it when he meets someone new, the inherent distrust, the sense that there is something inherently unlikeable about him. In a way he likes that people are unnerved by him because at least it’s something he can control. He has never been one for friends or common ground, a consequence of being the smartest person in every room.

He watches her intently as she tells him about a private school a few miles outside of her village, a proper posh place, Victorian buildings and sprawling estates. For her, it was her one chance of escape, and while her parents worked hard to make ends meet, the only way she was going to get in was with a scholarship. So she worked for it, got all A*s in her GCSEs, started at the posh school, and from there, set her sights on Oxford.

“You’re rather deceptive,” he says.

She smiles at him. “It’s not like I lied. Were you expecting a daddy’s money brat?”

“There’s enough of them about,” he says.

She huffs a laugh and rolls her eyes. “Fucking tell me about it.”

They start to make a habit of studying together, at first it’s by coincidence, and then she gives him her number so they can organise themselves more effectively. They meet at the library every Friday to share a textbook or go over problem sheets, in preparation for their lectures. They even start to meet before their tutorials together, to compare answers and make sure neither of them are left out. Sometimes they go for coffee after their classes, and branch off to chat about things that aren’t maths.

He tells her about the grammar school he went to, that most of the boys there were rugby playing morons. He tells her about his family, his mum, his dad, the family cat that’s been around longer than he has. He tells her about his summer, running numbers for his uncle’s accountancy firm.

She tells him about the posh school, that starting at a boarding school was like being thrown into a different universe. Sure, she had been the odd one out and got the odd “povo” comment, but it was the first place where she had felt like she didn’t have to be ashamed of her own intelligence. She learnt how to fit in, to the point where he can’t tell if she actually likes her preppy friends or if she just puts up with them for the sake of it.

He starts to wonder if he could consider her a friend. He likes that she’s smart and sharp, the slight air of competition when they compare notes or go through a problem together. He likes challenging her, making her second guess herself, watching the way she squirms and tries to hide that she’s flustered. Just once, he thinks it would be fun to one-up her, but of course, she never slips up, and she never makes a mistake.

On Halloween she mentions a party at Magdalene College being hosted by one of her old school friends. Of course he’s sceptical. Hanging around a bunch of stuck up posh kids, who no doubt will all be in slutty costumes and getting off on each other’s egos, isn’t exactly his idea of fun. Although, part of him is intrigued to see her in a different setting.

So he agrees to meet her outside her dorm at 10pm exactly. He doesn’t bother with fancy dress, opting for jeans and a black jumper so that he can just fade into the background. 

She appears with some of her preppy friends. They’re all in pastel dresses of differing colours, matching wings strung on their backs, glitter on their cheeks, a little pack of fairies. She’s in white mini dress that floats around her thighs as she moves, more like an angel.

She introduces him enthusiastically to the girls, already giddy from their pre-drinks, pink gin and rosé. None of them seem that interested by his presence and he grunts in response. 

She links her arm through his as they walk over the cobbles, through the maze of ancient buildings to the dorm where the party is being held. She talks about everything and nothing. She tells him who’s going to be there, who’s been uninvited but might show up just to stir shit, how many girls are going to be there and that they’re all going to be trying to get into Felix Catton’s Calvin Kleins.

“Are you going to get with anyone?” she asks.

He makes a sound of disgust.

“Come on, Michael, live a little!” 

He shakes his head. “I don’t think– I don’t know–”

She puts her hands on his shoulders and turns him to face her. “Have you kissed anyone before?”

He swallows thickly. It’s not something he’s ever been ashamed of before, now it feels like a weight crushing down on his chest. “No,” he says, simply, determined to remain indifferent.

“Get with someone tonight!” she says excitedly, “just for the fun of it, we’ll find you someone good.”

He hates the idea, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell her. Perhaps it seems like fun to her, but to him it seems like an impossibility, and he thinks he’d rather have the consistency of being unwanted.

The party itself is loud and sparsely lit by neon lights. He starts off on bottles of beer to ease himself into it, but seeing everyone else is doing pills and white lines, he thinks he might need something stronger to get through the night, especially when she keeps getting distracted. The angel is quite the social butterfly and insists on saying hello to everyone, even the people she’s never met. 

He finds himself in a common room and reaches for a bottle of whisky and a cup when he spots her. She’s leaning against a wall, wings discarded on the floor beside her. A tall boy, wearing nothing but jeans, a pair of feathery costume wings and a horrible Carpe Diem tattoo on his forearm, has his hands on her waist. She’s smiling and giggling into his neck every time he goes in to kiss her. Of all the girls Felix could go after.

His skin feels tight. He fears if he keeps having to watch this little display he’ll retch his guts up, and yet he’s utterly hypnotised by it, the way she had her arms around his shoulders, the way her fingertips trace the base of his neck. And fuck, he’s never seen her look so beautiful.

He ends up downing the rest of the whisky straight from the bottle and most of the night becomes a blur after that. At some point he thinks he starts trying to talk to one of her pastel fairy friends. He doesn’t catch her name, and he wouldn’t care to remember it anyway. She plays with his glasses, tries them on and giggles hysterically. He thinks she must be completely off her face, considering the look of utter disgust she had given him at the start of the night.

Somewhere in the noise of the party she throws her arms around his neck and they sway clumsily to the overwhelming bass of the music. He thinks he feels her lips graze his cheek, his jaw, his neck, but where he can help it, he keeps his eyes on his angel. Felix has one of her legs around his waist and his hands halfway up her skirt. 

Fuck this.

He pushes the nameless girl off him and storms over to put an end to the scene before him. He grips Felix by his shoulders to pull him off her, grabs her by the arm and drags her out of the dorm. He doesn’t look back to see if Felix protests, he’ll probably find some other throat to stick his tongue down. 

She tries to shout over the music. “Where are we–”

“I’m tired,” he snaps, bringing his face in close to hers. He gets closer than he means to, pressing his nose and his forehead against hers. He’s breathing fiercely, he realises, desperate to contain the full extent of his anger, his jealousy. “I want to leave.”

She stares back at him with parted lips, and nods.

He feels better the moment they’re outside, away from the disorientation of the party. He takes deep breaths of the night air, cold and sharp in his lungs. He snatches off his glasses, runs his hands over his face and his hair to find himself drenched in sweat.

His angel tucks herself in against him, under his arm, huddling her arms around herself and shivering.

“Do you want my jumper?” he says. His voice and the words on his tongue feel strange. His limbs feel weightless as he pulls it off and helps her into it. 

“Hmm, thank you,” she says dreamily, clinging onto his arm as they stumble back to Lincoln College. He burns where she touches him, her fingertips digging into his skin. He loves it, and hates that her hands were on someone else before him.

“You were getting rather cozy with Miranda,” she says.

“Who?”

“Lilac fairy costume,” she says, playfully hitting his arm. “Did you kiss her?”

His heart sinks. He presses his lips together but she doesn’t seem to pick up on his annoyance. “No,” he says with a tight jaw.

“Oh no,” she says, looking up at him with a comically sad pout. 

“It’s not important,” he says.

“It’s your first kiss! Or should have been your first kiss. It’s important. Did you at least have a good time before you got tired?”

“No,” he says, “your friends are all imbeciles.”

They walk the rest of the way back to her dorm in silence. He makes sure she has her keys, holds her face between his hands and tells her to drink a whole glass of water before she falls asleep. 

She leans into his touch with a sleepy smile. “Yes, yes, I will,” she whines.

The sound stirs a wanting in his stomach. Suddenly his heart is beating faster than it ever has before.

“And call me if you need anything–”

“Would you want to kiss me?” she asks.

His eyes flicker down to her lips. His hands are still cupping her cheeks. “What?”

Her eyes are wide and alert. “I just mean, I could be your first kiss, if you wanted to.” She places her hands on his wrists, tracing her fingertips over his skin, along his forearms. It’s such a simple touch, and yet he can feel it driving him slowly insane. 

He imagines her hands running over the rest of his body, down his chest, his stomach, teasing over the growing hardness in his jeans.

“You’re drunk,” he whispers, terrified of how desperate his voice might sound.

She rises onto her toes, inching her face closer to his, drawing her nose over his cheek. “So?” she says, lips brushing over his skin, “I promise it’ll feel good.”

Their lips find each other in a simple movement. It’s easier than he thought it would be, following the movements of her mouth, letting his hands fall from her face and rest on her waist. He can feel her breathing, the little hums she makes as she kisses him and runs her hands through his hair.

He decides, in that moment, that she is perfect. She is bright and beautiful, passionate and kind, soft and sharp, everything he wants for himself, the only person he has ever felt a need for. That need burns through his bloodstream, goes straight to his head and makes his mind hazy. It tightens in his gut and only makes that wanting feeling in his chest feel emptier. His heart races, his trembling hands graze over the thin, silky material of her dress.

His glasses come askew. He feels her smile against his lips and it feels good. Really fucking good.

His hands clench into a firmer grip on her waist. He needs to keep her close, to touch her, feel her, know she wants this as much as he does.

Only she’s slipping away.

Her hands come away from his neck and the cold night air stings his skin in her absence. She pulls her head away, not abruptly, but that’s the pain of it. He leans forward to chase her lips but he has no choice but to let her go in the end.

She looks up at him with a vague smile. “See? It’s nice, isn’t it?”

Nice in the moment. Pure torture that he’ll have to spend the rest of the night clinging onto the memory, only able to imagine how good it felt.

After that night he cannot escape the thought of her, when he’s in his lectures, when he’s in the library, when he’s walking between classes, when he’s in the dining hall. If he’s with her he cannot help but notice every little detail about her, her clothes, her hands, the colour of her nail polish, every micro expression, every word, every laugh, every sigh.

And when he’s alone, he can’t help but picture her in that white dress, the sound of her voice, the feel of her lips. He can’t help but imagine what it would be like to run his hands over every inch of her skin and make her a breathless, whining mess. When he’s in his dorm, it’s inevitable that his hand will end up dipping into his boxers, stroking himself until he spills over his knuckles with a grunt or a whisper of her name.

He’s never known himself to be so distracted.

Worst of all is the rage that comes with the wanting. He hates walking into the lecture hall to see her chatting to someone else, seeing her with her preppy friends around the college or drinking with that old school friend in the King’s Arms. None of them deserve her. None of them. Does she even realise it? How long before she loses herself, before she decides she doesn’t need him?

He knows he’s not a sentimental person. He doesn’t have a lot of friends nor does he want them. People have come in and out of his life, but this girl is different. He feels a draw to her, a hunger that he can’t satiate with his own imagination. She is everything he wants for himself, and he has no intentions of letting her slip away.

As Michaelmas terms comes to an end, the colleges and libraries are covered with garlands and wreaths. Despite the lingering worry in the back of his mind, Michael is rather happy with his collection of outcasts, though poor Oliver Quick seems rather unhappy at being a designated Norman-No Mates. 

He finds it easier to get her attention as the term and the workload progresses. They’ve had tutorials and summative assignments, and she’s finally starting to struggle. 

And then there was the incident about the scholarship. One of the preppy friends let slip that she wasn’t paying for her tuition fees or her accommodation, likely done out of jealousy after she’d gotten close to Felix at the Halloween party. He was there for her with a perfectly good shoulder to cry on when half the girls in her dorm started teasing her for it.

He tells her that she doesn’t have time to get distracted with parties or friends who won’t help her succeed. 

He’s sitting at a table in the library, ready for one of their Friday evening study dates. She’s late but soon hurries in, pulling off the thick red scarf she has wrapped around her neck and shrugging off her denim jacket.

He has the textbook open at the right page and places a Crunchie in front of her when she sits down.

“Did you know there was a college Christmas party tonight?” Michael asks as she takes down her notes. “We’re NFI, apparently. Not fucking invited.” He’d checked his pigeonhole, and Oliver’s for good measure. 

In the corner of his eye, he sees her look up from her notebook. 

“As if we’d actually want to hang out with those vapid cunts,” he says, laughing to himself. He turns his head to check if she’s laughing too.

She doesn’t look very amused. “Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me,” she says.

He pauses, hovering his pencil over his worksheet. “You got an invitation?” he says quietly.

“Yeah,” she says, “I was chatting with some of the literature guys the other day, you know Farleigh Start–”

“What the fuck were you talking to him for?” He asks in a voice like ice.

She stares at him with wide, almost accusing eyes. “What, am I not allowed to talk to anyone besides you?”

“They’re not worth your time so stop acting like a fucking bootlicker” he hisses. “They’re all self-obsessed and cruel, and I don’t know why you’re so desperate for their approval.”

“Desperate,” she echoes.

The silence of the library is screaming at him. He has an awful feeling in his stomach, like he’s done something wrong, like he’s pushed a little too far.

It’s Halloween all over again. He can feel her slipping away, and he can’t reach out for her, can’t hold onto her and make her stay where he wants her. He curls his fists as he feels his body start to tremble.

“I guess I won’t waste any more of your precious time then,” she says sharply as she starts to pack up her things.

“No,” Michael utters. He reaches his hand up as if to stop her but she stands up, out of his reach. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

She throws on her jacket, wraps her scarf around her neck and turns around, glaring down at him with sad, glassy eyes. “I need to get ready,” she says. “Enjoy the rest of your night.” Then she sweeps out of the hall with a cold rush of air and a slam of the doors.

Michael groans and lets his head fall into his hands. How had he managed to fuck up that badly? 

He can’t think about the problems on the sheet in front of him, or think about the reading from the textbook. All he can picture is her in some skimpy dress, letting some sick trust fund baby put his hands all over her. It makes him want to tear his hair out. 

He stays there until the evening has turned to night, until any other stragglers have left the library, to attend this stupid Christmas party or to make their own fun.

He can’t understand why she keeps trying to befriend the people who would abandon her the moment they got bored of her, the very same people who shamed her for her scholarship. 

He’d never leave her, never let her feel anything less than worshipped.

When he finally packs up his bag he finds himself walking to her dorm. A few girls are leaving as he arrives at the building and he easily slips in while they’re busy chatting. He knows which floor she’s on, and then all he has to do is find her name on one of the doors… and there it is, under the number 205. Perfect.

He glances up and down the hall. It’s deathly quiet. He wonders how many students have already cleared out of their rooms, how many will be at this party, at the pub with their friends.

He can hear music on the other side of the door, a voice singing softly to a song he doesn’t know.

He brings his knuckles up and taps four times against the wood.

She seems happy when she opens the door, but her face falls when she realises it’s him.

He buries his hands in his pockets, keeps his chin down as he looks up at her. “I need to talk to you,” he says.

She sighs and purses her lips, but steps aside enough for him to come into her room. 

It’s not as neat as he imagined, but it’s cosy. There are photos and posters all over the walls, clothes strewn everywhere, an opened makeup bag on the floor by the mirror, pieces of paper and used mugs on the desk. His eyes are drawn to her bed, to the colourful comforter tossed carelessly over the duvet and the pile of mismatched pillows. It smells like her perfume, and something else that is distinctly her.

A red dress hangs on the front of her wardrobe, her outfit for the party, he guesses. For now she’s dressed in her favourite pair of baggy jeans and a tank top, her hair slightly damp and her skin dewy.

She sits on the edge of her bed with her legs crossed. She doesn’t prompt him, but he knows what she wants to hear.

He stands in front of her, his knees almost touching the bed. He tries not to look at the cut of her tank top, the way it clings to her torso and teases the swell of her breasts.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “You were right, I was being unfair.”

She looks up at him, furrowing her brows and catching her lip between her teeth, like she always does when she’s thinking. It makes his stomach drop. 

“You can be cruel too, you know that?” she says, “and so full of yourself, but you hold it against everyone else you meet.”

“But I’d never lie to you,” he says, “and I’ve never pretended to be someone I’m not.”

She keeps frowning. “Neither have I.”

He hums a laugh. He can’t help but reach for her, taking her chin between his fingers. She doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t question it when he gently strokes his index finger over her cheek. “Silly girl,” he says, “you care too much about what people think of you. You’re smarter than that, but you’re happy to hide it.”

Her breath hitches as tilts her head further back and lets his thumb drag over her lower lip.

“Michael,” she utters, pressing her palms against his chest, but not enough to push him away. Her hands grip at the collar of his jumper and she nudges her nose against his.

He doesn’t know where the sudden recklessness comes from. Perhaps it’s in the way she said his name, the way her eyes are gazing up at him, but every part of him feels hollow. 

He leans in closer. “Why bother? Why do you want to dumb yourself down when I could just fuck you stupid?” 

She leans in to kiss him and he indulges her, letting his hand settle against her cheek as they clash together in a mess of lips and tongues. It’s more frantic than the night of the Halloween party, wetter, clumsier.

She comes up onto her knees, snaking one of her hands down to the hem of his jumper.

“Have you fucked a girl before, Gavey?” she says between their kisses. He can feel her smiling.

“No,” he says, practically tearing his jumper and his shirt off, “but I’ve thought about it a lot.”

“Anyone in particular?” she says, palming over the bulge in his jeans.

“Who do you fucking think?”

His hands are on the buttons of her jeans, ripping them open, dragging them down her legs before she’s on her knees again. He slips his hand between her legs, against her clothed centre and she ruts against him like a bitch in heat.

With his other hand he grabs at her waist, impatiently pulling her tank top over her head to reveal a lacy black bra underneath. He can’t stop himself, planting firm, desperate kisses over the flesh of her chest as he undoes the clasp.

He tosses her bra aside and takes one of her nipples in his mouth, sucking and circling his tongue over the sensitive bud. He loves how she whines for him, how she runs her fingers through his hair and pulls when it feels good.

And then her phone rings.

She sighs in frustration before she shoves Michael away and crawls over to the table by her bed. 

Michael groans at the loss, wanting nothing more than to grab her and pull her back across the bed. “Who is it?” he asks, adjusting his glasses.

“Could be Farleigh, or one of the girls, I said I’d meet them before the party–”

That’s all he needs to hear. In an instant he’s on top of her, pinning her wrist to the mattress so she can’t reach her phone, legs on either side of her body as he presses her down.

She writhes underneath him, unintentionally grinding her rear into his crotch. She tries to turn her head over her shoulder, but it’s hard when she’s caged in underneath him. “Michael! What the fuck are you–”

“When are you going to get it into that pretty little head that you don’t need them?” he says, letting his lips brush against the shell of her ear. He feels her shudder, feels her heartbeat racing against his chest.

“I know I don’t need them,” she says.

“Hmm,” he says, leaning back to undo his jeans enough to free his hard and eager cock. I’m not convinced.”

He takes his time pulling her panties down her legs, kneads at her thighs and her ass, pulls her hips up and parts her legs so he can get a look at her slick, glistening cunt. He’s almost fascinated by it, drawing his thumb through her folds, noticing how she reacts to his touch, the sounds she makes, the way she fists the bedsheets when he gets close to her clit, but just enough to keep her on edge.

“I could be so good to you,” he says, leaning down to press a kiss to her shoulder, “so fucking good, so why do you act like you don’t need me?”

“I do,” she breathes, interrupting herself with a light moan when he presses firmly against her clit. “I do need you.”

“There you go, you’re starting to get it,” he coos, circling over her most sensitive spot with the pads of his fingers. He may not have the practice but he has the knowledge, and he needs this to feel good for her.

She responds beautifully, sighing and rocking her hips against him, and she just melts when he presses the tip of his cock against her entrance.

He has to push harder than he expects, pausing when she gives a little yelp of what sounds like pain, but she assures him she’s fine.

He grabs her hip for leverage, hissing through his teeth as he pushes in deeper. She’s so tight, so wet, so warm.

“You can move,” she says, letting her head fall against her arm. “Please, I need it.”

He starts slowly, focuses on the drag of his cock through her, the way she stretches around him, but he can’t hold back for long. Once he finds a rhythm he gets a little more reckless, snapping his hips against her rear, keeping his harsh grasp on her flesh as he fucks her into the mattress.

Her moans are heavenly and obscene. She’s given up struggling but she’s trying to look at him, trying to touch him but she can’t. She calls his name and it sounds so pathetic but so endearing.

He chuckles lowly to himself. “Silly little slut, didn’t know what she was missing, did she?”

“No,” she whines. He can feel her clenching around him and he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to last. “Fuck, Michael, it feels so good…”

He pulls out of her, only to turn her back and slam back in. Suddenly she’s all over him, running her hands down his torso, wrapping her arms around his neck. She has her face buried into the crook of his neck, grazing her lips, tongue and teeth over his skin. 

It feels good to have her close, but he’s still not entirely satisfied. 

He pulls away to hold her down again, one hand on her throat, the other on her stomach. “Mine.” he huffs as he picks up the pace of his thrusts. “All mine. Fucking say it.”

She places her hands over his, urging him to hold her tighter, press harder. “Yours,” she utters, “all yours.”

“Good fucking girl,” he groans, and feels her respond to his voice, cunt fluttering, back arching, another whine sounding in her throat— maybe she likes that. “My clever little girl.”

He feels her come undone around him, back arching as he lets out a breathless moan, practically squeezing him to his own release.

He pulls out and with a few strokes of his hand, paints her belly and her thighs with his spend.

She’s trembling, smiling, reaching out to touch him again, grabbing at his wrists and pulling herself up. She guides him to lay back in the bed and straddles him, tracing her finger over his lips, his jaw, along his nose to push his glasses up for him. He can hardly see through them, the lenses fogged up and smeared with sweat.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” she says.

“Yeah,” he breathes, pawing at her hips, watching his cum as it drips down her body. He can feel a sense of pride swelling in his chest, the arousal in his gut starting to tighten again.

He gasps when she drags her wet cunt over his already hardening cock. “You.. want to go again?”

She tilts her head, looking down at him with that familiar excited look in her eyes as her mouth spreads into an eager grin. “You’re adorable,” she says, tracing her fingertips over his chest, down the lines of his abs, to the trail of thin hair on his navel.

She leans down, reaching between them to take his cock in her hand, moving with agonisingly slow strokes. When he tries to protest she silences him with little more than a peck on his lips, before she trails down to his throat. “I stand by what I said, Gavey, and you’re not leaving this bed until we’ve taken that ego of yours down a notch.”

Tags (comment to be added)

General taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy @theoneeyedprince @tsujifreya @dreamsofoldvalyria

#michael gavey #saltburn #saltburn fanfiction #michael gavey fanfiction #michael gavey fanfic #michael gavey x reader #michael gavey x oc #michael gavey x ofc #ewan mitchell #michael gavey smut #my fics

[parkerslatte]

Drawn To You

Azriel x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: none.

Summary: When Y/N met Azriel, she felt the mating bond snap into place. The only issue is that he seems happy with Elain so Y/N tries her best to stay out of his way no matter how much it hurts her.

A Court of Thorns and Roses Masterlist

•••

The moment Y/N met Azriel, she felt it. The feeling she had wanted to feel for a long time. In her nearly six hundred years of living, Y/N had given up the hope that she would ever meet her mate. She probably didn’t even have one, and she had come to accept that. Until the shadowsinger appeared. 

After seeking her out to help heal the general, Rhysand had called on Y/N whenever Madja was unavailable. At first Y/N hadn’t minded, she enjoyed being around everyone as they slowly began to invite her on nights out. Y/N felt herself becoming friends with them, or as close to friends as she could. 

It wasn’t until one night when the shadowsinger appeared from a long mission that Y/N felt it. 

***

Y/N sipped her wine as she seated herself next to Mor. The blonde moving to top her wine up despite Y/N not even being finished with the glass she already had. Y/N didn’t talk much while everyone was in a large group. She preferred to simply listen and pitch in wherever it felt appropriate. Even though she had been hanging around the Inner Circle for a couple of months now, she still felt like she couldn’t join in with much of the teasing and joking around. 

Everyone’s attention diverted to where the doors of the room opened and the shadowsinger stood in the threshold. He looked exhausted though happy to see his family. As everyone rose to greet him, Y/N remained in her seat, she didn’t want to impose. 

Y/N’s eyes gazed down at her now too-full glass of wine before lifting it up and took a long sip, not noticing everyone taking their places back on the couches. 

“We haven’t met before,” Azriel spoke to Y/N. 

Y/N nearly spilt her wine, surprised by someone standing so close and speaking to her. She still thought everyone was gathered by the door. 

With a nod of her head, Y/N looked up to where Azriel was standing. He looked almost angelic as the light from the chandelier shone from behind him, giving him a halo of light. Which Y/N thought was ironic considering he was the shadowsinger. 

But that was the moment she felt it. The bond snapped into place. Y/N nearly split her wine again. 

“No, no, we haven’t,” Y/N said. “I’m Y/N. I’m a healer.”

It was obvious that the bond hadn’t snapped for Azriel as he only gave her a small nod and took a seat next to her on the couch. Y/N tried to ignore it but she couldn’t, the feeling grew across her entire body, especially since Azriel was sitting so close to her. 

“Where are Feyre, Elain and Nesta?” Azriel asked, looking around the group, noticing the absence of the High Lady and her two sisters. 

“A sisterly night at Rita’s,” Rhysand answered, leaning back in his chair. 

Azriel only nodded and sipped the drink that Cassian had thrust in his hand. 

Y/N was still staring at her drink, she hadn’t tried to join in the conversation, nor did she even listen. Her mate was sitting next to her and she couldn’t believe anything was real anymore. The dress she wore seemed to cling to her skin and suffocate her. She craved fresh air. 

After playing her glass of wine on the table, Y/N rose to her feet causing attention to divert to her. 

“I’m going to go home,” Y/N announced. 

More reached out and clutched her hand. “Why? You haven’t finished your wine.”

“I’m just tired,” Y/N lied and hoped that no one would be able to pick up on it. “I’ll see you all soon.”

Without another word, Y/N began to walk out of the room. She felt a scratch down her mental shields but she didn’t allow Rhys in, afraid that she would accidentally let him know what she knew. And she wasn’t ready for that. 

The air was cold and Y/N tried to wrap her arms around herself for warmth but it was futile. Her pace quickened as she walked down the empty street. Y/N’s flat wasn’t too far away but with no one else around and only the sound of the wind howling, it made the walk much longer than it normally was. 

“They were worried about you,” Azriel said as he soundlessly approached Y/N.

Y/N jumped at the presence of the shadowsinger. “Azriel! What are you doing here?”

“Rhys asked me to walk you home,” Azriel said, folding his hands behind his back. 

Y/N didn’t want him to walk her home. Just being near him made her heart race. If he questioned it she could easily blame it on the fright he gave her but not for too long. 

“I don’t need anyone to accompany me,” Y/N mumbled. “I’m perfectly fine on my own.”

“Is that why you missed the turning to your street?” Azriel asked.

Y/N stopped dead in her tracks and looked around. There was a reason why the walk seemed to be taking longer than usual and it wasn’t just the silence or wind. It was because she had been so distracted that she had completely missed the street she lived down and continued further into the city. 

“I was just taking the long way,” Y/N said, holding her head high as she turned around and began to walk back the way she came. 

Azriel let out what sounded like a quiet laugh. It caused Y/N’s heart to flutter. She needed to get away from Azriel as soon as possible. 

“You can return to the other’s,” Y/N said. “I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do.”

“That can wait until tomorrow,” Azriel replied, walking side by side with her. “My priority now is getting you home safe.”

Y/N sighed and turned to look up at Azriel. Which was a mistake as he was looking down at her. “I’m not winning this, am I?”

Azriel shook his head, a hint of a smile toying at the corners of his lips. “Not in a million years.”

Y/N huffed in amusement. “Stubborn male.”

There was amusement shining in Azriel’s eyes and Y/N had to tear her gaze away. Being alone to process that she had a mate was what she needed, having Azriel standing right beside her wasn’t helping her in any way. However she knew that no matter what she said, he wouldn’t leave her until she was safely at her doorstep. Every time Y/N quickened her pace, Azriel did. Every time she slowed down, Azriel did the same. 

“I only live at the end of the street,” Y/N spoke up. “I am fine to get home alone.”

“Rhys ordered me to bring you to your doorstep,” Azriel replied. 

“You really don’t need to,” Y/N said. 

“They were quite worried about you when you abruptly left,” Azriel said, repeating the words he said when he first made himself known. “They said that it was out of character for you.”

“How would they know? They’ve only known me for a couple of months.” The words were harsher than Y/N originally intended and she was mortified speaking about the group in such a way when all they had shown her was kindness.

Azriel wasn’t phased as he continued. “A couple of months can still be a good judge of character. Even I believe that it seemed out of character for you and I’ve known you for barely ten minutes.”

Y/N rubbed her upper arms. “I am just tired tonight.”

Azriel looked as if he didn’t believe her but didn’t push.

Y/N’s gaze was fixated on the cobblestone ground as she walked.The cold temperature made her shiver as she walked, making the hair on her arms stand on end. Though she wasn’t sure if that was from the cold or was because of Azriel. 

Before Y/N could continue to shiver in the plummeting temperature, warmth encased her as Azriel’s wing wrapped around her. Y/N glanced up at Azriel who didn’t even look at her as the two continued to walk. Y/N now stood even closer to Azriel than she wanted but she was thankful for the warmth he provided. 

“I live just up there,” Y/N pointed out and Azriel simply nodded. “Thank you for walking me home. Even if you didn’t need to.”

Azriel tucked his wing back and Y/N immediately missed its warmth. “It was no problem.”

Y/N tilted her head up to face him. He looked tired when she had first seen him but now he truly looked as if he were about to pass out on his feet. There were dark circles under his eyes now more visible in the light from the streetlamps outside of her home. 

“I suggest that you rest for a while,” Y/N said. “You look as if you are about to pass out on my doorstep.”

Azriel tried to suppress a yawn but failed. He gave Y/N a shy smile. “I think you may be right.” 

Y/N stood awkwardly in front of him. Despite her wanting to originally leave the house to escape him, she now couldn’t find it within herself to let him leave. Azriel didn’t move from his position in front of her, he didn’t make the move to leave. 

“Do you want to stay? I have a spare room you can stay in.” Y/N blurted out. “You did go out of your way to walk me home and you simply look exhausted, it is honestly the least I can do. I also don’t want to be responsible for falling from the sky because you passed out.”

Y/N fiddled with the rings on her fingers and avoided eye contact with Azriel, missing the smile that appeared on his face. 

“Thank you,” Azriel said sincerely. “I appreciate your offer.”

Y/N quickly glanced up at him before unlocking her front door. “The spare bedroom is just down the hall. The bathroom is the door next to it, feel free to use whatever in there you wish.”

Azriel thanked her once more before following her directions down the hall and entered the bedroom. He did not exit again. 

Y/N made her way to her own bedroom and flopped down on the bed. Her mate was sleeping just a few doors down from her. Her mate. Never in her entire existence did Y/N think she would have a mate and he had just walked into her life so casually. She was unsure of how to process it. The bond clearly hadn’t snapped for Azriel and Y/N didn’t exactly want to bring it up to him as they had only just met. Although she did invite him into her house. 

Y/N sighed and slipped out of her dress and pulled on her nightgown and climbed under the covers. She closed her eyes and willed herself to go to sleep. Y/N laid awake basically all night. 

***

Azriel was gone by the time Y/N woke in the morning. He had left a note with a small cake from the bakery down the street. Y/N’s heart swelled at the thought of him even writing a note to thank her and because he had left to get her a cake and came back to the house to leave it on a small plate from her kitchen. He already wasn’t making it easy for her to process everything. 

Y/N had already decided to have a relaxing day to herself. There was a book Nesta had given her that she wanted to read and the day was perfect for it. She settled into her armchair and draped her blanket across her knees when she felt the tap against her mental shields. With a sigh, Y/N lowered them. 

What do you want, Rhys?

Elain was hurt while she was in the garden. 

Is she okay?

She seems to be but the cut is quite deep. 

Y/N sighed. I’ll be there soon.

***

Y/N stood before Elain and inspected the cut on the back of her hand. It was deep and parts of the thorn had seemed to be trapped inside the cut. Elain winced whenever Y/N pulled a piece out. 

“I’m sorry,” Y/N muttered. “There’s just a few more pieces before I can heal the cut over.”

Elain nodded as Y/N picked out the other thorns and wiped them onto a tissue next to her. 

“Rhys mentioned that you left early last night,” Elain said. 

Y/N sighed. “Did he tell everyone?”

“He just wanted to know if you were okay,” Elain said. “And so do I. It’s unlike you to abruptly leave somewhere.”

Y/N had become close friends with the middle Archeron sister. When Y/N didn’t have anything to do, she would normally sit with Elain in her garden and talk. It was nice having a friend. Y/N had never been too close with anyone before, preferring her own company over a large group. 

“I was just tired,” Y/N said. “I just wanted to lie down and sleep.”

Elain’s gaze lifted to meet Y/N’s, her eyes calculating, deciding whether to believe her or not. “If anything is going on,you can tell me.You are my friend.”

“Elain!” A voice interrupted anything Y/N was going to say. 

Azriel came around the corner and halted once he noticed Y/N sitting with Elain. “Y/N? I didn’t know you would be here.”

“Rhys asked me to take a look at Elain’s hand,” Y/N said, trying to stop her racing heart.

“What happened?” Azriel asked, walking further into the room.

“I just cut it on a thorn in the garden,” Elain answered. “It’s nothing too bad.”

Azriel came closer until he sat down in the seat next to Y/N. She tried her best to block him out but it was hard. 

“That is the last thorn out,” Y/N said and wiped it on the tissue. 

Y/N held Elain’s hand in between hers. “You might feel a small sting but nothing too bad.”

Y/N closed her eyes and let her power shine, quite literally. A golden glow emitted from between Y/N’s fingers as she healed Elain’s hand. She could feel her power flowing into the cut and weaving the skin back together. 

Both Azriel and Elain watched in amazement as the glow died down and Y/N pulled her hands away. All that remained of the cut was a thin red line.

“That should fade within the next few days,” Y/N said, gently running her finger across the newly healed cut. 

“That’s amazing!” Elain said, admiring the healed injury. 

Y/N smiled. “It truly is a gift I am grateful to possess.”

“Does it hurt anymore?” Azriel asked, looking from Elain’s eyes and back to her cut. 

Elain flexed her hand. “No, it doesn’t. Thank you, Y/N.”

“There’s no need to thank me,” Y/N replied and leaned back in her chair, her arm lightly brushing Azriel’s, who still hadn’t taken his eyes from Elain. 

“Is there something you wanted, Azriel?” Elain questioned. 

Azriel looked startled for a brief moment but it was hardly noticeable. Y/N only noticed as she was sitting so close to him. 

“I just… wanted to make sure you were okay,” Azriel said. “Rhys told me what happened.”

“Oh, that’s kind of you,” Elain said with a small smile. “I am quite all right now, thanks to Y/N.”

Y/N suddenly felt like she was interrupting something. Clearing her throat, she stood up. “If I’m no longer needed, I’m going to leave. I was in the middle of something when Rhys summoned me here.”

Azriel didn’t tear his gaze away from Elain as Y/N bid them goodbye and it made Y/N’s heart fall the smallest amount. Once she was a safe distance away, Y/N let out a sigh. 

The way Azriel looked at Elain and the way he came rushing when he was told she was injured communicated enough to Y/N. Elain was her friend and she wasn’t going to stand in the middle of her and Azriel. Even though it pained Y/N. She had finally met her mate and he was already taken with another. 

Y/N dragged her feet all the way back to her home.

***

The next few weeks were torture for Y/N. As much as she tried to avoid Azriel, he always seemed to appear. The first few times, Y/N had genuine excuses to not talk to him. But the more he appeared the more she was running out of them and the more ridiculous they became. 

Staying away from Azriel had become a task that pained Y/N the more and more she did it. Azriel would always go out of his way to talk to her whenever the entire Inner Circle were together and Y/N was only happily listening in. When she was treating injuries, he would appear with her favourite dessert from the bakery near her home. 

Everything he did made it hurt her more whenever she would see him with Elain. They would be talking in hushed voices that would instantly stop whenever Y/N walked into the room, interrupting whatever lovers' conversation they were having. She would always notice the small glances Azriel and Elain would send each other. It became hard to be around them. 

Y/N and Azriel were sitting together in Elain’s garden. No one else was around and Y/N wished that they were. Her heart was beating rapidly once more, Azriel had to surely pick up on it. Every time she was around him, her own body seemed to betray her. 

“I should get going,” Y/N said. 

“You always do this,” Azriel said and Y/N stilled.

“Do what?” Y/N questioned.

“Whenever we are alone together you find an excuse to leave,” Azriel said. “Do you not want to be around me or something?”

“No, it’s not that–”

“Then what is it?” 

Y/N stuttered over her words trying to find an answer. “I-I can’t tell you.”

Azriel scoffed. “I have been trying to get to know you Y/N, I have been going out of my way to talk to you and get to know you and you shoot me down every single time. Tell me why.”

“Azriel,” Y/N said softly. “I can’t. If you were in my position you would understand.”

“Then tell me,” Azriel said standing up,his voice rising in volume. “Tell me so I can understand. And don’t you dare say that you can’t.”

“If you were in my position and your mate was clearly in love with someone else then you wouldn’t stand in the way of that either.” Y/N snapped. 

Azriel stilled. “Mate? You are my mate?”

Y/N shook her head before stepping around Azriel. “I didn’t want to tell you Azriel. I didn’t want to ruin anything between you and Elain. It hasn’t snapped for you yet so you can just pretend this conversation never happened.”

“Y/N–” Azriel reached out his hand but Y/N stepped away and didn’t turn around again. 

***

Azriel was still in the garden when Elain returned. He sat back in the chair and was staring ahead.

“Where did Y/N go?” Elain questioned. “Did you finally tell her?”

Azriel finally looked to Elain, there were unshed tears in his eyes and Elain’s eyebrows furrowed in concern. 

“What’s wrong?” Elain asked. 

“She’s my mate,” Azriel said, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Elain smiled. “That’s a good thing, it’s what you’ve always wanted.”

Azriel shook his head. “She thinks that I am in love with you.”

“Oh,” Elain said. “Did you tell her that she is sorely mistaken?”

“She didn’t give me a chance,” Azriel said. “I-I don’t know what to do.”

Elain reached out and took Azriel’s hand and held it between hers. “Azriel, I have listened for weeks about you talking about her and how beautiful she is. I am not going to let you sit here and let her leave over some silly misunderstanding. Go and talk to her.”

Azriel stood from the chair and bolted from the garden.

***

Y/N closed the door to her home and sat down on the couch, taking off her shoes. She didn’t want to ever see Azriel again. There was a pain deep within her chest that she couldn’t get rid of. No matter how much Y/N had tried to ignore the bond, she was always drawn to Azriel. He was constantly on her mind and she wanted to be near him. 

Y/N thought it would have been easy to avoid him. Being the shadowsinger, he had responsibilities that sometimes took him on long missions but ever since he had returned from his last one, Azriel hadn’t left the Night Court not even once. Every time he appeared with a new gift for her, she felt the bond pulling her to him tighten even more. But it wasn’t only the bond that made her feel the way she was. It was genuine feelings for him that made her feel the way she was. She was falling for the shadowsinger. 

A knock on the door interrupted Y/N’s thoughts. She had an inkling to who stood on the other side. Y/N opened the door and her suspicions remained true.

“What are you doing here, Azriel?” Y/N asked. 

Azriel stepped into her home and dragged his fingers through his hair. “You are my mate.”

Y/N sighed. “Yes I am.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Azriel said. 

“Because,” Y/N began. “You feel something for Elain and she is my friend so I didn’t want to stand in the way of that.”

Azriel shook his head and took a step toward Y/N. “I don’t feel anything for Elain. I won’t lie to you and say that I haven’t ever felt anything for her, I used to. But I haven’t felt that way about her for years.”

“Why are you telling me this?” 

“Because,” Azriel said, lifting his hand to gently cup Y/N’s cheek. “You need to know that when I came into that room when you were healing Elain’s hand, I wanted to speak to her about you. I wanted to know everything about you after the night I met you. She told me your favourite dessert, your favourite flower, told me about you and what you did to help my brother when he was hurt.”

“I have wanted a mate for a long time,” Azriel continued. “And when I met you, I hoped it would be you. When I walked you home that night, Rhys never asked me to. I did it out of my own free will. I felt a pull toward you that I couldn’t explain. It’s why I went to Elain to know more about you. And the more I knew about you, the more I began to fall for you.”

Y/N closed her eyes and leaned into Azriel’s touch. She felt stupid, so utterly stupid. 

“The bond snapped for me the moment I saw you,” Y/N said. “I never thought that I would have a mate. I am nearly six hundred and I had given up hope. It scared me and confused me at first but the more I spoke to you and the way you genuinely got to know me, knowing that the bond hadn’t snapped for you. I began to fall for you as well.” 

Azriel leaned his forehead against Y/N’s. 

And then he felt the snap. 

Y/N’s eyes opened, tears brimmed her eyes as she looked into Azriel’s. He smiled wide. 

“You don’t need to accept the bond right now,” Y/N said. “We can get the time to know each other better. After all, I was actively trying to avoid you.

Azriel let out a chuckle and leaned forward. “Out of respect for your friend. That says a lot more about you than you think. I will accept the bond because from what everyone has said about you, I would want no one else as my mate than you. You are perfect.”

Y/N couldn’t help herself but smile. “So are you, Azriel.”

Azriel’s lips brushed hers as he pulled her closer. “I am looking forward to spending my life with you.”

“And I am looking forward to spending my life with you too, shadowsinger.”

Azriel smiled before capturing Y/N’s lips in a sweet kiss.

#azriel x reader #azriel fluff #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #azriel #acotar x reader #a court of thorns and roses

[reverie-starlight]

lucifer in love

in which the avatar of pride tries and fails to get you out of bed

gn!MC, no physical descriptions. fluff. fluff. fluff. lucifer is scared but it’s okay, he’s just not used to being in love yet, he’ll get there, he swears it. pet names (including little lamb once bc it’s canon). he’s literally so in love.

this has no bearing on the fic, but in my mind this is OG game a few months into your relationship, not NB setting. also I sprinkle in some of my own lore headcanons here.

lucifer was not a morning demon.

everyone in the house of lamentation knew it. his brothers would normally steer clear of him until breakfast (aside from the days that satan and belphie were feeling particularly confident), even diavolo and barbatos knew better than to start drowning him with work before a certain time of day.

coincidentally, you weren’t exactly built for mornings, either.

but still, lucifer had incredible resolve and far more years of discipline built up within him than you did. which obviously made the mornings you’d wake up in his bed difficult for both of you.

“my love, it’s time to wake up,” he leaned over your sleeping body placed a hand on your shoulder. he was already fully dressed and (somewhat) ready to brave the early morning hours. he wanted to let you sleep in as long as possible, and it pained him to rouse you from such serenity, but he also knew you’d miss breakfast if he let you rest any longer. and then you’d really be cranky.

his lips formed a small yet genuine, fond smile when he heard you grumbling. “nooo, just a bit longer…” your voice was muffled by his sheets, and you tried to turn away from him.

“little lamb…” he warned, but there was no real bite behind it and you knew it. lucifer knew well that you were as stubborn as he was, so it wasn’t surprising to him in the slightest when you kept pleading with him.

“pleaseee lucifer, come lay with me for a bit longer. I want you near me.”

he sighed. he dared not show any signs of how tempted he was by you. the irony of a human being the one to tempt a demon.

but he did not waiver. “MC, you’ll be late if you stay in bed any longer.”

“so what?” you whined indignantly. “I haven’t been late or even missed a class in weeks- in fact you showed me just last night how deserving I was of a reward for good behaviour. let’s just play hooky today.”

he rolled his eyes slightly. of course you would use his excuse for getting you into his room last night against him to sleep in longer.

you turned to him, laying on your back and staring up at his unamused face with a still-sleepy grin of your own. “come on, baby, just lay with me. we don’t have to skip if you insist on going, but being a little late won’t hurt, you know?”

he blinked and tried to keep his composure. he still wasn’t quite used to being on the receiving end of pet names, and human ones at that, but you had been growing quite comfortable with throwing them at him lately.

this was the third time you had called him that in the past week, and he still wasn’t sure if he liked it or not… he’d need it to be tested a few more times before he could make a final decision.

He didn’t feel the need to test out terms of endearment- he knew what he was comfortable saying and calling you, and you never seemed to complain with him sticking with some of the more… classic? is that how you put it? names. with the exception of little lamb. obviously.

if he was being honest, though, he had been holding back. human world terms of endearment felt so lacklustre in comparison to those in infernal. he would never admit this, but he was… hesitant to use devildom terms of endearment on you.

often times they couldn’t be translated into any human language, nor could the feelings they spoke of be conveyed differently. the things that lucifer wanted to call you were akin to that of a declaration of complete devotion forever and always. even by demon standards they were intense, because they basically promised that even after death, there would be no one else.

his hesitation was not because he was unsure if he felt the emotions they conveyed for you. not at all, he knew his feelings and yours as well.

but you’ve thrown him for a loop. even if he was sure… he wanted to wait a bit before showing you just how deep his feelings ran. because the intensity of it all was something he had never felt for anyone in all his millennia. the fact that he had someone he could even toss around the idea of using those names on… those feelings were just for him to get comfortable with, so that when he was truly ready, he could pull it off without a hitch.

he wondered if lilith had felt for her human anywhere close to what he felt for you, sometimes, but he always buried that thought away as quickly as it popped into his mind.

blame it on his pride getting in the way, or call it what it was- fear of what being in love was doing to him and what it would continue to do to him. and what it meant he would be willing to do for you…

“uh, lucifer? my love? you’re staring off into space, is everything okay?”

your voice brought him out of his thoughts and the concern within it made him warm inside.

he was still leaning over you, hand gently gripping your shoulder, and your face was wrinkled with worry. he loved you.

until he had it all worked out, he’d show you as much as he could through human declarations of love and lots of action.

he looked down at his wrist as if to check a non-existent watch. “fine, I suppose there’s time to spare.”

he let the sound of your victorious laughter wash all over him and bathed in the feeling of your arms around his neck after he crawled over you to reach his side of the bed.

your smile was radiant, and he felt another piece of the armour encasing his heart chip away. he had been feeling that a lot since you first started the exchange program, but even more so since you both began your relationship.

there was no stopping this, he was falling headfirst into unknown territory for the second time in his life, for a completely different reason this time.

but he’d never ask for anything else. because just like the first time, he figured that this could only result in changing his life for the better as well.

once again he had to shake himself out of his thoughts. you were smiling and talking about one thing or another- he missed the start of the conversation- and playing with his tie.

lucifer was not a morning demon. he woke up exhausted, he dreaded the pile of work forever thrown at him. but his resolve was insanely strong.

maybe he’d give in to you more often if it meant he got to have you like this, in his arms, laughing at his ruined resolve and how weak he is for you, for the rest of your life.

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

haha get it? rest of your life bc you’re mortal and he’s not?

anyway I hope you enjoyed!!

#obey me lucifer x reader #obey me lucifer #lucifer x reader #obey me x reader #lucifer x mc #obey me x mc #obey me x reader fluff #obey me lucifer x reader fluff #lucifer x reader fluff #obey me shall we date #obey me nightbringer

[amourdyke]

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 ✷ 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐄 𝐋𝐀 𝐑𝐔𝐄

pjo fanfiction 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞 𝐥𝐚 𝐫𝐮𝐞 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 ✷ your father wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me but i do i think i do, and you’re an all-american girl i guess i couldn’t help trying to be your best american girl ✷ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ooc clarisse, aphrodite’s daughter reader, fake dating, angst and pining

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄

The words escaped her mouth before she could fully comprehend what was happening. Big bad Clarisse La Rue with a temper to mimic boiling water and the fight skills to ward off teasing has finally been a victim to it irredeemably as lies slipped past her lips spontaneously, unthinking.

“You had a girlfriend this whole time and none of us knew? Yeah, right, Clarisse, you’re full of shit”

“She used to date a Hephaestus chick, alright? Didn’t want anyone pointing out the whole history repeating itself trope of Aphrodite and Ares” A part of her is proud of her trope, a child of Apollo worthy storyline invented last minute, it seemed to not occur to her the way specifics would bite her in the ass until her sibling’s eyes sparkled mischievously, pointing towards the other end of the bonfire at a female figure she had not seen before, though apparently the only one who seemed to match characteristics.

“You mean to say you’re dating angel face over there?”

Your eyes caught hers for the first time in that moment, setting ablaze something at the pit of her stomach that had seemed to lay dormant far too long, hence the beginning of the relentless conversation she found herself in in the first place. “Yeah, that’s her, my girl” she concurs, taking a sip of her drink and staring off into your figure like a predator.

You first met Tori before you were claimed. She would sneak into the Hermes cabin to give you midnight kisses and hide freshly made jewellery she forged instead of armour under your pillow for surprises, adorning your neck in both purple bruises and metal chains, her own special claim on you. Until your mother showed face. It burned you to remember how she spoke, as though not knowing you, like Aphrodite you must be your mother’s daughter. A cheater, she meant. You still dreamed that your only claim was Tori’s kisses and necklaces on days like these where you watched her by the bonfire avoid your every glimpse.

And then someone’s grip is on your arm.

“I wonder what could the most infamous child of Ares possibly want with me” She raises her eyebrows at the nickname from you, someone she had not acknowledged nor recognized before today though the opposite could clearly not be said, the beginning of a smirk ghosting over her features.

“Is that what I am?”

“Don’t play dumb, Clarisse, it’s not your best look, you know exactly what you are, it’s your charm, that is if you’re into the whole bully chic thing”

“I need a favour from you” She wastes no time and you scoff in response, your eyes still seeking out Tori, anxiously hoping she does not see any of this interaction as to not play out scenarios in her head. Clarisse takes none of it. She grabs you by the chin, in a firm yet surprisingly careful hold and forces you to face her, wide brown eyes with a beauty you hadn’t quite recollected before seeing its warm specks up close like firecrackers trapped behind her irises. You shake off the thought and cross your arms.

“Why would I do you any favours? I bet you don’t even know my name, hell, I bet you don’t even know who I am in general–”

“You’re my girlfriend”

“I beg your pardon?” You nearly choke and Clarisse laughs.

“I’ve been watching you. You’ve been staring at that raven haired Hephaestus girl for the last forty minutes uninterrupted while I can quite easily point out at least six girls who have been drooling to get your attention in the last sixty and you haven’t even spared them a pity glance, so I’m going to guess that’s your ex?”

“What does that have to do with anything besides the fact you’re apparently a fucking stalker?”

“Feisty, angel face” She snarks “I need a girlfriend to get some people off my back for awhile and you apparently want your ex back, so why don’t you use that tiny love focused brain of yours and think for two seconds what makes someone temporarily lose their senses and say, get back together with their ex?”

“You want me to use you to make Tori jealous?”

“Do you really have anything to lose?”

You watch her train, that’s your first date, and it starts off as uninteresting as you guessed it would be. Until she’s flexing a little too much, and you’re catching on, of course, but it’s working, because you’re suddenly focused, mouth agape as she lifts up her shirt exposing her perfectly sculpted abdomen to clean sweat off her forehead with the orange cloth.

“Having fun gawking?” She teases.

“Isn’t that what you brought me here for?”

Clarisse twists her spear around in the air and finally settles it behind her flexed arms, moving towards you as she looks around the training grounds for something, eyes sparkling at the sight of a similar weapon to hers “You know how to fight, angel face?”

“I’m a demigod, Clarisse” She feigns fright at your words before rolling her eyes and moves to throw the spare spear towards you, which you take in hands overwhelmed. She steps back and motions you forward which for whatever reason you comply, before you know it her breath is hot on your neck, a whisper: “Your little ex is watching”

She wasn’t entirely truthful. Tori was there, but she barely spared you a glance. Clarisse’s siblings however watched her every move, and she was preparing a spectacle. Positioning herself behind you, hands on your waist as to fix your stance, she dismissed the way her fingers seemed to physically burn at the sensation of your skin desperately seeking out to touch you more and focused on pointing your aim at the dummy before you. It strikes him right in the heart first try and falls backwards on itself. You’re beaming. Clarisse’s chest squeezes. She forgets to let go of your love handles until you turn around.

“You look pretty when you’re deadly” She casually lets out, a sigh.

“Did Tori see your hands on me?” You look around, an attempt at casually catching your exes eye. You miss the way Clarisse frowns when she agrees nonchalantly. One of her siblings winks, she thinks to herself this was too much trouble.

“Okay I think that’s enough performing for a day”

“You’ll hurt me this way, princess. Can’t stand me that much? I don’t get it, did I dunk one of your friends on the toilet or something?”

“I don’t understand”

“Playing dumb isn’t your look either” Clarisse mimics your first encounter as she stares daggers at you. She looks like she could see right through your soul and it sends shivers down your spine.

“You really don’t remember me, huh?” You scoff, and Clarisse is furrowing her brows and attempting to dive into her memory but you’re quicker to refresh it “My first year here I was like a lost and kicked puppy. And you were the girl who killed the monster who nearly killed me and actually killed my satyr protector. I guess it was just another day for you but it was my worst nightmare and you were a fucking knight in shining armor, I thought so anyways. I followed you around for months, and what does it say that you didn’t even know my name until two days ago? You are probably the one most self centered person I have ever met and I was a stupid little girl with a crush who thought you could save me while you actively terrorised everyone who was nice to you. Including me. And you don’t even remember taunting me, because it was just another fucking wednesday. So maybe I’m not enthusiastic about playing your girlfriend for longer than I have to”

It suddenly dawns on her, the memory of you. You looked different now, she guessed those were some perks of growing up as an Aphrodite kid but staring at your face, hurt expression, made the resemblance uncanny. To the one person she regretted hurting. She had just lost a fight and you had ran after her for comfort, but Ares had seen it. So there was nothing you could say. She wanted someone to hurt like she was hurting as though it would take her own pain away. She lost the fucking fight because she looked for you in the audience as she was winning. Affection made her weak. She made you pay for it.

“You called me a stupid girl who doesn’t know when to leave people alone and that’s why no one could stand me. Ring a bell?” You turned around to leave when Clarisse was silent. She surprised herself when she spoke up.

“Well let me teach you to hate me less!” She called out, running her hand through her curls frantically “We can’t do this if you don’t stand the sight of me, my siblings won’t buy it, your ex girlfriend who knows you certainly won’t either. Let’s go out and talk and maybe you’ll like something about me, I don’t know”

“Why does it matter so much to you that you have a girlfriend? Why do your siblings care? Answer me this and I might go with you”

“Fucking Gods, you’re insufferable” She mutters “Because I’m tired of being the one with no life, okay? All I have is training, and everyone knows that and I hate when they start worrying so I need anything to ward it off and I guess relationship maybe screams reason to live and not dying to be a war martyr so this is what I got, okay? It’s stupid, but it’s what I got”

“Alright”

“Alright?”

“I’ll try to like you, Clarisse”

She leads you to the forest in the middle of the night as to not alert anyone. The moon is full and it lights up her face in a way that softens her usually rough features. It is strange how your hands meet eachothers halfway in a hold until you reach your destination, a lake surrounded by flowers. You’re taking off your clothes, stripping into underwear before Clarisse could even fully process it, her eyes widening at the sight of your unbuttoning jeans reaching your calves, then the floor.

“Aren’t you coming?” You say as you stumble into the water. She watches you, the same way she had at the bonfire, and feels guilt pool at her throat for the way she gazed at your body. Clarisse wants to put a word to her feeling and all that comes to mind is hungry. She feels hungry. Like she could bite into your skin and tarnish its softness, like she needs to.

She takes off her clothes as well, skin still hot despite the cold air embracing her suddenly. You watch her too, she notices. Though she can’t pinpoint the look in your eye as she walks into the lake and heads towards you, stopping until your chests barely touch. There’s unusual heavy breathing from the both of you, hypnotised. You’re sure you won’t speak of it tomorrow.

“What’s your favourite colour?”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m trying to find things to like about you, work with me here”

“I like red. Like blood”

“Like love” Clarisse doesn’t bother to reply to your argument, but it makes a part of her shake. War and romance unfortunately have too many things in common, she notes to herself.

“My turn. Why do you want your ex back?”

“Because she was good to me. She was kind and soft and she liked me. I miss feeling like someone cares like that”

“Aren’t you Aphrodite’s daughter? Doesn’t that sound a little like the bare minimum? She’s good to you? She’s kind? Didn’t she stop being those things when it ended?”

“You don’t know anything about relationships, Clarisse, you’ve never had one. I’m difficult, I’m a cheater’s kid, I’m–”

“You’re beautiful. Breathtaking, like your mom. Maybe that’s the only thing you got from her. You can aim. You’re strong. You’re apparently vengeful at least towards me which in my books is an attractive quality, you’re witty and you get little crinkles around your eyes when you laugh. I’m going to guess you didn’t cheat on that ex of yours so you’re not an asshole, for sure not a cheater. You give people chances when they don’t deserve it. I’m not quite following what could be so damn difficult about you”

You stay silent for awhile. Thinking. She hates herself for not knowing what it is that you think, and regrets saying so many things in your quietness. Then you whisper something she doesn’t catch and she asks you to say it again and in clear noise it sounds as shocking as it did when she first thought to have tricked her ears: “You never had a relationship, have you ever been kissed?”

Clarisse shakes her head no.

“Can I kiss you?” You correct yourself as you lean in, placing a curl behind her ear “Just in case we need to do this in front of your siblings or Tori, so we’re ready”

“Right” Clarisse mumbles as her hands snake her way around your waist pulling your body closer to fully press against hers “Just in case” she finishes whispering before her lips finds yours. There’s more desire than you both thought there would be. It’s desperate. Messy. Tongues clashing and chests heaving. She wants to taste you forever. She thinks she’s screwed.

#clarisse la rue x reader #clarisse la rue #dior goodjohn #percy jackson fanfiction

[disneyprincemuke]

kiss all your tears away

alternatively: we haven’t talked in almost 4 days (next)

in which she and logan don't walk into the paddocks together for the first time all season and sends everyone speculating about the status of their relationship friendship

(series masterlist)

she hikes her bag up her shoulder, pushing the sunglasses up her nose. she taps her card against the reader before she can step into the paddocks.

when she'd woken up this morning, she laid in bed with two packs of ice over her eyes to try and reduce the swelling of her eye area. when she’s gotten up to look at herself in the mirror, it did depuff but didn’t entirely erase the evidence of all the crying she did.

she dropped george a text message early this morning, asking if it was okay to be wearing sunglasses everywhere on the paddocks without looking like a complete fool — it’s just a rehearsal, after all.

george simply assumed she’s hungover or something of the sort, so he didn’t ask questions. he just told her he does it all the time.

so, here she is walking into the paddocks by herself. with her stupid bag on her stupid shoulder and a pair of sunglasses over her eyes to hide away from everyone.

oscar, who comes in right after her, almost walks right past her before he realised who she is. he just almost barely recognises her entering the paddocks with a bag on her shoulder and logan next to her.

oscar taps her on the shoulder gently, flashing her a bright smile. “alone today?”

“yeah,” she answers simply, a smile of gratitude stretching her lips when oscar slows his pace down to walk with her.

“oh,” oscar nods to himself. while he’s been slightly out of touch with her out of respect of their relationship, he still did grow up with her. he still knows her telltales when she’s got a problem. “fought?”

“yeah.”

“that bad?”

“pretty bad.”

“i won’t ask about it. but are you okay?”

“i guess.”

“i’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“hopefully.”

“let me carry your stuff,” oscar mutters, circling around her to her other side. he doesn’t wait for an answer — he just slides her backpack off her shoulder and throws it over his shoulder on top of his bag.

she opens her mouth to protest, but oscar is quick to shut her down. “i used to do it before logan. don’t act like it’s so new to you,” oscar laughs, shaking his head. “and it’s weird seeing you with a bag in the paddocks.”

“that’s true. i haven’t walked into the paddocks with my bag on my shoulder since i joined you guys in f2,” she grins shyly.

“let’s put your stuff down then come and hang at mclaren? lily’s just got a taxi to arrive from the airport.”

“oh, she’s here this weekend? she didn’t tell me that…”

“she was going to surprise you after the rehearsal,” oscar giggles. “so, what do you say?”

“okay, but only if lando makes me a cup of coffee.”

george tilts his head at the empty seat alex has left in the corner. “move to the corner, we’re going to hog the space and be shat on for acting like boyfriends.”

“logan’s sitting with us tonight,” alex answers simply with a shrug. “can’t fully commit to being your boyfriend tonight, mate, i’m sorry.”

“oh, how come?” george asks, furrowing his eyebrows. typically, logan would sit in the middle rows with his girlfriend. “doesn’t he usually sit with (y/n) or oscar?”

alex shrugs, bottom lip pouted out. “think they had a friendly squabble a couple days ago. he’s been weird since he arrived in vegas the other day.”

george surprisingly held on to the unspoken agreement he has with them. he hasn’t told a soul about seeing her in the gap between his door that one time. nor has told alex about it.

but he does talk to lando, which wasn’t a great conversation to start when he came up to him with a 50 pound bill in his hand. they danced around the information of knowing something particularly specific, and lando eventually blurted excitedly that he saw them on a date a few days back.

so maybe they fought. or worse, have they broken up?

logan arrives literally a second after the worst thought passes his mind. he takes the empty seat next to alex, greeting george with a small smile before leaning in to start a conversation.

he watches the door, curious at what’s exactly going on. he completely tunes out from the conversation, feigning intelligent answers and short reponses. his eyes dart over to the door whenever it’s pulled open, and sighing when it’s not the driver he expects.

he looks down at his watch. there’s about 10 minutes before the briefing starts for them. and, vegas is a race that had them come in a couple days prior to be briefed and conduct a short rehearsal for the opening ceremony.

luckily, there’s not much media around today, which would make tiptoeing around this issue a whole lot easier.

when the door is pulled open again, george lifts his head quickly, as he’s genuinely quite invested now. he raises an eyebrow and is taken aback by the girl holding the door open with a pair of sunglasses resting on her nose.

he’s absolutely forgotten the fact that she had texted him this morning about this issue.

she takes a step forward, but then takes two back. instead of walking in, she stays back outside the room with the door in her hand. pierre and charles walk in, thanking her softly before returning to their conversation.

there’s a momentary pause as she looks inside, where they’re seated, before she looks at somebody who’s in the hallway with her. oscar appears, motioning for her to walk in, but she shakes her head and simply points inwards to the room.

alex has chosen to settle for the wrong seats today, obviously. having logan sit right next to the door might be a bit more detrimental than he thought. but what would alex know? he doesn’t even know of their relationship.

oscar tries to fight with her, but she simply purses her lips. the australian slumps his shoulder before sharply turning on his heel and just walking into the room, followed by a distressed looking lando.

lando looks around, catching george’s curious eyes, so the man in orange simply shrugs tiredly at him.

she beckons for someone else in the hallway to walk in, but it seems that it’s a losing fight by the way that she’s continually waving her hands in the air to persuade them.

sighing, she just visibly sighs and winds her hand back to act out a punch. she drops her hands before finally turning around to take a step forward again.

if there’s any way that she announces her arrival, it’s typically by the scent of her strong perfume. her floral scent fills his nose, and it’s obvious that logan finally takes notice of her arrival.

because logan turns around, eyes trained on her as she walks in with an orange paper cup in her hand. what’s made everything stranger is that she simply walks ahead: she doesn’t spare logan another look as she walks down the side aisle to join max, oscar and lando who unfortunately only landed the front row seats.

george watches logan’s eyebrows furrow and press his lips together. logan shifts in his seat uncomfortably before turning back to continue their conversation.

“did you catch that, mate?” alex asks, nudging george’s arm with his elbow.

“what?” george tears his eyes away from the girl in front to look at the two men next to him. “sorry, i didn’t catch what you were saying.”

“right, so basically…”

she looks up at the giant yellow circle in front of her. she momentarily lifts her sunglasses to gawk at the ever changing expressions of the emoji face being projected.

“that’s so adorable!” she points out, reaching out to roughly pat max’s shoulder to get his attention. “look, it’s looking at us!”

“hey, your hands are not as light as you think!” max scolds, his arm darting out to catch her wrist in his hands. “you’ve got to make up with logan.”

she pouts, retracting her hand roughly from the older man’s grip. she drops her sunglasses back down to her nose and folds her arms over her chest. “what do you mean? you don’t like hanging out with me?”

“i do. trust me, i have the time of my life annoying the shit out of you,” max laughs dryly down at her. “but you are all over my hater hours. gawk at this… thing,” he points at the sphere, “with your boyfriend.”

“no,” she scoffs, simply shaking her head. she huffs and tries to walk past him. “forget it — i’ll just go and find yuki and hang out with him. he doesn’t try and push me away when i try.”

max sighs, rolling his eyes. he grabs her elbow and drags her back to him. he puts her in front of him, hands on her shoulders.

max reaches out and takes off the sunglasses, clipping it to the collar of his shirt. “you’ve got to talk this whole fight out with logan. stop ignoring him.”

“i’m not ignoring him. he’s ignoring me,” she insists, throwing a hand into the air.

“no, he’s not!” max cries, pinching the bridge of his nose. honestly, he didn’t want to enjoy this race in vegas. in fact, all he’s done leading up to this grand prix has been openly hate on the thought of even being here.

he didn’t factor in that he’d have to suddenly play the part of being an older brother and a therapist to the girl standing in front of him.

he has grown to be fond of her, yes, but he very much preferred not being put in the middle of all this.

“what?”

“yeah! he was literally boring holes into you when you walked into the rehearsal briefing earlier,” max points out. “and then he only left the room after you left; after you just walked right past him again without a flinch!”

“okay, listen! if you had the fight that we had, you wouldn’t make up so easily either, okay?” she rambles, hands on her hips in frustration. her puffy eyes are finally nowhere in sight. “you don’t even know what we fought about.”

“fine, then enlighten me.”

“we fought about this,” she circles her hands around them, motioning to the track setup around them. “about all of this! formula 1! it’s caught up to us!”

max furrows his eyebrows. “what do you mean?”

“i mean like i literally had the sebastian vettel vouching for me to get a seat this season,” she sighs, shaking her head as she recalls the fight they had before flying to vegas. “i mean like i’ve been in the points consistently since i crashed in baku and he’s struggling to even be on par with alex!

“how is that my fault, max? it’s not my fault!”

“you’re right: it’s not.”

“why does it feel like it is? i hate that this is happening to him, of all people! but how is it my fault that i’m delivering and meeting everyone’s expectations of me entering the sport?”

tears rush into her eyes. she presses the bottom of her palms into her eyes as her voice cracks, shaking her head hopelessly. “like, it’s not my fault we’re performing differently. i’m literally driving for my reputation and seat — i’m on probation with my team just as much as he is.”

max suddenly regrets poking her button. from what oscar tells him, they’re not typically the couple to have very big fights. it seems that he has misread the severity of the situation.

“oh, (y/n),” max frowns, stepping forward to wrap his arms around her. he puts his hand on the back of her head, gently letting her nuzzle his face into his arm. “i’m sorry. i didn’t know.”

“it just gets increasingly difficult to comfort him weekend after weekend. i’m at a high, and he’s just-“

“i’m sure it’s not easy for him either,” max cooes, swaying side to side in an attempt to comfort her. “i am sure that it is not his intention to… make you ‘feel bad’ of what you’ve achieved thus far.”

“it’s just so hard,” she cries harder into his chest. “i want to be there for him, really. but it’s hard! it’s hard when my team is out celebrating after every race because of my points finish and he’s down with what’s happened with his race.”

max looks up at the sound of footsteps against the gravel, catching lando and george trying to make their way towards them.

he holds up a thumbs up to them, nodding gently enough for her not to feel it, to send them the other way. it’s bad enough she’s crying at the f1 track four days before a race with majority of the teams still in the paddocks.

he turns his head to the side, by the grandstands, catching oscar and sebastian’s stare of concern. he simply flashes them a smile and a reassuring nod. in return, he gets a firm nod from the race engineer and a thankful smile from the young driver.

from what he knows, she hasn’t told anyone about this issue. perhaps that’s why she’s stuck to him all evening?

“i don’t think we’ll get past this, max. that’s the worst part,” she sobs, pulling away to rub her eyes. she heaves as tears flow out of her eyes, lips quivering and voice cracking with every word she speaks. “how can we even? i don’t know what to do.”

max frowns. he pushes her head into his chest again, this time, resting his chin on the top of hers. he doesn’t exactly know what to say.

their situation is so unique, that even he — with as much trauma as he carries around — does not know anything he can say that would make her feel better. so, he just rubs circles on her back as he sways.

“i’m sorry this happened to you,” he sighs, readjusting to now press his cheek on the top of her head. “i really don’t know what to say. there wouldn’t be any words i can string together to make you feel better about this.”

from the distance, he can see alex walking out of the pitlane. the bright blue shirt didn’t really make him hard to spot in the first place.

alex is the least of his problems. because behind alex is logan trailing behind him quietly, completely taken a step away from the conversation alex holds with some of their team members.

“do you want to go somewhere more private? teams are coming out to scout the track, i think,” max whispers, moving his head to look at her face. “let’s go?”

“okay. it’s kinda weird i’m crying here anyway,” she manages to mutter a joke. “my sunglasses.”

max almost wants to laugh when she cries even harder, reaching out for the sunglasses he’s confiscated from her a while ago. she removes it from his shirt, then replaces it on her face.

while she had paraded about with her chin in the air all evening, now she walks with her head down. her hair is out of the braids that blythe had styled her with, now falling to her cheeks to hide her away from everyone else.

if max could have continued walking the other way to simply avoid the williams racing team, he would. but if he did that, they’d have made a complete round of the track on foot. which doesn’t seem like a good idea at all with her state.

max slings a protective arm around her shoulders, walking around her body to hold her away from the prying eyes of those that walk past them.

as they slowly approach the team in blue, alex grows mildly concerned at the weirdly silent girl. “is sh- oh, okay.” alex nods understandingly, holding a hand up to wave max for an apology. all because she’s heaving silently in her sob in max’s arm that immediately told alex to not intervene. “sorry.”

and max just knows they’d eventually find a way out of this fight they’re in. because he turns around to gauge logan’s expression: he’s stopped dead on the tracks with a lingering stare on the crying girl.

max just gives him a small smile, to which logan forces a grin before turning away to catch up with alex who calls out for him.

surely, there’s a way around this. right?

#whew #writing a long piece like this for logan and femdriver #was NOT on my todo list today #it just came to me #logan sargeant #logan sargeant x reader #logan sargeant x you #female driver #fem!driver #f1 female driver #f1 x you #f1 #disneyprincemuke #disneyprincemuke imagine #disneyprincemuke imagines #disneyprincemuke f1 #disneyprincemuke ial #disneyprincemuke vr

[the-soliloquies-of-sadists]

#381

“Wakey wakey.  Time to wake up….  Don’t try to move around too much.  As you are realizing, you are in a predicament.  You are lying in my basement, buck naked, tied up, gagged, collared, with a fuck pillow under your pelvis.  You ain’t going anywhere, anytime soon….

“We’ve never met, but we know each other.  We both do the same thing for work, but we are nothing alike.  This is what’s happening.  I am part of a nameless organization that takes faggots, trains them to be slaves, and sells them to buyers from around the world.  From what I’ve been told over the years, the faggots delivered to me want to drop off the grid and sold into slavery.  They turn themselves in to a collector, who then has them delivered to me.  I don’t know if that’s true as I don’t let any of the faggots talk other than to say, ‘Yes Sir!’ 

“Now for you, I was told your backstory.  It seems that you are a collector for a different kind of group.  I train fags who offer themselves up for the taking.  You seem to prefer the non-consensual abductions of twelve- to fifteen-year-old girls.  I don’t care that you prefer pussy over dicks, but I do draw the line with their age.

“As I said, I was told what you are.  That never happens.  Ever.  But it appears that you approached the ten-year-old niece of one of higher ups in the organization, and he recognized what and who you were.  That stupid move brought you here. 

“I have no idea who the higher up is nor do I care.  Hell, we don’t know any of the men that are in the other parts of my organization, let alone hear from them.  So I found it surprising to get a call from a higher up—who I haven’t heard from in a few years—that I am to train you personally.  You better fucking believe that I’m going to train the fuck out of you.

“I have been training faggots for nearly forty years.  This is my farm you are on.  Twelve hundred acres.  Twelve hundred acres with some of the most advanced surveillance and anti-escape deterrents.  I know of every person who steps foot on my property, and I know if a slave is ten feet away from where it is supposed to be.  The ankle cuffs, wrist cuffs, and collar have tracking devices in them.  The collar can deliver a shock to keep you in line at a moment’s notice.  And the ankle cuffs are set up that if you go beyond a certain perimeter, a numbing agent is injected causing your legs to go numb and become useless.  Escape is not possible.  In my twenty years at this location, I have only had one slave make it off property, but it was collected within three minutes of doing so.  That slave was brought back and tortured in front of all the other slaves as a deterrent.  And that was before all the tracking technology was put in.  So keep that in mind if you decide to do something stupid.

“Now,… for the past five minutes, I have been telling you the predicament you find yourself in.  I have been watching your reaction.  Being gagged, you can’t say anything, but your body language says it all.  You seem too calm and not surprised at the description of my organization.  No reaction really.  That tells me that you are familiar with an operation like this.  When I tell you that you were collected for stalking that niece, you don’t look shocked by that accusation.  That pretty much confirms what I was told,… not that it matters otherwise. 

“No, the only reaction I saw was when I tell you that I am going to do your training.  You looked panicked.  Your eyes went right to my bulge.  Oh yeah.  I noticed.  You are straight indeed.  I should say, ‘were straight.’  From this moment on, you will never go back to that life.  The only cunt in your future is the one I’m about to make out of this hole between your legs.

“You have a great ass, so flawlessly smooth.  On any other slave, this ass would be a huge selling feature.  But for you, it’s a source of pain.  I need to put out my cigarette somewhere.  Your asscheek is the best place to do it….  Scream motherfucker scream.  Your perfect ass is going to go through some changes, from being daily whipped to being used as an ashtray.  You are going to be scarred up for sure.

“For the next part, I need to take off my boots and get out of these overalls.  You are going to get acquainted with Otto.  That’s what some of the fag slaves and some of the trainers call my dick.  Otto, it means ‘eight’ in Italian.  I’m actually closer to nine inches, but nine in Italian is ‘Nove’ which doesn’t sound right.  It doesn’t roll over the tongue as nicely as Otto.  Hehe.

“Look up at me.  Look shithead!  Here’s Otto.  Look at the cock that is going to own your life.  Half hard, it’s bigger than yours.  Keep staring at my foreskin.  Otto needs to piss.  You will be trained on drinking piss.  That’s all the liquid you will be given.  And if you are wondering if that means that you will be trained on becoming a full toilet, let me say we stopped training our slaves on that a while back.  It was too time consuming, and the buyers weren’t interested in that feature.  But for you, the higher ups want you trained.  But that will have to wait.

“Are you…  you are…!  You’re crying!  About time!  Hold still.  Let me wash away those tears for you.  Piss is the best antidote to tears.  There’s no feeling in the world like starting to tear down a once proud man by simply pissing on his face.  It’s getting me hard.  Otto likes what he’s doing to you.  But he wants action.

“Normally, you would be sucking the last few drops out of my foreskin.  But I ain’t ungagging you yet.  Besides, Otto needs to turn a virgin ass into a gaping cunt. 

“Your hole is perfectly displayed, like it’s ready to be destroyed thanks to that fuck pillow and how wide your legs were spread and secured.  Oh look.  Your cock and balls are just hanging there,… exposed,…

“…Damn! Even with my bare feet, I can deliver one hell of a ball kick.  Ha! Ha!  Your screams mean everything to me.  You know, each and every one of my personal slaves are kicked in the balls every morning.  They need to be reminded of their place on a daily basis. 

“Now, you will be spared that daily torture.  And that’s not because I would never have you as my personal slave, and don’t worry I wouldn’t own such trash.  No, I’m going to castrate you, in one of the most painful ways.  I haven’t decided how yet.  I do know that I will leave your empty sack intact.  We have a urologist that will make changes to your dick so that you lose all ability to get hard and with a few snips to the nerves in the area, all physical sensation will be gone.  Essentially your dick will constantly just hang there and be utterly useless… other than to piss out of.  Every time you reach down there, you will only feel the shell of what you used to be.

“Awww you’ve done full on sob.  Here let me collect some of your tears.  Tears of cunts are the best lube. 

“Do you feel Otto at your hole?  Feel his weight in your crack?  He’s ready to go.  Can you feel his leak.  Lucky for you, you really got me leaking.  Feel that wetness?  That’s all you.  Virgin cunt meets wine bottle thick dick.

“Don’t fucking start resisting.  Your cherry is going to be popped.  Here goes. 

“Don’t fucking fight me.  It’s only going to be more painful for you.  You are making my dick even harder.

“LET ME IN!  I’m coming in.  Oh, you got my head.  You are really starting to piss me off.

“Urg!  There.  Normally I would let a cunt relax before I begin, but you don’t fucking deserve that.  Right to the… goddamned… root!  Fuck, you’re tight.  By the end of tonight, you will be a gaping mess. 

“Not only have I been lucky to have such a big dick, but I can cum multiple times a night.  My first load is always quick, but the second one goes on for hours.  Then I have a gang bang lined up for this cunt. 

“I’ll let someone else pop the cherry in your throat.  There’s no way I’m going to let Otto near your mouth, at least not while you still have a mouthful of teeth.  Oh yeah, those will be coming out as part of your transformation.

“Keep crying.  Oh man.  Oh fuck.  I’m getting close.  You ready to be bred?  You ready to make your transformation to cunt complete?  Here it cums.  Here it goddamned cums!  Ahh! Ahh! Fuuuuck!

“Holy shit!  That was… fuck. 

“Your cunt has one of my biggest loads in it.  That should help lubricate you up a bit for round two….  Don’t try to push me out.  Otto will come out when he wants to.  Right now, he just wants a minute to catch his breath.

“Cunt, you have nothing but hell ahead of you.  There will be no let up.  Today is about breaking you in.  Tomorrow will begin your life of pain.  We have a shitload planned for you.  I don’t know how long it will be for you to with us, but each day we will strip away what made you a man, a human. 

“You know, when we put a slave up for auction, we have transformed the fag into the best slave it could be.  We don’t do it for its wellbeing.  No, we want top dollar.  And we get top dollar.  That’s our reputation.

“But for you, I was given the instruction that your transformation should be so extreme that when you are put up for auction, without a reserve price, that you are so repulsively distorted that you are sold for the lowest amount we ever had for a slave.  That shouldn’t be a problem with all the branding, scarification, tattooing, deteething, and so on.  Your previous profession will be shared with your new owners so that they can keep up your hell. “Oh fuck.  All this talk of your pathetic life is getting me hard again.  I’m ready to begin round two.  This should last a few hours.”

[allur1ngs]

✮ bloody knuckles ✮

TW: angst to fluff!! i know the summary seems like pure angst but i swear its not! semi-graphic violence? , guns, kidnapping, bada and reader get into an argument, reader acts naively and a bit selfishly (but it’s okay, she’s young and makes up for it in the end), bada still having beef w your bodyguard, protective!bada, cold!bada (this time to you too…), violent & frusterated!bada, brief mentions of sexual activity (inc…toys, ass, boobs… sorry), use of the word unnie (about six or so times) brief mentions of drugs, a creepy woman, and a surprise character from the previous installment! 

SUMMARY: breaking bada’s three rules for a night of partying backfires in ways you could’ve never imagined. now, you have to deal with the consequences of your lies

part iv. succumb (to me)

WC: 12.5k… get some popcorn y’all this is a long one

A/N: read this and this for more background on this au. i’m sure there are a ton of mistakes sprinkled throughout this fic so please ignore them, this took me so long to write and i just want to put it out on time… i promise i’ll edit it once i get the chance😭

DISCLAIMER: all characteristics portrayed are purely speculation and fiction, they are not meant to reflect bada or team bebe’s actual character, values, or attitudes. please keep this in mind!!

On an inconspicuous Thursday night, when a heat wave had just hit Seoul, you lounged in your lavish bed—free from sheets—scrolling through social media.

Pictures of cute animals and food fill your feed, making you smile down at your screen. You are about to like a particularly cute picture of a cat when a notification banner stops you midway. Your eyes flicker to the top of the screen, finding a message from your best friend, Jae Hwang.

Clicking on the notification, you're transferred into your messages app, and Jae’s text fills your screen. “Unnie, I haven’t seen you in so long!! Please come to the party I’m throwing tomorrow so we can catch up and have some fun~!"

Your lips fall open in mild surprise as you instinctively sit up. A party? You text Jae back quickly, asking the reason for the party and where it will be held.

“At my house, of course! We’re all gathering to celebrate your engagement!”

Your engagement… so your parents really hadn’t wasted any time spreading the good news. You’d barely been living with Bada for a month, and they’d already informed your friends. You shake your head and sigh rather loudly. Bada would greatly disapprove of your parents' loose lips. She preferred her privacy, not only for protection but also because she liked people staying out of her business. That much you could tell from the little time you’d had to get to know her.

Shifting your focus back to Jae’s unanswered text, you contemplate attending the party or skipping out. Though they were technically throwing it in your honor, they should have let you know beforehand instead of asking you the night before the party. You felt well within your rights to refuse, but a nagging thought holds you back.

What would you do instead? Technically, you had no plans on Friday night—or Friday at all for that matter. Saturday neither… nor Sunday. Really, you never had plans anymore. Since staying with Bada, you mostly remained inside the Lee mansion, either lounging by the large infinity pool, taking a dip in your personal Jacuzzi, or perhaps enjoying a film in the theater room on the second floor.

Or, if you wanted to leave home, you would be escorted by your bodyguard to certain malls, grocery stores, or establishments. All of which were either managed by Bada or by one of her partners. She made it clear to you from the start that going places not protected by one of her subordinates would be dangerous.

"I have connections to half the establishments in Seoul," she had muttered to you. It's incredible that despite the implications of the words falling from her mouth, Bada had a way of saying things so humbly. She didn't sound like she was boasting—though you wouldn't fault her if she was. "I bet some of the markets you entered when you were a child were run by my family, and you'd never have known."

You’d try your best to conceal your amazement at her confession, but the glow in your eyes was as clear as day to Bada. “And what about the rest?”

She let out a quiet breath, saying, "The rest are mostly run by rival gangs. Almost no stores or establishments are free of mafia influence. Not anymore, at least." Seeing the way your eyes shifted from bright to slightly apprehensive, she pushed her chair back and rose, walking around her desk before leaning on it and clutching onto its edges. "There's no need to worry about them. As long as you stay in areas where my people are, you are safe." Her hand came down to rest politely on your thigh, patting it in a comforting manner.

Her words made your stomach flutter with butterflies, and a giddy smile instinctively formed on your lips. For someone who claimed to want to avoid fostering romantic affection between you both, Bada seemed to be doing the exact opposite.

Before you could lose yourself in the tenderness of the memory, you climb out of bed, having made your decision. Because you barely left home as it is, what harm is there in going to a party? A party organized in your honor, no less. It’s a rare occasion, and truthfully, you miss Jae and the rest of your girlfriends. You haven’t seen them in over a month and texted them sparingly during that time. To be fair, it was mostly your fault—you were much too focused on getting to know Bada and adjusting to your new way of life to strike up conversations with them.

You nod your head firmly as if the action will help build your confidence before you grab onto the handle of your bedroom door and slowly open it. Standing to your right, the figure of your bodyguard, Hyo Kim, immediately greets you on the other side. She turns to face you, her black-tinted sunglasses obstructing your view of her eagle eyes.

“What are you doing up so late?” She says lightheartedly.

“Do you know if Bada is still awake?” You ask. “I wanted to ask her something.”

Hyo lifts her arm up, pushing aside the fabric of her suit to reveal a golden watch. She gazes down at it, pretending to think long and hard. “The Boss should be awake for about…” she trails off playfully, “another four hours.”

You chuckle under your breath, “I didn’t even need to ask, did I?”

“Not at all.” Hyo shakes her head while smirking.

“Alright then,” you clasp your hands together tightly, “I’m going to go see Bada.”

Hyo gestures ahead of you with her hand. “I’ll follow your lead.”

You nod quickly before advancing forward, her trailing close behind. You can’t lie; it was strange to have someone following after you almost every second of the day in the beginning. You remember that at the beginning of your stay at Lee mansion, you kept forgetting that Hyo was following you—she has the tendency to be extremely quiet when focused—and were jump-scared by her multiple times. You’d round corners and suddenly hear one of her heavier footsteps behind you, making you jump and your heart practically leap out of your chest.

At some point, you swear she started doing it on purpose, enjoying the look of fear you gave her when you jumped. Eventually, though, you started to grow used to her constantly lingering presence and even grew comfortable around her. Somewhere along the way, you’d both gotten to know each other more, and a slow but harmonious friendship grew.

“So, what are you going to ask the Boss about?” Hyo’s low and blithe voice cuts through the silence.

“Oh,” you begin, “my friend asked me to meet her and some of my other friends tomorrow night.”

“Really?” Hyo comments, her voice dripping with an emotion you can’t quite decipher.

“Yes,” you affirm. “I wanted to ask Bada if it’s okay for me to visit her.”

Hyo hums under her breath in acknowledgment. “She’ll appreciate that.”

“I hope so.” You smile lightly to yourself. “I just thought that since you follow me wherever I go, she’d find out either way, and I might as well get her thoughts on it.”

“Not to crush your hopes and dreams, kid, but I doubt she’ll say yes.” Hyo remarks.

“Really?” You pause and turn around to face her, a frown forming on your lips.

“The Boss values your safety more than anything else,” Hyo shrugs. “Meeting people she isn’t familiar with puts you at risk.”

“But they’re my friends.” You push back lightly.

“I get that, but like I said, the Boss only cares about keeping you safe.” Hyo raises her hands up in defeat.

You deflate at her words, acknowledging that she’s most likely right. After all the events that’d taken place in the span of a single month, you honestly wouldn’t hold it against Bada to be cautious of where you go. But at the same time, you can’t help but feel mild resentment at the fact that you aren’t even allowed to see your friends.

“Hey,” Hyo frowns at you like a scolding sister. “Don’t be discouraged. You haven’t even asked her yet. You never know; she just might say yes.”

You pick your head up at her words, slowly but surely nodding back. “Yeah, you’re right.” And with that, you continue walking down the corridor to Bada’s office until you reach the dark mahogany wood of her door. Lightly rapping on it, there’s a period of silence before you hear the low tenor of her voice speak up.

“Lusher, if you’re coming to ask me if I’ve finished the paperwork for POSCO’s deal, for the millionth time the answer is no, I haven’t.” Bada’s disgruntled voice makes you laugh to yourself, and you immediately bring your hand up to cover your mouth as you grin widely.

“Is now a bad time to see you, then?” You answer back cheekily.

You receive no response for a solid minute before the sound of papers rustling loudly and approaching footsteps reaches your ears. The door to Bada’s office opens, and there she stands in all her glory, looking rather flustered. “Sorry. I thought you were Lusher.”

You smile at Bada while shaking your head. “It’s alright. Can I come in?”

“Of course.” She steps aside, making room for you to walk into her office while she holds the door open for you. You say a quick thank you as pass through the threshold, missing how Bada lets the door swing closed behind her and shuts out Hyo. “So, is there a reason why you’re visiting me? It’s very late into the night; I expected you to be asleep already.”

“Well, I was about to go to sleep, but I got a text from Jae—” you pause upon seeing her frown. “my best friend.”

Bada nods in acknowledgment, moving toward a chair and pushing it back, gesturing for you to sit down. You do so, trying to ignore the nervous tension building in the pit of your stomach.

“Yeah, she invited—” you pause, choosing your next words carefully. Phrasing Jae’s invitation as a party would most likely mean Bada wouldn't let you go. So, if you just tweaked your wording a bit to make the party seem less extreme… it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? “she invited me to a get-together between friends.”

“A get-together?” Bada questions, folding her hands across her lap as she leans on the edge of her office table. “For what purpose?”

“Just to catch up and… celebrate our engagement.” You gesture between you both, immediately noticing how Bada’s expression shifts, her lips pressing into a thin line.

“They know of our engagement?” She asks.

“Yes,” you sigh. “I guess my parents couldn’t keep their excitement in check.”

“Your parents.” Bada shakes her head, pinching her nose-bridge tiredly. “I’ll have to have a word with them about that.”

“Please do.” You nod rapidly. “But aside from that, what I wanted to ask you was if I could be escorted to the get-together tomorrow night?”

Bada moves her gaze from the floor to your eyes, removes her hand from her face, and gives you a hesitant expression. “I don’t know… after all the incidents recently…” she trails off, a faraway look finding her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to feel like you’re a prisoner in your own home, or that you can’t see your friends, I just want you to be safe.”

“I get that, I really do, Bada, but this is just a small get-together.” You lie between your teeth.

Bada stays quiet, looking to be considering your words. “And you trust your friends, right?”

“I do.”

Bada lets out a light breath, while a small smile finds her lips. “All right then, you can go.”

“Really?” You give her a shocked look before you snap out of it and practically squeal, jumping up from your chair and instinctively wrapping your arms around Bada’s shoulders in a hug. “Thank you so much!”

Bada freezes in her spot, surprised by your affection. Slowly, a warm, sappy feeling builds at the bottom of her stomach, and her hands, which had been propped up in the air stiffly, gently come down to rest against your back, patting it tenderly. “You’re welcome.” She tries not to think about how lovely you feel against her or the allure of your natural scent.

You spend all Friday preparing for the party, choosing your makeup beforehand, your jewelry, shoes, and of course, your dress—a beautiful wine-red ensemble that you’d picked up on your shopping trip with Bada. She’d chosen it for you—claiming, “This dress would look beautiful on you.” The meaning behind her words, that it wasn’t the dress that was beautiful, but instead your figure that would make it look divine, had struck you in that moment.

If Bada wanted you to wear the dress, you’d buy it in a heartbeat.

For the little hours left you have in the day, you try not to get too giddy thinking of the party or how magnificent you’ll look in the dress, instead trying to busy yourself by catching up on one of your favorite TV shows. But when the milky raven sky begins to take over the horizon, you jump off of the couch, rushing to your room, leaving Hyo to scramble after you.

In your bedroom, you sit down at your antique-styled vanity, your makeup laid out in front of you. You begin prepping your skin before beginning your usual routine. It takes you a slightly longer time for you to finish because you’re being incredibly meticulous, but by the end of it, you look amazing. Before you can get distracted, you quickly dress yourself.

As your fingers curl around the clasp of your teardrop diamond earrings and secure them in place, you take a step back to gaze at yourself in your floor-length mirror.

The win-red dress hugs your body, accentuating every favorable feature of it. A similar dark rouge to your dress is blended across your eyelids in a smoky eye, making the color of your eyes pop in contrast. Your lips, fixed into a slight pout, are glossy and soft, tinted with a color of your choice. Taking your look all together, all you can say is that Bada was right—the dress does look beautiful on you.

A knock on your bedroom door startles you, your hand instinctively flying to your chest. "Hello?" You respond, a bit on edge.

"It's me. Can I come in?" Bada's voice, muffled behind the door, reaches you.

"Yes," you reply, hastily adjusting your dress and double-checking your appearance.

Bada enters just as your hands fall to your sides, her gaze immediately scanning your figure. She appraises you, from collarbones to legs, before fixing her eyes on your chest for a lingering moment.

Suppressing a nervous giggle, you greet her, "Hi, Bada."

Her eyes quickly snap up to meet yours, a sheepish cough escaping her mouth. "Hello."

Standing awkwardly by the door, Bada stares at you for a solid minute before you give a lighthearted smile. "Is there something you needed?"

"Uhh, no. Well, actually..." Bada stumbles over her words, closing her eyes in embarrassment. "Sorry, yes. I wanted to see you before you left."

You release a small breath of understanding before a cheeky thought crosses your mind. Walking closer to Bada, you do a little twirl when you reach her. "So, what do you think?"

Bada exhales while chuckling, her nervousness leaving her. "I think you are the most beautiful woman I've ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes upon."

Out of shock, you remain still, surprised by how unabashedly Bada expressed her thoughts. You expected a simple compliment, but she exceeded your expectations. "Really?" You ask quietly, sensing a shift in the room's atmosphere. An air of intimacy and something more sensual makes your skin prickle and breath hitch.

"Of course. There's no one I could think of that could make that dress look so stunning." Bada looks back at you with a serious and genuine expression.

"Bada..." you trail off, immediately thinking of countless other women who could wear the dress better. Supermodels, actresses—

"I think there's just one simple thing that would finish off the look." Bada's voice brings you back, and you give her a questioning stare. She smiles, her hand digging into her pocket before presenting you a sleek black box. Your confusion deepens as she opens it, revealing the most elegant necklace you've ever seen. Matching teardrop diamonds, akin to those on your earrings circle the chain, glittering against the low bedroom light. At the center, a silver locket shaped like a dainty heart ties it all together.

You stare at the necklace in awe, alternating between Bada's eyes and the exquisite piece of jewelry. "Bada, it's beautiful."

She watches you marvel at it, sparkles dancing in your eyes. Giving you a fond look, she nudges the box closer. "Take it."

Hesitating for a brief second, you gently retrieve the necklace. "Wow," you breathe out, fully admiring its beauty now that it’s free from the box.

"You should put it on," Bada encourages you softly.

“Oh, I shouldn’t—” you protest.

“I insist,” she cuts you off, tucking the box back into her pocket. She steps forward, taking the necklace from your hands and moving behind you. “Here, let me.” She places it across your collarbones and brings the clasp together, her long fingers brushing across your skin. 

Her touch ignites a spark, but as quickly as it appeared, her fingers are gone. She steps back, placing her hands on your waist to move you back so that you’re facing your mirror again. But this time, Bada's at your side, admiring how exquisite you look.

 “Absolutely perfect,” she whispers into your ear.

The warmth from her touch lingers as you stare at Bada through the mirror. “Thank you.” You bask in the comfortable silence in the room for a moment before speaking up again. “Can I ask, did you buy this?”

Bada places her hands atop your shoulders, a soft, wistful look finding her irises. “It was my mother’s.”

Immediately, you whip around to face her, your mouth wide open in mortification, and your eyes the size of saucers. “Bada, why didn’t you tell me?” Your hands frantically try to find the clasp of the necklace, wanting to take it off. “Here—”

“No.” Bada’s hands find yours, holding them and stopping you from removing the jewelry. “Don’t take it off.”

“But Bada, this was your mom’s—”

“And I want you to have it,” Bada states firmly.

“I can’t—”

“Are you rejecting my gift?” Although her words sound accusatory, when you look into her eyes, there’s a glint of amusement in them.

You let out a huff of defeat. “Fine.”

Bada smirks proudly, removing her hands from yours. “Good.”

After bidding farewell to Bada, Hyo swiftly whisks you away to a black Jeep, one that, according to her, is "much more secure than a sports car." Seated in the front, she drives and engages in casual conversation while you relax in the back. You take the opportunity to share stories about each of your best friends—Jae, the liveliest, Da-Eun, the second oldest, Min-Ji, the oldest, and Ryung, the youngest and most timid. Hyo listens attentively, interjecting with comments or laughter at your anecdotes.

“You all seem to be very close,” she remarks, steering the wheel to the left.

“Yeah, we are. We’ve known each other since childhood, and our parents are all friends,” you reply.

“Those types of friends… you should hold onto them,” Hyo advises. “In this line of business, it’s hard to find someone you can trust as much as you four trust each other.”

You gaze at your bodygaurd through the rear-view mirror, sensing the weight behind her words. "Hyo?" You inquire.

"Yeah?"

"Does Bada find it hard to trust other people?"

Her lips tighten, an audible exhale leaving her nose. "She hasn't fully placed her trust in anyone since the day Mrs. Lee died."

A somber atmosphere envelops the car, akin to a bucket of ice-cold water. You shift in your seat uncomfortably, your heart aching at the thought of the pain Bada must have endured when her mother was killed. "Bada was still young when she passed, wasn’t she?"

"Fifteen," Hyo nods. "Barely beginning her climb towards adulthood."

A stark silence follows after, and the rest of the car ride is silent, filled only with the quiet hum of the Jeep’s engine and the sounds of passersby. It's not uncomfortable, but rather solemn, as if you and Hyo are silently mourning Mrs. Lee's memory.

Fifteen minutes later, Hyo's driving slows as she turns into a large house—though noticeably smaller than your shared one with Bada, of course. The GPS on the tablet beeps, signaling your arrival at the destination. "We’re here," her voice rings through the background noise.

You turn away from the window you’d been gazing out of, a smile forming on your lips at the sight of Jae’s house. Out of your group, Jae always had the most luxurious home, because though all of you came from affluent families, Jae's parents were the wealthiest. Well, it seemed like now the dynamic had changed. Once you and Bada are officially wed, your combined wealth will likely rival all of theirs combined.

"How long do you think you’ll be staying?" Hyo asks.

"I'd like to say it won't take that long, but knowing my friends, I might be here all night," you admit.

"Alright." Hyo parks the Jeep in the driveway, exits, then moves to open your door. You offer a quiet thank you as she helps you step out, mindful of the relatively short length of your dress.

Leading the way to Jae's house, you pause before knocking. Judging by the time, it seems you arrived slightly early, which in party terms means very early. Fortunately, that likely means no other partygoers are here yet, as evidenced by the absence of parked cars in the driveway.

"Actually, Hyo?" you turn back to face her, a sheepish look on your face. "Could you maybe… wait outside?"

Your bodyguard raises her eyebrows, crossing her arms across her chest. "I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on you."

"I know that, but I think the girls will be thrown off by the fact that you’ll just be standing there… watching us the entire night." Though your reasoning is somewhat woven with lies, it's also partly true.

Hyo remains silent, giving you an unimpressed look. "I have a job to do."

"Technically, you can do it from out here," you weakly argue. "Please, I want to feel like a normal person again. Like my life isn’t constantly at risk, and I always need to be monitored."

Although you can’t see the look Hyo’s giving you behind her sunglasses, you notice her posture deflating, and her shoulders falling. She releases a defeatist breath, "Fine, I’ll keep an eye out from here."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" You express with a grateful smile.

"Yeah, yeah, never say I haven’t done anything for you," Hyo grumbles. "Oh, and don’t forget I have your location on my phone, so don’t even think about sneaking out because I’ll know."

"I wouldn’t dare," you joke.

"Right…" your bodyguard trails off. "I’ll be waiting in the car. If you need anything, just call or text me, and I’ll be out in an instant."

"Yup, thanks!" You give Hyo a thumbs up, and with that, she retreats back to the Jeep. You watch her go, a sudden wave of guilt crashing over you.

She'd probably be much more comfortable in Jae’s house, sitting down or enjoying the air conditioning, rather than waiting for countless hours in the Jeep while you gossip and talk to your friends. But you're in too deep now. You can’t tell her the truth or let her in, or she’ll whisk you away back to the mansion, and all your white lies will have been for naught.

Biting your lip, you cast one last look at Hyo before knocking on the front door. Silence greets you for a few minutes before you hear shuffling approach the door, and it opens. Jae’s face greets you on the other side, her eyes immediately sparkling at the sight of you.

"Oh my god!" She squeals, bringing you into a hug and squeezing you tight. "I’m so glad you’re here!" She rocks back and forth in the hug, making you laugh giddily. "I missed you so much!" When she pulls back, she’s wearing a pout across her red-tinted lips. "Don’t ghost me for a month again, okay? Or I’ll steal you away from your wife!"

"I missed you too," you say fondly. "But we’re not married yet—"

"Oh, come on, you’re engaged to Bada Lee! You’re married in every sense except legally." Jae rolls her eyes playfully, though they stray a bit before landing on something—or rather, someone—behind you. "Who’s that?" She points at the Jeep, where Hyo is sitting in the front seat, trying not to look like she's watching you.

"That’s Hyo Kim, my bodyguard."

"Your bodyguard?" Jae awes before pouting. "Why am I even surprised? Of course, Bada Lee would have her fiancée under lock and key." Jae grabs your hand, giving it a light squeeze before her expression shifts, a sly smile curving her lips. "So tell me, have you two done it yet? Is she dominant? Is she more of a boobs girl or an ass girl—"

"Jae!" You shout, eyes wide and voice full of mortification. "Are you serious right now?"

"Come on, tell me! I want to know all the stuff you haven’t told me over the past month. You owe it to me!" She whines.

You let out a long sigh. You suppose this is your karma for unintentionally ignoring your best friend for so long. "At least invite me in first, Jae. Don’t you have any manners?" You lightly scold her.

"Oh, right." She looks behind her, realizing that while she’s inside her home, you’re still outside the threshold, waiting for her to invite you in. She looks like she’s about to take a step back so you can enter before she pauses, a thoughtful expression crossing her features. "Wait, does she use toys—"

"Alright, that’s enough!" You push Jae further into her house and step inside, swinging the door shut rather loudly behind you.

Once inside, you scold her for a solid five minutes straight about manners before the two of you properly greet each other and begin a normal, casual conversation—thankfully with no mention of your and Bada’s sexual activity, or lack thereof. Instead, you're practically interrogated by Jae about every aspect of your life with Bada while you help her finish setting up for the party.

You stack up red solo cups, place beers into multiple coolers, and set out chasers. Thankfully, it doesn’t take much for the two of you to finish, and once you do, you simply lounge around a bit. Jae takes the break as an opportunity to compliment how amazing you look in your dress.

"Is that Chanel?" She asks, motioning for you to do a spin.

"Yes." You nod, doing as she wishes. "Bada picked it out for me."

"I bet she’s regretting her decision right now." Your friend giggles. "No one’s going to be able to resist you tonight!"

"Jae, stop exaggerating." You laugh.

Your lighthearted conversation continues until slowly but surely, party guests begin to arrive. They come in small waves, all dressed much more elegantly than the average partygoer. You assume they must be some of Jae’s rich friends that you’ve heard about only in passing because you don’t recognize some of them. The thought sends a small prickle of worry to the back of your mind, but you choose to ignore it for now. Instead, you greet each guest kindly, albeit rather awkwardly.

As the dark sky deepens in color, the living room starts to get more and more crowded, the rest of your friends arriving along with other guests. Min-Ji gets there first, wearing a classy black cocktail dress. She greets you with the same enthusiasm as Jae, but her demeanor is slightly more controlled, her older age shining through.

Next, Da-Eun arrives, dressed in green, and lastly, Ryung. By the time she settles in, the party is in full swing, music leaking out of speakers, and beers being passed around. You’re fully immersed in the atmosphere, happy to be surrounded by your girls and other somewhat familiar faces. You can’t lie, partying with your friends really puts into perspective the loneliness you hid behind your home’s mansion walls.

But in contrast to your free spirit, Hyo is struggling. Multiple cars have begun to pull into the driveway, groups of people entering the house and giving her a peek inside. The home has many more people than it should for a "small gathering." 

Her first instinct was to exit the Jeep and head toward the door to end your night prematurely, as well as tell you off for not only lying to her but also to Bada. However, through one of the windows, your silhouette peaks through, the light in the living room shining against your features and displaying your expression of pure joy as you dance with your friends and sip beer.

She stops mid-stride, conflict brewing in the confines of her mind. Deep down, she knows you deserve to enjoy yourself. Being stuck in a mansion—while large and full of entertainment—is nothing compared to the comfort of being with friends, partying, and drinking. “Fuck.” Hyo mutters under her breath, passing a hand through her hair in frustration. She takes another look at your smiling figure through the window, then turns back. “The Boss is going to kill me if she finds out about this.”

She stays back in the Jeep for another hour or so, listening to the music coming from inside the house and the loud chatter, keeping an eye out while checking her phone every other minute. Your location never moves, thankfully. It seems that you have the foresight not to take it as far as sneaking away from her for some fun.

But, of course, there’s no need for you to do so because the party is practically buzzing with energy. Couples and friends dance together, grinding and touching each other playfully, while some are playing cup pong or various other party games in corners of the room. You, on the other hand, have moved away from dancing, instead cooling off with another beer as your friends chatter amongst each other.

“You’ll never guess what happens next!” Jae grabs onto Min-Ji, tugging on her hands with poorly concealed excitement.

“What?” Min-Ji indulges her younger friend.

“Bada stops him right before he leaves the store just by saying, ‘And where do you think you're going?’” Jae lowers her voice and puts on a serious expression when imitating your fiancée.

“Really?” Min-Ji's eyes find your figure, a small smile curving her lips upward.

You smile back at her shyly, nodding.

“And then, she makes the asshole pick up her clothes from the ground!” Jae divulges.

“Does he do it?” Da-Eun cuts in, smirking widely.

“Of course he does! Like a little worm, he picks up all the clothes and gives them to her.” Jae points at you, letting go of Min-Ji’s hands.

“Bada must have a very strong presence,” Ryung comments quietly.

“More like everyone in the store was on Bada’s payroll,” Jae snorts. “Right Unnie, didn’t you say Bada has ties to half the population of Seoul?”

“Yes,” you confirm. “I think everyone in that store had guns on them.”

“How do you know?” Min-Ji asks.

“Well, they were all putting their hands in their pockets like they were going to pull out a firearm,” you reminisce. “And they were all staring between the man and Bada like they were waiting for her word to dispose of him.”

“It’s so crazy hearing about it.” Jae whines. “I wish I was there!”

“Don’t say that.” Min-Ji scolds her. “It must have been scary at the time, wasn’t it?” She looks back at you, posing the question.

“I wasn’t really scared for myself.” You shake your head. “I was more scared for the man. You should have seen the way Bada was looking at him.”

“I can imagine it now.” Jae tries to imitate a hardened and scary glare but ends up failing.

“You just look like you’re constipated.” Da-Eun laughs loudly, pointing at a now offended Jae. The younger girl hits Da-Eun, whining about how she was really trying to look serious.

You join in laughing with Da-Eun and Min-Ji at Jae, when you suddenly feel a tug on your right hand. Your laughter dies down as you turn to face Ryung, who’s looking between you and another corner of the room. You give her a confused look, trying to find what she’s gazing at. “Ryung? Is something wrong?”

“A woman's been staring at you since she got here.” Ryung whispers, casting her eyes to the other corner of the room.

You follow her line of sight to an unfamiliar, relatively attractive woman dressed in a loose white dress shirt and slacks. She has fiery red hair and a boyish look. She’s already watching you, her eyes unabashedly trailing up and down your figure, completely unbothered by the fact that you caught her staring. In fact, she smirks back at you.

You turn away from her quickly, a prickle of anxiety running up your spine. Though most would be excited at being ogled by an attractive woman, there’s something about her gaze that unnerves you. It's like she knows something you don’t.

“Do you know her?” Ryung asks, a worried look crossing her features.

“No.” You shake your head, a trembling breath leaving your lips. “I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

Da-Eun, Min-Ji, and Jae stop laughing at the sound of your nervous voice, turning to face you with questioning looks.

“What’s going on?” Min-Ji asks, noticing your rigid posture and Ryung’s grim expression.

Jae mutters your name, her voice becoming uncharacteristically quiet.

“There’s this woman that’s been staring at Unnie the entire night.” Ryung secretly motions towards you, then looks back at the woman with red hair. All of your friends' eyes follow, seeing how the woman gazes at you darkly; even with all their eyes on her, she doesn’t cower. Instead, she continues to watch you.

“Alright.” Da-Eun rubs her hands together, her expression dripping with anger. “Let me go have a word with her—”

“Not so fast.” Min-Ji grabs onto Da-Eun’s arm, pulling her back and keeping her from advancing toward the woman. “Jae, do you know her?”

Jae bites her lip, shaking her head. “I don’t remember inviting anyone that looks like that.”

“Then let me—” Da-Eun tries to wiggle out of Min-Ji’s hold but is unsuccessful.

“Don’t be so rash.” Min-Ji asserts. “Let’s just ignore her. If she decides to bother you directly, we’ll be here, okay?” She looks back at you with a caring expression, placing her hand on your shoulder.

“Okay.” You agree shakily, turning your back toward the woman’s direction.

For the rest of the night, you constantly feel her eyes on you. Though you try to act normal, a spike of fear runs up your body when you see someone approach you or accidentally brush up against you while you dance with your friends. You consider asking Hyo to come get you, but you don’t want to sour the mood of your friends. So you deal with her predatory gaze, and do your best to ignore her overwhelming presence.

Hyo’s eyes scan the neighborhood leisurely when a notification banner pops up at the top of her screen. Her eyes snap toward it, finding a text message from none other than her boss light up the screen. She takes in a deep breath as she presses it, her screen being moved to the message app.

Bada’s text reads, “How’s it going?”

Hyo lets out a sigh of relief, quickly texting back, “Good, she’s having fun.” She watches Bada’s text bubble show up soon after indicating she was writing, but it disappears a few seconds later. Hyo takes the opportunity to add, “Her friends are very lively.”

Bada’s text bubble appears again, but this time she sends a message saying, “Focus on doing your job.” Hyo huffs under her breath, exiting out of the messaging app and switching back to managing your location.

Her brief distraction keeps her from noticing a new group of men heading toward the house. Most slip in, it’s only until the last is about to cross inside that Hyo looks up, her eyes catching a baggy of white powder one of the men is carrying.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” She hisses. Immediately she exits the car, dialing Bada’s personal phone as she races up the driveway and slips into the house behind the man.

Inside, you’re slowly becoming more and more unnerved by the red-haired woman. Your friends try to take you around the living room, using the other partygoer’s bodies as a shield between you two, but she doesn’t allow them to. She moves through the crowd until she has a clear view of you again, then just stands there, her gaze unwavering.

“She really doesn’t give up, huh?” Min-Ji curses under her breath.

“What a creep,” Da-Eun adds.

“Are you okay?” Ryung asks you.

“I don’t know.” You admit, rubbing your arm uncomfortably.

“Hold on,” Jae cuts in. “I think she’s coming this way.”

Four pairs of eyes snap in the direction Jae is looking, finding the woman weaving through the crowd of partygoers in an attempt to reach you.

This time your entire body goes rigid, intense fear running through your veins as your friends rally around you, muttering comforting words. Their voices and the loud bass of the music in the background fade away, all you’re able to focus on is the woman with red hair only a few feet away from you now.

She’s just about to reach you when a firm grip grabs onto your arm, pulling you away from your friends. You jump at the person’s touch, instinctively trying to recoil away before you turn to see a familiar face.

“Hyo.” You breathe out in relief. 

“We’re leaving right now.” She says firmly, pulling you through the crowd of people. 

“Hey!” Da-Eun surges forward at the sight of Hyo taking you away. “Who are you–?”

“No, it’s okay, that’s her bodyguard,” Jae informs your friends.

Your friends share resounding noises of astoundment before Hyo starts to firmly push you toward the exit. You say a hurried goodbye to them, catching out of the corner of your eye the red-haired woman. She’s now wearing a frown as she quickly retreats into the crowd of dancing bodies, hiding away from your gaze, as well as Hyo’s.

The entirety of the drive back home is dead silent, but this time it’s not comfortable. Hyo’s lips are set into thin and firm lines, her expression unchanging as she switches lanes and drives through the jet-black night. You try to will your voice to work and make idle conversation, but the words get stuck in your throat, a deep feeling of regret pooling at the depths of your stomach.

The car ride back unfortunately felt much shorter than the ride to Jae’s house had. One minute you're just barely pulling out of her driveway, and the next you're passing the gates into your mansion's driveway.

Hyo parks the car, exiting quickly and opening the door for you like she always does. You still say thank you, but this time she doesn’t acknowledge it, she simply lets you take the lead as you begin the walk of shame into your home.

Walking through the front door, the first floor is eerily quiet, missing the sounds of Bebe walking around or talking amongst themselves. You hesitate before walking up the right spiral staircase to the second floor, then move to your right toward the direction of your bedroom.

“We’re going this way.” Hyo breaks her silence, motioning with her thumb behind her, toward the corridor that leads to Bada’s office. You gulp but say nothing in response, instead choosing to listen to her and head toward your fiancée. 

The sound of both your and Hyo’s footsteps echoing against the cold marble floor causes even more unease in your mind, the feeling all but tripling when you see a dark mahogany door come into view. You stop right in front of it, your legs starting to feel weak and your hands sweating. You try to build up your courage to knock on the door, but Hyo’s already a step ahead of you.

She doesn’t bother to knock, she simply grabs ahold of the door handle and pushes it open. She gestures for you to head inside which you do timidly, the door closing right behind you.

Inside the office, your eyes immediately find Bada’s figure. She’s sitting in her chair like she always is, looking incredibly tired. And instead of wearing a soft expression at the sight of you, her face is blank, not a single wisp of emotion to be seen. 

“Sit down.” Her voice cuts through the tension in the air.

You do as she says, noting that she doesn’t get up to pull your chair back for you like she normally does. “Bada,” you begin, voice quiet and full of remorse.

“I heard you had fun tonight.” She cuts you off, her tone harsh. “A party, was it?”

You close your eyes in embarrassment. “I’m sorry–”

“Are you?” She interrupts you again. “Truthfully, are you?”

“Yes.” You say frantically, trying to convince her. “I didn’t mean for it to go this far.”

“You had multiple opportunities to tell me the truth.” Bada asserts, her hands coming in front of her to clasp together tightly. “The night before when I asked you about your so-called ‘get-together.’" She lists, "You could have told me anytime today, or Hyo when she was driving you. Instead, you unabashedly lied to my face and deceived me.”

You swear the wind is knocked out of your chest at her words. Her dark brown, almost grey eyes are cutting into yours, wounding your heart as you will something, anything out of your mute vocal cords. “Please believe me.”

“I can’t.” Bada shakes her head. “All I asked of you was three things.” Much like she had when you first arrived at the Lee mansion, she holds up three corresponding fingers. “Tell me the truth, remain loyal, and never put yourself in unnecessary danger.” She places all three fingers down. “Somehow you managed to disobey all of them in the span of a single night.”

Tears prick at the corner of your eyes, and heaving breaths start to build in your windpipe. You can deal with Bada being upset with you, but there’s something about her calm disappointment that hurts you more than you could have ever imagined.

“What would have happened if someone at that party brought a gun, hm? What if they knew who you are to me? What if they wanted to hurt me by hurting you?” Her voice slowly rises in volume but never reaches a full yell. “More than anything, you put yourself in danger. All for the sake of a good time.”

You hang your head in shame, acknowledging that she’s right.

“I can’t trust you anymore.” She states plainly.

Your head snaps up from its hunched position, your eyes widening at the implication of her words. “What? Bada, what does that mean?”

Your fiancée remains quiet for a moment, her blank look doing nothing to soothe your heightening fear. Then, she speaks up. “It’s late, you should go to sleep.”

“Go to sleep?” You cry. “Bada–”

“I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” She tears her eyes away from yours, staring to her right. “I can’t look at you right now.”

Her words are the final blow to your breaking heart. You stand up from your chair loudly, attempting to hide your devastated expression as tears fall from your eyes in steady streams. You race over to the door, pull it open, and run out of the office, accidentally bumping into Hyo on your way out. You don’t say anything to her, simply wanting to get as far away as possible.

Lusher, who’d been rounding the corner about to head into Bada’s office catches sight of your teary eyes and sighs. She makes eye contact with Hyo, sharing a knowing look with her before entering the office.

“I’m not in the mood, Lusher,” Bada mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.

“Don’t you think you were a little too hard on her?” Lusher contends.

“She put her life at risk,” Bada states firmly.

“She went to a party, so what? She’s at the age where she’s supposed to be having fun with her friends, clubbing and drinking.”

“She lied to me,” Bada argues.

“Listen, I know that–” before Lusher can finish her sentence, the door to Bada’s office opens again, this time much more violently. Hyo stands in the doorway, a worried look encompassing her features.

“What now?” Bada snaps at her.

“Boss,” Hyo huffs. “the keys to the Jeep are gone.”

“What?” Bada stands up with urgency, her blank expression morphing into nothing but unrivaled anger. “Where did you put them?”

“I had them in my pocket–” Hyo freezes, a look of realization glinting in her eyes before she stops and runs a hand down her face in frustration. “Your fiancée pickpocketed me.”

“She pickpocketed you?” Lusher says incredulously. “So she just left? But it’s dangerous to be out this late, and in that dress–”

“Lusher, gather all of Bebe.” Bada interrupts her, voice loud and commanding. “You,” she points at Hyo. “find her. Now.”

“Yes, boss.” Lusher and Hyo say in unison, scrambling to do what their superior asked of them. 

Meanwhile, Bada remains standing behind her desk, a mix of fear and unadulterated anger building in her. She feels immediate regret for the way she’d treated and spoken to you. She never should have let you leave in such a vulnerable, and most likely intoxicated state.

She could never forgive herself if something happened to you because of your argument. She slams her hands down on her desk, almost breaking it with the amount of force she uses.

Bada storms out of her office, heading down the corridor toward her bedroom, pushing the door open before heading toward her bedside table. She opens the first drawer, revealing a black pistol. She grabs it, about to exit her bedroom when her eyes catch the portrait of her mother hanging just above her bedside table. She takes a moment to face it, her face morphing into a grim expression. 

“I won’t fail you, mother.”

Lusher, Tatter, Kyma, Minah, Chehe, and Soweon, otherwise known as Bebe are all gathered in the armory room, guns in their hands. Lusher dons a sniper, Tatter a pump shotgun, Kyma a handgun, Minah a rifle, Cheche a break action, and Soweon a pistol.

“She managed to pickpocket Hyo?” Soweon exclaims, loading her pistol with bullets. “How is that possible?”

“She must not be as innocent as we thought.” Cheche comments. “Out of all of us, Hyo is the most alert and aware of her surroundings. She has some skill.”

“Enough talking.” Lusher cuts in, clicking a magazine into her sniper. “We’re wasting time. Boss wants us to find her as soon as possible.”

Bebe falls into line, following their second-in-command to the first level of the Lee mansion where Hyo is, tapping her foot against the marbled floor impatiently.

“Do you know where she is?” Bada’s booming voice causes all her subordinates to freeze. It’s brimming with urgency, and full of poison.

Hyo looks up at where her boss is standing at the top of the spiral staircase, her aura demonstrating absolute authority. “I think she’s lost her phone.”

“What do you mean?” Tatter speaks up.

“The location stopped moving right in front of her friend, Jae’s house. But it’s not inside, it’s farther down the road.”

The room becomes astoundingly quiet, so silent you could most certainly hear a pin drop. Although no one has the heart to say it, they all know the truth. You’ve been taken.

But then, Bada’s heavy footsteps begin descending the stairs, her eyes alit with a fiery passion and her eyes fixed into a firm glare.

“We’re finding my fiancée.” She demands. “And if she’s not home by the end of the night, it’ll be your head on a pike.” She points at Hyo, her pistol held firmly in her other hand.

“Yes, Boss,” Hyo says fearlessly. Truthfully, she felt partially at fault for what had happened. If she had only brought you home the second she realized you were throwing a party, or if she paid more attention when you bumped into her, you would be here, safe. 

Before they can all head out, Bada’s phone buzzes in her pocket. She stops, pulling it out and observing the caller ID. Her eyes widen when she sees it, immediately pressing the answer button and holding the phone up to her ear. She mutters your name into the speaker, causing all of Bebe to freeze and look at her in shock.

“Where are you?” Bada says, voice soft and full of worry.

“Hello?” A voice that is most certainly not yours greets her ears.

Bada’s expression shifts immediately, her eyes narrowing to slits and her voice dropping. “Who the fuck is this?”

“Are you Bada Lee?” The voice says hurriedly.

“Yes. How did you get this phone? Where is my fiancée?” Bada demands.

“This is Jae, Unnie’s best friend.”

“Jae?” Bada says, her tone calming the slightest bit. “Where is she?”

“Bada, you need to come here quick.” She cries. “Unnie called me a few minutes ago saying she wanted to stay the night with me, but right when I saw her pulling into the driveway, another car parked beside her, and I think they took her!”

Bada’s hands form fists as she motions with her head for Bebe to go into the garage full of cars. They do so immediately, piling into a modified and armored SUV with a sunroof. Lusher sits behind the wheel while Hyo takes the passenger’s seat. The rest of the girls sit in the back, guns positioned in their laps, Minah poking out of the sunroof with her rifle propped up in front of her.

Bada follows after them, getting into her personal, fortified sports car as the door to the garage slowly begins to open. She puts Jae on speaker, “Did you see who took her?”

“It was dark, but I recognized one person,” Jae confirms. “It was this woman who was at the party I threw for Unnie. She was staring at her the entire night like a creep.”

“What does she look like?” Bada asks through her teeth.

“She’s wearing a white dress shirt, a pair of black pants… oh, and she has very vibrant, red hair!”

Bada pulls up next to Bebe’s car, her eyes meeting Lusher’s, a new type of rage building in her irises. “Seong.”

When you awake from your slumber there’s a pounding ache at the back of your head, and your eyes are blurry. You blink as you try to gather your bearings and sit up, but your arms are held behind your back by something. You start to panic, your head whipping around as you begin to remember what had happened just before you lost consciousness.

You’d been driving the Jeep toward Jae’s house whilst sobbing uncontrollably, realizing that your selfishness would most likely cost you your engagement to Bada.

When you were a few minutes away from Jae, you called her with trembling hands, breathing heavily into your phone.

Your friend muttered your name into the phone, sounding like she’d just woken up.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice shook with emotions. “Is it okay if I stay with you for the night?”

“Of course,” Jae answered immediately. “But what’s wrong? Have you been crying?”

“Bada and I got into a fight.” You admitted. “I think she’s going to call off the engagement.”

“What?” Jae’s incredulous voice rang out of the phone.

“I’ll tell you everything in a second, I’m right next to your house.” You made a left into Jae’s neighborhood, finding the lights in her house on. You parked a little further down the street, seeing stray liquor bottles and red solo cups littering her lawn, most likely thrown away by her drunk party guests. “Okay, I’m here.”

“Where?” Jae’s figure approached the window that oversaw her driveway, her eyes squinting as she tried to discern your body from the pitch-darkness of the night. “I don’t see you.”

You sniffled into the microphone, switching hands as you climbed out of the Jeep and waved your hands to get Jae’s attention. “To your right.”

Jae’s eyes shifted in your direction, and after searching for a few minutes her eyes shone with recognition. “Oh, I see you!” She waved back at you, the interaction distracting you to the point where you didn’t hear a car pull up next to you until people were clambering out of it, their heavy footfalls approaching you.

You jumped when you felt an arm grab you, gasping and struggling against their grip. “Let me go!”

Jae’s voice came out of your phone, saying your name, but before you could answer her or call out for help, something hard hit you in the back of your head and caused you to fall limp into your kidnapper's arms. But before you fully lost consciousness, you caught a brief glint of red hair from the corner of your eye. 

“No.” You whisper, reality finally settling in. “No, no, no.” You try to move your hands, but your eyes find them secured behind your back with handcuffs. You struggle against them, trying to wiggle your hands out but they’re closed tight against your flesh, making the steel rub your skin raw. You hiss in pain but continue trying until your wrists are red. You try to move toward the wall behind you, leaning on it to help you stand up.

Once on your feet, you stomp on the floor, trying to break the heel of your platform heels. You repeat your action a few times on each foot until part of the heel breaks off, leaving you with shoes that are easier to run in. You huff out in exhaustion, but you’re not done yet. Using the wall once again, you attempt to get your arms in front of you by jumping and pulling your arms under you. Thankfully, you’re successful, and let out a breathy laugh of victory. 

 You slide down the wall, taking a small break when you suddenly hear footsteps coming close to the room you’re trapped in. Your eyes widen in fear as you try to back away further from the door.

“Look who’s awake.” The woman with red hair enters the room, her voice coming out in a sing-song.

“Who are you?” You rasp, sitting up tall. Although you’re terrified out of your mind, you know better than to show it. 

“The name’s Seong, sweetheart.” She smirks, one of her lackeys trailing after her. “And you have something I want.” You stare back at her as she gets closer to you, bending down so you’re at eye level. “Not going to ask me what it is?”

You say nothing, instead just keep eye contact with her, never once wavering under her unnerving gaze.

“Ah, we have a strong one here.” Seong laughs heartily. “I can see why Bada keeps you around.”

Mentally, you curse at yourself. Of course you’d been kidnapped as some sort of leverage piece between this woman and Bada. She’s most likely one of the rival gangs that’d been waiting for the chance to pounce at an opening to get through to Bada. And you’d stupidly given her the perfect opportunity.

“Well…” Seong’s voice drops, chills running down your spine as her eyes lower to your figure. “I’m guessing she doesn’t just appreciate your banter, huh?” She reaches out to touch you, her cold hands dragging across your collarbones. “So pretty…”

“Don’t touch me.” You spit, tone dripping with disgust as you recoil away from her.

“So lively too.” Seong chuckles.

“Bada’s going to come get me.” You cut in, glaring at the woman with fiery hair.

“Oh yes, I’m counting on that.” Seong smiles. “You know, she owes me a lot of money.” She stands up and begins to pace around the room. “My father and her father used to work together back in the day. But once Lee died and your little wife took over his business, she cut ties with him. Apparently, selling drugs is too ‘corrupt’ for her.” She scoffs loudly, the sound full of resentment and anger. “My father lost all his connections. He had to start selling to junkies on the streets, and now he’s running out of money.”

She stops in front of you again, a twisted smile stretching across her face.

“Bring him in,” Seong says to the lackey behind her. He follows her orders, trailing out of the room before he returns minutes later, a man shuffling behind him. When the man steps into the low light of the room, you audibly gasp and your eyes widen. “Remember him?” Seong stands next to the man–the same man from the mall. The man that’d harassed you, and had been humiliated by Bada.

Here he stands, the right side of his face swollen and colored in grotesque combinations of yellow and purple bruises.

“You.” The man rasps, his eyes shining with a crazy glint.

“This man right here was beaten half to death by Bada when I found him lying on the street.” Seong pats his shoulder. “Imagine my surprise when he told me how he’d accidentally hit on the Bada Lee’s fiancée, and almost gotten himself killed because of it.” She circles around the man. “Finding you after that didn’t take much. And look at you now…”

“Lying on the floor like some pathetic bitch.” The man spits. “How does it feel?”

“Go to hell.” You snap at him, eyes set in a glare.

“You should be careful how you speak to me.” The man warns you, walking closer before he bends down in front of you. “You’re the one who’s restrained, and at our mercy.”

“And yet despite that, it’ll be your blood that stains this floor when Bada finds me.” You retaliate.

The man’s face screws up in anger, and in a flash, he grabs onto your necklace, using it to tug you forward painfully. “You bitch–”

Your eyes go wide as you watch your necklace–Bada’s mother’s necklace–stretch in his hold. “No–” you choke out, using what little control you have of your hands to slug them against his face, taking his hands off the necklace. But unfortunately, his strength ends up ripping it off your neck, the broken jewelry falling onto the ground. “No!” You cry, scrambling over to the necklace, trying to grab it with your hands.

The man turns to face you, wearing a look of anger you’d never seen before in your life. He raises his fist, about to punch you when a hand stops him from doing so.

“Now, now, let’s not get too caught up in our anger.” Seong pulls the man away from you and pushes him toward the door. “We’ll have our fun once Bada arrives, believe me. You can do the honors of killing her if you really want to.”

Seong follows the man out of the room, her lackey trailing behind her before she stops to give you one final look, and closes the door to your room, leaving you trembling and in almost complete darkness.

In the raven black of the night, Bada, Tatter, Chehe, Hyo, Kyma, Minah, and Soweon stand at the door to Seong’s hideout, guns held tightly in their hands. Bada turns to look at a building across the street, holding a thumbs up in the air. Atop the building is Lusher, her sniper propped up against the ledge of the roof, her scope focused on Bada’s signal. She traces the red dot coming from her sniper around Bada’s thumb, indicating she’s ready.

“Lusher’s in position.” Bada turns back to face Bebe, nodding at them. “Let’s not waste any more time.”

“Yes, Boss.” They all parrot in response.

Bada turns to face the doorknob, pointing her gun at it before shooting. Tatter steps up first, shouldering the door open with intense force, making it swing open and reveal Seong’s hideout. Some lackeys that had been standing around jump at the sudden intrusion, their hands instinctively reaching for their guns. But all of Bebe’s members are twice as fast and skilled. Tatter shoots down one man with her shotgun while the rest of Bebe pile in, backing her up and mulling down the waves of oncoming men like they’re bugs.

Bada steps in last, shooting a man who was running in as backup, then shooting another who almost managed to get a shot in on Minah. She charges forward without fear, cutting through the mess of flying bullets and punching one of Seong’s men in the gut, then shooting him between the eyes. His blood splatters against the side of her suit as she kicks his body away, continuing her advance until she makes it out of the entrance of the hideout, and into a split hallway.

Bada keeps her pistol trained up and ears keen as she hears Lusher’s sniper bullets break through glass windows and hit some of the men still flocking to the entrance. An emergency alarm begins to blare in the hideout, red lights bathing Bada’s figure as she studies both paths ahead of her.

Suddenly to her right, she hears loud footsteps approaching and whips around to face a man running down the hallway. Thinking quickly, she shoots him in the foot before he has the chance to reach for his gun. He falls to the floor, screaming in pain whilst clutching his wounded foot. Bada walks over to him, kicking his gun away then aiming her pistol at his head.

“Where is she?” She yells over the loud, blaring alarm.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” The lackey wails.

“Yes you do. Tell me or I’ll kill you!” Bada places her pistol on the man’s forehead, making his pathetic wailing increase.

“Okay, okay, just please don’t shoot me!” He begs.

Bada grabs the man by his clothes, hoisting him up and pushing him forward, causing him to stumble and almost fall onto the floor again. “Show me the way, now!”

The man cries as he hobbles forward, leading her in your direction.

“Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven…” your voice mutters amidst the silence, keeping track of the minutes passing by since Seong left. You stare at the steel door separating you from your freedom, hoping with every minute you count, Bada gets closer to finding and rescuing you.

It’s at minute forty-two when bright, red lights flood your room, blinding you and throwing you off your count as loud alarms sound outside. You sit up, your heart beating wildly in your chest.

“Bada…” you sigh in relief. She came for you.

Another five minutes pass before you hear movement coming towards your room, making you scramble towards the door. But when it opens, you’re not greeted by the sight of your fiancée. No, instead, Seong rushes inside, her red hair ruffled and her breaths uneven as she closes the door behind her.

“Fucking–” She mutters, her eyes finding you instantly.

“I told you.” You smirk. “You’re all dead.”

Seong stares back at you silently before charging up to you and slapping you across the face. You shriek and recoil back as she breaks into manic laughter, pulling out a gun from her pocket. “Maybe, but if I die, you’re coming with me, sweetheart.” She clicks the safety off, her finger in position to press against the trigger when three loud bangs come from outside your prison, making you scramble back in shock, and Seong turn to face the door.

A long moment of tense silence follows before the door to your prison slowly creeks open, Seong gulping as the hand holding her gun starts to tremble. Right before the door fully swings open, a shot is fired from the person outside, grazing Seong’s cheek and making her cower away.

She runs over to you, picks you up from the floor and holds onto you by your throat, her gun pressed up against your temple. "Don't get any closer, Bada Lee,” Seong yells, digging her fingers into your throat. “or I’ll kill her!”

Bada side-steps away from the door, revealing one of Seong’s men dead behind her, blood leaking from his foot and his forehead. “Let her go, Seong,” Bada demands. “Your problem is with me, not with her.”

“But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? When you hurt one person, the people you care about suffer!” Seong laughs maniacally. “You had no mercy for my family, so why should I have any for yours?”

“You did all of this because I refused to sell your drugs?” Bada spits, her voice dripping with venom. “You’re pathetic, just like your father.”

Seong’s face reflects sheer anger in response to Bada’s words. She’s about to pull the trigger of her gun when Bada shoots first. She hits Seong in the knee, causing her to collapse and shoot the ceiling instead of you. You scramble away as Bada lunges forward, tackling Seong and knocking the gun out of her hand before she can try to shoot at you again.

Unfortunately, Seong is strong as well and fights back against Bada for her gun, both trading blows with each other until Seong manages to get Bada’s gun from her grasp. She pistol whips Bada in the face, giving her a cut across the nose as Bada falls to the floor, blood falling from her wound.

“Not so tough now, huh, Lee?” Seong screams as she points Bada’s very own gun at her.

“You should know that even if you kill me,” Bada says through heaving breaths, “you’ll still never make it out of this building alive.”

Seong bares her teeth at Bada, pushing her gun closer to her temple. “You’ll still be dead.”

“Don’t!” You scream, emerging from behind Seong, holding her gun. “Put the gun down or I’ll shoot.”

Seong clicks her tongue, laughing condescendingly as she turns to face you. “You don’t have the guts to kill me.”

“But I do.” Bada jabs her fist into Seong’s stomach, knocking the woman off of her and the air out of her lungs. Bada takes her gun back and places it in her pocket as the woman with red hair heaves against the floor, her eyes the size of saucers.

Bada walks over to your trembling figure, her gaze soft as her hands come up to grab yours that are still holding onto Seong’s gun.

“It’s okay, you’re okay.” She whispers tenderly into your ear, bringing you against her chest as she quietly soothes your shaky breaths.

“I thought you were–” You begin, the words falling from your mouth through gasps.

“I know, I know.” She shushes you. “Everything’s all right now. Give me the gun, honey.” You let go of Seong’s gun, allowing Bada to take it into her hands as she faces the red-haired woman who’s writhing on the floor. “You should have known better than to touch the people I care about, Seong.” Bada’s voice is cold, and more charged with rage than you’ve ever heard her carry before. “You’ll always be your father’s waste of a daughter.”

Through Seong’s choking breaths, you hear a sob wrack her voice, tears falling from her eyes and running down the sides of her face.

Before Bada pulls the trigger, her unoccupied hand comes down to shield your eyes. “Don’t look,” She whispers softly, “and cover your ears.” With tears streaming down your face, you plug your ears and shut your eyes, a deafening shot following soon after. A few minutes pass before you feel Bada move you around, hugging you close to her chest as she breathes a sigh of relief. “It’s over.”

It’s like the floodgates open at the sound of Bada’s soothing voice because you start to sob violently into her chest, wishing you could cling onto her, but you can’t your hands still restrained by handcuffs. “Bada.” You cry, burying your face into her warm body heat.

“I know, I’m so sorry.” She whispers. “I came as fast as I could.”

“I thought she was going to shoot you.” You sob. “I was so scared–”

“Shh, it’s all right honey, I promise. I’m okay.” She pats the back of your head before pulling away to gaze into your eyes. They’re wide and filled with tears, but so infinitely beautiful to her. Bada wipes your tears away with her thumb, smiling softly at you. She takes a step back, taking off her suit jacket before placing it onto your shoulders and rubbing up and down your arms. “Let’s go home, okay?”

Bada’s room is warm, the atmosphere a far cry from the prison you’d been held in. You sit on Bada’s fluffy bed, staring into the distance with a faraway expression while waiting for her to return.

Thankfully she does as soon as the thought crosses your mind. She makes her presence known by knocking gently on the wood of her bedroom door. “Can I come in?”

“Yes.” You croak.

Bada enters the room with a mug of piping tea in one hand, and uses her unoccupied one to close the door behind her. She sits next to you on the bed, handing you the mug while muttering a soft warning about how hot it is.

“Thank you.” You say quietly, taking the drink and blowing on it.

Bada places her big hand on your thigh, rubbing it gently as she looks into your downcast eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now that you’re here.” You admit, staring at the ripples in the tea caused by your breath.

“I’m glad.” Bada’s eyes move from yours to your hands, noticing how red and raw your wrists are. She removes her hand from your thigh, gently touching your wrist so she can turn it over to get a better look at it. “Should I get you some pain medicine?”

“No.” You answer quickly, your eyes shooting up from your tea and meeting hers. “Stay with me, please.”

Bada nods silently, rubbing the skin just above your wrist. “I’m sorry.” She whispers grimly. “You got hurt because of me.”

You stare at Bada with an incredulous look, shaking your head rapidly. “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t lied to you and went to that party, Seong would have never been able to get to me–”

“You went to that party because you missed your friends,” Bada argues back lightly. “I deprived you of a social life in my obsession with keeping you safe, and look at where it got us.”

“Bada Lee, this is not your fault.” You say firmly. “You saved my life.”

Bada looks like she wants to argue more, but holds herself back. The silence between you two allows your still-racing mind to catch up, and you suddenly sit up, eyes wide and full of sorrow.

"What is it?" Bada questions, noticing your expression.

"Bada..." you trail off, turning to the side to grab something you'd hidden. Facing her again, her mother's broken necklace is in the palm of you hand. "I'm so sorry. I tried to keep it safe..."

Bada takes the necklace out of your hand and holds it up in front of you both. "I don't care."

"What?" You breathe incredulously. "But Bada, it was your mother's–"

"And it can be fixed." She says softly. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

Your look of shock melts into a sappy smile. “Me too.” You agree, placing your mug-free hand on top of Bada’s. She moves her hand around, weaving your fingers together tenderly as her thumb swipes across the skin of your hand.

“Did Seong hurt you anywhere else?” Bada asks, scanning your face for injuries.

You turn your face to your right, showing her your left cheek, which is now slightly bruised. “She slapped me.”

Bada’s eyes take in your injured cheek, a storm of emotions flashing in her irises for nothing more than a split second before she masks it with a caring expression. She brings up your arm so that it’s in front of her, places her lips on your hurt wrist, then she brings it back down and brushes her other hand across your left cheek. She leans in, pressing a soft kiss to each of the growing bruises.

When she’s done she leans back, nothing but pure care in her eyes as she gazes at you.

“Can I ask you something?” You mumble, butterflies dancing in the pit of your stomach.

“You can ask me anything, honey,” Bada whispers, tracing shapes onto your hands. 

“You always kiss my injuries.” You point out, careful to keep your voice sweet so she knows you like her display of affection. “Is there a reason why?”

Bada’s eyes leave yours for a brief moment, finding something above your head and gazing there before her eyes move back to you. “My mother, she used to…” she trails off, “she used to do that when I was younger. It always made me feel better.”

You smile softly at Bada, warmth flooding your veins. “That’s beautiful.”

She smiles back at you, muttering a soft thank you. You both allow a comfortable silence to fill the room until an idea pops into your head.

You quickly place your mug of tea on Bada’s beside table, then turn to face her. She gives you a confused expression when you take both of her hands and lift them up. Bada’s long fingers curl against yours, displaying her bloody and bruised knuckles. You lean down, placing a soft kiss next to each of them, unable to see how Bada’s eyes widen at your actions until you pull away.

When you look back at her, she’s looking at you like you hung the stars in the sky. You smile at her, then lean up, placing one final kiss on her nose, right below the cut Seong made.

Pulling away for the final time, Bada brings you closer to her, missing your warmth as she touches her forehead to yours and closes her eyes.

“Please never leave me again.”

❝ should my hands be stained with blood, let them be so, solely for you. ❞

#bada lee x reader #bada x reader #bada lee #bada #street woman fighter 2 x reader #swf2 x reader

[runningmunson]

Can You Show Me?

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Female!Reader

Word Count: 1.9k

Summary: Rafe finds out that you have never finished during sex. What happens when you ask him to show you and he is more than willing to be a good friend and help?

Warnings: 18+, fanon!Rafe (?), smut (f receiving), fingering, nipple play, teasing

It was a typical summer weekend in OBX; another party and another drinking game played at the Cameron household. The current game was a classic- never have I ever. Basic ones were thrown around like every party, such as drunk called an ex, snuck out of the house, or slid into someone’s DM’s. After several rounds and drinks, it got spicier.

“Okay, my turn!” yelled Abby, a girl from your school, “Never have I ever had an orgasm during sex.” 

Everyone took a drink, even Abby. Kelce looked over at her, “What the hell Abby? The whole point of the game is to say something you haven’t done to get everyone else to drink!”

The group was so preoccupied with giving her crap that no one noticed you failed to take a drink; well, everyone except Rafe, that was. 

Not long after, the party started to dwindle down. The last few people left Tannyhill, leaving you and Rafe to clean up the mess. It wasn’t uncommon for you to stay the night and crash at Rafe’s, considering you two had been best friends for as long as you can remember. 

You had a system in place for cleanup, Rafe took the living room, and you took the kitchen, trying to throw as many cups and bottles away as possible before you went to sleep. The only sound coming from the house was music playing as you were too tired to have a conversation wanting to get finished.

When you were finally done, you made your way to Rafe’s room where he tossed you a t-shirt and shorts to change into. Once dressed, you left the bathroom and walked out to find Rafe shirtless in bed with your side ready for you. You climbed in and got on your phone to scroll through Instagram.

“You didn’t drink,” he stated bluntly; he locked his phone and set it on his side table.

“What?” you questioned, locking your phone and getting comfortable. 

Rafe placed his hands behind his head and looked over at you with a smirk growing on his face, “During the game, you didn't drink about having an orgasm during sex.”

You could feel your cheeks grow warm, “I don’t know what you’re talking about; yes, I did.”

“Uh, no. I watched you, and you definitely didn’t,” he cocked his head and threw you a look, knowing you were lying. You refused to answer. 

“Wait, you’ve really never had an orgasm during sex?” he questioned while letting out a small laugh out of disbelief.

You angrily turned around and pulled the covers closer to your body “Please don't make fun of me, Rafe. It’s embarrassing and-”

“I’m not making fun of you, alright? I'm just surprised is all,” he interrupted.

You turned around to face him, “It’s not like I've had plenty of experience with sleeping around. I can count on one hand how many guys I’ve been with, and none of them really cared enough about me or how I was feeling during sex to make sure I finished.”

“Fuck them then,” He said,” you don't deserve that, and I promise not every guy is like that.”

You didn’t know how to answer, so you both stayed quiet. You couldn’t help but notice the growing tension in the room nor stop the thoughts of wishing Rafe would be the guy who did care enough. 

You could tell Rafe wasn’t asleep yet by the way he was breathing. “Rafe, can I ask you something?”

“Hmm?” he turned on his side to face you.

“Actually, never mind. It’s really stupid,” you tried to shake out the thought. 

“I bet it’s not. What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” he coaxed, attempting to get you to continue.

“Can you show me what it’s like?” You let the words flow out too fast and slurred for Rafe to fully understand what you were asking and closed your eyes tightly to avoid his reaction. If he said no, you could easily pass it off as having too much to drink and not thinking clearly. Rafe quickly sat up in bed.

 “You- you want me to show you?” he stuttered out uncharacteristically of his usual confident and cocky self. 

“I don’t know why I said that. I probably drank too much, so just forget it. I think I'm gonna sleep in Sarah’s room tonight,” you tried to get out of his bed but failed as he stopped you by gripping your arm.

“I’m not just gonna forget you said that. You and I both know you barely drank anything,” objected. “Fuck, did you really mean it?”

“Maybe…” you trailed off, looking around at anything in his room but his eyes.

“Hey, look at me,” he demanded.

You took a deep breath and turned to face him, your eyes meeting. “It’s just- I know you're experienced and the person I'm most comfortable with.”

“If this is what you want, I’ll do it. I need to hear you say it,” he emphasized.

“I want you to, Rafe,” you confessed with a shaky voice. Your hands found your shirt to remove it, but he stopped you.

“You don’t need to do that, at least not yet. This is gonna be different than the other times you’ve had because we won't actually be having sex,” he stated. He sat higher in bed and placed a couple of pillows behind his back.

You looked at him confused, “Then how is this supposed to work?”

“You do know there are other ways to achieve this, right? It’s not about me tonight, but all about you,” his signature smirk made its way onto his lips. “Come sit with your back facing me.”

Your legs felt heavy, and your heart was pounding. This is Rafe we’re talking about- you’re best friend, the guy you’ve been in love with for years. Was this just a dream? The sound of Rafe patting the place next to him drew you out of your thoughts. You walked over to the bed and sat down. His hands found their way around your waist and pulled you flush against his bare chest.

“Relax, okay? I’m gonna ease you into it, and if at any point you want me to stop, you let me know, and we stop,” he whispered in your ear. You shook your head in agreement.

You felt his warm breath on your neck as if he was hesitating- and maybe he was. Maybe he’s just as nervous as me. He placed a kiss on your shoulder and slowly began to trail upward.

When his lips finally met your neck, you felt a shiver run down your spine. The sudden movement made his lips curl up, knowing damn well the kind of effect a simple kiss was having on you. You felt yourself sink deeper into his chest and tilt your head to give him better access. His right hand moved from your hip and crept under your shirt, placing it on your stomach. His touch burned your skin. 

Rafe continued up to the sweet spot behind your ear and back down, settling right below the nape of your neck. His lips felt like velvet against your skin, and slowly but surely, you felt him begin to suck on your skin, claiming you in what you’re sure will be a mark in the morning. 

You were so caught up in the feeling that you didn’t notice his hand moving further up your shirt. The same time his teeth hit your sensitive skin, his thumb brushed against your sports bra-covered nipple, causing a soft moan to escape your lips. 

“That feel good, baby?” He teased. He called you baby. You nodded in response despite knowing he didn’t need an answer.

He raised his other hand and placed both on your breasts, kneading the plush flesh. Every time his fingers ran over your nipples, your pulse picked up. Not wanting the thin fabric of your bra to impede Rafe’s touch any longer, you leaned forward and threw your shirt and bra over your head and onto the floor. Your nipples pebbled at the sudden coldness in the air. 

Rafe chuckled at your sudden outburst and let his hands wander back up your chest. His fingertips circled your areolas and inched toward your now bare nipples. He ran his thumbs over them and began to toy with them, gently rolling and tugging the sensitive buds. 

He dropped one hand to the waistband of your shorts, silently asking permission to continue. When you didn’t protest, his fingers slipped under. His index finger lightly brushed past your clit and to your folds slick with arousal.

“Shit, babe. You’re already so wet for me,” he removed his hand to get a look at his finger.

“Oh,” You tried to close your legs in embarrassment at his comment, but he grabbed onto your thighs. It wasn’t something you ever heard the other guys say.

“That’s not a bad thing, it’s supposed to happen if you’re a guy taking his time and not just trying to get a fix. Let's make the next part a lot easier, take your pants off,” commanded, and you complied, lifting slightly off the bed so you could pull your pants down your legs and onto the floor. He hooked his feet under your ankles so your legs rested on his to spread your legs apart. 

Rafe’s hands roamed around your body and trailed down to your slit. He repeatedly ran his finger from the front to the back slowly, ensuring his finger was wet enough before his fingertip made contact with your clit. He started lightly circling your clit, causing pressure to build in your core. 

Hearing your breathing grow louder caused him to speed up and apply more pressure when he stopped. You were about to protest but stopped when he slipped one finger inside you and pumped it in and out.

“Feels so good,” you whined, enjoying how his finger felt.

“Can you take another?” he questioned.

“Please, Rafe!” you begged him. He inserted a second finger going deeper and faster. If his fingers felt this good, you couldn't help but wonder how his tongue would feel. His thumb brushed against your clit, causing pressure to bloom in your lower abdomen.

“Fuck, Rafe! I'm so close!” you let out a loud moan. It was hard to ignore the growing bulge in Rafe’s pants. 

“That’s it. Come for me, baby girl,” he demanded in your ear. The pressure built until you finally let go. You threw your head back and pushed further into Rafe, feet digging into the bed as you rode out your high. 

Your breathing was fast and heavy as you collapsed against Rafe. He removed his fingers and wrapped his arms around you, holding you close.

“You okay?” he asked, kissing your shoulder blade.

“More than okay,” you let out a laugh. Once you calmed down, you rolled over to your spot in the bed, throwing your discarded shirt back on. 

Rafe looked over and met your eyes. He reached out his hand and placed it on your cheek, leaning over to give you a soft kiss on your lips. His head rested on yours before pulling away. “Didn’t know hearing you moan my name would turn me on so much.”

“Do you want me to take care of that for you?” you motioned toward his obvious erection. 

Rafe smirked and shook his head, “Nah, I got it. Tonight was about you, remember? Besides, you can just make it up to me next time.”

Next time?

#rafe cameron x reader #rafe x reader #outer banks x reader #obx x reader #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron x female!reader #rafe cameron #outer banks #obx #rafe cameron imagine #outer banks imagine

[thatfandomslut]

Messy

Reneé Rapp x Reader

Word Count: 1k

Trigger Warnings: discussions of sex (no smut), insecurity

Request:

something inspired in Messy, like, renee being afraid of a relationship with r cause things don't end well to her and r comforts her

Reneé Rapp requests are open.

Other accounts: hoe4flo | ghostyanne

Discord Groups: Mean Girls | Mean Girls RP (in need of people)

“I want to be in a relationship with you,” Reneé’s words hung in the bedroom, breaking the silence between them. “I’m just scared of what this might mean for us. What would this mean for me?”

(Y/n) shuffled a bit, turning over to face Reneé. They were supposed to be sleeping, but it was obvious that Reneé had too much on her mind to commit to the idea of sleep. Therefore, (Y/n) was also not getting any sleep either. She didn’t mind though. Late night conversations with Reneé were her favorite. They were so deep, and they dove into topics they haven’t explored yet, like their relationship. It was a taboo topic for the two of them because Reneé has commented several times on not being ready nor is she looking for a relationship.

Although she tried to focus on Reneé’s figure, (Y/n) could barely see the vulnerable look on Reneé’s face in the darkness of her bedroom. “Well, we don’t have to jump into anything. We can take it slow and figure this out together. We can start by going on dates instead of just sex on the weekends after you’re done shooting your show.” (Y/n) teased softly, successfully lighting the mood as Reneé snorted out a soft laugh. She nudged (Y/n)’s shoulder with her hand before moving to the crook of (Y/n)’s neck. Immediately, (Y/n) allowed herself to rub Reneé’s back in a comforting manner.

“A part of me is just nervous this is going to be like my past relationships.” There was a beat of silence where neither of them spoke after that. (Y/n) knew Reneé wasn’t finished speaking, but she needed to figure out her words. She gave her all the time she needed as her thumb caressed Reneé’s back gently. “Every time you leave in the morning, I want to tell you to stay, but all of the fake scenarios in my head tell me not to. They remind me there are more possibilities than you staying with me. Instead, every situation I imagine, is you saying no. It’s you saying that you don’t like me like that, that it’s just my imagination.”

(Y/n) wasn’t expecting Reneé to feel this way. She thought that she had made it very clear that she wasn’t interested in anyone else when last week, Reneé asked if they could only sleep with each other, no one else. If she wasn’t into Reneé, she wouldn’t have agreed. Still, she understood that this was a real fear for Reneé, so she thought about her words carefully to make sure she knew her feelings on the subject were completely valid.

She cleared her throat, shifting slightly to get into a more comfortable position. “Reneé, there is no situation that I would not want to stay with you. Every time I get up to leave, I wish I could stay with you in my arms. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t want to stay. I just didn’t know you wanted me to. Now that I do know, if you want me to stay in the morning, I am more than happy to.” (Y/n) told the blonde, who laid there in her arms, tears welling in her eyes. Still, Reneé had to remind herself not to cry, she didn’t want to be overly emotional, no matter how vulnerable this conversation was.

Reneé swallowed the lump in her throat, pulling away from (Y/n)’s neck in order to press a deep kiss to her lips. She wanted to hide her feelings within this kiss. Even if it was just for a moment. (Y/n) was initially surprised by the action, but she was very quick to reciprocate as she kissed back. Reneé smiled softly into the kiss.

“What if I wanted to be your girlfriend?” Reneé questioned carefully, hoping that none of her fake scenarios in her head didn’t arise. She felt a bit anxious as she waited for a response. “I mean, it would only be if you’re okay with being girlfriends. I understand if you aren’t, of course.”

(Y/n) kissed Reneé softly to calm her down, which worked. “Reneé, I would love to be your girlfriend, if that’s what you want us to be, too. I’m already technically exclusive to you. I just wanted to be sure we were both ready before we put a label on who or what we were.” She said softly, reminding Reneé that they were technically exclusive. (Y/n) would be lying if she didn’t admit that she wasn’t excited that Reneé was ready to be more than just friends who occasionally had sex.

Reneé bit her lip to hide her smile, despite the dark effectively doing that for her. “I do want to be your girlfriend. I’ve been wanting this for a long time. I’ve just been worried about you not returning my feelings.” Reneé explained, happiness bubbling in her chest as butterflies fluttered every which way in her stomach. Normally, her relationships ended up messy because she couldn’t get over the fake scenarios in her head. However, (Y/n) never invalidated them. Instead, she let Reneé feel her feelings and comforted her fears. This was already different than any of the relationships she had in the past.

“Then, it looks like we’re girlfriends,” (Y/n) said with a soft smile, pressing kisses all over Reneé’s face. This, in return, caused Reneé to giggle at the display of affection. “And, if you ever feel like there is more than one possibility in your head about something in our relationship, just let me know. We’ll talk it out, like we did just now.”

Reneé felt validated by this as she established her spot in (Y/n)’s neck once more, smiling so hard that her cheeks began to ache. “Okay, I’ll let you know. Thank you for letting me know that my feelings are valid.” Reneé whispered, sleep finally threatening to take over her. (Y/n) mumbled a soft ‘of course,’ sleep taking over her as well. As the two girls slept, the trace of their smiles remained at the fact that they finally had this big breakthrough in their relationship.

#renee rapp x reader #renee rapp