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faeiri-tft · 6 months

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PLEASE do the toontown online rant i want it so badly

this post kinda got away from me, and by "got away from me" i mean this 3000 word toontown rant is Part One. there will be a Part Two to this later in which i actually talk about the fanservers i wanted to talk about. anyway let's go

toontown online (tto) was a children's mostly-turn-based subscription MMO released in 2003. after a few years of obviously being on life support, disney gave a one-month notice that tto (and several other games) would be closing on september 19th, 2013. on the same day the game closed, the fan-run server toontown rewritten (ttr) was announced (with multiple other fanservers/fangames/reimaginings being established since), and is a few months away from outliving the original game

see, one thing about tto that allowed fanservers to crop up so quickly and easily was that it had, um, interesting choices. very interesting choices. like, "kids could use a code injector to turn their backyards into giant mashed-together nightmarescapes"-level choices

youtube

(loose video description: a rabbit toon running around a chaotic mismash of rooms, obstacles, and npcs that Should Not Be There. audio caption: Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life".)

but ok let's talk about the actual game first.

toontown online (tto)

the game starts with you creating your player character - you can pick from eventually-9 species, a couple body types, and 2 dozen preset colors. the gender code is a spaghetti nightmare but you won't learn this until the fanservers come about so don't worry about it. you're then taken to the Toontorial, which explains maybe 20% of the game's mechanics before setting you loose into the main game

the toontorial also gives you the basic "plot", such as it is: Toontown is suddenly* under attack by a bunch of boring businessrobots called the Cogs. their goal is to turn toontown into a dreary gray featureless corporate hell; their business activities are so boring that they're physically painful to be around. luckily, they can't take a joke, so the toons have figured out how to defeat them: by playing pranks on them until they laugh so hard they Explode

*originally, the game installer had a little animation giving a backstory for the Cogs' creation. this was never referenced in game, removed pretty quickly, and i think even the devs kinda forgot it existed

that's...pretty much the whole story! in that context, your toon progresses through all of toontown, helping some mostly-pretty-interchangeable shopkeepers, reclaiming buildings from the cogs, eating ice cream, etc. occasionally, the cogs would Come Up With New Tricks (read: major content update) and the toons would Find A Way To Fight Back (read: same major content update). that was the closest thing to Plot, unless you count "the devs scheduled a bunch of invasions of high-tier cogs right before the game's closure". but...i doubt most the kids really expected a Plot. mickey mouse was there

the gameplay:

the Free Account

there were two...pretty different approaches to playing toontown online. when the game launched, there was a 3-day free trial to the entire game, after which you got kicked entirely until you subscribed. at some point, this was changed so that the first area, Toontown Central (TTC), was Always Free - you could do all of that area's quests/"taskline" and limited activities, indefinitely, and in theory this would make you beg your parents for the rest of the game

i have no idea if this actually got more subscriptions or not. from what i can tell it just spawned more warrior cats

(source)

there were. a Lot of warrior cats. there were some other social activities, too, such as Fashion Shows (with your limited range of clothes) and Begging Subscribed Players To Summon Cog Buildings To TTC and Getting Chat Banned. ...however, as one of the subscription kids i didn't really interact with this side of the game, so i'm not the best person to talk about it

2. the Paid Account

mmm look at those crisp clear graphics. hell yes

a subscription account gave you access to this whole map, along with all these areas' tasklines. to progress through the game, you must complete a variety of "ToonTasks" for the Toon Resistance (it's called that. their catchphrase is "Toons of the World, Unite!". you were giving disney money for this). these reward you by increasing your max health (your "Laff Points"), slowly unlocking more combat options, and sending you to different, higher-difficulty areas of toontown

some of these tasks were...longer than others. generally, though, they all boiled down to: "just go fight some cogs"

combat:

(source)

toontown battles are turn-based: the players use their attacks ("gags") first, and then any surviving cogs attack you with, usually, office equipment and puns thereof (unless the cog is e.g. a Loan Shark, in which case they can just fucking bite you). if you defeat a cog, it explodes; if the cog defeats you, you "go sad" and are sent back to the safety of the playground, lose your gag inventory, and can't leave until you heal.

early on, most your battles are 1v1, but later on almost everything is a multiplayer 4-ish-v-4.

an...interesting feature here in the game's early days was that you could only Type Your Own Words to someone who shared their "friend code" with you IRL. otherwise, you had to use this thing:

(source)

you had a set list of phrases you could string together, which generally covered most the things you wanted to say. but it could get frustrating when you wanted to have a real conversation with your toontown friends! so...as the source above mentions, people obviously found ways around the system. turns out that if you let players move objects around their houses, they will use that to Draw Letters and pass their friend code along regardless

eventually - before the warrior cats, of course - disney presumably realized this system was pretty goofy (🥁) , so the game got a real chat, albeit one that functioned on a very strict whitelist. my favorite is that it didn't let you type numbers, however you could just say won too tree for hive etc. like. disney i really don't know what to tell you. anyway

(isn't he charming)

cogs come in levels 1-12, with levels displayed above their heads, and as you'd expect their damage output and HP increase with their level. however, the game doesn't...actually show you cog HP? instead they have a little colored light on their chest that fades from green to red until they explode. you see numbers on all the damage you do, and you see your own HP/laff, but never the cogs'. also lategame cogs are Too Tall For You To See Their Level once they line up for battle (which isn't actually that bad but it's funny). there's a formula for HP per level, but it's never mentioned in-game. i guess someone can teach it to you but then you have to watch them type "a level tin cog has won tree too health" and is that really worth it

(as you can tell i just…don't get this. "my kid is practicing arithmetic with toontown!" - marketing angle expressly denied by god. the stealth edutainment was right there)

anyway! in theory, you have seven base combat options ("gag tracks"), which combine in a variety of ways:

toon-up, which restores your teammates' health;

trap, which does guaranteed high damage but only if someone uses lure;

lure, which stuns the cogs for a few turns and is the only way to make trap work

sound, which does low damage to every cog;

throw, which does medium-high-ish damage to one cog; multiple throws combined give percentage combo damage, and hitting a lured cog will also add percentage "knockback damage";

squirt, which is exactly like throw but less damage;

and drop, which does high damage but cannot hit lured cogs, and has low accuracy unless you hit the cog with something else first

each gag track has 6 levels, which you unlock by using that gag track a bunch. you can't carry as many of the high levels with you - i mean, putting one piano in your backpack makes perfect sense, but two is just silly, right

a few years into the game's lifespan, level 7s were added - these were huge AOE that you could regain with every 500 track EXP. there was also something called "organic gags" to promote the please-log-in-every-day gardening system

every player starts with throw and squirt, and throughout the game you slowly unlock four more gag tracks. your choices are permanent: once you have your six tracks, you're locked out of the seventh forever.

in theory, all of this opens up a huge variety of combat options!

in practice, the battle strategy looks something like this:

use sound

as mentioned, almost all of lategame will be 4v4 battles, which means sound will almost always outdamage everything on earth. you don't even need four foghorns (the highest normal sound gag) to break 200 AOE damage, and the highest health a cog EVER has is 200*. and two of the boss battles can reward you with gag restocks and heals that you can use mid-battle with no consequences (other than having to grind for those rewards a bunch). and failing THAT, you can just...ration your foghorns and take 2 turns to clear a set of cogs, interspersed with healing.

(*okay there was something called "v2.0 cogs" but they were...strange, and we just used sound anyway)

sure, once level 7s were added you could use those occasionally. and you could fall back on lure+throw if you didn't want to use your sound restocks. but even then, for most of tto's existence there was something called the "knockback bug" which. well. just look at it

(link for transcript. it's tvtropes sorry)

if you are a target-audience eight-year-old this translates to "lure + throw will only do enough damage if the cogs Feel like it." like it's really just insult to injury at this point. this was the result of One misplaced variable and was not fixed until the game closed

in the tto era, if you didn't have sound, you were kinda doomed to be kicked out of every fight forever

(bonus fun fact: there were Four entire battle themes and they were 40-second midi loops. let me out)

the bosses:

each of the four cog departments has a Boss Cog. to face off against them, you have to assemble a cog disguise and collect enough merits/stock options/whatever to be allowed into the boss's office.

(pictured: your convincing disguise)

when you enter, your disguise pops off due to Reasons, and you have to fight through...a bunch of waves of normal cogs. it's basically a really long normal battle. once the minions are dealt with, you have to, inexplicably, do a live-action battle against the boss themself:

youtube

(loose video description: four toons defeating the CFO by using magnet cranes to hit him in the face with safes for 32 seconds.)

the live-action rounds aren't supposed to go this quickly, but it's still...kinda strange? certain reoccurring game areas require Parkour, but there are no battles like this outside of the Four bosses. the CFO's room is the only place you see these cranes and they have A Lot Going On. the other 3 bosses have their own unique weird mechanics. before the first boss was added we neither had nor needed the ability to Jump. it's just weird

once you've defeated the boss, you're given a reward of varying usefulness (the best/most unbalanced reward type is Unites, which are a free heal or gag restock you can do inside or outside of battle. essentially lategame toons can simply choose not to die. riv2u etc.)

and, um. then you get some more merits/stock options/whatever and do it again. and again. and again. and again. and agai

the grind:

so the thing is that tto was a subscription mmo. every addition to the game had to be measured, above all, in terms of "how can we best get kids to beg their parents to give us money." this especially shows in the suit grind:

(source/source)

you have to defeat each boss 78 times in order to get all their laff points - and as you proceed, you have to defeat an increasing amount of cogs to even be allowed into the boss (although once you max you get in for free).

by far the easiest way is to run through the designated HQ facilities - basically, cog fights interspersed with some platforming or minigames. you only collect your merits/whatever at the Very End of the facility. the only way to increase what a facility gives you is if your last battle ends during an "invasion" - a timed period where One Specific Cog replaces all street cogs, usually summoned with boss rewards.

the sellbot HQ grind isn't so bad. bossbot HQ - the endest-game HQ - frequently requires you to do an hour-long facility and on six separate occasions you have to do seven of them. if the invasion ends before your final battle, you have to sit around until someone summons another. if you lose your internet connection because it's 2008, or if your parents make you come to dinner, or if hacking or the game's general bugginess cause a server reset because you're probably in the busiest district for the invasion bonus, you have spent that Entire Hour On Nothing. the CEO (bossbot cog boss) probably also takes an hour because you and your fellow players are 10

this shit, combined with laff points locked behind gardening (time-gated), racing and golfing (multiplayer minigames with absurd requirements), and fishing (RNG-based with some fish being absurdly rare. i watched my mom fish for one every day for a month), meant that maxing a toon took Years, if you managed it ever.

it wasn't, um. it wasn't good

ok so what else is wrong with this game:

i had "aged out of the game" (lol) by the early '10s, so i'm not the best person to do a writeup of the hacking/scripting situation of those days. that said, what i'm going to do is give you a few examples, and i want you to just...look at them

(source)

(source). early '10s youtube was funny i'm trying to decide if i miss it

(source). fun thing to note here is that other players had collision, so a swarm of t-posing toons could just barricade the gag shop if they wanted to

youtube

(video description: toon who has Replaced His Head Model With An Anime Logo throwing thousands of jellybeans at everyone) (cw mild flashing just in case? and also the feather headband accessory)

i should note that the Bring Me To Life vid i started with was client-side, meaning only the player could see their technicolor hellscape. this guy's face was server-side. i do Not Think you should be able to do that

youtube

(video description: a player demonstrating use of a bot to get into the nutty river district, followed by other players using it to go to different game areas)

the above video was posted on august 17th, 2013. if you don't want to watch an Unregistered Hypercam 3 recording at about 5 frames per second, what's going on here is:

the player goes to a specific location and says a specific speedchat phrase.

a bot toon teleports to their location and provides some prompts on how to use it

the player tells the bot, via speedchat, to teleport to the (currently closed from the outside) busiest district so the player can follow

these "taxi toons" were server-sided, persisted across server resets, were made by a future fanserver dev, had younger kids referring to them as a "glitch" as if this were something that could Accidentally Happen, and stayed functional until the game closed

like...a lot of the "hacking" was just baby's first script download. this one - afaict also created by the laughing man head guy - is like...the fact that after years of no substantial game updates, someone effectively programmed their own "QOL feature" (note: not actually good for the poor mid-00s server being turned into a clown car) into a silly disney MMO and it just fucking sat there for a year is just. it's just.

i don't know what this is. this is not Playing The Game Toontown Online. this is nothing. this is everything. there are comments from 2013 on some of these videos saying stuff like "hackers killed toontown", but your game cannot have this happen if it is not already dying

and, like...it was. i'm not sure how many moderators there were by this point, but at the very end of tto, the number of active devs was One. the original devteam recently brought this up at the 20th anniversary celebration: devs just...slowly started getting pulled from the game, one at a time. there were a few updates after bossbot HQ - Field Offices, which i've basically never heard anything good about in their tto form ever; the Silly Meter, a yearly event...thing whose main function was to add unskippable dancing-inanimate-object cutscenes to your street battles; Parties, which...yknow parties were okay actually. i accept parties. but they weren't exactly a Major Game Update like the ones that had come before. in 2011 we gained the ability to Wear Hats. in 2012 the test server got some actual QOL updates that never made it to the main game; the final test server update was some maintenance in february, and then nothing for 18 months. disney was not providing enough resources to address the scripting because disney was not providing enough resources to address toontown. imagine being the last dev standing on an MMO that was older than some of its players, was losing its business model to mobile gaming, and spent most of its life falling apart at the seams. just imagine it, for a second

it couldn't have kept going, not like this.

on august 20, 2013, the closing announcement came: we had a month left of toontown online. the test server shut immediately; subscription refunds went out, and the game became actually F2P for the month; the part of the announcement that went like "we're shifting our focus to other games!" made a bunch of twelve-year-olds hate club penguin as if club penguin wouldn't also close in a few years; all the holiday events went off at once; and...

there wasn't a "thanks for playing!" popup. everyone online just got kicked, all at once. it was finally over

hey wait.

#toontown #toontown online #tto #tft talks #tft stuff #<- this goes in that tag i think #this was like. enrichment. thank you

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sitp-recs · 5 months

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15 Christmassy fics to read (or reread) this month

This rec list is for @annakendricks who sent an ask about Christmas reads and also dedicated to @lettersbyelise for supporting this idea 💜 Despite the winter blues, December will always lighten up my mood with the holiday spirit. This month has been pretty hectic for me but I can’t wait to get some time off and indulge my fave Christmassy rereads. Come and join me if you like! Here you’ll find a little bit of everything: soft and contemplative, smutty, crack-y, movie AU, holiday romance and even Gen fic, which is not my usual fare but fit the theme perfectly. Pick your flavour and Happy Holidays!

🎄A Christmas Happenstance by Only_1_Truth (E, 5.5k)

The Hogwarts School for the Gifted and Supernatural had classes year-round, but the dormitories emptied out regularly on holidays as if the students were suddenly becoming allergic to the walls. Both humans and non-humans mingled freely in the surrounding town of Hogsmeade. Draco Malfoy, however, isn't feeling in the mood after a rather spectacular break-up.

🎄A Charitable Christmas by Alisanne (E, 5.6k)

Hermione’s plans to raise money for war orphans do not meet with Harry’s approval. Fortunately, Draco steps in to help him come up with a much more enjoyable strategy.

🎄A Hippogriff for Christmas by @xanthippe74 (G, 6.4k)

Draco is desperately trying to fulfill four-year-old Scorpius’ dearest wish for Christmas: a visit with a real Hippogriff. Harry is desperately trying to be left alone, safely tucked away from the attention of the wizarding world as Hogwarts’ Keeper of the Keys and Grounds.

🎄Surviving the Horde by FleetofShippyShips (T, 7k)

Draco has managed to avoid Christmas at the Burrow for ten years, but not this year.

🎄Tidings of Comfort by @blamebrampton (G, 10k)

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. Luckily for Draco Malfoy, London has places where the tired can rest and recover.

🎄Love, Actually, is All Around by @punk-rock-yuppie (T, 10k)

It's Christmastime, and Harry has just started as the new Minister of Magic. It just so happens that Draco works in his office as well, a holdover from Kingsley's tenure. Naturally, love is in the air.

🎄break the bad luck in my life by seaworn (E, 12k)

Draco and Harry are both brooding on Christmas Eve.

🎄All Roads Lead Home by @dracogotgame (G, 15k)

Draco is strong-armed into spending the first Christmas after the War with the Weasleys. And Harry Potter.

🎄Love All Lovely by @shealwaysreads (T, 19k)

Draco comes home for Christmas, and discovers that sharing is the best way of celebrating old traditions, and new ones too.

🎄Waking Up Slow by @sweet-s0rr0w and @ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm (E, 22k)

'Twas the night before Christmas, although it’s July / Draco’s a shopkeeper, no-one knows why / There’s hiking and witch caves, freak snowfalls and more / Bad Christmas jumpers, nosy neighbours galore / Narcissa’s here too, but… something’s amiss / And what’s in those chocolates that’s making them kiss?

🎄I'll Floo Home for Christmas by jadepresley (T, 39k)

The Ministry Christmas party is the biggest event of the year and Harry absolutely does not want to plan it, and he certainly, one hundred percent, does not have a crush on Draco Malfoy.

🎄The Romantic Prawn Who Loved Christmas by @bixgirl1 (E, 39k)

When Draco, forced into sharing a room with Potter for the year, finds out that Potter has a sleepwalking problem, he expects the odd conversations and the weird games of chess. What comes as a complete shock are Potter's other activities...And why he seems so intent on having Draco join him.

🎄December Never Felt So Wrong by @maesterchill (E, 50k)

'Twas the month before Christmas and sixteen year old Draco Malfoy had never felt worse. His attempts to kill Dumbledore were failing and, as usual, Harry Fucking Potter was a constant thorn in his side. All that suddenly changed when Draco woke up 15 years in the future and discovered that not only was he allegedly shagging Harry Fucking Potter, he also had thinning hair and a five year old son, and no fucking clue how he got there.

🎄A Room Up There (And You In It) by @the-starryknight (T, 59k)

When Preservationist Draco Malfoy was assigned to work on Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, he was excited to delve into the gorgeous Black family antiques. His excitement quickly ended when something in the House decided it did not like his presence one bit.

🎄All Must Draw Near by Saras_Girl (M, 61k)

Harry doesn't have time for rumours; he has a shop to run. Which is just as well, really.

#Sitp recs #Drarry reclist #Christmassy reads

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i-am-baechu · 24 days

Text

♡ Summary: Kim Seokjin is a popular cardiologist at Map of Seoul Hospital. Everyone looks up to him, especially a rookie named L/N Y/N.

♡ Pairing: Doctor! Seokjin! x Rookie Nurse! Y/N

♡ Rating: Explicit (18+)

♡ Genre: Doctor Jin!, Nurse reader, Jin is a little turd, Y/N is cheerful and outgoing, love at first sight, fluff, romance, comedy, angst, and smut

♡ Warnings: Medical stuff and sex scene

♡ Author's Note: Inspired by a Japanese drama I watched! I think this my new fav fic lol

♡ Playlist - I love official hige dandism

“The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance” -Brian Tracy

I was eighteen when everything made sense for me.

I was on a school trip and I was going around town with my friends. The spring just hit the city and the petals fell from the trees onto the busy streets. Writing in my notebook about the different sights was hard to do because there was no surface to write neatly. How was my teacher expecting nice work? I just tried my best to write it as neatly as I could.

I saw a little shop that was selling little charms and I couldn’t stop myself. There was a cute cat that was holding a heart, they were all cute but one caught her eye. It was a hamster holding a heart that said LUCK in bold letters. She gently picked it up and the shopkeep smiled at me, “Interested?”

“Yes...how much?”

The older lady shook her head and took the charm, “No worries. It’s free for you.”

I was confused and tilted my head at her, “Free? Why-”

“It can give you luck in the future with your job, education, and more importantly love.”

“Love?”

The lady nodded her head and handed me a special red velvet bag with gold symbols, “Good luck.”

I waved goodbye to her and walked away with a little smile on my face. Love. I have always wanted love ever since my mom told me about her love story with my dad. It just sounded so perfect and beautiful. Who wouldn’t want to fall in love with their soulmate?

It was an empty street and it was pretty with the flowers covering the park cars. I put my hair in a low ponytail and continued to walk to the next place that was on the paper. I saw a light pink tissue on the street and I looked up to see an older woman with her bike. I picked up the tissue and ran towards her, “Excuse me, you dropped this.”

All of a sudden, she fell to the floor. I took off my sweater and placed it under her head. I looked around me and I saw an EpiPen. I picked it up and looked at her face to see it was swollen alongside her arm. She stared at the EpiPen and started to panic. She had never used an EpiPen, she’s only ever seen one on TV.

“Help!! Someone, help!!”

“What’s happening!?”

She looked up and saw an older man making his way to her. His eyes were kind and his smile made her feel okay. He kneeled next to her and pushed some hair behind the older lady, “It’s going to be okay. Seokjin! I need your help!”

She turned her head and her eyes widened when she saw a handsome man around her age. He glanced at her but didn’t say anything. She watched them help the lady but her eyes never left “Seokjin”. He was so handsome and he knew what he was doing. The older man turned to her and gave her a soft smile, “Call an ambulance okay. She’s going to be okay thanks to you.”

“Okay.”

I watched the older lady getting rolled behind the ambulance and I stared with nervousness. Just then I felt a hand on the top of my head and she looked up to see “Seokjin'' smiling at me, “You did great.”

“Th-Thank you...my name is L/N Y/N.”

He ruffled my hair and started to walk to the ambulance but he looked back at me, “My name is Seokjin. We’ll take her to the Map of Seoul Hospital where I’m a resident, she’s going to be okay.”

I nodded my head and watched him enter the ambulance with the older man. She continued to watch until the ambulance was out of her sight. I figured out what I wanted to do with my life and it was all thanks to Seokjin. I wanted to be a nurse to support Seokjin.

Y/N stared at the hospital with a smile on her face, it was actually happening. She spent five years working on becoming a nurse. The amount of tests she took and all the studying paid off for this moment. Her grip around her bag strap tightened and she nodded her head, “Let’s go..”

“Y/N!”

She turned around and she waved with excitement, “Kook!! Tae!!”

Jeon Jungkook and Kim Taehyung ran towards her with smiles on their faces. Jungkook and Taehyung are her closest friends from nursing school. They were her rock when things got hard and they supported her like how real brothers would. Jungkook and Taehyung were going to be a pediatric nurse while Y/N was going to become a cardiovascular nurse. There were only two people who wanted to be cardiovascular nurses in their nursing program, Y/N and an acquaintance named; Park Aria. Park Aria is an amazing student and she was always on top of her classes while Y/N was in the middle. Aria belonged in the medical field and it was clear.

“Are you ready?”

Y/N nodded her head as the three walked through the hospital doors, “I’ll try my best. We got this, right!?”

Jungkook nodded his head at her and looked at Taehyung, “I can’t wait to see the kids.”

Taehyung let out a small laugh and gently slapped Jungkook’s shoulder, “If you can handle blood.”

“Don’t tease him, blood is scary.”

Y/N went to change into her uniform and she stared at herself in the mirror. She wanted to cry but she already cried with her mom yesterday and she couldn’t ruin her uniform. She couldn’t let Seokjin see her tears. She smacked her cheeks gently and nodded her head, “Let’s do this.”

She walked towards the cardiology station and saw Aria there. She bit her lip and closed her eyes tightly. She was always awkward with Aria not because she didn’t like her but because Aria was always serious. She didn’t want her to be uncomfortable with her.

“Aria...good morning.”

Aria turned towards her and gave a small smile, “Good morning, Nurse L/N.”

Y/N’s face felt hot and she bowed her head, “So-Sorry, Nurse Park. Good morning, Nurse Park.”

Aria smiled at her and turned towards the staff. Y/N glanced at the staff and rushed to stand next to Aria. The staff smiled at them and bowed towards them, “Welcome to Cardiology. My name is Cho Chaewon and I’m the head nurse. I’m glad we have new faces.”

“I know the most here so any questions, ask me.”

Y/N turned her head to see a tan man with black glasses. He was chubby but it was like a teddy bear, he would give the best hugs, “My name is Min Minho.”

“My name is Lee Sonia.”

Aria bowed at the nurses and Y/N glanced at her. She bowed her head alongside Aria hoping she didn’t embarrass herself, “Thank you!”

When she stood back up, there were footsteps that echoed through the room. She turned her head and she saw Seokjin reading a paper on his clipboard. Everything around her went silent and she saw Seokjin. She saw him with a spotlight and his smile that she remembered. She clenched her chest gently as he left her sight. Minho glanced at her and smirked. He leaned towards Y/N, “Are you staring at the devil?”

“Eh? Devil?”

Sonia nodded her head with a frown, “He’s so handsome but he’s so ruthless.”

Y/N shook her head and glanced at Seokjin, “That can’t be...he was so nice to me that day.”

“WHAT!? Nice!?”

She jumped at the sudden yell and nodded her head at Minho, “Yeah...when I was eighteen I met him. He was kind to me.”

Minho shook his head with a chuckle, “Maybe you hit your head and assumed it was him being nice.”

Chaewon sighed and shook her head, “Now, Y/N and Aria...You guys will be heading to a lecture by the head doctor. After that, just make your way back to us and we’ll discuss teams.”

Going down the hallway felt surreal. Y/N overheard conversations that she read in her textbook, it was exciting. She continued to make her way but at the end of the hall, she saw Seokjin. He was talking to another doctor and she couldn’t help but smile. She made her way to him and watched the other doctor leave. This is my chance....

She stood in front of Seokjin and smiled at him, “Doctor Kim, I’m so excited to work with you. It’s nice to meet you again.”

The look he was giving, she couldn��t understand and she tilted her head, “Who are you?”

She blinked her eyes a couple of times and felt flustered, “I’m L/N Y/N...I met you five years ago and we helped save an older woman together....”

He raised her eyebrow and he continued to stare at her, “I have things to do...rookie, keep to yourself. No one likes to hear unwanted memories.”

Her mouth dropped and she stared at him with a shocked face, This can’t be the same person I fell in love with... “Huh?”

“Talking about the past or other stuff is a waste.”

She continued to stare at him with a shocked face and he looked back at her with an annoyed look, “Eh?”

“Get back to work, rookie.”

He walked away from her and she continued to stare at the absent spot. That can’t be him...he stole his identity. There’s no way that can-

“Y/N? Are you okay?”

She turned around and saw Jungkook looking at her with a concerned look. She pouted and shook her head, “I met an imposter.”

“What?”

“That can’t be Seokjin...The man I fell in love with. It’s the only logical reason.”

Jungkook nodded his head and let out a small laugh, “I’ll let you believe that.”

┊ ➶ ｡˚ 　　°┊

“Nurse L/N and Nurse Park, let me introduce you to the doctors of this unit.”

Y/N was still in a confused daze after her encounter with Seokjin. Even during the introduction in the main hall she wasn’t really listening. Five years later she wanted to meet him and have something blossom. Now the only thing that is blossoming is pure confusion and shock. Two feelings you don’t want to feel in a hospital.

“This is Doctor Jung.” Y/N turned to see a handsome tan man that had a heart smile. He looks very kind or he could be an imposter...

“This is the head doctor, Doctor Kim Hyeon, and his son Kim Seokjin.”

She quickly looked away when she saw those stern brown eyes, he looks like he hates me. After a minute, she looked back to see him staring at her still. She hated this feeling. She embarrassed herself in front of him and now she has to work with him. It was a headache but she wasn’t going to give up. She wouldn’t give up on him.

“Y/N-”

“Yes.”

Chaewon raised her eyebrow and let out a small laugh, “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask you.”

Y/N softly said sorry and bowed her head at the older woman. Embarrass myself again, come on Y/N.

“Y/N, you will be on Doctor Kim’s team.”

Y/N looked between the father and son duo. She was hoping it was with his father, it would be easier for her. “Which one?”

“Obviously mine. Stupid.”

Her eyes widened and looked at Seokjin who was shaking his head at her. She bit her lip and rubbed her arm gently, “Right…sorry.”

Doctor Hyeon laughed at this and shook his head, “Y/N, I appreciate your enthusiasm. It makes me happy to see the new generation excited to help.”

Y/N smiled at this and it was the first time today she felt truly happy, “Always excited to help, Doctor.”

She heard a scoff and glanced at Seokjin who was rolling his eyes. She didn’t let this get to her because she was telling the truth. She wanted to help everyone and make people’s lives easier. It was her duty as a nurse now.

Chaewon put the clipboard on her desk and she clapped her hands, “Okay, now let’s head towards our teams and help our patients.”

“Yes!”

Y/N was following Seokjin at a distance. Down the hall, everyone was glancing at him and she realized that everybody has a crush on him. He was handsome and he was the top doctor here, what’s not to like? He opened the door to the main doctor's office and she bowed to the other doctors before catching up with Seokjin. She quickly sat in the chair next to him as she continued to look over the clipboard as the sound of keys echoed through the empty room. She couldn’t look up from the gray board and the words before her gave her comfort (even if it was a diagnosis).

Seokjin sighed and turned towards her, “Shouldn’t you be assisting me and not just sitting there?”

She swallowed some spit and looked at him with nervous eyes, “Well, Doctor, you didn’t give me any assignment...”

“You’ve been reading the same paper for thirty minutes, shouldn’t you know what your assignment is?”

“Huh?” She glanced down at the paper and re-read it. Her eyes widened and realized that it was telling her about a patient. She looked up at Seokjin who was smirking at her with a raised eyebrow, “Well?”

She stood up from her seat and bowed at him, “I’ll be going.”

He watched her leave and he couldn’t help but let a small laugh escape. Hoseok glanced at him with curiosity and leaned towards him, “Did you just laugh?”

Seokjin turned towards him and rolled his eyes, “Do you have the report I needed this morning?”

“O-Oh, don’t change the subject.”

Y/N walked into the room and the frown she once had was replaced. She quickly made her way to Jungkook who was helping a little girl, “Kook~!”

Jungkook turned around and smiled at her, “Y/N, how was the rest of the morning?”

She frowned and shook her head, “I’m on his team...I’m happy but also sad.”

“Don’t let him bother you. Why are you here?”

“Ah.” She showed him the clipboard and then looked around the ward, “I’m looking for Seo Jimin.”

“Ah, Jimin. She’s sleeping right now. She just had her blood drawn.”

Y/N nodded her head and looked down at the little girl, “Hello, what’s your name?”

“Kimmy.”

“Pleasure to meet you Kimmy, I’m Nurse L/N.”

Kimmy tilted her head and pointed towards her, “Idiot.”

“Eh?” Kimmy started laughing and she ran from them leaving Y/N with a shocked face. She looked towards Jungkook and frowned, “Did I piss someone off? Why is everything going wrong today?”

Jungkook patted her back gently and offered her a gentle smile, “It’s okay Y/N. Things will get better.”

“Better my ass...”

“Don’t swear. Kids can hear.”

“Sorry...Can you show me Seo Jimin’s room?”

They walked down the hall and she smiled as the kids laughed through the empty halls. It was different from the cardio halls. In those halls, it felt like she had to be serious and she saw Taehyung talking to a nurse with a clipboard. He looked like he had been doing this for years. She smiled at this and continued to follow Jungkook.

“This is Seo Jimin’s room.”

Y/N nodded her head and peeked her head through the curtains to see the eleven-year-old she read about. Jimin looked up and gave her a small wave, “Are you my new nurse?”

“Kind of, my name is Y/N. I’m from Doctor Kim’s office.”

“Jinnie? He’s the greatest, isn’t he?”

Y/N let out a small laugh and nodded her head I thought he was, “He is. You're my first patient.”

“What kind of tests are you doing for me?”

Y/N sat on the bed gently and shook her head, “I’m here to meet you.” She looked around and saw hamster stickers on her wall with a familiar K-pop group, “You like Red Velvet?”

Jimin's grin widened and nodded her head, “I love Yeri but Wendy is my bias.”

“Ah, good choice. Is that why you have the hamsters?”

“It makes me think of my room at home. It makes me smile.”

Y/N smiled at this and nodded her head, “Music is the greatest pleasure one can have. It makes you feel happy with a simple note. It’s amazing.”

“Y/N, I hope I get to see you more. I don’t get to talk about my music.”

“You can always talk to me. We can talk about Red Velvet, every minute of the day.”

Jimin laughed and looked at Jungkook, “Do you like Red Velvet?”

“I’ve heard of them.”

Jimin pouted and leaned towards Y/N, “He’s boring. I like you.”

At least you like me, “I like you too.” Y/N glanced down at her watch and then back at Jimin with a frown, “I have to go but don’t be afraid to push the button or call for Mr. Boring.”

“I can still hear you.”

“Okay Nurse Y/N.”

Y/N and Jungkook walked outside and walked towards the front desk of the pediatrician department. She sighed and glanced at Jungkook, “She had purplish lips...I read that she’s been having shortness of breath more frequently. Any news on that?”

“Doctor Yu says that they're waiting for a test result to see her oxygen levels...if it’s good then she can be discharged with medication but they don't think that's going to happen.”

“I saw her calendar...she has Friday circled for her discharge. I hope everything turns out for her.”

Y/N was making her way back to the Seokjin’s office but was stopped. She looked up to see Doctor Jung giving her a friendly smile, “Are you the one who is trying to defeat the devil?”

She tilted her head and she was confused, “Devil?”

“Yeah, Jin.”

“O-Oh, Doctor Seokjin...wait-defeat?”

Hoseok let out a laugh and nodded his head, “I think you're the one that can defeat him and I'll help you.”

“I-I don’t want to defeat anyone!?”

“I’ll help you with him. I’ve known him since we were kids, I’ll get him to like you back.”

Y/N’s eyes widened and she looked around her frantically, “Don’t say that so loud...wait you’ll help me? Why?”

Hoseok leaned forward with their foreheads almost touching. This caused Y/N to be stiff at the sudden action, “I want to see him happy. Let’s defeat the devil.”

Y/N smiled at this and nodded her head, “O-Okay.~”

Hoseok looked around and glanced at the vending machine, “You want a protein bar?”

“Oh, that sounds good. Is it chocolate?”

“I think so, let’s go see together.”

“Okay.”

There was a pair of annoyed eyes on her back and maybe if she saw the eyes, she would melt under the brown irises.

“Nurse Y/N?”

“Mmm?”

Y/N was drawing Jimin’s blood as she was making her usual rounds, “Do you think I’ll be able to leave this week?”

Y/N's brain stopped working for a second and she swallowed her spit. She glanced at Jimin and gave her a gentle smile, “Hopefully. Medicine will always be there for you, no matter what.”

“I want to see my council friends.”

Y/N brought the needle to the vial and smiled at Jimin, “You're on the council?”

“Yeah, I’m the student body president.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. That means you can handle responsibility.”

Jimin nodded her head and just then the curtains were pushed to see a group of younger kids. They all looked at Jimin with a star in their eyes and Y/N couldn’t help but feel her heart swelled. “Unnie! Can you read this for me?”

Jimin smiled and looked at Y/N, “They always come with the new books.”

Y/N glances at the book and smiles, “Reading about Spider-man. He really is amazing, right?”

“Yeah!”

Taehyung entered the room and waved at Y/N, “Yo.”

“Hey, you. How’s everything?”

Taehyung shrugged his shoulders and frowned at her, “I haven’t seen you much. I missed you.”

Y/N rolled her eyes and let out a laugh. She stood up from her chair and picked up a little girl to sit next to Jimin. She rubbed the top of her head and walked towards Taehyung, “You never texted me back.”

“Y/N, you know I don’t have my phone.”

“But you have a laptop.”

“Be nice to me. I’ll make it up by buying you lunch.”

Y/N pursed her lips together and nodded her head, “I want crab.”

“Eh? It’s not in season though?”

“Then I guess you don’t want to make it up with me...”

Taehyung pouted and nodded his head, “Fine.”

“Nurse L/N is this what you do when I ask you to make your rounds?”

Y/N stiffened and looked behind Taehyung to see Seokjin glaring at her making her feel small. She bowed to him and as soon as she did, her papers slipped out of the folder and onto the ground. She closed her eyes and she already knew he was going to get mad at her. She slowly looked up and gave him a small smile, “Sorry...”

“Are you just going to look at me or pick up the papers?”

She nodded her head and picked up the papers in a rush. She pushed some hair back and handed him the folder, “This is the vitals for Choi Nari in room 782.”

“It’s room 781.”

She glanced down at her paper and then back at him with a sheepish smile, “Room 781...I just took Seo Jimin’s vitals.”

“Good job, you can draw blood. At least you can do that right.”

Seokjin walked past her and she frowned at this, so I messed up again. Taehyung shook his head and looked at Y/N with a disapproving look, “Out of all the men, you like him.”

She glared at Taehyung and then watched Seokjin talk to Jimin with the same softness he did when she was younger, “I like him because...because he’s the same person that was kind to me on that fateful day.”

“Idiot.”

“I heard you.”

“Nurse L/N are you going to help me or just keep talking?”

She bowed at Seokjin and then stuck her tongue at Taehyung, “Coming!”

Taehyung watched with a small smile on his face, “Idiot...

┊ ➶ ｡˚ 　　°┊

Hoseok pointed at the cafe and smiled at Y/N, “Every morning, Jin gets a mocha with a chocolate croissant.”

Y/N glances at the cafe in the entrance of the hospital and then back at him with a shocked look, “He likes sweets?”

Hoseok laughed while nodding his head, “Shocking?”

“He’s the opposite of sweet...salty...no maybe sour.”

“But today is Friday. He gets a white chocolate croissant.”

“Wow, he has a strong sweet tooth.”

Hoseok and Y/N enter the cafe and the smell of coffee hits her nose. She scrunched her nose at the smell because she wasn’t the biggest fan of coffee but then the smell of fresh pastry came. She smiled and looked into the small window, “They have fresh muffins... oh, they have strawberries!?”

Hoseok laughed, “The strawberries are really good.”

“Doctor Jung?”

Y/N turned around and saw Aria looking at her with a frown. Y/N waved at her but when it wasn’t returned she slowly put her hand down. Y/N bowed at her and offered an awkward smile, “Good morning Aria.”

“Good morning Nurse L/N. Doctor Jung, are you just coming in?”

Hoseok turned towards her and nodded his head, “Yeah, would you like a coffee?”

Aria let a smile appear and she shook her head, “You don’t have to...I appreciate it though.”

“You should let me treat you after yesterday. You were the only one that caught her block artery.”

“I had you to help me...I should be saying thank you, Doctor Jung.”

“Give yourself credit.”

Y/N glanced between the two and she heard wedding bells. She smiled and looked at Hoseok, “Aria is amazing. She was always on top of the classes.”

Hoseok smiled at this and nodded his head, “I can see that. You're talented. I’m glad you're on my team.”

“Doctor Jung...”

Y/N looked past Aria and she rushed to the entrance, “Good morning Doctor Kim.”

Seokjin rolled his eyes and moved past her, “You're blocking the entrance.”

Y/N moved away and bit her lip, “Sorry...”

“Ah, Jin.”

Seokjin looked up and saw Hoseok with a smile on his face, “What?”

“I was ordering Y/N a muffin. Would you like a coffee?”

Seokjin glanced at Y/N and was already looking at him with a smile, “Muffin?”

“What was that?”

Seokjin let out a small cough and shook his head, “I said nothing. I want nothing.”

Seokjin went to the cashier and ordered his usual but he glanced at the strawberry muffin. He looked over his shoulder to see Y/N talking to Hoseok with a wide smile on her face. He looked back at the cashier and nodded his head, “The muffin too, please.”

“I had to give her a quick stitch with Doctor Yu.”

“Y/N, you learn on the fly. Good work.”

“Thank you, Doctor Jung.” Just then a brown paper hit her face and she let out a small hmph. She looked to the side and saw Seokjin holding the said bag that hit her, “Eh?”

“It's a muffin. Take it.”

She looked at the bag and then at him with a wide smile, “You bought me a muffin? Is this going to be our thing on Fridays?”

Seokjin rolled his eyes and looked at Hoseok, “Don’t you have a meeting with my dad?”

Hoseok glanced at his watch and cussed under his breath, “I’ll see you later Y/N.”

“Bye Doctor Jung.”

Y/N took the bag and looked at him with curious eyes, “What flavor?”

“Strawberry.”

“Really? I wanted to try these. Thank you, Doctor Kim.”

“Hurry up and eat that so we can get to work. No slacking today.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Don’t salute.”

Doctor Yu frowned and looked at Y/N, “Sadly Seo Jimin won’t be discharged.”

Y/N looked at her and then back at the papers, “Her oxygen levels...you don’t mean...”

“Yes, a heart transplant.”

Y/N stood in the office and glanced at Seokjin with a frown, “Isn’t she young for this?”

“Nurse L/N, if someone needs treatment then they need it.”

Y/N nodded her head and looked down at her shoes. She felt stupid for saying that and she got scolded again. How many times will she get scolded by Seokjin?

Hyeon looked at his son, “Now Jin. Behave. It was a good question. Y/N always asks good questions regarding patients.”

Y/N looked up and smiled at his father, “Doctor Kim...”

Seokjin rolled his eyes and glanced at his dad, “I’ll be going. I have to talk to Jimin’s mother.”

Y/N watched him walk out and frowned, “Mean.”

Hyeon let out a laugh and stood up from his desk, “Don’t worry about him.”

“Doctor Kim?”

“You're doing great. He’s harsher on you because he sees potential in you.”

Her eyes widened and it looked like she had stars in her eyes, “Really!? You think so!?”

Hyeon nodded his head and crossed his arms over his chest, “I know so.”

“All you do is talk, hurry up.”

Y/N turned around to see Seokjin standing there with an annoyed face. She bowed at him and nodded his head, “Sorry. I’m coming.” She turned towards Hyeon and bowed, “Bye Doctor Kim.”

Hyeon let out a small laugh, “Bye, Y/N.”

Hyeon watched them leave with a smile on his face. He glanced down at the picture of his wife and smiled, “I think she's good for him. What do you think, Yuri?”

Y/N followed Seokjin but she was looking down at her shoes. She felt like if she looked at his back then he would grow arms from his back and attack her. She was so focused on her white shoes that she walked into his back when he stopped. She looked up to be met with his disapproving look, “Sorry...”

Seokjin didn’t say anything but it quickly changed when he saw Jimin’s mom, “Mrs. Seo, thank you for coming by.”

Mrs. Seo gave him a smile and nodded her head, “I’ll do anything for Jimin. Will she be able to leave today?”

Seokjin frowned and shook his head, “That’s what I need to talk to you about. Let’s go talk in the hallway.”

Y/N bowed at Mrs. Seo and she glanced at Jimin who was soundly asleep. She smiled at this and took out a small plushie from her pocket. She placed the hamster right to her and she smiled when she saw her hug it.

“She’s been sleeping for almost the whole day.”

She turned around and saw Taehyung with a frown, “I heard....”

“She’s not getting discharged is she?”

Y/N shook her head and looked at Taehyung, “How was your day?”

“Jungkook forgot his lunch so I shared mine. I’m hungry.”

Y/N let out a small laugh, “You're always saving him.”

“I can save you but you won’t let me.”

Y/N glanced at Jimin and shrugged her shoulders, “I can take care of myself.”

“You would let Jim take care of you.”

She frowned at his tone and looked at him, “You always bring him up.”

“Because it's the truth. This weekend we're going to the crab place?”

“If that’s okay with you?”

“It's perfect for me.”

“Nurse Kim, Nurse L/N, let’s leave Jimin’s room. She needs rest.”

Y/N glances over Taehyung’s shoulder to see Seokjin glaring but not her. She followed his eyes to see him glaring at Taehyung. She frowned at this but didn’t say anything. She bowed at Taehyung and made her way to Seokjin, “Sorry Doctor Kim. I was checking her vitals.”

“Good. We need to check on Sakura in room 342. Tell me her condition.”

“Right.” She turned around and waved goodbye to Taehyung, “I’ll see you this weekend.”

“Nurse L/N, hurry up.”

“Sorry, coming!”

The walk to Sakura’s room was quiet and Y/N kept glancing at her shoes and his Seokjin’s back. Seokjin’s shoulders were so broad and she wondered what it would look like underneath or what he would look like with just his doctor's coat. Her mind started to wonder and she couldn’t help but smile.

“Y/N, would you like to treat me?”

“Nurse L/N, did you hear me?”

She shook her head and looked at him, “Eh?”

He sighed and looked at the paper, “Sakura is twenty-six, she’s been having breathing problems. Her heart rate has been slower than usual. We need to do an echo.”

Y/N nodded her head, “Echo?”

“Have you seen one?”

Y/N shook her head and he sighed, “Then I’ll show you.”

Being this close to Seokjin was a dream. He was showing her Sakura’s heart but the only thing she saw was hearts in her eyes. The way his hair fell to his forehead and his gentle voice when he talked to patients made everything lighter. It felt like clouds were around her and Cupid was shooting her heart.

“Okay Sakura, we’re done. We will tell you the results when we get them.”

“Thank you, Doctor Kim.”

The two walked out and Seokjin crossed his arms over his chest, “What were we looking at in the echo?”

Y/N stared at Seokjin and bit her lip, “The chambers...”

“And why is that?”

“To see fluid...”

Seokjin sighed and shook his head, “Can you be more confident Y/N?”

Her eyes widened and she looked at him with a smile, “You said Y/N?”

“Focus.”

“Can I call you Jin?”

“Focus.”

Y/N was at her desk when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and smiled, “Doctor Jung.”

“How's the devil?”

“Still the devil but he called me by name. I hope I can hear it one more time.”

Hoseok laughed and nodded his head, “You're going somewhere with him.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely. I was going to ask about Seo Jimin's vitals from earlier.”

Y/N nodded her head and started going through her papers. She started telling Hoseok but she was unaware of the familiar brown eyes on her. He looked between them and he couldn’t help but glare at Hoseok. He shook his head and made his way down the hall away from the scene.

“I was actually going to check on her...this isn’t easy. She was so excited to be discharged.”

Hoseok checked his watch and sighed, “It’s late. She should be sleeping but by all means you can pop in. It doesn’t hurt to check.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

Walking in the halls when it's night felt weird. There were fewer people which means it's quiet. The only sounds you can hear are the shoes on the tiles and the small conversations between the staff. Y/N walked down the hallway and when she was about to open Jimin's door, she noticed it was open. Her eyes widened and opened the door quietly. She took her phone out and shined the light to see Jimin’s bed empty, “Shit.”

Y/N ran out of the room but she bumped into someone, “I’m so sorry-”

“Y/N?”

She looked up and felt relieved, “Jungkook, you're just the person I needed. Seo Jimin is missing from her bed.”

The nurses were running around the hospital including Y/N. She was in the stairwell that led up to the roof and her eyes widened when she saw the familiar hamster stickers on the floor. She ran to the roof and slammed open the door. She saw Jimin crying on a bench with her knees to her chest. Y/N frowned and slowly walked to her, “Jimin...”

“Leave me alone.”

Y/N sat next to her and wrapped her arm over her shoulders, “Never...You're upset about the discharge, aren’t you?”

“I thought I was getting better. I was doing everything right but my body...it wouldn’t let me.”

Y/N frowned at this and gently rubbed her arm, “The body is stubborn sometimes. It matches our spirits. Remember, there's no rush in getting better. Take your time so you can be strong.”

Jimin glanced at Y/N with a frown and red eyes, “I don’t want to be broken anymore.”

“You're not broken. Don’t ever say that. You have so much love that your heart just couldn’t take it. Keep that love and positivity. I know it's hard but it will get through so much and it will get better.”

“Will you be with me?”

“Of course I will.” Y/N let her go and took off her cardigan to place over Jimin’s shoulder. She pushed some hair off of the younger girl’s forehead, “I’ll be with you okay. Every step.”

“I’m sorry I ran away...”

Y/N shook her head and looked up at the sky, “I get it. I would run away too. Look at all the stars shining.”

“I like the stars.”

“It’s pretty like you. Let’s get you back in bed before it becomes freezing.”

The two slowly walked down the stairs but they stopped when Seokjin and Taehyung came their way.

“Jimin!”

Jimin smiled at Taehyung and waved at him, “Tae, I’m sorry I ran away...I just needed a moment.”

Taehyung sighed and went to her level, “I’m just glad you're okay.”

Seokjin glanced at Y/N and noticed the goosebumps. He slipped off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. Her face was in pure shock but he avoided her eyes, “You can’t get sick.”

He walked away as she stared at his back. She smiled to herself and brought his coat closer to her, “It smells so good.”

“Creep.”

“Shut up.”

When she was walking out of the hospital, her eyes landed on Seokjin who was waiting. She flattened out her clothes and walked towards him, “Goodnight Doctor Kim.”

“Wait.”

She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around to look at him, “Yes?”

“You're always ready to help. No matter what it is.”

“Doctor-”

“Just like that day. You rushed to help that older woman and you didn’t even question it. You're meant to help people.”

Y/N felt the heat rush to her face as she stared at him with a smile, “Seokjin...”

“You're meant to help people, even if you're annoying.” He walked away and Y/N was left alone standing in the middle of the entrance. She raised her hands to the sky like in a victory pose, “HE REMEMBERS ME!”

┊ ➶ ｡˚ 　　°┊

It’s been three months since Y/N entered the hospital and it felt like a dream. Well, not a dream because of the sick patients but a dream because of Seokjin. Since that night, it felt like they were closer. He only insulted her three times a day instead of ten, that’s huge. Hoseok has been getting her muffins every Friday but then on Saturday Seokjin buys her tea and a breakfast sandwich. She was confused because she didn’t remember telling him her favorite tea or breakfast sandwich but she wasn’t going to fight him. It was a sign that he paid attention to her or someone told him. She wants it to be the latter.

“You want me to be your date for your brother's wedding?”

Taehyung nodded his head and took a sip of his tea, “Yeah, sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I honestly didn’t think I needed one but my mom was pressuring me.”

Y/N sighed and leaned back in her chair, “I’ll do it but I want lobster.”

“You and your seafood. Fine.”

Y/N glanced at the exit and saw Seokjin leaving. Y/N stood up from the chair and downed her tea, “I’ll see you later.”

“Y-”

Taehyung watched her leave the lunch court and he frowned at himself. He looked down at his tea and shook his head, “Always the second choice.”

Y/N ran towards Seokjin and smiled, “Doctor Kim!”

Seokjin turned around and sent a glare her way, “Why are you following me?”

Y/N looked around and then gave him a confused look, “I always work with you...it’s been like that for three months.”

“Let’s go before I change my mind.”

Seokjin walked away and she pouted, “Why is he being mean?” She shrugged her shoulders and followed him to his office. She waved at Hyeon who waved back and she sat next to him. She started to go through the paperwork with him (strutting here and there). Hyeon watched from his desk and smiled to himself. He could tell from his son’s eyes that he was happy but he wanted him to figure it out. He just wished it was faster.

“Nurse L/N, did you check on Lee Sam in room 109?”

She flipped the papers through her clipboard and shook her head, “No...it says he’s under Hoseok.”

“You're going to work with Hoseok today.”

She raised her eyebrow and looked at him with a confused look, “Why? I like working with you...we work well together.” I also want to look at your face.

“I’m going to be in the office all day. You need more training.”

“I can train with you. I don’t mind.”

“Also, Nurse Kim...Make sure you do your work. Don’t talk to him that much.”

Y/N furrowed her eyebrows and slowly nodded her head, “Okay? I’ll be going...bye?”

She left the office and Jin sighed to himself, “Dad the more you stare, the more annoying it gets.”

“I can’t help it. My son is jealous, it's a sight I neve thought I would see.”

“Shut up old man.”

Hoseok handed Y/N her clipboard and let out a laugh, “You really have no idea why Jin sent you to me?”

Y/N shook her head and closed the curtains, “He said it's because I need more training. What other reason would it be?”

Hoseok sighed and shook his head, “You're so smart but also so stupid.”

“Eh! What did I do!?”

That night, Y/N was walking down to her favorite ramen restaurant and she was shocked to see him sitting in the middle. She pushed some hair back and sat next to him, “How was the office work?”

Seokjin put down his chopsticks and shrugged his shoulders, “It was office work.”

She nodded her head and glanced down at his bowl, “You just eat the noodles and juice?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You need the toppings. They have the best fried shrimp, it tastes so good with the broth.” Seokjin turned towards her and she was caught off guard with his look, “Is everything okay?”

“You can stare at me all the time but I can’t do the same?”

“Eh? I don’t stare...I admire...that isn’t any better...”

He let out a small laugh and turned back to his ramen, “Order something. I’ll pay for it.”

She gasped and put her hands over her mouth, “Like a date?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be.”

She choked on her spit and he turned towards her, “Do I have to do mouth to mouth?”

Y/N choked again but this time she met with his smirk. That dinner was the best dinner Y/N ever had and it was because she felt seen by him for once. She wasn’t the clumsy nurse that always stuttered. She was her true self with him tonight. And she got fried shrimp.

┊ ➶ ｡˚ 　　°┊

“Tae, this wedding is so long.”

“Y/N, it’s a wedding.”

“So...”

She sat next to him at the reception and of course, she knew no one. The wedding was cute with the bride's dress being beaded from top to bottom. Sometimes she forgets Taehyung’s family was rich. She glanced down at her chicken and ate a piece as Taehyng talked to his uncle. She looked up to take a sip of her champagne but choked when she saw Seokjin casually talking to the bride. She turned towards Taehyung and slapped his arm, “What the fuck?”

“Ow, what?”

She pointed towards Seokjin and then looked at Taehyung, “Why is he here?”

Taehyung followed her finger and raised his eyebrow, “What a small world?”

She wiped her mouth and stood up, “I have to talk to him.”

“You don’t have to. You want to, there’s a difference”

“No, I have to talk to him because I’m in this pretty dress and I have make-up on. He’s never seen that before.”

“Go for it, I can’t stop you anyways.”

She nodded her head and she rushed towards him leaving Taehyung behind. He sighed to himself and took a sip of his whiskey, “I shouldn’t be shocked but...here I am.”

Y/N pushed her hair and felt the confidence coming from within, this was her moment, “Seokjin?”

Seokjin stopped talking to the bride and turned towards her, “Ah, Y/N. I wasn’t expecting you here.”

“Eh? I told you tho-”

“I wasn’t expecting you.”

She slowly nodded her head and she turned towards the bride, “I’m going to borrow him real quick.”

Y/N took his wrist and headed out of the ballroom with butterflies in her stomach. When they were in a secluded area she let go of his wrist and leaned against the wall with a nervous look. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow and loosened up his tie, “Is everything okay?”

“No...I can’t hold it back anymore.”

“Mmm?”

“Kim Seokjin, I like you.”

“I know.”

Y/N stared at him and mouth dropped, “What?”

Seokjin leaned forward and pinned her against the wall with a smirk, “I know you like me.”

“How?”

He gave her a “Are you serious look?” but quickly wiped it off, “I know.”

“And you didn’t say anything? Why?”

He leaned forward and placed a quick kiss on her lips making her eyes wide. When he leaned away he placed his forehead against hers, “I was waiting for the right moment.”

“Ri-Right moment? Was this the right moment? I thought the right moment was-”

“Y/N, I liked you the moment we met. When we saved our first patient together.”

“Really?”

Seokjin let out a small laugh and leaned forward placing a kiss on her nose, “I loved you for all this time. Every day you give me a reason to be my best self. I want to be a better doctor because of you. You always want to help and solve everything, how could I not love you?”

“Yo-You love me?”

“I do, I really do.”

“Holy shit.”

He leaned away and smiled, “Well, do you-”

“I love you...sorry, you didn’t finish your sentence.”

“I have a room in this hotel...do you want to go up?”

“Yeah....Yeah, I do.”

There were moments when Y/N couldn’t believe stuff. Like when she was five, she couldn’t believe that she saw a double rainbow. At this moment, she couldn’t believe she was going to Seokjin’s hotel room. The man that she’s been in love with since she was eighteen, loves her. He loves her like the way she loves him. What more can she want?

When the door closed, she stared at him with wide doe eyes that made Seokjin want to die. He walked towards her and gently touched her cheek with his thumb, “I love you...I wish I was more romantic but I would go to the ends of the earth to show you. Roses can’t even express how I love you but they can try. Y/N, you are my person. I love everything about you...even when you ramble.”

She felt tears well up in her eyes as she looked at him, “I wish I had that on my phone...it would be your new ringtone.”

He laughed and leaned forward without their lips, “No need for that, I’ll tell you every day for the rest of your life.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

The light of the hotel room illuminated their faces perfectly. The space between them was enough to create a silhouette. They leaned forward and her eyes gave him the answer he needed. Their lips gently touched, making them one under the light. Her arms slowly moved up and wrapped around his neck as he went around her waist. There was no space, no light was going to escape between them on this night.

“Ji-Jin!” She gasped as Jin inserted a second finger inside, pumping it as fast as he could. She bit her lip harshly trying not to bother the poor people next door, “You don’t have to be quiet.”

“Jin, there are people-”

“I rented out the rooms around me so I don’t have to deal with loudness.”

“Wow, that was really hot to hear actually.”

His fingers curled inside of her and it was gently touching her most sensitive spot that made her buck her hips. He pressed his palm to her clit as his fingers continued to move in her, “So good for me.”

“On-Only for you.”

After the intense orgasm, she glanced at him with a needy look, “Do you have a condom?”

“Of course I do.”

“Take off the rest of your clothes. It's not fair I’m naked and you're not.”

“Your wish is my command.”

When Jin comes back, the kiss turns from innocent with pure love to sloppy and needy. He gently pushes her up to have her lay on the pillows as he kisses down her neck. He placed a kiss on top of her breast and looked up, “I would eat you out but I can’t wait any longer. Next time I’ll do it.”

“Ne-Next time?”

“Of course, there will be next time. This pussy will only crave for me after I’m done.”

He rolled the condom onto his dick and looked up at her with a smile. She returned the smile and nodded her head, “I trust you.”

He kissed her neck and with a needy moan, she arched her back pressing her body closer to his. She could feel the heat from him and it was only turning her on more. Seokjin positions himself between her legs, his tip teasing her entrance. The waiting was killing her and she kept looking at him with pleading eyes. He begins to enter but once he is halfway, he pulls out causing her to moan out. He smirked at the reaction and stuck himself back in but fully this time.

He let out a groan as he looked at her face, “I love you.”

“I-I love you more.”

With each thrust, the love that they were both holding back was flooding up the room. The sounds of moans and wet slaps of their bodies coming together echoed. His movements became more urgent with each passing second, “You’re so...fuck... perfect.”

Her cheeks flushed from all the love confession but she couldn’t help but feel so blessed in this moment. He gently pushed the hair out of her face as she brought her thumb over his lips, a gentle touch to tell him what her heart wanted to say. His cock continued to pound into her g-spot and each thrust was sending her pure pleasure through her body.

“Let go, baby.”

She leaned forward placing a kiss on his lips when she felt the intensity coming over her. When she leaned away she felt like there was no air left in her body. Her body felt numb against his but she didn’t want this to end anytime soon. His voice was strained with the pleasure he was feeling, the clenching sensation was making him stutter.

“Cumming.”

She clenched her pussy around him harder and this was his breaking point. She was overwhelmed by the intensity of the pleasure as his head fell into her chest. The gasping of air filled the room as they stayed still in this moment. He slowly looked up and kissed her forehead with a soft smile, “My cure...”

#bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts jungkook #bts namjoon #bts seokjin #bts taehyung #bts jimin #bts yoongi #bts x reader #bts hosoek #Bts #bts seokjin x reader #seokjin x reader #bts jin x reader #jin x reader #bts fanfction #bts fanfic

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shadowtriovibes · 11 months

Text

dance in a storm in my best dress

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!MC

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 3K

Summary: by request: "I have a fun idea! How about Sebastian and f!mc are "just friends" until one day she asks him to help her try on/give his opinion on some new dresses, and desire and spice ensue??"

"Go on and change back into your robes, Mister Sallow," the shopkeeper says. "I suspect we’ll be inquiring about your opinion shortly." While Sebastian returns to the back, Mr. Hill summons a modesty screen around the rack of dresses you’d pulled and waits patiently while you slip out of your school robes and wrestle your way into that first dress – the periwinkle blue. There are so many layers that it takes you at least ten minutes to even put on your crinoline, which Mr. Hill assures you he’ll let you keep on for all three options. "Have you even put one on yet?" you hear Sebastian call out when he returns. "Merlin's beard, you’ll take on a den of trolls by yourself but you’re bested by today’s fashion trends!"

“Thank you for coming with me,” you say softly, shyly tucking your face a bit deeper into your oversized scarf as you avoid snow swirling around you.

It’s not an intense blizzard by any means, but nevertheless you appreciate that Sebastian had agreed to trudge down to Hogsmeade with you that afternoon when he could have spent the day with a dreadfully boring book by the fire in his common room, which is typically how he spends any free time he has as a seventh-year N.E.W.T.s student.

“Of course,” he says easily. “It’s about time I came up for air, so to speak.”

Despite the ongoing pressure of your final year of school, it had felt like all of Hogwarts had been abuzz about the upcoming holiday ball for what felt like weeks. Even you and your treasured trio of Slytherins had made plans to go together, and your daydreams of twirling across an enchanted dance floor in a fabulous gown had helped get you through some of the most arduous study sessions you’ve ever experienced.

With your end-of-term exams having concluded the day before, there was now only one thing standing in the way of you blowing off some steam at the ball with your best friend.

You need a dress.

Poppy had been the one to inform you that Mr. Hill had specially ordered some lovely fabrics from London as soon as he’d caught wind of an upcoming formal occasion. While it’s certainly too late to have anything custom made, you hoped you’d be able to find something in his shop that would suit you with a few minor alterations.

You’d invited Sebastian to join you on your shopping trip primarily for moral support, as the two of you were going to the ball together as friends.

(Anne had been quick to claim Ominis as her date so that she wouldn’t have to take her own brother, and you and Sebastian had been equally loath to bother asking anyone else.)

However, you suspect you may also need some help physically donning the dresses. You may not know much about what’s in fashion these days, but hearing some of your classmates boast about precisely how many garment layers they’d be wearing had nearly made your head spin.

“Do you have your dress robes?” you press him skeptically. “Anne said you were procrastinating.”

“Yes, nosy,” he laughs. “Ominis made me pick some out last weekend, and Mr. Hill should have them in for me by now.”

“Good,” you say primly. “You’ll have to try them on while we’re there and make sure they fit.”

“This is now my second trek into Hogsmeade for this silly ball,” he points out with a cheeky grin. “I hope it’s going to be as enjoyable as you lot are saying it’ll be.”

“It will,” you insist. “We all need something like this, something that’s just… joyful, I suppose.”

Sebastian glances sidelong at you with a tender smile.

“Fair point,” he agrees. “Right as usual, you are.”

“You’re still surprised after all this time?” you tease him, bumping your shoulder against his while he laughs.

When the two of you walk into Gladrags, Augustus Hill perks up excitedly and slips out from behind the ornate counter.

“Ah! Just the young witch and wizard I was hoping to see today,” he crows. “Come in, come in! I dare say, it’s awfully frigid today.”

You hang up your cloaks while Mr. Hill rustles up a tray of tea for the both of you. Ever since that troll encounter years ago, the Gladrags shopkeeper has always had a soft spot for you and Sebastian, which often results in the two of you feeling downright spoiled every time you visit him.

“Thank you, Mr. Hill,” you say as you accept the warm mug he offers.

“Mister Sallow,” he says as he hands Sebastian his tea. “Your dress robes came in just this morning! Why don’t I send you off with young Otto to try it on and mark up any alterations?”

You glance warily at Sebastian, reluctant to split from him as you do your shopping.

As though he’d read your mind, Mr. Hill laughs and insists, “He won’t be kept long, my dear! Fitting a young man’s dress robes is a much simpler task than that which you have on your hands, I should expect.”

“Why don’t you just pick out some things to try while Otto works his magic?” Sebastian teases. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Once you agree, Mr. Hill sends Sebastian to the backroom while you sip your tea and discuss some of your preferences with the kindly shopkeeper. You admit to not being very knowledgeable about fashion, but you have some colors in mind that you think may suit you – as well as very strict expectations on how much range of motion you want to maintain.

“I need to be able to breathe,” you insist, glancing hesitantly at some of the impossibly small corsets in the window display.

Peering over his spectacles with a wise smile, he answers, “I think that can be arranged.”

He then begins to show you the collection of remaining dresses he has in stock. As the premier clothier for the majority of your fellow witches at Hogwarts, he doesn’t have an unlimited supply this close to the ball, but his selections don’t disappoint.

“This blue color is quite pretty,” you sigh, gingerly inspecting the sleeve of one of the dresses he offers.

“I suspected you might like that one,” he says brightly. “Let us pull it for now and select a few more for you to try on, hmm?”

You end up also selecting a red gown with a smart-looking cape that would show off your house colors brilliantly and a crisply white evening dress with delicate golden embroidery around the bottom of the skirt.

“This should do for a start,” Mr. Hill says.

“Really? No green?” Sebastian asks from behind you.

When you turn to remind him pointlessly that you aren’t actually a Slytherin, your words fail you.

He looked utterly dashing in his dress robes. At first glance, he appeared to be wearing what looked like a Muggle tuxedo, but the extra-long tails and high collar gave away that it was most certainly wizarding apparel. His jacket and pants were both inky black – so dark that they appeared to even darken the room around him, or maybe you had just lost focus of everything that wasn’t him.

Of course, having been expertly fitted by Otto, Sebastian’s robes seem to cling to every inch of him. The waistcoat makes his waist look exceptionally narrow, or perhaps it’s that his chest looks so broad. His shoulders appear to be broader as well underneath his jacket, and while the long tails might appear to shorten other men, on Sebastian they merely elevate the length of his legs.

He slips on a pair of white gloves that Otto hands him and you bite down hard on the inside of your cheek. He looks like a proper gentleman dressed like this, you think – not at all like the haphazardly-robed young man you’re used to seeing.

“Ah! Excellent,” Mr. Hill says with a clap, breaking your trance. “A perfect fit.”

“How do I look?” Sebastian asks you teasingly.

“B-brilliant,” you stammer. “It, um. Fits. You’re fit – I mean, it fits very well.”

“Of course, we’ll charm the waistcoat to whatever color you’d like to match your dress, once you’ve made your selection,” Mr. Hill explains as he gestures to the garment. “Or simply leave it white.”

“Of course we’ll match,” Sebastian says easily. “But getting this one to make a selection isn’t going to be easy.”

You scoff and turn back around to the rack of dresses to hide your persistent blush.

“Go on and change back into your robes, Mister Sallow,” the shopkeeper says. “I suspect we’ll be inquiring about your opinion shortly.”

While Sebastian returns to the back, Mr. Hill summons a modesty screen around the rack of dresses you’d pulled and waits patiently while you slip out of your school robes and wrestle your way into that first dress – the periwinkle blue. There are so many layers that it takes you at least ten minutes to even put on your crinoline, which Mr. Hill assures you he’ll let you keep on for all three options.

“Have you even put one on yet?” you hear Sebastian call out when he returns. “Merlin’s beard, you’ll take on a den of trolls by yourself but you’re bested by today’s fashion trends!”

“Come and help me then!” you whine.

“Er – is that alright?” Sebastian asks Mr. Hill.

“Of course!” he exclaims. “He’s your date, it would be unchivalrous not to assist you.”

That’s when you realize that Mr. Hill probably thinks you and Sebastian are properly dating, but for reasons you don’t want to admit to yourself just yet, you don’t correct him.

You could also sorely use some help as well.

“Mind the petticoat,” you mumble as he ducks behind the screen.

You’re both quiet as Sebastian helps carefully bundle up the skirt of the dress and drape it over your upright arms, slowly working it down your body so that it doesn’t catch on any of the boning in your corset. Once the skirt gracefully pours down over your petticoat, you gently smooth the bodice and turn around so he can lace up the strings crossing your back.

“Too tight?” he asks softly.

“N-no,” you murmur. “You can even do them a bit tighter, actually.”

You gasp softly when he pulls on the strings and cinches your waist tighter, and Sebastian pauses for a beat, but you don’t instruct him to loosen it.

Once he fumblingly ties the strings together at the small of your back, he mumbles, “All set.”

He offers you a hand to steady you while you shuffle out from behind the screen. Mr. Hill immediately laves praise onto the dress, and while you agree that it is quite lovely, a glance in the mirror reveals that periwinkle blue just isn’t a color in which you shine.

“No matter,” the shopkeeper insists. “Onto the red, shall we?”

Sebastian again helps you slide the dress off up over your head and replace it with the red one, this time lacing you tightly from the start. There’s a delicate cape that goes with this one, so you turn around to face him so he can drape it over your shoulders and tie the small silk ribbons that sit just at your collarbones.

“Ought to be plenty warm in this one,” he jokes halfheartedly, trying and failing to resist the urge to sneak glances at your décolletage.

“Is the cape a bit…?” you ask quietly, wrinkling your nose. “Is it too much?”

“What?” he asks dumbly. “O-oh, no, I – I think you look great. It’s a great dress, really.”

You’re nearly as red as the dress when you emerge for a second time, and once again Mr. Hill thinks you look like “a buxom Beauxbatons beauty from the boulevards of Paris.” However, regardless of your house pride, if you’re going to be blushing like this all evening at the ball – and the odds on that are significant – you know you simply can’t go with red.

“I have one more to try on,” you tell Sebastian softly. “It’s that white one, just there.”

You notice Sebastian’s gaze linger on the ornate embroidery, a pleased look passing over his face.

“It’s stunning,” he tells you. “Shall we get it on you?”

You merely nod, not trusting yourself with words at the moment.

The moment Sebastian helps you slip into the white dress, you know you have a winner. As if imbued with magic (and perhaps it is indeed), the white silk shimmers almost like the fresh snow outside the shop window. However, instead of feeling like a proper ice princess, you feel warm all over – especially where Sebastian’s hands mindlessly reach out to trace the fine embroidered patterns on your bodice.

“You look…” he exhales. “You just need to see, come on.”

He walks you out for the last time and even Mr. Hill refrains from commenting until you twirl in front of the mirror, your skirt gracefully lifting and falling with your movement.

“...I look beautiful,” you whisper. “Oh, Mr. Hill, it’s just lovely.”

“This is the one,” Sebastian insists. “You have to pick this one, it’s hardly even a choice.”

“Your companion is correct!” Mr. Hill crows. “My dear, it’s as if that gown was made precisely for you.”

Otto comes by to charm a few simple adjustments into the fabric of the dress and you watch yourself in the mirror with wide eyes as it molds itself to your body. Now it looks just like one of those custom dresses in the illustrations that the girls in your year pour over in the shopping pages at the back of the Daily Prophet.

“I think we’re done here,” Sebastian says quietly, his eyes still fixed on that one embroidered seam at your waist where your bodice meets your skirt.

“Of course,” Mr. Hill agrees. “Let’s get you out of that crinoline so I can send you two lovebirds on your way for a nice Butterbeer or two!”

As he babbles on about how it’s just like the last time the two of you came into his shop together, you meet Sebastian’s gaze and realize both of you are steadfastly refusing to correct the man. You know that you’re blushing, but seeing him blush just as fiercely is quite revealing.

After you pay Mr. Hill and make plans for Otto to deliver the dress to the castle once the storm lets up, you and Sebastian wordlessly trudge down to Sirona’s lively pub. There you manage to snag a small booth in one of the far corners – one that you’re well aware is a popular spot for snogging.

“So…” he says softly. “Lovebirds, are we now?”

“Don’t start,” you warn him. “You know how Augustus is, it’s usually just better to let him talk than spend all afternoon trying to correct him.”

“You didn’t even try,” he observes.

You counter, “Nor did you.”

Just then Sirona drops off your drinks and Sebastian forfeits his turn in your verbal duel by taking a pointedly long sip.

Then you forfeit your own turn when you get too distracted by the bit of Butterbeer foam on his upper lip to offer anything remotely witty.

“Well, regardless,” Sebastian eventually murmurs. “You did look beautiful in that dress.”

“Thank you,” you say. “And you were very handsome in your robes.”

“Proper fit, one might say,” he retorts.

The cheek, honestly.

“Sebastian,” you say quietly. “I need you to be honest with me about something.”

“Go on,” he says, taking another long sip while you consider your words.

Slowly, you ask him, “Since we met… have you ever once thought about us being more than just friends?”

“Have I ever once thought about it?” he repeats. “Of course I have. Countless times, probably”

“Then why haven’t you ever said anything?” you ask, staring deep into your mug to avoid having to meet his eyes.

You flinch slightly when Sebastian reaches across the table and plucks one of your hands off your mug. He laces his fingers with yours and pulls you closer, and the noise in the room seems to dwindle to a whisper as he meets your gaze.

“Between you and me, you’ve always been the brave one,” he tells you earnestly. “And I’d rather have only friendship with you than ask for too much and lose you entirely. Believe it or not I have learned when to stop.”

You smile ruefully at the reminder of just how much Sebastian has grown since you chose to give him the chance to do so.

He drags his thumb across yours. “So, if you want to be brave, I’ll be brave with you.”

You exhale shakily before you finally confess, “Of course I want to, Seb.”

You’re nearly in his lap at this point, and there’s absolutely no way the conversation you’re having could be interpreted as merely friendly by any onlookers. So, you think, why not be brave?

When you kiss him, the first thing you notice is that he tastes like the caramelly richness of the Butterbeer you’d both been drinking. But then it melts away and it’s just him, just Sebastian. He’s wonderfully warm, and underneath the initial sweetness he tastes a bit like the fluxweed stem he mindlessly chews on while he studies to help him focus.

His nose slots against yours as he tilts his head to kiss you deeper, and you wonder what he’s noticing about you.

But a moment later, the feeling of his warm hand on your thigh immediately makes you lose your train of thought.

“Seb,” you whisper, pulling back just enough to press your forehead to his.

“Let’s go back to the castle,” he blurts out eagerly.

You fondly roll your eyes and let him steal another kiss before you push him back with a gentle hand on his chest.

“I believe you just said something about having learned when to stop?” you tease him.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” he says cheekily.

“You’re just going to have to be patient, Mister Sallow,” you insist as you reach for your drink. “I thought I saw quite the gentleman in you today. I don’t suppose you could act like him until after the ball?”

“I could,” he offers. “But where’s the fun in that?”

“Tell you what,” you bargain, leaning in close. “If you can be a perfect gentleman from now until the ball, I’ll let you help me put my dress on, and then afterward I’ll let you take it off.”

You hear him loudly swallow and take a deep breath before he holds out a hand for you to shake and breathes, “You have yourself a deal, love.”

#my fic #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fic #sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x mc #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian x mc #sebastian x reader #it's not the yule ball but not NOT the yule ball #i did so much googling about victorian era fashion but i'm probably still wrong #at least it was fun to look at pretty dresses #also when i say the image file i picked for this was originally fuck-off MASSIVE... converting took me like half an hour

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whatthefishh · 1 year

Text

Happy Halloween, Steven

Steven Grant x F!Reader

Summary: this was supposed to be a fluff piece and then I thought about how Steven would look in his costume and how I'd probably react to it so. You guys get light smut.

Warnings: 18+, smut, heavy petting, handjob, jealous coworkers lol

Author's note: Thanks to @villainvindicator and @kittyofalltrades for helping me decide how to go about certain parts of this story :) xo

Jake is written in bold, Marc in italics, sorry if its OOC I was just having the best time writing this LOL

Word count: 2.5k

This wasn’t really how Steven imagined the annual Halloween party the National Gallery threw for its staff to go, but let’s just say he was over the moon with how his night was going.

The entire staff was being forced to go. Steven didn’t necessarily dislike parties but he wasn’t the best in social settings either. He felt a little better going to outings with Marc and Jake around now, it felt like he wasn’t going entirely alone. Plus, he did really enjoy Halloween.

Although Marc grumbled the whole week leading up to the party about having to dress up and how lame he thinks it all is, Jake was quietly supportive of Steven putting himself out there more and more. Especially since he picked up on his little crush on you.

Jake noticed that every time you’d rush by the gift shop, piles of paperwork haphazardly collected in your arms, heels clicking on the floors trying to make it to your destination without bumping into anyone, Steven would stop whatever he was doing and just blankly follow your movements with his eyes until you were gone. This happened maybe a handful of times per day, and every time it was the same: Steven would longfully gaze after you, sigh dramatically and then return his attention back to the task at hand. Marc usually mentally clocked out when Steven literally clocked in, so only Jake really knew about this little reaction Steven had towards you aka dopey heart eyes anytime you were in the vicinity.

Tonight’s party was a Halloween costume party, being held in the gallery’s dining hall, but it was supposed to be decked out by the party planning committee. Steven was slightly bitter towards the committee, led by Donna, since they didn’t let him help when he offered. You were on it, too, which was honestly part of the reason why he offered to help to begin with, hoping to get a word in with you, but Donna quickly interrupted your conversation to shut him down as rudely as she always does.

Steven had his costume picked out for a while, thinking it made him look bloody handsome, if he did say so himself. Jake helped him style his hair into a neater, slicked back look instead of his usual unruly curls to better match the outfit. Marc teased Steven saying that he was trying too hard for a bunch of coworkers that didn’t give a shit if he showed or not. Needless to say, Steven did not like that.

“Oi! Just because Donna’s insufferable, doesn’t mean they all are! There are some people I actually like at work.”

Yeah you’re a real social butterfly.

Marc, stop being such a culo. Steven, you better talk to her tonight.

Oh? This whole getup is for a girl?

Steven has to admit when he purchased his Captain Hook costume, the idea of you and what you would possibly dress up as dipped into his daydreams enough times. The shopkeeper looked entirely too thrilled when Steven tried on the black pleather pants, maroon vest and long black overcoat complete with gold hardware detailing and a fake sword for his belt. He also pressured him into buying some cheap eyeliner to drive the pirate look home. It was definitely not Steven’s first choice (initially he’d asked for Prince Charming) but upon looking at himself in the tri-fold mirror and seeing how the tight pleather pants made his thighs and rear look, he readily agreed, secretly hoping it would catch your attention.

If we’re gonna be here, at least we look good.

Deep breath, hermano. Look, there she is.

Again, WHO?

As soon as Steven walked in, it was almost magnetic how his eyes zeroed in on you; animatedly describing something with your hands to the angel with bright white, oversized wings next to you over the blaring dance music. His eyes widened and mouth dropped open slightly once he took in the sight of you, in a tiny, tiny sparkly, green number, hem cut in a zigzag pattern, clear high heels to give the illusion that you were floating, with petite green wings to match. The dress was much shorter than he expected to see you in, especially for a work party, but he was guessing you probably didn’t realize the effect it was having on those around you and honestly? He’s not complaining because where the hell have you been hiding those legs this whole time?!

He was beginning to attract attention just standing at the door of the hall, yet again caught staring at you with a dopey look on his face. It didn’t occur to Steven that he could be attracting attention because of how damn fine he looked tonight, pleasantly surprising some of the staff with his defined muscles on display with his costume choice - the pleather didn’t leave much up to imagination. He quickly made his way over to the food table, as one does with anxiety at a party, and scoured the table for vegan friendly options with shaking hands. Why did he come to this party again? What if nobody talked to him? What if he made a fool out of himself? Why did he think this costume was a good idea? They probably think he looks ridiculous, that's why they’re all staring…

Fighting the urge to nervously run his hands through his gelled hair, Steven stood fidgeting with his jacket and finally looked around the room to catch a handful of the more forward women blatantly staring at him bent over the table stacking his plate sky high, promptly choking on his food at the numerous eyes on him. Rushing to the punch bowl in an attempt to wash his food down before he further embarrassed himself, he didn’t notice you also approaching and narrowly avoided bumping into you.

“Are you…alright? Steven, right?” you asked just as he managed to gulp down half his cup of punch, nearly causing him to choke again as he swiveled around to face you.

“Uh hiya, yeah I’m Steven, Steven is me,” he tried to laugh at the end of that horrible, horrible introduction. He already knew your name, but pretended to ask anyway so as not to seem like a creep, which you confirmed with an easy smile. He tried so desperately not to look away from your face while you were talking but it was proving to be challenging, especially now that Marc perked up at your presence.

This is her? He playfully laughed. Steven, where have you been hiding this little nymph?

Steven wasn’t that guy, he would not be the guy caught staring at your breasts while you were showing him kindness and striking up a conversation by the punch bowl, like the nice girl he was sure you were, he would not, could not blow this chance with you. But God was it making him break a sweat at the effort. He tried to focus on some part of your face so that his gaze wouldn’t stray but then he got caught up in your eyes and the meticulous makeup you applied that accentuated the soft glow of your skin, trailing down to the perfect pink pout you wore tonight and-

She’s asking you a question, cabrón.

Ah, shit, he was not listening. Did you know he wasn’t listening? He thinks he’s ruined it now, for sure. His eyes betrayed his inner turmoil and panic, quickly making his whole demeanor tense which you picked up on with concern and asked again, “You sure you’re alright?” You ask as you move closer to him. He’s tall enough to see down your dress now and he quickly closes his eyes and inhales deeply.

This is torture. There’s a promising pink flush gracing your cheeks when he opens his eyes to look down at you. The track changes, something with a heavier bass starting up.

Do not. Fuck. This up, Steven. She’s hot, and likes what she sees.

Sí, parece que le gustas, this might work.

“Y-yeah, m’alright, more than actually,” he says, schooling his features into what he thinks is a coy smile but on Steven’s open and honest face just screams ‘I really like how close you’re standing next to me’.

You’re perceptive, he will soon learn. You’ve actually noticed him gaping at you a few times you rush past the gift shop in your hurry to get to your meetings on time, but you never get the chance to stop and chat with the cute, tousled-looking man behind the counter. You’ve taken notice though, especially tonight, with his tight black pants about to bust at the seams.

You’re smiling at him encouragingly, hoping Steven will catch on to your advances as you slowly lift your hand to finger at the lapels of his jacket, eyes slowly blinking up at him, looking over his face for a reaction. “I was just saying how it's a shame we don’t get to talk more at work,” you supply him with bits of your previous conversation. The other women who were watching this play out are scoffing at how obvious you’re laying it on for him, muttering bitterly amongst each other as they shift their attention elsewhere for the night. You have faith he’ll catch on, eventually. Hopefully.

“Me, too, I-I know you must be busy though, Donna definitely would ‘ave my head if she saw me bein’ friendly with anyone on the clock. Bit crazy, that one.” He manages to get out even with your close proximity and finger touching him through his clothes. Steven was going to slowly lose his mind if you kept dragging your finger on his clothes, your nail pressing into the fabric scandalously. There’s no way he could be misinterpreting this anymore.

Dude she wants you, stop fucking around.

And then you’re leaning up to whisper to him and he can feel the heat of your breath hit the shell of his ear and your breasts graze his arm, hair slightly brushing against his face in your movement; he can feel his dick twitch in his too tight pants, and it sounds like you’re smiling around your words as you say, “I could use some air, care to join me, Captain Hook?” Pulling back to look at him with eyes he couldn’t say no to let alone form words around. Steven thinks he agreed to join you because the next thing he knew he was being led out the doors to the main gallery by his hand, trailing after you like a puppy. Maybe Marc jumped in for a second back there. He’d have to thank him later.

You don’t stop pulling him behind you, occasionally looking back to giggle at his expression, until you reach the bathrooms on the other side of the gallery. He didn’t notice how long you two were walking, taking the opportunity to zone out at your legs effortlessly floating in those damn clear heels and the gentle sway of your hips as you brazenly walked in front of him.

Marc must have fronted again because he suddenly finds himself caging you in against the bathroom counter, standing in between your legs, hands spreading them as wide as they can in your obscenely short dress, as you sit between the sinks and you’re pulling him closer, closer, closer, until your lips meet in a hot, open mouth kiss. Steven’s hands are roving over your body, nonstop, from gripping your hips to squeezing your waist to ever so softly cupping your breast, and you moan into his mouth when he hesitantly swipes his thumb across your nipple through your dress. Your hands are in his hair, meeting slight resistance due to the product he’s used to tame his curls, his matching groans of desire echoing off the bathroom walls. You’re smiling into the kiss now, pulling back for air as you lean your head back giving Steven access to your neck which he happily attacks with his mouth, lightly nipping you in the process.

So - you didn’t think you were gonna end up with your hand down Steven’s pants - or rather Steven’s pants hanging around his knees - but you’re okay with it, more than okay with it considering you unzipped them to begin with even though he had to pull back to look at you to make sure he wasn’t making a fool of himself.

“O-oh, please, love,” he stutters out as you massage the head of his cock, thumb swiping over the slit. There was nothing you wanted more than to make Steven lose control in his stupid hot costume in the work bathrooms. He’s already breathing shakily, eyes rolling back as you work your fist up and down his cock, as you watch mesmerized, cataloging his face to memory.

Ahh, is this how every work event is gonna go from now on? You guys hiring, Steven?

Marc, we shouldn’t be here for this… As gorgeous as this little tinkerbell is

Steven tries to ignore the voices of his headmates as you continue to work him up, leaning forward to lick into your mouth partially to muffle his sounds and partially to not blow his load right there at the way you’re looking at him. He starts thrusting his hips into your hand, making you wetter just by watching him give in to his baser instincts.

“God, I’m not gonna last, love,” he whines out for you.

“Good,” you purr against his mouth.

His brow starts to furrow, and he looks up at you with a needy gaze as you pump your fist tighter, faster, your other hand reaching up to tug his hair back and he comes with a shout, eyes clenched tightly together and chest heaving.

You’re still slowly gripping his limp dick as you both look down to see his spend all over your thighs, leaking from his tip, dripping down your hand. He shyly meets your eyes as he hums happily and reaches for the paper towel stack behind where you’re perched to clean up his mess. When he comes back to wipe the white ropes off your thighs, you’re already tasting him and his jaw drops open at the sight of you smiling mischievously around your finger. You end up taking the paper towel from his hand and cleaning yourself up because Steven’s brain seems to have short circuited - something you’re very smug about at the moment. He has to shake himself out of his stupor to properly tuck himself away, and voices his concern about you not getting your own happy ending.

“Oh, we’re not done for the night, Hook,” you grin before pecking him and then gracefully hopping off the counter to stand pressed up against him.

“You’re so bloody gorgeous,” he mutters in amazement.

Told you it would work, hermano.

Steven, I swear to God if you don’t take care of her, I will.

Marc didn’t need to front anymore that night.

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prideofcelestia · 1 year

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❝grocery shopping with him❞

« characters - demon brothers, solomon, diavolo»

« gender neutral reader »

« headcanons »

LUCIFER

He is very efficient. Knowing exactly where every aisle is, the shopping basket is full in the blink of an eye. You are there only to keep him company. Time with you is precious and he intends to keep you close whenever the opportunity presents itself.

He scans the prices and brands before making a decision. He gets the best coffee beans directly from the plantations and he pays them well. He is “husband goals” if you are of an economic mind. He has a lot of coupons but his pride forbids him from using those. Beel is only too happy to receive it from his eldest brother. Owing to his busy schedule, he sometimes gets the necessities delivered. The bored cashier straightens up and greets him very respectfully.

He insists on carrying the bags himself and doesn’t listen to your protests.

MAMMON

Well, he’s scared to visit some stores because he hasn’t paid them back for decades. He is very particular about the stores you two can visit. Once there, he vanishes to check out the shelves and schemes about what he can sell for a higher price.

“After all, demons would pay extra to buy it from THE Great Mammon. We can send the bill to Lucifer. Hahaha,” says Mammon with a bunch of mismatched stuff in his shopping basket.

The burden of completing the shopping falls on you.

You sigh, “Let’s get it done before Lucifer calls and asks for dinner.”

You two carry the shopping bags together.

He buys you a gift while browsing.

LEVIATHAN

He is incapable of completing this mission alone. You must accompany him as he makes a comeback in the outside world in what feels like an eternity! His eyes dart to and fro as if afraid that someone will be disgusted by his presence.

“Where can we get this item, [Name]?” he asks for literally everything on the list.

You give him a tour for the future despite him refusing to follow.

“Levi, you should know where everything is!”

He literally gags when he sees seafood and runs away as fast as he can.

“Levi, wait! You can’t go out with the basket without paying first!”

You apologise for him but keep supporting him. You carry all the bags because he looks shaken and weak.

ASMODEUS

“Oh, [Name], look at these cute shaped cookies. We should definitely get these for my Devilgram!”

Within a few minutes, he has gotten everything in the store that’s not on the list.

“Asmo,” you say breathlessly as you try to catch up to him, “We need to buy groceries for dinner! We can’t eat chocolates and cookies… is that lip gloss? Let’s grab some vegetables!”

Asmo pouts but you shield your eyes from his cuteness. “No, Asmo! It’s been an hour. We should get started now. Plus, the two of us can’t carry all that!”

That’s when he gives up. “You are right. Maybe we can come back some other time. Let’s get the food before Lucifer gets mad.”

He returns some items since it got too heavy and then you two easily carry it to HOL.

SATAN

He’s very methodical and knows where the best deals are to be found! The shopkeepers know him only too well. Oh, vegetables? He knows a place where you can get fresh ones. Ah toiletries? Why, allow him to show you where good quality yet cheap toilet paper can be found. Name it!

Owing to his influence, he never returns from a shopping trip without getting everything that’s on his list - even if it’s sold out everywhere.

“I must get fresh ingredients to prove that my food is better than Lucifer’s,” he grins as he starts dinner preparations. “Oh, and try this coffee. The beans are a delicacy. I stayed awake for 2 days after drinking half a cup. I completed an entire series by a writer I like.”

“Sounds dangerous for the health, Satan.”

BEELZEBUB

You accompany him to make sure that he doesn’t eat the grocery store while he’s at it. He listens to you and tries to control himself but his hands still stretch to grab some food items that nobody should eat raw. So you have to devote half of your attention picking items for dinner and the other half to make sure that Beel doesn’t cause a lot of trouble.

“I’ll make you something you will enjoy for dinner so just wait for a bit longer, bub,” you promise and he behaves.

The rest of the trip is spent imagining all the delicacies that he will request you to make.

He carries all the bags back.

BELPHEGOR

He’s too lazy to care.

“Why didn't you ask one of my brothers to do the shopping in your place?” Belphie groans, looking drowsy. The supermarket was not his idea of an ideal date. “You know that they would have been only too happy to do it if you had asked. Then we could have taken a nap together instead.”

You put some onions in the basket and turn towards him wearily. “But it was my turn today. I can't always drop the burden on someone else. Besides,” your tone softens, almost apologetic, “Why don't I make something you like tonight? Something light on the stomach that will help you get good dreams?”

He narrows his eyes but looks pleased, “It seems that I am no different than my brothers. I can't say no to you. You make me melt. What can I say? You know me too well… ”

You carry the bags while he carries a pillow.

DIAVOLO

He tags along to spend time with you. The idea of chatting with you while doing the most mundane daily activities appeals to him. It’s sweet and endearing and he likes to stop talking and instead observe you deciding between two brands. These are Barbatos’ duties so he never gets the chance to enjoy these. He seems to be familiar with tea and coffee and can guide you about the best ones, even though he rarely drinks store-bought beverages.

He bombards you with questions about what you usually buy and make for dinner and promises to join you again if he's free.

He won’t let you carry the bags. Let him help you. Whoever sees the demon prince with grocery bags in his hands feels startled. Even royal demons are involved in housework! Mothers will be telling this story to the little ones for centuries to come.

SOLOMON

Solomon takes his time since you are there with him. A man needs to relax after researching all day.

“Ah look at this leafy cabbage. This was grown at the Hellfire Plantation. They use a special kind of manure. It’s very tasty,” he says and buys two.

The extent of his knowledge is bizarre. When he catches you looking mystified, he laughs. “Haha you look so suspicious of me. I am sorry. For some time in the last century, I took special interest in learning about the agricultural and rearing practices in the Devildom.”

“Wow Solomon,” you say impressed. “There seems to be nothing you don’t know!”

“Haha, that’s kind of you but there’s still a lot to learn about the world.”

“Thank you for coming shopping with me. Why don’t we return to Purgatory Hall? I will treat you to my cooking?” he offers with a satisfied smile.

Your instinct tells you to run but you ignore it and smile shakily instead. “Eh… ah… I actually promised Levi that I will play games with him tonight. Sorry! Maybe next time?”

That's when your legs start moving in the opposite direction, deserting him with all the bags.

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kindasleepywriter · 4 months

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Bird of Prey - Chapter 6: Tempest

Bird of Prey masterlist. Azriel x Reader.

Chapter summary: Feyre dives into unwanted memories, and Azriel deals with the consequences you have to endure.

Story rating: Mature - Minors DNI

Warnings: Torture, blood, burns, use of the word "half-breed", trauma response. This is a heavy chapter- but balanced with fluff, so much fluff<3

Word count: 5.6k

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The few days spent alone with Lucien had done you a lot of good. Cassian and Nesta weren’t around often, and it was refreshing to finally let your guard down, being able to exhale after centuries of holding your breath. The two of you were barely able to scratch the surface of all that you’d lived in the last two hundred and something years.

He was completely in love with his mate, and you were profoundly grateful that the mother had granted him a reprieve and a circle of people he trusted. Elain seemed like a sweet girl- a good soul that had managed to keep her softness through unending trauma. You’d never tell Lucien that you still didn’t trust her, of course, but you knew he was aware of your ‘hesitancy to accept people’, as he’d called it once. Over dinners and late-night chats, he’d gone quickly over the rocky beginnings of their relationship- and Azriel’s part in that turbulence- but he reassured you that there was no bad blood, and Azriel had even been to one to finally convince Elain to take a chance on Lucien. You didn’t know how you felt about that information, so you willfully ignored it.

His friends, his band of exiles, as he called them, also seemed like interesting people- especially the firebird. He was excited about the prospect of introducing you to them and, even though you were reticent to meet strangers, there was little you wouldn’t do for him. You could try, at the very least.

Then, there was the elephant in the room. Amarantha. You already knew the gist of what had happened during those fifty years, but he recounted how he had experienced it in Spring, his friends sent to slaughter in the human lands in hopes of ending her reign. He knew you understood what being trapped felt like. You’d offered him the best support you could muster, pushing past your discomfort at the subject.

“Where were you during that time, anyways? How did you hide from that nightmare for five decades?”, Lucien asked, sitting in an armchair to the side of yours where both of you were taking comfort in the crackle of a low fire in the sitting room. “I heard you disappeared during that time. No one heard about any contracts you might’ve taken.”

“Well, I didn’t have the chance to be in Velaris when the curse rose from under the mountain”, you muttered sarcastically, “but I already had so few ties to people. It wasn’t hard to keep track of them and… well. You’re aware of what I do when a messenger decides to let slip important details. They know the consequences signing on.”

Lucien winced. “Did it happen often.?”

“Only once, at the end of the first year. A shopkeeper who thought he might be able to gain Amarantha’s favor by selling me out. I decided not to take any chances after that and I took shelter as far as I could, even hiding in the human lands for a while. Any contracts I could’ve gotten during that time would’ve probably been on her orders, directly or not. I didn’t want to participate in her destruction. I did visit you in spring once or twice over the decades, though. I think I rather prefer you without the mask.”

“You’re not the only one, but I also think not ripping the collars of my shirts while dressing is really the best thing about losing it.”, he chuckled. “I’m glad to hear you weren’t hurt during her reign. She really had an obsession over you, but you never even heard about that, did you?”

You shook your head, confused. You knew she’d have interest in someone with your skillset, but you weren’t exactly well known. You wouldn’t be very good at your job if you left witnesses.

“What did I ever do to piss her off? I’ve never even been close to her for contracts, it’s not like she could’ve had a grudge against me.”

“She didn’t need to know you to resent you- You know your old reputation, Feather, but you’ve got to understand that it’s not just a rumor circulating through the undercities anymore,” he said, “People were clinging on to every hope they could during those decades. The idea of someone who had the power to take down rulers… It caught on like a brushfire.”

“But I wasn’t even there.”

“That’s a detail the common folk didn’t care about.”

“And yet, its still the most crucial one.”, you sighed. “By the mother, they might’ve thought I’d be their savior, but I didn’t talk to a single soul for half a century.”

“Now, that’s one long dry spell, I’ll say that your uptight attitude with the others is so much more unders- ow!”, he yelped as you smacked him in the arm with the book that sat on the table between you.

“If you think me not getting any for a couple years is enough for me to not check your audacity, Kit, I-“

“Now that I think about it, maybe that explains the tension between you and a certain spymaster, I’m sure after so long out there you just can’t- stop it!” Another smack, as he held you at arm’s length to protect himself from any further literary assaults, but he continued undeterred.

“I mean, with the way you’re watching him, I feel like you’re really earning your title of Bir-“

You clapped a hand over his mouth, hissing. “Not here!”You had no idea who could be listening in. Using your ‘professional’ name wasn’t the best idea.

He wrenched your arm away from him, laughing. “They’re not going to hurt you. They’re not who you think they are, Feathers. The act they put up before was mostly just that, an act. I know you heard the rumors, that you-”

Your mind flipped like a switch from amusement to anger, and you shoved him away. Lucien’s face immediately went white at your change in demeanor.

“Heard the rumors, Lucien? I didn’t just hear them, I saw them! I’ll be damned before any of these damn faes fool me into believing their bullshit. The camps, they’re a nightmare.”

You were seething. He knew of your history, and to disregard their actions as mere court gossip felt like a betrayal.

“You don’t know what it’s like to see a little girl’s wings pinned to the town square because she went just a little too far in the forest”, you spat, “women carrying so many bruises that their skin was more purple than skin colored, flinching whenever a door opened!”

A soft voice put an end to your tirade. “I’m sorry you’ve been witness to such a horrible event. These clippings… They’re harrowing.”, the High Lady said, standing in the doorway of the room with her arms loosely folded as she stared at you, pain flashing in her eyes. You hadn’t noticed her, in your anger. Immediately, you stiffened and tried to calm your breathing, but struggled when you heard Lucien let out a breath of relief behind you. You fought every urge to turn around and swing at him. He’d get his verbal beating later. You forced your voice back into neutrality, years of practice aiding you.

“I assume that you disapprove of the practice, then.”, you said, venom still subtly lacing your words despite your efforts.

“Of course, I do.”, she sighed. “We’ve been doing what we can to stop them, I swear that to you, but it’s easier to try and lift a mountain than to convince the Lords watching over the camps.”

You narrowed your eyes, not offering a word. If convincing them was the problem, you thought, then perhaps a change in leadership was needed. Either for those Lords… or higher in the ranks. Still, you felt a certain amount of honesty in her words. Maybe she had a distaste for the practice, but it didn’t mean her entourage did.

She exhaled, noticing your closed off body language. She walked slowly into the room, sparing a glance at Lucien, standing still for a moment before turning back to you. “I was told you asked for me specifically, to hear what you’re willing to share.”

Ah, right. The planned dive into the most intimate part of yourself: your memories. You’d almost forgotten about it, in the comfort of Lucien’s presence. Almost.

Lucien shuffled around you awkwardly, nodding to Feyre as he left the room with haste. If your jaw could clench any harder, you were pretty sure your teeth would have started cracking by now.

“You seemed like the better alternative.”, you said.

“Yes, I know Rhys can be a little much when you meet him for the first time. Trust me, I didn’t like him at first either.”

Mentally, you rolled her eyes. What words were hers, which ones were his, and were any of them truthful? You couldn’t know.

Feyre looked disappointed at your lack of response. If she thought a few niceties would change your mind about her mate, she was wrong.

“Well, we can get started, if you’d like. This will only take a minute.”

You nodded.

She gestured to the velvet couch that sat parallel to the armchairs you and Lucien had occupied, and you sat, keeping a certain distance from her. You felt the fire’s warmth at your side. A cold shiver ran through you despite it.

“What do I need to do, exactly? Do I need to close my eyes, or…”

The truth was that you had no idea how daemati powers worked. You’d had a certain amount of training in the Dawn court against it, but it was always from a position of defense. The instinct to bar anyone from your mind had been drilled into you as a young fae, and the idea of letting someone in was making every nerve in your body recoil. You didn’t want people to see even the most minute emotional reaction, and Feyre would be privy to your entire history and thoughts.

“If you feel like you need to, you may, but it’s not necessary. Just lower your shields and I’ll make sure to keep it as brief as possible. You can go afterwards, but invite you to stay, should you choose too. You’re Lucien’s friend, he’s told us good things about you…”, she said.

You braced yourself for the intrusion, keeping quiet and watching her carefully as you dismantled your barriers, brick by brick. She seemed to abandon the idea of convincing you. You felt the soft scratch of sharp talons against them, figuratively knocking at your door. The feeling was too familiar to Rhysand’s powers, and you couldn’t help but shudder at the thought. You finally made an opening in your stone walls.

Her incorporeal presence started to sort through your mind. You appreciated that she let you see her exploring and that she focused on the relevant parts of your memories. You knew that was a conscious choice on her part and you felt the slightest appreciation for how respectful she was in the situation. You felt a warmth from her as the thought crossed your mind, immediately turning your gratefulness into wariness again.

She started at the most recent events, thankfully skipping your time since you’d arrived in Velaris, and travelled backwards in time. She saw the confrontation with Azriel in the woods, the hunt for the Illyrian spy across Prythian, back to the initial arrangement that had taken place.

You almost felt her shock as she witnessed your messenger transmitting the details of the contract, lingering on it just a moment too long for it to go unnoticed. The story of the young woman and what she suffered, her forced marriage, her destroyed wings. You felt Feyre’s fury run through you as she processed the information. Her emotional state agitated her, so much that some of her memories slipped through.

You could see her discussing with her circle in a large room, a table covered in what seemed to be reports and maps, debating on ways to protect the women in the camps. You saw fragments of her and Rhysand, locked in an embrace in the morning light, whispering about the horror they’d seen, his hold on her tightening as tears ran down her cheeks. You felt like an intruder, these were private conversations, intimate moments, but you couldn’t help but be shocked at the idea that the court really did want to change the camps. Was she the only one pushing for this, or did they listen to her pleas for change? She did hate those clippings, that you were sure of. You let out an exhale of relief, ready to rebuild your barriers.

What you didn’t expect, however, was for her to keep going. You began to struggle as you tried to stack brick after brick, shoving her out, but she was too strong. She wasn’t finished, and you were powerless to stop it, but panic ran through you. You couldn’t tell where her emotions started and when yours ended, if the thoughts running through you were hers, yours, or somebody else’s.

You tried to throw every thought possible at her, stop her descent into your past, but she was too far gone in the trauma of your past. She was getting too close, too deep, and you were shaking through it all.

“Stop.”, you gritted out aloud. “You know I wasn’t here to cause problems, stop going through my fucking past, let me go!”

It was as if she didn’t hear you, but she let out a gasp of shock when she completely bypassed your time in Autumn, flying instead to the one moment you had never shared with anyone like a moth to a flame. Ice ran through your veins. Anything but this, any other memory, you pleaded, but you were met with only growing alarm and dread. You were both engulfed by the weight of your pain.

“Dad, please, I didn’t think, I’m sorry!”

You were sobbing, a large weight on your chest as two hands gripped the bone that ran along the top of each of your wings so harshly that you could feel the fingernails drawing blood and ripping out soft dawn feathers. Your full feathers weren’t even completely mature yet, you weren’t even fully grown yet.

“Damn right you didn’t think, you ungrateful little shit. I was clear that you would not come back here.”, the man spit out. “You’re not my daughter, never was. I don’t care that your mother died pretending to have the right to fight. I’m not responsible for a disgusting fucking chicken like you!”

You squinted through the pain at him, his knees digging into your thorax as he held you down. You couldn’t breathe. His stocky frame blocked out the light that filtered through the shut windows, his wings fully extended as you struggled against his hold. His leathery black wings.

“I’ll go right now”, you pleaded, “I’ll never be seen in the night court again, I swear, please, just let me go!”

His hand gripped tighter, a loud cry echoing through your lungs.

“And have Arevos think me weak, letting a few tears from a half-breed like you sway me? Never, not in a million years. You’ll learn the consequences of your actions. You’ll see what happens to lowly women like you who would rather destroy a man’s reputation than know your place.”

He swung a fist at you, dizzying you as you choked on the blood now flowing down your throat. He moved behind you, stepping on you in the process, and started dragging you out the door, grabbing only your wings. You screamed in pain, sobbing uncontrollably as red-hot pain shot through your muscles and back, feathers ripping out and leaving bloody trails as your father stepped through the camp furiously. You clawed at the floor, trying to grip at anything to yank yourself out of his grip, only catching dirt and stones and your fingernails ripping.

He hauled you out to the forest, closely followed by Arevos and a few other legionnaires. They watched, laughing, as Aravos’ son handed your father a blade. Kallon. The only person in this forsaken camp who’d ever spoken to you like a person, now laughing at your torture as if you were only entertainment. The dagger radiated warmth, its metal red from where it had been laying in a nearby campfire. Your crying impossibly grew louder, your pleas ignored as you tried to call for Kallon’s help, tried to bargain, to negotiate, but they didn’t care. They all watched on with vicious smirks as the legionnaires freed your father’s hands and held your wings down for him.

You’d never felt pain like this before. Broken bones, sprained muscles, you were familiar with. This? It didn’t even begin to compare. You felt like it went on for hours, pain drowning out the laughter of the sadists that surrounded you. You wailed and screamed until your throat wouldn’t let anymore more than pained croaks come out, vocal cords giving up on you as your spirit was crushed by the reality of what was happening. Your wings were who you are, and you knew this might be the last time you’d ever see them.

You prayed to the mother to let you dive into unconsciousness, to grant you the peacefulness of death, but your prayers were useless, and you could picture the goddess spitting at your feet in disgust. You were delirious, still feeling every touch and burn of that dagger as it sliced through your flesh as if you were a slaughtered animal, only worth anything torn apart and freed of your vile skin.

An unspeakable amount of time late, bored of the spectacle that was your murder. They let go of your body and left it on the forest floor, every shred of your body and soul bleeding profusely, meeting with dirt and moss. Fertilizer was all you would ever be, all that you were worthy of. Your breath was barely more than a whisper, a crackle of fire inside your chest. When the dark embraced you, your life draining into the ground along with your silent tears, you only felt gratefulness that your torment was over.

Someone was saying your name. It resonated around you despite you barely hearing it, like an echo in a dark cave. You felt the hard floor beneath you, no longer embedded into your grave as distant shouts reached your ears. You were crying, rolled into a fetal position. You were screaming, the crackle of fire and pain ever present within you.

“What the HELL did you do to her, Feyre?”, you heard a deep voice yell.

“I don’t know, I couldn’t stop falling into her memories, it was like I’d fallen through a crack in her mind! I can’t stop seeing it, the torture, the pain…”, a panicked feminine voice replied.

You were still howling like a wounded animal, your eyes closed tightly. A torrent of wind was whipping your face, sharp pain still coursing through your veins, a ghost underneath your skin. You could make out hands slowly lifting you from the ground, startling you into resisting in the darkness, your screaming turning to sobs and pleas of mercy, but cold mist surrounded you, an unknown familiarity only barely making a dent in calming you. You were shaking uncontrollably from your sobs, the pain fainter than it had been moments ago.

“Shh, it’s okay Dove”, a voice whispered to you, even though it still seemed so distant from you, muted in the roaring consuming your mind. “You’re safe, they can’t get you here. You can breathe.”

You couldn’t stop your sobs. It was if every emotion you’d ever felt, ever suppressed were rushing out of you all at once. You were drowning beneath the waves. Firm hands traced circles on your back, and a softer wind laid on your skin like a blanket. Your hands gripped the thin fabric that you felt brush against your fingers. The warm voice kept murmuring, soothing you.

You could only lay there helpless against the never-ending agony as you cried.

When you came to again, it was to the sound of voices again. A soft touch was running over your back.

“She destroyed the sitting room; we can’t let her stay here.”

“Maybe if Feyre hadn’t gone looking in places she shouldn’t have, it could’ve been prevented.” You felt deep vibrations against your cheek.

“Watch it, you’re clearly too invested in her to-”

“Rhys, let him be.” A feminine voice, this time. “What matters here is how she even managed to summon that storm. We didn’t even feel any power from her and then this happens… I showed Mor, and she said it was exactly like the one I’d made before she saved me from Tamlin’s manor. We can’t just-”

You couldn’t help a whimper from leaving you from the tension the room, your hands flat against the same fabric as before. You felt exhaustion down to every single bone in your body. The surface against which you laid shifted, the warm circles stopping for just a moment.

“Az… We’ll come back later, but we need to meet whenever possible. We haven’t told Lucien yet, he’s with Elain at their cottage, but I won’t be able to hold keep in the dark for long, and we all know he’ll freak out.”

“Just let me handle it for now, Rhys.”

You felt the sun harshly against your eyelids and back as you gained more awareness and tried to blink the sleep out of your eyes to grasp your surroundings. You stretched out your legs a little, the hand on your back tightening and keeping you from going too far. Your eyes got used to the light, and you became aware of the body underneath your hands. You squinted and looked up at Azriel, sighing. He was watching you like a hawk, worry written all over his face.

Wait. Azriel?

You yelped and jumped out of his hold, almost toppling over the side of the bed from the force of your wings snapping shut, Azriel’s hands stopping you from falling face first of the ground by gripping your waist and lifting you up into a sitting position in front of him.

Your eyes widened as you scampered to the foot of the bed away from him, your brain still in a fog of exhaustion that confused your senses and your heart beating like a hummingbird’s. How did you end up here?

“What- What happened?”, you said, agitated and too tired to wrangle your demeanor into calculated cold.

“Feyre didn’t have the decency to keep her curiosity under control when she paid a little visit to your memories, that’s what happened.”, he grumbled, still watching you as if he feared you’d run for the door at any moment.

His fear wasn’t unfounded. You were considering the option, still freaking out a little over the proximity you two had shared.

You looked around yourself, finally realizing that the two of you were in the bedroom you’d been staying in, a book still open face down on the other side of the bed just like you’d left it to talk to Lucien. You could faintly remember talking to Feyre, the relief you’d felt… And then the terror. It all came rushing back and you curled against yourself. Shadows wrapped around your ankles and legs softly, cooling your now overheated skin.

“She saw… she saw everything, didn’t she?”, you said, your voice cracking. Your eyes filled with tears again.

“She only saw the worst of it. She didn’t elaborate much, but I think we all understood what she’d seen.” His hands were clenched into fists, knuckles white, and he immediately relaxed them when he caught you looking. You studied his hands, the scarred skin. It looked just like the scars you carried from the torture your father had put you through.

“If it means anything”, he continued, “I truly am sorry that happened to you. It’s something you should never have gone through. To know that Arevos had a part to play in it too… We’ll deal with him.”

You looked up from his hands, a question dawning on you. “Did you… Did you see my wings?”

He shook his head. “Only the backside of them, they relaxed when you fell asleep. I was careful not to let you on your back, I didn’t want you to injure them.”

You let out a shaky breath of relief, whispering your thanks. He could’ve easily used the opportunity to examine the mess of scars that laid there, along with the only clear sign of your Illyrian heritage. Hints of it were everywhere, from the softer tip of your ear, your more angular wings, and the above-average length of their terminal bones, but you could pass as full-blooded Peregryn. You still had the typical hollow bones, the eye color and skin tone of their people.

What stood out, however, was only visible when you fully extended your wings. The soft dawn that protected the base of your flight feathers wasn’t the pure, untainted white or vibrant gold of your comrades. Instead, the light feathers emerged from midnight-black tufts that lined the skin. Only in flight could it been truly seen, but it was enough to mark you as the one thing the population of the Dawn court hated most: A half-breed, specifically one whose father was a disgusting Illyrian.

Azriel could’ve easily just lifted your wing and looked, and you would’ve never known. Yet, he didn’t. Your heart warmed a little from its current apathy.

“Am I cleared, then? Free to go?”

His face dropped from aggravation to something akin to... nervousness? “We know you can be trusted if that’s what you’re wondering. Feyre left you the choice of leaving, so you weren’t forced to exit the court after what happened. There’s something else you need to know before you go though, and it’s got the others worried.”

You frowned. You were less eager to depart from Velaris than you thought you’d be, but your freedom was your priority. You didn’t want another reason for them not to let you go.

“When you were reliving the memory, something peculiar happened. I don’t think Feyre was expecting it, given the look on her face when I flew in. You may have… whipped up a storm in the sitting room. More precisely, you summoned one.”

“That’s impossible. I don’t have powers.”, you stated, confused. Was this his idea of a prank? If so, it was needlessly cruel.

He hesitated, clearly considering his next words carefully. “We thought that too, but you really did create it. It was your energy, even if it didn’t feel as clear as it should. You used it like a shield surrounding you. Feyre couldn’t even get close to you.”

Shock coursed through you. You’d never shown any signs of power, much to the dismay of your parents. You’d always been the disappointment. The result of the union of one of the greatest Illyrian warriors and a commander of the Dawn court was expected to be of great power, even if considered as lesser than. It became clear quickly as you grew that you weren’t, and unable to use what little you had of it. You could fight, sure, but power? Not a chance.

“I spent the first 18 years of my life being tested relentlessly in every manner known to man.”, you said. “How is this even possible?”

“We’re not exactly sure, but the theory so far is that Feyre may have unlocked your capabilities when she went digging through your mind. Quite violently too, given the state of the room.”, he nervously laughed. “It wasn’t the first time this happened, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the other day, you left a burn so deep in the doorknob of the study that I’m surprised it didn’t catch fire.”

The study? Oh. That study. Your face flushed. Knowing what you did now, you couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by your reaction.

“I’m sorry.”, you whispered.

Azriel almost growled as he got closer to you, reaching out a hand to lay on your crossed knees. “You have nothing to apologize for. I should’ve known better. God I…” He paused, rubbing a hand over his face. “I can’t begin to imagine how it felt, you had every right to end it there. I’m just grateful it was the door, not me.”

You looked up at him. His hand still covered his face, and he was stiff as a board.

You considered silently your next move. You were still exhausted, and you definitely weren’t thinking right, but you were just so tired of always pretending. Always keeping up a cold front, always distancing yourself from any who dared approach you. Since you’d met him, you’d been nothing but cruel to him. All of this for your false impression of the rulers of the Night court, and a single insult from centuries ago. Your heart was screaming at you to say something, do anything other than shut yourself off. For once, you listened.

“Look, Azriel, I… I’m not sure how I feel right now, I’m lost, and I can’t make sense of anything.” You gently laid a hand over the one that covered your knee. “What I do know is that we clearly started off with misconceptions about each other.”

His eyes snapped to yours, lowering his hand. “I think we agree on that.”, he chuckled dryly, the hold on your knee tightening slightly before letting go. His shadows retreated from you abruptly, as if forced to. He abruptly stood up and started pacing with his back turned to you. His fists were clenched again. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable here. I feel like I’ve imposed enough.”, he said. “I’m the one who dragged you here, threatening you with torture or mind-breaking, and it was so wrong to force myself on you then and now keeping you here with me, you’ve got enough going on as is, and I should ask Lucien to come up here to stay with you, he’s the one who you feel comfortable with-”

His breath stuttered as you threaded your arms around his ribcage after you’d silently tip-toed over to his position. You were careful not to touch his wings and you laid your cheek against his back. You felt him shudder as his arms captured yours at his front, his head dropping. The heat of him didn’t help your drowsy state but his shadows reached out tentatively and encircled you again when a sigh of contentment escaped you.

You couldn’t say why you trusted this man. You didn’t have many memories together, especially positive ones, but something in him drawn you to him like a siren would a ship. You knew there was more to him than he let others see, and your own shattered self resonated with his.

“I don’t agree, Az.”, you whispered softly. He hummed in dissent, but you just gripped him tighter. “If I’d wanted you out of here you would’ve known. I quite remember my knee doing some damage last time you hurt me.”

He laughed, startled, the vibrations coursing up your arms.

“I don’t need to start wearing special armor around you, then?”, he said.

“Not yet, no.”

A moment of silence, the two of you wrapped around each other, unmoving in the sunlit room.

“I meant it when I thanked you.”, you finally said. “For staying with me last night, for getting me out of there in the first place. For letting me fall apart.”

“I couldn’t leave you there.”, he breathed. “I felt the bargain disappear and then I heard your screams from miles away. I thought- I don’t know what I thought. I raced here as felt as I could.”

You bowed your head, even though you knew he couldn’t see you. You were starting to feel faint. Using your newfound powers apparently took a lot more energy than you’d assumed. You really needed to sleep.

Your grip on his ribs loosened as you tried to take a step backwards. Your legs failed beneath you, but Azriel, always as fast as a falcon, stopped your fall and held you up against his chest. You gazed up as his hazel eyes, lingering on his perfect skin and his soft lips for a second. A few curled strands were separated from the rest, and you softly passed your fingers through his hair, unsuccessful in your attempt to tame them. His stare was warm, and he gave you a small smile, not commenting on your unashamed appreciation of his features. You could’ve kept watching him for hours.

“I think I might need to rest a few minutes before we talk more.”

“You’ll be lucky if you’re awake within that day.”, Azriel sighed. He lifted you softly onto the bed, as if to lay you down and leave. You didn’t let him go.

“Stay. Please.”, you croaked, looking up at him. His hair was still all over the place, his frame highlighted by the sweater he wore. He looked beautiful, exhausted as he may be. The sun created a halo of light around him. An angel, you thought.

He sat down on the bed, keeping you close as you grabbed his shoulders to pull yourself up to lay against his chest, your face buried in his neck, breathing in the smell of cedar and mist that always surrounded him. He chuckled at your tight grip.

“I’ll be here when you wake up, Dove. Take the time you need.”

You fell asleep to the sound of his breath and to the rhythm of his heart, drumming slowly alongside yours.

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