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#so if i get hung up on a word or a particular part of one sentence i physically can't move on until i remember or come up with that word.

ao3commentoftheday · 6 months

Note

Do you have any advice and how to write a long fic?

I'll encourage long fic writers to add on in the notes, but as someone who tends to prefer short and medium-length fic, I'll tell you how I go about it.

Get a premise that you just absolutely love. You're going to be writing this thing for months, if not longer, so you want it to be something you're willing to spend a lot of time thinking about.

Embrace subplots. You'll have your main plotline that you want to see through from beginning to end, but you can also weave in some subplots here or there. The way I do this so that I don't get lost down a rabbit hole is that I always make sure that every chapter has at least 1 thing that moves the main plot forward and then if I want to spend 1-2K with some side characters doing something fun I can do that as well. Subplots can extend for the length of the full narrative, but they can also just last a chapter or three. If you're used to writing short fic, these might give you that familiar feeling of "completion"

A chapter is only as long as it needs to be. Don't get hung up on having a consistent chapter length. Don't get hung up on hitting some arbitrary number every time. Instead, figure out what the next part of your story needs to include and write however many words it takes to get that chunk across. Varying your chapter lengths is a normal thing to do and not something to stress about.

The next thing that I find important personally may or may not be relevant to you, but I find that I can't plot anything in much detail. If I get too into the nitty gritty with my plotting, it just feels like I've already written it. I need to keep it at the level of "And then A and B meet C and hijinks ensue." I can figure out the particular hijinks later. It's the characters meeting up that's the next important thing for me to figure out. Getting too far ahead of myself is a death knell for me in writing long fics, but there are other writers who swear by it. Test out different ways of approaching it and see what works for you.

As someone who tends to write more briefly, another feature that's common to longer fics is more extensive descriptions. People spend time painting visual pictures of the setting or the characters or the actions that are happening. Write the more bare-bones style that focuses more on dialogue (if you're like me) and then go back and read through what you've just written and see if there are opportunities to add in more detail. This can lead to some really interesting characterization choices and also help you out with worldbuilding.

When it comes to worldbuilding, you don't have to get it all on the page. You just need to share what's relevant for the reader in that moment and what is useful to lay out now so that it's already there in a future chapter. You can have an encyclopedic knowledge of how your world works in your head, but it's not actually necessary. No one is going to be quizzing you later - and if they do, you can always figure it out at that point.

Most important for me when I'm trying to get myself to the end of a longer fic, have a friend or a group of friends who are also into what you're writing - or at least willing to hear you get excited about it. Being able to get excited about your work is so important. It's like a bottle of water being handed to you on mile 10 of a marathon.

#asks and answers #long fic writers go!#and short fic writers who have successfully written long #how did you go about it?#long post

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jonnywaistcoat · 2 months

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Hey, Horrormaster Sims. I have a wildly different question that barely relates to TMA (Sorry about that) but its about your own process. Please, if you could, can you tell me how your first drafts made you feel? I'm on the fence about writing my own thing (not a podcast, and again, not Magnus related, though I have a million little aus for that delightful tragedy you wrote, thank you for that!) But I'm discouraged by the collective notion that first drafts are always terrible, because there's no ... examples I can solidly use to help the dumb anxiety beast in my brain that tells me everyone who is in any way popular popped out a golden turd and not, well, you know. One of my friends said 'Oh I bet Jonathan Sims's first draft was nothing like what he wanted' and I got the bright idea to just. Send you an ask, since you're trapped on this hellsite like I am. Anyway, thanks for reading this (if you do) and if you'd rather ask it privately, I am cool with that. Alternatively, you're a hella busy man with Protocol (you and Alex are making me rabid, i hope you know) and you can just ignore this! Cheers, man, and good words.

To my mind all writing advice, especially stuff that's dispensed as truisms (like "first drafts are always garbage") are only useful inasmuch as such advice prompts you to pay attention to how you write best: what helps your workflow, what inspires you, what keeps you going through the rough bits. There are as many different ways to write (and write well) as there are people who write and so always consider this sort of thing a jumping off point to try out or keep in mind as you gradually figure out your own ways of writing.

On first drafts specifically, I think the wisdom "all first drafts are bad" is a bit of unhelpful oversimplification of the fact that, deadlines notwithstanding, no piece of writing goes out until you decide its ready, so don't get too hung up on your first draft of a thing, because a lot of writers find it much easier to edit a complete work than to try and redraft as they go. It's also important to not let perfectionism or the fact your initial draft isn't coming out exactly how you want stop you from actually finishing the thing, as it's always better to have something decent and done than to have something perfect and abandoned.

But the idea of a "first draft" is also kind of a fluid one. The "first draft" you submit to someone who's commissioned you will probably be one you've already done a bunch of tweaks and edits to, as opposed to the "first draft" you pump out in a frenzy in an over-caffeinated weekend. For my part, my first drafts tend to end up a bit more polished than most, because I'm in the habit of reading my sentences out loud as I write them (a habit picked up from years of audio writing) so I'll often write and re-write a particular sentence or paragraph a few times to get the rhythm right before moving to the next one. This means my first drafts tend to take longer, but are a bit less messy. I'm also a big-time planner and pretty good at sticking to the structures I lay out so, again, tend to front load a lot of stuff so I get a better but slower first draft.

At the end of the day, though, the important thing is to get in your head about it in a good way (How do I write best? what helps me make writing I enjoy and value? What keeps me motivated?) and not in a bad way (What if it's not good enough? What if everyone hates it? What if it doesn't make sense?) so that you actually get it done.

As for how my first drafts made me feel? Terrible, every one of 'em No idea if that's reflective of their quality, though, tbh - I hate reading my own writing until I've had a chance to forget it's mine (I can only ever see the flaws). I suppose there's theoretically a none-zero chance they were pure fragments of True Art and creative perfection, but Alex's editing notes make that seem unlikely.

#writing advice #rambling #first drafts #gotta say not mad on being called a horrormaster #feel like ive a ways to go yet #horror journeyman maybe

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going-to-ikea-for-the-fries · 2 months

Text

It's a Match! || 141 x reader

[ Chapter 4 ] || [ Chapter 6 ]

Pairing: 141 x gn!Reader Words: 1.3K~ tags: a little bit of angst in this one, mentions of infidelity, also, Price is divorced. Summary: While overcoming recent heartbreak, you decide to join Tinder in search of a rebound. Your friends advise to just Swipe Right indiscriminately... What happens when 4 soldiers from the same squad match with you?

Chapter 5: GET LAID?

[The scolding Price gives is fully inspired by Captain Holt from B99]

“YOU. DID. WHAT?!” Price’s voice was so loud it bounced off the walls and Soap could swear the door was rattling.

The environment inside of Price’s tiny little office was beyond tense. Gaz sat across from Price on the arm chair, with his hands clasped over his lap. Soap stood beside him, hands on the back of the other chair, constantly shuffling and readjusting. And Ghost was all the way in the back of the room, arms crossed and one foot scuffing up the wall he was leaning against.

They looked like a group of kids at the headmaster’s office, getting the reaming of a century and waiting for their parents to come get them, only to get reamed out some more by them. Except they’re grown adults and Price is, in a way, both the headmaster and their father.

Granted, they probably should’ve waited until tomorrow morning when they’re not all a bit buzzed from one too many beers… It seemed tonight was just one of those nights where they have little to no restraint… and are incapable to be reasoned with.

“If it’s any consolation, I told them you wouldn’t be too keen on 'em buttin' in your life.” Ghost spoke up while dipping his head to the side in a lazy shrug.

This earned him a sharp look from Price, who swivelled on his executive chair, turning a bit to properly face Ghost. The man looked seconds away from blowing up, eyes widened and wild.

“And yet you still HELPED 'EM?!” The Captain scolded him, to which Simon replied with a full shrug.

“They made a compelling case. You’ve been insufferable, boss.” He remarked, causing Price to sputter a bit.

“I didn’t wanna say anything, but it’s true, Captain. You need to get laid.” Soap jumped in.

His hackles raised and he stood up, slamming his hands on the desk, causing a rattling in the white mug he used as a pen holder. Gaz couldn’t help but wonder if the Captain didn’t hurt his palms.

“GET LAID?!” Price shouted in a tone almost akin to panic. “MY LOVE LIFE IS NONE OF YOUR CONCERN!” Price scolded them all, rausing a hand and pointing his finger at no one in particular.

“AND I WOULDN’T BE SO INSUFFERABLE IF YOU LOT DID YOUR JOBS. BUT NO, I’M HAVING TO FIX YOUR MESSES AND DEAL WITH ALL THIS BULLSHIT!” He shouted as he ran his hand over a pile of documents on the edge of his desk, sending them all flying to the floor.

None of the lads shook in the face of the Captain’s shouts. They were all used to it, having heard enough of them from other C.O.s in their careers and, especially, more than enough from John in the last year.

Price huffed through his nose and hung his head for a moment. Then, he tossed himself back in his chair, leaning it back and grumbling under his breath.

He sat with his legs parted, left arm over the desk top, the right one hanging limply over his lap. He grumbled under his breath, his mustache scrunching a bit as he raised his right hand to rub his eyes.

“Bloody fuckin’ hell…” Price grumbled and swiveled his chair back toward the desk, inadvertently toward Soap and Gaz as well, setting his elbows on either side of the black desk mat.

He held his head up with both hands, his blue eyes sliding downward to the phone they had set in front of him when explaining what they did, which now sat between his elbows.

In it was the Tinder profile they had created, the gimmicky, silly little shite that includes grainy photos of him and a bio written in the 3rd person. What impressed him was the fact that somehow, despite only having been active for an hour, according to them, the account had already seen about 35 likes and a handful of DMs from people.

Most of them were curious about the bio, some of them asking a variation of ‘Does John know you made this account?’, etc.

However, it bothered him that they did this behind his back, never once stopping to ask if he needed or wanted their help (AND HE DIDN’T). “You need to delete this.” He ended up saying after a moment of silence.

He grabbed the phone and set it on the edge of his desk to be taken by either Gaz or Soap, with a bit more aggression than he meant to. “Deactivate it, whatever.” He added.

“But, sir-” Soap tried to say, being shushed by Price raising a hand to signal him to quiet down.

“No buts.” He said directly as he raised his head and glared right at Soap. “And you need to tell that person that you already promised a date to that I’m not interested and APOLOGIZE for leading them on.” He ordered.

“Boss… C’mon.” Ghost called for him from his corner, causing John’s head to slowly turn to face him, eyebrows scrunched when he noticed the gaze Simon was sending him.

Cursed be Simon Riley, the only tosser in the entire SAS other than MacMillan, who can read John like the open book that he prides himself in not being.

But of course Simon knows why he’s so reluctant. He was there 5 years ago… when Price called him from his car in a side road somewhere, so drunk that his words were more so obscene slurs than words themselves, spewing mentions of loss and betrayal and a visceral need to cave a man’s face in, of emptying magazine after magazine on his wife’s lover’s body.

Simon went to get him, took the man home to his own shitty little flat, let him sleep off the inebriation in his bed, looked after him just in case he’d choke on his own drunken vomit, and the next afternoon, when Price was more himself, he drove Price to his marital home and helped him pack his bags.

Price stayed at his apartment for almost 6 months before getting his own place. Not that Ghost minded. Returning to the barracks was embarrassing for the Captain… And getting his own place required time and patience, which Price was lacking.

Eventually, Price signed the divorce papers, the matter was settled, and Price went on leave. Ghost took his as well and helped him settle into a flat, helped him assemble furniture, brought him meals.

Then started Price’s fuckboy era. Which is how Gaz and Soap heard of his proclivity to hook up with people. Gender didn’t matter, so much as getting momentary satisfaction and some of the shadows out of his bones.

Then, Graves and Shepherd happened… And Price cut it cold turkey. He was pent up. Point blank. Went from getting regular satisfaction to getting nothing and burying himself in his work. Blaming himself for not noticing the signs earlier.

Sometimes Ghost wondered if the man was going through a mid-life crisis.

“You could use it, boss.” Ghost added as he looked Price right in the eyes. “What’s one night, huh? Just going for a drink with them?”

“Simon-” Price tried arguing.

“Please, sir. We promise you’ll like ‘em.” Gaz pleaded.

“Yeah, sir, we all talked with ‘em and they’re a right laugh.” Soap added.

Taking a deep breath, John leaned back on his chair again and threw his hands in the air again.

“Alright.” He conceded. “BUT!” He interrupted them before they got too giddy. “None of this… Tinder shite.” He gestured vaguely to the phone at the edge of the desk.

“You set up a meet-up this Friday at a pub nearby. No more after that.” He ordered.

“On it!” Gaz said as he snatched the phone from the desk to dm you.

taglist: @daisychainsinknots , @bunnysdaydreams , @iite-cool , @lahniu , @pagesfalling , @tapioca-milktea1978 , @live-love-be-unique , @thelaisydazy , @littleghosthunter , @bossva , @emotion-no-hot-yes-hotel-trivago , @chamomiletealeaf , @ghosts-hoe , @kariiiel , @ltbarnes , @irregulardongyoung , @spacelia , @hayleybarnesx , @infpt-zylith , @xxshadowbabexx , @frescoisnotinthemilitary , @leeeenistop , @lucienbarkbark , @zombie-freak , @wittleespur , @agoodmoviekiss , @l0lziez , @whos-fran , @greatstormcat , @openup-yourmind , @neoarchipelago

#ikea writes 💚#it's a match! fic #cod modern warfare #cod fanfic #captain john price #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #simon ghost riley #text story #cod x reader #call of duty x reader

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quizzicalwriter · 7 months

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dally winston x virgin!reader who asks her boyfriend dally to be her first time

Sweet Thing

Pairing: Dallas Winston x Fem!Reader

Summary: Intimacy, intimacy, intimacy.

Warnings: Smut. MDNI. Kissing, touching, fingering. Inexperienced and slightly innocent reader. Loss of virginity.

A/N: Thank you for the request!

Word Count: 2.8k (I got carried away.)

You’d always been Dallas’s favorite preoccupation, distracting him from everything else in life. The sweet thing he carted around whenever he hung around with the boys or found himself in the drunken den that was Buck’s on a Saturday night. You’d be there, propped on his lap with his arms wrapped securely around your waist.

Not that you didn’t have anything to say besides sitting there, hell, the guys loved you. You could hold your own when it came to their wit and it made you a worthy companion for Dallas in their eyes, not to mention your inexplicable ability to put up with his shit when nobody else had before - or seemingly nobody else had been given the chance.

Normally Dallas would’ve gone for girls at the drive-in, greaser girls, or any woman he could get his hands on or who could handle his banter for longer than a minute without giving him the back of their hand. You weren’t one of them, and frankly, that terrified Dallas. There was a part of him that wanted to pull away, push you away in hopes that he’d save himself the pain of heartbreak later on he’d convinced himself he’d suffer. But he always stopped himself whenever you found yourself in his arms, gazing up at him with your doe-like eyes.

It was a difficult thing, Dallas being intimate. He was born and raised in a constant battle for survival, not showing love or producing it, but you made it easy. The longer you two had been together the longer he found himself wanting to keep you close, protect you from dangers he seemed to see everywhere. The worries you once had about him leaving eventually faded, the look in his eyes as he gazed at you whenever you laid in his arms far outweighed any ill thoughts you’d suffered with.

The only way you could describe it was ardent, laced with a deep desire that you’d never seen before in his brown eyes. A deep desire that would show itself in the bounds of the night after the two of you had disappeared together, culminating in you on his lap in his bed, hips rocking together as he kissed along your throat and down onto your chest. Or with your legs wrapped loosely around his hips, him grinding into you, you whispering sweet moans into his mouth spurring him on to do more, touch you more, please you more.

Dallas never pushed, he was always understanding whenever you pulled away. Of course, he’d have to adjust himself in his jeans, but he’d quickly pull you to his chest and press delicate kisses along your face, murmuring how much you mean to him, something he didn’t dare do in front of others. That side of Dallas was for you, nobody else, so you treasured it whenever he showed it.

On one particular Saturday night in the midst of autumn, you found yourself propped up against Dallas’s side on one of the couches in Buck’s bar, legs bent up at your chest as you fiddled with frayed denim at the end of your pant leg. Dallas was in a debate with a random man, someone he seemed to know well enough to bullshit with, talking about how the two had snagged something good off a rich man’s car not too long ago.

If it hadn’t been for the incessant country music Buck played when it rounded two in the morning you’d likely have fallen asleep against Dallas, but the occasional jump of a new song kept you jerking awake, a tired pout situating itself on your features as you rested your cheek against Dallas’s shoulder.

“Looks like your miss is real tired.” The man stated, taking a long puff from his cigar before gesturing toward you with the end of it, a snicker following his words as he propped himself up against the end of his pool cue. Dallas quirked a brow, looking down at you where you were tucked into his side with a hidden smile.

“Guess she is.” He murmured, not saying anything more beyond that before moving to prop himself up straighter, hand smoothing down your back as he looked down at you. “Tired?”

You weren’t tired, tired. More so bored, the constant scent of smoke and alcohol wasn’t helping the boredom or the budding headache in the back of your skull. But knowing if you said anything other than ‘yes’ at that moment would result in another hour downstairs, you nodded, feigning a yawn as you let your eyes flutter deceptively.

Dallas caught on, but he didn’t say anything. Instead choosing to click his tongue against his teeth as he played along, shrugging as he moved to stand. “I’ll see you later, man.” He stated, causing the older man to shrug himself before dispersing off into the crowd. Dallas turned to you, helping you to your feet before leading you up the stairs.

“Lyin’ is a sin, y’know that right?” He chuckled out, quiet enough for only you to hear as he nudged open his bedroom door with the toe of his shoe, causing you to laugh yourself and avert your gaze from his as you moved into the familiar room.

“Didn’t lie.” You mumbled out, another pout crossing your lips as you kicked off your shoes, making your way to his bed. “Real tired, Dally.”

“Sure, doll.” He snickered from the corner of the room as you made yourself comfortable on the bed, the familiar metallic clang of his belt hitting the wooden floor echoing throughout the room soon after.

He moved beside you then, letting out a sigh as he wrapped his arms around your middle, pulling your back flush with his chest. The sound of country music and clattering pool balls still echoed from downstairs, but the only thing you could bring yourself to focus on was the feeling of Dallas’s knee between your legs.

It was an innocent move, both of you slept with your legs intertwined, it felt comfortable given how small his bed was. As he shifted to get more comfortable his knee pressed harder against your clothed cunt, causing your cheeks to flush red as you choked back a whine. Dallas stiffened, breath catching in his throat as he took a moment to gauge your reaction before moving his knee again.

“Dal-“ You whined, hand moving down in between your legs as you buried your face into the pillow you two shared, his scent lingering heavily on the fabric doing nothing to quell the growing ache between your legs.

“What, doll? Feel good?” He whispered, words ghosting across the nape of your neck, causing your back to arch involuntarily as you slowly nodded. His hand smoothed down your front, bumping over the fabric of your shirt and jeans as he slowly moved to cup your sex, ever so gently applying pressure as he rocked himself against you.

You felt yourself soaking your underwear with arousal the longer he rutted against you, his fingers pressing against your cunt through your jeans as he did. A familiar sensation bloomed in your lower stomach, one that left you clenching your thighs around his palm as you tried to quell the growing ache.

“Gotta tell me what you want.” He whispered against the shell of your ear, trailing a litany of open-mouthed kisses along the curvature of your throat, pressure from his fingers increasing against your cunt. “Need to hear you say it.”

“Fuck, Dallas, just fuck me.” You whined, embarrassment over the prospect of voicing your needs soon being overweighed by the sheer need you felt for him, your hand moved to grasp at his forearm as you begged. “Please, Dal.”

That seemed to be all he needed as he moved to sit up on his knees, pressing another kiss to your jaw before pulling his shirt up and over his head. You laid there, lips parted as you watched him undress, feeling your blush spread from your cheeks to the top of your chest. You wanted to touch him, feel him, kiss him - so you did. You moved to sit up, folding your legs underneath yourself as you moved to press a kiss to his lips, hands moving to cup his jaw, only pulling away when you felt that familiar pull to touch him elsewhere.

You’d seen him without a shirt, but you’d never truly been able to admire him until now. Your hands wavered over his body, fingertips dipping in between the rivets of his toned skin, along healed scars, a faint bruise that still lingered under the left side of his ribcage. Above it all you found yourself fascinated with the way his chest rose with each breath and the small freckles that lined his skin. They reminded you of the ones he’d gotten from his time in the sun that plastered themselves against his cheekbones and upper shoulders.

Dallas let you look, eyes fluttering whenever your hands would drift farther south than before. You could hear him taking in shuddering breaths, chest catching every few minutes as though he were teetering on the edge of self-control. He raised his hands then, looking to you for approval before he lifted your shirt up and over your head, bundling the soft fabric in his hands before letting it fall to the floor.

You reached your hands behind yourself, unclasping your bra, letting the straps fall down your shoulders until your bra collapsed into your lap, exposing your breasts to him. Dallas had seen women before, he’d seen plenty, but none of them had ever had the effect you currently had on him. He felt his throat dry, brown eyes flickering between your chest and your eyes before he moved to gently lay you back against his bed, situating himself over top of you.

“You want this?” His words were hushed as his hand drifted down over your bare stomach, slowly unbuttoning your jeans as he kept his gaze locked on your face, watching for any sign of discomfort or worry. When you responded with a nod and a quiet, “I want this.” He smiled, a soft laugh leaving him as he leaned down to press a kiss to your lips.

You’d envisioned losing your virginity hundreds of times, a perfect encapsulation of what sex had to be painted in your mind, vivid and blaring. But this was so different, the way Dallas was so gentle, not afraid to laugh if something awkward happened, both of you sharing the pure moment of intimacy with smiles on your face. Nothing could’ve ever prepared you for it and that somehow made it all so much better.

As he slid your jeans off your legs he smiled up at you, a soft look on his face as he tossed the denim to the floor, moving back up to place another languid kiss to your lips. His hand moved between your thighs, fingers splaying against your cunt through your underwear, a groan passing his lips when he felt just how wet you’d become.

“Dallas, please-“ You begged, thighs trembling as he continued to tease you through your underwear. He relented, placing a gentle kiss to your jaw before moving to sit back up, slowly sliding your underwear down and off your body before discarding them to the floor as well.

“So beautiful.” He murmured, eyes wandering over your form laid in front of him, hands smoothing up and down your sides as he took it all in. “So fuckin’ beautiful, doll.”

You watched with bated breath as he slipped his jeans off, kicking his boxers off along with them. His length was bigger than you’d anticipated, only having felt the shape of it when you’d ground down against him during your frequent make-out sessions. As if sensing your apprehension he moved back over you, hand moving to cup your cheek as he pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“It won’t hurt, alright? We’ll take it slow, real slow.” He whispered, voice soothing as he helped you to wrap your legs around his hips, your heels subtly digging into the flesh of his lower back. He smiled down at you, eyes voicing a silent question if you were alright to which you quickly nodded back, a smile upon your face as well.

He braced himself on his arm, face close to yours as he slid a hand down between you, helping to guide himself inside before sliding his fingers up to slowly circle your clit. A moan left you at the feeling, leaving you clenching around his tip, the feeling causing him to bite back a grunt as he slowly began pushing in.

“Fuck, you’re so tight.” He groaned out, brows screwing together as he pushed himself to the hilt inside of your welcoming cunt, pausing in his movements to give you a chance to grow used to the feeling. “Doin’ so good, baby, so good.”

You’d heard horror stories from your friends, tales of how their first time had been painful and rushed, but this felt the complete opposite. While it took you a moment to grow used to the feeling of him inside of you, it was an incredibly welcome feeling. You could feel yourself clenching down around him, his fingers circling your clit only adding to the feeling building in your stomach.

“Dal- Dal, move.” You whispered out, voice hoarse as you grasped at his shoulders, desperate for him to move. He snickered at your pleading tone, slowly pulling himself out before pushing back in, slowly and deeply fucking you as he whispered words of praise into the crook of your neck, pressing kisses against your damp skin whenever he couldn’t help but moan at the feeling of your warmth surrounding him.

You could hear your wetness coating his cock with each thrust of his hips, his fingers slick against your clit. The room was filled with the sound of skin meeting skin, broken-off moans, and whispered words. Your thighs tightened against him as he adjusted himself, lifting himself a bit, unknowingly brushing against a spot within you that you’d never known existed - one that pulled a drawn-out moan from your chest.

“Yeah?” He asked through a smirk, hand moving down to cup your hip as he pushed back into you, hitting that very same spot. You could hardly think, let alone breathe as he fucked himself into you, fingers working at your clit as he angled himself to hit that spot over, and over. “Taking me so good, doll.” He grunted out, grip tightening on your hip as he picked up his pace.

Your hand shot down to his wrist as he continued toying with your clit, eyes fluttering shut as you felt your orgasm building to its peak in your lower stomach, the feeling causing you to rock your hips in tandem with his thrusts. The look on your face was enough to make him groan, his hand moving from your hip to your jaw as he tilted your face to look at him.

“Look at me when you cum on my cock, baby.” He murmured, voice soft yet authoritative as he slammed into you. As soon as you opened your eyes he moved his hand, pressing it against your lower stomach as he continued fucking himself into you. It felt as though he were pushing you down onto him, that spot that nearly blinded you with pleasure constantly being rutted against by his cock.

All you could muster was a weak, “F-fuck,” as you came undone, back arching off the bed as you whined out his name. He didn’t stop, stifling a groan at the way you writhed beneath him as he felt his orgasm building. Once you started swatting at his fingers that still circled your clit he moved his hand, choosing to grab the other side of your hip, effectively propping you up against him as he fucked you.

The pace was near brutal, moans forced from your body as your breasts bounced with each thrust. You couldn’t focus, still reeling from your last orgasm as he continued fucking you into oversensitivity-fueled bliss. You could feel his thumbs pressing into your hipbones, short curses slipping past his lips.

“Gonna cum, baby.” He grunted, pulling out of you a second later, spilling his cum across your lower stomach. His chest heaved, cheeks flushed red as he pumped himself through his orgasm. You could only watch in a haze of your own, still catching your breath as he looked up at you, that familiar crooked smile taking over his features as he moved on top of you once more.

“Did so good, doll. Real good.” He murmured against your cheek, pressing a kiss to your skin between each sentence. “You feel alright? Need me to get you something?” He asked after a moment, a hint of concern evident in his tone that made you smile as you shook your head.

“It felt perfect, Dal. I’m alright.” You whispered back, turning over onto your side to face him, bringing a hand up to cup his cheek, leaning up after to press a kiss to his waiting lips. “Perfect.”

A/N: Thank you for reading if you made it this far, or even if you just skimmed it over - either way I appreciate the interactions! As always you can find my work over on my ao3 under the user “Unscriptural.” Thank you anon for the request! (Sorry for the late posting, or early? Wherever you are? I finished editing it and didn’t want to queue it, so here is your daily scheduled reading material.)

#dallas winston x y/n #dallas winston writing #dallas winston x reader smut #dallas winston drabble #dallas winston x reader #dallas winston smut #dallas winston imagine #dallas winston #dally winston x reader #dally winston #my work #the outsiders writing #the outsiders fanfiction #the outsiders fanfic #the outsiders #request #anon ask #the outsiders dally #the outsiders dallas

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osaemu · 6 months

Note

hii could i please request watching n sitting under sakura trees as the blossoms fall w gojo ! missing him 😓

the gojo estate is a beautiful residence, but even with all its fountains and antiques, your favorite part is the courtyard. countless sakura trees line the massive courtyard, each fully grown with thousands of pink blossoms fluttering in the wind.

as you rest in the shade of your particular favorite, a picnic blanket spread out underneath you, you hear the soft crunch of heavy shoes on the leaf-ridden ground.

"took you long enough," you say playfully, not bothering to turn and look over at satoru. he sits by you with a soft exhale and rests his back against the tree.

"sorry, darling, got hung up with some of my dad's associates," satoru sighs, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and pulling you into his lap. he hardly has to exert any effort to do so—after all, he's the strongest. but when it comes to you, he feels just a little bit weaker than he ought to. especially when you tilt your head like a puppy and smile at him, cherry blossoms fluttering around you in the wind.

satoru can't help but smile when a pink petal nestles itself in your hair, and he uses it as an excuse to run his calloused hands through your hair. you say something about not wanting to get your hair tangled, but as usual, satoru pays no heed to your words.

"satoru," you whine, flicking at his arm in a feeble effort to get him to remove his hand from your hair. "it's just a petal, stop tangling my hair!" you swat at satoru's hand again, but he only hums in response. "satoru!"

"okay, okay," he grumbles, extracting his hand from your hair and resting it on your thigh instead. "happy?"

you nod and lean against his chest, breathing in the cool, floral air of the gojo estate's courtyard. a couple moments pass in silence as you take some time to just admire the view, but of course, satoru has to interrupt.

"oh, by the way," satoru starts casually. "my parents want us to get married."

satoru's tone is awfully nonchalant for a topic like this, and because of that, it takes a second for his words to sink in. you blink a couple times before turning your head and meeting his soft blue eyes. "wait, what?"

"you heard me," satoru shrugs, wrapping his arms around you tighter. "it's nothing urgent, but they think i'm too old to still be unmarried. heh, like i'd have any trouble gettin' myself a wife anyways." he pauses and studies your face. "but really, i just want you. and my parents know that, so they thankfully dropped all of that arranged marriage bullshit."

your mouth falls open a little as a flood of information sweeps through your head. one second, you're just sitting under sakura trees with your boyfriend, and the next, he's casually bringing up marriage?

"satoru, this is . . . a lot to just dump on me right now," you say slowly. "i—"

his eyes widen and a small laugh slips out of his lips. "oh, i didn't mean it that way!" satoru says quickly. "i was just tellin' you what we were talking about in there," he clarifies, vaguely gesturing to the main building in the gojo estate. "there's nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about, m'kay? i'll actually have this talk with you when i think we're ready, not when a bunch of old geezers want us to."

you smile at that, shaking your head endearingly at satoru's words. "you need to start watching your mouth, sweetheart. it'll get you in trouble someday," you tsk.

satoru scoffs lightheartedly and grabs your chin, pulling you onto his lips for a soft, floral kiss. "and you'll be there to drag me out of it, won't ya?"

yeah, you probably will be.

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berriweb · 10 months

Text

╰┈➤ ❝ unconditional love ❞

: ̗̀➛ ft. johnathan ohnn x gn! reader

: ̗̀➛ warnings. none

: ̗̀➛ a/n. someone save me from the chokehold pathetic men have me in, especially this one in particular, Im addicted to this man😞

“does it not bother you?”

The question pulled you out of your trance, almost not catching it as you’d become so consumed in the background noise that the drama series you’d put on played on your TV. Your gaze shifted from the flashing pictures on the screen to where Johnathan laid, his lanky body entangled with your limbs, arms wrapped around your waist and his head snuggled into your chest and turned with his ear pressed right above where your heart would be so he could better view the screen.

“Hm?” You chirped at first, taking note of his refusal to turn and look at you, even if your gaze technically couldn’t be met. The episode that played showed a couple in the show going on innocent dates, something akin to a slice of life to make up for all of the building tension in the series. Part of you wondered if that was the cause of his sudden question.

“This…all of this, does it not bother you in the slightest? Our situation.” The second time around, Johnathan sat up, pulling his arms away from your body but still focusing on the screen. That part of you was right. “We don’t get to go out for dates anymore, we can’t see movies and eat at fancy restaurants- I can never see your friends or family, we can’t do any of that. How are you just okay with it?”

His words gave a mixture of guilt and frustration in his tone, and your heart aches for him. Besides the initial discussion when you first found out what had happened to your boyfriend, you two hadn’t really talked much about how things would go from then on. You just fell into a pattern that the two of you silently agreed on, and part of that agreement was that Johnathan didn’t really go out much due to his insecurities and knowing that he’d never be seen as normal, never accepted.

“Johnny, I don’t-” “And in the house too,” he started, not even seeming to realize that he’d cut you off, “I don’t have a face anymore, I’m not me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Your hands pulled away from him before cupping his cheeks and gently turning his head to face you, eyeing the hole where his features should’ve been. He didn’t try to resist. “I’m not going to lie and act like I don’t miss your face, none of this was fair too you and you don’t deserve any of it. But I didn’t fall in love with your face, I fell in love with you. None of this is going to change that.”

“And the others? Being seen with me in public would be shameful.”

“I’m never ashamed of you.”

He let out a sigh and his head hung low, you were lucky that his expressive personality and your ability to read him so well made up for the fact that he no longer had a face to express himself with. “We can still go out, I’m never against that. If there’s anyone in my life that even thinks of shunning you like the rest of them did then so be it, I wouldn’t want to be associated with someone like that anyway.”

You silently pulled his head back down to your chest and laid your own head back, staring up at the ceiling as you felt him relax on top of you.

“How are you so good at this?” He muttered.

“I’m not, you’re just easy to influence.”

“Ha ha, very funny.”

“…you know, if you’re really worried about going out in public we could go see a movie or something. No one would even pay you any mind in the theater, it’ll be like baby steps. You can’t stay cooped up in here forever.”

Johnathan picked his head up to look at you. “Really?” He asked, sounding both surprised, nervous and just a tad bit excited.

“Of course, there is just one thing that does bother me though.” He tensed up for a moment, and you almost felt bad for springing the topic on him.

“What? What is it?”

“You’re gonna have to put on some clothes.”

“…that’s it?”

“I’ve been wondering for a while why you stopped, it’s just a bit weird.”

“It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve seen me naked…”

“You did it the few times we went out in public too!” You argued, and he got defensive.

“I didn’t think it mattered! It’s not like I have-”

“It’s the principle, Johnny.”

#across the spiderverse #atsv fanfiction #spiderman atsv #atsv x reader #spider man #the spot #jonathan ohnn #johnathan ohnn x reader #spiderverse the spot #the spot x reader #the spot atsv #the spot across the spiderverse

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dakotalun · 9 months

Text

You Belong With Me | Eddie Munson

pairing: Modern!Eddie Munson X Fem Reader

summary: Part 1--Eddie is hung up on Chrissy Cunningham, but there's someone who's available that would love to be his.

warnings: none

word count: 2.6k

a/n: Taylor really has me in a chokehold with this song!

*******NOT MY GIF, CREDIT TO OWNERS*******

Eddie Munson is not known for his ways with the ladies. He leaves that to Harrington, but he can’t deny the fact that he’s got his eyes set on one girl in particular, and wishes it were him and not Harrington who could get the girls. Sadly that’s not the case plus she’s already dating someone, the captain of the basketball team, Jason Carver. Eddie knows he’ll probably never have a chance with her but that doesn’t stop him from sneaking into the games to watch her cheer.

And you are with him every step of the way, even if it does hurt you to see him this way. You’ve been in love with Eddie since you met him. He was the first person to talk to you at school, and he even lived a few trailers down from you so it made the friendship easy. You and he were basically glued at the hip.

So when he told you about his feeling for Chrissy Cunningham a few years ago you were hurt but put on a good face and tried to be supportive. There were a few times when Eddie would think he had a chance with her; only for her to not even bat an eye in his direction. It hurt him, though he wouldn’t ever admit it to anyone but you.

You’ve kept your feelings for him bottled up and hidden in the dark corner of your heart, knowing they’ll probably live there until you die. That’s what made tonight so fucking hard. He’s on your bed, lying on his back staring up at the ceiling. Chrissy had bumped into him today on her way to class, like the literal chest-to-chest, books, and papers falling everywhere type of bump.

Eddie claims it was just out of a movie. He was quick to help her pick them up and when he handed them back to her their hands touched for a split second. No more than .5 seconds to be exact. And of course, being his best friend he had to tell you about it immediately.

So now he’s here telling you all the details about it, again. Both of you are sitting on your bed, your legs draped over Eddie’s chest. You’ve been flipping through a random magazine your mom kept in the living room just nodding and “mhmm”ing ever since her name came out of his mouth. It’s not like you hated Chrissy, she was a nice girl. You just hated the fact that she took up more of Eddie’s mind than you did. She always has.

“The way her eyes sparkled under the lights it was, Jesus Christ, it was like magic,” You held back the urge to roll your eyes at his comment, “Then when she thanked me and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, dude I swear I almost fell out then and there. Hearing her talk directly to me, I almost got a boner.”

“Gross dude!” You shove him in the side with your foot, “I do not want to hear about your boners for Chrissy Cunningham.”

“Y’can’t deny love, babe,” The nickname sent a shiver down your spine, “And I do love her.”

“Even though you’ve barely spoken two words to her since you met, yeah right.”

Eddie sits up on his elbows to look at you, “It’s true sweetheart, I’m in love. I’ll get her soon, you just wait and see.” He lies back down bringing his hands behind his head, his muscles flexing in the process. You stare at him, the way he’s so relaxed with you, so at ease. It’s always been this way and you wouldn’t change it for the world, you just wish he was thinking about you at the moment.

“Alright whatever,” You close the magazine, throwing it somewhere in the vicinity of your desk, “It’s late and I’m getting tired. I’mma take a shower then head to bed. You staying over?” You remove your legs from Eddie’s chest, he doesn’t even hear you, being too lost in thought.

“Hello? Earth to Eddie. You there?” You wave your hand in front of his face, snapping to get his attention.

“Huh?” He looks over at you, slightly confused on how you’re now on the other side of him.

“I said I’m gonna take a shower then head to bed, you gonna stay or no?”

“Oh uh nah, I gotta check in with Wayne. Make sure he hasn’t set the trailer on fire and all,” He gets up from the bed, pulling his jacket and shoes on before heading out your bedroom.

“Alright, well see you tomorrow then,” You walk him to the front door, leaning against the kitchen counter as he checks his phone, “7am?”

“Like always,” He winks at you before heading out. You stand there for a moment looking at the place he just was. Wondering how someone like him would ever pine for a girl like Chrissy.

You shake the thoughts from your head then go take a shower, hoping to wash away the thoughts of Eddie and both of your clearly one sided loves.

---

“Oh come on, no way dude,” Mike is yelling at Dustin about some weird sci-fi movie.

“I’m telling you Aliens is way better than Back To The Future! If you can’t see that then you have terrible taste in movies,” You laugh at the boys argument and look over at Eddie, who’s flipping through one of his D&D books. Probably planning for the next campaign.

You get up and walk over to him standing behind his seat. You lean over his shoulder to see what he’s writing, “Wha’cha doin’ over here?”

“Just trying to figure out what these idiots are gonna fight next. I need them to level up after this but nothing I find will give them enough XP,” He’s talking to himself mostly but you listen closely trying to help, even with your minimal knowledge of the game, “And I don’t wanna give them one hella over powered monster because I mean they’re good at the game and all, but they’d get absolutely pummeled trying to deal with a fucking high ass level monster.”

“Well what if you split them up,” You reach over him to point at his notebook, “Half the group can fight this one,” You point at one of the monsters written on Eddie’s notebook page, “Maybe make some traps and chests they can find to upgrade gear and get potions and shit, then the others could fight this one, but make it their choice to split up so they don’t suspect anything”

You point between the two monsters marked in Eddie's book, “That way they only have to split the XP between those groups, not the entire party. Granting more XP per player and they’ll be prepared for the boss fight afterward.”

You look over at him as he thinks about what you just said, “You know that just might work,” He leans forwards and starts frantically writing in the book, “Shit! That’s awesome, I could kiss you rn!”

You blush at his words, wishing he’d make them true. You lean back a little to hide your rapidly heating face from Eddie, but still standing behind him as you watch him work. It’s always been a thing you love, seeing how involved in D&D he got. The way he would just block out the entire world to focus on his campaigns. It was mesmerizing to watch.

There were very few things that could break his concentration; you, the idiot possé (Eddie’s nickname for the Hellfire Club, one he only uses with you around and of course) and Chrissy. It’s like Eddie was a search dog, always looking for her. Even if he was in deep with whatever was in front of him, he’d drop it and look at her, just like right now.

Chrissy was walking into the cafeteria linked up to Jason, looking at him with puppy dog eyes. You roll your eyes at their PDA, wishing they would just can it til the entire school wasn’t in the room with them. In .2 seconds Eddie’s head shoots up to look at her. The way his eyes light up and dilate pains you because you know it’ll only hurt him later when she rejects him.

He sits back in the chair, almost crushing your fingers before you retract them from the back. The pair walk across the lunch room, straight to their regualr spot with the rest of the stuck up rich bitches at the school.

You’ve never understood how Eddie fell in love with Chrissy. Sure he’s told you plenty of times it’s just that you never understood why he liked her. Yes she was beautiful, and popular, and rich, but she was the complete opposite of Eddie. She never wore black clothes, unless it was a fucking mini skirt. She didn’t listen to Ozzy, or Dio or even Sabbath, nor would she like it if she did. And finally she didn’t like D&D!

You on the other hand, were his perfect match. You weren’t popular, or conventionally beautiful and sure as hell weren’t rich. Come on as if a rich person would choose to live in a trailer park, and then there was the music taste. You loved Sabbath, Ozzy and Dio, you even listened to Def Leppard when you were with Eddie, because you know how much he loved them.

You’ve spent the last 8 years slowly becoming the girl of his dreams, not on purpose it’s just how you are, only for him to fall for the complete opposite of that. Pretending it doesn’t hurt is getting harder and harder everyday. But you’d rather keep it a secret than get rejected by the one person who you really trust.

---

A few days later, on Friday, you’re sitting on your bed reading a book when Eddie comes rushing into the trailer, not even bothering to knock, like always.

“Come to the basketball game with me.” It’s not a question, more of a demand. You normally would but after these past couple of days you just weren’t up for seeing him drool over Chrissy some more.

“No thanks. I’m good right here,” You say without even looking up from the book in your hands.

“Oh come on, please? It’ll be fun,” He walks closer to you, taking your book and tossing it to the side, “I promise.”

“No. Eddie-” You were now getting dragged from your warm bed by him.

“Come on please! It’ll only be for a little bit. Just a quick pop in and pop out. Not that big of a deal,” He had your wrists in a death grip, “We can smoke afterwards, and you won’t even have to pay me for it.”

“I don’t pay for it anyways,” You mumble under your breath. You’re getting more annoyed with him asking now.

“True but-”

“But nothing Eddie,” You look him dead in the eyes, “I don’t want to go to the stupid basketball game just so that you can drool over Chrissy Fucking Cunningham! You can go,” You rip your hands away from him, “But leave me out of it!”

He looks stunned that you just spoke to him that way. You two have fought in the past but it was always solved with the promise of a smoke after whatever stupid thing you were arguing about. He’d never seen you this mad before.

Eddie’s been talking about Chrissy all week and you’ve had enough. After their little run in you just couldn’t take his obsession anymore, everytime he’d start to talk about her you’d change the subject.

“Okay then,” You can hear the pain and betrayal in his voice, “Fine. Stay here see if I care,” Then he leaves. He didn’t even say goodbye, he just left.

You knew you came off harsh but you’re tired of seeing the man you love fawn over someone who barely knows he exists.

You flop back onto your bed and curl into your blankets. You hate being mean, especially to Eddie, but you really weren’t in the mood to see him drooling over Chrissy. You never were, you were typically better at hiding it though. Which only made this worse.

Eddie stomps to his van, slamming the door when he gets inside. What the hell was that about?! She never acts this way. Maybe shes on her period or something. Eddie didn’t feel like thinking about this anymore so he starts his car and speeds off towards the high school.

You lay there in your bed, trying to figure out a way to apologize to Eddie later on, you don’t wanna just leave things here, you love him too much and you can’t fathom the thought of him being mad at you over something this small.

You think about all the possible things Eddie loves when you hear a knock on your front door. You climb out of bed and throw a blanket around yourself. You walk slowly to the door, worried it might be Eddie coming back to yell at you or something. You open the door and come face to face with your mom.

“Mom wha-”

“Left my key card, I can’t seem to do anything right this morning,” She walks over to the couch and starts rummaging through the cushions to find her card, “Is Eddie here? I didn’t see his van outside.”

You lean up against the counter, watching your mother search frantically, “No he just left, we sorta got into a fight and then he stormed out.”

Your mom pops up from behind the couch, “Wait what? But y’all never fight. What happened?”

You sigh and start picking at your fingers, a nervous habit you have, “Well he wants to go to the basketball game tonight but I’m just not feeling up to it but when I told him it came off a little harsh.”

Your mom stops her search by the couch and moves towards her bedroom, flinging blankets and pillows all over the room, “Well maybe just tell him that you didn’t mean for it to come out so strongly, but you just don’t feel up for these basketball games anymore!” She yells from her room “But remember you gotta do what feels right I mean- OH YES!!” Your mom rushes out of her bedroom, key card in hand.

“I would if he didn’t seem so pissed at me because of it. I mean I love Eddie, but this obsession with Chrissy is just too much.”

“Wait. This is about a girl?”

Your face drops at the realization of your words. You’re mom knows that you and Eddie aren’t dating but she’s always thought that maybe there was a chance at some point, this just opens up a new problem.

“Maybe…”

“Oh sweetie,” Your mom walks over to you and places a comforting hand on your shoulder, “Eddie and you have been best friends forever, don’t let a girl come between that.”

You nod at her words, “I know. I know, it’s just he’s so obsessed with her and I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m gonna give you some advice that I was given, girlfriends and boyfriends come and go but this,” She motions between you and the direction of Eddie’s trailer, “This is forever. You can’t let this crush get in the way of that, got it?”

“Got it,” Your mom pulls you into a hug, squeezing tightly, “Did you steal that advice from Friends?”

“Maybe but it fits. Now I’ve gotta get back to work, be back later,” Kissing the top of your head and grabbing her things your mom heads out the door, “I love you!”

You smile at yourself as you head back to your room. Maybe your mom was right, maybe you should just stick this through until either he gets rejected and gives up or somehow finally gets Chrissy. You look at your phone on the nightstand, knowing what you need to do next.

#eddie stranger things #munson #eddie munson #eddie my love #eddie my beloved #female reader #oneshot #smut #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson fic #eddie munson x you #stranger things #stranger things 4 #st4 #stranger things season 4 #eddie x reader

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caramelcleopatraa · 27 days

Text

GIANNA'S ROOM

word count: 1.2k

x: heyyoo. I came up with this idea a few weeks ago, and I didn't know where I wanted this to go, so I'm excited to see if y'all like this one or not. causeeee I can make part 2 "Roman's Room" which is already planned out :p. anyways hope you guys enjoy (excuse any errors you see of course) and please leave comments. I love comments.

content: He’s a wrestler. She’s a pornstar. They were never meant to meet, but Gianna wanted to ride, so he let her. Roman Reigns x Gianna, 18+ MDNI, dirty talk, masturbation, exchange of videos and pictures

“Thank you guys so much for watching. I’ll see you guys next stream,” Gianna says seductively, blowing a kiss at her viewers. Another successful day, and a hefty bag gust from two hours of work. She was so glad that her roommate, Amara, was non judgemental when it came to her occupation. There’s such a negative view on sex workers, and she was worried she’d be stuck with a roommate who wouldn't respect her, but she lucked out big time. She even offered to be in multiple videos with Gianna when money was tight, which led to Amara creating a OnlyFans account of her own.

1 Notification from: Anonymous

Normally, she shrugged off private messages because they usually lead to personalized requests, which is something she doesn't do. But she gets intrigued once she reads the message preview.

Anonymous Hi pretty, you take requests? I’ll pay you 1000 for….

‘1000?’ She clicks on the notification and reads the full message.

Hi pretty, you take requests? I’ll pay you 1000 for just a quick video.

‘1000 dollars is a lot for a short video.’

EroticMedusa I don't normally take requests, but that offer is too good to deny.

Anonymous I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll go ahead and send the payment through if you want to do the video.

EroticMedusa Sure! Anything in particular you want me to do? I’m here for your pleasure, sir. :)

Anonymous Whatever makes you feel comfortable sweetheart. Need some inspiration?

EroticMedusa If you don't mind. :)

Anonymous Of course sweetheart. [2 Attachments]

She clicks the first picture and her jaw drops to the floor. Saying that he was attractive was an understatement. He’s big. For fucking sure. His wavy hair dangled down from the top of the picture. Pearly white teeth, salt and pepper beard, broad shoulders, big arms and big hands, a large tattoo that covered his right pec and covered his entire right arm, prominent chest, defined torso, thick thighs, and he was hung. She was practically drooling from the picture alone. What didn’t he have? She exited out of the picture and clicked on the video next. She couldn't take her eyes off the screen.

He held his phone in his hand, keeping the phone at the perfect angle to capture his beautiful body. She could hear chuckling as he slowly stroked himself for her. “Look what you do to me baby.” God, his voice. If his body wouldn't do it, his voice definitely would. She was glad that she had free time today to make the video, because she was already turned on from the picture he sent. “Wish you were here with me sweetheart, I’d make you cum all night” He tightens his fist, fucking up into his hand. “Want you to suck this dick so bad, baby. Need to feel those lips around my dick.” She bit her bottom lip, unconsciously grabbing her breasts and bucking her hips. “Damn, I'm finna cum for you. Ahhh shit!” She watched closely as strings of cum leaked from his tip, his head leaned back and his chest heaving from the intense orgasm he had. He stroked himself a few more times, creating squelching from his release dripping over his hands. What she would give to lick him clean.

EroticMedusa Damn daddy, that was so sexy.

Anonymous I’m glad you like it.

EroticMedusa I loved it! Your body looks soo good! And your voice made me so horny daddy.

Anonymous Ever had a stranger make you feel like that?

EroticMedusa No, only you.

Anonymous Good girl. Making me horny again the way you’re talking to me.

EroticMedusa I wish I could've been there to lick you clean. I’m so wet imagining it. I’m making the video right now! Give me a few minutes.

Anonymous Take your time.

Gianna propped her phone up after sending her last message, making sure she was capturing all of the right angles and pressed record. She grabbed her favorite vibrator from her nightstand drawer and positioned herself in front of the camera. She could see herself glistening from her phone. She waved at the camera and giggled before playing with her breasts. Grabbing and tugging at her nipples, bucking her hips again and moaning softly. She imagines his hands replacing hers. “I’m so horny for you, daddy,” She says, spreading her legs to show him her delectable pussy. She was glistening even more now, if that was possible. The hand that wasn’t focused on her breast, teases her folds, and the hand that was on her breast, reached to grab her vibrator.

“I want that dick daddy,” she says, pressing the button on her vibrator placed on her sensitive clit. The strong vibrations made her gasp, her eyes fluttering shut and enjoying the sensation. She imagined him burying his face between her legs, dragging his tongue along her pussy. How he would lick and suck on her clit. How he would make her come on his tongue, and keep going. All of these fantasies were only making her more excited. “Fuck, I want you so bad daddyy. I wish you were here right now.” Her chest bobbed up and down, her ragged breaths mixed in with whiny and desperate moans. The picture and video that he sent earlier was crystal clear in her mind. His deep moans and dirty talk repeated in her head while the vibrator stayed stationary on her clit. “Shiiit- ugh. Feels so fucking good.”

Her back arched as her moans got louder. She was for sure making a mess on the bed and disturbing her neighbors. She didn’t care though. God she needed to cum. Between the video he sent her and the conversation they had, there was nothing she was more focused on than undoing herself. Her spare hand grabbed at the sheets, eyes rolling to the back of her head in euphoric pleasure of the orgasm that was fastly building. “aaah- i’m gonna cum f’r you,” she says, her slurred words that accompanied the light buzzing of the vibrator. Her thighs shook violently as she screamed out pleas and exclaims of pleasure. She turned off the vibrator, working quick circles on her clit, overstimulating herself. Her legs stayed open, displaying the beautiful mess she made on herself and her silk sheets. She grabs her phone, bringing it closer to her cunt, giving him a front row seat. “Would you lick it up, daddy?” She giggles softly, pressing the red button to stop the recording. She sends the video to him, taking a deep breath.

EroticMedusa Here you go, big guy 😘 [1 Attatchment]

‘Shit, that was amazing.’ If he was willing to stick around, she could pump out content in no time.

She cleans herself up minutes later, wrapping herself in her silk robe that matched her sheets. Her phone vibrated against the nightstand, and she quickly unlocked her phone, anxious for his response. And she got just that.

Anonymous God damn baby [1 Attatchment]

She could make another video just from the picture alone. His head was leaned back, showing off his adam’s apple. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat with droplets dripping down his chest. Streams of cum drip down his shaft, down to his balls. She would have loved to see what he looked like while he stroked himself to her video.

Anonymous Can I see you?

EroticMedusa See me? What are you trying to do, sir? 😏

Anonymous I’m tryna give you the best dick down you’ll ever have.

🏷️ tags :) @reignsboy19 @2-muchsauce @theninthwonder @harmshake @alichesmi @thesamoanqueen @alyyaanna @empressdede @badbitchcentralinc @christinabae @fame-ass-ers @southerngirl41 @cyberdejos2

#roman reigns #caramelcleopatraa #roman reigns x black reader #roman reigns x oc #roman reigns x chubby reader #roman reigns smut #roman reigns x you #roman reigns x y/n #roman reigns x reader #wwe fiction #wwe smut #roman x reader

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ranhaitanisgf · 4 months

Note

🤺back🤺🤺🤺back i say🤺🤺 it’s my turn to request something for hana’s event🤺

may i please request a scenario with baji + flower shop in which he goes to buy his mom flowers as an apology but doesn’t know what to get, so he just picks out random flowers that actually mean everything except “i’m sorry” so you help him out?

by the way, you don’t have to write this part, but i just thought it would be cute if he develops a crush on you and you see him at a different flower shop buying a small bouquet and you think he’s betraying you, but later he shows up at your shop, awkward and stiff, with that same bouquet to ask you out because his mom said that’s the proper way to do it. just wanted to share that little add-on with you!!

— baji keisuke // flower shop // love at first sight

☆ ˎˊ˗ heyyy ... arba idk if ur still active IM SRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG i disappeared D: we miss u come back ... also this idea was sooo cuteeee arghjhghjghjhg i actually went soo overboard w this but it was too good!!

☆ ˎˊ˗ fem!reader implied

☆ ˎˊ˗ wc ; 2.2k+

masterlist || 2k masterlist

you’d had your eye on him since he’d walked into the store.

it wasn’t for any particular reason aside from the fact that he seemed to be feeling wholly out of place, which made you giggle a bit as he shuffled around, muttering and grumbling to himself as he awkwardly looked at different bouquet arrangements.

he definitely didn’t seem like the type to be buying flowers either; his long dark hair and overall brusque demeanor didn’t exactly give you the impression that he was someone who would go around buying flowers, (and was that him that pulled up on a literal motorcycle?! he seemed like he was around your age!!).

under normal circumstances you would have gone up to assist, but you decided to sit back and see how this boy was going to play this one out, (he was really cute, but if a cute boy like him was in a flower shop, he was undoubtedly buying flowers for his girlfriend). it was quite the entertaining spectacle to see him walking around, his eyebrows pinched together as he tried to find something that he found suitable. at one point, he even seemed to phone someone for help, though he hung up rather quickly after yelling that he definitely was not buying flowers!!

after minutes and minutes of walking around, he finally picked up two bouquets of flowers; geraniums and tansies. you had to restrain your laughter as he walked up to the register, damn near shaking to keep yourself from bursting out into giggles.

“d-did you find everything, pff--ahem! did you find everything alright today?” you had let your giggles slip through on accident, and even though you tried to cover it up with a cough, you could tell that it failed immensely from the ticked off look on the boy’s face.

“you’ve got a lot of nerve to be laughin’ at me-” he started, the deep tone of his voice taking you off guard.

“n-no! i’m not really laughing at you per se…well, kind of.” you tried to explain. “see, okay, do you know what flower language is?” the boy quirked an eyebrow at this, giving you the sort of look that says go on. “well, it gives flowers different meanings, y’know? so unless you’re trying to pick a fight, i really wouldn’t suggest using these flowers.”

“...what do they mean?”

“geraniums and tansy flowers together…you would be calling the person stupid and then be declaring war on them.” the boy’s amber eyes widened, his lips pressing together in a thin line as his brows furrowed together once more. “if you’d like, i can suggest flowers with a more…caring meaning for your girlfriend.” the boy’s eyebrows shot up at your words, making you wonder if you’d said something wrong.

“girlfriend? these’re for my mom.”

“oh! sorry, i just assumed-ah, never mind. now, let me see…” you stood up from your seat, gathering the flowers in front of you in your arms and coming out from behind the counter. after you put the flowers back, you looked around for a moment, a few ideas floating through your mind.

“hmm, why are you getting her flowers?”

“...’cause…” he mumbled a bit, making you lean in a bit.

“what was that?”

“‘c-cause! i made her cry…” despite the fact that his voice had raised a little bit, all you could sense from him was embarrassment and shame, especially from the look on his face, (he almost looked like a kicked puppy). the sight made you smile softly; it wasn’t often that you got genuine customers like this, so you were going to make it your mission to help him.

“alright, give me one moment…” your eyes flicked throughout the store, taking a few moments to weigh different options before making a decision. you ended up grabbing three bouquets; white tulips, daffodils, and some small filler greenery with bits of baby’s breath.

you walked back behind the counter, setting the bouquets down in front of you. the black-haird boy had followed you aimlessly around the store, eventually ending up back in front of the register. there was a kind of quiet curiosity in his eyes as he watched your practiced movements, (truthfully, you weren’t used to someone watching you do bouquet arrangements with such an intent stare).

“i’m doing this for you right now because i want to help you, but for future reference, you usually have to call ahead a day or two for this.” a smile played on your lips as you unwrapped the flowers in front of you, glancing up a bit to look at the boy.

it was only for a moment, but his amber gaze staring right at you caught you off guard, making your heart skip a beat. you immediately looked back down, busying your hands and trimming the leaves off of the flowers. the rest of your work was done in silence; trimming the end of the flower stems, arranging them in a way that looks pleasing, opening some of the flowers to match the rest. it was relaxing work, so much so that you almost forgot about the boy in front of you.

almost.

the whole time you were working you could feel his gaze on you, looking up a few times just to look back down immediately. you felt a little bit anxious throughout the process, hoping that he would deem your work acceptable enough for his mom, (your anxiousness was also from the fact that a very cute boy was watching you, but that was aside from the point).

you finished the final step, delicately wrapping the flowers in a thick brown paper and securing them in place with the tie of a thick ribbon.

“there, all set! what do you think?” you asked cheerily, admiring the flowers you had put together. in your mind, you thought it looked pretty good, but it wasn’t your opinion that mattered here.

“yeah…they look good.”

“yay! i’m glad you like them!” you handed the bouquet over to him, a rush of happiness flooding through you at his approving words. “i hope you’ll come again!”

“wait, how much was this?” he started to pat around his pockets for his wallet, but you shook your head.

“don’t worry about it, it’s on me! just make sure to come back if you need more flowers, though i hope it’ll be for a better reason!”

“i will…” he stared at you for a moment, a questioning look in his eyes. “hey, if you keep looking at me like that i’m going to take it back, so go apologize to your mom!” you ushered, waving bye to him.

“thanks.” if you weren’t looking closely, you probably would have missed the small smile on his face before he left.

˗ˏˋ ☆ ˎˊ˗

“isn’t that…” you squinted a bit, walking a few steps closer to get a better view. sure enough, there he was! the same black-haired amber eyed boy who you had helped last week, in another flower shop!!

“oh my god, that total traitor!!” you huffed. “i told him to come back if he needed more flowers…” you watched as he got handed a bouquet of flowers, shaking your head in disdain. when you saw him head for the exit, you immediately panicked, scrambling away from the scene and jogging the whole way back to your shop.

despite the fact that you had only seen him once, you still felt a bit of disappointment at the fact that he had gone to another flower shop, even when he’d said he would come back. maybe you scared him off?

i didn’t even say anything weird though…

your thoughts kept you quite occupied while you were preparing the shop for open, though they were a bit burdensome when you happened to prick yourself on some roses, too distracted to be paying attention to the thorns properly.

after some of the bouquet orders for the day, you flipped the sign on the door to ‘open’. you were about to go back to sulking behind the counter, but a glimpse of black hair outside caught your eye.

looking closer, you realized that it was the same boy! he was seated on his motorcycle, chatting his a blonde haired boy who you assumed was his friend.

maybe he had realized that the flowers from your shop were better!

however, your gaze narrowed when you realized that he was holding the same bouquet you had seen him with earlier, making your mood sour immediately.

was he coming here to rub it in your face or something?!

while you were busy glaring, you started to notice that his blonde haired friend was gesturing and pointing wildly towards your shop, seeming to be shouting at the black haired boy about something. while you were still a little bit sour, you began to be intrigued by what was going on, contemplating going out there to see what all the commotion was about.

the thought immediately perished as you made eye contact with the blonde, who could clearly see you staring at them through the windows of your shop. the two of you stared at each for a moment before you darted away from the glass, rushing back to behind the counter as you prayed that he didn’t actually see you, (he definitely did).

“well, whatever! i helped him out and he went to another flower shop--so what!!” you muttered to yourself, throwing your hands up. “that’s the last time i ever do a nice thing for someone!!” you grumbled, preparing the flowers for the rest of the bouquet orders you had to do.

it was a practiced routine at this point, so you were able to arrange the flowers properly without putting much thought into it, using it as busywork to take your mind off of things. you weren’t sure why you were so upset about the fact that this boy went to another flower shop, but it certainly wouldn’t help you to let it get in the way of things.

hearing the bell to the door chime, you chirped out a ‘welcome in!’ as you continued trimming and arranging flowers, being careful this time to mind the thorns so that you didn’t get pricked a second time.

“uh, hey.” the deep tone of voice immediately made you look up, feeling as if you would have snapped your neck if you looked up any faster. you shook off your nervousness, (and excitement) going back to what you were doing as you tried to look casual.

“well, you’re back. whatever you want isn’t going to be on me this time because you betrayed me.” you said cooly, a bit of a frown on your lips.

“betrayed--what? uh, anyways, i just wanted to give you these…” he cleared his throat, holding out a bouquet to you. when you finally looked up and took a good look, you noticed that the tips of his ears were red, (should you be having hope right now…? no, stop it! get a hold of yourself!). “and, uh, i got them with that flower language thing…”

“what…?” you leaned forward across the counter, inspecting the flowers in the bouquet a bit closer. “calla lilies and white camellia’s…” looking up at the boy’s embarrassed and somewhat flustered expression, you paired it with the meaning of the flowers, and…

ah…

immediately, you felt your heartbeat speed up and felt the apples of your cheeks heating up, leaning back and looking away. you fiddled with your fingers for a moment as you tried to think of something--anything, really--to say.

“i…uh…how, um, how did you come up with this…?”

“my mom said it was a good idea…” he shifted a bit, his arm still holding out the bouquet of flowers. “if you don’t want them, i can jus’ take them back-”

“no!” you grabbed the bouquet from him, smiling a bit too much, (you couldn’t help yourself though). “you’re giving them to me, so they’re mine now, right? you can’t take back a gift! and-and just hold on for a second!” you left without another moment to spare, running into the back and scrambling for a piece of paper. you picked up a nearby pen, quickly jotting down your name and number and then running back out, a big smile across your face.

“here!” the boy in front of you grabbed the slip of paper, his amber eyes examining it before he smirked a bit, showing off the sharp bits of his canines.

“(y/n), is that right?”

“yes! what’s your name?”

“baji. baji keisuke.”

˗ˏˋ ☆ ˎˊ˗

bonus:

“baji-san! how did it go!?”

“i need a yakisoba right now, chifuyu…” baji grumbled, sitting on his bike and leaning back.

“did you get rejected?!” chifuyu asked, a look of grave anticipation on his face.

“no!! she thought i betrayed her flower shop because i went to another flower shop! your idea was shit!” chifuyu’s face went pale at that, his mouth hanging wide open.

“i didn’t think about that…”

“yeah, this is the last time i take advice from whatever weird manga shit you got this from.”

“...”

“i mean, she said yes, right? a win is a win!”

“...shaddup.”

(chifuyu proceeded to pay for the yakisoba outings for the next six months.)

263 notes · View notes

parkerslatte · 4 months

Text

Deals With Our Devils || Chapter Three

Azriel x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: slight injury. blood.

Part Summary: Y/N has dinner with Cassian and Nesta while Azriel tells her how he felt when she disappeared.

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•••

Y/N sat on her bed, the feeling of it familiar. It had been two centuries since she had sat on this bed and yet, it only felt like months. Her bags remained unpacked beside her bed as she looked around her old room. Her old clothes were still hung up in the wardrobe, all still immaculately cleaned as if someone had made sure they were kept pristine in the years she had been away. The belongings she had left behind were still in her drawers, as were the various weapons she had hidden in her room. Everything felt so familiar yet so distant at the same time.

It was a matter of hours before Y/N heard more movement in the house– specifically from the bedroom above hers, the one belonging to the shadowsinger himself. A wash of nostalgia flooded Y/N as she laid down on her bed. As she heard Azriel walk around upstairs, she remembered the nights when she would march up to his bedroom to scold him for walking too loud when she was trying to sleep. Of course it only ended in her sleeping in his room after a long night of talking and laughing with one another.

She remembered the nights Azriel would come to her after a particularly hard mission or something had gone wrong. Y/N would sit with her arms around him for hours. Sometimes in complete silence, other times filled with Y/N’s voice simply talking to him to distract him. Y/N smiled at the bittersweet memory.

As she laid on her bed, he mind shifted back to Vassuryn. She already missed Floris more than she thought she would. In the past two hundred years, there hadn’t been a time longer than a couple of months where they had been apart. Despite her being his guard, Floris was her best friend.

There was a knock at Y/N’s door only moments later. She wasn’t expecting any knocks, in fact, Y/N wasn’t expecting any interaction at all. She stood from her bed and shuffled to the door, only realising until this moment how tired and drained she was from the journey. Once her hand touched the door handle, Y/N froze and her heart rate increased. What if it’s Azriel? She thought to herself. This thought was immediately disproved when she heard his footsteps from the room above.

“Y/N.” Cassian’s voice was muffled through the door. “It’s me. Um, Nesta and I are having dinner if you want to join us.”

Y/N’s hand remained on the door handle, though she made no move to open it. The hesitance in Cassian’s voice made the guilt rise in her body.

In the past two-hundred years, Y/N had become quite content with her life. She had a good job, good friends and lived in a beautiful kingdom. But she always felt that particular feeling weighing her down whenever she found herself smiling with her friends or enjoying her day. She had now come to the realisation that that feeling was guilt.

“You don’t need to join us if you don’t want to,” Cassian said. “But you are welcome.”

Y/N still didn’t open the door and listened as Cassian’s footsteps faded away. She let out a sigh once she was sure he was gone. While she had still been living in the Night Court, long before she left, Y/N had always thought of Cassian as a brother. Whenever she was having a bad day, she would sometimes seek him out for comfort. When she would train, he was always her sparring partner. And when she just wanted to get away from anything, he was there for her and would fly her anywhere in Velaris. It wasn’t until she had heard his voice, she realised how much she missed him.

With a final deep sigh, Y/N opened her bedroom door and stepped into the hall.

***

Azriel was angry. He was sure he had never been so angry in his life. Y/N had shown up after two centuries and she didn’t even seem to care how much it had affected them all. Through her whole explanation he could feel that anger beginning to bubble over the surface, yet some still slipped through the cracks.

Though he was angry for two reasons.

The anger for the second reason wasn’t directed toward her– it was directed toward himself. Despite the way he felt about her return, Azriel fought the urge to pull her into his arms and bury his head into her neck and hold her for as long as she would allow. He hated that he felt that way. She had abandoned everyone, she had abandoned him.

When Azriel left Y/N in the dining room, he left for the streets of Velaris. He couldn’t stand the thought of staying in his own room whilst Y/N was just in the room below. For years that room had stood empty, seeming locked in time. No one ever moved her things or changed the decoration. That room was off limits for everyone but Azriel, Cassian, Rhys, Mor and Amren. Azriel remembered how he once snapped at Elain for opening the door to her room years before. He apologised for it for days following.

Azriel swore he didn’t miss her. He swore he didn’t think about her. And in complete honesty he hadn’t for the past century, he had mostly moved on and accepted that she wasn’t going to come back. Yet in the past century he still found himself sitting in her room sometimes, just to think. It was the one place he knew he could be truly alone.

Azriel groaned as he let his mind slip to Y/N once again. I don’t care about her. He told himself that over and over again, he wanted to believe it but there was something stopping him. He could hear her movements in the room below. The room he was so accustomed to being silent. It was a strange adjustment.

After Azriel heard her open yet another drawer, he finally stood to his feet and swiftly left his bedroom to go down to dinner, hoping that he could avoid Y/N for the duration of her trip.

***

As Y/N stepped into the dining room, conversation ceased. Cassian and the female from before– Nesta, Cassian called her– sat at the dining table, eyes now on her.

“You came,” Cassian said, a look of genuine surprise on his face.

“I was feeling peckish,” Y/N admitted. “My journey here was long and there weren't many catering options available.”

Y/N took a seat at the table opposite both Cassian and Nesta. She tried to slow her heart beat but failed every single time. Cassian watched her movements carefully. Y/N tried to not let it affect her but she could see a sense of distrust in his eyes but another emotion was mixed with it. Nesta– who Y/N presumed was Cassian’s mate just by the way Y/N had interpreted their interactions– just watched her curiously.

Food appeared in front of Y/N and she picked at it before lifting the fork to her mouth. It was just as delicious as she remembered. Even after all these years, the house still remembered her favourite meal.

“Your name is Y/N?” Nesta spoke up, her fingers locked as she rested her head upon them, not eating the food in front of her.

“Yes,” Y/N answered, lifting her gaze to meet Nesta’s. “Don’t wear it out.”

Nesta’s eyes narrowed and Y/N could see the power and authority she held within them. “The Y/N. The one who left in the middle of the night with no note or word.”

Y/N swallowed the carrot she had been eating and flicked her gaze between Nesta and Cassian. “Is this an interrogation or something? If it is, you would need many more sharp objects to get me to talk.”

Leaning back in her chair, Y/N rested her hand on her stomach. She still wore her travelling clothes and she itched to get into clean and fresh clothing.

“If the only reason you invited me to dinner was to interrogate me, then I will happily leave,” Y/N said, lifting her glass of wine to her lips.

“We don’t want to interrogate you, Y/N,” Cassian said, looking at Nesta.

“Well your little mate clearly wants to,” Y/N said, her gaze coming to rest on Nesta, who gripped her dinner knife in her hand tightly.

Before Y/N could place her glass back on the table, Nesta threw the knife and it sore through the air, its target– Y/N. Cassian watched wide-eyed, unable to process the situation.

However the knife never hit its target. Y/N simply held up her hand and the knife stopped mid-air, inches from her temple. “Are you trying to kill me, Nesta?”

“No,” Nesta replied, amusement shining in her eyes.

Y/N twisted her hand and the knife slowly rotated in the air and pointed to Nesta. Cassian growled as Y/N allowed the knife to inch toward Nesta until the tip rested centimetres from her temple. “You have guts to throw a knife at me. Back in Vassuryn, this knife would already be embedded in your skull.”

Y/N studied Nesta’s expression. She didn’t look scared at all, if anything she looked intrigued. Y/N smiled. “I like that.”

The knife clattered to the table and Nesta smiled. “I think I like you, Y/N.”

“It goes both ways, Nesta,” Y/N said.

Cassian let out a sigh. “What was that?”

“From the stories you have told me about Y/N, I wanted to see what she would do,” Nesta said. “I was curious.”

“She could have killed you!” Cassian explained.

“I trusted her not to,” Nesta said, smirking at Y/N.

Cassian rubbed his brow and leaned back in his chair. “What a way to break the ice, Nes.”

Y/N let out a breathy laugh and placed the glass of wine back on the table. Cassian looked at Y/N and their eyes met. Even though Cassian did not physically look older, Y/N could see the age in his eyes. Two hundred years since she had seen him and in those two centuries there were thousands of stories that Y/N was unaware of. Guilt swirled within the depths of Y/N’s stomach.

Cassian cleared his throat. “It’s really good to see you, Y/N. I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you earlier.”

“No, it was justified,” Y/N said. “I left all of you and you all thought I was dead. I was expecting much worse.”

“I’m glad you’re back,” Cassian said. “Even if it is just for a short time.”

“I’m glad to be back,” Y/N admitted. “Even though it is only for a short while.”

The door to the dining room was opened and the shadowsinger walked in, his face like thunder. Y/N fell silent. Azriel’s eyes scanned the room and landed on Y/N, he narrowed his eyes. From across her, Y/N could see Cassian and Nesta look between her and Azriel. She didn’t know what to say as Azriel walked further into the room, taking the seat a few down from Y/N.

“What is she doing here?” Azriel asked, his voice flat.

“I invited her to dinner,” Cassian stated. Azriel didn’t respond as he silently began to eat.

Y/N broke her gaze away from Azriel. If he was just going to sit there silently, she could easily ignore him– even though she was fully aware that he was sitting only two chairs down from her. Once Y/N made eye contact with Cassian and Nesta again, she relaxed the smallest amount.

“So, Nesta,” Y/N began, “you mentioned that Cassian had told you stories about me?”

Nesta seemed to light up while Cassian simply looked embarrassed. “He did,” Nesta answered. “He insisted that you were the best fighter he had ever known. Even better than him.”

“I didn’t say that–”

“You did,” Nesta dismissed. “He mentioned you during a training session years ago.”

Y/N hummed in amusement. “The best fighter you have ever known?”

“Nesta is twisting my words,” Cassian said, playfully glaring at her.

As Y/N opened her mouth to speak, Azriel cut her off, speaking to Cassian and Nesta as if she was not even there. “Are you training with the Valkyries tomorrow?”

Nesta shook her head. “Not tomorrow. Gwyn, Emerie and I are planning to read a new book that just came out. We’ve been excited about it for a while. Training can wait one day.”

Y/N lit up. “You read?”

“Yes!” Nesta said, perking up. “Gwyn, Emerie and I have our own little boom club of sorts.”

“What type of books do you read?” Y/N asked.

Cassian laughed. “Nothing that you would be interested in. They don’t read about battle strategies.”

Y/N frowned. “I think you are mistaking me for yourself, Cassian. I absolutely hated those books when you made me read them.”

Cassian gaped. “You said you enjoyed them!”

“I didn’t want to offend you!” Y/N defended.

Nesta watched the exchange with amusement. “You are welcome to join us.”

Y/N’s smile faltered. “I would love to, but I don’t think I will have the time. I’m supposed to be here on business.”

“So you’ve said,” Azriel muttered under his breath.

Y/N ignored him as she focused on Nesta. “But if I have the time, I’ll join you.”

“If you have the time, you are training with me,” Cassian butt in. “I want to see if that palace has been training you right. And none of that magic nonsense. This will be strictly hand to hand combat.”

Y/N smirked. “I hope you like being knocked on your arse, Cassian.”

“Really?” Azriel piped up, his voice full of barely controlled anger.

The smile on Y/N’s face vanished instantly as she turned to Azriel. “What?”

“You are just slotting yourself back in when you have been gone for two centuries,” Azriel said.

Across the table, Cassian and Nesta fell silent, watching the exchange between the two former friends.

“What am I supposed to say, Azriel?” Y/N asked.

Azriel shook his head and looked back down at his food that he had barely touched. Y/N scoffed. “Is that all then? You just provoke me and then ignore me?”

“I told you yesterday not to speak to me,” Azriel muttered.

“Yet you initiated the conversation!” Y/N exclaimed. “I genuinely don’t know what you want me to do Azriel.”

Y/N didn’t even process Azriel standing to his feet before he was walking out of the room. She knew that she should leave him but something within her made her race out of the room after him.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me, Azriel,” Y/N snapped.

“Leave, Y/N,” Azriel responded and continued to walk down the corridor.

I won’t,” Y/N said, racing to catch up to his long strides.

As she caught up to him, she reached out and gripped his wrist tightly. The feeling of his skin on hers was familiar yet so foreign. Azriel’s ripped his arm out of her grip and spun around. Y/N was sure she had never seen such anger in his eyes. Before she knew it, Azriel had pushed her against the wall, knocking the breath out of her. His shadows pinner her arms down by her sides, preventing her from moving.

Y/N looked up to meet Azriel’s eyes. They were blazing with anger and frustration. The tip of a blade touched her neck and Y/N stilled. “You would really kill me, Azriel?” Y/N asked.

The situation was nothing like the one with Nesta. With Nesta there had been a certain playfulness to it. This situation was far from it. It was fuelled by rage and frustration, not curiosity. Truthteller dug into Y/N’s skin the smallest amount and Y/N could feel a small drop of blood trickle down her neck and under her clothes. Y/N could feel her powers bubbling within her but she refused to let them show.

Still, Y/N didn’t break eye contact with Azriel. The anger in his eyes was clear but Y/N could spot the emotion behind that fire. It was full of sadness and pain.

“If you are going to kill me, Azriel, then do it,” Y/N said, her voice shaking.

When Y/N had left two hundred years ago, she never would have imagined that two centuries later, Azriel would be holding her at knife point.

“Why would you leave me, Y/N?” Azriel asked, his hand holding truthteller shook, causing another drop of blood to trickle down her neck.

Y/N looked into his eyes. That raging fire within them dimmed and the pain and sadness was all that remained.

“Those weeks after you left,” Azriel began, lowering the blade from her neck, “I expected you to show up at my door while I was recovering. Every single time Rhys, Cassian or Mor walked in, I was disappointed. I never let any of them help and change my bandages because you were always the one to do that. You wounded me, Y/N.”

Y/N stiffened under his firm hold. For a brief moment she broke eye contact. She had never thought her disappearance would have affected Azriel this much.

“You left a wound on my heart when you left without a word. I mourned you. I believed you to be dead,” Azriel said. Even his voice now held that pain and sadness he had carefully hidden behind that barrier of rage and fury.

Azriel pushed back from the wall and looked at Y/N, his eyes glancing down at the blood on her neck, he showed no emotion at it. “The sooner you arrange matters with Rhys, the sooner you can go back to your kingdom. I will remain civil with you until then for the sake of everyone around us. But just so you know, if Vassuryn ever needs help in the future, believe me when I tell you that I will not go to help. Once you leave here, Y/N, I never want to see you again. I have already mourned you, I will not do it again.”

With that, Azriel turned his back and walked down the corridor and out of sight. Y/N remained against the wall, she had made no effort to move. His words had cut her deeper than any blade ever would. Y/N’s breath came out in ragged pants and she tried to process everything that had just happened. With a shaky hand, she pressed it against where truthteller had been held against her skin. Her fingers came away bloody.

“Y/N,” Cassian said softly.

Y/N looked up from her hand and her gaze rested on Cassian and Nesta, both with sympathetic expressions on their faces.

“Are you okay?” Nesta asked.

Y/N only glanced down the corridor where Azriel had disappeared and back to her hand.

“Did you see what happened?” Y/N asked, her voice quiet.

Cassian shook his head. “Did Az do that?”

Y/N wiped the blood on her fingers onto her jacket. “Yes, but it's fine. I probably deserved it.”

As Cassian went to open his mouth, Y/N rushed past him. “I’m going to get an early night before my meeting with Rhys tomorrow. I will see you both later.”

Y/N continued on her way down the corridor and up the stairs until she made it to her bedroom. When she stepped inside, she didn’t feel the nostalgia she did when she stepped in it earlier. Instead she only felt dread. The quicker she sorted things out with Rhys, the quicker she could leave– and hopefully that was soon.

***

The moment Azriel was out of sight, he let out a breath and slouched against the wall. The rage within him was not directed at Y/N anymore– it was directed at himself. Azriel could see the small amount of fear that presented itself in Y/N’s eyes when he held truthteller up to her neck. Azriel was not even sure what came over him, he was just so angry and frustrated at that moment.

What made him hate himself even more was the wound he had inflicted upon her. In his whole life, Azriel had never inflicted a purposeful wound upon his friends. Yet he had on Y/N.

Azriel shook his head and continued down the hallway. Y/N is not my friend. He thought.

Yet he still felt the weight of the guilt upon his shoulders. That blood that trickled down her neck was caused by him. Before he would have burnt villages down if he even saw so much of a scratch upon her skin. This time, he was the cause.

Azriel was not even sure where he was going. As soon as he left Y/N in the corridor, he had walked away, any second longer and he would be falling at her feet, begging for forgiveness. Azriel scoffed. He had nothing to be sorry for. Y/N is the one who should be sorry. She had abandoned him and her family only to find a new one in Vassuryn. They were apparently replaceable.

The route Azriel walked was familiar to him, he had walked it hundreds of times before, even without meaning to. His feet led him down the corridor with now one occupant. Azriel slowed as he walked down it. Light shone from under Y/N’s door. Azriel came to a stop.

For two centuries he was used to the room being vacant but now he knew that she resided inside once again, it made his heart skip a beat. Azriel silently listened. Y/N’s heartbeat was slow and steady, a clear indication that she was asleep. That was one thing that hadn’t changed about her. Before when Azriel fell asleep beside her, he would be eased into a sleep void of nightmares just from listening to her heartbeat.

Despite himself, a ghost of a smile appeared on Azriel’s face.

He was not sure what had overcome him when Azriel reached out and touched the door handle. Before he could stop himself he quietly pushed the door open and stepped into the room. The candles were burning on the dresser and Azriel stepped forward to blow them out. He tried not to look in Y/N’s direction but failed as he spared a quick glance.

In her sleep Y/N looked relaxed and it made Azriel’s chest tighten. Now he saw how much stress and worry she carried on her face. He assumes that some of that was caused by him. She was wearing a simple nightshirt and the blankets were bunched up at her waist, though Azriel could see the goosebumps littering her skin.

His feet carried him closer to the bed and he reached out to touch the soft blanket bunched at her waist. Azriel recognised it as the gift Mor had given her for Solstice one year. It had been so long ago that Azriel had forgotten. He pulled it up until it rested below her chin. Y/N seemed to hum quietly at the added warmth to her body as she snuggled into the blanket. As she shifted, Azriel now had a clear view of the wound he had inflicted on her. It was healing but it was still an angry red. The blood had been washed away but Azriel could still see it in his mind. Like the blood, he wished he could wash it himself.

Azriel stepped back and back away to where the candles were, the only reason why he had entered her room. He blew them out one by one until the room was plunged into darkness, the only light coming from the small gap in the curtains, shining directly onto Y/N’s face.

Azriel lingered by the door for a moment longer. A singular shadow sneaking away to join Y/N at her bedside. Azriel hastily summoned it back and stepped out into the hallway and closed the door quietly behind him. He took off down the hallways and up to his bedroom.

Once he was inside, Azriel sighed. He didn’t know why he did that. He didn’t care.

I don’t care about Y/N. It was the mantra that Azriel said to himself. It was true. He wanted it to be true. He shouldn’t care about someone who abandoned him– her family.

Azriel huffed and lowered himself to his bed. He didn’t care about Y/N. The sooner she left the better. But as he tried to fall asleep, the only thing on his mind was Y/N and that scared look in her eyes as he pointed his blade to her neck.

Azriel’s night was restless.

DWOD Taglist:

@lostinpages13 @thelov3lybookworm @mell-bell @daisydark @captainsbaby @mischiefmanagers @scooobies @a-frog-with-a-laptop @venussdovess @radishsworld @fussel9913 @luvmoo @marscardigan @lizziesfirstwife @starlumiere @melygarcias @esposadomd @azrielswhore @sleepylunarwolf @going-through-shit @kalulakunundrum @drAgOngirl @sidthedollface2 @fxckmiup @starcrossedsan @historygreekqueen @glitterypirateduck @secret-ly-here @balsamic-vinegar @acourtofbatboydreams @katherinejess

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#azriel angst #azriel x reader #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #azriel #acotar x reader #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #azriel fanfic #azriel fic

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adventuringblind · 10 months

Text

Daddy Issues

Max verstappen x reader

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Both you and Max have similar daddy issues. How do you comfort eachother in times of need?

Warnings: DADDY ISSUES GALORE, depictions of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse, anger issues, Google translated Dutch (I know two other languages and neither if them is dutch)

Notes: Not proofread (we die like Charles Leclerc's car at the 2023 Brisish GP FP2), third-person POV

Masterlist // Part Two // Part three

Sometimes, her love story with Max felt like that of Romeo and Juliette. That's what she likes to tell herself as their dads once again go to war with their respective children.

How either of them had made it this far in life, she had no clue.

This particular night was Max's turn to receive a phone call. The two lovers had been laying in bed during the winter break, keeping eachother warm, when the phone started buzzing.

Max had taken one look at the caller ID and debated whether to just let it ring through or answer. The latter being the better decision or else he would get that added to the procrastinated verbal slaps his father likes to give freely.

The Dutch picked up the phone and pulled the woman close to him in the same motion.

"Hello." His voice is rough, his annoyance becoming apperant in this moment.

Jos' voice through the phone was so loud she didn't even have to try and listen. It was as if he was in the room with them.

She ran her fingers through his hair as he did his best to keep his composure.

"Have you been practicing with the sim?"

"Yes."

"Good, wouldn't want you getting worse or being distracted by the female in your house over the break," he laughed.

Max's free hand entwined with hers. The woman proceding to squeeze his three times. A silent I love you for time like this.

"Maybe you can finally put her to use if you were smart."

A blow to both of them. She had winced only a little, but it didn't go unnoticed. Max brought her knuckles to his mouth and silently let his lips graze them.

"Next race I expect to see you make less mistakes and if there is more then you only have yourself and the women to blame."

"Goodnight dad."

Max quickly hung up the phone and tossed it aside.

She, however, took a different approach and jumped out of the bed. Her now cold body running to the kitchen. Max close behind her.

"I've decided we need hot chocolate." She stated before he could even get the question out.

The two spend the rest of the night cuddling with hot chocolate and watching kids' movies.

The words of Jos are not easily forgotten, but maybe Max could find a way to heal regardless.

The next time something like this happened, it was her turn.

Unfortunately for her, they were at a race. Her parents wanted to come because it's a race in her home country. Spending the day with their daughter, who lives far away now, sounds great in theory.

It had started tame. The three of you sitting in the Redbull hospitality catching up until she went to go find some of your friends and wish them luck.

Thankfully, Lando was walking by and spotted her.

"Hey (Y/N)!" He shouted. Successfully grabbing her attention. The woman waved and made it three steps forward before her dad had placed his hand on her shoulder.

Startled, she spun around and put some distance between them.

"We need to talk." The older man crossed his arms.

Immediately, her body felt like she was a child again. Her shoulders sagged but looked him in the eyes anyway. Knowing if she didn't, he would become more upset.

"I know me and your mom aren't the most rich people, but at least we gave you a better childhood thank ours." He sighed and let out a small laugh. Something he did to make her believe she wasn't in trouble. "You could be a little more grateful to us before running off with some guy who has more than us."

"I'm sorry," was all she could muster.

Thankfully, lando had come over to say hello after she had finished her conversation. He waited, not wanting to interrupt. Until he heard the apology, then he decided to gently step in.

"(Y/N)! Glad I caught you! Max wanted to see you before qualifying." The Brit felt proud of himself for how smooth that sounded.

"Oh do you know where he is?"

"Yeah, follow me." He gestured with his head the direction they were going to head.

"I'll talk to you later, dad." She smiled sadly. Then, she turned to follow Lando.

The two walked in silence to the Redbull garage. Lando not wanting to push the woman and her attempting to swallow her tears before having to talk to Max. Stressing him out before he needed to race was not on her agenda today.

When Max spotted her coming into the garage, he jogged over, greeting his love and his friend with a bright smile.

"What are you doing down here? I thought you were up in hospitality?" He asked.

Max's eyes dart between the two. Taking in the sheepish smile of one and a mixture of sadness and confusion on the other.

Lando turns to look at the woman beside him. "Sorry about lying to you, but I heard what your dad was saying to you..." He trails.

Max's face drops. Suddenly understanding why she had come with a sullen expression.

"It's okay Lan, thank you for rescuing me."

"Anytime." He nods before making his way out of the garage.

Max places his hands on her shoulders. "Do you want to talk about it now, or do you want a hug?"

She doesn't respond. Instead, she embraces him, inhaling his scent and listening to the sound of his heart.

"Race first, talk later." She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek for goodluck.

Max understanding her needs and how she is feeling, helped put the words of her dad into the back of her brain.

The following incident happened in the two's shared home. Jos had cone knocking at the door while Max was away grabbing some essentials for dinner that night. She regretted not going with him now. Opting to get things ready and started while Max was away.

"Oh, it's you." Jos sneered. Practically shoving her out of the way to get inside the apartment. "Where is my son?"

"He's at the store grabbing things for dinner, but I think he'll be back shortly." The young woman closes the door but hardly moves, barely a breath entering her lungs.

Dealing with Jos on her own was always a difficult task. Often fighting with herself between being on the defensive and provoking him more, or just staying quiet. Normally, she opted for the latter.

"You should really consider leaving him now. It'll hurt him less, and he'll be able to focus on what's important again." His eyes burn on her. "Have you still not understood that you are hindering him?! He has been making more mistakes since you seduced him."

She lost her grip for a moment, her mouth letting the words slip before her frontal lobe could fully process.

"Have you ever considered that encouraging and being proud of him might help him more than the constant berating?"

Jos' face went red, his jaw clenching in anger. He looked like he might break something.

Originally, she hadn't realized how close he had been. Now, knowing she should have put more than an arms reach.

The sting on her cheek was not a sensation she was used to. Her father had never actually hit her. thrown stuff around, and broke things from occasionally, but never hit her.

Tears began pricking her eyes. How was she to respond now?

"Don't speak to me like that. It's ridiculous that he keeps you around."

Well, she already crossed the line. There's no going back now. "Maybe because I am actually kind to him." Standing her grand, she managed to look directly at him. The shock of her action clearly displayed on his figure. "Your son is one of the kindest and funniest people I have ever met. He is successful not because because of you but because of himself and what he has achieved through his own hard work."

She had been so lost in her speech that she had failed to hear the keys in the door.

"I'm glad you think so geliefde." His voice was soft towards her. Relief washed over her face as she turned to see him. "What are you doing here, dad?"

"I came to look over some things with you about your next race."

Max's eyes narrowed at him. He quickly places the bag with groceries in it on the floor and strides over where the young woman is still trying to figure out what to do next.

Max places his hands on either side of her face and examines it. "Well, now you don't get to ever come back."

"Max-"

"She is right. I am loved by her unconditionally, and I don't need you to constantly criticize me. And you especially do not get to lay hands on anyone I care about."

Max's eyes turned cold. Now staring past her while still holding her protectively. "Get out."

"Son I think we should at least talk about this!"

"Get out! Or I will call the authorities."

Jos raised his hands in defeat and wnt to exit the space. Before he closed the door, he left you both with a parting message. "I hope she is worth it, Max, and if you realize she's not, then don't come crawling back to me."

When the door clicked closed, she couldn't stop the tears from flowing. "I'm so sorry I shouldn't have said anything to him." She sobbed.

Max embraced her gently and leaned to whisper, "You did nothing wrong, I don't need him to be proud of me. Instead, I think your encouragement will be enough to fuel me for races."

Then, they both started to heal.

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notroosterbradshaw · 3 months

Text

slow dancing in a burning room - eight

word count: 5.6k

warnings: nsfw 18+, language, smut.

part of: The Boyfriend Experience universe

a/n: thanks to those who hung on to this fic. I truly appreciate your effort to show your support start to see a glimmer here (unless I decide angst is more reliable to decide to ruin it all again 🫣) and if you like it… please comment and reblog it! x

masterlist.

“Hi,” you smiled at Rooster perched over a power saw in the last dregs of the afternoon sunlight. Wood chips splashed as he pushed the cutter through the board and he was glistening. You realised he couldn’t hear you so you waited a moment until he finished and tried to greet him again, raising a clammy, nervous palm towards him from where you stood on the front pathway. He turned back and a shy smile crept across his handsome features, carefully waving a dusty hand back.

“Hey, you,” he said, pulling his hearing protection from his ears and tossing them on the grass. Ironic considering what he did for a living would probably guarantee tinnitus but hey, who were you to judge.

“I didn’t want to surprise you.”

He grinned widely, amused. “Yeah, that wouldn’t go down so well, I guess.”

“Probably not,” you agreed.

“Just tryin’ to finish up for the day,” he explained.

Embarrassed, you nodded quickly. “Sure. No problem. Just bringing your shirt back,” you kept the part that you had slept in it to wrap yourself around him one last time before you’d reluctantly washed and pressed it before work to deliver back to him safely to yourself. “I don’t want to bother you.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he reassured, squinting at a particular spot on the board before him and running a gloved palm over it to ensure it was cut to his liking. “Light is getting a bit hazy so probably best I stop for the day anyway, good timing,” he said, kicking a wood end away in his work boots and bending to tidy around him. His strong, muscular legs supported him, golden biceps rippling with sweat, maybe they were a little pink on his shoulders and suddenly he was before you.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, your brain screamed. He was so close and so handsome and so making your head swim. How did you manage before?

Oh, right, you recalled. He always made you feel like this.

You blinked to centre and distract yourself from his brawny shoulder, taking in the home he had worked so dutifully on since you had been apart behind him - you never let yourself take it in on previous trips before but it looked so wonderful and you were so proud of him and you just wanted to tell him. But his lopsided grin nabbed your gaze again and he chuckled, low. “Not bad, huh?” He knew.

“House looks good,” you said as he grinned, the pride evident as he peered back over his shoulder, taking in his work, the exterior’s painting only recently finished. You couldn’t deny it made you feel glum that you weren’t sharing this monumental task together. He had put his enforced time off to very, very good use.

“Thank you, puttin’ a lot a’ time and energy into it,” he admitted. “Learnin’ a lot. Thought I only knew how to fly jet planes quick, but it turns out I’m pretty good with a sledgehammer too.”

You giggled quietly. “I’d believe that, actually,” and you saw the apples of his cheek flush. He’d blame the afternoon heat… or something.

“What are you building here?” Your curiosity got the best of you and you really didn’t have any right to ask, but the whole Notebook fantasy was ringing clear in your ears and it was almost painful to see him working so hard with his hands.

“Veggie patch,” and he waited patiently for your reaction.

Of course he fucking was. It was the one thing you’d spent hours talking about together. What was seasonal, and what was useful. What you both enjoyed. And here he was slaving over it because he still wanted it in his future. Little did you know, he’d build you whatever you fucking well wanted, he wanted to say if it gave you the slightest thought of coming home to him.

“I’ll probably kill everything upon planting,” he joked. “I know I’ll have a black thumb.”

“It’ll be gorgeous,” you promised him softly.

“Can only give it a try,” he shrugged. “Just finish work?”

“Yeah,” you said. “Can’t wait to shower. Got the approved designs for the extension, so that’s pretty exciting. It’s so much bigger than I expected.”

“Amazing. Glad you're doing it,” he smiled. He was taking your breath away. You were so heady on him, it was making your knees buckle, and unlike all the times before, you didn’t have his sturdy, strong palms on your hips to keep you upright.

But you threw all this away. This was the actual lowest you could feel, the pit of your life, seeing him so relaxed, happy, calm. At peace. It made you feel just miserable.

“Yeah, me too. I’ve got a business manager now, so - ”

“Business manager? Fancy.”

You wanted to hide your face, he was so teasing and so handsome and so -

“You’re free of the paperwork you hate,” he beamed.

“Yes,” you admitted, bashfully. “It’s so strange someone else is doing it and they can oversee the building contracts and whatnot. I’m not that person anymore.” You weren’t good at relinquishing control and this was so far out of your comfort zone to do so.

“Awesome.”

“Yeah, numbers will never be my thing.”

But Bradley was great with numbers. He needed to calculate and have a basic understanding of geometry, but it all came so naturally to him, he didn’t have to apply himself. He had worked so hard as a kid to make sure he understood that kind of thing - he had always known this would be his life. And even with Mav holding him back… he had never forgotten what he needed to get there, only making him more determined.

“Here,” you handed him his shirt and he showed you his grubby hands. “Right,” you said bashfully, looping it over his head and around his neck, the mix of his cologne and sweat thick in the air. “There ya go.”

He would never admit it, but he knew your perfume anywhere. He could smell the slightest aroma lingering on his shirt and suddenly didn’t want to wash it ever again. “Come in for a beer,” he offered.

You made a face. “A beer,” you snickered. It was like he didn’t know you. But he knew you. He knew exactly how to bait you.

“Not the way to your heart?” he snivelled back and your heart raced because it wasn’t the way to your heart, but his gentle tease helped a lot. When you didn’t reply, he quickly added, “Pretty sure I got a good reserve bourbon inside. Just in case unexpected guests pop over,” he lied magnificently. The smugness of him made you tingle in all the places it shouldn’t have and if you watched him for one more second -

“No, I shouldn’t,” you tried but, in your mind, you were already sitting on the bench, sipping your drink, imagining what it could be. Those evenings you’d sit together and unwind, you chatted absent-mindedly while he cooked and piped up as required. And when he just couldn’t take it anymore he would step between your thighs, massage your enticing skin and kiss you deeply. His velvet tongue would caress yours, and he’d remind you of all the ways he loved you while dinner was forgotten about -

“Why not? Hot date?” Rooster hated himself for even joking about it.

You forced a laugh. “Uhh, no. Just tired. Long days.” And if I walk in, I won’t want to walk out.

He nodded, seeing right through you. “Come in for a drink anyway. I’m sure you can have a quick one,” he headed towards the house and you had to admit, you were kind of keen to go inside and see what he’d done to the place. When you’d ended things, all that was in the house was his bed and boxes from his villa in Virginia Beach.

You hummed as he started on the steps and nodded towards the door. He could ask you to take a walk off a short pier and you’d do it gladly as you pretended to be put out and eventually smiled, following him. “Just one,” you told him, meandering past him and he held open the door.

“Of course,” he said. “Just one,” he bit back his grin as you passed him, he’d be lying to say he wasn’t checking out your beautiful ass in those delightful leggings. He pushed his sunnies into his uncontrollable curls, which were a little shorter than normal after he had them trimmed earlier. You knew that well enough, but he still let the curls grow as long as he was allowed. He smirked as you poked your head into the bathroom, giggling quietly to yourself.

“Really are loving that mallet, huh?” you asked, plaster, tile and ceramics littering the floor.

“Done wonders for my recovery,” he murmured. “It’s been fantastic. Want a turn?”

“There aren’t enough tiles in the world,” you muttered to yourself. Bradley snorted and nodded.

“I’ll bet,” he said as you carefully followed him down the hallway to the living area. “Make yourself comfy,” he said as he wandered into the kitchen, the kitchen you wanted to demolish. He had yet to touch it, you noted. “Pick your poison?” he wriggled his eyebrows as he peeled off his aviators and tossed them on the bench with his phone.

Resistance was futile as you pulled yourself up onto the bench too, while his eyes never left you. It was where you had always sat. He chuckled low, going to the makeshift liquor cabinet and pulling out two tumblers, before moving to the freezer for the ice, tossing a few blocks in, the tinkle so inviting as you popped up on the bench. He poured your drink and turned back to face you.

“Comfy?” And it wasn’t internally a hidden double-meaning, but it was and you swallowed. Bradley would be lying to say that taking those few steps, pushing your thighs wide and making himself comfy between them didn’t invade his senses. And you’d be lying to say… you didn’t want him to think just that because you were so desperate for him he could just let it happen - he couldn’t just entice you inside without trying just a little. Putting just a little work in at least.

Sweaty, hard body on display, unruly curls, that beard that was just… doing the wildest things to your thoughts. He retrieved ice for you and approached, holding out the tumbler. “Cheers, lo – cheers,” he repeated again, stopping himself from that name he swore he’d never say again… but slipped into so easily.

You raised your glass, pretending not to catch it. “Cheers, Rooster.”

God, he hated when you called him that. He was your Bradley.

You both took deserving gulps but neither could drop your gaze. You could see what you lost right here in front of you. Your man… this house, your life together. He was moving on without you and all he saw was where you should be every evening while you both discussed your days before the desire would ultimately take over and you hold each other, kiss, touch. That true intimacy you’d never felt with anyone else.

“So, what are you going to do here?” you dared ask as he gave a slight shrug.

“I dunno – kind of waiting for inspiration to take over, I suppose. Gut the cooker, and stovetop kind of sucks. Change the backsplash.”

“The backsplash is the only redeeming thing here,” you admitted, a hint of snark, or maybe tease, in your voice.

“Oh yeah?” his lip quirked, clearly picking up on it, as he eased back against the bench opposite you. He knew you were desperate to discuss your thoughts for the space, and he would give it to you because he really was interested in what you thought. He took a sip of his drink and didn’t dare look away from you.

“Subway tiles never go out of style, but the colour is bold for such a chilled place. Get someone to paint them white, it’ll be beautiful. It’ll also look bigger.”

“You know a bit about this stuff?”

“Not really. I just know what I like. Obviously, it’s your kitchen, so you gotta do what suits you,” you added quickly, taking a needy sip. Why was he making you nervous?! This man had seen you naked countless times and knew every part of you so incredibly intimately. He licked his lips, with a slow nod.

“What else, love?” he said quietly, but didn’t apologise when your term of endearment slipped out this time.

“I have some interior design magazines at home if you want some inspiration,” you offered pathetically. You knew as well as him that he was not interested in interiors and how dumb you sounded.

“I love that it's your porn,” he said with a gentle goad, and you resisted with every fibre of your being to correct him. That it was him that was your complete fantasy, and he was so close, and he looked so damn delicious. Wild, free. Sinister in how sexy he was. If it was a dream, you didn’t want to wake up. “How’s that drink?”

“It’s good,” you admitted. It wasn’t something you’d drink if it wasn’t with him – he’d taught you how to appreciate it after all. And if you weren’t clever, you’d know it was all a ruse to try and recall those things you did when you were together. He was no dummy either.

He adjusted his posture to lean over the bench, right near you. Long and lean, he cast such a frame as his muscles flexed and released so close to you.

“What have I missed the last few months?” he asked softly.

"What do you mean?" you asked, dumb to the question.

"What else has been happening?"

"Aside from work."

He hummed. "You know that's not what I mean."

Heart thrumming in your chest, you knew exactly what he meant. "Nothing," and it wasn't a lie. The only thing that changed was him in your life.

“I’ve missed talking to you," he confided.

Swallowing thickly, you found yourself getting flustered.

“Get me now?” he breathed, standing again to his full height (you missed how big he was and how teeny he could make you feel), fidgeting but closer again, almost before you, his eyes at his feet meekly.

“Yes,” you answered meekly.

He exhaled, he was tense too and as he gazed up and caught your eyes, he murmured, “I missed you every minute of every day,” he confided. “I never thought we would be in the same room again… well, without other people.”

“Me neither,” you agreed and somehow, you still felt like it was a very bad idea as his body leaned in and the thick base of the tumbler hit the benchtop. You were drunk on him, and you wanted to touch and taste him so much it almost hurt. You knew you were shaking as you adjusted your posture to sit up and he pushed that step closer, his thick thighs were grazing against yours now. If he took one more step, it would be improper.

…but how you wanted the improper!

“You’re very close,” you told him, a warning to both of you.

“Do you want me to step back?” his nose almost touched yours as you weakly shook your head.

“No.”

“No…”

“The opposite.”

As instructed, he took that step closer, pressing his waist between your wide thighs, tummies almost pressed together. It was like there was only one more thing to do. “Just kiss me,” he begged. “Don’t think about anything else, just let yourself feel good.”

It was hard to argue with him, he was always incredibly good at making his points when your head was swirling. He laughed gently as your head started to spin. He finally made that move and he grasped the meat of your quads, dragging you to him, core pressed against his abs now and relief almost swept over you because you needed him. He was the only one that could make you feel this way. No one else could compare. He could make you feel and do things you’d only fantasised about - not even your toys could bring you the pleasure he was able.

He had you right where he wanted you and you were at a loss to figure out how to fight it.

“This isn’t a good idea. We worked so hard to get back to this place,” you said, your hands pressed deeply on his waist of their own volition. Your heart was making the decisions now and your head had absolutely no say.

Your fingers itched, threatening to glide forward and find the drawstring to release his boardies. He was so hard there was no denying it, but you were so wet and frenetic for his cock. You knew how well you fit together. And you would be lying to say that you hadn’t thought on more than one occasion what if we could just have one more night?

“I know, just when I thought we could become friends again...” Rooster agreed. Still, his fingers were already pulling at the hem of your shirt, dragging it from the band of your leggings and his eyes begging, pleading for you to say a quick yes instead of a …slow …painful no.

To raise your arms willingly and let him undress you and recreate all the positions he'd been so busy fantasising about before this all went apeshit. “Say no and I’ll respect it. I won’t like it, but I’ll walk away.”

“But I want this,” you told him. “I need you.”

“Yeah?” He needed reassurance. And you needed it too.

“Yes, Bradley.”

“That’s all I need to hear,” he told you, his knuckles grazing your hips as he bunched your shirt into his hands. He was clinging so tightly to the linen that it threatened to rip under the pressure of his grip.

“Rooster?”

“Stop calling me that,” he begged, a light frustration etched in his deep rasp. “My friends call me that.”

“I’m not your friend?” It wasn’t the time to tease, but how could you not?

“No, you know you’re not my friend. Not anymore, you’re not,” he was stern, and commanding and it hurt a little to hear that he didn’t feel you were friends anymore. Mere acquaintances maybe.

“Who am I then?”

His stare was so intense, it was hard to resist giving in at first. His perfect, full lips were desperate to be kissed. “You’re my Love," he said so softly.

“Bradley…” you almost crooned. The way he almost always knew what to say…

He hummed a reply, licking his lips and taking the initiative to raise your shirt a little more. That small peak of skin on your tummy was his undoing, and he could only imagine his tongue swirling around your belly button as you writhed under him. “Tell me to stop, and I swear, I will,” he said again as your hands drifted up his body, your warm palms cupping his fuzzy chin and capturing your gaze.

He needed the words.

You pulled his lips to yours, kissing him long and deep, your fingers tickling the nape of his neck, the soft tendrils different under your touch. Your slick tongue snuck into his mouth, dancing sinfully with his. He pulled you against him roughly, he wasn’t going to let you go. “Fuck me, Bradley,” you said, breathless and he hiked you up into his strong arms.

“I’m gonna make you cum all night, sweet girl,” he said, and you melted, missing your little nickname from him. “Let me fuck you until you beg me to stop,” he started to guide you to the master suite, the room that you and he were meant to share before you both went and blew it all up.

Was this his chance to get back everything he wanted? If it was, he was going to make you drunk on him, prove to you how fucking good you were together, how good you made the other feel, and how fucking good you were at this.

Tonight, Bradley Bradshaw was going to claim you like he always should have.

He carried you to the master bedroom. The last time you saw it, it was bare aside from the moving boxes that had already been delivered. Now it was properly lived in. He wasn’t surprised when you pulled away to stand and take in the room – still magnificent as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean before you. You’d had such dreams for this room.

He watched you kick off your sneakers and slowly push down your leggings from your soft hips, and he licked his lips because he wanted to taste every millimetre of skin on your beautiful body. “You’re staring,” you told him.

His cheeks flushed. “I know, I want to be sorry, but your body…”

You got to the ankle and used your other foot to remove the offending garment, leaving them in a pool at your feet. You unbuttoned the first few notches on your linen shirt before pulling it over your head and adding that to the growing pile.

“Did you plan this?” Rooster asked, taking in the sweet, but oh-so-sexy lingerie set, not complicated but cute enough to have him salivating. You shook your head. And of course, you hadn’t. An hour ago, you were begging he wouldn’t be home, and you could have dropped that goddamn shirt off without incident.

“No,” you admitted, motioning for him to approach you. And you hadn’t but it was a sinful happenstance. “I only came to drop back your shirt… I was kind of hoping you weren’t here.”

“Why?”

“Because we would have avoided this."

He chewed back his smirk and replied, “Oh. I see.”

You couldn’t stop him if he tried, already so hard in his basketball shorts and tank top. He carefully palmed himself to relieve some pressure as you raised his top over his head and dragged your fingers from his clavicle to his Adonis belt. He felt like he was quaking. You moved his hand and massaged his cock through the fabric as he gave a shaky gasp.

“That’s good,” he muttered, his hips stuttering. “You know exactly what I like, love,” he murmured, his lips kissing from your shoulder to your jaw, latching onto your pulse point, which was beating rapidly under his tongue. He felt you loosen the waist of his shorts and slip them over his hips, not at all surprised he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Already hard, heavy and aching, you pulled him towards you, your soft hand lightly pumping him, his impressive cock twitching in your hands. “Feels good…” He sucked in a breath as your thumb ran over his silky head, already leaking in his excitement and slippery to the touch.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, real fuckin’ good.” His eyes fluttered closed and his forehead rested on your hair as he allowed himself to just feel your sweet touch.

“What do you want, Bradley?” you asked, releasing him to remove your bralette over your head and he licked his bottom lip, dragging it into his glistening teeth. Every curve of your body was just perfection in his honey-coloured gaze.

“More,” he admitted. “...everything.”

“Okay.”

“To kiss you again,” he said, climbing onto the bed, reaching his palm for yours. You gladly accepted and he pulled you tenderly to him, his large hand cupping your jaw and drawing your mouth to his. His kiss was better than you remembered, especially with the softness of his beard against your skin. You were so used to the tickle of his top lip. You reached your fingers into his longer locks and gently tugged on the unruly curls. “I love your hair longer,” you confided. You pressed your chest against his.

He laughed quietly. “Can't get shorter now.” …before I leave tomorrow, he added silently.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love your curls, but your hair is so sexy like this. And your beard…” you giggled quietly. “It’s like I’m with another person,” you whispered.

Bradley resisted his wide grin. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

You eagerly kissed him again as he pushed his body weight over and eased you onto your back, instinctually opening your thighs to him as he eagerly kissed up your body, stopping at your hips to loop his long fingers into your undies and slowly bring them down your legs. “So wet, just drippin’ for me, love…” his dark eyes stayed on you keenly and his tongue slid around your nipple sucking it into his warm mouth as he continued his ministrations.

“Oh, Bradley,” you breathed, lacing your fingers into his wild curls, hoping to keep him there. “You know my body so well.”

He grinned into your skin. “Know it better than my own,” he admitted with a huff of laughter. He brought his lips to yours, adjusting his weight on you and you forgot how much you missed his bulk. He felt so good, so strong and your body was weeping for his. His large palm traced down your tummy, playing with the small amount of hair on your pussy and his touch was like electricity. You guided his hands to where you wanted them most, his divine lips still kissing your tits, but his beautiful fingers sliding between your vulva, spreading the slick that seeped from you. He delicately opened your thighs and started to play with you. One finger, then a second as his thumb gently circled your eager clit. And as good as he felt, you wanted more. You wanted to be filled by him, cum on that beautiful cock and milk him until he was dry.

But he knew you and as he adjusted his posture to rest his dick at your entrance, he lightly pushed the head in, not making another move, only to look up and kiss you.

You groaned into his mouth as he slid in, delightfully slow until he hit the hilt. For the first time in months, you finally felt complete. Like this was exactly what you were missing.

Connection, desire, a willingness to simply be everything he needed you to be. Just like he always was with you. Even at your worst, he was so devout to you, and it still wasn’t enough for you. Well, this time, you were going to be everything he needed and more. And it started tonight.

Waking up in Rooster’s arms later that night made you feel more alive than you had in months. He was slowly kissing up your bicep to your shoulder. The feel of his beard was different and wonderful all at the same time. “Hi,” you mumbled, still in a sleepy bliss from his caress.

“Hi,” he grumbled back. “I’m not sorry I’ve woken you.”

You grinned to yourself. He never was. “It’s okay,” you admitted. “Are you okay? What time is it?”

He sighed. “Dunno. Maybe one?” His lips brushed past your collarbone to your pulse point, which was already racing as your fingers got lost in his long, unruly bedhead. “I missed this. You don’t know how much.”

You couldn’t lie to him and tell him you didn’t feel the same. “Me too.”

“I should probably go, Bradley,” you told him, softly and maybe a little sadly. “You have to leave in a few hours.”

“Can you stay?” His palms ran across your breasts, caressing and tenderly groping them, while his pointer finger circled your pained nipple, peaked and desperate for attention in his strong palm. He was playing so fucking dirty. “Just a little longer. I swear I’ll make it worth your while,” he pleaded before going in for the kill and his gleaming teeth bit into the tender, sensitive flesh, flashing a jolt through your entire system. “Don’t make me beg.”

But you knew you had to go.

It was so strange waking up with him… Was there a phrase for comfort fucking with your ex except for falling back into bad habits? You didn’t have clothes, toiletries, hell, you would be doing the walk of shame back at this point. “I dunno,” you admitted. “I should go…”

“Oh,” he said, a little surprised that you were so eagerly rejecting him. “Yeah, gotcha,” his hands slowly released you and he rolled to his back, chewing his tongue. He certainly wasn’t annoyed, but like you, certainly confused by the last eight hours. But he was encouraged as he saw you process from your pillow and if he played his cards right, he knew you were in two minds, and it mostly would lead to staying if he just pressed a little harder. “Then let me hold you a while longer at least?”

You said nothing but moved to sit on his quads, a perplexed eyebrow raised on his handsome features, surprise etched on his face. “Ask me to stay one more time,” you begged softly, leaning down to kiss him, his strong arms fastening you in place and not willing to release you. You left his lips and contemplated him as you continued trailing kisses across his jaw, your tongue tracing his pulse point and your teeth tenderly pressing into this soft flesh.

“Fuckin’ hell, stay forever,” he whined. “Baby, what are you doing to me? You make me fuckin’ weak.”

And to be frank, you didn’t know, but the need to have him close and make you cum was all your brain could comprehend. Your hands gripped his side, nails raking into the flesh of his hips, and he hissed, his eyes glued to yours as your warm tongue slid down the thick, well-nurtured muscles of his stomach and abdominals.

“That is good, love,” he said, lacing his fingers into your hair, giving it a gentle tug as you moaned, eyes fluttering closed. You enjoyed having your hair pulled, the way he tugged his fingertips into your scalp, encouraging, massaging. He kept his gaze on you, idly praying for a cheeky, messy blowjob, but your lips on his body were really all he needed. Your soft palm gently grasped between his legs, handling his tight balls tenderly, massaging. Oh, the obscene sounds he made as his hips writhed. “Please pretty baby, suck me off. I need your mouth,” he pleaded. “You give the best head…”

You gave him a small shy smile. You loved to perform for him, but after all this time, and in every position the karma sutra could throw at you, blowing him still made you nervous.

“Don’t be shy, sweetheart. Just put that tongue to use, that beautiful warm mouth.” Needing the friction, he started to jerk himself. You loved watching him touch himself. Big hands wrapped around his obscenely long, throbbing cock. He was already leaking at the prospect of cumming down the back of your throat in hot, thick white ribbons. “That’s my sweet girl,” he whined as you bared your tongue and tenderly traced it against the vein underneath. Devouring a slippery stripe, you took his salty head in your mouth and watched his eyes darken, his face contorting as his head fell back among the pillows. “Fuck …” he muttered, his tone breathy and overcome. “God, I missed this.” He laced his long fingers into your hair and massaged your scalp as you gazed up at him, swirling your tongue just the way he liked. He was desperate to watch you, but his head fell back to the pillows and his torso rolled, thoroughly ruined under your touch.

You massaged his strong sides as he let go of your hair and found your hands, linking your fingers. Encouraged, you took him a little further back as he gripped your hands, not letting you go.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he said softly as you swallowed around him, and he groaned roughly. “If it was an Olympic sport…” he muttered as he put a little more force into the roll of his hips. “I could die a happy man, baby. But I need to cum, I’m sorry I can’t hold on, love,” he gasped. “You just feel so sweet. Gonna paint the back of that pretty mouth…” he strained as you pushed yourself onto your knees and only went harder and faster, dragging his orgasm out and he was coming roughly, hips thrusting into your face, taking you as deep as you could and your nose grazed the smattering of hair of his happy trail, and you tasted him salty in your tongue and as promised, spurting into the back of your throat, a filthy moan escaping his lips as he came… and came. “Fuck. Oh, baby…” he was panting now, trying greatly to catch his breath, tidying up your workspace. He reached for you, pulling you towards him and you crept up his body, sinking into his desperate arms. He wrapped you up tightly and kissed your lips tenderly.

Those words on his lips, he was so desperate to say them. But not as desperate as you…

“I have to go,” Bradley said softly a few hours later. “There is coffee in the pot. Please stay, please go back to sleep.” He gently smoothed your hair from your forehead and watched you wake slowly.

“That’s okay.” You tried to push yourself up.

“Love, it’s okay. Stay. You don’t need to rush anywhere. Just lock the front door when you leave, okay?” He lowered his lips to your eyebrow and said he’d see you in a few months. “I’m so glad you came over yesterday, I just wish I wasn’t leaving you now,” he confessed.

“Stay safe, Bradley,” was all you could bring yourself to say because you felt if you said anymore, the word vomit would continue and you’d ruin everything.

“Always, love,” he promised, pushing himself to his feet and he was so beautiful in his working uniform.

“The blueberry is so unfair,” you teased, stretching and snuggling back into his pillow, feeling the kinks and gentle sting of a body well worked over. He rolled his eyes in the dim room and gave a gentle wave. You heard his heavy boots head down the hallways, a light pause and the front door closing quietly. He was gone.

And once again, you were a goner. If that was your last night with Bradley Bradshaw, you received the closure you deserved.

Big thanks as always to @gretagerwigsmuse for helping me get this fic over this line when this chapter really needed it! You have seen this chapter for months in various forms and I'm so glad you could help me get it over the line x

A/N: the tag list no longer exists. To keep up to date, give @notroosterbradshaw-library a follow x

Taglist (got some fails here, sorry team) x

@yuckosworld @dizzybee03 @sometimesanalice @crustyhoneybadger @mistresssolana @bowchickawowowww @daughter-of-aphrodite @gigisimsonmars @its-the-pilot @evaki498 @shanimallina87 @keep-on-burnin @saturniensblog @ryebecca @b-bradshaw @hannah-grac3 @eclecticfashionbookszipper @eli2447 @rockbottomphilosophies-blog @margaritaparty1965 @nightowlgirlsworld @sarcasm-n-insomnia @factualfic @fanficfandomlove @perseephony @mini-bee-bee @theluxekween @sio-ina-bottle @luckyladycreator2 @timetravelingheart @nouis-bum @lostinwildflowers @stickyvoidlawyerhairdo @thelonelyumbrella @wanderingdetectives @imnotcreativeenoughforthisblog @atarmychick007 @perfectprettypisces @babycallmyname @nero4te @faithxyu @bloatedandalone04 @na-ta-sh-aa @anon8502 @lewmagoo

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ma1dita · 7 months

Text

my love, mine, all mine

based on this drabble : mean!remus

words: 2.8k

summary: Sometimes is not enough for someone who loves Remus this much.

warnings: mean!remus x fem!reader !!!! mentions of sex; much angst they both cry, a lot of kisses & a very open ending, situationship blues, remus is a self-deprecating piece of shit!!

a/n: thank you for the request anon! i watched the eras tour movie and thought of mean!remus and reader during ‘tolerate it’.... sooo don’t blame me for what you’re about to read. title is from a song by mitski <3 always down to flesh out mean!remus and lovely!reader more if yall want--feel free to send in more requests and comments <3

(posted & edited: 10/15/23)

—

Sometimes he lets you down easy. You’ve memorized his face by now, every minuscule detail and the way it hardens when he makes up his mind. Remus is very deep set in his ways, a creature of habit forced by the resolution of hiding in the nighttime, waiting for the darkness within himself to find him under the light of the full moon. You know the whisper of a smile that dances across his face when he sees you, the way a scar kisses his brow when you surprise him, the mechanical tightness of his jaw when he dissociates himself from your embrace.

There’s a particular way his eyes drop that resembles falling snow and it tells you that he’s about to let you down again, buried under him and his excuses. It’s heavy. You wonder how someone so gentle, so fragile can leave you feeling cold, but you bare yourself to him anyway, trudging through the hope that whatever is between you can be more than sometimes. You know him intimately, wholeheartedly. But does he know you? Sometimes is the keyword here, and yet it is tiring, all of the time.

Your breaking point had to have been something big, something explosive. It had to, or why else would this facade have lasted so long? Why did you let him? Perhaps it was when he kissed your neck after Potions, asking to meet up after dinner. He moved away before you could follow him out into the corridor and joined his friends instead. The boys looked back at you, wanting to wait but Remus kept walking on. Or maybe it was when you woke up in his bed again, his side cold and your clothes folded properly at the edge. Remus was propped against his desk, mumbling that he had a very busy day ahead, and the silence that followed was enough to make you leave. Always good enough to bed, but never wanted by morning. It’s best to act like he wasn’t the one who asked you to stay.

—

None of those moments ruined your perception of him though. It was the lightest feather touch of a reaction that shattered the glass. He was walking you back to your common room after prefect duties, and you squeezed his hand gently, swinging it back and forth.

“D’you want to study for midterms tomorrow in the library? We could try to get that little table in the corner you like…” you said nudging his shoulder. He sighed, and his breath was hot against the crisp winter air as it landed on your cheek. Remus’s silence was your answer, and of course, it hurt. You’d do anything for a half-assed utterance to fill the shrill noise of your hope filling the space between you right about now. But this time was different though. This time he truly didn’t care. Remus looked at you with dead eyes, his mind somewhere far from where you were standing with him.

“Not this time, lovely.” The boy was tired, and so were you. The physicality of it was apparent in the way his posture hung low, and the way your shoulders fell from the emotional avalanche that his lack of effort pushed down on you.

“It’s okay. I hope you get some rest then.” Your eyes study his face, gliding from the crinkle of his temples to the scar on his nose and the freckles across his cheeks. He grimaces at your response. You wonder if any part of him hurts like this too.

“Will I see you before we leave for winter break? Maybe you have time during the holiday.” Remus speaks quietly as if he’s the one being inconvenienced.

“Maybe,” you say. He makes a noise in recognition of that, nodding with his eyes closed. Stepping away from him, you turn to walk away before he’s behind you, lips against your hair.

“M’sorry.” He mumbles, breathing you in like wafting amorentia. His hands are shuffling through his pocket before he pulls out the wool mittens his mother knit for him the year prior.

“Shouldn’t let your pretty fingers freeze in the cold.” He puts them on you daintily snapping the buttons closed, his nose against your ear. The corridor is silent alongside the slow thud of your heart. You walk away wordlessly, shoulders pinched like a chill has traveled down your spine.

—

Remus doesn’t see much of you in the days before winter break. Between studying for exams and his monthly run-in with the moon, there isn’t much time to catch his breath. He knows the hold he has on your heart is a devastatingly gory scene. You’ve let him in deeply as he burrows in every fang and claw he has to offer you. And in turn, he takes what he can grab with his razor-sharp touch. He tries earnestly to be gentle but the more of you he caresses, the more blood he has to mop up.

His fingers are tapping on his forearm methodically as he waits for you outside of Transfiguration. Sorting through his thoughts as he waits for the rest of the class to finish the exam, Remus’ mind always falls back to you. Love is difficult, like many other aspects of his life, you see. He knows he loves his parents and his friends, but it makes him uncomfortable, much like someone undergoing anaphylaxis, to be honest with you. To lay himself out vulnerably to someone like you…He’s worried he’ll scare you off.

Students trickle out of McGonagall’s classroom, and you step out with your friends in tow, babbling about the exam. The feeling crawls up his throat as he tries to say something, but air and any coherent thought escapes him. What he feels for you has been making him do that a lot lately.

“Hey lovely.” he blurts out, body turning as he pushes off the wall in an attempt to catch your eye. But you keep rambling with your friends, throwing an arm over your roommate as you hardly spare him a glance. It’s not until your group reaches the end of the corridor that you look back at him for half a second, lashes fluttering as you turn back to your friends. And his heart is growing desperate, swelling, sighing as you continue to walk away.

—

You left for winter break without saying goodbye. The letters that he made his owl Nougat deliver to your bedroom window almost every day had you running out of treats to give her when she’d try to nip you for sending her back emptyhanded. Poor thing is getting fat.

Your mother is so intrigued by your behavior that one night as you feed your baby brother a spoonful of mashed potatoes, she asks you something you’ve been wondering yourself.

“Honey, do you have a boyfriend?” The silverware clinks against your plate as you contemplate the answer. How do you explain this to your mother? How do you explain him? Has he hurt you so much that you bare your soul to her in hopes that she’ll put her work away and listen? Yes, but you let him, the little voice in your head says, so the guilt inside you keeps your response prompt.

“I don’t think so,” you say, your lips drawn tightly. Your brother spits out some mash and it dribbles down his chubby cheek as he laughs at the sight of you making faces at him.

“What a mess, darling. Best clean it up.” You watch your mother’s eyes flit across your face instead of his before she says no more and goes back to cutting into her roast chicken. The napkin across your lap is wiped across his tiny face as you swallow hard.

What a mess, indeed.

After washing the dishes and excusing yourself, you crawl into bed staring at the ceiling. The moonlight shines brightly, a beam of light reflecting on the pile of unopened letters on your nightstand. Turning towards the wall, you shut your eyes and try to fall asleep.

You dream of him often. And in your dreams, he’s always just a little bit out of reach, always running away as you trip over snow-covered cobblestone, arms extended toward him. Though these dreams plague you, the realization hits that dreaming of him is better than your reality. In your dreams, your love is still pure and untouched. When you close your eyes you let yourself be the girl who was hoping at the beginning of it all.

—-

The day after Christmas a pair of tiny hands shake you awake. Your eyes shift open to see your three-year-old brother peering up at you, hands tangled in your duvet.

“Your fwend is outside,” he whispers almost comically loud as you rub the sleep from your eyelids.

“What?”

“Your fwend is outside. I saw him in the window. He looks cold, sissy.”

You scoop him in your arms, carrying him back into his room and tucking him under the covers before you shuffle out front, watching Remus lean against his beat-up car. Throwing your coat on, you walk down your driveway, meeting him in a flurry of hot breath and cautious smiles.

“You’re not Nougat,” you say, raising an eyebrow at him as you stop short at his feet, crossing your arms.

“She’s almost too fat to fly now. Thought I’d get a message to you myself.” he chuckles, and it makes you remember why you liked him in the first place.

“Fancy a ride?”

He props the door open for you, hand ghosting the curve of your back. As you step past him to take a seat, he pulls you in for a kiss. It makes your knees tremble, having deprived yourself of everything about him for the past few weeks. The kiss sucks you in deeper as you anchor yourself onto the nape of his neck, and he’s moaning into your mouth. You hope your little brother isn’t watching through the window.

He drives you around in silence, neither of you knowing what to say. The heat is on high as he finally stops at the park, and he looks over at you. This time last year, he taught you how to drive here, both of you anxious for two different reasons—you trying not to crash and him discerning if you like him back. You both had sex in the backseat after you got the hang of it, windows fogged up and steamy.

“Did you read my letters?” he starts, and you sigh before the end of his question. “No,” you mutter, looking out the window.

“Hey…What’s on your mind?” His fingers pull at your chin for you to look back at him, and you jolt back like he hurt you. You lean forward, pressing your palms into your eyes, breathing hard. He’s looking at you like he knows what’s coming, but he still hopes it’s not true. A boy made from Hope and of hope, that’s all he is. But it hurts to hope though. It hurts to hope for more when he knows he’s pushed you past your limits.

“There’s only so much you can expect of me, Remus. I’m just not sure I can do this anymore,” you whisper.

“Do what?” His voice is desperate and he’s hoping you won’t end this, even though you’re well in your right to do so.

“This. Whatever this is. Sometimes it feels like we’re together, but I know we’re not, and um… I’ve lost the plot. You’ve cut me too deep, Remus.” Your bottom lip is trembling as you croak out the words feeling sorry for yourself.

Remus leans his head against the window, knuckles white as he clutches the steering wheel. He’s going to lose you, and he’s petrified.

“Look, if this is because I haven’t spent time with you at sch–”

“It is. But not just that. There are many reasons,” you cut in, your head tilting as you look at him. “You don’t make time for me, you’re embarrassed to be seen with me half the time. You act like I’m your girlfriend and Remus, you lie, constantly. I can’t keep up with what you throw at me and it’s too much, okay? I’ve let you hurt me for too long.” You get through most of it without hiccupping, but he can’t do anything but watch as you wipe your tears away.

“Do you love me?” he pleads, and if he’s ruined it all by asking that, he can’t tell. His hands run through his hair and he thinks he’s ripped to you pieces at this point. The carnage of the truth sits in his passenger seat as you sit there motionless, staring out the windshield.

“That doesn’t make me yours, Remus. It never has. My love is mine. That’s the only thing you can’t take away from me.”

Remus chokes on a sob as he watches your resolve harden. The windows are fogging up and it’s getting hard for him to breathe.

“I’m so sorry…I just don’t even know how to tell you th—”

“That you have lycanthropy?” Somehow hearing it from your mouth doesn’t scare him. This confession and your candor makes the shame he’s carried with him all these years feel lighter.

“You can say it how it is, lovely. I’m a werewolf. I– The moon shows me who I really am. A monster. I-shouldn’t…I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.”

Your hand brushes against his cheek, pressing the tears into the indents of your fingertips as you wipe away his sorrow. He does hurt like you do. And you’d take it all away if you could.

“A monster doesn’t worry about if they hurt people they love. You didn’t mean to hurt me, did you?”

He sniffs, wiping his nose with his sweater as he shakes his head. Both of you brush over the notion of love. There is a time and place for that, and it sure as hell isn’t right now. He’s being vulnerable to you for once, so you tell him what he needs to hear.

“You’re not a monster, Remus. You have a big heart, and you’re wonderfully sweet, but sometimes your actions hurt. I know….everything about you. And from the reasons I can’t do this anymore, lycanthropy isn’t even in the top 10.” You lean towards him, noses touching.

“But I never said I regret it.”

You wish you could find better words to tell him he’s not as damned as he thinks he is. That anyone is deserving of love, especially him, but it’s hard to convince him that. Remus surges the small distance to meet your lips, and you can’t help but indulge, because if he’s damned then so are you, pulling him over the console as he sighs in relief.

—-

Later, he drives you home, one hand on your thigh rubbing circles as you watch his side profile, less taut, but without a smile. The secret’s out, and there’s not much left to do but navigate the bloodbath. He hopes that he’s able to pick up the pieces and do you right. Remus pulls into your driveway and the car engine rumbles lowly as you sit, unmoving.

The door unlocks and he waits for you to make a move. Your hand glides over the door handle before you turn instead to look at him and his hand is extended towards you, a millimeter away from yours.

“I really am sorry. For treating you like shit.” he sighs.

“I know.” A smile graces your lips as you lean in and you kiss him again tenderly, once, then twice. It soothes the tightness of his jaw and he hopes you don’t hate him after all of this. The passenger door opens, and you climb out and look at the sky. It’s snowing. He watches you standing there, snowflakes sticking to your hair.

“I do love you, Remus,” you admit, biting your lip. “Isn’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard?” The laugh that follows is humorless, his eyes wide as you shut the door. Trudging your boots through the snow, a shiver wracks your body. You peek back at the car once you get in the house and give him a kind smile before you step in.

Remus sits there with the weight of your devotion. Brave in all aspects but love, he hopes you can wait a little longer for him to catch up. For now, his eyes fall to the passenger seat as he shifts the gear into reverse. His wool mittens occupy the seat. Your hands must be cold again.

—-

“Sometimes, home is not a home, but a claw lodged inside you. A river you step into because it holds light. You are waist deep, wading in what mauls you.”

-Athena Nassar

love me some tunes! i listened to this while writing: my love, mine, all mine by mitski & sleep tight by holly humberstone

taglist: @jsjcue

#made by ma1dita ♥︎#remus lupin x reader #marauders era #remus lupin is a self deprecating mf!!!#remus lupin x you #marauders x reader

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moni-logues · 2 months

Text

The Surface

banner by @sailoryooons

Pairing: prince merman!Hoseok x sea witch!reader

Genre: fairytale AU/The Little Mermaid AU, smut

Summary: Prince Hoseok has only ever wanted one thing: to experience life on the Surface. You have only ever wanted Prince Hoseok. When he comes to you, desperate, claiming you are the only one who can help him, you decide to play along. You'll help him achieve his dream and maybe you'll satisfy your own dream, too.

Word count: 20k

Content: unprotected sex, oral sex (m. receiving), Hoseok has sex with someone but he thinks they're someone else, if you're incredibly squeamish, there may be some body/pain stuff that makes you go 😖, potentially a litt yandere-vibed

A/N: Happy my birthday eve to you, dear reader!!!!! This is my very first toe-dip into the world of fantasy/spn!! AND my first collab!!!!! Pleeeeaaassseeee read the warnings (and please!!!! let me know if I'm missing any or any are insufficient). I'm so excited; I struggled with plotting this fic and working out how to get it to do what I wanted and thid is actually v3.0 lmao BUT I'm really happy with it! And happy to be part of the Make Me Your Villain collab!!! Thanks to @daechwitatamic for beta-ng and yelling!!!!

Hoseok swam farther than he ever had before. Swam closer. He’d be inching forward and now he was close enough to be spotted; he knew that. He knew that that was too far, but he didn’t really care.

The first time he swam in this direction and saw the shadows of small boats cross over him, he’d bolted in a panic. Merpeople were not to be spotted by humans. Ever. So he’d raced away, not looking back.

But then he had the knowledge that humans sailed there. He knew that that stretch of water played host to life above its surface, too. They were little boats, not the huge ships he usually tailed. These were much smaller, with handfuls of humans sitting in them, pointing in the distance, holding little boxes up to their faces and lowering them again. Visible. Watchable. It was tantalising.

So he went back. Hung around and waited for a while. Did it again. Watched a boat sail over him and eventually drop anchor near the cove. Went back a third time. Saw the humans jump from the side of the boat into the water. Hung back.

The next time, he swam closer. And the time after that, closer still.

That particular day, he had time. Lots of it. There was nothing calling for his attention, nothing tying him to any place, so he edged closer and a little closer, until he could see so clearly their spindly legs kicking ineffectually through the water, their weird feet and tiny toes. He had never seen humans so close before. He wondered if anyone had. They were fascinating. They dived down and kicked back up, their limbs moving in the water to keep them afloat. They turned on to their backs, looking just like seals from below. They squealed and laughed and talked and Hoseok watched it all with rapt attention. What he wouldn’t have given to approach one. To have made contact. To have asked them all his questions.

He wished he had someone to tell. Someone who would receive the information with not even wonder—his hopes were not that high—but interest. He didn’t have anyone to share his discoveries with, his treasures, his excitement. No one else understood. Some people thought he was weird; others thought his interest in the human world was downright wrong.

But his excitement was palpable that day, floating so close to the humans, he could hear their voices. He could even just about make out their words. And then their speech took on a more urgent tone; there was more frantic splashing, some flailing of limbs. He looked around himself and rose until his head bobbed out of the water. He watched the humans spin, searching for something, pointing this way and that way, calling to each other, looking.

He wanted to help but he didn’t know how. He dipped back into the water and skirted around the edge of the group – still unseen—and then it hit him. He had been so focused on the humans that he hadn’t seen it.

The rip tide tugged him sideways with a vicious spinning force. He was lucky, because he lived in the sea and this was far from his first rip. It might have taken him unawares, but he was able to right himself and spiral through to the other side.

That was when he saw what they must have been looking for.

The rip had tossed him out on the other side of a sharp, rocky outcrop on the west side of the cove. It jutted far out into the sea, sheltering the shore from western winds, and he saw a human woman struggling to the surface.

Her limbs were slow and her face kept dipping under the waves until eventually, she just floated, barely moving at all, moving only with the rhythm of the waves. Hoseok watched with dread and fear curdling the excitement in his stomach. She was too still now, her face too low in the water. Something wasn’t right. There was something unnatural about the way she was lying there, suspended in the water.

Hoseok didn’t think before he acted. He kicked his fins and swam to her, wrapping one arm around her torso and hiking her upwards so her face was out of the water. He dragged her, swimming backwards, towards the shore. He was grateful there was a shore; the other side of the cove had nothing but sheer cliffs and sharp rocks.

He didn’t know what he would do when he reached the shingle beach, but being on land had to help, didn’t it? Land was where the humans belonged.

Hoseok dragged her as far out of the water as he could manage—which wasn’t very far because his tail churned the stones and wouldn’t propel him forwards, so he dragged himself, as well as this human woman, until only her legs were splashed by the waves.

He looked down at her, anxiety churning in his gut. How did humans die? Was she already dead? The thought was nauseating. He knew humans had hearts like merpeople did, so he pressed his hand against her chest and felt nothing. He pressed a hand against his own chest. Felt nothing. He pressed his fingers against the large artery he knew ran down his front and felt nothing. He pressed them to his neck and almost felt something, moved them around until he found the spot at which he could feel his blood pushing against them. He immediately transferred his fingers to the same position on the woman and felt the same thing.

He let out a heavy breath. Relief. At least she wasn’t dead.

But she also wasn’t awake.

“Hello?” he called lightly. “Uh, hello? Are you ok?”

She remained unmoved, but he could barely hear himself over the pounding of his frantic heart; maybe he was too quiet? Maybe merpeople couldn’t make noise outside of the water? He tried again but it elicited no response.

He watched her carefully, listening, training his ears towards her, tuning out the roar of the waves and the squawk of seagulls and the distant sound of voices. He concentrated hard, breathing carefully to slow his own heart, to quiet the thump of it against his ribs and the rush of blood through his veins. There was a wet gurgle as her chest rose and fell, coming from her mouth, but sounding from deep inside. Hoseok knew humans breathed through their mouths, not having gills of their own. So he knew she was breathing.

She was both alive and breathing. He sighed with relief. He could let his worry go and lean into his fascination.

He had never seen a human like this. Close enough to touch—he had touched her. Her hair was the colour of the sun, even wet through; the curls stuck to her skin and Hoseok dared to reach out and brush them from her face. As he took his hand back, he noticed he was shaking. Drops of water on her skin sparkled like gems, glinting in the daylight. The sun was hot—far hotter than he’d ever felt it in the water—and bright. The heat of it burnt away the water on her skin almost too quickly to notice. Hoseok didn’t think she looked all that different from a mermaid, not really. The legs made a difference, sure; she had no gills in her ribs; the webbing in her fingers was reduced to nothing, each digit separated down to the palm. But really, what difference did those things make?

He thought her a wonder. He thought her the most beautiful, fascinating thing he’d ever seen. Her rosebud mouth, lips open and plump. Her skin was smooth and dark; he looked stark next to her. Her torso was whole, one expanse of skin stretching around her back and ribs. Hoseok placed a hand to his gills, fingers playing along the edge; they were flapping uselessly in the dry air. He smoothed them down with his hand, imagined his torso like hers, uninterrupted.

He lay with his tail next to her legs. He tried to picture it split in two, tried to picture himself walking on two feet, upright. He wasn’t the longest merman, but how did that compare to humans? The woman by his side seemed long—were all other humans, too? He figured he would probably never know and the rarity of this moment, the precarity of it, dented his enthusiasm a little. But, he reminded himself, for the rest of his life, he would have this. This human woman, lying next to him, seen by him, touched by him. He wondered how many other merpeople had done that.

He’d heard the horror stories, of course, the kind that teachers tell students to scare them away from the surface. He had never believed them, not entirely. There were bad humans, sure, but there were bad merpeople, too. And looking down at this human, this woman, he knew she was good. He felt a fluttering in his chest that made his breathing hitch. Made him feel almost breathless.

He wished she would wake up and see him. That wasn’t allowed, of course. It was absolutely forbidden to make your presence as a merman known to anyone who lived on the surface. But, who had to know? Just this once. Just this once, Hoseok could have his dream come true, couldn’t he?

She blinked once, then twice, and rolled over to cough and splutter, and he panicked. The tranquillity of the moment was gone. He heard the sound of seawater hitting stone as she choked and it spilt from her lips. He didn’t know what that meant. He watched her back heave as she coughed and was gripped by an intense fear. He wasn’t bad; he didn’t break the rules; he didn’t have the stomach for it.

He was diving in the water before she had rolled back, before she had a chance to see him or even notice him. He had disappeared before he’d even made the decision to disappear. Maybe that was close enough. So much for his wishes to be seen. He just wasn’t brave enough.

Back in the water, he shuddered and realised he could breathe again. With his heart rate finally slowing, he swam towards home, his mind pre-occupied with daydreams about coming back to this shore, seeing more humans, learning some more; pre-occupied with the panic and relief and adrenalin of his last ten minutes.

Pre-occupied as he was, he didn’t see that his movements were being tracked. He didn’t see a royal aide, following at a distance, and then moving off towards the royal chambers when they made it back to court.

He didn’t see you either, though you could see him.

* * *

His mother came to see him the following day.

“Hoseok,” she began, in the quiet, stern voice that had always scared him as a child. “Do you think your father and I are stupid?”

He blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that and couldn’t see the reason behind it. That worried him. He was walking into a trap.

“No, of course not,” he answered, honestly.

“Then it will not surprise you if I say that we do know where it is you go in these waters.”

His blood turned to ice.

“We are all very well aware of your... interest in the surface. In humans and all their detritus.”

He opened his mouth to argue back but the expression on his mother’s face stopped him.

“We know you hunt out shipwrecks and follow boats along trade routes, searching the carcasses of their vessels for rubbish, hoping and waiting they might drop something valuable. We know how close you have got, Hoseok, to exposing yourself to the humans.”

He gulped. He knew he was in trouble. Probably a lot of trouble. He didn’t know what his punishment would be.

“We are not going to permit this any longer.”

That rankled. He was almost 21. An adult in any world. Permission? He found his voice.

“I wasn’t aware I needed permission to go anywhere.”

“You’re a prince, Hoseok, of course you need permission. And you no longer have it. So Sebastien will accompany you through your days for the time being, to ensure you do not go where you should not.”

“For the time being? How long is that exactly?”

His mother looked at him, impassive.

“For as long as your father and I tell him to.”

Then she swam away without bothering to say goodbye. Hoseok didn’t have any time to react before Sebastien was by his side.

“Good morning, my prince.”

Hoseok bit back a spiky retort and swam away, with Sebastien following at his fins. His mother couldn’t be serious. He was being chaperoned? It was an indignity. It was infantilising. It was entirely unnecessary. He flexed his hands into fists and out again, balling and stretching as he swam, as he carried on in his head the argument he wished he could have had with his mother. This would not do.

As he realised where he was swimming—with his new bodyguard—he stopped suddenly. He had been inadvertently leading Sebastien to his happy place, his treasure trove, the place where he kept all the so-called ‘human detritus’ he saved. He was sure his parents didn’t know about that and he didn’t want them finding out.

He swam away, ignoring Sebastien chatting idly at his side, and wondered just exactly what his parents knew. Had they seen him save that human woman? Had they seen how close he had come to being discovered? Is that what this was all about?

* * *

Hoseok looked miserable. Oh, he was smiling, and you were sure he was saying all the right things. But you knew. He was not enjoying his birthday party. There was nothing dazzling in his smile, no halo of light around his head. His laughter rang out, hollow and pitchy, not at all like the tumbling bells it usually was.

No, the prince was miserable. You were sure of it. You had noticed that he had been followed—was being followed—by one of the court’s highest-ranking aides; you saw him behind the prince at every turn, like a shadow, like a ghost. Maybe that was the problem.

You had been close as children, you and the prince, for a time. In that period when you were free, when society meant nothing to you, when prejudices and family feuds still hovered above your heads, out of reach. You had been friends and you felt it then, too, his brightness, his warmth. He didn’t care that the adults treated your family poorly; he did care that they treated you poorly. He didn’t know or care about what the adults said; neither did you. You were friends, the two of you, thick as thieves.

Then one day, all that hovered above you came tumbling down, pouring over you both like ice-water. It became more difficult then, to spend time together, to be friends. He never outright said it, broke up with you in a friend kind of way. You just ‘drifted apart’ because he was welcomed in where you were shunned; he was celebrated and everyone did their best to forget you ever existed.

You should have expected it. He was the prince, after all. And you were a sea witch. People said you were evil; the rumour had it that your whole family was. Matriarchal, and that was just the first problem. You had power. Your mother had had it. Your aunt. Their mother. The way you were told, it went back right to the very beginning. You were the latest in a very long line of very powerful witches.

It took you a long time to understand why that was used against you. You had power. Wasn’t that a good thing? You could do magic. You could achieve things no one else could. You could have made the entire sea a better place for everyone and everything living in it. But no one wanted your input; no one wanted to listen, to hear you. They wanted you to stay quiet. They wanted you to hide.

What boiled your blood was that you did. You stayed at the back, hid yourself away in a cave far from where the royal court lived: merpeople in coral towers and you, tangled in seaweed every time you so much as shook your head. You were older now and you knew full-well why they did it.

They were scared of you. They had always been scared of your family, but now, since the ‘tragic’ death of your mother, they were scared of you. Because you had a score to settle. Because you had a reason to hate them. You had vengeance on your mind.

Vengeance and Prince Hoseok.

Because no matter how much you hated it, no matter how much you didn’t want to want him, you did. You looked at him and your chest hurt with longing and your stomach roiled with hatred. How could it be that you could feel two things at once for the same person? You chose not to examine it these days. It had gone on too long and you were used to it. It felt like your natural state of being: hatred and love in equal measure. Fear and power.

No one had ever tested you. Not really. People came to you for silly little things like love potions and spells to make them smarter or charms to ward off hermit crabs from their gardens. No one wanted to see the full extent of your abilities. So you didn’t quite know what they were.

You toiled, testing yourself on little creatures, to see what you could do to them, how much you could transform them, how creative you could get. There had been a lot of failures at first, of course. So many. But then you started to succeed. And now you never failed. Everything you turned your hand to worked. Your mother had always said you were a natural and now you believed it, too.

You thought you could turn yourself into one of them if you wanted. Not that you did want. Never. Ever. You wouldn’t debase yourself, wouldn’t shame your ancestors with an attempt. But you could do it. That much you were confident of.

You were also confident of just how well you knew the prince. Better than he knew, you were sure. He probably didn’t realise quite what an open book he was to you. It was an open secret that he had a thing for life on the surface, but you saw so much more than that. He had never been able to hide from you: his enthusiasm, his wonder, his furtive glances around himself, the swift flick of his tail as he snuck between two large boulders, the fluidity and flexibility of his body the only things enabling him to sneak through. His little collection. Though ‘little’ wasn’t really the word for it, not anymore.

You had been to see it just once before. It was almost enough to impress you. His discoveries, his treasures, were displayed with such care, it almost touched you. These things, this tat, that he had found floating on the surface or buried in the seabed, he loved them. He treated them like something precious, not like the trash it so clearly was to the humans. It made your heart ache a little: his naivety, his innocence, his propensity for flights of fancy, his dreamy insistence on seeing the good in things, in people. In humans.

It was an open secret, this obsession of Hoseok’s, but it concerned his parents. Sure, he was only the youngest of seven sons—he wasn’t the heir—but he was still a prince. That made him valuable and important. It also meant he had to keep up appearances and it simply would not do to have a Prince of the Royal Court enamoured with... up there. So they had instructed one of their aides (a creeping, odious merman whom you avoided like the plague) to follow Hoseok around, to make sure he wasn’t getting himself into trouble.

Yes, you nodded to yourself, that was exactly what had happened.

Hoseok was getting sick of being followed around. It wasn’t even just that he couldn’t go to the surface; he couldn’t get a single minute of peace! Sebastien was always there and it was starting to grate quite uncomfortably.

He wasn’t enjoying the party and he was getting tired of pretending to enjoy it, so after taking a quick scan of the room, he turned tail and left. Sebastien followed, but Hoseok chose to ignore him.

“Leaving a party early?” you said lightly, as you caught him leaving the room. “Leaving your own party early? That’s not like you.”

His smile was a little tight when he flashed it your way.

“It’s only my party by technicality. No one will miss me.”

You merely raised your eyebrows slightly and raised one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.

“I notice that you are also leaving,” he countered.

“Ah, once the host leaves, everyone else is free to go.”

His brow wrinkled a little and he scoffed.

“Don’t call me the host.”

“Careful,” you joked, “Sebastien here might tell your parents you’re being ungrateful. Look at all this opulence they prepared for you.”

He was about to spit something not entirely kind back at you before he realised that you were taking the piss. He rolled his eyes inwardly at himself. Of course you didn’t care. You never went in for this stuff anyway. He was surprised you had even shown up.

“I am being ungrateful. I would like them to stop looking out for me, stop doing things for me, stop-” he said, coming to such a sudden halt that Sebastien crashed into the back of him, “having me chaperoned like a child just because I like to swim a little farther than others.”

“I’m not sure it’s the distance they’re worried about.”

“Whatever. They just don’t get it. They think it’s dangerous.”

“What is?”

“The surface. Humanity. They think my collecting scraps from the seabed is somehow going to threaten all undersea life, trigger an apocalypse or something.”

“Ah.”

“They just don’t get it. They don’t get it. It’s not like I’m going to go up there and act like I’m human-”

“No? You could.”

He scoffed.

“Oh yeah, just go and flop around on the beach with my tail and my gills and everything. Great idea.”

“... You know I’m a fucking witch, right? I literally have the technology.”

Hoseok stopped suddenly again, looking at you, a little aghast, a little trepidatious. Then he laughed.

“Yeah, sure, one human coming right up!”

You laughed along with him, letting the subject drop, letting it be a joke. It had to be a joke with Sebastien listening in. But you were serious and you needed Hoseok to understand that you could do it. If he asked.

* * *

You thought about it more in the following days, as you watched the prince and his tormentor float around in the water. Hoseok couldn’t even blink without Sebastien there to watch him. You could feel his frustration, his impatience; you could see the dullness diminishing his shine; you could see the time it took for his lips to stretch into his signature heart-shaped smile expand—sometimes they barely made it at all. Was it the annoyance and inconvenience of having a chaperone in itself, or was he pining for a little adventure? Itching for a treasure hunt, fingers twitching to dig through sand and find something broken and useless to take back to his cave of wonders?

The whole sea knew. The prince was being monitored. The prince was being kept on a lead. A short one. There were whispers and gossip and speculation. The worst of these rumours was the one that told you his parents were doing this to get him ready for marriage. That he had been betrothed to a princess in the Caspian sea since before he had even existed and now they had both come of age, the marriage negotiations could begin in earnest.

That would not do. You could not have that.

Your own fingers were twitching; you were as frustrated as the prince, trying to work out a way to expedite this whole thing, to get things moving.

Someone’s hand would have to be forced, you realised. But whose? And to do what?

It hit you, quite suddenly, as you were drifting off to sleep one night. You had been picturing Hoseok amongst all his ‘objet d’art’: his happy face, his preening and polishing, his voice ringing out in a sweet, little tune—the one you liked to catch in your shells and store for later. It was obvious.

With each day that passed, the prince’s frustration grew. As did his misery and his little, daydreamy desires to experience life on the surface. With each day that passed, his parents were obliviously telling themselves that Hoseok was forgetting about it. He was integrating better with his peers, no longer always off on his own adventure; he was finally getting over this little ‘phase’.

It, actually, you thought to yourself as you caught the fleeting idea with a snatched hand, would work out quite nicely after all. You just had to be careful about tipping the scale.

Sebastien wasn’t stupid (you couldn’t get to his position if you were), but he wasn’t exactly sharp. You engaged him in a little idle chat while the prince was dining with his family. Commented on the prince’s interest in life ex-marina. Sebastien had responded a little too eagerly, sharing a little too much (not that he knew he was doing it—not sharp) so it was very easy for you to drop in that you had noticed the prince hadn’t been visiting his little shrine much recently. Sebastien played off his reaction so terribly that, even had you not been so perspicacious, it would have been clear he was bluffing, that you knew far more than he did and he was embarrassed by it. You shrugged, as if the conversation meant nothing to you, and glided away, certain that the seed had been planted.

All you had to do now was wait for it to sprout.

It took even less time than you expected. The sea over the next couple of days was a flurry of anxious activity. No official word had gone out, but something was happening and everyone knew it. Aides were everywhere, in every corner, under every rock, in every reef. The king and queen had an awful lot of staff at their disposal, so it wasn’t long before one of them turned up something very interesting indeed.

It was even quicker that the King stormed down to the prince’s little cave of wonders to give Hoseok what for.

You hung back and watched. Watched Hoseok’s face as it moved from dismay to anger, to fury. You had never heard him angry like that. It was thrilling. It was exciting. It was, you hated to admit it, sexy. He swam forward and you heard him confront his parents, heard his outrage.

But how his father roared. How he hovered above Hoseok, his youngest child, with a face like thunder. How his shouting rippled through the water, carrying it farther than you were sure he’d have wanted.

Hoseok put up a good fight, but he had no power. He wasn’t the heir; he had no leverage, not really. So, his father took his trident and destroyed everything. Even the very cave itself. It was rubble by the time he turned his back on his son and swam away. It was sand. Hoseok was left staring at what used to be his most prized possessions, his secret joy.

It almost hurt when you saw his face, his distress and despair. You watched him sink to the seabed and sob, then you turned around and swam away. You didn’t want to watch that. You didn’t need to. You just had to hope that it worked like you intended.

You slunk back to your cave—your presence having never been noticed—and waited for the prince to come to you.

Hoseok knew they were just things. He knew they were things most people would consider rubbish, garbage, trash, waste. But they weren’t rubbish to him. They were prizes. They were trophies. They were secrets. They were hints of another life, another way of living. They were like the key to a code. If he collected enough, maybe he would understand what life on the surface was like. Maybe once he had enough human things, he would be able to experience Personhood by proxy.

He had always known he would never go there. Could never go there. It just wasn’t done. Not even for a prince. Especially not for a prince. But his parents couldn’t order him to stop dreaming. So he dreamt and he collected and he treasured. He knew no one approved of what they called his ‘obsession’ with the surface. He didn’t care. They didn’t understand. They didn’t see what he could. They were so entrenched in their own, bigoted ideas that they couldn’t open their minds for a second to the possibility that maybe humans weren’t so bad. Maybe they had their problems, but they also had their wonders.

Even outside of his personal curiosity, he had always thought that some sort of treaty with the humans would be advantageous. They were lucky, in his sea, that the water was kept mostly clear, that oil spills only reached them as news. Their unfavourable interactions with humans were limited, but Hoseok knew that wasn’t the case elsewhere. He thought, if they could communicate with them, that maybe agreements could be reached. A relationship with the world on the surface could be mutually beneficial.

No one else saw it that way.

He sat on the sand and wept, cried, sobbed, for his secret little things that were no more. No longer secret and no longer there. He scooped up fragments of them in his hand and let them drift back down. He sifted through rocks and pebbles and sand to see if anything had been left intact, if anything was salvageable. But his father was thorough. And powerful. And there was nothing left.

* * *

The flurry of activity stopped and was replaced by an awkward tension. No one had seen the prince since the argument with the king. No one dared approach either king or queen, not even the other princes. People moved so slowly through the water, as if they were scared to cause too much of a ripple. The rhythm of everything had been upset.

For no one more than the prince. He lay on the sand next to what used to be his happy place for hours, until the sea grew dark and he should have been back at home with his family. The very thought made him sick. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. The thought of seeing his parents again made bile rise in his throat. His blood boiled with an anguished kind of anger he had never experienced before.

Once he had stopped crying, he spent some time staring around in disbelief. He couldn’t believe that all his things were gone, but he also couldn’t believe that his father had done it. The royal family was a Happy Family, officially, but they were also usually happy in actual fact. Arguments were few. Discord uncommon. There had been little cause for friction amongst them in his life. He wasn’t used to this. He and his brothers fought as kids, but never seriously; no one ever tried to rebel in any meaningful kind of way. It was a peaceful kingdom and that peace started at the very top.

Or so it had been. Even that had been destroyed now. Peace was the very last thing on the prince’s mind. He was torn between his anger and his despair. He wanted to hurt his father, very badly. He wanted to show his father that he wouldn’t let this stop him, that not even the King could break him. He knew he was right about humans, about humanity. He would show him. He also wanted, with a kind of frenzied desperation, to set off over the oceans and retrieve a new artefact for each and every one that he’d just lost.

As time passed and the sun disappeared from overhead, his whirring mind, his racing heart, began to slow and a tiny spark of hope burst in him. There was a way, he had realised. Or, he thought there might be a way. There was a possibility. There might be a possibility. If anyone would have the answer, it would be you.

He called your name and it roused you from a mid-morning nap. You sauntered to the cave mouth and your face pulled into surprise at the sight of him.

“Prince Hoseok, what are you doing here?”

He looked a little hesitant, peering behind you at the darkness of the cave, wondering what lay back there, if all the rumours were true. He knew you. You had been close at one point. He knew you so this was fine. He could trust you; he knew he could. You weren’t going to hurt him. You weren’t like they said. Well, in one way, he hoped you were; he hoped you were every bit as powerful as people said because, lord knew, he was going to need some powerful magic. Powerful magic the likes of which could topple the royal family, people said. What care did he have for the royal family now?

But, the evil part... He hoped that wasn’t true. You’d never given him cause to believe so before.

Still, waiting at the entrance to your home (your ‘lair’ as some called it and Hoseok was never sure if they were joking or not), he felt timid. Small. Not like a royal prince, but like a supplicant. Which, really, he supposed, he was.

“I’m here to ask you to do something for me.”

You couldn’t deny your intrigue. You gestured for him to follow you inside.

He did so slowly, his eyes darting around at all your shelves, full of stuff, fuller even than his own treasure trove had been. He couldn’t imagine what might be in all the containers, what secrets or tonics or poisons they might be holding. He had no idea what it was you did, really. You were the Sea Witch and that was bad enough for most people to never ask anything more... Until they needed you, of course. Hoseok had never needed you, not until now, so he had never paid your work much attention. You flew under the radar for the most part, which was entirely by design.

“Ok,” you said, as you perched yourself on a soft bed of anemones that Hoseok didn’t dare touch. “What can I do for you?”

He took a deep breath, a steeling breath.

“I want to be human.”

You pretended to be surprised, but that was exactly what you had been hoping for. Only an idiot would have been surprised by his request, especially given what had just happened.

“Human, huh? Finally pulling the trigger?”

He looked reluctant to say any more. You raised one eyebrow at him and held his gaze. He looked away.

“My parents don’t understand a thing. They don’t know anything about humans. I want to know. I have to know. They-... My parents can’t control me.”

You shrugged and nodded and caught the look of surprise on Hoseok’s face as you turned to gather some ingredients from the other side of the cave. He hadn’t thought it would be that easy.

It wouldn’t be.

You gathered the necessary items and tipped first one, then another, into the large conch you used for mixing spells.

“You... you can do it?” he asked and you chose not to be offended by the question.

“Of course I can.”

“You... will do it?”

“I will.”

The relieved smile on his face could have lit your cave for weeks. His teeth shone and his eyes sparkled as he laughed and clapped his hands. Victory.

“Thank you! I don’t know how I can repay you.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, sunshine. There are conditions to all this, you know.”

His face settled back into seriousness, his brow knitting above his eyes. He nodded fervently.

“Yes, of course. I understand. What do I need to do?”

You paused, leaning one hand on the edge of your giant shell and looked at him with a firm, fixed stare.

“You get three days,” you told him. “Three days as a human. You’ll be human before lunch, so noon on the third day will see you turning back as you are now.”

“Oh.”

His disappointment was palpable, but that worked to your advantage, too. You forced a light chuckle.

“I’m good, Hoseok, but I’m not that good.”

(You were, in fact, that good, but he didn’t need to know that).

“Of course! Yes, three days. That’s great.”

“There is a way you can stay longer than that, but it’s not in my power.”

“What does that mean?”

You pushed off the ledge and rounded the basin, coming to a stop in front of him. You didn’t miss the two inches that he scooted backwards away from you. At a different time, under different circumstances, this might have offended you, but you had a reputation; you could hardly blame him for his timidity. He had never seen you do anything like this before.

“You have to put down roots.”

“Right... What does that mean?”

“You have to find a human woman and plant a seed.”

Hoseok continued to look at you blankly, until you rolled your eyes.

“Fornicate. Copulate. Mate. Breed. Fuck.”

His eyebrows shot towards his hairline.

“Oh... Within three days?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No!” His answer was too quick and his blushes beetroot. He cleared his throat. “No, it’s fine, but... You said plant a seed. You mean... a child?”

“Mhmm.”

He blinked, his mind reeling. You gave him a second to process.

“How do I guarantee that? It has to be a child? There has to be... it has to...?”

You nodded.

“If you want to stay up there, you need some connection to it. You need a tether. Just how it works.”

“Oh, right...”

He was nodding, but he wasn’t looking at you. You could see his eyes were far away; he was thinking.

He was worrying. Would three days be enough? And bringing a child into this? Could he? Doubt was beginning to creep in at the sides, but he couldn’t let it. He had to see this through. It felt like his only chance. And you’d already said yes. You could do it. He could almost taste it, he was so close. He had to keep going. He could deal with the seed problem later; he could hardly think about putting down roots when he didn’t even have legs to stand on. First things first and the first thing was becoming a human.

“There’s also something else I need from you,” you told him.

“Anything.”

“I just need a little piece of you. In order to make this work, I need a little tether to you.”

“You need to tether to me? But doesn’t that keep me tied here?”

You liked it when they asked questions. You smiled, benignly, but your eyes glinted wickedly.

“It keeps you tethered to me, the one with the magic? The one who’s transforming you? We can skip that step if you like, but then the spell will do absolutely nothing.”

“Oh.”

He blinked and then nodded.

“Ok, makes sense. Yeah, ok, what do you need?”

“Come here.”

You beckoned him to your side and he obeyed quietly. You took his hand in yours and plunged it into the shell; then you placed your other hand on his chest.

“Hold still; this won’t hurt.”

“What are you taking?”

“Just a little bit of soul.”

He flinched and you had to tighten your fingers around his wrist to keep it there.

“Relax, you won’t even notice it missing. And keep still, I need to concentrate.”

You closed your eyes and tapped lightly on his chest with your fingers, looking for a tap. Once you found the spot, you dug your finger in a little harder, focused hard and turned it on. You channelled it through Hoseok’s arm and tipped it into the shell through his fingers.

You were right: it didn’t hurt. He felt a weird pulling sensation in his chest and then it dragged down his arm; it was a little uncomfortable, certainly something he’d never felt before, but it didn’t hurt exactly. He wanted to look and see what his soul looked like, pouring out, but he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes.

His soul was sweet like nectar and it shimmered as it settled atop the other ingredients. You could feel its pulse, strong in Hoseok’s heart, its rhythm airy and delicate with a stable bass. You liked it. You liked it a lot. You could feel your own shimmer in response to it; you could feel your heart flutter when you let a little of him inside it. You bit your lip to stop a smile. Once you had what you needed for the spell, you siphoned off just a little extra for yourself. Nothing he would notice – you were always careful about that.

You held him there a minute longer, just absorbing, marinating a little. Sometimes this was the worst part of the job. Some people’s souls were vile, horrid, dark, acrid, smoking things; the taste they left in your mouth wouldn’t shift for days. This, though, was delectable. If you’d had another plan in mind, you might have taken more, maybe even all of it; you weren’t sure how you managed to stop yourself.

You shouldn’t have been surprised by its sweetness. It was Hoseok. He was like that. Of course his soul would be pure as sunlight itself. It was the lightest soul you’d ever held. Almost light enough to make you feel bad for doing all this.

Almost.

“Ok,” you began, letting him go and creating a little more space between you. “We’re done.”

Hoseok opened his eyes and looked down at his tail.

“We are?”

You laughed, not unkindly.

“Yes. You might want to start swimming while I finish this off. Surface is a long way up from here.”

“Oh. But... it’ll work? I’ll be...-”

“It’ll work. Trust me. And take this.”

You thrust a little package, wrapped in fisherman’s netting, into his hands.

“Now go on. Get.”

He nodded, first a little uncertainly, but, as if he was convincing himself, each bob of his head grew surer until he was turning around and swimming straight out of your cave and up, up, up.

You gave everything in the shell a swirl, a mix, let it coalesce, then you placed your hands on the bottom and forced heat through them, so much heat that the concoction boiled, the sea water steaming around you. It bubbled and it boiled until there was nothing left in the shell but a pearl. You picked up this pearl and placed it into a clam. You shut the clam over a cord and tied it around your neck. You were going to want to keep this one close.

Hoseok was swimming so hard he barely noticed it at first. Then his tail was tingling. Then it began to hurt. Hurt enough to slow him down, to almost stop him completely. It was a wrenching, tearing, searing kind of pain that made him cry out, that made dark spots dance in front of his eyes and his head feel light. He couldn’t quite tell if his tail was moving or not; there was blinding pain and very little else, but he knew he was getting close to the surface. He couldn’t stop now.

In the space of three kicks, his tail became two, and Hoseok was overwhelmed by the agony of saltwater in his wounds. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t look, couldn’t do anything but try not to die. Try not to drown. He kept kicking, kept pulling with his arms, but his fingers were no longer webbed and they didn’t grab the water like before.

Swimming as a human, it turned out, was every bit as inefficient as it looked. He tried to move his legs in tandem, to kick and flick like he did with his tail but they wouldn’t cooperate; they couldn’t bend like his tail could, didn’t have the flexibility. Every movement sent a fresh surge of pain racing through him and he was finding it hard to breathe through it.

And then he stopped being able to breathe at all. He clutched at his ribs with one hand, expecting to feel his gills, but there was nothing. He opened his mouth to gasp and his throat was full of salt water in a way that felt wrong, uncomfortable, painful. In a way that made him panic. His lungs were burning, his throat was burning, his legs were burning; everything, everything, felt like it was on fire.

His heart was humming, beating so fast it vibrated against his ribs. He couldn’t think clearly, coherently, at all. It was all just a screaming panic, shouting and squealing and howling for him to get out, get out, get out of the water.

When he finally broke clear of the sea’s surface, he choked and gasped and coughed up water. It stung in his eyes and the taste of salt was so strong, it made him gag. He looked about himself to find the nearest shore and saw none in sight. He knew where he was; he saw the sea, his underwater kingdom, in his mind and he knew how to find the nearest shore. He just had to get there.

He dragged himself out of the waves, spent. There wasn’t a single muscle in his body that wasn’t crying out; he had never found swimming difficult before. It had always been as easy as breathing, but that, too, was difficult as a human. He swallowed seawater that made him sick, accidentally breathed it in and choked, found his breathing growing laboured and heavy when he was still miles from shore.

He lay on the shingle beach for a while, waiting to feel something other than pain. Pain and heaviness. Every movement was an effort. Every movement took active thought, especially his legs. He pushed himself into a sitting position and turned his attention to the package you gave him. He unwrapped it and unfolded fabrics—soaked through, of course. Hoseok had seen people wear clothes in books before but he’d never seen any in real life. He wondered where on earth you got them from. He briefly wondered if he wanted to know.

And despite everything: the pain, the exhaustion, the fear, the dread that was starting to settle in his stomach as the adrenalin faded, Hoseok was excited. He had human garments in his hands. They were his and he was about to wear them. He was human.

Human.

The awe and wonder didn’t last long. The friction of the fabric against his skin was almost unbearable. Was his skin sensitive or were the fabrics rough? He couldn’t tell but he could feel each tiny swish, each brush against him as he moved, with every swing of his arm and every step of his feet. It felt like the top layer of his skin was being slowly rubbed away, his soft, supple skin becoming red and raw and oh so sensitive.

The steps hurt, too. The shingle under his feet felt almost pleasant compared to the torching pain he felt in his legs. Like they were being cut open every time, like he was splitting his tail over and over and over again, the torture wouldn’t end.

He felt so heavy. Leaden. Like he barely had the energy to lift his feet at all. He put this down to the swim, the physical trauma, the lack of sleep he’d had that night. But he’d never felt the weight of his body so heavily before. In the water, he floated. The water kept him buoyed; the water supported him, carried him; he moved through it like he weighed nothing at all. On land, he felt no support. On the contrary, he felt as if the air itself were pushing him down, keeping him stuck to the ground, as if it didn’t want him to move anywhere.

It wasn’t at all like he had expected. He wished you had warned him about the pain. He wished he had known a little more before walking into this – literally walking! He was walking! On two feet! It was agony.

Trying to keep his head straight, he knew the first thing he should do was find food. He’d swum so far, he needed something. His stomach was gurgling in an angry, acidic roil that made him feel faint (or maybe that was the pain or the exertion or the atmosphere or or or). He was lucky that this beach was narrow and the town close. The shingle quickly gave way to grass, which was only slightly soothing on Hoseok’s feet, and then the grass gave way to paving.

He followed the path in the only direction it went and it wasn’t long before he found people. Humans. So many of them. He stood, stock still, watching them. It was overwhelming. The sights and sounds and smells of them. There was food grilling, and children laughing, and market hawkers soliciting, and Hoseok had no idea which way to turn. He could barely think at all. He needed-

He didn’t know what. A rest. A break. To sit down? He walked to the nearest chair – a metal frame with metal seat, next to a metal table – and sat; the chair scraped backwards slightly and the scratch of it on the ground brought a man out from the cafe the chair was sitting in front of.

“Hey, you can’t sit there!” the man called, looking none too happy. “Customers only! Those chairs are for customers only!”

“Oh, oh ok,” Hoseok spluttered. “I can be a customer. I can buy, uh-”

“No! We’re not open yet! No service!”

Hoseok thought then that it should be fine for him to sit down if they weren’t open, if there were no customers yet, but the man continued to shout, to shoo him off, so Hoseok stood and moved away. He would just have to try again a little further down the road.

That cafe might not have been open, but there were market stalls with edible wares already cooked and out for consumption. He took a skewer proffered by a weathered old lady and ate it gratefully, even though it was dry and hard to chew. She then held her hand out expectantly and it was at that moment, Hoseok realised he had nothing to trade. What could he offer? He considered the neat, net package that you had provided his clothes in and brought it out of his pocket. He tried to hand it over but the woman started cursing at him in a language he didn’t understand. He backed away from her aggression and this was clearly the wrong move. She grabbed a large metal spoon and came around the side of her table, raising it above her head.

Hoseok ran. He hadn’t known he could run. Would have claimed not to be able to if you’d asked him to at that moment, but the panic set him going and his feet stomped, painful step after painful step, until he was, once more, breathing heavy and laboured, a sharp pain between his ribs stabbing him with every inhale.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

He eventually sat at the side of the road, wondering how he was supposed to navigate this world he clearly knew nothing about. He had been arrogant in the sea. He thought he knew everything there was to know about humans. He had learnt about their culture, he thought; he had studied their ways of life, he thought. It was nothing compared to the real experience of being here. Nothing was how he expected. He was woefully unprepared.

Tears pricked in his eyes and he tried to keep them at bay because he had wanted this. He had asked for it. And you had done it for him. Hoseok realised with a shock just exactly what position this had put you in. The prince was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t told anyone what he was doing. The only person who knew was you. If they found that out, lord knew what kind of trouble you’d be in. They’d have your head if they thought you had brought him to any harm.

But you’d been willing. Supportive even. So he had to make this work. He had to make it worth it. For him. For you. He would make it work and he would return to the sea to explain everything: to show what he had achieved on the surface, to prove to everyone that humans weren’t like they all said. To prove that you had been the truest, kindest and most loyal friend he had. That you had given him all of it. That you weren’t like they all said, either.

He blew out a deep breath. There was a lot riding on this.

He knew he would eventually need somewhere to sleep, somewhere safe. He walked back towards the centre of the market and found a nice-looking woman selling necklaces.

“Excuse me,” he began, warily. “I need somewhere to stay.”

Her friendly smile faltered a little, frozen on her face as she tried to parse his words.

“Ok?” she finally returned.

“Can you tell me where I can... Is there somewhere I can sleep?”

“Uh,” she said, her face twisting into a kind of confusion that Hoseok felt he was being judged by. “I mean, you can get a hotel or something?”

“Ok, where do I get one?”

The woman looked around her, to see if anyone else was really hearing this. She shrugged.

“There are kind of a lot around. Take your pick. There’s one right there.”

She pointed over Hoseok’s shoulder at a white, stone building, and Hoseok’s smile was all the bigger for the relief he felt.

“Thank you!” he called, already making his way towards the hotel.

But things continued to be difficult. He didn’t have a ‘credit card’ for the hotel staff to ‘hold’. He didn’t know what that meant. They told him he couldn’t have a room if he had no method of payment. He tried to offer something else; he was a good swimmer, he said; he could dive for pearls? The two staff behind the reception desk gave each other the same look the woman on the stall had given him. They explained that they only took cash or credit. He didn’t have either of those two things.

He left the building and sat by the road, because there was nothing else he could do.

He tried so hard not to let doubt creep in, not to feel despair, not to start desperately wishing he had thought about this a little longer. He tried to remember things he’d learnt about the human world – things that would help him. But it was already so different here from what he had expected.

The stories he had grown up hearing about human interactions with his kind were awful; humans were brutal and cruel and hunted merpeople for sport. That kind of thing. But he thought they were kind to each other. They had a society. They governed each other: elected officials who were entrusted with their cities and countries. They made art and sang songs and raised animals whom they kept for companionship, rather than labour. Humans were resilient and tough and brave, social creatures. They came together in crisis and performed heroic feats to help others out of danger. Those were the humans he had imagined.

The ones he had experienced so far were not like that at all. Maybe they knew, he thought; maybe they could tell already somehow that he wasn’t one of them. He was different. He hadn’t even been a human for a day yet. Maybe he was doing things wrong. He was sure he wasn’t walking right—the pain made it impossible. He had shown up from the beach in clothes that had barely dried, were caked in salt. His hair was stiff and tangled with it, too. His face felt tight and rough. Maybe they were right to mistrust him.

But how could he fix it? What could he do?

He couldn’t stay there, sitting on the ground. People walking past were looking at him; it made him nervous. No one had been able to show him any generosity or kindness and the darkness of night was starting to cover everything. There were artificial lights hanging from every door, a warm glow from every window that served only to bathe the shadows in a dim, greyish light. Nothing was black, as it was in the deep ocean, but it was all muted, hard to make out, indeterminate. Scarier.

He had to get out of sight. He had to find somewhere safe that he could stay for the night. That was the most important thing.

As hot as it had been when he first arrived on the surface, he could feel the chill now. There was something naked about being out in the air, with no water surrounding him, enveloping him. Even through the fabric of his clothes (which still scored his skin with every movement), he felt the air move, felt it stiffen his skin and raise the downy hairs there. He needed shelter. He needed to be far away from people, for now. He needed to be sure that, if what the merpeople said was true, he would not come to harm this night.

It was with a heavy, sinking heart that he made his way back to the beach. He fell upon the shingle and didn’t even have the energy to cry out, to sob like he wanted to. He had never experienced pain or exhaustion like this. He had never felt so out of place—not just in this world, but in this body. Did all humans feel like this? Heavy and sore and stiff, with the world pushing down on you? His legs were still screaming; they were as unblemished and unmarked as they had been when he’d first checked them twelve hours ago, but the pain was so convincing, he thought he would look down and see his tail, mutilated, bloody, split in two just like he’d asked.

He made his way very slowly, very carefully, to the end of the beach and the edge of the shore. With the cliffside to his right, there was protection from wind, at least, and it was deserted of people. He shuffled forward and sat with his legs straight out, letting the waves wash over his feet.

That was when he cried. He cried with abandon, without thought, without hope, with an aching, broken heart. He couldn’t quite believe that it was happening this way, that all of his dreams were crumbling in front of his eyes. He wouldn’t believe it; there was good in this world and he was determined to find it, but he had never felt so out of his depth. He had no idea what to do. He had no one, nowhere, nothing.

He looked at the waves as they splashed over his feet (feet!) and he imagined sinking into them, imagined them encroaching further and further onto the shore until he was swallowed up by them, swimming, drowning. Could he drown? He was human now and humans could drown, but he was really a mermaid... Would the magic revert? He remembered what you had said about keeping a tether to him; would you know if he were drowning? Could you see him now, pathetic and weeping?

You could. With his pearl at the bottom of your basin, you could conjure up his image and watch his drama play out in the rippling water.

But the sight didn’t bring you much joy. You worried that you had overestimated him, overestimated the humans. You had spent time on the surface but it was still a foreign world; you didn’t know everything. Maybe you should have prepared him a little more, lent him a little of your human currency. You had expected his grace and charm to carry him at least through the first night but he was a different person now. Well, he was a person, not a merman anymore. He was literally out of his element. A fish out of water.

You chuckled to yourself at that one. Then you frowned and rested your chin on your palm, pondering ways that you could make this work if he couldn’t do it on his own. You fingered the clamshell on your necklace and an idea started to form.

It could work. It wasn’t how you had envisaged this whole thing going but... It could work.

With a sigh, you placed the pearl safely back in its clam and floated off to your inventory: a powder there, some shellfish here, gathering together everything needed for yet another expensive spell.

If you need something doing, you thought to yourself ruefully, you’ve got to do it yourself.

* * *

Hoseok was starting to shiver on the shore—something that he had never experienced before and something he would be quite happy to not experience again. The way his muscles trembled and his skin hurt, still raw from the fabric, but bumpy now with goosebumps that made the friction all the worse. He took his feet out of the water and asked himself forlornly what on earth he should do, but he had no answer.

He scanned the horizon out to sea and saw nothing but washed-out darkness looking back at him. He scanned the beach and the land and his attention was caught by a light, wobbling in the darkness and growing larger. It was only when the person holding the lantern stepped foot on the beach that he could see there was a person behind it at all. If he had been less tired, less sad, less hungry, he might have worried, or he might have rallied and put his best foot (foot!) forward, or he might have hidden. But he could do none of those things. He sat and watched a young woman approach.

“Goodness, are you alright?” she asked, when he was close enough to see her form but not her face.

She wore the same thin shoes that a lot of people in the town had been wearing, barely covering her feet, and long, flowing fabric danced on the shingle above them. He could just about make out her light hair and her petite height, but the rest of her remained a mystery.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Hoseok replied, knowing that he was lying but not knowing if she would see that.

“Are you sure?” she queried. “It’s not safe to be out on the beach alone at night like this. I saw you sitting here and I thought you might be in trouble.”

A glimmer of hope flicked in Hoseok’s heart. Could it finally be: a human who was like he had always dreamt humans would be? Kind? Generous? Could he tell her? Could he share his woes? Would she ease his mind? Was this what he had been waiting for?

He decided he had no choice because his only other options were to drown in the sea or starve on this beach.

“I am in trouble,” he began. “I have nowhere to stay, no food, no money. I have nothing. I don’t know what to do.”

He tried to stop his voice cracking, but it cracked of its own volition. He didn’t want to be pitied; he just needed to be helped. But beggars can’t be choosers, he reminded himself.

“None at all?”

You took a couple of steps towards him, still not close enough that he could see your features clearly, but enough to suggest trust, to suggest comfort.

He shook his head in return.

“You should come with me.”

You could see the surprise on his face, the hope that lit it, the worry that creased his brow.

“Just for tonight,” you continued. “I can give you a bed so you can rest. You really shouldn’t stay out here all night.”

Hoseok rose to his feet, biting hard on his bottom lip to stop himself crying out as the pain surged once more.

“It’s not far,” you said, before turning back the way you had come.

Hoseok followed your lantern, back up the beach, down the path, and into the town. You led him into a narrow alley with a single door at the end. It was this door that you opened with a quiet creak, then you led him inside and up a single flight of steps.

“It’s not much,” you said, attempting to sound somewhat apologetic as you opened the door to the apartment.

It was sparsely decorated and the linens were grey in a way that suggested they hadn’t always been. The lightbulb in the ceiling was naked and dim. The plant on the windowsill looked crisp and parched.

You lived comfortably underwater, despite your status as social pariah, because people wanted your little potions and spells and you could charge through the nose for them. On land, it was more difficult. Humans weren’t interested in trading for things; they wanted cash and nothing but. That made it more difficult to be comfortable here. But you had shelter and food and that was more than the prince had.

Hoseok was nervous. He hadn’t known what to expect but somehow, this wasn’t it. He had heard of the way humans warred with one another, the way they oppressed and exploited other classes, the way most of them starved whilst the few indulged. This was so much more mundane. Nondescript. Boring. Homely.

He took a look at the woman now that he could see her properly in the cold light of the apartment. She was beautiful. Not unlike the woman he had rescued from the beach, he realised. Dark skin that somehow shimmered, golden hair that almost looked like a halo with the way it reflected light. Her eyes were dark, too, deep and rich and warm. She felt familiar to him, somehow, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. He knew she wasn’t the same woman from the beach, not quite, but there was something about her that he felt he knew, had seen before. It comforted him, quieted his nerves a little.

“I don’t have much to offer,” you interrupted his thoughts with a shy chuckle. “But it’s better than sleeping outside.”

“This is wonderful. I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me. It has been a difficult day and you are the first person who’s shown me any kindness. I don’t know how I can repay you for that.”

You giggled and it sounded like chimes.

“You don’t have to repay me. Pay it forward; if you help someone like I’m helping you, that will be enough.”

Hoseok wondered for a second if he had fallen asleep on the beach and was dreaming this. Because this woman, she was everything he had dreamt; she was what he had been hoping for. The flicker of hope in his chest grew into a flame and he shivered as a warmth rushed through him.

“Would you like something to eat?” you offered and Hoseok jumped at the chance.

You gave him bread and cheese and watched him eat them, at first tentatively, and then with great gusto. Of course, he had never tried these things before, never eaten human food. You placed some fruit on the small coffee table he was eating at and he devoured that, too. His eyes widened as he bit into a pear, ripe and juicy, sticky sweet nectar dribbling down his chin. He hummed with delight and you saw the sparkle return to his eyes.

You knew what you were there to do but you were enjoying this moment. This was the Prince Hoseok you knew; this was how he should be: bright and smiling, his crescent-moon eyes alight with laughter. You sat next to him and picked at some food, too, not really tasting it because the sweetness of the moment was far too strong.

Hoseok only stopped eating when you stopped giving him food, when you only had enough left for a small breakfast in the morning and nothing else. He sat back, resting on his palms, and sighed happily.

“That was the most amazing meal I’ve ever had!” he exclaimed and you laughed.

“You are very easily impressed. There are far more exciting things to eat here; I simply cannot afford them all.”

He shook his head.

“Not at all. That was wonderful. Thank you so much.”

With his stomach finally full, his fatigue hit him full in the face and he yawned widely, a quiet wail escaping his throat.

“You must be exhausted. Please, take the bed. I can sleep on the sofa,” you said, gesturing towards the bed that sat against one wall.

Hoseok thought the bed looked huge and the sofa, small. He thought about what the right thing to do would be. He couldn’t sleep in the bed. It wouldn’t be right, would it? But he was so tired and in so much pain. He looked at the bed longingly, imagining himself stretching out over its surface, letting it take his weight. He imagined it feeling like water, like being carried on the waves, weightless. He looked at the sofa.

“Please,” you repeated. “Take the bed.”

Every manner, every point of order, every etiquette lesson was screaming at him to say no, to refuse, to offer to sleep anywhere but the bed. To not inconvenience you, to not put you out, to not cost you even more than he already had, to not trespass any further onto your kindness. But sleep was calling, louder and more insistent. His wrecked, ravaged body was screaming.

He nodded shyly and offered a quiet thanks before rising and slipping, sore and worn, beneath the sheets. He was asleep before he even had the chance to notice the way the bed fabric, too, brushed rough against his exposed skin.

You watched him. He looked peaceful; his face smoothed of any worries or concerns. He made a fine human, you thought. He was tall and lean and, despite the pain you knew he was suffering, he didn’t let it show: he’d walked straight and held himself high. Royal blood, you assumed.

You wondered how much you would have to engineer this to ensure success. Despite all you knew about the prince (and you knew a lot), this was a blind spot. He had hesitated when you told him of his conditions; the idea of a child had alarmed him. Maybe he would decide he didn’t want to stay human after all.

There were two and a half days left. That was plenty of time, you decided. You wouldn’t push; he was too delicate for that, especially after his first day’s misery. You would cushion his fall, pick him up carefully, and slowly show him both what the human world was really like and what it could be like with you. You would delight him and impress him and he would give himself to you. He would. You were sure of it. He would fall into the world that you would show him and he would give himself to you, body and soul.

You fingered the clamshell still tied around your neck. It held the pearl you created when you turned Hoseok into a human. It now also held the pearl you created when you turned yourself into one.

* * *

The thing about royalty, the thing about the privileged, who’ve never really experienced hardship, for whom doors have always been opened, is that they are resiliently optimistic folk. Everything has always gone their way; naturally, they assume it always will. Even now, after everything that happened to him yesterday, Prince Hoseok was beaming. He was enamoured. He was full of awe and wonder. He was experiencing the human world as he thought it would be.

Because of you.

It was taking a lot out of you, truth be told, because you didn’t have the riches you needed to show him a human experience comparable to his underwater life. He wasn’t a royal here; he wasn’t anyone at all. Doors didn’t open for him and they didn’t open for you. But Hoseok had his charm and you had charms of a very different sort. So you were making it work, but your nerves were rising; with every bit you put in, you told yourself you had better pull this off. You had better seal the deal, make good on this bargain you had made with yourself, see through to the end the promise you swore to your dead mother and her dead mother and all the dead mothers back until time began.

It was your biggest show. It was your hardest work. Your magnum opus.

Or it would be. If—if you could do it.

Hoseok couldn’t let on that this was his first time on the surface; he couldn’t tell you he was really a merman, that a seawitch had transfigured him, that his legs were really a tail. It was too risky, too dangerous. But he kept forgetting that that meant he had to try to hide his enthusiasm, his surprise. Everything here was new to him. Everything here was fascinating and wonderful and intriguing and he could barely contain himself.

He had no backstory. He had no lies to tell. And he hadn’t noticed that you hadn’t asked. But it was dawning on him that, if he were to have a life here, he would have to think of something to tell people about where he came from. But he didn’t have the time, right now, to think of it. There was far too much to attend to. Too much to see, too much to do.

It would have been overwhelming were it not for you. If he’d had to continue doing this alone... well, he wouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. If you hadn’t found him on the beach last night, where would he be? Sinking beneath the waves? Starving on the shore? You had lifted him up and now you were carrying him along, tethering him to the earth, providing him a guiding string to hold. He had never been so grateful for anyone in his life.

Not even the sea witch.

“What do you say?” you asked him, shortly before sunset on that second day.

Hoseok tried to think, but it didn’t really matter to him and he was so overstimulated, he couldn’t have made a decision if he’d wanted to. He shrugged.

“I’m happy to go wherever you like!”

“Hungry yet?”

He shook his head. He had sampled one of everything at the market after lunch and had to spend half an hour sitting quietly so that it wouldn’t make a return journey up his throat. He was still very far from hungry.

That was exactly the answer you were hoping for.

You led him away from town, towards the west where the land rose in a grassy slope, steep and getting steeper, until you reached the top of the cliff. You walked up to the edge and turned to see Hoseok hanging back, looking nervous.

“Scared of heights?”

Hoseok didn’t know. He had never really experienced ‘heights’, wasn’t quite sure what that meant. But the wind was stronger up here and he knew, without having to look, that the sea was a very long way down. It couldn’t be dangerous if you were doing it, he reasoned, but he’d heard too many stories of humans falling to their deaths from cliffs like these – sometimes deliberately, but often not.

You held your hand out to him and his stretched back before he’d even noticed and he inched forward until you could take it and tug him a little further and a little further still. His heart was in his mouth as he craned his neck to peer down into the foaming waves as they crashed and broke against the rock face. You didn’t let go of his hand.

“It’s very high,” he stated unsurely, not knowing if it was really.

It felt high. It looked high to him. But, in a way, everything was high. The sea had depth, not height. It wasn’t the same thing. He might have wagered that it would be, before now, but looking down to the sandy seabed from high above it was very different from looking down at the sea from the cliff edge. Something to do with the environment maybe.

Maybe the fact that he couldn’t fall off the sea and plummet to his death. Maybe that. He’d never been in mortal danger; the sea was a safe place for him and he had all the protection he might have wanted (more than he wanted, actually); he hadn’t really appreciated it until yesterday, when he had nothing and no one.

Now, he had you.

It had occurred to him. The condition of his staying a human. The three days he had to plant a seed. It kept occurring to him. It wouldn’t stop occurring to him. Not when you smiled, not when you showed him yet another wonder, not when you took his hand in your own. He wasn’t sure if he could do it. For a start, he wasn’t completely sure how all that worked with human bodies. For another, he didn’t know if you would want to. He didn’t know what human culture dictated.

You were beautiful. About that, he had no doubt. Was he attracted to you? Yes, he had decided he was. Did he trust you? Yes, as much as he could trust someone he’d just met; as much as he could trust a human. Did you feel the same way? That was a mystery he didn’t know how to solve. You had stretched out your hand to him; you had paid for him to be fed; you had let him sleep in your bed; you had taken him into your home. It suggested something, but he didn’t know what.

Just as it had the day before, his ignorance alarmed him. His recklessness in coming still surprised him. The weight of his deadline pressed down on him and he shuddered, involuntarily.

He looked concerned, you thought, distracted. You could tell he didn’t really like being so high above the sea; you wondered if it were a merman thing or a Hoseok thing. Being neither, you couldn’t know. You took pity on him and led him back down the cliffside, keeping his hand in yours as long as he would let you.

You assumed you would have to lead, that he wouldn’t take charge of the situation—judging by what you had seen so far. You mulled it over as you wandered slowly back into town. He had never really had to work for it, you supposed. He was a prince. And beautiful. And charming. And kind. He had everything going for him, which meant he had the entire sea throwing themselves at his feet, desperate to be picked. He probably didn’t know the first thing about seduction, about attraction—not really, anyway. It struck you then that there was every chance he’d be a really bad lay. There was every chance you would be, having never done it as a human before, but that was besides the point. The idea of Hoseok disappointing you left a sour taste in your mouth but you ignored it; that was not what you were there for. Good or bad didn’t matter. There was one objective and one only. Your own pleasure, your own, secret, little goals were neither here nor there. You had to stay focused.

Because it wasn’t going to be easy. You knew that. That was half the reason you hadn’t planned to do it yourself anyway (or so you told yourself...). It was going to be harder for you than some random stranger. You knew that. It was going to be horrible, you knew, looking into his eyes when he learnt the truth, when he saw you—the real you—for the first time on land. You could picture it: the shock and betrayal, the fear and hurt. It gave you pause. Because you hated him, hated who he was and what he stood for and everything about the systems and society of the place you both lived. But you also loved him, loved his smile and his eyes, his heart and his soul. You wanted him to be yours forever. You wanted him to choose you. He never would. Not really. If he knew you were here, if he knew the human holding his hand was really the sea witch who’d sent him up there, he wouldn’t choose you.

The shocked, betrayed face. The frightened, hurt expression. You sighed heavily, without meaning to.

“Are you ok?” Hoseok asked, his head tilting to the side.

You smiled brightly back at him.

“Of course! Just starting to get a bit peckish. Shall we eat something?”

Hoseok wasn’t really hungry. The market food was still solid in his stomach. But if you wanted to eat, he’d eat. He’d do anything you asked. He owed you everything.

More, in fact, than he knew.

* * *

You’d been distracted through dinner, which had been fine because, without the food to focus on (Hoseok barely ate), he could look around at everything else. He could fire questions at you (questions that were far too revealing—not that he noticed) and comment on his surroundings and commentate with barely any input required. That meant you could contemplate your task. You’d had to rush into this whole thing, take the reins with very little notice at all. This was not how you usually operated.

You were meticulous and organised because you had to be. Always on your guard because you had to be. Everything you did came with its own audit trail because you couldn’t afford to make mistakes. You had seen what that had done to your mother at far too young an age. Not that she actually made the mistake. But when you don’t have the proof of every action you’ve taken and word you’ve said, they can make it look like you did whatever they say you did.

You ate slowly, not really tasting, not really savouring. Your mind was busy, calculating. You had a day and a half left. 36 hours, give or take. There would be another night after this one. You didn’t relish the idea of leaving it until the last minute, but you could spoil the whole thing entirely if you pushed too hard, too fast. So you decided to wait.

Hoseok was determined, this time, to do the right thing and let you sleep in your own bed. He was embarrassed at the way he had behaved the night before: how greedily he’d eaten, how quickly he had relegated you to the sofa. It made him cringe. And then you had spent the whole day playing hostess to him: showing him around, paying for everything, keeping him company, and answering his questions.

His debt to you was beyond belief. He knew he should leave. He knew he should make his own way. He knew he could not rely on you – not even for the rest of his three days, if that was all he would have. He had to find a way to survive independently. He knew that. He had to pay you back. He had to make things right.

“I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight,” he announced when you returned back to your shabby apartment.

You pretended to be surprised.

“Oh, no,” you replied, “not at all. Take the bed! It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“No way. It’s your bed. I slept on it last night when I really shouldn’t have. Please. Take it.”

You shook your head, scrunching your nose and grinning stubbornly at him.

“No. You.”

He sighed, but the corners of his lips twitched anyway.

“We may have reached a stalemate,” he announced, with solemn mock-seriousness.

You hummed, thoughtfully, running a finger along the bottom of the bed as you stepped closer to him.

“A compromise, then,” you said, poking a finger into his chest.

“And what is your compromise?”

“Well…”

You weren’t shy. Not when you were being yourself and not when you were pretending to be a human. But you were good at acting like it. You looked down and then up at him through your lashes, a small, reluctant smile traced on your lips.

“We could… share?”

You raised a hand to your face, covering your mouth, looking at Hoseok and then away and then back to him, eyelashes fluttering.

The genuine surprise on his face gave you butterflies. You could see his hesitation, watch his mind weigh his options, calculate the costs and benefits of each. He knew too little to have anything to guide him. Anything but you. And you had suggested it.

So it had to be ok, right?

“Share?” he asked, buying himself another moment to think it over, to consider what all this might mean in relation to the condition he had to meet.

You nodded, lip trapped between your teeth.

“Ok!” he answered brightly, hoping it was the right response, and inwardly breathing a sigh of relief when you beamed back at him.

It would be easy to love you, he thought and the sentiment caught him off-guard. He had to be realistic about human life. He wasn’t a prince here. He had nothing. But when he looked at you, he felt rich. He felt like his dream was within his grasp. You were everything he had ever hoped for. He could stay here forever with you, couldn’t he?

He wasn’t going to do anything tonight. Ask or proposition or… or god knew what else. It was too soon. Too early. There was still time. He told himself, there was still time. Still time for him to wake up from this dream he’d fallen into when he met you. Still time to commit to it forever.

You took the left side and Hoseok the right. You curled onto your side, facing him, with the covers pulled up to your eyes. He lay on his back, moonlight from the open shutter illuminating his face in a sharp line that crossed him and left you in the dark.

You watched him for a while: not sleeping, though he had his eyes closed.

“Hoseok,” you whispered. “Where are you from?”

His eyes opened and went to the window.

“Somewhere… close but also very far away.”

“You mean like, culturally?”

You saw him nod.

“Yeah. Where I come from is… very different. More different than I thought.”

“How come you came here?”

He shook his head, eyes trained on the ceiling.

“I had to,” was his simple answer and you let it hang there in the darkness, waiting for him to add to it. “I think I could have stayed, but I’d have got old and I would have looked back and I’d have regretted it. I’d have regretted staying there my whole life. I’d have regretted not seeing everything this wo- this place has to offer. I needed to experience it.”

“Do you like it here?”

He let the question go unanswered for some time. So long that he wondered, after he’d spoken, if you’d fallen asleep in the interim.

“I like some of it. I like you.”

It made your stomach swoop. Even if he wasn’t talking about you. Just the human you were pretending to be. You wondered how a real human woman would have responded to that.

You changed the subject.

“I thought I was seeing things when I first noticed you on the beach.”

A slow smile formed itself on Hoseok’s lips.

“You were… You saw me.”

You reached out and poked his arm.

“I didn’t want to go home not knowing you were ok. If I’d woken up in the morning to a news story about… well, I couldn’t have lived with myself. I realised, as I approached, that you weren’t really in danger. You looked like you were waiting for something. Someone.”

His smile turned rueful and his eyes flicked again to the window, outside of which you could hear but not see the waves crashing on the shore.

“I was,” he said, his voice a low whisper. Then he turned his face away from the light to look directly at you. “I was waiting for a miracle.”

* * *

You no longer had any concerns about the success of your plan. You had no doubt that Hoseok would go along with anything you wanted to drag him into. You didn’t know if he knew what his feelings were, but you did.

It was your own feelings that concerned you.

You hadn’t spent time with Hoseok like this since you were much younger. He was addictive. His smiles and his laughter and the way his eyes gleamed bright all the while. You could feel your resolve crumble and you knew it was bad when you realised it didn’t bother you.

You began to try to re-think things. Reformulate. Work out a way that maybe there could be a future, after all.

Originally, this was where it stopped. This was where your scheming—and your life—would end. You felt the guilt of having had no children: no one to pass your powers and your knowledge down to; you also felt free because you had subjected no one else to a life like yours. It was a heavy burden to be who you were down in the water. But it wouldn’t have mattered much once you were dead, which you were certain you would be at the end of all this. You can’t just ‘kidnap’ the prince, ‘mutilate’, and ‘trap’ him and live to tell the tale. Many had died for less. And you were fine with that. You were living to avenge every woman in your family, every witch, every creature under the sea who lived shunted into shadows, left out of the light, less than. Had been for years.

And for years, your only source of light, the single little gemstone glittering in your heart, was Prince Hoseok. Prince Hoseok and his angelic face, his musical laughter, his charm, his lightness, his brightness, his everything you weren’t and could never be.

You would get to destroy it all in one fell swoop. A beautiful, perfect demise.

Now you weren’t so sure. Weren’t so sure you could do it. You could do it; you weren’t sure you could go through with it. These feelings that you thought you were so used to, not controlled by, not swayed by anymore, were threatening to overpower you. You felt the tendrils unfurl, in the deepest pit of your heart, sending out shoots and roots, embedding themselves further into the bitter, twisted muscle. You could feel them growing through your veins, buds springing up like goosebumps on your skin. You felt them every time his hand accidentally brushed yours, every time you fed him some new food and barely grazed his lips with your fingers. Every time he laughed. Every time he looked at you. Every time. All the time.

Hoseok allowed himself to relax. You liked his company. You wanted him around. He hadn’t tried that hard to leave you—because he had no one and nothing and nowhere else, but also because he recognised that you wanted him to stay. He had realised that, whilst so much was different up on the surface, he was the same. And people liked him. Always had. Yes, he was a prince and there was always a contingent of the sycophantic and the boot-licking, but he had always been well-liked, even amongst his brothers, amongst the entire royal court. He was popular. He was fun. He was funny.

And he was enjoying himself.

He had twenty-four hours. That was enough. He’d make a decision. He was confident in that. He would make a decision soon and he would live with it, whatever it ended up being. He wasn’t pushing himself to find the answer just yet.

He was enjoying himself.

You took him dancing. It felt risky, given what you knew about how much pain he must still be in, how uncoordinated he might be on his two feet, but it was an opportunity to get closer, to show him something new, to show him something you could do. Because you loved to dance. Really only came to the surface to do this one thing.

Certain sea creatures danced, but not like humans did. It wasn’t the same without the sound of feet on floorboards, wasn’t the same without the weight of gravity trying to keep you down every time you pushed up. You weren’t exactly a fan of humans (certainly not in the way Hoseok was), but they had got this right.

Your worries had been unfounded. Hoseok’s legs were feeling better already, he thought, or he was just getting used to the pain. Either way, he wasn’t suffering like he had on the first day. He was a terrible dancer, make no mistake. He couldn’t understand the way people moved their legs, the way their feet moved so quickly they were almost blurs. He tripped and stumbled and crashed about but none of that seemed to matter to you, so it didn’t matter to him either. You held him close and pulled him up and around and twisted and turned and skipped and span until his head was dizzy.

He had never experienced a joy like it.

You took him on a short carriage ride, because there was somewhere else you wanted him to see. It wasn’t that far, really, but you didn’t want him to have to walk and a carriage was as new an experience to him as everything else was.

You made it drop you just far enough away that it wouldn’t spoil the surprise. You gave Hoseok nothing, answering none of his questions, not saying a word, because you were holding your breath to wait for his reaction.

And there it was.

You saw his eyebrows, first raised and then knitted together, and then softening. His eyes widening. His mouth dropping open slightly, in the way that made it perfectly heart-shaped. Then he turned his eyes on you. Was this it? Was this the thing you wanted him to see?

It was.

Like a sea of green grass with hundreds – no, thousands – of red flowers floating on the waves. Hoseok didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t seen anything like this before. It was as if he were in another new world. The red-headed poppies were so numerous, you almost couldn’t see the grass underneath; there was merely a suggestion of verdant growth propping up the riot of colour. What were these things and how did they grow in such great number?

He had been taught, growing up, that humans had no respect for nature. That they ripped up land plants and built over grasslands; they destroyed forests and valleys and wetlands all for their own ends. They would rather look at glass and concrete and chrome than the kaleidoscopic views the natural world had to offer. He had believed them, because he had heard the true stories of what human activity had done to sea life; he had received the messages of the reefs dying and oil spilling and nets catching up all sorts of things they shouldn’t. He thought, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, as he was always wont to do, that maybe the nature on land wasn’t like the nature in the sea. Maybe things were different up here. Lots of other things were.

Now he saw that he had been entirely wrong. Acres of land lay before him. Acres of useful land that could have grown crops or laid foundations to buildings were ablaze with the bright, bright red of flowers he’d never seen before. And the humans let it happen.

As his surprise gave way to pure, wide-eyed admiration, he noticed that the humans were experiencing it the same way he was. He saw them with their cameras, taking their images (as you had explained to him that’s what they did), keeping the sight forever more. He saw them smile and laugh and frolic. He saw them and saw himself in them. He saw, also, the goodness he had always known was there. The spirit and love and joy of humanity. It was here, in these fields. It was here, in his heart. It was here, standing next to him; you, watching him expectantly, a nervous smile trying to tug your bottom lip from between your teeth.

“Wow,” was all he managed to say.

* * *

It was his last night. What might have been his last night. What could be his last night. Hoseok felt tense. Nervous. Almost sick.

He had decided. He was going to stay. If he could. If he could make it happen. If you wanted it.

He knew he had a home to go back to, if you didn’t. He would always have these three days. No one could take them away from him. And if that’s all he got, if three days on the surface was all he ever got to experience, then so be it. He was putting himself in your hands: himself, his heart, his dreams. His body.

The problem was that he didn’t know how to tell you that. He didn’t know how any of this happened on land. He didn’t know what he could or could not say, or do, or suggest. Which is why he had to leave it up to you. He’d just get it wrong.

It was Hoseok’s last night and you were wondering if you were just imagining the way he was looking at you, wanting him to be looking like that. You could bend reality, but that didn’t mean you always saw it clearly. The heart had tricks of its own.

But you had the advantage over him, because you knew his secrets. You knew that this would be his last chance; you knew that you were his only option. You knew that he wanted to stay. You couldn’t be sure if he wanted to stay enough to sleep with you.

You had suggested wine at dinner because you knew it was what the humans drank and knew it made them silly and loud and boisterous; you knew it lowered their inhibitions and made them do things they often regretted. You didn’t really know how you would react to it—your body was technically human now but you’d never been drunk before—but it had left you feeling warm and a little giddy. It had, blessedly and as you had hoped, made this whole thing easier to think about.

Because your head was spinning a little too fast to think about the bigger picture: the whys and wherefores of how you got here, how he got here, the purpose of this whole thing. You could really only think about the splendid slope of his nose. The way his shallow philtrum led to the smooth, rounded peaks of his cupid’s bow. The tiny, dark freckle there that waited, begging to be kissed. The perfect symmetry of his dimples as he smiled.

You hadn’t indulged in this since you were small. Hoseok had been your first crush. First, last. Only. As a pre-teen, you’d been silly with infatuation over him. Memorised the maps of his freckles and exact proportions of his body. You’d floated around in the sea, daydreaming about him for hours on end, not realising how far you had strayed until your mother had come screaming after you, pulling you back and warning you about being so unaware of your surroundings.

You remembered those feelings now. The fizziness in your limbs and heavy twisting in your gut. Like old friends. Hoseok, too, was an old friend. Your oldest. Your only. Now and, if you got this right, forevermore.

Hoseok had accepted the first glass of wine but recoiled at its taste, unable to believe he’d found something on the surface he didn’t like. You had then explained to him that it was technically a poison and he had been aghast to see you continue to drink it, to look around and see so many other humans doing the same. Every minute brought him something new.

You took his hand as you walked back from dinner to your apartment. It was warm and soft and you were grateful for it. Hoseok was grateful for it, too. His clothes still rubbed at his skin and so much of him still hurt, but your hand in his did not.

You didn’t let go when you reached the door, didn’t let go when it shut behind you and you let the lock click. You tugged him a little closer to you, took his other hand, kept his eyes on yours as you moved closer still.

You hadn’t done this before.

Hoseok hadn’t done this before.

You’d seen it done. You understood the concept.

Hoseok had no idea what was coming, but he had decided what he wanted. He had decided to trust you. And he’d decided to trust his gut, too. If humans were anything like merpeople (and they were), at least some of what was to happen would be instinctive.

He hoped, anyway.

You didn’t say a word, though you had planned to. You had scripted a kind of shy proposition, an awkward hobble of a speech in which you would say and ask and tell. But you abandoned it. Or rather, it abandoned you. Not a single word of it left in your head. So you stopped using it: your head. Stopped thinking.

You pressed your lips to his like you’d seen humans do.

The candle in Hoseok’s heart roared, its flame reaching up his throat and into his mouth. He didn’t have time to think. His body acted for him. For the first time since he crawled onto the shore, his body was feeling something that wasn’t pain. Was feeling something familiar. Something hot and deep and aching.

He didn’t mind the taste of the wine on your tongue, thought it was sweet, actually, had lost the acidic tang of the alcohol that made it poisonous. This kiss was like every kiss that had come before it, but also, nothing like them. Absent, the tang of salt. Present, the wet heat of your mouth and his. Absent, the way he could breathe through his gills. Present, the breathlessness that made him pull away before you pulled him back. Absent, the modest nudity in which the entire undersea world lived. Present, a kind of shy, self-conscious awareness of his hidden body.

An enormous, embarrassed awareness of the bulge in his trousers, the way it couldn’t be hidden. He had been horrified to see it, when he had washed up on the beach, two-legged and naked. He couldn’t believe that humans just walked around with everything on display like that (he had known this already, would have remembered if he’d been in his right mind); he’d felt awkward and conscious the entire time, sure that everyone could see, that it was obscene, that humans couldn’t really live like this?

But never more than now, as it strained against his trousers, which hadn’t been tight thirty seconds ago and were now constraining him in a way that bordered on painful. He kept his body away from you, more difficult now that your hands were skittering up his arms and down his chest, slipping back up his skin underneath his shirt, trying to pull him closer.

You felt a little bit dizzy. Sure, the wine, but also, this. Hoseok. The sweetness of fruit in his mouth. The heat of his skin. The sensation of a kiss—something you’d never experienced before, that you had seen, that had disgusted you—was nothing like you’d imagined. If you had thought about it, if you’d been thinking rationally, you might still have been disgusted by the way your tongues rolled over each other, swapping saliva, the way you could taste him, taste the fruit he’d just eaten. But you weren’t thinking rationally. You weren’t thinking at all.

You were feeling. And it was like nothing you’d ever felt before.

You gave into it.

Hoseok gave into it.

It was, as the humans say, like riding a bike. Though you hadn’t done that either.

Hoseok stopped thinking about it when you removed his shirt and stepped out of your dress. Legs were new to him. That was true. The human arrangement of body parts was new to him but they weren’t all that different once everything was out in the open. You had lit a fire in him and he was happy to stoke the flames. He was burning again, all over, inside and out, but it wasn’t painful, wasn’t torture. It was exquisite. New and familiar at once. Intoxicating.

You fell to your knees and Hoseok thought you had stumbled, bent down to help you up, but you stopped him, shook your head, and he stood straight.

Then you took his thick, heavy cock into your hand and licked the top. You wrapped your lips around it and pushed yourself forward, gliding your tongue along the underside, hollowing your cheeks and sucking. Hoseok gasped and almost fell to his knees himself. He didn’t know what this was, assumed it was a normal part of human sex, briefly wondered if sex actually was different here, if this was the entire act. Then he felt the head of his cock press against the back of your throat and his mind was wiped clean of thought. Replaced by a kind of urgent static that made him want to buck his hips, fuck into the hot clutch of your throat.

You had seen humans do this. You weren’t sure if you were doing it right. Not at first, anyway, but Hoseok had a pained look on his face, his mouth hanging open, his chest heaving as he panted, and you knew that was the reaction you were supposed to be eliciting. You could feel the twitch of his dick as it hit your throat, as you gagged lightly around it. You could just about hear, over the roaring of blood in your ears, Hoseok moaning, your name tumbling from his mouth like a prayer.

You were aching between your legs. You were hot and sticky and you could feel it dripping from you. You felt your walls clench and had the sudden, immediate need for Hoseok’s cock there, not in your mouth. You let it fall, wiped your eyes and your mouth and Hoseok was pulling you to your feet, crashing his mouth into yours, his hands frantic and grabbing.

Neither of you was thinking a second beyond what was happening. Gone were your concerns with your long-planned acts of vengeance. Gone were Hoseok’s worries about committing to life on the surface, about leaving his marine life behind, bringing a child into the world. Gone was the pressure of your subterfuge. Gone was the pressure of all his lies of omission. Gone was everything outside the four walls of this apartment. Gone was the whole world beyond your body in his hands, his body in yours.

Hoseok found that legs made all this much easier. They probably wouldn’t under water, but here, he saw their benefit. Saw the upsides to having two of them, of having them jointed at two places and not twenty. As he knelt over you on the dingy grey sheets of your bed, he almost laughed at the image of him trying to do this with a tail. Maybe there were some upsides to this human body after all.

He placed the tip of his cock at your entrance and pushed his hips forward, a little experimentally, testing the motion, the movement of his hips. He fell forward onto his hands, eyes closed, a long, gasping moan trapped in his throat.

He hadn’t known that humans had it so much better.

Would’ve done this days ago if he had.

You were hot and tight and wet and it was all Hoseok could do not to come right there and then. He paused, trying to catch a breath, gather himself, not lose it all as soon as he had begun.

It was excruciating for a second and the whine you’d let out wasn’t pleasured but pained. You were grateful when Hoseok stopped, though you didn’t think it was for you. Is this what it was like? You had thought they liked it. That was the point, wasn’t it? Humans mated for fun, not just for procreation. You had to assume fun would follow. It had been fun up to that point. It had been its own exquisite kind of pleasurable torture waiting for something to stuff you full.

But now he was and it was like being split down the middle. You wondered for a second if this was how it had felt for Hoseok when he grew legs. Then he started pushing his hips forward again and it tossed all thought out the window.

“Are you ok?” he asked, looking down at you with a frown of genuine concern.

You nodded. You nodded some more. You couldn’t speak because the pressure in your centre was overwhelming, the pain like nothing you had felt before. But you couldn’t stop. You wanted it. You wanted him. You had never been pushed out of your mind like this, brought into your body so viscerally, so violently, with such care. Hoseok brushed a strand of hair away from your face and tucked it behind your ear.

“Do you want to stop?” he asked.

“No.”

You pulled him down to you, down to his forearms, so you could kiss him, so his chest touched yours, so you could distract yourself from Hoseok with even more Hoseok. With your tongue in his mouth, you allowed yourself to cry out as he pushed further. He swallowed the sound and returned his own. You were trembling, your muscles shaking, your skin sticky with sweat.

So was Hoseok.

The pain wasn’t registering anymore, even though he knew it was still there. All he could feel was your cunt squeezing hard around him; it made him dizzy with pleasure. His stomach was churning, twisting; he was bracing trying to make this last.

Because he’d forgotten the point of it. Forgotten that the ending was the bit that counted. He wanted to feel you, he wanted to touch you and taste you and luxuriate in the human experience of this. He hadn’t imagined it but, if he had, even his wildest dreams wouldn’t have come close. Mermaids? He’d never go back.

He paused, to give you a moment, to give himself a moment, a breather. He kissed you, luxuriating in that, too: the way you tasted like no one else he’d ever kissed, the way your mouth was warm and wet, your tongue soft and supple. He liked the way his breath caught in his throat. He liked the way he found himself panting. He even liked the way his shoulders were starting to ache from holding his body up. Liked the way he could feel every muscle of his posterior chain move when he slowly, tentatively began to draw his hips back, when he tipped them forward again, when he set a slow, smooth motion that he found came easily to him.

Having a human body was exhausting. It was hard work. It was heavy all the time and never supported. It had been torture in the truest sense, with every step Hoseok took stabbing daggers into his legs. But he could see the benefits now. Well, he could feel them. He felt more embodied than he ever had before. Somehow separate from the world in a way that made him feel so much more connected to you. You weren’t two small parts of a larger whole. You were the whole.

He had spent time pondering the ways in which air was so different from water. He often thought water came off the better from the comparison. But this was changing everything. It was exhausting and painful and he was so aware of each and every part of his body. And with that, came a gut-churning pleasure that made his eyes water and his head spin. Water had nothing on air.

You weren’t sure it was pleasurable yet. The sharp pain had subsided and the little grunts and groans that Hoseok left in your mouth were sweet enough, but it wasn’t pleasure. Not yet. You were sure it would come. Didn’t mind entirely if it didn’t tonight. There would be other nights.

You hoped, you prayed, there would be other nights. Because it might have been pain, but it was the sweetest pain you’d ever felt. A pain that you somehow longed for, even as you longed for it to end. A pain that made you feel wanted. A pain that connected you to another living being in a way that you never had been. A pain that, in a moment of intense clarity, you realised connected you to women, human women. All human women who had experienced this since time began. You understood a little about their myths about the origin of man, and sin, and punishment.

You understood it. How this could be punishment. How it could be pleasure, too. How it could be worth it.

Hoseok could feel it coming. He was desperately trying to beat it back, to delay its onset, to make this last and last and last. He never wanted it to end, but he could feel his muscles tightening, feel his cock jumping with every thrust. Pleasure was coiling like a spring inside him, boiling rapidly, boiling over.

You gasped alongside him when he came, when his hips and breath stuttered and he filled you with ropes of hot cum. His body was heavy on top of yours, in a pleasing, crushing kind of way that grounded you. At that very moment, neither one of you was thinking about the consequences of what you had just done. What it could mean. What it meant for your best laid plans. You were lying, listening to the soft rushing of your breath and the hammering of your hearts.

It came to you, first, and you didn’t want to think about it. Because you were so full of feeling for Hoseok; feelings that you thought had faded, that had embedded themselves in you in a way that made them fade into the background, made you almost forget they were there, were screaming at you now. In technicolour. Surround sound. Unignorable. Undeniable.

But had you just destroyed him? Destroyed his life? His family?

That had been the intention. Bring down the royal family by having one of their own shun the sea for life on the surface, mate with a human. They’d have known it was you—it couldn’t have been anyone else—and they’d have executed you without trial. But it would’ve been worth it because, forever more, there would be a line of the royal family that ran human, that ran amok on the surface, that no one below the waves would ever be able to forget. It would have been their undoing without doubt. Whatever betrothals lay in wait for the princes would be broken; whatever treaties that were depending on them dashed; the reputation of the family would be in tatters. It would be over for them.

Which was what you had wanted.

But as you lay, absent-mindedly stroking Hoseok’s hair, naked and sweaty and sticky, with a penetrating ache still radiating through your core, you thought about how much that would hurt him. You saw the betrayal on his beatific face and your stomach flipped with fear. Because it wasn’t meant to be you lying here. And that made a difference.

Because you had seen him. You had kissed him. You had had him move inside you. You had loved him your whole life long and now you had to tell him that you had ulterior motives. That you were working against him. That all of this had been the result of your careful manipulations.

There had to be another way. There had been another way. That was how you had designed it. You weren’t supposed to be in this front-row seat. That was the point.

But it was too late now. And you needed a way out.

Maybe he never had to know.

Maybe you could make this work.

Hoseok’s eyes were fluttering shut. He could barely keep them open. He didn’t know if he had just secured his existence here or not. He didn’t know how to guarantee a child. Wasn’t clear-headed enough at that moment to know, for sure, if he wanted one.

He wanted to stay. Oh, he wanted to stay. He couldn’t go back now. But a child?

He felt wicked. He thought about what you might say if you ever learnt the truth. The betrayal. The way he used you for this.

He felt like a coward. He was a pampered prince who had achieved nothing on his own. He had turned to a sea witch in the midst of what amounted to a king-sized tantrum. She had risked her entire existence bringing him here. He had barely survived on his own. You had rescued him. Given him food and shelter and company and the greatest pleasure he had ever known.

He knew he couldn’t tell you the truth. Not if he wanted any part of this to continue.

Because he did. He wasn’t just using you. He wasn’t sure he was using you at all. He liked you. He wanted you. He wanted to stay, not just on the surface, but on the surface with you.

It felt too big. Too confusing. Too difficult. He was a coward, after all, so he closed his eyes and decided to see what the morning would bring.

You noticed his breathing slow, grow heavy and deep, his body relaxing further, his weight pressing down on you harder. He was asleep. That gave you time, you thought. To think of something. Some way out of this. Some way to stay in this.

But your own eyelids felt heavy, kept dropping of their own accord, and you kept losing your train of thought. You gave into it; you would wake early, go out and buy something for breakfast, figure it out in the morning.

#bts fanfic #hoseok fanfic #hoseok x reader #bts x reader #hoseok smut

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beingsuneone · 4 months

Text

Sunset & Vine

PART ONE | PART TWO

SYNOPSIS: one year was all you had, and the winners of the previous hunger games. You didn’t know them that well, but they were still youre only friends. Now you’re thrown back into the Games with some new confusing feelings.

FANDOM: The Hunger Games

PAIRING(S): Peeta Mallark x Victor!Reader

RATING: G

CHARACTERS MENTIONED: Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen, Haymitch Abernathy, Coriolanus Snow, Johanna Mason, Finnick Odair, Effie Trinket, President Coin, Gale Hawthorne

GENRE/AU: Dystopia, Angst, a very small amount of comfort,

WORD COUNT: 5.2k

WARNINGS: Katniss is slightly OOC, Canon divergent in some ways but not others, CATCHING FIRE AND MOCKINGJAY SPOILERS, Reader won the 74th hunger games and Peeta and Katniss won the 73rd.

A/N: Jjj, I’ve really got to stop writing stories with ending like this. Lemme know if you want part two. FYI!!! Changed a few words that completely changed the context and set up for the next part.

DEDICATIONS: Peeta my beloved

CREDITS: Taylor Swift for the name (Gorgeous - Taylor Swift)

It’s a woman, standing with her back to you— she has similar hair to yours and an almost protective stance to her. A haze of colour surrounds her… oranges, purples and yellows swirled into an indescribable but beautiful mess.

Peeta Mellark may be a fellow victor, and he may be one of your neighbours, but you know nothing about him. Except for this beautiful painting that he gifted you.

She wears a dress that flows in some sort of assumed breeze, and has a hand tentatively braced in her hair; there’s something so familiar about this scene that you can’t place— something familiar about the woman in particular.

You can’t place it.

You run your fingers along the small note that Peeta had left with the painting, hovering over the loopy cursive of his signature; it’s the same on the painting but it’s too beautiful to touch like that.

Last year, you won the seventy-fourth annual hunger games, and became a legend for getting district twelve two wins in a row— right alongside Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, Who won the seventy-third hunger games.

Thank god the months of parading you around were over and you could settle happily into your gigantic house by yourself.

Well, happily might be an over statement— you had no family, and certainly no friends… unless Haymitch counts but you don’t think he does.

So this painting feels extra special— a warmth in an otherwise cold and unfamiliar home.

“Where should I put it?” Muttering to yourself, you mentally scan the layout of your house; you’d want it to be in a place where you could see it often, but also somewhere where any house guest would be able to see it… yeah. House guests.

After shaking your head uselessly, you settle on hanging it in the entryway. For sure people would see it there.

You’d been putting off doing this for a couple of days, just because you hadn’t had a whole lot of energy to do anything but sit in a chair and half-read a novel.

So, after a few minutes of fiddling and messy calculations, the painting is hung in the entryway.

You take one last glance at the swirling coloured background once more, and then turn away, leaving the comfort and fantasy behind.

……

Victors are supposed to have immunity, they’re supposed to be done with the games for the rest of their miserable, trauma ridden lives.

But the seventy-fifth hunger games brings back all of the worst parts of last year— you know that out of the three other victors, you’re the female they want to get picked. You’re the easy decision, the loner that nobody cares about.

You know the Capitol loves Peeta and Katniss far too much, and you, not enough.

This, stacked on top of everything else the Capitol has put you through… it’s too much.

You’re pulled from your thoughts when there’s a knock at your door.

“Hello?” You say as you open it; Peeta Mellark is standing there with his lip turned down just slightly, his eyes center behind you for a moment before his face softens and lightens.

“Hey. You got the painting.” A smile melts onto his face, and you swear he looks… beyond words when he smiles.

After a long moment of silence, you clear your throat. “What brings you here…?” You stammer awkwardly, cringing at your choice of words.

He sort of— laughs? Chuckles? at you. “We’re talking strategy for the Quarter Quell and we figured we should include you.” His face falls again, and he looks like he’s holding something back.

Your back straightens. “The Quarter Quell isn’t for another few months—”

He nods slowly. “But we’re going to have to do the pre-tour… and they’re pulling names in just a couple weeks.”

The band around his ring finger gleams brightly in the sun, which sends some sort of jealous feeling rolling through you.

You shake your head because you don’t know Peeta Mellark, and, even if he is gorgeous, you don’t get crushes on people you don’t know.

Plus he’s in love and engaged to Katniss Everdeen, even if you did know him well enough to develop a crush.

He glances down, and then quickly yanks the ring off. “It’s, uh— just for the camera’s.” Then he gestures to the painting behind you. “That’s you, you know. I know you’ve never worn a dress like that, but I saw a screencap of you in The Games and inspiration just kind of… hit me.” he trails off at the end and fiddles with the ring in his hand.

“It’s… me?” You say slowly. “We barely know each other, why would you paint me?”

He takes a small breath. “You’re really beautiful, Y/n, I’ve always thought so.”

A breath hitches but you genuinely can’t discern if it’s him or you over the roaring of blood in your ears.

“So…” he starts again. “If you want to join us, we’re heading over to Haymitch’s now.”

“Okay.” You say, sounding more winded than you did before; you stare at him for a few more moments before you step out of the front door and shut it.

You walk silently beside him, trying not to take in his messy blonde hair or pretty blue eyes—and also, failing miserably—

Just as you reach Haymitch’s doorstep, you stop and tug on Peeta’s sleeve to get his attention. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Peeta.”

He looks down at you, the air around you charged with some kind of something that you can’t name, and just as he’s about to reach over to you, the door swings open.

“Why are you guys just standing out here?” Katniss says with her nose scrunched, she eyes you up and then eyes Peeta up in a similar fashion.

At least it wasn’t exclusively you.

Both your heads snap toward her, while Peeta smoothly comes up with a reason. “Y/n was feeling nervous, I was just trying to help calm her nerves.”

Haymitch raises an eyebrow from behind Katniss, and gives Peeta a look.

“Hey, Sweetheart.” He says, as Katniss steps aside and lets the two of you in. There’s a tenderness to his voice that you hadn’t realized you missed so much.

“Hi.” The three of you shuffle into what you think was once a living room but it’s chillingly messy in Haymitch’s house.

“Couldn’t we have done this at someone else’s house?” Peeta says, eying the empty bottles on the floor.

“No.” Katniss shakes her head, shooting Haymitch a glare. “Because everytime we have to talk to him, we have to wake him up with a bucket of water.”

You snort. “I’m sorry— a bucket of water?”

Haymitch cuts in. “Why do you think my hair’s wet? I definitely didn’t take a shower.” There's a water stain that makes his shirt sag, and you wonder how you didn’t notice before. Haymitch clears his throat. “Moving on; if it’s Katniss and Peeta then we can still milk the whole star-crossed lover thing— if it’s me or Y/n… that won’t work.”

“Y/n shouldn’t go.” Peeta interjects; you’re taken aback by it.

You fidget with the hem of your shirt. “I really thought I was the best person to go.” You pause, looking up at the three of them. “It’s not like there’s anyone here that will care if I don’t come home.”

Haymitch gives Peeta a scrutinizing look. “Look, Lover-boy, we know you have a crush but that isn’t enough for Katniss to volunteer herself if Y/n gets picked.”

Peeta looks to you and then back to Haymitch. “Katniss and I are the Capitol’s favourite couple right now, if we went we’d probably be much better off in terms of sponsors and parachutes.”

“And you don’t want her to go.” Haymitch gestures in yours and Katniss’s direction.

Peeta sighs but doesn’t deny it. It makes sense that he wouldn’t want his fiancé to go back to the Games.

“Peeta is right,” Katniss starts, “but, Haymitch, if you get picked… Peeta should stay. Either way.”

Peeta shakes his head. “No. I’m not staying.”

You cut in. “There’s no good reason why I should stay.” You’re basically the only clear answer; if you get picked you’ll go, and, if Katniss is picked, you’ll go. “I won’t.”

Now all three of them are staring at you. “If I get picked, Katniss can’t volunteer and if she gets picked, you can’t stop me from volunteering.”

Katniss huffs. “You can’t stop me from volunteering either.”

Really, you could all argue this for hours.

…..

The four of you had never come to a conclusion, and now it’s the day of the Reaping.

Effie stands uncomfortably at the bowl; she doesn’t seem happy about having to pull your names, despite her chipper facade.

“The female tribute for District Twelve is…” she says, digging around in the two slips of paper in the bowl. She finally pulls one out and reluctantly reads it out. “Y/n L/n.” She almost sighs your name.

Katniss’s fingers twitch nervously, like she wants to say something but you shoot her the strongest glare you can muster.

She doesn’t volunteer, and you’re glad for it.

You walk up to the stage, head held high; you know this is the start of the end of your life, so you might as well act more confident than you truly are.

Effie looks at you sadly once you’re settled behind her, and then turns back to the audience. “And… the male tribute for District Twelve is,” she spends another five minutes routing through the two names. “Haymitch Abernathy.” This time her sigh is one of relief.

But the relief does not last long.

“I volunteer!” Peeta says, stepping forward; Haymitch grabs his arm and says something too quiet to hear, and Peeta says something back. His face is full of determination as everyone watches him walk up the stage and stand next to you.

Everyone in your little group wears a look of defeat. Even you.

Only one of you can go home, and you’re going to do your damn best to make sure it’s Peeta Mellark.

…..

“I’m not ready for this.” You say quietly, as you walk down the corridor to your bedrooms on the train. “It’s hardly been a year, Peeta.”

He nods solemnly, not looking at you as you arrive at your door. His is just across the hall.

Peeta gently takes your hand in his and squeezes. “I know. It’s too soon.” He looks angry. “We were never supposed to have to do this again.” He drops your hand before you can reciprocate in any sort of way.

You do feel a little less nauseous though.

“It‘s okay.” You whisper, twitching your fingers and slapping it onto the doorknob. “It’ll be okay.”

Peeta’s eyes rove over you in a scrutinizing manner as though he’s trying to figure some meaning behind your words, but there isn’t one to figure.

Just that it will be okay. Peeta will, if you really just be specific. Peeta will return home, happy and safe.

Ready to live his life with the woman he loves… Katniss.

And you will fade into false glory and distant memory.

…..

“Finnick, Right?” You fidget with your fingers in front of you; Finnick Odair was an attractive man who oozed with confidence and smooth words.

“Want a sugar cube?” He asks slyly, holding one out to you. “They're supposed to be for the horses but— we’re going to die anyway, it won’t matter after that.”

You nod carefully. “Of course, because that would obviously matter if we weren’t already set for death.” You still take the sugar cube from his hand and pop it in your mouth.

You almost gag from it. Pure sugar was… a lot. “Ugh. That’s disgusting.”

Finnick chuckles. “But liberating.”

You shake your head but a smile still spreads across your face. “Liberating indeed, Finnick Odair. My last act of rebellion is eating a sugar cube.”

“Devastating, really. To the Capitol, I mean.” He smiles easily at you, before someone catches his attention and he saunters off.

Claudius Templesmith stood not far from you, crooning about something with one of the older tributes.

The older man— Betee, you think— stood, looking indifferent but also invested in Claudius’s ramblings and unnecessary questions.

You were dreading the questions he’d ask you during your second round of interviews.

The last time was time enough for you.

“What’d he want?” Peeta asks, walking up behind you and pulling your attention away from the other party-goers.

“Oh, you know,” you say flippantly, “sugarcubes, secrets, and sarcasm.”

Peeta’s eyebrows furrow in confusion but the smile remains on his face. “Sounds like an interesting conversation.” He extends his arm to you. “Shall we?”

You sigh. “Not like we have much choice.”

….

“I’d give anything to know what’s going on inside your head.” Peeta says softly, fidgeting with the rope in his hands. You’d both decided that learning how to tie some knots would be beneficial.

You chuff, an awkward laugh. “What do you mean?”

His fingers work steadily, and somewhat clumsily, with the rope; there’s something alluring about how sure he can be with his hands.

It makes you think of the painting in your house— the one that you’ll never see again— how patient he must’ve been to complete such a beautiful piece, how still and sure of himself.

“What are you thinking right now, Y/n?” He looks up at you, with those beautiful blue eyes of his.

You shrug. “I was thinking about…” you trail off, because you absolutely cannot say that you were thinking about his hands. A half-truth will have to do. “Your painting. How I’ll never see it again.”

Hip lips pull into a frown. “You’ll see it again, I’m going to make sure of it.”

Sighing deeply, you stand. “You’re the one who has to go home, Peeta, not me.” He opens his mouth to speak but you cut him off. “It has to be you.”

….

You don’t have the time to argue about it for the next couple of days, you hardly even see each other.

Now, Cinna is preparing you for the arena. You know that everything he gave was meant for Katniss, he had obviously expected it to be her, or that he wouldn’t style you.

He hadn’t been your stylist, but yours had opted out of this year’s games, claiming it was too painful to watch you go back in.

You hadn’t liked her much the first time around, wanted to change you too much in ways that you most definitely did not like.

Cinna, though, you liked him. Though this would be the last time you saw him.

You were dressed in whatever mandatory suit that they designed for this game, a skin tight suit that looked like you were about to go scuba diving.

“It’s time.” Cinna says, glancing back to the tube at the back of the room. You turn back to it.

“Thank you, Cinna.” You say, bowing your head for him. “It was nice getting to know you.”

He smiles half-heartedly. “It was a pleasure, Y/n.”

You exchange a final goodbye and step into the tube. The sixth second countdown begins as the tube starts to ascend.

It's all water, just water and water and water in a large circle around them. There was also thin sand bars that connected the tubes and the Cornucopia, but you knew you wouldn’t be braving that.

Peeta stands three tubes down, with a morphling, a Career and Johanna between you two.

Twenty seconds.

You stare at him desperately, hoping he’ll stick to the plan and swim towards you; you catch his eyes and he smiles reassuringly. It’s not a genuine smile but it still calms you all the same.

Ten seconds.

You ball your fists, clenching hard.

Nine.

Eight.

God, it’s going to be difficult to get out of the water.

Seven.

Six.

You’re not the strongest swimmer, maybe you should go to the Cornucopia.

Five.

Four.

And it’s a long way to swim, even for someone who does know how. Only experienced swimmers, like Finnick, would have an easy time of it.

Three.

Two.

Then, it occurs to you, maybe those sandbars go all the way to the shore; if you get to the Cornucopia, Grab, well, anything, and then flee via the sandbars, you just might be okay.

One.

The pads everyone stands on recede into the water and dumps everyone straight in.

It makes you realize that most of your competitors do not know how to swim.

Peeta is just barely floating thanks to the bright purple belt that had been strapped around all your waists.

You know how to swim at least a little bit , so you unbuckle yours and swim over to him; once it inflates fully, you give it to him and try to drag him towards the sandbars.

It dawns on you all over again that Peeta is a tall guy, and he’s not exactly small either.

He’s strong and his weight definitely shows that; he tries to keep himself afloat but ends up making it worse.

Eventually, you make it over there, and he pulls himself up onto the loose sand; it takes a bit of effort because it’s slippery and keeps moving under your weight.

It’s barely stable enough to be a viable option. Just barely.

You leave him there for a minute and swim to the cornucopia. There's fighting going on on its small platform, but you just snag a small waterproof bag that sits a few yards away; a knife comes flying in your direction, and knicks your face.

The salt of the water stings as it mingles with blood.

When you spin back towards Peeta, he’s struggling and Finnick is approaching him.

You race back as fast as you can.

Finnick already has some pretty gnarly weapons strapped to him.

You’re about to draw the knife on him when shakes his head. “Relax, Y/n, I’m saving his ass.” Then he lifts a hand out of the water and flashes some sort of bracelet at you.

It’s the alliance bracelets that Haymitch had mentioned.

Oh.

“I-”you start, but you never really had a sentence to begin with.

You just lag silently behind as Finnick helps Peeta to the shore. The closer you get to the shore, the wider the sandbars get, and the sturdier they are as well.

Until they're eventually higher than the water, and wide enough for both Peeta and yourself to walk side by side.

You collapse onto the sand when you finally reach the shore and stay there for only a second.

That’s all you have before the three of you are up and running into the forest in front of you.

….

When Peeta’s heart stops, you're sure that yours does too— you’re sure that, as you stand there in a state while Finnick tries to resuscitate Peeta, you’re also unresponsive and silent. Dead.

True enough, in a way.

The longer you stare at Peeta’s face, still twisted in pain from the shock, the more you feel like dropping to the ground and sobbing.

You tried to imagine the way he painted with camouflage training stuff, drawing intricate designs onto both his and one of the morhpling’s arms.

It had washed off by the next morning but you had spent the whole night longing to touch it, run your fingers along his arm, trace the shapes and swirls.

Beyond the paintings, you recalled his magnetic smile and the way he always made you feel safe and calm, the steady air that he radiated.

You weren’t ready for him to die, he was the one who was supposed to win this, after all. You had resolved that Peeta Mellark was going to be the winner of the 75th Hunger Games and you were going to do whatever you needed to to make that happen. You were even prepared to turn into somebody you weren’t, just to make sure Peeta went home. Or at least, you thought you could if you had to come to it.

But now, you’re ready to give up. Finnick or Johanna could win— and they should. Literally anyone else but you. Everyone who had a life now that Peeta is gone.

You’re just about to collapse to the ground when Peeta starts to cough erratically, and he manages to sit straight up.

“Peeta!” You cry as you fall to the ground next to him, and wrap your arms around his neck. He seems disoriented for a moment before he hugs you back, right. “I really thought you were gone.”

He gently strokes your back, as you fuss over him, double checking that he’s okay and checking his burn.

…..

You hear a loud sickening crack from somewhere else in the arena that makes everyone but Johanna and Finnick jump. You feel Peeta’s hand wrap around you protectively and pull you closer to him in the single instant that you’re all reacting to the noise.

It takes a few delayed seconds before each one of you realizes that it’s just the lightning in 12, before you realize just how having Peeta’s hands on you makes you feel.

His fingers slip from your waist, brushing softly as they fall away and leaving you feeling just slightly feral.

You pull yourself away, and dig your nails into your thigh to ground yourself. Getting used to this clock thing was going to be agonizing.

You’re waiting patiently as the lot of you— You, Peeta, Finnick, Johanna and Beetee— come up with a plan to take down the force field and take out the Careers at the same time.

You can barely focus on the conversation because you itch to have Peeta’s hands on you again, to feel his fingers against your skin again.

In fact there’s so many things you’d like to say and do with Peeta that you know you will never have the chance to; not to mention that he is in love with someone else and would never be interested in any of those things with you anyways.

You’re pretty sure you’d been staring at Peeta but you only notice because Finnick shoots a look at you— you can’t tell exactly what he’s thinking but it must be something about that.

You try to zone back into the plan.

….

Trying to trap the careers failed miserably, and the person most experienced with a bow was you, but only thanks to Katniss’s training.

Everything was a blur as the force field came down; chaos, fire everywhere— you couldn’t see or hear Peeta.

You worried about him and you laid pathetically on the ground, half out of your mind. You wondered if he was having trouble with his prosthetic leg, or having run from Enobaria or one of the other careers. You wondered if he’d make it out okay, even though it was obvious you wouldn’t.

You wondered and worried for what felt like forever until an airship appeared above you.

Great. You thought, the Capitol has come to torture you and everyone you’ve ever loved until the couldnt anymore and all of you was nothing more than a shell of a person. Until the only option was avox or death.

You can’t move, or fight it as the giant claw, scoops you up.

All that effort and you still managed to condem each and everyone of you to torture.

…..

“Relax, Y/n!” Haymitch snaps, as Finnick restrains you.

Katniss sits on the other side of the table, looking just as devastated as you.

“What do you mean, you didn’t get Peeta? You can’t just leave him there, they’ll hurt him worse than any of us could ever imagine!” You say, still struggling to get away from Finnick.

Katniss actually argues in your favour. “I did say I would only do this thing if you got both her and Peeta.”

Plutarch, the game maker shakes his head redundantly. “Peeta and Johanna were just to far away for us to locate before the Capitols airships came; I’m sorry, we’ll get them back eventually.”

Finnick finally lets you go once you’ve calmed down. He has a solemn look on his face. “I’m sure they’ve got Annie too. We need to save them as soon as possible.”

….

As soon as possible turns into several weeks, several heartbreakingly, agonizingly long weeks.

You can’t help but think about Peeta every moment of every day . You imagine all the terrible things Snow is doing to him, you wish it was you in his place.

Peeta was the one person who never deserved any of this, over anyone else. You and Katniss had been willing to do whatever you needed to to survive, you’d done things maybe you weren’t particularly proud of. But Peeta? He had never let the Games change him.

He had always been the same.

Safe, steady, comfortable, strong.

You don’t even have any hope that they’re showing him any mercy.

They aren’t.

You know now, you know by the way that last interview they aired went— how he was struck just as the cameras shut off, how your heart broke when you looked into his eyes, when you saw just how much they’d hurt him already.

You were just about ready to burst into Coin’s office and tell her that you were getting Peeta now, regardless of the consequences to Thirteen.

Gale and Katniss were fighting a lot lately, tension was heavy between them; and not in a good way. You didn’t know Gale well, but the comments he made about Peeta made your skin crawl and your hands itch to throw a few punches.

Actually they were arguing now, about Peeta, and you were listening.

Gale’s head snaps to you randomly and he barks at you; “and you! Why the hell are you so invested in Bread Boy?”

You startle for a moment, but then narrow your eyes. “What do you mean why am I invested? He’s my— friend.” You say, sounding unsure even to yourself.

Katniss huffs. “I mean, come on, Gale, you know that our relationship has been fake from the start and we—” she gestures between the two of them. “—we’re friends, Gale, we always have been.”

He scoffs, and says something else in a bitter tone but all you can hear is Katniss’s words replaying over and over in your brain.

Our relationship has been fake from the start.

“Shut up for a second!” You snap at Gale, and turn back to Katniss. “Your relationship was fake the whole time? Yours and Peeta’?” You almost feel like an asshole for asking, just in case it is real; but so many things Peeta has done and said make so much more sense recontextualized like this.

Like when he said their rings were ‘just for ten cameras.’ Or when he told you he always thought you were beautiful. Or even the way he tried so hard to convince not to go back into the games.

Both of their faces fall flat, Katniss’s in disbelief. “You didn’t know?” She says.

You shake your head slowly. “No, I-” you stop yourself because you're at a loss for words.

“Y/n, we didn’t try to hide it from you, how did you not know? Even Haymitch said right in front of you that Peeta had a crush on you!”

You deadpan once again. You had blatantly misread everybody’s words in that conversation. “I just assumed that was about you!” You stare at each other for a second longer before you stand up abruptly. “I have to go.”

There was a lot of thinking you had to do and then a lot of planning— and a bit of yelling too.

…..

You were deemed too invested in the mission to actually go on it, and Finnick was too distressed over Annie to be allowed.

So you had been sitting together in silence; the silence was comfortable but the insane amounts of stress running through your veins was enough to make the tension in the air as sharp as a knife. Not between each other but to any other person.

Especially since Gale was allowed to go on the mission, and you felt that was entirely unfair— Gale doesn’t even like Peeta.

It had turned into a whole day of waiting, and only twenty minutes ago, they had returned with Johanna, Peeta and Annie.

The anxiety had grown tenfold when you were both informed you weren’t allowed to see them yet.

Now, you’re standing outside the door where Annie was resting, watching her through the one way window.

Finnick’s eyes are filled with so many you can only pick out one or two; you wonder if your eyes will look similar when you enter Peeta’s room.

You wish him luck and watch as he enters the room; Annie looks like she screams his name and then jumps him. He holds her up, looking like it’s the happiest moment of his life.

Watching them makes you much more excited to see Peeta, although you're not sure it will be quite that exuberant of a reunion.

You walk a couple doors down, glancing in the windows as you do; but you stop when you see Katniss and Johanna in one of the rooms before Peeta’s.

Why in the world is Katniss in the Hospital? What happened?

You push open the door gently, and Katniss doesn’t stir— you take note of the morphling drip in her arm, that must be keeping her knocked out.

You see Johanna is also asleep, her head is shaved and she has the worst tortured expression on, even though she looks to be sleeping soundfully— physically, anyways.

If she’s looking that bad, you can’t help but wonder about Peeta. You’re always wondering about him.

You don’t want to disturb either of their healing so you quickly leave the room, shutting the door as quietly and calmly as you can.

Finally, as you walk out, you spot the guards in front of Peeta’s door; you think it’s a little strange, considering neither Johanna nor Annie had security at the door but you walk towards the door anyways.

The guards hold out a hand as you approach.

“Restricted access, you can’t go in there.” The guard says, almost heartlessly.

Just as he finishes speaking, the door opens and Haymitch steps out and away. You would look through the window but the blinds are down.

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart, you can’t see him.” Haymitch takes your arm and leads you back down the hallway. “The Capitol… they tortured him so bad he—” Haymitch stops, and looks away for a second before looking back. “He tried to strangle Katniss, and kept yelling about how Katniss was a liar. He’s not himself right now.”

So much for your heartfelt reunion.

All content belongs to @beingsuneone , do not repost, copy or post on other platforms without my permission.

#peeta mellark #the hunger games peeta #thg peeta #peeta x reader #peeta #peeta mellark x reader #peeta mellark x you #thg x reader #the hunger games x reader #the hunger games #catching fire #mockingjay #spoilers #mockingjay spoilers #catching fire spoilers #thg spoilers #the hunger games spoilers

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