#I am exceedingly close to just curling up in a ball and giving the fuck up on all of this.
Text
I require help, whatever little you can donate would be greatly appreciated ahead of time, and I would be deeply grateful for it for all time.
Thank you in advance.
#GoFundMe#Go Fund Me#gofundme#go fund me#financial help#financial aid#aid#help#please#money problems#I will literally be kicked out if I don't privide them with the bare mininum.#𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘫𝘰𝘣𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦#I was a cashier for less than nine months before my car accident.#I have no call or sales experience WHATSOEVER.#They. Will. Not. Hire. Me. If. I. Don't. Have. That. Experience.#I am exceedingly close to just curling up in a ball and giving the fuck up on all of this.#𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱.#I don't care if it's just 0.50 cents. Jist please help with whatever you can.#And I would be exceedingly grateful.
21 notes
·
View notes
Text
The One with the Halloween Party
summary: your best friend has a halloween party but all you want to do is make out with your secret fuck buddy
↛ ↛ ↛ best friend’s younger brother!Yanyang x older reader
↛ ↛ female reader, college au, mentions of alcohol, suggestive, halloween party, sneaky relationship, secret make out sessions in a closet, inspired by Monica and Chandler from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (the one where phoebe hates pbs), the next part is going to be spicier (smut)
↛ word count: 7,6k; previously titled: “The One with the Best [Sex] I’ve Ever Had”
preview > part one > part two
It becomes exceedingly apparent that Ten never replaced the strike plate – the gold one, in the closet door by the front entrance of his apartment. He has been living here for two years and still has not replaced the locking mechanism. And you only really take notice because you feel it. The door opens way too easily. You are not even sure why you turn the handle, since the door opens so easily, so goddamn easily. Then, on top of that, the strike plate scratches your nose when you peek out the coatroom. You have to send prayers, begging for no one to hear you creak open the door or hear the squeak from your throat. And the spotlight effect theory, that Yangyang rambled on last week before his social psych midterm, comforts you somewhat, reminding you that all those cliché Halloween costumes in the living room are probably not attune to your indecency as you think they are. Maybe a quickie during Ten’s overcrowded Halloween party (although it was not this packed last year) was not the best decision. Especially, since your own cheerleading skirt, equally cliché, slips down your waist for the first time tonight, rather than riding up like it did minutes before. And you tiptoe back into the closet again, half-bent over to stop your outfit from completely falling off while pressing a hand to close the door as silently as possible. The thought of accidentally exposing yourself in front of all your friends is so embarrassing that your face heats up nearly enough to brighten the room, like a candle or 80s built house.
Right into Yangyang’s bare chest.
“Ow,” you mutter, palm protectively flying to your forehead. It did not hurt – bumping into him, but hopefully, covering some parts of your face understate the extent of this mortifying rendezvous. You take a baby step backward, then knock into the door and the tongue rattles, making you stiffen, making you freeze for a second. Yangyang puts his hands on your upper arms, rubbing them warm, as you look over your shoulder to verify that the door is still, in fact, closed. Both you and Yangyang are honestly incredibly lucky that no one caught you two, so when you confirm the locked door, your arms droop and you lull closer to Yangyang. Your eyes open after a second, and you jolt up again, realizing just how naked he is and how naked he is going to stay. You drag your nails down his pecs and ball your fingers into loose fists before completely breaking off him.
“Back up,” you whisper-shout, as if this command is part of some grand scheme.
Yangyang smirks, his smile curling wider. “I’m not the one touching someone’s rock hard abs.”
You want your glare to push him back, like your command, between all the jackets and superhero capes, but you get provoked by his cockiness. He was so much quieter and pliable when you first met. Now, you are the quiet, pliable one, or at least you are in this situation. Yet you bite at him – with your words, not your lips like his evil grin implies that he wants. “You wish.”
“That’s not what you said last night.” Yangyang approaches you, gauging your reaction until his breath ghosts over yours. And not seeing any actual restraint, he kisses the corner of your mouth teasingly, like it could start another round. Then he lowers his lips to your ear and whispers, “Or five minutes ago.” You wonder if he can feel your eye roll because he tries to change it from annoyed to turned on, sucking on the vein behind your ear.
And for that reason, you put a hand on his chest again, this time lower, on his stomach, specifically on his abs. His smirk broadens and his lips part again, aggravatingly making that clicking sound with his tongue, so you push on him. “Just –“ You pull your hand back to your face again, noticing the lack of change in warmth between his stomach and your face; maybe he is as embarrassed as you are, or turned on all over again. The latter is worse, probably, hopefully, not really. He looks really good and you just want to … You shake your head. “Wait a minute after I leave so this –“ You gesture between yourselves, touching his stomach again, then jerking away again. “- doesn’t look suspicious.”
Yangyang grabs your waist, sympathetically, although not entirely agreeing with your request. He tugs your bottoms over you ass and you expect him to retract immediately after, including the baby step that you asked for, but he only stops you from moving, keeping you locked in place – in place next to him. You roll your eyes again, unhooking his hands. Before you can completely detach, he interlocks your fingers and pushes you against the door, kissing you warmly.
Your head knocks into the door, loudly you think, and you stiffen again. Until his left hand travels behind your knee, up your thighs, and his lips open over yours, his tongue sliding next to yours. You stand on your toes, back curving into his embrace, off the extremely wiggly door, your arms hugging him closer as he pulls you up, pulls your clothes up. His right hand slides down your spine, thumbing at your waistband. This entire embrace is another persuasion, you note, and it usually works, like those mornings before AB Psych, but you two are in a closet, at a party, barely blocked by an unfastened doors that you are actually not sure is soundproof. So, you come down onto your heels and bring your hands to his chest again.
“Mmm mmm.” You shake your head off him. He trails you forward but you end the embrace, tightening your hands over the lapels, to close it, to close off his dumb attractive abs this time. “We have to get back.”
Yangyang pokes your personal bubble again, sliding his chest onto yours, and your arms stretch behind his neck, the closeness giving you some pressure on your boobs. He looks at you for a second, pupils scanning your eyes before he bends his neck on your, opening his mouth during an open mouth kiss.
“We’ve only been gone for a minute,” he seduces you, simultaneously sliding his tongue between your lips to prod at yours.
You slide your hands onto his face, comfortably holding his jaw in place as you look into his eyes, reinforcing your reasoning. “Try twenty.” You sigh, letting go of him. “I feel like such a bad guest. I haven’t even greeted the host yet.”
“Ten will be fine,” Yangyang reassures you, pushing past your fingertips to kiss you again. “Meanwhile –“ He kisses you deeply and you exhale, basically melting all over again. If he did not support you, you might have fallen onto the ground. God, he has some effect on you, and you cannot entirely describe it. “- I am not fine. You could greet me a little more enthusiastically.”
“I’m pretty sure you finished being so enthusiastic, a minute ago,” you scold. You square your hands over his shoulders and gently lean him off you, successfully separating him in the process, then reach for the doorknob. “We’re playing a risky game here, with the door unlocked.”
Yangyang slants forward, fusing you with the door. Your arm bends behind you, at your side, as he envelopes you, so he relaxes you again, taking down your elbow. You look at him with wide, pouting eyes, like that iPhone emoji. He can keep persuading you, effectively, and you will stay with him, but …
“Mmm mm,” you protest, pulling away. You hit your head on the door, hoping that it was not loud enough for someone to hear. “We – I really have to get going.”
Yangyang sighs, ceding, “Alright, fine.”
He beckons you out, looking away, flicking his wrist. And you wonder if he is actually complying. You look from him to the door, stuttering back to him. This would be the time for him to persuade you into staying again, and his gaze is devastating enough to convince you, but you really have to enter the party. As you grip the doorknob again, Yangyang hugs your back, clasping his hands like a belt over your skirt, and you can feel him pout into your shoulder, chin descending further into your skin. You placate him with a brief kiss to his knuckles – something chaste and fleeting, nothing like the fluttering in your heart. And since you cannot see his expression, you wonder if he actually enjoys these small acts of intimacy, of if he cringes; if he does cringe, then he is really good at hiding it, because you cannot perceive anything from him. Although, the moments in bed, in the most intimate hours, when the pads of his thumbs press into your lower back, you think that he feels it too.
Unfortunately, he cannot do that right now. And you head out the door first, straightening your direction over to the bar like a new arrival, or like someone who did not come to their best friend’s party just to make out with said best friend’s younger brother, or closest thing to a younger brother as he can get.
It only takes a few seconds for Yangyang to consider your goodbye, before completely rejecting it, then he groans into the empty closet, throwing his gaze at the ceiling. After, he pokes his head out the door, looking left and right like crossing the street, until the coast is clear for him to leave. When he rejoins the party, he instinctively searches for you among the cliques of cliché Halloween costumes. And he finds you, easily if he might add, at the bar, chatting with Jacob, probably about your matching basketball uniforms. Well, you wear a Trailblazer’s outfit and him a Jazz one – natural rivals but neither of you take it serious enough to start an argument in a semi-public setting.
Yangyang waits for you to leave the bar and meet up with Ten, interrupting his conversation to say hello. He nicks a capri sun from the fridge, then joins you right after with a bright smile on his face, middle fingers pressing into your lower back like a greeting wave. The act might have been offensive, had you been in a club and he a stranger, but he knows you, he likes you. And he smiles even wider when you relax into his hand. Nevertheless, Ten stands three feet away, putting the two of you on edge, and your spine straightens in the most attentive way possible, like you are a military subordinate or something, even though you are dressed as a basketball cheerleader from the U.S. state where you spent a winter semester abroad during freshman year, before Yangyang joined your university. So, to make the conversation more natural, Yangyang high-fives Ten, while you take his juice box away and open it for him. He stares at you, smile faltering, suddenly feeling smaller as you take care of him and Ten resumes whatever the hell you two had been talking about until he entered the conversation.
“Oh, come on,” Ten whines, hitting your arm after you hand Yangyang the capri sun. You glare at him sharply, then make sure Yangyang is okay, rubbing his arm comfortingly. He wants it to mean more, because he does not know what you want from him, but now is not the time, not when you are trying to keep everything on the DL. “I want to meet the guy who is the best sex you’ve ever had.”
Yangyang mimics your body language, though peppier as he smirks. “Really?” he asks Ten. “That’s what you heard?” He turns to you, tilting his head teasingly. “That’s really what you said?”
You baby-step out of the trio, slightly further from Yangyang specifically until you knock into Winwin behind. Your conversation partners giggle at you as you throw a small apology over your shoulder, then you glare at them upon returning to the group. You exhale slowly, giving yourself time to think before speaking, and redirect your annoyance at Yangyang more than Ten. “I might have.”
“Why didn’t you invite him to the party, huh?” Ten asks, bumping shoulders, wiggling suggestively. He raises his eyebrows, glancing at Yangyang to rope him into the teasing too and he falls into it because your mystery boyfriend is already here. Yangyang stops dancing when Ten’s expression changes, softens and reminisces. “I get the whole ‘respecting his privacy thing, but, like, I really want to meet the guy who helped you get over Renjun.”
The name drop causes Yangyang to shoot his eyebrows to the moon. His neck snaps at you faster than Kun’s when he jokingly accepted a marriage proposal. He watches you widen your eyes at Ten and smack him loudly. Maybe not everyone knew that, he thinks; he certainly did not know that, and he has known Renjun longer than you or Ten have. While you and Ten stare each other off, irritated and shocked, respectfully, Yangyang loudly slurps the last of his capri sun.
Yangyang tries to break the tension by pointing to the wall adjacent from you all, at Renjun. “He’s taking five shots of Smirnoff with Jeno right now, while Jaemin holds lemons at the ready.”
“Big deal,” Ten waves him off while keeping eye contact with you. Yangyang stares at his face, looking him up and down, then decides to take a baby step in front of your leg, almost protectively. He cannot gauge where Ten stands, where the conversation is going, but he knows that he will be there for you, just in case. “I did that when I was 17.”
You smack Ten, with the arm opposite of Yangyang, using the other one to pull Yangyang back into an equilateral triangle. “Don’t normalize underage drinking.” Yangyang almost rolls his eyes at that; who are you even saying that too?
“Hey!” Ten counters. “No one is underage at my party.” He holds your hand and pulls you into his side, into a scalene triangle, while covering your mouth. “Shhh, you can’t say that out loud. I invited Mr. I’m-A-Lawyer-Now, and besides, -“ You pull out of his arms and stand slightly in front of Yangyang. “-I just happened to invite the babies, too. Like Yangyang.” Ten turns to the devil in disguise and pinches his cheeks. “Baby.”
Yangyang single-handedly unbuttons his shirt again, like an act of defiance. “I am not a baby!”
Ten drops his head to the side, quirking an eyebrow. “You respond to baby,” he retorts, “And you’re drinking a juice box.”
“I had a bottle of soju earlier!”
“Oh? Just one?”
Yangyang folds the aluminum capri sun into his pocket, hopefully discreetly, and scrunches his nose at Ten. He feels you gently draw him back at your side, via his wrist, and expects you to defend him, but you just tease him further:
“Pics or it didn’t happen.”
Yangyang straightens up, his jaw dropping, then he crinkles his nose and sticks his tongue out at you. He accepts it though, not changing the topic, because he sees the way your posture shifts when everyone moves away from the romantic department.
Although, he might want to talk to you about it sometime.
Ten grounds him back to the conversation, patting his hair – the same spot you place kisses when the two of you cuddle and he is the small spoon, so Yangyang ducks away, slapping Ten’s hand out of the air. The whole hair touching thing reminds him that you are never really vulnerable enough with him, to let him hold you like baby. He wants to try it, especially since Ten keeps babying him in front of you, but he is not sure if you even like it.
“Yeah,” you agree, your voice low. You poke Yangyang’s side then cross your arms over your cropped jersey. “You’re so cute.”
Yangyang circles his neck towards you, smiling reassuringly, or at least he thinks so. His gaze wanders from your eyes to your fingers, which are coiled around your upper arm, so he starts taking off his jacket, pulling off the cuffs behind his back. But he stops after feeling your hand on his bicep. He glances at your hand, then stares at your eyes before pouting:
“I don’t want to be cute.”
He stops stripping but still decides to keep you warm, with another back hug, this time enveloping you into his jacket while he rests his chin on your head, even tiptoeing just to commit to the hug. When you squirm, shaking your shoulders to hit his pecs, he just hangs on slightly tighter until you stop. And after you relax, resuming natural conversation with Ten about anything other than your former crush, he smiles, coming back down to his heels and leaning on your shoulder. The new position tempts him to kiss your neck, and he almost does, but then he feels Ten’s eyes look at him, so he cannot even press a small peck at your jugular like he does sometimes when he catches you at the café by the physics building – the one that only Jaemin goes to, out of all his friends; the one where neither of you get spotted by your friends so it seems like a date, not that either of you have ever called it that. Nope. He avoids kissing your neck and just brushes his nose along your skin. It does not come off as platonic, he recognizes, but Ten does not ask any questions and Yangyang slowly phases out of the conversation to meet up with Hendery who walked through the front door as a pink bunny rabbit.
Yangyang slipping out of the trio feels so sudden, you think after feeling his hands unbuckle around your waist.
Maybe he does not feel important in the conversation anymore. So, you lock your elbows into your sides, clasping your own hands over your stomach to make him stay put. You knock your head onto his collarbone, prompting him to say something, but he does not, only resting his chin on your shoulder. Hopefully, he is smiling; you like his smile. His cheek pokes you at your neck, similar to how he almost kissed you in front of Ten just minutes ago. Then, he pushes his hand in front of you, to wave at Hendery, opposite the room, and your smile quirks down, somewhat embarrassed, as you trace his direction to the pink, fluffy ears bopping along to last year’s Travis Scott song. Ten copies you, twisting hesitantly behind himself. Meanwhile, Yangyang grows a little bolder, hunching forward onto his tiptoes to kiss your cheek silently, before dashing off with his friends.
Too stunned, eyes wide, mouth smaller, you miss the way Ten turns around, his smile wide with a teasing remark on the tip of his tongue. It goes away though, when he sees your face, so after making eye contact, you are met with an ominous stare. It is also curious, but the ominousness throws you for a loop. Then he raises his brow slightly, and you smack him, simultaneously asking what he wants.
“Nothing, nothing,” he laughs, crossing his arms over his pilot costume. He relaxes once you show no intent to hit him again, then he locks his hands behind his back, leaning toward your face mischievously. And when his nose almost pokes your eye out, you jump back into WInwin again, glare prompting him to ask stupid questions. “I simply want to know what all that was about.”
“What?” you bite at him, annoyed, following your second apology of the night to Winwin. And instead of meeting his eye (to give yourself more time to think of an excuse, no matter how flimsy), you flatten down the bottom of your top, where a iron-on patch of Dillard’s number disrupts the obnoxious Portland ‘P’ – you wonder if anyone connects your costume and Yangyang’s favorite basketball team, because no one says anything. Except, Ten is saying something right now, continuing the silent taunting into your personal bubble, getting almost as close as Yangyang was just a minute ago. So, you poke him away, on his forehead. “You want to know why I keep running into Winwin?” Ten rolls his eyes. Your voice does not feign innocence as well as you want.
“That was all you,” he deflects, eye contact maintained but he points at your vodka party drink, implying that you might have had a bit too much tonight. You swallow the alcohol faster, defiantly, and hold your breath, exhaling longer while you pause, holding the empty cup still above your dry tongue. “No, yeah, but, uh, no, that whole thing with Yangyang.” Ten bumps your arm with his elbow, coming to your side so that both of you can watch the man in question from across the room. “Huh?” he teases lightly. “Are you entertaining him? [Because] You two seem really … close.”
“I’m close with you,” you retort, touching his shoulder, into the crook of his neck, with your head. Then you stand back up, reflexively smiling when Yangyang laughs at a new TikTok dance that Hendery shows him. He even looks back at you, waving once your eyes meet. You throw him a thumbs up, and you swear that his smile gets brighter. It probably was not because of you though, because he starts giggling louder and dancing alongside Hendery right after. “We’re all –“ You turn to Ten, smile still blanketed under your nose, then you frown. “- friends; what’s that look for?”
“Nothing!” He imitates innocence better than you do, baring his palms for dramatic effect. You face him frontally, examining his devilishly handsome face for a crack. And he gives it to you: “It’s just that we’ve known each other for eight years and you never let me cuddle you like that.” He pokes your hip, where Yangyang was attached. “You’re closer with someone you just met.”
“You introduced us. In March!”
Ten waves a hand lazily. “Minor details. Besides –“ He blocks Yangyang from your view, not that it really mattered because you are trying to have a conversation with Ten. But it helps you maintain eye contact. “- you seem really comfortable with him being naked on you.”
You open and close your mouth in one short breath, swirling the empty red solo cup at your side, nervously. He has a point; you know he has a point – you are very comfortable with Yangyang being naked on top of you. Wait, he said on you. Either way, Ten is right. You do not want to admit it because that implies feelings, something that you are definitely not willing to talk about at the moment, especially this moment, but he is right. The question is if he needs to know.
“Did you hear about Yangyang and the anatomy student from Renjun’s class? They’re also close.”
You deadpan. As it turns out, he does not need to know. You are not dating, anyways, so …
“It’s my business, because…?”
“It’s not,” Ten agrees, shrugging. He looks off, turning his head toward Johnny, dressed as the Kellogg Tiger, before looking at you again. “Just thought you’d like to know.” He shrugs again. “If you didn’t already.”
“Uhh, okay,” you confirm, as nonchalantly as possible. You mirror his body language, standing straighter. Ten says nothing, not noticing the way your body stiffens, or at least, you hope so. “So you’re telling to what?” Get you jealous? “Give him advice?”
“Nah, we both know that he’s fully capable on his own.”
“Please,” you scoff. “He’s a baby who lives in a frat apartment with seven other dudes and buys food at the café by the physics department to avoid washing a knife.” Well, he charmed you, so how can you criticize his flirting abilities? You shrug – maybe, he was just that horny. He has always been a typical teenage boy. Although, he turned 20 a couple weeks ago.
“Huh.”
“What?” You come down from the high that somewhat roasted your sex partner … fuck buddy? friend with benefits? He is something to you - a little more than a friend but you do not think he would willingly be your boyfriend. Your voice sounds less excited now, and you run your hand through your hair, pulling slightly harder at the ends.
“Nothing,” Ten shrugs again. He twitches at you, briefly spinning his hips. “It’s just that Yangyang mentioned you go to that café too.”
“Yeah,” you drawl, like it is obvious. Ten smirks, knowingly, you think, so you crush him, “Jaemin, too.” You lift your eyes to the ceiling for a second, like it would give you an out. “And Kun on Tuesdays after 5.”
Ten scrunches his face, now facing you again. “Oh, we both know that Kun goes to the kiosk in the chemistry building for the cute barista with a good taste in music.”
You mockingly smile at him, squinting above your nose. He does not get the satisfaction of an equally annoyed laugh – probably because you might crack, your voice might crack and accidentally give something away. It’s not that you don’t want anyone to know that you are sleeping with Yangyang – you don’t, but not because it is embarrassing. You just do not particularly want to hear the two cents everyone seemingly needs to donate, like a commercial tax, especially with their baby Yangyang.
“Why did Hendery even dress up as a bunny? A pink bunny. Is he puling a Chandler?”
“No,” Ten shakes his head. This is the third conversation change you have made, and surely, he caught on by now. “Only Jisung and Winwin are watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. with Chenle; I think that Hendery just like the costume.” Ten points at Johnny, flashing a wave, then glances at you. “I’m gonna head over there. I haven’t seen Johnny since he left for a Paris project.”
“Yeah, no,” you gesticulate, nodding, “go ahead. I’ll meet you later, or something.”
“We’ll catch coffee on Monday.” Ten’s voice shrinks as he moves away. “After office hours!” He turns around one more time, emphasizing his words louder, “At the physics café!”
Yangyang, along with a couple other people, snaps his neck at Ten walking away from you, especially after hearing the bit about the physics café because, no offence to Ten, but that is his place. With you. The café on 17th is his rendezvous point with you. He likes the whole secret aspect of your relationship – it is so sexy; you are so sexy. It is just … the face that everything is secret prevents him from explicitly opposing Ten’s suggestion. And before he knows it, Yangyang makes his way toward you, waving goodbye to his psych friends.
He already knows where you are, because sometimes he would glance over at you when someone made a joke, just to see you laugh, to laugh with you. Occasionally, you would be smiling brightly, at whatever Ten said, and look to him. So, all he has to do is turn right and find his annoyed cheerleader, to annoy you even more.
The music is louder by the kitchen exit, where you are, curled against the wall with an empty red solo cup, blue light from your phone glowing across your face. Yangyang takes the opportunity to scare you, hiding behind a couple groups until he reaches you, creeping slowly. Then he strikes, poking your obliques.
“Boo!”
“Ah!”
You jump against the wall, clutching all your belongings closer while he laughs at you.
“Aw, did I scare you?”
Yangyang envelopes you into a hug, ignoring the way you glare at him. And he relaxes, when you do, feeling you squeeze his waist and sigh. You will never admit it, but the two of you know that this is how your dynamic works – he annoys you, then you cuddle him. And he has so many ways to annoy you. Like, next, he pulls a 180 – both coming behind you and switching up the mood to grind under your hips.
“What are you doing?” he whispers in your ear, fast, grabbing your waist to guide you over his pelvis. He gets dangerously near your cheek, excusing it as a way for you to hear him better, since you two stand adjacent to the speakers, where the music is above talking decibel. His eye catches onto Lucas’s, and he winks, hands tightening above your skirt, because, despite all the teasing, this is not actually how he wants your entanglement to get out. “Wanna head upstairs? I just found a new TIkTok challenge you can practice on me, like the WAP one.”
“What are you doing?” you retort, laying your fingers on his bare chest – he likes that you keep touching him, not so much when you push him away. He wonders if you know that. Like, he chose his outfit for tonight because, well, he looks good, but also because he figured that you would think he looks good, too. It seems like you do, considering that your hand always finds ways back to his abs. So, he grows more confident, nipping at your ear while you push him against the wall, further away. Your eyes flutter, lashes blinking rapidly as he holds you closer, left hand toying with the hem of your shirt. He has this trick that you always react to, and he wants to do it now, while no one pays attention to either of you (larger parties afford far more privacy than smaller ones). You lean your head on his warm shoulder, then he presses his palm into your spine until you are chest to chest with him, impossible to get closer. Your breath sounds louder, as the music transitions to Goodbye feat. Lyse [slow version], and he wonders if he can elicit a moan from you, in the same frequency as the song’s growl. His right hand travels between your thighs, until you stop him, slapping his hand and holding him still. “We’re in public.”
Yangyang spins you around, showing off his own point of view as a counter argument: no one is paying attention. The whole thing bumps your connected hips into the wall, and his arm belts over your lower waist, driving you to essentially demi plie over his thigh that sneaks through your legs. At the sudden movement, you gasp, death gripping over his arm. He does not mind very much, only the red solo cup tapping rhythmically between the wall and his elbow. You barely get time to relax completely before he drops lower, just enough for him to look up at you. And he takes note of the sexual tension essentially radiating off the two of you, so he alleviates it, giving the illusion that there is only dancing going on right now. Though, you baby-step forward, to give him more space. His smile falters, twitching down, and he is thankful that you seem oblivious to it, because you comply with his action, letting your skirt flower spread over his leg and the smile return to his face. Yangyang guides your swaying left and right, grazing over his abs.
“I’m offering to go upstairs,” he answers definitively, still whispering in your ear. “More privacy.” His hands travel up again, skin getting lightly scratched by your top’s texture. Your nails might do a better job, if he remembers correctly. God, he wants you to take up his offer. “You didn’t have a problem with it an hour ago,” he points out, while dropping his gaze to your neck, once again tempted to mark you. He pulls away some of the baby strands that fell out of your hairdo, then locks eyes as he traces your ear shape. “Do you have a problem with it now?”
“No,” you answer him quickly, shaking your head for even more emphasis. You turn around fully and scan his eyes before shaking your head again. “I don’t have a problem.”
Yangyang smiles wider, instinctively bowing forward. Your ambiguous answer tells him more than he asked. He almost reveals something in return: that he enjoys kissing you, because he would totally do it right now, but you keep stopping him. He is all for consent, honestly; it just gets really confusing with you. Even now, he initiates a small, intimate touch while this moment afford you two some privacy, breathing open mouthed kisses onto the vein behind your neck, slightly illusioned in the dark lights as just talking to you. All the boundaries do no really define what he can, or cannot, do in public. Like, apparently, you two can have sex in a closet right before his best friend’s party – a best friend shared between you two, but there are rules about how close he can stand next to you. Both situations still involve secrecy. Although, one is far more sexier than the other. But he wants the whole damn thing – to hold you in public, and private, to kiss the part of your trapezius muscle that he likes so much, to be able to say that he knows places too, like the physics café where he doesn’t want Ten to take you because he takes you on dates there!
Then, you sigh.
Why are you sighing? It feels like that should be his response.
You clasp your hands behind his neck, evidently hesitating to reveal something – he knows because you fiddle with his collar a few times before moving onto the ends of his hair.
“It’s just …” You pause, so he tries to make his gaze unwavering, to hold you securely. “It’s just that a certain classmate might have a problem.” He furrows his eyebrows, bending onto his knees to ask for clarification. “You know … a certain classmate.”
Yangyang narrows his eyes, lost in translation. He slides up the wall and squeezes your waist, thinking, trying to figure you out.
“Oh!” he catches on. “Oh, I don’t think Hyunjin would have a problem with us.” He moves his hand to your shoulder, rubbing it comfortingly. “I don’t really see how anyone in any of our classes would have a problem with us, much less, like, know about us.” He cocks his head to the side sympathetically, lips brushing along your cheek to ear. “I don’t have a problem with us.” He drapes his arms around your sides. “Just FYI.”
“Me neither.”
He smiles wider. You two are on the same page about something. He almost kisses you right then and there, but settles for brushing his nose on yours, simultaneously taking a step backward, closer to the wall so that no one sees the obnoxiously domestic display of affection. Actually, it might be weird for Hendery, Xiaojun, or one of his psych friends to see him act so … boyfriend-like, so romantic. He doesn’t think that anyone would anticipate that kind of behavior from him, and he is honestly too sure if you see him like that. He would try it though, you know, because he is curious and he would like to be your boyfriend.
“Did Ten tell you about Hyunjin?” Yangyang asks, prodding slowly.
You nod, equally slow, eyes falling down. “He didn’t mention any names, -“ Yangyang feels something in his chest drop. He put a name to the idea, and now he watches your eyelashes flutter and the lump in your throat shake, as you try not to say the name. “- but yeah.” He hugs you, bending your arms around his stomach so that he jackets you in his empty shirt. You have said that he has a natural body warmth, and hopefully it is comforting right now, because …
“It’s not really his business who I talk to.”
Yangyang almost apologizes for creating an environment that fosters mistrust or makes room for insecurities. Except, (1) that sounds like a note he would write in his case study’s conclusion for class, and (2) how the hell is he even supposed to say that? He tries to show that this – whatever it is – is exclusive. Like, now, he just holds you tightly, during a Halloween party, only slightly out of view from his friends. He almost apologizes, and it is on the tip of his tongue, but he holds back, pursing his lips as you open your mouth.
“It’s not my business either,” you reason, stepping back. His embrace slackens, like rock climbing because he catches you, not letting you fall off him, even though you wiggle out a little bit, pushing him back into the wall. “Because we’re not dating.”
“No,” Yangyang partially agrees, standing straighter, supported by the wood. “We’re not, but we’re …” He wants to tell you about the exclusivity, that he considers the two of you to be exclusive. Some part of him thinks that you hold the same thought. And he cocks his head to the side, rolling his tongue behind his teeth. “We’re good friends. And, you know, we’re like, yeah. So, it’s your business too.” He rubs your shoulder again. “Wanna go upstairs and talk about it?”
Yangyang smacks your ass for attention, trying to make the situation fluffier, simultaneously gesturing to the second floor with his hair. This is not really the time nor place to dissect your relationship, and he would totally put it under the microscope. Just, maybe, at another time. You seem to agree, walking away first, holding his hand to guide him up the secretive stairs.
And despite this being his idea, Yangyang stops before the first step, waiting for you to march a couple feet taller than him. His eyes linger at the lowest hem of your skirt, until you plant one foot in front of the other, on two separate levels. You look over your shoulder and roll your eyes. He expected it, quickly meeting your gaze innocently. Then he smacks you ass again, as if he were not just looking up your skirt a second ago. You glare at him, but he slaps your ass again and races upstairs.
“You’re so annoying,” you comment after him, still running to meet him at the top.
Yangyang smiles. Yeah, but you love him. He opens the nearest bedroom door, beelining to the bed where he manspreads across the full-sized mattress. You walk into the room quickly after him, turning around to close the door. Your skirt swings chastely around your thighs, and he cannot take his eyes away from it, wishing for you to swing them around his hips.
“Wanna be annoying with me?”
You roll your head, clicking your tongue, after finding him sitting relaxed on the comforter with suggestive eyebrows. “Yeah, I guess.”
Yangyang lifts his arms to catch you when you dive between his shirt, the lower part of your body thrusting on top his as you prowl beside his torso. He leans back, hands anchoring himself to your face. You push him deeper into the mattress, and he feels your nails airily redraw each indent on his carefully contoured abdomen. He smirks, asking if you like what you feel, and tilts his chin up to give you better access to his mouth. You tell him to shut up by biting his lower lip, though you match his expression, shaking your head as you decline into him. Yangyang cannot maintain his position any longer, almost breaking a sweat when you unbuckle his very thin belt and tap into the metal button barely holding his pants together. He whines, briefly breaking the kiss, then he flips you over, bending one of your legs up to fit his in between.
“I don’t want you to just guess,” Yangyang whispers. He slowly retreats his palm from under your shirt to the spot on your stomach where your shirt lifted up; he wants your verbal consent before doing anything else, and he waits for it. The kiss gets longer as you sigh into it, lazily hooking an arm around his neck. So, he stops. And then brushes your hair behind your ear, just hovering over you with tender eyes. “I don’t want you to just guess.”
“I’m not guessing,” you reassure him. You play with his hair, the way he likes, toying the strands on the top of his head then combing through the rest until reaching his neck. He looks at you innocently again, in case you crack. But you don’t. He restarts the kiss, sliding his hand under all the layers covering your torso.
Yangyang helps you out of your shirt, watching the way your chest bounces without support, so he gives you more, adding his lips like a low-set suction. “You’re so pretty,” he confesses, kissing into your sternum after you arch it up at him. And he wants to know your reaction, so as he presses an open mouth kiss into the side of your boob, he looks up at you, your lips parted by a silent moan. “You are so, so pretty like this.”
Unlike you, Yangyang moans audibly.
He feels you curl your fingers into his waistband, touching his tip outside his underwear. With his eyes closed, he drops on his back and feels you move around his lower thighs, teetering above them lightly. You meet him between the velvety sheets, giggling with him as your hair tickles his face. He opens his eyes, combing the loose strands behind your face again, finishing the act of endearment with his knuckles stroking your cheek. Sometimes he lets himself fall into these more romantic displays of affections.
Yangyang grips your ass, under your cheerleading skirt. When he remembers that you have his favorite player’s jersey patched onto your crop top, he pulls his chin up, nipping at your bottom lip. You draw him in further, towering over him until he drags you down with him, mixing between the sheets, laughing again. He really loves hearing your voice, and he loves it even more that he can make you have a fun time, make you grin so vocally during the moments that matter. So, he tries it again, slipping under your underwear too, massaging your skin.
“Mmm,” you moan.
Yangyang feels you slither his shirt off his shoulders, your nails grazing around his biceps as he tilts up to kiss you over and over again. Then, abruptly, you sit back, on your knees, around his hips, alert at attention. The new position allows him to mark your neck, one hand sliding through your waist band, over your ass, to have you grind down on him. His lips nibble at your collarbone, tongue breezing along as he waits for your reaction.
“Wait, wait.”
He stops, looking at you from under his eyelashes. A minute passes, and you don’t give any more restraints, so he resumes taking off your underwear. He keeps the same consistent eye contact because you remain alert above him, but you close your eyes and lean your head closer to him. He pulls his arm completely out of his sleeve so that he can hug you firmly against his body. Your chest grazes his, and he moans.
“Shh,” you silence him, kissing him quiet, hands still on his shoulder, “Do you hear that?”
“No, mm.” Yangyang breaks the kiss. “What are you –“
“Shh!”
You move your hands onto his pectoral muscles, his shirt near completely off his body, as you turn your head at the door. His head stutters in the same direction, stopping every half millisecond to return back to your face and make sure that you are okay. Then, he hears it: Xiaojun stumbling into the walls, jiggling the doorknob.
Yangyang stiffens. “Did you lock the door?”
A bit of light from the hallway cracks into the room, along with intoxicated hushing and giggling.
“Shit, no,” you answer, obviously, then start to pick your clothes off the bed and stand up. After a moment of hesitation, Yangyang follows you, buttoning up the middle of his shirt and meeting you in the center of the room, shielding your exposed chest as you clip on your bra.
Yangyang looks at the door when it creaks louder, eyes caught by a headlight. Before he knows it, you shove him into a closet. Neither of you are getting the opportunity to be annoying together because Xiaojun drunkenly stumbles into your space, moaning after his own date. Yangyang rolls his eyes and feels you slide into his shirt with him, scratching his back with your spangled top. He knows that there is no other option, since you two do not want to expose your relationship, especially like this, but he would rather not ruin his relationship with one of his best friends due to indecency – either of theirs. Thankfully, he gets an out, after Xiaojun hides under the blanket.
When you two make it downstairs, Yangyang bursts into laughter, yours following too until he gives you a long chaste kiss, screening you behind the wall to maintain that secrecy he did not want Xiaojun to break.
Although, Yangyang pulls away, brushing your hair behind your ear again, hand holding your waist to prevent you from leaving. You stare at him, at the domestic moment of tenderness, then fall into his chest again. And that is when he realizes it: he doesn’t really want to be a secret.
#yangyang#wayv#liu yangyang#nct#nct smut#wayv smut#yangyang x reader#yangyang imagines#yangyang fluff#yangyang angst#wayv angst#wayv fluff#wayv imagines#nct fluff#nct angst#nct imagines#/mine
405 notes
·
View notes
Text
Fenris/f!Hawke smut: Mouth
Some plotless feelsy smut, because sometimes a girl just has to write Fenris going down on Hawke. Or is that just me? Okay [goes to sit in the smut corner like a smut goblin]
~1800 words; read here on AO3 instead.
************************
Rynne Hawke spent a lot of time thinking about Fenris’s mouth.
He had the perfect mouth, in her opinion. His lips weren’t so plump as to be the first feature of his face to draw the eye, but her eye was drawn to them all the same. She lovingly studied the delicate bow of his lips, and she admired the way that bow became more exaggerated when he was sneering at a slaver or scowling at something Anders had said. She contemplated the perfect dusky-rose colour of his lips, and when she leaned away from him after a kiss, she silently cursed the smudges of her raspberry-red lip stain that dared to spoil the natural hue of his lips. Sure, there might be other mouths in Thedas that were more lush or more rosy or more attractively shaped, but to Rynne, no one else’s mouth held nearly the same appeal.
It wasn’t just the shape of Fenris’s lips that was so thoroughly preoccupying, though. It was the way they moved. It was the way they twisted in disgust when Fenris smelled fish down at the docks. It was the way they parted on a weary sigh when Rynne stumbled haplessly into the next late-night Lowtown fight. It was the way his lips pressed into a thin line when she said something foolish, and the way they stretched and curled into a smile when she said something foolish that he thought was funny. His lips were expressive, moving and shifting in time with his emotions and pulling at her heart like a puppet on strings. Rynne watched the evocative movements of his lips, and she thought to herself that she could spend a lifetime watching his perfect mouth and never get bored.
And then, of course, there was the way Fenris used that lovely mouth of his.
He used it for all the normal stuff, of course — talking and breathing and eating and all. But even those mundane acts were enough to drive her to distraction. When Fenris talked, Rynne watched the way his lips shifted around the baritone sound of his bone-melting voice, and she admired the way he slowly wet his lips when he was thinking about what to say next. When Fenris breathed, panting heavily after a fight or drawing a gasp of air when she dragged her tongue across his lyrium-lined abs, Rynne thought about the air that passed through those perfect lips, feeding into his lungs only to come back out shaped into a dryly humorous remark or a low-pitched chuckle or a pleasured groan. When Fenris ate, he hid his mouth sometimes behind one hand while he chewed, and Rynne treasured the moments when she glimpsed the tip of his tongue flicking out across his lip to catch a stray crumb or a precious drop of juice.
Fenris talking, Fenris breathing, Fenris eating and sipping elegantly from a glass of wine: Rynne watched with unabashed appreciation as his mouth did all of that fine and necessary work. But all of that was nothing compared to the way he used his gorgeous mouth to kiss.
His lips parted slightly as he drew her close, and Rynne happily gave herself to the perfect slightly-parted pressure of his lips. His kisses always started this way, a firm press as though he was anchoring himself to her before deciding whether to deepen the kiss or to draw away, and she was always delighted to let him be the one to decide which direction their kisses would go. In a life where Rynne Hawke was the one in charge, the one who led their merry little band of misfits from one madcap adventure to the next, she was more than happy to let Fenris lead the way in this slow and tantalizing dance of pleasure: this dance where his perfect mouth slid carefully and smoothly over hers, his lips coaxing hers apart and his sleek tongue stroking her own, his teeth pressing delicately into her lower lip until she gasped, his lips brushing over the corner of her parted lips with the delicacy of a butterfly’s wing…
Fenris leaned away from her, leaving her panting for air, and still she couldn’t look away from his mouth. His lips were plumper than usual from the firm pressure of their kiss and their colour had deepened to a tempting rosy hue, and she just couldn’t stop fucking staring at how beautiful they were.
“Hawke,” he said.
She forced herself to stop staring at his mouth. “Yes?”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “Are you all right?”
“Of course,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“You are staring at me,” he said.
“I’m always staring at you,” she replied. “You are gorgeous, in case you’ve forgotten.”
He gave her a chiding little smile. “You’re staring more than usual, then.”
She tilted her head. “Did you know that you have the nicest mouth in all of Thedas?”
He scoffed and rubbed the lovely mouth in question. “Kaffas, Hawke. You will make me blush.”
“I certainly hope so,” she said cheerfully. “Your ears turn such a charming shade of red.”
He huffed a laugh, then lifted her chin with his thumb. “A nice mouth, you say,” he mused. “Is there something you want me to do with my mouth?”
His voice was a low and playful purr, and it triggered a pulse of lust between her legs. She let out a throaty laugh. “Why Fenris, what a naughty suggestion.”
“It isn’t naughty,” he said. “Not unless you make it so.”
She coyly nibbled her lip. “Well, if you’re offering…”
“I could offer,” he said. “But perhaps you should ask if there is something specific that you want.”
He was smiling faintly, and she nearly swooned at the treasured sight. She curled her fingers in the fabric of his tunic. “I’ll tell you what I want,” she said. “I want you to put that gorgeous mouth between my legs and do something useful with it.”
He chuckled. “I suppose I could do that,” he said, and he abruptly picked her up. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the desk in the study while Fenris slid her silky skirt up her thighs.
She panted eagerly and leaned her weight back on her palms. Fenris sat in the desk chair and traced his thumb over her cleft through the barrier of her smalls, and Rynne jolted and lifted her hips.
He shook his head and smiled — Maker’s balls, that smile, the curl of mirth on that perfectly sculpted mouth! — then brushed his knuckle between her legs. “Your smallclothes are soaked through. How long have you been thinking about this?”
“All day,” she said promptly.
He paused in his petting and looked up at her with wide eyes. “All day? Hawke, it is past midnight.”
“It’s been a long day, believe me,” she said wryly. “Will you lick me now with your lovely tongue?”
He tsked. “You and your endless compliments,” he drawled. He pushed her skirt a little higher and carefully pulled the crotch of her smalls to the side, and when his tongue flicked out to wet his lower lip, Rynne stared at his mouth with rising desperation.
She wiggled her hips on the desk. “Fenris, please…”
He didn’t reply; instead, he lowered his mouth between her legs. His lips sealed over her pussy and the flat of his tongue pressed against her clit, and Rynne dragged in a tremulous gasp of air.
Maker’s balls, fuck, his mouth on her pussy… This was what made her come undone. This was the thing that distracted her the most during the day and kept her mind thrumming at night. The feeling of his lips caressing the slick folds of her flesh, giving her a gentle sort of bliss that complemented the more intense pulse of pleasure that his tongue was fostering in the swollen little bud of her clit: this was something that Fenris’s mouth did exceedingly well.
He pushed her legs further apart and kissed her sex, and Rynne stared shamelessly at his handsome white-haired head as he smoothed his tongue along the length of her cleft up to her clit. He graced her with an open-mouthed kiss and swirled his tongue slowly over her clit, and she clenched her nails on the desk with a gasp.
“Fenris…” she mewled.
He hummed into her flesh, a growly sound of affirmation that thrummed through her body and straight into her blood, and Rynne curled her hips toward him with rising desperation. She was spiralling toward her rapture, spiralling higher and closer in time with the gentle motion of Fenris’s tongue as it teased its way around her swollen little bud, and despite her playful jokes from a moment ago, she truly couldn’t stop staring. Fenris’s elegant fingers were holding her legs apart, and his hair half-obscured his eyes without hiding the tantalizing sight of his mouth moving at the juncture of her thighs, and the sight of him — Maker, the look of him, the sound of his hungry breaths ghosting across her sex, the sheer tangible reality of this incredible man gracing her humble body with the perfection of his mouth: it was almost more than she could bear.
He caressed her thighs with his palms and lapped carefully at her clit and kissed her with his beautiful mouth, and a heart-pounding moment later, Rynne found her bliss. It fanned out through her body and rippled all the way down to her calves and her toes, and she gasped and bucked her hips and cried out his name. He gripped her hips and continued to kiss her, his tongue sliding over her sex in perfect time with the frantic pulsing in her core, and when the ecstatic crescendo of her pleasure began to wane, she slid her fingers through his snowy hair in a gentle caress.
He wiped his mouth on her thigh, then lifted his head to look at her, and another exquisite half-smile pulled at his lips. “Hawke, you’re staring again.”
She let out a breathless little laugh. “You can’t blame me. You just have such a talented mouth.”
He huffed in amusement, then stood up and cradled her neck in his palm. “As it turns out, I am not the only one here with a talented mouth.”
She grinned and reached for his belt. “Is that so?
“It is,” he said. He pressed his forehead gently to hers. “And you are not the only one who has been thinking about this all day.”
His voice was husky and tender, and her heart flipped happily in her chest. “You smooth talker,” she whispered, and she tilted her chin up to lure him into a kiss – yet another perfect kiss from the most gorgeous mouth in Thedas.
Rynne spent a lot of time thinking about Fenris’s mouth. She thought about its shape and the way it moved, the curve of his smile and the way it curled around his Tevene-accented speech. But there was one reason and one reason alone that Fenris’s mouth was so thoroughly preoccupying to Rynne Hawke: it was the mouth of the man she loved.
Fenris was the man she loved, and his mouth was the only one she would ever want to kiss again for the rest of her life.
#fenris#fenris smut#fenris fic#fenhawke#fenris/hawke#fenris x hawke#f!hawris#fhawris#fenrynne#fenris/femhawke#fenris x femhawke#fenris/f!hawke#fenris x f!hawke#pikapeppa writes
116 notes
·
View notes
Link
Okay, here we go... Mulder is taking Mrs. Scully’s advice and trying to find a therapist. He has seen a couple and today... it will be the third one he is meeting. Will this be the one who will be able to help him get back on track?
I’ve said this before, but ugh,,, certain chapters of this story just own a piece of my heart forever. I mean, to be honest, the whole thing does as I AM the one who wrote it, but certain ones just hold my heart and always will.
I hope you all are enjoying this tale I have created. I LOVE this story so much. I love these characters even more.
Chapter Twelve
Third Times the Charm
March 2015
Mulder sat on the couch in the waiting room of the therapist's office, his leg bouncing. This was actually the third therapist he was meeting with, the other two had not been a good fit for him.
After Mrs. Scully left him the list of possible therapists, he stared at it for a while. He knew she was right, he did need to speak to someone, he just hated the actual doing part of it. He hated sitting in a room and answering questions like “how does that make you feel?” Well, the woman he loved more than anything had left him and it was going on six months, how was he supposed to fucking feel?
He looked up, seeing the door was still shut, and let out a breath. His leg, which had paused, begin to bounce once again. There was music playing softly in the room and it was beginning to put him on edge. It had no vocals, but the melody was familiar and something he had heard with Scully. He did not know the song exactly, but he knew it was something familiar.
“Fox Mulder?” said a voice, causing him to look up and then frown.
A woman was standing in the doorway of the office, a rather young woman. She was tall, curvy, almost plump, and had long dark brown hair with blue streaks throughout. Aqua, he thought, no actually more of a teal.
She had on dark jeans, a long sleeved black shirt with a band name or something he could not quite read, and a plum colored button down short sleeve shirt worn open. She wore only socks, black socks adorned with four leaf clovers, and no shoes.
He looked at her, completely flustered by her appearance. She looked no more than twenty five, like she should be in a dorm, telling kids to turn down their music and that alcohol was not allowed on the premises. No way this was the therapist he was going to be meeting.
“You’re Fox Mulder, yes?” she asked, stepping closer to him. He stood up and found that she was only a couple inches shorter than him. He was definitely not used to that happening.
“I’m Fox Mulder,” he said, reaching out his hand. She smiled and he noticed how perfect her teeth were and then the blue of her eyes. Jesus, they were almost as blue as Scully’s.
She grasped his hand in a firm handshake. “It’s wonderful to meet you. I’m Doctor Clarke, but you can call me Rachel. Please come in,” she said gesturing toward her office.
She dropped his hand and waited for him to walk into the office, following behind and shutting the door. He looked around the room and was again shocked by the difference between her office and the last two he had been in.
Here the walls were a light cream color and the floors were a dark hardwood with a large sage green rug set upon it. There was a charcoal gray couch and a matching chair with an ottoman that looked exceedingly comfortable and a dark wood colored coffee table and desk of the same color. Her laptop sat closed, papers and notebooks stacked neatly beside it. A small table with one of the new coffee makers, coffee mugs, stir straws, and cream and sugar sat next to the desk.
He took note of her degrees on the wall and doing some quick math, he was surprised to find she had to be at least thirty five. He looked at her and was struck again by the youthfulness of her face.
“Please, have a seat,” she said, gesturing toward the couch. He turned and walked over and sat down. There were colorful throw pillows, in different hues of blue, like the sea. He smiled at the sight of them, again thinking of Scully and her love of the ocean.
He sat down on the couch, moving a couple of the pillows around. She sat in the chair, grabbing a pad of paper and a pen off the coffee table as she did. She clicked her pen and wrote a few things on her paper before she looked up at him with a smile.
“So, as I’ve said, my name is Doctor Clarke, but please call me Rachel,” she said, sitting back in her chair and putting her stocking feet on the ottoman. “I am a therapist with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a masters degree in psychotherapy. I have been a licensed therapist for six years and if I do say so myself, I’m pretty great.”
He looked at her, stunned she would say something like that to a client, especially one she had just met. Her mouth was curling up, trying to hide a smile. Oh, he thought, she was very different than the last two stuffy people he had met.
“Anyway,” she said when he made no comment. “I was going over your information and I saw that the online questionnaire I require my patients to fill out had not been done.”
She stared at him and clasped her hands in her lap. She raised her eyebrows and it was so reminiscent of Scully’s look, his breath caught in his chest. He had still not uttered a word, trying to get a good read on this non shoe wearing, streaks of blue hair woman. She gave not an inch and he knew one of them had to speak eventually. His leg began to bounce when he realized it needed to be him.
“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “I didn’t have access to a computer, so I couldn’t fill it out.”
“Truth or bullshit?” she asked, holding his gaze. He blinked, stunned again at her language as well as directness, and she did not back down.
He thought of his computer at home, still cracked and a new one not yet purchased. He had done so purposely, having no desire to have access to the Internet or email. Logically, he knew the computer and the technology it brought were not to blame for the situation he was in now. Emotionally though, it was a link to Scully, and he had wanted to sever that when he had felt angry.
Along with no computer, he had also kept his phone turned off, leaving Scully absolutely no way of reaching him, unless she drove her ass over to the house to see him. As he sat there now, he realized how selfish and asshole-like that would sound if he said it all out loud.
“Truth,” he said quietly.
“Good. Well, then since you were unable to answer the questions and this is our first meeting, I’m going to ask these of you, in more of a ... free form. You cool with that?” she said, picking up her pen, ready to write down his answers.
He nodded and then shook his head before leaning it back. He began to clench and unclench his fists, nervous beyond anything, at the prospects of talking about what brought him to see her today.
She was not saying anything and it was making him uncomfortable. He lifted his head and looked at her. She was watching him, her expression again unreadable. They must teach you that at therapist training, he thought, the right way to stare at a person while revealing nothing of yourself.
He knew how to do that too, years of working for the bureau and questioning suspects, had given him that ability. If she wanted to play a weird chicken game of stare down, he was more than ready. He would give it this one hour, then tell Mrs. Scully this therapist had not worked out either. Yeah ... he could tough out an hour.
“Do you like sports?” came her unexpected question, her eyes watching him. He blinked at her again, unable to form an answer, and she smiled slightly. “Me, I love sports, but I’ve never really been good at all of them. We had to do most of them in elementary school and then again in high school. I was not a fast runner, or good with the fancy footwork that goes with most sports. But oh ... I loved playing baseball.”
She paused for a moment, her hands once again clasped in her lap, her thoughts no doubt on a ball field somewhere.
“I wasn’t a fast runner, like I said, but the feel of the bat in my hands, the power I held to either bunt or whack the shit out of the ball, I loved it,” she said wistfully. “I loved the audible groan I would hear from the team when I stepped up to bat, knowing I was most likely going to hit the ball far. I loved the tight grip I would get on the bat, the feel and sound as I tapped the bat to home plate, the smell of the dirt, and then the sound of the ball hitting the bat and knowing it was going way outfield. I loved it all.” She stopped and smiled, no doubt seeing the ball flying over the outfield, the opposing team trying and failing to get to it in time.
He watched her and thought of his own love of baseball, watching games with his dad and listening to them on the radio. He thought of the scent of a musty old book as he read box scores, the taste of a nonfat tofutti rice dreamsicle in his mouth, and the sound of Scully’s slight gasp when he held her and demonstrated hips before hands before they “slapped a piece of horse hide with a stick.”
Yeah, he loved baseball too.
He looked at Rachel and they smiled at one another. She waited and he knew he was going to have to speak up. He took a deep breath and nodded.
“I didn’t answer your questionnaire, but,” he paused, looking at her and she nodded. He sighed and swallowed. “My ... well she’s not exactly my mother in law, but she kindly requested I speak to someone. She asked some friends and found some people they suggested.”
He stopped and thought of the look on Mrs. Scully’s face as he told her he would see about talking to a therapist. Her face was so hopeful, and he knew he could not take seeing her face heartbroken if it did not work out.
“I uh, my … partner, God ... she and I are not together right now. We’ve, well there’s been some, uh, I only have an hour, right?” he laughed nervously, all of a sudden close to tears. Fuck.
She smiled at him, writing something on her paper. “Yes, an hour, but we can make another appointment. We can talk about anything you want right now,” she said kindly. “The questionnaire is helpful to both of us because it helps me see what you want out of this and it gets you thinking about what you personally want out of it. I can read it and know how I want to proceed, but it’s all dependent on you.”
He sighed and nodded. He looked at the pictures she had on the wall. A drawing of a ballerina in pose, a photo of her at a football game with her head on an older man’s shoulder, both of them bundled in their teams gear, and a mesmerizing drawing of the sea with nearly the same blues as the throw pillows.
“You like the Seahawks?” he asked, looking back at her. She smiled at him and nodded, looking over at the photo.
“I used to live in Washington state. My dad and I went to many games and then we moved here when I was ten,” she said. “We always caught them when they played somewhere close. That picture is me and my uncle at the Super Bowl last year.”
“Your dad couldn’t make it?” Mulder asked, looking at the photo.
“No,” she said quietly. “He passed away when I was seventeen.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ...” he said, feeling terrible and intrusive.
“No apologies necessary,” she said with a smile. “Are you a football fan? Do you have a favorite team?”
“Uh ... yeah I like it, but I prefer basketball and baseball, too. Basketball is the sport I enjoy most and the Knicks are my team,” he looked at her and she nodded. “No matter how their season went, they’re the team I’ve loved since I was a boy. My dad used to watch them and he took me to a few games when I was younger. It was fun and exciting. The crowd cheering, the sound of the buzzer, the squeaking of the shoes on the court, I remember loving that almost as much as the game itself.”
“The sounds and feels of things can stay with us more than remembering the scores or the players. Our minds don’t always work in numbers and stats, but when we go back and read them, we remember the warmth of the day and feel of a parent’s hand instead,” she said softly, smiling at him again.
He nodded, remembering days with his dad before his family life went to shit. Sometimes those days were hard to call upon when so many bad memories pushed their way to the top. He looked around the room and then back at her with a sigh.
“I feel like you’re waiting for me to break down or start pouring my heart out,” he said, pulling a pillow on his lap and picking at it.
She smiled and then lightly chuckled. She moved her feet from the ottoman and stood up. She walked to the coffee pot and picked up a mug, opened the coffee holder, and put something inside. She closed it down and pushed a button before turning to him.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked, tilting her head.
“Uhh ... sure,” he said and she nodded. “Just black.”
The coffee stopped dripping and she brought the cup over to him. He murmured his thanks as she walked back to make one for herself. She added some sugar and cream and then sat back down. A few minutes went by as they both drank some coffee.
“Mr. Mulder,” she began and he choked on his coffee, shaking his head.
“I ... no,” he cleared his throat and tried again. “Mr. Mulder ... sounds like my father.” He coughed and she nodded.
“Fox,” she began again and he heard Scully’s voice coming from the passenger seat of a car from what seemed like forever ago. That same hesitation and uncertainty in Rachel’s voice was present, and he felt tears once again at the back of his throat.
“Fox? Would that be okay? To call you Fox?” she asked him, no doubt sensing his unease. He looked in her eyes, so close to the shade of Scully’s, and he knew he would never be able to hear her call him Mulder. He was Mulder only to Scully.
“Yes, Fox is fine,” he said quietly, looking down into his coffee cup.
“Fox, the endgame of therapy is not to force you to break down and cry. I’m not here to make you do anything you don’t want to do,” she said, setting her mug on the small table next to her chair. “I’m not here because I asked to be, you came to me because you must know you have things you need to discuss. I am a non biased party who will hear you out and help you to reach conclusions, that’s my role. If you choose to continue our discussions, I will create a scheduled time for you weekly or biweekly if you want it. These sessions are for you. You get out of therapy what you put into it, Fox.”
She held his gaze and he knew in that moment, she was the therapist he would be seeing. It was not just the more laid back atmosphere and attitude she had, it was the feeling he got being in this room. He felt calm with her and that he could open up without feeling judged or scolded as he had felt at the last two therapists offices.
A buzzing sound interrupted his thoughts and she glanced at her table. She picked up her phone and silenced it, placing it back on the table. She locked her hands in her lap and looked at him.
“Our time for today is up,” she said. He smiled at her and she smiled back. The past hour had flown by surprisingly fast considering he had been dreading it and ready to say it was a bust.
She stood up and he followed suit, setting his mug on the coffee table, and walking with her to the waiting area. She turned to him and reached out her hand once again. He looked down and shook it, her handshake as firm as he remembered.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Fox. I wish you well on your journey to find the therapist who is the right fit for you,” she said with a smile.
He dropped her hand and laughed quietly. “Would this time next week work for you? Or should we do biweekly at first? I could be here next Tuesday and then Friday,” he said, smiling as he watched her smile grow.
“I can do Tuesday, or would Wednesday be okay?”
“No, Wednesdays are ... I have standing plans every Wednesday,” he said, not offering any other explanation that it was the day Mrs. Scully came over to visit. He would not change that day, he looked forward to her coming out to his house every week.
“Next Tuesday it is then,” she agreed, picking up a reminder card and writing the date and time down for him. She handed it to him and he slipped it in his pocket.
“Well, I no longer wish you well on your journey, I now thank you for your decision,” she said, placing her hands on her heart and bowing her head. He laughed and went to grab his coat from the coat rack.
“What made you decide on me, if you don’t mind me asking?” she asked, rubbing her hands together and then interlocking her fingers.
He smiled as he put his jacket on and buttoned it up. “Your story about baseball made me think back to a moment that was pretty special to me. It made me think of the scent of the evening and the sound of baseballs being hit, and how in that moment, every other problem and worry seemed so insignificant,” he said, once again hearing Scully’s laughter and remembering how it felt to hold her, even if for a brief time.
“Huh ...” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I just thought it was a cool story.” She smiled at him and once again he felt his breath catch.
“I just thought it was a pretty cool key chain.”
If he was on the fence about her being the right fit for him, he just fell off and landed in her yard. He could almost see it happening, landing on his ass while she sighed and stood waiting for him to join her in the office, the colorful throw pillows calling to him to sit down and get comfortable. He grinned at her and nodded, walking toward the door, when her voice she stopped him.
“Fox, do us a favor and get access to a computer. I’d like to have that questionnaire to study over the weekend before our next meeting,” she said kindly. He nodded at her once again and walked out the door.
The drive home felt lighter than the drive over to her office. His worry seemed to have not disappeared, but decreased a little, and he felt he could breathe easier. He knew this was going to be rough and he would have to get out of his comfort zone, but he was willing to do it. He hated every second he was away from Scully. If this was how he got her back, he would go every day.
Well, every day but Wednesday.
He pulled into a local strip mall and went into a computer store, picking out a laptop that would work for him. He put the box in the backseat, got in, and started the car. Realizing he had no food at home, he swung through a fast food place for a burger and fries.
Arriving at home, he brought in his food and computer. While he ate, he plugged in and begin to prepare his laptop. He waited as it booted up, doing its updates, whatever else it needed to do. Tossing out his trash, he sat back down and connected to the WiFi. He took the appointment reminder from his jacket pocket, found the website address, and then the questionnaire Rachel asked him to fill out.
Ten questions. Who knew ten questions would break his heart and leave him sobbing into his hands. He held nothing back when he answered the questions, at least as it pertained to what he wanted to gain from getting him and Scully back to where they needed to be. He knew writing in answers and then speaking with Rachel would be two different things, but the recent silence that had fallen on the house, and especially as he sat answering those questions, was enough to settle any fears he had.
He sent his answers off before he could change any of them, and closed the laptop down. He wiped his eyes and stood up, stretching his body. It was not late, but he felt exhausted. Turning off the lights, making sure the doors were locked, he headed upstairs. He used the bathroom, brushed his teeth, undressed to his boxers, turned out the lights, and got in bed.
He thought of the day and the questions he had just answered, his mind buzzing too much to even remember each one individually, and he took a deep breath. He reached out and touched the empty side of the bed, closing his eyes as he did.
His eyes flew open as he thought of something. He pushed the covers back and ran down the stairs. Searching from room to room, he finally found his phone and tried unsuccessfully to turn it on.
“Fuck,” he mumbled, now on the hunt for his charger, finally finding it in a desk drawer, under a stack of papers. He brought both upstairs and plugged it in by the nightstand.
Waiting for it to turn on was excruciating. He sat on the side of the bed, running his hands down his face, and then across his mouth. The sound of the phone starting up, made his heart drop. He looked down and saw missed calls and voicemails from Scully. Text messages piled up and he had a hard time seeing them through his tears.
There were weeks worth of “good mornings” and “good nights,” but mostly “I love you’s.” Simple one lined texts that cut him to the core. What a fucking asshole he had been to cut himself off from her. Why had he done that? To punish her? He had only punished himself by not seeing her messages to him.
He listened to her voicemails and like the text messages, they were short- hoping he was okay, work was going all right, and always ended with her telling him she loved him. He listened again and saved them when he was done.
He looked at the date of her last text, a week ago. As he scrolled up through her texts, he saw they were all about a week apart. If he was right, she should be texting him tomorrow. Well, he was not going to wait until then before he reached out to her.
He thought of explaining to her why he had not responded to any of her messages, but he did not want to lay all his shit at her feet. Not again. He stared at the phone, deciding what to write. Keep it simple, he thought.
Good night. I love you, Scully.
He hit send and exhaled, not expecting an answer, not right away. He set the phone down and laid back down in bed. He hoped she read the message and the simple words he sent would make her feel as good as hers did for him.
He closed his eyes and sighed. Then, he heard a beep. He reached for his phone and unlocked it. One new message and his heart felt as though it were smiling.
Good night, Mulder. I love you too.
#The X Files#XF Fanfic#X Files Novel#Therapy#Beginning the journey toward healing#Finding the right person#Dealing with the past to heal the present#Facing past mistakes and making a change
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
By My Side, A Hogwarts AU (23/75)
a little change - The bells in the clock tower chimed, and everyone in Classroom 4F slammed the books shut, hurrying for the door before Professor Binns even stopped talking. History of Magic was their last class for the day, since this was their first half-day of the term. Half-days at Hogwarts came few and far between, and they usually fell on major holidays and the days before vacation.
Today was Halloween, and on top of that, there was a Quidditch game scheduled right after lunch -- Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor.
master list // AO3 // AFF // first year - muggle-born, sorted, first day, homesick, hallowe’en, deck the halls, possibilities, belonging, exceedingly acceptable, return to king’s cross - second year - diagonally, taking flight, ten points, all that glitters, holly jolly, push and pull, shooting stars, special treat, sleepover, promises made - third year - promises kept, troublesome tea
@lockandminkey @minhosbowties @sapphicshawol @shinyexo @posygal @bumkeyko @usuallydreamin @taespoon-of-sugar (if anyone else wants to be tagged in this, just let me know!)
A/N: I’m not saying it’s necessary reading, but these are all canon things that have happened between the last chapter and this one that I might be making reference to in this or later chapters... I'm a little behind, as I've been working on getting this chapter out by today (for Megan’s birthday -- HAPPY BIRTHDAY ILY) but I promise I'll get caught up within the next couple of days!
* - * - *
The bells in the clock tower chimed, and everyone in Classroom 4F slammed the books shut, hurrying for the door before Professor Binns even stopped talking. History of Magic was their last class for the day, since this was their first half-day of the term. Half-days at Hogwarts came few and far between, and they usually fell on major holidays and the days before vacation.
Today was Halloween, and on top of that, there was a Quidditch game scheduled right after lunch -- Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor.
“Ready?” Kibum asked Minho as he rolled up their notes and stuffed it into Minho’s backpack.
“I mean,” Minho shrugged before he slipped his backpack on. “I guess.”
“Hey,” he bumped into Minho’s shoulder as they started walking down the corridor on their way to the Great Hall. “At least we’re going to Hogsmeade after.” Minho instantly perked up, his eyes bright as he glanced over at Kibum. “You did remember to get the permission slip signed by your parents, right?”
“Yeah! It was the first thing I did when I got home!” “Good!” They followed the crowd into the Great Hall, Kibum grabbing Minho’s arm before they headed for their tables. “Eat if you’re hungry, okay?” The light in his eyes dimmed slightly, but he nodded as he walked away. Kibum trudged over to his table and slid into his spot beside Analecia. “Excited about Hogsmeade?” she asked him when he started dishing up some soup for himself.
Of course, he was excited. Dad had told him all about the wizarding village years ago. It was where he and Mom had their first date at Madam Puddifoot’s shop. He’d seen the pictures of them around the Shrieking Shack -- which, he had told Kibum specifically to never go there, or else he’d get in trouble. He couldn’t wait to explore the shops with Minho, and Mom had even sent him a couple Galleons to spend during his first visit.
Prices have changed, so I don’t know how much it’ll get you, but do be sure to get yourself a treat of some kind, she said in her letter.
“I am!” Callum said in Kibum’s stead. “Hopefully the game won’t be too long so we can spend as much time there as we can before the feast tonight.” “Yeah, hopefully.”
Kibum stirred his soup, watching the steam curl off the surface. He was halfway done with his soup by the time the Hufflepuff team made their exit, lead by their new tiny female captain. Meg was her name, if Kibum remembered right. Minho said that Tanner had passed on his captain’s pin and the locker room stereo to her after their final game last year.
She seemed to be treating Minho well, which was all he cared about.
By the time Kibum fished the last potato out of the broth, the Gryffindor team was leaving too, the entire table cheering rowdily as they strolled out of the Great Hall. Kibum rolled his eyes, slurped up the rest of his soup, and stood. “I’m heading down there, anyone want to come with?”
Aaron and Callum shared a look, both shaking their heads. “No, I think we’ll wait until everyone else goes.”
Kibum nodded with a sigh. “Okay.”
He hurried downstairs and to his house, sprinting through the common room to get to his dorm. He changed out of his uniform and into casual clothes -- jeans, Dad’s old Weird Sisters band shirt, and the mustard sweater Grandma made him -- as quickly as he could. Soon, he was running back upstairs and down the corridor that lead out to the lawn.
Heavy gray clouds covered the sky, the petrichor from last night’s rain still hanging in the air. The ground was still wet from it, and it drenched his shoes as he ran across the yard to the pitch. Above the stands, the occasional Quidditch player appeared, their red or yellow robes whipping around them as they flew their practice laps around the pitch.
Kibum ducked into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time as hurried to his usual seat. He sat up straight, craning his neck, searching the yellow robes for Minho’s 10. There he was, down on the pitch, talking with Madam Hooch and what looked like Gryffindor’s Seeker. It wasn’t a long conversation, and soon Minho was walking back to where his team was gathering on the field.
He held his hand out before him, and Kibum scooted forward on the bleachers, wondering if his earlier injury was acting up again. One of the Beaters handed him his broom and they huddled together while Gryffindor did the same several meters away. Kibum glanced around at the stands, which were full of the other students now.
Madam Hooch blew the whistle twice, and both huddles dispersed, standing in their formations on the ground until Hooch blew the whistle again. They shot up into the sky, cheers erupting from the Gryffindor side of the stadium.
Kibum cupped his hands around his mouth, yelling, “Let’s go, Minho!” He waved when Minho looked over at him before the Quaffle was thrown.
* - * - *
Sunlight peered through the clouds as Minho walked out of the hallway and onto the pitch behind the other Hufflepuffs. He yawned, his broom heavy in his hand as he stretched. “Go ahead and start stretching, guys, I’m gonna go talk to Jeffery,” Meg said before she started jogging down the pitch to where Gryffindor was coming out onto the field.
“It’s gotta be weird to play against your boyfriend,” Melissa, the sixth-year Keeper, said once they were all sitting. Minho reached for his toes, resting his forehead on his arm. “At least they’re both captains.”
“Mm.”
“Okay, so what do we remember from their last game?” Zach, the second Chaser, asked. "It was against Slytherin, right?”
Everyone nodded, and Claire, the third Chaser, spoke up. “Manns is getting lazy with his maneuvers. Like, remember last time -- “ Minho switched legs, glancing over at her, “ -- he just, fucking, let that ball through the goal, he didn’t even try to get it.”
“They still won,” Minho muttered.
“I mean, yeah, but it’s still something.”
Cameron, the second Beater, looked away from the opposite end of the field. “I know it’s been a while since we’ve played them, but we gotta remember that they play dirty.”
Sighs scattered through the group, and they all looked up as Meg ran back to them, plopping down on the ground between Marc and Cameron. “Okay so, I overheard Rogers telling Jeffery that Barnes is still not able to play.”
“The flu?”
She nodded, smiling. “So, they’re down their best Chaser and had to sub someone from their second string.”
“Everyone, gather ‘round!” Madam Hooch called from the center of the pitch. They scrambled to their feet, the wet grass squeaking with every step as they ran to meet her. Meg and Jeffery came up to the front of the teams. “Ward is playing for Barnes today?” Hooch asked as she pulled the team cards out of her robe pocket.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She made a quick note before her hawk-like eyes flicked up to meet Meg’s. “Any substitutions for you?”
“Nope.”
Minho rubbed his hands over his face, trying to make himself wake up a little, as Hooch tucked the cards back into her pocket. “Start flying laps to warm up. Seekers, stay here for a minute.” Minho dropped his hands, glancing from Hooch to Damien. The other players darted off, the swoosh of their brooms ricocheting off the walls of the pitch. “Choi, how’s your hand?”
He held out his hand, inspecting his splotchy yellow bruise. “It’s fine. I got it checked out by Madam Pomfrey last week and she said I’m fine to play.”
“That’s good.”
Damien cleared his throat when Hooch started to walk away. “Did you have something to say to both of us?”
She turned, giving them a smirk. “This Snitch is particularly feisty, so be ready for that.”
They watched her walk away from them, Damien taking a couple steps closer. “That’s too bad for you, really. I was gonna say there’s a first time for everything, but...” he sighed and Minho didn’t even bother to acknowledge him. “I would wish you luck, but I don't want to waste my breath, you know?” He patted Minho's shoulder before he turned around.
Minho glanced down at his hand as he walked away, opening and closing his fist and watching the bones move in his hand. “You good, Minho?” Cameron asked, passing him his broom.
“Yup.”
“Guys!” Meg said, standing up on her tiptoes to look over their teammates. “Huddle in.” Minho placed his hand on top of the others, leaning in when Meg lowered her voice. “No matter what, do your best out there, okay?” Everyone nodded, watching her as she looked at each of them. “That’s all I care about. That we go out there, have fun, and do the best we can.” She placed her hand on top of the pile, squeezing Minho’s hand tightly. “One, two, three -- “
“Badgers!”
“Lions!” sounded from the other side of the field a couple seconds after.
Hooch blew her whistle twice. “Okay, get in your positions.”
They all jogged across the field, Minho breaking away from Meg and Cameron to stand before them and behind Zach and Claire. Marc stood at the center of the pitch with Jeffery opposite him, and Melissa jogged to her place behind the Beaters. Hooch inspected the numbers on their backs, just to make sure everyone was in their proper place. When she blew her whistle again, Minho dropped his broom, letting it bob in the air before he mounted it.
His shoulders fell when the cheers sounded from the Gryffindor side of the pitch as they all took to the sky. They all looked so happy to be there; they weren’t resigned to losing. Again.
"Let’s go, Minho!", faint as it was, cut through Gryffindor’s excited whooping and hollering. Sighing, he turned to the Hufflepuff/Slytherin stands with a small smile. The weight on his heart lifted, if only slightly, and the toss of the Quaffle drew his attention back to the other players.
Possession went to Gryffindor. Minho listened for Meg’s signal, and it came with three taps of her bat against her broomstick. “Three, okay,” he murmured to himself as he flew up and out of the way just in time before Cameron blew past him to get into his new position. Jeffery shouted orders to his own team, but Minho could barely hear him over the sound of the wind whipping past his ears.
He cringed when one of Gryffindor’s Chasers crashed into Claire to get her from catching the Quaffle. She was almost knocked off her broom, and Minho listened for the whistle indicating a foul that never came. Minho tried to fly down to see if she was alright, but she recentered herself on her broom and darted away before he could.
Shaking his head, he started scanning the arena and the sky for any glimpse of the Snitch.
“Ten points for Hufflepuff!” Marjory Phillips called from the announcers stand, and Minho turned to see Marc and Cameron flying back toward the center. Minho briefly clapped, catching himself when he started to lose his balance.
Zach flew up to him, glancing back as the next play was getting set up -- Meg had tapped her broomstick once. “See anything yet?” Minho shook his head and Zach patted his shoulder before he flew to his new position while Minho shot up above the stands to start doing his laps.
He passed Damien, who had been hovering on the center line since the Quaffle was thrown, without sparing him a glance. The Snitch still hadn’t made its appearance, and Minho started his second lap, scrutinizing every angle as he flew around the pitch.
There was a flash of gold in the corner of his eye, but by the time he turned his head, it was gone. Luckily, it didn’t look like Damien noticed it.
There came a crack from his left, and Minho glanced over to see a Bludger rocketing toward him. He pulled back before it clipped his broomstick and threw him into a spin, watching the Bludger as it returned to the Gryffindor Beater. The Beater’s attention turned from Minho to Cameron, who flew below him, and he started to swing his arm back, aiming for Cameron.
“Cameron, look out!” he yelled, whether out loud or just in his head, Minho wasn’t sure. Regardless, Cameron didn’t hear him, and without a second thought, Minho bore down on his broom and rushed to push him out of the Bludger’s trajectory.
“Minho, what the h -- “ he started to ask, his eyes widening when the Bludger rammed into Minho’s ankle with a crack.
The pain didn’t register, at first. Instead, his left ankle and foot went numb and tingly in an instant. The force of the hit almost knocked him off of his broom, but luckily Cameron caught his arm before he completely lost his balance. The Gryffindor Beater flew away before Minho and Cameron could look back at him.
“You okay?”
Minho struggled to answer, his ankle beginning to throb. When he finally opened his mouth, there was a glimmer of gold behind Cameron. He blinked hard once, twice, then pushed Cameron away from him as he shot after the Snitch.
Wind whipped around him, the chill cutting through him as he followed the flitting path of the Snitch. At some moments, it was so close he could almost graze it with his fingertips, and then a second later, it would dip and launch itself away from him. It didn’t take long before Damien swooped in beside him, reaching out the catch the Snitch for himself.
His hand tightened on his broomstick as he stretched closer to it, watching it swoosh back and forth in front of them. It had been flying straight for a few seconds, that meant it would probably change in the blink of an eye. The last two changes in direction, it had shot upward, but this time...it would probably dip down and away from them.
Even if he were wrong, he didn’t really have much to lose, right?
Minho dropped away from Damien before the Snitch’s flight changed, his broomstick dragging on the ground. A second later, the Snitch darted before his eyes and he lunged for it, losing his grip on his broom and tumbling to the ground.
It took him a second the catch his breath.
He rolled over, his breath hitching as he twisted his ankle, and stared up at the cloud-covered sky. Deep breath in; deep breath out. He brushed his hair off of his sweat-drenched forehead and squinted as the sun reappeared between the clouds. His brow furrowed when something fluttered in his hand and he held it up, opening his fist. Minho’s eyes widened as the Snitch’s wings fluttered again and curled around itself.
He did it...He finally caught the Snitch.
Groaning, he sat up and looked across the pitch to the Hufflepuff/Slytherin stands, squinting when he thought he saw a patch of the yellow of Kibum’s sweater at the forefront. Minho pushed himself up, wincing as he leaned on his good ankle, and held the Snitch up high to show Kibum.
“Choi Minho has caught the Snitch! Hufflepuff wins!”
The arena erupted in cheers, and above them all, Minho was sure he could hear Kibum.
* - * - *
“Ten points to Hufflepuff!”
Kibum held himself back from cheering with the Hufflepuffs in the stands, instead opting to clap with the other Slytherins who also didn’t want to see Gryffindor win. The players started flying again, becoming a confusing mix of red and yellow in the sky. It took him a second to find Minho again, his eyes trailing after him as he flew above the play and started a lap around the arena.
He let out a quick whoop! when Minho blew past them on his way around the pitch. Once he was on the other side, he stopped abruptly, looking around. Had he spotted the Snitch? Minho pulled up on his broomstick when a Bludger blazed past him. Kibum huffed, glaring at the Gryffindor Beater who was raising his bat to strike again, and his attention turned back to Minho as he darted to his teammate.
A shock coursed through him when the Bludger connected with Minho’s foot, and he grabbed Aaron’s sleeve when Minho almost fell off his broom. He closed his eyes when a wave of nausea hit him. “Is he okay?”
“I…think so. It looks like he spotted the Snitch.”
Kibum opened his eyes, finding Minho again quickly enough. His flight path was erratic, which definitely meant he was following the Snitch. Soon, Damien was at his side, reaching out to grab Snitch. Kibum’s brow furrowed when Minho dived below Damien, diving toward the lawn. He wasn’t sure if Minho jumped off or if his broomstick caught on something, but Kibum’s breath hitched and he shot to his feet when Minho fell off of his broom and rolled on the field.
“He…he’s not getting up. Aaron, he’s not getting up.”
Before Aaron could respond, Minho turned over, and Kibum weaved around the others in the bleachers to stand at the banister. He held up his hand – had he hurt that again, too? – staring at it for a second before he eventually stood holding his hand up proudly.
“Choi Minho has caught the Snitch! Hufflepuff wins!“
The cheering behind him and around the stadium was deafening, that Kibum almost couldn’t hear himself yelling “That’s my best friend! He – Minho! You did it, buddy!” Kibum was pretty sure his heart was about to jump out of his chest, and if he was this excited, he couldn’t even imagine how happy Minho was at this moment.
Grinning, Kibum found him on the field again, staggering towards his approaching teammates. Oh…right. In the excitement, Kibum had forgotten that he was hurt. The others in the stands had crowded around him now, so much so that he had to push around people to get to the stairs. He ran down the steps and outside to the Hufflepuff hallway, hurrying down the hall to the open doors leading to the pitch.
He stopped at the threshold, staring at the cluster of players landing on the field. Was he even allowed to come out onto the pitch? Maybe not, but the question right now was did he care if he couldn’t? The answer to that was a solid no. Kibum jogged out, catching up to the rest of the players, and rushed to where Minho was now sitting again, his captain and Madam Hooch crouched beside him and inspecting his ankle.
“Hey!” Minho said, his eyes bright and cheerful, even as he winced when Hooch turned his ankle. He patted the ground beside him and Kibum sat down, their shoulders brushing together. “Wanna see it?”
Kibum nodded, and Minho held out the Snitch, passing it to him.
It was heavier than Kibum imagined it would be, given how small it was. He closed his fist around it and grinned at Minho. “I knew you could do it.” Minho’s smile turned bashful as he looked down at his hands. “I’m so proud of you.” Kibum handed the Snitch back to Minho and slid his arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer as Madam Pomfrey approached them.
Minho audibly winced as she untied his shoe and Kibum rubbed his shoulder, hopefully soothing him, if only slightly. She carefully slipped it off and passed it to Hufflepuff’s captain. “I’m going to roll your ankle a little to see what your range of motion is, alright?” Slowly, she started rotating his swollen ankle, and Kibum’s hold on Minho’s shoulder tightened.
Far above them, announcements were being made. Kibum wasn’t listening, but one of the Minho's teammates hunkered down beside the captain. “Hey,” he said in a poorly concealed whisper. “The group for Hogsmeade is leaving soon…is it okay if we go?”
“Sure. Good job today, guys!” she said, waving the rest of the team away before she returned her attention back to Minho.
“Well, it’s a probable fracture, but I won’t know for sure until we get you back to the infirmary.” She took her wand out from the waist of her apron and pointed it at Minho’s ankle. “Ferula!” A bandage appeared out of thin air, wrapping itself tightly around his ankle. Pomfrey glanced between the captain and Kibum. “Who’s going to help him get to the castle?”
“I will,” they said, both glancing at each other.
“You don’t have to,” Minho said, speaking in quiet Korean. “You can go to Hogsmeade.”
Kibum scoffed. “This is just the first trip. There'll be more. Why the fuck would I go without you?”
"Bummie..." Minho’s eyes widened, his already flushed face growing a deeper shade of red. “We can’t say that. Do you want to get in trouble?”
“What, can they speak Korean?”
Blinking, Minho looked back at the captain and Madam Pomfrey, who were watching him with concern. A smile played with the corners of his lips as he met Kibum’s eyes again. “Fuck!”
Both of them started to giggle, stopping when Madam Pomfrey cleared her throat. “I’ll stay and help,” Kibum said to them, glancing over at the captain.
“Are you sure?” she asked, and Kibum nodded. “Okay,” she said apprehensively, looking back at Minho and grinning. “You did so good! I’m so proud of you!” Minho’s smile turned shy again as she patted his knee. “I’ll get you something from Honeydukes, okay?” He nodded and she started running down the field.
Pomfrey stood, looking down at Minho. “I’ll go get a bed ready for you.”
“Okay.”
Kibum rubbed his shoulder before moving his hand down to Minho’s waist. “Think you can stand, buddy?” He pushed himself up, pulling Minho up with him. Both of them staggered as they tried to steady themselves, Minho on one leg and Kibum under the added weight. He stayed still, watching Minho as his breathing steadied. “Ready?”
Minho nodded with a sigh. “Let’s go.”
#Minkey#SHINee fic#SHINee AU#SHINeefic#SHINee#ff: by my side#hogwarts!minkey au#mine#my writing#first time writing a game from Minho's POV#should be fun#<< written right before I started writing his scene#oof i had to get into my volleyball headspace for this#forgive me it's the only sport i've ever played#but damn...i was good lmao#that's why there's some (if only slight) similarities to it#this is probably not as good as it could be but#whatever#this ankle injury is a reference to his MTTM ankle injury#god my heart is just....i love supportive best friends#Minkey officially saying fuck for the first time in this AU? My gift for your birthday Megan lol
8 notes
·
View notes
Note
Prompt for AU Week (or any time) (I am not particular obviously): kc + alphas of rival werewolf packs and fuck we're mates
Send Shivers Down My Back
When Caroline steps off the elevator she’s greeted by aneerie quiet. It puts her on edge. She’s later to arrive than usual, a sideeffect of a series of restless nights and a guest who didn’t know how to take ahint. It’s nearly 10 AM she should bethe last to arrive. Scanning the room she sees a full house, but there’s noneof the usual chatter and bustle. The ping of IMs is absent, there are notapping keyboards. Not a single squeaky wheel or shuffling of papers can beheard.
Caroline needs to figure out just what’s happened andquickly.
She pauses a few steps out of the elevator and looks aroundmore carefully, notes the pinched expressions and nervous fidgeting that aboundeven as all of her employees avoid her eyes.
Something was verywrong.
She doesn’t think it’sher – she’s not exactly a pushover ofa boss but she’s not Cruella DeVille either. Caroline expects results and isn’tshy about offering either praise or criticism. Nor did she allow herself to gettoo personally involved with her staff. Most of her employees were also herpack and her position as alpha was tenuous and often on the verge of beingchallenged. At work she took great pains to be cordial so she hasn’t thefaintest clue about why every person who works for her is suddenly acting like Carolinehad been hatching a plan to use their pelts for outerwear.
She begins walking again, her pace brisk, the crack of her heelson the marble tiles gunshot loud in the stillness. She stops in front of herassistant’s desk, notes that April is trembling with nerves. Caroline leansforward, smiling softly and making an effort to sound gentle. She can’t showthat she’s alarmed. Leaders never panicked. “April? Do you have any messagesfor me?”
“On your desk, ma’am. But…” her voice falters and she looksup at Caroline with wide, helpless eyes.
“But…” Caroline prompts.
“There’s a… visitor in your office.”
Caroline straightens abruptly, a swell of irritationmingling with her unease. “Why would you let someone wait in my officeunsupervised?”
April struggles to answer, at first only emitting astrangled whimper. She manages to draw in a shaky breath. “He didn’t reallygive me a choice.”
Caroline scoffs, “So? There’s a reason I pay a securityteam.”
She whirls when she hears the familiar whisper of her officedoor. It only takes another instant for the heavy scent of blood to hit her.Caroline tenses, darts a glance at the letter opener on April’s desk. It’s notsilver so it won’t kill a wolf but Caroline can certainly do some damage withit. Her fingers itch to lunge for it but she tells herself to be patient andassess the situation. She studies the man framed in the doorway carefully,trying to place him. He’s dressed casually in jeans and a snug grey Henleythat’s spattered with blood. He’s not particularly large or muscle bound butsome instinct tells Caroline not to let that fool her.
Her gut tells her he’s powerful, dangerous. All the more sobecause he doesn’t look it.
“Who,” she bites out frostily, “do you think you are?”
She vaguely hears April scurrying away though the man’s eyesdon’t leave Caroline. He drifts forward a step, then another, light on his feeteven in heavy boots and Caroline watches him approach carefully, looking forany twitch of muscle that will indicate he’s planning on going for her throat.
But there’s no threat in his movements, his hands remainvisible, loose at his sides. “I know exactlywho I am. I thought I knew who you were, Caroline Forbes, but it seems as if Imissed something critical.”
He sounds perturbed but Caroline only grows confused. Whatcould he possibly have missed? Caroline led two lives, kept pack business separatefrom her company, but she was an open book in both if you knew who to ask. Andfrom the way this guy carries himself, the intelligence in his eyes, he’s notthe type to do sloppy recon.
If he hadn’t shown up uninvited and spilled blood on herterritory she might have even respected him.
When he steps closer Carolineinhales instinctively, used to using her heightened senses to her advantage. Hisscent drifting over her and a light touch of cologne can’t hide the scent ofhis skin.
It hits her hard and she breathes deep, her heartbeatthrumming a frantic rhythm as she fights her instinctive need to claim what’shers with touch and teeth and claws. She wants her marks on his skin, his handson hers and for their scents to combine into something new, something that willwarn others away.
He’s hers. Only hers.
She’s heard enough stories to know what’s happening to her, what he is to her even though he’s yet tosupply a name. Caroline locks her knees to keep from swaying on her feet. It’sa struggle to maintain her hardened expression, but she has to think. She gritsher teeth and fights the pull of him, locks her muscles when her body protests.The urge to step forward is strong, all she wants to do is rend their clothinginto miniscule pieces, to press every inch of her skin to every inch of his.
She didn’t even care that they had an audience. Werewolvesweren’t exactly shy.
It takes longer to recognize the scent of the blood, butonce it tugs at her she uses it as a focal point. It’s familiar but placing ittakes time while she sorts through an overwhelming tangle of emotions.
Once it clicks she’s abashed that it took so long. She knowswhose blood her mate is wearing. After all, she’s spilled it herself often enough.
“Where’s Tyler?” Caroline demands, hating how thick andunsteady the words come out. She needs to get herself under control.
“Tyler?” the stranger asks, his head tipping to the sidequizzically.
Caroline offers a false smile. “Dark hair, about yay high?”She holds her hand about level with her forehead. “His blood ruined your shirt soI imagine you at least spoke?”
“Ah, so that was his name. We only exchanged a few briefwords. I’m afraid I reacted rather hastily.” The words are contrite but hisexpression isn’t. If anything he appears maliciously pleased with himself.
“Reacted to what?” Caroline presses.
“A strange wolf covered in my mate’s scent.”
Several audible gasps ring out from around the room, makingit clear this conversation is far from private.
They need to take this discussion elsewhere. Baring her bodywouldn’t faze her but this? This was no one’s business.
Caroline’s hands ball into tight fists, her nails digginginto her palms as she considers the ramifications of what her pack had justwitnessed. The gossip would spread quickly, every member of her pack who wasn’tin attendance will have heard the news she’d been mated within the hour. The usualdicks who are always gunning for her spot will be emboldened, will assume amate will make her weak.
They’re going to be sorely disappointed. Caroline’s notabout to let go of everything she’s achieved, all that she’s built, without onehell of a fight.
Klaus had known Caroline Forbes was lovely – the companyshe’d inherited was publically traded, and so a quick search had yielded dozensof images. He’d studied them all. She’d been cool and calculating in a navybusiness suit at a shareholder’s meeting, her pale blonde hair ruthlesslypinned back. She wore evening wear just as well, elegant gowns and fine jewels,always smooth and serene as she attended charity galas and awards banquets.He’d particularly liked the photo of her outdoors at a Forbes Inc. sponsored animaladoption drive. She’d been laughing with a pile of Shepard mutts in her lap,her curls loose and blowing at the wind, softer and joyous and all the moreappealing.
At that point he’d begin to idly consider bedding her as ameans to soften her up. Every report said that she was smart, calculating andruthless. All traits Klaus admired. It wouldn’t be a hardship to use lust toattempt to sway her to his side.
He suspected that he’d rather enjoy mixing business withpleasure.
He intended to claim a piece of territory for the pack he’dbeen building. A piece that bordered andpossibly overlapped land that the Forbes pack had always considered theirs. Andwhile Klaus had no real qualms about taking what he wanted with fear andbloodshed (a method that had worked exceedingly well for him over the lastmillennium) it had been pointed out that diplomacy might occasionally serve hisinterests better. His efforts to force triggered wolves to be hybrids hadyielded unfavorable results. A wolf infected with vampirism against their willwas difficult to control.
Besides, if he continued to have to kill the hybrids thatrefused to fall in line eventually Klaus might very well run out of werewolvesaltogether.
Without werewolves there could be no hybrids. And Klaus hadcome to be rather fond of his hybrids.
Caroline Forbes will make a magnificent one.
She’d looked a bit tired when he’d first spotted her, thoughthat had quickly melted away once she’d sensed a threat. She’d grown reactiveand watchful until the moment she’d caught his scent and had been sent reeling.He’d watched the play of emotions across her face with fascination, had beenimpressed by her ability to control herself. She’d managed to claw back an admirable amount of poise.
Watching her Klaus had decided he’d make a project of unravellingher impressive control. And he’d make certain she enjoyed it enough to beg fora repeat performance.
After he’d uttered the word ‘mate’ her posture had closedoff. She’d stalked out the way she’d come, making no motion for Klaus tofollow.
He had, of course. They had quite a lot to discuss. Carolinehadn’t appeared surprised when he’d shadowed her into the elevator and Klaustook that as a sign that he was welcome. He’d watched as she’d yanked her phoneout of her bag. A few taps and she’d lifted it to her ear, “Tell everyone toclear out. Now,” she instructs, her tone icy and offering no room forquestions. The phone is stowed in jerky motions and she smooths out her dressas she faces the front of the elevator, keeping a careful distance betweenthem. He detects no additional warmth when she speaks to him and she doesn’tlook at him. “We use three floors of this building. We’re heading to the 42nd.Everyone will be gone and we can talk over who you are and what you want.”
“Yes, it was rather rude of me to show up without anappointment, wasn’t it? But you’ve so determinedly been dodging my attempts toset up a meeting.”
Klaus watches with great interest as her spine stiffens. Shecrosses her arms, “Ah. So you’re Klaus.”
“Does my reputation precede me?”
Her eyes close briefly and he watches her fist ball sotightly he wonders if her nails are drawing blood, “It’s kind of hard for itnot to, don’t you think? It’s so very colorful.Were you planning on killing me?”
“I had considered it,” Klaus admits. “That’s off the tablenow, of course. I was rather leaning towards seduction if that eases yourmind.”
“Immensely,” she spits out venomously, just as the elevatordoors slide open.
She stalks out, attempting to leave him in her dust. Klausdoesn’t bother to hide his pleased grin as he watches the angry sway of herhips. He’d never given much thought to what his mate would be like but heshould have known she’d have a temper that was something to marvel at.
Honestly, Klaus had always thought him finding a mate wasexceedingly unlikely given how long he’d been alive.
Caroline Forbes is a surprise, a disruption in his plans. He’snever dealt well with those before but this instance is an exception.
He’s not even bothered by the knowledge that this will unlikelybe the last wrinkle in his plans she’s responsible for. If anything he eagerly anticipates the clashesthey’ll surely have.
He’d just met her but he sensed that Caroline was a worthyopponent. Any mate of his would have to be.
She’s being unforgivably rude. Both of her southerngrandmothers would have fits if they saw the way Caroline was acting. Herparents would be entirely disapproving – they’d drilled the rules of diplomacytheir kind abided by into her head since birth. William and Elizabeth Forbeshad prepared her to lead even when their peers had scoffed at the idea of awoman heading up a pack as old as theirs. If Caroline had treated any othervisiting Alpha the way she was treating Klaus Mikaelson right now she’d have awar on her hands.
She tells herself there are serious extenuatingcircumstances but it’s a weak defense. She needs to do better. Caroline keeps moving,avoids looking at him, maintaining as much distance between their bodies as shepossibly can. Her avoidance wouldn’t be noticeable to most but Klaus’ indulgentexpression tells Caroline he knows exactly what she’s doing and why. He’spersistent in closing the gap though he’s smooth about it. He doesn’t push too far into her bubble but he’sundeniably there.
Unsettling her.
She leads him into a conference room, a place where shealways feels in control. Caroline can only hope that it gives her a boostbecause she’s feeling so far off her game. Her nerves are screaming at her, herthoughts a jumbled mess of cautions and demands and admonishments. She’d knownthat putting Klaus Mikaelson off was a gamble, had hoped to just buy a littletime to figure out a way to bargain with him.
She’s got lists on her phone. Things she can offer him. She’dthought it a simple matter of enticement, thought that she merely had to findsomething he would want.
The problem with that was there weren’t too many things a1000 year old hybrid with money to burn and very few boundaries about peskythings like rights of ownership didn’t already have.
She’d had no illusions about how hopelessly outmatched herpack was if Klaus wanted to take them out or worse, collect them for his hybridarmy. Caroline had been running herself ragged trying to think of a solution,some deal she could strike.
She hadn’t expected him to just show up and she certainlyhadn’t expected that he’d be her freaking mate.
Caroline circles the table, sinks into the leather chairthat sits at the head. Klaus wanders over to the windows. “It’s quite a view,”he remarks admiringly.
She holds in a snort. “Really? We’re doing small talk now?”
“Would you have preferred I offer an apology for yourboyfriend’s untimely death?”
He turns to look at her, his eyes far too blue and far toointent. Caroline folds her hands to stop them from visibly trembling. She’strying so hard but she can’t stop wanting to touch him.
“That depends. Are you actually sorry?”
His shrug is casual and he takes a careful step forward,gauging her reaction. “I’m rarely sorry, truth be told.”
“Yeah, I figured. That sounds right in line with yourreputation.”
“You don’t seem particularly broken up,” Klaus notes. “AboutTyler. Not a love match, then?”
Caroline considers her answer carefully. She knew how oldKlaus was, had heard stories of his cunning. She has no doubt he’ll spot anylie she tries to tell and hold it against her. If she’s going to protect herpack she needs to earn a little trust. “I loved Tyler when I was in highschool. Before pack politics mattered. When my father died… things got messy.Richard Lockwood wanted to be alpha, couldn’t wrap his head around the ideathat little ‘ol me was capable. He challenged me. I won.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No. Nor did I kill him the second time he tried. I probablywould have, had he tried again, but Mr. Lockwood had a heart attack and keeledover in his mistress’s apartment before that became necessary. Tyler tried achallenge of his own the next full moon. Wanted to make daddy proud.”
“Unsuccessfully, I imagine?”
“He did better than his dad ever did but he relied too muchon brute strength, not enough on brains. Typical man.”
Klaus’ lips curl in amusement even as his eyes flare yellow,“And yet, this morning, your scent was all over him.”
Caroline meets his eyes defiantly, “Yeah, he’s kind of acuddler. Or was, I guess. And if you start some chest beating alpha male crap Iwill do my very best to throw you out that window.”
“Wouldn’t kill me,” Klaus notes casually. Caroline imaginedhe was pretty used to threats against his person.
“I don’t want to kill you. If I kill you I turn into araving lunatic, remember? I like my brain as it is, thanks.”
“I’m beginning to think I like your brain too, love.”
Caroline refuses to be charmed even if he seems like hemeans it. If he’s adept at spotting lies he must be equally capable of tellingthem. She narrows her eyes and straightens her posture. “I’m not going toapologize for any of the sex I’ve had. It kind of comes with the whole werewolfthing, certain itches just don’t go away. My position in the pack means myoptions are limited. I didn’t love Tyler. We haven’t even been friends for avery long time. But he could pretty reliably get the job done and didn’t getclingy.”
“You didn’t hold his attempt to usurp you against him?”
“I had gotten over it. I get that grief can mess a personup. I’ve been hearing whispers that he’d been gearing up for another shotthough so you might have done me a favor.”
Klaus raises an eyebrow, “And yet you still invited him intoyour bed?”
“How much closer can an enemy get?” Caroline asks sweetly.
He smiles, a gleam of something like admiration in his eyes.“I see. And I’m happy to have help.”
He’s drawn closer throughout the conversation and Carolinebites back a gasp as he sidesteps her chair, placing himself behind her. A handrests on her shoulder when she would have turned, lightly, he’s not holding herdown. Klaus ducks low to whisper, “Easy. I won’t hurt you, Caroline.”
Caroline’s body eases and she curses her heritage becausesurely her long line of werewolf ancestors was the only reason she believedhim. Mates were rare, miraculous, she’d always been taught. A gift to becherished if you were lucky enough to find it.
With him touching her she almost believes that.
“Why wouldn’t you meet with me?” he asks, thumb idlystroking the top of her spine. “I was most cordial in my inquiries.”
Caroline would roll her eyes if she wasn’t so intent on notleaning further into his hands. “I had a pretty good idea of what you wanted.”
“Did you?”
“Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas,” she recites. A briefpause of his hands is the only indication she might have surprised him. Heresumes his gentle exploration and she continues, giving in to the urge to rollher head forward and bare more of her skin. “Hayley Marshall is a snake and wasonly too happy to come and whisper in my ear. I doubled the money you gaveher.”
“Funny, I thought a Queen would be above such petty backdealing,” Klaus mutters. Caroline barely hears him because he’s begun to unpinher hair, his fingers carefully unraveling her curls until they brush hershoulders.
She should stophim.
She doesn’t.
Caroline clears her throat, wills her voice not to shake,“Hayley’s pack is… odd. But they don’t bother us so we let them have their tinypiece of land, their silly titles, because she’s occasionally useful.”
“Tell me, does she expect you to bow, curtsey?”
“I’d rip her throat out if she did.”
He makes a small noise, rich with mirth and somehow fond. “Ioffered her the opportunity to be a hybrid.”
“Offered?” Caroline echoes incredulously. “Is that what you’re calling it? Becauseforced was the term I’ve heard used most often.”
Klaus doesn’t seem offended and his reply is even. “I’mtrying something a bit different. Call it a new leaf. Hayley declined my offer.Seemed rather repulsed by the idea of becoming a half-breed.”
Well, that was tactless. Caroline couldn’t say she wassurprised, however. “Werewolves have hated vampires since the birth of yourspecies. That’s not something that can be easily set aside.”
“So if I were to offer your pack the same choice?” Klausasks and Caroline’s not fooled by the casualness of the query. There’s a lot ofweight in such a small question.
The connection between them had been instantaneous, a sharpnew awareness. It hummed in the back of her mind and his fingers brushed herskin were making her feel warm and lit up from within. She feels attuned to hismovements even though her eyes are closed, the thread between them thickening. Ifhe hadn’t taken the initiative to touch her she’d have snapped and asked himto. His idle caresses are soothing her nerves and Caroline’s never one to beeasily calmed. That more than anything convinces her that she’s stuck with him.If this wasn’t real why else would she feel so safe in a monster’s hands?
If she’s stuck with him, he’s just as stuck with her. If she dies he goes insane be it tomorrow orin sixty or seventy years at the end of her natural life.
Caroline doesn’t even want to think about what that would look like.
“In my pack I doubt you’d find many willing. We’ve held ourterritory for generations and vampires have never been welcome.”
“I’m aware.”
“Killing Tyler will endear you to a few, make you an enemyof others. Though I’m sure a few more of those won’t make much difference toyou. No one will look kindly on the fact that you showed up and got immediatelymurder-y.”
Klaus nods, accepting. “And you? Could you be convinced?”
That’s the big question. Her knee jerk reaction should be afirm, ‘Hell, no’ but Caroline finds that’s not the case.
She suspects she couldbe convinced.
She pushes her chair back, rises so they’re face to face. Shesquares her shoulders and lifts her chin. Her next words will change her lifeirrevocably but she’s not afraid. Caroline’sno stranger to deals, excels at negotiations. She might never have attemptedanything with stakes this high but she still plans on coming out ahead. “If you mean what you say, that you don’tintend to force my pack to turn into hybrids, then maybe. I need you to show methat I can trust you.”
Klaus takes her hand, tugs it up to his lips, eyes gleamingwith heat and triumph. He brushes a kiss across the inside of her wrist and theshiver that wracks her frame is impossible to hide. It had only been a tinyhint of a kiss but it felt like a promise. “For you, Caroline for what we couldbe, I’ll do my very best.”
That will have to be good enough.
141 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
flatratecarpet
Flat Rate Carpet
samsun-travesti
samsun travesti 0531 949 90 93
lexapanda
Untitled
rupineta
rupineta
worm-tent
nate (they/he)