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#i just don't know how to engage in that way without burning out

anantaru · 11 months

Text

— biting them affectionately

including alhaitham, kaveh, scaramouche, heizou, tighnari, albedo, kazuha, cyno x gn! reader

꒰ genre ꒱ — fluff, crack, this is so random

alhaitham, who will be at loss of words at first— while, keep in mind, it wasn't easy to get the scribe speechless like that, regardless of how he was never bitten in his life. however, he told himself to never question whenever you'd do anything like that, so for one, he'd simply look at you confused and irritated, before asking you with a stern and stoic blush on his cheeks, "why?" it's not like he doesn't know, but for some reason did he find it quite amusing whenever you'd explain yourself over such little, hilarious things. but, when you decide to bite him again, without answering, he'd just ignore you and keep reading his book.

one might think kaveh will act slightly different than alhaitham, but he's equally confused yet the moment you bite him he'd let out a yell, animalistic, one overly dramatic scream of fake pain, channeling his vocal chords to their fullest extent. "what was that for?!" he whines, rubbing the pulsing red spot on his shoulder, "i just love you." you smile and now, again, he finds himself seeing you as the most adorable thing to ever exist. discernibly did you sense your precious chance of biting him many more times, only faintly, but strong enough to have your boyfriend whine and airily laugh before engaging in a playful fight with you.

if you think scaramouche won't bite you back, you're one naive and wide-eyed individual. this man also doesn't hold back, he'll give it his all to win what you have started. don't be upset when he starts biting you heavier than you do, he sees it as a serious showdown now. "don't go running off now." you're not admitting defeat yet, he fears, but you will, he's sure of it. by now, he has you caged in between his arms while a breezing pain in your belly began to expel, from all the sweet and heavy laughing and cheering. whether or not you will win was long since in the back of your head, what counted was seeing kuni engage in something silly for once, and having a great time at that.

heizou's quick and precise thinking skills were deeply needed in the predicament you both found yourself in. one minute you were lazily cuddling and kissing under the silken sheets before you decided to bite him out of nowhere, not hard, but impressionable. specifically against his neck where he was the most sensitive, "augh." he growls before looking at you, somewhat intrigued, "that came out of nowhere." he huffs, and in some strange way was he already beginning to plan his bloody revenge on you, pulling you on your back before dragging your hands over your head, so you're out of commission, so it's him who can decide where to give you a taste of your own medicine.

at the outset, tighnari thought a random bug bit him out of nowhere, he couldn't even fathom that it was you biting him out of the blue. "wait." he stops the work on his desk, tilting his head to the side where you were comfortably seated in, eagerly, awaiting a response, "was that you?" you can feel the sass in his full sentence as it spread through the seconds of silence before your answer goes right through, "nope." someone must give you an award for keeping your laugh in like that, especially when it was burning and bristling inwardly, "a bug." you shrug, "no, it's you." assuming you're playing mind tricks, he catches the smirk on your lips, "dangerous territory." he coos, the bite mark on his shoulder matches your teeth and thanks to closer inspection he confirms his suspicions. well, good luck to you.

it's not out of the ordinary for albedo to question something insignificant and random a little too deep. "how interesting." he rests his chin against his palm, "is this considered normal amongst humans?" a glittering, infectious smile pulls itself around your lips when he quizzes you on it, over and over, and you settle to do it again without responding, shortly gnawing down on his shoulder, "for me it is." while ruffling his hair until it was practically falling out of the small ponytail, "i see." albedo drags you closer, "should i return it?" by the look of things, this might become a daily occurrence now.

"oh?" kazuha brushes over his arm, holding eye contact, "you're strong." and feigns the heavy proudness in his voice. in actuality, he barely felt your teeth dig into his flesh, but he found the noises you made beyond cute, kind of high pitched within its hilarity. all and all, was this just one of the many things he fell in love with when it came to you and his face lights up in delight and interest when he notices the transparent joy on your lips. there's an almost imperceptible happiness across his entire skin, sparking at the outline of his jaw and littering in his eyes, "now." he slants forward, getting his point across, "my turn!"

quite frankly, did your boyfriend cyno get the impression that you were actually mad at him at first, alas why you decided to bite his cheek right after hugging him, that's the hypothesis of the day. turns out you weren't, shocker, but he rubs the squishy flesh before questioning it— with you, naturally responding right away, "it's because i love you." you assure him, "so you can see it as an act of love." and jokingly bite him again, this time slightly lighter and only a bit, emphasizing your point. after carefully thinking about it more upfront, cyno finds himself enjoying it and doesn't mind when you bite him as much as you see fit, as long as you're happy that is.

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daenysthedreamersblog · 2 months

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ONLY ANGEL II - CHERRY

Don't you call him baby

We're not talking lately

Don't you call him what you used to call me

part one

summary: coriolanus has at last returned to the capitol only to find you engaged to felix and he simply won't have that...and neither will you it seems

pairing: postacademy!coryo x capitol!reader

warning: MDNI!! swearing, dark themes, violence, infidelity, smut, hand-job, fingering, oral sex, orgasm denial, p in v sex, unprotected sex, spitting, mild breeding kink, v mild daddy kink, probs like a small exhibition kink, coryo probs has a cherry kink (lmao), murder, these two are sick in the head

notes: i saw a tiktok and it was a recipe video and the caption was 'baking bc murder is wrong' and i feel like reader took that personally. this took me way too long to finish and im still not in love with it but hope u find joy in it! (also let me add felix lived in the book but he did die in the movie 🤭)

"Do you hear that, Coriolanus? It's the sound of Snow falling."

His eyes quiver as water unintentionally wells staring down at his handkerchief, next to everything else that incriminated him.

He had won, he had won, who cares how he had done it. And you had been there, smiling up at him with such pride, not a single thought besides looking at Coriolanus. He had won for you.

And now he was here unable to tear his eyes away from his mistakes.

He hears your heels clipping against the hard floor behind him, but he can't look at you, he can't face you, not yet. You can't see him like this. He needs to find a way out of this first. He wants to plead with you to listen, beg you to stay by his side. You know he wants to too, he can feel it in the air, your shame towards him. You huff out a laugh, the sound ringing out like distant wedding bells in his head, then you're walking away from him without a single word your heels hitting the floor harshly with every step you take until he's left in silence.

Alone.

He watches the districts blur past him sitting wearily on the train dragging him away from his home, dragging him away from you. He runs a hand through his buzzed hair, the only solace in the whole ordeal, at least he didn't have his curls to be cursed by the memory of your hands in them. He knows he'll never see you again, even if he returns you'll want nothing to do with him. He glances at Sejanus across from him, the small smile on the Plinth boy's face, and his nails dig into his palm.

"President Coriolanus Snow." You had whispered up at him. Now he was just a useless ordinary peacekeeper sent to die out in the districts while you laid in Felix Ravinstill's bed.

He glares out the window. No he won't have that, not one bit. He'll find a way home to you, find a way to make you proud of him again no matter if he has to obliterate all of District 12 to do it. He'd burn it all down, burn the world down too while he's at it...for you.

One year later

He stares at you the whole entire party, watches you nurse your drink so delicately the color of it staining your lips marroon. You're wearing a similar shade satin dress, the cowl neckline draped across your breast, every curve hugged exquisitely, and your ass... Coriolanus was hard the minute his eyes found you, and it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

You never look his way once.

This party was for him, because of him. Because attending University, working under Gaul had thrown The Hunger Games to new heights, him to new heights. Everyone was celebrating another successful game, celebrating his hard work.

You wouldn't look at him.

His work wasn't done of course, he still needed to ascend further to rightfully take the Presidency. He could do it, especially with this newly found wealth and respect. He was back where he belonged; on top.

And you wouldn't look at him.

He knew it had everything to do with that giant rock on your left hand, your fiancé's nasty arm around your waist. He sneered into his own drink, Mrs. Ravinstill. It sounded horrid.

You never sought him out once he had returned to the Capitol after his...punishment. Never came to find him once your fiancé came home from University informing you Coriolanus Snow had at last returned. He knew he'd never see you there; you never intended on going, content on marrying the President. He figured as much, knew it was too far fetched to imagine opening his front door to find you there begging him to take you back. You would never beg.

He needed to speak to you, demand why you chose Felix over him, why you wouldn't come see him in his newly remodeled pent house. He needed to fuck you, be inside you, taste your sweet spit again. Nothing else had gotten him through those horrible months in 12, but the thought of getting back home to you.

And you wouldn't fucking look at him.

He knew you were deliberately ignoring him, another game you liked to play the only thing missing was that hard candy dripping from your lips. A cat playing with her food, but he was different now, a snake rather than a mouse and he had not lied and schemed and clawed his way back for you to pick Felix Ravinstill over him. He watched you peel off heading towards the bathroom, and he took his chance stalking after you. You were fixing your lipgloss when he barged in. You didn't even flinch, only glanced at him through the mirror.

Your smirked as you fixed the corner of your mouth. "Hi Coryo," His cock twitched at the old nickname.

"Marry me." He cut to the chase and you raised an eyebrow at him. He had the money now, the respect, soon the presidency, everything you had wanted him to get, he had gotten. Sure it had taken an unconventional route, but the destination would be all the same. He dug into his pocket, pulled out the red velvet box, and opened it revealing a huge diamond ring, bigger than Felix's. It was the first thing he bought when the Plinth's wealth soon became his. You eyed it and then turned back to fixing your makeup.

"No." You scoffed.

He snapped the box close and tucked it away. "Marry me." You shake your head at him smirking to yourself as you put your lip gloss away. He walks up behind you keeping some distance between the two of you, he needs to touch you but he pauses his fingers itching forward to grab onto your skin. "You never came to see me." He remembers waiting at the train station, to see you one last time. He never got to explain what had happened, how he did it all for you. He even knew if it came down to it he would have disgraced himself by begging you to wait for him, he knew if he did you would only stray from him more. But you never showed up, and soon he was being carted off to District 12.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Your hand tapped against the sink ceramic clinking with the sound of your ring, he should have known better than to expect an answer, "He proposed after graduation, at my party, you were supposed to attend." You met his gaze in the mirror as he towered behind you, the explanation plainly on your face; you had been ashamed of him. "I thought you were better than that." You didn't care that he cheated, you only cared that he got caught.

He takes a step forward as you slowly turn to face him your foot plants between the two of his, knee caressing his thigh fraying his nerves under warm skin. "I am." He can't help it, his knuckle strokes your cheek. "Thought you were my angel...forgive me."

You push up lightly breathing up at him; it was your version of forgiveness. "Do you like my lipgloss?" You ask the sweet fruity scent of it swirling up towards him, he knows what it would taste like.

"Cherry."

"I wore it for you." You add as you toy with his shirt moving even closer until he feels your breath on his mouth.

His bottom lip brushes against yours, breast pressing into his chest, his clothes feel too tight, "Are you gunna let me taste it?" You're too close, his body too hot, his hard cock digging into your flesh as you slip a hand between bodies to run a palm along it; absolution for his sins.

"Should I?" You ask into his open mouth and he finds his hand on your collarbone. He doesn't know why you do this to him, place yourself on the small string just out of reach for him, and it takes everything in him to not choke the air out of you for doing it, for teasing him constantly after going so long with your silence. He should leave you to rot, but he can't. He simply...can't. Your cherry venom had snuck into him, ran through his blood, thickened his arteries, and your fangs were holding on too tight.

"Everything I did was for you."

You raise an eyebrow, "You still got found out." You jutted your bottom lip out your whisper hot against his teeth, he could smell the cherry wine on your breath "Left me all alone."

He grits his teeth, wants to explain he had no control over any of it, but you didn't care. "I'm back now." His hands grab onto your waist enjoying the feel of your body under his palms once more his lips grazing against yours, "I killed anyone who was ever going to keep me from you."

"Not everyone."

Felix.

"I'll kill him too."

You snarled against his mouth, "Good."

He smashed your mouths together, and you opened right up for him. You tasted of cherry, as sweet as before as he sucked the wine from your lips, licking it off your tongue. He thought of nothing but you his whole time out in that pest filled district, he fell asleep dreaming of your mouth, your breasts, your sweet cunt waiting drenched for him back home. You bit down on his bottom lip and tugged backwards before glancing up at him.

Your hands were so far down his pants, running down the length of him, gathering precum and smearing it across to slide a soft hand around the shaft. He groans into your mouth as you grip harder, move faster. "Did you miss me Coryo?" You coo against his face. "Missed my hand, my pussy, wrapped around you so tight." You squeeze, nails grazing as you swirled around his cock. "Did you think of me often? Think of me while you had to cum down a dirty drain?"

He squeezes his eyes tight, "Yes." He pants, and he hates that it was always true. He doesn't like this, doesn't like how you're pulling this power play over him, but your fucking hand was pumping him for all his worth, and he can't find himself to care.

"I'm still your little slut Coryo." Your fingers graze his balls, tongue licking along his teeth. "Are you still mine?"

"Yes." He grunts out not able to stop the cum shooting hard into your hand all on the inside of his pants.

You grin up at him, "Someones quick off the mark."

He wants to slap you, slap that smile off your lips but instead he watches you pull your hand out to lick the cum off of it. He shoves you backwards, shoving your legs apart running a hand up your thigh meeting your bare wet pussy. His eyes flickered around your face, you knew tonight would have been his last straw, you knew he couldn't stay away any longer. He runs a knuckle through your wet folds power surging through him as he pushes two fingers inside of you.

He bites back the groan as his hand sinks into you relishing in the noise as he curls it up inside of you, savoring the moan clawing up your throat. You attach your lips to his as he begins to thrust in and out you pressing up against that soft spot that has you mewling down his throat. He presses a palm to your clit, "Coryo." You whimper out and he's moving his hand faster, fucking you with it vigorously feeling your hips tilt to meet his thrust.

Your walls spasm around his hand. He pulls off your mouth sucking down your neck, teeth digging into skin. "That's it, cum for me angel." His thumb shifts rubbing into your clit pleasure tightening your legs against his own as they try to part further, pushing his fingers deeper. He shoves down the front of your dress exposing your breast for him to knead into his palm, dipping down wrapping his mouth along your nipple rolling it around his tongue, nipping at it gently as your hands run through his hair. "Did you miss me too?"

"No."

He looks at you, takes in your smug expression and all he wants to do is slam your head back so hard the mirror cracks. "You're a fucking liar." He growls out at you, hand covering your face as he thrust hard and deep. "You touched yourself every night thinking of me." He pounds his hand into you harder your back hitting against the mirror, you're getting wetter by it, turned on by his violence the wanton moans spilling past your lips, "Thought about me fucking you since you learned I came back for you."

You let out a breathy laugh, "Fine...I missed you a little." You were never one to show your hand, so he takes what you give him.

He grabs your face between his fingers squeezing, "Don't ever fucking lie to me again."

"I promise." You moaned.

He's holding under you with one hand slamming into you the sick sound of it echoing around the bathroom, "Scream my name when you cum." He leans down close to your ear. "I want you fiancé to hear what a fucking whore you are for me."

And gods you do. You scream his glorious name out into the open air clamping down around him, cumming against his hand letting him draw slow circles around your clit until you whine for him to stop. He pulls his hand out of you and quickly sucks his fingers, swirling around his digits to drink up your nectar sweet pleasure licking up your sweat along your neck.

"Did he touch you?" He nips at your chin.

You chuckled, "I told you before I'm waiting for marriage."

"Such an angel." He kisses your open mouth.

"Your angel."

Coriolanus has his arms wrapped around your body supporting you against the sink. "You didn't come see me." He listens to your heart hammering in your chest as you catch your breath.

You run your hand through his shorter hair. "I miss your curls Coryo."

"Answer me." He finally demands staring down at you.

You sighed, "Felix wouldn't let me." You pouted trying to twist your fingers around his shorter hair but it was harder so you gave up, "So I kept my distance, watching you climb like the man I knew you always were, waiting for you." Your hands snaked around his neck smiling up at him eyes darkening, "Waiting for you to finally come take whats yours."

He searched your eyes, "Want me to steal you away in the night from that idiot of a fiancee?"

"It isn't stealing if it always belonged to you."

His eyes flicker around your face, the reassuring ownership written there. He kisses your lips one more time before stepping back watching as you straighten out your dress once again having to fix your makeup and hair. "Marry me." He asks standing behind you in the mirror.

"No." You turn your body towards him. "I can't." You take a step forward hands resting on his stomach, "What are we going to do about that?"

He wraps his hand around yours, "Whatever it takes."

You don't even hide it as you exit together, not even as you head back into the party side by side. You know as well as him that you looked better next to Coriolanus, you belonged next to him. Your arm is tucked into Coriolanus's as the pair of you approach your soon-to-be husband who's eyes flare in alarm at the sight."Where'd you go?" He asks already taking in the mark on your neck, the flushed cheeks. He wants to grab you, lock you away, but he wouldn't dare move as you had attached yourself with Coriolanus.

Coriolanus looks down your body wondering if Felix can smell his cum sticky against your fingers as you speak. "I ran into Coriolanus." You motion to him as his eyes find Felix's angry ones.

"Coriolanus." He grits out. He knew, the poor bastard knew and he wouldn't say a thing, not in public anyways.

He smirks, "Felix."

You place your ringed hand on his chest, "Coriolanus was just telling me how wonderful it has been working with Dr. Gaul." You lied fingers splaying over his muscled chest white clumps clinging to your skin.

And only because Coriolanus enjoys pissing off Felix Ravinstill he places his hand over yours stroking a finger down your wrist. "You should stop by some day, if your free." He knows you always are, he knows Felix isn't. "I haven't seen you outside classes Felix, it will be nice for all of us to catch up."

Felix opened his mouth the decline sitting there, the bottled up cuckholding rage oozing off of him, but you smiled, dripping with fake sweetness. "Oh that would be lovely, nice distraction from wedding planning." He knew you weren't doing any of that. "How sweet of you Coriolanus." You looked up at you fiancée with those big eyes anyone would fall for.

Felix swallowed, biting out the submission. "How sweet indeed."

What a weak, spineless fool.

There's a knock on his door.

He watches it for a moment before standing up to unlock it.

"Hi Coryo," You lean against his doorframe smiling up at him. He always imagined you coming here, showing up, begging him, but that wasn't your style. "Gunna let me in?" He moves to the side to allow you to walk inside his home. "This is truly gorgeous." You praised him walking through his newly refurbished home. You had never seen if before, but he was glad for it, the after was more...fitting to the lifestyle Coriolanus wanted to give you.

He wanted to ask what you were doing here, but he knew what you wanted, could smell your arousal like a feral animal. "Does Felix know you're here?" He asked locking the door behind him.

You smirk still taking in the room before turning to look at him. "I hope he does."

Would you tell him? Why you kept lying to the poor man, why you didn't just leave him? Were you waiting for Coriolanus to make the first move in this game you had set up? He moves until he's standing in front of you, glancing down at you, "I got you something."

You gazed up at him under batting eyelashes, "How kind of you."

Coriolanus went into his old room picking up the present and walking back out to you. He holds out the pretty box for you watching as your fingers traced the box along it. "Figured since you can't get anymore from your Daddy, it would only seem fitting for me to fund my favorite habit of yours."

You pull the bow loose letting it fall around your feet before pushing the lid up to reveal the glass jar inside full of cherry suckers. "Oh Coryo," The smile flickered onto your lips as you stuck your hand inside to pull one loose. He watched you unwrap it, watched you push it into your mouth. "Mhm," You moaned body heat radiating off you as you stepped closer your hand palming his cock through his pants. "Taste almost as good as you."

"Dirty girl." He gritted out as you shoved your hand below his waistband soft fingers wrapping around him. He can't look away from your face as your tongue rolls along the red ball, as you stroke his hard length. "Get on your knees."

You pop off the sucker. "Is this my second gift?"

"Do you deserve a second gift?" He ask hand stroking down your cheek.

"I do Coryo, I've been such a good girl while you were gone." You breath against his lips.

He tugs the sucker loose and shoves it into his own mouth missing the taste of it mixed with your sweet saliva. He sets the box back down as you climb down onto the floor in front of him pulling him out of his pants. You lick the tip, swirling your tongue around him before pushing him in further until he hits the back of your throat, and even then you try to keep forcing him deeper.

His hand is in your hair as he lets your hand pump the rest of him that wont fit inside your hot mouth, tongue flat against the base as he ruts against you. You gaze up at him, tears welling involuntarily as he hits the back of your throat over and over again, and you smile every-time. "Missed sucking my cock that much angel?" You nod, a moan vibrating down his dick. His other hand comes around your face feeling the spilling over spit run down your chin as you sloppily bob your mouth up and down him. He remembers having to finish into a his hand all that time away imagining this, you greedily sucking his cock. He tries to force your head to move slower, to enjoy the feel of your warm mouth wrapped around him, but he struggles as your grip tightened around him, your other hand coming up to cup his balls.

He hisses, fucking your mouth faster, letting you take what he was giving you. He wants himself stuck between your teeth as much as the sweet sugar you consumed. You want it too as you suck in your cheeks sucking him harder. "You want my cum baby girl?"

You come off him for a second mouth wide, tongue outstretched to graze the underside of him, "Always Coryo." It goes straight to his head...and his cock.

His thighs tighten and he is shoving himself back into your mouth, holding you tight against him to spill down your throat as cherry filled saliva slips down his own. "Swallow all of it." He doesn't need to tell you twice as you keep sucking and licking up his twitching cock keeping every last drop inside your mouth to slip down your throat. And even when you come off him you lick the tip clean smirking up at him.

"Even better than I remember." You tell him as he helps you to your feet. His hands come around your face as he kisses you savoring the cum and cherry sugar in your mouth. He licks it off the roof of your mouth, sucks the juice off your tongue before he pulls away letting you press a soft lasting kiss to his lips.

"What are you waiting for?" He whispers fingers tracing your puffy lips. He wants to spill his guts, describe how you roiled inside of them. You only smile up at him like you knew he would carve it all out for you, he would, and it makes him want to strangle you. "Leave him."

You reach up pulling your sucker free from his lips and pushing it back through your own. "I wish it was that easy." Your sigh was answer enough, there was no way to move forward with Felix's ring around your finger.

His hand lands at the base of your neck anger filling him. "I should leave you." He hisses out tired of watching you be with another man when you belonged with him, belonged to him.

"You wanna leave me?" His fingers dig into your jaw as a smug smile plastered onto your lips he wants to slap it off your face, he wants to fuck you unforgivably to regain his power you thought you had stolen when he was sent away, "I fucking dare you."

You know he never could, and he hates you for it, "You want me to murder all of Panem to prove myself to you?"

"Would you?"

Candy scented breaths ease out of you, no fear on your soft features, and he knows his answer immediately. Yes. He would, he'd do a lot worst to keep you looking at him.

"No... Not all." Just one more, is what you don't say. He drops his hand watching as you go to the door. You put one hand on the knob as you threw a wicked grin over your shoulder cherry sucker pushed into your cheek, "Bye Coryo."

It's no surprise after that night you began showing up to 'visit' Felix during his studies at The University. He sees you walking up the set of small stairs, a classy black tweed minidress hugging your body, the white little ribbon bouncing in your hair, candy between your teeth as you walked towards the hall littered with men.

He wished he could grab you, kiss you, fuck you in front of everyone so they know who you belonged to, who got to go home to you every night, who got to hear your pretty little moans. He wanted them to be envious of him, not that idiot Felix. It wasn't fair, and frankly it wasn't right.

You state you're there for Felix, but you never go in the direction his classes are, and you certainly never come when he's free of them. Your eyes fixate on Coriolanus, "Hi Coryo." Your voice slides down his spine like sugared ice as you stop in front of him.

"Can't stay away hmm?" He smirks down at you.

"From you?" You raise an eyebrow toying with the stick of your sucker the pout in your bottom lip. "Never. It was so hard this last year..."

His hand comes around toying with the ribbon in your hair. He tugs it lightly watching your head lean back at the movement. "Always such a slut." Because only you would be so brash about your desire for him, you truly only come here so he can fuck you in the bathroom. The ribbon slides out and into his palm, the collection of them all still stuffed away in his old peacekeeper box. He remembers gripping them between his knuckles when he had to fuck his fist in that disgusting barrack. Your tongue darts out for him, swirling around the tip of your candy, licking up the length of it. "Want my cock in your cunt that badly huh?"

"Come over for dinner," You purr up at him as a hand strokes down his shirt. "Felix works late tonight with his uncle."

He shakes his head at you as you roll the ball across your bottom lip, "Filthy fucking girl, want me to come fuck you while your fiancée is away."

You drag your tongue up the center, "You can fuck me while he's home too."

"You would let me." He watches you nod, "Let me fuck you right here against this wall too?" You gaze up at him not needing to answer, he knows you'd let him. He leans down to whisper in your ear, "Such a fucking whore, well then go on, pull your dress up. I know you're not wearing anything under it." He watches as your eyes darken, fingers actually going to the hem of your dress, and he fights the urge to shove his hand so far between your legs.

Felix calls your name and he finds his hand around your wrist holding you to his side, "Yes darling?"

You watch your fiancée walk towards the two of you worry laced on his face while Coriolanus mouth presses to the shell of your ear, "Stop calling him darling."

He pulls the sucker from your mouth to shove into his own as you smirk sidelong at him, Felix stopping in front of you. "You shouldn't have come." Felix says hand going to your waist, trying to pull you away, peering around the filled hallway, but you stay planted next to Coriolanus. Coriolanus fights the urge to burn his hands where they touch you.

Your eyes glance up to Coriolanus for a fleeting second. "I wanted to see you." He knows your words aren't meant for your fiancée

"It's a busy time. I have to get going." He eyes you, eyes Coriolanus with your sucker in his mouth. "I'll see you at home later."

Home. Coriolanus hates that, that wasn't your home, simply a prison preventing you from living with him. "Okay." You say, but make no effort to move. In fact you lean into Coriolanus's hand as it lands on the small of your back.

"Go home." Felix tries to sound demanding summoning all his strength to keep his eyes on you instead of Coriolanus.

Your smile is sinful, finding delight in whatever dominance Felix had forced himself into. "We were just catching up, you understand don't you." You don't even mention the invitation you had offered, the door you would leave open for him to come inside.

Felix's hand grips your arm yanking you towards him. "We talked about this." Felix tried to say it quietly as if Coriolanus wouldn't hear him, grinding his foot into the floor like a stubborn child. There was no hiding your wandering eye, no hiding how Coriolanus was always on the receiving end of it. Felix was now figuring out how to grow some balls to say something about it, but you didn't care. You never would.

You step forward placing the hand he held on his chest and he knows you wish you could plunge you painted claws through his sternum to rip out his heart. You pat his chest instead looking over your shoulder at Coriolanus, "Bye Coryo." You leave them standing there hips swaying as you walk away.

"Stealing the Plinth fortune wasn't enough for you?" Felix grits out eyes on your ribbon in Coriolanus's hand, your candy between his teeth.

Coriolanus's fingers toy with it watching you leave as he repeated what you told him, "It isn't stealing if it always belonged to you."

He arrived early. He knows the door is unlocked but he is still a gentleman so he knocks on the door to your and Felix's future forever home. He knew you had moved in together after the engagement, had gathered as much when he went to your old home and found it empty. You open the door wide and the air knocks out of his chest. He'll never get over you, he knew that then carted away on that train to 12, he knows that now with the blood staining his hands.

He knows you'd lick it off.

"Hi Coryo." You smile allowing him into your home closing the door behind the two of you. You lock it; he cherished the sound.

He held out the bouquet of white roses he brought, "For you."

You lean forward inhaling as you gaze up at him under dark eyelashes. He often heard Felix bragging about working with his uncle, how beneficial it was, how the position simply suits him. Well Felix could brag all he wanted, it would never do him any good.

Coriolanus looks around taking in your decorated home, the pictures of you and Felix lining the walls. They were hideous, "Where did you mother ever go off to?"

"She was so distraught after Daddy died." You frown, the perfect sadness sketched on your face, as you took the flowers setting them in a pretty vase at the center of the table. "She was overcome with grief."

Your father had died suddenly....unexpectedly.

What a tragic accident.

He remembers your fake tears, he especially remembered comforting you at the small lunch-in your mother had after the funeral, comforting you by fucking you in your parent's bed while guest downstairs mourned your father.

He was hard just thinking about it, thinking about licking those sweet crocodile tears away as he plunged himself into your hot cunt. He wanted to do it again, take you in you martial bed simply to prove a point, to prove the same point he had back then. That you belonged to him.

You sighed turning to look at him leaning back against your large dining table. "I reached out to Dr. Gaul and she was more than happy to help me." He took slow steps towards you your eyes following him until he towered over you. "She found a nice facility to...take care of her."

His hand came up snaking around your neck, thumb stroking your jaw. "You're a piece of work you know that?"

"You play your games," The well hidden wickedness flashes behind your eyes, the woven in manipulation surrounding all you touched. "I play mine."

You let his other hand grab onto your waist. "There are worse games to play."

He leans down to kiss you, your mouth so soft and warm against his, he feels you open, tongue sliding along his. He pulls your body against his, breast pushed onto his chest as his hands hold you tight. He's sick of letting you go. "Do you still want a man angel?"

"I want you," You breath into his open mouth and the hand on your hip slips between your legs.

He groans out at the feel of you, grinding his cock against your body fingers running up your drenched pussy. He wants it all, wants that sweet addiction only you can give him, and it still would never be enough to satiate him. He laid you back, spreading you open like his own personal feast and digs into your cunt.

Your moan reverberates through him as his tongue licks up your center passing over your clit in teasing strokes, nails digging into his scalp. He wants Felix to walk in, to see how Coriolanus could make his put together fiancée come so undone in his own home. And how he'll never get the chance to even try. But he wants to be inside you, so he hopes your stupid soon-to-be husband would stay away a little while longer. You sigh his name, the sound like a psalm, and he thinks he'd still fuck you even if Felix walked in right now.

Coriolanus glides his tongue along your clit two fingers pushing into you as your back arches for him. Then he moves faster, curling his fingers against that soft spot. He knows your close already, knew your body like the back of his hand, he can tell by the tightness in your legs, the pants of air you force out, so he keeps fucking you with his hand, keeps his tongue pressed against your throbbing clit.

He pulls away before you cum.

"Coryo." You whine eyes wild and offended.

Coriolanus simply smirks, "That's for not coming to see me."

His fingers begin moving again, his mouth wrapping around your clit and you relax taking it in, feeling the pleasure he was giving you. Your fingers curl, legs trying to stay spread but they're shaking too much as he brings you closer and closer again. You're right there, he can feel your walls trying to clamp down around him, feel you pushing down against his face to keep him there.

He pulls away again.

"Coriolanus!" You cry out.

He laughs watching you glare down at him. "And that's for being a fucking brat all the time."

You can't retort, can't argue as he spits down on your already soaked cunt, dipping down into you again your eyes squeezing shut the deep groan coming from your throat. He would make you suffer more, but the taste of you always sends him into a frenzy and he can't help but become drunk off your pleasure. His tongue moves side to side in quick motions as his fingers thrust in and out, curled up along your g-spot. It's too much already, too intense from failed orgasms. Every breath is a mewling whimper as you thrust your hips back downward into his face to chase your climax.

He'll play nice with you, as long as you remember who was in power.

"Who's your Daddy now angel?" He smirks against you before wrapping his mouth around your clit.

You scream his name as you come hard against his face, rivers of pleasure dripping down his chin, onto the table and floor. He keeps moving his tongue slowly against you drinking in everything not caring that it's overstimulating as you keep spasming around him, not caring as teeth graze against your clit. His tongue dips inside of you gently thrusting in and out and you're clawing at him for more, and he would, he would fuck you with his tongue, make you cum over and over again just like this, but you tug on his hair.

"Coryo," He loves the break in your voice as you whine for pleasure, how sweet it sounds coming from your devilish tongue. "Fuck me."

Anything for you.

He pulls away and stands up flipping you over, unbuckling his pants. He strokes a hand down your pretty hair, running over the angel cake softness of your bare skin, his hand lands on your hip. He's inside you before you can breath walls enveloping his cock, its so wet he slides in so fucking deep. His hand twist in your hair yanking it back to arch your back as he quickly starts fucking you viciously. You claw at the table moaning into the open air. "You like that hmm?" He drives himself in hard wrapping his hand around your body, slithering it up to your neck. "Like when I fuck you like the whore you are?" You did and you were, just for him. Only ever for him. He squeezes your throat a little enjoy the little gasp you give him before he limits your air supply. He's high off it, high off you, of the power you allow him to take.

You reach a hand back holding onto him as he fucks you brutally, abusing your cervix with every hard hit of his cock, your a mess because of it. He knows you're close again as he lets go listening to you gulp down more air throwing you over your peak and he adores the feeling of you clamping down around him as you do, crying out for him over and over again. He doesn't take long to finally spill himself into you with a hard tug on your hair to push himself deeper, to make sure every drop stays inside. "I hope I get you pregnant." He leans down to kiss the side of your neck.

You lean into his touch as his cock twitches one last time. Neither of you move as he drags his lips over your shoulder gently sinking his teeth in to taste your sweat. He pulls out and tucks himself away allowing you the space to turn around and face him. You just smile and shake your head playfully at him as if you didn't want the same thing.

"Here," Coriolanus digs into his pocket pulling out a small vial. You eye the cloudy liquid knowing what it was; poison. "Just a few drops into his food or water." Your smile drips in sweetness as you take it. "Not tonight, it's too suspicious." He runs a finger through your hair. "Whenever you want to come home to me."

You kiss him as you pocket the vial.

The door opens a few seconds later. "Coriolanus." Felix pauses eyes flitting between the two of you taking in the damning sight.

"Oh Felix look at the beautiful flowers Coryo has brought us." You motion to the fresh vase you had set up at the center of the table.

"What are you doing here?" Felix swallows ignoring you.

You waved him away, "Oh I figured you would be happy to be having dinner with an old friend."

"How long have you been here?" Alone. But he won't ask that.

"A while." He smirks back.

Felix, wising up, finally looks down your body at the fresh trail of cum sliding down your thigh. His eyes hold fear to a situation he has no idea how to control. "I made pie." You disappear into the kitchen leaving the two of them alone to stare at one another. Coriolanus doesn't say anything, simply walks around the table to sit at the head of it, where he belonged. Felix sits across from him when you return as you began to set the food put, finally placing a sweet scented desert near the center. "Cherry...your favorite." Coriolanus finds his palm splayed against your waist, you glance at him as you straightened it, "Darling."

You move taking the seat to the right of Coriolanus foot rubbing up against his. "My favorite is apple." Felix corrects you, hand wrapped around a butter knife.

"Oops." Your smile is saccharine as you blink innocently.

After a tense dinner in which you deferred every veiled accusation shot your way, he knew Felix was far too aware to let it keep happening under his nose. It was only fair he allow the two of you to come see where Dr. Gaul and him worked, to prove his companionship to an old friend, to make up for his impropriety with said friend's future wife.

He never said the two of you had to come at the same time.

He knows the minute you walk through the lab doors, your hair half lightly pulled back with a pretty ribbon, wearing one of your tight skirts and white mock turtle neck, cherry candy in your mouth he would have no more of this arrangement.

No more, no more fiancée, no more hiding his claim on you. No more. He doesn't care if he has to kill all of Panem to keep you, he'll do it gladly. He'd force your hand to use the poison tonight.

You kiss his cheek the scent of you, the sugary taste, pulsed around him, heightening his senses, hardening his cock. You tuck your hand in his arm letting him walk with you. You took everything in like this was a sick version of an art gallery. He showed you around knowing you were only vaguely interested in the various creations held inside their tanks, talked about future plans for future games. He followed next to you, watching you peer into the cages of those muttations, tapping on the glass to watch them squirm. You belonged next to him, you knew that now more than ever. You looked so much better with him than you ever did with that pathetic excuse of a fiancée.

You pointed to the cages filled with black birds.

"Jabberjays." He followed you as you walked towards them. "They can memorize and repeat conversations."

You poked your finger through the bar, awe in your eyes. "This was how you did it." He stared at you as you glanced back at him realizing you knew he had incriminated Sejanus, how he had sent the poor boy to the hanging tree to get back here. In the place he once felt guilt sat validation, the lust in your eyes proving what he had done was right.

"How did you..." He should have suspected you knew, you were too close to the top to not know, too woven into the group of elites, but it still surprised him.

You only smiled as you watched one flare its wings out in alarm as your finger inched closer to it. "I went to Dr. Gaul a month after you left." Your lip pulled back in disgust, "Disgraced myself by begging her to let you return."

Heat ran through him, pounded in his blood as you glanced over at him, "Show me." He needed to see it, hear you say the words you said then.

You pulled your hand away from the birds turning to face him. You took his hands, then slowly you lowered yourself to the floor onto your knees raising your palms in supplication. "Please," You bowed your head. "Please let him come home to me." You never begged for anything, but you had begged for him. He keeps his eyes on you as you slowly looked up at him, his hand comes under your chin. It must have worked. He was set to be sent to District 2, but things had changed and he had come back. You climbed to your feet hands still holding his, "She said she always planned on letting you return, but you need to learn a lesson first." He knew you agreed with her, "And then one day she called me in, played the recording for me, said you were on your way back." Your body pressed into his, his hard cock aching at the friction, your whisper a caress onto his lips. "I came so hard that night imagining it, came so hard knowing my Coryo was clawing his way back to me."

He wants to ask why you didn't come running into his arms when he stepped off the platform, but it made sense why you didn't. You had wanted to see what he would do next, if he would submit to his woes, grovel in his defeat, or would he climb, would he take what was so rightfully his.

"And what would you have done if she hadn't let me return?" He asked needing to know, needing to know you burned for him the same.

Your eyes honed in on his face, "Anything."

"My sweet villain." He strokes a thumb down your cheek. "My darling angel."

"All for you."

He kisses you softly, delicately letting his mouth slide across yours tasting the sweetness you offered like a drug. Your tongue slips through, spit exchanged in unison, swallowing each other, fingers curling around his neck as you pulled him to you.

"Stop." Felix voice cuts across the room. "Enough." You take too long to peel your mouth away from Coriolanus, too long to slyly look at your fiancé. "You're leaving with me. Now."

"She doesn't want to go anywhere with you." Coriolanus sneered.

"Look," Felix sighed, "I have let this go on for far longer than it should have, I knew you didn't want to marry me and you wanted to rebel against that, I figured you'd grow out of this phase once we left the Academy." Your eye twitched, "Enough now, you're going to leave with me, and you'll end this affair before you embarrass us both."

You don't move.

Felix takes a single step forward out of frustration. "Do you even know what I've been protecting you against? He's a murderer, did you know that? He killed a tribute in the games, killed Sejanus too." Well at least he didn't know about Highbottom, or your father. "He'll kill you too, if it came down to it, if you got in his way."

"Right now Felix," Coriolanus glares. "You're the only one in my way."

Something like fear flares for a second as he takes another step forward. "He's using you! I read all his letters he tried to write you asking you to make someone bring him back here." He wants to feel upset you never received his soft hearted words, but maybe it was for the best you never saw that side of him. He glances at your face, a mask of cool indifference, but your eyes quivered for a single moment in wake of the lost news you would never have, and resentment fills your features. You finally began moving forward towards Felix, his demeanor began to relax as you listened but your steps fell silently violent. "I figured if he was sent to 12 he would be far enough away from you, we could finally be happy."

You stilled, "You."

"I had to!" He exclaimed, "He would have never stopped coming after you! I had to tell Highbottom he cheated, had to get him away from you." Everything. It was all Felix's fault, all of it was his fault. Coriolanus's eyes flared wide with unadulterated rage, he wanted to murder Felix with his bare hands, he wanted to tie him down and force him to watch as Coriolanus took you over and over again while he could do nothing but finish in his own pants because that was the type of scum Felix was. but he clenched his jaw, no he didn't want Felix to see you, he didn't want Felix to hear only what Coriolanus could hear, that was a better punishment, to never know what it was like to truly have you, and later tonight he would die with you standing over him.

"You disgust me."

"I was trying to protect you." Felix urged again as his hands came around you. "H-He's a monster."

"I made sure of it." Your smile was laced with venom as your hands wrapped around his forearms. "You always lacked a spine Felix Ravinstill, I knew that the minute your sweaty adolescent hand grabbed mine you were nothing but a weak little boy who had everything handed to him." You sighed, disappointed. "And I wanted a man."

His eyes flickered around your face, behind him water lapped from the wake the eels made in the small circular pool. "He's a liar and a cheat. He will never amount to anything more than that."

"Neither will you." You glanced over at Coriolanus. "Yes." You finally said a weight seeming to move off his chest, "I will marry you."

Felix scoffed hiding the shake of his breath, "You can't be serious. We're already engaged you would be a fool to call this off now. You're a woman with no education, no family, you'll be ruined."

"I am not a woman, I am a god." You took one step back fingers still grazing his forearms and from afar it would have looked affectionate, "I was born to marry the President of Panem, and you know what they say..." You stood in front of him and something in Felix's eyes shifted with realization.

"Snow lands on top."

You pushed watching as his body fell backwards towards the open pool. He was too far away to fall fully in so his back hit cement roughly, something cracking in his spine as one wrapped around his shoulder yanking him the rest of the way in his screams echoing around the room. You stood there watching as they swallowed his body deeper and deeper until he was nothing, then you tugged that ugly ring off your finger tossing it in after him.

He moved around the pool, avoiding the puddles of water made when his body had hit the water, until he's standing in front of you. He admires you for one second, one second to take in the calm look on your face in the wake of murder, the glow that seemed to settle around you as eels swam around your dead fiancée. Then he's moving, connecting your mouth, tongues melding with each other as he sealed his lips around yours finding heaven in your honeyed spit. He was crushing your against him as you twisted your hands into his shirt, pulling it out of his pants as he pushed the hem of your skirt up, needy, insatiable.

"You're a monster." He tells you the very thing he knew himself to be, kissing down your neck.

"And you love me for it." He does, but he'd never let you know that, never give you that kind of power over him.

The two of you are on the ground as he cups your ass, rolling your hip against his hard cock fighting with his pants. He can feel your arousal seeping down to his skin as you unbutton his pants, freeing him from restraint. You stroke him once, twice, three times before you lift up and sink down on-top of him. You slide down excruciatingly slow, letting him stretch and fill every inch of you. He watches your head fall back, your throat bob as the moan breaks loose, until your hips are flush against his.

He's reaching a hand out to go under your shirt and cup your breast as you take a shaky breath. Then you are moving, rolling your hips along him hand gripping at his chest.

"Look at you." He can't help it falling from his lips as he watches you ride him, watches you slide up and down his cock, kneading the flesh of your breast. "My angel."

You were an angel, God's favorite angel.

You would go by a different name now too.

"Mrs. Snow."

You moaned louder as his other hand found your clit between bodies rubbing circles into it as you fucked him faster chasing your own high. He digs his hand into your bra rolling your nipple between his fingers, thrusting his hips up to meet your own hitting the deepest parts of you. Your foot plants on the ground and you tilt forward, nails digging into his shoulders. He knows your close as your sweet breath pants into his face, as your lean down and swallow his mouth with your own whining down his throat.

"Cum for me." He nips at your bottom lip. "Come on, be a good girl and cum on my cock."

He feels you clamp down around him, crying out his name as your orgasm washes over you still moving up and down his hard length in a lazy motion riding yourself out on him. He grips your hips and flips you over pushing your leg up to his shoulder spreading your other knee out to open you up.

He pounds into your wet cunt the lewd slapping sound overtaking the small wake of waves in the pool beside you. You grip his arms as he forces your body against his, thrusting roughly into you as you fall apart within his hands. You claw down his chest, completely lost in the pleasure he was giving you, and his hand finds your throat and you love how harsh he could be with you. You had both changed in your time apart, or maybe there was no point in hiding the darkness after everything you'd done for each other.

"No more games." He hisses out with each brutal snap of his hips. "You're mine now." He hooks his fingers in your bottom jaw opening it wide, and then he spits down your throat. "Fucking say it." He lets his fingers slide off as you leave your lips parted for him to spit into your mouth again moaning for it, for him.

"Yours." You nod fervently lapping up his saliva, arching your back, "I'm yours Coryo." A second orgasm hits you, squeezing around him too tightly. He slams into you one last time before cumming deep, fucking all of it into you letting your legs fall numbly around him. "It was all for you anyways." You whisper once he stills letting him brush stray hair away from your glistening flushed face. "The games...I only played them for you."

He leans down, "Well I guess that makes you a victor too." He kisses you gently feeling your arms wrap around his neck. After a few minutes, he pulls out of you tucking himself back in his pants and helping you to your feet.

You glance down at the calming waters no ounce of remorse there for not taking the quieter route of poison. He thinks a violent end was more fitting too, for all that Felix had put the two of you through. You wave your hand around, "You need to delete the footage." You're moving bending down towards one of the puddles. "Before anyone sees, we'll say he tripped or whatever." You flash a wicked grin, "Another accident darling."

You stick your hand into one of the puddles and splash it onto your face. You stand up and start screaming. "Help! Please!" You wail running towards the door. "Please he fell in! He's dying!" He was dead the second he fell in but you don't let on to that. You shoot him a look, "Go."

He's stands there in awe of you, but what else is new.

Then he's moving heading to the computer to edit the footage of you murdering your fiancée to be with Coriolanus Snow.

You move in a week later after all the funerals and arrangements were made. You came in the cover of darkness keeping a low profile regarding your new life; he didn't blame you for wanting to, best to let the dust settle to avoid looking suspicious.

He watches you in his bed, dawn's sunlight peeking through curtains as you sprawl out under rumpled sheets. You're beautiful, like a fallen angel from the heavens dropped onto his mattress just for him.

His hand runs down your spine feeling the sleepy groan rumble up your back as you turn to look at him. "My whole life all I've ever wanted was to wake up next to you." It's too soft he knows, he'll blame the lack of sleep due to fucking you through the night. He kisses your naked shoulder, fingers tracing the golden necklace that held a small 'C' on it, "I almost lost you."

"You almost did." You agree knowing you had almost turned your back on him, let him slip away to wallow in his mistakes.

"Never again," He mutters into your skin.

"I'll take that ring now." You purred into his ear.

He sits up digging into his bedside table fetching out the ring box, and opening it up for you. He plucks it out to slid onto your finger perfectly, watching you admire it with a certain sweetness he only could associate with you. "Mrs. Snow." He caresses your cheek, "First Lady of Panem."

You smile up at him, "I like the sound of that, Mr. President."

THE END

endnotes: omg hi thank you all so much for reading!!! i hope you enjoyed reading!!! i truly believe all the nice comments on part one gave me performance anxiety about this so hoping it meets everyones standards 😭😭

taglist: @ryswritingrecord , @aoi-targaryen , @urfavnoirette , @sleepysongbirdsings

#coriolanus snow #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus smut #coriolanus x you #coryo x reader #fanfic #coryo snow #coryo smut #president coriolanus snow #dark fanfic #dark fanfiction #hunger games #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #smutty fanfiction #daenysthedreamersblog #coryo x you

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portraitofadyke · 4 months

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I think Our Flag Means Death is a very unique show in a way that they don't care to cater to mainstream media. And yes, by mainstream media I mean the general straight people.

I think it's very important that we have feel-good shows like Heartstopper. A few years back, a tv show about two queer boys in high school would be unthinkable. But its plot generally revolves around explaining queerness. Sure, it's nice. It's definitely the show I would watch with my family if I were a teenager and wanted to come out again (I had to watch glee with my mom to do that. not optimal). It's the show where teenagers find love and themselves, but sexuality is constantly discussed, explained, sanitized. It's the show straight people will watch. And that's good. We do need shows like that.

But Our Flag Means Death doesn't even bother trying. It's a show about mostly middle aged people, most of them not white, most of them queer in one way or the other. It's really a game of spot the hetero, like someone said. And the characters are not sublte about it. They have sex for fun, something most characters don't have in tv shows, definitely not queer characters. They make dick jokes. They are not all conventionally attractive and they know it, and the writing doesn't care. They are all people before they are queer representation.

Stede's storyline in s1 is in a part about discovering himself and his sexuality, but it's not obnoxiously repeated. Instead, it's played in a natural way. Stede's storyline is ALL about finding himself, yet it's not just about that. Just like Ed's storyline, it's about toxic masculinity and allowing himself to have fine things and self-hatred and finding his place in a world, something most of us can relate to. Hell, none of us were even sure the main characters were going to kiss and end up together, we were all so sure it's a queerbait. But this show doesn't bait its audience. It's not afraid of weirdness. It embraces it instead. There is a nonbinary character. No, they are not a mermaid. Call them jim. That's it. Yes, Lucius and Pete got engaged. Everyone there knows what mateolage is, congrats. Olu and Jim never break up and then Archie shows up, then Zheng, and we all know. We all know.

Two men nearing fifty have a deep, romantic moment where one of them appears as a mermaid, and it's treated as the profound scene it is without ridiculing it. This would never fly in a 'mainstream' media. It would have to be downplayed. Here, it saves Ed's life.

The show tells you racists suck, but it doesn't tell you in a condescending, finger-waving way catered to the white people. Instead, it sets your ship aflame and burns you alive, runs a knife through your hand, puts poison in your drink and kills you.

This is a show for adults, for queer people of all kinds, and it does not give a fuck if anyone else gets it. It's so rare to find a tv show that caters to us, yet alone a tv show that's genuinely good and caring and so well loved.

This is a show that basically straightbaited its audience in the first season, that's how much they don't care.

Idk, I just feel that it will take ages for another show like OFMD to exist in a world full of MCU and media that tries so hard to be liked by everyone it loses its personality and charm. Rant over

#ofmd #yes i am rewatching for the millionth time #just felt like talking about ofmd and how important it is for the milkiont time #it's not perfect but it is to me

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kadwrites · 9 months

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the color green | T.S

previous part | next part

or check out the series masterlist

summary ; you've met tommy's secretary , who has a thing for him.

warnings ; mentions of death (no one dies), my bad writing?? probably typos, arranged marriage trope

a/n ; um idk what to think of this part but lmk what you think of it

he just looks back at you, his brow raised ,waiting for an explanation

"what?"

"what did ya say to 'er?"

"nothing, why ? what did she tell you?" you can't help the amused expression on your face, you did try to hold it back.

"she said you and polly cornered 'er"

"what" you let out a small laugh "all we did was speak to 'er, and it was mostly polly. she barely acknowledged me."

"really?"

"yes really."

"did ya tell 'er that we're engaged?" his voice was deep and cold. it sent a familiar chill down your spine.

"why ? did ya not want people to know?"

"answer the question"

"i didn't. polly did." you stare at him for a while, eyes tracing his face with a raised brow "are you fucking 'er?"

he blinks slowly, his demeanor doesn't change "i beg your fucking pardon?"

"ya heard me."

"no."

you study his face "we didn't say anything to 'er, polly asked 'er if she knew who i was, she looked me up and down like i was some whore and then almost cried when she found out you and i are engaged. thats it."

"we're not engaged yet."

"we are, according to your aunt. so if ya 'ave any fucking complaints , ya might want to take it up with 'er."

you try to walk past him, deciding that storming off is the best way out of this ,

"and how do ya think youre gettin' back home? polly is gone"

you freeze, stopping in place when you hear that, and he turns, just staring at your back.

"walking exists , ya know?" you turn as well to face him, you try to maintain the most confident expression you could muster

"you're gonna walk back? to your father's house? at this time?"

you just nod,

"no you're not"

"yes i am."

"no."

"why not?"

"what kind if fiancé would i be if i let ya walk home in the dark?." his voice is sarcastic

you just raise your brow again, "i thought we weren't engaged."

"go to my office, i'll drive ya home in a minute."

"ya don't 'ave to, i don't want your charity."

"go to my fucking office, y/n."

you mumble curses under your breath as you stride through and to his office, you open the glass door and plop down on the chair facing his desk. you can see the sectary's silhouette from the corner of your eyes. she's sitting on a desk outside his office and you walked by without sparing her a glance. you can feel her stare burn through you.

the door opens again and he walks in, and sits on his desk

"are we goin' to stay here long? cause i can call oliver to come and get me."

he looked up from the papers he was holding and his stare made you look away. okay maybe you'll let him drive you home.

the secretary knocks and walks in "i just need your signature on this form sir." she walks to his desk and gets as close as appropriately possible.

" y've met my fiancée then, miss carter?" he asks the secretary without looking at her

"i.." she stands straight and glances at you "i did , yes i did."

he looks up at her briefly "she might be comin' here more often now, so please make 'er feel at home whenever im not around."

"of course, sir." she smiles sweetly at him before grabbing the paper and walking out of the office.

you raise your brows, a small smirk on your lips "oh im your fiancée now , aye?"

he doesn't answer you, but you see the corners of his lips curl.

you stifle back a yawn as you sit on the sofa , trying to not to nod off. its the middle of the night and your brother had woken you up. safe to say tonight was not a night you've expected and its yet to end.

"how did ya even know about this?" you nod towards abraham who had a cup of tea in his hand

"mum called" he muttered as he handed you a cup as well

"its just a cold , ya know that? , ya didn't 'ave to leave anna and come all the way here."

"it's dad, i couldn't just sleep after 'earing mum cry about 'im"

"she cries about everything" you say with a sigh as you take a sip of your tea

the living room as dark except for a small lamp that was next to you

"did she call celest and oliver?"

"i think so, but they'll probably come by in the mornin'."

you hear your mothers sniffles as she leaves her and your father's bedroom.

"hes asking for you."

you and abraham look at each other before you put your tea cup down and get up from the sofa.

"come in"

you walk in and close the door behind you gently. your dad is propped up with a pillow behind him, you approach the bed and get on it, laying next to him

"ya better not give me another one of your speeches dad." you feign annoyance but your smile gives you away.

he lets out a laugh then turns to you "i'm an old man ya know, i 'ave to make sure i say everything i need to say before i leave ya."

"y've got a cold dad, its not the plaque " you chuckle as you turn to look at him too.

when you were a child, your father would never sleep if you got sick, he would stay up. sometimes fall asleep beside you, or on the uncomfortable hard wooden chair he'd drag next to your bed.

he would put his head on your heart sometimes late at night anxiously, scared it might've stopped when he accidentally drifted off to sleep.

"listen to me love..." his hands intertwine with yours, his hands calloused from all the days he's spent caring for the soil, or in the war that you never thought would end. "i need to talk about this."

you hum, your hand holding his tightly in yours.

"i'm sorry it had to come to this my love,"

its not another one of his speeches, its a different kind of speech.

"dad..."

"when your mother first told me about this, i thought she was jokin, honest to god" he lets out another laugh "but now..... when i think about it , i cant let ya do that to yerself love..." he shakes his head slightly,

"what?" your eyes look up at him, taking in his features , his dark under eyes, the lines on his face, around his eyes.

"i saved some money yeah? , for when me and your mother might need it. ya can 'ave it." his voice drops to a lower tone

"and do what ?"

"run away."

"run away?" you laugh softly, looking at him with a raised brow "and go where?"

"where ever you want." he smiles softly at you

"you're not serious."

"i am"

you stay silent for a while, processing what he's saying "im not runnin' away dad."

"so you're gonna marry tommy shelby? is that what ya want ? what ya truly want?"

"its what i need to do"

"ya don't"

"so you're gonna go back on your word ,aye? ya gave the man a word after all"

"for you , id break every promise ive ever made."

"dad..." you let out a small smile , his other hand goes to cup your face "i cant do that"

"are ya scared id hate ya? or that id be angry at ya if ya didn't?"

"i cant runaway dad... i cant leave ya" your emotions betray you and they flood through you, your tears start to drop. i cant not be here when you die, when you're buried.

"sometimes i cant believe you're all grown up now,"

"hmm"

"ya were such a lively child"

"you're sayin' im borin' now aye?"

you two share a small laugh, you turn your face and kiss his palm, before closing your eyes "id put myself through anything and everything to keep ya with me for however long i can."

@tardisloverz , @optimisticsandwichgladiator , @theshelbyslimited

#tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby imagine #tommy shelby imagine #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders fanfiction #tommy shelby fanfiction #thomas shelby fanfiction #kadwrites

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peachesofteal · 5 months

Note

How would Soap react if he saw that Cypher was being harassed or stalked by some other individual on base? This individual is completely unaware of Soap's fascination with and control over Cypher. Maybe she is being preyed upon by some stereotypically young and horny meathead and his buddies or an older officer who has never served in a combat role. What would Soap do to that person? What would he say to Cypher about it, if anything?

18+ mdni / dark and twisty themes / no smut, Johnny beats the shit out of someone / soap x cypher masterlist

Early morning is one of Johnny's favorite times. He enjoys the quiet pace, the peace before chaos, the relaxed, subtle silence that slowly gets washed away as people start their days.

He particularly enjoys you in the early mornings, watching you make your way across base before any of your counterparts, settling into your work without turning on most of the lights, tweaking the nuances of your new routine. Cup of coffee, speciality keyboard, water bottle, your favorite jacket. Every morning, he marvels at how stunning you are, how perfect, beautiful in every way, down to each individual strand of your hair. He watches how you tackle the things thrown your way head on, sinking into your expertise that surpasses, he suspects, every one else in the room, sees how you treat everyone kindly, how you work so passionately and diligently. It makes his heart glow in his chest, love and obsession and possession burning in his blood, always pushing him closer to get a better look, encouraging him to linger where he can't be seen.

But this morning, something is different. You're late, far later than normal, and you seem... off. There's something off balance in your steps, something in your face that unsettles him, worries him. You power up your work station, arranging your belongings as you like, but instead of appearing happy, healthy like you normally do when you're about to settle into your day.... you look distressed.

He badges into the building without another thought. Anxiety is churning through him now, mixing with fear until his steps are more than hurried, and people are throwing him bewildered looks as he barrels down the hallway. Whatever it is, he'll fix it. He'll make it okay. He'll take care of you.

He stops short just inside the room where you work. Some people look his way curiously, but when he returns their probing eyes, they flinch away in a panic, burying their noses back in their computers, pretending he's not there. Good.

He's about to start towards your console when someone else does the same, a private that doesn't even work in this building, his eyes narrowed and hungry on where your elegant fingers fly across a keyboard. What the fuck?

You don't notice the private at first, which irks him, makes him even more worried, your lack of situational awareness scratching at him beneath his skull. It's a danger to be here in the first place, so close to an engagement zone, and the fact that you're less than aware does not make him feel good.

When you do, finally, look up and spot the oversized low rank that's heading your way, you stiffen, fingers slowing to a stop, throat bobbing with a swallow. He says your name, informal as all get out, and you shift in your seat, fingers coming together, one of your many tells. You're uncomfortable, he realizes. This bloke has been making you uncomfortable. He's chatting you up, or trying to, brushing his hand against your arm, the motion making Johnny see red, and the way his face twists, like he's in on some sick joke, tells Johnny all he needs to know. Slimy git.

"Private. What's yer business on this floor?" Johnny barks, louder than necessary coming to stand beside your chair, across from where the private lurks, chatter around the room dying out as you stare up at him, wide eyed and... relieved.

"Sergeant MacTavish, I wasn't aware the 141-"

"I didnae ask ye what ye're aware of, private. I asked ye what business ye have here." He repeats, inflection flat, and the private gulps, stammering out some bullshit excuse until Johnny is excusing him, encouraging him to make himself scarce.

Once he's gone, you release a long breath, shoulders slumping. He wants to take you in his arms, and hold you. Wants to comfort you, tell you he'd never let anything happen to you, that you'll always be safe, as long as he lives.

But he can't. He knows what a brazen display of affection would do to you, in this setting. How it would harm, instead of help. So, instead-

"Are ye alright, wee sweet?" He keeps his voice low, and your eyes slip closed.

"Yes. Thank you... Sergeant." You whisper.

"Do ye need a break?" He'll take you back to your room, if you do. Or his. Make up some excuse for Price and get you out of work for the day, in a blink. You shake your head.

"No, sir." He nods, squeezing your shoulder with slow, gentle touch, before giving you a long look, and taking his leave.

The pub that everyone frequents off base is a dingy thing. It's dark, and dirty, just the way Johnny likes it. Simon can smoke inside here, right at the bar, and he's just putting his first cigarette out when Johnny's target stumbles, half drunk from the toilets.

"That him?" His LT grunts, and Johnny nods, swallowing the rest of his beer in one go. Simon slaps a folded bill down next to the ashtray. "See you in five."

It's not hard, to get the private outside. He's more drunk than Johnny originally thought, and ushering him towards the back door is as simple as telling him he wants to have a chat, keeping his tone light and easy.

The private doesn't realize the danger he's in until he gets to the alley, and sees Ghost stepping out from the dark.

"Wh-what is this?"

"This-" Johnny hums, removing his jacket as Ghost grabs the private by the back of the neck, turning him. "is a lesson for ye."

"A lesson?"

"The civilian specialist. Cypher." Ghost tells him, removing his hand, letting him shift fully to face Johnny, stricken.

"She doesnae like ye. She doesnae want ye, and she never will. Dinnae ever, ever, touch my girl again." He pushes him, just a little, as a pre cursor, a warning for what's next. The private's eyes are wide, and scared, and Johnny smirks. "If I ever see you-" He swings, landing his fist across his jaw, hard enough that he knows the private is seeing stars, and Ghost steadies him for the next. "looking at her again-" he swings, again. There's a satisfying crack this time, the private's nose, blood spurting from the wound like a fountain, and the injured man howls, loud enough that Ghost is clamping a hand over his mouth to shut him up. "or talking to her-" he lands two more punches to his face, a jawbone hit, and eye socket. Nothing breaks, which is ideal, but he puts enough force behind them that he knows the eye will swell shut, for days. "even breathing near her-" His last punch is the knockout. It sends the private stumbling backwards, and Ghost slides out of the way, letting him fall, his body sprawling across the pavement like he's fallen from the roof. "I'll fucking kill ye. I'll kill ye, and bury ye in a nameless pit. Do ye understand?" He spits, and the private tries to say yes, but it comes out as a cry.

"Nod your head." Ghost instructs, and he does, miserably. "You tell anyone about this, I'll do worse than what Sergeant MacTavish is promising. We were never here. Copy?"

"Yes sir." The private blubbers, and Johnny shakes out some of the tension between his shoulders. Much better.

You're still awake. He's on edge, and was hoping to have a few hours in your room, watching you sleep, listening to the rise and fall of your chest, soothing himself with your presence, but instead, you're still awake, and he's at a loss before he accepts he can't fight it, and knocks on your door.

"Sergeant?" You're surprised to see him, caught off guard, and he's driven to soothe you, stepping forward inside your room, clicking the lock behind him.

"That private won't be bothering ye anymore." He tells you lowly, and your eyes go wide.

"I- What? Sir?" He pulls you into his body easily, your nose in his neck, his cheek pressed to the top of your head. He can feel the tension slowly leaking from you, his hand working broad strokes up and down your back, murmuring to you about he'll always keep ye safe, how he'll always take care of ye, and upon pulling away, he's incredibly pleased to see that you seem happy... even relieved. "Thank you, sir." You whisper, and he rubs a thumb across your cheek.

"I want ye to call me Johnny, Cy. Instead of Sergeant." Not instead of sir, but he doesn't think he needs to tell you that. He presses a kiss to your forehead. "It's late, ye should be in bed."

"I couldn't sleep." You confess, and he nods.

"I know. C'mon. I'll help ye."

#soap x reader #soap x cypher #john soap mactavish #johnny soap mactavish #john soap mactavish x reader #john mactavish #peaches writes

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setsugekka · 6 months

Text

↳ Forever was simple: meet a man you love, and live happily ever after.

A hope built on lies, and when it all comes crashing down, you find a new faith inside of the atrium at the countryside.

painter!lee minho x fem!reader/prince!hwang hyunjin x fem!reader (side pairing) — arranged marriage au, historical au. royalty, slow burn, angst, idiots in love, sexual content. [26k wc] cws: themes of vaguely period-typical sexism, themes of loneliness, (heavy) pining + the poor decisions that sometimes result from that, themes of social anxiety + using alcohol to cope, heavy sexual content.

𝕀.

Everything around you glitters in the ambient light of the evening masquerade ball.

Tables lined with beautiful cloths sit along the edges of the ornate hall, piled high with decorative and delicious foods. Amber, bubbling drinks flow and occasionally spill out of long, crystal glasses held by perfectly manicured hands holding them just a little too excitedly.

The kind of night life that you have grown so accustomed to.

Your dress is stunning and perfectly to your tastes, hair styled to match and draped in decadent jewels to showcase yourself with. The suitors are dressed much in the same, though in far more drab colors as men tend to do. This is of no consequence to you, because your eye is set on only one in particular.

Crown Prince Hwang Hyunjin.

You watch him from across the marbled floor, through groups of guests who might as well not even be present with how rapt your attention is on him. He is tall and broad, far from lanky but toned enough to give the impression of a certain kind of sturdiness that has always edged a particular curiosity in you. Hyunjin's hair is black, tied back from framing his face with its length, and you watch him laugh through conversations with other women who likely desire the same thing as you.

Engaging in private rendezvous with potential suitors is strictly against the royal code, all the more reason that no one must ever find out about the edge above the rest that you have taken for yourself in regards to him.

The memories date back to the summer—winter now—a late night out with other women that you've mostly grown up with and set as your entourage. The first time, running into the royal Hwang entourage without prying eyes to watch you felt like something of a hint, and the second, more of a blessing as the night ended with soft hands against your skin, and plush lips pressed against your own.

These secret encounters carried on through the months, as well as implicit promises in relation to the royal choices soon to be made. Between the sheets and with warm breaths of air exhaled against the shell of your ear, Hyunjin has promised time and time again: "You will be my choice, you have nothing to fear, my love. It's all for show and display, isn't it?"

You believe him.

"Are you going to spend the whole evening in the corner by yourself?" A woman steps up beside you with a knowing grin, and you offer your elbow to her side lightly in response.

"I've no particular interest in showing myself off like some prized cut of meat for men to fawn over, you know this, Sana."

This woman, a friend since your earliest days, looks out across the crowd not unlike yourself just moments before, and then offers yet another smile of understanding before speaking.

"Not for men, perhaps, but for a man," she says. "Are you really so sure that you only carry interest in Crown Prince Hwang? There are so many other perfectly acceptable suitors to choose from."

You sigh, taking a small sip from your glass. "I do not doubt that there are, but when have you ever known me to be the type to spread myself so thin between any such possibilities in life? I have always been something of a single-eyed woman."

"That much I do know, yes," Sana says with a small laugh, "but I don't want you to be left with nothing in the event of things not turning out the way that you wish them to. The Prince has many hopefuls, and while he is the only prince, would it be so bad to consider a life outside of the royal court? You've never much cared for the excessive nature of their goings on, anyway."

Turning to look at her, you cast Sana a questioning glance, "I have grown up in the lap of luxury, it is all that I know, are you to imply a step down is what suits me rather than a step up?"

"I would never, but there are many levels between poverty, and royalty."

"Anything other than a step up, is a step down," you say firmly, pressing the rim of your glass to your painted lip again. Your eyes wander out towards Hyunjin once more, and a slight curve upwards takes them, perhaps some enjoyment in the fact that you know something that even your closest confidants do not. Perhaps some enjoyment in the fact that you have already won a game that the others still insist on competing in. "Besides, do you think not of me as future Queen?"

"I wouldn't dream of such a thing, just remember me and all of our times shared once you begin lobbing off the heads of people who dare to oppose you."

Feigning horror, you reel exaggeratedly, "Now who is assuming things?"

Sana's hand finds the small of your tightly bound back, and lightly pushes you forward.

"Go dance with your future husband, would you?"

𝕀𝕀.

While far from unusual for your nights to end up like this, perhaps after everything that this one has presented, the aura casts something different, something intangible and strange that you can't quite grasp despite its familiarity still.

The masquerade ball winds down three levels from where you reside now. People still dance and laugh and shout amongst themselves, though the largest collective of guests have long since begun their journeys back to their own homes. Your entourage awaits you somewhere outside for much of the same, though they have long since learned not to bother coming and finding you in the event that you have disappeared.

For that, you are thankful, because nothing good can come of being discovered like this.

The room is small—a sitting area with little more than a table, chair, window, and tall bookshelves filled to the brim with just that. Moonlight shines in as the only illumination, faint and appearing cool to the touch if one were able to. Only enough to find one's way, and plenty to remain hidden in the darkness while people engage in their disagreeable deeds.

Lips hurriedly find your own, teeth nipping at them with a needy hunger. Palms graze up the outside of your legs, dress hiked up and leg eventually along with it. The door is pinned shut by your back firmly pressed against it, your head tips back with a small thud, Hyunjin chuckles under his breath at the sound, and then drives his hips forward to give the both of you what it is that you've been waiting all evening for.

"I saw you speaking with Lady Sana this evening," Hyunjin whispers, mouth feathering against your neck. "Am I wrong in suspecting that you were speaking about me?"

He presses himself forward, pulls your body down and against the effort simultaneously, ensuring no space is left between your figures. You gasp at the feeling, and he smiles at the sound, fingernails digging into the flesh of your thighs and hips in places that you don't dare let any of your house staff see.

"You would not be wrong," you reply, forcefully maintaining some semblance of composure. "Only good things, of course."

Chest pinned against your own, Hyunjin pulls back, then presses into you again. The glide is smoother this time, and you can't help the moan that escapes you suddenly.

"Have you told her?" he asks, drives quicker and less shallow than before. "I must announce my decision tomorrow afternoon, not long to wait now."

The ability to converse is leaving you with each steady roll of Hyunjin's hips. Your fingernails grip tightly into his suit jacket, though it grants you little purchase with the smoothness of it. Harder, faster; the tell-tale signs of nefarious activities beginning to be heard in rhythmic fashion against the wood of the door, as well as the explicit, unmistakable sound of skin meeting skin.

"No," you manage to say, though barely, "I would never, would never jeopardize what we have waited so long for."

Hyunjin's lips trail up your neck, along the edge of your jaw and settle lightly against your own. He kisses you gently, then merely sits there to drink down the gasps and whimpers of you accepting him. There is little time for this—something that the both of you know—rolls and snaps of his hips become quick, erratic in order to meet his end, and so he does with the kind of rapidity that leaves you terribly wanting and wishing for more.

There is a parting kiss left to you, and Hyunjin readjusts himself so that he can reemerge into the public. Smoothing your dress and slipping out from the doorway, he cracks it open to leave but looks back at you with a smile that you can only assume to be full of sly adoration for you, and for this. The joys of engaging in such things unbeknownst to others, the excitement of deception.

"A shame that tomorrow we will put an end to this, isn't it?" he says.

A shame indeed, you think to yourself. And then he is gone.

𝕀𝕀𝕀.

Just as you had anticipated it would, the city streets come alive for the naming of the Crown Prince’s companion.

Bodies crowd around you by every inch, music performed with accompanying dancers displaying their crafts as well as shop setups lining the way selling beautiful merchandise; hand crafted with care that shines blindingly under the sunlight above.

As you move along your way, the numerous scents of charred meats and grilled vegetables infiltrate your senses, all encompassing and inviting in a way that makes you almost wish to give up on what it is that you are meant to do today. In order to keep your mind set, you remind yourself that soon you will be at the receiving end of royal chefs and all that it is they have to offer you. There is charm to the street cooks and their home grown and cut ingredients, but nothing matches the knowledge and adeptness of the throne.

You have dressed simply today, not wanting to draw attention to yourself nor wanting to appear expectant. Reaching closer to the stage, the bodies are packed in far more tightly, as do the frequency of other potentials come more into vision. So many women; hair stacked high and curled in such a lovely way, all standing in wait in their best dresses with moderate jewelry. It is cold today, and the lavish, heavy coats that hang around their shoulders allude to as much, but you are warm with a deep understanding of what you are to gain this afternoon.

A few rows back from the front of the stage, you find Sana as well as another friend shared between the two of you, Tzuyu. A beautiful woman wrapped in dark vermillion red with black hair that hangs so opposingly to Sana's blonde. They both smile and greet you, as do you, to them.

"Are you anticipating the naming as much as the rest of us are?" Tzuyu asks, a bright, cheerfulness to her tone that gives her something of a charmingly juvenile expressiveness. "So many women are here in wait, I do wonder what His Highness has in store for us."

"A difficult choice awaits him, no doubt," Sana adds, glancing up towards the place where he will soon call his decision towards the people. "I question how these sorts of decisions could ever be made through matters of the heart, but I suppose when it comes to royalty, the heart is of the least concern."

Pulling your coat tightly against yourself, you force back the smile that wishes to take your lips. "I trust that he will make the right call, do you not?"

"I'd sooner disappear into the forest, never to be seen again than dare speak ill of the royal house and their choosings," Sana says through a laugh. "Besides, I would be banished to such a place for doing so, anyway."

"You speak in theatrics," Tzuyu scoffs, a roll of her eyes punctuating it. "The rulers of our country are not so sinister."

"One can only hope, but knowledge of the Crown Prince and his ways are not well known to the people, only time will tell if he is as benevolent of a ruler as His and Her Majesty are," Sana says.

You look at her questioningly, "You suspect otherwise?" you ask, but she is quick to shake her head.

"No, but I am realistic in all of the possibilities that lie before us. Quite the contract, in fact, I have heard rather good things."

Sana's tone is peculiar to you in a way that you find difficult to pinpoint as she speaks on the intricacies of Hyunjin's personality. Her face is simplistic enough to not give anything away, but the sound of her voice carries a sort of inflection when referring to him that settles a strangely ire spark within your chest.

You are given no time to question it further, however, because the royal guards set themselves perfectly in place along the stage, and the arrival of the throne is loudly announced from beyond.

His and Her Majesty step forward first, luxuriously sparkling with expensive jewels and fur coats that you would otherwise never hope to afford, not even from your own place of incredibly comfortable class. The two of them settle in the background, and without wasting any further time, the man that you have grown to love and adore enters the stage in long, tall strides that exude confidence and elegance both.

Thankful for your place in the crowd, you gaze up at him and await his eyes to meet your own. A scroll is handed to him by one of the royal staff from just outside of the main stage, and he slowly unfurls it for all waiting eyes to see.

Hyunjin, all white in attire and garnished with a stunning sash that weighs heavily with brooches and sigils, inhales deeply and then looks out towards the crowd. You stare expectantly, because this is your time. So many nights shared hushed and secret between the two of you, discussed between sheets and pillows of just this very moment that will be granted unto you. His eyes do not find yours, but it is of no particular concern to you, as there will be so many more times for adoring moments to be had between the both of you from this day forward.

No more secrets, no more hiding your love for one another.

"Thank you for gathering here today, it is an honor for me to be able to share this with the people of my country. I do not wish to take much of your time, as there are far more convivial activities for you to be partaking in, aren't there?"

Gentle laughter resounds through the crowd, and Hyunjin smiles ever so slightly at the sound of it before glancing down at the paper in hand once again.

"With my greatest pleasure, I will announce to you the future Queen of the Hwang throne…"

Excitement flows through your veins, head light and nearly dizzying as you await the call. You clutch tightly to your robe, knuckles white and forcing your breath steady as the seconds pass by you like decades until the name is called.

A name is called.

"Minatozaki Sana."

A name that does not belong to you.

From just beside you, a shriek falls from Sana's lips but is forced back halfway through, presumably as to not embarrass herself. Tzuyu clutches at the friend’s shoulders and the two of them celebrate with covered mouths, wide eyes, and hushed shock. The world dulls into a kind of unfelt, nonexistent quietness around you as you stare forward and towards this man; this man that you have shared your body and a bed with, so much of your time and trust with.

He has betrayed you.

You can no longer hear the other women around you, shrouded in disbelief as you gawk at him. Something within you wishes to disappear—humiliation beginning to thrum up and across your skin—there is a small token of solace in the fact that no one else knows of your engagements with him prior as it is widely and heavily frowned upon for the both of you, but this knowledge does nothing to ease the pain that swiftly starts to replace all of the other initial feelings that have befallen you in these seconds passing.

The dizziness begins to set in faster and heavier, you realize that you must take your leave now. You take a step backwards, bumping into another saddened hopeful, but don't even have your wits about you enough to apologize for having done so. Sana and Tzuyu grab at you, say something, but you cannot hear it through the thick blanket of betrayal that casts so heavily between you, and them. Perhaps you congratulate her, words leave your lips but you haven't the slightest clue of what they are. Sana is smiling, crying, so perhaps they have been adequate enough.

Another step back, and you look up towards Hyunjin again. This time, his eyes find yours, and all he offers you is the faintest of wicked grins.

You take your leave quietly, without another word. Heart hanging heavily and not allowing him to take the tears from you that he has so evilly and rightfully earned.

𝕀𝕍.

You are not given time to grieve your loss, as if to intentionally add insult to injury.

Unfortunately, your parents can only be as understanding as information granted allows them to be. The first month, you are given space to wade through your reasonable disappointment, but past that point in time, questions of your next potential suitor once again begin to find themselves at the forefront of discussion amongst the dinner table. You did not know this man, I understand your disappointment in not being chosen, but it's high time to look forward and set your sights towards other potentials, your mother says. Royalty is not everything, there are plenty of other perfectly well-to-do men to take your pick from, your father says.

You tell them that you will look, with no intention of truly doing so. Once the second month passes by with little more progress, you begin to find the signs around the house of your parents taking matters into their own hands.

Letters line the desk of your father’s library room, and one in particular causes the hair at the back of your neck to stand on end.

Only partially sticking out from beneath the stack, you just so slightly pull the corner to unearth more of the words that bring a sickness to your stomach.

"Would be honored to be chosen as your daughter's suitor. The estate is grand and well-kept, though rather empty of life—" the sentence is cut off, you skip to the next area that you can read. "Staff around the clock. Any endeavors she wishes to engage in will be made available—"

The spin inside of your stomach has you reaching forward and clutching at the sides of your father’s desk. It has only been two months, and already there are discussions of having you shipped out and elsewhere, to a strange man that you have never met, and will be expected to placate in all of the ways that one might. While these sorts of scenarios are nothing new to you—the knowledge well known—this was never supposed to be you. No, you were to marry into the royal house, to be made Queen, and having done so through a shared love.

Not pawned off to a stranger who intends to keep you as a moderately cared for pet. You have heard the stories of other such arrangements before; the best that you can ever hope for is a perfectly tepid and boring man who has no interest in your being there, and has only accepted it for the offerings that such an agreement carries between the families in a monetary and societal sense.

How could your parents do this to you? The truth of the matter, however, is that they do not know the intricacies of what it is that they are doing to you. The details of your prior goings on. They must never know, and god forbid potential suitors were to ever find out about your involvement with the Prince beforehand…shunned and displaced, you will forever remain.

Turning towards the doorway, you begin to take your leave. The wheels are in motion and there is nothing left for you to do. Moving forward, you will await the day that your father comes to you with the news of having come to an agreement with a man for the arrangement of your marriage, and you will grin and bear it as daughters of high class households are told to do. In the meantime, you will hope and pray that the man chosen by your father is a kind one, a simple one. Dull and uninteresting and with only enough attention to give to his own things.

𝕍.

Writing takes you by the soul, and always has for as long as you found yourself able to hold a pen.

Your timing in finding out about your father’s misdoings an impeccable sort, because it is only two days later that he finds you in the large study of your manor and informs you of the news. A decision has been made about your future—one that you have had no part in making—and you will be sent off in two weeks time to the northern countryside to live with a man who he describes as "kind, albeit a little eccentric from what I can gather." The documentation has already been signed, and as far as you are concerned in a legal sense, are now married to someone whose name you do not even know.

"Lee Minho," your father says quietly, and you can't help but wonder if the airiness to his voice is of true sadness in having done this to you, or a feigned one, only given because he believes it to be what you desire of him. "He's a painter, quite gifted. A very well-off man, you shouldn't worry about wanting for anything in the absence of our affluence."

Hand gripping the pen tightly, still pressed hard against the paper, you find yourself indifferent to whether or not he can see the displeasure washing over you.

"Understood, I'll have my belongings packed by the handmaidens in proper time."

Your tone is simple, offering nothing more than the most basic of expressions. He does not reply to you with any sort of swiftness, and instead sighs as he turns to make his exit.

"I'm sorry it had to come down to this," he says suddenly, and with no warning. "As you know, you are coming up on your age and—"

"I know, father," you reply, just as flatly as before and continuing with your work along the page. "It is understood."

He leaves, and your scribbling comes to you with a slightly more erratic speed.

𝕍𝕀.

The goodbyes shared with your family carry little weight, and while there is a large part of you never wishing for this day to have come, there is another area that finds solace in no longer having to live under the roof of people who have done so wrongly by you, and with such great ease.

All you needed was time, and you were not given that. Is it so difficult to carry empathy for people who are hurting? To cast aside asinine traditions of age and worth for the sanctity of caring for those that share blood?

Sitting in the back of the carriage as it plods along, you stare out of the small window and contemplate just that. What is family, if not the people meant to care for you above all else? Hyunjin betrayed you with a kind of extravagant ease, but your family, he was not. What excuse do your parents have to cast you aside so eagerly? All but sell you off to a man and for no other reason than to maintain social appearances. Yes, my daughter married that famous painter, Lee Minho. How exceptional and prized such a partnership is.

The journey is a long one, and you hope to have settled in your anger by the time that you arrive. You have no interest in maintaining any sort of exceptional appearances with this man, but perhaps at the very least, he does not need to be on the receiving end of your indignation.

Instead, you fantasize about the perfect life you may be able to cultivate upon your arrival. Perhaps there are perks to him being involved in such a solitary way of life; you imagine two sides of the same mansion, one for you, and one for him. The painter and the writer, and never shall they meet.

𝕍𝕀𝕀.

Nighttime falls upon the land before you make your arrival, and late into the evening do you come.

The estate is seen long before you come upon it, with a handful of lights standing out against the otherwise stark darkness of the countryside surroundings. You recall a mention of the home being relatively lifeless, and so few lights on inside certainly give truth to that. Barren trees line the street and as far as the eye can see given how deeply into winter it still is. There is little snow piled up into little hills along the ground, but it is impossible to see the vastness of the land without proper daylight to guide you.

When you arrive, a handful of house staff are there to greet you. Three women smile and bow, help you out of the carriage and then move along to retrieve your things. One remains with you, and you pull your jacket tighter so as to not allow the frigid air to touch you.

"It is much colder in the countryside than what you are used to," she says gently. "You'll get used to it in due time, but it can be frightening at first."

You glance at her, though not for long. It feels strange to be attended to by staff other than those that you are used to being handled by. This strange woman—older but softer in demeanor—smooths a hand down your arm with little more than a feather-light touch, and then offers you a slight yet understanding smile.

"My name is Mai, I am the head of the housing staff, you'll be seeing me around quite often, so I hope that we can grow comfortable with one another quickly. I understand that this is difficult for you, and strange, so please take your time. There's no rush to become acquainted with myself or the estate grounds."

It's only then that you come to realize the stark lacking of someone else's attendance to your arrival. You glance around slightly, perhaps you have missed him? But there are no men, and so, you ask the question, "What about Mr. Lee?"

Mai's features drop ever so slightly, like she feels some level of sympathy for you. Her hand smooths over your arm again, then gently tugs you towards the large doorway.

"The Master of the house will seldom make himself known, I wouldn't worry too much about that, dear."

"He didn't even come to welcome me, a strange sort of fellow to not bother greeting his wife upon her arrival," you say pointedly. It garners another, particular sort of look from the woman bringing you inside.

"Yes, the Master has been referred to as strange before, this would not be the first time. Please don't take it personally, or as some sort of slight towards you individually. I'm sure that given enough time, the two of you should meet and become acquainted with one another."

You chuckle under your breath, "Husband and wife, acquainted with one another. What have my parents done."

Though your wish upon arriving has ultimately come true, you sift through the confusion in your feelings regarding Minho's disinterest in finding you. The woman that he has taken into his home, agreed to marry, surely expected to have children with—yet with no apparent interest in your being there whatsoever. Stepping inside of the home, it shines and exudes beauty, almost like a museum. Pieces of painted art and statues sit at every inch, as far as the eye can see, but all you can think about is the absence of the man who has beckoned you here.

"I apologize for the darkness of the estate, as you know, it's quite late. I hope that you will take it upon yourself to wander tomorrow during the day. Everything is yours, please make yourself at home." Mai extends a hand forward and towards the large staircase, then points upwards at the centered emptiness created by the winding steps. "At the highest level is the atrium, the only place that is strictly off limits. The Master does most of his work up there, though it's difficult to simply stumble upon, no cause for concern as far as that goes."

Continuing to gaze up at what feels like forever, you slowly bring your attention back down and then fully towards Mai.

"Why has he brought me here?" you ask.

A single corner of her mouth perks, as if contemplating offering a smile that may or may not be apt. Besides that, however, the only expression of feeling you can find amongst her features is that of compassion, and perhaps, maybe even pity.

"As you know, these sorts of things tend to be about maintaining appearances…" Mai trails off, likely on account of having nothing more to add to the fact. It is plenty enough, and indeed, you are very well aware.

"I'd like to be taken to my room now."

There's a hazy numbness that finds your limbs as the staff take your things and begin moving towards the stairs. This is your new life, your new normal for the rest of your life. A loveless existence, a loveless marriage with a man that you will scarcely meet. You wonder, albeit briefly, what you have done to doom your existence to that of such fleeting tenderness.

Hyunjin did not love you, but he was willing to pretend, and while your body was beneath his, you could so easily believe it.

Minho does not love you, and will not even grant you as much. No willingness to try, no interest in feigning the possibility of as much. You are not so foolish to expect to fall in love with this man, but is it so wrong to wish for moments that offer themselves to the fleeting fantasy of it? Infrequent dinners, shared glances from down the hall, and if all goes well, even a kind of friendship developed amongst incapable lovers.

Your bedroom is stunning and immaculately decorated. Mai informs you that anything that you wish to have added or removed is yours to have, and that she will see to it being done swiftly. The walls are lined in a dark, royal blue and accented at the corners with incredible, gold fillings that make the estate feel more like a castle than a simple home for only one man and his house staff.

The thought is appreciated, but you truly cannot fathom wanting for more, not in the physical sense of owning and acquiring physical things. The emptiness inside of you is so much heavier and deeper than the shade of the walls, or the perfectly waxed oak of the floors.

"Thank you," you say. The words are small, and sound far more defeated than you would like them to. Mai is heavenly, everything that you could ever want from someone that you're likely to be spending the majority of your time here with. "What time shall I come down for breakfast in the morning?"

Mai smiles in the doorway, her light gray dress swaying with every slight movement that she makes.

"Eight is standard for the house, but whenever you prefer. If you are an early riser, we can see to it that it is ready and waiting for you by the time you find your footing."

You glance at your handbag, manuscript of your writing sticking out by the corner from it and make your decision going forward.

"I am something of an early morning type. I like to write, I find that I do my best work before the rest of the world begins to stir," you say, forcing a small smile into your lips. "I don't require much, especially just for one person. Just some small breads with butter and coffee will suit me just fine."

Mai nods happily, so obviously delighted by your willingness to allow her to do what she does here. "Of course, anything you wish. If you need anything else in the morning, please don't hesitate to inform any of the staff, we want to make your transition here as smooth and seamless as possible."

"Thank you," you say again, and Mai takes her leave.

Sleep does not find you well that night, despite the weariness of your body from the travel. Instead, your mind races with possibility and wonder about the ghost that you now share a home with, and when you finally do find rest, all that is there to greet you now is the dark, faceless silhouette of a man that you may never come to meet.

𝕍𝕀𝕀𝕀.

Time at the estate feels as though it crawls, and yet slips away and through your fingers in ways that make it feel as though it doesn't really exist at all.

Another month passes you by, a new routine set into motion not unlike yours from back home. Different settings, different foods offered; scents that arrive to you like they are foreign and fabrics against your skin that feel entirely different from that which you have become accustomed to. Life here is easy, and for that, you are thankful, but the dull ache of listlessness begins to take hold of you faster than you might have anticipated it to, and your curiosities about the manor creep up and make themselves known to you without much of an ability left in you to fight them off.

You have yet to meet Minho, even in all of your time here. A month is not long to spend in one place, but feels like a lifetime to not have met the person that you live with, the man that you are married to and meant to spend the rest of your days alongside.

Writing, at the very least, comes to you with incredible ease while cased inside of these walls. Your manuscript—a sort of anonymous autobiography of your life—grows and grows like it is showered with all of the sunlight and nutrients of a lovingly kept garden. There is nothing else for you to do here, after all.

These routines come to you naturally, not one to stray from those things that come naturally and comfortably to you. In the mornings, you wake early to head downstairs to eat warm, buttered bread and take your cup of coffee; leaving towards the large study that sits looking off into the flowerbeds with a large, never dirtied window to grant you such a view.

Books surround here, as do their smells. You could never hope to read them all, though you might like to. When particularly down about your circumstances, you consider the fact that you have ample time to begin such an endeavor, as nothing else inside of this building will ever bother to ask for time from you.

One day after the mark of a month from your arrival, you stay up a little later than usual and slowly sip an aged, red wine from the shined lip of a glass. Your nighttime gown already drapes from your body, but you have no such intention of finding sleep any time soon.

For one reason or another, the atrium calls to you silently in the ambient darkness of the house.

The house staff is long asleep, nobody lurking the corridors to ensure that the inhabitants are not allowing the whimsy of curiosity to get the best of them. You step out and into the hallway, small candles lining the way and towards the stairs that lead further up, guiding lights beckoning you, asking you to follow them, telling you to take liberties not truly afforded to you.

So you do. Up so many flights, a climb that feels endless at points, until of course, you reach the top.

Perhaps you had expected too much, built up the possibilities so much in your mind that whatever it is that you might find here never standing a chance in living up to your imagination. There is little that greets you once you climb the last step; no warning signs, no guards or traps set for intruders stumbling upon this place. Instead, you find an incomprehensible mess along the large and wide expanse of floor. Canvases sprawled as far as the eye can see—some still basking in their unmarred perfection, others splashed with color or linework—paint pots and filthy brushes, palettes that appear as though they've never seen the loving touch of water to clean them.

Furthest away from where you stand, you find a table and a single chair, though it would not seem to be used for its intended purpose with the way items have been set against and atop them. There are papers sitting on the wood, however, and your budding curiosity gets the best of you even more as you carefully step forward and over all of the belongings that coat the floor.

The floor beneath you is sturdy, and for that, you are thankful. There are no creaks of footsteps to alert anyone of your presence here, and when you arrive at the table, you find piles upon piles of letters pinned down beneath dirty, likely forgotten jars of water.

The penmanship of one draws your attention, familiar and loud as it stares back at you. It is from your father.

This date is recent, one of the few things that you can make out from where it sits. You care little for maintaining your invisibility here now, and pull the sheet out from within the others so that you can read it in full.

You realize quickly upon scanning it that you did not know what to expect, but what it is that you have found now somehow sits even more strangely in your chest. Your eyebrows furrow as you take in the words from your father—they are nonsensical in every sense of the word—incomprehensible when paired with the realism of your life at this place.

One part reads: I am happy to hear that the two of you are getting along so splendidly. Of course, it is impossible to say when putting together such matters, but I had something of a feeling that it would be right, and I am so blessed to find that this meeting has been a successful one.

He has been lying to your father ever since your arrival here.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

Your attention shoots up from the letter, which drops from your hand on account of the shock in being found. What jars you from your thoughts much more than having been caught, however, is not that fact in and of itself. Rather, it is the fact that it is the voice of a man that has questioned you.

And looking up from here, back towards the stairs, the moonlight shines in from the glass ceiling panels of the atrium, down onto the face of a man with somewhat long and relatively unkempt black hair that curtains in front of his eyes delicately. His jaw is strong, sharp; outlining narrow eyes and lips that settle into a somewhat upturned position when not forced into another shape.

Could it be…?

You do not respond right away, and neither does he press you further for a reply. Instead, the man carries himself forward and kneels down in front of a particular pile of painting supplies. Perhaps you hadn't taken careful enough notice of them, the way that the paint is still fresh and wet, now that you look at it.

His shirt is white, sleeves rolled up along his forearms and cuffed carelessly at the bend of his elbow. He appears strong, not at all the dainty, frail image of an artist type that one might typically assume someone like this to be. Somewhere within you swims the possibility that this is not the man that you are married to, merely some other person who also is granted the ability to use the atrium for its assigned purpose, but the thought seems asinine with the evidence presented in front of you.

He grabs a brush, takes a palette into hand and dips the bristles into something dark. One stroke, then another onto a canvas that has already been seen by his hand previously. He ignores you for many long moments, and as a result, you merely stand there in silence and watch as he continues on.

The brush dips into a jar of water, swirled around and faintly clinking against the glass. Then, the man looks up at you again.

"Is there?"

Forgetting that there has ever been a question posed, your mind races to catch up to what it is that he's asking. Nervousness catches your limbs, not knowing what to do with your hands, your feet, the expression on your face when suddenly and finally addressed.

But you have no interest in answering his inquiry, and instead, pose one of your own.

"Why have you been lying to my father?"

"Ah," he says, the sound quiet and coming out with a knowing exhale. His attention drops back to the canvas and colors in front of him. "Do you make it a habit of reading other people's mail, then?"

"We've not even met once since I moved here, yet you're telling my father that we're getting along swimmingly, why?"

"Are we not?" Minho says, his engagement in the discussion confirmation enough of the fact that this is him. "No arguments, no raised tones or names called. As far as I'm concerned, we're getting along as well as one might hope, all things considered."

"We have never even met!" you nearly yell, dropping your volume at the tail end with the way that you know voice carries through the halls of the estate. This is a discussion meant for the two of you alone. "The least you could do after all of this time is introduce yourself to me, especially if you're going to be lying to my parents about the goings on out here!"

Minho looks up at you then, but his face is empty of feeling. "This is why I thought it best that we not meet, now I have to tell him that things have taken a turn," he says.

His face does not allude to it, but his tone very much does in the way that the faintest hint of amusement can be discerned throughout his words. Hearing such coyness does nothing to calm your growing resentment towards him, if anything, only adding fuel to the budding fire.

"Do you think this is funny?" you ask, anger laden in your voice. "Is that why you brought me out here? For your amusement, so that you could laugh to yourself in the late hours of the night about the woman that you're keeping holed up while I rot away inside of these walls and lament what my life might have been if my father had only allowed me a little more time?"

Stare unwavering, your eyes remain locked onto Minho's once you finish speaking, and he is not quick to reply in any fashion. Silence slips in between the two of you, only the faintest ticking of an old, antique clock stationed off to the side heard between the nothingness growing inside of the atrium.

Then, he sighs.

"I brought you out here because of the nature of our society and the expectation of certain norms therein. You know this as well as I do, what is expected of us by certain ages. Unfortunately for you, both of our time is nearly up and as a result, this is how fate would have it."

He explains it so matter of factly that the entire concept of these arrangements feels strange and foreign to you, despite its familiarity. Minho is right, and what he says to you is true, but it does little to make you feel calm in the matter. He offers you no comfort, no easiness or soft words to sort any pain that you may be feeling as a result of it. Perfunctory in delivery, Minho only gives to you precisely what it is that the two of you already know; nothing more, and nothing less.

You know this, but the dull ache of pain inside of your chest does not wane. It grows instead, so much so that you find yourself losing the ability to maintain disdain for him, or the fact that he brought you here, at all.

"Did you reach out to my father, or did he call out to you?" you ask, voice timid and broken. The details of the arrangement are of little consequence now, but you find yourself questioning it all the same. Perhaps they have only both ended up here by chance, and if so, is that the best possible outcome of all?

Lips thinning straight, it's a sort of forced smile that barely ever comes through, and Minho breaks eye contact once you present the question to him like he is aware that nothing he has to offer you will ever be enough.

The brush handle rattles against the glass once again, the sound sharp and jarring, bothersome to your ears now.

"He reached out to me," Minho says plainly, "and for that, you have my condolences."

𝕀𝕏.

Two weeks go by without so much as a sighting of the man that lives among you. In that time, however, a letter finds you from your mother. Late in the morning on a particularly dreary day, Mai comes to you in your study and hands off the envelope with a gleeful smile, seemingly thrilled to be offering you something instead of your husband.

"I was hoping that they would write to you soon," she says. "The early stages still require much conversing between the Master and your parents, but it's good that they have found the time to reach out to you now, as well."

"Yes, very good," you reply, forcing the sound of pleasantness through the words. You wonder if she knows about your meeting with Minho not so long ago, if she has been informed of your snooping and the knowledge you gained therein. "Thank you, I'll read it quickly."

Mai takes her leave and you are once again left to your things. Your finger slides beneath the flap of the envelope and pulls the seal apart, nimbly releasing the letter inside from its confines. Heart beating rapidly and not knowing what you will find, you attempt to steady your anxiety and land your eyes onto the page.

The words penned across it are happy ones, and that shifts your nerves at a sudden pace. She expresses her joy at all of the things your father has informed her in regards to his constant speaking with Minho; how well things have been going between the two of you, how worried she had been at the possibility of otherwise, and how proud she is of you. The words feel empty and as if they are not meant for you—how could they be? There is no truth held inside of any of it.

Once finished, you slip the letter back inside and tuck it away beneath your manuscript, opting instead to turn your attention towards the garden that awaits you just through the dampened window. Rain lightly pelts it, a calming sound that is very much needed in the aftermath of this reminder.

Recalling your conversation with Minho in the atrium, you hone in on the specifics of it now. In particular, his stoic interpretation of this combination between the two of you. It was not he who intended to seek you out, and rather, the both of you share the difficulties of age and societal expectations that have been casted upon you at birth. A loveless marriage it is, convenience, even; but circumstances that the both of you are flattened beneath the pressure of.

You had once wished for him to be a man with no interest in you, and that is precisely what you have been graced with. Minho does not care for your presence, does not wish to spend time with you or converse with you in any way that people who share a home tend to do. This is what you had wanted for, so then why now does it feel so rotten to be on the receiving end of it?

A flash of lightning in the far off distance comes to pass, and it is at that moment that you come to your decision: you will make your way to the atrium once more.

𝕏.

Shadows flicker and dance across the darkness of the walls and bookcases lining the crescent shaped sides of the atrium, seen long before you reach the topmost step. There is no sound besides faint rustling, and the occasional, familiar clinking of wooden stick against glass rim.

Minho is there.

You reach the top and find him; on his knees and hunched over not unlike your last meeting in this place. His shoulders and back flex against the tightness of the white blouse that holds him, deceptively firm muscles that you are only now able to see from this angle. He stills briefly, silent acknowledgment of his knowing that you are there, but carries on with his task for a while before bothering to utter a word.

"You shouldn't be up here."

An expected warning, but it does little to deter you. Instead of turning back, you continue forward, towards him, and stop only a few more strides away. Distance given out of the goodness of your heart, and because you accept wrongdoing in ever having come here in the first place.

"Why?" you ask.

With busy hands, Minho remains fast at work, splashing blues, pinks and purples across the white canvas. His features do not twist or contort in any sort of way that one might expect from tortured artists who suffer at the hands of their crafts. Quite the contrary; he appears at ease, calm and collected in this place that is meant only for him and the creations that pour from his skilled fingers.

"For no other reason than it being my working space, and working spaces must be maintained as such." He pauses finally, drops the bush into the water sitting just beside and then looks up at you through messy, loose strands of black hair. "It is no place for conversing, especially if you wish to fight with me like before."

The reluctance in his voice, almost pained in the way that he says it, has your eyebrows pressing together with rather intense confusion. While it is true that you had been far from pleased with the discoveries made the first time you made your way up here, to call it something of a fight feels rather excessive to you, in hindsight.

"I wouldn't say that we fought, can you blame me for feeling the way that I had felt then?"

"Not at all," he admits with ease, "but you shouldn't go through my things, and you shouldn't raise your voice at me in regards to matters that are just as much out of my control as they are your own."

That rubs you wrongly, and your eyes narrow as a result of it. "They are not equally out of our control. You desired a woman to live idly in your home and that is what you received. I desired only the smallest allowance of time in order to get my surroundings back on track, and in the end, what I received was nothing more than being the aforementioned idle woman."

Minho sighs heavily, then turns back to the canvas in front of him. "How many times must I apologize for that? It's not as if I had known when the inquiry was sent to me that you would be so displeased. Is it not enough that I do not force you to engage with me?"

"That's not—"

"I ask nothing of you," Minho continues, a newfound pointedness to his voice. "I do not request your company in any capacity, no expectation of you to entertain me in any way. I do not bother you, I do my best to stay out of your way. Anything you desire, it's yours. Money, gifts, luxury cloths or even the most expensive art pieces from all across the globe…any of it can be yours, should it suit you."

His voice wavers as he reaches the tail end of his words, and the weight of it hangs heavy on your heart. Minho sounds sad, defeated in a battle that he hadn't even bothered to take on.

Then, he looks up towards you again.

"If a lover is what you wish to have, you may take one. I understand the difficulty in meeting people so far out in the countryside, but I'll see to it that the staff will accommodate your needs in any way."

Once he finishes, you stand silently just off and to the side of him. Your stares towards one another rest in the balance, you anticipate him saying more, but the words never come.

You frown at him, just slightly.

"What do you know about me?" you ask.

The question seems to take him aback, eyes widening slightly at the suddenness of it being presented towards him. His eyes fall from yours then, cast around the floor between you as if the answers sprawled out somewhere there. Eventually, he accepts his fate, and looks back up towards you.

"I…I don't know. Nothing, I suppose. Not beyond what your father has told me throughout our correspondence."

"My father knows nothing about me, not beyond the perfected image of daughterhood that I am expected to present. You know all about expectations, don't you, Mr. Lee?"

His watching you continues, but no words dare to be uttered by the man.

"Perhaps instead of holing yourself up here your whole life, you come down and do what is expected of you." Turning back towards the stairs that brought you here, you begin your descent down—one, two—and then pause to turn back for your final parting words.

"A man is expected to be seen by his wife, is he not? To talk to her, to know things about her, to learn. More than that, a husband is expected to do all of that, and even more. I refuse to allow you to use my invisible presence here as nothing more than a story that you can tell people while you're away presenting your art pieces. You wanted me here, and so I am. You will have to do better, because I have nothing left to lose, and the humiliation of returning home from a failed marriage is a far cry from the things I have already endured."

Minho does not reply.

𝕏𝕀.

The next morning, just as any other, you maintain your routines.

Exiting your bedroom, your feet pad along the floor one after another—simple slippers that adorn them, keeping your toes warm—the sound of it is one that you have now grown accustomed to, the echo as it carries through the emptiness of the estate.

Thankfully, as you draw nearer to the lowest level and towards the kitchen, the gentle music of other inhabitants fondly make themselves known to you. Scents mix in as well, cinnamon and coffee and vanilla all whirled together in the air that you can't help but find peace amongst it all. When you enter, you are greeted brightly by Mai, as well as the other housekeepers lending their hands to ensure a seamlessly run ship.

You offer your thanks, and head along your way towards the study. The door hangs ajar, just as you always leave it. No concern for whether or not Minho will make his way down and curiosity will get the best of him upon catching sight of your belongings; a man who has made it more than clear that he holds no such fascination in you.

The large seat situated in front of the window awaits you. Today is sunny, the short rain that tells a tale of spring soon to come, having since passed during the nighttime and bringing after its having gone bright skies and pristine white clouds. A good day, a nice day. You sit, opening the drawer inside of the desk and pulling from it the notebook that holds your manuscript. So many years of work, so personal and encompassing everything that makes you.

With your back towards the door, you only vaguely hear the sounds of Mai's hushed utterance from just within the kitchen. Some exclamation of surprise, though it disappears with the same swiftness that it seems to have caught her. Perhaps a bug, or a misplaced knife settled within the wrong drawer—anything could be the case—and for that very reason, you brush it off and focus instead on the pen and paper before you.

Then, there's a knock at the wood of your door.

"Yes?" you call back out at it, unsure of what the housekeepers could be wanting from you. Your typical routine with them has been more or less concluded, no obvious reason for anyone to be looking for you now. "I've not finished with my first coffee yet, I'll come when I have, you need not wait on me and worry yourselves sick."

"Does the Lady of the house have a moment of her time to spare?"

Before you can so much as fathom it, your body whips around and you nearly wholly twist in your chair to look back at the place that the masculine voice has come.

As if what awaits you there could be anything else, anyone else; Minho stands in the small crack of the doorway, barely enough for him to fit half of his body through. He does not dare attempt it, waiting outside for your word of affirmation. His face is downcast, looking up through eyelashes at you like he is doing something entirely wrong of the both of you. Anticipating being turned away, expecting to be berated for having the gall to make such a brave attempt.

"Y-yes, of course, come in!" you reply, biting back the eagerness in your tone at the end of the sentence. Suddenly, you become painfully aware of the space around you and how unkempt you have allowed it to be. "I apologize, it's something of a mess. I only come in here to do some small tasks to keep myself busy and then I leave so I don't think much of keeping it tidy."

Minho steps inside, though the effort is barely there. Two steps into the room, and then he stops; looks around it like he has never been here before. Eventually, you come to understand that he is not so much looking at the things he keeps and rather, that he is avoiding eyes that belong to you.

"It is yours, you may keep it as you wish," he says. His hands dance between being cradled in front of himself, to similarly behind his back. Forward again, thumbs craned into his pockets, then out and to his sides—strangely, uncomfortably. He does not know what to do with them. "I apologize for intruding on your time like this, I—" he pauses, stops looking around once he realizes he has seen all that there is to see, and then has no other option than to look at you. This action is short lived, however, eyes quickly falling to the wood beneath his feet. "I believe that you were correct last night, in your assessment of me and our arrangement. For that reason, I want to make an effort. I want to…do what is expected of me."

Silence blankets the room, his eyes cast upwards again; "If that's all right, of course."

"Yes, yes of course it's…what I would prefer, I think." Once again, excitement that betrays your unwillingness to give too much, too fast. Even if he weren't looking at you, the glee would be heard in your voice. "At the very least, an effort made to get to know one another on a more personal basis. We may never fall in love, may never become lovers…it's impossible to say if we will ever even become friends, but I think it best for the both of us if there is some level of acquaintanceship here."

Minho nods once, swallowing so hard and through a throat so dry that you swear you can hear it. "Understood. Though I must say, I do…" he trails off in thought, returns to it only moments later, "I still intend to spend the majority of my time in the atrium, for work. I must insist that even with our new arrangement, you do not come up there. I will instead…make myself more common down here, or if you request my presence—not that I suspect you will—please inform Mai, and she will retrieve me."

"I accept these terms, but in the inception of such, it is only fair that I forge those of my own."

Eyes widening in shock, Minho seems surprised by your candor. Though you do not know him well, one thing you are thankful for is his seeming unwillingness to abide by much of the traditional social construct that exists around the expectations of the way that men and women are meant to engage with one another. You speak loudly and brashly with Minho, a man that you barely know, and he accepts as much with grace. When he wishes for you to not engage with him in such ways, he calmly asks it of you, rather than demands it through authoritarian fear.

When you wish to push back, he takes a step backwards of his own in order to grant you the space to do so.

"That indeed is fair," Minho agrees, a barely-there smile curving into the corners of his lips. "What does the Lady seek?"

"We have a meal together, most days. Breakfast or dinner, it is of no particular consequence to me. I do not know if you prefer the morning or evening hours, but based on your artistic habits and the dark circling beneath your eyes currently, one can only assume that breakfast is out of the question."

Your own smile perks up, and along with it, Minho's widens. He turns his head, looks over in an attempt to find the nearest reflective surface. Only a silver vase, his face coming out all wobbly and distorted as he looks at himself against it. The truth of your words is still found, however.

"I accept," he says. "Dinner. Let's have dinner together tonight."

You grant him a nod, and he cumbersomely turns towards the door to take his leave.

"One more thing," he adds, paused perfectly within the doorframe but choosing not to look back at you. "Perhaps we should…prepare for the conversations that will be had. It would be awfully unfortunate to waste our time together among the dead of an otherwise quiet night."

Charmed in all of the most fascinating and incomprehensible ways, you see straight through the veil that Minho has attempted to hold up. A million questions run through your mind already; regarding him, this estate, his work, where he has been, and you cannot fathom the possibility of him not experiencing the same. Rather, the second likelihood swims within your thoughts, humorously intriguing, and serving as the catalyst for your ability to begin putting the pieces of him together into something far more recognizable.

Lee Minho is reserved. Locked away in the countryside and borderline cripplingly timid in the face of anything new and not easily understood—made sense by the dabbing of colored paints onto a canvas, dragged and splotched into something that his eye can really and truly see.

Later that evening, Mai and her staff spend far more time and effort preparing a meal than is truly necessary. You worry to yourself slightly watching the lot of them hustle about—there are only two of you, after all—but Mai insists each and every time that she finds the concern spread across your features that she is actually quite thrilled to be doing something such as this for once.

"The Master does not have company often, and for that reason, does not frequently take a proper meal in the evenings," she says, delight dripping from her voice.

Comically to you, however, is the fact that Minho is here and seated at the table across from you already; spoken about as if he is not even in the room. You look him over when Mai admits as much and his features pan, somewhat pained by the truth of it all, you suppose.

"I'm busy in the evenings, more often than not, you are well aware of this, Mai."

"That's no reason not to allow us to have some fun in this kitchen." Her fists ball up at the tops of her hips, and then a handful of other staff begin making their way over to set dishes atop the table.

"You shouldn't say it like I don't permit you to do so," Minho says. He glances up at you briefly, as if to gauge how you're taking all of this. Worried you might think him to be an evil ruler of the manor. "You can, it's just—"

"Wasteful!" Mai finishes with a knowing nod, and then disappears from your side of the table altogether. Her next words are spoken from quite a ways away, down the hall and out of the dining area. "Enjoy your meal! Call for us if you need anything!" she says.

And then the room is silent.

The smells of roasted chicken and glazed vegetables quickly beckon your attention. Buttered dinner rolls in wicker baskets and already poured glasses of wine await each of you. The serving of food has already been completed, your plate piled high with items that drown in delicious looking gravy and topped with garnishes.

You reach towards your wine glass, and make short eye contact with Minho along the way.

He clears his throat, shuffles uncomfortably in his seat after it, and then picks up his eating utensils.

"Some men," he starts, then waits, like he isn't sure that it's so much of a good idea, "some men can be strange about the types of food, or the amount, that their wives eat."

You continue staring at him, because what is the point of this?

Minho reaches for his glass, takes a large sip from it. "Uhh, I'm not like those men, so please, have your fill."

"Are you informing me that I am permitted to not go hungry for appearances?" you ask flatly.

"I—" he begins, short and cut off, not sure where to go from here. "Yes, I suppose that I am. I just wanted to be clear, in case there was cause for concern."

"With all due respect," you say through a light chuckle, "we're in the middle of nowhere, and I've not left the estate since I came. Who am I really intending to impress?"

Minho does not respond to that. He seems to be willing to relent to the conversation at just about any turn, which amuses and also confuses you. Watching him, he cuts into a piece of potato and carefully puts the chunk between slightly crooked, off kilter front teeth. Sort of charming, one of those quirks about a person's appearance that grows on you over time.

He looks up at you suddenly, then takes another sip of the wine.

"What do you do here? How do you spend your days?"

That is unexpected, though you can't quite pinpoint why. Perhaps it is the brashness of finally asking something so quizzical, so personal; a true attempt at learning something about you in a way not before seen or expressed by him. You do not answer right away, nor does he press further. Only the scraping of silverware against fine porcelain is heard throughout the space for entirely too long.

Might he think you strange for your habits? Is he someone safe to tell?

It's worth the chance, and you will yourself to be unbothered by any negative reaction that he may have.

"I…um, I'm writing a book," you say, steadying the tremble that punctures the words, "I do a lot of writing. In the mornings I wake up early, have my breakfast, and then I write in the study by the garden."

You remain nervous about Minho's reaction, but for no discernible reason you come to find. His eyebrows perk up, attention rapt by what it is that you've said. "A book? That's quite impressive, how long have you been working on it?"

"Oh, many years." Stumbling through the strangeness of his sudden exhilaration, you attempt to maintain your composure. "It is something of a memoir, so I have been collecting moments of my life for as long as I can remember."

Minho shakes his head, evidently stunned by such a possibility. "Writing is such a magnificent craft, everyday I wish that the gift of language and written word is the one that had come to find my hands."

"Painting is an incredible art, so few people are creatively capable of mastering the concepts of color or line like you have. Anyone literate can write a sentence."

Minho looks up and the two of you meet glances. It is a moment shared between people who have a newfound understanding amongst one another, and as a result, it feels special; magical. He smiles slightly, and you can't help but match it, too.

"Well, anyone can scribble color onto a canvas, but I think we both know well enough that there is much more that goes into the arts than that," Minho says, a newfound casualness that you feel as though you have only just unlocked to his tone. "Are you looking to publish someday?"

"I think I might like to, if the opportunity were to arise." You stop, reconsider the content therein, and correct for that. "Anonymously, or under a penname. Not my own."

He nods in acceptance of that, then takes another bite of food with his vision cast down towards the plate. In times like this, Minho reminds you of a small child, poorly socialized and unsure of how to move about the world with other people in it. He tries his best, has only the best of intentions, but it never quite feels as though it's enough.

Little by little, you're peeling through those layers. All things considered, so far, the journey isn't half bad.

"I'm pleased that we've decided to do this," Minho says, focused solely on pushing the broccoli around on his plate idly. "Spend time together, I mean. Getting to know one another."

Thus far, perhaps there is a part of you that cannot help but agree.

𝕏𝕀𝕀.

New routines unearth themselves throughout the estate.

Spring washes over the land in waves; flowers in their fullest blossom, live with color and birds that joyously scour the land for new perches to rest their tired wings atop. The trees fill in once more with lush greens and fruits that begin to fill in along the firm branches.

Minho makes himself more often seen throughout the manor corridors, though often brief and insistent on his having some other place to be. You learn not to take it to heart—his insistence in giving himself an out of the conversation—as it would seem that conversation with others is not a skill that comes naturally to him.

Still, you appreciate the effort. Some mornings, Minho slinks down the stairway and into the kitchen, long before his usual rising hours, and asks you about the agenda for your day. You often do not have much to offer him, but Minho watches on as you fill him in with his chin cradled in his hands and eyes that sparkle under the barely breaking dawn that washes in from the windows. He always smiles; somewhat crooked, with one side pulling ever so slightly higher than the other. It isn't a lot, but for now, it will do.

The month is April, and out of the study window you find Minho tending to the garden.

The outside grounds are not well traveled by you, partially on account of arriving to the countryside in the dead of winter. Now that the breezes have warmed and the snow has melted, it's as fine a time as any, and you carry yourself off towards the side door in the kitchen to take your first few steps into the garden that you have adoringly watched all of these months.

"Decided not to keep yourself cooped up in there, did you?" Minho asks playfully, only briefly glancing up towards you from his bent and knelt position in the turned soil. His hands are dirty—no gloves to be seen—but his forearms flex and pulse with strength as he rips at weeds and digs his holes. "People are going to start to think I don't permit you to leave."

"People? What people?" you reply. "Even my own parents have grown bored of writing to me. I don't think you live in any fear of what the people might think. Perhaps they assume that we are wildly happy together, no interest in sharing that with the rest of the unworthy world."

"Aren't we?" Minho says, chuckling lightly.

You make an effort to ignore the question, as well as the way his muscles all appear taut and well attended to beneath his moistened white shirt. Minho is a good looking man, in ways that are a little surprising to you and even in spite of his lack of social character, but even as your husband, he is a stranger. A man that you now live with because it is nothing more than convenient for the both of you, not someone to be lusted after.

Hyunjin comes to mind suddenly. Every time you find yourself missing the touch of a man, it's him that torments you still.

"Of course." You make an effort to ignore the thoughts, and change the subject. "I didn't know you had an interest in gardening. Perhaps I wrongfully assumed it to be something kept up with by the staff."

"Wrong indeed," he says, wiping at his forehead with the rolled up sleeve of his shirt. His skin glistens under the spring sunlight, hair collecting the moisture of his face within its strands.

You are only lusting after him in this way because you wish to be touched by a man again, you barely even know him, you reason. Some reason.

"It's something I picked up a good many years back, when I was shoved deeply into the success of my career. I spent even more time locked away with my work and my paintings, if you could even believe it," Minho says, smiling at himself at the memory of it all. "So, I had to find a reason to get out of the house. Not too far, or for too long, but something. Additionally, I enjoy the act of creation…" he pauses, picks up a small vegetable bulb and holds it up for you to look at. "What's more creative than life?"

You smile, wide and with teeth in a way that you don't remember having done in such a long, long time. Minho laughs at your reaction, and then carries on burying the plant into the ground as originally intended.

"You like to play God in the garden, then?"

"I wouldn't say that."

"What would you say?"

Minho looks up, a surprisingly thoughtful expression etched into his features, as if really, genuinely giving the question an ample amount of thought. "I would say that I like to create!"

A beat of silence passes between the two of you, and Minho continues on with his task. You cock your head to the side, watching him quietly as he moves as if an incredibly bizarre exchange hasn't just taken place. The truth of the matter, you know without so much as even having to ask, is that the discussion is more than likely not strange to him, at all. A perfectly fine chat, nothing out of the ordinary.

Naturally, in the midst of moments like these is when Minho seems most at ease.

"You're a bit odd, Mr. Lee," you say. Calmness is heavy in your tone, marking down the potential distaste that might otherwise accompany such words. "Do you often hear that?"

"Yes, but my oddities and eccentricities are what make the mind tick, the art work and come to life. If I were anything other than myself, who knows what may come of it. I'd rather not find out. Oh, that reminds me—"

Setting his tools down and wiping his hands uselessly on his brown trousers, Minho pauses all of his toiling about to give you his full attention for the words that he is intending for you. His face appears somewhat disappointed, but there's something else mixing within the emotions that you might easily name that you can't quite pinpoint.

"At the beginning of the summer, around June or so, I will leave you to carry on with a showing. I will be gone until autumn time, perhaps November…it will be cold again when I return."

Your stomach drops, and that feeling shocks you.

"Of course, the estate is yours to do as you see fit, and you may leave it as frequently as you wish, too. All of the staff will be yours. It is all yours."

Your lips thin into a frown, and as it would seem, the reaction surprises Minho. He looks up at you in confusion, and perhaps quickly works through the thoughts by himself, because his eyes dip down and away from you, unable to share his gaze with your own with how displeased you appear.

"I'm going to be alone here…for months…"

"Well, you won't be alone…" he says quietly, offering nothing.

"We've finally begun the process of getting to know one another in a meaningful way, and now you're leaving until autumn…it'll be as though we're strangers all over again when you return."

"Surely it won't be that bad…" Minho forces himself to give you answers, but none of them quell the feeling that presses against your chest. "I'll return before you even notice I'm away. For a long time upon your arrival, it was as if I wasn't here at all."

"And I hated it!" you reply quickly, brashly. The words come out loud and honest in a way that you have not intended. Your eyes sit wide on your face, and finally, Minho slowly looks up at you again with eyes not unlike your own.

Neither of you speak for a long while, until Minho sighs and has no other option but to do so himself.

"I apologize, I…did not anticipate that you would feel this way about it, but nevertheless, there is nothing that I can do. This is a part of my work, I often must leave to do such things. The year after this one will be no different, and if it is, then the futility of fame and the fickleness of the human intrigue has finally caught up to me." He quiets again, continues trying to wipe the dirt caked onto the skin of his hands off and onto his pants uselessly. A pointless endeavor. It feels not unlike wanting to be loved.

"I can…try to come home sooner, at the tail end of things. Sometimes it wraps up earlier than anticipated," he says, looking away from your disappointed eyes. "I've not bothered to rush home before, with nothing waiting for me. Not to imply that you are…waiting for my return…"

"I would like that," you say, simply put. "Suppose then we should make an effort to make these last two months together count, yes?"

Minho doesn't look up at you, too socially strangled to do so. It's not necessary, however, because the small perk at the corner of his mouth as a result of what you have proposed says plenty.

𝕏𝕀𝕀𝕀.

"Another lovely dinner, thank you, Mai."

She nods to Minho kindly, accepting the compliment, and then finishes up her small cleaning tasks to head out and away from the dining area. You look out and across the living room at the large window that leads into the garden—not unlike your study—and bask in the way that the moonlight shines down onto the glistening, wet leaves and petals that have since come to bloom.

"Have you been out yet? In the evening, I mean." Minho turns to you when he says it, notices where it is that you've been looking, but you shake your head.

"No, too busy with my writing, I suppose."

"You'll find an excuse forever if you allow yourself to, come on, let's go."

Minho doesn't touch you, but he waves his hand towards you and then back into the direction of the side door that leads into the garden. You follow along without much argument, wanting just as much to see what the grounds have to offer you, and perhaps now is as good of a time as any.

The nighttime breeze is cold, and you are not at all dressed to be traversing it with only a thin shawl draped over your shoulders. Immediately upon stepping down and onto the cobblestone pathway your arms fly up to cradle yourself, attempting to hug back the warmth that escapes. Minho seems far less bothered by the pricking of cold against his skin. He is never dressed in anything special or extravagant for as long as you have known him; a plain, white button down shirt with brown, fitted pants suited for not much more than becoming dirty without a care.

Regardless, you push through. It is not often that the two of you partake in anything other than a dinner, or a coffee together. Two people so wrapped up in their own things that they nearly forget about the existence of the other. You make an effort—Minho is getting better over the weeks—but only so many hours in a day.

The two of you slip around the gray, brick corner of the home; grand in its stature. As far as the eye can see sit beds of flowers, ornate bushes, and the shining droplets of rain from earlier in the day that still collect on each. It's a beautiful sight, the way that they twinkle, and when Minho turns to look back at you, a rare and wide smile pulls at his face.

And then it falls.

"Are you cold?" he asks, concerned and rushing towards you instead. "You should have said something, only now do I realize that you're not dressed for the evening breeze."

"I'm fine, really," you insist, something of a lie with the way that you tremble. He must not be thinking clearly, too wrapped up in the sight before him to thoroughly consider all of his options. Minho reaches for you, presses smooth, warm palms to your arms and runs down them carefully before grasping gently at your wrists and pulling your body against his. He wraps his arms around you—he is firm, both in body and embrace—and he smells like the strangest combination of paint and cinnamon.

Indeed, you are warmer now.

You are not unfamiliar with the touch of a man, and it is not that in particular that dredges up the nervousness in your stomach. Rather, you have never shared a touch with this man, and this man is the one that you live with, are married to. You wonder if it is only natural to have considered the possibility of wanting him; handsome, smart, kind, who wouldn't at the very least enjoy the fantasy of such a thing.

But never to touch.

Minho's hands, surprisingly strong and confident, inch down your back to pool at the small of it as distance is created between the both of your bodies. You crave the kind of intimacy that being like this gives you, but still it feels wrong when it comes from him. Accepting this arrangement as nothing more than a marriage of convenience cements certain ideas for the remainder of your time with this man, and one of those, unwaveringly, is that love and love making will be strictly absent from it.

Yet you enjoy the way that he touches you now.

In the dark of night, and just outside of the manor, Minho pulls back from you slowly and it's like this that you are finally able to see him up close, the tiny, charming intricacies of his face otherwise missed due to proximity. A small freckle on his nose, the ever so slight crookedness to his front teeth that—while you have noticed—are so much more handsome and real like this.

His eyes sparkle looking at you, and there's a pause before anything more happens. In your mind, you beg. Loudly asking for that which you seek, no matter the outcome. You can deal with that when it comes, and perhaps you don't even know precisely what it is that you desire from him now. Still, you beg; please, please, please…

Minho's eyes fixate on yours, and then drop down, down, to where your lips sit. His own part, as if with intention to speak, or a desire to taste, one you prefer far more than the other. He does neither, however, finds eye contact once more, but his fingers grasping harder into the loose fabric sitting at the small of your back sends chills down your spine in a way that the meeting of your lips might not even manage.

Do you want, Lee Minho? Do you crave, as well?

"We should go inside," he says, a whisper that shakes. His gaze finds itself fixated down towards your lips again, and all concern aside, you want in that moment for him to have you. "You're not dressed to be out here, you'll catch a cold."

If Minho has ever desired you, even for a moment prior to this, never has he shown so much as an inkling of it. Now, he stands unraveled, pulled apart and bare for you to see. You wonder if he aches, you cannot help but wonder whether or not the need will be sated.

"Yes, let us do that," you answer, but only because you should. No part of you wishes to find warmth within the walls of the estate.

The following weeks bring a sort of comfortable bliss to the previously cold, ominous interior of the home. One morning, however, that all changes.

Early mornings are warmer now than they once were, each passing day cutting through the chilly breeze. The grounds come to live in lush greens and colorful petals; you've even begun taking trips out of the countryside and into the nearest, small town. It has little to offer besides functional necessity, but leaving the estate is a breath of fresh air that rejuvenates your senses.

You hope to make that journey today, but first, there is work that must be done.

The manuscript is coming along, words filling each page like they've always meant to be there. With your coffee in hand, you make your way towards the study that keeps your things like an untended vault. Secrets hide inside, but no one dares to seek them out—or so you thought.

You push the door open, and what you find is nearly enough to drop the cup from your hands and to the floor completely. Your heart stops similarly instead, and for a brief moment, you cannot believe your eyes.

Minho looks up at you from inside, standing by the desk from which you often work. In his hands sit all of your deepest, innermost secrets. Things you wish not to share with him now, perhaps ever, but the look on his face is one of someone who now understands everything.

He is difficult to read from here, his feelings incomprehensible from just what his features have presented as the two of your eyes meet.

You rush inside, though the damage is done, you know. "What are you doing?" you ask, making little effort to mask your feelings on this matter. Once you reach him, you snatch the pages from his hands and shove them back inside of the drawer from which he got them. "That's not yours to read!"

He does not respond right away, and instead, the room fills with a heavy silence. Minho's hands drop slowly to his sides as he watches you, lips pulled thinly across his face. He appears neither angry, nor sad. He has the appearance of nothing, at all.

"I only wanted to understand you better, get to know you more than what we already have, I thought…" he trails off, eyes falling away from yours, "I thought this to be the best way, suppose I was not mistaken."

You don't dare make an attempt to find his gaze, not looking at one another. It's better like this. Anger bubbles up inside of you, as well as the humiliation of everything that has led you to this point, to this place with him. "So, now you know. Now you know everything."

"I don't…" Minho starts again in response, once again there are words that he cannot seem to find with the same sort of urgency that he needs them. "If it is some concern about my feelings on the matter, I'm unbothered by what you've done, by your history."

"And why should you care?" you ask, the words coming out biting and spit like a kind of venom. "We are not involved in this partnership in any typical sense of the word. This is a marriage of convenience, and convenient it shall remain." It feels bad when spoken, as if betraying your own self-interest. What you feel it to be instead is the most logical course of action given the circumstances; neither serving you nor your heart as far as any potential, budding relationship between the two of you is concerned.

Minho's eyes dart up at that and find your own, but you continue on. "A wife for show, am I not? And for show I will continue to be. No one else knows, you will never experience the same sort of humiliation as I have, if that is your concern."

"It's not." His face twists at the words you've said to him. "That couldn't be the furthest thing from my concern. Do I come off as someone who loses sleep over the opinions of people?"

There's more fight in his voice now, something you're not used to hearing from him. It rattles you, but only slightly, because you are not frightened of him or what he may do. Rather, it serves as a sort of reminder of just how little you appear to understand about him. Most men, most husbands, in these situations would be livid, and demanding of the dissolution of a partnership from which has been built upon deception. This, however, would seem to be far from Minho's interest.

"I would be dishonest if I said that I didn't wish you had told me, of course I do, but I am reasonable enough to understand why you have not," Minho says. "You have lived a whole life before ever having met me, your path leading you elsewhere. That is neither my business, nor my concern. My concern is…"

He does not complete the thought and instead turns away from you once more. Minho makes his way towards the door of the study, but gives pause just before making his exit.

"I am to leave in a week's time, perhaps the space will do us well, after all."

The reminder of all of the time that you will spend by yourself hangs grossly dense inside of your heart. Everything about this feels so wrong, not as it was meant to ever be. Birthed from some incomprehensible place is the desire to beg him to stay, to not leave you here alone despite knowing that he cannot. So much progress has been made between the two of you, only to be spoiled by this; left to fester for the summer months, and you cannot fathom a scenario in which he returns having missed you now.

𝕏𝕀𝕍.

When Minho leaves for his trip, you do not bid him farewell.

Instead, you watch from the window of your bedroom as bags and canvases are piled into the carriage. Minho, Mai and the rest of the staff all smile and say their goodbyes—you can't help but wonder if he wishes you were there alongside them.

It is unimportant. What must be done carries on regardless, and Minho sits himself inside, the carriage pulls away, and down the pathway he eventually disappears; not to return until the leaves on the trees begin to color and fall away with the soon to be onset of winter air once more.

You wonder if you will miss him, only time will tell.

The passing months bore you, and offer you little to placate your wandering mind.

Summer is in full swing, it comes and works its way to closing before you have much of a moment to enjoy it. You make many trips into town to partake in the fresh bakeries and even engage with the folk who enjoy their lives there. They seem happy, you can't help but wonder what that must be like.

Though the manor had been lonely upon your first arrival, there is a stark difference between then, and now. The knowledge that Minho was there—somewhere—within the halls somehow serving as just enough of a comfort to take the edge off of the blanketing nothingness, now gone; and worse than that, you do not know what awaits you when he will return.

Mai offers you kindness, and that is appreciated, but her dedication to her job makes it so that the line towards friendship never truly becomes crossed. You have not seen your parents, and they do not write to you as often as you might like them to. Tzuyu has sent a letter or two, but they are as infrequent as the others, as she is busy with the courtship process herself after the announcement from the prince.

Seven days into September, there is a knock at the door.

Sitting in the vast living room area, surrounded by old paintings, books and other such decorations, the sun begins to set on the home and the summer heat finally starts to wane. The book in hand—one Minho had recommended before his departure—is one that tells the tale of an old painter who traveled all around the world, and gifted a canvas of his art to every person that he met along the way. You wonder if this is the life that Minho wishes for, you wonder if eventually, you will be left behind for good as nothing more than another collectible that he has accumulated inside of the estate.

"Miss…"

Mai comes up from behind, wringing her hands strangely, unlike anything you've ever seen from her before. Nervous. "You have a visitor."

"I do?" you question, reeling. You are not expecting anyone. "Who is it?"

"I think it might be best if you come quickly."

She has never appeared so concerned to you, and thus, you make haste to follow her and trust her word. The strides past the kitchen and through the small hallway are quick and long, there's a kind of worry bubbling up inside of you. All of the worst potential things begin to muddle your mind; what if your parents have passed away and someone has come to deliver the news in person?

But turning into the foyer puts a different kind of nail into a different kind of coffin.

Three men stand in the doorway, one on each side of the person intended to be the centerpiece of their arrival. A simple, loose black shirt draping over broad shoulders and a thin, lithe torso, cinched at the waist and carelessly tucked into the matching black trousers there.

He nearly gives the appearance of someone normal, everyday. Just a spot above Minho's own, usual look. Fascinating, the way your mind instantly moves to compare the two.

"Hello, darling," Hyunjin says. Then, he turns to his guards. "You may go."

You feel Mai's eyes on you, and quickly turn to acknowledge them. "Please, leave us."

She nods, and you can only imagine the questions running through her head. You have not a clue how you intend on ever addressing them in the future, but there are many things that you do not understand yet in front of you.

"Your Highness," you say, and then begin to take your bow. Hyunjin steps forward with a gentle scoff, and quickly waves the display away, instead setting his hand atop your shoulder as he moves past you and into the direction from which you came.

"That's not necessary, let us leave the theatrics of royalty for the streets, where the people might see them, shall we? I think we are a long way away from requiring that between us."

And so you do. The two of you make your way back into the common area of the downstairs and each take an end of the lengthiest couch. Hyunjin sits leaned forward, hands clasped together and resting against his knees. His hair is still long and dark, you thought he might cut it to relinquish such a boyish, juvenile look, but you find that has not been the case.

"I must admit," he begins through a sigh, "I was a bit taken aback when I heard who it was that you ended up being married off to."

"Yes, well, suppose I experienced much of the same when it came to you," you reply curtly.

To that, Hyunjin smiles slightly and stares down at the floor between his feet.

"Fair play. Unfortunately, there are certain expectations…"

"Was everything a lie? Did you never have any intention of marrying me? Did you never love me? If there are expectations then surely you knew when we began our private affairs what could come of it all, so why…"

"It's not so simple," Hyunjin says slowly, turning to look at you now. "My parents have the majority of say in who gets chosen. How lovely it would be if falling in love were enough."

You look at him, but frown. The possibility that the choice be wholly out of his hands is not one that had ever crossed your mind, too busy cursing him for a choice that may have never been his to begin with. Your eyes rake over him, his face; and perhaps there is something of a sadness behind his eyes if you dare to give him the grace of seeing it.

"Where is Sana?"

To this question, Hyunjin sits back with a heavy, loud exhale. "At home, perhaps shopping with her friends as she tends to do. Where is Mr. Lee?"

"Away for work, until the end of autumn."

"It must be lonely, being cooped up here in the countryside alone for so long."

"I…" you hesitate, unsure of how much of yourself you wish to indulge in a man who has already hurt you so gravely in the past. "I make do."

Looking towards you again, Hyunjin's gaze is heavy and narrow, full of a silent contemplation that he has not yet shared with you. Talking to someone that you know so well feels comforting, welcomed. You feel at home. He is disarming.

"Does he suit you?" Hyunjin asks.

You hadn't thought about it in such simplistic terms before. Does Minho suit you? you question yourself in your mind again.

And then you give one, single nod. "He suits me enough, I suppose. Our partnership is a bit…unorthodox perhaps, but we find joy in each other's company."

His eyebrow perks up at that, catching the hint of something unspoken hidden between the words.

"Is that so? A loveless marriage then?"

You scoff, shifting uncomfortably in your seat at the mere mention of it, regardless of how much truth there may be in the statement. "I think loveless makes it seem so much more harsh than it is. I believe we have begun to care for one another in some fashion, over the months. We talk, we have meals together—"

"But he doesn't make love to you."

Stilling your awkward movements, you slowly turn to look up and meet Hyunjin's curious gaze once more.

"No. We've not…reached that point in our relationship, if we ever do." Your eyes fall away. "Surely you are familiar with marriages of convenience, and that very much is ours. We are both at peace with it. Minho is kind, he is accepting of my interests and allows me to do as I please in order to maintain a sense of self, I couldn't ask for more."

As if taking your words as an invitation, Hyunjin slowly begins making his way down the length of the empty couch and towards you. A wry smile tugs at his lips, and though the better part of you knows better than to entertain the possibility of whatever it is that this man may have to offer you, there does still remain the wicked loneliness of a woman who misses—craves—the adoring, wanting touch of a man who desires her.

You tell yourself to create more space between your bodies as Hyunjin comes near, to stand to your feet, to ask him to leave. You are not frightened of him, not an ounce of concern laden in you that he may wish to take something that you are unwilling to give him; no, the horror lies within the fact that you very much do wish to give to him.

Hyunjin's hand finds your leg. The touch is light, tentative and testing. You do not pull away.

"That is no way to live the rest of your days, my love."

It should be harder, you imagine, to give in to his whims. The consideration should weigh heavier on your chest, not handed over so easily once his lips find the skin of your neck, and shortly thereafter, your own. Hyunjin's hands smooth up your legs and beneath your dress, laid back against the sofa. He hovers over you with long, black hair that curtains the both of you inside of this moment. Unsure whether or not it is right, or wrong. For him, the answer is a simple one, but suppose these sorts of things are commonplace among men of a royal standing; after all, who exists to cast down judgment upon them?

His touch is electric against your skin, even more so with the first, slow press of himself into you. You gasp at the feeling. Indeed, you have missed this more than even you had known.

Still, you think of Minho.

When Hyunjin takes his leave once more and bids you farewell, new thoughts and feelings run rampant through your mind as you smile and wave down the cobblestone walkway. Perhaps there had been a kind of truth in his words—that this is no way to live forever—but you cannot fathom any other way, either.

Falling into Hyunjin's touch is easy because it is one that is so familiar. The same motions repeated time and time again and to a kind of perfection, however; something is missing, something that you cannot quite put your finger on.

𝕏𝕍.

The weeks continue to draw on, as does the day of Minho's return in November.

Leaves begin to change their colors, falling away from the branches that they once called their home. The flowers litter the ground, browning and dying to spring anew in the following year. It reminds you of your first arrival upon this place, though snow covered the land then. Not yet has it fallen for the first time this season, but soon it shall.

You keep busy, trying to put out of your mind the happenings in his absence. It is of little consequence to you what has happened in Hyunjin's brief visit, and perhaps the worst part of your soul considers it a kind of unearned payback towards a friend who had taken everything you had hoped for from you. It is unfair, not the kind of person you wish to be, and you put the thought to bed just as quickly as it comes to you. You do not expect to see him again, and in kind, you decide to never delve in such foolish and unbecoming behaviors regarding him even in the event that you do.

Written off as closure, there is some semblance of peace therein.

On the day of Minho's return, the house is alive. The keepers of the manor all rushing around to ensure that everything is precisely as it should be for the moment that he steps inside; it fascinates you to watch them, knowing full well that Minho is not the sort of man to be bothered by the occasional, misplaced item or a spec of dust left upon the mantle. Of course, this is their job, and they take it upon themselves to make sure that it is done to the best of their ability. You wait just inside the foyer as good wives do when his carriage pulls up, and the quick, anxious beating of your heart comes to be a far more unexpected guest than the man of the hour is.

The doors open and he enters. Two other men are with him and aiding with his belongings, a sight that reminds you of Hyunjin's visit, and you are none pleased by that fact. Minho is dressed differently than you are used to seeing him; far more put together, and with a heavy coat sitting atop his shoulders. Hair less unkempt, it makes you wonder if someone had their hand at his appearance before he left to begin his journey.

He greets the staff first, those that arrived with him handing off his things, and then, he turns his sights towards you.

"Welcome home," you say, fighting back the shake of your voice. "Was it a good trip?"

"It was, but long. Too long for my liking," he admits with a smile. "I'm happy to be home, and not looking forward to having to do much of the same next year, but we'll take it as it comes."

The two of you step towards one another, and to your surprise, Minho takes your hand into his.

"How have things been while I've been away? Hopefully not too dull."

His eyes are gentle as he looks at you, and there is a part of you that wonders if he even recalls the events that took place only just before his embarking. If he does, he shows no signs of it; only a captivating adoration for you.

"Things have been fine…good," you say with a nod, eyes forcing themselves away from his own. Your nervousness and secrets catching up to you, making themselves known within the room. "The days passed as they do, I took many trips into the small town down the way, worked on my book…you've not missed much along the way."

You can feel Mai's eyes on you as you tell the half-truth, and for that reason, you continue on. Perhaps a wild assumption that you would be able to keep this large a secret strictly under lock and key.

Squeezing his hand lightly, you smile ever so slightly at him and say, "We should talk, there are some things. It would be best that way, once you're settled in."

"Of course, I only need a short while. A rinse off and a change of clothes from being cooped up in travel for so long, and then I'm all yours."

Pulling his hand away to attend to his things, you wish deeply to hold on tight—afraid that this may be the last time Minho ever offers you such a genuine, cherished moment.

Later into the afternoon, the changing colors of the sky can be seen through the windows. Hues of blues, purples and oranges that decorate it so beautifully, informing all of those who can see it that the sun is soon to take its rest along the horizon.

You stand in the kitchen, a bowl of fruits sitting before you. Apples, cranberries and persimmons give off their assortment of shades to choose from when Minho quietly makes his way inside.

Eyes meet, and smiles follow after.

Minho's hair is damp from water, strewn about his head and face, entirely uncared for in appearance. He is back in his usual attire; pants with paint stains that not even Mai has managed to defeat, but that function perfectly well as far as he is concerned, you reckon.

Leaning against the counter beside you, he pops a cranberry into his mouth and then cocks his head to the side inquisitively. "You wanted to speak to me?"

Moments like this make it so much harder. You'd not wanted to disclose this to him in any case, but have since decided it better to do so. The guilt weighs so heavily on your chest—has ever since the day—and you wonder if it is selfish to put that onto a man who does not need to carry the burden. Minho is your husband, yes, but in title and legality alone. He has given you permission to carry on as you please, explicit permission to take a lover if that is what you so wish to do; so why is it that having done so feels so regrettable?

This is not a situation that you have ever found yourself to be in before, and thus, you do not know how best to navigate it. You are not one to mince words, however, and so you make the choice to simply come out with it.

"While you were away, Hyunjin was here."

Minho's chewing slows, all softness in his face melting away once the words finally come together as something that he understands the meanings of. "Here? He came here?"

"Yes, to see me."

"He came here…to see you…" Minho says slowly, thoughtfully. "If he knew to come here, then surely he must know that you've been married." He pauses briefly, thinks it through just a bit more before continuing. "As has he."

You nod affirmatively and then say, "Yes, all of this is true. He wanted to see me…I think…there was something of unfinished business between the two of us, as you know with the way that things turned out. It was a brief encounter, he was not here long. I do not think we will meet again in the future."

Minho looks at you tentatively, and you can nearly see all of the questions that beg to be asked swimming around behind his eyes. Surely, he fights back the urge to do so with all of his might for your sake alone, and instead chooses to stomach the brunt of this knowledge by himself, no matter how much discomfort it may bring.

But you do not escape them all.

"You say the encounter was…brief," he starts, though his eyes are unable to meet your own as he presses forward with what he must know. "I have little interest in prying into your personal affairs, I understand what this is—between us—just as well as you do, but I must know; did you—"

"Yes."

Rather than making him say it, you put an end to the entire thing abruptly. Minho blinks through the acceptance of it, a little awe struck, you can tell. He gives two, small nods and then swallows down hard.

"Thank you for telling me," he says. His voice is level, but you can tell as well as anyone else might that it is a facade. Minho turns towards the hallway and says, "If you don't mind, I have work to attend to. Have a good evening."

He does not appear outwardly angry or upset in the ways that you are used to men expressing such emotions, and thus, you are unsure of what to make from all of this. You watch him take two, three steps towards his exit before you rush around the corner of the marble counter and towards him. A hand reaches out towards his arm, but you do not dare make contact—unsure of what may happen if you do. Minho does not scare you, nor has he ever shown aggression, or violence towards you, but you must at all costs aim to protect yourself in such precarious circumstances.

The movement must catch his attention and he stills in place, seemingly waiting for you to reach him. Minho turns to look at you from over his shoulder, unwilling to fully give himself to your insistence of such.

Your chest feels impossibly tight, the struggling burn of discomfort creeping up and into your throat. Are these tears that threaten you? Why, you wonder. You care for him, yes, but there is little between you, and in most recent times not much more than some sort of contention. What is there to care for? And more than that, when has this man ever bothered to express as much towards you?

Still, you press forward. "Are you upset with me? It was thoughtless, but you have said before that I am able to do such things. Don't punish me for the allowances that you have offered!"

"Punish you?" Minho says, tone questioning. "I have no interest in punishing you for anything that you have done in my absence. Your personal matters are your own. If you wish to sleep with the prince then who am I to tell you not to."

"I do not wish to sleep with the prince! I wish to sleep with—"

It comes out faster than you have the chance to pull it back. Dripping with pure emotion and absolutely unbridled truth, you manage to cut it off at the tail end, though you fear that the damage has been done. The heat of humiliation curls up your spine, you take a step back and away from the man in front of you.

Too much silence creeps up between the two of your bodies, and Minho offers nothing to you in the immediate aftermath of the words. Wordlessly, you beg him to say something—anything—to cut through it, even if it is condemnation that sits at the tip of his tongue.

Much to your surprise, however, Minho turns back to face away from you fully with something of an awkward shift to his stature. He does not look at you, but the more that he chooses not to, the less you believe it to be a sign of displeasure and more so one born from a kind of strange unsureness of how to move forward, where to go with this from here.

He clears his throat loudly, one by one cracking the knuckles in his fingers as if to fill in the empty space between your bodies. Finally, he says, "Perhaps we simply move on from this, as if nothing ever happened. In any case, I'll be in the atrium, should you need to find me."

A curious thing to say from the man, one that has you reeling in shock upon hearing it.

"Is that…an invitation?"

And to that, Minho sighs aloud.

"Must you make me speak everything into existence? Surely you've noticed I lack the capabilities for these sorts of things."

It's not perfect, but you'd not expected to leave this particular discussion with a smile pulling at your lips.

𝕏𝕍𝕀.

The atrium smells of cinnamon, paint thinner, and alcohol.

Rum, in particular. You're not able to make out its particular scent until you're much closer to the man that it emanates off of, pungent and impossible to ignore. You try to recall any other time that you've been aware of Minho's drinking, but you cannot.

Tonight must be a special night for him to be partaking.

There's a soft spot in the wooden paneling of the floor, and it creaks beneath your weight. This is enough to finally alert Minho of your arrival to this place, having not noticed you before. He glances at you from over his shoulder—not unlike the hours before—and then carries on with the mixture of colors that have already been dabbed onto the bristles of his brush.

"You came," he says.

"You drink."

Minho sighs at your response. "You know this, we have shared wine at the dinner table before."

"Yes, but not like this."

Hunched over and knelt onto the floor, Minho ignores this and instead continues painting. You opt out of pressing any further on the matter and instead, bring yourself to his side in order to see what it is that he is working on.

The canvas is wide rather than tall, with hues of blue, white and green masterfully splashed across the majority of it. The beauty of the ocean and the waves that live within it perfectly captured in time by his hand—a small ship depicted amidst it all.

"I spent some time by the harbor on this trip, and spent a good deal of my time there thinking about how my life might be if I ceased to exist here, the way that I have been, the way that I do."

You look down at him, but he does not look up. He continues with his work.

"The truth of the matter, is that there isn't much keeping me here, is there? Not much would change. I could be anywhere in the world doing this. No reason it must be here."

"Is that why you painted this? Your wish to escape it all?" you ask.

Minho stops his strokes, then drops his paintbrush into the muddied mixture of water just beside him. He stands to his feet—albeit wobbly—and stares down at the piece of artwork as if it's something not crafted from himself. A strange existence that has somehow found its way into his home, into his thoughts, but not of his own doing.

"I'm not sure that I even wish for it," he says. "I'm unsure of a lot of things. I make decisions largely because they are expected of me, because I see what everyone else does, and so I emulate it. It's easy to assimilate like this, I don't have to think about it all that much."

"Like taking a wife."

Minho looks away from the painting then and over towards you. You meet his eyes, but feel a sense of nervousness under the intensity that sits behind them tonight.

"It has always been difficult for me to set my anxieties aside without the aid of warmth that the bottle brings. I don't partake often, I know it's unhealthy, so I keep to myself and suffer alone." Minho's hand reaches towards yours, and while you're happy to allow him to take it, that is not all that he does. Quickly you feel the gentle tug of his strength, inching you closer to him. His warm, soft palm tracing up the outside of your arm until it disappears behind your back to rest there. Now the scent of alcohol is strong on his breath, but you cannot find it within yourself to care when proximity is so tightly held between you.

Minho's finger traces down the middle of your back, an action that sends chills up the very same place. You fight back the shudder that threatens to shake you while in his grasp, and your own hands find their placement at the front of his broad, firm chest.

The alcohol indeed must be making him brave, lowering his inhibitions and the torrent of thoughts that otherwise might bar him from ever attempting this. For that, you are thankful. You glance at his lips, then up at eyes that are already watching you. Minho's thoughts and feelings are nearly indiscernible on his face; still thinking, thinking, thinking, no doubt.

He leans in towards you, so short and small that you nearly miss it entirely if not for how rapt with attention to him you are. A tentative gesture to test the waters, to see if you will pull away.

But you will not.

And so, he presses forward again, slowly still, as if to give you ample time to escape him. You couldn't imagine yourself a world where you might; heart beating hard and fast within your chest in anticipation of this, fingers gripping tightly into the fabric of his shirt with each passing second between the two of you. Truthfully, you have been wanting this, for so, so long. Longer than you could ever fathom to allow him to know, the kind of dull, anticipatory, hopeful desire that rests dormant often, but never completely able to be ignored.

It's hard to pinpoint the moment in which Minho became more than just a concept of a husband in your mind, muddied even more once his lips finally find your own. Careful and warm, he kisses you like he's afraid to break you, but the hand gripping at the small of your back tells a different story; one of forced back desire, of bitten back need. It presses your body more firmly against his, it informs far more than his words will allow for now.

When you do not create space, the kiss becomes heavier too. Testing, unsure lips that at first only ghost against your own then expose their want for you in the careful turn of his head and ever so slight nips of teeth at the bottom of your lip. Harder, faster with every moment that passes in the atrium; you forget to breathe and gasp into his mouth, Minho finally relents in tasting you so ravenously.

Physical desire is nothing new to you, but never have you experienced it quite like this.

Minho's free hand comes up to cup your face, thumb grazing lightly against the skin of your cheek as he looks at you. Both just slightly out of breath, you can't fathom how wrecked you appear just from a kiss.

His lips part as if to speak, and then close shortly thereafter. Once again; thinking, thinking, thinking. The alcohol is incapable of disposing of it all. Then, they part again, and Minho pushes forward with the words that fail him so frequently.

"Do you still love the prince?"

The least that you can do is answer his question honestly.

"I don't know."

And though it may not be the ideal reply, Minho still appears pleased by it. Everything that you have learned about him since your arrival here points to the very same conclusion, because he smiles ever so slightly, and gives a small nod in acceptance.

𝕏𝕍𝕀𝕀.

Though not spoken of, the kiss lives on in every interaction shared between the two of you going forward.

You wish deeply for the conversation to come to a head, but by now you know Minho and the way that he functions well enough to know that that will more than likely not be the case. Still, you manage to find solace in this fact; his nervous mannerisms and the barely there catch in his voice when speaking to you on occasion, as if the memory of such has just caught up with him in real time. You smile through these instances, pleased by them in some capacity. Pleased knowing that it is not a thing that has simply come and gone.

The only person that Minho answers to in his life is his agent, and his agent insists on having a holiday party at the estate.

On the day of, it is a week into December. Snow has begun to fall, though not heavily yet. It sprinkles like sugar from the sky, only lightly dusting the windows and grounds. It is a beautiful sight, but you're thankful for not having to be the one traveling within it, and when the guests start arriving, you realize just how grossly unprepared for this volume of guests the home truly is. Not enough coat racks, not enough space for wiping off their shoes. Hats are placed wherever it is that they can go; Mai scuttling about the hallways with her staff in an attempt to make it all work.

To your surprise, Minho makes himself seen. No doubt a push by said agent, but his displeasure at doing so resides heavily within his stature.

First laying eyes on him is a sight to behold. His hair is more put together, set into place purposefully. He wears all black, but the front panel of his coat is garnished with the sparkle and shine of dark jewels that bring it to life. It's a little unlike him, you have to admit, but Minho wears it well.

Quickly, you finish up a conversation with people that your husband barely knows, that you have barely been partaking in, and go to him. He, too, is amidst something of the same, though handling it far less gracefully than you have.

You put on your widest smile, and curl your arm firmly around his own from the side.

"My sincerest apologies," you start, tone dripping with a sweet edge, "I'm afraid I must take my husband from you, if only for a brief moment."

The man smiles and nods happily, understanding of whatever situation it is that you've made up in your head in order to rescue Minho. It's late into the evening and you've not been keeping a watchful eye, but the smell on his breath of alcohol is one that you're quite familiar with, and disappearing into the halls towards less-traveled passages, you can't help but wonder what this instance has in store.

Minho drags along, but doesn't say a word. He stumbles slightly once, you try not to ascribe it to his drunkenness unfairly. You have just the place in mind, and once you reach the old, empty study at the far, opposite end of the hall, you push Minho inside lightly, and then close the door behind.

"Are you rescuing the damsel?" Minho asks, cheeky and with a smile. "Was it that obvious?"

"Only to someone with the eyes to see it," you reply. "I know that you don't enjoy these sorts of busy situations."

"One might say I hate it, in fact." Minho steps towards you, and you take a step back. Only there is nowhere left for you to go, and your back is up against the door from which you came. "Indeed, I much prefer quieter moments of peace, just between myself and another…"

His hand finds the outside of your thigh, only the thick layers of your dress between skin. He closes the space further, as much as he can, until his body is pressed tightly against your own. You've been holding your breath—for how long? you wonder. A sharp inhale takes you, though it's ragged and shudders at the feeling of being with him like this. Everything that Minho offers you feels white hot, regardless of the clothes that keep you separated, and when his mouth finds the line of your jaw, you cannot help but melt into the touch.

You ache for him. A dull throb that makes itself known, impossible to ignore. His other hand snakes around your waist to pull you closer—as if closer is physically possible. You could beg for him to touch you elsewhere, drunk with want not unlike his own intoxication.

"I don't care if you love another man," he says suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere. The abrupt mention of Hyunjin sends something of a cold chill to your otherwise hot skin. "I'm happy that you're here, I love having you here…" His lips are still lightly mouthing against the flesh of your jaw, voice low, nearly a whisper. "I love…you. Even in the event that you love another, that is of no consequence to me. Not really."

Desire has waned, flushed away quickly as if it had never even been there. You gently push Minho away so that you can look him in the eyes, but all that you find is the slightly drunken, but incredibly sincere glean looking back at you.

"You're drunk," you say, rejecting his advances for this to go any further. Now is not the time. "You always say and do such things when you're intoxicated."

"Do you assume me to be more intoxicated than I am so that you don't have to acknowledge the words?"

You don't respond to this immediately. Minho does not deserve to be told a lie, and thus, you say nothing.

He continues on. "In the atrium that night, you assumed that I was making poor choices, outside of the realm of my own logic? Things that I would never do just because of the drink? And then now, you think the same? Do you truly believe that, or is it easier than the words? Because no one understands that feeling better than I do."

"Is that why you drink, then? To say and do all of the things that you can't do when you're sober?" You scoff lightly. "You can't drink through every step of your life."

"I don't, I won't," Minho says firmly. "Think of it more…as a coincidence."

Stepping towards you once more, Minho closes in on you all over again. His lips mere inches away from your own as he gazes down at you.

Then, the door opens from behind you, and he pulls it open to fashion himself an exit.

"If you don't believe me, then you're more than welcome to nurse my hangover in the morning hours, since you'll be awake!" he says loudly, far too cheerfully for everything that's gone on.

You smile at him, and hate that you do. This annoying, eccentric, strange man that has buried himself so deeply beneath your skin. An unshakable, ineffable and unquantifiable shine to his mere existence.

Minho disappears back down the hall and towards the guests that await him, nearly skipping as he does so. You watch from the doorframe, make an effort to steady the quick beating of your heart, and replay the words over and over again in your mind; unremittingly.

"Good morning, darling."

Bent over the kitchen counter, chin perched up against your palm, you cock your head and smile at Minho as he slowly, carefully enters the shared space. Eyes narrow, like any light pains his entire being.

"Shall we take you for your bath, then?" you add, walking towards him and circling your arm around his.

A light steam rises from the water as Minho's sore body sinks into it. You reenter just moments later with a set of clothing in hand, and sit yourself just beside the porcelain tub to aid him in his recovery.

"You shouldn't drink so much," you say, obviously.

"I know," he admits through a groan. "Every time I do this, I say it'll be the last. Then another social event comes up."

"There was no such social event in the atrium that evening."

"Sure there was, you were there."

Silence falls between the two of you in the following moments, and you watch as Minho closes his eyes, sinks his body deeper into the water to the point that only his head sticks out from the top. You take it upon yourself to lightly remove strands of hair stuck to the dampness of his forehead, and then, Minho inhales with intent to speak.

"I apologize for last night, as well as for the evening in the atrium. I apologize for…parts of them, but not everything." He pauses, eyes still closed, but forces himself to continue on. "The truth is: I do not care about your history with the prince, no matter how recent it has been. I understand there is a complexity there that I may never be able to grasp, nor do I think it necessary for me to do so. What is necessary of me—as your husband—is to be kind, understanding, and perhaps if there could be space for it; loving."

You still completely, allowing the words to wash over you and sink deeply into every crevice of your being.

He speaks again. "Suppose what I had hoped for; some starry-eyed, hopeless romantic sort of expectation in all of this that was left unspoken, is that regardless of your feelings for him, your history with him, that you might still find space in your heart to someday love me too."

An immediate reply escapes you, and you lose sight of just how tortuous such a wait can be until Minho cracks one, single eye open and peers at you cautiously through it.

"Please, say something. Put me out of my misery, if you must," he says.

Your senses come back to you quickly, shaking your head in the negative. "No! No, Minho…have you truly not noticed? Let us not forget who it was that insisted upon the two of us becoming more than strangers who share a home together…"

"Living with strangers is, well, strange. You could have meant anything by that."

You try not to roll your eyes, but fail. Instead of pressing further on this particular endeavor, you decide to revisit the original one, as brought forward by him. The entire thing remains fascinating to you—the density of his capability to understand things that come to you with such ease.

"I probably can," you say, acknowledging his hope for the openness of your heart. "I probably do."

Minho closes his eyes again, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. The tension that collected at his shoulders amidst all of this falling away like weights strapped to him. You are calmed watching him unravel before you.

"Let us share an evening meal tonight, something special. Think about all of the things that you wish to say to me in earnest, and I will do the same," you offer quietly.

"I would like that."

𝕏𝕍𝕀𝕀𝕀.

Minho enters just as the large, antique clock begins to sing its tune of nine in the evening.

Candle light flickers against the walls of the dining room and illuminates the table where all of the dishes that Mai has hand crafted herself sit. A beautiful display, though hardly what you're taking an interest in tonight.

He takes his seat across from you, clears his throat gently, and averts his eyes as much as he can until it seemingly dawns on him that he cannot do so for much longer. Reluctantly, Minho looks at you, and though his appearance is not unlike his usual self, something new makes itself apparent within him.

Mai comes over and pours your glass of wine, then makes her way around the table towards his. However, Minho does not accept the gesture. Watching you the entire time.

"You're not having wine with your meal?" you ask.

"No, I've decided to come off it, at least for a time."

"For a time?"

"This time."

Surprisingly confident and almost sinister sounding, Minho no longer makes an effort to avert his eyes from you and as a result, the weight of them rests heavily on your form. There is a sort of humor to this, you find, desiring nothing more than for him to see you for so long and now feeling as though you should shrink away from beneath his gaze. Why is he looking at you in such a way? Why is it that you feel like prey?

You steady your nerves and smile. "Well, there will be other times."

"Do you wish to remain married to me?"

Your attention pulls towards him quickly and with a confused earnestness. "What? Why are you asking me such a thing?"

Minho leans forward against the table. "We agreed to have this meal together and discuss such things. I think…I have not done much to aid in the ease of your comfort here. I think we have grown a lot together, maybe even enjoy our time shared. Perhaps it is time that we decide on just how much of a married life we wish to have with one another. Thus, do you wish to remain married to me?"

"Is there really an alternative?" you question, somewhat humorously. "Of course, marriages have ended before but we hardly meet the sorts of societal requirements for such a thing."

"You have not answered my question," he insists.

You press your palms abruptly to the table, fed up by his ridiculous pushing on the matter.

"Yes! I wish to remain married to you! My goodness; we've shared meals together, our thoughts and dreams and hopes for the future together, intimacy together! As if I've not made it clear where I stand on the matter while I drag you along through all of this kicking and screaming the whole way…you don't exactly make it easy on a woman!"

"So you are happy."

"Yes!" you quickly bite back.

"Content."

"Yes, Minho!"

"But you want more," he continues on, the rapid fire back and forth between you now mounting the anticipation of where this is meant to go.

"Of course I do!"

"You desire more of me."

"Yes!" you reply, exasperated by the questioning but barely even having a moment to register what's been laid out before you. The affirmation slips out from your lips unwillingly, but it's too late to bring it back. Instead, you watch Minho's eyes narrow mischievously as a result of the grin that tugs at his lips. He must be pleased with himself.

"We should eat." Hardly convincing when you say it. Still, you pick up your utensil. "The food will get cold."

"We can eat any time," Minho says, still playfully persistent. "Is there anything that you wish to ask of me?"

"Yes! What has gotten into you?"

"You, us; the concept of it, the possibility of it." Minho pushes his chair back then and stands, makes his way around the table and towards you. He takes your hand gently, timidly, and pulls you up towards him. Protest dies in your throat before you have the chance to make it heard, because his hand slips around your back and as a result, your body rests flush against his. "Admittedly, I am slow on the uptake of such things. My thoughts get the best of me, second guessing every interaction, every word…" He trails off, the hand at your back slipping to settle at your waist, and then it tightens. "Every touch."

Minho's face dips over to the side of yours, lips edging at the shell of your ear and then he whispers against it, "But you say you want more of me, more that I've not yet given. More that I can give."

Your head swims, warm breath tickling your skin in such an enticing way. Minho's grip against you does not relent, nor do you want it to. You've quietly yearned for what appears to be now presented before you; his touch, and in ways, so much more than that.

"I've still not seen where you sleep," you say quietly, pointedly. "Only ever the atrium."

"Some husband I am, making my darling wife wait so long for such a thing." Minho's hand then slowly falls from your waist down to your hip, then further more to your thigh. His palm settles atop the front for a short moment before he then continues the journey between them, bunching the fabric of your skirt where his fingers rest. "I've not been doing my due diligence, have I?"

Knees nearly buckling at the touch, you clutch onto him by the shoulders, breath hitching as you attempt to answer him. "No, you certainly have not."

This is your best attempt at maintaining composure, but truthfully, you stand in his grasp, disoriented with want for him. Minho's lips graze your jaw, teeth bared within a smile. He says, "Allow me to make it up to you, then."

The large, ornate door to his bedroom closes, and with no more time to waste, Minho's hands begin to artfully search for the flesh of your body.

His lips hurriedly find yours, as if the only thing he ever wishes to taste is within them. Fingers adeptly unfastening the buttons and clasps of your dress while you, in turn, do much of the same at those that hold the fabric of his shirt in place. The race is won by you, and your mouths part only long enough to remove the hindrance from his body—but he follows just after—and your garment falls away, exposed to the ambient chill of the room, though not for long.

Minho leads you with a gentle urgency back towards his bed. There's a haste behind his motions that alludes to a dormant kind of desire that has been held inside of him for far longer than you have been aware of, not at all unlike yourself. As your back finds the mattress, Minho follows you over it; mouth only leaving your skin for the briefest of seconds before finding it once again.

Your legs fall apart to fit his body between them, and his hand slips beneath your last remaining undergarment soon after. Deft fingers that glide between your folds, ample pressure that has you gasping into his mouth for him to drink down and arching your back up to meet the firmness of his chest. Minho smiles against your lips as you do so, slowly and methodically unraveling you for his own viewing pleasure.

He pulls back, slinks down the length of your body and trailing his lips along the way. Warm, wetness circles at your chest before he continues further down.

Hands grip firmly into the plush flesh of your thighs, prying them apart for him just that much more. You glance down, but cannot stand to look at the sight of him; his face mere inches away from just the place that you wish for him to touch again. Minho does not leave you wanting, perhaps he cannot bear to do so, and his tongue finds you, mouth pressed flush against your own lips. The gasp that escapes from you is horrid, far too telling of how much you've been wanting to have him like this.

Minho pulls off of you, but his dominant hand finds the place he has only just left instead. The wetness pooling is nearly humiliating if not for the comfort that you feel in his presence, and his fingers delicately trickle downward further, carefully driving into you. He watches your face as he takes you apart just that much more, but you do not have the sensibilities to muster up much for words.

"Do you like this?" he asks, the first words spoken since entering the room. The press of his fingers against you is slow, rhythmic, testing. Before you find it within yourself to respond, his mouth reattaches to the place just above where his hand works you open.

Yes falls away from you, though you're not sure how you've managed it. It appears to please him, however, and he continues on with a newly found enthusiasm. He pushes deeper, and a moan escapes you with every drive. A sheen of sweat collects atop your skin, strands of hair matted against you, fingers curling tightly into the sheets beneath your grasp.

Your skin prickles, warmth spreading across your body and muscles stiffening as he continues on. Breaths to take in become shorter and faster, the grind of your hips against the way that he works your body less and less within your conscious control. You slip a hand down between your legs, gently carding fingers through soft, black hair. His fingers curl inside of you, and as a result of it, so do yours atop his head. A whimper slips out from between your lips, and following immediately after, come the desperate pleads for him not to stop.

And he has no intention of doing so. Minho does not stop until your pleasure peaks and ravages your body within his hold. You shake and cry out; wounded gasps and moans that avalanche from you thoughtlessly, the only thing that you can manage through this feeling. Once satisfied, he slows to bring you back down gently, and once delicately seated, he removes himself from you and the bed entirely to finish the act of disrobing.

Chest heaving with exhausted breaths, you nearly miss his doing so, only alerted to the fact once the bed dips again, signifying his return to you. Minho crawls between your legs and up the length of your body just as he did the first time; kisses your chest, your neck, your jaw, only to then settle atop your lips. Teeth faintly find the bottom of your lip, already well and truly bitten raw from your own abuse. Still, you reach up to feel the warmth of his skin under your hands and revel in the way that his body feels against your own. Though release has found you once this evening, you are not truly satiated by him yet.

Minho's hand slips down between both of your bodies to hold himself in place. You feel him against you; wet and solid, enticing and teasing. You move almost involuntarily against him, hopeful to receive what it is that you desire from him now, but he is unwilling to relent to your neediness just yet.

You gasp lightly against his mouth, and Minho happily accepts it into his own, delighted by the way you come apart beneath him.

"Have you thought about it before?" he asks, a coy whisper shared only between lovers. A question that does not require further expansion, for you know precisely what it is that is being referred to.

"So many times," you reply.

At that, Minho begins the slow, precise drive of himself inside of you once more. "Apologies for keeping you waiting then."

He sinks into you, body accepting him with ease. Minho's mouth hangs slightly ajar as he does so, taken by the feeling, and settles momentarily once his hips meet flush against your own before his hips pull back and he repeats the process once more. The thick drag, hard and strong is dizzying and nearly disorienting to your senses—your fingernails dig into his skin, and for the first time, Minho groans with a sort of primal lust that has the hairs across your skin standing on end, and the fire inside of your abdomen burning just that much hotter than before.

With the ease in which your body accepts him, Minho is able to find a quick and strong rhythm. Harder and faster his hips find your own, the urgency needing this moment for so long finally coming to a head between the both of you. Your whimpers and moans echo off the walls, losing sight of the once prominent thought in your mind that the staff may hear you; instead, you beg and plead for more of him, anything that he is physically capable of giving you—he does.

Body tightening beneath him, you feel once again the familiar promise of release. Your hands glide over hot, damp skin; muscles that flex and move with every drive of himself inside of you. Minho kisses you—a sloppy attempt—but you meet it happily, and his face falls away to the crook of your neck to nip into the skin there. One, strong hand slips down to grip at your thigh, pulls you apart further and wider for him to work your body open with his own. Hard, methodical strokes; one after another, whimpers and whines punched out of you with each. You beg for more, continuously beg as if never satisfied, and Minho continues to give relentlessly to you until his own ability finally falters and gives way; rhythm shifting, failing, wavering. He hisses against your skin, choking out a pained groan, and you find your end just alongside him in bitten back cries and a final, deep sinking of himself within you.

Chests heaving and basking in the afterglow for many, long moments, he does not hurry to separate your bodies, and instead, his lips begin to work at the sensitive skin of your neck once again. You close your eyes to simply enjoy the feeling of this, of him, and hold tightly in your arms the man that has somehow come to be precisely what it is that you have always hoped for someone to become.

"Stay here tonight," he says quietly. "Don't go."

You smile, barely there. Mustering up all of the energy within your bones that you have left to expend and say, "I wouldn't dream of it."

𝕏𝕀𝕏.

The new year brings new cheer, as well as new prospects to the household.

It has been a year since you've been back to the city center, and though covered in snow and the dreadful darkness that winter brings, you feel some semblance of ease having returned.

You remember the days that you spent dreaming of being inside of these very same castle walls, though now that you're here, you can't help but feel as though they glitter less brightly than what it is that you had imagined.

Beside you, Minho stands with a forced and feigned confidence. He glances at you, perhaps having felt your eyes upon him, and offers a nervous smile that does nothing to placate your concern for him. Indeed, not all things change with ease—and some may never—but having the comfort of those who love you shouldering much of the burden instead.

In arm, he holds a wrapped painting. One that you know well; a small ship atop a vast, brightly colored sea.

You hear the echo of doors opening from behind you, and when you turn, you are familiar with what you see.

Methodical clicks of shoes being the only thing that cuts through the silence, you watch as the prince makes his way towards the two of you—a smile on his face—and most certainly a genuine one. You've never known Hyunjin to be particularly petty, or mean-spirited; and despite all of his shortcomings, he likely does feel softness in his heart for you and the happiness that you have found.

"Your Highness," Minho says with an accompanying bow, but Hyunjin is quick to put a hand up and wave away the gesture.

"I do believe the three of us are well past the need for such things." Looking at you, Hyunjin smiles. "I see things worked out in the end, then?"

With half a mind to question how it is that he knows, you instead chalk it up to a sort of intangible, understood aura that simply exists between lovers; people who are madly, deeply in love with one another. You couldn't fight back the smile if you tried, and so, you don't. Instead, your hand finds Minho's free one, and you nod.

"Yes, indeed they have."

"Splendid news! Perhaps someday I will find myself to be so lucky," Hyunjin says, though there is a particular bite of discontentment in the words that you feel you understand far too well. "Nevertheless, you've brought the painting! I wish I could express in words how eagerly I've been anticipating receiving this piece…ever since it was put up into the auction, I simply knew I had to have it."

"I appreciate your kindness," Minho replies, squeezing your hand lightly. Just another, small offering shared between lovers.

"You will be paid handsomely for this. I am aware of what the asking was but I feel as though it is worth far more, and I'll see to it that you receive precisely that which you are deserving of."

Eyes widening in surprise, Minho glances first at you—but you merely shrug, unmoved by Hyunjin's antics—and instead, he defers to the prince, himself. "Your Highness, that's not—"

"Aht! It is. You creatives truly must value yourself higher, the world moves and exists and revolves around these crafts. Without art, we have nothing. We are nothing."

Hyunjin calls for his housestaff to take the canvas from Minho's grasp, and as they disappear down the hall, the man smiles widely at the two of you as if pleased with himself, with everything that has taken place today.

"Perhaps next in line is getting that book of yours published."

You shake your head, a sort of nervousness striking you that isn't commonplace. "I'm not so sure that's a good idea, you know, there is much of you written inside of those pages."

He waves his hand in the air again, unbothered by the fact. "So be it, I'd rather like being not just a part of history, but a part of art, as well."

"Strange fellow," Minho says, walking beside you through the city streets and long after having bid the prince farewell. "Not sure what it is that you ever saw in him."

The comment is pointedly comedic, and you judge him playfully with your elbow before responding in words. "He's handsome, and royalty. Suppose for a long time I didn't consider there to be much else outside of those things. What else could a man have to offer me?"

"As it would seem, only having one of those things is plenty to suit you," he jokes, slinging an arm up and around your shoulders as the two of you carry on. "You have been taken by my confusing whimsy and cumbersome charms."

"So it would seem," you reply, watching the sprinkle of shimmering snow collect atop a difficult, complicated head of black hair that you have incomprehensibly grown to love.

a/n: thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed it! no pt. 2, and kind words are always much appreciated ♡

#lee know smut #lee minho smut #stray kids smut #lee know x reader #lee know x you #lee know x y/n #lee know imagines #lee know scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #lee minho x you #lee minho x reader #lee minho imagines #lee minho scenarios #lee know fanfic #stray kids x reader #stray kids fanfic #stray kids x you #stray kids x y/n

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jarofstyles · 4 months

Note

prince harry and common girl lover (best friends since childhood) + “we can’t keep hiding like this”

OH YES!!!! A bit of forbidden love.

Check out our Patreon!

------

The wind billowed the edge of the blanket they laid on, hiding underneath the willow tree as the sun got a bit lower in the sky. Being wrapped in Harry's arms was the most safe she ever felt, despite the fact it was the most dangerous place to be. His heart thumped steadily against her cheek, fingers running over the opposite as she felt his eyes burning a hole into her.

"We can't keep hiding like this." His voice rasped, lips turned downward. "I can't handle it anymore, Petal. I've been trying to find ways to be alright with hiding how much of my heart that you own but I keep hitting a wall. I believe it's because something is telling me I shouldn't hide you." He gently ran his knuckle over the bridge of her nose. "I want to tell them. Everyone."

Y/N's eyes burned as she closed them, trying to control the shaky exhale she released. It didn't work. She knew he was an optimist, her beautiful sunshine prince, but he had too much to lose. She couldn't be selfish with him, not when the entire kingdom would rely on him one day. "You know we shouldn't, Harry. You've been promised to someone else since the day you were noticed in your mother's belly." It was hard to control her voice, the weakness of it giving it away to Harry that she was struggling.

Nudging her up, he cupped the side of her face and thumbed over the high round of her cheek. Eyes scanned her face, taking in her slightly wobbly bottom lip and the glaze over her eyes that wrecked him. It shouldn't be this difficult. He shouldn't have to hide the person he loved with his entire being, so much so that she consumed him. He knew his mother would understand, but his father would be resistant. He would tell him that a future king had to make decisions they didn't like, and he would need to abide by the arrangement.

"I want to marry you, Petal." He whispered, connecting their lips at the end of the word. It was a pained kiss, one he was trying to melt into softness. Take away the brittle edges and file them down smoothly, let her feel the way he did. His sweet girl was so afraid, so nervous of what would become of them but Harry couldn't fathom a world without her at his side. "I want you to lay next to me at night, I want your hand in mine, your lips to only ever feel the shape of my own. I crave you every single second you are away from me. Don't you understand? How I yearn for you, I ache. Not just to be inside of you, but to be with you. To listen to your breaths as you sleep, just knowing that you're there." He swallowed thickly, nudging his nose against her own and took another kiss. Harder this time, a harsh breath leaving his nose as he pulled her, moving her dress so she could straddle his lap.

"My love, my sweet, my Petal. Please... allow me to take the risk." He pleaded. "Allow me to tell them of us, let me take the punishments if need be. I will do anything for you." His words were whimpered as he pressed frantic kisses to her lips, her cheeks, her forehead. "I feel like I'm going insane. As the day of the engagement party grows closer, I feel the walls of the castle getting smaller. I feel suffocated. The only time I can breathe is with you." His hands clutched her close, almost as if to prevent her from slipping through his fingers.

"Oh, Harry." She whispered sadly, watching his eyes water. It was unlike him, her sunshine prince. He was so bright, so warm. To see the storm clouds settle over the sun was alarming and she hated the sight. It wasn't right. "Do you think I don't feel the same? That I'm not physically ill at the idea of you bedding someone other than me, even if it is only to provide an heir? Do you think I don't cry in my bed after I leave the sparkling stars and you, wishing I could crawl back to you? But I feel so selfish." She pecked his nose, letting their foreheads rest together. "So, so selfish. What if they strip your title? What if they banish you? What if it's forced regardless and there's a rift between you and your family? I cannot bear the idea of ruining your life. I can't take the sunshine away from you."

The world was quiet. The birds chirped and the branches moved, leaves rustling in the wind, but the only sound they could hear was each others breaths and their own heartbeats in their ears.

"I would let them." He whispered after a moment. "I would let them take it all away from me before I let them take you. I don't think you grasp how much you mean to me. You are my heart." His eyes burned as he looked at her. "I would run with you, I would find us somewhere and build a life with you. Nothing else matters more than you." He sniffled, pressing his lips back against her and laying repetitive kisses to her lips. It was hard to convey just how much he truly loved her. How she had his heart in her hands and his should wrapped around her finger.

"Harry..." She laughed through a tear, looking down at the hand holding her waist tight. "I hope you know I feel the same for you. You're what I need." Her fingers brushed the hair that had fallen into his face, the soft curls unfairly highlighted caramel in the sunlight that bled through the leaves. He was inhumanly handsome. "I'm afraid for you."

"I'm afraid for myself if I don't admit my love for you. I can't be trapped in a loveless marriage when I have a love. The greatest lover there is. I want children with you, I want you by my side. Whether I'm king or not, having you would be my biggest accomplishment." He meant every word. Every beat of his heart belonged to her. "I'm going to tell them. I'm going to make you my wife, regardless of the cost. All I'll ever need is you."

#jarofstyles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfic #harry styles smut #harry styles blurb #harry drabble #harry styles imagine #harry writing #harry styles writing #prince harry styles #royal harry styles #harry styles fanfics #harry styles fic #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry angst #harry smut #harry fluff

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its-time-to-write · 11 months

Text

masterlist

i figured it was time to make one. it's in order based on when i wrote it. please, please let me know if a link is broken/mislabeled!!

*81 fics*

All of these are Jamie Tartt x reader

dress

Jamie and Keeley buy you a dress for the benefit gala

three times 'cause i've waited my whole life

secret relationship to engagement

you're losing me

first kid

don't make this any harder

Jamie wants to take you to Brazil, you’re both idiots

would hit him in a heartbeat now

Your ex boyfriend is a footballer and also a douche

silent sleepers

Jamie contemplates your relationship on the team bus

what it is

Jamie is sick ft. Roy

don't go wasting your emotion

Secret relationship + you own a bookshop! Ft. Roy and Keeley

you know, you'll always know me

You’re a famous singer! Congrats!

i don't know how you keep smiling/i'm just choking almost constantly

Jamie’s dad is a douche

i'll still be right next to you my dear

Jamie is a dad

can't really say i'm enjoying it now

Yikes it’s a breakup fic, but happy endings only in this house

mine of you with me

Reader and Jamie go semi-public with their relationship

today's a day like any other

The Tartt family thru the years

there's orange juice in the kitchen

Oof ouch period cramps

i can't breathe without you

Nate kisses you w/o consent

damned if i do give a damn what people say

You’re a theater actress! How exciting!

island made of faith

People think Jamie’s dumb, and he’s not

take your time while you're mine

You’re Roy’s other sister ft. all the Kents

honey, i'll give you all my time

Vienna. Enough said.

feeling fragile can't you tell

Jamie gets hurt

wrote all your lines in the script in my mind

Oh no! Some girl kissed Jamie and it wasn’t you! + Colin as the bff

stick together like glitter

Babysitting Phoebe + angst

your mind is not your friend

Angst + comfort after you have a bad hookup

chasing shadows in a grocery line

You’re pretty sure you have a hot stalker

don’t go yet

Tee hee protective Jamie at a club

kicking myself to keep from crying

The morning after your mind is not your friend

i think we could do it if we tried

High school sweethearts reunited after 6 years🥺

i’m glad you exist

You and Jamie go to a wedding

send for me

BREAKING: shit day at work made better by local boyfriend

tell me where to put my love

day off = food + snuggles

bored

The longest angst I’ve ever written. Def not the best angst I’ve ever written.

would it be enough if i never gave you peace

you’ve got baby fever and your pretty sure it’s going to kill your brother

wishing on every one

You own a flower shop. It’s adorable.

lyrical eyes, indigo smile

Bea meets the team for the first time!

something to rely on

You storm the pitch and smooch your bf

flipped the script

Enemies to lovers slow burn (or maybe fast burn, idk)

i fancy you

London Boy by ms. T. Swift

you don’t want to know me

Jamie shows up at your door after s.1 Man City

you’re in the kitchen humming

Post-Mom City

family that i chose

For the child-free girlies!

never wanted you to hate me

Pt. 2 of you don’t want to know me

wonderstruck

BFF Keeley tells you to give her awful ex a chance

in love with an idea

idk it’s like a confession of love? kinda cute

sinking into your worn-out mattress

Touch-deprived therapist! reader

you’re a mansion with a view

just two footballers doing an England promo, nothing to see here

i know what i’m doing

Post-Roy/Jamie locker room hug after Man City

wonder what it’d be like

Jamie tries to win you back

if only love were true

You’re a single mom in dire need of a plus-one

i know now it’ll pass

It’s hard to love someone when you’ve been told you don’t deserve it

the way it goes

The Greyhounds are protective of Jamie

how to love being alive

Idk this one’s like whatever and also supes long

there is happiness

GEORGIE GEORGIE GEORGIE

it’s just wanderlust

Relationship soft launch

glitter on the floor

You like to knit. You also think you’re a comedian.

maybe tomorrow you’ll know

The “he’s a prick to everyone but her” trope

hustling for the good life

I swear this is my last chaptered fic

let’s fall in love for the night

Kent!reader is having a baby

soft hands hit the jagged ground

friends w/benefits

for you, there’ll be no more crying

anxiety at work + bf jamie

smile at me

there was only one bed!!!!

slow motion double vision in rose blush

happy b-day Jamie Tartt

half-moon eyes

it’s just a question!

can’t hear my thoughts (i cannot hear my thoughts)

I’m allowed to write what i want, ok???

here in my arms

more Kent!reader + a baby named George

coffee at midnight

prick coach wakes you up bc of your prick boyfriend

healing me fine

Just a lil engagement fic for ya

i don’t know anything

if you’re interested in Bea

right words at the right time

It’s a wedding fic

move fast and keep quiet

boxer!reader + smitten Jamie

not saying you’re in love with me

You meet over Bantr!!!

we could be so good

Jamie comforts you after a bad date

i hold it like a grudge

i don’t even know how to describe this one but u might cry

there for you

sick fic

before you go

physio!reader

you’ll probably date her

chronic illness + childhood friends. gotta love it

feel it burn

Gym anxiety

play it back

Old movies of bb Jamie

ours

Thanksgivinggggg

light in the hallway

MORE Kent!reader

stuck by you

Bad family + good Jamie = fic

#jamie tartt x reader #jamie tartt fanfiction #jamie tartt x y/n #jamie tartt imagine #jamie tartt x you #jamie tartt #ted lasso #masterlist

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erwinsvow · 12 days

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i feel like pogue!reader with rafe would have an interesting dynamic with barry. like, he doesn’t particularly like her - knowing her connection with the pogues, especially jj but at the same time he’s dealing with rafe and pogues as a collective have gotta stick together. he’s also just morbidly curious about how she and country club have became a thing.

barry laughs when he sees you walking into his place, attached to rafe's side.

"ain't that-"

"that's my fuckin' girl. so watch your mouth." rafe cuts him off before he can finish the rest of his sentence, which is sure to have something to do with the fact that the few times barry's seen you before, you've been with the pogues that rafe supposedly hates so much.

"your girl? is that right? well, pleasure to meet you again, m'barry-"

you look up hesitantly at rafe, wondering if you should say something back, and you briefly reflect for a moment just how different things used to be. with your best friends, with jj and john b and pope at your side, the group of you would go and make yourselves comfortable anywhere. they'd charm their way into the good graces of the host and you never felt like you couldn't just speak your mind.

rafe is different. you don't know if it's bad, if he's bad for you, or not. talking to someone when you know he doesn't want you to feels wrong, feels bad. and you like him taking lead, him showing you the way and calling all the shots.

so you smile at barry but don't engage, looking up at your boyfriend instead. he looks down at you for a second, but you can tell you did the right thing.

"sit down and shut up. c'mon, we got shit to discuss."

"tells me to sit down. in my own fuckin' house. i gotta tell you princess, you picked a real winner here in rafey boy-"

"did y'not hear the shut up part?"

a laugh escapes, though you try to keep it quiet. they go on discussing something that doesn't mean much to you, while you go on your phone and text your friends. rafe's phone rings, and he just steps away for a minute to answer. barry doesn't hesitate a second to get the answers he needs from you.

"so. you and country club. how long's that been goin' on?"

"um, a couple months."

"your boys know 'bout him?" you bite your cheek. they don't, yet.

"not yet. but, soon, i guess. waiting for the right time.." you mumble, playing with a loose stitch on your skirt.

"yeah. i'd get on that. not gonna be too happy, are they?"

"maybe."

"don't they hate your boy as much as he hates them? ain't that.. awkward?"

you think you should be offended by the line of questioning, but rafe talks about barry often enough for you to know that he's not a snitch, that he doesn't care. he's just curious.

and he should be. up until a few months ago, you were never seen without your boys, as barry put it. you used to be attached to jj's arm, permanent passenger princess in pope's truck and the twinkie. it all feels like a lifetime ago.

"i'm hoping we can all make amends," you finish softly, fresh waves of guilt washing through your body. it burns where it goes, a stinging similar to what your friends are gonna feel soon, when they find out you've been dating the boy who's been terrorizing them.

"for your sake, i hope so too."

"what're you two talkin' about?" rafe asks, coming back inside and taking his place next to you. he puts his hand on your knee, brings you in close without having to ask.

you hope it's all going to be worth it.

"nothing."

#hii angel sorry it took so long to reply!#this was really nice to write and actually deeper than i thought <3 #ty for sharing your thoughts ! i completely agree hope i did it justice #rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #pogue reader

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softshuji · 16 days

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Ran's legs ache.

He thinks the soles of his shoes might have burned down to his feet by now, and it especially hurts when he presses down on the gas and there's a sharp spark of pain across his thighs.

But he doesn't complain, and instead, he watches you slip off your heels in the passenger seat and curl up on the leather to lean your head against the window, the drive silent and peaceful with the low drum of the radio and the rain slapping at the exterior.

When you arrive back home, he comes around to your door, lifts you effortlessly with your heels in one hand while he nudges the door shut with his hip, and you rub his back wordlessly, in that way you often do.

Without speaking, without the need to, just silent and peaceful bliss of coming home to slip under the covers with him.

'I can't believe you dragged me to that engagement party as your plus one," he says eventually, setting you down on the sofa in the dimly lit living room, a hand coming up to loosen his tie and shrug his jacket off, the outer side now splattered with rain from where he'd used it to cover your hair.

You snort and flop back onto the cushions, your aching feet now wiggling against the soft down of the throw. 'Oh come on, who else was I supposed to take? Someone random? Besides, it wasn't so bad right?'

He bends to the cabinet, fishes two tumblers out from the shelf and pulls down the decanter with them before setting them down on the table, and lifting your legs to rest on top of his. And all of it done quietly, smoothly. Effortless.

'Mhmm, it was pretty fun. All that picture taking though, I think the flash blinded my eyes." And he sighs, dramatically, lifting a hand to rub at his temples before reaching out to fill two glasses, his free hand now massaging your calves, smooth presses of his palms to your achy skin.

You roll your eyes, shift further down the sofa till his hands meet your thighs, ringed fingers kissing at the soft warm skin where his calloused fingertips brush against the inside. 'oh please Mr celebrity, I know you enjoyed it. I was more worried about how much the elder aunt's and grandma's were staring at you. Might have to start hiding you in my basement from wandering eyes."

And he laughs, unexpectedly, entirely, his head thrown back against the headrest, spreading his own legs a little with the glass in one hand. "You're going to kidnap me now Princess?"

"I might have to. Can't let the others see what's mine don't you think?"

"Mhm." He swirls the glass in his hand. "I think you caught some eyes too. Prettiest girl in the whole function. Maybe I'll have to do the same to you." And his thumb comes up to brush against your inner thighs, just shy of where the dress parts and you shudder, mindlessly pressing forward against his hands.

"I'd like to see you try big boy, y'know I'd find a way of escaping, I'm quite resourceful."

He chuckles, handing you the glass before slipping his own now drained back onto the table. The fire crackles, undulated by the thwack of rain against the window, your shadows now flickering on the wall where the curl of his hair is silhouetted like a painting.

You drain the glass before reaching for him, beckoning him in the way you often do, before shimmying out of the dress and dumping it on the floor with your heels. And he assents, as if it's been a thousand times. Crawling into your arms, his cheek on your chest, two big hands now gripping your hips and thighs, which part for him to lay between, before your own hands rake through his hair, a light scratch on his scalp that accompanies the soft tug.

'Yknow......people keep asking,' you say, legs now pressed and intertwined with his as you pull the comforter over the both of you.

"Hm? Asking what?"

"When it's my turn."

He stiffens and you feel it, the hair standing on end on his arms and shoulders pressed to your body. 'Oh yeah?'

And you go on despite your better judgement because it terrifies you to bring it up, but you can't deny that it's on your mind as well as everyone else's. And yes maybe it's true, maybe you feel bad for wanting it to be true.

'Yeah,' you say, a low voice, a whisper against the crown of his head. 'I mean, especially today of all days, I guess people want to see a wedding for me.' and you hate it, how it sounds even now. Like you're asking for something, like you have no right to.

And you'd love to all the same. To marry him, have a cute little wedding, tie the knot, have kids maybe, a little family despite all the trials, despite his job, and all that entails. But you've not spoken about it at all, both of you to afraid to bring it up, too scared to have that kind of conversation.

He's quiet for a moment, the thrum of your heart against his cheek, smooth circles now run against your skin, up and down your hips.

'mhm, maybe they will, sooner rather than later," he says, head now craned to press his lips to your chest, your collarbones, hot breath ghosting over your warm skin.

And you freeze, a frown that you're quick to hide. 'You mean it? Don't say it if you don't mean it ran, I don't want to be joked with.'

And he pauses, eyes flickering with light, a half smile, a warm and softened press of his lips to the edge of yours. 'I mean it. You want that princess?" Wanna get married?'

"with....with you?"

'No with santa Claus.' And he rolls his eyes playfully, a light pinch to your thigh. 'Of course with me.'

Your breath is short, a little light and quick, your heart thudding against your ribs with a resounding crack. 'I...I mean, santa Claus is already married so I think that would be complicated.' and you cringe at it immediately, despite how he laughs, so full and beautiful and bright, lips now scoring over yours in a quick succession of soft pecks.

"Well, I guess that's terrible for you then, you're stuck with me. So what do you say? You like the idea of that?"

'I...I do. I really do. You want it too?"

"I do, there's no one better for me than my girl, my princess." Effortless, rolling from his tongue in a way that has your skin flaring with heat.

"oh...... I guess we're going to be getting married soon then. How terrible (!)" And you laugh, breathlessly, the both of you a little overwhelmed, basking in the love with your shadows on the wall, the memory etched in the firelight that bleeds against the window glass, his cheek pressed to your chest where your heart is.

(hi, I went to an engagement today and this is all I can think of lol since everyone kept asking about it lmao)

Reblogs appreciated!

#tokyo revengers #tokyo rev #ran haitani #ran x reader #tokyorev x reader

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senanatheskenana · 8 months

Text

The Sinclair Twins With Baby Fever

This contains smut so minors do not engage thank you. Contains graphic depictions of sex/ sexual acts.

(Also i havent written smut in a while so im sorry if its bad lmao)

Bo Sinclair

Bo never thought he'd want kids.

He thought they were sort of like inconveniences from how his parents acted when they were kids.

But that idea slowly began to change after meeting you

For one, it takes two people to make one, and in a ghost town, there isn't an abundance of living women.

And Bo didn't really believe he would be a good parent.

However, it all flipped rather suddenly for Bo.

You had been showing him photos from an old vacation you went on with family and he stumbled across one of you and your niece.

A tiny one-year-old, in cute pink dungarees, all swaddled up in your arms with big blue eyes and one of her chunky hands in her mouth on an exploration.

Bo admitted that it was rather cute and you started to ramble about the times you've looked after family and children.

And it occurs to Bo that while he may not be wonderful with children, you certainly were.

The thought comes along all too suddenly for his liking and before he knows what he's doing, he's imagining you with your baby- his baby.

It makes his chest flutter, the image of your swollen belly and milk-filled chest burning into his eyes.

He tries to give it some serious thought, weighing up the pros and cons of such an important choice.

Bo of course brought it up to you. He wasn't going to just grin and bear the need he was now experiencing.

~~~~~

"Oh my god," you grin up at him. He scowls and huffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

"What? I don't see what the big deal is." he's still pouting and you have to admit he looks pretty cute like that, with blushy cheeks.

"Bo, you've got baby fever!" you giggle and him as he huffs again.

Bo throws his arms up in the air and sighs. He knows he isn't going to win that battle. "Look did you want to have a baby or not, sugar?"

You give him a long drawn-out silence, leaving him in anticipation for what he deems to be far too long, however, he doesn't want to push his luck on the situation.

You finally give him a smile and a wink, "Of course I do, Bo." he fights back a smile and slinks closer to you to give you a peck on the cheek but lets out a chuckle when you pull him back again for a proper kiss.

He smirks and practically throws you into the bedroom, not wasting a moment to take off his shirt and throw it to the side. He tugs down his jeans and you both begin to shed clothing as fast as possible. You can hear the clink of your husband's belt hitting the floor over the sound of your loud heartbeat. He finally moves to slot himself between your thighs, grinding against your clothed heat.

Bo hasn't felt this nervous in a long time. Normally, sex is rough and teasing with Bo, but every little touch against him feels like fire and it has him moaning into your chest like a virgin. The image of your swollen belly ingrains itself into his mind again, and he feels himself becoming too needy to pace himself. Before he can fully grasp what he's doing, he's already rutting into you with quick deep thrusts. He doesn't bother pulling out and wasting time on long thrusts, choosing to just chase the pleasure you both want so badly.

Bo loves the way you look under him like this, eyes nearly closed and rolling back with your mouth agape from the breathless moans you're making after every rub of his cock against your g-spot. He can feel you tightening around him, and he honestly can't recall a better feeling than this. He can tell you're going to cum soon with how loud you are and how your hips try to chase his.

Bo slips a hand between you both and plants it on your folds. He'll be damned if he was going to cum this soon without you. You let out a moan that sounds like it was straight out of a porno, and Bo feels it travel like electricity down to his groin. You can feel him twitch deep inside you, kissing against your internal ridges. You're so tight that Bo can barely move without moaning like a bitch.

He comes close to your face, watching your fucked out expression closely. His fingers speed up, deftly finding your clit and circling it like he's begging for you to cum around him. "'Gonna cum, sugar?" his southern drawl drags you out of your fever dream state and you nod up at him, failing to find words anymore. You grip his shoulders and you wrap your thighs around his waist. He laughs at the idea that you're stopping him from pulling out. You cum and he can feel you completely spasm around his cock. Bo knows he can't take another second of that intense pleasure before he's cumming so hard he's seeing coloured patches in his vision, moaning as he stills inside of you. Hot ropes of his cum spurt out into you, making you gasp from the new feeling.

Bo nearly collapses on top of you after, head laying on your comfortable chest while your fingers rake through his wet hair. He can't bring himself to pull out of you just yet, and he's still breathless from finishing inside you for the first time. He can feel your thighs rocking still with the aftershocks of the experience. He kisses your chest lightly and looks up at you.

"I love you, Sugar," he murmurs softly against your skin, "I love you so much."

You don't miss how one of his hands rubs gentle circles into your tummy.

Vincent Sinclair

Vincent's biggest problem is his lack of communication. He can't simply speak about how he's feeling most of the time.

If he could, you may have found out about this sooner.

Vincent has always been more tolerant of children than Bo was so he experienced this quite early on but didn't know how to approach you about it.

He was worried that you would think he was weird or that you wouldn't want kids and then leave him.

So for months, he suffered in silence, fighting the urge to paint your insides with himself, and fantasising about what life would be like if you had a baby.

He's touched himself to the thought of you swollen and glowing, and imagining it's you he's coming in before the reality sets in again and he feels disgusted with himself once more.

You've started to notice his hesitance in intimate moments and you finally confront him, asking if he doesn't think you're attractive anymore.

He moves his hand to different parts of the basement, all filled with paintings and sculptures of you. It was a stupid thing to ask, of course, he thought you were gorgeous.

~~~~~

So you finally ask him what the problem was, and why he was suddenly not willing to touch you.

Vincent is of course quiet. He, in all honesty, was trying to hold off sex because he didn't feel he could trust himself to pull out anymore. He was worried that the temptation would be too great and he wouldn't be able to help himself. He's not really sure how he can say that and not come off as a huge pervert.

So he just comes close to you and embraces you momentarily, before placing a hand on your abdomen. It's just barely present but you can feel the touch. Then he takes his hands and makes a cradling motion.

For a moment you're confused. What does he mean by 'baby'? until it clicks in your mind. Did Vincent think you were pregnant? Was that why he was being so careful?

"Vinny, sweetheart, I'm not pregnant you dont need to worry about hurting me or anything-" Before you can finish, Vincent shakes his head and begins to sign.

'I know he looks at you to make sure you're following him, 'I think that's the problem'

Some sort of realisation becomes apparent to you and you ask the question he's been wanting to ask for months.

"Do you... Want a baby?"

He waits a moment and then nods before looking down. He begins signing again but doesn't look up, he doesn't want to see your grossed-out face.

'I was scared to force something on you but I wasn't sure how to say it. I didn't think I could trust my body during sex anymore.'

Your heart swells a little bit at the confession. Had Vincent been beating himself up for wanting to get you pregnant?

"I think I want a baby too, Vince" you giggle when his head shoots up from looking down at the floor. He signs too quickly for you to follow but you can just about catch the words 'Angel' and 'love'.

He stops signing and abruptly picks you up, spinning you before holding you bridal style in his arms. He hasn't said but you have an idea of where he's taking you. Vincent kicks the door to your shared bedroom open and gently places you on the covers. He removes his own clothing- save for his mask- and then patiently removes your own, kissing the skin that is revealed.

Usually, Vincent gets quite needy during these moments, and his touch is feverish. He's painfully hard at this point, but he wants to savour you. He doesn't want to lose himself just yet.

You're the one who removes his mask, taking in his flushed face and pulling him closer for a kiss. He can't begin to describe how much he loves you at this moment. He puts little weight on you as he traps you on the bed between his arms.

You make a noise of surprise when he pulls back from you to lean on his feet. You're about to ask what he's doing but he's already sliding down your body to slot his head between your thighs. He gives the left of a small nip before kissing it again. Your core floods with anticipation when he gazes up at you like that. He waits for you to push his face closer to your folds to make sure you're okay. As soon as you do, he pushes his whole face against you, breathing you in and flattening his large tongue against your pussy. He lets out a raspy moan before he truly begins to lick. You know what's coming and the anticipation makes your thighs shudder around his head.

He looks up through his hair to see you throw your head back in pleasure. He's always loved how you look like this, with his head between your thighs and your hands in his hair. The sight is so hot that he knows he could probably finish from it alone.

Your breath hitches when you feel his hand travel from your hip to your folds. He uses his hand to part them before he gives a few kitten licks to your clit. His own eyes roll back as you spasm, and he continues that motion, fingers sliding into your wet core. He moves his two fingers slow and deep inside you, crooking them upwards halfway through each languid thrust. And just like that he can feel you tightening on his fingers with each lick and movement. Your moans get louder but he continues, spurred on by the look of pleasure you give him.

Your hips rut against his face and he moans against your clit, taking it into his mouth and sucking it. Just like that his fingers bring you over the edge, moaning and shaking as you wrap your legs around his face. Vincent removes his fingers and pushes his face into you again, licking up your juice before rising once more to be above you. You still look fucked out and he takes pride it in. You pull him in and kiss him deeply.

Vincent's hands travel down your thighs and stop at your knees. You briefly wonder what he's doing before he pushes them up and pins your legs against your chest. He's never tried this angle before.

But he likes it. A lot.

You can see from his expression that he's enjoying the view and briefly his eyes flicker between you and a sketchbook. You grab his face gently and make him look at you.

"You can draw later. Right now I want you to fuck me, Vincent"

His one good eye widens as if to say 'Yes ma'am' and before you know it, he's slotting himself into you, using his body weight to keep your legs pinned against your chest. Already he's so deep inside you that he's pushing against your sweet spot without trying. Vincent takes a moment to gather himself- he doesn't think he's ever been this deep inside you and suddenly he loves this position even more. He begins to roll his hips against you slowly, teasingly. He knows you want more so he begins to move, throwing a fair amount of his body weight into each deep thrust. Vincent can hear your breathless moan with each slap of his hips against your backside. He leans down on his strong left arm and uses his right to fondle your bouncing chest, making eye contact with you. It's your half-lidded hazy expression that makes his heart hammer in his chest. Vincent mouths the words 'I love you' and 'so pretty' over and over like a chant.

He's sure you can feel every little twitch and pulse of his cock with how tight you are around him. Fuck, he thinks, you feel so good. He's missed your pretty cunt so much and he's certain you've realised by how desperate his movement is becoming- degrading from measured, long, strong thrusts to irregular, quick jabs accompanied by crackly whimpers of pleasure. He's worried that he'll cum first now so he pulls his hand from your chest and pushes it between your folds to play with your clit.

A low, fractured murmur of "G-Gon' cu-um" falls from his open mouth and you're shocked for a moment.

Vincent stills against you and you feel your insides flood with warmth. The feeling along with his fingers still rubbing you tenderly, makes your own orgasm wash over you and he moans again as your pussy sucks him in further. He waits until you both finish before slowly pulling out of you, globs of excess cum seeping out of you. He uses his fingers to scoop the leaking cum up and fingers it back inside of you, humming when he sees that it isn't leaking anymore.

"I love you, Vinny," he looks at you and smiles, placing a pillow under your hips. He comes back to you with a flannel and washes the sweat from you and places a kiss on your forehead. Vincent lays beside you on the bed, placing his head against your chest and running his palm over the soft part of your tummy.

#xreader #bo sinclair x reader #house of wax 2005 #house of wax x reader #vincent sinclair x reader #vincent sinclair #bo sinclair #slasher x reader #slashers #slasher fucker

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fandomsandfeminism · 2 years

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"Romeo and Juliets romance is just so unrealistic! It's not what a romance is like in MY experience!"

Oh? Oh really? You, adult living in 2022, you never went to a fancy Venetian masquerade in the 1590s and met a mysterious stranger and then your first conversation spontaneously forms a perfect sonnet? That's not a totally relatable experience for you?

Is Macbeth unrealistic because of the witches? Is Midsummer unrealistic because of the love potion?

Like, there's no explicit magic in Romeo and Juliet, but it still exists in a heightened reality, and overlooking the role that language plays within the text itself kneecaps your analysis of the intent.

When we hear of Romeo, his dad and friends are discussing his recent sad mood- he's upset because the girl he likes has no interest in him. His friends try to distract him from it with a party, but dont really seem to...connect with or fully empathize with his sadness. When we first hear of Juliet, her father and Paris are planning her marriage (without her input.) They are both talked about but not really listened to. The way they are spoken about isolates them from others.

Then they meet, and with no knowledge of each other, not even their names, they click into perfect rhythm. They finish each other rhymes. They form perfect ABAB quatrains in conversation, their sentences form a rhyming *couplet* at the end.

You know the song Ana sings with Hans in Frozen? Love is an open door? We finish each others- Sandwiches? Yeah- it's riffing on this. The idea that you meet someone perfect and right away your souls can make poetry together. The immediate intimacy of being so in sync that your introduction is a love poem.

I don't know, yall. Romeo and Juliet isn't a gritty hyper-realistic Oscar nominated docu-drama. It teters on the edge of fairy tale and myth, it leans on its language to convey deeper emotional truths that a 5 act play doesn't have the time to develop as deeply as we, in our world of movie montages and long form TV, are more accustomed to. This isn't a slow burn, pining, enemies to friends to lovers. It's soul mates love at first sight, and when you accept that, the play can get on with the business of saying what it wants to say about hate and the cycle of violence and social rules and decorum and how grudges and blood fueds can destroy the magic in the world if we let it.

"It doesn't matter if they are really in love. They should be allowed to be stupid hormonal teenagers without dying" I see many people say, and while I think that sentiment is true, I DO think it matters that they are in love. I think it matters that their meeting sparks a sonnet, and that poetry is snuffed out by the violence around them.

I think it matters that what they had wasn't an arranged marriage or a "good match" made by approving friends- that it was spontaneous and instant and inexplicable, but that the world couldn't let that be because it defied all the rules. Because it wasn't set up by parents and wasn't politically convenient, because it wasn't part of a proper, prolonged courtship with chaperones and social approval- it was love and poetry that defied all of that and so it was snuffed out. That they are pushed to such extremes not just by the killings, but by Juliets impending engagement to Paris, they have to act now because their love doesnt fit into the proper pattern set out by society- I think that matters.

#romeo and juliet #im all for modern remakes that take whatever modern readings they want #but Im hesitant to AGREE with all the grown ups in the play that their love cant be real because it didnt happen the right way #they speak a sonnet together the first time they meet!

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cherrylovelycherry · 5 months

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Independence, trust and talk

pairing: Neuvillette x fem!reader cw/genre: light angst, fluff, established relationships, short. masterlist! requests open!

Y/N and Neuvillette were having a fight.

Once the two stopped arguing, they just looked at each other. The room was silent, the tension was heavy. Neuvillette looked like he was about to break down, he never liked to argue… especially with her.

Neuvillette left the room and went into his and her bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Suddenly, there was a clap of thunder in the sky as it started pouring rain outside.

"You're upset, to keep talking coherently I need you to calm down, Y/N." Her face looked relaxed but inside she was trying to find a solution to the problem.

"Calm down my balls I don't have any, Neuvillette." Maybe she was a little rude with that.

"The only thing is that you don't trust me."

"That's not true, yes I do-"

"Stop lying! You think I'm weak compared to the traveller, he's the one you've always asked for help-" She interrupted him again.

"Right! Yes, you are too weak and vulnerable compared to all of Fontaine." After all, Neuvillette was getting irritable too.

"…" Silence on both sides.

"If you consider me like that, why the fuck did we get married!?" she shouted, her voice coming out choppy.

Y/N ran both hands through her hair as she remembered the argument. She felt her eyes burning, tears begging to come out. She froze in place from before, her body was numb.

With one of the sleeves of his t-shirt she wiped away her tears roughly, as she moved towards the kitchen. She set about preparing dinner with sobs and mumbles.

She might not be the strongest, but at least she wanted to feel useful. Especially seeing how happy and relieved her husband looked to engage in conversation with the traveller.

It wasn't long before Neuvillette came out of the room, noticing that his wife was already making dinner.

He couldn't believe it, that after their argument his wife could still make the meal… if he had been in her place, he would have cancelled all meal plans.

It seems that for Y/N, dinner was a good distraction from her feelings.

He walked over to her and gave her a back hug.

Her body tensed as she felt Neuvillette's arms around her waist.

"Mhm, not now, Neuvillette." She mumbled, finishing cooking dinner, she turned off the cooker. She pulled away from his grip in a calm manner.

"Dinner is ready, just for you to help yourself." She spoke, not looking at him.

His heart was heavy from the words spoken in the heat of the fight to his wife.

He decided to take a step back, and not press his wife.

"Thank you, Y/N."

He went to serve their dinner, and then sat down at the table.

"I'm going out for some air, I'll be right back." She spoke, making her way to their shared bedroom, just to put on a sweater.

"It's okay, Y/N."

He too began to eat, he wouldn't want his wife to overlook her own food.

In the back of his mind were several things he wanted to say to her, but he knew it wasn't the time.

...

Y/N walked and walked, wandering here and there, she was looking for someone, but nothing appeared.

"Hmmm…" She thought as she put a hand to her chin.

Maybe if she faked a dangerous situation? Shame on her, that wouldn't work.

She continued strolling through the brightly lit streets of Fontaine, the rain had stopped a moment ago. She was so deep in thought that she bumped into someone, there were no falls.

"Oh! Finally, Traveler." And obviously, paimon.

...

Y/N returned after a one hour, the time spent asking the traveller a few questions flew by.

Neuvillette had just finished eating when Y/N returned.

"How did it go?" He asked her, his tone of voice lacking confidence.

He knew something was going to bother her, but he didn't know how to talk to her without starting the argument they'd had this afternoon all over again. But to resolve it they had to talk.

"Oh-uhm. Calm and relaxed. Heh." She spoke, truth be told she had relaxed for what he was before, the air helps a lot.

Neuvillette's face still looked sad after their argument this afternoon, but in his mind he had an idea of how to tell his wife what he wanted.

He planned to ask for her forgiveness.

"Well, Y/N, can we talk?"

"Ah, yes, what is it?" she asked as she took off her jacket and hung it on the coat rack by the door.

"Can I talk to you about what happened this afternoon?"

"…" She sighed.

"Right." They both sat on the furniture, neither spoke.

He looked her straight in the eye.

"Y/N, I'm sorry for my attitude this afternoon. It was very hurtful, and it hurts me to know that I hurt the person I love and who loves me."

"I know my attitude was horrible, but I never questioned your ability to protect yourself."

He held out his hand in case Y/N wanted to take it.

"And if according to you you don't question my ability, why don't you ever let me do things on my own?" She spoke, looking down at her hands, accepting his grip on her hand.

"…I wish you would consider me differently." She muttered.

Neuvillette gave her hand a gentle tug and made her look up at him.

"To keep you from hurting yourself, that's the main thing."

He couldn't see her sad for this reason, he didn't want to see her sad for something he had done.

"I wouldn't want you to think that I never trust you, but I don't want you to overlook your safety."

His heart felt a little lighter.

"I know I've been very overprotective, and I've made you feel incapable… I'm sorry."

She sighed.

"I didn't see it that way." She spoke, feeling embarrassed.

"But really, I don't want you to keep sending the traveller to take care of me."

"Okay, so… would you feel more comfortable if you were out walking around or doing your commissions by yourself?"

He was staring at her, he was trying to understand her.

"Uhum." She mused with a nod.

"By the way…what did you do when you went out?" he asked curiously, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Ohhh, I went to ask the traveller some questions." She spoke, feeling embarrassed about it.

"Mmm, what things?" He smiled at his wife.

"About how I can be so strong sometimes, you know… so I can be better when I do my commissions."

"Do you want to be better at your commissions?"

He laughed as he asked Y/N that question, because he already knew the real reason she asked that question.

"Don't laugh." She snorted looking away ruefully.

"I asked so you wouldn't worry when I go out alone."

"Don't worry, honey, I think you may already be able to take control of your own life. I don't have any doubts in you."

At the end of it all, Neuvillette understood that Y/N just wanted a little independence.

#genshin angst #genshin impact angst #genshin x reader #neuvillete x reader #neuvillette angst #neuvillette #neuvillette genshin #neuvillette x reader #neuvilette genshin #genshin #genshin fluff #fontaine #genshin impact

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mikwaa · 10 months

Text

I'll always miss you, you will shine like gold in my memory.

Zhongli x Reader

Wc: 2.7k

Warnings: Angst, hurt no comfort, reader dies. Toxic relationship, Morax is an idiot brute, this is set in the Archon war, reader is a warrior.

A/n: I had this draft written here a while ago, decided to post it because it's one I really like. As the old Morax is described as a more rough and ruthless person, I imagine that for him to change there had to be a major event. And so I ended up writing this, maybe I'll do another ending because I genuinely don't like sad endings, but it went together so well I decided to leave it like this.

"Morax, please listen to me." And there you were, in one of those endless fights with your husband.

The reason this time was that you had found a group of people, begging for a place to stay, since they were wandering around. This group had been exiled from Sumeru, the reasons were not yet clear, nor did they know why. There were children, elders, even young pregnant women, you couldn't just ignore them and let them die.

And you had offered them a home in the Guili Plains, the place where the Liyue population was housed. But Morax did not accept, nor did he seem to want to change his mind.

"I've said what I think, and I'm not going to change it." And he didn't even look at you, on the contrary, he walked even faster to distance more from you.

"Can you stop being so irreverent?" You quicken your steps and stand in front of him, stopping him from moving forward.

He narrowed his eyes in your direction, his face turning into an angry frown, "I told you, don't make me repeat myself. If you choose to save those people, you can forget about coming back. I don't want you around." His words were sharp as blades, wounding as such.

And seeing his face without a drop of expression, without a single regret. How could he say such impactful things as if they were nothing?

"How can you talk like that? I'm your spouse, I'm just trying to help." You could already feel tears forming in your eyes, he always acted like a brute, but there were times you couldn't even handle it.

"You can help me by protecting my people, not by harboring strangers." The coldness with which he spoke to you was abysmal, it didn't even seem like you had any kind of relationship.

"They are people too, they have feelings too. They are afraid to die, they are simply out in the open."

"I care what's mine, we're in a war, we can't save everyone. And I chose to take care of what is mine, my territory together with my people". He states, with that usual stoic face. With that arrogance and selfishness that would drive anyone crazy with rage.

"So that's still a no?" Breathing heavily you ask him one last time, the hope you had of him giving in had simply vanished.

"It was always a no. If you're going to keep talking about it, you can save both your time and mine." Snide and sharp, he never seemed to change.

"Then you won't want me here anymore, I suppose." To his surprise, you wouldn't give up. You would keep your word no matter what.

"Go ahead." Nothing more, not a sentimentality, nothing. Just treating you like you were just another one of his pawns, like you were just another one in the crowd.

A hot tear ran down your face, your heart burning as if it had been recently scalded.

"Are you really going to treat me like this? Like I'm nothing to you, and this ring means nothing?" You removed the ring, holding it with trembling hands.

The engagement ring, which he had made for you himself, was so beautiful. With jade detailing all over the ring, and even more precious was the message it had, 'It will always be you'. According to him, it was to show how much you meant to him.

And now? Were those beautiful words just thrown to the wind?

He huffed, looking incredibly upset and tired of this situation, but he didn't show you anything, he wasn't sad, sorry, guilty, nothing. As if none of this mattered.

"Have it your way." Completely indifferent he mumbles.

"Okay." You threw the ring away, without even looking at where it went," If it meant nothing to you, it meant nothing to me."

Now he seemed to take some notice of you, but was clearly displeased.

But there was no time for him to talk or complain to you, you ran out of there. He wanted to go after you, but the pride he carried in his chest was stronger.

A feeling of guilt invaded his heart, but he still wouldn't let his feelings get the better of him, because he believed that you would go back on your decision.

You wouldn't exchange him for a group of people you barely know, but that was exactly the point he didn't understand. It wasn't that he wouldn't help you, it was the way he dealt with certain issues. He was so focused and objective, that should be good, but it wasn't the case with him.

He always complained that you think too much about others, just as you complain that his behavior is often harsh and hostile. He believed that you would come back, but he was wrong, very wrong.

it had been three weeks since you had even dared to look at each other. He couldn't swallow his pride, and neither could you. That arrogance and selfishness he possessed could get on anyone's nerves, and you were not immune to it.

No matter how many times you tried to make him understand that things were not practical as he claimed they were, he would never understand, he was a real brute.

And that was the last straw for you, people were not objects that he could control as and when he wanted, and he didn't seem to want to understand that.

You had left the village, and had no desire to return. You had tucked yourself away in a simpler hut and in a place you suspected Morax wouldn't go near. Even though you loved him so much, you doubted if he would ever change.

It was so many doubts mixed with the anger you felt about the things he said, you took it out on the monsters you met in front of you, without letting a single one escape.

With quick and precise blows, you used your blade with an unmistakable dexterity. But even this was not enough for what would happen next. A monster that you didn't even know what it was hit you, and ended up hurting you.

You didn't even know where it came from, you didn't even have time to react. Your body heaved and you fell to the grass abruptly, as you felt a sharp pain run through your entire body.

And when you managed to stabilize yourself and look at the monster, it was no longer there. It had already turned to dust.

"You with this stubbornness. You can't even take care of yourself." From the familiarity in his voice, it wasn't hard to guess that it was your husband.

"Shut up." You mustered the strength to speak, it seemed as if your strength was draining away second by second.

Even in such a state, the weakness and frailty you were in didn't seem to make any commotion in Morax.

"If you knew you wouldn't be like this." So cold, so distant. Every word of his hurt so much.

How could he be so indifferent? So cruel.

"You won't even see your spouse? You won't even try to take care of me?" Even though you tried to sound strong and imposing, all that came out was a shaky, tired voice.

"I'm no specialist in this. Go find help somewhere else, I told you I don't want you around." It wasn't just anger, it was a feeling of someone who had been defied, you hadn't followed his orders, and he was hating you for it.

You had traded him, that's what he had in mind, but you didn't leave because of that. You loved him like crazy, and you had helped him in many ways. But he still needed to think more about others, trust humans more.

To learn to understand that people were not just pawns that he moved when and how he wanted, it was far from that. And now he was experiencing the fact that someone might not follow his orders, and that someone was you.

He went to look over his shoulder one last time, as he began to notice a pool of blood starting to form around you, he hurried his steps over to you.

"I have to take you, the healers will help." Bending down close to you he whispers. The sudden change in behavior that soon showed his desperation.

"You know they won't, there's nothing else to do." You couldn't control the tear that welled up in your eye.

It had been a very deep wound, you didn't need any healer to tell you that you were hopeless, the village was far away, there would be no time to get there. Several other warriors had died like this, and it would be no different with you.

His stoic expression turned to one of terror, his pride gone in a matter of minutes.

"Don't talk foolishness." He nestles you in his arms, carrying you so gingerly that it seemed he was afraid of hurting you with the slightest touch.

"Leave me here," he opened his mouth to protest, and you continued, "Please."

He propped you up on his chest, wrapping you in the clothes of his own body, so that you were properly protected.

"Why are you so stubborn? I can't understand you." For the first time you heard him speak in a broken voice, he was trying not to cry.

"I just want to save time, you know you don't have much to do." You gently caress his face.

He wanted to tell you so much, but he couldn't put it into words, ever.

"I shouldn't have acted like that." Finally, he admitted it. But now it was too late for any regrets.

You intertwined your fingers with his, smiling faintly. He could feel your strength fading little by little, and he could do nothing.

You were too fragile, just like all humans. And he could do nothing.

Nothing.

He couldn't believe it, how could a being as powerful as him be so powerless like that? That shouldn't be right, but it was.

"Please stay." He pleads, but how could you fulfill that request? His voice was so shaken it sounded almost unrecognizable.

For the first time he was losing one of his partners, he had always protected them all as best he could, and none of them had gone so far. But the first was you, his first big loss was you. How would he be able to handle it? No, he couldn't.

"I will never forget your eyes, they are so beautiful." You say softly, almost inaudible.

And he let a tear escape, all the armor he had made in his heart had broken, and he couldn't control it. It was the love of his life leaving, all he could do was watch, how could he be so useless at a time like this?

"Stay, keep your eyes open, I'll get help, I'll…" Not even he himself believed his own words, much less believed that you could save yourself.

He felt so much guilt, how could he have been so negligent? He had never been very sentimental, but now he felt it all at once.

He could hardly describe his exact feeling, because he had no exact feeling. Now he understood all the human emotions you spoke of, a pity he could only understand now, on your deathbed.

The birds were singing, it was a beautiful day, the sun had the most beautiful glow. And yet Morax was there, on the grass with you in his arms, crying in despair like never before. The blood that stained the green of the vegetation, and the pain that remained impregnated in Morax's soul.

And then, like one of those tricks played by fate, everything fell silent. Morax sobbed softly, and made one last plea, "Don't leave me, I really care for you. I love you, stay here." He held your hand tightly, seeing how small it was compared to his.

It was the first time he had been that clear, he had never really opened his heart to you, a shame that the first time he said 'I love you', you were no longer there to hear it.

And as soon as he realized it, a faint cry was all that came out of Morax's mouth, followed by an audible sob. He realized that you died there, nestled in his arms, holding his hand, so angelic.

His beloved had left him, eternally.

Millennia had passed since your death, 3.800 years to be exact. Yet this hurt Morax so much that he was never able to forget you.

Even though he left the Archon life aside, now going by another name, Zhongli, and leading a more modest life as a simple Liyue citizen, the memories he had with you were vivid, shining like gold in his memory.

He martyred himself every day, he blamed himself, a guilt that he would never be able to eliminate from his chest, he would give everything, even his life for you to come back.

And today this feeling was stronger than ever, because it was the day of your death, the day you left him alone in this world. Another year had passed, and even so it seemed like yesterday when you died, at least that's how Morax felt.

And as he did every year, he bought your favorite flowers, picked them carefully to make sure that you would like them. Plus he provided the wine of his choice, it was the only thing that made his mind clear on a day like this, even if he wasn't very used to all that drinking.

When he was ready, he went to your tomb, which was made in the Guili Plains, the place where everything began, and also where everything ended. He always kept your grave clean, after all he visited you every day, no matter how hectic his routine could be, he would always come to your grave daily.

"I missed you, my dear." He says these words to the wind, anyone passing by would think he was crazy, but he didn't care.

He always spent hours talking to you, talking about everything that had changed, and how he had changed. He always thought that no matter where you were, you could always hear him.

Gently he put the flowers on the grave, and sat down on the floor, while pouring himself some wine. "I just wanted to remind you that I love you, more than anything else."

On a day like today, he wouldn't even try to hold back the tears, or the pain in his chest. He caught himself thinking how proud you would be to see the progress Liyue had made, how beautiful the city looked now.

He wanted to show you that he understood what you said in the last minutes of your life, he wanted to show you that you had become a better person. This was due to a great influence of yours, who now was not here to accompany him on this journey.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything I did, my beloved. You would think it magnificent the way everything has progressed, how humans could achieve so much." His voice choked, his face red as the tears came down without stopping.

'His beloved' , was so sweet when it came out of his lips, but so melancholy by the look in his eyes, those gentle golden eyes that expressed so much sorrow.

A love ended in such a way could hurt so much, and Morax knew it. He had experienced it so harshly, but he stood firm to keep the nation you two had fought so hard for standing, and he would keep fighting because he thought it was the way to repay you for all you had done for him.

Every time he remembered you crumbling in his arms, his heart squeezed in such a way. Your face paled along with your frail body, looking as if it would break at any moment. And with that he remembered how much he missed you in his arms, your laughter, the warmth of your body, your beautiful face.

He missed it all, and remembered these moments bitterly, but also joyfully, because he remembered when you were still with him.

He would protect the people at all costs, and keep everything safe as long as he was alive, he would watch over everything you believed in. He would gladly do this for the rest of his days.

Now all he could do was wait, wait for him to take his last breath. And then finally, finally he could meet you, and tell you everything that happened during those years.

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin x you #genshin imagines #genshin x y/n #zhongli x reader #zhongli x y/n #zhongli #zhongli imagines #genshin angst #zhongli angst #zhongli x you

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laroserie · 3 months

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i probably won't extend of that expect if people want me to (still scared of getting told to kms for writing about hh or hb) but !

the idea of (yandere? not necessarily but i am a yandere fan) Alastor whose darling/the reader is a baker!

the reader is of course a sinner, but they aren't someone that ended up in hell for something like murder or a really big sin, something more silly, petty. they were in hell for a while, they accepted that they were stuck there and decided to just keep on 'living'

so they open up a bakery, maybe they were a baker when they were alive or maybe they just like to bake - either way, they open their little bakery in a part of the ring of hell that is kinda better off then the rest, one part where their store is less likely to get burned down.

they will somewhat peacefully - outside of when the extermination happen, they fear for their life - and they still aren't sure as to how they survived that many years in hell. and they often have to get their shop fixed up after the yearly extermination. that bit is annoying but outside of that, life is as peaceful as life in hell can be.

before Alastor disappeared for seven years, he used to be a somewhat regular customer, you made some pretty good breads and pastries. it was when he was starting to get more and more powerful as an overlord so you were very much on the verge of passing out everytime he came in the store and tried to limit the amount of words shared between the two of you. you never knew if you ever slipped and ended up offending him, you didn't want to be an another one of those broadcasted scream.

but once he reached his peak, a few years before his disappearance, you stopped being this tensed up around him, you started engaging in small talks with him, it wasn't anything extraordinary, mostly centering around the weather and what he choose to buy this time. at some point you even started to ask him to sample one of your creation before officially selling it.

you ended up being somewhat attached to the radio overlord.

and then he ... was gone. for seven years. you were somewhat sad about this, but you were not THAT close to him so you get over it.

but one day, while going about your day, while serving a customer you hear something weird, about a certain overlord being back.

you don't really believe in it, until you hear one of his broadcast, a small smile creep on your face hearing it. you're happy to hear him again, to know he is still alive and well. but you don't expect to see him in person or anything like this, you doubt he even remember you but one day, one morning shortly after you opened the bakery - you heard the little noise made from the bell of the entrance alerting you that someone has opened the front door, and you see him.

without thinking much, you smile at Alastor and give him a warm 'Good morning !' and again, without thinking you add 'It's been a while, glad to see you're back.' you only realize that one of the most powerful overlord could not like a measly sinner to talk to them like they are a friend when they are barely acquaintances that haven't seen each others in seven years.

but before you can correct yourself and let out a ton of 'sorry please don't kill me' Alastor answer you with a 'Hm, yes it's been quite some time. I am glad to see you still running this bakery dear.'

you simply nod at him and decide to ask what you ask every customers 'So what will you get today ?'.

#a magic piece ?#oh a successful spell #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin hotel x y/n #alastor x reader #alastor imagine #hazbin hotel imagine #hazbin hotel headcanon #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel fanfiction

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