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thecomfortgoth · 7 months

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Peeping Tom Part 1

18+ MDNI (just don't, ok?)

Eddie Munson x Fem Reader x Perv!Steve Harrington

Summary: You're behind the school with your boyfriend Eddie making out, things get a little hot and heavy.. and then you see that someone is watching you..

WC: 6k

CW: unprotected p in v sex (wrap it before you tap it), creampie, masturbation, slight persuasion, use of degrading pet names, use of praisey pet names, posessiveness, voyeurism/exhibitionism (one party doesn't know it's happening, sorry), Steve being a huge secret pervert, Eddie being a little gross and pervy himself towards the end, semi public sex, kinda Dom!Eddie, all characters are 18+

Please let me know if I've forgotten anything and I can update it.

A/N: This was just a little something that came to my mind randomly a while ago, I've had it on my "to write" list for ages and decided to finally check it off, now that I'm actually starting to put some content out there. Enjoy! Please leave feedback, I always like to hear how people have enjoyed my writing.

Requests are OPEN

Smut under the cut

"Hurry up, Eds, come on. We don't have long" you giggled as you held your boyfriend's hand, leading him around to that little spot behind the gym block that you had both claimed as your little makeout spot. It was down a nice little alley, secluded apart from the two openings at either end. One of which was a brick wall that meant you could only go right or left and those little pathways leading off of it were rarely used by anyone, if ever. So it was pretty prime makeout spot material. You were surprised no one else had found it before. Unless you just didn't know about it.

"Oh don't you worry sweetheart, I'm coming alright" he said from behind you with a big smirk that you could literally hear, grabbing your hips and leaning around to nip at your ear, humming against your warm skin.

You rolled your eyes and laughed, turning to face him, taking his hand again as you turned the corner and walked backwards further into the alley. "Stop being such a pervert babe, just hurry up and kiss me" you said, biting your lip as you slowly backed towards the wall, squeezing at his hand.

He grinned at you and obliged, his palms grabbing you by both sides of your face and smashing his lips against yours, making your back hit the wall a little harder than he'd intended, mumbling a small apology to you. You just melted into the kiss though, sighing into his mouth as you rested your hands on his biceps, slowly rubbing them up and down and gently squeezing. You loved Eddie's arms, all that lifting amps and guitars and music equipment from his band's shows and practices really paid off. He didn't look very strong to most people, but he definitely was. You for one knew it by the way he lifted you with ease and threw you around in his bedroom or the back of his van. Or one time The Hideout bathrooms.

"I've been waiting for this all day, I always miss you so much when I have to go to these stupid fucking classes" your boyfriend hummed against your lips, his hands now moving to your waist and gripping at you, pulling your body against his as he crowded you against the wall. All you could do was nod your head and make a soft noise of agreement, not wanting to stop kissing him even for one second.

You lived for moments like this, however small they were. When you had Eddie all to yourself, even if it was just a quick makeout session when you'd both left class early feigning stomach aches because you'd missed each other too much. It didn't matter that you'd just saw each other at lunch, you were inseparable and you both really noticed the others absence when you weren't together. Even if it was something as simple as Eddie going to the store to grab some snacks for your movie night, you'd find yourself launching your body at him as soon as he came back, kissing him like he'd been gone for a lot longer than 10 minutes. And he was just as bad sometimes.

Eddie's hands began to wander, gripping at the soft cotton of your little black tank top, bunching it in his hands as he flicked his tongue across your lips, begging you to open up and let him in. You obliged without even thinking, your arms moving to wrap around his neck, your lips parting to which he took full advantage of, licking into your mouth with a small groan coming from him.

You could tell he was getting a little worked up, with the way your tank top was slowly riding up a little more each second, his greedy hands possessively gripping at it and trying to slyly move it up your skin. Your hands moved to his to sort yourself out a little, trying to pull the top down again. But his hands continued travelling upwards over the material, now cupping your breasts and squeezing. You weren't wearing a bra, so the slightest of friction on your nipples made you gasp a little into his mouth.

"Eds.." you said quietly, breaking the kiss and sounding slightly whiny. "Come on, we said this would be a quick makeout, you can undress me when we get back to yours later" you giggled, feeling his lips latch onto your jaw and suck a little mark into your skin, making you close your eyes and relish in the sensation.

"Baby, I can't help it. God they feel so good.. I gotta see em, please?" He groaned again, his lips now travelling down your jaw in little wet kisses towards your chin and moving to the other side. "Come on, show me your gorgeous tits and then that'll be it, I promise. Just flash me a little bit and I can hold off till later". He sounded desperate, but not in the way where he was whiney or pathetic sounding.

You didn't respond, hoping that if you just ignored it, he'd hopefully not push it any further. One of your hands found his face, gripping his chin gently and guiding him back to your lips, kissing him harder and deeper, your tongues fighting for dominance in each others mouths as you let out an involuntary soft moan into his mouth. Fuck. That wasn't going to help matters. And it didn't.

He groaned and pressed his body against yours, slotting his thigh between your legs and pushing you further into the wall as his hands moved down and slipped under your top, his rough palms now fully engulfing your bare tits, his thumbs gently flicking over your peaked nipples. A shudder ran through you as he did so, gripping onto his arms a little harder as he palmed at you and squeezed the soft skin of your breasts.

"Jesus, please show me 'em sweetheart. Just gotta see em for a second, promise" he said, his voice sounding rough and a tad fucked out as he began trailing his kisses down your neck, finding that one sensitive spot you had that he knew you wouldn't be able to resist and sinking his teeth in, latching on and sucking another bruise into your skin. It made you gasp and grab at his shoulders, looking up at the sky as your eyes fluttered closed from how he was sucking on that spot of your neck and working his thumbs over your nipples, hands shoved up the fabric of your tight top and definitely stretching it out. You tried to swallow down the little whimper that escaped you as he sucked particularly hard, he fucking knew just how to make you give in to him.

You knew he wasn't about to let this go. And when Eddie really wanted something, he got it. You tried to think of an excuse, one worthy enough of Eddie Munson and his stubborn ass. But you were shit out of luck. There wasn't one. You closed your eyes for a second, letting out a sigh as he squeezed a little harder at your tits, slightly pinching your nipples between his thumb and index finger, your back arching a little against the wall as he did so. "Fine" you said, trying to sound annoyed but how could you when he had you like this? "But I swear, just for a second and no more. I don't need someone coming around the corner and seeing me standing here with my tits out"

He let go of your skin from his mouth with a wet pop, kissing the now dark purple mark on the juncture of your neck which made you whimper slightly again, before he pulled back with a shit eating grin on his face. He palmed at your tits once more, biting his lip and nodding down towards them. "Go on then princess. Show me the goods" he winked at you, taking his hands out from under your top and resting them on your hips, his thumbs rubbing gentle circles into the skin just above where the waistband of your cute little plaid skirt lay.

You rolled your eyes at him, trying hard not to let the smile on your face crack through. You didn't want him to think you were enjoying this. But you kinda were. Even if you were terrified of someone catching you and seeing you indecent at school, it was sort of exciting. Your heart was thumping in your chest as you moved your hands down towards the hem of your shirt, grabbing at it with your fingertips gently and slowly sliding it up your body, almost as if you were teasing him.

He looked at you completely entranced, his eyes widening as you revealed your tits to him, watching as you lifted the tight fabric up and over and both of your breasts bounced out from underneath, jiggling as they settled where they naturally lay. You held the top up just at your collarbones even though you didn't have to, gulping as you looked side to side, making sure no one was coming. If someone did appear, then you could quickly cover yourself up again.

Eddie's gaze was completely and utterly on your chest. His mouth hung open wide, eyes almost popping out of his skull as he stared at them like he'd never seen them before, like you were showing him for the first time that night in his bedroom when you'd confessed that you had a crush on him. He was a complete sucker for your tits. He swears he'd never see a better pair. Not even in nudey magazines or pornos he'd sometimes smuggle home from Family Video.

"Okay, is that enough? Can I put them away now and we can get back to smooching a little more?" You giggled, about to move the top back down and cover yourself up again. What you didn't see was Eddie moving without thinking, grabbing both your tits with his hands and his mouth latching onto one of your nipples, sucking and flicking his tongue over it as you looked down and gasped. "Eddie! Come on, we can't do this here" you hissed at him, watching as he looked up at you and then closed his eyes, pinching your other nipple as his teeth grazed at the one his mouth was currently attached to, a muffled groan coming from him.

You couldn't help but bite your lip and moan a little as he moved to the other one quickly, your hands coming away from where your top sat bunched up against your collarbones, one moving into his hair and tugging at it, trying to get him off of you. But it was no use, it just made him suck harder at your nipple, biting at the sensitive bud as his tongue flicked faster.

"E-Eddie.. not here..." you complained pathetically, your cheeks now completely red and flushed with embarrassment, the thought of someone coming around the corner and catching you with your boyfriend with his mouth quite literally glued to your chest making your heart thud harder than it normally would when he did this. His free hand had started to wander too, fingers running up the inside of your thigh under your skirt, the cool rings on each of his fingers making you shiver a little as they brushed against your skin.

"Why not? No ones here, no one ever comes here baby, come on.. let's just have a little fun hm?" He said as he looked up at you with his big brown eyes, fluttering his damn long lashes at you while his tongue peeked out of his mouth and circled each of your now stiff nipples, paying equal attention to them both as his hand under your skirt moved higher, your leg instinctively lifting up for him as he cupped your pussy gently and rubbed his fingers over the damp lace of your panties, a shaky quiet moan coming from you as he did so, your hand flying to your mouth to cover it. You didn't need anyone who was nearby hearing that kind of noise and suddenly getting intrigued.

"We can be quick, I promise, I just.. fuck, I need you so bad. And I know you need me too, I can feel how wet you are already" he grinned up at you, teeth grazing over your nipple as his fingers moved up and toyed with the elastic at the top of your underwear, sliding his hand down into them, two of his fingers parting your folds and stroking you teasingly, gathering up some of your wetness from your entrance on his middle finger. "Oh, my little slut really is fucking dripping for me"

Your eyes rolled back a little, another moan coming from you muffled by your hand. He knew he had you right where he wanted you, he knew you wouldn't be able to resist much longer, especially when he was talking to you like that. So he moved his mouth back onto one of your peaked nipples and sucked at it again, groaning and finding your clit with his fingers. As soon as he started to rub slow circles over it, you shuddered and fell forward a little. Your hand coming away from your mouth as you squeezed your eyes shut and then looked down at him. He was making you feel so fucking good, his fingers were well and truly skilled, as was his mouth. You cursed past you for all those nights you spent teaching him exactly how you liked it, all those nights he discovered a new way to make you crumble. And this was one of them. Sucking your tits while rubbing your pussy was always one way Eddie could get whatever he wanted. And he always looked so fucking pretty while doing it, even with a shit eating grin on his face because he knew exactly what it did to you.

"Fine. Okay, fine. But be quick, please Eds, I don't wa-" you were cut off by Eddie suddenly unlatching from your nipple, both of his hands suddenly under your skirt and pulling your panties down your legs. A little dumbfounded by how quickly he was getting them off you, you stepped out of them and watched him stuff them into his back pocket as he stood up again. Grinning at you devilishly, he was suddenly lifting you up, wrapping your legs around his waist as you grabbed at his shoulders and let out a surprised squeal, one of his hands holding you up under your ass and squeezing, his other hand down at his belt unbuckling himself and making quick work of undoing his jeans.

Now he had you giving into him and giving him what he wanted, he'd do as he wanted. "I'll be as quick as I want to be. Or maybe I'll take my time. Make you late for class cause you're too busy being stuffed with my cock" he chuckled darkly, licking his lips as he freed his cock from his boxers, shoving them and his jeans down underneath his ass and moving closer to you again, rubbing his cock against your drenched slit as your boyfriend pinned you against the wall with his full body.

You could feel the fat head of him dripping with precum and nudging against your clit, making you whine a little. Eddie was long and thick, definitely the biggest you'd ever had. At first you'd been intimidated by his cock, but that was long gone now. You loved it, you begged for it sometimes too. You bit your lip and looked up at him, watching as he smirked and groaned, his nose slotted beside yours, letting your slick coat his cock as he made you needier for him. "Eddie please.. just.. just..."

Without another word, he lined himself up with your entrance and slowly started to push himself inside you, holding you up against the wall with both hands under your ass. Both of your arms were tightly wrapped around his neck, one hand on his back and the other in his hair, your mouth hung open as he stretched you out slowly, a choked moan coming from you as he bottomed out, stilling for a moment to let you adjust. You'd been with Eddie for months now, but you still needed a second to get used to him when he was fully inside you.

"Jesus FUCK angel, so fucking tight and so wet. And it's all for me ain't it?" He groaned, burying his face into your neck as he all but lost his mind, feeling your warm velvety walls clench down on him at his words. He slowly drew back and thrusted in again, making you bite down hard on your lip so you didn't moan too loudly as the sting of the stretch turned into burning pleasure, nodding slowly to agree with him that you were infact all his.

You were still absolutely fucking terrified of being caught. Of another student who was also ditching class stumbling across you both while trying to find somewhere secret to smoke or something. Or worse.. a teacher who'd been on the lookout for ditching students. The thought of it made you come to your senses a little, looking around cautiously as Eddie started fucking into you slowly but hard, mumbling curses into your neck and squeezing your tits, making you mewl under his touch. Maybe no one would come out here. Maybe you could just enjoy your boyfriend fucking you at school, when you should both be in class.

You were just about to look back at him and stop worrying so much, when suddenly you saw something move out of the corner of your eye and your heart almost fucking stopped. Your head snapped to where you saw the movement and you gasped loudly. You saw a little piece of brown wavy hair and an eye peeking out from the corner.

Someone was watching you.

Someone was watching Eddie fuck you right now. You felt like your heart was about to jump out of your throat, your mouth opening to try and speak, but only being able to let out a strangled noise as Eddie fucked you a little harder and squeezed at your ass, his fingers digging into the globe of it. You were about to slap his shoulder, alert him to something being wrong, when the person watching moved out of the corner a little more and pressed their finger to their lips and shaking their head, telling you to be quiet as their mouth moved in a silent "Shhh". It was then that you saw exactly who it was.

Steve Harrington.

Steve fucking Harrington was watching your boyfriend fuck you right now against a wall behind the gym block. Steve Harrington, the king of Hawkins High, the captain of the basketball team, the beer keg champion. The pervert.

You looked at him in complete confusion, wondering what he was doing. How long had he been there? How much had he seen? You shook your head a little at him, waving your hand at him as if to shoo him off. But it was just as the head of Eddie's cock nudged at your g-spot in the right way and made you cry out in a moan, your head falling back against the wall that he was currently rutting you into. "Oh, there she is, is that good baby? Let it all out, let me hear all your pretty noises" Eddie mumbled, kissing up your jaw with his eyes clamped shut, mouthing at you sloppily as he moaned himself completely unabashedly. He clearly wasn't caring if you got caught. And he clearly wasn't aware of Steve's presence right now.

He'd always thought you were hot, you were insanely pretty and he'd always imagined what your tits looked like, maybe he'd even jerked off to your yearbook picture a couple times too. So when he had been walking around the school to cool off after Billy Hargrove pissed him off one too many times in gym class and he happened to stumble across you flashing your tits to Eddie, he absolutely couldn't pass up this opportunity. He immediately got hard as a rock and.. well he just couldn't help his 'manly urges'. He had to help himself out. And he definitely didn't want to stop watching when things got hotter and heavier.

You looked over at Steve again in a slight panic, seeing him watching you both intently, his eyes completely open wide in awe, licking his lips like he was concentrating hard on something. You quickly registered the fact that he looked like he was a little flushed. And then you saw his gym shorts were pushed down a little, his hand wrapped around his thick pink cock while he gripped at himself tightly, his other hand lifting his shirt up a little to let you see his toned stomach. You didn't think he was as big as Eddie from where you could see, but shit he definitely had a big dick. A little bit of precum dribbled from the slit of it and he immediately swiped it away, using his thumb to rub it into his cock and making eye contact with you, stroking at himself faster and smirking. He was enjoying that he'd been caught watching you both.

You couldn't fucking believe this. Not only was he watching Eddie fuck you, but he was getting off to it too. You were livid. You were absolutely disgusted. You were more soaked than you'd ever been. You're not sure why.. but having Steve watch you two was making your cunt flutter more around Eddie and your juices drip out of you. Eddie always usually had you soaked, but something about being watched like this, about someone seeing you completely indecently, your tits bouncing every single time Eddie thrusted his hips harshly into you.. yeah, it was fucking hot.

"Faster Eddie.. please.. god, please fuck me faster" you gasped, tugging at his hair and nibbling at his ear, keeping eye contact with Steve the whole time, deciding that if he wasn't going to shy away in embarrassment now that he's been caught and he was gonna continue to watch, then you better give him a good show right? Eddie, of course, obliged, cursing under his breath as he grabbed you under your thighs and shifted you up the wall a little, his hips snapping against your thighs hard enough to definitely leave bruises the next day.

Steve's eyes widened more and he raised his eyebrows as you spoke, lifting his hand up to his mouth and spitting into his hand, before going back to jerking himself off, trying to match the speed of which Eddie was fucking you now. He bit his lip to stop him from moaning, his eyes flicking from your face, your tits and Eddie's ass rutting into you. He couldn't help but imagine exactly how Eddie's length looked sliding in and out of your tight cunt, biting down on his lip harder as his head fell back for a second, before reminding himself that it was happening right in front of him and he could look. His head snapped back up, and he looked at you with a dark look in his eyes, his tongue darting over his lips and wetting them, moving out of the corner a little more and letting you get a good look at him and what he was doing.

No one knew this, but Steve liked being a bit of a disgusting pervert. Everyone thought just because he was "The King" and got any girl he wanted falling at his feet that he wouldn't need to be. He kinda liked the thought of spying on people when he thought they were alone. He'd never done it before, not until now. He'd thought about doing it plenty of times at parties, hiding in closets and waiting until some unsuspecting couple came stumbling into the room looking for somewhere private to fuck each others brains out. But he'd always chicken out and never actually acted on it. Not until this perfect opportunity presented itself and literally fell at his feet.

You gasped as you watched him, still a little in disbelief, moaning into Eddie's ear as he continued ramming into you. "Oh god, yeah, that's it baby, just like that, keep doing that, fuck that cock feels so good" you moaned out, keeping eye contact with Steve and licking your own lips slowly as your head fell back against the wall again, one hand coming to grab at your own breast and toying with your nipple, feeling yourself get closer to your orgasm. You weren't sure if you were playing it up on purpose now because Steve was watching, or if Eddie really was just making you feel that good. You felt his hand slide between your bodies, immediately finding your clit and making you cry out his name as he began furiously rubbing at your sensitive bud.

"You gonna cum for me pretty girl? Gonna gush all over this big dick, hm?" Eddie panted into your neck, groaning as he felt you clamp down on him. "That's it, come on princess, let me see you cum all over my dick" he said raspily as he lifted his head and looked down at the way your cunt swallowed his cock whole, holding onto his shoulders to keep yourself up as he parted your legs wider and held you there.

You nodded your head, your eyes flicking to him and then over to Steve again who was now tugging at himself furiously, standing on his tiptoes, hoping to get a tiny glimpse of your soaked cunt. He had to quickly cover his mouth as he caught sight of Eddie's fingers moving rapidly over your clit and sucked a breath in, stopping himself from making any noise and ultimately being caught by your boyfriend. He wasn't quite sure how Eddie would react, probably not in a great way since he saw how possessive he was over you, how he'd give death stares to any guy who's eyes lingered on you a little too long. Definitely not in the way you had reacted. He was still surprised at how you didn't even say anything, how you didn't rat him out and seemed to actually enjoy him watching you two. And God was he grateful. You're not sure why you didn't say, and you're even more unsure of why you're enjoying him watching your boyfriend about to make you cum.

"I'm.. I'm gonna cum! Eddie, fuck! I'm cumming!" You moaned out, squeezing your eyes shut tight as you felt your back arch and that knot in your stomach break, your orgasm washing over you with a loud gasp, your mouth hanging open in a silent scream as your head lulled forward and you opened your eyes, watching yourself squirt all over your boyfriends dick, his fingers rubbing at your clit making it a little more messy than it should have been, your fingers digging into the back of his neck, your nails leaving little half moon marks as he hissed at the feeling.

You'd never done that before. Eddie continued looking down as he felt the liquid spill from you, his eyes widening as he realised what had just happened. "Holy shit.. holy fucking shit" he said with a gasp, looking up at you and fucking into you faster, grabbing your jaw with his fingers covered in your release and kissing you hard, moaning into your mouth as he made out with you filthily, chasing his own high. His movements started to stutter and you opened your eyes, looking over as you watched Steve tug harshly at his now angry looking cock, his face screwing up as he looked at the puddle of your cum underneath you both and the way he was fucking into you. You moaned back into Eddie's mouth, your eyes half lidded and your mind fuzzy from the intensity of your orgasm.

"Cum for me baby, want you to cum for me please" you whimpered out against Eddie's lips. A small part of you was talking to Steve too, wanting to see the face he made when he orgasmed out of curiosity more than anything else. He knew you were talking to him too, nodding his head as he sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and his brow furrowed, letting you know he was close, his chest heaving as his eyes glazed over.

"M'cumming sweetheart, don't you worry, m'gonna fill you up baby, oh fuck, shit!" Eddie grunted out, his voice cracking as he did just that, panting against your cheek as he gasped and moaned your name, his eyes squeezing shut tight. His forehead rested against your temple as he slowed down his movements and twitched a little, thrusting into you shakily as his cum spilled into your now oversensitive pussy, the sensation of it making you whine.

You watched as Steve's own face scrunched up and he gasped quietly, his eyelids fluttering a little as he fought to keep them open so he could keep looking. His mouth was hanging open, his hand rubbing at his length as he shot thick ropes of cum out onto the ground, his body jerking forward a little and making him stumble, cursing under his breath silently as his head fell back and he milked every last drop from himself. He looked down and watched as the last few drops of his cum dribbled out, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding. You're really not fucking sure why you find watching him cum so hot, why it made you whine just as Eddie did when he came inside you. You can't believe how much he came too, blinking slowly as you looked all of it on the ground in front of him.

"God baby.. you.. you fucking squirted" Eddie said in a breathy chuckle, opening his eyes and grabbing your jaw, guiding you back to kiss him, this time was much softer than before. He was being gentle with you now. "You've never done that before, my filthy girl. Was it really that hot, getting fucked behind the school where we could be caught? It was the hottest fucking thing that's ever happened to me, that's for sure" You giggled into his mouth and shrugged your shoulders. If only he knew.

"Maybe a lil' bit. Maybe you just turned me on that much" you said with a grin as you kissed him back, wincing a little as he slid himself out of you. He slowly lowered you down, rubbing gently at your tits and slowly lifting your top down for you, not before he kissed each of your sensitive nipples, which made you squirm and push at his shoulders gently in protest.

"Goodbye girls, I'll miss you" he said to your boobs with a big fake pout, looking at them and smoothing the fabric of your tank top back down your body as you watched Steve putting his cock away into his gym shorts. He was nodding his head with a grin on his face, almost like he was agreeing with Eddie. And it made you giggle just as much as Eddie's fake pouting did. You held your hand out expectantly, raising your eyebrows at Eddie. Who just looked up at your hand and then at you, cocking his head to the side with a dumb smile on his face. "What baby?"

"Um.. my underwear maybe? I kinda need those. Unless you want everyone to see your cum dribbling down my legs" you scoffed, already feeling some of it sliding down the inside of your thigh. You watched him as he squatted down in front of you and lifted your skirt up fully again, holding it bunched in his hand at the waistband. You felt your cheeks get all hot and looked over at Steve again who was smirking and leaning against the wall, his eyes glued to your pussy as Eddie lifted one of your thighs with the hand not holding your skirt up, spreading you out and revealing your creampied messy cunt to him. And to Steve.

"Keep your leg up just like that for me, Princess. Just like that, need to have a good look at my pretty pussy" he said, his voice low and gently commanding. You did as he said, keeping it held up and looked back down at Eddie, watching as he hummed and scratched his chin with a smirk on his face, like he was thinking about something. He took your panties from his back pocket and wiped up the cum from your leg slowly, grinning up at you. He gently wiped over your cunt a little too, chuckling darkly when you jerked and hissed with how sensitive you were.

Steve thought he was going to blow his load again as he watched on. He hadn't really seen just how perfect your pussy was. So pink and wet, your clit practically throbbing still. And it looked so fucking good filled with cum too. He began to wonder if Eddie did in fact know he was there and was just trying to make him jealous, showing him that it was his cum inside of you and not Steve's. Either way, he wasn't particularly fussed, he still got a great view of your legs spread and what lay between them.

"There. That should do it. I don't think you need panties anyway, considering I'm just gonna have you on my cock in a couple hours again anyway" he shrugged and winked at you, standing up to his full height and letting your skirt fall back down around your thighs, both of your feet firmly planted on the ground again as he shoved the now soiled panties back into his back pocket. You rolled your eyes at him and slapped his chest gently with a hand.

"You're disgusting" you laughed, shaking your head and smoothing your skirt out. "Come on, we're already late for class since someone decided me flashing them wasn't enough" you said with a small sigh as you reached out for his hand and pushed yourself up off the wall, smiling wide at him.

He grinned at you, throwing his arm around your shoulder and pulling you into his side. "You love that I'm disgusting" he winked at you, making you roll your eyes again. It was true. You kinda did love it when he was gross like that. "It's never enough, sweetheart. You know I can't resist you" he said as he kissed your cheek sloppily and loudly, accentuating the Mwah! sound of his lips smacking against your skin. You giggled and looked over your shoulder, watching as Steve stood there and winked at you, kissing the air towards you and flicking his tongue at you lewdly.

"That was fun though, Eddie. Maybe we should do it again sometime. Was kinda hot thinking we might get caught" you said, watching as he turned back around the corner and walked away, smirking as he heard what you said. Eddie simply chuckled and looked down at you, right as you turned to look up at him, smiling wide and melting into his side.

"Oh my girl enjoyed that did she? Are you a little exhibitionist baby? You want one of the jocks to catch us and see what they're missing out on and can't ever have cause you're all mine?" He said as he nuzzled his nose against your cheek, making you giggle.

"Maybe a little bit..." you shrugged your shoulder, blushing at the fact that you know one of the jocks had already caught you. And it was Steve fucking Harrington nonetheless, who stood there and jerked off right in front of you, totally uncaring. Steve would definitely think about what he'd just witnessed later. Your jiggly round tits and your puffy dripping cunt was firmly embedded in his wank bank as jerk off material now. Or for when he was sleeping with some chick who was a little less skilled than he was used to and he needed something to get him off.

And maybe every now and then you'd think back to it too, to when you'd thought you had Eddie all alone behind the gym block..

But instead there was a peeping tom named Steve Harrington, watching your completely oblivious boyfriend cum inside you as you licked your lips at him and watched him stroke his cock.

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Wanna read part 2? Find it here

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onewomancitadel · 1 year

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The funny part about Mary Sue is that it comes from a satirical S/tar T/rek fanfic, I think to my memory she's a fifteen year old girl who moves rapidly up the ranks and is given control of the bridge, and everybody is in love with her, and then eventually she comes down with a swift illness and dies and they name a day after her. It's actually very funny, I read it a while back, and it's not a commentary on female protagonists, it's a commentary on self-inserts... and frankly I think self-inserts can be kind of cute and silly when self-aware.

Obviously, when terms take on new meanings, you can't really control that, but I don't really like the way the term is used in the context of female protagonists... but then again I think the problem with Rey is that her wounds are emotional, her journey is emotional, it's the Heroine's Journey and that doesn't twig for audience members who are paying attention to power levels and not character development or idk, her relationship to the bad man (who is so obviously and laughably going to be redeemed, his grandaddy's redemption was the point of the OT, good fucking grief). Of course what I really don't get is how Rey being of an accepted and appropriate parentage would or could 'explain' her powers properly, because that is literally just self-inserting (I want to be the abandoned Skywalker baby who is loved by everyone!!!) and Rey not being immediately accepted by Luke or the caretakers of Ahch-To was somehow figured into the model that Rey is a Mary Sue lol. I don't know what narrative analysis is can someone help me please, btw what is a metaphor

I think what grinds my gears is that Rey is very straightforward. Rey wants her parents to be important and come back for her so she can stay a child forever -> Rey is no one and must become an adult. Rey wants an easy cause to rally behind so she doesn't confront her wounds -> Kylo Ren is whom they're fighting and he's not easy, he's half of her and he needs to come home and heal the Skywalker wound. Rey is told whomever she was waiting for on Jakku is never coming back for her, but there's someone who still can -> she immediately meets that someone in the next sequence, who even says: "Forget the droid. We have what we need." And he does

Anyway I'm going to go smash my head against a brick wall. Thanks.

#stirring the pot #reylo for tag blocking

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aikoiya · 3 months

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re: your post asking about names for different versions of ganon, there generally haven't been different names for him because they aren't typically different people like is the case for link and zelda, just the same guy being resurrected or otherwise being brought back in some way across the different timelines--compared to link and zelda who often are new people who share the same name. there's some nuance and variation to it and obviously you can come up with names if you're inspired to! but I wanted to give that bit of insight to it

Thank you.

I mean, you could definitely say that about OoT, WW, & TP Ganondorf. Even the various iterations of Beast Ganon to a degree.

But not so much FSA, HW, or TotK. I mean, you could probably argue that they might all be the same guy, but I really just don't.

If no one else, then at the very least TotK Ganondorf isn't the same dude as upon meeting Link & Zelda in the future, he didn't know about the Master Sword. WW absolutely did. So why would TotK Ganon be different?

Unless you think that King Rauru's era was legitimately the founding of Hyrule & that is the first Ganondorf? Which, if so, I'm gonna have to say no to that because the very existence of the Rito in the game proves otherwise. If this were the case, then the entire timeline falls to pieces because how tf can OoT Ganondorf exist if he's just the same dude as TotK, who is still alive? Did his soul jump ship into another body?? Did he get out somehow? Where's the Secret Stone? And if he did get out, why is he back in the same exact position, in the same exact place, wearing the same exact clothes, sealed in the same exact way by the time of TotK's future??

That would require too many extenuating circumstances to work.

As such, I tend to subscribe to the theory that TotK's past takes place, as Nintendo said, so far into the future that all the other games before BotW are all considered myth.

I also hc that FSA, HW, & TotK are all different dudes with the same name & soul just like Link & Zelda are. (And, yes, I know. People tend to take the "blood of the Goddess" line to be the only way that the Zeldas are connected, but I don't.)

It also brings into question why TotK Ganondorf wasn't after the Triforce if he was the same guy as all the others.

I tend to come at the discussion of this in the way that people don't just resurrect without consequences. In my mind, whenever Ganondorf comes back as Beast Ganon in the Downfall Timeline, it means that he was actually killed in that timeline & it wasn't a true revival. Think about it this way. According to the chronology, every time Beast Ganon is brought back, he's slowly becoming less person & more beast until he's nonverbal at the end of the Downfall Timeline.

However, for some reason this isn't the case in the Adult or Child Timelines? Why? What is so different about those timelines that would allow him to come back as a full, thinking person that didn't exist in the Downfall Timeline?

Like, I know that the actual, real-life reason is because Nintendo hadn't thought that far ahead, but I want an in-universe explanation.

My explanation is that Ganondorf was somehow killed in the Downfall Timeline, but he wasn't in the others. In those, he was sealed instead.

At least not until WW & TP.

Besides, if this is literally the same dude, then that would make Ganondorf an effing idiot because he's basically just choosing to keep smashing his head against a brick wall.

Sorry. Didn't mean to snap at ya like that.

I can just get kinda opinionated about these sorts of subjects is all.

#loz #legend of zelda #ganondorf #lu #linked universe

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sluttyyrose · 3 years

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i hate feeling so full of rage and disappointment all the time.

#literally everything seems so pointless to me rn #i want to fckin run away!#everyday is on repeat and i feel like smashing my head against a brick wall #i. need. blunt!!!#shitpost

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chiliiscereal · 3 years

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Well my standards have really lowered when I comes to writing fanfiction a XD

First I didn’t want to write any at all, then I didn’t want to write for any cartoons, then I didn’t want to write for cartoon turtles... and here i am.

Here I am starting a x reader fanfiction... with the 2014/2016 version of Raph

Still a bit uncomfortable with this but I had an idea so here we go! If I like it then I’ll keep going :p

Lol what am I doing with my life XD

Too tall

Raph x tall! Fem! Reader

Summary: yes this is me self projecting. Reader is 6 foot 4 inches tall and literally every boy she meets is too insecure to date her when she’s that tall. After a while of being treated like she unbreakable and a giant she gets tired of it. Luckily there’s someone else out there who understands how she feels.

———-

You tapped the cafe table impatiently, trying not to watch your friend and her boyfriend across from you. You attempted to look at the door instead. Maybe if you stared at it long enough then your date would show up.

“It’s okay! I’m sure he’ll show up.” She tried to console you as her boyfriend held her tiny little hand.

Perfect.

Small.

You looked at your own clenched hands and wished that yours could fit so perfectly in someone else’s hands. But, sadly, big hands come with height.

No boy your age ever came close to you.

It’s not that you minded.

It’s that they did.

You didn’t care that practically every boy you met barely went up to your shoulder. You wanted companionship. You didn’t need them to be a hulking giant. You needed someone who loved you.

This wasn’t Tall Girl for goodness sake.

You weren’t waiting around for some tall man to show up.

Unfortunately no guy was willing to step up to the plate.

Why might you ask?

Insecurity of course.

The last three guys that turned you down all said they weren’t comfortable with being shorter than their girlfriend. Others said they weren’t looking for a girlfriend.

Funnily enough they all ended up with girlfriends maybe a week later.

The other girls were incredibly tiny. They barely even made it to the boys shoulders. If that.

But you thought maybe this boy would be different.

He seemed like he was.

He seemed interested at least.

He SEEMED like he was excited when you asked him on a double date with your best friend and her boyfriend.

But an hour passed already and he wasn’t there.

You sat up with a bit of a huff. “It’s fine. Let’s just... let’s just enjoy dinner.”

Your friend frowned at you but decided to let it drop. She knew you hated whenever anything like this was addressed so she bit her tongue and changed the subject.

You couldn’t enjoy dinner or pay attention to anything brought up.

Oh you tried.

You gave it the old college try.

But you found your mind wandering back to the lost date way to often.

After another thirty minutes you stood up. “You know what? I’m kind of tired and I still have some homework to finish up. You two enjoy your date!” You grabbed your bag and walked out before your friend could even call you back.

You just needed some time to yourself.

Time to think.

You walked down the sidewalk slowly, half heartedly wishing that the boy would call you and give an amazing reason as to why he was two hours late.

You stopped yourself from reaching for your phone to check for a text.

No it was his loss.

Not yours.

Surely there was someone out there for you... waiting for you to come along.

Someone that wouldn’t care if you were a little taller than them.

You huffed and zipped your bag shut. Whoever they were, they definitely weren’t that boy.

“Hey girl, who you all dressed up for?” Came a voice from the alley you were about to pass.

“No time to talk.” You answered quickly and continued walking.

You weren’t about to give them the time of day. There was a tub of ice cream and a sappy romance movie waiting for you back at your apartment.

“Come on, a girl like you with legs like that? Surely you’re dressed up for somebody.” The man stepped out of the alleyway and leaned against the brick wall. “I’m thinkin’ maybe it’s me.”

Oh you wanted to turn him around and hit him with your bag.

But it wasn’t worth the risk.

“Hell no.” You stated curtly and walked by him briskly.

He snatched your wrist, effectively making your skin crawl. “Look at me when I’m talking to ya.”

He pulled you into the alley before you could stop him.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me.” You growled and tried to rip yourself away. “HELL. NO.”

“Come on, baby! Give me a chance-!” He attempted you sweet talk before he was interrupted.

You caught his hand before he could grab you anywhere inappropriate. “I have had a REALLY terrible day. I am a MINOR and if you don’t get lost RIGHT NOW then you’re gonna have some serious problems.”

He was close enough that you could smell the bitter alcohol on his breath.

He was probably a head shorter than you and had no idea what he was getting into.

“I don’t care if you’re a minor-.” He started.

Your fist smashing into his nose stopped his words.

“Like I said!” You growled as you shook the pain out of your knuckles, “I have had a really really REALLY bad day. And YOU are some little gnat just buzzing in my FACE!”

He gripped his nose with a cry, blood dripping down it like a waterfall. “YOU BROKE MY NOSE!”

“YOU PULLED ME INTO AN ALLEY AND TRIED TO TOUCH ME!” You shouted back, hitting him with your purse before he could charge at you. “YOU MADE THIS CHOICE AFTER I WARNED YOU!”

It felt good to take your rage out on somebody. And it was justified to! It wasn’t like you were just beating this man. He wasn’t letting you leave! He kept grabbing you before you could go.

————-

Turtles pov

They crouched above the alleyway, watching the man pull you into the alleyway.

“We gotta get involved man.” The red masked one whispered. “This doesn’t look to good.”

“I told you, we only get involved if it gets really bad.” The blue one responded with an eye roll. “We can’t risk being seen!”

“It already looks really bad!”

“If she gets anymore hurt then we jump in!”

The orange masked turtle jumped into the conversation. “I don’t know, I think my money’s on the girl.”

“Mikey shut up!” The purple masked brother whispered. “This is serious!”

“So am I! Look at her! She isn’t even scared!”

“I think she at least looks a little scared.”

“Probably cause she’s trying to keep herself from beating the shit out of him!”

Raph rolled his eyes and shoved his younger brother. “It’s our job to do the protectin’ round here. Shut up and- HOLY SHIT!”

The all gasped as you reeled your hand back and knocked your fist into the creeps nose.

“Damn that looked like it hurt.” Leo observed. “Maybe she doesn’t need our help.”

“I say we stay here in case it goes south.” Raph argued, waiting for Leo to argue with him.

“Fine, but we leave when it looks like she’s safe.” Leo nodded and looked back to the fight.

Raph didn’t have time to feel proud that he’d been listened to. Mikey was inching closer to watch. “What the hell are ya doin’?” He reached forward to pull him back. “She’s gonna see ya!”

Mikey leaned over the edge anyway. “Look at her go! I told you he didn’t stand a chance!”

“Who knew using a purse was so effective?” Leo nodded. “Think she’s got it?”

“Looks like it to me!” Mikey laughed and watched with glee. “This is real entertainment.”

“Mikey you’re too close to the edge!” Raph tried to grab him but was shoved away. “You’re gonna fall-!”

————

With that you shoved the man into the wall. “Are you FINALLY done? Have you FINALLY learned your lesson?”

He spit out the blood from his mouth and nodded. “Fine! Please just leave me alone!”

“Good choice!” You shoved him away from you. “Go before I change my mind!”

He was gone before you could even blink.

“That’s right! Get out of here!” You shouted to him as he scurried away.

You lifted your chin triumphantly.

Maybe you hadn’t gotten that date but you sure did beat the crap out of a creep.

You dusted your hands off and snatched your purse off the ground.

“If I catch you harassing anyone else you’ll get it twice as bad!”

No answer of course.

He was long gone.

Still, it felt good to shout.

You could finally go home.

You turned back to the edge of the alleyway with a sigh of relief.

You took one step forward.

Then, the least expected thing happened.

“OH SHIT!”

Next thing you knew you were on the ground after something very large crashed into you.

“What the hell!” You sat up and rubbed your head. “Who just sits on a roof above an alleyway?!”

You grabbed your purse quickly and stood up, ready for another fight.

It wasn’t another creep.

And from the looks of it... it wasn’t even human.

Well, THEY weren’t even human.

You didn’t know what they were.

Green...

Huge...

And shells...

The finally looked at you.

Why were they wearing masks?

What even were they?

Why were they there!?

The one in orange immediately scurried behind the one in red. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit!”

The one in red looked at you and then looked at the guy behind him. “You dragged me into this! You fix it!”

He pulled him forward.

Honestly you had no idea what to think.

There were two GIANT turtles right in front of you! And they were talking!

You gripped your purse a little tighter, waiting to see what they would do.

The one directly in front of you tried to speak only to look back at the red masked one and then back up at where they had fallen.

You looked from him to where he was looking quickly. “Are there more of you?”

He gulped quickly and attempted to hide behind the bigger turtle. “Uh... yeah?”

You took a small step to the exit. “Are you... are you gonna try to take my purse or something?”

The red one glared at you. “No! We’re just.. just here to protect the city. We ain’t monsters!”

You noticed him getting defensive immediately and nodded. “...okay then. Well, if you’re not going to rob me then I’m going to pretend I saw nothing and go on my way.”

The red one frowned.

You were acting waaaaaaay too casual.

Surely there had to be some other motive.

“Hold on a minute... you ain’t goin’ anywhere yet.”

You glared at him and held out your purse. “Are you gonna stop me?”

Mikey took a step back and Raph rolled his eyes.

“I don’t think a purse is gonna do much against someone like me.” He stated.

“I don’t even know who you are.” You stepped back again and tightened your grip. “I didn’t even know people like you existed until now.”

You looked them up and down, taking them all in.

This couldn’t be real.

It couldn’t be.

“You say anything bout this and you’re dead, got it?” He pointed around you as if aggression could make you quiet.

“Can you at least let me go home and finish my ice cream before you decide to kill me?” You backed up again.

You were so close to running away.

So close to escape.

Before you could back up any further, two more creatures dropped from the sky behind you.

You jumped and scrambled away, nearly running into the red masked turtle.

“Listen, I’m sorry about the way my brother phrased everything.” The new turtle glared at his companion. “What he meant to say is that we protect the city. We were watching that man just in case he tried anything and these two,” he glared at the first two again, “fell off the roof.”

The one next to him pushed up his glasses. “I’m surprised you haven’t passed out from fear yet. The first person we met did just that!”

Your back hit the wall and you had no where else to go. “I’m not too sure if I won’t do that.” You glanced between the four of them. “What even are you guys?”

“Turtles!” The orange one spoke up before the red one could shush him.

“Mutants as well.” The purple one joined.

“And ninjas.”

“And teenagers.”

You couldn’t help but snort. “Mutant turtle teen ninjas? I think you need to rebrand that.”

Maybe you were insane.

Here you were cracking jokes with large turtles at dinner time.

But so far they were harmless, despite their stature. According to the blue one they protect New York.

“Ya got a problem with it?” The red one grew even more tense.

You shook your head quickly. “No. Just... surprised.”

“And scared?” He added. “Scared of monsters like us?”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “I thought you just said you weren’t monsters.”

That seemed to stop him.

So you continued with a deep breath. “You’re all just... really huge. I thought I was tall but standing next to you...” you swallowed and tried not to let your nerves get to you. You turned to the blue one since he seemed to be the leader. “...can I go now? I won’t tell anyone you exist or... whatever it is you want.”

The blue one was skeptical but the purple one butted in.

“Do you have a way home? Like a friend you can call?”

You opened your purse. “Yeah I should be able to call an Uber with my...” you pulled out the broken device. “...my phone.”

Well crap.

You stuffed it back in quickly. “It’s okay I’ll just walk-!”

“I can fix it.” He offered. “Besides it’ll be an extra security measure for us if we have your contact information.” He gestured loosely to the hand you’d punched the creep with. “We could also bandage up those cuts.”

You brought up your hand and inspected the blood with surprise.

Well... when were you gonna get another opportunity like this? It’s not everyday a girl gets invited into the homes of local mutants.

Besides you really didn’t want to walk home with your phone destroyed.

The red one looked at the purple one angrily. “You wanna being ‘er back??”

“Our job is to help people, Raph.” He rolled his eyes.

“I’m with Donnie. It’s only fair since we broke her phone.” The blue one nodded.

“Well if it’s not too much trouble...”

—————

Next thing you know you were whisked away to none other than the sewers.

Well that kind of made sense.

No one would ever really want to go down there anyway.

The purple one, whose name you learned was Donnie, had your phone in his three fingers the moment you stepped foot in their home.

“I’ll do a little fixing up, maybe an upgrade, and Raph can take a look at your hands.” He muttered as he started to disappear into a lab like room.

Raph...

He was the red angry one wasn’t he.

The tallest and biggest out of them all.

He didn’t seem too happy about it either.

“Why me?” He protested. “What ‘bout Leo? Or-or Master Splinter? Heck, even Mikey!” He gestured to his orange masked brother as if to showcase how he’d be better at it.

You couldn’t help but silently agree with him.

Mikey seemed the most open on the way here. He’d talked your ear off the whole trip, asking questions about what it was like to be a human and bragging about all the people he’d saved. He’d even wanted you to play a video game with you when you got to their home. He’d been a bit overbearing but that was better than Mr. miffed muscle mountain.

“Hey you’ve broken the skin on your knuckles before. You’ve got experience in it. Just fix her hand and be done.” With that, Donnie was gone.

You shared an awkward moment of eye contact with Raph before he sighed.

“Well, I’m gonna go play my game.” Mikey dashed over to the tv. “Let me know when you two are done and we can play!” He grabbed Leo by the back of his shell and pulled him along.

You bit the inside of your cheek nervously.

It was just you two.

You and the giant turtle boy beside you.

“Aight well...” he cleared his throat. “I guess I’ll take you up to the work out room then?”

He stopped and you realized he was waiting for you to say something. You quickly tried to scrounge up a comprehensible sentence.

“Y-yeah, sounds good with me.” You followed after him quietly, holding your hand so the blood wouldn’t drip everywhere.

The room was smaller than you imagined but still... it was huge to you.

He began rummaging through a box on the table, fumbling with objects. “You can uh... you can sit down while I grab the-the stuff.” He told you quickly.

You didn’t know where to sit so you interpreted his words to mean that you should sit on the work out bench.

You watched patiently as he found the roll of gauze.

Clearly he was just as nervous as you.

You didn’t know why HE was nervous though. He was a giant turtle for goodness sake. He could snap you in half easily.

“Here lemme see that hand.” He shuffled over and reached out.

You gave your right one to him, trying to hold in your nervous shaking.

“Ain’t gonna bite ya.” He rolled his eyes.

“I know.” You commented, watching him start applying disinfectant. “Just never been in a situation like this before.”

He snorted and continued his work.

You couldn’t help but notice how small your hand looked compared to his. Ha. That was new. Usually it was you watching little pick me girls compare their hand size to their crushes. How strange it was for it to be you.

“And I thought I had big hands.�� You couldn’t help but blurt out.

He kept his eyes on your hand, examining it a little more. “Ya call this big?”

“Yep.” You glanced around the room, taking in the ‘scenery’.

He snorted. “Damn tiny to me.” He pulled out the gauze and began wrapping your knuckles. “Look, I’m uh... I’m sorry ‘bout the way I handled earlier. My dumbnut brother got us exposed when ya clearly had the situation handled.”

You cringed, remembering that they’d seen you beating the creep. “Yeah I could have handled that better as well.”

He paused for a half second, as if considering his next words, and then continued. “Heard ya say you were havin’ a shit day as well.”

You weren’t exactly sure if you wanted this brought up in the middle of the weirdest experience ever but you were desperate for a smooth conversation. “Yeah, some jackass stood me up.”

He frowned and momentarily made confused eye contact with you. “Stood ya up?”

“You know, as in he said he was gonna go on a date with me and just didn’t show up.” You forced out a laugh. “But it’s fine I got ice cream at home.”

“Mmm.” He muttered. “Sounds like a douche bag.”

Well outta room! Part two will be up I had too much fun :)

#tmnt headcanons #tmnt raphael #tmnt fanfiction #tmnt #tmnt 2014 #raph x reader

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young-dumb-and-vaccinated · 3 years

Text

The Sommelier (Hannigram x Female!Reader) pt. 6

So we’re slowly but surely getting into the Hannigram shit I promised.

Someone with murderous intent finds y/n just as she thinks her life is beginning to improve. Little does she know, it will.

@deadman-inc-bikeshop and @dovadokren here you go homies

Trigger warnings: Suicide bombing, graphic descriptions of violence, gun violence, death, cults, cult manipulation

You waited until he had left the restaurant to read that all-important scrap of paper. For some reason, you felt the need to hide in the bathroom to read it. It was probably just a name and phone number, but your brain was anticipating some kind of love letter.

You carefully unfolded the receipt like it was your most treasured possession. Inside, it simply read ‘Hannibal Lecter’ followed by a phone number.

You hugged the paper against your chest and a huge smile overtook your face. You couldn’t attach any rhyme or reason to why you suddenly felt so alive, other than you were completely and utterly infatuated. You felt like you could break into song.

“Hey, [F/N]!” Charissa said, banging on the stall door. “Not to interrupt whatever this is, but could you take out the trash please?”

“Oh.” You answered, your voice cracking. “Yeah. I’ll be right there.”

Charissa trailed close behind you as you collected the bags from each can around the restaurant. She was uncharacteristically quiet, probably waiting for you to start spilling every detail of your night. The joke was on her, because you could let the silence go on forever. She wasn’t getting a word out of you.

“So you’re not going to tell me?” She sounded deeply offended.

“What’s to tell?” You said, hoisting a very full garbage bag over your shoulder. “Nothing happened.”

“He sunk his teeth into you, didn’t he?” Charissa asked. At this point, you weren’t sure if she meant it metaphorically or literally. “That’s why you’re acting all, y’know, not downright miserable?”

“Is that how I act usually?” You began to make your way to the back.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but,” She prefaced. “You basically have two moods. Depressed and customer-service happy, which is just depressed with a facelift. And whatever is happening here doesn’t fit into either of those categories. So something happened.”

“Detective Charissa Rodriquez does it again.” You rolled your eyes and put one hand on the back door. “Some things just have to stay between a bartender and her... possible love interest.”

You punctuated the last sentence with a wink, sending your friend into a righteous fury.

“Holy shit, [F/N]!” She exclaimed, smacking her hands together. “Come on, [F/N], I’m your best friend. You’ve got to let me in.”

“I’m still trying to process what happened myself.” You said in earnest. “Believe me, if I’m telling anyone, it’s you.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Charissa wagged her finger.

You tightened your grip on the garbage bag and lugged it outside. The night had fallen, and the orchestra of cicadas and crickets was in full swing. The warm pre-summer air welcomed you. As much as you resented her for bringing it up, Charissa was right. You hadn’t been truly happy in a very long time. And, as terrifying as the thought may have seemed, in a way, you owed it to Chase Mulvaney.

You hauled the garbage bag into the dumpster and slammed it shut. The crash echoed and you turned back towards the door.

Someone grabbed your arm. Your immediate thought was that it was just Charissa playing a cruel joke, but then they twisted it back and shoved you against the wall. You felt the cold blade of a knife against your neck and you froze up.

“You didn’t repent.” A manic voice hissed into your ear. You could feel your heartbeat against the cold brick wall. The hands that bound you were soft and the voice was much more female. This was noticeably not Chase.

You sputtered as you tried to articulate any of your thousands of questions. “Who the fuck are you?!”

“Silence, she-devil!” The girl slammed you against the wall. “Keep your forked tongue between your teeth or I’ll cut it out!”

Her voice and hands shook and she enunciated as if she were reading off a script with a gun to her head. The adrenaline turned to genuine fear when you felt something hard strapped to her midriff. You knew in that moment that she wasn’t going to use the knife.

"I thought Chase wanted to kill me himself." You muttered.

“Did you really think vanguard would be stupid enough to come back here?!” She forced a laugh but her voice was broken with fear.

“Yes.” You said back, resigning to at least die with honor. “And, why is Chase the one in charge?!”

She tightened her grip on your arm and smashed your head against the wall. “Don’t you dare talk about vanguard that way!”

He ripped off his cult leader title from fucking NXIVM? You thought, fully aware that it could easily be your last thought ever.

“No, but seriously, think about it!” You implored her, hoping that if you got her talking, she wouldn’t hit the detonator. If there was one thing you knew about evangelicals, it was that they loved to hear themselves talk. “Chas- er, vanguard attacked me in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses. You’re smarter than he is! You came after me when I was alone in the dark!”

“Everything he does, he does for a reason.” She shouted. "It's not the unwoman's place to question vanguard!"

“Oh god, now he’s ripping off Handmaid’s Tale?” You said out loud this time.

“Vanguard told me that you would try to fill my head with lies!” She growled. “So long as you are alive, you stand in the way of god’s work! You spread only falsehoods about our savior!”

“Is this about the TattleCrime article?” You ask. “Because I didn’t say anything about god, I only talked about--”

Then it hit you, again. “Oh, so this is a cult cult.”

"It's not a cult!" The girl screamed. This was the first time you'd sensed any genuine emotion behind her words. "Vanguard takes good care of us. And he can take care of you, too [F/N] [L/N]."

"By sending someone to kill me?" You spat.

"No!" The girl exclaimed. "No, no, no, no, no! Silly! I'm here to save you. If you repent now, and let Jesus Christ into your heart, your earthly shackles will be broken!"

"And what's in it for you, huh?" You struggled against her grip. "The privilege of blowing yourself up for Chase Mulvaney?"

"I was a sinful being like you, once." She said. "My grand reward is to give my life to save another."

You heard the click of a gun behind you. “Put the knife down and take off the vest!”

The girl grabbed you by the neck and turned you to face this approaching foe. She held the knife to your throat. “If you shoot, she’s dead.”

You couldn’t make out the details of his face, because he was backlit by headlights. You could, however, see the face of your captor. She was completely emaciated with bones protruding from her skin. Her head was sloppily shaved and whatever instrument she used to shave it left deep cuts on her scalp.

She reached a shaky hand into her pocket and pulled out a detonator. Tears streaming down her face, she began to chant. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The man let off a shot, sending a bullet into her leg. She fell backwards, dropping the detonator and the knife and giving you an opportunity to run. The man gestured for you to get behind him and you obliged. He then let off a second shot, this bullet hitting her right through the skull. The girl collapsed backwards, her brain matter painting the side of the building.

The man dropped his gun, mumbled something about a bomb squad into his phone, then turned to you. Finally, you could get a good look at his face. Immediately, you noticed his rich brown curls and a smattering of scruff around his jaw. His features were soft, comforting even. But a long enough examination of his face told you that he was just as deeply haunted as you were.

“Are you okay?” He asked, weakly.

“You...” You said over desperate gasps for air. “You saved me.”

Soon enough, the first responders joined you. But for a few minutes, it was just you, the man and some unspoken mutual understanding words couldn't articulate.

#hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #hannibal x reader #hannibal x you #will graham #will graham x reader #will graham x you #hannigram x reader #tw violence #tw bomb #tw suidice

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cherryblossomsies · 3 years

Text

forced masculinity

kim sunoo x fem!reader x badboy!k

angst, fluff

trigger warning: smoking, bullying, cursing (a lot), homophobic acts, k is a very bad person in this story sorry k :(

btw, if there is any engene that doesn’t know who k is, he was a contestant in i-land :)

——

the sound of a school bag roughly dragged across the red bricked walls echoed the empty alley as sunoo was thrown on the floor, arms wrapped around his whole body in attempt to protect himself from the tall boy standing in front of him, a smug smirk decorated his face. a cigarette was loosely hanging in k’s mouth, the heavy smoke smell made sunoo felt dizzy.

“it’s been a long time isn’t it gay boy? having 6 boys hanging around you most of the time must have made you felt safe or some shit.” k spat out on the ground next to sunoo, wildly laughing when he knew very well that little to no one will caught the sight of him bullying sunoo in this empty alley. not to mention, it was during the evening, the only students left in the school compound were the basketball and volleyball team.

sunoo was shivering the moment k knelt down next to him, his fingers gripped sunoo’s jaw tightly as his eyes bore into the smaller one’s much bigger and more brown than his. the younger one’s doe eyes stared at his face, lens were shaking as he thought of every possible consequence that could happen with k beside him.

“answer me when i asked you, bitch.” a loud slap sound echoed through the surroundings.

sunoo held his cheek with his shaky hands as he nodded vigorously, his eyes were now starting to burn as tears rolled down his cheeks. k stood up, almost cackling at the what he thought to be a pathetic sight unfolded in front of him.

“let go of the kid, bitch.” a more feminine voice spoke out behind k’s back,

both of the boys stared at where the voice was coming from and saw a girl with a black hair stopping right above her shoulders. she was much much smaller than both of the boys, but with the way she crossed her arms, the way her eyes stared at k’s eyes boringly, her aura, and the way she also has a cigarette hung loosely in her mouth, it was dominating both of them.

k chuckled, “ohh what is this combination? a raging lesbian saving a gay ass soy boy?” he mocked both of them, hand was pressed against his stomach as he once again laughed out loud.

“i’m not a lesbian?” the girl voiced out, eyebrow raised in confusion.

“don’t lie to me y/n, don’t think i didn’t see you checking out lee chaeryeong from the next class.” k rolled his eyes, his fingers pulling out the loose cigarette out of his mouth before smashing it with his foot.

“it’s not my fault she was hot, any normal girl could go gay for her.” y/n rolled her eyes, before continuing her sentence,

“-anyways, let sunoo go.”

the whole time they were conversing, sunoo hung his head down, but when y/n mentioned his name, it was almost like a switch flipped in him. ‘she knew my name?’ the boy thought to himself as he lifted up his head to make an eye contact with the girl. y/n’s eyes softened when she saw how badly bruised sunoo’s cheek was, with the huge size of k’s hand and the strength that he has, one could fly all the way to germany with one of his slap.

the short eye contact moment was cut off when k stood right in front of y/n, blocking sunoo’s sight.

“date me first,” k looked down at the girl in front of her, a smirk was decorating his face.

he couldn’t lie, k was attracted to y/n ever since she stepped into the school. she was exactly the copy paste of him, and that made him attracted to her in a way no girl had ever made him felt like. but after he saw y/n staring at chaeryeong’s figure during one of her dancing performances while biting her lip, he was almost 100% convinced the girl was gay as fuck. knowing she was not coming from y/n’s mouth herself made the latter a little bit glad at the news, so why not ask her out?

the rough, calloused hand of k grab y/n’s soft, dainty ones, before lifting up to his mouth and placed a small kiss on it. he was almost so sure y/n would accept him, i mean who would not? a lot of girls were after him. he was athletic, tall, and handsome. he was everything what a boy hoped for. the confidence was getting in his head, until a loud laugh erupted from y/n’s mouth. he found himself clenching his teeth and holding his jaw as he fell on the floor with a swing from the girl’s fist.

sunoo’s eyes widened at the sight, he was bullied by k for almost a year now and he had never saw k in such a state.

the smaller boy found himself being forced to stand when y/n lifted up him by his collar and dragged him out of the alley, leaving k with a bruised cheek on the floor yelling at y/n like a mad man. not that anyone was pitying him though, ‘ an eye for an eye’ sunoo thought to himself as he was still being dragged by the smaller one towards the field. the cigarette in her mouth was still puffing out smokes, but in a much smaller quantity.

the basketball court was placed at the end of the field, so the sight of sunoo getting dragged by y/n was seen by one of his friends, sunghoon. the mentioned one stopped dribbling the orange ball on his hands and excused himself from his teammates. he knew that y/n was not a good news and seeing her around sunoo made him worried for his safety. he knew that sunoo was not someone who was strong mentally, let alone physically either. heeseung, who was holding the ball sunghoon passed him, saw where sunghoon was heading to and decided to jog to the same destination, followed by riki and jay.

letting go of sunoo, y/n spat out the cigarette that was sitting way too long between her lips on the concrete and made the boy faced her. she eyed the purpling bruise one sunoo’s cheek, who got embarrassed by her stare and looked away.

the smaller girl reached out behind her back to grab an antiseptic and a huge, square hansaplast. zipping her bag closed, she was about to give sunoo the things in her hand when she was pushed back away from him. y/n looked up to sunghoon who pushed her and rolled her eyes, dusting off her shirt as she eyed the other 3 guys behind sunghoon, she recognised one of them was heeseung but forgot the other two names. the taller guy noticed the bruise on sunoo’s cheek and was about to confront y/n when sunoo pulled sunghoon back and told him that y/n was helping him, but to no avail, sunghoon kept his cold stare at the girl.

shame started to fill in sunoo’s self. he doesn’t want to look weak in front of his friends.

“what were you doing to my friend, y/n?” sunghoon asked coldly, his eyes bore into y/n’s lifeless ones.

not giving a damn to sunghoon, y/n shoved the antiseptic and hansaplast to sunoo’s arms.

“since i’m not your friend, you can ask this elsa motherfucker to do it to you instead.” y/n said pointing to sunghoon with her lips, a chuckle almost left her lips when she saw how sunghoon clenched his fist at the nickname.

“you shouldn’t have saved me, i’m a boy, i can handle this alone.” sunoo said, head still hanging down as he held onto the stuff y/n gave him close to his chest. a scoff left y/n’s mouth.

“so i should have left you to death instead? stop with the fucking toxic masculinity sunoo, you’re the least person i expected to hear this sentence from, and wow, not even a fucking thank you.” y/n said as she rolled her eyes, before smashing the cigarette she spat out earlier on the ground with her foot.

the whole group went silent at the venomous yet bold statement that left the short girl’s mouth. sunoo was not a boy that was easily convinced that he had to be masculine to be recognised as a real man, the whole school knew this. so when that sentence left his very own mouth, y/n felt almost disappointed for hoping that sunoo would at least be different.

“guess you’re no different than k,” she mumbled under her breath, but it was heard by sunoo.

the girl turned around and walked away from the boys, leaving them speechless and for sunoo to rethink again about what he said.

——

ever since that incident, sunoo saw y/n and himself in a different light. y/n’s sentence from a week ago still lingered in his head, he was starting to embrace more of his real self and decided that he doesn’t need to be as strong as all of his friends were to be a man. but, he could not deny that he felt bad for saying that to her. y/n literally put herself in danger because of him and all sunoo said was she wasn’t supposed to do that.

he couldn’t blame y/n. if he were her he would have done the same, just less vulgar words.

the fact that he was in the same class as her made it worse, he could only stare at her hanging around at the back of her class with her friends, laughing out loud. sunoo found himself staring at y/n more and more, he was even starting to catch her small habits. the way y/n’s nose slightly crinkled after she laughed, the way she put up her book to sleep during class, the way she slightly tilted her head when she was in her favourite class, history. and that was just the top of the iceberg.

the boy could not bring himself to apologise to her, he knew he was in the wrong, but he does not have the strength to do so. he was scared of what y/n could do, after what she did to k, he knew that y/n was someone not to be messed with. even sunghoon already apologised to y/n after he suspected her of doing something bad, but it was easy for him because of one sole reason.

y/n was not who sunghoon has feelings for. he even caught them chatting and laughing from time to time.

but after endless courage from his friends, today he decided to talk to the girl. sunoo knew that y/n always hung out at the rooftop alone during break, smoking. so he decided to go at break.

with shaking hands, the boy stared at the metal door in front of him. his hands were sweaty and he could not count on how many times he wiped his palms on his school’s trousers. it was now or never.

opening the door, sunoo was met with soft winds slapping against his face. it smelt of fresh air, no smell of like someone’s smoking. sunoo stepped inside and closed the door behind him, looking around, the boy was disappointed when he sees that there was no one. until he turned around and his heart almost leaped out of his throat of the sight of the one he was looking for leaning on the wall right next to the door, a lollipop was hanging loosely in her mouth instead of a cigarette.

y/n was looking at sunoo up and down, her school blazer was nowhere in sight as some of the buttons of her school was popped open. sunoo’s heart beat faster at the sight before adverting his eyes quickly when he noticed that, his fingers were fiddling together.

“looking for me?” y/n asked, an eyebrow was raised.

sunoo nodded vigorously, eyes were still stuck on the floor as if it was the most interesting thing at the moment. from his peripheral vision, he could see y/n buttoning up her shirt back and pushed back the lollipop to the side of her cheeks.

“what do you want?” she asked, voice sounding cold as ever. sunoo wondered if this was the same tone of her voice when she forgave him.

“i-i would like to apologise on how i acted that day. i was very thankful that you saved me, really. the old me thought that i would look weak in front of my friends if they knew that you saved me. what you said really-,” sunoo took a deep breath before lifting up his eyes and were met with y/n’s brown orbs. the boy was tearing up at the very moment and he himself doesn’t even know why. the feelings were overwhelming, he was scared of everything.

“-it really made me realised that i don’t need to be strong to be recognised as a male. thank you for that, and sorry again for-,” sunoo halted his breath when y/n suddenly placed her palm on top of the taller’s head, tip toeing a little bit as she let out a small chuckle. the distance between their faces was closer than before, and sunoo could smell the strong sweet scent of strawberry lollipop out of her mouth.

“okay, okay i get it. apology accepted.”

almost immediately, it was like a heavy burden being lifted off sunoo’s shoulders. he sniffed a little, the tears still streaming down his flushed cheeks. the girl stared at the tears rolling down before shoving her hand inside her chest pocket and pulled out a tissue before offering it to the crying male in front of her.

sunoo immediately took it, muttering a small thank you before wiping his tears and realising that the tissue was a scented vanilla one. he smiled a little, he learnt something new about y/n again.

needless to say, after that very incident, both of the pair grew very close to each other despite the wide spectrum of differences that existed between them. they were the polar opposites, yet they got along very well. y/n also grew closer to the group of friends sunoo has, finally learning all of their names with proper. it was shocking to the whole school, no one saw this coming, even y/n’s friends themselves. k was unsatisfied at this news of course.

but then again, it was kind of his fault in the first place isn’t it?

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bopbopstyles · 4 years

Text

Endlessly

RATING: R/smut, maximum angst levels unlocked

WORD COUNT: 7.2k

CATEGORIES: friends to lovers

a/n: this is part two to Residue, the camping!harry fic to which i owe so much. thank you for loving my little one shot, here’s what happens next! massive s/o to @havethetimeofyourstyles for beta reading, @bfharry for helping with concepts, and @meetmeinfleetwood for encouragement. much love xoxo

also i’m currently uploading a series called The Only Exception - i’d love for you to give it a read!

READ PART ONE HERE

pls reblog and share with your friends 💕

He was gone so fast that when the door shut it was quiet, the sound defeaning in your ears. You slid down, back hitting the wood of the cabinets and the metal knobs, but you didn’t care. Your arms collapsed around your knees, tucking them into your chest, and the tears threatening to break free fell, coating your cheeks in your regret. More than anything you wished none of this had happened, that you hadn’t ever asked him who the song was about, that he had never told you it was you, they’re all about you, the words echoing in your brain. You wanted it to be like it was before, unrequited feelings that might have been confusing but never caused you to question your ability to be around Harry. They never got blurred, never reached into the category of dangerous to your heart.

And here you were, crying on your kitchen floor over the last boy you thought would ever hurt you.

Y/N and Harry are really good at being friends, but the something more? Not so much.

Waking up in Harry’s bed never quite got normal to you. You had slept together before the camping trip that changed everything, but not like this. Before, you never woke up naked between his sheets, his arm curled around you in a vice grip that you didn’t understand how he maintained overnight, and him, fully naked, lightly snoring on the pillow next to you. Last night he had called you at midnight on the way back from a bar with some friends you didn’t know, smashed and begging for you to come over. You made him add a stop to his Uber ride to pick you up from your apartment and the minute you’d entered the car he had his hands all over you. He had ended up with his head in your lap, your fingers running through his hair, in an attempt to get him to calm down. By the time you were at his house, he was asleep and you roused him.

You had had sex last night, albeit nothing crazy since Harry practically passed out the minute he came, sweaty chest on yours, but you let it slide. He was drunk and tired and you knew he’d make up for it in the morning. A month and a half had passed since the camping trip, and the nights when Harry called you had numbered more than the nights when he hadn’t. You called him just as much, though, so it wasn’t a one-way street. But the difference was that you knew what you were feeling.

Harry was a fucking brick wall, though.

Usually you were good at reading him—you’d known him for long enough, seen him at his most vulnerable, done just about everything together. But in the weeks since your relationship had changed, you couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Because something definitely was wrong, and you weren’t sure if it was your fault or not.

The morning after no one mentioned anything, and neither did you and Harry. Not sure what was going on, or how you wanted to handle it, you kept your distance. You didn’t touch him in any way other than as friends, no PDA, no obvious signs anything had changed. And unfortunately, it had set the tone for the weeks since then.

He had insisted that he didn’t want to tell your friends yet. At first, you were okay with it—you got to have Harry in the privacy of your homes, your moments together fully yours without any peering eyes. But then you’d go out together and you desperately wanted to dance with him, like really dance with him, and you couldn’t. You couldn’t give him a kiss outside a bar or cuddle in the taxi with your friends. And more than anything, it severely limited who you could talk to about what was going on, which meant you had all of these thoughts and fears swirling in your head and no one to talk to about.

And it wasn’t like you were unhappy. Harry was one of your best friends and the sex was fucking insane; you had never had someone touch you like he did. But you also knew that you weren’t your happiest. You wanted more and you didn’t know how to ask for it without ruining the shreds you did have with him. You didn’t know if you could go back to what it was before, the friendship and none of the intimacy you now shared. The thought of him being with someone else made you want to vomit, the idea of someone else’s hands on his skin made your blood boil.

But he was a brick wall and you didn’t know what he wanted. So you stayed in the dark, knowing that at some point things would probably end but you tried not to think about that time.

“Y/N?” You turned your head from where you had been staring at the ceiling, your thoughts moving a mile a minute. “Fuck, my head. I think I drank too much last night.”

“No shit Sherlock.” You sat up when he pulled his arm from your side, his hands running down his face to try and wake himself up.

“Wait--come back, missy.” He pressed a line of kisses up your spine, his favorite thing to do to get you back into bed with him for some shenanigans.

You looked at him. “Do you remember what happened last night?”

He furrowed his brow at you. “Called ya. Picked you up. We came back here, had sex.”

You rolled your eyes at him. Of course he didn’t. “You fell asleep on me literally the second after you came.”

“What?”

“I’m serious.” You pull away, pushing off the mattress. After that you just wanted to start the day, you didn’t have the energy for this.

He grabs your hand though, forcing you to turn and look at him. “I’m sorry I was too drunk to make you come, baby. Can we have a re-do?”

It would be so easy to say yes to him--he was damn hard to refuse when he gave you his puppy eyes. But you really didn’t want to give into him that easy. He should be forced to wait after last night. “Not really in the mood,” you tell him, holding fast. “And you smell like beer.”

“Y/N….” He said, drawing out your name, but you just shook your head.

“I’ll start some coffee, you go shower.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, nodding at you. “Kissy?”

It was moments like these that him not being all the way yours hurt the most. When he acted like he was yours, that you were his. Because you were his, much to your disappointment. You pecked a kiss to his lips, giggling against your will when he tugged you back for another. “Harry…”

“Fine!” Finally he released your neck from his hand and you got out of bed, pulling on a shirt of his from his drawers. He grabbed at your ass, barely visible under the edge of his shirt, and you swatted at him. He was so fucking cheeky in the morning.

In the kitchen, you started a pot of coffee, playing BBC1 on your phone as you watched the coffee drop into the pot. You could hear Harry’s shower upstairs, the subtle humming of a Top 40s song he’d been obsessed with lately. It was moments like this where the line between what you were doing (what were you even doing?) and dating blurred, and you didn’t really know how to clarify it.

You leaned against the counter, your cup in your hands, and stared at the countertop across from you. Last week he had fucked you on it, both tipsy after a night out, your clothes littered on the ground. You had always had memories in his house, but now they were a different sort. Somehow, in the past month and a half, the memories of his house were associated with places you’d had sex, places you had cuddled and kissed, places your clothes had laid. And the prospect of coming into his house and still having to see them but not being able to act on your feelings was one you didn’t like considering.

“Where’s mine?” You looked up and Harry stood in the doorway, shirtless except for his sweats. You nodded to the cup next to you and he smiled. His arms boxed around your body as he reached for it, leaning against the counter with his hip to look at you. “You okay?”

No. “Yeah, fine. I should go—got some errands to run today.”

“Oh. Uh, okay. Want a ride?”

You shook your head. Any more time with Harry would have you further in your head than you really wanted. “I’ll Uber. We’re going to that party at Nick’s tonight, right?”

He blew on his coffee, always scared of it singing his tongue. “Yeah. I can come grab you if you want.”

“No, I’ll take the tube. Thanks though.”

You knew he could tell something was wrong, but he didn’t push it thankfully. He just nodded and let you gather your belongings, waiting for you in the hall to let you out. He kissed your cheek and you reciprocated, stepping out into the warm summer air without a second glance.

The party was in full swing when you arrived, eyes panning immediately for Harry. Most of the other people coming were Nick’s coworkers, people you had met but didn’t exactly know, but Harry was your safety blanket. He was also always painfully on time, hating the idea of someone waiting for him and didn’t mind being the first to arrive. Knowing him, he was probably 15 minutes early.

You found him in the kitchen making a gin and tonic, speaking to who you thought was another DJ at Radio 1, Nick nowhere to be found but you weren’t surprised. He looked good, as usual, a white button up tucked into flared black pants, a pair of sunnies pushed up on his head and his rings glinting in the kitchen light. You painted his fingernails a few days ago a rosy pink and the color was still on, albeit a bit chipped from playing guitar and cooking, knowing him.

His eyes lit up at the sight of you, the reaction turning your gut. You were still feeling weird after this morning, a sense of uneasiness lingering despite all you had tried (a bath, a cry with your friend Jordan, a bowl of pasta). “Y/N!” You made your way over, accepting the arm he offered around your shoulders, and the drink he shoved into your hand. The gin and tonic he had just made—your favorite, something he knew well. “Y/N, this is Miles. Works with Nick. This is Nick and I’s friend Y/N.”

The word friend jolted you for a second, although it wasn’t anything new. He’d been introducing you like this for years, and had continued in the past month. There wasn’t ever a discussion about it—the consistency in what he called you. It just…never changed, and you didn’t bring it up. “Nice to meet you.”

You sat in the conversation for a bit longer, engaging where required to seem like an attentive member of the chat, but in reality your mind was focused on where Harry was brushing his fingers up and down your back, his hand having drifted from your shoulder. He did this sometimes—touched you when he knew no one could see, the two of your backs facing a wall. Usually it had your skin on fire, but tonight you didn’t want him touching you after calling you his friend. “Have you seen Nick?” You asked him, pulling away just enough so his hand dropped away.

“Uh, yeah, out in the back.” His gaze drifted over your face, trying to understand the change in pace, but you didn’t give him the time to analyze it.

You said goodbye to Miles and walk towards the back, pulling open the sliding door leading to the back patio. Nick was holding court, as usual, to a circle of people who were all laughing hysterically. Yet again, as usual. It was exactly what you wanted—something to entertain your mind, maybe even pick up your night. You had been thinking over last night constantly and you couldn’t put your finger on what it was that pissed you off so much, but it had and you couldn’t shake it. Slipping in between Annie Mac and another one of Nick’s friends who you didn’t know, Nick’s eyes caught yours and smiled, not pausing in his story he was telling about interviewing some celebrity.

Annie turned to you and asked about work, which you happily answered, enjoying having something to chat about. Eventually, Nick finished his story and the group dispersed, him making his way over to you and Annie.

“Did you find Haz?” He asked, giving you a peck on the temple like he always did. “He was lookin’ for you earlier.”

You nodded, lifting your glass. “Present from the bartender. He was talking to your coworker—Miles?”

“I’m going to go say hi,” Annie said, squeezing your elbow. “Talk later?”

“Love to,” you replied before she walked away, leaving you and Nick alone.

Nick gave you a hard look, one you knew well—it meant he was about to give you some truth, free of cost. “What’s wrong, Y/N? Look pissed off at someone.”

And he was correct, unsurprisingly. “I’m fine. Thanks though.” It’s not like you could tell Nick—he was specifically one of the people Harry and you hadn’t told.

“Bullshit. What’d Harry do?”

You twirled the cup in your palm. He always saw through your shit, every single time. “How’d you know it was Harry?”

He quirked an eyebrow at you. “The first thing he asked when he got here was where you were and then watched the door like a hawk. Could tell somethin’ was up.”

“He was a dick,” you said, hoping that would cover the bases. It was the general idea, without specifics.

“Not surprised. What happened, love?”

Well you couldn’t exactly tell him that the two of you had sex and then Harry fell asleep before you came, forgot about it in the morning, and made you feel like shit without even realizing it, could you? “It’s nothing. Just need some time to stew in it.”

Nick eyed you, probably deciding whether to push or not. “Well, I’m always here to talk, you know that. Love you both to pieces but sometimes the two of you can be so thick.”

This time it was you who was confused. “What?”

“Fuck,” he mumbled, eyes falling to the ground. “I—nothing. Forget I said anything.”

Usually Nick was one for some gossip, but it seemed this wasn’t something he wanted to dig into, even though you were intrigued by his meaning. Had Harry said something to him? Or did he actually know what was going on, but chose not to say anything. “Ok. Well I’m going to go get another—want a refill?”

“Love one,” he told you, hand to your back. “Lead the way, mi’lady.”

You stood in the hall, pressing Confirm on your Uber ride, when you felt a hand on your shoulder. You knew who it was before you even turned around, Harry’s cologne permanently imprinted on your brain. The entire night you had tried to avoid him, not wanting to have to hear him introduce you as his friend all over again, but it seemed he had found you anyways.

“Heading out?”

You nodded and eyes fell to his lip, which he had bit slightly. “You too?”

“Was about to call a car. Want to share?”

Your was heading to your apartment, where you had a bottle of wine and a warm bath waiting for you. “I’m heading home.”

He ran a hand through his hair absentmindedly. “I—could I come over?”

The correct answer would’ve been no. Keep the distance you’d established, let your thoughts collect and calm before you put yourself in a situation you knew wouldn’t be good. But unfortunately, you had never been good at saying no to him. “Okay,” you told him, and changed the number of seats in the car from one to two.

He fiddled with his phone as you waited, trying to talk to you but your brain was working a mile a minute, trying to figure out what you wanted to do tonight. Did you want to do anything? You supposed you could just let him sleep on the couch. But would he be offended? Was this the path to the end of your friendship? The icy distance between you was so cold you tensed when he placed his hand to your back when the car pulled up, something you knew probably bothered him. You couldn’t help your body’s reaction, though.

At least you didn’t have to keep him busy in the car ride. The Uber driver recognized Harry immediately and asked him a slew of questions, all sweet ones, and asked for an autograph for his daughter who was eight and a huge fan. You just watched in silence, the interaction one you had seen time and time again, but this time it made you annoyed—you wanted to stay mad at Harry, but he made it so hard when he did shit like this.

The lock slid shut on your door and you toed off your sandals, your bag lying on the hall table and keys in the dish, letting Harry follow behind you to the kitchen. A neutral space, one without obvious seats that would require close proximity.

“Water?” You asked him pulling down a glass for yourself before grabbing the bottle of filtered water from your fridge.

“Yeah, thanks.” He rested against the counter opposite you, shirt unbuttoned one more button than it had been at the party. You didn’t know when he had done that, but the sight of chest, the tips of the swallows, made you turn away and pay attention to the task at hand.

Suddenly, his body was behind yours, breathing in your ear, inches away from you. It was consuming, the feeling of him close to you. Usually, you would twirl around and smash your lips together, probably happily let him have his way with you on the floor of your kitchen. This time, though, it made you falter, water jug hitting the countertop.

It was silent in your flat besides the faint sound of honks and sirens from the streets below, so Harry’s breath in your ear was all you heard. That and the sound of your own heartbeat, clattering in your chest. “Y/N.” Your name on his lips was a question, an obvious beg. “Talk to me, please.”

“Nothin’s wrong,” you said. You didn’t want to have this conversation, because you feared it would mean the end. The end of everything between you, and you didn’t want that.

“Bullshit. You’ve barely looked at me since this morning, ignored me at Nick’s, and I can see the wheels turning in your head. I did something, but I don’t know what, and I need you to talk to me.”

He needed you to talk to him? That set you off, the anger boiling inside of your chest, body whirling around to face him. “You want to know what’s up? Fine. You begged me to come over last night—begged—and then when I did, you fucked me and fell asleep, not a second thought as to me and what I needed. This morning you had no memory of it, acted like it was normal and completely fine. But me? Harry, I felt fucking used last night.” The word slapped him in the face, body flinching at its intention. But the minute it was out, it felt right. That’s how you felt.

“Fuck, Y/N, I didn’t know—“

You held up your hand, cutting him off. “But that’s not even it. And I know this might spell the end of us, but I cannot take the song and dance anymore, Harry. You introduced me tonight as your friend, meanwhile I’ve been in your bed nearly every night for the past month and a half.” He was staring at you, his words like whiplash, but you didn’t slow. You needed to get it out before you lost your nerve. “And I’m fucking done. If that’s all this is going to be—me warming your bed and making you coffee in the morning and pretending like nothing’s happening when we’re around our best friends, I’m done.”

Harry was quiet, eyes flickering between yours as your chest rose and fell, adrenaline pouring through your veins at your confession. When he finally broke the silence, his words were a broken record in your ears. “I’m sorry, Y/N, I didn’t mean to make you feel like that, I thought we were fine—“

“Get out.” The words punched him in the gut and you didn’t care. It was past apologies and he knew it. You knew it and you weren’t going to stand for it anymore. “Get out, Harry. Get out of my apartment.” He didn’t move though, and the anger was coiling in your belly, the tears searing behind your eyes. “Get out!” You screamed at him, finally forcing him into action.

He was scrambling to grab his things, one last look at you before he was out of your place, the door slamming shut behind him.

And here you were, crying on your kitchen floor over the last boy you thought would ever hurt you.

Harry knew he was an idiot, but that wasn’t news. In most of his relationships he had been an idiot in some way or an another, but this? This was the worst it had ever been. It had taken every ounce of his soul for him to tell you the truth of how he felt, and not he had dug himself into a hole of avoidance with the girl he loved.

It was true.

He loved you.

He had told you before, but not since that first time. The words had been caught in his throat and he hated that. Because his feelings hadn’t changed, only grown. It drove him crazy that it had taken you yelling at him to get out of your apartment, him hurting you (and himself) tor realize it, but at least he finally had.

It had settled for him when Camille texted him a few days after your fight. He was pissed off and sad, alternating between running miles on his treadmill, trying to outrun his own thoughts, and lying in bed watching Love Island re-runs because you loved watching it and it made him think of you. It was unhealthy and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop. And then Camille texted him that she was in town and thought of him, and the part of him that still wondered if they would ever get back together overpowered the part of him that was smart, and he replied.

They ended up talking that night over a glass of wine in a tiny bar they used to frequent when they were together and in London, and when he looked at her, he didn’t feel anything. The only thing he could think about was you, about how you had held him when he cried and helped him piece himself back together, and here he was in front of Camille and felt nothing. You would probably be proud of him in a way, but at the same time, the reason he wasn’t feeling anything for Camille was because his emotions were yours. His heart belonged to you. And he told Camille because he had to tell someone, and she listened, surprisingly. Told he was an asshole, which was something he frequently had told himself over the past few days, and to get over himself and talk to you.

And he had every intention to. He kept picking up the phone to call you, opening your contact and hovering over the message button, but then he realized he didn’t know what to say. Not because he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what not to say. He had so many things he wanted to say there was no way to write you a text or call you and most likely leave a voicemail. He had enough to fill an entire notebook with, write an album of songs, a symphony even, of his feelings and thoughts about you.

Because he was in love with you. Hopelessly, endlessly, in love with you.

He felt it in the very depths of his soul and he never wanted to forget it. He didn’t want to get over you. He didn’t want to have to stop talking to you, to scrub the memories of you from his home, which were everywhere he looked. To wash his clothes that you wore so many times that the scent of you finally left them, to return your belongings that had ended up in his closets and counters. To put the photos of the two of you in a box and hide them, to stop buying your favorite wine at Tesco, to avoid your favorite bars and restaurants so he didn’t have to see you. To wonder if you’d be at a party and if he should go, because he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.

He didn’t want to do any of that. He wanted to love you, to bask in the feeling that came over him when he saw you, to linger there and let himself burn in the sunlight that was you. Anne told him he was a hopeless romantic, but for you, he had all the hope in the world because he could see you being together forever. And to lose you…the thought was too much for him to bear.

All of that brought him to your door, the rain coming down in sheets around him, his shirt and pants soaked through, shoes squeaking on the stairs as he climbed to your apartment. He knew the building code by heart, not even having to ring your apartment to get inside, which he was happy for. He wanted one less place for you to refuse him entry. He pushed his hair back, the droplets flickering over his skin, and wondered what he looked like right now. Probably a bit on the crazy side.

But that was okay with him, because he was. Crazy for you.

He stopped in front of your door, 2A and the knocker staring back at him, mocking him, wondering if he’d have the guts to do it. Your face popped into his brain, and he wondered what you were going to say. He had a speech prepared—one he had figured out as he drove here, mulling over the words and their meaning, over analyzing it all to make sure he said exactly what he wanted because if he got in the door he couldn’t risk fucking it up again. Before he could stop himself, he rapped the knocker on your door, stepping back and taking a deep breath.

The wait was the worst part. The wondering if you would open the door at all. He knew you were home—saw your lights on from the street and your bike locked up outside. He played with the hem of his tour tank top, trying to squeeze out the water in the material.

And then all of a sudden he heard the hinges of the door squeak and you were standing there in shorts and an oversized shirt, glasses on your nose and hair up in a ponytail. It made his heart ache to see you after so many days apart, especially days spent thinking of nothing but you.

“You’re wet,” you said bluntly, taking in his appearance.

“Raining out,” he replied, eyes fluttering over your face, trying to take in your demeanor. You seemed on edge, which was understandable, but not angry. Exhausted, maybe, judging from the look in your eyes. “Can I come in? I—I need to tell you something.”

He didn’t you wanted to talk, so he just said tell you something. Because if that’s all it was, that’s all it was, but at least then he’d have been open and honest with you. Laid it all out there, bare and vulnerable. “Yeah,” you said after a beat, opening the door wide enough for him to slip through before shutting it behind him, sliding the chain in the lock.

Standing in your apartment was surreal to him, the rugs and warm lights and books scattered on every surface possible, a big piece of art he’d given you for your birthday last year over the sofa, the faint smell of cinnamon. You stress baked, just like him. He wondered it you did cinnamon rolls, one of your favorite things. His eyes flickered back to you, leaning against the back of your couch and staring at him, waiting for him to speak. He took one step forward so he was farther into your place, and then opened his mouth, the speech he had prepared flowing easily from his throat.

“I love you,” he started, the catch in your breath making his heart skip a beat. “I know I told you on the trip, but I haven’t said it since, and I think for the same reason as why I didn’t call you my girlfriend. I think my brain had built up for so long what it would be like to be with you that when it actually happened I didn’t know what to do. How to be your boyfriend, how to date you, how to be with you like I’d always thought. So I just reverted to what I knew, but with the added sex.

“And that wasn’t fair to either of us. It eroded all the things I love about our relationship—how we talk about everything, how honest we are. Made me feel like we were pretending in front of each other, but I didn’t know how to stop it after it had been happening for so long, you know? And the prospect of fucking it all up and losing you was worse than letting the in-between thing just stretch out. So I just didn’t say anything, even though it was eating away at me.

“I thought you were fine with it, actually. You never said anything, so I thought we were fine, generally speaking. But I know now that was bullshit not only because you told me, but because how could you have been fine with it? I had told you I loved you, confessed all these feelings, and then told you I wanted to keep it all a secret because I couldn’t get my own brain in order. I think that I thought if we told people it would be real, and it being real frightened me to bits.”

He ran a hand through his hair, the droplets coating his rings. “I know that all probably makes no sense to you, but what I’m trying to say, Y/N, is that I love you. I haven’t stopped loving you.” He laughed nervously, his heart seizing. “I don’t know how to not love you. And I don’t want to stop—I can’t lose you, not again. I need you, even though I know I’ve been shit to you these past weeks. So I’m here and I’m begging you to forgive me, to let us try this out properly. To be my girlfriend, tell all of our friends and family, do it for real this time.”

The silence stretched between them for a second, then two. His eyes stayed on yours, gaze locked as you processed his words. And just when he was about to open his mouth again, to tell you he would leave, you were crossing the distance between them and your lips were on his, an answer to his question.

Kissing you was like returning to an old friend. It felt right in every part of his body, the way you leaned into him, the way you curled your fingers through his hair and touched him, hands on his chest. His lips chased yours, desperate for anything you would give him, a stray dog begging for scraps. His hands wrapped around your waist, holding you close, sighing at the feeling of your warm skin on his.

Your lips parted and returned, lovers in a well-rehearsed dance. A song they knew all the words to.

Your hands pulled his wet t-shirt over his head and he tugged at your now damp one, kisses to the rise of your breasts that made you arch into him and gasp. Your sounds were music to his ears, a chorus he had been dying to hear again. You stumbled over one another’s feet as he moved you to your bedroom, desperate to see all of you. He knew you felt the same from how you pulled at his hands, tugging him into your room and flipping on the light by your bedside, the soft glow allowing him to see shadows of your bodies on the walls.

“Y/N,” he breathed against your neck, “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” you replied, tugging hips to yours and rolling against them sinfully. “Need you.”

That had him moving faster than he thought possible. He shucked off his pants, then yours, leaving you in a pair of blue cotton underwear that he ripped without a second thought. You yelped but he didn’t care, he’d buy you another he whispered to you, a promise he had no intention of breaking. He’d buy you the world, no matter the price.

Your hands pressed against his chest, forcing him onto the bed, body bouncing. Quickly he clamored back, gaining more space for the two of you and you followed, a lion on the hunt. You knees pressed to either side of his hips and rolled softly, a groan flying from both of your mouths before they met again.

He pulled at the clasp of your bra, needing to see you bare for him and it was a sight he had missed desperately. Leaning up, hands holding your chest in place, he rolled your nipple into his mouth, a cry falling from your lips that spelled his name. “Fuck,” he murmured into your skin as you rocked over him, bare clit on his dick. “Can feel how wet you are, baby.”

“All for you,” you said, your words a whimper that had him groaning and suckling on your nipple immediately. He loved every moment with you, but these ones were near the top. When he had the raw, unfiltered you, witnessing your body respond to every thing he offered you, taking and taking and taking. And he didn’t mind. You had given him the opportunity to love you and that was enough for him.

His hand found its way down your body, a torturing path that had your squirming in his arms, before his fingers brushed your clit. You arched into him, breasts flushed with his chest, head lolling into the crook of his neck. He played you like an instrument he knew by heart, knowing exactly what you needed. A slow circle, then fast swipes clockwise, a pinch to your clit. A teasing brush to your slit, his name on your lips before he pulled you into him again. He got distracted with your lips, but you didn’t seem to mind. You found your own pleasure, rolling your hips over him repeatedly, the wetness of you driving him insane.

The feeling of you over him, completely bare, was enough for him to come right there and then.

“Love,” he said, throat gravelly as he spoke. “I—I’m going to come if you keep that up and I want you to come before I fuck you.”

But you shook your head, lips pressing into his jaw, where a brush of stubble had grown over the past few days. He knew you liked it, how it felt against your skin, something to remember him by. “I just want you,” you told him, eyes meeting his. “Want to come with you.”

His head dropped back because those words brought him to the brink. “You’re a dream,” he whispered, pulling you down with him before rolling you over. “This okay—like this?”

You nodded, pushing his wet hair back so he could see you better. “I like it like this. Know it’s simple, but I can see you.”

He knew exactly what you meant. “Me too.” Without meaning to, he shifted his hips and his tip brushed against your clit, a wanton moan exploding from your chest into your bedroom. “Ready, baby? Ready for me to show me how much I love you?”

Your arms locked around his neck and you nodded, capturing his lips in yours again. “Show me everything,” you whimpered when he brushed against you again, teasing both of you. “Everything, Harry.”

His name on your lips did it. Reaching a hand down, he found his dick and he moved so he could brush your slit, your head tipping back. “Look at me,” he said, and you looked back at him, chest rising and falling. And with that, he pushed in slowly, letting your walls capture every inch of him.

Watching you when he pushed into you was one of his favorite things. Could take photos of your face like that for hours, put them in an art gallery because it was art in its finest form. “Oh my god,” you panted, hands scrambling at his back, his shoulder blades, searching for purchase. When you found it, your fingernails dug into his skin and he hissed, loving that he would have marks of you on him tomorrow.

With that, he pulled out and then back in, watching you as your jaw dropped open. “Feel me, baby? Am I deep for you?” The words tumbled from him without a thought. Somehow having sex with you just made his brain melt away—he wasn’t like this with other people, but with you, he wanted to tell you everything. Wanted you to know every thought on his brain.

He rested his head on your chest, your hands drifting from his back to his scalp, tugging on the hair and a moan ripping through his body. His hands rested next to your shoulders, helping him find strength to push in and out of you at a rhythm that was both not enough and everything all at once. “Need more,” you moaned. “Please, H.”

Your wish was his command. He drew back before slamming into you, hips meeting yours with a smack that had your legs coming up around his waist for better access. Hands met skin as you held on, your body moving up and down on the duvet as he pushed into you. His lips missed your skin, so he rectified it with a nip at your collarbone, sucking into your skin harshly, leaving a mark for tomorrow that he would top up in the morning. It would be like a tattoo on your skin, reminding the world that you were his. Finally.

“So deep.” Your words made him see stars. He was close already, he was close before even entered you, but the feeling of being so deep inside of you was making him teeter dangerously on the edge.

You yelped when he pressed deeper, brushing against the spot he knew you loved. “Never gonna make you made ever again,” he said, words a jumbled mess in his brain. He could feel the sweat between your bodies and he loved how your skin stuck to each other, not wanting to part. “Promise, Y/N. You don’t deserve that.”

“Then keep fucking me and make me cum, maybe I won’t be mad anymore,” you said and your words made him slam into you.

“Yeah? Want me to make you come?” He wanted to you see you finish. He knew you were taunting him but he didn’t care, it made him work harder for your orgasm, it a prize he desperately needed tonight. “Gonna make you come baby, promise. Need it. Need to feel you squeeze around me, fuck you’re so good, need to feel you come for me. That’s all I want, love. All I want is you.”

You pulled his head, lips meeting and he rocked into you, teeth gnashing as he brought you closer to your release. He caught your moans in his mouth and sent them right back, a tinge of his own mixed in. Lips fought for dominance as he cradled your head in his arms, holding you tight to his body. He wanted to have you close when you came, wanted to feel you shake against him.

When you did, it was tidal wave that he felt before he heard it. He felt you clamp down around him, your spine arch. Then, he heard the shrieks from your mouth, the ones made up of purely his name, Harry a chant on your lips. It had him coming to his own release immediately, the feeling and sight of you finishing around him, eyes wide and staring into his, knowing he loved watching you. He slammed into you, hips stuttering as he shot into you, ropes of come painting your walls that had goosebumps covering his skin as he shivered.

It took him a few beats to regain his breath and when he did, you were running your fingers down his spine. He loved it when you did it, the feeling of you impossibly close in more ways than one.

“I love you,” you said, voice hoarse in his ears before pressing a kiss to his nose. “Endlessly.” You pulled him flush on your skin, forcing him to let go and let you shoulder his weight which he knew you didn’t mind. Quite liked it actually.

His fingers wove through the strands of your hair scattered on the bed that had broken from of your ponytail. “I love you too.”

“We’re going to do this, huh?” You asked him and he chuckled.

“Yeah,” he told you and you giggled in his ear. Giggled. He loved that sound, the childish glee in your voice. “Want to show you off, show everyone you’re mine.”

He went to pull out of you, but you held him fast. “Can you just, stay here for a second?”

His gaze shifted to your eyes and he nodded. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.” He rolled slowly, taking you with him and keeping himself sheathed inside of you. It felt impossibly close, like he was inside of your skin, and it was everything he needed. After being apart from you for days, and even before that not having you like this—your heart, mind, soul—it was a euphoric feeling.

“I’ve got cinnamon rolls for the morning,” you said out of nowhere.

He brushed a kiss to your shoulder and felt you smile against his skin. “One of the many reasons that I love you.” You nuzzled into his neck and he sighed.

He was home.

talk to me about Residue here | masterlist here

#Harry Styles Fan Fiction #harry styles fic #harry styles one shot #harry styles writing #harry styles drabble #harry styles smut #1dff #one direction smut #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #mine

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dizzydancingdreamer · 3 years

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A Very Merry Mikaelson Christmas | The Mikaelson Boys #7 & #22

Request: @rocketshiptoes “Oh my goshhhh could you please do prompts 7 and 22 with all our boys? I feel like it’d be really sweet” I kinda made this angsty at the beginning but it gets fluffy after I hope you love it!!

Prompt(s): “I can’t reach.” & “That mistletoe was not hung with care.” “I tried okay!”

Word Count: 1.9k

Christmas Master List

You stand on your tiptoes, leaning against the wall with your hand stretched above your head as far as you can reach. It’s a futile mission, you’re nowhere near close to reaching the arch of the doorway. You roll back on your feet, resting your forehead against the exposed brick. The mistletoe hangs limp from your fingers, the red ribbons you tied to the plant tickling your wrists. It taunts you, the strands laughing at your failed attempts to be spontaneous. You just wanted to do something nice, why are the doorways in the compound so tall?

“Love,” a concerned voice breaks through your moping, “are you okay?”

You squeeze your eyes tighter together, pressing yourself closer to the wall and hiding the mistletoe in your hand. This cannot be happening right now. Klaus’ hands slide over your back, rubbing some warmth through your jumper. You sigh quietly, knowing you’ll have to expose your secret in a moment. This is all just dandy.

“I’m fine,” you murmur into the wall, hoping he takes the hint and leaves you be.

You bring the mistletoe closer to you, grinding your jaw slightly. If he leaves then maybe, just maybe, you can find a step ladder or something. Maybe push a chair against the wall and jump for it. Climb the wall like a damn spider monkey. Literally anything at this point is an option but first you just need Klaus to disappear. Are you really ever that lucky though?

You hear another pair of footsteps and almost groan. Why today?

“Darling?” Kol’s hand wraps around your arm, his fingers squeezing tight and the worry evident in his tone, “what’s going on, are you alright?”

You nod against the brick, the epitome of desperate but still refusing to give up hope. Maybe if you just stick to the bland answers they will walk away. Of course, the odds of that actually panning out are slim to none. You can feel them tense, the air thickening around you as Kol tugs on your arm. None. The chances are none. How absolutely awesome.

A hand wraps around your face, one that is in no way attached to either Klaus or Kol. Game over.

Elijah draws your eyes to his own and your heart hurts when you see his brows furrowed, “baby, what’s wrong? You’re worrying me.”

You finally turn to face them, sagging against the wall behind you. Shaking your head from his grasp you pull your lip between your teeth, trying your best to keep it still. You didn’t expect to be upset by this but you can’t help it. The vision you had in your head was so much better than this. You don’t say anything you just hold up the plant and huff, the defeat coursing through you.

Elijah takes the mistletoe from your hand, smiling lightly, “is this for us?”

Your face ignites immediately, fire creeping up your neck and consuming your skin, inch by damned inch. They’re all staring at you, their eyes locked on you like you’re about to share some life changing secret. Please stop! You want to cry, your chest tightening harshly and your back pressed against the cold stone. God, now, not only do you feel like a failure, you’re also heavily embarrassed. Why did you think this was a good idea again? If only the floor would just open up and swallow you whole right now.

You take a deep breath and close your eyes again, wholly overwhelmed and in need of a nap all of a sudden, “it was but not anymore. I can’t reach. I can’t reach anything in this damn place! It doesn’t even matter. It’s done now.”

“Darling, come on now,” Kol grabs your arm again and you tense, keeping your eyes shut, “we can help. You can sit on my shoulders.”

He’s trying to lighten the mood, you know he is, but it only makes you feel worse. You don’t want their help, you wanted to surprise them and now you can’t. That warrants a little bit of frustration. There’s this blackness in your chest, one that is trying its best to consume you, one that clearly didn’t hear that it's Christmastime, and you need some air. Just ten minutes. You need out though. Now.

You push off the wall and squeeze yourself past them, “thank you, Kol, but I need a minute. I think I’m going to go for a walk, alright?”

They all scrunch their brows in concern, Klaus stepping forward and stretching an arm out to catch you, “love, it’s freezing out there. I would really rather you stay here.”

He steps closer to you, running his fingers over your cheek. You know he just wants you to be safe but if you stay here any longer you’re going to pass out. The walls, as tall as they are, are closing in on you. It’s like they’re taunting you on purpose. We’ll only shorten for you when you need us to be tall.

“I’m sorry,” is all you say, turning and running before any of them can think to chase after you.

You hear them call after you but you don’t stop, tearing your coat from it’s hook and shrugging it on as you step onto Bourbon Street. The December air rolls over you in waves, the smells of peppermint liquor and hot chocolate cresting with it. It forces you to keep walking, straight into the crowd and out of the view of three searching eyes. You’re not entirely sure where you’re going but you don’t care. You’ll figure it out later. Right now you just need to breathe.

* * * * * * * * * *

It’s only a few hours later when you walk back through the compound’s gates, your jacket now damp from the snow and your cheeks significantly icier. Your fingers are stiff and your socks are soaked, your boots in as much need of a warm place to dry as you are. Despite the chill in your bones, though, you feel significantly better. While on your little walk you had run into Josh. Okay, so you didn’t so much ‘run into him’ as you did ‘frantically call him to calm you down’. Josh really is good at going with the flow sometimes.

He bought you a hot chocolate, the kind the ninth ward coven makes with the double shot of bourbon, and just let you talk. Sometimes that’s all you need: a drink with your best friend. The guys are great but they’re a tad overwhelming and that’s exactly what Josh said. Sometimes they make me feel like I can’t breathe and, girl, I’m dead. You had laughed when he said that. It’s true, after all. But then he followed it with something that rings through your ears as you hang your coat back in its place.

But they love you, you know? A thousand years of loving and hating each other and you’re in the middle of it. They figured it out for you. What’s one high ceiling at the end of it all?

You hear a whoosh of air, one scented in three distinct ways, and you finally smile. Your chest doesn’t feel at all tight anymore when you look at them. Kol reaches for you first, tugging you into his cinnamon chest and sighing against your hair. You wrap your arms around him tight, your hands smoothing over his back. You missed him, it’s as simple as that.

“I was so worried,” he mumbles against you, his lips finding your forehead, “I almost went to find you about six times.”

You smile into his chest, rubbing your face against him, “thank you for letting me have some time.”

He laughs quietly as you’re pulled from him and into another pair of arms, these ones hinted with berries and oil paints. Klaus clings to you, his head falling against your neck as soon as you're in his grasp. He squeezes you tight, just as Kol had, rubbing his nose against your still cold skin. Your arms fall around him, your nails digging into his shoulders from how hard you grab him. You missed him too.

Klaus’s lips are glued to your neck, his words thawing the cold in your bones, “letting you go was the hardest thing I’ve done in a long time, love.”

You snuggle closer to him, “I know, I’m sorry honey.”

He pulls his face from your neck, shaking his head slightly and kissing your forehead, “don’t be. Sometimes I forget there are more of us than you. I’d need a walk with Rosza too.”

You raise your brow and give him a soft grin. You don’t ask how he knows where you’ve been, you just kiss his cheek before turning to the third and final Mikaelson. Elijah doesn’t grab you immediately like his brothers had, he just looks at you, his head tilted and his lips pressed together. His hands tense at his sides and your heart drops. Oh Eli, always the stoic Viking. You capture his eyes again and that’s all it takes to rush into his arms.

As soon as you're in his reach he reacts, wrapping his arms around your hips and hauling you against him. You wrap your legs around him, not caring about your pants which are soaked from the snow. You don’t waste your time with pleasantries, don’t pass him any apologies, you just smash your lips against his and dig your fingers into his hair. He kisses you back like he hasn’t kissed you in years. You don’t blame him, you feel the exact same way.

“I missed you,” he kisses you again, his lips tasting like candy canes, “fuck, I missed you.”

You slide your hands to his face, your palms curling around his jaw, “I missed you too, Eli. So much.”

He closes his eyes, leaning his face in the palm of your hand. His stubble tickles your fingers. With that one little action everything clicks back into place. All the frustration and embarrassment from before melts away. Josh was right, you think to yourself, what is one high ceiling in the grand scheme of things. You run a hand through his hair one last time before forcing yourself back onto your feet.

“Darling,” a pair of hands land on your shoulders, “we have a surprise for you.”

You look over your shoulder to meet Kol’s mischievous grin. Oh boy. He takes your hand, dragging you to the alcove of the staircase, the same place you had spent forty-five minutes in front this morning trying desperately to hang the stupid plant.

Klaus wraps his arms around your stomach from behind, pulling you against his chest again and leaning down to murmur in your ear, “look up, love.”

You follow his instructions, your eyes landing on some familiar red ribbons and immediately flooding with tears. You throw a hand over your mouth, leaning back into Klaus to keep yourself from falling over. They really hung the mistletoe for you. You meet all of their eyes in a rush, completely speechless but fully warm. Glancing back up you notice the duct tape. You laugh, a few small sobs breaking through with it. They did this for you.

You spin in Klaus’ arms, pulling his lips down to yours, “thank you.” You giggle against his mouth, “did Kol hang that? That mistletoe was not hung with care.”

“Hey,” Kol pulls you from Klaus, laughing right along with you, “I tried okay!”

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andreaheartscats · 22 days

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me when i remember.

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hyuneytoast · 3 years

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Stray Kid’s Cafes || OT8

Summary || Stray kids if they were to own cafes!

Genre || Fluffff

Word Count || 1.7k

Note || I wrote this at 2am. (And nervous as hell to post this) I thought it was a cute idea (cause my love fore cafes u know & longing to go to one but covid-) buuuuut... if you think it’s written poorly, my excuse: my half awaken mind and questioning sleep schedule. It’s also because I’m used to writing formally rather than this. Enjoy though ヽ(ヅ)ノ

⤑Bang Chan

Inside/Theme: Dark, moody, and very spacious. Plants in macrame and outlets everywhere. Grey concrete tables with chairs of dark wood and black iron. Either lofi or jazz plays in the background. Flooring patched with large black and white honeycomb tiles. Wood of deep and mysterious browns are made for walls. Glass pendants dangle from above. Perfect for relaxing or studying. Even more perfect to visit on rainy days.

Hours: 9am - 2am

Menu: Cinnamon rolls, espresso, frappes, omelets, sandwiches, croissants (plain or chocolate), salads, raspberry scones, hot chocolate

It’s like your presence just sparked something in Chan. You were a frequent customer, so not only Chan, but other employees recognize you. It just so happened that this day was the day Chan felt braver than others. When you went up to the counter and ordered a hot latte, it was the beginning of an endless exchangement of (cringey) pickup lines. And they were all based on coffee... “If you were coffee grounds, you'd be espresso 'cause you're so fine.” (oh dear god-) The both of you realizing you don’t have all the time in the world, you finish your order but Chan refuses you to pay with money. “Giving me your number sounds like a fairer trade.” And also, starting from this day, would always be some note or saying written on the cup sleeve of your coffee.

⤑Minho

Inside/Theme: Cat Cafe! Small white stools and square tables. Windows as the walls with window sills where cats sleep. Cat toys scattered everywhere. Mini houses with beds and staircases hung on the walls. Like an indoor cat community. In the center is a giant wooden structure in the shape of a tree for cats to climb. Each one has a name. You receive a free slice of cake if you remember each cat’s name. 50% of the treats on display are just for the cats. (And of course, every cat there is up for adoption!!)

Hours: 8am - 10pm

Menu: Shortcakes, blueberry muffins, fruit sandwiches, cookies, lattes (with latte art of cats ofc), mochas, bagels, banana bread.

Scenario || You find a cat wandering the streets and get a hold of it, calling the number displayed on its tags. You eventually return it to the cafe. As a thank you, Minho freely gives you a treat off the menu and a free session with the cats. You two make time fly with endless conversations of your guys love for cats and his opinion on why cats should rule over humans and the entire world. When you're at home later that night, it’s 2am. Turns out Minho saved your number when you called for the loose cat earlier because he sent you photos of his own 3 cats. Many photos. And one with him and a funny/weird filter.

⤑Changbin

Inside/Theme || Open and welcoming, very convenient. A cafe kiosk placed in a park, sheltered by the tall swaying trees and surrounded by the small patches of blossoms. The kiosk is made of tan wood, outlined and roofed with black. The cafe space has a stretched out wooden platform next to it. Above is a wooden frame wrapped in string lighting. Iron benches and long tables. The experience is even more enjoyable during spring.

Hours || 9am - 11pm

Menu || Iced tea, matcha crepe cakes, sandwiches, mocha bread rolls, raspberry lemonade, cappuccinos, ice cream (of many flavors).

Scenario || You should’ve known it was going to rain today. It’s like the huge grey clouds were trying to warn you through the whole morning. Before the pour, though, you strolled through the park and saw the cafe kiosk and let me tell you, those mocha bread rolls sounded good (especially on a chilly day). While sitting on the benches next to the cafe enjoying the mocha rolls, you feel the sky spitting on you and it only gets more aggressive. You look around and see everyone has an umbrella. Except you. Changbin invites you to wait out the rain inside his cafe kiosk (which you gladly accept). He also notices your joy from the mocha bread rolls and decides to show you how he makes it. It was messy (since your lack of baking skills were definitely no help), but fun for the both of you.

⤑Hyunjin

Inside/Theme || A neat and cozy atmosphere dipped in traveling dreams. Walls displayed with plants draping to its heart content and photos of sceneries and dogs (which Hyunjin gladly took and displayed himself). Low tables painted with faint hues of grey, placed against the walls. Linen lounges and small glass vases of baby breaths. Large windows with window sills lined with fuzzy pillows. Towards the back, a small staircase leading to a wooden platform holding up bookshelves.

Hours || 10am - 12am

Menu || Americanos, strawberry crepe cakes, savory crepes, honey toast, fruit tarts, fresh strawberry milk, paninis, strawberry mousse.

Scenario || You’re roaming the section where the bookshelves are. Hands drifting across the aligned books and head pondering what to read. You look next to your side, taking note of Hyunjin suddenly talking to you. He asks about your favorite genres to read. He also recommends you some of his favorite literature (which you eventually discover that majority of them are poems/stories of romance) and says it be fun to read them together, along with his treat of fresh strawberry milk. Reading sessions and strawberry milk became a weekly routine for the two of you.

⤑Jisung

Inside/Theme || Shelves of pastries for you to grab and put on a tray. Filled with an aroma of sweet coffee. Simple tables and benches made of deep browns. White counters tiled with a large honeycomb pattern. Walls are of a light grey. Next to windows are woven hanging chairs with cute cartoon animal characters. On the counter is a jar of stick props for photos ‘cause why not.

Hours || 9:30am - 10pm

Menu || Cheesecake (of many different flavors), chocolate cake, iced americanos, croissants, cake rolls, custard bread, cream puffs, egg tarts, tirimisu.

Scenario || You ordered a few slices of cheesecakes after asking Jisung which ones he recommended. It was quite obvious he loved cheesecake more than anything and of course you couldn’t order just one flavor! Along with the few cheesecakes, You also ordered an americano. After receiving your drink (and cheesecake), you found a small note taped on the cup: “If you want more cheesecake suggestions, ask me anytime!” Below was a doodle of a squirrel and his phone number. AND maybe... just maybe... You take a photo of your cheesecakes to show your friend and Jisung ends up photobombing half of the photos you took (with some of the props from the counter). And of course you don’t notice until your friend starts spamming you about the guy in the background.

⤑Felix

Inside/Theme || A video game cafe, sells mainly bubble tea. Very homey with couches and bean bag chairs. A few TVs hooked up to the Switch. Simple patterned rugs and walls of a faint blue. Cute cartoon stickers displayed on walls and concrete counters. White shelves of board games.

Hours || 8am - 11:30pm

Menu || Bubble tea, brownies, cookies (of many kinds), bubble waffles, banana pudding, toast (sweet & savory), pancakes.

Scenario || You enter the cafe when it’s empty. You order a treat of your choice and make your way to play the Switch. With no other customer around, Felix decides it won’t hurt to take an extra break and play with you. (To beat you in a game or more of Super Smash Bros to be specific.) 1 game turned into countless that you both even lost track of your scores. And perhaps he got too distracted and almost missed the growing line waiting at the counter. But! Weekly video game tournaments between the two of you became something to look forward to. And maybe the two of you decided to play UNO one day and boy did the game put the two of you in a pit of raging hell.

⤑Seungmin

Inside/Theme || A comforting, more on the minimalistic side cafe. White brick walls, light grey flooring, and high beamed ceilings. Black pendant lights hanging, painting the cafe in light hues of honey. Long high tables with tall iron stools. Small potted succulents aligned on the table. White marble counters and pastries displayed in glass cake stands.

Hours || 7:30am - 10:30pm

Menu || Lattes, croissant sandwiches, chocolate mousse dogs, crepes (sweet and savory), lemon poundcake, biscuits with peach jam, homemade soups.

Scenario || Lets just say your day has been extremely hectic. For a cure, a treat from your favorite cafe sounds like a good plan. Though, you end up entering the cafe five minutes after closing hours. Great. Seungmin, who is inside cleaning up one of the tables, notices (and also recognizes you’re the frequent customer he has gotten to be friends with over his shifts). He unlocks the door and happily lets you stay after hours. You have latte (which Seungmin actually draws a happy face on the cream) and a chocolate mousse dog while chatting with Seungmin. Thanks to Seungmin’s constant invitations, late orders and chats ended up becoming regular.

⤑Jeongin

Inside/Theme || Low platform seating and low round tables. Small jars of fairy lights and daisies. Background music is either lofi or indie. Walls of a comforting dark green and floors of dark wood. Framed cute doodles and warm signs decorate the walls. High ceilings with gold lamps hanging.

Hours || 7:30am - 9pm

Menu || Milk bread, milkshakes, taiyaki (with different fillings), taro crepe cakes, fruit tea with popping boba, soufflé pancakes.

Scenario || You know that broken or no internet connection running dinosaur game (if not look it up and it’ll literally change ur life.)? Well, you brought your laptop to study but surely a game or two won’t be a big deal. And maybe playing also lended time to mentally prepare yourself just to ask for the wifi password. When Jeongin came to serve your cake order (a taro crepe cake or any crepe cake is a must try in life), he places the plate next to you and begins to speak as he notices your screen (where you keep running into pterodactyls and failing). And no, he wasn’t giving you the wifi password. “Can I try?” Beating each other’s high scores, still no wifi, and chatting. That’s how the rest of the afternoon went. (With Jeongin taking a break every now and then to help the customers of course.)

102 notes · View notes

hypnoticwinter · 3 years

Text

Down the Rabbit Hole part 35

Just looking at Makado makes me realize how incredibly tired I am. “Makado,” I say, trying to put a little bit of that weariness into my voice, “please, I just want to get Elena out of here.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Makado tells me. “Take your helmet off.”

“Makado,” I start, but she raises the gun and coaxes a threatening-sounding click out of it.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, and reach up and pop the helmet open.

“Now take it off slowly and drop it.”

The helmet thuds to the floor with a dull clunk. I keep my hands open, bent at the elbows, roughly shoulder-height. I guess it’s a testament to how often this has happened to me lately that I’m not particularly panicked or flustered, even though she has a gun on me. I look into her eyes; they’re about as kind as a brick wall, a far cry from the Makado I knew - well, that I thought I knew. I don’t think she’ll shoot me but I don’t want to push her.

“Makado,” I try again, speaking softly, “I know that you’re upset, but -“

“Upset?” she laughs. “That is a big understatement, Roan.”

“As if you have any right to be upset at me,” I snort. Makado’s eyes flash but I press onwards anyway. “You’re the one who was trying to literally fucking frame me for all the illegal shit you were doing -“

“You got Peter killed,” she says. My mind goes blank for a moment before I nearly laugh. I choke it back down; if I started laughing, either out of terror or nerves or just pure exasperation, I know I’d never stop, and I know Makado would probably shoot me.

“Makado,” I say, stammering a little bit, “I didn’t - there was nothing I could have -“

“Then how come you lived and he died, huh?” she says. I think I hear a crack in her icy demeanor and I look at her - really look at her. She glances away after a moment or two, and when her gaze swings back and hits mine whatever I thought I might have seen, whatever small vulnerability, has already faded away. “How come you lived?” she asks.

The barrel of the gun trembles gently.

“Mak,” I start. I want terribly to be angry at her but something about the way she’s acting is just making me sad instead.

“Don’t call me that!” she yells. She slips her finger inside the gun’s trigger guard and I feel my breath catch. Maybe she really will shoot me; if she’s mad enough, if she thinks that somehow I caused Pete to get…to get leeched, or whatever the hell…

“Peter was the only one who ever called me that,” she murmurs. I know I’ve called her ‘Mak’ before and she never made a fuss about it but I guess this is special circumstances.

“Pete is - was - a fully trained ranger with dozens of expeditions under his belt, he might have - “ Makado licks her lips and tries again - “he might have gone a little downhill after 2007 but he was still sharp. He would have gotten out of there no problem. But he dies and you live?”

“Was that the plan?” I ask. If I can keep her talking maybe I’ll be able to pull something, but deep down I doubt it. “You send me down there hoping I’d die in an accident or something?”

“Of course not,” she says. “But if I had to choose between you and Peter…”

“That’s cold,” I tell her. She starts to say something, but I continue before she can. “But I get it. You loved him, huh?”

“Of course I loved him,” she says, sounding mildly scandalized. “You wouldn’t understand, I’m sure.”

“Why, because I - ? Oh, whatever,” I grunt. “Whatever, Makado. Just shoot me and get it over with.”

“I don’t want to shoot you.”

“Right, of course,” I snarl, putting as much venom into my words as I can. “You want to hand me over to the feds so I can suffer for your sins, right? That’s the endgame here, right?”

She has the good graces to flinch, at least. “I don’t -“ she starts, but I shake my head.

“Whatever,” I tell her. “What happened to Elena?”

Makado looks round, her eyes resting briefly on the wreckage of the autodoctor unit. “I don’t know,” she says. “When I got down here it was like this, and Elena was gone. I was going to -“

“Kidnap her so you’d have some leverage?”

“Bitch, will you stop fucking assuming the goddam worst of me? I was planning on tracking her down and getting her out of here.”

“I don’t believe you,” I tell her, my voice flat. “How did you even know she was here?”

“Because I heard the two of you sopping all over each other on the radio,” she tells me, her voice hard-edged with disdain. “Soon as I heard she was here in DUSA, I split off from my team and rushed up here. Guess I was too late.”

“Goddam it,” I mutter. My cheeks are burning a little from the knowledge that we’d been overhead; I guess I could have assumed, but it still had felt like it had been something private, something special we had shared. Maybe I wouldn’t have broken down quite so hard if I’d known Makado had been listening in. “It must have been the Leechman,” I mutter, glaring at the gaping hunk of metal torn away from DUSA’s hull. My eyes are stinging and I wipe them hurriedly, not thinking, and when I take my hands down Makado is glaring at me very seriously over the sights of the pistol, and I realize that the quick motion nearly made her shoot me. My stomach does a backflip and I stammer out the beginning of an apology before she mutters a curse and takes a length of rope from her suit pocket.

“Hands together,” she orders me, and with a sigh I slap my wrists together and hold them out to her. She comes to me with the rope and hesitates for a moment; I know it’s because she’s only just realizing that she will have to put the gun away to tie me up.

“I’ll hold that for you,” I offer, and in spite of herself she laughs.

“Turn around,” she says. “Hands behind your back.”

My heart is thumping heavily in my chest as I do. I am trying very hard not to imagine the Leechman bursting into here like a demon straight out of a horror movie and swallowing Elena up into its swollen leechy body. I can feel my hands trembling as Makado takes my wrists and lashes them tightly together. The rough synthetic fiber cuts into my wrists and I grunt. Makado steps away from me and I flex my hands experimentally but it’s no use, she’s tied me tightly enough that I’d never be able to free myself unless I had a knife. She’s already taken mine from the sheath on my belt and tossed it casually to the dusty, oily floor.

Elena’s dead. I can’t stop the thought from echoing around my skull, increasing in severity with each impact. She’s dead, she’s gone, I was too late. If I had just been a little quicker, if I hadn’t stopped to sleep, if I hadn’t…

“Hey, what are you - oh, Jesus Christ,” Makado grumbles. I sniff and look away from her. I try to keep it down but a quiet sob bubbles out of my throat.

“Goddam it,” I mumble. I can’t even wipe my eyes. My shoulders are shaking with the weight of it, with the weight of knowing that -

Makado sighs behind me. “You didn’t kill her,” she says. “If she’s even dead. We don’t know.”

I let out a terribly mirthless laugh. “You didn’t kill him,” Makado continues, begrudgingly. “I know you didn’t, it’s not like you put a gun to his head and shot him. I just…”

“Don’t want him to be gone,” I suggest, and out of the corner of my eye, through a veil of tears, I can see her nod.

I feel as though I might rip in two the next time someone touches me, but in spite of everything I do want to reach out and touch her, brush my thumb along the knobby edge of her wrist, feel her warmth near to me. Maybe it’s pathetic and stupid, maybe I should be spitting and cursing and swearing revenge but I can’t bring myself to. I want to just curl into a little ball and cry.

Makado is rustling around behind me, and then I hear the click and crackle of a radio. “Peterson, Rodriguez,” she says, enunciating clearly. “Status check, over.”

A moment passes and then the response comes burbling up through the airwaves. “Peterson, checking in. I’ve got Rodriguez here with me but he’s carrying the crystal so he couldn’t call himself. Everything’s good down here. ETA 20 minutes to DUSA. Over.”

“Thanks. You were able to disable the specimen? Over.”

“Hard to say. It backed off but Emmanuel is hurt pretty bad. One of those leeches, it got into her suit and chewed the hell out of her leg. We’ve got her on a stretcher and we’re bringing her back but I don’t know if she’ll make it. Is the autodoc functional? Over.”

“Negative,” Makado says. Her voice is tight and fraying. “Negative, it’s smashed. It looks like the Leechman got here before we did. Over.”

“Shit. Well, Emmanuel is fucked, then. Do we have support from topside? Over.”

I hear Makado mutter a quiet curse below her breath. “Give me a second,” she says. “Out.”

I sniff hard and duck my head down into my shoulder, try and wipe my eyes against the rubber of the ranger suit. Makado is tapping at the pad in the arm of her ranger suit; she’s put the gun away at this point, tucking it into her holster at her hip. I could make a run for it, I reflect. Instead I fold my legs beneath me and sink into a huddle on the floor a little like a gazelle bedding down for the night. Makado glances over at me and then back at her screen. “Who’s Emmanuel?” I ask. My voice creaks partway through it, and when I clear my throat it comes back thick and congested.

“None of your business,” she tells me, a little absently. “You’d better stop crying,” she adds.

“Fuck you,” I tell her, but I can’t put much heart into it. “Fuck you for trying to walk all over everything and try to do it your way. You walked all over me, you walked all over the team, you walked all over Peter -“

Makado looms over me, ruddy bolts of fury sparkling behind her eyes. “You have no idea, you have no idea -“ she starts, but I roll my eyes at her.

“Do you have any idea how many people are dead because of you?”

That catches her, and I get a vicious little thrill out of seeing how it impacts, how she absorbs it, how her eyes grow even wearier. She starts to say something but I start listing off names.

“The Sergeant. Peter. Slate. Erica and Marcus. Klaus. Crookshank. Euler. Ellis. Emmanuel, whoever that is. And El - Elena,” I say. I have to swallow hard to get that last name out but I manage it. “They’re all your fault, Makado. If you hadn’t gone off the deep end because of this stupid fucking crystal none of this would ever have happened. Does it really matter? Does it really matter this much? Is it worth it? Tell me. Please. Do you even know?”

“They knew the risks,” Makado tries to say, but she isn’t meeting my gaze. “You wouldn’t understand,” she says, a little bit of strength returning to her voice. “You don’t know what it’s like to -“

“To have an obsession take over your life?” I finish, and she blows a breath out.

“I’m the only one trying!” she yells. “I’m the only one fucking trying to stop all of this! That crystal is the only thing that we have that we know can shut down the Pit if it wakes up again. Getting it back should be our top priority -“

“And the last time one of those crystals was used,” I point out, “it infected - I’m sorry, how many people? - with a fucking personality-destroying disease that spreads when you feel emotions and forces you to crawl into the Pit to die.”

“We know better now,” she says, hands on her hips. “We know what we did wrong. If we don’t shatter the crystals -“

“How do you even know? Aren’t you just guessing?”

“You have no right to tell me how to do my job,” she tells me. I can see her knuckles whiten with rage. “I’m doing what needs to be done. If the Pit woke up and became fully ambulatory, it’d be the end of the world as we know it. If you think that isn’t something worth stopping by any means necessary, then you’re either stupid or insane. Maybe both. If I -“

“Okay, Makado. Whatever,” I tell her. I feel as though if I shut my eyes I’d be able to fall asleep in about a minute. My heart hurts.

Makado glares at me and for a moment, just a moment, I think she might be about to draw her leg back and slam the hard edge of her boot into my gut, but instead she spins on her heel and walks away, fishing the radio out of its holster on her belt and talking quietly into it.

I think for a while about struggling to my feet and just walking out. I don’t think Makado would shoot me, I really don’t. I think she wouldn’t have the heart for it. Maybe she’d just let me go.

Elena’s dead. You haven’t seen the body, a little voice whispers in the back of my mind, but I don’t need to see the body. If the Leechman got her, I’m not sure I want to see the body. I would want my memory of her to remain clean. I want to remember her in the tent smiling down at me, I want to remember her hands on my body, the way her lips felt when she kissed me, the way my heart felt when she kissed me.

I spend the next twenty minutes or so agonizing myself before the clunk and hiss of heavy machinery, burbles glutinously up from outside the rent in DUSA’s hull. With a little difficulty I manage to sit up and look outwards, and I see three orange figures in ranger suits marching up out of one of the vents leading to this organelle. Two of them are carrying a fourth on a stretcher, and the third…

My mouth drops open. The third is incredibly bulky, far more so than a normal person in a suit, and as they come closer and step into range of DUSA’s flickering floodlights, I realize that they are wearing something like a white enameled arthropod over their arms and legs, a squat mechanical spider perched on their back like a backpack. Its limbs extend along the ranger’s arms and fill out into armored gauntlets encompassing their hands.

And in their hands, hefted with an assurance and strength borne, I imagine, solely from their armor’s assistance, is the crystal, green and spiky and menacing, with an ugly luminosity flaring somewhere deep inside of it. I think again that I can see something moving within its murky depths.

Makado rushes out to meet them, leaving me forgotten, and again I consider getting up and just walking away. I think I’ve missed my chance, though; if it was just Makado, she might let me go. With everyone else here, all of these other rangers, there’s no way I’d be able to get away with it. And who knows if she’d have any compunctions about letting someone else shoot me.

Makado, to her credit, only paused briefly to tell the ranger with the crystal where to set it down before rushing to the ranger on the stretcher. Even from a distance I can tell that she’s hurt badly; her orange suit is splattered with blood and there is an enormous hole in her side. I think I can see teeth marks. One of the rangers shows something to Makado; it looks a little like a very thick, dark length of rope, and I realize with a horrible twist in my gut that it’s a dead leech. It looks to be about three or four feet long; it’s head has been torn off and it trails a thick, foul-smelling ichor behind it in a long oozing trail.

The huddled conversation over the wounded ranger continues a while longer before the group breaks apart. The ranger with the exoskeleton carries the crystal into DUSA, moving with almost exaggerated care through the hole in the wall. He looks down at me as he passes, craning his neck around the crystal to make sure he isn’t going to bump into me. “You alright?” he asks. He has a thick Texan accent that makes me smile in spite of myself.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “Do you think you could untie me?”

He pauses. “You’re tied up?”

“Yes,” I say, rolling halfway over and waggling my fingers at him. “See?”

“Why are you tied up?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You’re Dzilenski, aren’t you?”

“I, uh. No.”

“No? What’s your name, then? I haven’t seen you around before.”

The weight of the crystal doesn’t seem to be troubling him at all. He cocks his head at me.

“Merriweather,” I tell him. “I’m new.”

He waggles a finger at me; the servos of the exoskeleton make little whining noises as he does. “Nice try,” he tells me, but I can tell from the shape of his voice that he’s grinning. I shake my head a little and give him a halfhearted smile.

“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” I suggest, and he laughs as he stomps off towards the stairwell, the crystal glowing malevolently in his arms.

A few moments later someone is taking me roughly beneath my armpits and hauling me to my feet. I stagger a little but keep my balance. I look over and see Makado glaring at me from a few inches away, but it seems as though her temper has died a little; there isn’t quite as much venom in her gaze as before. Without uttering a word to me she marches me out of DUSA and towards one of the rangers, standing on a small, bulgy lump of flesh with their hands on their hips. I feel a spike of fear in my stomach. “What are you going to do with me?” I ask her.

I can see Makado’s lip curl out of the corner of my eye. “I’m not going to kill you,” she tells me. “Peterson there is just going to take you up to the surface and give you back to the feds, that’s all. Then this whole stupid thing can be over and done with.”

“So that’s it, huh?” I ask, breaking out of her grasp and turning to face her. “You’re just going to throw me to the wolves? You really think that you can get away with this?”

“Roan,” she groans. “Do you think I want to fuck you over? Do you think I want to do this?”

“Well, from the way you’re acting -“

“This thing is bigger than you or me,” she says. “And I’m - I’m sorry,” she tells me. To my immense surprise I actually believe her. “I’m sorry, and I don’t want to ruin your life like I know I’m going to, but I - I have to do this. I’m sorry.”

Before I can say anything Peterson takes me firmly by the arm. Makado swallows hard and nods to him. “Take her up. There should be a contingent of FBI agents somewhere up there, I know it’s a mess but they should still be hanging around, probably yelling at Admin. Let them know she’s Roan Dzilenski, they’ll take it from there.”

“Right,” he says. “Come on, then.”

I stare back at Makado all the way over to the vent leading up to the passage out of here; she refuses to meet my gaze.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Peterson mentions, adjusting his grip on me to push a hanging fold of flesh out of the way.

“If you’re so sorry, let me go,” I tell him. He has a quiet, apologetic tone.

“I’m not that sorry,” he explains, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Look on the bright side,” he suggests. “You’ll be out of here soon. I’m sure that will be a relief.”

“Yeah,” I snap, “I’m sure that -“

Something falls onto my shoulder and I let out a shriek. It rolls off and slaps onto the ground with a wet, meaty thump and slithers away.

“Are you okay?” Peterson is asking. “What was that?”

I look up, knowing what I’ll see, but the Leechman actually comes at us from the side, the leeches boiling out of the fleshy wall with a noise like a million hungry mouths gnashing and chewing and slurping simultaneously, leaving the wall pockmarked and collapsing. Peterson blurts out a surprised curse and lets me go, his hands darting to his holster, but the Leechman is faster. It reaches out with a massive, dripping, writhing paw and fixes it around his head, lifting him bodily off the ground. Rodriguez screams and I hear commotion from behind, in the main organ housing DUSA, but his screams quickly become muffled and gurgly and thick. His hands and legs are shuddering and jolting like he were being electrocuted, and then my stupid, shell-shocked nerves finally, finally kick into motion and I stagger backwards. My foot catches on something and I fall; the ground comes slamming upwards to meet me and the breath whooshes out of my lungs just as the Leechman drops Peterson. The helmet of his suit is bent and crushed and although he lands on his feet, his body sways gently back and forth like a wind were catching it. The Leechman stomps past me and I cringe away from it, but it ignores me entirely. Its footsteps resound through the meaty floor and rattle my teeth in my jaws.

I am so scared I think I might throw up. Every fiber in my body is screaming at me to get up and run away, but I can’t force myself to move. “Hey,” I whisper, as the Leechman ducks its broad, wormy head and pushes into the organ. “Hey, uh, Peterson, are you okay?”

Rodriguez turns and looks at me and I scream. His face has been eaten away to nothing and his jaw is hanging from a few stringy tendons on the left-hand side of his skull. He shambles towards me and I scream again, and I hear my screams echoed from back behind me in DUSA’s chamber. It’s only a few moments later that the gunfire begins.

I kick my feet and try and push myself away from Rodriguez’s corpse. As I watch a leech crawls out of his mouth and plunges its snub-nosed head into the wreckage of his eye. The body lurches closer to me and into the light and I get a better look at him; my stomach nearly turns. I scream again and try to kick at him but he just catches my leg and drags me closer. The bone of his skull and the scraps of meat and flesh on his face are stained a dark, inky black with a dripping, noxious ichor. Without any preamble the body straddles me and shoves its fingers into my mouth. I choke and cough and try to kick and bite but it’s simply too strong. My eyes are filling with tears but I can still see the body’s cavernous mouth yawning and yawning and the body of an enormous leech slowly struggling up Rodriguez’s pitted, masticated throat. Though it has no eyes or face I imagine it leering at me, and though I redouble my efforts to get away, my throat convulsing in anticipatory terror, I can do absolutely nothing to stop what is about to happen to me. At the very last my courage fails me and I just squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the leech to barrel down my throat, wait with an anticipatory cringe to feel its needle-sharp teeth dig into my insides.

Instead I feel more than hear a horrific, bone-shuddering crunch from just ahead of me, and when I snap my eyes open it takes me a moment to comprehend what I’m seeing. Jutting from Rodriguez’s chest amid a thorny cluster of broken ribs is a bulky mechanical hand absolutely slick with gore and ichor. With a harsh mechanical whine it makes a fist and withdraws from the grapefruit-sized hole it made in Rodriguez’s chest and then seizes the body and flings it off of me. The body lands against the side wall of the vent with a wet crunch and then flops to the floor and lays still.

“Joker,” I breathe. The robot’s blocky, flat-panelled head is staring down at me with what I imagine to be a rather odd expression. It’s pitted and stained and rusted and every couple of seconds sparks burst from its torn left arm socket. Its armored torso is battered and dented and it moves with difficulty, but it still leans down over me and with incredible gentleness tucks its blood-drenched hand beneath me and brings me lightly to my feet. A moment later it has untied my hands and I can feel the blood rushing back into them with a clustering ache of pins and needles.

I can scarcely breathe I am so relieved but I still manage to reach up and put my hand on the machine’s metallic chest. “Jesus Christ,” I tell it. “I am so fucking happy to see you.”

But before I get any more out, a tall, blonde-haired blur slams into me and wraps me up in long, strong arms and lifts me off of my feet and nuzzles her face against mine. “Oh god,” Elena says, and before she can say any more my greedy, bruised lips find hers and for a moment, just a moment, amid the gunfire and the screams, I feel completely okay.

* * *

When we finally break apart and Elena sets me down on my wobbly, weak-kneed legs, I reach up and take her face in my hands. I still can’t quite believe that she’s here, that she’s alive, that she’s okay. My heart is beating so quickly that I almost feel nauseous and I don’t trust myself to speak. Elena’s eyes are wide and slatey; they flicker over me, dancing like roulette balls, just as she runs her hands over my arms, my legs, my sides and back. “Are you okay?” she asks. Her voice is shaky. I try to speak a few times but I can’t get any words out so instead I just nod. Elena leans in and kisses me again, briefly this time, and then, with her lips brushing my ear she murmurs, “I was so scared, Roan, I was so scared that I had lost you, I thought -“

“It’s okay,” I tell her. There’s another scream from DUSA and we both jump. I grab onto her desperately as she starts to pull away. “Listen, are you alright? The gunshot -“

“I’m okay,” she tells me. “I promise I’m okay. Jesus Christ I thought I lost you. Let’s get out of here.”

Next to her, Joker shifts on his damaged heels and creaks forward further down the vent, towards DUSA. Elena curses. “Hey, wait. Stop. We have to go.”

Joker ignores her. “Elena,” I ask, “what the hell happened? Why is Joker -“

“Whatever the Leechman did to him down in the barrows jarred something loose or damaged him somehow, he’s operating completely autonomously.”

I stare at Elena. “You’re not controlling him?”

“No,” she says. “He - I think he heard our conversation on the radio, that’s how he knew to come to DUSA to get me. It’s a good thing he did or Makado would have gotten me. He burst right in through the wall, it was fucking terrifying.”

“Joker did that? I thought it was the Leechman, I thought you were dead -“

“No, no, it was Joker! Oh, god, baby you must have been so scared -“

“I’m just glad you’re okay. Where did he take you?”

Joker looks back at us, then returns his gaze to the scene inside the organ ahead. The screams have largely died down now, but I can hear Makado shouting something, and a high-pitched electric whine that sets my teeth on edge.

Elena shakes her head. “He must have been monitoring Makado’s transmissions, I think he has to have a radio receiver in there somewhere. He grabbed me and brought me down to a little organelle maybe a mile away and we just sort of hunkered down there for a while.”

“Did he hurt you? If he -“

“No, no, he didn’t, it’s okay, I’m okay. Joker!” she yells. “We have to go!”

Joker ignores her. There is a curious sense of animation about its pose and its motions, quick and precise and birdlike. As I watch, its fingers flex tightly enough to dig deeply into the fleshy wall it rests against. Again its head swivels and glances back at us and I think I can feel its nonexistent gaze resting on me. “Elena, if you’re not controlling it, then who is?”

“I don’t know,” she says, glancing over at me. “I think nobody.”

“But how could it -“

“Roan, listen, forget about that for a moment.” Her lips are tugging upwards in an irrepressible smile and I can’t help but mirror her. I want to hold her and kiss her and - “there was something I needed to tell you, something I needed to tell you face to face,” she says. My stomach swoops upwards in a surge of delight and I reach out, take her hand in mine.

“Yes?” I ask, trying to sound innocent and oblivious.

“Roan, I -“ she starts, but before she can get more than a few words out, there is a whipcrack of thunder in DUSA’s chamber, and Joker bolts forward like a sprinter off the starting line, and we both scramble into action and chase after him.

DUSA’s wet, fleshy cavern is in utter disarray. Dead leeches are littered everywhere and there are massive stains of ichor and blood splattered all across the cavern, as though someone upended buckets of paint and flung them. A crushed, distended corpse in a black-stained suit has been driven so deeply into the flesh of the floor that it has nearly been snapped in two. Of the Leechman there is no sign, but as we watch, Makado and three other rangers come storming out of the other vent and take up defensive positions around it, hunkering down and training their weapons on DUSA’s hull. Makado is carrying a long grey brick of a rifle, bulky and supremely un-ergodynamic, with what looks like a lens in place of a barrel. I wonder about it for a moment before a sickly green glow floats into view and the Leechman emerges from DUSA, ducking its titanic head, with the crystal beneath one of its arms, held as casually as one might carry a basketball. It pauses there for a moment, peering out at the four small figures opposing it.

Makado looks scared; her face has paled to a sickly white and I can see the rifle shuddering in her trembling hands.

I can’t see where Joker’s gone; I catch Elena’s eye and frown, but she nods upwards a little, and I see the robot just above us, clinging to the ceiling like a monkey. It seems content to wait for someone to make the first move.

Behind the Leechman an orange-suited figure takes a juddering, unsteady step into the light, and I can see the limp exoskeleton clinging to its limbs like a length of sodden rope. Another figure follows, and then another, and even in the dim half-light, lit by strobes and flashlights and headlamps, I can see their bodies bulging and throbbing with the gallons and gallons of leeches seething beneath their skin.

My stomach betrays me and I bend double and vomit, trying furiously to wipe the image from my mind, but I can still see the man’s distended belly glistening beneath the orange ranger suit, pregnant with its load of parasitic cargo, and the thought sends a wave of furious revulsion scurrying up my limbs, coaxing rank, cold sweat out of my pores.

The Leechman takes a deliberate step forward and Makado pulls the trigger on her rifle. A coruscating lance of blinding white light jolts from the barrel with the same deafening whip-crack we’d heard before and spears the Leechman through the core of its body, blowing a meter-wide hole open clean through it and filling the air with the smell of burning leeches. The Leechman staggers back a step or two and reaches out to steady itself, dropping the crystal; it clunks to the floor with a strangely musical tinkle and I can see a few of the spikes shatter and fall to pieces.

Makado rises to her feet, a little color returning to her cheeks, and fires again. This bolt catches the Leechman through the head and forces it down to its knees. It puts one massive hand forward to catch itself and Makado burns it off. She advances on the Leechman, firing again and again until the thing is just a pile of writhing, dying leeches, slowly burrowing into the ground and the walls and the ceiling, trying to escape. The bodies of the parasitized rangers shudder and twitch but they hesitate, standing still as though bereft of any governing intelligence.

Finally Makado pulls the trigger and the gun hisses a loud, screeching complaint and vents an enormous gasp of steam from recessed ports in its side; through them I can see the gun’s innards glowing white-hot, and Makado tosses it aside after glaring down at it in disgust. She draws her pistol from her holster and trains it one-handed on one of the rangers, squeezing one eye shut and glaring down the sights.

I open my mouth to suggest to Elena that it might be time to leave, but before I can get a word out the Leechman charges past us, out of the mouth of our vent, forcing a shriek from my mouth, and bowls into Makado headlong, sending her flying. She slams into the wall on the far side of the organ so hard that I can see a Mak-shaped bruise forming in the Pit’s flesh when she flops to the floor, limp and helpless, either stunned or unconscious or dead.

The rangers open up on the Leechman but if the laser wasn’t enough to kill it, bullets clearly aren’t going to be enough either. The three parasitized rangers surge forwards as well, wading into the fray, but the Leechman is doing the heavy lifting. I cringe back against Elena as I watch it pick up a hapless, screaming ranger and pull him in half, a spray of gore and guts flooding from the man’s cleft torso and legs. I clutch at Elena, trying desperately to get my legs beneath me, and she pulls me up and steadies me.

“We have to go,” she says. I can hear a note of hysteria in her voice. I take a shaky step backwards into the vent and feel a leech writhe and squirm beneath my cleats. Another one leaps at me and thuds into my back. I can feel its jaws working to pierce the thick latex of the ranger suit, and I hop frantically, trying to reach backwards and dislodge it. Elena brushes it off of me and crushes it beneath her boot just as the Leechman vomits a tidal wave of blunt, wriggling bodies into the pried-open chest of another ranger, struggling weakly in the creature’s squirming grip.

More leeches patter against us, driving us unwillingly out of the vent as we crawl and duck and dodge, trying to avoid them. A nerveless, exoskeletoned paw swipes at me clumsily and I scream and throw myself out of the way. From my vantage point on the ground I see Elena shove the infested ranger back and unload the entire magazine of her pistol into his gut, but the body staggers towards us still. I can see Elena’s teeth bared, a mad glint in her eyes, and I know that she is about to charge the thing and I know that it will kill her, but I haven’t enough breath to tell her not to.

Deeper in the chamber, the Leechman plucks the head off of a ranger’s pinioned, struggling body as easily as separating an apple from a tree and fling the chunk away like a bloody comet. It slaps wetly to the ground only a few feet away from me and I roll back from it, nearly mad with terror. I can see the Leechman slowly turning towards us and I am so afraid I think I might die just from fear alone.

“El - El - El - “ I try, again and again, but I can’t breathe, I can’t speak, I can’t think -

Joker drops from the ceiling directly onto the parasitized ranger, landing with a sickening crunch and a whine of servos. Its head snaps upwards and regards the Leechman with a calculating stare, and the Leechman, impossibly, stops. It seems to cock its head at Joker, and then it takes a step forward, heavy and inevitable and menacing, but before it can go any further Joker launches itself at it with a scream of straining metal and whining pistons. I struggle to my knees and brush the leeches off of Elena, checking her suit for holes or punctures.

Joker is losing. The Leechman has torn its other arm off and tossed it aside, and now it’s yanking at Joker’s leg. Joker is lurching spasmodically back and forth, trying to get free, but the Leechman has too strong a grip on it. The leeches are flowing over the robot’s metal form and in a few more moments it looks as though it’ll be enveloped entirely. I can see Joker’s head turn with what seems like a titanic effort and peer back at us, and then it disappears beneath the surface of the Leechman.

I tug Elena to her feet and take a few faltering steps back towards the vent before there is a colossal wave of sound and light and heat from behind that bowls me over and knocks me face-down in the sopping, bloodstained flesh. Elena falls over me with a scream and for a while all we can do is cling to each other and pray that whatever the hell happened is over quickly.

A moment passes, then another. I roll over and, with more than a little trepidation, sit up.

It looks as though a bomb has gone off. There is a bloody, charred crater in the floor, and all that remains of Joker are a few metal fragments, embedded like shrapnel in the floor and walls and ceiling. The parasitized rangers have all been cut down, most of them separated into small pieces of flesh, both leech, and human, smeared across DUSA and the organelle like daubs of lumpy paint.

Of the Leechman there is no sign, and when I glance over at it, I realize that the crystal is gone as well.

After another few minutes of utter stillness, Elena and I look at each other. “Are you okay?” she asks, and I glance down at myself.

“Somehow,” I say, “I think I am. Are you?”

She pats at herself cautiously, peers down at her legs, wiggles her foot. “I think so. Did Joker - ?”

I point to the crater. “He must have exploded. Either there was some kind of self-destruct or whatever engine or motor it used was damaged, or…”

“Jesus,” Elena breathes, getting shakily to her feet. She offers me a hand and helps me up and for a little while all we can do is survey the carnage. I feel as though I want to cry and laugh and throw up all at the same time.

I squeeze Elena’s hand. “What were you going to tell me?” I ask.

“Is now really the time?” she smiles, and I bite my lip to keep myself from grinning back at her.

“At this rate, if you don’t say it now you’re never going to.”

“Roan,” she says, putting a hand on my cheek, “I -“

There is a groan from across the cavern and we both snap around. Over there, on the far side of the wall, Makado is starting to sit up. She looks shaky and shell-shocked and terrified. She sees us and tries to get to her feet, but her leg buckles beneath her and she falls back to the ground. Elena’s eyes narrow and she lets me go, starting towards Makado, her hands curling into fists. I have a knot in my stomach.

“Elena, wait,” I call after her. She spins and stares at me and then shakes her head.

“Don’t look,” she tells me, and for a moment, just a moment, I think of going after her and stopping her from - from doing whatever she’s about to do.

But instead the coward in me wins out and I avert my gaze, squeezing my eyes shut, my insides tensing in anticipation of a gunshot. I hear Makado cry out weakly, and I shudder.

There is a loud, satisfying smack, as of fist on jaw, and then a flopping sound. I look up and see Elena wringing her hand, cursing beneath her breath, before she flips an insensate Makado onto her stomach and, folding the woman’s hands behind her, begins to lash her wrists together with a length of paracord. She looks up and sees me staring, registers the expression on my face and gives me a laugh.

“You thought I was going to kill her?” she asks, and I blow a breath out and try to calm myself before I answer.

“I didn’t know what you were going to do,” I say, truthfully.

“I’m not a killer,” Elena tells me, hefting Makado’s slim frame onto her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “Jesus Christ,” she adds, adjusting her load a little. “This little shit is heavy.”

I kick at a piece of wreckage, a folded metal panel, bent from the force of the blast, and then reach down and with difficulty pull Joker’s battered torso out of the crater. Elena sets Makado down none too gently and comes over and squats beside me.

There’s something that looks a little like a car battery, jammed into a slot in the torso. I tug at it, using my foot to hold the hunk of metal steady, and it breaks free with a hiss like a seal being broken. “What is that?” Elena asks. I shake my head.

“BCPU - Property of Anodyne Berlin,” I read. “Mind Impulse Unit - B. Walken.”

“Walken?” Elena asks, incredulous.

“No,” I say, “this can’t - no, that’s ridiculous.”

“What is?”

“Burt Walken was Erica’s husband,” I tell her. “B. Walken, Burt Walken. She told me he died from the psychic illness from 2007, that Anodyne had never returned his body.”

The top of the box is translucent plastic, but it’s too dark to see inside. Elena reaches down and grabs her flashlight and shines it onto the box, and we both squint at it. When I comprehend what I’m seeing I nearly drop it - for there inside the box, soaking in a briny, gelatinous fluid, festooned with wires and covered in metal electrodes and circuits, are the ridges and folds of a clearly human brain.

* * *

“What were you going to tell me?” I ask Elena again once she gets off the radio. She’s spent the last fifteen minutes begging and cajoling and cursing someone on the surface to try and get them to send someone down to get us and finally, finally gotten a begrudging affirmative. I can slowly feel my spirits rising, and Elena even gives me a secret little smile as she comes to sit next to me, sinking down against the wall of the vent with a groan of relief. I lean my head on her shoulder and she kisses me gently on the forehead. A wash of warmth floods down my arms and legs and I have to restrain myself from seizing her and clutching her to me.

“You sure I shouldn’t just leave it a mystery at this point?” she asks, and I elbow her lightly in the ribs.

“Tell me,” I insist.

Elena leans back and takes my chin gently in her hand, inclining my face upwards to her. I can see her studying me, see her pupils dilate as they flick from my eyes to my cheeks to my nose to my lips. “I love you,” she says, and my heart jumps in my chest as though struck by lightning. I can feel myself grinning madly, and then our lips brush and then fit together as though they were made to do so.

And then, when our breath has finally grown short enough to force us to break apart, we slowly rise, Elena’s hand in mine, scarcely daring to tear our eyes from each other, and begin to gather our things for the long journey up.

Continue with the Epilogue

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#mystery flesh pit #Down the rabbit hole #writing #writeblr #alt lit #mystery #fiction #Novel #Michael Crichton #caving #disaster #the end

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sleekervae · 3 years

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The Neighbour [0.1]

Masterlist

Everything had played out like the rising action in a horror movie. And before the whole world's eyes, life on Earth had slowed to a snail-like crawl. Covid 19 was ravaging through cities and countries faster than a salmonella outbreak at a restaurant even Gordon Ramsay couldn't attempt to save. It was terrifying to watch, and even more terrifying to see work and interaction dry up so quickly. Especially for those who relied on social interaction to stay sane.

Luckily for Remington, he happened to be stuck with his brother when quarantine measures went into full effect.

It was no big deal living with Emerson, if anything, it was relatively more calm with two out of the three of them sharing a space. Sebastian and Larissa were staying well and safe in their own house, popping by now and again at the gate to check in on his little brothers. No doubt, it sucked. The album was pushed back, the tour called off, the only thing keeping the hype for 'The Bastards' release was social media.

At least Remington had comfort in the fact that he wouldn't have to endure this quarantine alone. Living in his own house all by himself, he'd probably drive himself up the wall and find himself hanging off the rafters (literally).

Tuesday morning was bright and warm, as they tended to be in LA. Emerson was sat comfortably at the kitchen table, drinking his usual cup of tea and reading the depressing headlines coming out of the news. Pepper was curled up at his feet, snoring softly and her little marshmallow body rising steadily. The neighbourhood was quiet, it always was, but it was especially tranquil these spring days in April. He simpered sardonically when he read the latest quote from the president, promising that the pandemic would pass come July.

His attention was gripped suddenly when he heard the low squeal of car tires. The youngest brother glanced outside the window, his dark eyes falling over the little blue Waivecar that had pulled up at the opposing apartment complex. Those cars had been coming back and forth for the last four days, with the same girl coming and going. And at night, the apartment facing the house would keep the lights on until two or three in the morning, but she wasn't partying. The most noise this girl made was the hum of her radio drifting out of an open window.

Clearly, whoever she was, she was still in the weeds of moving. Perhaps when she was settled, Emerson would go by and introduce himself, make her feel welcome. Considering how warm the climate was, this particular neighbourhood had a tendency to be quiet cold and private towards neighbours. No doubt many of them weren't a fan of the band and their at home antics.

Emerson was startled when his brother came bounding in, dressed in the same moppy grey sweats he had been practically living in for weeks. Thank goodness he wasn't wearing his heelys this time around; the other day he had crashed into the couch and flipped over onto the cushions, nearly smashing his head on the coffee table.

"The guys will be by in about half an hour," he said. Emerson narrowed his eyes at his older brother.

"He says as we're under strict orders from the state health officials to not see anybody," he murmured.

Remington pouted, running a hand through his evidently growing blonde hair. He pulled up a seat next to his brother, "Hey, you were the one who said it's getting too quiet around here. And besides, it's not like we're coming from opposite counties. Seb lives like four blocks down from us,"

"I'm just getting a little nervous, is all," Emerson shrugged, showing him the article on his tablet, "The numbers are still going up,"

"And they'll keep going up until they find a cure. And while they're doing that, we're going to be in the backyard playing soccer and eating pizza," Remington smiled.

"Who said we're having pizza?"

"I did. I just decided,"

"Maybe I want Mexican? Did you think about that?"

Across the street in the fresh red brick and black-trimmed apartment, three floors up from the ground and in direct line of the sun sat Eva. The twenty-four-year-old literary bachelor sat comfortably at her newly furnished desk, typing away at her laptop that was due for a battery change -- Eva just hadn't found the time to physically take it into the store. On her right she had a lukewarm cup of coffee, on the left her speaker which was softly blasting Tove Lo's new album. All the while, her bony fingers flew over the keyboard, her big stormy blue eyes skimming the words that sprinted across her document.

Eva got by as a writer, not a novelist or a poet, but as a ghost writer. She was hired to write materials for would-be authors and journalists, all of whom either didn't have the drive or commitment to write to the extent Eva did. Surprisingly, she made some pretty good money just off that. And while that work tended to be dry and bleak, Eva had spent her free time writing various fanfictions -- mostly for Hannibal and Criminal Minds. She happened to be quite prolific on Tumblr because of her literary fantasies.

And while her work was often isolating, Eva didn't live alone by any means. She had her pale tabby, Pluto, to keep her company. He was snoozing on the couch, despite how often Eva had trained him not to do that when he was a kitten.

She had just returned from an early morning run from the grocery store -- having learned the hard way that despite the pandemic, people will continue to flock to the stores in droves and it's almost impossible to social distance within them. As if moving out of her old apartment wasn't hard enough, now she had to deal with hastily late movers, jumbled lease agreements, and a pandemic.

In the throws of bittersweet silence, Eva's concentration was broke when a shrill alarm had her nearly jumping out of her seat. It was only her phone, the screen lighting up with a 'Blocked' ID. Eva smiled wickedly and declined the call.

The young writer pushed her rolley chair away from the desk and did a stretch, her head turning towards the house across the street. She figured a couple of frat boys shared the place, they had a few of their friends over from time to time but they were relatively quiet. The most she would hear out of them is some smack talk coming from the backyard.

Pluto's head popped up from the couch, then he leapt onto the floor and trotted over to the window sill, hopping up to spy on the unfamiliar car that was pulling up to the house. Eva could hardly care less. There was a statewide order to see only a small group of people as little as possible, and as long as the neighbours wouldn't bother her, she wouldn't bother them.

It was a shame, as if having to meet new people wasn't difficult enough for her...

A few hours passed and soon the silence in the Los Angeles neighbourhood was broken by the grunts and thwacks of a backyard game of pool basketball. The boys and a few of their friends were all the more engaged in their game while their girls sat aside on deck chairs under the beating sun. Under the shade of the pergola, their friend Andrew was grilling some sausages -- beef and tofu -- on the barbecue.

Remington was taking the piss out of Sebastian for being all over his girl, but who the hell could blame the kid? There was a new rush of life in the guitarist's face whenever the topic of Larissa came up. The same could be said for Emerson and Shy. Remington wouldn't dare admit he was a little jealous of his brothers' happiness, so he'd settle for loving his brothers but torturing them at every opportunity.

Breaking out from the cold water, Emerson gripped tightly to the rubber red ball in his hand. Just as Sebastian came to take a running dive into the pool, he reared the ball back and hucked it at his older brother, nailing him square in the chest. Instead of a graceful dive, Sebastian flailed sideways and crashed into the water. The ball ricocheted onto the deck and bounced away towards the front yard.

"Oh my God!"

"Emerson!" Shy scolded, a little horrified and yet not surprised at her boyfriend's actions. Sebastian broke out of the water and shook his hair out of his eyes. It was more his pride and the laughter of his friends that hurt than the fading sting of rubber against skin.

Emerson meanwhile just giggled happily as he high-fived Remington.

"You guys fucking suck!" Sebastian glowered at the younger boys.

At the same time, Eva had given up on work for the day. As random as it was, she decided she'd try to make bread: the apparent trend that was surging during this quarantine. She bought all the things she would need this morning.

Stepped a few feet into the kitchen, she pushed open the window a brisk breeze flooding in and freshening up the air. Her attention was skewed to the house across the street, hearing some mild echoes of conversation and the thrum of a radio in the air.

She went to gather her ingredients and tools, however, as she turned to fetch an apron she realized something was missing: the patter of feet behind her. Pluto was usually Eva's shadow whenever he was in the kitchen, always the opportunistic cat he was. However, he wasn't on the couch. He wasn't in his bed. He wasn't snooping around in her closet or hiding under the desk.

"Where'd the ball go?" Daniel called, clinging to the ledge of the pool.

"I'll get it" Remington swam to the ladder and pulled himself out of the water. He shook out his sopping blonde hair, unintentionally shaking his ass in his colorful swim trunks. Their friend, Michael, whistled from the pool. Remington only smirked on him.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, hunny," he sassed, waving his hand and ducked off to fetch the ball.

Puzzled, Eva grabbed Pluto's favorite bag of cat treats and shook it, the sound was always able to bring him out -- when he was within ten feet of the treats. The fact that he didn't appear told Eva that he must've gone out the window once again to wreak havoc.

With an irritated huff, she switched out her house slippers for her sandals and hightailed it out with the bag of treats.

The red rubber pool ball had rolled across the grass and lodged itself into a bush at the fence. Remington was awash in frigid goosebumps, not even the California heat could will away the pool's chill quick enough. Nevertheless, he crawled down and retrieved the ball from the brambles, swatting off what little dirt he could. However, his fixation swerved to the complex across the street when he heard a heavy slam.

"Pluto!" a young girl came charging out of the apartment complex, dressed in a slightly wrinkled white t-shirt and her jaw-length hair swivelled smoothly around her face as she frantically looked up and down the street, "Pluto!" she was shaking a little yellow bag.

Remington looked up and down the quiet street, almost expecting to see Pluto the Dog standing at the corner like Cartoon Cat. He glanced down quizzically at the ball, then back at the young woman.

Eva rubbed the stress lines on her forehead out of pure frustration. This wasn't the first time Pluto ran off, he always came back. However, the damn cat would always find ways to stir up trouble; rowling up dogs, plucking fish from little ponds, scratching at hanging laundry.

"Pluto!!" she shook the bag of treats.

"Hey!" Remington called, waving his hand to the stranger, "You alright?"

Eva glanced at the owner of that soft, yet scratchy voice. She hadn't even noticed the bleach blonde kid standing in the glint of the sun. Eva crossed the street and stood a few feet from the gate, keeping more than two meters distance.

"I'm sorry. Have you happen to see a cat running around? He's a pale tabby, couple black stripes, likes to chew shoes," she shrugged.

Remington only shook his head, "Sorry. I'm afraid not," he smiled sheepishly, "Did -- did you say he was a cat?"

"Yeah,"

"And you named your cat 'Pluto'? Like -- the dog?"

Eva smirked, but shook her head, unable to help but glance at the tattoos that crossed over this boy's torso, "He's named after The Black Cat," she said, "You ever read Edgar Allan Poe?"

Remington smiled sheepishly, "Oh right, right! I haven't read that in a while, actually. He named the cat after the Roman God for death,"

Eva smiled pleasantly, not having pegged this boy to know so much about EAP, "That's right. I wanted a black cat to fit with the theme but the damn tabby stole my heart,"

"He knew what he was doing, obviously," Remington grinned, "I'll keep an eye for him though, if I happen to --" he was cut short however when he heard Pepper start yapping from the backyard. The yapping was followed by the clanging of metal and a screeching yrowl.

"What the fuck?" Andrew suddenly shouted, “Where’d this cat come from!?”

Panic flooded over Eva's face and Remington didn't think twice to open the gate and let her in. Social distancing aside, they two of them rushed into the backyard to find a tray of sausages had crashed onto the floor, the meat had rolled everywhere. Shy clung to Pepper as the little pomeranien yapped and growled incessantly at the scruffy tabby on the patio table, back arched and hissing at the dog while he guarded his captured sausage.

Eva was understandably horrified.

"What the hell happened here?" Remington asked, just as in shock over the mess.

"Cat came out of nowhere and dive bombed our lunch!" Daniel replied, having just crawled out of the pool.

"Pluto!" Eva ran to the table and scooped up the snarling cat, Pepper was still yapping away, "What is the matter with you?" she scolded at Pluto before turning to Remington and Andrew, who still wielded the metal tongs in his hand, "I am so frickin' sorry!"

"No, no, it's okay," Andrew shook his head, glancing at the lost sausages longingly, "I was kind of craving sushi, anyways,"

"It's no big deal, honestly," Remington assured her, "Five second rule applies, I'm sure,"

"It's been about thirty-seven seconds," Sebastian spoke flatly.

"Since when were you counting?"

Larissa was the only one who didn't seem annoyed or surprised at the feline intruder. She smiled warmly at the young girl, "Is this your cat?"

"Unfortunately," Eva grinned sheepishly, "I should know better. He's in a new area and he tends to get into trouble. Also, if anyone happens to lose a shoe, he did it, and I'm apologizing in advance," she pointed a finger at the now calmed tabby.

Shy smiled, "Well, Pepper's no better. She tends to think she's a way bigger dog," she held up and coddled the fluffy pomeranian. Eva smiled awkwardly, only now noting that she forgot to grab a face mask. And here she was: in a backyard full of strangers in a pandemic.

"Wait, I recognize you," Emerson said, "You just moved across the street, right?"

"Yeah, that's me. Eva," she nodded, "Great first impression, right?"

"You couldn't do any worse than Curcio over here," Sebastian grinned, "Remember the split pants?"

"You're going to hang that over my head for the rest of my life, aren't you?" Daniel glowered.

"Maybe," Emerson turned back to Eva, "I'm Emerson, that's Sebastian, Daniel, Larissa, Michael, Shy, Andrew... and you've already met Remington, I see,"

"The best looking one," Remington grinned.

Eva nodded, "Well, it was very nice meeting you all, I should get going, though. And again, I'm so sorry about the cat,"

Remington shrugged, "It's just sausages. We can get more," he assured her, "Here, I'll walk you out,"

"Thanks," Eva smiled, keeping Pluto close to her chest as she passed Shy and Pepper. Pepper gave one last fleeting bark as the cat passed by. Pluto simply licked his lips.

Michael couldn't help but lean over as he caught one last glance at the new neighbour, then turning to Emerson, "How come you get the pretty neighbour?"

The drummer shrugged, reaching over to grab the rubber ball that Remington dropped at the end of the pool, "Dumb luck?"

#palaye royale #Palaye Royale imagine #Palaye Royale fic #remington leith #Remington Leith imagine #emerson barrett #sebastian danzig #boy bands #band imagines #band imagine blog #original story #original female character

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atiny-ahgase · 4 years

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The Magic Of Love

Author’s note: Hey everyone it’s Gabby again. I’ve had this idea for a while now, but I just didn’t have time to write it, I hope that you all like it. I’m not really familiar with Witchcraft and honestly, I’m not familiar with anything even remotely mystical but I just got this idea and thought that it was cool. So, this is it, hope you like it.

Summary: Y/n is trying their best to balance being a witch and university student at the same time. While they were out shopping for materials they bump into a rather handsome stranger. Small talk revealed that they actually had some classes together like Medieval History and Literature. They soon became hyper-aware of his presence and began wishing for his company. Not trusting your own charms to impress him you decide to conjure up your charms ‘if you get my drift’. What happens when you turn to magic to solve your problems?

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Pairing: Hongjoong x Gender Neutral Reader

Word Count: 4.8k

Genre: Fluff, School au

Contains: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Magic but not really, Gender Neutral Reader,

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Releasing a loud sigh as you feel your perspiration dripping from your brow. “Why did I have to go shopping on literally the hottest day of the year?” you thought as you took a left down the alley slightly tripping over a piece of trash. “There is a trash can like 1 centimetre away, what the hell?” you state while looking at the trashcan in question. With your attention focused on the sheer laziness and disregard that individuals had for their surroundings and the environment as a whole you didn’t notice that you were walking while not exactly looking where you were going. The fact only becoming aware to you when you bumped into someone, causing you to drop along with all of your brown paper grocery bags onto the cold street floor.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry,” you begin while looking up at the stranger whom you collided with. Looking up at him the first thing you realized was his bright blue hair. The cold hue contrasting with the warmth of this eyes. His hair reminded you of the crystal clear skies, vast and beautiful, deep and mesmerizing. His eyes like the brown tree trunks that bordered your childhood home; a brilliant brown filled with life and warmth. “No it’s my fault,” you heard the stranger say, the cheerful tone in his voice catching you off-guard. “Are you okay?” he inquired while bending down to help you up from the spot where you had fallen.

“I’m fine, thanks,” you begin, “I’m a lot tougher than I look”, you beamed at him. You had never seen anyone as handsome as he was; surely you would have remembered. Looking up at him you smile brightly as you hear him release a soft chuckle at your comment, his dazzling smile shining like the midday sun, beautiful and blinding. You grasped his hand in yours, face heating up as you feel the warmth of his hand. Rising up from the floor you quickly dust off your jeans and palms before thanking the kind stranger.

“Thank you, and it really wasn’t your fault,” you confessed, “I just zoned out for a minute.” “Well as long as you’re okay then I guess it doesn’t really matter who’s at fault it is,” he replied before shrugging slightly. Stooping down you begin to retrieve all of your fallen items, placing them back into their bags. As you stayed on the floor you heard the steps of the blue-haired boy begin to fade, guess he’s leaving now.

After collecting all of your things you stand up, holding the paper bags in your hands once more. “I think you forget something,” you hear a voice just a few steps ahead of you. “This one must have gotten away from you,” he joked before handing you a silver can. The sun shone off of its ridges, reflecting the light onto the dark, dismal alleyway walls. “Thank you...again,” you say shyly before taking the can and placing it in your bag. “I’m Hongjoong by the way,” he says while extending his hand to you before pulling it back towards him, a look of embarrassment clearly on his face. “Sorry, your hands are full, you couldn’t shake my hand anyway-,” he began blabbering more to himself than to you. “I’m Y/n,” you interrupted.

He flashes you another smile as you begin to walk forward, you had finally finished shopping for all of the ingredients that you needed. Not wanting to endure the heat of the day anymore you were heading home to study your potion brewing. You had a big exam coming up and you need to pass if you wanted to be promoted to a higher rank, but at the rate, you were going that seemed almost impossible.

----

You had been practising witchcraft for about 5 years now; learning about it from your deceased grandmother. Things were incredibly difficult for you at the beginning as you tried to catch up with your peers. Everyone seemed to be better than you, granted you did start later than everyone else but the school board clearly didn’t care. Because of this, you struggled to make friends and eventually just gave up on the idea as a whole realizing that it wasn’t worth it.

Usual school wasn’t as difficult to make friends but the relationships never seemed to last long, every time you even tried to get close to someone the relationship acted like a castle of sand, crumbling the moment you try to grasp it. So you cut yourself off from that part of life completely, finding the work unnecessary and the pain too detrimental. Choosing to solely focus on your studies in both usual school and magic school, convincing yourself that relationships were unnecessary especially love. Falling in love was like basically signing your own death wish, like falling off a cliff to your rocky demise.

You were now entering university as well as still furthering your studies in the art of witchcraft. You knew that it was going to be difficult but you weren’t willing to part from either aspects of your life just yet. You had a huge exam coming up and needed to study your potions and spell casting, hence the reason for your unusual shopping trip. You were never really the best at potion making always seeming to choose the wrong ingredients or quantities almost always resulting in an explosion.

Hopefully, you’d have better luck in university; you were just starting a new year at a whole new school filled with a bunch of new people. You are really excited to start especially since all of your past peers opted for going to a school outside of your district. So you didn’t have to worry about your old bullies rearing their ugly heads at you.

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While walking you noticed that Hongjoong was going in the same direction as you, which wasn’t too odd considering that it was a pretty small town; there weren’t many places to really go. But that was one thing that you really loved about it, you found comfort in its familiarity. “So are you a local here?” you hear Hongjoong ask from beside you, probably tired of the deafening silence which had formed. “Well kinda”, you began “, I moved here when I was really young and I’ve been here ever since.”

You both seemed to click almost instantly and you welcomed his company, it had been such a long time since you’ve actually had a real conversation with someone. For being a complete stranger he knew more about you in the few minutes that you both walked together than anyone else in your life. It was amazing how he just broke down walls that you hadn’t even realized you had formed, turning them to rubble before your very eyes. You could honestly talk to him for hours and never get bored, he made every topic sound so riveting, you found yourself hanging off of every word that escaped his lips.

To your dismay, you spotted the bright red roses of your apartment garden much sooner than you had wanted. You couldn’t hide the small frown that had spread across your face once you were hit with the realization that you’d both me parting ways soon. “This is my stop,” you state while gesturing to your apartment building. “Well, I guess that I’ll see you around the Y/n,” he chimes in, sending you another one of his stunning smiles which you immediately return.

You both say your goodbyes before you walk up to your brick staircase and enter your apartment. Upon closing your front door you lent against the cold wood, back pressed up against it you released a soft sigh. He was nice, really nice, it had been so long since you had last enjoyed having a conversation with someone. Most of your conversations lately consisted of bickering with the other witches in your class or defending yourself against the bullies in your school. You had forgotten just how much you had missed pleasant conversations like that, the last time you had smiled so brightly was when you had told your grandmother that you had gotten into magic school. She was so happy, her face lit up like the brightest star on a Christmas tree. That was one of the best memories that you had shared with her; she was always a lively spirit, her young soul would often rub off on you, convincing you to look at the world in a more exciting light. You missed her, you truly did but you’d never forgotten everything that she had taught you, all of the time that you had spent together.

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The blaring sound of your morning alarm cut through the silence of the early morning like a knife through butter, shattering your pleasant dreams. Sighing loudly you rollover smashing your hand against the screen in a few futile attempts to turn off your alarm. You groan as you rise from your bed rubbing your eyes in an attempt to remove all remaining sleepiness. Today was the first day of school and even though you weren't really planning on trying to impress anyone you still wanted to look good for yourself. Rolling off of bed you readied yourself for the day deciding on is a simple button-up shirt with your favourite pair of blue jeans and converse sneakers. Your jeans were slightly rolled at the ankle allowing your mismatched socks to be seen, they were honestly your favourite parts of the outfit. Flinging your leather bag over your shoulder you grabbed your phone and keys before exiting the door. The journey to university wasn't that long since your house is fairly close to the campus.

Once you had arrived on compass you unzipped your bag in search of your schedule for the day. The edges of the paper blew violently due to the strong winds you were experiencing. Clutching the paper tightly in an attempt to keep it from flying away, you quickly skimmed through the page in search of your first classroom. Reading over your schedule you notice that your 1st class of the day was , Medieval History, the second floor of the history building room 208. Carefully placing the paper back into your bag you zipped it up before briskly walking to your class. Passing numerous students and faculty members you finally made your way to the large brown building. “How long was this building established?” you wondered before pushing open the doors to enter the Hall.

Walking to the elevator you pressed the button and waited for it to reach your floor. Standing there you rocked on the soles of your feet mind aimlessly wandering before you heard an all too familiar voice. Looking away from the closed elevator door you notice a fluffy head of bright blue hair. “Are you stalking me, mister Joong?” I enquire, a slight playfulness in my voice. He chuckles from beside you before replying “So you’re really walking around here thinking that my first name is Hong and my family name is Joong?” he queries while cocking his eyebrow at you.

Smiling brightly you turn to him, “I actually have no idea what your last name is but I had already committed to the sentence so there was no turning back”, you reply. “So you go to school here?” he continues while entering the elevator. “Nah, I just like to take pictures in front of the art wall,” you joke while standing beside him. You reach forward to press the elevator button but your hand stops midway when you realize that your floor has already been pressed. “You heading to room 208?” you question, noticing the textbook in his hand, it's the same textbook that you have in your bag. It was seated comfortably between your journal and binder. “Who is stalking who now?” he jokes, smiling brightly while leaning against the shimmering silver of the elevator walls.

Heading into class, you both sat next to each other at the front row closest to the door. Not long after your arrival, your lecturer began well...lecturing. Retrieving your book from your bag you began diligently taking notes, your attention hanging off of every word that he spoke. Glancing over at Hongjoong you see him slightly hunched over his deck, eyebrows slightly furrowed in concentration as he writes in his book. The class was fairly short as it was the first day and before you knew it you were packing up, getting ready to head to your other class. You and Hongjoong walked side by side discussing the lecture as well as all of your other classes. “I have History now what about you?” he inquired as you both reach the ground floor of the building. “I have a free period now but I have to go to the main admin building to sort out some stuff,” you responded. “Ugh I envy those guys at admin, they get to spend more time with you,” he spoke while nudging you gently. You couldn't help the blush that crept up on your face, heating up your body. “I’ll see you next class right,” you continued before exchanging numbers with each other.

----

“Okay, so I add this powder to the base and the liquid should turn from clear to purple right?” you ask yourself while standing over your pot. This was the 5th time you were trying this out with no success. This was not the time to be messing up, your potions exam is in 1 week. At this rate, you'll never be promoted to a higher rank. Looking down at the pot you sigh defeatedly “, Still clear.” You slumped down onto the pillowy cushions of your mint green couch allowing your body to be wrapped in its soft embrace. “This isn’t amateur hour Y/n, it wasn't supposed to happen like this,” you spoke softly and you were right. It wasn't supposed to happen like this, you weren't supposed to spend all your time with him, you needed to study and you knew that but then why? Why were you so drawn to him? This had never happened before so why now? Why him?

You've been in university for 2 months now and you'd hardly studied for anything whether it be magic-related or not. But do you know what you have done? Hang out with Hongjoong a lot, you both went to the movies, campus café and library under the pretense of studying but you both just ended up talking about your favourite authors and guess what? You both liked the same writer. You had never meshed with anyone that well before. You felt like you could talk to him for hours about everything and nothing at all. He made you feel, for lack of better words, like you were floating. You could talk with him for hours and it would only seem like a few minutes to you. If you should spend your entire university life next to him you would.

But you knew that you couldn’t because he's way too popular to want you by his side 24/7. This thought became clear to you when you had agreed to meet up with Hongjoong at your University Café. Walking into the quaint little shop you were greeted by the smell of freshly baked banana bread; your favourite. Scanning the shop you quickly spotted Hongjoong sitting in the corner with 7 other guys, seemingly causing chaos in the once quiet shop. You smiled brightly as you waved at him, gulping down that feeling of social awkwardness you always get around large groups you sat next to him. He had saved a seat for you.

After ordering your coffee the guys all started to have what appeared to be a very lively conversation but you couldn't focus on anything they were saying. It was something about a party that was happening later in the week that was surely gonna have a bunch of really attractive people attending. That was kinda when you zoned out, Hongjoong was out of your league and you knew it. He was smart, sweet, talented, handsome, caring and so much more. Meanwhile, you were struggling to keep up with your workload, your hair was a mess and you have to mentally prepare yourself before even raising your hand in class to ask a question. He seemed to be so put together while you were just falling apart more and more each day.

But still, you wanted to be beside him even if it was only for a little bit longer, you weren't ready to let go of him yet. Releasing a loud sigh over how absolutely stupid you were being you plopped yourself down; rather clumsily I might add, unto your couch causing the book which was hanging on for dear life to fall onto the cold wooden floor. Bending down you realize that it was one of the magic books that you had borrowed from the library. Picking it up you see a piece of paper slip out from between the pages. Grasping it in your hands you carefully unfold it and read the words. “Love Potion”, you read “, Upon consumption, the subject will confess to the first person they see.” You rub your eyes briskly to ensure that what you were seeing was right. A potion that makes you fall in love with the first person you saw? Surely that was too good to be true. If you were to use it on- no you can't even think about using it on Hongjoong. What were you even thinking? Practicing unsanctioned magic was against the rules. But...why was that the only thing stopping you from making this potion? You are pulled from your thoughts by the ringing sound of your cell phone.

“Hello?” you answer, too preoccupied to look at the caller ID. Listening through the phone all you hear is hushed mumbling. Looking at your screen you realized that it was Hongjoong, but why would he be calling at this hour? He was supposed to be at a party with the others. He must have called you by mistake, you deduce. Readying yourself to end the call you stopped when you heard an unfamiliar voice come through the phone. “I like you,” it said. In that instance, you felt as though your entire world was crashing down before you. He was being confessed to? Why did this even shock you? Someone like Hongjoong would surely find someone to date in a matter of time, he's just that wonderful. Of course, people would fall for him, you definitely did. “Sorry,” you hear him say in that oh so sweet voice that you loved so very much “, I have my plate full with school so I don't really think that I should be getting into a relationship”.

That was all that you needed to hear. Sure you felt sorry for the person that had confessed, at least they had the balls to do it, unlike a certain someone. That was when you had finally made your choice, you were making that potion. You didn't care if you got caught by your magic teachers, Hongjoong was worth the risk. Reading over the list of ingredients you ransacked your apartment in search of everything that you needed. Thankfully you had everything since you had gone shopping for more supplies only days before. Looking over your instructions again you noticed a small disclaimer at the bottom of the page. “Disclaimer: Potion will be ineffective if the subject is already in love; there is no force stronger than true love”. Were you really going to do this? Yeah, you were.

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Everything was finally in place. You had made the potion and mixed it in with cupcake batter in order to mask the taste. You had invited Hongjoong over for a study session which he immediately accepted because even he knew that you needed all the help you could get. Placing your hand over your heart you attempted to calm your breathing before he arrived. Too late. The ringing of your doorbell caused you to jump from your seat. Trying to keep your cool you opened the door and smiled at him. He wore his blue hair slightly wavy which gave it this adorable fluffy look, he looked so cute. He had a bright yellow barrett and matching yellow turtle neck which he wore under his opened coat. Upon seeing you he returned your smile before stepping into your apartment.

“Something smells good”, he states while resting his coat on your coach. “Yeah I baked cupcakes,” you chimed in while trying to sound excited. “Shouldn’t you be studying instead of baking,” he inquired while quirking a playful eyebrow at you. You chuckled at his playfulness before heading to the kitchen to grab 2 muffins. “I just wanted to thank you for coming over to help me. You didn’t have to so I really appreciate it,” you said before handing him the muffin. “What if I want that one?” he asked while pointing to the muffin in your other hand and pouting. “I picked this one out for you because it has the most blueberries and they remind me of your hair,” you whined at him. You could of sworn that you had seen him blush. “Thank you,” he mumbles before taking the muffin from your hand and taking a bite. In those moments you thought that your heart was going to explode. This was what you had been waiting for and it frightened you so much more than you had expected.

“Y/n I love”, he began while wiping the muffin crumbs off of his mouth “, these muffins”. You felt your heart sink and you knew that Hongjoong could tell. If the potion didn't work there was only one reason why; he had liked someone else. You tried your best to play it off but there was honestly no hiding your disappointment. You ate your muffin before you both sat on the couch to go over your notes and begin studying for your upcoming exam but Hongjoong knew that you weren't feeling it. “Let’s take a break okay Y/n,” he said before standing up to stretch his legs. You, however, stayed completely still on the couch, your mind somewhere else completely.

“When exams are over Mingi is gonna hold a party, well it's more like a little get together. Do you wanna come?” Hongjoong asked from beside your window sill. The silver moonlight illuminating his face so flawlessly. Your mind wandered back to the party that Hongjoong had gone to previously, the bad memories of his confession eating you up inside. “How was the last party?” you asked, catching Hongjoong off guard. “Same old same old I guess. Would have been more fun if you were there,” he smiled at you, an uncertain look in his bright brown eyes. “So nothing interesting happened?” you pushed, you had no idea why you were pestering him. You were just so mad and disappointed in yourself that you had to let it out. Granted absolutely nothing was Hongjoong’s fault you still needed to get out your frustrations and he was the only one here so...

He paused for a moment, attempting to recall the events from that night. “San and Wooyoung threw Sangie into the pool. It was pretty funny,” he smiled at you. That had always been your weakness. He had always been your weakness. Even in your shocked and disappointed state he still managed to make you smile. You were so jealous of the person who had his heart, you hoped that they would cherish it the same way that you did. The rest of the night carried on with no hiccups, Hongjoong thought you, you kinda listened and kinda stole glances at him every chance you could get. Just because he was in love with someone else didn’t mean that you weren’t still in love with him. After about 5 hours of you being almost completely lost, Hongjoong decided that it was time to call it quits for the night. Although you were happy that you could finally be alone with your thoughts you also dreaded this moment because you had to now be alone with your thoughts. There was no Hongjoong to distract you from well...Hongjoong. You both said you goodbyes before he pulled you into a hug, one hand resting on your back as the other one stayed on the back of your head, rubbing it gently. You rested your head on his shoulder and breathed in his scent. You hand never hugged him before, he smelt of cologne and vanilla. You were determined to engrave that scent into your memory because you probably weren’t going to be getting any more hugs from him after what you were about to do.

So what if the potion didn’t work? So what if he loved someone else? Honestly, who cares? The only thing you cared about was him and you needed him to know that. You couldn’t just sit around and mope about it, you needed to let it out, otherwise, how would you heal? You gripped the back of his shirt when you felt him begin to pull away. “Just a moment more,” you thought. You felt him stiffen in your arms but he simply wrapped his arms around you once more and pulled you even closer to him. That was all it took for your heart to burst. All of the emotions that you had harboured for those 2 months, 1 week and 2 days were finally breaking through to the surface and you could do little to stop it. You felt a single run down your face, its warmth paling in comparison to the warmth of Hongjoong’s embrace. You opened your mouth to speak, thinking that it would be easier for you to confess if you didn’t have to see the disappointment in his face. But he beat you to it.

“If you keep doing things like this I’m going to get the wrong idea,” he whispered, arms engulfing your body in his own. “If you keep breaking down my walls I’ll be left defenseless,” he continued as he nuzzled his face into your neck, his warm breath tickling you slightly. Were you hearing correctly? Was he actually saying this to you? You gripped his shirt even tighter, nails slightly grazing the skin on his back, but he didn’t seem to mind. “I-If you’re defenseless,” you began while swallowing the lump in your throat, your voice shivering in anxiety “, then I’ll protect you. That’s the deal; my heart for yours.” You thought that it was impossible for Hongjoong to hold you tighter than he already was but Hongjoong always seems to find a way. “No take-backs okay? Once I give you my heart it’s yours forever,” he spoke pulling away from you, his eyes searching yours for any ounce of uncertainty. Finding none he gently cupped your cheek, his thumb aimlessly drawing circles on your skin as he smiled at you, but the smile never reached to his eyes as his hand slowly shifted down your cheek to allow his thumb to caress your lips. They quivered at the contact as your body froze under his intense gaze. You had never seen him look that way before, and the fact that he was looking at you made this moment even more unbearable.

“Joong,” you squeaked out, eyes silently pleading for him to do something, anything. Once you had broken the silence that was the last straw, it was as though your voice was the last raindrop that broke through a dam of emotion. His hand stayed on your cheek as the other wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer. In direct contrast with the hasty movements of his hands his plush lips glided across yours with such gentleness, it felt as though you were kissing a feather, light and airy. You both eventually pulled away from the kiss, in desperate need of air but that didn’t stop Hongjoong from placing small, breathless kisses along your neck and literally, anywhere he could attach his lips to. You chuckled slightly as his hair tickled your sensitive skin. Placing your hand on the nape of his neck, you caressed his head, fingers tangling in the blue ocean of his head. “I love you so much Y/n,” you hear him mumble from against your neck. You couldn’t stop the blush that had crept up your face at his words. You had dreamt about him saying those words to you for so long and now that he had finally said it you feel as though your heart was going to explode. But you couldn’t let that happen, your heart was his now. “I love you to Joongie,” you softly whisper as you wrap your arms around him.

#Ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez fanfiction #Ateez au #au fanfiction #hongjoong x reader #Hongjoong x Gender neutral reader #ateez x gender neutral reader #School au #kim hongjoong #hongjoong #ateez fluff #Hongjoong fluff #kim hongjoong fluff #hongjoong x reader fluff #fluff

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derivativealigner · 3 years

Text

I rewatched the second season of South Park and took so many notes that I had to split them into two parts. Like seriously, I took so. many. notes. And pictures this time. I started rewatching just in case I’d find some cool little facts to sprinkle into my fanfic but I went way too far and now there’s a million facts under this cut (including gay stan, a domestic violence psa, and craig fucking dying)

Stan doesn’t like hospitals, he finds them gross and he gets sick 🤮. Also the hospital in South Park is called Hell’s Pass hospital. Early seasons have the name as Hells Pass but it gets fixed later

Cartman has to sing all of Come Sailing Away by Styx if he hears a part of it. After he says this, Kyle sings the first part and Cartman has to sing the rest. Kyle does it again later, which is kinda mean

Cartman’s mom tries to abort Cartman, who is an eight-year-old child and thus cannot be legally aborted. Later, after she slept with Bill Clinton to change the law and make 40th trimester abortions legal, it turns out she meant adoption

Kenny sacrifices himself to turn on the generator to the hospital and save Dr. Mephesto’s life along with others. He says “I’ll fucking do it” then does it and dies, absolute legend

Cartman gets way too into his deputy role. He goes undercover, pretends to be a prostitute, says “Respect my authoritah!” a lot and beats people up with his police stick

Kenny’s brother first appears when Cartman responds to a call about a disturbance at Kenny’s house. Apparently there are like 10 adult family members in the house at that time. Kenny’s dad has a black eye because Kenny’s mom punched him. She says he can’t hold a job

Token sits in the classroom in season 2

Cartman starts hating hippies in this season, like a lot

Chef tells the boys that the right time to do drugs is in college

Ike’s name is Ike Moisha Broflovski and he was born in 1996, making him 2 years old in 1998 when this season aired

This is probably obvious but yeah Kyle and Ike are circumcised

Kyle says family isn’t just blood, it’s who you care about, and he says “That’s why you guys are more than just friends, you’re my family. Except for Cartman.”

Craig’s finally sitting in the classroom in S02E04

None of the boys like dodgeball

Clyde gets a dodgeball to the face and he cries :( and he’s the only one who cries by the way

Pip throws a dodgeball in Kyle’s face and breaks Kyle’s nose

When Kyle’s mom tells the boys about conjoined twin myslexia (which isn’t a real term) and says anyone might’ve absorbed their dead twin in the womb, Stan and Cartman run away screaming but Kenny and Kyle stay to listen. Kenny even leans in to look at the book “Freaks A-Z!” that Mrs. Broflovski is reading from, and when she leaves, Kyle grimaces and Kenny laughs

Stan’s mom (Sharon) calls Kyle’s mom (Sheila) when Stan is all freaked out and trying to put an icepick through his brain, and Sharon tells Sheila to get run over by a truck. Sharon is pretty mean in these early episodes

Mr. Broflovski doesn’t really listen to what Mrs. Broflovski is saying, bad husband >:(

South Park’s team is always called South Park Cows no matter the sport

The school nurse, Nurse Gollum, went to Colorado State University

I just realized Butters exists. I think he appeared before S02E05 but I didn’t notice but yeah he’s there with the dodgeball team, injured

Here’s a picture to make up for my disgusting anti-Butters bias

Kenny’s dodgeball uniform number is 69 obviously. Kyle is 7, Stan is 4, Cartman is 325

Sheila smacks Gerald in the face so hard he falls off his chair, lots of violence perpetrated by women in this show. Remember, don’t do domestic violence no matter your gender, it’s not cool

I realized after this whole Butters thing that I should’ve made more notes about Pip, so I’ll make a note about his anger issues now. When people call him French, he gets angry and throws dodgeballs at them

The boys launch a jelly roll at Ms. Crabtree and make her crash the bus. They do it just for fun

The kids somehow go to China in the school bus

Cartman references Moby Dick, but he probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about

Kevin Stoley gets named in S02E05 and has his first speaking role when he says he has Chinese parents and after Cartman hears it he immediately says something racist. smh cartman, what a problematic fave

Cartman says “I love you guys 😊” but Stan and Kyle just stare at him and he goes 😐 “Eh, screw you guys 😠”

If Jimbo and Ned really fought in Vietnam, they youngest they could’ve been in 1998 is early forties, which means in the latest seasons they would be early sixties. Btw they met in Vietman

Jesus and Pals is a recurring TV show in seasons 1 and 2. Jesus just kind of lives in South Park

I just remembered that Terrance and Phillip are really old in canon, it’s so weird, like how can South Park canon still be changing, it’s been 20 years

Also the early seasons are casually racist who knew

Kenny flashes his ass on a tape the boys send to Jimbo and Ned’s TV show, which airs and at least 12 people see Kenny’s bare naked ass

Cartman really doesn’t like hippies in these early seasons. He throws a chair at Ned and yells, “Take that, hippie!” (Ned is in a catatonic state and did nothing to provoke this)

Jimbo and Ned live together I guess. Jimbo’s gonna take Ned home and show him some hardcore porn to snap him out of his catatonic state, good husband unlike Gerald Broflovski

Saddam Hussein is in hell and has a Canadian accent and is Satan’s lover in S02E06, I guess he died in Canada in the first episode this season but I wasn’t paying much attention since that’s the Terrance and Phillip episode that pissed a bunch of people off in 1998 because the audience wanted to know who Cartman’s dad is instead. It was kind of a boring episode so I understand why everyone was pissed, but it is funny that Matt and Trey did that so I’m not mad about it

Aww look at them!!! We’ve got background Style, the vaguest inkling of Crenny, and Cartman/Cake

I’d take more screenshots but it’s a pain since I’m watching legally and stupid legal websites block screenshots so I have to find youtube videos instead ughhhh piracy is the answer kids

Apparently there’s a huge waterfall and canyon somewhere close to South Park, maybe? At least in Stan’s dream

Mary Kay Bergman was an incredible voice actor. How the hell did she voice all the moms, Wendy, Shelly, principle Victoria, the mayor, Nurse Gollum, and fucking Ms. Crabtree??? Holy shit what a queen

Kenny has some feelings about death. He reimagines the episode where death boops him to death and in his version, he beats death the fuck up, then has ice cream and is happy 😊 But again, this is in Stan’s dream

S02E07 kind of establishes that nobody remembers Kenny dying because when Cartman tells a story where Kenny dies, Kyle questions how Kenny could’ve died then when he also died just a few hours ago when a giant monster took him

rip craig, he falls out the bus and into a canyon

But it’s okay because it was all Stan’s dream so everything in the episode is questionable. Everything after this is no longer a dream

Pip’s parents are dead and he has to go to summer school while everyone else is having a nice summer break

Officer Barbrady and the mayor are having sexual relations, I’m sure this is the most interesting note I’ve made so far. Idk I’m just writing everything down, this is how I enjoy things, I have no off switch

Ew summer bus stop, cursed

Kyle casually sings little tunes every once in a while, how cute

This is pretty obvious but Kenny likes dirty jokes, he laughs when Cartman innocently says he loves Chef’s salty chocolate balls (which are chocolate candy). Nobody else laughs

Cartman says “Screw you guys, I’m going home” or variations of it a lot in this season

So Stan throws up when he likes someone, right? Well, he’s watching an indie movie about two gay cowboys who start making out and he throws up, which is either a terrible homophobic joke or confirmation that Stan’s a little gay. I know which one I prefer

Kyle says Mr. Hankey is his best friend after Stan. Like I know it’s definitely canon that Stan and Kyle are best friends but it’s still nice to see confirmation, it’s very precious. Also Kyle is best friends with literal shit, so cute 😊

Kenny deaths:

S02E02 Kenny sacrifices himself by connecting a generator wire, which electrocutes him but brings power back to a hospital

S02E03 A tree falls on Kenny and crushes him

S02E04 Kenny falls in a grave and the gravestone falls on him

S02E05 The Chinese dodgeball team throws a ball at Kenny and he gets splattered against a wall

S02E06 Two guys pull on Kenny and tear him in half, as in one has the head and one has the legs

S02E07 A big scary monster plucks Kenny out of the school bus and carries him away. Also in Cartman’s fake memory of Fonzi jumping over cars, the motorcycle hits Kenny and crushes him against a brick wall. Kenny gets smashed against walls a lot, doesn’t he?

S02E08 Flashback: Baby Kenny has a firecracker and it explodes, sprinkling little baby Kenny parts everywhere. Later in the episode, current day Kenny dies when a giant firework snake bumps him off a stage and under a fence, which then crushes him.

S02E09 Kenny is playing with a yoyo outside a movie theatre when a bunch of people come outside and trample him to death. They say “Oh my God, I found a penny!” and “You bastard!”

I’ll post part 2 of season 2 in a couple days. I’m having way more fun writing these stupid notes than I thought I would (also gnomes is coming up soon and i am fucking ready for tweek)

#south park #sp rewatch #i thought i made way too many notes last time #oh boy #also sorry for my anti butters bias showing #i completely forgot to take notes about him until episode 5 #oops

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