#those ones are mostly for my own indexing and not for purposes of this being seen by anyone lol I'm just musing to myself | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

retrievablememories · 3 years

Text

picture me | johnny (m)

title: picture me pairing: vampire!johnny x black!reader genre: fantasy, romance, smut, fluff, angst summary: you meet a vampire-slash-photographer whose self-identity is increasingly lost to him, and you try to help him find some purpose again. word count: 18.3k warnings: age gap (cuz you know, vampires...but everyone is legal), mentions of discrimination/prejudice based on species, self-identity issues/self-deprecation, general angst, sheltered!reader, mentions of blood and drinking blood, oral sex (female and male receiving), fingering, thigh riding, loss of virginity, corruption kink, use of lube, unprotected sex (do not try at home), creampie, johnny is packing in this fic ok! a/n: today (the 28th) is my birthday, so i’m posting this 100% self-indulgent fic that i’ve been working on between requests since september. it was very hard to get johnny’s characterization right for this fic and idk if i actually succeeded but i’m not revising this for the 1000th time lol. i love this fic with my whole heart tho.

i haven’t seen many vampire fics that really explore the whole “doesn’t show up in mirrors/photos” concept (shout em out if you know em) and...there’s probably a reason for that, this shit is hard af to write and there are some logic issues but whatever 🤪

(the beginning quote is from “criminal,” stan taemin!!)

The moment I fall for you is the end of my innocence

—

He sits in the same coffee shop everyday, like it’s a habit he just can’t break. But who are you to judge? You’re there, too. Watching him like a creep. Or maybe like an interested coffee shop patron, trying to be discreet and failing at it.

He wasn’t hard to notice. You’d never been to this coffee shop before, but your friend recommended it to you mostly for their in-house-made pastries; she claimed the coffee was good, too, but she wasn’t much of a caffeine person. You decided to give it a try when you had time between classes and a moment to breathe, not needing to talk to this advisor or that professor.

You saw him immediately when you walked past the shop window. He was sitting at a table near the front, staring down at his phone with a small cup of coffee sitting in front of him. Its miniscule size was almost comical in contrast to his...everything. He was tall—that much was obvious even with him sitting down—and imposing, wearing all black. His hair was equally pitch-black, his bangs hanging to one side and the rest shaved in an undercut. If you didn’t know much better, you’d think you’d stepped back into 2007 and landed dead in the middle of the emo craze.

He was interesting to look at. Not in a bad way, but in a way you don’t see very often. Deciding to walk in before you made yourself look totally weird staring at him through the window, you’d stepped into the coffee shop, the small bell dinging above your head. A barista greeted you at your entrance. Out of the corner of your eye you saw the man, to your left, still looking at his phone.

You’d given your order and waited for it to be ready before taking it to a table on the other side of the shop. From that vantage point, you had a good view of the man. You tried to keep your eyes on your food and your phone, not wanting to spend the whole time looking at him, but it was a little hard not to.

When you took a bite of your pastry, you quickly discovered it was just as delicious as your friend promised—probably even more so. You made a noise of approval before you could catch yourself, and you glanced around the shop in embarrassment to see if anyone nearby noticed. Didn’t seem like it, at first. But then you glanced over to the man again only to find him looking at you below his eyelashes with a small, amused smile on his lips. He only kept his gaze on you for a second before returning to his phone.

What? You hadn’t thought you were that loud. How did he hear you from over there, and above the noise of the café? Even now, you remember how embarrassed you’d felt, ducking your head and looking away.

The man finished his coffee not long after that; he slipped his phone into his pocket and stood up. You glanced up only momentarily when he stood, but your eyes soon slid back to his form when you noticed something odd. On the wall behind him, there was a big oval mirror sitting pretty in its elaborate silver frame. He stood just a few feet in front of it, yet there was no reflection of him. The only thing you could see was the other side of the café reflected back, with another man sitting alone at a booth enjoying his own coffee. The tall man’s reflection was nowhere to be found.

That was when you figured he must be a vampire.

You’d never met one before. At least, you didn’t think you had until then.

Unbeknownst to you, vampires are notoriously able to blend in more easily than most other supernatural beings—until faced with situations like that one in the coffee shop. Ultimately, there’s no faking a reflection no matter how hard you try to remain inconspicuous.

The man had caught your eye again. Thinking back on it, you aren’t sure of what expression you had on your face or what it must’ve looked like to him. It must’ve been something akin to surprise, though; you weren’t quick enough to disguise your reaction at his lack of a reflection.

He gave you another smile, though it felt sadder than the previous one, and walked out of the store, the small bell on the door ringing at his departure. He disappeared down the street in a swirl of black fabric, almost like something out of a movie, and you watched him retreat until you could see him no more.

You scraped your index fingernail over the wood table your food was resting on, your mind whirring with all kinds of thoughts. Your interest was piqued. And yet there was no way for you to know if you’d see him again.

—

At least, that’s what you believed then. Luckily for you, your subsequent visits to the coffee shop have proven fruitful; the strange, tall vampire is there more often than not, always in the same spot in front of that same mirror. Sometimes he reads a book, other times he looks at his phone, and other times still, he stares out the window at the passersby.

He acknowledges you whenever he sees you, either with a nod or a smile. You’ve never spoken to each other, though you know what his voice sounds like from hearing him talk to the baristas. It’s a nice voice, rich and handsome like him, and you find yourself gradually wanting to hear it spoken in your direction. But you aren’t sure how to talk to him, or what you should say.

There’s a lot you want to know about him and his vampirism, but you don’t think it’s fair to bombard him with questions right after meeting him—if you could somehow work up the nerve for that first step.

When you were young, your parents made sure to keep you safely sheltered away from anyone who could potentially be a vampire or any other nonhuman being. This game kept up until you went to college, where they could no longer “shield” you. Because of their lifelong fear and disgust, your knowledge of nonhuman beings is scarce and mostly inaccurate.

The man’s skin isn’t deathly pale like you’ve heard others say vampires always are. It’s nicely tanned, in fact. Nor are his eyes red, or his canine teeth abnormally sharp. And obviously, he has no aversion to sunlight, otherwise he wouldn’t be out here during the day. The only visible marker of his inhuman nature is his lack of a reflection. Maybe he’s not a vampire at all? Maybe he’s another type of being entirely. That only makes you more curious.

It’s not rare to come across supernatural beings, but they only make themselves known if they want to, or if it’s imperative to their survival. Most of them would rather quietly assimilate amongst humans or stay safe and hidden within their own communities. Humans are still too judgmental towards those who are different from themselves for nonhumans to feel truly safe or welcomed—at least not on a global scale. Small pockets of communities forged with human allies are helpful and sometimes vital for survival, but not always enough.

These small tidbits of information cycle through your mind as September gradually bleeds into October. You continue watching the thoughtful man in the coffee shop and making up your own secret theories about his life. You haven’t told anyone from school about this, because you already know the reaction would be nothing short of awful. Your parents would only let you go to school at the one university in the city that explicitly didn’t allow supernatural beings; it goes without saying that your classmates don’t view them in a positive light.

Part of you feels like you might be breaking the unspoken rules just by being at this coffee shop all the time and allowing this man to take up space in your mind. But who will know what’s inside your thoughts except you?

One day, your friend decides to accompany you on your lunch break, finally stopping by the café she recommended to you. The man is already there, as usual, and he smiles slightly when you and your friend enter. She doesn’t catch this, too busy wondering what she’s going to get off the menu today.

“I haven’t been here in forever, I wonder if Sam still remembers me?” You know Sam to be one of the baristas there, having read it on their name tag before.

“I doubt there are very many people who’d forget you,” you answer.

When you both have your food, you take a booth farther away from where the man sits, though you can still see him easily from this distance. Your friend settles into the seat in front of you.

You try to keep things inconspicuous throughout your conversation, but you must glance over at him one too many times, because your friend eventually raises her eyebrows questioningly. She turns around in her seat, making it obvious that she’s looking, and you groan as you keep your eyes in the opposite direction towards the window.

“Who’s that guy you keep staring at?”

You cough. “No one.”

“He’s obviously someone. Someone interesting enough to hold your attention.”

“I don’t know the man,” you say curtly. You shuffle your napkin and spoon aimlessly, your nervousness rising. What if he has some kind of enhanced hearing and can hear what you’re saying right now? He definitely heard you make that noise that first day.

Your friend looks at the ceiling and blows air out of her mouth. “Whatever. I’ll find out who he is sooner or later.”

You take a sip of your drink and lower your voice to just above a whisper. Although you want to leave the subject alone, you’re curious about one thing. “You mean you’ve never seen him before? This café was your hangout spot before it was mine.”

She shrugs. “No, I think I would’ve remembered someone as...visually striking as him. Why are we whispering, anyway? It’s not like he can hear us above all this noise.”

You think to yourself, I’m not so sure about that, but you merely shake your head.

You spend a few more minutes talking before movement catches the corner of your eye. At this point, it’s practically a reflex for you to look in that direction. You try not to, but your friend has already caught you and turns her head to spy, too. The man has gotten up for whatever reason to say something to one of the baristas at the counter. Your gaze darts back to your cup after you’ve gotten your eyeful, but you’re nearly startled into dropping the cup at your friend’s gasp.

Oh. The mirror.

She grips the edge of the table. “He’s a vampire…?”

You don’t know what to say to that, and you feel oddly guilty for some reason you can’t pinpoint. Like you’ve been caught with your hand in the cookie jar. “U-um, I don’t know…?” You can hardly finish your thought before your friend is scrambling to grab her purse. She hurriedly stands out of the seat, tugging your arm as she does.

“Come on. We shouldn’t stay here.”

“Are you serious—?” You feel embarrassed heat rip through your body at her display; some other café-goers are already looking at her curiously, probably wondering what the hell she’s doing. She tugs more incessantly, and you already know she’ll get louder if you don’t get up now and defuse the situation. Leaving your half-full cup behind, you grab your things and follow her out of the store, keeping your eyes firmly on her back as you pass by the man. You don’t know if he looked up, or if he could sense the reason for your sudden departure—you’ve never left the shop before him until now—and you don’t want to know.

Neither of you talk until you’re well down the street and around the corner. “That wasn’t necessary,” you huff, your hands still sweating from the spiked adrenaline at suddenly being rushed out.

“Yes it was! We all know bloodsuckers and all these other weirdos are dangerous...even if they think they’re being well-intentioned by living among humans. I hope you don’t go back there.”

“Whatever...you’re the one who told me to visit the café,” you mumble, unable to muster up the energy to say anything more. You both know very well she can’t tell you where to go, but you hope she doesn’t mention this to your other acquaintances on campus and make it into a bigger deal than it is.

When you part ways with your friend and get back to your dorm, you realize you’re missing your planner. The planner with all your upcoming assignment dates in it. You sigh heavily and roll your eyes, knowing it must’ve happened in the chaos of her pulling you out of the shop. Maybe if you’re really lucky, it’ll still be there, picked up by an employee or simply left untouched. Knowing how many people go through that café in a day, you’re not optimistic.

For the first time since visiting the quaint little shop, you’re not anticipating returning and seeing the man again, afraid he’ll ignore you or look at you with distaste—like you’re just another unsympathetic human. And would he be wrong to think that? You’re only strangers to each other.

You try not to dwell on it too hard when you go to bed that night.

When lunch rolls around the next day, you hesitate a couple times on your way to the café, not wanting to show up. However, the desire to see what became of your planner pushes you forward. You don’t even have to stay; if it’s there, you’ll take it and leave. If it’s not—oh well. You can still leave. It’s not hard to buy another.

He’s there when you arrive, of course.

He nods at you when you step inside, though he doesn’t smile as he’s become accustomed to doing. You nod back, but you can’t ignore the renewed rush of embarrassment you feel. You linger at the entrance for a second longer, wondering if maybe you should say something. Apologize, even? But what if he really didn’t know what was going on yesterday? Then how odd would you look for bringing it up?

You decide to move on and go back to the booth to search for your belongings, but his voice stops you. This takes you by surprise.

“Did you come back for this?”

You turn to him to see him holding your planner in his hand. You stare, momentarily dumbfounded, and almost shake your head before realizing it is yours. Definitely the same sticker-covered, scribbled-all-over planner.

“Oh—y-yeah. Thank you.” He passes it to you, though you notice he’s very careful not to let your hands touch. You’re a little perplexed about why, but then the rumors about vampires having cold skin pop up in your mind. Maybe that’s actually true, too. “I usually don’t lose things so easily, but…” Your voice falters, and you don’t know how to finish that sentence without bringing up the other day’s events.

He doesn’t seem to mind as he replies, “It happens to all of us sometimes...I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my camera.”

“You take pictures?” you ask, a tinge of curiosity in your voice.

He nods. “I take photos of anything that interests me. Which often ends up being everything I see. I work at an art museum, so I guess having an eye for photography comes in handy.” He hesitates for a second, then says, “I could show you some?” He waves his phone, indicating that the photos are there.

“Oh, sure.” The man gestures for you to sit down in the empty chair in front of him, and you do so. He swipes through his phone a few times until he settles on what he’s searching for, then puts the device on the table and slides it to you. You lean forward to look at it and see that it displays an album full of pictures, simply titled with the emoji “🌌.”

“It’s okay, you can pick it up.” He chuckles. You pick up the phone and swipe through the numerous pictures. Many of them are nighttime shots of the moon, trees, half-empty streets, darkened storefronts. Others depict nature scenes at sunset or the beginning of sunrise, with the sky colored in darker hues. No matter what the subject matter is, they all look to be professionally taken, even for an iPhone.

“Wow, these are nice. You said you work at a museum…are you a professional photographer, too?”

The man shrugs, and as you look at his slight grin, you realize you still don’t know his name. “Something like that, I guess.”

“You should be if you aren’t already,” you say, looking through more photos. “I’m sure you’d make a lot of money.” When you reach the end of the album, you go to hand the phone back to him but realize he’ll probably want to avoid contact again, so you slide it across the table. He takes it and slips it into his pocket.

“I don’t really care about the money,” he responds. “I just like it because…” He trails off, unsure how to convey his thoughts, wondering if he should even get that personal with a stranger. “It...helps me pass the time.” He’s not quite satisfied by that answer—it doesn’t feel like enough—but it’s all he can think of on the spot.

“Well, that’s nice too. It’s always good to have a hobby just for the sake of it...not for anyone’s benefit but your own.”

“Do you have one?” He takes a sip of his coffee. You don’t expect to be asked about your own interests, and your mind goes blank as you try to think. Why does this always happen when I’m asked these kinds of questions?

“Um, just different things here and there.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he says, amused.

“It’s not that, I just don’t have a ton of hobbies or anything. I’m kinda boring, so…” And wasn’t allowed to do much of anything until I left home.

“Being boring isn’t always a bad thing.”

You lean back in your seat, shrugging slightly. “Maybe if you see it that way. My friends don’t.”

“Would one of those happen to be the same one who dragged you out of here yesterday?” He speaks casually, putting his cheek in his hand. You slump further down in your seat, feeling exposed. Of course there was no escaping this topic. He notices your mood shift and shakes his head. “You don’t have to feel so bad about it. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last.”

“I’m sorry for all that mess,” you murmur, unable to meet his eyes. “Really, I am.” You stand up from the seat, gripping your planner. “Thanks again for this. I don’t want to take up any more of your time today.” You’re about to turn to leave when he speaks again.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know…you could talk with me whenever you feel like it.” That’s the last thing you expect him to say. His voice takes on a quality that’s...not what you’d call begging, but it’s clear he’d enjoy some company. Maybe he’s doing this for your benefit as well as his own, because it’s obvious how your eyes always stray to his little corner.

You nod, giving him an apprehensive smile. “I’ll keep that in mind, then.”

The rest of your day after that is uneventful, full of classes and unexciting lectures, but you keep thinking of one thing. Though he appears to enjoy his time in the coffee shop, how lonely must he really be? There’s never anyone else around him. His eyes when he’d spoken to you held a certain sadness.

And you still didn’t get his name.

You don’t see him for the next few days, mostly because you aren’t at the café. You’ve gotten busy with a new project and haven’t had as much time to return to the coffee shop, mostly spending your time in the library instead.

When you finally get a chance to buy lunch outside campus, he’s not there. This disappoints you more than you thought it would, and you wonder what his absence means. Did he just decide not to come today, or has he found another place to frequent? You kind of hope the second option isn’t the case, though you also don’t know why you’re even caring this much about where someone else goes on their own time.

You get a drink to-go this time, deciding you’ll just take it back to the library and continue your studies there. The entryway bell rings behind you as you wait for your order to be made, though you don’t pay it much attention; half of your mind is still occupied with what you need to do next for your project.

When you turn around to leave the shop with your drink, you’re surprised to see the man standing there, waiting to get his own coffee. “You’re late,” you blurt out. You immediately feel silly for saying it, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

He gives you a slight smile. “Yes, I am.” Then he spots your to-go cup. “Are you leaving?”

“Uh, well,” you glance at your drink, “are you staying?”

He nods as he steps up to the counter. “Yeah, I’m staying. My offer’s still open, by the way.”

Right. The offer to talk to him sometimes. You’re tempted to stay awhile and talk to him now, though you don’t even know what about. Your project? That’s boring. Him being a vampire? Too invasive. Your school? Also boring, and probably not the best idea considering which one you attend.

“I...think I’ll stay, then.”

You both sit at his usual table, with you grinning nervously.

“How are you? I noticed you hadn’t showed up in a while,” he asks, settling back in his chair.

“Yeah, I’m doing fine, I’m just busy with school stuff. These teachers don’t give us a break.” You laugh a little, shaking your head.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He grins. “I never did go to college, but I’ve always heard others talk about how tiring it is. And expensive.”

“They’re right.” You roll your eyes at the thought of it. “But I guess it’ll all be worth it in the end. Maybe. If the economy isn’t in the toilet.” The sound of his laughter is nice, and you’re glad you could make him laugh. “Also, I’m sorry—I don’t know how this flew under the radar, but I don’t know your name.”

He shrugs. “Nothing to apologize for, really. It’s Johnny.”

You tell him your name, too. “Since I haven’t seen you lately...how are you doing?” You circle your hands around your to-go cup, feeling its warmth transfer to your palms as you await his answer.

“I think I can say I’m the same as always—which is fine. Life slows down a little when you have a lot of time on your hands.” Johnny’s lips quirk up at that, and you think he might be referring to his vampirism. Your eyes widen a little.

“What’s that like? Having so much free time. I wouldn’t know much about that right now, but…”

“Maybe not as pleasant as you think it’d be. But there’s good in it. Like coming and going when you want to. And you can take up whatever interests you want without worrying as much about busy schedules.” You already know he’s alluding to his photography. “I do like having a job, though…it gives me structure.”

“You’re probably right…I wouldn’t know the first thing to do if I had a ton of free time…like, which hobbies to pick up first.” You consider how you initially thought about him being lonely and wonder if that’s one of the unpleasant parts he hinted to. “Speaking of hobbies...did you take any new pictures lately?”

Johnny nods. “Most of them were on my camera this time, but some are on my phone. You want to see?”

“Yes!”

Johnny lets you have his phone again to look through the newest pictures he’s taken. There are varying shots of car-lined streets and storefronts, some of the latter decorated with glowing jack-o-lanterns for the onset of October. A pigeon sits on a streetlamp during the daytime, holding its head up like royalty upon a throne. In another image, a stray cat and her kittens huddle in an alley, the babies grooming each other while the mother looks quizzically at the camera.

You recognize a few photos from the nearby park; he also had some pictures of it the last time you looked. “Do you go to this park often?”

“Yeah, it offers some great shots. It’s especially pretty if you go just before the sun sets...the light filters through the tree leaves and it looks kinda like a kaleidoscope.”

“Ah, I’ve never seen that before…” you say a little sadly. Your parents didn’t much like taking you to that park when you were younger because of how far it is from their house. And since living away from them, you’ve only been able to visit it during the early hours of the day—like now.

Johnny looks closely at you. “Would you ever want to?”

“If it’s as pretty as you say, I should.” You slide the phone back across the table to him, not catching what he’s trying to hint at as you keep talking. “Do you go anywhere else besides here and the park?” As soon as you say it, you realize this might sound a little rude and try to make a quick save. “I mean, do you have any other favorite places? I’m not trying to say you don’t have a life or anything!”

Johnny laughs at your slight panic at thinking you’ve offended him. “Nothing too out-there, I guess. The bookstore, the photography store, the theater. Pretty much all the same places others visit.”

“The movies are fun.” You trace your finger across the table’s surface, thinking of your own favorite spots. “Me and my friends like to go downtown. There are a lot of cute little shops down there…”

You and Johnny talk for a while longer, and you almost forget you have to get back to campus until you glance at the wall clock. “Oh no, I’m gonna be late.” Flustered, you jump out of your seat and crumple your empty cup. “Sorry to cut it short, Johnny, but I gotta go back now.”

He smiles good-naturedly and nods, his dark bangs sweeping his face. “I understand.” As he watches you gather your things and get ready to go, he speaks up again. “Actually, if you want to see the park at sunset sometime...I could show you? It’s up to you.”

You pause, suddenly curious at the thought of seeing him outside the café. In the back of your mind, you feel a little paranoid and afraid of your friend or maybe even your parents seeing you there with him, though the latter is extremely unlikely. It’s hard to shake that familiar fear of judgment and ostracism when it’s been ingrained in you since childhood. “That sounds good. If it’s not any trouble for you…?”

“Never too much trouble. I usually get off around 4 on Fridays, just before the sun sets at 5. Unless the weekend is better for you?”

You nod, holding your books tighter to your chest. “Friday will work for me! I’ll meet up with you then.”

Johnny smiles. “Great; I’ll see you then, kind stranger.”

Maybe he says it to be joking or quirky, to sound like one of those characters in a movie or drama, but it makes you smile. Nodding to him again, you step out of the café and rush towards the direction of your school. Johnny watches as you retreat, your roles reversed.

You meet up with Johnny at the park that Friday, just as you both agreed. You spot him sitting on a bench near the park entrance, waiting on your arrival.

Johnny’s wardrobe is still mostly dark, but it’s a little lighter than usual today. He’s changed things up with a white polo shirt underneath his black sweater. Seeing him dressed like this, you wonder what he’d be like as a student, or maybe even a university professor.

He stands up when you get closer, hearing the sound of your footsteps approaching and turning towards you. His camera sits safely around his neck, the lens catching in the light of the sun.

When you stop in front of him, he smiles at you warmly. You try to relax into the genuineness of that smile and ignore the still-lingering traces of anxiety about being out with him. “Hi, Johnny!”

“Hi, Y/N.”

You and Johnny walk around the park as he looks for something interesting to shoot. He snaps a few shots of the trees, fallen leaves, bushes, and other natural elements along the way, though it seems like he hasn’t quite captured what he wants yet.

“Are you looking for something specific?” you ask, peering at his camera as he holds it in his hands.

“There’s an aster bush around here,” he responds. “It hadn’t fully bloomed yet the last time I was here, but it should be open by now.”

It turns out he’s right as you two finally come up on the bush. Its blooms make bright purple smudges against the rest of the landscape, which is a monochrome red-and-orange palette from the leaves changing their hues. You watch as he comes up to the bush carefully and quietly, like it’s a small animal he’s afraid to scare away. Johnny is very attentive while taking pictures of it, always conscious of getting the correct lighting and securing the exact angles he wants to capture. “Compassionate” is not a word you’d usually associate with the act of taking photos, but that’s the only word you can currently think of to describe this display. He treats the flowers with a peculiar sense of respect, as if they’re a human subject.

After he’s gotten the images he wants, Johnny offers you his camera to take a few of your own. You’re anxious about holding his prized possession and are afraid you’ll find a way to mess something up, but he promises you it’s fine. You take a few shots of the sky, still with a few wisps of clouds left, and a nearby tree that’s almost stripped bare of leaves. You know the shots will probably end up blurry from your unsteady hands, but Johnny tells you you’ve done a good job anyway.

Something about getting his approval makes a pleasant warmth settle in your chest.

As you both walk down a long trail, you finally ask him, “Sorry if this is invasive, but I was wondering how old are you? Like...as a vampire.” Your voice becomes hesitant on the word vampire, even though you’re the only two in this part of the park.

He chuckles a bit. “I’m 85.” You try not to look surprised. “I’ve been turned for 60 years. Old, but probably a little younger than most vampires you’d think of.”

“Kinda,” you say quietly. “They’re always like 2,000 years old in movies.”

“The ancient vampires are purebloods. They keep to themselves and avoid mingling with turned vampires, let alone humans. Some people are even skeptical if they exist. Supposedly, they use humans as servants or blood banks.” He gives you an apologetic look after saying this, though you don’t really know why. You don’t get the feeling he’d do that to another being, but he is still mostly a stranger... “At least, that’s what my mentor told me.”

Your curiosity is roused at all this new knowledge. “You had a mentor?”

“An older woman. She was also a turned vampire.”

“Turned, huh…”

Johnny nods, toeing at a small pile of leaves on the ground. “She went away eventually, said people are meant to pass in and out of each other’s lives. I don’t think she ever had intentions to stay. But I enjoyed her company while she was there.” Johnny stops at a short bridge above a small manmade lake, and you both look down into the water.

You place your arms on the bridge railing so you can lean over more. You notice he doesn’t have a reflection in the water, and this startles you more than you expected. Before meeting this strange man, you’d never thought much before about why vampires don’t have mirror reflections, but it seems even more unnatural to see this phenomenon happen again in the lake.

You find yourself looking at the side of Johnny’s face, trying to read his expression as he peers into the water’s depths. He turns to you, and you flinch at being caught staring, but he only smiles slightly. You force yourself to form words and break the silence. “What—what did you do after she left?”

“Lived on my own. She taught me a lot of things to help me live independently as a vampire, so it wasn’t too difficult to get along without her...but emotionally? A different story.”

“You sound like you had a very close relationship with her.”

“Yes. Quite close…” Johnny’s tone suggests something deeper, more intimate than a regular friendship. You feel a bit astounded at the idea of him having an older, more worldly lover while being only a newly changed vampire. Your reaction makes you feel foolish, inexperienced. Still, you can’t help imagining a scenario of them living in a big, dark mansion somewhere in the mountains, rolling around in a bed with bloody red sheets—and maybe drinking from the occasional naïve, misled human hiker.

Strangely, too, you feel jealous at his freedom, his ability to go wherever and do whatever with whoever he wants without overbearing relatives always just a step away.

You continue staring at the ripples as they circle in and out of the water’s surface, the motions triggered by a small orange leaf falling into the lake. You’re unsure of what could be the right thing to say to his admission, so you blurt out whatever comes to mind next. “You said she taught you to live independently as a vampire. What does that mean? How do you get...you know. Blood?”

“There are ways,” Johnny says cryptically, which makes your own blood rush faster. He turns to you with a grin, like he finds your naivety endearing. “It’s nothing drastic, though. At least, not for me. I never drink directly.” It does make sense that there are other ways to drink human blood without taking it straight from their necks, though you can only speculate on which methods he prefers. “Drinking directly is lethal, and often not worth it.”

“So, it’s true that vampire bites can kill?” You watch as Johnny pushes himself off the railing, and you follow him as he continues down the trail.

“It’s not false. But it’s never really that simple.” Johnny’s answer is mysterious, and he doesn’t elaborate further. He turns to you. “Where did you hear that, anyway? Your university? The one that bans all nonhuman beings?”

“You know where I go to school?” You feel embarrassed, thinking he must assume you’re like the rest of the student body who hates nonhumans but still nurtures an odd obsession with them.

“I saw it on your notebook one day, the school insignia. I’m not a stalker, by the way.” You laugh only slightly, and Johnny seems crestfallen when he notices your apprehension. “I don’t care if you attend school there. Just because you do doesn’t mean you think the way they do.”

“You must think I’m some weird opportunist, then,” you mutter, heat finding its way to your face. “Asking you all these questions...I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think anything except that you’re a pleasant person to be around.”

You’re quiet for a moment, letting the compliment sink in. You think you should probably give him one of his own, but before you can, he says, “Look. The sun’s already setting.” Just like he told you before, the dying rays filter through the tree leaves and create impossibly intricate patterns on your surroundings. You hold your hand out and watch the latticework that the leaves create dance over your open palm.

You let Johnny take a picture of your hand with the tree shadows flitting over it, but you shy away from the camera’s lens when he points it higher to your face, a questioning look in his eyes. “Maybe some other day.”

You walk around for a while longer until the sky bleeds into a dark purple. “I guess I should be going soon. It’s getting late,” you say, though you’re also a bit sad over your evening with Johnny meeting its end.

“Do you want me to take you back to campus? You shouldn’t walk back alone. My car is just in the parking lot there.” He points to it where it sits in the distance.

You look at Johnny with a confused gaze. “But you can’t come on campus. They have...things to ward off vampires.” Like gates made of pure silver, displaying intimidating, elaborately designed crosses. You don’t know if any of it actually works, but it’s probably better not to find out.

Johnny doesn’t seem bothered by this information. “Yeah…I know. I can just drop you at the street across from the main gate.”

You hesitate a moment longer but eventually agree. He is right; you’d rather not walk alone at night, and getting a ride with him is better—and cheaper—than calling for a rideshare.

The ride to the college is fairly quiet, with the radio filling the silence. It’s not an awkward type of stillness, at least, which you’re grateful for.

As he said he would, Johnny parks on the side of the street that sits in front of the main gate, just outside the immediate vicinity of the campus. The metal crosses stare back at the both of you, glinting in the light of nearby streetlamps. You turn your face away from them, biting the inside of your cheek.

You unbuckle your seatbelt. “Thanks again for the ride. I guess I’ll see you back at the shop next week, yeah?” Again, you get the urge to say something, anything, to remedy or cover up the foreboding source of discomfort sitting just in front of you, but there’s no one sentence you could say to wipe away decades of hatred.

Johnny nods and smiles, and still he shows no signs of being disturbed. He doesn’t cast another glance at the gates. “It’s no problem. See you then.”

You get out of his car and cross the street to get inside the gate; it’s early enough in the evening for it to still be open. Any later, and it’d be locked shut to even humans. You risk another wave at him before turning back around and heading for your dorm, which sits a few yards from the entrance. Johnny lets the car idle on the side of the street until you’ve walked into the dorm, and only then does he drive away.

It doesn’t take very long for you to warm up to Johnny inviting you to other places. The next time you and him go somewhere other than the coffee shop, you accompany him as he buys some film for his camera on one of his free days. You don’t know a ton about photography, so you’re more than happy to let him tell you all about how film works and why he buys certain kinds over others.

The place he frequents is a specialty photography shop that still carries older varieties of film—ones that fell out of favor once digital cameras became a thing. The store looks noticeably old, but not in an unkempt or decrepit way. You can tell it’s been around for a while, holding all kinds of history in its structure.

“There are so many different types.” You look over a shelf of film rolls in awe. “How can you tell them all apart?”

Johnny laughs. “It gets easier if you’ve been doing it for a while…or a few decades.” He picks one up from a row of them and holds it in front of you. “35mm is the most common type, which is what you’ll find the most of when you look through any film shop. That’s what I use.”

He sets that one down and walks past another display of film rolls, gesturing toward them. “There’s also 120 and 220 film formats here…those work for even older cameras, sorta like ones you’d see in 1930s movies. You can even turn a film camera into a digital camera.”

You nod to his words, looking over what seems like millions of film canisters—and occasionally glancing at the lines of his broad back as he walks ahead of you. “You should teach a photography class. I’d be more willing to listen to you than some old professor.”

Johnny snickers. “Huh, I don’t know. Not a professor, but I am old.”

You both continue walking through the store, with Johnny giving you the rundown on every item that catches your interest.

Like the coffee shop, there’s another mirror in this store. Many more, actually—there are whole rows of them on a series of shelves, all in varying sizes and shapes. They create a fragmented view of your form as you stand in front of them, though you don’t initially realize you’ve crossed into their glassy line of sight. You’re busier with looking at a roll of film Johnny’s handed you. When you notice your reflection shifting in your peripheral view, you look up.

Johnny’s only a few feet behind you, and you know this because you can hear him and feel his presence. Yet, it’s strange to see yourself as the only person in the aisle.

Eventually, he notices what’s got you preoccupied and comes to stand next to you. Though you see him clearly in front of your eyes, there’s no trace of him in the glass reflections.

Suddenly, you’re hit with the aching loneliness of it—how it must feel to never see yourself. You can see him with your own eyes, and so can everyone else who encounters him, but what must it be like to be virtually invisible outside of other peoples’ perceptions of you? You almost feel utterly alone even though you know he’s beside you.

Noticing your sudden melancholy, Johnny takes the film roll from your hand and tosses it up in the air, making it look like it’s moving on its own in the mirrors. He means to lighten the mood, if only to see the cloudiness disappear from your expression. It works to a degree, though you still feel downcast deep below.

“It’s not good to dwell on it.” Johnny presses the film roll back into your hand, still carefully avoiding skin contact. He has no problem meeting your eyes, though, and you shyly look away from his dark gaze after a few prolonged moments.

“You’re right,” you say softly, turning back to the aisle and away from the rows of mirrors.

—

You and Johnny head to the coffee shop after your trip to the photography store. Once you get your drinks and sit down in your usual spot, he speaks suddenly. “Something’s wrong.”

Your eyes dart around the shop, thinking he’s referring to one of the patrons around you. “What? What’s wrong?” Your voice comes out a bit panicked. He doesn’t want to laugh, but he does.

“No, I mean...something’s wrong with you. You seem far away.”

“Oh…” You wonder if you should even bring it up and potentially ruin the mood. But you have been curious for weeks now, and you don’t think you’ll get a trustworthy answer by asking anyone other than him. “I just...I was wondering why you don’t have a reflection. I know it’s a vampire thing, but I’ve never really known why...you don’t need to answer, though. Like you said, it’s not good to dwell on it.”

Johnny makes a motion like a half-nod once your question is revealed, his eyes darting to the window and back to the table. His fingers trace across the rim of his coffee cup, a thoughtful but stormy expression on his face, and you’re afraid you shouldn’t have reawakened this topic. “You know...being undead means being in two places at once.”

“Two places?”

“We are caught between the living world and the world of the dead. Something that’s not really supposed to exist, yet…” He’s quiet for a moment. “You can only imagine the kind of issues and side effects that can cause. One of them being no reflection.”

“I never thought of it like that,” you say. “Two planes of existence...what does it mean to be a part of the world of the dead?”

“Our blood runs slower. Ours is more like sludge compared to yours. The heart beats only a few times per minute. Don’t need to eat or sleep, either, though many vampires still do.” Johnny pauses. “How much do you really know about vampires?”

“I don’t know much about any of this...stuff.” You gesture vaguely, meaning all supernatural beings and not just vampires. “No one ever told me these things growing up, and it’s hard to tell truth from fiction at school. People will say anything, horrible things, and you just take it at face value, I guess. I never really thought to try to find the reality.” You sigh. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t know anything.”

“Learning is good. You can always learn. I don’t think it’s too late for that.” Johnny’s voice is a little lighter. “Anyway, everyone’s knowledge is different. Sometimes it slips my mind that everyone doesn’t know what it’s like to live as a vampire, though the world never lets me forget for long.”

“Then…do you hang out with other vampires who do understand? Or…maybe humans who can sympathize?”

Johnny gives a humorless laugh. “Most humans are hesitant to interact with us, if not full-out terrified or disgusted. At the museum...it’s less pronounced because all the employees already know. They…tolerate it. But every time someone else realizes what I am and doesn’t take well to it?” He shakes his head, acts like he’ll say something else, and then abandons that line of thought. “And do you really think I’d want to spend my free time around other bloodsuckers?” He tries to play it off as a joke, but you’re more inclined to think he actually feels that way. You can only nod, feeling bad for him but also a little disturbed by his view of his own kind.

“I think you’re a kind person, and you being a vampire doesn’t affect that,” you say hesitantly. “I like talking to you. And even if you feel that way about other vampires, I…wish you wouldn’t feel that about yourself.”

Johnny remains quiet, but he nods. You wonder about the struggle occurring in his mind. The only outward hint of his uneasy state shows in the furrow of his eyebrows and the tense set of his mouth. With his right hand resting on the table, he rubs his fingers together absentmindedly, like he’s analyzing your words. You have a sudden and startling desire to hold his hand, to twine your fingers together and feel his skin on yours for the first time, but you don’t dare cross that boundary.

He finally replies with, “You’re much kinder to me, an old and bitter vampire, than you probably should be. But maybe that’s a good thing about you.”

“I think it’s a good thing,” you agree, your voice low. “Every living being needs companionship. Good companionship, anyway.”

The corners of Johnny’s lips shift in something reminiscent of a smile. He turns a rueful gaze once again to the window, lifting his coffee cup to his lips. “Aren’t I lucky to have yours, then.”

On a day when you don’t have as many responsibilities to juggle, you visit Johnny at the art museum after his working hours are up. He’d already invited you to come to the museum any day you felt like so he could show you around.

When you get there, he’s waiting in the visitor’s lobby for you, framed by receding sunlight as the day starts fading into night. He looks the same as he always does when you see him in the café on his lunch breaks, but within the context of the museum, he suddenly seems more…alive? Vibrant? He could’ve served as a muse for one of the many statuesque, perfectly proportional sculptures in the museum, and you’d never know anything different.

Your heartbeat increases at the sight of him, just enough to be outside the normal range.

“Hi, Johnny. I hope your day went well?”

“It was fine, nothing too crazy. But it’s better now.” And he smiles at you, sincere enough to make your heart ache.

“Oh—that’s great.” That’s it? You scold yourself internally, but you aren’t quick enough to think up a witty reply to his comment before the topic shifts.

“Is there anything in particular you wanna see first?” Johnny asks, leading you further into the museum.

“I guess I hadn’t thought too deeply about that…do you have a favorite exhibit? I want to see what you like.”

Johnny smiles faintly. “Let’s see, then.”

The dark-haired man takes you to a section of the museum filled with oil paintings, all by one singular artist. At first, all you see is varying shades of black and gray and red, with some white splashed in between. When you begin looking at the paintings more closely, it’s easier to see that each one depicts a different scene of chaos. Maybe a sort of organized chaos, but disarray all the same.

There is one picture that holds a clearer subject than the rest. One of the oil paintings is of a vampire—obvious by the fangs—with bloodied lips and anguished eyes. You pause when you catch sight of it, your steps stilled by the sheer frenzy in the other being’s painted eyes. Their hands reach out for the viewer as if begging for an escape that can only be provided by whoever’s observing.

“This one was painted by a fellow vampire, you know. The same one who did all the rest of the paintings in this gallery,” Johnny explains. He points at the placard next to the painting that displays the artist’s name and a short description of the piece. The word fellow comes off his tongue wrapped in cynicism. “And it was one of the ones I personally chose for this exhibit.”

You glance at him, a tinge of surprise blooming in your chest. “Really?”

He nods. “Who better to depict the ills of vampirism than a vampire themselves? I thought it was a…fascinating change of pace from all the humans who try and fail to do so, ironic as that is.”

If you look at the painting for long enough, you think you can recognize sadness in the corners of the vampire’s eyes—pure, unadulterated sadness. Different from anguish or panic. A similar mask of sadness you’ve seen on the man next to you.

You say nothing for a while. You simply feel the painful throb of your heart in your chest and listen to the small sounds around you. Even now, there are still other people exploring the museum and walking through this very exhibit, but you can’t hear or see any of them. Johnny notices the disconcerted look on your face, and his forehead creases. “But I’m sure you want to see something less…morbid than this, right? Come on.”

“Uh, I-I don’t mind,” you insist, even though you feel like you’ve just awoken from a painful trance by the sound of his voice. But he’s already gesturing for you to follow him elsewhere.

The next set of paintings you end up in front of are a series of sunflower studies. One frame depicts the long green stems; another provides an up-close view of their lined petals. One zooms in close on the flower’s brown center, only small glimpses of yellow left at the edges of the frame.

“This is definitely very different.” You look at him, a small smile pulling at your lips. “But it fits you. I see why you like it.” You remember him back in the park, taking careful pictures of the aster bush and of your hands…and then offering to take one of you. You don’t know why that last one makes your stomach jump.

“I thought you might like it.” Johnny’s eyes linger on your face as he observes your reaction to the paintings. He’s seen these flowers probably a hundred times by now in this permanent exhibit, but the wonder in your expression is new to him.

—

You both walk through a few more exhibitions after that, all with different subjects and mediums—some consist of sculptures, others are clay vases and figures. There’s still a lot to see in the museum, but you’re starting to get hungry, and you know Johnny has already heard your stomach growling.

After the 2nd time it happens and you think you might melt from embarrassment, he grins at you and makes a suggestion. “Let’s go to my office. I’ll get my things and we can eat. The restaurant here is pretty good—or at least that’s what everyone else says…”

When you get to his office, you feel almost like you’ve stepped into a room from years past. Your gaze drifts across his desk immediately; it’s not sleek and modern like you’d expect, considering the rest of the museum’s aesthetic, but wooden and heavy and vintage-looking. It’s olden quality resembles everything else in his personal space. Even his desk chair, a big and plush thing, feels vintage with its soft leather and rustic design.

This feeling is far from a bad thing, though. You enjoy the aged look of the bookcases, the picture frames, the chairs, the small decorations here and there—everything about this room.

Johnny notices how you look around, studying everything in sight, and smiles. “It’s not the most modern, but I like it.”

“It’s perfect. Like a world of its own.”

“A woman of taste, I see.” Johnny puts a hand over his heart, giving an expression like he’s truly touched, and you can only grin sheepishly. When he has his belongings, he leads you out and locks the door behind him.

“Let’s see what they have on the menu today, then.”

—

You get dinner at the museum’s restaurant, just as Johnny recommended, and he even decides to eat too. Maybe he does it so you won’t look odd being the only one eating, or because he really just wants to; he doesn’t let on. Either way, sitting across from him like this in a fancy restaurant with both of you having a nice meal feels almost like a date. You let that thought amble around for a few minutes longer before tucking it back into one of your mind’s many small niches.

“I’ll probably be digesting this for the next few weeks,” he says jokingly, pulling a mock-disappointed face at his plate.

“That sounds like the worst constipation in history.” He snorts at your comment, his eyes creasing as he laughs. You notice he has a dimple when he smiles, and your grin mirrors his. You don’t think you’ve seen him laugh quite so genuinely before, but now that you’ve experienced it, you want to hear it again and again.

Anything is preferable to the perpetual gloom, always slinking around the corner.

—

When Johnny gets back home after dropping you off at the university, he undresses himself and showers and pulls on his bedclothes, which are nothing more than his underwear and a pair of sweatpants. His upper canines ache in his gums the entire time he goes through these motions, like two pulses of red-hot heat positioned on either side of his mouth.

He takes a blood bag from the fridge and drinks it in bed, leaning his arms against his knees. A sudden remembrance manifests itself in his mind; he hears the hazy echo of his mother’s decades-past voice in his head, reprimanding him for eating in bed. A sharp pain grips his chest, and he tries to send it back to the depths where it belongs.

When the blood hits his stomach, the pain is eclipsed by the bloodlust, which is no better. His fangs drop immediately, spiking into his lower lip. Johnny closes his eyes and, very gingerly, allows himself to draw a picture of you in his mind, of your blood in his mouth and your heartbeat roaring in his ears. The way your blood would flow out so delicately, crashing into his tastebuds like the high tide. He is usually better than this at curtailing his bloodlust, not even letting it reach the point of his canines hurting—he can’t remember the last time that’s happened—but being around you sets him on edge. Awakens him in some strange, raw way.

That only makes him more wary. And more guilty about imagining himself drinking your blood. He shouldn’t even be around you if he’s losing his grip on his hard-won control. But although it makes him feel ashamed, it also causes his heart to rush.

He drains the blood bag to the last possible drop. To his relief, it calms him significantly, though the thoughts of you don’t leave. More innocent ones now, of your outing earlier in the evening. Deep beneath, they are tinged with his ever-present guilt at his vampiric nature.

Johnny doesn’t need the sleep, but he drifts off anyway, if only to quiet the conflict sending daggers into his mind.

You’ve known Johnny for a few weeks now, not counting the time you spent silently staring at him in the café, but you find yourself intertwining yourself further into his life. You end up visiting his apartment sooner than you anticipated. You didn’t think of anything as ridiculous as him living in a coffin or sleeping in the rafters like a bat, but you also had a hard time imagining what his place might look like.

You come over on a weekend when you have more time to simply hang out and not worry so much about anything else.

Like usual, he waits in that spot on the side of the street for you to come out. In the daytime, you’re more apprehensive about him being here and someone potentially seeing him and trying to cause trouble for him, but there’s a part of you that likes the rebellious aspect of it. And if he truly doesn’t mind coming near the campus to pick you up, you don’t have much issue with him doing it.

Johnny’s apartment is clean—and a little sparser than you’d expected. Maybe he’s a fan of minimalism. One side of the wall is taken up by a wide bookcase, which features a bunch of different knickknacks, books, and a collection of larger hardcovers that look like photo albums. On the other walls are a few framed pictures of different scenes, and you assume they’re ones he must’ve taken.

“This is a nice place,” you say as he takes your jacket for you and puts it up. “It must cost quite a bit, too…” You sit down on the couch, stroking the soft material of it.

Johnny shrugs. “Thanks. It’s nothing I can’t handle...being nearly a century old gives you plenty of time to save money.” He appears charmingly self-satisfied when he’s able to make you laugh. “Do you want anything?”

“Water is fine…thank you.” Johnny nods and goes off to the kitchen.

Despite trying to keep your eyes on the wall photos, your gaze follows him as he leaves. You discreetly watch him move around his kitchen. With his dark clothes, he’s like a splash of black paint against the pale tile and stainless steel.

There are blood packs in Johnny’s fridge. Lots of them. You know because you saw them from your vantage point on the couch when he opened the fridge door. They look like the blood bags you’d see in a hospital, which makes you wonder how he even gets access to those. Another mystery you struggle to wrap your head around.

He comes back to the living room with your water, and you take it gratefully, though you also feel a little awkward. You think maybe the blood bags are something you shouldn’t have seen, although you know he probably would’ve made more effort to hide them or put them away if that were the case.

“You have a good supply of blood, a nice apartment, and a great job. Does every vampire get these kinds of perks?” Admittedly, it sounded better in your head. Your attempt to stave off the awkward feeling—which was really only coming from your end—only makes it more intense. Johnny laughs dryly in response. You can’t tell if he actually finds it amusing or is just trying to humor you, which makes you feel incredibly silly.

“All of it’s government-issued if you promise never to bite any humans.” Johnny gives a wry smile. “But it’s a mistake to think vampires live glamorous lives, filling up on blood and having no cares in the world.”

“N-no, I get it,” you stutter. “Bad joke.”

“I’m not trying to embarrass you or be mean. It’s just the way things are.” Your roles are suddenly reversed, and now he seems to feel some sort of sympathy for you, like you’re just an ignorant little human who doesn’t know any better. The last part of that is more your insecurities speaking out than anything else, but you try to ignore that and take him for his word.

Johnny gets up from the couch to go over to the bookcase as you sip your water. After looking through the photo albums intently, he takes one off the shelf and hands it to you. You set your water down and hold the album carefully as you open the front cover. The cover itself has a neat little label that reads Telluride 1976 - 1980, so you can already expect what you’ll find in it. There are numerous photos of trees, bushes, snowy mountain ranges, lakes, brilliantly vibrant flowers, and woodland creatures. You stop at a picture of a deer looking straight ahead, its black eyes wide and curious as it examines the lens.

“I lived in the mountains back then, a little after my mentor had left. I spent some time trying to reconnect with nature...and all that other hippie shit people used to do back in that era.”

You chuckle. “Did you wear the same kinds of clothes, too? Bell bottoms and tie-dye T-shirts and all?”

Johnny laughs and shrugs. “Maybe…but that’s only for me to know.”

You grin and look at the photos again. “Well…did your plan work, at least?”

Johnny gives a wistful smile. “In some ways, I think it did.”

You continue looking through the rest of the album, which you could probably do for hours if you had the time—just sit and trace every possible line, curve, and ray of light. Johnny sits beside you as you do, occasionally explaining some pictures and their backstories.

“Lately, I’ve been wanting something else to take pictures of...someone else, maybe.”

“What, like a subject?” you ask.

“Yeah, it’d be nice...I haven’t taken pictures of another person in a while.”

You nod quietly as you flip through the pages—another possible hint flying right over your head. Then a thought comes to you—one that makes your skin warm. “Have you ever taken pictures of anyone you were...involved with?” You don’t say it directly, but you hope he can get the gist of what you’re asking.

Johnny nods as if he doesn’t want to admit to it, a nervous smile gracing his lips. “A few different people…but I always gave them the pictures after we, you know, stopped seeing each other...so there’s none left here.”

“I see…” For a few moments, your thoughts circle around that concept. What was it like to bare yourself in front of someone else like that, immortalized on film? What might it be like to allow Johnny to see you like that, to take pictures of you in your most vulnerable form? The idea doesn’t make you as downright anxious as you expected it to, though you can’t completely shake the lingering embarrassment about it.

After you finish looking through the entirety of his Telluride adventures, Johnny shows you some recent pictures he’s developed, and you’re giddy to see your own blurry creations among them. Now that you’re holding them physically in your hands, you can agree that they look nice, each with its own little personality.

“I thought about putting them in a new photo album,” he says, “but you can keep them, if you prefer.”

You hold them to your chest. “Yes, I’d like to keep them. Thank you.” You smile. “I’m sure I’ll leave you with plenty other photos to put in your album, anyway.”

—

The sun is close to setting again. You aren’t ready to leave yet, though, and Johnny is content to let you stay longer. He pulls out another album for you to look at, this one dated with 1960 - 1964. Unlike the others, there’s no title to describe what’s in it except for that year range.

“This is a picture of me someone took before I was turned,” Johnny murmurs, sitting back down beside you. He turns the album to you, and in the middle of the first page is a sepia-toned photo of him sitting on a bed—or maybe a couch?—wearing a suit. White, handwritten lettering on the bottom right of the photograph reads August 4, 1960.

“Oh wow...” You touch the photo gently over its protective lining. “You look exactly the same. Of course.”

“It’s the only photo I have left of myself,” he sighs, leaning back on the sofa. “If it weren’t for that...I’d feel almost like I didn’t exist at all.”

“Do you remember this day?” you ask.

“…Vaguely.” His answer doesn’t feel like the whole truth, and the way his eyes dart anxiously as he says it confirms your suspicions. Then he sighs again, heavier this time, and he seems to be exhaling all 60 years of his burden along with it. “I was...going to be married. It was for our wedding shoot.”

You’re surprised for a reason you’re unsure of, never even imagining that Johnny could’ve been married at one point in time. Could’ve had an entire life and a family, if it hadn’t been for...

“I’m sorry, Johnny.” You know you never would’ve met him if things hadn’t happened this way, and that knowledge tugs at your heart in a way that makes you feel intensely selfish.

Johnny shakes his head and avoids your eyes. “It was long ago.” He wets his lips and his jaw clenches like maybe he wants to say something else, but he remains silent for a while.

You continue exploring the photo album in silence. With its thin size, there aren’t as many pictures in it as the others—much less, in fact, but each one is still enough to keep your interest. Your mind keeps drifting back to the one of Johnny.

You hand the album back to him when you’re done. He takes it from you, but in a gesture you don’t foresee, he allows your hands to touch for the first time. You make a tiny flinch at the unexpected coolness—not ice-cold, but enough to be noticeable—but you don’t draw away from him. You let his fingers slide across yours as the photo album leaves your hands, and it sends electricity racing up and down your spine.

“S-sorry.” You’re not sure if you’re apologizing for flinching or for making contact at all, though there is no reason to because he initiated it.

“Doesn’t it ever disturb you at all that I’m not human?” Johnny asks softly, still holding the album.

“What?”

“You’ve taken all this so easily...much more easily than many others. You aren’t even disgusted at my cold hands.” A ghost of a grin comes over his face.

“If I were disgusted, I wouldn’t even be here,” you say, trying to lighten the tension. It’s not the kind of tension that arises from anger, offense, or upset, but something else that you are lost on comprehending in this moment. “Some of it’s unfamiliar, obviously, but I’m not disgusted.”

He glances down at the album in his hands, as if contemplating something. Maybe thinking about the only living photo of himself beneath the cover. Or maybe he’s thinking back to how he was turned in the first place and subsequently lost the life he was about to have. He still hasn’t told you anything about how he became a vampire, and though you’d like to know, it’s obviously a sore spot for him.

Eventually, he nods, willing himself to smile at you. “I’m glad.”

—

Night has fallen by the time you’re done exploring the decades of his life, though there is still much you haven’t seen and don’t yet know. You let him drive you back to the school as you stare out at the passing cars, wondering how many more of these people sitting in their vehicles are nonhuman and you’d never know it.

You hesitate after he pulls up across from the main gate.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Uh, nothing really, it’s just—I still don’t have your number or anything.” And I want to talk to you more often. I want to hear your voice more often. You don’t want to say anything overly dramatic or cheesy, so you just keep those last thoughts to yourself.

Thinking it had been something serious, he smirks at your concern. “Oh, I see. I’ll give it to you now, then.”

Once your numbers are safely in each other’s phones, you finally bid each other goodnight.

Though you try to steer your thoughts towards other things, you keep veering back to Johnny. His apartment. His fridge full of blood bags. His photo albums full of years of history. Even when you get into bed that night, you can’t keep him off your mind.

You wake up gasping and sweating when you dream of him with his fangs in your neck, your own blood running down your neck and chest. You glance over at your roommate to make sure you haven’t woken her and rest your head on your knees, trying to catch your breath and settle your racing heart. Your skin still prickles with how you could practically feel his heated breaths on your neck, ice-cold hands gripping your shoulders.

The worst part of it is that you can’t quite say you completely disliked it.

“It doesn’t make much sense to have a Halloween party and dress up as the very beings that you hate, but whatever…” you mumble, looking through a rack of costumes with a certain impassivity. You’re not very enthusiastic about going to this Halloween party, but your friend refuses to go alone. You haven’t been spending as much time with her anymore—partly because of Johnny and partly because you feel even more out of place around her than normal—and with all her begging and pleading, she refuses to let you opt out of this one.

“It’s about having fun, no one really cares Y/N. They’re freaks, aren’t they? That’s why people dress up as them, they’re practically meant for this.”

You become even more apprehensive about the party after hearing that, if that’s even possible. You smooth your hand over the fabric of a witch’s robe and sigh again, shaking your head. It doesn’t feel quite right to keep spending time in her presence—or anyone else who goes to your school—but you feel trapped on all sides, left without much of a choice. You would never hear the end of it if you tried to switch universities…or even drop out.

Your mind strays back to Johnny as always, with his melancholy aura and weird jokes and pretty pictures and monochrome clothes. The smell of his cologne, the lingering scent of roasted coffee beans, and his toothy smile, when he does show it to you. Something in you makes you want to drop everything you’re doing right now and go to him. It might even be nice to settle in his arms, feel them strong and solid around you—though he’d probably need just as much comforting as you.

“Dress up as this!” Your friend breaks the reverie as she prances over to you with a pair of fake fangs, the tips of them painted in acrylic blood. She holds them up to your mouth, and you struggle to manage a smile, if only to sate her enthusiasm. “It actually reminds me of…that vampire at the café. Say, have you seen him since then?”

You shake your head, moving away to sift through another rack of outfits as you try to maintain a detached expression. “Nope, not a glimpse. Haven’t even thought about him.”

When your friend doesn’t suspect anything, you let your expression drop just a tad, breathing out quietly.

The night of the party, the full moon is heavy and bold against the black blanket of the sky, which feels horribly cliché. You wonder if there are any werewolves out tonight, and what they might be doing right now.

“We’re going to have a good time tonight,” your friend insists as you both walk up the front steps of the host’s house. It’s someone you only vaguely know, a friend of a friend of a friend, but clearly a person who has an abundance of money judging by this expansive home. You don’t know why she feels the need to convince you, but maybe it’s because you haven’t seemed very enthusiastic so far. You only give a thumbs up to her words, which feels like an unconvincing gesture. Luckily for you, it works.

After a few hours, the party is still going strong but your head is starting to hurt from the music, and you’re growing weary of all the men crowding in too close, looking at you in your angel costume like you’re something to be devoured. You’ve rolled your eyes at way too many of them and their haphazardly put-together costumes, dressed up as vampires with terrible fake fangs or werewolves with manes of matted up fur.

Your friend keeps flitting around the party, talking to whoever she recognizes from classes or campus organizations, and you’ve given up on trying to follow her around any longer. Every time you turn around, she’s somewhere else. Noticing that you’re currently solo, a guy from one of your history classes comes up to you and begins what he thinks is an interesting conversation on how angels actually look more like Eldritch abominations than the cherubic humans depicted in paintings—so your costume is “technically inaccurate” —and your eyes glaze over as you pretend to listen to him.

You eventually manage to get away from him and get to an undisturbed corner, wedged next to two girls drinking cider and critically rating all the guys’ costumes. You pull your phone out and think about calling for a ride back to campus, but your thumb hovers over the message icon. You press it without thinking too much about it, and Johnny’s name appears as one of your most recent conversations. Though you feel somewhat nervous, you will yourself to open the box and begin typing.

To: Hi Johnny. I hope I’m not bothering you, but can I come over? 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿 I’m over this party

You put your phone back in your purse, trying not to get your hopes up for a quick response. You know there’s a good chance he’d still be awake at this time of night since he doesn’t need to sleep, but he has his own life and is probably off doing...vampire-y things. Whatever those things could be.

However, your hopes are met when your phone pings only a couple minutes later.

From: Of course. You’re not scared about spending your Halloween with a vampire? 😏

You smile at that.

To: I think I’ll be fine…as long as you don’t bite me.

From: 🦷🩸

—

You get to Johnny’s studio apartment not too long after, and you hang around outside his door for a few moments before knocking, suddenly feeling bashful about your costume. Maybe you should’ve changed before coming over here; what if he thinks it’s childish? Or maybe too revealing? Does he even care about that kind of stuff? Doesn’t matter now, though. You’re here, and there’s no way you’re turning back around.

He answers a few seconds after you knock, wearing a sweater and black pants. You notice his sweater is a cream color and not the usual black. He looks a little surprised to see your costume, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

“Wow, you look pretty. Nice of you to visit me after falling straight from Heaven.” You cringe at his cheesy line, though you also cannot deny that you secretly enjoy every bit of it.

“Thanks, Johnny...” you say timidly, stepping into his home as he lets you in. “Nice work with changing up the color scheme.”

He’s confused for a moment before realizing you’re talking about his clothes. “Oh yeah, that...um, haha. Thanks.”

Unbeknownst to you, the back of his mind is buzzing with a form of excitement he hasn’t felt in a while. Not the clawing, frantic spikes of bloodlust, but a more physical kind of desire. It’s pleasurable, but he also feels guilty about pining over how sweet and innocent you look in your all-white outfit, stockings hugging your legs perfectly and your dress just short enough to tempt the imagination. Really, you’ve painted a picture of perfect purity, and the only thing he can think about is ruining you. Putting his hands on you and peeling your dress off to reveal the soft skin underneath.

He casts those thoughts aside as you sit prettily on his couch, legs crossed at the ankles—though it’s hard to do so. “Do you want something to drink? Or eat? There isn’t a whole lot of food here, but I can order something…”

“Do you ever make your own coffee?” The question seems a bit random at first, and you try to explain. “You know, since you always get it from the café.”

Johnny smiles. “Do you want coffee? I can make it.”

You nod. “That would be nice…whatever you have.”

“I pretty much have your usual order memorized by now, so I should be good on making it.” Johnny walks to the kitchen. “You can look through the albums while you’re in there. The ones you haven’t seen yet.”

“Oh, thanks.” You feel a little nervous to be looking through the shelf of his treasured photo albums by yourself, but you’re also glad he trusts you enough to let you do it. It makes you feel important. Maybe even important to him, as silly as that might sound.

It isn’t long before the scent of coffee wafts out into the living room. Johnny returns soon with two cups of it, and just as he promised, yours is made just the way you like it.

“Thank you.” You set the album back on the shelf and take the cup from Johnny. For a while, both of you talk of nothing important—just filling the space with the details of your days.

“So how was the party?” Johnny finally asks, and he raises his eyebrows as he scans your outfit again. You grin halfheartedly.

“It was…alright. Kinda weird. I think it’d be more fun if I went to a regular university, but you know…”

Johnny shakes his head. “I can’t blame you for bailing out.”

“Yeah…I’ve been to college parties before, but the Halloween theme was a bit…”

“Strange for an institution that bans all supernatural beings?” Johnny finishes your sentence. He doesn’t look offended or irritated by it—only slightly amused.

You shrug, biting your lip. “Yeah, that.”

“Well, look on the bright side. I wouldn’t have gotten to see you in your natural form otherwise.”

This one almost goes over your head, too, but you catch it just in time. Johnny’s compliments make you feel warm all over, like you’re sitting under the sun. You grin and look down into your cup of coffee, unused to receiving such bold praise and unsure how to respond to it. Something pops into your mind, though, and you think it might be a good idea to run with it.

“You could...take a picture of me, you know. If you want to...since I’m all dressed up now anyway.” You meet his eyes only for a second and then look away, twisting the mug in your hands.

Johnny sits up a little straighter at your words, trying to catch your eyes, though you don’t hold his gaze for long. “You’re sure?” he asks.

“I’m sure. Go ahead! Before I change my mind.” You laugh nervously and carefully set your half-empty mug on the table.

Johnny’s camera is never too far away from him, so he grabs it and plays with the settings for a bit before looking back to you, a small smile on his face. “I’m gonna start, okay?” His voice is surprisingly soft. This, yet again, reminds you of him and the aster bush. He acts as if you might run away at the first shutter click, which makes you feel babied, but you don’t totally hate it.

The first few photos are a little awkward—at least to you. You aren’t sure how to pose, or if you should try to look more casual, though Johnny assures you you’re doing well. He gives you directives throughout, telling you to look in his direction or angle your face a certain way, and you follow his instructions to the best of your ability.

At one point, one of your dress straps slips down. When you go to fix it, Johnny says, “Wait. Could you keep it like that?”

You look at him, your body heating from the suggestion.

“Is that okay with you?”

“…Yes.” Your throat is dry, and your body reacts in a way you don’t expect—little nervous thrills in your hands and feet, though you try to internally explain it away as the coffee’s effects. Johnny takes a few more photos like this, and then he steps closer to gently touch your chin, guiding your face to the angle he’s looking for.

“So good for me.” It slips past his lips in a reverential murmur before he can really consider what he’s saying, and you both freeze. Your heart rate increases, and you wonder if he can hear how hard the red organ is beating in your chest. Probably.

You want to hear him say it again.

Johnny laughs awkwardly, his hand coming back to his side almost a little too quickly to be natural. “Um, I’m really sorry. That was a bit...”

“It…it’s fine.” You avoid his eyes. Johnny takes a few more photos, but the set of his mouth is a little tight, as if he’s stressed about something. Or regretting what he let slip, maybe. You want to tell him you really don’t feel bad about it, but you aren’t sure how to do that without making things more awkward…or revealing your true desires.

When Johnny has taken enough pictures of you to be satisfied with, he sits next to you on the couch, setting his camera on the coffee table and looking suddenly timid.

“I can’t wait to see them,” you say, attempting to break the tension that never really cleared the room after his earlier comment. He blinks for a moment like he doesn’t know what you mean, and then realizes—obviously, he’ll be developing the photos.

“They’ll come out nice, I’m sure. I think you’ll photograph well.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, and now it’s your turn to be unsure of how to resurrect the conversation.

“You’re beautiful.” It’s an abrupt comment. It makes your stomach twist in a pleasant, fluttery way, and you become hyperaware of his form sitting next to yours.

“Haven’t heard that one much, but thanks.”

Johnny turns to you. “Anyone who’d think otherwise is a fool.”

There’s a pause after this where you both simply study each other, watching for hidden reactions that can’t be read on the surface. The way he says it is…decisive, assured. But it also manages to be tender, as if he needs you to know what he thinks of you. Needs you to see yourself the way he does—the same way you do for him. You don’t know where the confidence comes from, but maybe his tone and his words and his endlessly dark eyes have pulled it out of you. “I want to kiss you.”

Johnny’s lips part. “Are you certain?”

“I’m certain.”

He doesn’t hesitate anymore. Johnny moves closer to you and cups the back of your neck. Something awakens in his eyes in the seconds before he presses his mouth to yours. Though he wants to drink eagerly from your lips, his kiss is languid to avoid overwhelming you, and there is an audible smack of your lips whenever he pulls away and presses back in.

His mouth tastes like the coffee you just drank, but underneath that you swear you can taste a hint of the deep iron of blood, and you don’t know how to feel about that. You think about what his fangs would feel like scraping against your bottom lip, if he’d ever show them to you, and you moan quietly.

“Do you want this? With me?” Johnny confirms once more, pulling his gaze away from your lips and up to your eyes. His own eyes are yearning, but there is also an element of something like fear roiling in them. As if you’d turn him away, even though you’ve already shown your desire for him.

“Yes. Just you. No one else.”

Johnny’s body gravitates towards yours, and you think he’s going to push you down onto the sofa, but he scoops your legs up and carries you to his bedroom instead. Even his hands on your waist and legs makes you burn inside.

This is the first time you've seen his bedroom. The sheets are cloud-soft when he sets you down on them, and his window lets moonlight shine through the open blinds and scatter in thick beams across the floor. The only other light source is the bedside lamp, which emits a comfortable yellowish glow.

Johnny joins you on the bed and lets you climb into his lap—encourages you to do so. His cool hands pulling at your thighs as you settle them on either side of his waist makes tingles go through your body. You don’t hesitate to bring your lips back together, kissing each other deeply as one of his hands cradles the back of your head and the other settles on the small of your back.

You are certain vampires don’t have any powers of enchantment—that’s for magic wielders. And yet, you feel like you’ve been put in a trance by his kisses alone, and you wonder how you could’ve lived this long without knowing how his lips feel—how they fit perfectly against your own. As if everything up to now has purposely led you together.

You shift in Johnny’s embrace, and the movement causes his thigh to slide between your legs. Your heat is pressed against his thigh directly now, your silken panties catching against the denim of his pants. You murmur against his lips, not really saying anything of substance but wanting to vocalize your desire to him. Johnny’s hand tightens slightly on your back, and he experimentally lifts his leg higher and slides his thigh across you. That draws a gasp from you.

Noticing your positive response, Johnny continues rocking his thigh up against your pussy and kissing you until you’re breathless and your nipples are straining against the fabric of your dress. You pull away from him for a moment to try to ground yourself, feeling like your nerves are already being singed with fiery pleasure. Johnny’s face is noticeably more flushed than before, but he also looks much more composed than you feel at the moment.

“It takes longer to get hard,” he explains, as if reading the lingering question in your own expression. “Since...you know. Slow blood.” You rock your hips over his thigh more enthusiastically, motivated to get him hard underneath you, and you listen to his choppy breaths as you move. Your movements aren’t the smoothest, but he helps you guide your hips in a way that feels good for you both. You’ve never been with anyone before, so it doesn’t much matter to you how long or quick it takes for him to get there as long as he does.

Feeling the bulge grow underneath you excites you. Johnny groans against your lips as you kiss him and rub yourself over his member. The sound comes from somewhere deep inside him, as if it’s something he’s been containing for a long time. Your hand goes to his waist and tugs at his belt loops, then drifts closer to his belt buckle, pulling the leather and metal apart. Johnny pauses when you get off his lap and slide further down, grips your arms like he doesn’t want you to go. “Are…you sure? You don’t have to…if it’s too much—”

“I want to, Johnny.”

With your affirmative, he lets you kneel between his legs, pull his zipper apart, and trace your curious fingers over the bulge beneath the fabric of his underwear. Johnny loses his breath when you drag his underwear down, sliding it over the heated skin of his dick. His length is thick and long—even with him not being fully hard yet—and the tip glistens wet with precum. You weren’t sure what to expect, but this is much bigger than you think you might be able to handle. It makes your face warm and your stomach do another series of flips. Still, you want it and you want him, so you aren’t going to stop now.

You lean closer to press your lips against his shaft, leaving a few soft kisses behind. Johnny’s mouth parts when your mouth touches him.

Johnny gently holds the back of your head as you leave small licks over his shaft, tasting the salty skin on your tongue. He lets out a shaky breath as he watches you, his other hand brushing the side of your face.

“Just like that…” he murmurs, his voice heavy with lust as you circle your tongue around the thick, darkened tip, catching drops of his precum. He never takes his eyes off you, and this makes you feel a little exposed, but you continue with your actions. When you suck Johnny’s tip past your lips, his thighs tense under you, the thick muscle reacting beautifully to your actions on his body.

More precum drips from him, and you find the taste strangely pleasing. It makes you want more of him, of whatever he has to offer you. You wrap your hand around his shaft, though it doesn’t fit entirely around, and begin stroking him in a way you hope feels good.

Johnny’s hand slips over yours to guide your movements and show you how much pressure to apply, what pace to stroke him at. “Like this, baby…yes, that’s so good…” He showers you with praise as you get the hang of it, and he eventually lets your hand go so you can do it on your own, his own hand drifting back to the bed to grip the comforter.

It’s hard to quantify just how much seeing you like this turns him on, you kneeling between his legs with his cock between your lips while wearing your pretty, angelic outfit. His previous guilt about “corrupting” you descends to the very back of his mind as he savors every moment of your hands on his cock and your tongue circling his slit.

“I’m close,” he whispers. You quicken your movements on him, hollowing your cheeks tighter around his dick, and the moan he gives shoots straight between your legs.

Johnny carefully pulls your head back so you won’t choke before he comes, streams of his seed shooting into your mouth and running down his cock. Your hand still squeezes around him as he comes, and he slowly thrusts into the tight circle of your fist as you milk every drop from him. By the time he’s spent, your mouth and hand and part of the sheets are completely sticky with his release. You imagine it must have been a long time since he’s last had an orgasm.

The vampire watches intently as you swallow his cum, which causes his softening dick to throb in your hand. He takes your face in his hands and kisses you deeply, uncaring of the taste of himself in your mouth. His hair tickles your face as he kisses you feverishly, his nose bumping yours and his tongue prodding past your lips.

“Come here, angel.” Johnny pulls your body up onto the bed before you can get yourself up there first. The pet name makes warmth flood through your body, like drinking a hot chocolate at the café, except a thousand times more satisfying. Johnny’s hands are once again caressing your thighs, though this time they slide up underneath your dress and squeeze your hips. “Can I take these pretty panties off you?”

“Please.”

He hooks his fingers into the sides of them and pulls them down your legs and past your ankles. One of his hands goes underneath your dress to feel you soft and wet against his fingers, and you both moan at the same time. He slides his digits through your lips and over your clit, and him leaning forward to bring his mouth to your throat is enough to have you nearly overwhelmed. His fingers tease your entrance but don’t push inside until you nearly have to beg him.

“Please, Johnny…” You push your hips up to get his attention.

“Do you want my fingers?” he asks softly.

“Y-yes…” At your words, he eases the middle one into you, slowly enough to avoid discomfort. It feels strange to have someone else’s fingers inside you. His finger reaches further than yours can, touching you more deeply than you’ve felt before; it makes you gasp a bit too sharply.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, freezing and thinking he might’ve done something wrong.

“N-no, I’m fine. Keep going.”

Johnny’s mouth edges closer to the cleavage of your dress as he starts thrusting his finger into you, warming you up enough to take a second digit. Shakily, you bring your hands up to slide the straps down and make it easier for him, and his breath hitches when you pull the top of your dress down.

His mouth envelopes one of your nipples as he slides the second finger into you. His fingers encounter a part of you that makes you moan unexpectedly and grab onto him, a little surprised at the sudden spike of pleasure.

“You’re so pretty,” he purrs, his lips moving against the curve of your breast as he speaks. “And so responsive.”

As Johnny’s mouth and fingers work you closer to an orgasm, you marvel at how handsome he looks and how good he feels. He opens his eyes to see you staring at him, your pupils wide and mouth desperate, and he separates himself from your chest to kiss you deeply once again.

When you come around his fingers, Johnny whispers more compliments to you about how good you are and how he wants to watch you come undone because of him all the time. When he thinks you might be on the brink of overstimulation, he takes his fingers out of you, slipping them into his mouth to taste you.

“I’ll take this off now. Is that okay?” He whispers this into your ear with his hands on either side of your hips, caressing the fabric of your dress.

“I-it’s okay.”

Johnny slips your dress off, leaving you in nothing but your white sheer stockings. The sight of you sitting there on his bed, breathing heavily from your climax in your pretty thigh-highs, has his cock throbbing and rising to life once again.

“Lay back on the bed.” You do, and he settles himself between your legs like you did for him earlier. When you glance at him, his eyes are heavy and piercing. In this moment, you are acutely reminded of the fact that he is not a human, with how he looks like a beast of prey about to devour a meal. You are too nervous to look back at him for long, so you stare at the ceiling with your legs shaking from anticipation.

Johnny’s mouth on you is almost jarring in how wet it is, and you arch up into him in surprise and a rush of pleasure. He gently presses your legs back onto the bed and continues licking into you, parting your lower lips with his tongue and making your thighs tremble under his grasp.

If you had to describe it in words, you probably wouldn’t be able to. He kisses your pussy the same way he kisses you on the mouth, passionately and with more than enough tongue to satisfy. Johnny slips his fingers into you again as he curls his lips around your clit, and you moan unabashedly.

You’re quickly spiraling towards another orgasm, maybe quicker than you expected; but it makes sense with you still being so raw from the climax you just had. You gain enough courage to give another glance down at Johnny, and you see the way his other arm moves back and forth from beneath the bed, stroking himself while he eats you out. Something about that pushes you over the edge, and you cry out as you come on his tongue.

As Johnny gives you time to calm down again, he stands and finally pulls his clothes off, baring his body to you. You’re not sure if you’ve ever seen a man so beautiful.

He goes to get a condom, and your words stumble from your lips before you can psych yourself out of saying them. “I-I’m on birth control.” Johnny looks back at you, his gaze filled with something you can’t quite read. He comes closer to you, holding himself above you on the bed so his face is hovering just above yours.

“You want to feel me raw?” he whispers.

You nod under his burning stare, feeling like you’re on a high you won’t be able to get off of. “I need you, Johnny.”

Johnny climbs fully onto the bed then and positions himself between your legs. His cock is thick and heavy between his thighs as it bumps against your inner thigh and leaves a smear of precum behind. After putting some lube in his hand, he slicks himself with the sticky substance, preparing himself to fuck you open. Something deep in your abdomen shudders, and your walls clench around nothing as you watch him stroke his shaft, the squelching, wet sound of his hand on his dick loud in the quiet room.

When he’s done, he grabs your thighs and pulls you a little closer to him. “If it hurts, tell me, okay?”

“O-okay.”

The slick tip prodding at your hole makes you want more, though you are a bit afraid of how this is going to feel. When it finally pushes inside of you, you gasp. Johnny watches your face for signs of pain as he slides forward further.

With two previous orgasms and the lube to help, his cock stretches you open with some discomfort, but not the kind of sharp pain you expected. Your nails leave little half-moon shapes on Johnny’s biceps as you squeeze his arms and try to keep your lower half relaxed, wanting to take all of him in—or as much as you can manage, anyway. You try to keep your breathing even as he pushes into you slowly.

Your eyebrows crease and your mouth tightens when he slides deeper still, and he pauses. “Johnny…” You worry your lip with your teeth, feeling like you’ve been stuffed to the brim—and he’s not even all the way in yet.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” you beg, maintaining your grip on his arms. “Just…try moving.”

Johnny pulls out and slowly thrusts back in again, angling his dick to find that sensitive spot within you. Your mouth falls open silently when he does; this feels much, much different from his fingers. This is better.

Johnny repeats the movement, being mindful not to push himself too deep—only enough for you to handle. Beneath him, your body begins unwinding at the pleasure he’s delivering to you, and your eyes flutter closed as the ecstasy takes over your mind. One of his hands goes to tease your clit as he settles into a good rhythm, and you cry out at the extra dose of pleasure.

“You’re taking me so well,” Johnny mumbles as he sits back and watches himself slide into you, both of your lower halves slick from lube and your own wetness. “So warm and wet, angel…” You can tell he’s using a lot of his energy to keep his pace controlled and gentle enough for you to actually enjoy. The idea of being fucked harder makes you ache deep inside, but you figure it’s best to save that for when you’re more used to this. You already know it’ll be difficult to walk in the morning after this.

Johnny leans forward to kiss your lips, changing the angle again and circling his pelvis into you, and a choked gasp escapes your mouth at the slow wind of his hips.

Johnny lavishes your neck and throat with kisses, and though he is a vampire, you aren’t worried about him biting you. His fangs have not made an appearance since all this started, and you doubt if he would ever bring them out in front of you. You don’t know if you should ask about it, either, wondering if it’s too soon after only a month and a half of knowing each other—but maybe you could say the same about him being inside of you right now.

“Johnny…” you whisper into the air, your fingers scrabbling against his sweaty skin. The mounting tension in your abdomen is close to snapping, and you are almost frightened by how intense it already feels. He moves his face from your neck to be face-to-face with you again and plants a heavy, dizzying kiss on your lips.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs against your kiss-swollen lips. “I’ve got you, Y/N.”

Falling apart in Johnny’s arms feels like a form of Heaven that’s meant to be kept hidden, because you might become addicted to it otherwise. Your inner muscles squeeze around his dick as you come. His name flows from your lips in a high song. You can’t imagine any physical sensation that could be better than this, his hips rocking into you as you tighten and cream around him, and you know innately that Johnny has ruined all chances of you ever feeling this fulfilled with anyone but him.

The constant pulse of your walls against his dick is too much to withstand for long, and Johnny’s muscles pull taut with pleasure when he comes, groaning into your neck and spilling overflowing streams of thick cum into you. His hips falter in their former rhythm, and he resists the urge to push himself as deep as he can into you.

When he pulls out, you whine from the discomfort of it, but also because you wish he could stay in you forever. You know you’ll be sore when you wake up—and you can already feel the very beginnings of exhaustion and ache settling in your body—but you’d do it a hundred times over without changing a thing.

—

Johnny curls himself around you after he’s cleaned the both of you up, as if he means to shield you from the world. You’re quiet for a while as you listen to his slow-beating heart and feel his cool skin against yours.

You look up at his face, which is hard to see distinctly in the dark of the room. With the lamp turned out, the only source of light comes from the moon now, but you can decipher enough to make out the shape of his lips and his glittering eyes. You know he can see much better than you in this light, and he takes his time tracing his fingers across your face and cheek, studying your features.

“Would you ever…make me a vampire?”

His body tenses at your question. “Don’t say anything ridiculous. You still have a whole life ahead of you to live. What I have here...this is no existence.” He’s not mad, at least not at you, but his voice hardens at the very idea of it.

“But what if I wanted to live it with you?”

Johnny takes a breath, but he doesn’t say anything to that. He just continues stroking your face and looks at you for a long time, like he’s searching for something. You don’t know if you truly expected an answer from him, or how you would feel if he did give one.

Eventually, your eyes begin to fall low, and sleep overcomes you. The last thing you register is Johnny’s chilly hand touching your cheek. When he notices you’ve drifted off, he pulls the covers tighter around you both. Then he presses you to his chest as he tunes out the sound of cars rumbling on the streets below in exchange for the beating of your heart—still alive, so red with blood.

389 notes · View notes

mochikeiji · 4 years

Text

Troublesome Baby

↠ Pairing: Akaashi Keiji x Reader

↠ Warning: SMUT! Slight size kink, nipple play, overstimulation, hint of breeding, Akaashi wanting to make his baby know how pretty she is and how wrong people are about her.

↬ Word Count: 4.5k

Summary: Pissing a delinquent is never a persons choice. And what pisses off Akaashi most was when people picked on you instead of him.

⇢ Day 2: Delinquent

A person's feelings can be confusing. One minute they're saying they like a good guy who knows how to keep track in time and hs his future planned out and the second they're liking someone whom their parent's had warned them about.

If you like someone who was always up to no good, are you a masochist? They would ask. Are you out of your mind? They would scold. Do you have any idea how this'll affect your life? They would judge.

You'd like to think otherwise of people who wore tattoos, have so many scars, are always picking fights or having that gangsta stance and aura. You prefer to see them as still a human being with a cold outer shell in order to protect themselves from the cruel world, shielding their gentleness deep within.

It was cliche; a bad person getting soft for one person. But that's how it is even in reality. Sometimes, we can only be vulnerable to the ones we trust the most. And the ones we trust the most are the loved ones.

And those who we love, never deserve how they spit at the world.

That's how Akaashi was with you.

Everyone was shock by the time the former first year had a drastic demeanor change. He was timid, reserved back at his first year in highschool. Polite, and what you'd expect to have an astounding school performance. Hey never would've thought that joining the volleyball club would change someone so idly.

They always thought they were a team filled with passionate players who loved to play fair, but it turns out they loved to get rough around games and outside matches.

Roughness was never Akaashi's agenda. But with a stoic facade and built, athletic feature, he fits in perfectly to look like someone you should stay away from. Still, he kept on being the reserved person he was by hiding his wounds underneath his uniform or volleyball jacket. He doesn't admit it outloud, but he was insecure about his beating wounds.

The times where he and the team would go on random beatings after losing a bet or if someone dares to mess with anyone close to them happened often. Now that word was spread that you, sweet little you, happened to be the pretty faced setters girlfriend is targeted by many disgusting comments.

No man would want to tolerate that or will tolerate their beloved pummeled onto the ground. From all the members of the team he was voted to be the most terrifying one, he doesn't stand down from a fight especially for his baby, he wouldn't stop until the person who made a worthless comment about you, the person who would make you look down at yourself, the person who would make you cry is at their mercy.

His delinquent phase soon carried on until he reached his 20s. Even though now he was an editor and his teammates had their own domestic lives and jobs ahead, they kept up with their ways to earn a bit of cash during the night. Minus Bokuto on some occasions due to his volleyball tournaments world wide, it was mostly just him and the former third years. Even the two females had managed to know their ways into the dangers in joining as long as it helped them raise the cash up a bit.

And that leads the scenario now, you cleaning up his wounds again at the peak of 1 am in the morning after a misunderstanding beat down the past hour. He came home more bruised and bloodied than before— that meant they were outnumbered. Usually, it's Bokuto who would bark at the people who would mess with them. He was known to be feared due to his popularity, but inside the group, it's really just Akaashi who was the monster amongst all of them when he was angry.

You didn't know how long you were going to tolerate this. Him always coming back to you with new scars drawing his skin and you patching him up. It was always like this since highschool, but as you grew, people get tougher, bolder. This was too much.

"Keiji, please stop doing this."

Dabbing the cotton on the alcohol a little and tapping his skin gently to avoid stinging him, you were sat on your study chair whilst he was sitting on your shared bed. You were already trying to hold in the dam from breaking as you had been cleaning all his wounds for the past minute, but as you do, they only seem to get bigger and painful for you to bear.

"I don't want you to keep getting hurt."

Finally putting ointments on his arm, he uses his free hand to cup the side of your face, and raises you too look into his eyes. Ones that weren't feral as they were a couple of hours ago.

"They were bad mouthing about you, I wasn't letting that slip."

"But it's fine! People bad mouth about me a lot even before.."

Inside it still stung. To be growing up mocked by society in any way they see flaw in you. You were always an insecure woman up until now, any little words from others can make you into a brawling mess. What more if some threatened you, you'd be a fleeting coward.

Akaashi knew that about you when you began dating. At first he didn't pay mind into it, but the more he got to know what a kind and loving person you were, he realized just how cruel people can be to those with soft hearts. He hated those to the bone, he would never tolerate that kind of person throwing a pile of crap to someone above them.

"I just don't want to keep thinking one day you won't be coming by the door because of this..I'd rather you just stop being like this after years than to get more bruises. I don't care about the money, Keiji, I earn a lot too."

Your trembling figure was obvious, he knew how emotional you get for whenever he gets reckless, and how you over think of the things the people he has placed back in their place said about you. He never liked the fact you tried to be strong for him so many times and not even reaching out for comfort from him.

"Baby."

He cooes softly, moving away the medical kit from your side and hoisting you up from your chair with ease, allowing you to straddle his lap. You were easy for him to carry considering the height difference, thus making him more protective of you seeing as you look like a small child in fear.

Protesting softly at him to put you down since he was just freshly fixed up, Akaashi let's your head fall on his naked shoulder blade with his hand behind your head, giving your hair a slow stroke down to your back.

That's where you started to cry on his skin.

"I don't care about the money that much, I just hate it when someone threatens or mocks you without even having to know you."

He hears you sniffle at his skin, your tears wetting a small patch on it along with your face. He hushes you for a second before patting your bum, indicating he wants to see your face. With head lowered, you pulled away from his shoulder, sniffling down the tears while roughly using your wrist to wipe your eyes.

He grabs one of your wrist as his soften eyes met your red ones. He lowers your hand down to your lap, with your other one following as he was the one to wipe your tears away.

"It hurts me to have them say such things and have you crying like this. You have no idea how far you are from what they say."

The both of you took a small pause, letting him squish your cheeks with his thumbs rubbing underneath your eyes as small, left over tears escaped. Your hands below pressing against his bandaged abdomen, wondering how much trouble he's gone through just for you with a new batch of tears ready to fall.

"You don't cause me trouble, baby. I did this because you didn't deserve it. It was my decision, not yours or anyones. You will never be the reason for my troubles."

He was an observant guy, any little sign of of your body he knows what's going on. He slides your hands up from his abdomen, to his chest and placing them on his shoulders for you to hold onto. Tilting his head a bit to get an angle of your view, he gives you an adoring smile at the sight of your lips slightly pouting out and your eyes wide and glossy.

"You look cute right now."

Blinking away the blurred vision, your heart thumps a little from the way he was looking at you and his small compliment. You loved it when he gave you a lot of assurance and reminders about yourself. Even in times where they seemed unnecessary.

His finger tracing your cheeks to your nose, tapping at the tip making you shut your eyes and crinkle a little. When he groaned at the shift of your hips now snugging against his growing bulge, he quickly places his hands on your hips to hold you in place.

Your eyes popped out, stammering apologies saying you didn't mean to do it on purpose while gripping his shoulders. You hear him sigh out, worried you might've hurt him but soon vanished when you felt his hands sliding down once again to your bum.

"Why don't I show you how pretty you really are?"

He moves from his position. By instinct, you wrapped your legs around his waist as he lays you down on bed and pushes himself up.

"W-wait, your wounds."

"I'm fine, baby, don't worry."

His hands found their way down to your pajama shorts and pulls them down with ease. He let's his shirt that you were wearing on as it only fueled his arousal at the sight of you looking smaller compared to him.

Thighs shaking and biting back a moan when his index finger slid down on your clothed slit, he repeats his actions upwards and downwards until you shortly got the middle part of your panties wet.

"Just enjoy and relax for me."

You clutched the pillow underneath your head when his finger started to press in your clothed slit, his warmth radiating strongly against your sensitive regions, it made you grind shyly on the finger teasingly trying to intrude your entrance.

He bites lip at the delicious sight and pulls his fingers away, spreading your legs apart so that he could settle himself on his stomach and his face near your lower lips. Sliding your panties down almost too quickly, he pushes your inner thighs to spread for him, giving him a better view of what his teasings done to your body and blowing cool air on your twitching hole, drooling with more arousal.

He hears a small whimper from you and looks up, you covering your mouth with the back of your hand, and your other fisting the sheets. Giving your inner thighs a kiss to calm you down, he winks at you before repeatinf his early ministrations on your now bare pussy.

"You're so easily aroused."

It came out like a breathy whisper from his lips as he watches his finger slide up and down. The thought of you tight and clenching to nothing makes him want to plunge in immediately.

He hums pleasingly at the sight and slowly inserts his index finger in. You moan out loudly in surprise, hiding your face to side and not wanting to look down thinking you might just cum from the sight. He began pulling his finger out and then pushing it back in, he wiggles a little inside of your hole loving how warm and wet it was, until he inserted a nother finger in to stretch you.

"Keiji!!"

He thrusts both fingers in with a decent pace, not wanting to go fast knowing how sensitive and easily you'll cum. His mouth was watering at the sight of his fingers being swallowed in your small pussy, and leans his face down with his other hand spreading your lips and giving it a small kiss that made your hips jolt up as he began to attack your clit.

"K-keiji! Too good!"

His free hand holds one of your thighs way to keep you spread amd at his mercy. The two fingers inside of you thrusting erratically when you tightened around them, now hearing the sloshing noises and his mouth sucking you to death.

He watches your head move from side to side and your chest heaving from his treatment. He can feel his own cock painfully erect inside his pants and moves bit, moaning against your clit at his boxers friction, and your hands finding their way to his hair and begging him not to stop.

"Keiji! Please, please, don't stop! Please, I'm close!"

His fingers beckoning inside of you knowing what he was now pressing at and flattens his tongue on your pussy before smirking up and saying,

"Go on, pretty girl, cum for me."

Hearing his voice was like a knock out for you as your hips arched up and the grip on his hair tightened. The pads of his fingers pressing and teasing your sweet spot until you were cumming hard for his mouth to take in.

He pumps a few more thrust until your orgasm faded. You whimpered from the additional thrust and grabbed his wrist to stop.

"Too much, Keiji.."

Hungry eyes raking your sweating body and wet folds, his pants getting unbearable at the moment and zips it down immediately along with his boxers, letting his cock free and breathes in the cool air as it hits his cock that made it twitch in need.

How much he wanted to keep eating you out despite being sensitive, but the need to be inside of you caves in as he hovers above your quivering body and attatching his lips with yours. He slips in his tongue to deepen the kiss, grinding his cock against your wet slit as you moaned inside his mouth from the much needed friction and something inside your needy cunt.

But Akaashi wanted to savor the moment, he knows you were a virgin. He's only fingered and eaten you out during the years of relationship. Even though the thought of having his cock a taste of your cunt drives him insane, he wanted to make sure every part of your body was touched, kissed and adored like he promised.

"Mmh!"

Fingers now tweaking your right nipples as your legs tried to close themselves from now having to be stimulated from your torso, to his hard cock still grinding tantalizing. But his body was in between them, and his mouth was practically eating your whines and mewls for him. Seeing how sensitive you were getting over the little touches he was giving made him moan against your lips. His hand moves to tweak your other untouched nipple and pulled a little, your back arching as he releases his mouth from yours letting you moan loud.

Your back still arched giving him a quick access to suck on your erected nipple, biting softly yet playfully in synch with his pinching on the other nub.

"KEIJI! HAH— PLEASE!"

Trying to move away from his mouth and fingers by pushing his head gently, he uses other hand to pin both of your smaller ones above your head and releases your nipple with a pop, shivering from the air.

He stops playing with the other one and moves there to suck on it. His finger moving to the soaked one and pulling it softly. You trashed on his hold as he continued to assault your breast. Not seeing the way his eyes are now getting half lidded at the sight of your teary ones from the amount of pleasure and the sound of your pleading singing in his ears.

"AH! Keiji!! Please— no more!"

But he knows how much you didn't want this to stop. If you really did want to stop, you would've used your safe word. But just smiles at you fondly, letting his finger move from breast to breast and pulling and pinching quickly.

"Mm, I just love," he pulls a little harder on your left nub, but not to painfully for you, "How your body reacts to me." you hear his chuckled laugh when he stops to massage your breast alternatively, leaving you whimpering from how skillful his hands were.

"You're getting cuter and prettier as time goes by."

Shamefully, your walls clenched from his words. He knows judging by how you bit your lip and shutting your eyes and grins at you. He knows how much you loved getting praised and told all the lewd things he wants to do to you.

"You'll be prettier with my cock stuffing inside you, won't you, baby?

Hands trying to pry his stronger ones away so that you can hold him, hide on his skin and let him ravage you. He does however, using both his hands, he separated your arms and pins them at the side of your head and proceeds to attack your neck.

"Baby."

He cooes at the side of your skin, cock now lubed from his pre cum and yours with the tip just poking on your lower lips impatiently.

"Please..inside, Keiji, please."

Yours legs widened themselves, preparing for what you've both been wanting that evening. He laces his hands on yours, the position you now had more vulnerable for him and he wanted nothing more than to take you and make you feel protected and pleased.

"Tell me if it hurts, okay?"

Lips pressing on your forehead as you relaxed on the sweet sensation, but as seconds went by, your body tensed when he entered the head of his cock in, inching slowly his hard length.

Akaashi's hands gripped yours harder when he feels your cunt fluttering and hugging his member tighter than he expected. His breating becoming ragged so he started leaving trail marks of love bites on your neck to calm the both of you down from the foreign feeling.

Each mark he gave came with a soft praise, telling you how good you were doing taking his cock perfectly and how beautiful you were breathless underneath him. He told you, you were doing a good job holding in and with that you let out a shaky breath before telling him he can move.

Thrusting out slowly, letting your juice slide freely on his cock before thrusting back in with force, enough for you to choke a moan. His hips taking their pace into what he knows is bearable for a first timer like you, but the way he was clenching his jaw tight indicates how much he wants to have his way and fuck you like he was on a rut. You were so tight and small compared to his impressive length that it was getting painful for him to be in a vice like grip down there.

It was a struggle to take him, but at the back of your head as you feel his cock move in and out of you felt so right, you wondered if it could be more pleasurable as it is. His face was alarming to you so you rubbed your thumb on his hand letting him pause and exhale harshly. He didn't know he was holding back so much to the point he forgot how to breathe.

"Are you okay?"

He panted above you as you stared in daze and in euphoria from being stuffed. Trying to stay grounded, you attempted to grind your hips to rile him up, only for him to growl and thrust in, forcing your hips down with a squeal from your lips.

"Don't do that."

"But you're struggling."

He breathes through his nose, he hates to admit it but he had to hold himself together not to take you like a freak in bed. He reminds himself that tonight was about you and only you. How wrong the words were of the people he's beaten for you.

"It's fine, I don't want to hurt you."

Nuzzling his nose on your cheek, he hums happily on your skin when you press your cheek in reply. As your eyes stared at each other, you knew how gentle your Keiji was with you. You knew he would never hurt you even if he could. He wasn't going to.

"Please Keiji."

Moaning wantonly when your shifted your hips in a good angle for his cock to thrust on, you looked at him with pleading eyes and drooling mouth.

"Please go harder."

Groaning on your skin, he thrusts in suddenly, lettinf your back arch once more as he placed his chin on your chest and licks his lips in hunger.

"You asked for it, baby girl."

The thrusts he was making was now audible inside your room; his balls slapping below your bum, your cunts lewd juices being messed up on both your bodies and your moans slowly becoming screams.

"KEIJI!!"

His mouth found their way back on your nipple, biting roughly and licking away the pain followed by a good sucking. Hips never faltering or holding back anymore and engulfs your shaking body.

"Fuckers were so wrong about you, love. Look at you,"

Your mouth was drooling from the side, hair messed up in display on the pillow that made them look soft and angelic on you, eyes, your hands holding onto him tight with your body jiggling up everytime he thrusts in.

"You look absolutely ravaging."

He lets go of your other hand and places his on the back of your leg, hoisting it up and placing it on his shoulder, letting his cock piston deeper into you and making a mess out of you.

"I can't even move a lot from how small and tight your cunt is."

He laughs breathlessly as he aims to find your sweet spot again. You were trying to pull away from his hold but with your thigh up on his shoudler, you were stuck taking this all in like a good girl.

"I think I may be too lucky to have you in my life."

The tip of his cock was now kissing that spot that made you scream out in the blue, Akaashi cursed when your cunt clenched his raging member as he kept aiming at your precious spot.

"Fuck, do you like that, baby?"

"AHN— YES! PLEASE, PLEASE, I WANT TO CUM!"

Sobbing for the much needed orgasm, your body gives up and lets the male above you use it to please you both.

"Fuck, my hips can't stop."

He buries himself at the crook of your neck, moaning near your ear, edging you close to your release to the sound of him. He lets out small whimpers and groans, his cock twitching violently inside you with his thrusts losing their rhythm.

"Baby girl."

"KEIJI, SLOW DOWN! AHH— I'M GOING TO CUM!"

The heat in your stomach felt different from your previous orgasms. This felt hotter, tighter, and a whole lot messier. But Akaashi showed no mercy and carried on,

"Cum for me, baby."

The freed hand he had a minute ago now being a teasing bastard and rubbed your swollen clit. Pinching and rolling all four of his fingers on, making you scream and thrash. Panting with the thought of dying frkm the immense sex he was giving until the last line made you scream without a sound,

"I'm going to cum inside."

Your eyes rolled sinfully at the last line, your bodh ascending above not hearing Akaashi gasp from the way you came and groan as both his cock and abdomen get soaked from your cum and your stomach filled with his thick load and kept thrusting in a slower pace. Your cunt spasming on his member, milking him dry until you were taking all of his load in.

Exhausted, his body stills and lays a bit above you, not wanting to squish you with his member remaining inside you. Sniffles can be heard coming from you as you calmed down from your high, Akaashi stroking your hand that was still clamped on his and peppered you with small kisses and sweet confessions.

"You did so good."

"That's my baby."

"Always so beautiful even like this."

You other arm came and wrapped themselves on his neck, pulling close to you as you inhaled his masculine scent, anchoring you down back to earth before coming to realization on how damp your bottom was.

"I—"

"Squirted?"

Blushing, you buried your head on his neck followed by a laugh from your boyfriend, listening to you blabber multiple apologies.

"I'm sorry!"

"It's okay, I liked it," He captured your lips with kiss, kissing you lovingly and a little longer before pulling away only to give you small pecks repeatedly, "It was sexy."

"You sound so different when you use that word, Keiji.."

"But it's true."

He didn't bother pulling out after you pleaded him not to. Even if it was your first time, it was addicting to have something fill you up to the brim. It made you feel snug and full, and it felt right. Akaashi wasn't complaining on the cock warming, in fact he held you closer to his chest and twirled your hair nonetheless.

"You're really not what they describe you, love," he admires how the dim light from your room manages to create a good lighting that made your skin glow. The hairs that sticked to you forehead after the intimacy you both caught up made you look like a soft baby with eyes looking at him full of love,

"I can't even describe you anymore."

Your eyes trailed down to his wounded torso from his face. Even though he was tainted, Akaashi was sculptured beautifully like no other. But inside you prayed that he wouldn't go home another day with freshly opened wounds just to defend you as you traced your fingertips on each bruise and scar.

He spots on and grabs one of your hands and pulls it in for a kiss on the knuckles, "I promise, I won't make you worry anymore."

Smiling, you snuggled on his chest pleased and full of bliss, feeling his lips kissing the top of your head repeatedly and his arms hugging you closer to his body.

"Keiji?"

"Hm?"

Pressing your cheek on his chest, you looked up to him and asked, with a small tint of blush on your face in embarrassment, "Um..W-why did you you know...In me?"

For a second he blushes as well, but in the end he seemed to be smiling excitedly as you missed the way his eyes glanced somewhere down your stomach.

"So I can have another pretty baby to love."

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu imagine #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenario #haikyuu oneshot #haikyuu oneshots #haikyuu fluff #akaashi keiji #akaashi smut #akaashi x reader #akaashi x y/n #akaashi x you #akaashi scenarios #akaashi headcanons #haikyuu smut #akaashiweek2020 #haikyuu akaashi keiji #hq akaashi

892 notes · View notes

shoichee · 3 years

Note

hiii tysm for keeping this fandom alive... i was wondering if i could request hugging hcs for Moriyama, Kasamatsu, and Hayakawa? like what kind of hugs do they give, when, etc.?

BANGER REQUEST THIS IS SUCH A UNIQUE ONE I LOVE THIS THANK YOU ANON.... i hope you’re still around :^)

[Headcanons]

Moriyama Yoshitaka

this guy is literally the definition of touch-starved LOL

once he finds his special someone, they’re gonna need to prepare themselves for TONS of verbal affection… even if they don’t get his convoluted words half the time

that being said, he wouldn’t be awkward with hugs, but it’s his misinterpretations and poor executions of the hugs that make things awkward

in his MIND, he THINKS he’s being mega suave and totally seducing you with his mannerisms, and you’re just here like, “umm… you know you can just… ask for a hug if you wanted one.”

“According to my research though, it’s better to approach this more poetically in order to be seen in a more profound light with the person you like.”

“Huh? Are you actually trusting the internet more than me about what I want—”

“Sorry, sorry, here,” he would mumble in defeat and immediately bring you to nestle your head against his chest

this type of interaction would be very frequent in the early stages of your shared relationship, where Moriyama would try to salvage his poor social skills by hugging you against body, and him putting his hand to cradle your head while the other is around your waist

of course, even if you were exasperated with him, you can’t help but eventually hug him back and snuggle closer

canon: he’d have unique scents on him every once in a while, because he’s someone to use scented deodorant sprays (like citrus, in the Replace novel)

he’d actually be unintentionally charismatic with his actions? like, if he doesn’t open his mouth and wordlessly hugs you, his body just knows how to accommodate you:

sad? happy? clingy? affectionate? lazy? when he sees your current mood, he just somehow knows what type of hugs to give you…

he thinks the internet advice is working, but in reality, he’s just inherently very in-tuned with people’s emotions; for example, he’s one of the few people who can see straight through Kasamatsu and his inner struggles, and he’s always the first person to suggest roundabout ways to make him relax

so because of this, sometimes he’d make the most confusing statements and random trivias he found from his “research” just to try to look for an opportunity to sneak up and glomp on you “tactfully” (never works, and you end up sighing that *sigh* before letting yourself be open on purpose for Moriyama to sneak in with a hug)

this dude is the type of guy who’d find every opportunity to hug you in front of his teammates to subtly show off how “experienced” he was in dating LOL and then he’d probably say something like, “If you follow the signs I told you guys about, you’ll all be able to have cute dates too, you know…” all while giving that little comical pout and index finger point at them… maybe flipping his bang to the side with that finger too…

but again, he’s touch-starved, so deep inside, he really, REALLY likes hugging you and wants to touch you every moment he gets

whenever he hugs you, he’s at his most “normal,” where he drops the whole “fate, elements, advice” talk and just has normal conversations and genuine muses… although a random corny line might slip out of habit

he hugs you before school, during school, after school, but rarely during practice or games or anything like that… which is surprisingly odd

he’ll hug you in front of his teammates during school no problem, but if it’s right before a practice or a game, he usually doesn’t, mostly because he’s usually very concentrated on the upcoming challenge… and not to mention, he’s a 3rd-year, so he does want to set a good example for the underclassmen in prioritizing the team first

he has no problem scouting for your face on the stands before a game starts though, and of course, he’d pester his team about how cute you looked in the stands

once games end, if you allowed him, he’d usually jog straight to you and would try to give you a quick hug before he’d go back to his teammates to the lockers

Kasamatsu Yukio

touch-starved guy #2, but is also afraid of physical contact

not because he doesn’t like it, but the concept of someone hugging him or him hugging someone for ROMANTIC reasons is so foreign

it’s the fact that he knows he’ll get super sweaty, clammy, and stiff and he KNOWS he’d focus on everything but also on nothing, and at that point he’ll just shut down—

so touch-starved that when he gets a hug from you, he’d be hyper-fixated on EVERYTHING about you and where you’re touching, and his brain would just overload

so the result is the same old Yukio being frozen and stammery and red

in other words, YOU have to initiate the hugs

whenever you hug him, he’s gonna first flinch and then respond by stiffly holding his arms out to support your weight against his body… and then after a few seconds of contact, he would awkwardly pat his two hands on your back in this loose hug he’s doing LOL

all while being red, of course

but how much he hugs depends on how much you go up to him for hugs; as much as he grumbles and stammers and lamely complains, he’d never reject any of your hugs, even with the hesitant reciprocation

if you two are alone, he’s much quicker to hug you back… if you hug him in public or in front of his teammates, he’s more likely to be frozen stiff and slower to pat your arms in a shy hug

however, the times when Kasamatsu would be at his lowest and most emotional are when Kasamatsu initiates the hugs first, often out of nowhere with fierce, tight holds while nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck/top of your shoulder

once he reveals his most vulnerable side like this to you in hugging you, it’d be huge milestone in which he would be more inclined to initiate physical contact without being in a flustered state

all in all, give the poor captain some time… eventually when you’ll reach a certain part of your relationship (see bullet points above), he’ll be comfortable enough to hug you without being a mess

so when he finally gets to this point, he will always ask you for consent (or at least give you a heads up) before he hugs you or physically touches you with, “May I…?” or “Do you mind…?”

and most of the time, or near always, you’d reply, “Of course, Yukio.”

“Th-That’s good…”

he’s still a reserved individual with a captain’s duty to uphold, so he’s not going to be handsy on his end in front of people; he’d literally DIE of embarrassment

expect “loose” hugs from him, he’s not gonna smush your face into his chest or give those extremely tight hugs, generally speaking

so what should you expect from his hugs? assuming that you hugged him first, his hands will always pat your back or rub soothing patterns of circles and swirls, almost in an unconscious effort to try to show you that he does love these hugs from you, even if it’s hard for him to show and express that sometimes

or if he has those shy moments, he’d try to half-heartedly pry you off in a grumbling fluster, but after grasping your arms around his waist, he’d immediately give in and just rub those familiar patterns on your upper arms while trying to convince you to wait until you’re alone with him to do these things

if he senses some sketchy people nearby or if you’re in a crowd full of strangers, expect a hand around your shoulder as he ushers you slightly closer to his side with a serious glint in his eyes, analyzing your surroundings (again, this will only happen once your relationship reaches at a later stage)

it’s only when the “danger” passes by and with his hand still on you that he realizes what he did and starts getting embarrassed again

key phrase with the Kaijō captain is: “There’s a time and place for everything.”

Hayakawa Mitsuhiro

touch-starved guy #3, but he’s not afraid to pounce on you for the hugs

ever since he miraculously got into a relationship with you (according to his teammates, anyways), slapping his own cheeks to get himself in the mood for rebounding wasn’t as appealing anymore

not when he has you to hug and accidentally squeeze the life out of you

“Oh!! A(l)e you he(l)e to chee(l) me on, (y/n)-san?!”

“M-Mitsu… I can’t… breathe—”

“O-Oh! So(l)(l)y…! I [will learn] to be mo(l)e ca(l)efu(r) next time!”

“Mitsuhiro, please don’t worry about me! Go back to your teammates… they’re waiting for you. Good luck on the game, okay?”

Hayakawa treats hugging like he does with basketball, putting 100% of his effort and enthusiasm into it… and oftentimes, his hugs can be too… explosive? they can be quite abrupt and intense

his energy alone would normally scare away everyone—hell, a lot of times, his teammates can’t tolerate it… so everyone always wonders how you never seem bothered by his tendencies

but to you, his bear hugs make you feel very, very secure and loved, since he never has qualms about hugging in public because he’s always focused on you or the courts

initially though, his hugs definitely crushed your figure into smithereens, mostly because he’s never had to keep his strength in check

and he’s never had anything close to an intimate relationship, so he’d probably need a lot of time and positive encouragement/advice for him to learn how to be more delicate (or rather, tactful) when initiating hugs

he’s SO earnest that he’d totally treat your words/encouragement as a serious lesson and would try to “practice” hugging and ask:

“Is this okay, (y/n)-san?!”

if you’re not around, he’d totally hug his teammates out of nowhere and definitely receive a few punches or kicks out of retaliation

“WHAT THE HELL?”

“I am p(l)acticing [how to] hug, Kasamatsu-senpai!”

“Don’t do that! People will get the wrong idea!!”

“Why? Don’t we a(r)ways p(l)actice togethe(l) as a team, captain?!”

“That’s completely different!!”

he has no tact, so whenever he sees you, expect a fierce hug as a greeting every time… unless you tell him that you’re not a fan of the constant hugging or want to save it for private moments, he’s gonna keep doing it

just as your hugs hype him up for anything upcoming, when you hug him a certain way, they also have a calming effect on this excitable boy too

Kasamatsu literally reveres you because you’re the only one who can keep him in check

it’s when you do your calming hugs (that gentle squeeze around his torso as you slowly nuzzle against him) that his heartbeat slightly slows down and his breath exhales out steadily to let out the pent-up steam

those types of hugs from your end would allow you to see a “less-energetic” side of him, where his voice might still be loud, but at least it’s still relatively indoor voice

still, a lot of his sentences are either incomprehensible mumbles or butchered exclaims, no in-between

“Sometimes, it’s good for your body and mind to stop and relax, y’know?”

“I-Is that so…! You a(l)e very knowled[geable] about these things! I [think] that is ve(l)y coo(r)…”

“You say that, but you’re one of the best offensive rebound players in the nation. That’s so much cooler, Mitsuhiro.”

“If I was coo(r) (r)ike you say, I wonde(l) why peop(r)e (l)un away [when I try] to ta(r)k? Mo(l)iyama-senpai says [it is because] I ‘have no cha(l)m’… I must wo(l)k ha(l)der [if that is the case]!”

“Well, I think your attitude and energy can be very refreshing. Everytime I see you, I can’t help but be motivated to work hard and accomplish like you do.”

“I am ve(l)y touched, (y/n)-san…!”

all in all, he will hug you every chance he gets (except when Kasamatsu roundhouse kicks him to curb him) and accepts all hugs from you (while being red and a little shy, but still enthusiastic)

prepare your waist/torso to be constantly crushed embraced, because that’s where his arms will always be around

#knb #kuroko no basket #knb x reader #kasamatsu yukio #kasamatsu x reader #kasamatsu yukio x reader #moriyama yoshitaka #moriyama x reader #moriyama yoshitaka x reader #hayakawa mitsuhiro #hayakawa x reader #hayakawa mitsuhiro x reader #kaijo #kaijo team #kaijo x reader #knb headcanons #knb headcanon #knb fic #knb fics

171 notes · View notes

groovesnjams · 2 years

Video

youtube

“Higher” by Sun-EL Musician ft. Simmy

DV:

It’s been a few years now that I’ve been trying to find other artists in Sun-El Musician’s lane, unsuccessfully. Of course I have theories: the United States remains very poorly connected to culture, music included, if it’s coming from anywhere outside North America and Western Europe (add Latin America, Japan and South Korea if you’re part of those groups or seeking them out, though for the mainstream media they still mostly exist to be rediscovered as trends every few years.) The internet is designed to connect a world that defines “world” very narrowly; as Silicon Valley builds dividing walls around sections of it ever more aggressively, it feels important to acknowledge that the promise of global connectivity was never fully achieved, that it has always been constrained by infrastructure and greed and worse.

This is all just to say that when I try to find amapiano that sounds like Sun-El Musician, I’m partially moving in the dark: chasing glimpses of light that turn out to be shards of broken glass in a rabbit hole, turning up music that’s either much more intense (if often great in its own right) or much more laid-back (and seems to come from some kind of muzak-type service.) I’m blind to what I’m missing, and yet as far as I can tell there’s no one else in this particular lane. Which is, essentially, amapiano plus toplines - and plus some spectacular singers. Because without Simmy, "Higher” could almost be elevator music; it’s certainly gentle enough. But because of Simmy (and also when working with others: Azana, Nobuhle, and Sino Msolo come to mind) Sun-El Musician is structuring his version of amapiano like pop songs, building them as if they have verses and choruses, lending them a sense of purpose and sometimes even narrative that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere. Here, Simmy grants each repetition of the lyric warmth and weight, conjuring depth from the simple concept. “Higher” may not approach 2020′s spectacular “Ngihamba Nawe”, but it still goes places. And it still sounds gorgeous. Who else is following it? Hopefully I’ll figure that part out eventually.

MG:

I, too, spend a lot of my time on the internet searching for something I don’t know enough about and looking for it in places where it can’t quite be found. It’s not amapiano but it may as well be for all the hidden passageways and off ramps to nowhere. When this happens -- the frustration, I mean -- my first thought is always “Oh, it’s just like promised, the ease of search results at my fingertips has made me intellectually lazy and now I can’t think this problem through.” That’s flat out wrong, though. Finding the highly specific things that you (maybe you alone) are looking for has always been an enormous challenge and the stuff life is made of. The internet was supposed to lower the barrier to knowledge, but in practice that was never the case as Google went from kind of unusable to mailbox ad flier quite quickly without ever having a period of being even so useful as a book’s index. All that said, it’s still so much easier to find anything at all than it was when I was a high school freshman with no internet (home or school) and a TV allowance of 30 minutes a day. I have old diary entries about buying Dylan bootlegs at Tower Records in 1998 and in 2015 Columbia Records purged his earliest recordings from copyright and I listened to hours of him just tuning his guitar in a coffee shop without ever getting out of bed. The internet: not what I want it to be, ever, but still nothing I’d willingly give up, ever.

Believe it or not, this does tie into “Higher” because I think that kind of satisfied acceptance is at the heart of this song. Simmy and Sun-El Musician are a union of purpose and feeling, one that’s rarely this harmonious. Without ever revving up, much less soaring, “Higher” posits that things just keep getting better. There’s a mountain of songs that share this theme, but they all involve big chord changes, major keys, and a certain loudness. Not so here where Simmy is quiet, contemplative, and certain and Sun-El Musician offers a lightweight but substantial production. When you’re 25 and at a boozy midday brunch with your friends and you loudly announce that you’re on your way up, you are aligned with all the pop music before you that conceals effort with excess. “Higher” sounds like the real feeling, content and optimistic.

#sun-el musician #simmy #higher #music #amapiano

6 notes · View notes

kingsuckjin · 4 years

Note

I understand if you're to busy but I have this idea: playing with Jungkook's dick and balls like a door knocker or something.

Hey thanks for the request anon, I hate it! 😀

I wrote this just for you and lost a little of my soul in the process! Enjoy!

Hunger-jjk

- Pairing: jungkook x reader

- Genre: ftl, crack

- Warnings: fingering (f receiving), blowjob, slightly jealous/slightly dom/possessive kook, biting, scratching, rough sex,unprotected sex, kooks got a biiiiig dick, tattooed kook being an idiot at the end. It’s all kind of cracky tbh and I never want to reread this again but I hope you enjoy!

- Synopsis: You didn’t go into this friend dinner thinking you were going to be doing anything but making lobster… until you accidentally grab his entire crotch.

- Words: 4.8k

——–

“You know when I said just get whatever for our friend dinner I didn’t mean ten pounds of lobster.” You looked at your best friend with your hand on your hip as he unpacked all the lobster, thankfully already dead, onto the kitchen counter.

“I can eat most of it.” He said nonchalantly and honestly you didn’t doubt it. The boy ate as if he were a giant at all times despite his tiny waist. You knew what all that food went though, it went to make all of those dense rippling muscles that you could never stop staring at.

Your eyes ran over his biceps which looked more meaty than all the lobster in the bag combined. His slightly translucent white shirt clung tightly around his muscles, threatening to break free. To make matters worse, he was wearing sweatpants, gray sweatpants, and from the looks of it no underwear. You could vaguely make out the large size and shape of everything that was going on inside of them and man did it look appetizing to you.

You needed to get it together, this man has been your best friend since third grade. Wide eyed, happy, kind and innocent Jungkook. You instantly felt bad. You hadn’t had a friend dinner like this together since university when all you could afford was to combine whatever you had, which was mostly combining Ramen, into a pot in those days.

Jungkook had also just gotten out of a rough relationship and now here you were thirsting after him when this was supposed to make him feel better.

“You’re going to help me cook all of these right?” You asked and watched as he nodded his head like an excited puppy.

“Whatever you need I’ll do it, just say the word. I’m at your service.” He gave you a sweet and pure smile just like the Jungkook you always knew, although his words left a bit of a tickle in your belly.

“Alright then.” You said trying not to look at the tattoos scattered up one of his arms as you walked around him to get into one of the bottom cabinets. “Looks like we’re going to need a big pot to put all of these in.” You commented.

“How big?” He seemed to ask automatically from where he stood behind you. You froze your digging in the cabinet. Was he doing this on purpose or was it just your honey imagination playing tricks on you. “How big of a pot do you need? Do you need help getting it? He reiterated so you brushed it off.

“The biggest one I have and maybe.” You grabbed for the massive metal pot you never used and found it too heavy and clunky to pull out.

“Jungkook-” you reached behind you for his wrist and tugged gently, meaning to drag him down to you but there were two problems. The first problem being, whatever you were grabbing was clothed, and Jungkook wasn’t wearing long sleeves. The second problem was that whatever you were grabbing and tugging lightly at was too soft to be an arm or leg.

The room was silent as you realized and slowly turned around, body part still in hand.

“Oh my God!” You instantly yelled as you released the entirety of his junk from your grasp and stood in panic.

Jungkook looked just as confused but more surprised.

“Oh my God Kook I’m so so sorry!” Your hands shot up to cover your embarrassed face.

It would have been so much different if your hand would’ve accidentally just grazed just junk, or if you would’ve accidentally hit him in them or something but no. No, you full on had a hand full of it all, tugging on it only to release it like a door knocker. You could still feel the shape of everything, he was huge, and somehow that made it even more embarrassing.

“I-uh- just don’t look down.” He stuttered and your stupid body took that as a sign to automatically look down.

“Oh my God you’re hard!” You took a step back as you exclaimed in surprise.

“I told you not to look down!” Jungkook was now too panic stricken as he tried to shield his crotch from your view by grabbing a lobster on the counter and used that to cover himself “and I’m not entirely hard for your information!”

“I didn’t need to know that!” You shouted right back before taking a deep breath. “Okay,” You spoke more calmly now. Just turn around” He immediately did as you asked, too bad his ass was just as hot as the rest of him. “This was awkward, a very weird chain of events and we should never talk about it again.”

“Hm okay but-”

“No, but nothing-” you cut him off only for him to cut you off.

“Why do you seem so flustered though?” He asked with his back still turned to you.

You didn’t expect his question, you didn’t have a good lie or any at all.

“I-I’m not flustered!” You said it too defensively to sound like you meant it.

A now boner free Jungkook turned on his heel to look at you with suspicion. Your face felt more heated under his accusing stare.

“You know it’s not fair, right? He pointed the lobster still in his hand as he spoke.

“What’s not fair? Please put the lobster down Jungkook.” You grimaced at the dead lobster in his hand.

“Fine.” He sighed and set the lobster on the counter with the others and washed his hands, dragging out the wait and confusion for you. “It’s not fair that I don’t get to touch you back.”

Your heart felt like it was now pounding into your throat as you wondered how to say yes without looking desperate as you felt for his touch.

“W-what part of me do you want to touch?” Of course you were nervous, he had the muscles of a god… and now you knew he had the dick of one too.

“Hmmm maybe like a boob or something.” He seemed to think out loud before panicking just a little “I-I won’t though if you don’t want me to or if you feel uncomfortable! I just thought that-”

He stopped talking and started to stare when you took off your t-shirt and let it fall to the kitchen floor.

“You’re really going to let me?” He looked awe stricken from your bra clad chest to your face.

“It’s only fair isn’t it?” You took a deep breath, gathering all of the bravery you could and pulled the straps of your bra down your shoulders and tugged it down your torso to expose your bare breasts to him.

He couldn’t take his eyes off your chest, even as he took a step closer to you. His hand raised to your left breast but froze before he touched it.

“Both?” He questioned looking rather nervous. You simply just give him a nod.

His large, cool hands cupped your breasts and just kind of sat there still for a moment. His eyes flickered up to yours before experimentally letting his thumbs run over your hardening nipple.

You let out a small gasp at the way it felt and the chills you got from his thumbs brushing over your nipples only once.

“Do you want me to stop?” His voice was a whisper as you realized how close your faces now drifted together.

“No.” You whispered back to him and your eyes locked together as your lips and bodies gravitated closer to close the distance. Once your lips touched, a spreading and out of control fire seemed to burst through both of you. The timid nervousness exploded into a hungry lust for each other that you didn’t even really realize existed before.

He now kneaded at your breasts roughly as your hands slipped up his shirt, desperately to feel the muscles of his body under your own hands.

You let out a pant into his mouth as he took a sensitive and already hardened nipple between his thumb and index finger and rolled it between them. Tingles of lustful were shooting through you as your teeth and tongues clashed and gnashed together, fighting to taste and touch more of one another.

The only time the kiss was broken was when he quickly threw off his shirt onto the floor carelessly. That short pause wasn’t nearly enough time for you to catch your breath but it was enough time to catch the way spit from you both and your wild kissing was not only on his lips but around his mouth.

You could hear him panting just for a moment but nearly let out a squeal when he picked you up without warning somehow as if you weighed nothing to him, and set you on the counter before going right back at your mouth with his.

You spread your legs and pulled his body in closer so he stood between them, letting you lead him between them like a lost puppy.

You felt him now hard against your core, urging him to rut into you which he obliged with eager passion.

You couldn’t take too much of the hopeless grinding, you felt like you were being driven insane by the sheer size of him, you wanted to see him fully unclothed, you wanted to *feel* him fucking into you, stretching your pussy open with his chiseled body against yours. You clenched around nothing just thinking about it before your hands moved to tug down his sweatpants, but he stopped you and pulled back.

“Are you sure you want to do this with me?” Is eyes searched yours as he asked the question.

“Yeah of course I do.” You tilted your head wondering why in the world he thought you might not want to.

“Are- are we going to be friends after?”

“Honestly Jungkook…” you took a deep breath to ready yourself for the words that were about to spill from your mouth. You were so afraid of ruining the moment, afraid of getting a bad reaction from him. “I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

His eyes instantly looked hurt as you began to panic from your wrong word choice.

“Did I upset you with all of this?”

“No no! I- I want something more with you.” It spilled from your mouth faster than you could chose the right words to say, once it was out you watched his face turn from hurt to shock.

“But- but I understand that you might not feel the same way and you might just want to stay friends and I know you just got out of a rough relationship and-”

Jungkook’s lips slamming hard into yours stopped you mid ramble. When his lips pulled from yours he gave you one more quick kiss before speaking.

“Shut up I want you, I want you too. I have wanted you for a very very long time. So in front of all these lobsters on the counter beside you, I’d like to ask you to be my girlfriend.”

You couldn’t help the snort of laughter that came out of your mouth.

“Oh you’re laughing at me now, huh?” He did his best to stop a smile so he looked more serious.

“No I just- the lobster-” you continued to laugh.

“Well you’re not taking this very seriously I see.” He looked more straight faced now so you stopped laughing as he leaned into your ear and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind it.

“Maybe I just need to prove myself to you first?” As he whispered in your ear he took your hand and placed it over his sweatpants on his still hard cock just for a second. “I want you, I *have* wanted you and now I’m going to prove it to you, show you how much I wanted this. And after, you tell me what you want to be. Deal?” His breath on your ear had sent goosebumps all over you and stunned you at the harshness and sureness of his voice.

“Deal” You whispered back not because you weren’t already sure of your answer for him, but because you wanted to play along and see where he was going with this.

“Pants off.” He told you while tugging at them.

You did your best to get your jeans off while still sitting on the counter, thankfully you had an extra set of hands to help you.

You now sat there in front of your tattooed best friend on the counter in just your panties which were starting to soak through.

“You know,” he placed his hands on your knees and ran them slowly up to your thighs “I hated it when you dated Taehyung last summer.”

“Why are you bringing that up? We only dated for like a month.” You pointed out “It was nothing serious.”

He leaned on and placed a soft kiss on your neck as his hands lingered on the tops each of your thighs.

You closed your eyes nearly dismissing what you just said with the feeling of his warm bare chest pressed into yours and his lips on your skin.

“Not the way he talked about it. He would always say you were the fuck of his life… and I wanted to kill him for it.” He pressed another slow kiss to your neck “at first I thought it was because you were my best friend and I was protective over you, but the more stories I heard from him about fucking you until you were screaming the more I realized I was jealous… the more I wondered if maybe,” another small kiss on your skin, this time on your collarbone “just maybe I could not only fuck you better, but love and respect you more.” He now slightly leaned down as he placed a kiss at the top of your breasts before looking up at you through strands of his wavy hair. His lips now moved until they hovered over your nipple “Let’s see if I was right in thinking that.”

He took the hardened nub into his mouth. You gripped the edge of the counter and sucked in a breath of pleasure concentrating on his warm mouth and agile tongue swirling and hardening the nipple even more in his mouth. You however couldn’t stop the whimper that left your mouth when he bit at it just a little.

His mouth came off of your chest leaving the spit on your nipple to cool as he looked up at you deviously before rising to stand again.

“He also mentioned before that you liked it a little rough, what a coincidence, I do too. He didn’t though, did he?” He raised a brow as a hand trailed back up your thigh, this time the inside of it.

You didn’t know how to respond, you were in awe at your innocent friend turning at the flip of a switch like this and honestly a little mad at Taehyung for talking about your sex life with your shared friends, but maybe this would make up for that.

Jungkook’s tattooed fingers brushed lightly over you now undeniably soaked panties “He wasn’t enough for you so you dumped him, that’s what he said when he was shit talking you right in front of your best friend. Jokes on him though, because I *am* enough.”

He scooted you closer to the edge of the counter to where you were nearly hanging off, you might’ve fallen if it weren’t for his freehand holding your hip as the other made its way into your panties.

He ran a finger lightly over your uncomfortably wet folds before pulling his fingers from your underwear, looking you in the eyes and bringing inked fingers to his mouth and sucking them clean. You were so entranced by this action that your jaw fell open slightly. He was so unbelievably hot and your pussy was aching with need so badly for his touch again that it was almost unbearable.

As if answering your silent prayer, he began to roughly tug off your panties.

You brought your feet up onto the sides of the counter and sat back until your head rested against the back splash.

He looked like a hungry wolf as he took in the sight of you unabashedly spread out before him.

His thumb now ghosted around your clit, never touching it as two fingers brushed your entrance “You’re already so wet for me. Let’s see if I can’t also make you scream, with only my fingers.” His fingers sank into you and you finally let out a loud moan at how well and fast they curled into just the right spot inside of you.

“Shouldn’t be too hard from that reaction.” Jungkook teased as your legs already began to shake with the stimulation of his thumb moving on your clit combined with the internal curling movements.

“Oh fuck Jungkook.” You whined, a panting mess even before his fingers sped up.

“Louder.” He barked his command as he applied more pressure to the sensitive spot of nerves inside of you.

“Jungkook! Oh fuck!” You repeated as you were thrown into your orgasm. Your legs slammed shut as you writhed on the counter and came around his still working fingers that got you through your high.

You watched as he served with satisfaction and pulled his fingers out of you leaving you feeling too empty.

“Well that wasn’t so hard.” He commented “come here.” He helped you off of the counter, still a soaking wet mess and you hot onto your knees on the floor in front of his cock still standing tall in his sweatpants.

When he finally pulled down his pants and underwear all in one go, you didn’t even see him kick them off due to the fact you were staring at the size and length of his fully hard cock.

You weren’t sure if it was the longest you had ever seen. or if it’s thickness and veins that ran up the beast was just making it appear bigger than it was. You knew one thing though it had nothing on any of your previous lovers.

He watched you carefully as you wrapped a hand around his cock, and began to slowly stroke him while teasing the tip with kisses.

You noticed that when you ran over the underside he would let out a low moan that drove you crazy and finally took him into your mouth. You knew your jaw would be sore at the end of this because of how open your mouth had to be to take him in, but you didn’t care. Right now you only cared about him and the gutter all sounds you were milking from him with your mouth.

Even with the help of your hand you still couldn’t help but gag a few times on him as you attempted to take him deeper and deeper into your throat. His cock was heavy in your mouth, filling. You imagined just what he could do to your still unsatisfied pussy as you squeezed your legs together, inadvertently making more of a mess spread onto your thighs.

He gripped your hair tightly as he seemed so lost in pleasure pleasure you were giving him, no doubt watching his cock disappear and reappear from your mouth.

“You look so fucking pretty with my dick in your mouth.” He tugged harder at the back of your hard before pushing your mouth to take more of his cock. You moaned around him as he used you to fuck himself with.

“I bet your pussy would look even prettier stretched out around me.” His breaths were heating even more ragged and faster and as much as you wanted him to let loose inside of your mouth and feel his cum slide down your throat, he wasn’t going to allow it and you knew it. You knew he was Trying to prove himself to you, maybe even claim you.

He pulled your off of him, lips a swollen spit soaked mess, and pulled you to stand facing against the counter. He pushed your back, chest, and face down onto its cool surface and trailed his hand all the way down your back from behind you.he lifted his hand from your ass only to slam his hand down hard onto the flesh.

You winced but the painful pleasure that shot through you had your ass rutting against his cock.

“Please just fuck me. I’m on the pill just fuck me.” You begged as you felt him rub his tip teasingly at your entrance.

“I’ve never fucked anyone without a condom before… it’s kind of fitting that you’re the first I guess.” He seemed to be getting kind of sentimental behind you. You would’ve probably thought it cute had you not been so absolutely desperate for him.

“Fuck me. Please.” You repeated.

“Hmmm you sure?” You could just hear the cocky smirk on his face.

“Yes!”

He slammed into you hard and you felt the sting of your walls suddenly having to stretch around him.

“Ah!” You let out at the slight pain and suddenness.

“Are you okay? You said-” He was still behind you and now worried.

“I’m fine, I’m good.” You said as he stilled to let you adjust to him now. “You can move.”

He pulled out slightly and trusted back into you sort of pathetically.

“Harder.” Upon your command you felt his fingers once again tangle in the back of your hair and pull.

“I call the shots.” His voice came out as almost a growl before his hips slammed into you with force over and over.

You were left with your mouth hanging open in mind blown pleasure as his cock basically speared into you.

He grabbed onto your shoulders to pull you into him harder and faster leaving you whimpering mess.

“So tight.” He groaned over the slapping of flesh as your walls constricted around him. You tried to lift your head and turn to look at him just to catch a glimpse of his face, just to see him fucking you, but his hand was on your head pressing your cheek to the counter, you had nothing to look at but the lobster.

You closed your eyes and savored the ache of him stuffing himself into you as far as he could go, pushing into your cervix, and you began to feel the beginning of an orgasm once again approaching.

“Jungkook, I’m- so close again.” Your pants were chopping up your words, you were so close you could almost feel it already.

His hips stopped and he pulled out of you.

You went to stand up but nearly toppled over now that the counter wasn’t there to hold you up. He took a hold of you but the sides and helped you sit back up on the edge of the counter.

You were face to face with him now, looking at the dark lustful in his eyes and cock in his hand ready to guide himself back into you. You let your hands hold you up behind you and wrapped your legs around his torso, pulling his body closer as he let his cock slide back inside of you with a long groan.

He leaned in closer to you and made a show of his gorgeous face moaning as he let his eyelids fall closed.

“Mmm you feel so good. Do I feel good? Tell me how good I feel.”

Although his thrusts were slow they were still so hard they threatened to knock the breath out of you so all you could do was whine in response.

He leaned in so you were chest to chest and wrapped his arms around your back so that he bared your weight.

“God on tell me I feel good.” He laid a kiss on your jaw “Tell me you love my cock fucking you open, ruining you.”

Your hands went to his shoulders, you needed something to grab at, to sink your nails into.

“You take my big cock so well, don’t you?”

And with that you came unhinged and your head fell back.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck that feels good.” He chanted as hips smashed into yours wildly now as you came.

You had no idea what you were even saying, you just rambled all the things your horny brain desired as you came.

“Come inside of me, fuck just please come inside of me.”

“Yeah?” He asked and your reply was another wordless whimper “I will, I will just wait.” He assured you.

After you had come down you were completely hosted into the air and walked over to the dining table where he laid you down flat, all without pulling out of you.

“Together.” He stated “I want to cum together.”

You gave him a nod but at this point you were so sore and sensitive, but you still wanted to give him whatever he wanted.

As he began to trust once again the table knocked into the wall it was against, but Jungkook was quick to catch your attention back by biting your lip and pulling.

“You want me to fill you up with my cum?” He whispered as he pounded into you.

“Please. I’m yours, show me I’m yours.” Your hungry cunt clenched around him harder.

“Fuck yes you’re mine now.” He sucked at the skin of your neck and you knew exactly what he was doing, further proving you belonged to his.

“I’m going to come inside of you,“his voice was low and dark and right in your ear “and later I’m going to do it again and fuck that cum even deeper inside of you. Now cum on my cock.”

Your fingers dig into his skin as legs locked around his torso tightly.

“That’s my girl” He panted “So close.” He reached between you and began rubbing circles at your clit making you cum one more time around him.

He let out an open mouth whine as his swear soaked forehead and hair fell against yours. The feeling of his cum pumping into your hole only made your high last longer.

In just seconds though you were both just one heaving pile of tired flesh on your kitchen table.

“So.” He let his forehead against yours, obviously too worn out to move much. “What’s your answer to the whole be my girlfriend thing?”

“It’s a yes, although you didn’t need to prove yourself to me.” You answered.

“I wasn’t trying to prove myself to you. I had to prove myself worthy to them.” He pointed to the lobsters on the counter across the room with a smile erupting on his face as he raised his head to look at you better.

You glanced over at the rows of lobsters seemingly staring at the both of you and started you to laugh at the sight. “You’re so strange sometimes.”

“Me? You’re the one who grabbed onto my crotch and wouldn’t let go.” He teased before giving you a quick kiss on the lips “I think we’re both weird, that’s why we’re going be a good couple.”

You saw movements out of the corner of your eye and looked over to see one of the lobsters not just moving, but slowly making its way to the edge of the counter making you let out a scream.

“They were supposed to be dead!” Jungkook yelled as he pulled out of you.

“Well it’s not fucking dead!” You yelled back as you stood from the table now in a panic. You scampered further away from the creature that had now fallen from the counter and onto the floor.

“How do I kill it?!” Your naked new boyfriend picked up the crawling monster to your horror.

“Put it down put it down it will pinch you or something! Don’t kill it! We can’t kill it!” You continued your worried screams.

“*don’t* kill it?? No look, it can’t pinch, it has bands on its claws. It can’t hurt anyone, see?” He then proceeded to make it dance as you took in the scene of your naked former best friend turned boyfriend making a lobster dance as his cum dripped down your leg.

“Jungkook please just- just put some pants on.” You said with a sigh.

“What do we do with it If we can’t kill it?” He set the creature back onto the floor while he tugged on some pants “pet?” He suggested.

“NO WE ARE NOT KEEPING IT AS A PET.” You wasted no time in putting your foot down.

“We can put the others in the refrigerator and go release this guy back into the ocean.” He made a new suggestion.

“Yeah, okay.” You agreed as you watched the lobster crawl across the floor. “Man, we are weird aren’t we?”

“Yeah but we’ve known that since third grade.” He picked the lobster back up off the floor and seemed to look into its eyes “he’s kind of cute like you.”

“Is it too late to back out of this relationship?” You asked crossing your arms.

“Yes” He pretended to make the lobster speak.

“Good.” You gave your new boyfriend a smile.

2K notes · View notes

chuckbass-love · 4 years

Note

Can I request reader and Henry Cavill, reader is decides to hide the fact she’s hurt herself while working out with him and when he comes back from being on set all day he finds her unable to move, she was scared to say what happen from a past experience with an ex🙏🏼 P.S: this happen to me a couple of years ago

Hi love, first of all, i know you got my messages but just want to say again, i’m sorry this happened to you and i hope this can put a smile on your face as no one deserves to feel shitty or sad. Plus it’s Henry and i love him so i’m glad you picked him for this. Enjoy...

Disclaimer: My work is not to be posted anywhere else other than MY Tumblr, Wattpad and Ao3 without my permission. However, reblogs are welcome.

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Reader

Warning: slight angst but mostly fluff.

Word Count: 1,767

GIF NOT MINE!!! Credit to @supersweetstache go check them out 🥰

Nothing Like Your Last

You take a seat next to Henry, holding up his phone to film as he continues to work out, sweat glazing his forehead.

He turns his head to look and smile at you, earning a giggle from you as he does so. One thing you’ve not necessarily noticed yourself but others have, the way he looks at you. Henry’s brothers say it’s that smitten look. The look of love. But you’ve not said those words yet so you always wave them off when they tease you.

You feel it though, love. Whenever you’re around him, it’s like nothing else matters or exists.

“You coming to join now?” he asks, standing up and putting the weights down, you smile and walk over, placing his phone on the side. Kal nudges at your leg, whining until you kneel down to give him fuss “such a good boy” you talk in a baby like voice to him, as if he’s going to talk back. Instead he just barks, his way of agreeing you guess.

You lie down on the floor in a sit up position, Henry puts some weight on your feet so you can properly execute a good 10 without flailing all over the place.

“So i was thinking we could chill tonight. Chinese takeaway, lord of the rings and all that”

One of the many things you adore about Henry is his geeky side. He loves gaming and lord of the rings and it’s the cutest thing when he get’s excited about them.

“I’d love that”

With the 10 sit ups completed, he then sits down so you can help him do his own, obviously more than 10 but you only workout to keep fit. Whereas he does it because of filming and to bulk up.

Suddenly, you hear the phone ring in the other room “you gonna be okay here for a couple minutes?” he asks, resting his hand on your arm in a protective manor, waiting for you to give the go ahead. Which you do. He rushes out to go answer and you carry on.

You do some Russian twists, some push ups and a plank. All of your usual work out exercises.

Just as you’re doing the last couple of Russian twists, you feel a huge shooting pain up your side. You wince and feel tears brimming but as soon as you hear Henry’s footsteps, you stand up and shake it off.

“Shall we warm down and then shower?” you ask and he nods, you try to get through it without him noticing, thankfully he doesn’t.

Once you finish, you both head for the shower. He starts kissing you and being overly affectionate.

He’s away all day tomorrow filming so you won’t see him until really late, so he’s probably just making it up to you now. By the time you wake up tomorrow morning, he’ll be gone.

You shove on one of his rugby shirts, some knee high socks and panties before joining him in the kitchen for dinner. He ordered a Chinese as soon as you got out of the shower.

“Something smells good” the smell brings a huge grin to your face. Well, that and Henry standing there laying the table.

It’s times like these where you picture a future with him, where every night is like this eventually and that thought fills your heart with the biggest amount of happiness.

You sit down, eating away as he tells you about how filming has been going for The Witcher season 2, hearing him talk about something he’s very passionate about is just another thing that makes you fall more.

“So what time are you off out tomorrow?” you ask, shoving some chow mein into your mouth, not even caring how un lady like you look. Henry never complains so surely he doesn’t mind.

“I have to get up around 6 and i’ll be back around the 8 in the evening” you just continue to eat, humming in response “It’s just a couple of scenes tomorrow but the makeup and hair is a nightmare to get on and off but don’t worry, as soon as i get home. We have a couple of days to relax. Just me and you” he stands up to collect the plates and put them into the dishwasher, kissing your forehead as he walks past.

The rest of the night is spent with cuddles, making out and a whole lot of laughs.

Which is not unusual, you always find yourself laughing a lot with him, he knows exactly what to say and do to keep you feeling good and you’re the same with him.

You’re gonna find it hard to be away from him tomorrow but it’s just one full day right? It won’t be long until he’s back in your arms.

--------------------------

As you get out of bed and head to the kitchen for some breakfast, you spy a note on the counter.

‘Good morning baby,

Obviously i had to leave early

But i cannot wait to get back to you tonight

Lots of love

H x’

You smile at the note, your tummy full of butterflies as you go about making some breakfast and tea for yourself before settling down in front of the tv.

If there’s one thing to be said about Henry being away it’s that you can watch shows like Love Island and Dance Moms. He tried to get into them but failed. So you watch whenever he’s away.

You finish with eating and stand up to go clean your mess up but when you reach up to the shelf for dishwasher stuff, a shooting pain rushes through your side. Making you wince like you did yesterday after hurting yourself during the workout.

You never told Henry about it because you were embarrassed and worried that he’d laugh.

The memories of your last relationship come flooding in despite your best efforts to prevent it.

“Get up for god’s sake”

“I can’t, it hurts, i can’t move it” you protest, trying to defend yourself against his venomous words.

“I’m sure you do this on purpose you know, injure yourself to get out of housework”

You don’t, you’d never do that.

You hurt yourself on a run with your friend Jules, but he doesn’t care about that right. He just cares that the dusting hasn’t been done, neither has the washing up.

“I’ll just put some ice on it for a couple hours, i should be fine soon”

“No, the dishes have been sitting there all day whilst i’ve been at work and you really think i’m gonna do them. I’ve had a stressful day as it is, don’t need you making it worse”

“Okay, i’m coming. I’m sorry” you use the arm of the sofa to get up before you begin to limp and hop to the kitchen, ready to finish the housework.

He’s right. The last thing he needs is you making things more hectic for him.

You soon wipe the tears that you didn’t even realise were falling from your eyes and go about sorting this pain in your side.

You rummage through the draws and cupboards, searching for any form of painkiller. As you pull open the last drawer, there they are. Paracetamol.

You take 2 immediately and pray that it’ll magically go away soon or better yet, that it’ll go before Henry returns.

------------

“Honey, i’m home” he calls out before appearing in the doorway, a huge cheshire cat like grin plastering his face.

“I’ve missed you” you run up to him, he squeezes you tight, bringing the pain on again.

“Ahhh” you whimper, clutching at your side like it’ll somehow bring the pain to a halt.

“What’s wrong?” he pulls away from you, lifting your chin up so you’re looking directly into his eyes.

“It’s noth-”

“Come on, it’s clearly something” he walks you over to the sofa, sitting the two of you down and you lift your shirt up to point to your side.

“I think i pulled something yesterday during our workout” your voice laced with shame.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” you shrug, but before you can even look away from him, his index fingers keeps your head in place, keeping your eyes on his.

“I don’t know. I guess i was just embarrassed”

“But why? I don’t get it”

“It’s just my ex used to pick on me whenever there was a slight sign of weakness. He’d make me feel like i was a dead weight, useless. He’d even go as far as to make it harder for me to heal and i just i don’t kn-”

“Hold on. Baby, you should know by now that i would never do any of that. You mean the world to me, if you’re hurt i want you to be able to tell me. Maybe that was his style but it’s certainly not mine”

“I’m sorry, i didn’t mean to assume the worst of you but i-” he cuts you off again.

“Don’t apologise. It’s my job now to prove to you that i’m nothing like your last, i’m always here to take care of you, make you feel good about yourself and this is one of those times where i need to take care of you. Let me go and get some ice for it. Wait here” he makes his way into the kitchen.

You hear the freezer door open, along with the draws until a simple “there they are” comes from the kitchen, you giggle and seconds later, he re appears.

He helps you lie down, placing the ice to your ribs area and handing you some more pain killers.

He brushes the hair out of your eyes, lowering his head to kiss your lips.

“Thank you” you mumble

“Don’t thank me. It’s my job to take care of you. If i plan to love you forever, then i might as well start as i mean to go on” your heart skips a beat as he says it.

That word.

Love.

“You love me?”

You see his cheeks turn a little red, he looks down, chuckling.

“I do, but don’t worry, i won’t force you to say it-”

“I love you too”

He kisses you once again.

“Please don’t ever be scared to talk to me okay? Like i said, i love you, i want the best for you and i’m not here to hurt or upset you”

“What did i do to deserve you eh?” you both smile, forehead to forehead.

“I was about to say the same thing. But I guess we both got lucky”

“I guess we did”

--------------------

General Tag List: @deadlymistress24 @coffeebooksandfandom @princess-evans-addict @chris-butt @holtzkinnon @mychemicalimagines @llamadelreyx @haus-of-bitch-talk @buckstaybucky @thewinchestergirl1208 @chrissquares @patzammit @adriannajackson @dummiesshort @cevans-fics @americasass91 @toni9 @aaliferouss @bradfordmyworld

Just Chris & His Characters Tag List: @onetwo3000 @persephonequeenofthedead @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @rynabarnesrogers @princess-evans-addict @stxvercgersslut @chris-evanslover @bval-1

Henry Cavill Tag List: @summersong69

If you want to be added to my Henry Tag List, drop a comment, an ask of or a message and i’ll add you. Thank you

#Henry Cavill #Henry Cavill smut #Henry Cavill fluff #Henry Cavill x reader #henry cavill x female reader #reader inserts #x female reader #fic #fanfic #request

169 notes · View notes

boop-le-snoot · 3 years

Text

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 22

First time reader click here

TWs/Summary: FLUFF! Inappropriate jokes! The team being a family of mother hens. Steve + WAP! Reader's old man fetish is ✨blossoming✨. Stephen is finally evolving from Grinch into a human being.

a/n: How do we feel about Wanda/Loki pairing? Loki is comparatively around Wanda's/Reader's/Pietro's age, e.g. he's a young adult. Also, new divider.

All three of us spilled out of the elevator in a flurry of wet hair, outrageously large shopping bags and the smell of autumn leaves and cinnamon-infused chocolate. Picture perfect friends - our arms were linked, we stood side to side, our bags mixed up. Loki's silky black hair was dripping cold water onto my face and my own clothes sticking to me in uncomfortable places.

It started pouring buckets when we got into my car to go back to the tower. Wanda complained about being hungry and after a brief detour in one of the hole-in-the-wall, hidden gem, French boulangeries, all three of us were pleasantly relaxed and companionable under the influence of hot chocolate and fresh, warm croissants (Loki ate, like, ten, royal manners be damned). The five minute run from the parking lot to the main entrance resulted in us being way too soaked to be comfortable - thankfully, the shopping bags seemed to be waterproof. Or, perhaps, Loki enchanted them somehow.

"Stop fucking cheating, Rogers..." Tony was grumbling in frustration, looking at an array of cards in his hands, squinting suspiciously at a smug Steve.

Noticing us, the room perked up immediately. Thor lifted his head and we saw him and Pietro splayed out on the couch, each male holding a play station controller. Stephen Strange was sat cross-legged on the floor, reading a book, while Natasha filed her nails next to him, a face of tranquility and indifference.

We almost backpedaled from the amount of puppy eyes suddenly gazing at us.

"Sup?" I decided to go first, seeing as both of my companions were still mostly confused. What the hell, I was equally perplexed.

"How was your day, brother?" and "Got yourself a nice dress?" and "Marchesa? Not bad." Were the most intelligible words I could make out of the cacophony that descended upon us.

And it suddenly downed on me. Neither Wanda nor Loki had previously left for the city on their own. Their siblings were worried. I sighed, concealing my happiness behind a quiet complaint of being cold and wet. My bags were picked up by Thor who abandoned his game in favour of greeting his brother with a hug. Surprisingly, Loki didn't refuse and let Thor embrace him and relieve us of our items to deposit them out of the way.

"Cold," Wanda whined, stripping off her damp sweater to reveal simple black leggings and tee underneath.

"Wet," Loki mumbled, gathering a ball of green magic to dry out his dripping hair.

"Gross," I said, walking straight into Tony's open arms. He didn't say anything, just indicated my place was in his lap, squeaking and shivering as soon as I reached my destination.

"Baby girl, you're gonna get sick. Let's go take a bath," He unsuccessfully attempted to lift my limp body. I groaned in protest, dead on my feet. It felt like I had walked a thousand miles. Wasn't gonna remove myself from a warm, soft Tony.

"I'm dead, like, I'm a zombie. If you move me, I'll eat that sexy brain of yours," I threatened fitfully.

"Well, at least change out of these clothes. You're dripping me in gross, polluted rain water," The engineer laughed.

"Lazy," I replied, nestling myself closer to his warmth. He tugged on my clothes, wrestling me out of the top layers, leaving me shivering like a newborn kitten across his lap. His eyes darted across the room - evidently, he was looking for some sort of a hoodie as he wasn't wearing one at the time. Tony knew how much I loved those and always kept one in his vicinity. Thoughtful, lovely Tony.

"Have you seen my MIT sweatshirt?" He asked and everyone replied negative. Tony frowned.

"Here, have mine," Strange stood up, unzipping and handing me his own plain grey one. "I'll make some herbal tea for the girls least they actually get sick." With that, the grumpy doctor walked off into the kitchen. I watched his broad back retreat with renewed interest. Hate to see you go but love to watch you leave...

One warm hoodie and hot tea later, I was feeling less like a drowned cat and more like the fabulous human being that I was. Wanda had told everyone about her two cute new dresses without actually revealing the idea behind her costume. Somehow all of us silently agreed to surprise each other after I pulled my stunt on Stephen.

Strange didn't seem to be mad at me; his presence was amiable and delightful. He made usual small talk and we engaged in a brief, friendly battle of the wits and he and Tony managed to not piss off each other too much. Loki and Wanda hung nearby, and we chatted, too, mostly about less popular but very cool movies the three of us could watch... Yeah, so we were arranging a sleepover. Bite me.

"So, everyone ready for the party?" Clint was all but bouncing in his seat. "Me and Sammy-boy, we'll have the coolest costumes!" He exclaimed, smirking in Tony and Bruce's direction. Something was coming, something great, from my two boys. I could sense it. Natasha probably knew and tattled to Clint already. The bird bros fist-bumped with an obnoxious cheer.

I was feeling drowsy. The tea Strange made had something calming in it. My usual energetic spirit was gone, replaced by a mellow sort of mood. Plus, my feet hurt from all the walking. I moaned in distaste, flexing my toes.

"I disagree," Wanda shared a secretive smile with Loki and me.

Apparently, my discomfort was quite obvious. It took only another quiet, pitiful groan from me for Bruce to scoot closer, remove my socks and tenderly knead the arch of my foot. He smiled at me, soft and gentle, pressing the pads of his fingers into the soft, painful spots.

"Yeah, Pigeon, no amount of make-up will help that ugly mug," Tony declared with a wave of his hand.

"Tony!" Sam defended his bird bro, tossing a pillow at the engineer and missing me by barely an inch.

"You don't need any make-up, bird. You need plastic surgery." I jumped on the bully Clint bandwagon for the lolz. He was actually quite handsome, but his reactions always were fucking priceless. All of us occasionally ruffled his feathers but never to an actually hurtful extent.

"Not gonna lie, that one hurt." Barton huffed, crossing his arms.

Meanwhile, Bruce had moved onto my other foot. I had to hold in a bunch of very lewd, inappropriate noises. Tony was grinning above me, not at all affected by me squirming around. Banner grinned back at the engineer. They were definitely plotting something.

That just wouldn't do, I decided. Time to throw Rick and Morty off their course a little. I stretched leisurely, allowing the hem of my borrowed hoodie to lift, exposing an inch too much of skin than strictly appropriate.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Steve's arched eyebrow and the small secretive smirk he hid behind a cup of tea. The Captain wasn't as virtuous as the others thought and he definitely was onto me.

Bruce still wreaked havoc on my vestibular system by doing some magical voodoo shit to my toes and traded suspicious grins with Tony who radiated an unfair amount of smugness.

"Oh my God," I stretched with a moan of contentment. "Fucking rail me." I might have used this particular choice of words on purpose. The Avengers that memed with me knew the actual meaning but they were in the minority. Most, including Tony and Bruce, gasped in shock at my choice of words. I grinned innocently. "What?"

"We don't use that kind of language around here!" Steve exclaimed, barely hiding a full-fledged laugh behind his cup.

"Cap, a lot has changed in the past seventy years, if you didn't notice," Barton rolled his eyes. "Women are allowed to express themselves now."

"Men think it's pretty hot, actually," Tony remarked, giving me one of his positively mischievous smiles, gently stroking my cheek and dipping his index finger under the hem of my top, following the lines of my collarbone. "It's just that Cap got left out in the cold."

"Very funny, Tony," Steve groaned as the rest of the group laughed. "We don't need a repeat of the WAP incident."

I choked on my breath. "The WHAT incident?!"

Laughter drowned out Steve's stuttering explanation as the supersoldier blushed, possibly, the most saturated shade of scarlet I'd ever seen on a human's face. I had to stop Bruce from continuing to make my limbs into Jell-O, wanting to hear the full story clearly. Anything that warranted such a strong reaction from Steve was bound to be, like, equal parts extremely embarrassing and hilarious. Bucky was laughing up a storm, a tell-tale sign of him having taken direct actions to ensure Steve would be as confused and ashamed as possible.

"Steve caught Peter listening to the song and asked him about it. Peter refused to answer at first, so Bucky decided to mess with Steve a bit," Pietro began explaining. "So Bucky goes: WAP stands for wasted academic potential. Steve sits on it a couple of days, believing his boyfriend like the naïve old man he is," Pietro was gesturing vividly, arms flailing, as the Captain buried his face in his hands. "Lo and behold, Steve had to give a Captain America speech at some sort of school for delinquent children. And at the end of it all - Natasha has that bit on video, by the way - he gives his stern Captain look and goes "WAP is no joke!"!" The speedster laughed out loud along with everybody.

I was howling at that point, staring at Steve. Did the old man realize all the answers to his questions were a simple Google search away? "NO, he didn't, oh my God," I wheezed, suddenly having realized where it was going.

"He totally did!" Clint continued, giving Pietro a fond look and a chance to catch his breath. "The whole student population was laughing, tears rolling down their faces, as the principal started angrily ranting right in Steve's face. And he was just so, so-o confused. Man, his face..." Clint shook his head. "He left so freaking red in the face I thought he was going to have a heart attack. The students had started singing the song, the uncensored version - mind you - at some point and Steve just progressively got redder and redder."

"I'm seventy percent Irish, I can't help it!" Steve cried in his own defense, the famous blush on full display, but laughing nonetheless as he clutched onto his left boob for dear life.

"And one hundred percent dumbass!" Bucky clapped his boyfriend on the shoulder.

I nodded along, me and Tony a howling pile of limbs. The engineer himself was holding onto me for dear life, too winded to make any of his usual snarky commentary regarding Steve's epic failure. "Pure of heart, dumb of ass," I wheezed out my sudden realization.

"Shit, I'm getting that on a t-shirt," Tony sent himself into another cackle fest. "That's brilliant, Princess."

Bucky nodded along, "I'm buying one for this punk." He pointed at Steve, poking him in the right pec.

"Jerk," Steve's gaze was annoyed but fond as he gently shoved his boyfriend before placing a gentle kiss atop his head. Old people in love, so adorable.

"May I request one for my brother as well?" Loki interjected, eyebrow raised, eyeing Thor trying to pry open a carton of ice cream and failing to notice the little plastic lid covering the top part of it. The blonde was utterly oblivious both to his brother and to the chaos around him, set on his quest for salted caramel pecan creamy goodness. I couldn't say I didn't see the appeal...

"What did you call - himbos?" Stephen eyed me curiously, pointing to Thor and Steve with a shaky hand.

I nodded in response. "Harmless, loveable, kind, beefy and utter dumbasses," I pointed out the main characteristics. "I love himbos."

"You said my brain was sexy," Tony pouted, pressing me closer to him and in turn, making my legs wrap around Bruce in a funny way that brought all three of us in a weird sandwich hug. I must've died and gone to heaven once again. "This is bullshit," And Tony fuckin' bit me. The bastard sunk his teeth into my shoulder strong enough to leave a mark.

"I love big, fat brains. Unf," My attempt at a salacious voice only made people laugh. "No PhD, no pussy. I don't make the rules," I snorted loudly.

"You and your old man kink," Wanda chuckled good-naturedly, casting me a knowing glance over the tops of her friends' heads.

"Yes," I agreed solemnly, pulling Tony in for a kiss without an ounce of shame or reservation, catching Stephen's amused face meeting my eyes for a brief second, his eyebrow raised meaningfully. Looked like someone took my comment a little close to heart. Nobody really batted an eye at Bruce being in the middle of our cuddle puddle so if I had to guess, Stephen Strange was at least interested... Or was he silently judging me?

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads @hermione-grangers-wife @individualistfem @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie

#bruce banner x reader #tony stark x reader #Stephen Strange x reader #bruce banner x you #tony stark x you #stephen strange x you #bruce banner x y/n #tony stark x y/n #stephen strange x y/n #party favours #bun writes

109 notes · View notes

kellerose · 3 years

Text

Holistic Analysis of ‘Volver’ by Pedro Almodovar

tw// mentions of child abuse, pedophilia, death, blood, and sharp objects

Conduct a holistic of the film Volver by Pedro Almodovar. Be sure to integrate terminologies and concepts from course discussions on both photography and film in your analysis. Cite all borrowed materials.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘Volver’ by Pedro Almodovar is a 2006 Spanish film set in Madrid, Spain as well as a small village in the La Mancha Region. Upon further research, it’s noted that La Mancha is where Almodovar grew up, which indicates that this film highlights the essence of his childhood.

‘Volver’, which is Spanish for ‘to come back,’ beautifully captures the importance of women’s lives and what comes of life after death. The film is compacted with stunning architecture, camera angles, color, music and sounds, and visual images that all fit into the film’s overall message.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Composition: I have noticed throughout the film that Almodovar chose interesting and compelling camera angles for different situations. When people walk through big doors-- mostly with the windy village in La Mancha-- the camera would be at a one-point perspective. The center of the door would be the ‘vanishing point’ of the frame so that you’ll see the rest of the hallway that the characters will soon walk down. When Almodovar films the characters going up a flight of spiral staircases, he puts the camera on the ground facing upwards in the center to show the movement of the characters. When his characters are going down the set of stairs, he changes the angle so that the camera is at the top facing downwards. When characters are walking down or off onto the street, the camera tends to follow their movement in a single shot; either in front of the characters for more intense scenes and dialogue or on the side of the characters in a distance shot to move along the plot. I also noticed his choice of car scenes. He would usually show the red car driving down a dirt road of wind turbines in a distance shot. If there were people in the back seat, the camera would shoot from the front of the car, and if it’s only one person or two they would shoot their side profiles. I also noticed that certain frames had significance to the plot as an angle would be used for multiple shots; one with Raimunda cleaning the knife before and after the murder of Paco, and when Raimunda was standing by the tree by the river after burying Paco then later that same angle was used when Raimunda and Paula visited the same spot.

Visual Cues:

Color- The main color of the film-- as well as any Almodovar film-- is red. The color symbolizes death as well as womanhood-- the passion, empowerment, and life that goes with women. The film was full of bright colors, which is a usual touch that the director loves to add to all of his films. Almodovar chooses his color precisely by the setting, as he stated in his interview with Jennifer Merin about the film. He chose to use a lot of black and white because of the location and social environment of La Mancha. Those colors, he says, aren’t ones he typically uses but were the best choice for those certain parts of the film.

Gestalt Laws:

Proximity- The closeness between Raimunda and Paula throughout the entirety of the film shows that the two are related in some way. The fact that the two characters are inseparable and are seen living together, an individual can assume that they’re mother and daughter. Paco getting constantly pushed away and being distant from the characters symbolizes the dysfunctional relationship he had with Raimunda and Paula. When Sole ran away screaming from Irene upon first meeting her, one can assume that the relationship is unwanted by the forcible distance. However, we see about 20 minutes later, Sole allows Irene into her home and ends up sleeping next to her in the night. The sudden closeness indicates the love and comfortableness between a parent and child.

Common fate- The people of Madrid and La Mancha always kissed each other’s cheeks as a form of greeting. Raimunda and Irene both had their partners murdered for doing something taboo. Irene’s husband was having an affair and sexually abused and impregnated their daughter Raimunda. Raimunda’s partner, Paco, was stabbed by her daughter Paula for sexually assaulting her. Another common fate is that Raimunda and Paula were both sexually assaulted by their fathers/father figures.

Semiotic Signs and codes:

Indexical Sign- The abundance of people are dressed in minimal amounts of clothing which indicates that the weather must be quite warm. When the characters are in the La Mancha village, the character’s clothes and hair move rapidly indicating that the area has harsh winds.

Symbolic Sign- The use of red in the women’s clothing, on and in buildings, on the furniture, vehicles, and close-ups on vegetables and blood certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. However, an individual who notices may not understand its significance. Therefore, the color red is an example of a symbolic sign in this film. It emphasizes the meaning of life after death and the importance of womanhood. Another example of a symbolic sign is the song sung by Raimunda within the film. The title of the music is the same as the movie’s title, ‘Volver’. The song is about the need for one’s life to come back, especially a mother’s, in order to move forward in life, which is an addition to the film’s message. One final example is at the very beginning of the film. The women of the La Mancha village are seen cleaning off the gravestones in the local cemetery. The way the women talked with one another made the audience indicated that this was a common practice. This scene set up the meaning of life beyond death and womanhood because only women were standing over the dead.

Purpose of the Work: A main purpose of the work was for the director to pay homage to his childhood as the movie filmed in the place he grew up and the characters were similar to the women who raised him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Personal Perspective:

As usual, when films start, I need to take some time to get into it. This is the same with any kind of story, even with books. But, unlike books, I can stay focused and entertained by good cinematography. The Spanish film ‘Volver’ did just that for me. The stunning single-point shots and frames kept me wanting more. I completely adored the close-up shots of characters doing simple tasks. For example, when Raimunda was putting away Tupperware, washing the dishes, and grabbing paper towels-- just to name a few-- I absolutely adored how they were shot. When the plot began to thicken, however, it was more than just the cinematography that left me breathless. The acting was incredible that I was convinced I was watching someone else’s life right before my eyes. There were many surprises that I didn’t see coming that left me on the edge of my seat the whole time. When the film ended, I had felt satisfied and unsatisfied. I wanted to know more of the story, it felt like the conclusion was only starting when the credits began to roll. But, at the same time, I was okay with how it ended because I can make up my own conclusions about how I feel the story will continue. I really enjoyed how the visuals throughout the whole film were chosen carefully to match the overall message.

Cultural Perspective:

Almodovar uses a lot of past and present aspects of the Spanish culture in his films. As he grew up in Spain, it’s something he knows well and feels most inspired from. The director is obsessed with the media of Spanish culture-- such as telenovelas, magazine stories, infomercials. Almodovar adds Spanish media to his films quite often. For example, in ‘Volver,’ he uses the idea of a film-within-a-film aspect near the end of the movie. Another example is when Paco was watching soccer on the television in the earlier shots of the film. Almodovar claims that the brightness and intenseness of the colors match the drama that Spanish films have, which is why he tends to this culture more to satisfy his creativity. A quote from a 2006 interview mentioned in an Amuse article by Colin Crummy, Almodovar states, “It is something very Spanish but it is hardly used in Spain. It corresponds both to my personality and the baroque behaviour of my fictional characters. Explosions of colour fit in very well with high drama.”

Critical Perspective:

There were multiple mentions of child abuse and pedophilia within the film. One example is that Raimunda’s father abused and raped her as a child that led to the birth of Paula. Near the beginning of the film, there was an up-close shot of the fourteen-year-old girl’s private spot indicating that Paco-- the supposed father-- was looking at it, and he was creeping on her while she got undressed in her room. After a few scenes roll by, we see Paula waiting for her mother at the bus stop in the rain looking petrified. After Paula didn’t give a clear answer, we see Raimunda finding Paco’s dead body on the kitchen floor. Paula began to explain the whole event of the assault that led to her stabbing him in detail. The aspect of child abuse and murder is enough to provoke a strong response from the viewer. The whole event is extremely traumatizing that will make people talk about it afterward. A major theme throughout this film is death and the afterlife. The superstitions of spirits visiting you before you pass on overflowed the village. Irene was thought to have passed in a fire four years prior to the story’s timeline. So, when she had visited her sister who was dying, many suspected that it was her spirit helping the living pass on. The idea of death and the afterlife is a difficult topic to bring up in conversation, so it wouldn’t be unusual if someone had felt uncomfortable. There were many ways death occurred within the film; stabbing, old-age, a house fire(that was intentional), and cancer. Each death-- and the reason it happened-- can provoke an emotional response from the audience. The running themes and cultures of the film will leave anyone’s mind wondering: what’s next?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

References

Merin, Jennifer. “Jennifer Merin Interviews Pedro Almodovar Re ‘Volver.’” ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS, 13 Dec. 2006, awfj.org/blog/2006/12/13/jennifer-merin-interviews-pedro-almodovar-re-volver/.

Team, Amuse. “A Musical Tour of Ibiza.” Amuse, 24 Mar. 2021, amuse.vice.com/en_us/article/bvg3p4/a-musical-tour-of-ibiza.

Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages. Sixth ed., Michael Rosenberg, 2014.

Almodóvar, Pedro, Agustin Almodóvar, Esther García, Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Antonio . Torre, Carlos Blanco, José L. Alcaine, and Alberto Iglesias. Volver. , 2006.

19 notes · View notes

hunnybadgerv · 3 years

Text

Hold On | Mass Effect | Guardians in the Darkness | Nyx Shepard x Kaidan Alenko

Summary: Nyx tries to apply some reason to the changes in their rekindled relationship and that she remembers of their last chance at the free expression of how they felt for one another.

a/n: This was supposed to be a smutty little thing for @painterofhorizons, then Nyx and Kaidan got all feelsy on me.

Read on AO3

Hold On

The hot water dribbled over his shoulders and down his back in speeding rivulets. Nyx wondered if she’d ever really get used to the sight—Kaidan Alenko in her shower, in her bed, in her life, again. It hadn’t felt like this the last time. Those few weeks of leave on Earth, holed up in his apartment, invading his home and his life. It became so easy. A peck good morning then a run that turned into a race back to be the first to get into the shower. Sometimes negotiations were involved as who got there first. Almost every time they ended up in a stalemate, making out under the waterfall of hot water—hands teasing as much as washing.

Nyx patted her cheek and chin with the towel she held up in front of her, remembering how she would just waltz across the room and fall onto his sofa. She would drape her legs along the cushions and prop her feet in his lap as they read the few reports that filtered into their inboxes during the repair and resupply of the Normandy. She never saw it ending, even knowing that it couldn’t stay just like that. She had basked in the comfort and relative normalcy of it, of having him right there whenever she turned around, of them having the chance to just be them, together.

Kaidan still ameliorated the chaos. And together they were moving toward hale and cozy in this new chance at a relationship, but she didn’t find the same kind of calm they had when it felt like they had all the time in the world.

Maybe that’s it, she wondered as she smiled at him.

He’d looked over at her and caught her ogling him. Kaidan smirked and kept his warm gaze on her as she mostly just stared back at him; Nyx didn’t even make a play at drying off or having anything better to do than look at him.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, grabbing the shampoo off the inset shelf near the water controls.

“Trying to figure out why I can’t take my eyes off you.”

He smiled at her again. “Well, rumor has it I’m a rather handsome gentleman.”

“That’s truth, not a rumor, hon.” Shepard managed to turn and actually moved to drape the towel around her, finally breaking eye contact with him as she fussed with the corner and tried to tuck it tight enough to hold itself up.

He chuckled at her, tipping his head back to rinse the shimmery suds from his salted black hair. Complete hard, honest truth. Her mind distracted itself again by the subtle hints of difference between then and now—her hazy memories and the reality of the man standing before her.

Nyx traced her index finger through the condensation on the counter. “It’s not the same as in Vancouver,” she finally admitted.

He’d been reaching for the knob when their eyes locked in the mirror’s reflection. When he turned it, the bathroom was bathed in a near deafening silence. She watched him still. Observed the way he pushed the towel through his hair then down his chest as he closed the distance between them with drippy, sloshing footsteps. Tucking his towel around his waist, he never dropped her gaze. Not even when he stood right behind her. Even then it didn’t really drop so much as shift when he just turned and angled her chin to get her to look up at him.

“I hadn’t lost you yet,” he said so quietly that she thought her heart might break.

Oh, there is that, too, she remembered. That part was too easy for her to forget. It wasn’t the same for her. The attack on the Normandy bled into the attack on Lazarus Station, like no time had passed between. Even though she knew it wasn’t like that for anyone else, not him or Tali or Garrus—any of her friends and family. She couldn’t help the guilt that cropped up at once again having forgotten.

“I sold that place so fast,” he admitted, his thumb grazing her jaw.

Nyx couldn’t say anything she just stared up into his face unable to look away. He hadn’t told her that.

“Couldn’t turn around in there without seeing you.” Kaidan rested his forehead against hers. A gruff sound played in his throat. “You’d only been there two damn weeks and you were everywhere.”

Again her voice failed her, her throat too tight to even contemplate anything more than breathing. Besides, what could she really say. All she could manage was tilting her chin enough to brush her lips against his. Her hand cupped his cheek as she closed her eyes and kissed him again. It was the only solid communication she could muster in the moment, the only apology, the only comfort.

Finally, she found her voice again. “I thought maybe—” she started but she didn’t know how to say it, not without being blunt and impolitic. “With all this. The threat. I mean. This might be the last moment we have.”

“Damn, Nyx.”

“There were a lot of things I didn’t get to say … before.” The last word came out smaller.

Kaidan just stared at her, his hands tightening on her hips like he might somehow be able to keep her from drifting off into space if something happened right in that moment.

“But it wasn’t because I didn’t have the chance,” she argued, staring up at him like somehow the words falling from her mouth could change the past. “I just … I thought—”

“There’d be more time,” he answered, finishing the thought that got stuck in her throat.

The curve on her lips showcased the traces of anguish that still twisted deep in her chest. “I keep wondering why I stare every time I look at you, like I’m trying to memorize every angle, every curve. Why I can’t not touch you when you’re near. Why I need to hold you so close and so tight all the time. I wondered if it was the Reapers, the inevitability of … all of it. I mean—”

Kaidan’s mouth landed on hers. It was less a kiss and more just away to stop everything for a second—her mind, her voice. The quiver in his lips told her more than she really wanted to think about. Eventually, the silencing technique evolved into a proper kiss, one brimming with desperation and passion. His embrace crushed her to him; Nyx didn’t want him to let up, she welcomed this pressure. Maybe an anxious little piece of her hoped that they could anchor one another right in that spot long enough to hold back time and steal a moment from the universe, a moment all their own.

Like all moorings, their embrace could bear no permanence. Inch by inch, in increments, they shifted apart, trading a tight grip for gentle caresses. Desperate kisses gave way to delicate longing.

“I don’t want to talk about the Reapers,” Kaidan whispered against her mouth. “Not here. Not now.” His hands curled her damp hair behind her ears; his fingertips traced the line of her jaw. “I only get you all to myself for a little while. And I don’t want to spend it talking about the war.”

Nyx nodded. She understood, seconded that opinion, even. Her head tipped back to meet his kiss when he leaned closer. She had to rise onto her tiptoes in order to drape her arms over his broad shoulders.

Grazing her neck in their retreat, his hands dropped from her face. He grabbed her bottom and used the counter for leverage to get her off her feet. There was no hesitation in the way she wrapped her legs around his hips, locking her ankles at the base of his spine. The bathroom door swished open, the warm humidity giving way to the dry chill air of her quarters. He knew the route by heart, which was lucky because she wasn’t about to miss one kiss along the way.

The tight squeeze of his arms around her waist inspired her to loosen her leg lock on his torso and she stood up on the edge of the bed. It changed the angle of their kiss, giving her a rare moment of height advantage. She kissed him, smiling against his mouth as she held his face in both her hands.

“There is something to be said for being taller,” she teased.

Kaidan chuckled at her. His hands smoothed down her hips to the edge of the towel. The gentlest of tugs was all it took to dislodge it. She gave him a chastising look when it pooled around her feet on the corner of the bed.

“That it does,” he hummed in agreement glancing down at her chest which was just about even with his mouth.

Her grip on his cheeks tightened when he moved toward her skin. “Ah, ah, ah.”

Kaidan’s hands moved with purpose, dropping his own towel then scooping her legs out from under her and back into his arms. After a few steps on his knees, he laid her gently on the bed like some kind of princess, at least that’s how it made Nyx feel. He was careful with her, treated her as if she were delicate and precious despite the fact she’d proven over and over in her life just how tough, how unbreakable, and how strong she was.

Of course, he didn’t need her to be strong for him. He always seemed to be the one who was strong for her. Nyx kissed him harder. Only letting it break long enough for the two of them to wrangle the sheets down and back up. Kaidan barely even had a chance to get himself covered before she pressed herself against his side, dotting his chest with soft kisses. One arm slid beneath her head, under her pillow as he cradled her closer.

A quiet hum settled in his chest as she continued to dot quick pecks and lingering open-mouthed kisses over his pecs, collarbone, and toward his neck. His fingertips danced lightly at the small of her back. A needy groan parted his lips when her hand skimmed up his thigh and slipped between them.

“So much for sleep,” he chuckled against her hairline as she stroked him again.

“Who said anything about that?” Nyx blinked up at him, and Kaidan captured her lips in a deep kiss. She shifted against his warm skin, draping her leg over his hip.

The hand at the small of her back traced the back of her thigh down to her knee, then shifted direction again as he nibbled at her lips. A soft gasp parted her pink lips when he grazed her center. “Not me,” he agreed.

He thickened in her hand and she pressed her hips toward his teasing fingers, chasing temptation. “I want you so bad,” she whispered against his chest as she nuzzled against his skin, leaving kisses here and there. “I mean always,” she admitted, blinking up at him.

“Really?” he purred, wearing a smirk.

“God, yes,” she moaned when he slipped his finger inside her. Her hips stuttered when he traced the same digit through her folds to circle her clit.

“Like, when?” he taunted, leaning forward to suck her earlobe into his mouth.

Her hips shifted in a languid rhythm, chasing his touch; her hand moved with a similar, firm pace and particular purpose. Nyx hummed, a mix of excitement and contemplation. “You and Joker were talking about vectors the other day. And when you leaned over the console …” Her eyebrows flashed upward.

“Yes?” he prompted.

Nyx grinned at him. “Well, it wasn’t your back I wanted to put my hand on.”

“Commander!” he said, feigning shock. “Are you suggesting you wanted to grab my ass on the bridge?”

She gave him a look that suggested he was close, but not quite on the mark. “It’s terrible, I know. Sometimes you flash that sweet smirk my way and the only thing I can think about is getting you out of that uniform and under me.” Nyx keened when he slipped his fingers inside her again. Kaidan held her gaze as her head tipped back with the sound.

“You clearly don’t know how inappropriately I’m thinking when you drop armor on the flight back,” his mouth closed over her throat. “When you tug that suit half off and tie the arms around your waist.”

She hummed and gripped his cock a little tighter. “You’re not the only one thinking just how easy it would be for you to push me against the wall of the shuttle and just fuck the adrenaline out of my system.”

Kaidan bit down on her shoulder hard with a low growl. Using his forearm, he positioned her leg higher on his side and shooed her hand off his cock. Her breath quivered when he pressed it against her. Her hips swirled, rubbing her clit with the plump tip before Kaidan guided himself against her. He teased them both, coating himself in her wetness before he slipped into her with the slightest shift in his hips. Each stroke pressed her clit against his shaft as he pumped into her shallowly.

“I don’t think Cortez and Vega would approve,” he finally said, thrusting sharply into her and making Nyx gasp.

“Cortez might be forgiving.”

“Garrus wouldn’t,” Kaidan teased.

“Never can tell.” She rocked against his languid movements savoring the way his body moved into hers. He gripped her ass tightly, pulling her toward him each time while keeping her leg up and out of the way. “You feel amazing,” she told him, clinging to his neck like she might fall through the hull of the ship if she didn’t.

Distance was not something she wanted or needed. “You were wet so fast.”

A blush raced across her face. “Told you. It takes less than nothing to get me thinking about you in compromising positions.”

Kaidan kissed her hard. “Fuck,” he growled against her mouth. She knew he was on the edge before his rhythm went jagged; she felt that telltale stretch that telegraphed his orgasm. His hand tightened on her rear; so much so, she knew she was likely to wake up with bruises. He pulled her forward, burying himself inside her as he came. Nyx stroked his neck, while she kissed him slow and deep.

His grip on her eased as he thrusted in and out of her a few more times until he softened enough for her to lose the stimulation. Then his hand shifted, moving between her legs in as close a manner as he could mimic. He teased her clit, sliding back when her hips rocked in order to dip his fingers into her. Kissing her the whole time.

“I want to hear you come, Nyx,” he announced against her mouth when her breathing reached a fevered pitch. “You to come apart. I’ve got you.” His voice was thick with need, as his deft fingers urged her onward.

She would have liked to come with him, but even when she didn’t he never let her go without. Kaidan refused to even contemplate her being unsatisfied.

“I know,” she said, petting the back of is head as she held onto him with every ounce of strength she could manage.

“Damn, I wish I was inside you,” he groaned against her neck before biting her. She knew he wasn’t anywhere close to the end of his refractory period, and there was no way she could keep this up.

“I’m close,” she gasped against his cheek, a part of her wishing she weren’t, a part of her wishing she could hold out for those few extra minutes until she could have him inside her again. “Kaidan,” she purred. “Kiss me.”

He didn’t miss a beat, his lips were on hers and his tongue in her mouth an instant later. That hum in her throat, built to a moan. Her hips worked against his hand. Kaidan held her tight against him as he inched her toward the precipice. A wave of warm electricity washed through her limbs when the proverbial dam broke. She shuddered against him, one hand shooting to his wrist to keep him from pulling away before the sensation faded.

They finally shifted apart, both their bodies slicked in a fresh sheen of sweat. “Maybe we should have held off on the shower,” he teased, stealing a kiss from her before he flicked the sheets off of himself. “Don’t you move a muscle,” he ordered before heading to the bathroom.

“Yes, sir. Major, sir,” she replied in breathless teasing.

Kaidan shot her a playful look over his shoulder. A little voice in the back of her head kind of hoped he might make her pay for that little gibe. She bit her lip and watched him walk back across the room; it was then she realized that one of her earlier observations had been completely correct. She was trying to memorize every detail. When he knelt on the edge of the bed, she bolted upright and grabbed him by the neck to pull him into a kiss. He caught himself on one hand, which kept him from toppling onto her completely—not that Nyx would have minded at all.

He kissed her without question, entirely consumed by it as she was. Once her grip eased up, Kaidan shifted.

“Missed you, too,” he chuckled. Tenderly, he eased her legs apart and swiped the cooling wet fabric between her legs. It wasn’t a shower, but it would work. He folded it and did it again, lingering a bit longer than necessary as the pattern of the hand towel’s fabric pressed and slid against her still swollen clit. When she looked up at him, he was watching her reaction.

She smiled at him and leaned up to steal another kiss. “Kaidan?”

“Hmm?” he replied, setting the towel on the bedside table.

“Would you rub my back?”

He grinned at her and kissed her on the tip of the nose. “It’d be my pleasure.”

Nyx let him lie back against the pillows, then fitted herself against him, with her head tucked into the crook of his shoulder. The lights dimmed, and the only sound other than their breathing was the quiet barely there hum of the filters for the fish tanks. Kaidan’s fingers traced across her bare skin until he was sure she was asleep. Even so, his hand only fell still once his own sleep cycle stole his consciousness from him.

#Mass Effect Fanfiction #Nyx Shepard #Kaidan Alenko #Shenko #Mass Effect #Guardians in the Darkness #Badger Scribbles #NSFT #NS*W #Angst and Fluff and Smut #Smut with Feelings #There's a cut for a reason #though I always add a cut to keep the posts shorter #But this time there's more of a reason

21 notes · View notes

knightmareaceblue · 3 years

Text

Last Chapter

Next Chapter

Index

AO3

According to the ancient legends, no one who climbed Mount Ebott had ever returned.

In spite of this, Mount Ebott was actually a quite lovely, peaceful place. A thick forest surrounded the mountain, broken up only by a few sprawling meadows of flowers and a number of animal trails. If one were a skilled botanist, they might have noticed, in between the sturdy oaks and crawling ivy, a number of plants that were once thought extinct flourishing without a care in the world. A number of animals roamed the woodlands, and when they took note of the human creatures trespassing through their sanctuary, they did not run and hide as their counterparts might. They merely observed from a safe distance, cautious but having no reason to distrust the stranger animals who walked on two legs. Long untouched by the taint of human society, the wild lands of Ebott would be considered by many to be quite relaxing, with the music of the leaves being rustled by the wind and the warm gradient of the sunset back-dropping the luscious setting.

The peacefulness of the mountain, however, only seemed to add stress on to Sven’s already over-encumbered shoulders. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they were going to be ambushed at every corner; if not by the government they were trying very hard to avoid, then by monsters or mountain lions or whatever deadly things were behind the legends in Ebott City. He made sure to stay ahead of Reginald- the Chief and the Right Hand, mostly to protect the two from any that would do them harm, but also to avoid looking at the Chief. Every time he caught sight of their limp leader he felt sick to his stomach. Every glance from those stony eyes, absent of the intelligent light that so characterized their CEO, caused his heavy heart to jolt in momentary panic because, goddamn, he looks dead. He feels dead. He can’t be dead please don’t let him be dead-

What made it worse still was how the Right Hand spoke to their chief in this gentle, intimate tone. Sven tried not to listen in, but would sometimes catch snippets of his hushed whispering: stories of the past, observations of the present; once, and only once, an uncomfortably emotional plea that caused Sven to hasten his pace so he wouldn’t be able to hear the words he knew were only meant for a lover’s ear. They hadn’t spoken directly since the incident earlier.

Burt wasn’t holding up much better, to be fair. In any other awkward silence, Burt would fill the void with his monotone ramblings, or at least joke about it with Sven. But Mount Ebott was putting even him on edge, and he stayed glued to Sven’s side, eyes and ears perked up as he vigilantly watched over his superiors, holding his own firearm with a little too much tension. Walking side by side was something they’d done many times since becoming Chief and Right Hand, but this time Burt walked with a purpose. Looking at his face reminded Sven of better times, of how things were before that fateful airship raid. It filled Sven with strength; he was a Toppat, a thief who prided himself on his intellect and his community. So long as Sven remembered that, he knew he’d be fine.

One might expect that the supposed prison for an entire population of people would be hard to get into, but by the time they even attempted to enter the mountain the trio of criminals had managed to find three entrances. The first one the Right Hand vetoed, on account of it being too dangerous a climb to attempt with the Chief. The second cavern entrance had large paw prints around the outside, so they climbed past it with a silent agreement to only come back if there was no other option. The cave they decided to enter was about mid-way up the mountain; a wide cavern with a slope gentle enough that the Right Hand Man deemed it safe.

As they descended, Sven swallowed past his anxieties to ask Burt, “Do you mind going into my bag and grabbing a torch?”

Burt quirked a brow at him. There was still tension, but he at least felt well enough to quip back, “You packed literal torches? Damn, we’re really going medieval with this little spelunking adventure, aren’t we?”

“A torch is just a flashlight, you ignorant cretin,” The Right Hand Man scowled at Burt with an expression like he’d just sucked a lemon.

The bickering was refreshingly familiar. Sven could almost imagine Reginald- the Chief poking fun at the Right Hand in retaliation, perhaps bringing up an embarrassing memory from their younger years or teasing him in French, a language their Second-In-Command didn’t speak. It was actually a rather common occurrence back on the airship for Reginald to lay thick, sultry compliments and sweet nothings in French onto his beloved Right Hand and revel in the resulting confusion. Fluent in French himself, Sven had nearly laughed himself hoarse the first time he heard it happen.

Sven took a deep breath, discreetly wiped at his burning eyes, and pressed onward. If Burt or the Right Hand Man noticed, they didn’t comment.

--------------------

For some time after entering the caverns, Sven started doubting his hypothesis that this was where the monsters had been sealed. They just felt like normal caves; perhaps a bit mossier than normal, but this entire mountain was crawling with plant-life. Despite the evidence, Sven began to worry that maybe he’d dragged his sick chief into this damp, germ-infested cave system for nothing.

Luckily for him, it wasn’t terribly long before his worries became unfounded.

The cave tunnel they were traveling through opened up into a large hollow pocket in the Mountain, where there sat a great city. The buildings were all carved from white stones, and they towered far above the humans’ heads.

“Look at this place!” Sven gasped. “It’s incredible!” He ran up to one of the buildings, feeling along the side of the walls. It was made from the same material as the caves; it must have been, there was no where for them to go to get materials. But the stone was so smooth under his fingers, like polished marble. “How do you think they pulled this off? Magic maybe? It would take forever to smooth rock down like this otherwise, it must have been! The building’s look like they were carved out of the ground, but were they carved out from the mountain? Or did they use magic to raise the ground up to be carved out?” Sven gasped as he ran his fingers across a window. “And how do you think they made glass? Burt said this was a volcanic area, but was there sand inside the mountain they could use? Or did they finely grind the rocks to make sand? Oh, this is fascinating, I wish I brought my camera!”

When he turned to his fellow Toppats, Sven saw that Burt was smiling indulgently at his rambling, but the Right Hand Man merely rolled his eyes.

“Yeah.” Agreed the Right Hand absently. “Architecture. Riveting. Now ‘ow are we gonna find whot we need to ‘elp Reg?”

“Um, right.” Silently the Swed cursed himself for getting distracted. “Uh, let me climb on top of this building. I’ll see if I can find a library or something where we could get information.”

The suggestion had his boss nod in satisfaction, but now it was Burt who was discontent. As Sven gripped the window to begin scaling the building, he was suddenly pulled down by a firm grip on the back of his vest.

“I’ll climb up.” Burt told him sternly. “You stay down here where it’s safe.”

“Wha-?” Questioned Sven, who could only watch as Burt attempted to scale the building. Keyword being attempt, because it was obvious his strength wasn’t enough to hoist his physical mass much farther than the first window. When his arms started quivering, Sven stopped the pathetic show before his poor friend could embarrass himself further. “Burt, seriously, it’s fine. Let me handle it, I actually know how to climb stuff.”

“Uh, I grew up on a mountain,” Burt retorted with a little more sass than strictly necessary. “I can climb shit.”

“You’ve NEVER set foot on this mountain!” Sven reminded him. Frustrated, he shoved the other man away from himself and turned to climb, only to feel his Toppat be violently yanked down over his eyes. Instinct had Sven violently push his elbow into his attacker’s stomach- though with Burt’s height, it ended up squarely in his rib cage.

Suddenly Sven was yanked up by his collar. Burt made a chocking noise as he was also hoisted up. Both men now had to endure the shame of looking their commander directly in his eyes, squinted at both of them with obvious annoyance. The sight of it made Sven’s heart sink; as if the man didn’t already think lowly of him, after what Sven had done to his husband. Now the poor Right Hand Man could add ‘childish’ to the list of negative qualities he associated with the Chief’s top pupil.

“Enough.” He said, firm and flat. The Right Man then dropped both of them. Sven landed on his feet, but Burt stumbled and fell on his butt. “I’ll climb the building. You two idjit’s keep an eye on Reg.”

In the end letting the Right Hand Man climb the building was probably the right call, because he scaled the rock structure much quicker than either of them could. Once the oldest of them was out of earshot, Sven turned to Burt, the man who was supposed to be his best friend, and sharply whispered, “What the heck was that?!”

“I’m your right hand man,” Burt crossed his arms, staring down at the ground. “I’m not gonna let you risk your life pointlessly.”

Sven inhaled, and through gritted teeth told him, “It’s not pointless,” because it would help them track down help for their dear chief, “and it’s not a risk!” because god damn it, he scaled the Harpist’s Castle in Scandinavia to get his hands on some old metal helmet that was somehow worth two point two million dollars. He could climb a three-story building! “You made me look like an idiot in front of the Right Hand Man! How am I supposed to make up for what I did like this?!”

“Uh, by not getting yourself killed?” Burt scowled. “Look, I get it. I know how you feel. But what happened isn’t your fault. I’m not gonna let you get yourself hurt over it.” Burt finally looked up at him. “You can’t fix your mistakes if your dead.”

Sven was having difficulty thinking of a response to him that wouldn’t spark another argument, but was saved by the Right Hand calling down, “OI!” And using one of the building’s decorate pillars to slide back down to them. “There’s an important lookin’ building near the west wall. Seems like some sorta castle. We should start by checkin’ there. Even if we don’t find anything on Reg’s condition, we should at least find some sorta map.”

“Roger,” Burt confirmed, then began walking in the direction Sven assumed was west without so much as looking back. This wasn’t atypical; Burt tended to shut things out when he was genuinely upset. It was just kind of how he was. They could talk about it later.

As they headed west, Sven noticed how oddly empty the city streets were. The place was huge, but there were no monsters in sight. Could they have all really gone to the surface? How could the amount of people it would take to populate this city be reliable herded out of these caves before anybody noticed?

That was when he heard it; something rustling in the distance. Sven immediately hopped between the chiefs and the noise, drawing his pistol and disengaging the safety.

“Wot is it?” The Right Hand Man questioned testily.

“I heard something,” Sven pointed his pistol around, but couldn’t find the source of the noise. Ahead, he could hear Burt turning around and running back. With no active threats to aim at, Sven reluctantly lowered his weapon, but still kept his guarded stance. “I don’t think we’re alone down here.”

“Sure you’re not hearing things?” Burt asked as he leaned against the wall. “Empty places like this mess with people’s heads.”

It was apparent the Right Hand Man wasn’t sure what to think. Eventually he exhaled deeply and told the two, “Keep movin’, but keep yer guard up. Burt, keep on point. Sven, bring up the rear. I want Reg covered from all sides.” Sven nodded, and reengaged the safety on his pistol before moving on.

They kept moving in this formation. When Sven closed his eyes to focus on his hearing, he became more certain that there was someone else down here. A monster who didn’t want to go up, maybe?

It didn’t matter. They wouldn’t touch the chiefs. Not as long as Sven had something to say about it.

The ‘castle’ that their commanding officer mentioned only barely qualified as such. It was more like an average, cozy house with a slightly more ornate design than the rest of the city. The inside was very plain for a castle as well. Directly to the left of the entrance was a living area, and the Right Hand took the opportunity to direct Reginald to rest in the large armchair by the fireplace. Sven considered seeing if he could light it for a moment, but decided they had more important things to worry about.

“A’right, let’s split up, then,” The Right Hand began heading over to the opposite end of the house. “You two search this room, I’ll scope out the rest o’ the place.”

“Roger that.” Sven confirmed. There was a single bookcase in the room, so he began to shuffle through it. “Burt, come on, help me search.”

“...man, he’s really out of it.”

Sven tore his attention away from the shelf to see Burt standing over Reginald, looking him directly in his cold, dead eyes. Just the thought of doing that sent a shiver down Sven’s back, but he got up to join Burt at his side anyways. The communications expert waved a hand in front of his face – no response. Snapped fingers – no response. A clap, dangerously close to his nose – no response.

Sven laid a hand on Burt’s shoulder. “...are you okay?”

“I guess.” Burt shrugged. “...sorry about earlier. I know you’ve done more dangerous stuff than that. So much shit has happened... I’m just worried about you.”

Sven placed a hand on Burt’s shoulder, keeping the touch gentle. “I don’t just want to fix the chief.” He confessed. “I want earn their forgiveness, too. I want to prove I still belong with the Toppats. I want everything to go back to normal again.”

Burt’s hand came up to gently rest on Sven’s, warm and soft. “Even if it doesn’t, we’ll figure something out.” Sven dared to look back, and the smile Burt gave him was contagious enough for Sven to smile too. “We always do.”

“Yeah...”

A comfortable silence went on for just a few moments. Then Sven heard it. A subtle creaking and groaning, and it sounded like it was coming from the kitchen.

“Shoot.” The gun was between them and the kitchen in a heartbeat, safety still on just in case. “Did you hear that?”

“Uhh...” Burt looked between him and the kitchen. “No...?”

“There’s someone else in the house. We need to get the chief to safety.” Nerves be damned, Sven reached out and pulled their chief out of the chair. The poor man stumbled, but with Sven’s help he was somehow able to keep upright. “I’m taking Chief Reginald downstairs where its safer. You get the Right Hand Man and meet us down here.”

Burt nodded, still looking uncertain. Sven pulled the Chief behind him and quickly descended the stairwell, dragging him through the gray stone hallway and into a glorious golden hall. At any other time he might have stopped and gawked, but now wasn’t the time for that. Sven and the Chief passed through quickly and rushed passed a doorway down another flight of stairs, into a chamber filled with boxes. One was marked with a purple heart, and when Sven leaned closer to examine it, he saw the name ‘Max’ written on it.

“Nope.” He decided, and basically dragged Reginald back up the staircase, muttering as he climbed. “Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.”

At the top of the stairwell he ran into Burt and the Right Hand Man. Without even a greeting the Right Hand Man pushed past Sven to check on Reginald. Burt and him watched before Burt told him what was going on.

“We checked the outside of the kitchen. And basically everywhere else. We couldn’t find anything.” Then Burt squinted up at him. “Are... are you okay?”

“Fine! Just fine!” Sven snapped back, a little too quickly, and walked past him into the wide open door he’d walked past before. Now that the others were here, he was a little more at ease and took the time to read the sign he’d walked past earlier.

Throne Room

Okay. It was at least worth checking out.

At Sven’s suggestion they entered. Cracks in the cavern ceiling let moonlight pour out over the room, illuminating the beautiful field of flowers before them. Golden petals spread across the room, breaking the gold and red tiles and giving the entire room the smell of springtime. A single chair stood in the center of the room: the throne, presumably. A white sheet covered what was presumably another chair in the background.

“We shouldn’t split up again until we know for sure what was following us.” Sven told both of them. He walked further into the room. “Let’s investigate this area, then head back up to the castle-”

All of a sudden something tangled around Sven’s ankle, harshly and suddenly enough that he couldn’t correct himself as he toppled onto the ground. Fortunately the flowers and weeds made the ground soft, so it didn’t hurt when he fell. All it did was give him a reason to grumble with annoyance.

And when Sven looked up, he found himself face to face with a smiling flower.

What.

“Howdy!” The flower greeted, as if this entire situation wasn’t bizarre enough. “I’m Flowey! Flowey the Flower!”

There weren’t words for this situation. All Sven could do was stare dumbly at the talking freaking plant in front of him.

“It seems you folks have gotten yourselves a little lost!” It continued cheerfully. “Well, don’t you worry! Your new pal Flowey will make sure you get out of here nice and quick-like! No need to thank me!”

They all stared at the flower.

“Sir?” Burt asked. “Am I high?”

The Right Hand only gave him a quick, bewildered glance before returning his attention to Flowey.

“If you exit through there,” Flowey gestured with its entire body – because it didn’t have hands, because it was a flower, what the hell – towards a doorway in the back of the room, near the shrouded throne, “You’ll pass where the Barrier spell that kept us all in the Underground was cast. That will take you all directly up to the surface!”

“Err...” Sven shortly glanced back to his equally confused colleagues (minus the Chief, who was leaning heavily on the Right Hand Man’s shoulder), then looked back down at the wide grin of the flower – wait, does it have teeth? Why does it have teeth? “Thank you, but we’re not heading up to the surface just yet.”

Flowey was still smiling, but something on its face changed; a slight crack that showed a hint of agitation on its otherwise jolly expression. “Oh? You’re not? Do you want to be stuck in the Underground, like so many before you?” Then its smile got wider, outgrowing its face and curling sinisterly. “Don’t you know that you go mad down here in the dark?”

Sven did the logical thing and got the hell away from that abomination. Burt stepped between them and pulled his gun on the flower, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“Oi, Flower Boy!”

The lot of them turned towards the Right Hand Man. He was holding his husband close to him, then did something completely counter-intuitive and brought the injured Chief closer to the freaky flower.

“Ye obviously want us gone,” Said the man, staring the flower dead in its eyes, “So I’ll cut ya a deal. Ye ‘elp us find out wot’s wrong wit’ our Chief ‘ere, and we’ll git lost. Soun’ good?”

Neither of their expressions wavered. You could cut the tension between them with a toy knife.

“...Alright, fine.” The Flower pulled itself down into the ground and reemerged closer to the chiefs. So that’s what he’d been hearing! “Hmm... and what put him into this state?”

“A... magic crystal exploded.” Sven explained simply.

The flower turned and gave him a strange look, like Sven had just suggested it get up and walk or something. “Uh, what?”

Sven repeated himself. “A magical crystal exploded, and he was caught in it.” Sven scratched the back of his neck, pushing down the reflexive because of me that bubbled inside of him.

“Yeah, no, that’s not how magic works. A magic crystal would, like, just sparkle or something. It shouldn’t be able to explode. Unless... did this crystal let you perform magic?”

“It... let me go back in time.” Sven told it.

“Okay, that would make it a DETERMINATION Crystal. Ugh, you humans, always thinking you can cheat the system. If your soul doesn’t have the determination to perform time magic, you shouldn’t perform time magic!” The flower scowled. “But noooo! You had to distill traits and put them in gems! So irresponsible! Ugh, anyway, if that was the cause of the problem, then it might have done something to his soul. Let me take a look.”

The flower approached Reginald slowly, watched with sharp eyes by every human in the room. With a soft ‘boop’, it tapped Reginald on the chest and sat back to watch.

“Uhhh...” Burt pointed at the little gray bits flaking off of their Chief’s soul. “I take it that’s bad?”

“HOLY SHIT!” Flowey backed away, and with nothing to interact with the blue light slowly disappeared. “OH MY GOD, HOW THE HELL IS THIS GUY NOT DEAD?! WHAT THE FUCK-?! OKAY, OKAY, DON’T PANIC, NOBODY PANIC!”

“You’re panicking!” Burt yelled back. The Right Hand held his husband tighter, staring at the flower with an unreadable expression. Sven stared at the spot on the chief’s chest where the illumination had been visible. The dull gray light that came off of it had made him feel sick to his stomach. That was supposed to be his soul; the culmination of his very being. And it was in tatters, turned to an ashy gray and falling apart because of what he’d done. Sven’s arms shook, but there wasn’t time to think it through.

“Okay, okay, I, uh... THE LAB!” Flowey the Flower burrowed into the ground, and reappeared near the doorway. “Okay, there’s no time to explain what’s going on, but if you want that guy to live you NEED to follow me! Hurry up!” And with that, the Flower burrowed again, appearing on the opposite side of the doorway.

For a moment, nobody moved.

“Do we trust him?” Burt asked, openly apprehensive.

“Do we ‘ave a choice?” The Right Hand Man retorted. That was all that was said before they followed behind Flowey, and if Burt disengaged the safety on his gun, Sven certainly wouldn’t go telling anyone.

--------------------

They followed Flowey through the empty city until they reached an elevator.

“Okay! Okay!” The little thing peered down the elevator shaft. The thing was covered with giant green vines. “I, uh, forgot I broke this. No problem! We’ll just need to propel down!”

Burt gave him an odd look. “That seems unnecessarily complicated.”

“Well, we don’t have a choice!” The flower snapped back at him. It narrowed its beady little eyes at Burt, who, since leaving the castle, had made absolutely certain to stand between the flower and Sven. “It’s not like there’s stairs we can use!”

Burt’s frown deepened. The Right Hand Man kept silent behind the lot of them; at this point, he’d started just carrying the chief in his arms, as it was faster than trying to walk them both around. Sven silently pointed from behind his friend to the doorway several meters away clearly labeled ‘Stairs’.

“Oh.” Flowey blinked, then squinted at the stairwell. “How have I never noticed that...? Well, whatever. Just head down to the lab. I’ll see you down there.”

Flowey vanished underneath the ground. With no other options, the group of humans began carefully descending the stairwell. It went down and down, further into the darkness. The only light they had was Sven’s torch.

“...when the Witch was telling me about magic,” Sven spoke as he climbed, partially to ward off the damning silence, but mostly because it seemed like important information, “she told me about the soul. It’s what let’s humans do magic, but there’s more to it that I didn’t quite understand. She called it ‘The True Form of a Human’. I have no clue what she meant by that, but if the Chief’s soul is in that state...”

“...no wonder he’s braindead.” Burt mumbled.

“Humph. Keep moving.” Their boss instructed them curtly. He was trying to keep up appearances, maybe for their leader’s sake, but something had changed in him since they saw the Chief’s soul. He carried himself stiffer, and something haunted darkened his eyes. His hands were tight around the limp form of Chief Reginald, and Sven could have sworn he saw them shaking.

It would be hard to blame the man for his sudden unease. The blue-green light put off by one-half of the soul had been calming, but the gray side had been unsettling. It was hard to put into words just how wrong it had felt; like being in the presence of a person who was terminally ill. There was a looming sense of dread and anxiety that hung over all their heads.

God, he hoped this flower’s plan worked.

At the bottom of the staircase they stepped into a darkened corridor. Dark teal tiles covered the floor, and the only light in the entire hallway came from monitors that were set up on the walls. With Burt taking point, weapon drawn, they carefully strolled through the laboratory. The entire place had an eerie, sterile feeling to it. It reminded Sven of a creepy abandoned hospital he’d had to take refuge in once.

Flowey was waiting for them at the base of what appeared to be an elevator. “Good, you’re here!” It burrowed again and reappeared underneath some sort of machine. It was large and purple and added quite nicely to the ominous atmosphere of the lab. “Okay, so here’s the sitch: your friend’s soul is unraveling due to a DETERMINATION deficiency. He needs an emergency infusion of DT like, right now, but I obviously don’t have any on hand. So we’ll have to take it from one of you.”

“Excuse me, you what?” Burt looked uncomfortable by the suggestion, and after his own limited interactions with DETERMINATION, Sven couldn’t exactly blame him.

“All humans need a baseline level of DETERMINATION, or their souls can’t hold themselves together. It’s like, the glue of the SOUL. That’s why he’s falling apart. So, if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna check to see which of you has the most DT, okay?” Without waiting for a response, Flowey suddenly flew at them, way too quickly. With a ‘boop’, it touched each of them, drawing out the glowing hearts from their chests.

First Burt’s: “Hum, PERSEVERANCE, okay...”

Then Sven’s: “INTEGRITY, alright, alright...”

Then, at last, the Right Hand Man’s: “AH! YES! IT’S RED!”

The Flower backed off, towards the machine. It seemed unusually giddy. “Alright, giant red-headed human! Your primary soul trait is DETERMINATION. That means you have the most DT out of everybody here! It’d be easiest – and safest – to take it from you. All you need to do is put your soul in the giant scary machine and let me poke it! Simple enough, right?”

They all stared at the flower.

“Uh, I don’t know about this.” Burt spoke up. “You want us to just put one of our souls into some unknown contraption and let it kill us?”

Flowey squinted up at him.

“How do we know this would even work?” Continued the skeptical man. The entire time his eyes never Flowey. “For all we know, this could be some plot for you to kill us and eat us!”

“...” The flower huffed, more annoyed than anything else. “I’m a flower. I can’t eat anything. Listen, if you wanna let your pal over there die a slow, miserable death, then go right ahead. No skin off my metaphorical nose.”

“I’ll do it.”

The lot of them turned back towards the Right Hand Man. He gently set his husband down, leaning him against the back wall, and kissed his forehead before walking back to Flowey. Burt attempted to grab his arm, to hold him back and maybe talk him out of it, but was brushed off easily by the larger man.

“Well, good.” Flowey exhaled loudly. “At least ONE of you has a brain. Alright, just summon your soul – you remember how I did it? Yeah, just do that.” After a moment of hesitation, the Right Hand Man carefully tapped his own chest and, like before with Flowey, the glowing red heart appeared. Strength radiated from it, and when Sven looked at it he found himself feeling stronger as well. Like he could save the Chief; like he could earn their forgiveness. Like a happy ending wasn’t out of reach. A part of him knew that this light held the same power as the terrible explosion back at the prison, but this felt different. Calmer. More stable.

This, Sven realized, was the true nature of DETERMINATION. The power to change the world.

“Alright, now place it in the compartment on the DT Extraction machine. I’ll operate the controls.” Flowey moved over to a panel discreetly hidden on the side of the machine. The Right Hand Man put his glowing red soul inside of the machine. Once it was locked in, the flower gave him a firm nod. “Okay, I’ll turn it on now. You’ll feel a slight pinch, but it shouldn’t hurt for any longer than that. If it does, LET ME KNOW. I cannot stress that enough, okay?”

With the Right Hand Man’s consenting nod, Flowey flipped a switch on the machine and it started up. The noise it made was horrendous, a loud and ominous humming that could best be compared to a lion’s roar. The Right Hand Man grunted and gripped at his chest.

And then it was over. The sounds whirled to a halt. The machine spit out some sort of red vial. The Right Hand’s soul was released and flew back to him within seconds. Without waiting the flower gripped the vial and burrowed underground again, reappearing in front of Reginald. The soul of their boss was exposed again, still slowly dissolving into gray dust. Flowey hummed at it and slowly, carefully, pricked the healthily glowing blue-green side of the soul with the needle at one end of the vial. The red liquid slowly drained out, and as it entered the blue-green glowing construct it was absorbed. The healthier side glowed a little bright, and the gray side stopped breaking apart. For the moment, their poor chief was stable.

Flowey sighed with relief. It then turned back to the Right Hand Man and asked, “Are you feeling alright? Any residual aches or pains?”

“No.” The Right Hand told them, surprisingly calm for a man who just had his soul probed. “’m feelin’ fine.”

“Good. Let me know the second anything changes. And don’t try to extract anything by yourself.” Flowey moved underground again, appearing in front of the console and messing with it. “Souls are very precious things. They can withstand a lot, but they can also be damaged easily if you’re not careful. You could cause serious problems for yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

The machine made a noise before powering down, and a red light started glowing on the console. “Okay, I’ve locked this with a password. Now, for the difficult part.” A pensive look crossed the flower’s face.

Sven gulped, almost afraid to ask, but managed to spit out. “What’s the difficult part?”

“Research.”

--------------------

It didn’t take long for the humans to realize why this was the difficult part.

There was so. Much. Manga.

“Seriously? Who the hell mixes in their research material with their lame nerd crap?” Sven huffed as he threw another fantasy book about a catgirl halfway across the room. Flowey caught it and set it down.

“Doctor Alphys, I guess.” The manga was set on top of an ever growing pile of discarded books. The condition for all of them was incredibly poor; most of the times, the covers had fallen off and were replaced with generic brown protectors, so it was nigh impossible for a normal person to tell them apart from the research material they were searching for. “She was too afraid to do any actual work after her many, many screw ups, so she’d hide down here just to read manga. It was really depressing to watch.”

“Uh-huh,” Sven glanced over to the other bookcases, trying to see if his colleagues were having better luck. The Right Hand Man was going through each and every book, flipping open the cover before setting it down into one of two piles; a manga pile and read later pile, presumably. Burt had grabbed one of the books and was now squatting on the other side of the room, reading intently. Sven shook his head and got back to work.

Minutes later, Burt called out. “Ey yo, check this out! I think I’ve got something!”

Immediately everyone – sans Reginald, who was left lying on a bed in the other room – gathered around Burt and his book.

“This one,” The communications specialist pointed at a section, “sounds just like what the Chief’s going through.”

‘Transcribed Records of Professor M. R., Human Magical Researcher. Estimated Date: Autumn of -77 Pre-War Era.

‘Tragedy struck today during our tests of the DETERMINATION crystal. Overuse caused the crystal to overheat and fracture. Despite this, Professor [UNKNOWN, ILLEGIBLE] insisted that the testing be carried out as normal. As a direct result, during the next test, Subject Mel [UNCONFIRMED TRANSLATION, BEST GUESS] was overexposed to raw DETERMINATION. They were immediately transferred to our medical ward for treatment by our monster scientist. Closer examination of their soul indicates that the subject now completely lacks in DETERMINATION. Needless to say, Professor [UNKNOWN, ILLEGIBLE] will likely not be here by this time next week.

‘In absence of Professor [UNKNOWN, ILLEGIBLE], I’ve been temporarily promoted to head researcher. In eight weeks time, it will be a permanent promotion. In less political news, Subject Mel [UNCONFIRMED TRANSLATION, BEST GUESS] has begun to deteriorate rapidly. Professor Lilith, our monster specialist in Souls, has theorized that the overdose of DETERMINATION has caused their soul to entirely halt its own production of DETERMINATION, like when a field that has grown potatoes for too long will refuse to yield anymore. As a result, when the DETERMINATION escaped their body, their soul was no longer replacing what was lost. P. Lilith has reassured me that so long as Subject Mel [UNCONFIRMED TRANSLATION, BEST GUESS] undergoes constant healing, they will pull through. I find myself reluctant to trust a monster’s judgment on a human soul, however. I have already begun preparing the papers to report Subject Mel’s [UNCONFIRMED TRANSLATION, BEST GUESS] death.

‘Subject Mel’s [UNCONFIRMED TRANSLATION, BEST GUESS] condition has turned out to be more serious than Professor Lilith first assumed. It is no longer just their DETERMINATION that is failing them; their soul is no longer producing any of the seven traits that make up a human soul. In light of this new information, P. Lilith has changed her prognosis to a maximum of twenty-seven days before their soul completely deteriorates. When I asked if death would follow, P. Lilith cryptically replied “If they are lucky.” She longingly gazes at Subject Mel’s [UNCONFIRMED TRANSLATION, BEST GUESS] soul when she believes I am not looking. I have decided to increase security in the medical ward until further notice. In less depressing news, my parents have decided not to go through with forcing my sister to marry into the Solimon family, after it recently came to light that the patriarch had fathered a bastard out of wedlock. With luck, I can convince them to send my sister up to this facility so I can aid her in eloping with Professor Swann’s son. Bright lad, he is.

‘Increasing security was the right call. We caught Professor Lilith attempting to steal Subject Mel’s [UNCONFIRMED TRANSLATION, BEST GUESS] soul in the middle of the night. She claimed that she was just trying to heal it, but I’ve been around magic long enough to know when it’s being used, and she was definitely not using any. After a long discussion with my colleges, we have decided to send P. Lilith back to the Monster King for punishment and request no replacement is sent. We have also decided, without a monster researcher to aid us, that it would be in Subject Mel’s [UNCONFIRMED TRANSLATION, BEST GUESS] best interest to be euthanized. The procedure will be administered this afternoon, and their remains sent to their family the next day. May God be with them.’

A powerful silence fell over the group.

“Welp,” Flowey said after a while, popping its ‘p’ playfully, “That certainly explains a lot.”

“So that’s why the Chief’s soul went gray? It’s stopped... producing traits?” Sven scratched his head. He understood it to a degree, but felt like he was missing some very important context. “How does that work?”

“OH! That’s actually something I know!” Flowey beamed up at them, and before he could react Sven felt his soul being pulled from him again. “Okay, so there are seven traits that make up a human soul! First, and most imporantly, DETERMINATION. That’s the red colour!” Sven’s gaze lingered on the Right Hand Man, whose soul had also been exposed. The small hole in his soul where they’d extracted DT earlier had already vanished. “DETERMINATION is essentially your will to live. It’s the power to keep moving forward, in spite of everything. It’s primarily associated with time magic, because you have to be stubborn about getting what you want to manipulate the time stream. It’s a magic so difficult, not even monsters could do it! Only the most determined of souls can even notice time magic being performed, let alone do it themselves!”

“So...” The Right Hand Man interjected, “Since my soul has a buncha this DETERMINATION stuff, I could do time magic?”

“Sure!” Flowey grinned at him. “It’s pretty hard, but I bet you could pull it off. You just need to be stubborn enough to make time do what you want, and you certainly are stubborn...” The flower immediately bounced back to the previous subject. “Anyways! The second trait, which is associated with the colour orange, is BRAVERY; the power to overcome fear and ACT in spite of it. Bravery souls can use elemental magic, because according to Doctor Alphys, ‘The Elements are endlessly danger by their very nature, so you need to be incredibly BRAVE to face them.’

“Next is JUSTICE, the yellow colour. Justice is what defines your morals, and what makes you act when you feel yourself or others are wronged. That surge of rage when someone you care about is hurt? That comes from your sense of JUSTICE. Justice souls are naturals at summoning and manipulating weapons. Your sense of JUSTICE manifests into something you can use to protect others, or punish others, however you interpret it.”

“The colour green represents KINDNESS. That’s where things like love and empathy and affection come from, bleh. Personally, I think KINDNESS is a little overrated, too many unnecessary emotions, but I guess some people find it useful. Annoying, but useful.” Flowey actually pouted at that, like a small child not getting its way. “KINDNESS is where healing magic comes from. So that’s cool, I guess.”

“And that cyan colour your, uh, out of it friend’s soul was? That’s PATIENCE.”

“Patience?” Burt wrinkled his nose. “Is the Chief patient? That’s not how I’d describe him.”

“Would you use words like ‘intelligent’?” Flowey asked. “Observant? Thoughtful? Yeah, those kinds of things go under PATIENCE. People with large amounts of this trait find it easier to sit back and think about things, so they tend to come across as pretty smart.”

Something the Chief said to him came back to Sven. “You wait, and you listen.”

“Exactly! Nice to know you’ve got a brain between those gross, sweaty ears of yours, blue boy.” Burt exhaled sharply at Sven’s side. “PATIENCE souls tend to excel at analytical magic because of that.”

“Huh.” The Right Hand hummed. His gaze was directed at the doorway, no doubt thinking about the man resting in bed just a few rooms away. “Ya know, Reg was always making ‘ese really detailed observati’n’s. Like, stuff you would’t normally be able ta tell jest from a glance. Ya think maybe...?”

“It’s definitely possible.” Flowey chimed up. “He might not have even realized it if he had. I... er, knew a PATIENCE-type soul once who used that kind of magic all the time, and didn’t even realize that wasn’t how everyone else saw the world.”

The Right Hand Man didn’t answer back. Just continued gazing out the doorway thoughtfully.

“And your soul, the one that’s that sharp blue colour?” Sven realized Flowey was talking about him. “That’s INTEGRITY. Let me guess: you’re honest, you’re loyal, you’ve devoted yourself to a single cause so entirely that you can’t imagine a life outside of it?”

Sven flushed, which was all the answer Flowey needed.

“Yup, that comes from your high levels of INTEGRITY. And because of that high INTEGRITY, you should be able to perform spacial manipulation magic. See, because you know who and what you are, you can use yourself as a central point of grounding so you can manipulate space around you.”

Back at the prison, when facilitating their escape, Sven had knocked down a fence wall with a single punch. It hadn’t been raw strength, he’d known that even at the time. He had also known for certain what his duty as a Toppat was and that he had to do what was necessary. That fence HAD to come down. And so it had. That was all there was to it.

Was that magic?

“Then, finally, purple guy.” Flowey had moved on while Sven had been contemplating, and it was now sitting in front of Burt. The shorter man scowled and put a hand between the flower and his exposed soul. “Your primary trait is PERSEVERANCE. You’re adaptable, you’re resilient. You tend not to panic as easily as others. And when caught in a bind, instead of panicking or bemoaning your situation you’re quicker to search for a valid solution, even if that solution is changing something prominent or just waiting.”

“Thanks for reading my horoscope.” Burt replied flatly, obviously unimpressed.

“...People whose primary trait is PERSEVERANCE can more easily use transformation magic. They can change their shape, or the shape of other things.” Flowey raised a brow at Burt, but otherwise didn’t respond to his obvious disdain. “Anyhow, those are the seven traits that make up a human soul. All humans have all seven in different quantities. The colour of your soul is determined by the trait you have the most of. And just because you have a lot of one trait, doesn’t mean you can’t use magic that requires a different trait. As long as you have enough of that one trait, you can use the magic associated with it. Like, your primary trait may be PERSEVERANCE, but if you have enough BRAVERY you can still cast fire spells, you know?

“Each of these traits are necessary for a healthy soul to function. You need to be DETERMINED enough to want to live, BRAVE enough to face reality, JUST enough to protect yourself and others, KIND enough to form healthy relationships, PATIENT enough to have conscious thought about the world, enough INTEGRITY to understand who you are and what you want, and be able to PERSEVERE through any hardship life can throw at you. But with your broken little buddy, he doesn’t have enough of ANYTHING. That’s why he’s catatonic.”

They all took a moment to digest the information Flowey gave them.

Sven spoke his thoughts out loud. “Can we just continue supplementing the Chief with these... traits?”

Flowey shook it’s head. “That wouldn’t be a good idea. We can’t just keep taking DT from big, tall and ugly over there forever. It’s inefficient, and eventually his soul won’t be able to take it anymore. Besides, while DETERMINATION is fairly easy to extract, and KINDNESS can be spread through sheer force of will, the other traits... aren’t so clear cut. How do you take INTEGRITY from someone? Or PATIENCE? I’ve bought you a little time, but probably not enough to figure all that out.”

“Then let’s see if we can’t restart it,” Burt suggested. “Like a car with a dead battery. Maybe we can jumpstart it somehow.”

“...even if we do figure out how to do that.” Flowey’s cheerful voice suddenly turned grave and sad. “A big chunk of your friend’s soul is already gone. He’ll never be the same again.”

Sven’s breath hitched.

There it was; confirmation that he’d damaged the Chief beyond repair. They’d never really have Reginald back. No more late night heist planning. No more of Reginald’s playful teasing of the Right Hand. No more arguing about whether tea or coffee was better, no more movie nights under the guise of ‘studying heists gone wrong’, no more scoldings no more insisting he go to bed on time no more surprise dinners at his door no more-

“We’ll find a way.” The Right Hand Man’s curt voice cut through Sven’s frantic thoughts.

“You’ll find a way?” Repeated Flowey, incredulous. “Yeah, sure, okay. You’ll find a way to not only restart a broken soul – something that has never been done before – but also pull dissolved soul pieces from the void?” There was a sarcastic twinge to its voice, but when it met the Right Hand’s firm glare, Flowey’s petals dropped a little in surprise. “Oh. You’re serious. Ugh, I should send you out of here. I should send you over to the monsters...” Flowey was mumbling for himself, “But goddamn it, this is probably the most interesting thing that’s going to happen down here for a long while. Alright! I’m in, I guess.”

“Great.” The Right Hand Man pushed himself off the wall and began walking out. “C’mon, boys, let’s get some sleep. We’ll start first thing in the mornin’.”

Flowey burrowed underground, following behind. Sven watched them walk off and started to follow behind when he heard Burt call to him from where he was staring.

“Hey, what do you think about Flowey?” Asked Burt.

Sven turned fully to his friend. “Um, I’m not sure how to feel about it.” Sven confessed. “It’s been helpful, but it’s also, like, incredibly creepy.”

“I don’t trust it.” Burt’s tone was unusually serious. “It knows way too much about human souls for a monster that’s supposedly been stuck underground its entire life. It’s also weird that it’s down here alone when all the monsters have gone above ground... I don’t know.” Burt scratched his neck. The pensive look on his face caused a surge of something unfamiliar in Sven, something that urged him to squeeze Burt until he either smiled or popped like a grape. Wisely, Sven pushed it down. Burt continued on, “Something isn’t quite right here. With Flowey.”

“Well, he’s helping us with the Chief,” Sven said, because he didn’t really know what else to say, “even if you don’t like it, we have to work with it for now.”

“...” Burt tugged his hat over his face, then pushed himself off the wall and went to leave the room. Before he left he said, “Just... promise me you’ll keep your eyes peeled, okay?”

“Okay.” Sven agreed. Burt left, and then Sven was alone with the thoughts in his head.

--------------------

An interesting factoid about this chapter. Normally I do the title card, then write the chapter, then choose a part to illustrate. In this chapter, it was actually the reverse: I did the illustration, then wrote the chapter, then made the title card last. Anyways, there was a lot of important stuff here, so feel free to ask for clarification. Unless it's a spoiler, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

52 notes · View notes