#‘well vampires are just fantasy’ yeah so is fucking mine!!!

[luvyeni]

❛LOVE POTIONS❜ ( p. wonbin )

💬nia’s notes: HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE🎃🤍!! if you’re going out plz be safe🖤

p. warlock!wonbinx fem!reader w. 1.5k+

warnings? aphrodisiac usage, unprotected sex, dirty talk, public sex

— 𖦹 ( asking your best friend to make a sex potion for you turns into him fucking you at work ) !

freaktober masterlist

“Do you know how to make sex potions?” Wonbin looked up from his phone, the door to the magic shop locked up for the night, both of you in there alone. “S-sex potions?” he stuttered. “Why do you need to know how to make those?”

It was none of his business, he knew that you guys were only best-friends, but that didn’t stop his huge crush on you, or his ongoing fantasies about you and him.“Well it’s mines and haechan’s third date , and I think he wants to you know.” he was annoyed , of course you were doing this for that vampire senior , everything you did recently was for him. “Sex potions aren’t always safe.” he said. “It could go wrong.”

“I know, but you’re the smartest warlock i know.” he smiled at the praise. “And i really want to make him happy.” he sighed, he wished you’d do this for him, he could do so much better, be so much better if you only have him a chance. “Fine.” he said, you smiled. “i’ll make it for you, and bring it tomorrow.” you clapped, running up to him, hugging him.

later that night, he was reading the spell over and over. “He doesn’t deserve this.” he said, finding all the ingredients. “He doesn’t deserve you.” he has to calm himself down, he shouldn’t get too angry while doing this – throwing the last ingredient in, it was finished. he held the perfume bottle up, the pink liquid moving around. “You wouldn’t have to do this me.”

the next day, you skipped into the store the next day – he smiled, he always did when you came into the store for your shift. “Hey bestie.” you sat on the counter next to him, you sniffed the air, looking at him. “Are you wearing a new perfume?” he nodded shyly, smiling. “It smells good.” you said. “Did you, do it?” he hesitated, nodding. “Yeah.” he pulled it out of his pocket. “Just a little to your neck only when get around him.”

you took the bottle, inspecting it. “Why?” you questioned, he coughed embarrassed. “it’s a sex potion, if you use this around anyone but him, they’re gonna get you know.” he trailed off. “Oh, okay” you understood. “Thanks again wonbin i owe you big one.” you said hopping off the counter, making your way to the back, leaving him feeling happy as he rang up the customers.

you watched the last customer leave, locking the door flipping the open sign to close. “let’s start cleaning for the night.” he nodded, stretching his shirt lifting a bit, your eyes examined his body, you never noticed how toned his stomach was, he even had abs, he definitely had grown a bit since you guys were kids. “(name)?” wonbin waved his hand in your face. “You, okay?” you nodded, confused – what the hell was that? “i’m fine.” you chalked it up to you being tired. “let’s just clean, so we can head out.”

“Stupid ass high shelves.” you jumped up trying to put back the returned items. “i’m gonna kill whoever broke that damn step stool.” you grunted, struggling to put the items on the shelf. “Let me help.” wonbin’s arms reached over top of your head, his scent engulfing you, that same scent from earlier filling your nostril’s, you were surprised that it lasted that long.

“Th-thanks.” you turned tilting your head up to look at him, when did your friend get so attractive, it was so weird, these new feelings that popped out from nowhere. “(yn?)” he stood in front of you now. “Are you sure you, okay? you keep spacing out.” he looked at you concerned. “You look sick, you want to sit down, let’s sit you down.” he grabbed your hand, guiding you. “Wait.”

You stopped, he turned to you. “what’s wrong?” you couldn’t help yourself; you didn’t understand why you did it, but you grabbed his face, kissing him. you tangled your hands into his hair, kissing him deeper – your mind filled with nothing but him.

wonbin pulled away, holding your face in his hands. “i-i’m so sorry.” you stuttered out. “i don’t know why i did that, i couldn’t help it.” he didn’t say anything, pushing you against the shelf, slamming his lip into yours, slipping his tongue into your mouth, his hands traveled down to your waist lifting you up, wrapping your legs around his waist. “Bin.”

you moaned as he began to kiss your neck, sucking leaving little marks. “Bin, please i need you so bad, it hurts.” he groaned, your voice was filled with so much need. “Yeah?” he whispered against your skin. “How bad do you need me?” you whined as his hand rubbed higher and higher up your thighs. “Need you to fuck me.”

his hand came up, cupping your heat, you moaned. “you’re so wet.” he rubbed you through your panties. “Got so worked up over a little kissing, i didn’t even do anything.” he smirked, pressing on your clit. “you’re so sensitive, you’re about to cum already just from from me touching your little clit.”

you were never this sensitive, you never came just from someone touching your clit, so it was such a shock when you found yourself moaning his name as you came, messing up your panties. “Fuck!”

he carried you over to the counter, laying your body down. “bin, i need more.” you whined, pawing at his pants. “i want you inside me.” he cursed under his breathed, you looked so pretty, your eyes so fucked out, clothes disheveled, so ready for him to fuck you. “Fu-fuck baby okay.”

he quickly stripped himself of his pants, slotting himself in between your legs. “You ready?” he rubbed his cock up your folds, you mewled, nodding. “Please fuck me, i need you so bad.” not letting you wait any longer, easing himself inside your hole. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

he seethed himself inside you fully, groaning at how you fit around his cock. “sh-shit you’re so perfect.” he pulled almost fully out, slamming back inside you. “wonbin , fuck!” you screamed as he thrusted inside of you. “Fu-fuck your pussy is perfect, sucking me in like this.”

he dreamed for this day – night after night of him fucking his fist to the thought of you spread out like this , his cock stretching your cunt to its max. “so much better than i imagined , your pussy was made to take my cock.” you moaned , never did you imagine that you’d be fucking your best friend , but it felt so good , you didn’t want this to be the last time. “don’t want you to stop.” he smirked. “Please never stop.”

he spread your legs, hitting a deeper spot, you screamed, clenching around him. “gonna fuck you all the time now.” he groaned. “Only i can fuck you like this, that senior doesn’t deserve to see you like this.” he said rubbing your clit. “you’re mine, alright, my mate.” he grunted. “gonna fuck you full of my cum.” you dumbly nodded, not fully understanding why he was talking about. “Please cum inside me.”

he was in heaven, your cunt sucking him in, desperate for him to cum inside your cunt. “Want my cum that bad -shit- fuck you nice and full?” he slapped your cunt, you yelp. “Yes, please cum inside me, i’m gonna cum!” you screamed, forgetting that you were still in the store, luckily no one was in there. “Please cum inside me.”

his thrust faltering, his body hovering over yours as he rutted his cock sloppily into you. “sh-shit i’m gonna cum, cum with me, want you to cum with me.” he said, rubbing your clit much harsher. “Fuck, i’m cumming!” both of you moaning out as you came, his cum shooting into your hole, filling you up. “Fuck.” he cursed, his head dropping into your neck, breathing heavily. “sh-shit that was amazing.” he said, you hummed coming down from your blissful high.

he pulled out, his cum slowly dripping out. “i’m sorry, i made a mess.” he said shyly, you laughed. “How can you be so shy after fucking me like you just did.” you shook your head. “Just help me get cleaned up and take me home.”

he took you home, you invited him in, both of you showering together where round two happened before you actually showered, getting dressed in some comfortable clothes, order food, ending the night with some cuddles.

“What are you gonna tell haechan?” you shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, he won’t be that hurt, he’s a hot vampire, there are plenty of other desperate witches at our university.” he laughed. “weren’t you one of those desperate witches.” you glared at him. “Watch it, you might be cute, and can make me cum, but i’ll still turn you into a goat.” he laughed. “you’d miss me too much.” you hummed.

“ i think you’d miss me more, cause then who else would you spray a sexual aphrodisiac on yourself for.” his eyes widened, you laughed. “You knew?” he said. “It washed away in the shower dummy.” he was embarrassed. “don’t be embarrassed, i’m not mad.” you climbed on top of him. “y-you’re not?” you shook your head. “Next time use vanilla scent.” he took note. “w-why vanilla.”

“Because it’s my favorite scent and if you use it i’ll suck your cock until you cum down my throat.”

©LUVYENI

#kpop x reader #kpop smut #riize x imagine #riize scenarios #riize imagines #riize smut #riize x reader #wonbin x reader #wonbin imagines #riize wonbin #kpop fic #kpop imagines

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 19.4k ❧ warnings: cursing, graphic description of blood and blood drinking (you know, vampire stuff), graphic description of neck biting so if that’s your no-go zone it’s time to make a decision here, mentions of death and dying (in the context of vampires) ❧ genre: fluff, modern magical creatures au, fantasy au, college au, vampire kun, human reader, ft. various other magical weishens, “uh-oh one of us drank a love potion” trope but with a twist, same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: omg omg i’m so excited to not only debut vampire kun but to begin expanding the strawberry sunday universe! enjoy! ❧ sequel

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

“Did I just drink a goddamn love potion? What the fuck were you planning on doing with a love potion, exactly, anyway?”

“We were supposed to bring them in to test their properties in the lab. And it’s not just a love potion... That already exists, I wanted to take mine to the next level. That’s why Kun’s here.”

“I just don’t get this one,” Kunhang sighed, tapping his pencil against his laptop.

He shifted in place on his bed, reaching behind him to scratch at the middle of his back. You were sitting at his desk chair, going over review questions for your Calculus test tomorrow. Your friend kept itching at his back, and you spun around, putting your notebook and pencil down on the desk.

“I think we need a break, Kunhang. You look like you need to preen,” you declared, standing up and stretching.

“Yeah,” his nose scrunched up as he set his computer aside to get at his back and shoulders with two hands.

“I’m going to get something to drink. You want anything while I’m up?”

“No, I’m good. Thanks, Y/N.”

In Kunhang’s kitchen, you downed a cup of water first. Knowing that the gryphon would be taking some time to preen his wing and shoulder feathers, you opened the fridge to see if you could find anything good. It was barren, it didn’t seem like he nor his witch roommate Yangyang had gone grocery shopping recently. The door held mostly condiments, however you did spot a couple bottles of blue and red Gorgonade. The seal on the red sports drink was cracked, but it looked completely full. You didn’t mind drinking it if your friend had only taken a sip or two. After all, red was your favorite.

Carrying it back over towards his room, you called out down the hall, “Kunhang!”

“Eh?” His response was muffled through presumably a mouthful of feathers.

“Is this your red Gorgonade?”

“Huh?”

“Gorgonade! Can I drink?”

“Have whatever you want!”

“Thanks!”

You wandered around the living room, stretching your legs as you took your first sip. It didn’t taste like the red sports drink normally did. It had a more… earthy taste to it. Still slightly sweet, and a bit rich. But definitely not the normal fruity and saccharine flavor. Looking closer at the label, it definitely said Fruit Punch. You inspected the expiration date next. Nope, definitely well within that, by over a year.

Wondering if you had tasted it right, you took another sip, staring hard at the words ‘Fruit Punch’ on the label. No, still tasted a bit off. Holding the bottle up to the sunlight streaming in through the living room window, you saw that the color wasn’t quite right either, a darker red than normal. Kunhang must have left the bottle open in the fridge for too long and it went a bit off.

You were half done with the bottle by the time you heard Kunhang yelling from his bedroom. Figuring that it was him telling you he was done, you walked back over.

He was readjusting his shirt and fixing his hair as you walked in, looking much more refreshed now. You picked up a stray grey feather that was on the desk chair and tossed it in the trashcan with the others before sitting down.

“Where’d you get that?” He nodded at the bottle as you took another swig from it.

You tilted your head in confusion, “Uh, your fridge?”

“Must’ve been Yang’s,” the gryphon shrugged. “I thought you had found the blue one that’s in there.”

“Oh shit,” you looked down at the mostly empty bottle, feeling guilty now.

“He’ll live.”

A bit ashamed, you finished off the drink and set the empty container down on the desk.

You two had gotten through only a couple more review questions before the door to Kunhang’s room was thrown open, a wild-eyed, disheveled, crazed Yangyang bursting in.

“Have you seen my—” His eyes bugged out of his head when they landed on the empty bottle next to you. He looked between you and Kunhang frantically. “Which one of you drank that?”

You immediately went to apologize, a bit alarmed at how invested he seemed in this drink, “That was me, Yangyang. I’m sorry, I thought it was Kunhang’s. Look, I’ll buy you another.”

The witch winced, looking over his shoulder at something in the hallway. Another figure entered the room then, who you recognized somewhat. You knew of Qian Kun through mutual friends, he attended classes at your campus too, in addition to being a several-century-old vampire. Though you’d never asked, he looked as though he’d been turned in his mid to late twenties, but that presumably didn’t matter much once you’d been around for centuries on end.

Kun’s hands were tucked into the pockets of his crisp dress pants as he seemed to be appraising you. Despite being a student, the couple of times you’d seen him in passing, he had been dressed more like a professor than most of your professors. Today he was in a pair of black slacks and black knit sweater with a white collared dress shirt underneath.

You and Kunhang exchanged bewildered looks before the gryphon finally spoke up.

“Yangyang, what the hell’s going on?”

“Uhm…” Yangyang ran a hand through his hair anxiously. “How- How are you, Y/N? You know, we never hang out—”

“Yangyang!” You cut him off. “Did you do something to that Gorgonade?”

“Well, no…” He refused to meet your eyes, explaining to the floor. “Becauseitwasn’tGorgonade.”

You looked at him incredulously. “What the hell did I fucking drink, then?”

“Well, you see, I had this assignment in my Magical Botany II class, and one of the options was to create a botanical blend incorporating a magical plant we studied this semester. I’m a witch, so, easy A, duh.”

“Are you telling me I just drank a fucking potion?”

“Botanical blend!”

“Why would you put a potion in a fucking Gorgonade bottle?”

“Botanical blend!”

“Put it in a weird little vial with a ‘DO NOT DRINK: POTION’ label on it or something! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“I ran out of glass jars last month! I’ve been meaning to run to the apothecary…”

“So you used a Gorgonade bottle?”

Kunhang cut in then, “Yangyang, what kind of potion was it? You said you had to create it; do you even know what it’s going to do to Y/N?”

“Well, I chose the lover’s embrace blossom as my plant.”

“Lover’s embrace…” you sighed, the vine immediately coming to mind. Mature plants bloomed flowers whose pollen would intoxicate those who breathed it in so they wouldn’t struggle while the vines ensnared them. You imagined it was exactly that pollen that the witch used. “Did I just drink a goddamn love potion? What the fuck were you planning on doing with a love potion, exactly, anyway?”

“We were supposed to bring them in to test their properties in the lab. And it’s not just a love potion... That already exists, I wanted to take mine to the next level. That’s why Kun’s here.”

The three of you finally looked over at the vampire again. He stared back at you, his deep red eyes feeling like they were piercing your very soul. You had to look away, back at Yangyang.

“The love potion is attuned specifically to him, theoretically. Vampires metabolize things so much faster, so their blood may make the effects more powerful, but it should burn right through you super fast, Y/N!” Yangyang tried to put a positive spin on it for you, but your jaw dropped in horror.

“I drank his blood?!” You screeched, your hand flying up to your mouth. It took everything in you to hold back gags at the thought.

“Just a couple drops, just a couple drops!” The witch tried very hard to backpedal.

Kunhang looked between you and Kun. “How long should it take to kick in, Yangyang?”

“Like five minutes.”

“And when did you drink that, Y/N?”

“An hour ago,” you informed him, the same realization seeming to dawn on the both of you.

“And… do you feel any different about Kun than before today?”

You looked at the vampire, feeling almost sheepish as you had to shake your head. Sure, the guy was attractive, but you definitely weren’t magically in love with him all of a sudden.

“No, I feel fine. Normal,” you clarified, turning to the witch. Giving Yangyang a shrug, you didn’t feel all that sorry as you told him, “Maybe your potion sucks.”

“No, it should definitely work!” Yangyang replied indignantly.

“Well I don’t feel anything!” You reiterated. “So congrats on your F, Yangyang!”

The witch huffed, brows furrowing as he looked you over. “Yeah, you’re not acting any different. What the fuck happened?”

“If that’s all, can you get the hell out?” Kunhang requested frankly. “We’re trying to study.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Yangyang sighed. He turned back to the vampire, pointing to the exit dramatically, “Back to the drawing board, Kun!”

Kun still hadn’t moved from his spot as Yangyang was mostly out of the room, then popped his head back in.

“Y/N, you’ll tell me if anything changes, right?”

“I promise, you will be the first to know if your potion did anything weird to me,” you nodded firmly. “I will personally come over here and beat your ass for it.”

“I was thinking like a text or a phone call, but that works too I guess.” Yangyang gave you a thumbs up before disappearing from the room.

You held Kun’s gaze for an awkward moment, unsure why he was still here. Maybe you should apologize?

“Kun!” Yangyang called for him again, and the vampire finally looked away from you, walking out of Kunhang’s bedroom.

It was dark out when you eventually left Kunhang’s apartment, the review guide completed, and your brain just a little fried from all that math. With your backpack slung over your shoulder, and keys in hand, you took off down the sidewalk for the short walk back to your own home.

“Y/N.” A voice suddenly saying your name from right beside you made you jump out of your skin.

“Oh, shit!” You exclaimed, clutching a hand to your chest. When you whipped around to see that it belonged to a familiar face, you took a deep breath before greeting him. “Uh, hi, Kun.”

He remained quiet.

You kept talking, adjusting your bag strap on your shoulder to calm yourself down, “Sorry about all that back in Kunhang and Yangyang’s apartment, by the way. I know it was stupid of me to drink something in a witch’s fridge that tasted off. That part was on me.”

“Are you walking home?” He questioned, focus rather intense on you.

“Yeah, my apartment isn’t far.” You gestured in the vague direction of it.

A deep frown etched itself into his features, “By yourself? It’s rather late.”

“I know! What if another vampire sneaks up on me?” You gasped teasingly.

“Will you let me walk you home? Please?”

Your eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Oh, uh, sure. Thanks.”

The two of you walked side by side in silence. You shifted your bookbag from one shoulder to the other when your muscles got tired.

“Is that heavy?” Kun asked.

“I mean, kind of? My laptop’s in there, and a couple notebooks; Kunhang and I were doing this review packet for a Calc test,” you explained.

“I can carry it for you.” He held a hand out expectantly.

“Oh, you really don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“Uhm… okay.” You pulled the bag off your shoulder and handed it to him by the strap. Honestly, you wouldn’t be too terribly surprised if he ran off with it. Him robbing you seemed about as likely as him randomly offering to walk you home and carry your bag for you.

Kun effortlessly slipped the bookbag on. It looked out of place against his slacks and dress shirt/sweater combo, especially with your multiple cute character keychains that you had attached to the zipper.

He dutifully carried it all the way to your front door for you, where you gratefully took it back. You were very excited for tonight to be over. Between studying, the potion debacle, and now this incredibly awkward interaction, diving headfirst into your bed sounded like exactly what you needed.

“Thank you, Kun, I’m just going to—” You cut yourself off when you were finally able to see his face clearly in the security light outside your apartment door. His crimson irises were nearly gone, entirely swallowed by inky pupils, and he was pulling at his shirt almost as if he were fanning himself to cool down. “Oh my god, Kun, are you okay? Your pupils are… blown. I’d check your temperature, but I don’t think vampires can run a fever, can you?”

“I… I’m…” He didn’t even finish his sentence, biting down on his bottom lip, and holding up a finger in a gesture for you to wait a moment.

You didn’t know too much about vampires, nor whatever ailments they could possibly get afflicted with, but you did know somebody who probably would. Bringing your phone out from your pocket, you started flicking through your contacts list, “I feel like I should call Renjun. He’s a Magical Creatures Studies major. Uhm, he was able to figure out why Dejun stopped producing fire for a weird two weeks last year. He might be able to help. Here, let me—”

“No, I’m fine. I know what it is.”

“Oh. That’s good. What is it? Is there anything I can do?”

Kun straightened back up, hand going to smooth out the wrinkles in his sweater that he’d caused by pulling it at. “I believe Yangyang’s love potion was successful in a way he did not intend.”

“Kun, seriously, I don’t feel any—”

“I do.” He cut you off sternly, focusing his darkened eyes on yours.

“You…” You breathed out, eyes widening.

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, I apologize.” He bowed his head. “I tried to control it as best as I could. But yes, I suddenly started experiencing extremely strong romantic feelings for you earlier tonight.”

“O-Oh.”

“I should go, I’ve seen you home safely.”

“Right, uhm, goodnight, Kun,” you nodded to him, too stunned to say much else.

You clenched your jaw not to make a noise of surprise when he picked up one of your hands with his much colder one. He bent over nearly ninety degrees to press a feather-light to the back of your hand. If you had a free hand, you would’ve pinched yourself to make sure you weren’t dreaming yourself into a rom-com right now.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” he gently let go of your hand before taking a step back from you.

After fumbling to unlock your door, you practically ran inside. Oh, you were going to kill Yangyang.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t immediately start your literal witch hunt the next day, as you had to take your Calculus exam. In fact, you had mostly forgotten your dilemma as you walked out of your classroom with Kunhang and Dejun, another friend of yours.

“How are you feeling, by the way, Y/N?” Kunhang checked in with you, pressing the back of his hand to your forehead. “No sudden urge to dicked down by a va—”

You elbowed him in the side, sending him stumbling off in one direction as he cackled. “I’m fine, thanks for your concern.”

“What is he talking about?” Dejun raised an eyebrow, his slit pupils flicking between the two of you curiously.

“You really should’ve come to the study session last night, Dejun.” Kunhang jumped to relay the story to the dragon.

Dejun had the decency not to full-on laugh at you, but you did see a couple puffs of smoke come out of his nose as he tried to hold back his chuckles. “Yangyang needs to store his potions more responsibly.”

“Thank you!” You cried out, feeling vindicated.

“It seriously didn’t work at all? I mean, I don’t know what else was in there, but lover’s embrace pollen and vampire blood… sure sounds like it should’ve done something,” he mused aloud.

And that was when you sighed, “Well… it didn’t work on me.”

“And what does that mean?” Kunhang cocked his head to the side.

“Kun caught up to me after I left your apartment last night,” you confessed with a wince. “Somehow he’s the one that’s suddenly in love with me.”

“What?!” Kunhang grabbed your shoulder and shook you with equal amounts of disbelief and delight.

You swatted him away, “I don’t know! But I’m going to find Yangyang and see what the little twerp has to say for himself.”

“He should be getting out of Bot II in ten minutes.” Dejun pointed to a building off to your right. “Try to leave him in one piece, Y/N.”

“No promises.”

Kunhang and Dejun both had other classes to get to, leaving you to wait in front of the Earth Sciences building alone, arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently.

“Y/N, hello.”

You spun around on your heel at the familiar voice, now face to face with deep red eyes and dark brown hair.

“Hey, Kun,” you greeted him. He didn’t seem as… unwell as last night. His crisp white button up was tucked neatly into his dark brown dress pants, and for a brief moment you wondered if he even owned casual clothes. Small gold earrings dangled from his lobes, glinting as they caught the dappled sunlight streaming in through the leaves above you.

Feeling hopeful, you asked, “So… how are you feeling?”

“Much better, thank you for asking.” He kept his gaze on you as the two of you conversed. “I’m not, uhm, feverish anymore.”

“Oh, good,” you breathed a sigh of relief. So everything was back to normal then.

“I wanted to give you this.” In his hand was a folded piece of paper, and you accepted it from him curiously. It was crisp, fine quality, with a nice texture that you could feel as your fingers ran along the edges to unfold it.

Your eyes widened as you realized that he had just handed you a poem—a rather good one, if you were to be honest—written in an elegant script. After another quick skim just to make sure your reading comprehension was up to par, you knew that he didn’t just want your feedback on an assignment for class or something. This was a sonnet, if your recollection of your literature class from last semester was any good, about you. For you.

You looked up from the paper to Kun, offering him a nervous smile. “This is… really good, Kun. Uhm, are you busy right now?”

“I have another class in thirty minutes.”

“I’m waiting for Yangyang to get out of his class. He should be out any second. I think we should both talk to him.”

Kun nodded, tucking his hands into the pockets of his slacks. You folded the paper back up and tucked it into a folder in your backpack.

Eventually, a new rush of students began streaming out of the doors, and you scanned the crowd for Yangyang.

As soon as you spotted him towards the back, you hurried over to head him off. “Liu Yangyang!”

“Oh, Y/N! And Kun…” He looked up from his phone at you two, clearly surprised. “Is everything okay?”

“No.” You crossed your arms. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

“Oceanography in an hour. Why? Are you alright?”

Latching onto his forearm, you dragged him over to a more secluded spot of campus, Kun following behind. You relayed all the facts to the witch as quickly as possible, watching as he turned from confused to shocked.

“So it did work!” Yangyang declared brightly.

“Hey! Focus!” You said sternly. “You said that the vampire blood means it should burn up really quickly, right? So Kun’ll be back to normal soon?”

He scratched the back of his neck nervously. “If it was going to be a quick burn, it would have been over already.”

“Excuse me?”

“Kun’s the subject but you’re the vector—”

“Don’t call me that, it makes me sound like I gave him malaria or something.”

“I think—emphasis on think—that this is a two-factor potion.”

“A what?”

“Kun’s blood is doing two things: made it so that it’ll affect him, and by happenstance of him being a vampire, it makes it more powerful. And you drinking it does two things as well: since you drank it, you’re now the target of his affection, and because you’re a human, the potion itself is working through you, and humans metabolize that stuff much slower than say, a vampire.”

“So it’s supercharged and—relatively—super long lasting?”

“Is my guess.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, muttering under your breath, “Can this get any worse?”

Yangyang breathed in through his teeth, a rueful hissing sound. “Well—”

“Oh my god, that was supposed to be rhetorical, it does get worse?”

“It probably won’t even be an issue, Kun’s super old.”

“What does that even mean, Yangyang?”

“Well, younger vampires have a difficult time controlling how much they feed because all kinds of want sort of feel the same to them. Hunger, thirst, jealousy, attraction…”

“I’m living a fucking Twilight novel...” You threw your hands up, then pointed threateningly at him. “I am absolutely going to kick your ass.”

Yangyang held his hands up in front of him defensively, starting to back away from you, “But Kun’s hundreds of years old, so that’s totally not gonna be a problem! Right, Kun?”

Finally, you looked back over to the vampire, who had been silent through this entire confrontation.

“I don’t even live feed anymore,” Kun confirmed. “Y/N, I would never hurt you.”

You knew what he meant. There were other options for vampires now besides drinking blood from a live source, donor bags or synthetic blood replacements. To your understanding, vampires were fairly divided when it came to which they preferred—if they even had a preference at all, some didn’t care as long as they were fed, to those ones it was really whatever was cheapest and easiest at the time.

“Of course, Kun.” You nodded in understanding.

When you turned to give Yangyang one last piece of your mind, the witch was nowhere to be seen. He’d run off while you were distracted. How very mature.

“Alright, well, I’ve uh,” you checked the time on your phone. “I’ve got another class to get to. So, see you.”

“Can I walk you there?”

You had just spun on your heel to leave when he asked that, and it took everything in you not to show your ‘drats!’ expression on your face when you twisted back around to talk to give him some excuse. “Sorry, Kun, I really need to call my mom on the way there. I forgot to on my way to class this morning.”

“Oh.” His face fell, making you wince. It was sweet, but you knew that he was under the effects of a love potion, so really what was the point of entertaining any of this if it was all against his will? If at the end of all of this he would go back to feeling literally no specific way about you? And you’d look like the weirdo for indulging in it.

To his credit, he accepted your (bullshit) reason easily. “Of course, you should call your mother. I’ll see you sometime after class, maybe, then.”

“Maybe, yeah.” You wanted to slap yourself as soon as the words were out of your mouth. But it got you out of there quickly, as he seemed to like this answer, giving you half a smile, nodding, and not saying anything more as you took off towards the building that housed your next class. You were going to be about forty minutes early for it, but it was better than staying out there with Kunspeare at the moment.

Walking into the student union building after your second class, you meandered around until you finally spotted three familiar heads at a table in a far corner of the third floor. You plopped down into the open seat beside Ten.

“Were you guys hiding from me or something?” You scoffed, snatching a fry from Kunhang’s plate in front of you.

“Yeah, because I was hoping to eat all my own food this time,” the gryphon rolled his eyes, but made no move to stop you as you took another fry.

The siren beside you was drawing in one of his many sketchbooks—he was an art major—and you peered over his shoulder to see what he was working on. The whole spread was filled with pencil sketches at various stages of completion, angles, and facial expressions of what seemed like your entire little friend group: you, Kunhang, Dejun, Yangyang, and the final creature that was sitting at your table now, Sicheng.

Sicheng’s fiery orange and yellow eyes looked at you analytically as the phoenix sipped on his fountain drink. He set it down to look at you with a cocked head, curious. “Why were you so late, Y/N?”

“I had to make sure the coast was clear.”

“Oh, do you have a little bloodsucking stalker?” Kunhang asked in understanding.

“He’s not stalking me, he’s been very unfortunately, unconsentingly—on both our parts—put under the effects of a love potion. I don’t fault him for that, okay?”

Ten and Sicheng exchanged bewildered looks.

“God, Kunhang, did you not already tell them? I thought you would’ve gone around blabbing this hilarious story to everyone we know by now!” You snipped at him, dreading the thought of having to relive the mortification of retelling the events of last night over again.

“I’m sorry, did you want me to?” He bickered back without missing a beat. “I’ll go get on the PA system right now.”

You shot him a glare before delving into the gist of it yourself. “Long story short, last night I was over at Kunhang and Yangyang’s. Qian Kun was there too, Yangyang’s vampire… friend? Acquaintance? Anyway, Yangyang made a love potion and like an idiot, put it in their fridge in a Gorgonade bottle then left it unattended. I accidentally drank it, and now Kun is in love with me because his blood was in the potion.”

Their jaws dropped in unison.

“Uhm—” Sicheng didn’t seem to know where he was going with that, scratching the back of his head before picking his soda back up.

“Anyway, this man has gone like full 18th-century courting or whatever on me.” You held your head in your hands, replaying the moment of him handing you the poem in your mind.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” Kunhang pretended to swoon.

“Haha, you should do stand-up,” you said sarcastically. “Seriously, what am I supposed to say when he hands me a goddamn sonnet? ‘Thanks, sick poem, bestie?’”

“He wrote you a sonnet? Where is it? Can I read it?”

“I would sooner let Ten drown me than let you read a sonnet that…” you sighed, your voice getting smaller and smaller with each word, “describes the shape of my lips.”

You shuddered at the thought of your friend ever laying eyes upon something like that. He would never let you live it down.

“Aw come on Y/N!”

“Too late, I already burned it!” You stuck your tongue out at Kunhang, who just did it right back.

“Have you given him anything, Y/N?” Ten spoke up, setting his pencil down.

“I am not writing him a sonnet, Ten.”

“I don’t mean like that. I mean, have you done any sort of reciprocity? Given him any information about yourself? Engaged with him, genuinely, on any level at all?” He paused then, and you slowly shook your head. Your friend’s ocean blue scales shimmered just beneath the skin of his cheekbones as he turned in his seat to face you, reflective gold eyes focused on you. “Look, I know he’s under the love potion and you’re not, and I’m not saying you have to treat these as sincere romantic advances from him. But maybe try to approach them at least as genuine opportunities for human connection. Or, human-vampire connection. You know what I mean.”

You scrunched your nose up thoughtfully. “I haven’t really thought about it like that. Huh...”

“I think if you at least give him a little nudge about the stuff that you do like, he’ll stop writing you sonnets.”

“Yeah, I mean, he’s just going to keep courting you for the duration of the potion, Y/N, whether you want him to or not. Might as well get a car out of it or something,” Kunhang suggested through a mouthful of fries.

“I am not going to exploit him like that!” You scoffed. “And swallow before you talk! You’re going to get gross food bits on me!”

Sicheng wordlessly handed Kunhang a napkin.

After your last class of the day, you stopped at the top of the stairs of the Math and Computer Sciences building. If Kun didn’t mysteriously show up now, you figured you could easily get his number from Kunhang or Yangyang—though that would be inviting a whole slew of other issues.

But you didn’t have to worry about that. Just as you thought, you spotted Kun approaching from the direction of the Literature, Writing, and History building. To be absolutely certain, you waved at him, and he lifted a hand back, putting on a slight burst of speed. You walked down the steps to meet him at the bottom.

“Hello, Y/N,” he greeted you as he finally stopped in front of you.

“Hi, Kun,” you offered him a smile. “How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you. How are you?”

“I’m good, I’m good.”

“Did you just finish class?”

“Yeah, Number Theory. What about you?”

“Contemporary Creative Non-Fiction. Are you a mathematics major?”

You nodded. “Unfortunately. Thinking about switching. Though my mom might kill me if I do, that’d be the third time in two years.”

“Do you not like math?”

“I like it just fine, I’m being dramatic with the ‘unfortunately’ part. I just don’t know if I like it enough to do it for the rest of my life,” you shrugged.

Kun smiled at that. “Well, take it from me. You never have to do one thing for the rest of your life. However long that may be.”

You cocked your head at that. There were more questions you wanted to ask him. He was several hundred years old, and going to college, very possibly not for the first time. He’d most certainly studied and done and seen other stuff, and you wanted to hear about it. Ten’s suggestion came to mind. An opportunity for a genuine connection.

“Do you eat food, Kun?” You asked.

“Yes, sometimes. I don’t need it to live like you, but I do enjoy it on occasion.”

“I was about to go to this bakery that I really like. Do you want to come?”

“I would love nothing more,” he answered simply, and you could hear his earnest sincerity in his words.

Kun held the door to Half Moon Bakery open for you, and you thanked him quietly as you stepped through. The warm, sweet smells immediately wafted to your nose as you walked in. A couple of customers were sitting at the small tables they had, but your eyes were on the display cases filled with loaves of bread, muffins, and baked sweet treats.

“Oh hi Y/N!” The familiar cashier behind the counter greeted you brightly, his eyes turning into crescents with his smile.

“Hey, Jeno. How are you?” You pulled your gaze from the food to beam back at him.

“I’m great! Ooh, we’ve got a new limited-edition brownie, it’s got mini peanut butter cups and swirls of peanut butter!” The werewolf informed you excitedly, and you could practically imagine a tail wagging back and forth behind him.

“Was that your idea?” You asked knowingly.

“I might have suggested something…”

“Of course you did.” You chuckled. “It sounds good, but I’m just going to get a—”

“A matcha cream-filled croissant. I know.” Jeno finished your usual order knowingly. He then looked to Kun curiously, “And what about you?”

“A blueberry lemon scone, please. And I’ll pay for both.”

You were about to object, to insist on paying for your own food, but stopped yourself. Reciprocity. You’d have to walk this line carefully, but you guessed you’d have a harder time trying to get Kun to not pay for your food, and really your goal was to stop getting sonnets from the guy.

Jeno immediately grabbed your croissant from the case and handed it to you on a small dish painted to look like a waxing moon. Kun’s scone had to be warned up, so the two of you sat down while you waited for it to be brought out.

“So do you come here a lot?” Kun asked.

“Yeah, usually like… once a week probably?” You guessed. “I used to come three times a week last semester, between these two Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes I had. They were two hours apart so I couldn’t quite go home, but I hated staying on campus during that time. So I’d usually come here, get a matcha croissant, do some homework or whatever. That’s how I know Jeno.”

“It’s lovely here. I can see why you like it.” The vampire appraised, looking around at the celestial themed décor.

“Wait until you try the food. Then you’ll really understand why I like it so much.”

Jeno came out then with Kun’s order on a half-moon painted dish, setting it down in front of him. Once the werewolf was back behind the counter, you eagerly picked up your croissant and bit into it. Immediately, you had found the creamy center, a happy noise coming from the back of your throat.

Setting the pastry down, you looked back at Kun, feeling a bit self-conscious when you realized that he hadn’t started eating yet and was instead watching you eat.

“What, Kun?”

“Nothing,” he shook his head, a tender smile on his lips. “I think that what you did just now was very cute.”

You crossed your arms and leaned your elbows forward on the table. “Fine. If you’re going to stare at me while I eat, I’m going to stare at you while you eat. Go on, take a bite.”

The vampire picked up the scone. “I suppose that is only fair. I don’t think I’ll be nearly as adorable as you were, however.”

Fighting back the flustered smile threatening to overtake your features, you instead laced your hands together in a business-like manner. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Kun didn’t argue further, bringing the baked good to his mouth. He took a bite, and you watched eagerly as his expression changed into one of surprised delight. After swallowing, he wiped his mouth then spoke again.

“That is… exquisite.”

“I know.”

“Now I really do understand why you come here so frequently.”

“Uh-huh,” you grinned cockily, picking your croissant back up.

Once he got over his initial shock of how good the scone was, Kun engaged you in conversation. “So how is your mother?”

Right. Your supposed phone call that you had to make earlier. Well, time to fib a little. “Oh, she’s good. She’s trying to grow an herb garden, not going so well.”

Not a complete lie, that’s what she had told you when you called her last week. Hopefully your heart rate didn’t jump enough to make Kun suspicious if he was paying close attention.

“I’m glad you got to speak with her.”

The wistful look on Kun’s face made you briefly wonder about his family. Were they vampires too? When was the last time he got to speak to his mom?

“Is your mom…?”

“My mother passed quite some time ago. She remained a human. My father too.”

“I’m sorry, Kun.”

“For what?”

You frowned as you tried to think of an answer. What were you sorry for? His parents passing? Asking that question in the first place? “I… don’t know. I just am. That’s usually what we say when we hear that somebody passed away, you know? ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’”

“I passed away too. How else would I have become a vampire?” He pointed out, lightening the mood a little.

“Well then I’m sorry for your loss of you.” You laughed, earning a chuckle from Kun as well.

“Thank you. The sentiments are greatly appreciated.”

“So what are you studying, Kun? You said you had come from a non-fiction class? Was that lit or writing?”

“Contemporary Creative Non-Fiction. It was literature. I’m an Interdisciplinary major, one of my concentrations is Literature.”

“And the other?”

“History.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, “That just doesn’t sound fair to the other students. Or the professor.”

He smiled a little. “I am doing the Ancient History track. I’m not that old.”

“Speaking of—” You reclined back in your seat to study the vampire leisurely. “This can’t be your first time going to university. Right?”

“You’re correct, this is not. I have been before.”

“How many times?”

Kun hesitated. “It would be impolite for me to answer. I’m afraid it’d sound like bragging.”

“Kun, let’s make a deal.” You shifted forward again, holding his dark red gaze unwaveringly. “I understand that you have been alive for a few hundred years and have therefore experienced more things than I could possibly imagine. That’s exactly why I’m asking you these questions. So how about you trust that when I ask you a question, it’s because I have thought about it, and have decided that I really do want to know your honest answer, no matter how braggy it might sound. And I will trust that your answer is sincere and honest and not meant to be a brag in any way shape or form, and that you have really just lived your life for so long. Does that sound good?”

At the end of your proposition, you stuck your hand out in the middle of the table, waiting. Kun eyed it for a moment before sucking in a deep breath, taking your hand in his cool grasp, and shaking it.

“I accept the terms of your proposal, Y/N.”

“Pleasure doing business with you,” you grinned at him, taking your hand back. “Now, tell me about your three hundred degrees or whatever.”

“It’s not that many, really,” he seemed almost flustered, readjusting his collar for a moment. “And I’m not sure if I can remember all of them off the top of my head.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

“Let me see… I have gone to medical school.”

“Oh wow—”

“But that was when bloodletting was still an accepted practice, I haven’t been lately.” Kun admitted sheepishly, drumming his fingers on the table as he thought some more. “Then there was astronomy, Latin, mathematics, musical composition, psychology, literature the first time, and I started law school but then the war happened…”

“War?” You echoed in bewilderment.

“I didn’t participate,” he assured you, as if that was the only thing you were possibly confused about. “But it did disrupt my studies. I never ended up going back, which is alright, I didn’t care much for law.”

“Don’t you get bored of it all? I mean, you must be a pro at everything there is.”

“No, not at all. They’re always creating new things to do.”

At your surely skeptical look, Kun continued eagerly, “For example, I learned to oil paint two hundred years ago, but there’s digital painting now. I learned how to sail a hundred years ago, but there are planes to fly now. I can play practically every instrument in a classical orchestra, but there are entirely new ways to make music that are contained completely within a computer, that I have to learn programs, software, new tools to compose on. It’s wonderful. That’s why I like to go back to school, there’s always new fields emerging, new things to learn. And even the fields that I have already have degrees in, like medicine, have made leaps and bounds since the last time I studied.”

His face was bright and animated as he raved about all of this to you, and you felt a fond smile tug at the corner of your mouth as you listened. His perspective was so… refreshing. You had honestly expected more nihilism and angst from a several hundred year old vampire who already held at least half a dozen degrees and had witnessed who knows how many historical events. But it seemed that all those years had done was make him eager to live even more.

“And you’re not... exhausted by that idea? That you’ll never be done with everything?”

“No, not at all,” he cocked his head to the side. “If I finished everything now, that’d make for a very boring eternity.”

“I like that, Kun,” you declared, picking your croissant up. “I really do.”

“Y/N, while I am very glad that you invited me out with you, and I hope you don’t take this as any sort of complaint, I am wondering…” Kun tapped his fingernail against the side of his plate as he seemed to be thinking of how to phrase whatever he wanted to ask next. “You seemed rather… freaked out last night. I do know that you and I don’t know each other well, the love potion didn’t erase my memories. I also understand that what I’m feeling is the effects of a potion. So, why the change of heart on your part?”

After swallowing the bite you’d just taken, you sighed, setting your pastry back down. “For one, I don’t want to be needlessly cruel to you. Even if you are under a love potion, I don’t think that’s an excuse to be rude and dismissive. And, I admittedly don’t know a lot about vampires. I think I’ve only met like one before. I just wanted to talk to you. Is that… okay?”

“Yeah,” he smiled softly. “Of course. I already agreed, you can ask me whatever you want.”

“Great. Because I’ve been thinking, can you get sued for turning somebody who didn’t want to be turned? Would that be a wrongful death case? Or… wrongful life?”

Kun looked at you with something that you could only call astonished adoration. His jaw dropped before his features split into a wide grin, and his shoulders started shaking as he was overtaken by giggles that he then tried to cover with his hand.

“It’s a real question!” You tried to be indignant, but you were far too surprised and endeared by the image of the previously stoic and mature vampire breaking down into giggles in front of you.

He straightened back up, physically wiping the smile off of his face. “Of course, of course it is. Please don’t think I was doing anything less than taking you seriously. I’m just… delighted by how your mind works. I’ve had plenty of people question me about vampires and being a vampire, and that has never been one of their go-to questions. Or any of their questions at all. I’m looking forward to what else you’ll ask me.”

“Well, you need to answer this one first before you can get to any of my other galaxy-brain level questions I’ve got in here.” You tapped your temple sarcastically.

“You’re right, my apologies.” Kun laced his fingers together and leaned forward against the table. “I’m not sure about the civil liability of turning someone against their will, I would have to do some research before I’d be comfortable answering your question. However, governments have tried to criminalize the turning of vampires over the years, to mixed results. Right now, it is illegal to turn someone against their will.”

“How do you prove that someone was turned willingly or not?”

“Unicorns of course help investigations to some degree. I’ve also seen some vampires have their prospective fledglings sign contracts.”

“Pfff,” you couldn’t help the burst of laughter that you let out. “Now that just takes all the romance out of it.”

“The contracts are usually only between service vampires and their clientele.”

“I’m sorry, service vampires?” You repeated incredulously.

“Those that turn others in exchange for financial compensation.”

“Sorry, I should really start paying attention when Renjun goes on his tangents, he’s probably talked about this before. Then you wouldn’t have to give me an impromptu lecture on the socioeconomic standing of vampires in modern day.”

“I don’t mind. I enjoy spending time with you, Y/N.”

You fidgeted with a napkin, looking away from his suddenly too-intense eyes. “Uhm— it’s just that term made it sound like they were escorts or something.”

“Some are,” he replied casually. “Service vampires are a heavily regulated industry, since they’re also responsible for the fledgling they produce, ensuring they don’t kill anybody. That process requires more than a contract, you need a lot of trust to help them control their desires. That trust goes both ways, of course, so those who aren’t service vampires—which is most vampires—will only turn close family and friends.”

You looked back up at him, squinting your eyes inquisitively. “Have you turned anybody, Kun?”

He pressed his lips together for a pensive moment before he answered. “I’ve… considered it. But by the time I had found someone who I could contemplate eternity with, I’d already seen far too many fledglings, too many turnings that went horribly wrong. I understood the risk, but I wasn’t sure if they did. And that was also at a time when vampires themselves weren’t outright illegal, but fledglings were to be killed on sight.”

“Oh— Oh, God.” You breathed out.

“Mature vampires were considered to be in control of our feedings, fledglings weren’t. And, they didn’t really want us going around making more of us.”

“The person you were going to turn…”

Kun looked up at a silver star decoration hanging above your table. “It ended up being for the best, I suppose. We parted ways some years later, less than amicably.”

“Ugh, I couldn’t imagine having to have awkward run-ins with your ex for literally forever,” you joked, attempting to lighten the mood.

He laughed. “Yes, I do actually have some old friends who were married before they turned several centuries ago but the diocese that performed the marriage in the first place won’t divorce them because they’re technically dead and therefore don’t have mortal souls anymore. By their logic.”

You slapped a hand over your mouth in disbelief. “Oh my God, so they’re just begrudgingly married for eternity?”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “They still get together to celebrate their anniversary every 100 years.”

“That’s nice, I guess.”

After finishing your food up at the bakery, Kun walked you back to your apartment—you weren’t sure if it was chivalry, a genuine concern for your wellbeing, or a combination of both—and now you were once again at your front door.

“Thank you again, Kun, for paying,” you said, fishing your keys out from your backpack.

“I was happy to. Thank you for inviting me to come with you. I enjoyed our discussion a lot.”

You focused your gaze on the keys in your hand. “Me too.”

“Are you busy this weekend?”

“I’m hanging out with a couple friends tomorrow, but I don’t think I’ve got anything going on Sunday. Why?”

“I want to keep spending time with you. As much as you’ll let me, if that’s okay.”

“Oh, right.” You could feel yourself warming up at his candidness. “Uhm, sure, we can do something on Sunday. Did you have anything in mind?”

Kun had almost a mischievous smile on his face. “Would you mind terribly if I surprised you?”

You sputtered out a laugh. “You’re asking if you can surprise me?”

“Some people don’t care for surprises. And I’m not telling you what it is, just that I would like to keep it a surprise, if that’s alright with you.”

“Yeah, Kun, you can surprise me. On one condition.”

“Of course, anything.”

“Bring me your favorite book you’ve read recently.”

He tilted his head, brows furrowed in confusion. “Pardon me?”

“On Sunday, wherever we go, I want you to bring me your favorite book that you’ve read in the past…” you ruminated on how you wanted to quantify ‘recent’ for a vampire, and finally settled on, “…year. You’re half a Lit major, so I’m assuming you own least one or two.”

“Yeah, I think I might’ve read a couple here or there,” he chuckled. “I will bring you one.”

“Not just any one, your favorite, remember?”

“Of course.”

Satisfied that he understood your request, you stuck your apartment key in your lock. “Goodnight, Kun.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.” The vampire once again took your free hand in his delicate, cool grasp, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the back of your fingers before letting it go.

You paused for just a moment, feeling as though you should say something. But there were no words that came to mind, so you instead unlocked your apartment and disappeared through the door with one last wave over your shoulder to him.

“You’re going on a date with him?” Kunhang scoffed in disbelief from the living room.

“Did you not just hear what I said?” You pushed his head as you walked by to take your seat on the floor around Sicheng and Ten’s coffee table. “We’re hanging out.”

“Sounds like a bad idea...” Your friend muttered, grabbing his beer and taking a swig of it.

“Coming from the guy who suggested I try to get a car out of him.”

“Yeah, a car. Not a date. No strings attached.”

“You’re insane,” you rolled your eyes, trying to turn your focus to the phoenix on your left, who was shuffling the stack of cards.

You, Dejun, Kunhang, and Yangyang were over at Ten and Sicheng’s place for a board game night, which of course couldn’t pass by without a comment or two about your current love potion predicament. And when you had tried to fill Ten in on how your attempt to take his advice was going, your gryphon friend had to add in his two cents.

“Coming from the girl who is going on a date with someone who is high on love potion.”

“I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to talk to vampires that are hundreds of years old, excuse me for wanting to chat.” You accepted your stack of cards from Sicheng gracefully, then turned back to glaring daggers at Kunhang. “It’s not a date.”

He was firm on his stance. “I’m telling you: This isn’t a good idea.”

“Why? Because I’m feeding into his delusion or something? He’s going to be in love with me until the love potion wears off, whether I—”

“Because I think you’re going to hurt yourself, Y/N. You’re too soft for this. Being constantly wooed for who knows how long? You don’t think that’s going to do anything to you?” Kunhang sighed, grey eyes focused on you from across the table.

You held his gaze for a moment, eyes still narrowed at him. Then, you looked away, grabbing a handful of the snacks you’d just retrieved from the kitchen. “I know it’s not real. Can we just start the fucking game? Or does everybody have an opinion on my life that they want to share?”

Ten, Sicheng, Dejun, and Yangyang all looked at each other, then simultaneously shook their heads. Ten went back to passing out the in-game currency to everyone, and you refused to look up at Kunhang despite the lingering feeling of his eyes on you.

Later on, between the conclusion of the first game and the set-up of the next, you were laying on the ground in an attempt to realign your back that had been hurting from the unfortunate hunch that you’d been sitting with. A couple others had dispersed to do various tasks, while Dejun and Sicheng stuck behind in the living room to step up the next game. They were quietly conferring over the instructions as you readjusted the positioning of your shoulders, sighing as one specific part of your back relaxed into a gentle cracking sound.

“Y/N,” Dejun got your attention.

“Hm?” You replied, too comfortable now to get up all the way yet.

“He means well.”

“…Bluebeard?” You asked in confusion, referencing the next game you were about to play, a board-gamified version of the Bluebeard’s Castle fairytale.

“No, Kunhang,” the dragon clarified. “He has every right to be a little worried about you hanging out with Kun tomorrow.”

You sighed again. “I know. I’m going to apologize to him. I just… need to be mad tonight. If I try to apologize today, I’m going to get pissed again and the wrong thing will come out and I’ll just make it worse. We’ve been friends for a few years now, we both need to sleep it off before either of us try to apologize.”

“So… are you still going to see Kun tomorrow?” It was Sicheng that asked you that.

Taking your bottom lip between your teeth, you thought about it. Maybe the smart thing would be to cancel. But you’d already asked him to bring you a book, and you were sure he’d been carefully contemplating that request ever since. Not to mention that you were excited to see him, actually. He was interesting to talk to. You’d met lots of magical creatures, all the ones that you were currently with for starters, but there was something both simultaneously refreshing and homey about talking to Kun, finding out more about him.

“Yeah, I am,” you declared, though you’d known that there was no changing your mind about it. “Don’t worry, guys. Like I said, I know it’s not real. To me, we’re just two buds hanging out. Promise.”

A knock on your door pulled you off your couch the next day. Readjusting your outfit for a brief moment, you then swung it open. The exact vampire you were expecting was on the other side, a heart-stopping smile on his face, bouquet of flowers in one hand, and small wrapped gift in the other.

“Oh, oh wow,” you breathed out, accepting the flowers from him. It was a gorgeous arrangement of yellow tulips and white baby’s breath, simple but enchanting. “Thank you, Kun.”

“Good morning, Y/N.”

“Yeah, good morning,” you said distractedly, eyes still focused on the flowers. You looked up at him again, giving him a bashful smile, “Uhm, here, I need to put these in some water.”

Leaving the door open for him, you turned to go back into your apartment, but were stopped by Kun’s voice.

“Ah, Y/N.”

“Hm?”

He was still standing on the welcome mat outside, hands clasped behind his back. “I need to be invited in.”

“Oh, right, sorry! Kun, please come in.”

“Thank you.” He stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

“So, how does that work with school and going to class? Like, do you just have to be invited into each building or is it each classroom? What about professors’ offices? Is there like a special vampire-only orientation where the president of the college invites all the new vampire students everywhere or something?” You asked him over your shoulder as you moved further into your apartment, your destination being your kitchen.

“The rules are a little fluid, but our university is a public institution, so I don’t have to be invited in anywhere.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a lot less funny than my idea.”

“Yours was very efficient,” Kun tried to placate you as you busied yourself with rooting through your cabinets.

“So what about if you went to a private university?”

“I’ve been to one private university before. However, it was run by vampires, so the owners were dead and therefore nobody needed to be invited in anywhere.”

“Huh. And my apartment?” You knelt down to check under the sink. “I was able to invite you in, but I don’t own it, I rent. Shouldn’t my landlord have been the only one to be able to invite you in?”

Kun had an answer for that one too. “Owner and/or current legal occupant who is there with the owner’s permission can invite vampires in.”

“So my lease lets me invite supernatural creatures inside, but I can’t paint,” you rolled your eyes.

Finally, you secured your lone glass vase at the back of the cabinet under the sink, behind a couple bottles of cleaning products.

“What color would you paint the walls, if you could paint?”

You filled the vase up under the faucet. “Probably a different color in each room. Dark green in the living room, goldenrod in the kitchen, something like that. I don’t know, the neutral beige grey is so boring. Especially with the fake grey hardwood.”

He smiled at you. “Very colorful. I like that.”

Having finally gotten the flowers in water, you turned back to accept the package wrapped in simple brown paper and twine. Curiously undoing the small twine bow first, then tearing the paper open, you saw that it was an old, thick, leatherbound book, and trailed your finger over to read the spine.

“The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes?” You tilted your head. “This is your...”

Kun went to try to explain, gesturing to a couple small yellow tabs poking out of the pages. “I bookmarked just a couple that I think you’ll like—”

“Kun, I asked for your favorite from the past year, not two centuries ago!” You guffawed.

“Hey, I’ve re-read these in the past year! You didn’t say they had to be published in the past year, just my favorite that I’ve read this year, and this is it. But if you’re dissatisfied—”

“Nope! No take-backs!” You clutched the book to your chest protectively. “I’ll read them. Or, at least the bookmarked ones. I don’t know if I’ll get to them all in this lifetime.”

There was suddenly an unpleasant frown on Kun’s face, a crease forming between his brows. The teasing faded from your demeanor as you set the book down on your kitchen counter beside the vase of flowers.

“Kun? What’s wrong?”

“I just remembered that you’re human, and you know… you won’t… be here forever like I will.”

“Oh, Kun… I’m okay with that.” You reassured him, squeezing his arm.

“I know. Let’s… I don’t want to think about it anymore. Are you ready to go?” His voice was tight, the smile that flashed across his face not reaching his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah!” You grabbed your bag, then gestured for Kun to lead the way.

It was a lovely spring day, and you delighted in the still cool breeze tickling your nose as warm sun shone down on you. The streets downtown were bustling with life, and you pressed close to Kun to make sure you didn’t lose him in the crowd. You were almost knocked into by three smaller figures, a young dryad, phoenix, and human all playing tag. The dryad seemed to be It, shooting out a vine to wrap around the human kid’s waist and yanking him back. The human giggled as his friend wrapped his arms around him tight. The phoenix noticed the lack of her friends and darted back to meet them, a couple soft down feathers falling off the bridge of her nose in the process. You smiled fondly as you skirted around them and continued down the sidewalks.

“Cute,” you commented absentmindedly.

Kun’s eyes lingered on the children for another moment before he turned his gaze forwards again. “Sometimes I really do have to stop and look at where we are.”

“What...” You trailed off as you realized what he must be thinking of. “Oh, yeah. You remember what it was like before humans and magical beings lived together like this, right?”

It was before your time, but humans, magical creatures, and even different kinds of magical creatures all lived separately. You knew bits and pieces, that the kind of integration that you’d grown up with was rather recent. You had your fair share of older relatives who regarded your magical friends with thinly veiled suspicion and mistrust throughout your life.

“Yes, I do. At least, from when I was alive onwards, and I know stories from those older than I am.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“I think that to start, it’s important to think of a spectrum of non-magical to magical that all kinds of life fall somewhere along, and not an either/or. Humans are on the furthest end of the non-magical, but they can become magical.”

“Like becoming a vampire.”

“Correct.”

“Like you.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay, I’m following so far.”

“Witches were previously just considered humans that can use magic.”

You snickered. “I know a few witches who would smite you for that, but sure, I’ve heard that before.”

“Obviously, with recent advancements in the study of magic, we know that’s not true.” Kun stopped the two of you to wait at a crosswalk signal. “But generally, it’s been easier for humans to accommodate magical beings that looked more like them over the years.”

“Closer to them on the non-magic to magic spectrum.” You related it back to his framework.

“Right. Humans were more likely to live with magical beings that looked less outlandish, and posed less of a threat to them.”

“Odd predicament for vampires, then. You look almost just like humans, used to be humans, but before blood supplements, you almost exclusively had to feed off humans.”

“Hence the... tangled and tense history of humans and vampires. I can’t really give a clear story of humans and vampires. It’s messy, depending on the time, society, village, individual family that you look at. And then of course, all magical creatures don’t get along either.”

“Dryads and dragons.” You listed off an old rivalry you knew off the top of your head. Historically, dryads despised dragons’ tendency to burn down their forests and fields.

“Right.”

“Fairies and… everyone.”

Kun chuckled. “Yeah, exactly. But the most recent history, here, now, is that mass integration to create the society that you know really came about around a hundred years ago. Witches and humans had been living together for a while, with some dryads, fairies, and even the odd vampire here and there. Then sirens, and gryphons, and phoenixes… I mean, the first human to see a dragon around here is probably still alive, you know?”

“And I just got annihilated at board game night by one yesterday.”

“Like I said... Sometimes I feel the need to just stop and take it all in.”

The crosswalk signal changed then, and the vampire with you briefly looked both ways before guiding you forward with a hand on the small of your back.

You looked over at him curiously, wishing that you could see any hint of his eyes behind his dark sunglasses. “What about when you were turned, Kun? Were vampires... Your parents were still humans... Was it hard for you?”

“I wasn’t living with my parents when I became a vampire. Which was for the best, truly, so there was no chance of me hurting them. But…” He paused, and when you looked over at him, he was looking up at the sky. “I remember when I was a young boy, and I was so small, and the world was too big. And when I was hurt, my mother would take me into her arms and tell me it would all be okay, and I believed her. I just knew it would be because she was there. Because my mother was with me and she was bigger than me, bigger than the whole world. I remember wishing I could’ve had her there then.”

Your eyes had gotten a little misty, and you reached up to dab at them with the back of your hand. Kun’s voice wavered in just the slightest, and you felt your chest tighten at just how strongly he still felt all these emotions after so long.

“Didn’t the person who turned you take care of you? When you were turning, and as a fledgling? Isn’t that what they’re supposed to do?”

“I was turned by a friend. I got hurt, very badly, and he panicked and couldn’t think of how else to save me. He was a very young vampire at the time, he had only been turned himself five years earlier. I was the first person he’d ever turned, he didn’t know what to do, how to take care of me.” Kun relayed all this to you very matter-of-factly, as if it’d happened to somebody else.

“So did you have any choice about it?”

He looked over at you with a serene look on his face. “No. But if I spend the rest of my immortal life mourning the measly forty or fifty years that I would’ve gotten at the time, that would make for a miserable eternity. Every choice that we make or don’t make creates a new life for ourselves, and yes, sometimes for others. And if we constantly mourn all those lives we never got to live, we’ll never have time to live the one that we do have.”

The fist that your hand had curled into over the unjustness of Kun’s turning, relaxed as he continued speaking. You took a deep breath to recenter yourself.

“And your mother? Your father?”

“I saw them some time after I turned. And… it wasn’t any different. They were still my parents.” He smiled, it was bittersweet, but filled with heart, with love. “And I believed again that it would all be okay.”

“And… has it been?” You asked, head tilted curiously. Could a vampire even define such a long life as ‘okay’ or not?

Kun looked down from the sky at you this time, his features turning soft, fond. “More than.”

Kun finally stopped you on a less busy street, all old buildings, stone and brick faces. The one in particular that you were in front of had no distinguishing signage out front, and you peered around curiously for any hint as to what the six-floor building you were looking at was possibly used for. The windows were tinted too darkly for you to see in, and the ornately carved dark wooden door held no clue as to its identity other than the street number, 101.

Your companion pulled on the large iron handle to hold the door open for you. Well, you did give him permission to surprise you, you certainly couldn’t complain about not knowing what was going on. So, you stepped in.

As soon as you crossed the threshold, the air around you became noticeably cooler. Not uncomfortably so, just feeling almost as if you were a basement, the sort of coolness of being underground. You were in a lobby, a woman sitting behind a counter reading a book that looked even older than the one Kun had given you. She looked about your parents’ age, some grey streaked in her hair. But you realized that assessment meant nothing, as her eyes flashed red in the warm, dim light when she glanced up from her book to the two of you.

“Good morning,” Kun greeted her, and stepped up to the counter to hold a small black card the size of a business card out to her.

She took it, skimming the front and back for all of one second before handing it back to him. Without a word, she went back to reading.

“Come on.” Kun ushered you further into the building, through the black velvet curtain past the desk.

This time, you emerged in a much larger room. There were no lights, but it was still illuminated by an old-school movie projector casting a grainy, black and white scene on the opposite wall. You watched as a woman in clothes that you couldn’t even pinpoint the timeframe of—other than definitely not being from the past century at least—walked, turned, and waved at the camera. The clip then replayed from the beginning by itself, no manual rewinding necessary.

You rewatched the short two-second clip again with delight before you turned to Kun. “What is this place?”

“It’s a gallery, of sorts,” he explained, gesturing to the video. “A group of vampires all got together and compiled videos, movies, films, kinetoscopes—every sort of moving image you can imagine—that they had been holding onto over their lifetimes. And they’re all on display here.”

“Kun, this is so cool!” You gasped.

“I think we all—non-vampires and vampires alike—tend to have this idea of vampires as being stuck in whenever they were turned. You know, a vampire turned in the 16th century is treated the same way we treat a painting from the 16th century. Like we’re... artifacts or something. And we’re not, we lived through everything else that came after we turned too. We’re not dead history, we’re living, moving history.” Kun had led you into another room of the gallery as he spoke, where a clip of a busy street market was repeating. “I think this is a good reminder of that. The oldest stuff is on the bottom from the invention of the camera, and the newest up at the top. It goes all the way to the present, digital. The top floor isn’t finished, they’ll keep adding to it as the years go by, as we all keep living through history.”

You watched the market, vendors and customers, families, horses, produce, rugs and wares. Just a microcosm of everyday life from whenever and wherever this was. A peek into moving history.

“Do you have anything here?” You asked, curious if you’d be able to see any microcosm of Kun’s life.

He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t decide what to submit. Too many options. If you ever see my home, you’ll understand that I... I tend to hoard.”

“Thank you for bringing me here.” You watched Kun’s face this time as he was focused on the moving picture. His features were lit softly from the front, cast in the same black and white as the image, except for his earnest, lively scarlet eyes.

The sun was just setting when you finally returned to your apartment. You’d ended up spending the whole day out with Kun. First, your stomach growled as soon as you two left the gallery since it was about lunchtime, and Kun immediately had to remedy that by taking you to lunch. Then, the restaurant you’d eaten at was near the shopping district, so you two meandered and did some window shopping—you really did have to physically stop him from going in and buying you everything that you even looked at for more than one second. And finally, you might have intentionally let slip that you were “kinda hungry” as it approached the evening, and your chest felt funny at the way that Kun’s face lit up before he offered to take you to dinner.

And now, you were slowing to a stop at your front door, getting ready to say goodnight.

“Thank you, Kun. This was a really fun day,” you said genuinely. “And thank you for the book recommendation, too. I’m excited to read it.”

Kun’s eyes sparkled as he smiled at you. “Thank you for letting me surprise you, Y/N. It made me happy to see you enjoy yourself today.”

“Oh, uhm, I have something for you too, by the way!”

“Really?”

“I didn’t think it was fair for you to be surprising me, and for me to be asking for a book on top of that without giving you anything in return…” You paused both for dramatic effect, and to search through your phone.

He took this as an opportunity to interject, “Y/N, you gave me plenty just by agreeing to come.”

There was a prick at your heart from his sweet words. Pushing past that, you tried to joke as casually as possible, “And yet I still want to give you…”

Finally finding what you were looking for, you selected a thumbnail from your camera roll. Shoulder to shoulder with Kun, you held up your phone screen for him to see properly. It was a video that you’d taken today, just a few seconds long, of Kun. You’d taken it while the two of you were out window-shopping, and Kun had stopped at the window of an electronics store to look over a new piece of music mixing equipment that was on display there, his face awash in rainbow by the colorful LEDs inside. You’d been caught by the spark of interest that was on his features, a different look than you’d ever seen from him since he’d been under the love potion. Sure, all the soft smiles and tender adoration you’d been getting was sweet. But to see this magnetism towards something he was truly interested in outside of the effects of the potion, you were utterly entranced.

He looked up from the video to you, brow set in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“You said you didn’t know what to submit to the video gallery. They’re taking digital submissions, right?”

“Right...”

“I’m sorry if I’ve been treating you like an artifact, Kun. If submitting something old is going to make you feel like that, then maybe you should submit a newer piece of your moving history.”

Kun stared at you, mouth parted. He was silent for a beat too long, and you start fidgeting, suddenly unsure of yourself.

“Sorry, I’m realizing that’s like really presumptuous of me to tell you what to submit— It’s just, you know, another option, if you want it.”

“No, it’s perfect, Y/N,” he reassured you. “Please, send me it. Having you as a part of my moving history in the gallery, I really like that idea.”

You were getting hot under the intensity of his gaze, and looked back down at your phone screen. “Right. I’ll-I’ll send it to you.”

“And you don’t treat me like an artifact, either.” Kun briefly squeezed your hand, then dropped it. Part of you itched to grab his again. “I’m sorry that I made you think that. You treat me like a person, Y/N. You ask me questions, yes, but you ask questions about all of me. Me back then, me now, my family, my major, my favorite book from the past year, even my future. It’s… the first time since I was turned that I think I’ve had someone do that.”

You swallowed thickly, the gulp comically loud in your ears. He held your eye contact, that same loving, peaceful, adoring look on his face as he gazed at you.

Then, he finally looked away, at the setting sun. “It’s getting late. I should let you go for the night.”

Scrambling to reach into your bag, you ascertained your keys and started the first of too many attempts at unlocking your door. “Goodnight, Kun.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.” He took your hand, bending over to press a familiar, sickly sweet kiss to your knuckles. When he stood up straight, he added, “You will send me that video, right?”

“R-Right. The video. Yes.” You nodded dumbly, opening the door then practically slamming it shut behind you.

You didn’t make it even two steps into your apartment, sliding down the wall of your entryway with a drawn-out sigh. Fuck.

“I fucking hate Python,” you declared, snapping your laptop shut. You, Dejun, Yangyang, Ten, and Sicheng were back in the student union getting lunch together between classes, and you and your dragon friend were taking the spare time to work on an assignment. “I’m going to quit school and run away to live in the woods and survive off the land and if I ever see another computer again for the rest of my life it’ll be too soon.”

Dejun snickered from beside you, still happily typing away at his own coding. “You wouldn’t last an hour without wifi, Y/N.”

You groaned, opening your computer back up. “I know... a girl can dream, right?”

“Just change majors if you hate math this much,” Yangyang suggested from across the table, popping a tater tot into his mouth.

“It’s not like you haven’t done it before,” Ten added oh-so-helpfully, eyes not leaving his sketchbook.

“It’s not that I hate math, I just...” you trailed off as you tried to put your situation into words.

“Don’t like it?” Dejun finished for you humorously.

You stuck your tongue out at him. “No. I just... hate math classes.”

“Oh, that’s so much clearer.”

“Just like you hated Literature classes, and hated History classes,” Sicheng pointed out, listing off your previous two majors.

“Exactly!” You exclaimed, despite knowing that the phoenix was poking fun at you too. “You get me, Sicheng!”

“Scary...” he murmured to himself.

As you were desperately trying to think of any comeback other than just sticking your tongue out at him, you heard a voice calling your name. Looking up, you saw Kun approaching your table, and you gave him a small wave of acknowledgement.

He stopped next to your table, gentle smile focused down on you. “Hello, Y/N.”

“Hey, Kun,” you smiled up at the vampire, eyeing the paper bag in his hand with a familiar logo on it. “So you went back to Half Moon?”

“Yes, I did.” He held the bag out to you.

You accepted it, having to bite down on your bottom lip to keep your bashful grin at bay as you peered into the paper bag. An excited squeal left your mouth when you saw exactly what he had brought you. “A matcha croissant! Thank you, Kun!”

“You’re welcome.” He beamed at you.

Looking around the table, you ignored the pointed looks all your friends were giving you, and instead gestured to the empty chair on the other side of Dejun. “Do you want to sit with us?”

“Thank you, I wish I could,” he shook his head. “Unfortunately, I have a class to get to. Goodbye, Y/N.”

“Bye.” You didn’t even flinch when he kissed your hand this time, though your skin was on fire as you remembered very clearly that your friends were right there.

As Kun left, he gave you a final wave over his shoulder, and you waved back before returning to your friends, dread in your stomach. In an effort to appear as normal as possible, you reached into the bag and pulled out your croissant. The table was still dead silent after you had taken your first bite, and you looked up from your food to see the other four staring at you.

“Oh my god, would you guys stop?” You hissed.

“Damn... I’m such a good witch,” Yangyang cracked his knuckles. “That man is heads over heels for you!”

“He brought me a croissant!” You retorted indignantly. “It’s not like he proposed or anything.”

“Y/N, I’ve known Kun for...” Yangyang trailed off, brows furrowing as he seemed to be thinking of how long he really had known the vampire for. “I don’t know, a few years? And he’s not like a recluse or anything but he’s not, how you would say... warm and fuzzy.”

“Oh my—”

“He brought you a croissant! What looks like your favorite kind, if I’m not mistaken?”

You pouted as you took another bite. “Maybe.”

“Looks like Ten’s advice worked then,” Sicheng mused.

“You should probably give him a few more nudges about other stuff you like, though, unless you want to get a hundred matcha croissants a day,” the siren suggested, readjusting his hold on his pencil.

“Yeah. I just can’t figure out how he always seems to know where I am—”

“He can smell you.” The creatures around you all retorted in unison, nobody even looking up from their individual tasks.

You coughed, scrambling to grab your bottle to take a long drink of water. Your other hand instinctually came up to rub at the side of your throat.

“So... how are... things?” Kunhang asked tersely, sitting on the porch swing that he and Yangyang had on their balcony. You’d called him after your last class that day, begging him to let you come over.

You leaned against the balcony railing, taking a deep breath—

“That doesn’t sound good.”

—and let out something between a groan and a screech.

“That really doesn’t sound good.” The gryphon picked up his blue Gorgonade that was sitting on the side table. “Care to share, Y/N?”

“You were right...” You mumbled, burying your face in your hands.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“You were right, okay? Happy, Kunhang? You were right! You know me and my stupid soft little heart too damn well, and you were fucking right!”

“Woah.” He held his hands up defensively. “Sorry, I genuinely didn’t hear you, you kinda muffled yourself. Uh, I’m going to take a guess that this is about Kun?”

“Yes...” You whined. “I almost kissed him today, Kunhang!”

“Y/N!”

“And you want to know the worst part?”

“That’s not the worst part?” He asked, horror on his features.

“No, it’s not! The worst part, is that the only reason I didn’t is because he stopped me!” You bemoaned dramatically, squeezing your eyes shut against the embarrassment as you replayed the horrifying moment over again in your head.

Kun had found you again in a break between your classes. The two of you were just sitting on a shaded bench under a tree in a more secluded area of campus, chatting. You were just talking about nonsense, telling him about the lecture you’d just come from, how it was actually the one math class you had this semester that you liked. And Kun was just listening, and you were sitting so close to him, and Kun was looking at you like you were everything to him, and the next thing you knew, you were leaning in closer and closer to him. Then he ducked his head away from you at the last second, and you were rocketed back to your senses as you realized what you almost did.

“Oh God— Y/N!” Kunhang looked like he was about to pass out.

You covered your face again. “I know...”

“Why did he, you know, swerve you?”

“He said...” You sighed, looking up at the sky. “He said that he didn’t think it was fair, to me.”

“To you?”

“Yes, because I was... ‘falling for him under false pretenses’ since his behavior is being influenced by the love potion and not genuine feelings for me. And he thought that it was best for me, if he kept his distance for the duration of the potion.” Hot tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you repeated his words bitterly. You weren’t mad at him, you were mad at yourself. God, you felt so fucking stupid.

Kunhang’s jaw was on the floor. “You— you were rejected... by someone high on love potion.”

“I think I’m officially the most pathetic person on the planet.” You plopped down on the bench swing next to him, pulling your knees up to your chest.

Your friend scooted over to you, and you felt the familiar, comforting weight of his arm around your shoulders and a wing nestling over you. “No, you’re not. There’s nothing pathetic about being able to connect with people as openly and freely as you do, Y/N.”

You dropped your head onto his shoulder, bringing a hand up to harshly wipe at the tears threatening to spill over. “There’s really nothing pathetic about crying over a vampire that I’ve known for six days?”

That gave the gryphon a moment’s pause as he seemed to be seriously considering your question. Finally, he answered confidently, “Nah. Pathetic would be crying over a vampire you’ve only known for five days. Six days, you’re in the clear.”

That did make you choke out a little giggle, and he gave your head a couple pats.

The door to the patio was suddenly thrown open, and you jumped in your seat, whipping around to see who it was. Which you couldn’t do at first, as Kunhang had instinctually blocked you from the intruder—which always reminded you of a soccer mom throwing out her arm when slamming on the brakes of her minivan a little too hard—so all you could see were grey feathers. Yangyang just ran around the gryphon’s wing to skid to a stop in front of you two, panicked eyes landing on you.

“Y/N!” He pointed at you almost accusatorily.

“Yangyang!” You imitated his tone, pointing right back at him.

“Have you heard from Kun today?”

You exchanged a look with Kunhang. “Uh, I saw him on campus, but not since then. Why?”

“When was that?”

“I don’t know, one, maybe?”

Yangyang checked the time on his phone anxiously. “Five hours ago?”

“Yeah, I guess.” You were growing uneasy with each passing second. “Yangyang, what’s going on?”

“Kun’s not picking up the phone, or replying to my texts. And he’s like... neurotic about that stuff, you know.”

You were aware of Kun’s tendency to reply to texts in an extremely timely fashion, and always call back on the rare occasion that he missed a call from someone. A frown grew on your face. “How long has it been?”

“I first called him... at three, because he was done with classes by then. But I’ve just gotten radio silence all day.”

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, anxiety kept mounting inside you.

Kunhang spoke up. “Did you do something to piss him off maybe?”

“No. And I would know, he has no problem telling me.” Yangyang ran a hand through his hair, then focused a pleading look on you. “Y/N, do you think you could go check on him?”

“No.” The gryphon answered for you.

“Dude—”

You added, “I’ve never been to his place, I don’t even know where it is.”

“I’ll give you the address!”

“I’m not going to go over there uninvited.” You were still arguing but felt your resolve waning fast.

“He’s madly in love with you, this will be more like a great surprise for him!”

“Yangyang, cut it out,” Kunhang told him off.

The witch tilted his head in confusion. “Am I missing something?”

“No, just go over there yourself if you’re so worried. Y/N’s not your personal errand girl.”

“If he’s not even picking up my calls, there’s no way he’ll open the door for me. Y/N, on the other hand…”

“Liu Yangyang, have you ever heard of the word no? Just fuck off for—”

“Kunhang,” you interrupted him, bracing yourself for that venom to be turned on you for what you were about to say. “Thank you, but I-I am going to go over. Yangyang’s right, that’s not like Kun, I want to check on him.”

The gryphon blinked at you in disbelief. “You really think that’s a… good idea?”

You offered him an uneasy smile. “I’m just going to make sure he’s alive. Or… undead, or whatever. I won’t even go in, just see if he comes to the door.”

Kunhang just gave you a look that clearly conveyed his disapproval of this idea.

Double checking the house number with the address that Yangyang had texted you, you took a shaky breath. This was definitely it. It was a modest size, probably two bedrooms, if you had to guess from the outside. Definitely not the sort of exceptionally lavish castle that one might think a vampire as old as Kun would have. With a shaky inhale, you raised your fist up and knocked on the sturdy wood door.

It swung open just a second later. You were expecting Kun to still be in his usual academic sort of dress, maybe even the same clothes he’d been in earlier on campus, but instead, he was just in a grey t-shirt and black lounge pants. So he did own casual clothes.

“Hi, Kun,” you greeted him as normally as possible, very aware of all the layers to the awkwardness here. You had never been to his place before, he knew that you had never been to his place before, you hadn’t been invited over, and he’d just—as Kunhang had so elegantly put it—swerved you earlier, before saying that he was going to keep his distance from you. And now here you were on his doorstep.

“Oh, Y/N, hello.” Kun smoothed over his t-shirt habitually, as if he were meaning to fix the tuck of a dress shirt that he wasn’t even wearing.

“Sorry, uhm, I promise Yangyang sent me. I’m not... uh, yeah.”

He stepped back, holding the door open wider. “Please, come in.”

With your own promise to Kunhang playing in the back of your mind, you walked inside. “Thanks.”

“So, what does Yangyang need?” Kun kept talking as he guided you further into his home, and you looked around, eyes hungrily drinking in every detail.

It seemed like the one thing Kun had never studied was interior design. His home was a maximalist mishmash of stuff he had accumulated throughout his long life. An oil painting in an ornate gold frame hung beside a colorful pop art photograph collage, both above the olive green mid-century couch. In the corner was a desk with several computer monitors, a few pieces of electronics that were unfamiliar to you, and on the wall above it, small panels of LED lights that cycled through the rainbow. It was a lot, but you were charmed, finding yourself wanting to keep looking at everything, ask about every piece. You were sure that they all had some story or memory attached to them.

The two of you slowed to a stop in the living room, and you tore your eyes from the décor back to the vampire with you.

“He said that you weren’t answering your phone. Uh, he was worried.”

“And he sent you because he was afraid that I might not have answered the door for anybody else.” He nodded in understanding.

“W-well yeah, I suppose.”

“I wasn’t answering his calls because I had my phone on silent. I was busy.”

“Oh, sorry. I’ll go, you’re clearly fine.”

“No, Y/N.” Kun took a step forward, closing the space between you two. “You’re already here, and I don’t like the way we left things earlier. Please, stay?”

You gave him an easy, relaxed smile this time. “Sure.”

“Thank you.” He smiled back, then gestured to the couch. “Sit. Do you want something to drink? Water? I’m afraid my fridge isn’t very human-friendly right now, I apologize. If I’d known you were coming I would have—”

“Water’s fine, Kun,” you reassured him.

As he went to the kitchen, you went ahead and sat down where he indicated. The sofa was comfortable, plush, and you felt like you could melt into it and stay here forever. You went back to looking around at everything, a simple joy at the loving chaos that filled his space. A poster for some black and white silent film that you’d never heard of had caught your eyes when Kun walked back in, setting a glass of water down in front of you.

“I love all the stuff you’ve got in here,” you told him as he went to sit at the other end of the couch. “I feel like I could just look at it all forever.”

“Thank you. I usually just get told that it looks like I live in a flea market.”

You snickered. “Yangyang?”

“Well, yes.”

“So, what were you doing? Before I got here.” You took a sip of your water.

“Composing.” He gestured behind him to the desk with all the electronics equipment and LED panels. “Though I have to admit, I wasn’t making much progress.”

“Artist’s block?”

“Yes, something like that.” He sighed, fingertip tracing figure-eights in the upholstery of the back of the couch. “Usually music will help clear my mind, but this time…”

You frowned. “What’s wrong? If you want to share, I get it if you don’t.”

“I missed you,” Kun admitted without missing a beat.

Your grip tightened on your glass, and you took another long sip before replying weakly, “Well, I’m here…”

“Yes, you are. Like a little miracle…”

Kunhang was right again, this was so bad for you, your chest was airy, your head was TV static, your heart hurt. You chugged half your cup.

“Have you not been hydrating properly?” The vampire asked, concern coloring his tone.

“I guess not,” you laughed nervously, setting the glass back down on the coffee table before resting your hands on your legs. You looked up at him, listening to how loud your heart was hammering in your ears. You were sure he was too.

He leaned forward, studying your face carefully, “Is there something you want to ask me, Y/N?”

You opened your mouth, about to, but immediately closed it. There was something that had been pressing on your mind for a while—well, a couple somethings—but you didn’t know if you actually wanted the answers to either, or if it was just a morbid curiosity, and you were the cat who was going to be killed by it. Figuratively and literally.

“Mmm... nope. Nothing off the top of my head. I’m drawing a blank,” you shook your head maybe a bit too enthusiastically.

Kun reached out to briefly squeeze your hand before setting his back in his lap. “It’s okay, Y/N. You can ask me whatever you want. I remember the deal.”

Of course. The deal you’d offered him in the bakery last week. That whatever question you asked him you had thought through and wanted his honest answers to, therefore he would give you them, no matter what they were. Except, despite the fact that you had thought these questions through, you knew they couldn’t hold up to those terms.

You gave up all pretenses now, voice entirely defeated as you admitted, “I know. It’s just— these ones... I can’t keep my end of the deal. That’s not fair to you, I’m sorry.”

He contemplated this for a moment, drumming his fingers on the back couch cushion. “Are they yes or no questions? Or more open-ended?”

“Open-ended.”

“Then... I’ll only answer if I think the answer won’t hurt you. How about that?”

You breathed in deeply, took another sip of your water, and readjusted to fully face Kun, one of your arms resting on the back of couch. “Okay, yeah.”

“Great. Go ahead, when you’re ready.”

Mustering up whatever strength was left in your voice, you asked, “What is it like? Being under the love potion?”

“It’s beautiful.” He began, a giddy smile coming to his lips. His fingers inched forward, bridging the gap between you and gently stroking over the back of yours, seemingly absentmindedly as he spoke. “It’s not a destructive, consuming sort of love, but the comfortable, familiar kind that you settle into after being with someone for a while. Like you just know that they’re your person. Admittedly, sometimes when I’ll think about you when we’re apart my chest will hurt a little, but then when I see you again, it feels like coming home. There are some moments I get overcome with emotion, but it’s not a constant obsession like a new crush or puppy love. I do of course remember what it was like before the potion, and how I felt about you then, but it truly feels like another life— though you can imagine that I’ve used that phrase quite a bit.”

You were biting on the inside of your cheek so hard you started tasting blood. With a sharp hiss, you freed the skin from your teeth, and swiped over the area with your tongue for a moment as you tried to think of an answer, any answer, just something to say to that. Thankfully, Kun seemed to understand the position you were in, and saved you from having to respond.

“What were your other questions?”

“Just— Just one more.” You steeled your nerves. “You had to be bit, to be turned.”

Kun tilted his head. “Yes, though that wasn’t a question.”

“H-How does it feel?”

“You’re asking me to describe being turned to you?” He frowned. “That was a long time ago, Y/N, it was honestly a bit of a blur. I’m afraid I don’t really remember all the details, but I’ll tell you what I can—”

“Not being turned, uhm, being bit by a vampire.”

He squinted one eye closed, then the other. “I can’t—”

“Oh. That’s okay, Kun. I was just curious,” you reassured him, making your voice as sweet as possible to cover up any hint of disappointment. It looked like he was still trying desperately to remember for you, though, scratching at the back of his head and squeezing his eyes shut.

When he still hadn’t said anything a few moments later, you spoke up again, “Kun, I’m serious, it’s okay that you can’t remember.”

The vampire set his gaze on you again, voice tight, “No, I—”

“Oh my god you look unwell again,” you blurted out, taking in his blown out pupils. “Seriously, should I call Renjun? Yangyang?”

He practically leapt to his feet, bumping into furniture on his hasty path to the furthest corner of the living room from you. “No, I know what it is. You should go.”

No way were you going to just leave him like this. You stood up too, but stayed in front of the couch. “Will you tell me what’s wrong with you?”

“I—” He fanned himself with the material of his shirt. “Do you remember what Yangyang was saying about young vampires?”

Of course you did, that idea bouncing around in your head for the past week had contributed to your question in the first place. Younger vampires had a harder time controlling their thirst because all kinds of want became hunger, a need to feed.

“Yeah, but I thought that you were okay, since you were so much older. You haven’t even mentioned anything other than human food unless I brought it up. Why now?”

Kun screwed his eyes shut as if he were in physical pain. “I’ve been okay as long as I was fed. But—”

“Oh my god, me coming over unannounced!”

“No, no, I just fed when I went to get your water. I don’t know if it’s something with how the potion works, but I’m afraid I’ve had to keep increasing my intake in order to stay satiated around you and I’m getting hungrier faster. So I’m very sorry, but you really need to go.”

“That’s it?” You defiantly crossed your arms over your chest.

“What?”

“You’re hungry, thirsty, whatever? That’s all?”

He slowly opened his eyes again. “Y-Yeah, I suppose.”

“You can do it without killing me, right?”

“Y/N—”

“Right?”

“Of course, but—”

“Clearly the end point of this is you starving to death. And I’m not going to let you—”

“We don’t know that. I don’t want you to feel guilted by that assumption into letting me...”

“Kun, wanting to help somebody does not equal being guilted into it!” You finally snapped at him, taking big, stomping strides towards him. “Stop being so, so… chivalrous to the point of self-flagellation! Do you honestly think that makes me feel good watching you do that? Let me help you Kun, that’s what I want, I promise.”

He held your gaze, the inky blackness feeling so much different than the scarlet red that you were used to. But… you didn’t mind it. Didn’t mind the way that the darkness trailed from your eyes to your lips to your neck and lingered there. Liked it. You knew he could hear your heartbeat thrumming in your chest, was able to pinpoint you by scent on the wide expanse of campus. What must that be like now, in such a small space, so close?

“Okay…” His voice was barely above a whisper, hoarse, as if he didn’t trust himself to talk any louder.

Kun was still holding onto the doorframe with a death grip, the wood beginning to splinter under his fingers.

“I’ve… never done this,” you prompted him quietly.

“Oh, right.” He straightened up, attempting to compose himself again. Ushering you back towards the couch, he explained, “Let’s sit down. It will be more comfortable for you that way.”

He sat down in the corner of the sofa, hiking one leg up onto it and keeping his other foot planted on the ground. Kun patted the space between his thighs for you. You sat down in front of him on the same cushion, your back so close to touching his chest that you swore you could feel the brush of his clothing against yours.

“I’m not going to overfeed, but in case you end up feeling faint anyway, you’ll fall back on me, as opposed to buckling to the floor.”

“Oh,” you said, just to fill the empty space of your side of the conversation. “Thank you.”

“Again, I’m not going to overfeed, it won’t be anything more than when you get blood drawn for tests. But just like then, I don’t want you to get up right after, okay? No matter how… good you feel.”

You were a little thrown off by his phrasing, but still nodded. “Okay.”

The vampire got even closer to you, now hovering over your right shoulder. You could hear him inhale as he paused, and a distinct thrill shot up your spine. His cool breath washed over your skin as he breathed back out, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Then all at once his mouth was on you. The piercing of his fangs lasted for a split second before it was all but erased from your mind by a honey sweet pleasure dripping through your whole body. You could feel the sensation of his lips sucking at your neck too, your blood trickling out from the wounds, and his tongue laving over your skin. But mostly you just felt… good. All of you thrummed from your heart to your fingertips.

A soft moan slipped past your lips as you let your head fall back onto his shoulder, giving him even more room. You felt him stiffen right after you did, as if getting ready to pull away. Reaching a hand up, you blindly grabbed for the back of his head, threading your fingers through his hair and holding him in place against your neck. Kun seemed to understand, going back to contentedly drinking from you. You relaxed fully against him, letting your eyes flutter shut. He easily kept you upright, wrapping an arm around your front to hold you close to him.

You had no way to know or even guess how much time had passed when Kun finally took his mouth off your neck. He leaned back into the corner of the couch, easing you back with him.

“Thank you, Y/N. My miracle…” He murmured, his mouth right next to your ear. A fingertip lightly graced over a patch of skin below the bite. “I’m sorry I don’t have any bite cream on hand for you, I haven’t live fed in years.”

“Mm—” You were starting to come back down from your mellowed-out state, poking at the area yourself. It was tender, duh, but not too bad. “I’ll pick some up tomorrow before class.”

“It needs to be used within fifteen minutes, prior to any normal supernatural healing process starting,” he explained with a sigh. “Again, I apologize. There will probably be some bruising for a while.”

“Kun, it’s okay.” You sat up, turning around to face him. He definitely looked better than before. His eyes were back to red, and he was much calmer. He also admittedly looked a little debauched, his hair tousled from your fingers, and a small drop of your blood smeared at the corner of his mouth.

But as you appraised him—and he licked the blood off his lip—you grew a little uneasy, realizing that something was still… off about him. Just in a different way this time.

“How are you feeling?

“I’m all better,” he confirmed with a singular, resolute nod.

You gave him a relieved smile. “Good, good. We should ask Yangyang about if it’s something with how the potion works, make sure you’re going to be okay for however much longer it’s going to last.”

Kun cleared his throat. “That will not be necessary. I am certain that the love potion is no longer in effect.”

You wanted nothing more than to burst into flames on the spot. Quickly, you scooched further down the couch from Kun as you started a blubbering attempt at a self-deprecating, deadpan apology, “Well, that’s just… awkward. I’m going to go die a hole. Uhm, forget everything, forget me, and with any luck, you’ll never have to see me again. I’m so sorry.”

And with that, you rushed to your feet, with every intent of quite literally running out of the door. Except the living room was spinning, and your head felt like a hot air balloon. Two cold hands were on your forearm and small of your back, guiding you back down onto the couch.

“Y/N, slow down,” Kun chastised you gently. “I didn’t overdrink, but you should still sit for a moment.”

You relented, but buried your face in your hands akin to the way that you so very wished that you could bury your entire self six feet under at the moment. Maybe if you didn’t say anything, Kun would just let you sit in silence until you were recovered enough to leave, and you would never have to talk about any of this ever again. Then one day you would die, and he would continue to live for eternity and eventually forget you and this whole weird six days forever. Sounded like a fantastic plan to you.

“Y/N.”

Of course not.

You pulled your face out of your hands, dragging your eyes from your feet up to his face. He didn’t smile at you tenderly like he would have before, but instead he pressed two of his cold fingers to the inside of your wrist.

“Are you… taking my pulse?” You asked. “Can’t you hear my heartbeat?”

“Blood pressure,” he answered, continuing to hold his fingertips there, and you could feel the blood in your vein pumping against them. “Vampire touch is sensitive enough that if you know what you’re feeling for then you can… Okay, that’s better.”

“Did you learn this at bloodletting school? Because I don’t know if I trust this, you might put leeches on me next.” You tried to joke, hoping it would put you at ease a little. It didn’t help.

Kun looked you dead in the eyes. “I just drank your blood, and you’re going to complain about a couple little leeches?”

You fell back against the back of the couch, covering your face with your free arm. “So instead of letting me fuck off and die in a hole on my own, you want to be the one to kill me yourself, huh?”

“Y/N.” He repeated your name in the same frank tone as before, releasing your wrist. “I have something I would like to say. To your face, preferably.”

Dropping your arm back down to your side, you sat up straight, turning to Kun and bracing yourself for whatever he had to say to you about the past six days. It could be any litany of things. Agreeing with you to never speak about it again, joint proposition to murder Yangyang, an apology from him, demand for an apology from you; you were prepared for it to truly be anything.

“I honestly wasn’t very familiar with you before this whole debacle. I’ve known Yangyang’s coven for a hundred years, and he calls on me for assistance from time to time. I only knew you as the friend of the roommate of a witch that I know.” Kun explained, and you kept as neutral of a face as possible as you listened, having absolutely no clue where he was going with this. “Just like when I was under the effects of the love potion, my memories from before it were not erased, now that it’s worn off, I do still remember the time that we spent together during it. While I am not in love with you at present, after learning as much about you as I did… I am romantically interested in you still.”

You must have been giving him the most dumbfounded expression ever, as he felt the need to tack on an explanatory, “I would like the opportunity to take you on a date— a proper one, sometime. If you would like.”

Your head was nodding before your mouth finally caught up. “Yeah, yeah. I’d really like that too.”

“I can’t... guarantee that I’ll be exactly like I was while I was under the effects of the love potion,” he forewarned you.

“Kun that’s- that’s fine,” you reassured him with a bright smile. “Like you said, we’ll just try it out. I also learned a lot about you, outside of the love potion courting stuff, that I found interesting... and liked.”

You mumbled the last part nervously, messing with your fingers.

“That makes me very happy to hear. Don’t worry, no more sonnets now, I promise.”

“Well... you don’t have to do that… if you want.”

“Oh so you did like it,” Kun teased, reclined back against the arm of the couch with a cocky smirk that you hadn’t seen on him before.

“I was flustered! And confused!”

“That’s fair. I won’t retire my quill yet, then.”

A little over a week later, and you were back at Kun’s house at his invitation. He said he had a surprise to show you, and there was no further information. His penchant for surprises was genuine.

Kun was sat at his producing desk, and you had pulled up a chair beside him to watch. He was just logging into the computer when his phone rang.

“Yangyang,” Kun snorted. He was about to reject it when you stopped him.

“You can pick it up, I don’t mind.”

“He is not important right now.” He turned his phone off, picking up one of your hands to press a cool kiss to your knuckles.

Just a second later, and your phone was buzzing. You sighed, looking at the contact, then held it up so Kun could read it. Kun rolled his eyes.

Yangyang.

You picked up the call. “Hey Yang—”

“Y/N! Hey!” The witch’s voice blared through your speakers, and you quickly had to turn your volume down.

“Yeah, hi, Yangyang. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to chat, we don’t really talk, you know?” His voice was pitched up and he talked so fast that you could barely understand all the strung-together words. “What—what are you doing? Right now?”

“I’m hanging out at Kun’s place, why—” You were cut off by your friend hanging up. Dropping your phone onto the table, you looked at the vampire knowingly. “So I think that means he’s coming over.”

Not even ten minutes later, someone was banging on Kun’s front door. Kun went to go get it as you stayed in your spot over by his producing station.

“Stop it,” Kun deadpanned in place of a greeting as he opened the door.

Yangyang rushed in without so much as a hello. Kun focused an exasperated look on him as he closed the door, then walked back over to you.

“So, what brings you here, Yangyang?” He asked, easing himself back down into his desk chair next to you.

“Alright, it was funny at first but now I’m seriously worried.” Yangyang grabbed Kun’s face, shining his phone flashlight in one of Kun’s eyes, then the other.

“Fuck!” Kun threw an arm over his eyes, pushing the witch away with the other.

“Yangyang, what the hell is wrong with you?” You yelled out, rubbing Kun’s back soothingly. Having that done to you, a human, would’ve hurt a bit; to a vampire’s more light-sensitive eyes must’ve been a searing pain at least.

Kun had recovered a little, taking one of your hands in his for comfort. You ran your thumb over his knuckles, wincing sympathetically.

He half-squinted and half-glared up at your friend. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s been like two weeks, that potion should have definitely worn off by now.” He looked down at his hands with wide eyes. “I must be more powerful than I realize.”

You scoffed. “Hate to burst your bubble, Yangyang, but it did.”

“What? No, he’s still—” Yangyang gestured frantically to your intertwined hands. “You’re still— But, Kun— Huh?”

The vampire sighed, thankfully taking the lead on explaining. “We learned a lot about each other during the experience, and have decided to pursue a real relationship. I’m no longer under the effects of the love potion.”

“That is... There’s no—” Yangyang blinked rapidly at you two. “When? How? Y/N, Kun?”

“The hell does that mean?”

“You’re like a walking, talking, undead pair of corduroy pants, I didn’t think you had it in you, outside of the love potion.”

“Have what in me? The capacity for romance?”

“I was going to say a personality, but yeah, that too!”

Kun rubbed his temples, letting out a low groan.

“For how long?”

“A week.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I’m sorry, the witch who put love potion in a fucking Gorgonade bottle without telling anybody wants to complain about a lack of communication?” You retorted.

He crossed his arms with a huff. “Point taken, albeit begrudgingly. So it just finally wore off? A week ago?”

“Well, not quite...” You rubbed at your collarbone as the memory resurfaced.

“Then how—” Your friend cut himself off as his eyes zeroed in on your hand at your neck. “Oh. He— Of course! We should’ve thought of that.”

“Excuse me?” You sputtered out.

But Yangyang didn’t even acknowledge your embarrassment, too absorbed in the euphoric lightbulb moment he seemed to have just gotten. “It was a two-factor blood spell. You drank his blood to activate it—”

“Ew...” You muttered under your breath, shuddering at the memory.

“—so he had to drink yours to stop it! Duh!”

The witch was fervently typing on his phone as he spoke, now pacing with it as he buzzed with excitement.

“What are you doing?” Kun asked sternly.

“Taking notes! This is awesome!” Yangyang continued typing away. “I’m so getting an A!”

You and Kun exchanged mirrored looks of skepticism.

With a raised eyebrow, you pointed out, “Uh, but it didn’t work on me like it was supposed to, remember?”

He looked up from his phone at the two of you with the grin of a mad scientist—or, mad witch. “Look at the two of you! I’m calling this a win!”

Kun stood up, grabbing your friend’s shoulders and ushering him towards the door. “Goodbye, Yangyang.”

“Hey, wait! I wanted to ask you about— Ow!” Yangyang yelped as he was manhandled. “No fair using your freakish vamp strength! I was just going to ask if you—”

You couldn’t hear the rest of his sentence over the sound of the door slamming shut in his face. Kun turned back around, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “If I hadn’t known his coven for a hundred years I’d have killed him by now.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” you snickered, reaching your arms out for him. “Come here.”

Kun walked back over to you, hands outstretched to hold yours. You gave his colder ones a squeeze, smiling up at him.

“So, what were you showing me? Before he interrupted?” You prompted him.

“Right, right.” Kun sat back down, grabbing the mouse and continuing to navigate through his programs. “I’ve been composing something… and… I wanted… to… show—”

Your phone suddenly buzzed from his desk again, and this time you let out an annoyed groan. “I’m putting it on silent, sorry.”

“Yangyang again?” He asked as you grabbed the device.

“Even worse,” you cringed as you read the name.

“Who?”

“Kunhang.”

sequel :･ﾟ✧｡･:･*

⤷ blog masterlist  ⤷ anthology masterlist

#i: kun #kun #qian kun #wayv #nct #wayv imagine #wayv x reader #nct imagine #nct x reader #kunkun #f: romance is dead #au: strawberry sunday #bias tag #writing #text #mine #*100

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Beyond the Blood Tie - Chapter Twenty Two.

Who wants more vampire smut? Ahhh, look at that. You got it. :D 

Previous Chapters - One  Two, Part One Part Two  Three  Four  Five  Six  Seven  Eight  Nine  Ten  Eleven  Twelve  Thirteen  Fourteen  Fifteen  Sixteen  Seventeen  Eighteen  Nineteen  Twenty  Twenty One

Words - 5,783

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed

Warnings - 18+ content throughout. Minors DNI!

Edie's POV

"Thanks for bringing me in here. I think I, ahhhh… I… mmmm, needed to cool off," I tell Angel, as cool water runs over us both from the shower we're having sex under, about four hours after we first started. It's 7am and technically my vampire lover should be sleeping now, but with the blinds over the windows blocking out the sunlight and his strength bolstered by the fact he's fed on me again, he's still going strong.

"Even though we're kind of contradicting that somewhat." He chuckles, before kissing me passionately. It's true, I had him carry me in here (I can't walk, my legs are too shaky) so I could cool down and take a breather for five minutes, and wash away the trails of blood running all over me from where he’s fed twice, as well as the sweat that's been beading my body like I just stepped out of a sauna. After he put me down, he just walked in after me and well… things happen. I can't get enough of this, of him. I really can't.  

“God, that cock,” I groan on a shuddered breath as it breeches me again, a slow drag that lights up my insides, Angel reaching to turn the shower to a warmer temperature, the heat soothing. “Feels so good.” I continue, kissing him, my fingers trailing through his soaking hair.

His tongue swirls with mine, his groan all raspy smoke as he shunts against me a little deeper, feeling my walls flexing around him. “Yeah, I’ve been told that a few times over the decades. It’s all yours now, though.”

“Mmm.” Trailing my mouth to his neck, I lay soft, hungry bites along the column of his throat. “I don’t plan on being off it much, either.”

The look he gives me is of complete burning lust. “Good.”  

I don’t either, but fuck, having sex with a vampire does come with a smidgen of detriment, having a creature with that much stamina, power and prowess throw you around for hours. I hurt, my whole body feels sore, even though I drank a little blood from his wrist a couple of hours back since I was in so much internal pain. That's the thing with a highly aroused vampire; he'll try and fuck a new hole right through you. Blood being applied directly to the area that's sore or oversensitive works just as well, but my body aches so much from being thrown roughly around the bed that I needed a little more than that.  

As a result, I feel a little lightheaded, and that only adds to the overall erotic scintillation I'm experiencing, which shows no signs of stopping soon. This kind of thing just doesn't happen to me, I feel like I'm in the middle of somebody else's fantasy, because it's just too perfect. It's like if I was to sit and write you out my ideal sexual scenario, hours upon hours of never-ending pleasure. It plays out word for word how I'd write it.

I think he's ruined it for any other human as well. If we were to break up some time in the future, I'm unsure I'd be able to go back to mere mortals like myself. I now understand why Sasha hasn't really been interested in dating human guys since her first taste of a vampire, I understand it perfectly. There's no comparison. Vampires fuck like machines, for infinite periods of time.  

Even when we get out of the shower, our bodies still burning from orgasmic rush, we barely get dry before we're on each other again, with him throwing me down on my front on the bed, starting to softly kiss my back while his fingertips run up the back of my thighs. I then feel those hands begin to glide down my sides, kissing me from one shoulder blade to the other, and then slowly, teamed with swirls from his tongue, down my spine. His hands slide lower to knead my ass cheeks, arousal burning strongly inside me when I feel his mouth meet my lower back.

His hands then lift my hips off the bed and push my legs apart, and I take my weight onto my knees while keeping my upper body pressed down onto the bed. Groaning softly, making a light exclamation of pleasure when I feel his lips kissing the back of my thigh, that little sigh turns into a long, low moan when the next kiss bestowed on me is to my area most burningly warm, his tongue pushing inside me, circling my opening slowly but firmly before his fingers slip in and I'm treated again to the most skilled touch I’ve ever known.

“You tired yet?” he asks, moving to lie beneath me, elbows pushing my legs further apart, my spread apex lowered, being caught in the suck of his mouth. My hips twitch and shake, a long, breathless moan escaping my lips.  

“I am a little, but it’s worth it. There’s no way I’m telling you to stop.”  

He hums a chuckle, tongue flicking over my clit. “Good, because I really don’t want to.”  

I can’t help myself. “So, what do you want to do?”

He moans happily around a mouthful of my folds. “Keep sucking on this beautiful little cunt until it gushes all over my tongue, then I’m gonna bend you over the end of this bed and rail you so damned hard, you’ll scream your voice away.”  

And he will, too. “Like the sound of that, baby girl?”

“Mmm, yeah. I love being split around your cock.”

“Good, because you look hot as fuck when you are.” His hand spanks me, the blow delivered hard, but nowhere near as forcefully as when I’m exactly where he said I would be, bent over the end of the bed, screaming in absolute ecstasy.

“God damnit, you look so good when you’re bent over. You like it, querida? Like taking this big fucking cock so hard, you cry?”  

“Yes! Oh fuck, yes!” And I am fucking crying right now. No one has ever fucked me so thoroughly that I’ve had tears running down my face. Every nerve ending on my body is screaming in blazing bliss, chased by the cool fire of what he inflicts so barbarically upon me, hand fisting my hair, yanking me until I’m almost upright, fangs piercing the back of my neck. He doesn’t feed from me, biting me merely because he’s aroused out of his mind, sealing the wound again before turning me around, lifting me and dropping me down on his cock.  

“Shit, Angel I don’t think I can take any more!” I gasp, my thighs locking around him as my body shatters again, like a crack ripping over a frozen lake, still being bounced on him, his hand spanking me hard.  

“Yeah, you can, baby. Fuck, I love you so much.” He slows then, cock dragging sparks through my tender core languidly, while I feel him push a finger against my ass, sliding it within. I nearly cum on the sport, just from that. “You into anal, beautiful?”

“I am if you have lube, because I can’t take that monster without it,” I chuckle, Angel making a nose of displeasure.  

“Fuck. Nah, I ain’t. I guess you’ll just have to enjoy me stretching you out with my fingers until I do.” Mmmm, yeah. I’m good with that.  

For another three hours it's much the same, my body being twisted and turned into more positions than I knew existed, and given more orgasms than I ever thought I could withstand, until I'm so sore all over, outside and in, that I'm surprised I can actually can keep going. Keep going we do, until we both finally give up at midday.

"I'm kinda numb but on fire from the waist down," I tell him, catching my breath when we finally make it under the covers, resting my head in his chest and watching it slowing in its rises and falls to total stillness once more.

“Well, I had to give you the full experience of vampire sex.” I stare at him with mild incredulity, Angel snorting a soft laugh. “Like you didn’t love every second of it.”

I kiss his chest, stroking the ridged rise of his pecs with my fingertips. “I did, this is true.”

“Good, because I plan on doing that a lot more, once we’ve both rested a little.” I like the sound of that.  

“Does it feel different to you, sex as a vampire, opposed to when you were a human?” I ask. It’s something I’ve come to wonder, over the last few hours.

“Yes, very much so. Merely existing as a vampire, with such heightened senses is an experience in itself, so sex is infinitely more intense for us than it is your humans,” he explains, fingers stroking a circle upon my shoulder. “Imagine if your orgasm was amplified by a few thousand. That’s how it feels.” I give him a curious look, grinning, Angel laughing quietly.  

“That’s good going for someone who’s dead.” I quip, my boyfriend tightening his embrace. He turns to kiss me one last time, and that slow, sensual kiss is the last thing I remember before I’m out like a light.  

When I wake up eight hours later, I don't feel better for the rest, though. In fact, the exhaustion and soreness I feel mean that it takes me a few minutes to actually sit up properly, looking to my side to see my boyfriend asleep. I wish I could sleep on, but I have to leave for work. I try waking him until I realise, he won't respond at all, of course. Hmmmm, I wonder when he'll come round again?

I know they naturally fall asleep at dawn and wake just as naturally as dusk, but he's forced himself to stay awake for many hours past his usual sleeping time. I should think he'll wake when he's recuperated, but I won't be here when he does. I know he isn't in work until 10pm tonight, but still I hope he wakes in time for his first appointment. Mind you, what is his client going to say if he’s late? How'd you argue with a vampire?  

I've already made plans to meet him later tonight at the tattoo shop when I get off, he's booked a late sitting until 4am now the nights are darker for longer. Looking at myself, seeing blood trails and knowing a smell of a mixture of cum, my own sexual secretions and sweat, I quickly shower and dry off at speed before dressing and hoping to find my vampire awake when I come back out. He's still sleeping though, and after kissing him goodbye I leave, closing the bedroom door softly, turning to find myself face to face with EZ.

"Ahhh, still alive then, I see. I won't need this any longer I suppose, to measure you up for a coffin," he says, taking a tape measure from his pocket and then looking down at me like he's gauging my reaction. He's never spoken to me before, but then again I wasn't properly introduced to him until last night, and he didn't really seem interested then. He had two girls on his lap at the time. The reaction I give I think surprises him, since I just laugh loudly as I point at his hand.

"I'd hang onto that, he might still fuck me to death yet, just in a slightly different way.” He looks entertained by that.

“He’d better be blowing your damned back out. I would, given half the chance.” He then winks, his smile growing. “I know that probably wasn’t all that appropriate, but you are pretty hot, Edie.”

“And you’re a shameless hoe.” He looks at me at a way that makes my heart skip a nervous beat, before suddenly, his face cracks, laughing richly.  

“Guilty,” he nods. “Look, I’m glad he’s found you. He’s insufferable when he’s pissed off, and he’s my brother, I love him. So, yeah. See you around, I guess.” Angel has mentioned that EZ isn’t very human friendly, so I’ll take that as a win, smiling and heading down the stairs, hearing the large vampire laughing softly in my wake. At the bottom, I then encounter Ursula, with a massive smile upon her face. She then does something I don't expect, opening her arms and hugging me when I get to her.

"I'm very glad all has been overcome. I felt it through his emotions, I couldn't help but pick up on the fact he was enjoying himself free of pain. And, well, the noise. Good bloody lord.” Ahhh, shit. Of course, the whole family likely heard me at some point before they fell asleep at dawn. “Don’t cringe! It’s alright, sex is to be enjoyed, and you were both enjoying one another very much. Such vocal exclamations are to be expected,” she then reassures me, rubbing my shoulder softly.  

“Yeah, but I’m still embarrassed!” She laughs sweetly, pulling me back into another hug, her hand stroking a circle at my back. Oh, she’s so lovely!

“Don’t be, sweet child. Did you leave him in one piece? I'm just on my way up to see him," she asks, letting me go again but still smiling.

"He's still asleep.” Her immaculate eyebrows gain much height at my revelation.

"He is? Well, didn't you just wear him out," she teases, reaching forward and pinching my arm in a playful way.

"Yeah, I suppose I did. If you'll excuse me, Ursula but I have to get going, I need to be at work in forty minutes. See you soon, though," I say, watching her turn back from the stairs to come and walk me to the door.

"Goodbye, Edie. I shall be glad to see you soon again, too." She has the good grace not to laugh at the fact that because of her offspring, I’m walking a little bow legged, exiting through the gate and walking up to the crossroads to hail a cab. I wish Angel had of been awake when I woke, I could have done with a mouthful of blood or the application of it to a few areas. Quite simply, I feel like I've been sandblasted between my legs. Everything hurts. Even my nipples touching the cups of my bra are painful. I don't think I'd have been able to move at all if I hadn’t taken some of his blood during the course of our nine-hour sexual marathon, give or take a little resting time here and there. Nine hours, damn. I didn't think that was possible, but with a vampire, it seems almost anything is within your grasp where sex is concerned.

I manage to get into a cab after a slightly uncomfortable ten-minute walk, and honestly feel like I could go to sleep right here on the back seat. I'm exhausted, and now I have to go and give someone a beating and use up energy I don't have. This calls for action. Asking the driver to pull over at a convenience store en route to the CD, I jump out and quickly fetch some supplies. I head to the microwave food section, but stop when I see some boxes of ready washed and prepared salad and then some cooked turkey breast strips further up the aisle and decide on a healthier option. I then quickly pick up a few cans of energy drink, a large handful of pixie sticks and some cigarettes at the counter before running back out to my cab, hoping the meter hasn't ticked over too much.  

One twenty-eight-dollar cab ride later and I'm at work, sitting in the control room with a bemused looking Aileen, emptying the pixie sticks into the cans of energy drink after downing a few mouthfuls of both. I need lots of sugar and caffeine, and I need them now. I already poured myself a cup of coffee from the pot as well. I can feel the eyes of Aileen, and also Max on me as I pour each stick in, both looking like they're trying not to laugh.

"Rough night huh, Edie?" Max asks, trying to bite back a grin, looking to Aileen, who is doing the exact same thing.

"Don't even ask," I groan, wincing as I sit down, hearing the pair of them snort laugh.

"We don't need to. Ahmed told us you near got dragged out caveman style by your hair last night, and that before then you and your boyfriend had been all over each other all night. We guessed the rest when we saw you walking in like well-rode cowboy with the bow legs you got there!" Aileen nods, both of them bursting into the hysterics they can’t hold onto any longer, while I put my head down on the table and sigh. Damn you, Khamir! Damn you and your big mouth.

"So, how did it feel for you to be the one being beaten into submission this time? Sore I can imagine, since you can't sit down properly. Do you want me to go get you one of those inflatable rings the kids use to learn to swim with?" Max then continues. “Easy with the violence!” he then laughs as I reach to slap his big arm with a couple of hard wallops.  

"Don't make me use up my precious energy on beating you! I'm too tired! I don't even know how I'm going to go down there and do my damn job properly without falling over or falling asleep! I don't need you two and your shit talking banter, thank you!" I cry, before picking up a can of pixie stick laced energy drink and downing it. I'm subjected to more deliberately humorous questions and little digs as I start on my second can, eat my food and finish my coffee, but at least I feel a little more alive by the time I'm walking down to my chamber. Just as I'm about to go in I suddenly feel something jolt through me brightly, something that feels tingly. I'm not sure what it is until my cell begins to vibrate in my pocket.

"Hi beautiful, sorry I was still asleep when you left. How are you?" Angel asks me when I answer. That feeling I had was me sensing him waking up, something I've never had before. Of course, the more of each other's blood we ingest, the stronger our blood tie.

"I'm tired and sore, how are you?" I ask, knowing he'll be just fine.

"Hungry, and looking forward to having you back in my arms. Don't worry, you won't be sore forever, I'll make you better when I see you and then put you through it all over again all weekend," he assures, sounding amused.

"I can't say I won't look forward to that. Look, I have to go, I'm about to start my shift. See you in a few hours.”

"You will, I love you." He hangs up, leaving me to go and do the most painful shift I've ever had to do. Really, don't have sex with a vampire if you have plans or commitments to attend to in the immediate twelve hours that follow. It fucking hurts, pun intended.

Angel's POV

"So was that honestly pleasant chit chat I saw you engaging in with the fairy last night?" I ask Sal as soon as I walk into the shop at 9.30pm. My first appointment isn't until ten, but I wanted to get here early because there's a tonne of stuff we need to order. Ink, more gloves, more paper, vending machine stock etc…

"Miley speaks my language beautifully, and she's remarkably well read.” I wait for it, the little nugget Edie told me about, Miley’s sometimes odd ways of thinking. “The girl has some strange ways of thinking, though. She wondered last night if plants thought in accents.”  

I can’t help but snort with laughter. That sounds like strange brilliance to me. “She still wouldn't fuck me, though, so I went home with Latoria Jackson instead.” He continues.

"He got his vampire ass fucking handed to him! Hah!" Eric shouts with mirth from across the shop, while laughing like a maniac.

"He's right, I did. I think she broke my back a couple of times. Seriously, I pity the humans she takes home after what she did to me. Damn. You ever been there?" he asks, while tattooing speedily. He's doing a piece consisting of a large black dragon spanning across the shoulders of a young guy in his early twenties, who looks like he's trying not to look as interested as he is by our conversation.

"No, I haven't. I ain’t interested in doing so either. She's too full of herself. Even for our kind, man,” I reply, my lip curling a little bit. And she ain’t all that to look at, either.  

"So, is Edie still with us then? You two were about halfway to banging one another at the club, so I take it you finally got some when you got her home?” Eric then asks, while I walk away from Sal to go and see the piece he's working on. He's doing cherry blossoms all the way down the ribcage of a girl we all know, since she comes in quite often to be tattooed by him.

"Hi Lisa, and yes she is still with us, dude," I reply, with Lisa looking up and waving at me.

"Ouch, so you had an S&M kind of night then?" he winces, in obvious reference to the silver, wiping away ink before continuing the construction of the pink petals. He's done absolutely no outline to it at all, so it's going to have the effect of looking almost like it's been painted onto her skin. He's free handed it too, since he only has a few marked-on guidelines in pen to follow. If I could still get tattooed, it’d be Eric I’d choose every time. His skills are unreal.

"Nope, I only needed it one time and after that I realised I wasn't going to suffer my problem with her," I reply, laughing at what Eric does next.

"My boy! Get the fuck here!!" he yells, putting the tattoo machine down to stand and hug me, making Lisa laugh too at his reaction, even though she doesn't understand why Eric is pleased for me.

"Yeah, alright, calm down.”

“No! I’m happy for you!” he yells, taking my face in his hands and kissing my forehead. “Welcome to the warm snatch club, man! It’s good to finally have you as a member!”

I can’t help but completely crack up at that, Lisa looking perplexed. “Private joke, babe.” I mutter, still laughing. Heading to the back of the shop, I pull the back door open, ready to collect our mail from the storage locker we have residing out there. Anything that gets delivered that isn’t small enough to be pushed through the letterbox (ink and the like) all gets stored in here by the humans who run the sandwich shop next door. To be honest, though, most of our stuff turns up at night, delivered to us by vampire couriers.  

There's a fairly big box and some letters, and I take them out before locking up and heading back inside. Once I'm in my office, I can't help but be somewhere between confused and amused when I open up the box.

"Lisa, are you more of a length or girth kind of girl?" I ask the lady herself as I walk back across the shop, pulling a long dildo, then a thick one from inside the box I'm carrying.

"Where in the hell did you get those, and why do you have them?" she exclaims as she laughs, Eric ceasing tattooing to do the same.

"Some sex toy company sent us a box of free samples and the invite to take a five percent cut of the sales if we display their product range here. My answer is a big, flat out no, but help yourself if you see anything you like," I reply, while Eric takes off his gloves and starts mooching through.

"What the fuck?" he exclaims, picking up something long and pink with a big ball on the end of it.

"I dunno, I think batteries go in the other end," I reply with a shrug. We're not very knowledgeable on sex toys, us vampires. Why should we be? We don't need plastic enhancements to help the people we're having sex with enjoy it even more. Our vampirism is the enhancement.

"I'll take this, and this, oh and this too,” Lisa begins.

“Easy, girl!” Eric laughs, receiving a little nudge. “You’ll wear yourself down to bare tread!”

“Eric, I’m not a tyre!” Even Sal snorts with laughter at that one. I'll give Edie first refusal on the rest of the box, picking up a butt plug that has two teardrop shapes to it, grinning.

“Oh, man. That’s going straight up my baby,” I chuckle, entertained at just the thought.  

“Rubber ring for Edie Bailey!” Eric shouts, making me cackle with laughter.  

“She damned probably needs one of those, anyway,” I smirk. Eric resuming tattooing after Lisa gets comfortable once more.  

He grins widely. “That’s my dude!” He then pauses, looking back at me. “You should let her fuck you with it some, too. It’s good, man.”

“Nah,” I shudder. “I ain’t into anything going up my ass.” If that’s what others like, they can have at it. I tried it, and I don't like it. Nobody is putting anything up there, nope.  

“Yeah,” Eric hums, “figures really, since you ain’t a greedy bisexual like yours truly here.” I'm a little different to most, since a lot of vampires swing both ways (even if they didn’t as humans) but I happen to know quite a few who don't, too. As well as myself I know Sal and EZ both solely like women, but my creator, her husband, Eric and Sissy are all partial to either gender in their beds. No, Charles and Ursula are not monogamous. They were for the first three hundred years of their marriage until they got bored, as they both say. It doesn't mean they love each other any less. I've never seen such a strong love before as theirs.

After all sex toy pilfering has been done, I take the box back into my office before coming back out to the front desk to wait for my client, who actually arrives ten minutes early. I needed her to as well, I was getting far too involved in my thoughts about Edie's ass, and everything I'm going to do to it later. There was lube in that box, too. Score. I hope she's getting through work alright, because I really, really, really put her though it last night. I'm glad she didn't tell me to stop, because I didn't want to and probably couldn't if I'd have tried. I've missed sex with humans, and Edie is so, so good at it. I can't wait to see her.

Getting to work on the tattoo which will only take three parts of an hour, a sugar skull surrounded by roses in the centre of my clients back, I do try to stop thinking about everything I was doing with Edie earlier, but I can't help it when I feel through her emotions that she's tired and sore. When she arrives at 3.15am she looks exhausted, so the first thing I do is wrap her up in a hug when I'm finished working on my very last appointment. She's been sitting over in the waiting area yawning while reading her book and drinking lots of energy drinks.

"I hurt, and it's all your fault," she complains, burying her face against my chest.

"I seem to remember you had a not so small part in it too.” She hums in agreement. "So, do you just want to go to sleep tonight?" I then ask, stroking her back and basking in her scent. I miss her when she isn't near me.

"I'll see how I feel a little later, but I'll probably be fine though. I have to say no amount of pain and tired can deter me from wanting you all over again.” The kiss I’m then given definitely backs up her statement.  

"Speaking of all things sexual, come with me. There's a box of stuff that might interest you in my office,” I say, before taking her back there.

Gesturing to the box when we arrive, she takes a peek inside, one of her eyebrows arching significantly. "Why would they want you to display these? You're a tattoo shop, not a sex shop.” Her statement is gently perplexed, but still, she picks up the butt plug with an interested look on her face. "I like the look of this."  

I can’t help but laugh softly. "I like the fact I guessed so well it'd interest you.” She blows me a kiss for that, taking the plug, the bottle of lube too, mouthing ‘definitely need this!’ before looking back at the box and then pulling a disinterested face.

"I don't need any of that, not when I have this at my disposal," she chirps, turning and grabbing my dick through my jeans before kissing me.

"Then we'll go home, you can take a little of my blood to feel less uncomfortable, and then we'll see how you feel, and if you're up for it, you can have it for as long as you like," I vow, before sinking into another kiss.

"I need food first, wanna come to my place tonight?" I tell her I will, and she then heads out to get something to eat from the takeout place a block away, while I lock up and then go and meet her up there, getting back to hers in a couple of minutes. You gotta love vampire speed.

"Okay, I'm definitely going to go eat this outside, your poor face!" Edie exclaims, kissing my cheek and looking at me with affection before she heads into the lounge towards her back doors.

"No, no you don't have to do that. It's something I have to get used to," I tell her, moving fast to stand in her way in front of the doors.

"Look, it's still nice and warm out, the breeze coming in off the desert is minimal, I don't mind. Come sit with me, tell me about your evening," she offers, pushing my shoulder gently while I reluctantly turn and allow her to pass by. Before I follow her out, I race to her kitchen and back to fetch a glass and then bite my wrist and bleed into it, giving it to her when there's enough in there to take away her discomfort.

"It's a little less messy than taking it straight from me," I state, hand it to her, my wrist instantly healing over as I take a seat, watching her doing the same, but taking her time to. I can't help but laugh a little.

"You should come with some kind of health warning label," she winces when finally making contact with the chair, sinking the blood before putting the glass down and picking up the bottle of water she bought along with the food and drinking half of it.

"And you should realise how irresistibly sexy you are, and how just sitting here having to keep my hands to myself for now proves difficult," I tell her, watching her shake her head and look away for a moment.

"Just calm down and tell me about your evening.” Just before I'm about to speak I suddenly feel something run through me, a feeling of anger that I pick up directly from Ursula. I wait and see how long it lasts, remaining on alert. I’m glad to feel it subsiding a little after a few moments. If she needs me, she'll call for me and I'll be by her side without question. All the same, I still excuse myself to Edie and rush to the end of her back yard to call Ursula on my cell.

"Angel, I'm fine. I can't talk at present, and I shan't be home before the dawn, but all is well. Do not worry, I'm okay. Are you with Edie?" she asks me. She sounds like she’s trying to supress her annoyance, but not like she’s in danger. I’d be there without question if she was.  

"Yeah, we’re at her place tonight,” I confirm, fighting the urge to ask anything. She said she can't talk, for whatever the reason.

"Stay there until I contact you. Do not go home until I do. I should be back by next dark." Of course, that’s an order I have to obey, not that staying here with my girlfriend is particularly a hardship. She hangs up, and while I trust her word, I still of course wonder why she won’t be home, and why that very place is somewhere I cannot return to either, until I hear from her again.

"What's wrong? I can feel your worry," Edie asks, putting down her food and getting up to put her arms around me when I walk back over.

I feel better for that, for Edie’s calming presence. "I don't know, but Ursula is being kept away and she can't tell me why. She sounds fine, but still, I don't like it.”

She nods with understanding, her fingers moving to brush my hair from my forehead. "Well, you'd know if she wasn't, and you'd be able to find your way right to her as well. She'll be fine, she's over a thousand years old. I think you understand better than I do just how strong she is.” This is true, I reason to myself, kissing her head before we sit down again.

"You're right, querida. If I suddenly zoom off without word, though, you’ll know that's just where I've gone, to find her. She feels alright for now, although I know that whatever the situation, she's not happy in it." Edie is quick to pacify me and the large frown denting my head, changing the subject and keeping me talking, trying to occupy my thoughts with things other than the present whereabouts of my creator, with us eventually heading back inside to go to bed at 4.30am. When we're there, she finds even more creative ways to take my mind of Ursula.  

None of them involve much talking.  

#angel reyes #angel reyes fanfiction #angel reyes smut #angel reyes imagine #angel reyes fanfic #angel reyes fic #angel reyes x ofc #mayans mc #mayans mc fanfiction #mayans mc smut #mayans mc imagine #mayans mc fanfic #mayans mc fic

[mangosimoothie]

The Bachelorette: Episode 21 - Living My Fantasy

Previously on the Bachelorette…

Aja: — Does anyone know where Ryan is?? 

Neither X’irron nor Zeke were sure. The last time anyone had seen him was when he told Zeke that his symptoms were getting worse. 

Aja: Oh my god…did something happen to him?! Where is he?! 

So they were left with the question: Where the heck is Ryan Kato? Thankfully, we have the answer. While Bastien was visiting Aja’s suite, Ryan wound up having a visitor of his own…

He heard commotion outside of his window and woke up to see what was going on.

“Fucking jungle sounds…can’t get any sleep in here. What IS that?” 

Ryan: Atticus?! What are you doing here? Atticus: I need to speak with you. May I come in? Ryan: I guess… Atticus: I need explicit permission. Ryan: Oh my god- Yes, Atticus, you may enter.

 R: Are you going to tell me why you’re here? It’s like 2am and unlike you I’m usually asleep by now. Shouldn’t you be with the vampire mistress you ran off to? A: What are you talking about? Why would there be some vampire mistress? R: Because you gave that big speech about needing to leave us- I mean leave Aja behind because your “heart belongs to someone else” or whatever. A: Ryan, I was very obviously talking about YOU. R: …What??

 It was a pretty stupid “fight” so we’ll spare you all the dialogue. Basically, Atticus could tell Ryan was upset after his date with Aja at the vampire lounge went so well. When Ryan told Atticus he wasn’t upset and just hoped that Atticus wouldn’t mess up his chances with Aja, Atticus took that to heart. Atticus left because, although he felt something special for Ryan, Ryan clearly wanted Aja, and he couldn’t bear to make Ryan upset or see him with someone else.

 A: I thought me leaving would do one of two things. Either it would make you happy because it would better your chances of being with Aja, or you would have a change of heart and come with me. R: Why didn’t you just ask me to come with you?  A: I thought it was very heavily implied.

 R: Well that’s dumb. It was shitty, and it hurt my feelings. I can’t read your mind…and I guess you can’t read mine either. So we’re both dumb. I should’ve told you how I actually felt. Atticus, I’ve been fucking miserable here without you ok? Why’d you bother coming back if you thought I was so happy? [soundtrack] A: Because I missed you infinitely more than I could bear, and I realized it was a mistake not to fight harder. 

 “I deeply regret not being more clear in expressing my feelings for you. I hope to make it clear now: Ryan, I am deeply, hopelessly, torturously in love with you. If you feel the same for me, will you leave this ridiculous reality television show behind and come with me?” 

“God, yes. Get me the fuck out of here.” 

Atticus: We should leave soon. There’s only a few hours until daybreak.  Ryan: Ready when you are. Just…listen. I’m sorry I was so closed off before. And I’m sorry in advance if I’m a little slow to open up. This is all just really new for me. I’ve never been with…you know- Atticus: A vampire. I completely understand. / Ryan: Another guy. 

A: …Let me see if I’m understanding you correctly. You just confessed your love to and had sensational carnal relations with an eternal, inhumanely powerful, bloodthirsty occult creature, but your main concern is that that creature happens to be male? R: Yeah…I guess it sounds dumb when you say it like that. A: It does. But I have been alive for much much much much MUCH longer than you. I suppose after awhile I simply forgot what it’s like to live with insecurity. I hope I can give that to you, too. You’ve spent enough time wallowing in self hatred. You deserve to love yourself, completely. 

R: I really would love  that. Sooo…how long did you say we have until we run out of nighttime? A: We really should leave now. Don’t worry — there will be plenty of time for me to thoroughly ravage you again once we get back to the Forgotten Hollow. R: Good plan. 

[soundtrack]

“Ohhhh that explains a LOT. You know what? Good for him. If anyone deserves to live out my Breaking Dawn Part 2 fantasies it’s Ryan.”

So with Bastien and Ryan gone, we reach the finale with our final two. Who will Aja choose? Will she continue her self exploration and reach enlightenment with Zeke, or will she take a leap of faith and go out of this world with X’irron? Find out NEXT on The Bachelorette!  NEXT | PREVIOUS | BEGINNING 

#sims 4 stories #simblr #new simblr #ts4 finds #ts4bachelorette #ep21 #i am begging yall to click the soundtrack links for this one i promise its so good #oc:ryan

[empty-masks]

Book Four, Chapter Nine

CW: Strong Language, Sexual References, Graphic Violence, Fantasy Bigotry, Smoking, Alcohol Use, Light Body Horror

Jules is still firmly and comfortably settled into a recliner, and nearby Lucille’s been looked at for at least long enough for Roxanne to essentially tape and bandage her nose into something resembling a proper position, operating on the assumption that it’ll heal right if the merc doesn’t go and headbutt somebody. Across from the two sits, Leon, arms crossed and head tilted up so that he can stare at the ceiling instead of at them.

    Olive left the room moments ago at the request of Jules, though only after Leon gave her a nod of a comforting, worry-not sort. The silence hasn’t stirred since the sound of her feet disappeared among the halls, at least not until, finally, Jules clears his throat and says, “I think we have something to talk about, Leon. It’s Leon, right?”

“Yup,” he replies, turning his golden eyes on the two. “I know you two aren’t dumb enough to go after someone you don’t know the name of. I bet you know what size shoe I wear.”

Lucille laughs nasally, then groans and rubs her forehead. “Pain meds aren’t worth shit for me, should’ve known better than to take them. Yeah, we know, but not your shoe size. Just the important parts.”

His good hand raised, Jules clears his throat. “Might as well talk about it now, while we’ve got the place to ourselves. Right, Lucille?”

The woman’s eyes dart from the Vampire to the Orc, and she sighs through her mouth. “You probably know I was the head of security for a couple mining sites belonging to Shepherd Gemstone, with Jules here as my number two. Some guys of ours did some horrid crap to you.”

“That’s a way to put it. I’m sure you got an earful, those pricks seemed like the types to brag,” Leon replies.

Jules offers an awkward, almost diplomatic smile. “Yeah, we did. Busting someone is something our bunch brags about. They didn’t spare any details, either. Now look—”

A gloved hand is raised, silencing Jules as Lucille shifts to sit directly across from Leon, all before she speaks. “Leon, I’m not going to pretend it hurt to know somebody working for us did that to you. I’m going to be clear about it, because as much as I expect this to be grounds for you killing us in our sleep, we didn’t blink. What happened to you did not so much as register on our radar beyond being some new thing some dumb assholes were going to use to try and pick up some vapid morons at a bar someplace when they get really drunk and think being mean to poor people’s a turn on. I laughed when I heard what happened.”

“Lucille, I don’t think he wants to hear about…” He trails off.

Leon is standing up. His lips are curling awkwardly, as though frowning, but the missing tusks are leaving space not meant to be empty. “I’m leaving if you just came here to gloat.”

Lucille shakes her head. “No. We came to tell you the truth, not to gloat. All things considered you’re better off than we are right now. Anyway, the point is that when it happened, we didn’t care. It was just another day. All that pain and suffering, and for us it was another nine-to-five. I was handling guard schedules and worrying about a date the next week. Jules was probably more intimately and emotionally affected by running low on mustache oil than he was by what those guys did to you.”

“Lucille, I love you to death, but I’d really like to not get killed in my sleep—”

“All that said,” Lucille continues, interrupting Jules again, “we’re sorry that happened to you.”

Leon’s eyebrow raises. He sits back down and settles his heavy arms across his knees. He takes a shallow, but effortful breath. “Sorry? Why the fuck would you be sorry? You didn’t even do it.”

“We were their bosses, so we might as well have. If anything you should hate us for not doing anything to the guys that did.” Lucille leans back against her seat.

“Actually, we did do something,” Jules points out. “They were the first round of layoffs. Always get rid of the trouble hires and the guys with an eye for upward momentum when cutting expenses, Leo, saves you a million headaches.”

“Leon. Point taken. But, the guys who took my teeth…”

“Were fired at some point, yes.” Lucille rubs the back of her neck. “I’ll be honest, I don’t even remember their names.”

“I do, but only because I was handing out the pink slips. Never be that guy, Leon. Never. People’ll hate you for something you’ve got no control over, rather than something you actually do. It’s the worst kind of shit to be hated for.” Jules is smiling stupidly again, warm. “Yeah, though, we’re sorry that happened and all. We’ve done a lot of bad stuff in the past ourselves, but uh… I can’t recall anything like that. Even we’ve got a limit, and we’re horrible.”

“Oh, the worst.” Lucille laughs again, though now it’s quieter in pursuit of some sound that won’t make her nose feel like clawing itself off of her head. “We eat people and we aren’t even that fucked up. You know, that bunch of idiots made me feel like a normal person.”

Jules is snickering, and then he says, looking toward Leon, “Oh God, you probably think we’re crazy.”

“You say that like we aren’t.” Lucille’s doubled over and doing her best to keep her laughter down. “We’re every kind of screwed up. At least we’re owning it!”

Leon blinks. By this point his face has returned to a deadpan, and more than anything he’s just surprised. No anger registers on his features, no hate or pain. And then, without a warning, he begins to laugh too. Jules and Lucille both begin to rise in volume with him, and then all three have to force themselves to stop, with Lucille clutching her face, Jules clutching his side, and Leon clutching his chest.

When the sudden sounds of wheezing and pain from the three die down again, Leon speaks, saying simply, “You two are seriously fucked up.”

“That shouldn’t be news to you, pal.” Jules tilts his head.

“It’s not,” Leon replies. “Not in the slightest. I’ll say it’s my first time laughing at it, though, I didn’t know the world had this kind of humor to it. All this shit happens to me, and when I finally meet someone that apologizes and shows some semblance of wanting to take responsibility, it’s the people who didn’t even have a hand in wronging me. Now that’s a joke. You two are braver than I’ve been lately. How do you do it?”

“Do what?” Lucille’s finally sitting up again, readjusting her bandages and dabbing at her nostrils with a tissue from a small box nearby, soaking up a small amount of blood.

“Apologize to somebody you know you hurt, when you know there’s a chance they might fuck off into the sunset. How do you say sorry to someone when it’s only going to hurt? I think that’s the bravest, dumbest thing I’ve seen someone do today.”

Jules chuckles. “Only because you didn’t watch that detective get her ass kicked.”

Lucille, however, gives the question some thought. “Lately, honesty’s been a big deal, at least for me. This world’s fucked up, and you’ve gotta talk to the people you’re working with if you want to get by without losing something important. You can get far if you’re willing to be honest with each other, even if the truth is going to hurt. Sometimes it’s for the better.” She turns to Jules, then.

His smile’s gone. It’s been supplanted by an awkward pursing of lips and a contemplative hum, at least until he speaks again, saying, “I’m never gonna live that down even if you do forgive me for it. Yeah, your best bet is to be honest. If a lie’s necessary to keep somebody in your life, it’s probably a bad idea. Take it from me, Leon— that shit won’t stay hidden forever, and all lies fall through the cracks. Question is, whether you want it to fall out on its own or if you want to be the one to bring it down yourself. The latter’s the safer option, even if it’s scary as shit. Which is why we’re saying sorry.”

Leon actually smiles then. It’s as awkward as most of his expressions, partially from disuse and partially from a quirk of mouth muscles anticipating more teeth than he has, but it’s endearing enough. “Makes sense to me. You two are mercenaries?”

“Sure are. Pays to be a decent talker when you’re a private contractor. Don’t get all those steady jobs like those tight-pantsed guild pricks.” Jules scoffs.

Lucille grumbles in turn. “It’s not like you need a degree to crack skulls. Goddamned frilly plate wearing—”

“And don’t get me started on their rates, fuck! Practically undercutting the whole business.” The Vampire hisses, then grins. Lucille turns to look at him, and both laugh softly, quietly, again to avoid hurting themselves.

“You two really are weird.” Leon sighs, brushing his hair back as he looks down to the floor, between his boots. “If that’s all, I should get going. I’ve got some folks I need to apologize to, if not now then… Soon. Before anything else happens, since there’s always something happening and it’s always happening to us.”

“You mind me asking who?” Jules chuckles. “I can’t lie worth shit, but I can keep a secret.”

“No, he can’t,” Lucille corrects, “but if you’re willing to spill, we’ll listen. We’re sure nobody’s going to be asking us much about anything given I think most of your pals are scared of us, except maybe Olive— maybe— anyway, the point is we won’t tell anyone.”

“...You mind giving me a percentage of success, here? One’s been getting shit on for something I did, which I think he thinks he did. The other’s somebody who actually likes me, who’s been hurt pretty bad. But, uh, I realized I really like.”

Lucille holds up a finger. “Define “really like.” That’ll affect things.”

He rolls his eyes. “Really like. Nine out of ten on a scale.”

“Love?” Jules poses the question, a single word, with a tilt of his head and an infectiously nosy tone.

Leon sighs again, standing back up. “Sure. I didn’t think I was going to have to deal with it until I was somewhere better, to put it in other words.”

“Oh, you’re fucked.” Lucille shakes her head.

Jules nods, eyes shut sagely. “Positively fucked, Leon. Good luck out there.”

All the energy is sapped from Leon then and there. “That’s not what I asked for.”

“Ten,” Lucille says, affecting a near professorial voice. “Ten percent chance, in my professional opinion.”

Jules shrugs one shoulder. “I’ll be generous, you’ve got a fifteen percent chance. That’s all just calculation, though. Percentages mean nothing in the face of skill and gumption. Just don’t screw up, and you’ll be all good.”

Leon’s eyes shut and he places his hand against his face, palming against his nose and cheek for a moment, rubbing at one of his eyes before placing both arms back at his sides. “Thanks for the pep talk, you two.”

“Let us know if you need anyone to ruin your good mood again,” Jules says with a smile.

“We’re not going anywhere soon,” Lucille adds, leaning further back in her seat.

Leon nods, then heads out of the room. “I get the feeling.”

==============================================================

With Brie all patched up and fast asleep in one of the guest rooms, the three old-timers find themselves in the kitchen post-makeshift medical accommodation conversion. Roxanne rinses off her hands for the last time, wipes her forehead, and sighs deeply.

“Good lord. You wouldn’t mind breaking out the bourbon, Sam, would you?” she says, walking over to Azariah and practically falling into his chest.

The Hound chuckles, and takes no time to open a high cabinet, pull out a bottle of dark brown liquor, and pour everyone a glass. “Cheers,” he says, “to old times.”

Both Roxanne and Azariah look at one another for a moment before downing their drinks. It wasn’t entirely unrelated what he had said, but it was a little unexpected.

“I don’t remember much of this happening back in the old days,” Azariah mentions. “My memory goin’ bad?”

“Sometimes I forget where I parked my car. Or when I’m shoppin’, I’ll forget my grocery list. Maybe your head’s goin’ all mushy like mine,” Samson laughs. “In all fairness, though, this whole fiasco’s just reminded me of how things used to be. The excitement of it all. I know we weren’t out there doin’ this kinda stuff, but it’s got the same tune. The same feelin’ in my chest, ya’ know?”

“I would say that’s appropriate. I don’t think anyone within half a mile didn’t feel it in their chest when you pulled the trigger on that snake,” Roxanne chuckles.

Samson points his glass toward her. “And you haven’t changed one bit, neither. Always so literal, even after stitchin’ someone back together.”

“You want literal, you wait until that girl wakes back up. She’ll be the one driving you crazy.” She adjusts herself to not be leaning up against the Hare anymore, and holds out her glass for a refill.  “It’s funny. She finds me nearly dead, and immediately thinks to patch me up. She saved my life, you know. And now, I’ve returned the favor.”

Azariah grabs the bottle and pours her another. “How’s the leg, by the way? Last time we met, you were just gettin’ used to walkin’ again.”

“Wait, you’re missin’ a leg, Roxanne?” Samson asks, raising his eyebrows.

She pulls up on a portion of her dress to reveal the prosthetic foot, all dusty and banged up from the adventure. “A foot, and it’s doing quite fine. I feel I might need to wash it soon, however. I don’t think it’s meant to do the things I’ve put it through.”

“I was more referrin’ to you,” Azariah wraps an arm around her. “Oh, honey. It doesn’t hurt anymore, though I do get some of those phantom pains every now and then. Mainly when I’m feeling a little down, but these days, there’s been very little time to wallow in it.”

“I agree.”

“And how about your back? You seem to be standing taller than usual.” Roxanne gives the Hare a pat on the chest. “Has all the frolicking in the countryside helped straighten you out?”

“‘Straighten’ is a strong word, I think,” he replies. Samson cough-laughs in the background. “I’d say it just ‘helped me realize some things about myself’. And it wasn’t the countryside either, it was a visit from the chiropractor.”

Roxanne frowns. “The last time I checked, there aren’t any of those whack-jobs for miles.”

“You’re right, the one I met recently just died in a fiery explosion.”

The Fox’s mouth opens in disbelief. “No.”

“Yes, honey. That’s exactly what happened.”

“Can ya’ put a friend into the loop with these things, folks?” Samson adds, pouring himself another glass.

“You tell him,” Roxanne says, downing her own.

“So, y’know that guy who’s been chasin’ us?”

“Yeah,” Samson replies.

“Well, right before he died, he found us. And though we tried to get him off our trail, it wasn’t workin’. So, I decided to go round two with him.”

“And?” “I lost pretty bad. And he decided to pick me up with both his hands and try breakin’ me over his knee for good measure. Send a message to the others, you know?”

Samson practically barks with how hard he laughs. “And ya’ got back up, didn’t ya?! Fresh as ever?!”

“Havin’ rocks in your bones seems to help when it comes to that kinda stuff. Put the spring back in my spine.”

“Did ya’ give’im the flyin’ knee? Tell me ya’ knocked his lights out, Azariah.”

“Oh I gave him the works, alright. You could call it a total power grid failure, but that’d assume he had anythin’ more complex than a lightbulb up there anyways.”

“God,” Samson says, smiling like a fool. “What I wouldn’tve given to’ve seen that. Seein’ ya’ get at a pup like that would’ve been better than barbeque. Would’ve been just like old times.”

“I feel better than old times, Sam! He really did me a favor.”

“Are ya’ sayin’ you’d make a comeback in the ring?” he suggests.

“No, no, no,” Roxanne cuts the two off. “No more of this macho crap.”

She turns back to Azariah, and holds a finger up to his face. “You’re lucky we weren’t in Fusillade at the same time, mister. I swear, I would’ve dumped your ass then and there. I can’t believe you’d be so reckless. And at your age too!”

The Hare takes her hand in his own. “I thought we weren’t on?”

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.”

“It was life or death. And I made the decision to fight for the former. And I’m still here, at the end of it all, so it ain’t like things were all that bad to begin with.”

“You aren’t acting like the man I knew back at the mine,” she says.

“You’re right, I’m standin’ much straighter than I was before,” he replies, giving her a kiss on the forehead. “It’s fine, honey.”

“Don’t do it again, or I’ll cut you open myself to see if those rocky bones of yours are as tough as they sound.” She pours herself another glass. “Also, Blondie’s still alive, in case you haven’t heard.”

“What?” Azariah’s ears twitch, and there’s a long, uncomfortable silence as he glances between her and Samson.

“You know our friend, Meat? Blondie’s turned into one of those Notuses too.”

“The person who burnt a couple footprints onto my nice wood floors?” Samson mentions, frowning. “They were pretty aloof for someone who causes property damage by walkin’.”

“They’d just been unconscious in your lawn, Samson. Don’t be so hard on them.” “Fair enough. I expect them ta’ help out with the repairs, though.”

“Sam, they’d just burn the planks.”

This hits the Hound quite hard, and he decides to take a swig directly from the bottle to help soften the blow. “Don’t mind me.”

She turns back to Azariah. “Yes, Blondie’s alive. And he’s got the same sort of control over fire magic that Meat does, so long as there’s some consistency in how the Notuses abilities’ are given.”

“So that means…”

“Yes, that means that the guy whose ass you kicked has gotten as much, if not more, of a ‘fix’ than you did.”

“That’s a pickle,” Samson adds.

After another quiet moment, Azariah smiles and says, “So we’ve got a tiebreaker on our hands?”

Roxanne pinches his arm. “You’re not fighting him again, you old bastard! He nearly burnt down Fusillade!” she half-yells.

“The boys’ve been sent out to help with’em,” Samson says. “There ain’t no business like the business of cleanup.”

“It’s that bad?” Azariah asks.

“Ohhhh, yeah. Entire buildings need to be torn down with how much damage that sucker did. Some roads need rippin’ up too, since the heat’s got’em all cracked an’ unsafe. Didn’t realize that was your guy, though. Tiebreaker indeed.”

Roxanne points a finger at the Hound, who chuckles. “Don’t encourage him!”

“What, it ain’t like I won’t be there cheerin’ him on, Roxy. An’ if things go wrong, I’ll be there to kill the bastard anyways. You will too, right?”

“I don’t like the sound of gambling with our lives so that you can have a rematch,” she grumbles.

“Well,” Azariah starts, hugging her from the side. “It’s probably gonna happen anyway, so we should think about what we’re gonna do in that situation.”

“I’ve got a boxin’ bell in my shed we could bring,” Samson adds.

==============================================================

    There’s a nervous energy on the back porch as Judith and Cherry settle down to sit on the step and Leon stands opposite, hands folded in front of himself and his expression dour. The air’s cool and the sky, like his expression, is cloudy. Finally, he raises one of his hands to them both. “Hey. There’s something I’ve been meaning to say. Especially to you, Judith. I’m sorry.”

Judith crosses her arms, then nods. “What, for ditching me back at the bar? You should be, shit. But whatever, I forgive you. It was one time.”

Cherry glances between them both and says, “I don’t think he’d call me out here if it were just about that, Judith.”

“Like there’s anything else to be said about you?”

A cleared throat. Leon watches as the two look to him again, this time with added attention as he again says, “I’m sorry. This is— it’s hard to get out, but now’s the best time. Remember what happened back on-site, when that drill blew up.”

“Hard to forget what Cherry did to me.” A pointed glare is leveled at Cherry, who simply sighs and bows his head.

Cherry mumbles, “Sorry.”

“Cherry, it wasn’t your fault.”

Both Cherry and Judith show some dumbstruck faces before the former lapses into the confusion and the latter into rage, with Judith tersely stating, “He took my fucking hand.”

Leon shakes his head. “No, I did. I fumbled adding that slag to the water supply. Added the whole fucking thing on accident. I’m amazed you didn’t see it, Cherry— and if you did, I appreciate you keeping quiet. You don’t need to worry too much.”

“No, I didn’t. I was distracted,” Cherry says softly, “by the new model and by Judith yelling at me.”

“Well,” Leon begins before Judith can ask why this conversation’s happening, it seemed damn well clear cut to her what happened, “either way, I was the one who fucked it. The stupid machine blew up because my fingers slipped.” One heavy hand reaches up and smooths his hair back as his eyes move from their position staring at the ground to searching their expressions. “And, I let Cherry take the fall. Seemed like the better option at the time. Compared to sticking my neck out over it, at least. Especially after we started talking more, Judith.”

She’s silent, expression far away. No anger’s there, something unexpected on Leon’s side of things, but there’s something else in its place. Confusion. The wheels are turning without a direction; a conflict of interests, maybe. It’s a bit new to her. At least anger’s a simple thing, easily directed, but this isn’t. It refuses.

“I wanted to tell you back at the bar. Those locals started getting up in our shit and I—”

Judith raises her hand. “Leon, stop. Please stop.”

He frowns. “I know it’s bad. I disappeared on you when those idiots showed up, but—”

“I asked you to stop,” she interrupts again. Her hand goes to her face during the silence, rubbing at each eye individually as she keeps her other arm tucked neatly against her body. “Don’t open your mouth. Just be quiet. You too Cherry. Just— fucking—” Her tone’s faltering with each word now. The semi-malicious, self-righteous anger she could normally muster isn’t clicking. There’s no lengthening of fangs or intensifying of the green in her eyes as she finally opens them again, locking gazes with Leon. There are small tears, pinpricks in the corners of her eyes, but no more than that. “Both of you just stay quiet. I need to go take a breather.”

She stands and ignores both men as they make half-hearted, lackluster gestures to get her to stay. By the time actual words come out of Leon’s mouth, “Judith, wait,” she’s disappeared right in front of them both.

Leon puts his hands to his face and grumbles a few curses beneath his breath before he turns and allows himself to drop into a spot beside the still dumbstruck Cherry with a heavy thud. “I fucked that up pretty bad, didn’t I? Shit.”

Cherry sets a hand on the other’s shoulder. “Actually, all things considered, I think that went far better than I expected it to. You know, you’re right, too. I probably would’ve tried to cover for you if I’d known. You two seem happy together.”

“Really? You’d really endure her bullshit for the sake of keeping us close? You’re pulling my chain.”

After scratching his chin, Cherry shrugs. “She didn’t scream at us. She didn’t call either of us idiots, or start getting really, really verbal. She also didn’t turn into a big wolf and kill us, which is definitely something she can do, if you’ll remember.”

Leon shakes his head. “She only does that when she’s stressed. And she doesn’t kill anyone.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t kill me over that Skitterbat thing. Man, I miss Skippy. Hey, do you think I could find one of those things closer to home? I bet Olive would know.”

“How can you joke around right now? You saw her.” Leon’s brow furrows. “She looked like she was having a crisis. She probably fucking hates me now.”

Cherry shakes his head. “I can joke because it’s, uh, really the only thing I can think to do right now. It’s relieving to know that I didn’t actually do anything wrong, but it also kinda sucks. I guess I’m just trying to soften the blow, a little. Get you going again, to try and keep the conversation going when she’s ready. And yes, Leon, she likes you. She doesn’t just hate you less than the rest of us, she likes you. She doesn’t hate us, not anymore I think. And neither do you. You like us too.”

A shallow sigh escapes Leon, who rubs his jaw. “Yeah. The old Hare’s a good listener you’re a good head to have, and Olive’s supportive. Even if she gets the shakes.”

“And you want to sleep with Judith.”

“I never said that.”

Cherry smiles. “Didn’t have to. Nobody with half a brain would admit to what you just did if you didn’t feel something really deep. Or, you know, just really intense. Sometimes it’s shallow and just doesn’t get any deeper but it makes you do things like buy something stupidly expensive from an autoshop because you want to have a brief conversation with the register guy who’s got these magical looking eyes…”

“You’re losing me here.”

“Sorry, I think I was too. The point is, while it’s nice to come clean about this sort of thing, this is far and away the sort of stuff you admit to when you’ve got nothing to lose or a lot to gain, and based on how you two act it just makes sense. It’s like putting a matching pair of puzzle pieces right next to one another, and telling me to solve.” Cherry pats his shoulder again. “So what, though? She’s obviously into you too.”

“That doesn’t solve the problem of her hating me, though. I’m past that everyone and their fucking mom can tell I’m into her. I’m surprised you don’t hate me! She’s treated you like shit this whole time all because I didn’t own up.”

A sigh enters the open air before Cherry shakes his head. “I used to feel pretty bad about it, yeah, and I’m kinda angry that you didn’t own up when I was getting put down for it. All that said, I haven’t had much time to really stew in it. I nearly broke my nose trying to kill someone who I thought was about to kill all of us. Inside that house, right now, is at least two people who tried to kill us and a third who decided against hauling us to be cut up like lab animals only because Roxanne got through to her. Plus, if what Olive told me is true, that man who we saw die is not only still alive, but apparently now has flaming superpowers, plus another ex-foreman is chasing us too.”

Saying this, Cherry takes Leon’s head by either side of it to force the Orc to look him in the eyes. “Being called an idiot by someone whose vocabulary is half swears stopped being a big deal for me somewhere around when I thought Azariah died. Leon, I’m a little mad about all of this, but God— think for a second, man.”

“Point taken.” Leon pulls his head back, then rubs the back of his neck. “So… The Judith question?”

“Let her take her time,” Cherry says. “If she forgives you, she forgives you. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t. It was an accident and she likes you, my money’s on forgiving you. Don’t push her, though. She has every right to be mad over getting hurt, but she doesn’t seem like she is.”

“Okay. Maybe you’re right. Or maybe she’ll toss me to the curb when this is all over.”

“Over?”

Leon’s brows raise. “Yeah, Cherry. Once this is over. When we get out of range of the company? When we’ve got no more reason to stick together. We’re probably gonna split once it’s safe to, right. What, did you think we were gonna be a forever unit?”

“I mean, a little, yeah. Maybe not Azariah since he needs to stick with Roxanne, but at least you three. And where will you go, Leon?”

“Honestly?” He blinks. “I was hoping Judith might help me there. Doesn’t seem too likely anymore.”

“Nowhere to go?”

Slowly, the Orc shakes his head.

Cherry smiles slightly. “There’s a nice couple of guest rooms in my dads’ house. Consider it an offer, if we get there and you’ve still got nowhere.”

“Thanks, Cherry. I appreciate it.” Leon smiles for a moment, then leans up and glances toward the backdoor. “Hope she’s alright.”

“Someone’s got it bad.”

“You feel like telling me more about magic eyes?”

Cherry laughs. “Alright, fine. I’m rooting for you, man.”

Chapter End.

==============================================================

[ Table of Contents ]

Blondie & The Smokestone March is © 2020-2022 Empty Mask. All Rights Reserved.

#empty-mask #b&tsm #writing #oc #fantasy #adventure #serialized fiction #b&tsm-cherry #b&tsm-judith #b&tsm-azariah #b&tsm-leon #b&tsm-roxanne #b&tsm-jules #b&tsm-lucille

[plaidpyjamas]

“You know that guy you asked for? Yeah, yeah, th- yes, the rich lonely vampire who will love you more than anything in the world - that one. Right.”

“Well, uh. Look, I don't know how to tell you this, but….”

“Somewhere along the way someone fucked up the schedules and now…well…”

“As it turns out, he’d already booked this century for a…’deep slumber’ - his words, not mine - and so is unavailable until at least 2091.”

“It’s not your fault, really. It’s not anyone’s - well. Yes ok it could be argued that it was the fault of the intern who’d missed the scheduling conflict in their half-starved and sleep-deprived state. That is always someone you could blame it on - Honestly though, it’s just a simple case of being born in the wrong time, really.”

“What’s that? Which time is correct for you? Well, see, we’re not too sure of that ourselves. And really, there’s no way to go and change the when’s and where’s of your birth! It all simply happens as it does and we all just have to deal with it..”

“But sometimes that means there are scheduling conflicts.”

“So, to show you how truly deeply sorry we are for your life in this century winding up being a complete waste because somehow even in your fantasy where things had a chance of working out, you still created a society that ran on money. How strange, isn’t it? That you’d unconsciously turn to the thing you say you hate most, even in your efforts to escape that very thing.”

“Hmm? What’s that? Oh, yes, that’s right, I was just getting to that.”

“To show our deepest, most sincere apologies, have this - free of charge”

#poetry #macro poem #idk what to tag this #anyway I've been following a few fb pages #1995 was a pretty ok year #and #the doggos are unhappy with your ceaseless petulance #and they've finally made me crank out a weird stream-of-consciousness thing #so uh cool #mine #my writing

[datsrightbby]

Marko + David (TLB) x Fem!Reader

Insatiable Habits

Warnings: NSFW/Smut, cursing, voyeurism, threesome

It had started off as subtle teasing at first, the kinda stuff that made you blush. Like, a gloved hand skimming your thigh and creating shapes across the exposed skin, or a lingering kiss on your neck, and the occasional whisper in your ear that had you burning crimson red and burying your face into the crook of his neck. It was the minute his palm went that bit higher on your thigh, the minute his thumb ghosted over your clothed crotch, did you start feeling flustered to the point of rubbing your legs together in need of friction. 

Not often did you and the boys stay back at the cave the whole night, but tonight was one of those rare occurrences when all of you were content staying in. David took full opportunity, of course, and kept you on his lap. The night had just begun to seep into early hours of the morning, which reminded you -

"Don't you guys need...food?" It's not as though you were ignorant to the fact of what they were, it was more so you'd refused to fully wrap your head around the idea that the four guys you met, one now your boyfriend and mate, were violent in any way. Though if you could avoid talking about it, or thinking about it for that matter, then you'd be okay. 

"Dude, I’m starving -" 

" - Yeah we should leave before the sun starts coming up." Marko remarked, putting down his sketch book and standing up to tug his discarded jacket on. You went to move off David, but his hand on your hip kept you in place on top of him, the subtle gesture telling you that he planned on staying with you. The boys gave you both a once over as they headed toward the stairs, smirks decorating their features at the sight. 

"Guess David's passing up tonight for some other kinda food." Paul hollered and Dwayne sent you a wink, which internally made you roll your eyes, but you grinned back at them anyway. Marko had hestitantly headed towards the steps after them, albeit a few strides behind -

"Marko!" There was a pause as Marko's attention turned back around to David, eyes skimming across your figure before focusing intently on the man who's lap you resided. 

"Stay." It wasn't a question, it was a demand, and Marko didn't seem to have much to say about the ordeal. You couldn't pinpoint why David had asked Marko to stay behind as it was implied, from both the endless teasing and staying behind, that the two of you were gonna do a little more than some heavy petting. David reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lighter, lighting it in one attempt and taking a deep intake, exhaling toward the ceiling as to not get smoke all over you. 

Marko had resided back to the couch, while you and David shifted against each other, you placing little kisses on his jaw as he blew smoke toward the ceiling again. 

"Why did you ask Marko to stay behind?" You whispered lowly, hoping he couldn't hear. 

"I have an idea." It was all he said before dipping his fingers into the waistband of your underwear, your head fell back and you let out a low, breathy moan as he rubbed languid circles against you. The cigarette he lit hung loosely from his lips, ash falling onto his lap haphazardly. In the corner you heard Marko shift in place and you panicked, reminding yourself of his presence and trying to pry yourself away from David's fingers, which had now entered you and pumped in and out a few times. There was no reaction from Marko other than staring at the sight in front of him, though you were sure he wasn't expecting to see David’s fingers working sinfully against you when he looked up from his previous activity.

"Relax kitten, I know what I'm doing." You looked up at him in both shock and confusion, but didn't question his motives, he'd never done you any harm before and you trusted David. Perhaps, if you hadn't been so worked up from his endless teasing all night, things would be different under the same circumstance, but that was neither here nor there. Relaxing into his touch, opting to close your eyes and focus on the feelings rather then the wandering eyes, you allowed for the situation to continue.

"Let us hear you -" David's voice growled in your ear and you moaned explicitly, louder than you had expected.

"That's my girl." You whimpered and bucked your hips up into the palm of his hand, knowing he was smirking down at you right now. 

Your arousal laid thick in the air to the vampires, it was sweet and intoxicating, and Marko swallowed thickly at the scent of it. Just when you felt as though your high may have been approaching, David pulled out and sucked on his fingers, licking off any trace you'd left on them. Marko watched you intensely, eyes lingering on any exposed skin they could get too. You felt erotic and filthy, but in the best way possible. The way the two looked at you sent goosebumps flying across your skin, it was as though you were the prey and they were the wolves, every fleck of color in their eyes had turned to black in desire and need, and you knew where this was headed simply by how they stared at you. On somewhat shaky legs you stood from your spot on David's lap, he waved his hand in Marko’s direction as if to tell you to go over to him -

“Remember you’re still mine.” Nodding, you thumbed over his jaw before sauntering over to Marko, who'd watched your every step approach him. In a surge of confidence you placed your hand on his shoulder, laying him back against the couch, sitting on his crotch with your thighs either side of him. You grind against him slightly, noting that his cock was already hard as sin. Marko let you have your fun, looking over to David who only watched while smoking the remains of his smoke, with a nod from his leader he had all the knowledge he needed of the situation. This wasn’t planned, but Marko was aware David knew of his feelings for you and it seemed he was letting him indulge a little. Instantly he had spun you both over, thrusting against you, a moan skipping past your lips. You'd been teased all night, so feeling his erection right where you needed him most, well, it was heavenly almost. 

"You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this." Marko teased your neck with kisses and nips, his eyes closed and he inhaled your scent; the way your hair smelled, the arousal between your legs, the perfume you wore, you were intoxicating and it's no wonder David could never keep his hands off you. Who could resist you?  

David had long stubbed out the rest of his cigarette as he watched the two of you toy with each other and tease, he watched as Marko whispered dirty things in your ear and how you replied with giggles, and he soon unzipped his fly and freed himself of the restraints his cock was behind, stroking himself at the sight of the two of you. This wasn't just because he knew you found Marko cute, or the fact that he knew Marko had been in love with you since he met you, no, this was David's fantasy too. 

It didn't seem long before Marko had ripped your clothing off of you, you'd responded with as much fervor. His hands roamed every inch of you in eagerness, he relished in the soft curves of your body and the way you shivered beneath him. It seemed too good to be true, having you here now was better than he had ever imagined. Marko kissed down your body, nipping here and there, which caused him to grin up at you every time you jumped. He stared at you for a moment, breath heavy and chest heaving, eyes pleading with you -

“Please let me have a taste?”

You weren’t sure if it was a question for you or David, but you’d instantly whined out a ‘yes’ and he wasted no time working against you. His tongue teased your clit in circular motions and you shook underneath his grip on your thighs, hips moving up against his mouth in need of more friction. The desperateness of the night took over you; David’s consistent teasing since you’d arrived, your forgotten orgasm from David’s fingers, and now Marko’s tongue wickedly lapping against you, you couldn’t help but huff out in neediness. Your head lolled to the side and noted David palming himself through his jeans, it appeared he was enjoying this just as much as you and Marko. A bite on your thigh had your attention back on the curly haired blonde in between your legs in an instant, he grinned and delved further into your wetness, giving you the relief you’d been craving.

“Use your fingers, she likes that.” Per David’s request Marko’s middle and index finger entered you and your head fell back against the couch, hands holding his head in place as his tongue roughly explored every inch of you. You couldn’t help the curse words that slipped, and the slap on your thigh because of it had you whimpering. 

“I - I think I’m gonna cum” Marko only sped up his ministrations, adding another finger inside you, stretching you out, he played with the spot that had you shaking the most until your body was overtook in blissful release. Never once did he stop, even as your hands attempted to tear him off of your spent body, he continued until he was sure the taste of you was burned into his memory. His body moved up you once again, claiming your mouths together in a sloppy kiss, the taste of your arousal still heavy on his tongue. His mouth moved from yours to you ear -

“I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’ll feel me inside you for a week.” he whispered so possessively it had you clenching around nothing and praying he’d live up to the promise. The sound that came out of you was borderline pornographic, though you were beyond modesty at this point. Marko lined himself up with your entrance, looking down at you for silent permission, you wrapped your legs around his waist and pulled him close, his cock slipping into you with ease and stretching you out deliciously. Between Marko’s moan and your choked sob, you knew you were gonna crave the feeling of him being inside you for weeks after,  he was inside you raw, and he took a moment in awe to rejoice the feeling of you, knowing it was probably the only time he'd ever get to have this experience, and he wasn't about to let this go to waste. He was going to fuck you so good you'd remember it forever, remember him forever. The pace he set was fast with deep, hard thrusts that had you clawing at the couch underneath you to keep you still. Your mouth hung open from the intense feeling of him pounding into you, your lips spewing out a mantra of curses and Marko's name. 

“Do I fuck you good baby?" You moaned louder at his words, trying to find the will in you to focus on anything other than his cock filling you to the brim with every movement of his hips. When you didn't answer him, he opted to slap your thigh, an echo wondering around the cave because of it. 

"Tell me."

"Y-yes - you feel amazing- ugh" 

Your head coaxed to the side, noticing David had now freed himself and was stroking his cock to the same pace Marko fucked you at. "Oh fuck -"

You didn't know who to look at; Marko fucking you into next week, or David getting off to the sight of you being fucked. It was overwhelmingly sexy having the two men desire you so greatly, being shared between them made you feel powerful. 

David watched your thighs flex around Marko’s torso, the way you threw your head back in pure pleasure, how Marko’s cock disappeared between your legs over and over again. He stood and sauntered over to the two of you, placing his cock at the tip of your mouth, asking for entrance into your, all too willing, mouth. You happily accepted and took as much of him as you could fit at once, though David soon had a hand on the back of your head and his hips thrusting his cock into your mouth. All you could do was relax and let him take you, forcing yourself to hold back chokes and spit as he fucked your throat with ease, all while Marko rammed his painfully hard cock into you, your thigh now over his shoulder and the new angle allowing him to be so deep inside you it hurt, in the most pleasurably painful way. It wasn’t long before you felt your second orgasm build up, the aftershocks of the last one still lingering and causing you to tremble against the two men ravishing you, tears spilled from your eyes as Marko fucked you through it. Soon your body was convulsing and shuddering underneath them, David’s cock still deep down your throat, and Marko’s deep inside you. You clung onto Marko’s shoulders for dear life, heat spreading throughout your entire body and turning you numb as you tried to adjust to the overwhelming sensations, both of them were close, from Marko’s messy pace to David’s twitching cock, you moaned around him to spur him along, while Marko chanted out in whines as his release approached -

“Don’t you dare cum inside her.” Marko did as he was told and pulled out quickly, spilling himself all over your stomach, David soon cumming down your throat and making you deep throat him as you swallowed every last drop, you grabbed his thigh and squeezed, a sign that you needed to stop and relax a minute, which he did immediately, tucking himself back into his pants and leaning down to your eye level. 

“Are you okay kitten?” You nodded, noting how your body ached from the rough actions it had endured. Marko placed a kiss on your cheek, wiping away a few stray tears. “You sure? I can get you anything you need.” You gave him a weak smile and stroked his cheek, trying to reassure him as best you could that you were, indeed, fine, but fucked out. 

The boys helped clean you up and take you over to the make shift nest David had built you a few months prior. Though, one question lingered in your mind. Where does your relationship go from here?

#the lost boys #the lost boys x reader #marko the lost boys #the lost boys Marko #david the lost boys #the lost boys david #marko the lost boys x reader #david the lost boys x reader #Shakira Writes

[venteamocha]

Hello! Sometimes I see you post stuff from IF blogs and I've recently started playing some IF games, which I've enjoyed so far. Do you have any IF stories you'd recommend in particular? I'm not attached to any particular genre and I don't need romance or a self-insert main character, (though I'm not opposed to either). Though, it's a definite plus if it's LGBTQ+ inclusive! I'm not really sure what the "cornerstones" are of IF so I'll take any and all recommendations haha

Oh god, I play so many IFs. So many. And it’s not even close to all of them, but I’m trying!!

Tbh IFs without romance seems to be very rare, I think because when I think IF I think Choice of Games, and those pretty much always have romance in them. At least, the most well known ones do. But a well done one without romance would be nice too!

Okay, this is a list of my favourites! They’re all LGBT+ inclusive, and most have gender selectable love interests, or at least ones that change gender depending on the gender and sexuality combination you pick. In no particular order, of course.  Behind a cut because I’m gonna give them each a mini review. Because I haven’t done that yet.

(There are so many.)

Mind Blind: I absolutely love our big brother Nick, I love how witty and sharp so much of the dialogue is, I love how the MC clearly has a rather large handicap, but is still such an important person to so many people and not looked down on in the slightest. And when they are, we all know it’s because that person is a jerk! They’re not defined by what they aren’t, but what they are, and that’s a great message.

Shepherds of Haven: Part of why I love this one so much is I just love fantasy settings and this one just pulls it off so well. The cast is full of amazing characters, and I gotta say I die inside pretty regularly for not being able to afford the patreon content, lol. The author puts so much amazing stuff on there, and gives us so much great content in the game and through answers on tumblr, and you can tell this whole thing is just the best thing ever to them, and that makes it the best ever for us readers too!

The Wayhaven Chronicles: I’d be shot if I didn’t mention this one, the series that literally killed dashingdon when the book 3 demo dropped!! Again, another author that cares a lot and does their best to do right by their fans. We’ve been given drip after drip of these amazing characters backstories, and I just cannot wait for more! It’s definitely very romance centered, but the overall plotlines are also very good, and I have to say that no matter who I romance, I just feel like the group as a whole is a family. And that’s wonderful.

Speaker: I really like the lore. I really like the lore. I can’t wait until we get more of the overall plotline. Mostly I want my Speaker to get in deep trouble so Seb, Li and Seer (best sister ever) go off and beat the shit out of whatever is causing it. This probably says something about me, but what can I say, I thrive on angst and inflicting near death injuries on my OCs. Sometimes I even kill them, although all of this is offtopic. Or is it? I guess we’ll find out, although I doubt we’ll actually be able to kill off Speaker. And yes, I am definitely playing the Seb & Li poly route. I love them both so much. 

Wilhelmina: I love vampires, ok? Ok? And this one is based off Dracula!! The OG!! And you can choose Drac’s gender!! Shit, sign me up forever!! Yeah, she might be literally killing my bff, torturing my fiancé and low key fucking with my mind, but vampires are hot!! Let me live! Or not. But yeah, this is a really well done retelling of the Dracula novel and I like how well it works as an IF. Did I mention I like vampires?? Especially when they get all monstery?? (This one has an MC with a set gender, as it’s based on an already existing literary figure. Mina can have a same sex relationship with dracula, if you make drac a female, or with Lucy, a female love interest.)

More Things in Heaven and Earth: Hi Nell!! First off, I gotta uncover a deep shame of mine. My family literally has a Shakespeare heirloom collection. As in, my greatgrandfather passed down through the family a collection of Shakespeare that was published in 1911. In ye olde englishe. I tried to read it when I was like 10 and was like what language is this?? What the fuck? What the fuck??? And ended up reading As You Like It, a bit of Romeo and Juliet, and a little of Hamlet. Didn’t touch the rest of it. I only got into the other stories through trashy ya reimaginings. That said, this retelling of Hamlet inspired me to go read the whole of the original and now I have a lot of fears for these characters that I’m so much more attached to, oh god I hope my Ophelia has a happy ending. I hope Hamlet himself has a happy ending. The dialogue is so well done, everyone is engaging, and yeah it made me finish an old af book when nothing else did. (This one also has an MC with a set gender, female, for the same reason. However, there are two gender variable love interests, so you can very much play a bi or gay Ophelia if you so choose.)

Guenevere: I love King Arthur. All the myths. I have so many books based on the King Arthur mythos, oh dear god. I love pretty much every version of it. All the movie and tv shows too! I just can’t get enough of those knights. I could go on for paragraphs about how courtly love worked and how all the different social castes were, but I’ll try not to. This series lets you customize Guen as a character to an amazing degree, considering that she’s also based on an actual literary figure like the other two I mentioned above. It really feels like she becomes your own character, and yet she still exists within this world very very well. I worry quite a bit that the author might have bit off more than they can chew with the current book they’re working on, what I’ve seen of it looks absolutely massive in scale. What is out so far is a wonderful read though, full of drama and laughter and lots of chances to make the story your own.

Bastard of Camelot: Yep! Another King Arthur series! Sue me! This one lets you set Mordred’s gender though, so it’s more inclusive in that way. It is very interesting to play as one of the “bad guys” of the King Arthur mythos. You can play them as straight up evil, as good, or you know, a bit of column a and a bit of column b. Or they can just be a rude little shit. It’s got dragons too! You get a dragon pet! Dragons are cool. It can be a bit tough to play sometimes, since a lot of people dislike Mordred quite a lot because of prejudices. Hopefully this will change a bit later in the series if you’ve been a fairly good person up to that point. Gotta say though, as a warning, that Mordred is a product of incest. It’s not glossed over, and it does cause a lot of problems for them in the story.

God of the Red Mountain: I just love that this inspired me to read more chinese mythology tbh. There is just so much here! And it’s just such a good read. I wish I was better at describing things. The MC being a spirit that you can define, the whole setting, most of the love interests also being spirits, the massive amount of history and culture and lore, how it all fits together. It is such a well done story. I really wish it got more attention than it does. I still miss Big Sister. I still can’t wait to find out more about the foxes, and how we can heal our MC.

The Nameless: Another one that lets you play as something otherworldly. I love the lore behind this one, and I love all of the cast I’ve met. I kind of like that our MC isn’t loved right off the bat, that we’ll have to win over all of our love interests and even the other npcs. I’m up for the challenge! Everything I’ve read on the tumblr for these characters just makes me love them all more tbh. I love how much they’ve written for all of them! Most of all though, I love Oisein. All the art of them is just *chef kiss* and their personality is magical.

A Mage Reborn: This is a really recent one but!! Wow, it’s really well done! That cliffhanger!! Oof!! Not many books literally start with killing your MC off! That takes guts! I told the author this already, but I love the way they formatted this, the way it starts with the end, so to speak, and then fills it all out. It just made everything feel so poignant, how MC is literally looking back at all these moments in time in the last minutes they have before they die. Shit. That’s powerful. And there’s gonna be more??? Can’t wait for that angst. Give me that drama. Of course I picked the one who had me killed, that’s just how I am!

These are all just the COG type games, there are a few twine games with graphics I’d throw on here, but the list is long enough as it is and they feel like they’re in a different category to me. Maybe it’s just me?

#if #if recs #rivi's recs #interactive fiction #there are more than these that i like too! #these are just the ones i feel the strongest about #and as i said these don't include the itchio twine ones #there are amazing ones there too but that feels like it should be a separate post? #i'd put links but i think it won't show up anywhere if i do #because tumblr is A Site #i can pass them on though if needed

[retphienix]

I'm not sure if I should make this the finale post or not to be honest because I plan on playing some of the DLCs soon, so I'll make this a 'light' finale post because I'm sure I've said more than enough through my playthrough.

Morrowind genuinely surprised me. I heard all the oldguard TES fans saying it's way different and some claiming it was miles better.

Specifically I remember when Oblivion came out I heard from somewhere that Oblivion was just "dumbed down Morrowind" and kid me was like "What the heck are you talking about, Oblivion is the best game in the world (right now)???"

But man, they weren't wrong, but that's hardly what I'd point at in Morrowind in comparison.

Then again my memory of Oblivion is all rose tinted nostalgia and half memories.

What Morrowind is to me today is a fantastic fantasy game with some really interesting lore, a villain I love, a world that feels alien, troubled, imperfect and intriguing, and a gameplay cycle that felt really satisfying to me from the very start to roughly level 20 or so.

I REALLY like how pitiful and overwhelmed I felt at the start of this game- it felt fucking awesome to me and I know for some that's a weird statement and others it's the most obvious thing in the world but man is it true.

Level 1 in Morrowind as a newbie who doesn't know up from down is like waking up in the woods naked with the sound of hungry wolves all around you.

It's brutal, and exciting- every little victory- a potion, a new dagger, a new piece of armor- feels like the world to you.

I LOVED the early game in Morrowind, more than I ever liked it in Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Skyrim, or Fallout 4 (yeah I'm looping the bethesda engine NV in).

Because I constantly felt like I was punching up at a behemoth but I was getting away with it from time to time until I started to feel more on par with the behemoth, and eventually I overcame and hit end game and really became the behemoth and that was fun in its own right.

But I've been "mega end game god" in like 900 dang games at this point, it's always fun! And feeling like I earned it (like here) makes it feel better! But the journey often beats it and Morrowind's journey was so fun to me.

But yeah, beat the main quest. I did a lot in this game, and barely scratched the surface.

Beating it immediately made me think of how fun it would be to challenge myself to beat it- or another objective- right from the start without dumping hundreds of hours into leveling because that early game is a treat.

About the only things I didn't fully love were most of the quest designs showing their age.

Nothing super egregious, but there really was a lot of extremely simple "fetch thing" "Kill thing" "Walk to place" quests that didn't hold additional story value to make up for it.

Not to say simple is bad, but to say having a LOT of my playtime being killing various creatures for no real story reason beyond being asked to makes some actions feel pointless and like busy-work.

There were also quests that DID tie story in, which was really nice to see- things like inter-guild relations becoming a thing for some quests, or some quests having consequences further down the quest chain depending on how you completed it, and of course (as implied) some quests having multiple solutions with some of those solutions being interesting in how you find out about them.

I mean I think it's really neat how the fighter's guild has like 4 quest givers and if you blindly follow them you'll be doing all kinds of questionable stuff with questionable end goals, but if you talk to each of them you'll find that one of them is much more trustworthy and honorable than the rest, and it becomes a common loop to be sent on a quest for the FG and swing by him to ask if the quest sounds legit- AND MANY AREN'T! AND HE OFFERS ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS! THAT'S COOL AND LET'S YOU MAKE THE MISTAKE OF BEING TOO LOYAL AND FORGETTING YOUR MORALS BECAUSE YOU ARE "JUST PLAYING A GAME" BUT REWARDS YOU FOR QUESTIONING THAT LOYALTY AND SEEKING ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS! THAT'S AWESOME! Though the solution almost always being "just talk to the good guy before you do the quest" was slightly lacking, but such a cool idea.

But there wasn't a ton of this, but there also wasn't not a lot of this- it was an idea they clearly considered playing with and did when they could- I just wish there were both more and that it was used more on the menial tasks you're asked to do as well. I'm a sucker for multiple solutions is all, and consequences appearing later and altering how events play out or quests line up is always cool and I think it only happens a couple times in some guild quests if I'm not mistaken-

But again, I didn't do much in the grand scheme of things lol.

A TON of time invested and still, a metric fuckton to do including 100% of both expansions lol.

So- Morrowind. I really like this game :)

I think it's my favorite TES game, though I might change my mind whenever I revisit TES4, but I can at least say it's my favorite early game BY FAR and PROBABLY my favorite TES game.

I wonder if I can get buff enough to kill Dagoth Ur with like potion abuse. I haven't looked into it, all I know about him (and I knew before this gameplay also, I was just attacking out of curiosity) is that phase 2 rapidly regens health at like 2 billion a second or something, so you have to one shot him if at all possible.

Also I knew that he was supposed to be weaker depending on how many ash vampires you killed, but that that wasn't properly implemented (and I don't think the morrowind code patch bothers fixing it?).

Anywho- great game. I've been playing a lot of good games lately now that I think of it. I mean most of this blog is me playing good games, but I feel like, and I could be mistaken, but I feel like there was a stint there where I was playing "complicated" games and "games I don't enjoy but want to see the merit of so I'm being a sourpuss while I play".

Now I feel like the last 10 dang games were strictly good and or great. Can't say that's a bad thing :)

If you haven't ever played Morrowind before but you're familiar with say Skyrim, I'd honestly say give it a look. A look first- because it's a thick game to begin and you might be able to discern it's not for you based off a look- but a look none the less.

It's Skyrim with more RPG nonsense going on and a more brutal "rags to riches" hero story for your protag. Might be up your alley as much as it ended up being up mine :)

So up next is EITHER an entirely different game with some ocassional Morrowind posts as I touch on the expansions, or more direct Morrowind content as I emphasize the expansions until I finish them, but I'm leaning towards the former.

I think beating the main quest has earned Vaksten the Idiot a short break.

#RetPlays #Morrowind #TES #The Elder Scrolls #Also maybe I should make a new character for the expansions so I'm not OP but I dunno #might just crank the difficulty to max instead of leaving it unaltered and say that's good enough :P #Youtube

[alirhi]

random snippet again

as promised, @feralgoblintea here's the (temporary) scene where the two sisters meet for the first time since one went missing as a child

note about the nickname: Rachel's middle name is Miranda; everyone has called her 'Andy' from that since she was a little kid. it's explained in her story, but not in this scene, so I just wanted to explain it here lol

"Your parents are very eager to know where you've been and what you've been going through all these years," the doctor told her, deep voice oddly gentle and soothing. Rachel smiled sadly; his voice reminded her of Amadeus. "Most of all, they want to know that you're alright."

She knew he thought she was crazy. Her parents definitely shared that opinion, which was why she was here to begin with. Still, she couldn't help asking, "And, in your professional opinion, am I?"

He caught her lightly mocking tone and snorted, leaning back in his chair to mirror her pose. "In my professional opinion," he shot back, though the sarcasm left his tone before he even finished his sentence, "you've been through Hell, Rachel. The trauma you've suffered is very, very real. If you're asking, do I believe in demons and portals and time travel, I'd have to say no. But that pain and fear came from somewhere... I'd like you to come back in for regular sessions, if you're up for it; see if we can cut through the fantasy, see past the demons and find the real monsters who hurt you."

"That's why I'm not coming back." She stood, shaking her head a little. "I'm not surprised you don't believe me - I probably wouldn't believe it, myself, if I hadn't lived it - but it's a bit frustrating. What I told you isn't metaphors or delusion. It all happened, and I'm not interested in having someone rip it all apart and try to make me doubt my own memory."

"They call that 'gaslighting' these days."

Startled, the blonde whirled around to face the source of the new voice; a woman she sort of vaguely recognized was standing in the doorway, hand on the knob, smiling at her. After a long moment, her brain helpfully edited the image before her to make it make sense; wild red hair to dirty blonde, violet eyes to mismatched green and blue, face younger and body smaller and more plump. "...Beck?!"

Rebecca's smile widened and she stepped forward with a nod. "Hey, Andy."

"Oh my god!" With a laugh and a delighted screech, she launched herself across the room and threw her arms around her little sister. "What are you doing here?"

Nearly squeezing the breath out of her, the younger woman murmured, "I heard you were back and had to see you. Stand your ground, Andy. Don't let them make you forget or doubt that it was all real. We know the truth." She released her, only to bring her hands up to grip the sides of her sister's head. "Magic is real."

Rachel froze, staring at Rebecca's mouth long after it closed and the two long, wicked fangs that had drawn her attention were hidden from view. "...What happened to you?"

"Not here. I'll tell you everything, but not here."

"Okay." Without so much as a backward glance at the shrink, she followed the redhead out of the office, past their fretting parents, and out into the bright sunny day that made Rebecca hiss.

She cringed and immediately donned a beat-to-hell baseball cap and a pair of dark sunglasses. "Fuck, I hate sunny days."

"You always did." Rachel couldn't help smiling faintly; so many years had passed, more than anyone in the world around them could ever understand, and yet so little about her baby sister had changed.

"Yeah, well... I've only gotten more sensitive to it."

Once they'd made it deep enough into the woods behind the Industrial Park that there was no risk of anyone overhearing, they stopped, and Rachel asked her point blank: "You're a vampire, aren't you?"

Rebecca laughed, gratefully leaning back into the shade of the nearest tree. "Only in our lives is that a casual conversation starter. And yes. Thankfully I'm old enough that daylight won't kill me. It's just unpleasant."

With her own accidental time travel in mind, the blonde asked, "How old are you?" Thirty-seven, she knew, in the eyes of the people around them; to them, Rachel herself had only just turned thirty-nine, and yet both sisters looked at each other with exhausted, haunted eyes millennia older than they could ever hope to make anyone else understand.

"As a vampire, or in general?" She smirked, shrugging off her own question before her sister could answer. "In general is harder to pin down, but I've been a vampire for about six thousand years, give or take a few."

Leaning against a tree roughly opposite Rebecca's, Rachel mirrored her smirk and crossed her arms over her chest. "I was Queen of an entire planet, and then POW and slave on a second, then a fugitive... I managed to send my older daughter home, before I got stuck on a third planet with my boys and little girl. It's been about ten thousand years."

"You have kids?" Rebecca grinned, once again showing those distractingly long fangs. "Me, too! I have two daughters, Madeline and Alice."

"Senna, Kieran, Caspian, and...Cassie," Rachel told her in answer to her unspoken question. She couldn't help blushing as she listed her children's names; she'd since learned what senna was, and hadn't actually given her younger two children names beginning with the same sound on purpose. It had just sort of worked out that way.

"Twins?"

She shook her head. "Caspian's my stepson, kinda, and Cassie was named after-"

Rebecca flinched, remembering. "After Cassie Wade, right? I was so focused on figuring out what happened to you, and then fighting to survive, I'd forgotten she went missing with you."

"She..." Clearing her throat, the blonde squared her shoulders and pulled her strong front around herself like a familiar safety blanket. "She saved our lives; she didn't make it. And, yeah. I named my youngest after her. Anyway, they're all grown, and Kieran..." Jaw clenching, she forcibly dismissed thoughts of her rapist and merely said, "He's my perfect warrior prince. Well, King now. I love them all, and desperately miss Senna, but Kieran, despite his more questionable choices, has a special place in my heart."

Rebecca took her sunglasses off and studied her for a moment before venturing, "Y'know... I literally eat rapists for breakfast."

That got a startled bark of laughter from her big sister, who shook her head. "Even if my boy hadn't already killed him, I doubt his gross, rancid blood would sit well with you. He wasn't human."

The redhead shrugged, smirking again. "Doesn't have to be. I've eaten Fae, elves, one vampire that pissed me off royally..."

"Not such a picky eater anymore, huh?" she teased, grinning. "Was it some badass revenge on your sire or something?"

Laughing, Rebecca shook her head. "Nope, no sire. I'm the OG vampire, babe. The first of the species. My younger daughter, Alice, is the first of the natural born vamps."

"So, wait... You could still get pregnant after you were turned? What?" Rachel frowned, beyond confused. "And how the fuck...?"

"I'm not dead," her little sister explained with another laugh. "Everything's slowed way the hell down, but hasn't stopped. I can't have kids with a human, or probably most Fae, but a certain trickster God..."

"...God?"

She grinned and nodded, though her haunting violet eyes looked sad. "Loki. He's Alice's dad."

"Huh. So the Gods are real." Rachel snorted. "Go figure. And my sister banged one."

"I loved him," the other woman whispered, staring at the ground. She opened her mouth as if to speak further, then seemed to reconsider and closed it again, clearing her throat.

To spare her from some clearly painful memories, whatever they were, Rachel asked, "What's a Fae?"

"Fairy," was the simple enough answer. "Fairies are real, too. Maddie - my oldest - is Fae."

Is she Loki's, too? She didn't dare ask - Loki was clearly a touchy subject - but she was dying to know.

As if she could read her mind, Rebecca, still avoiding her gaze, explained, "I was still mortal when I had her. Her father was Fae."

As the light breeze shifted the leaves above them, making the light dance across Rebecca's ghostly white skin, Rachel finally noticed the scars. At first, they'd looked like tribal tattoos, done puzzlingly in a silvery-white. When she realized they were actually a complex web of ancient scars, she also noticed they covered every inch of her sister's flesh that she could see around her shorts and tank top. Her face was the only place free of the oddly beautiful swirling lines, though she did spot a faint scar on her forehead, running from hairline to cheekbone and through the outer edge of her eyebrow.

"Is Madeline's father why you hunt rapists?" Is he the one who tore you apart?

"He didn't rape me... Technically. But yes, he's the one who scarred me." At her startled look, Rebecca smirked; it utterly failed to reach her eyes, but it was a start. "I can read your mind. I'm trying not to - I find it unspeakably rude and invasive - but when you're actively thinking about me, it tends to cut through my shields. The scars are from a spell he worked on me; blood magic. It's what made Maddie's conception possible, and chained me to him for years."

"Kieran's father was my greatest enemy; Crown Prince of the people who'd been attacking and slaughtering mine. King by the time I escaped." She didn't know what made her suddenly share this, but it felt like the thing to do. Her sister had told her something deeply personal and troubling; it seemed only right to meet candor with candor. Besides, Rachel and Rebecca had been two peas in a pod as children, as close as two sisters could possibly be. There was no amount of time that could strain their relationship. "I was captured in battle and kept as a slave for around a year and a half."

"How did the other three come about?" She smirked again, shoving her wild red hair back off her face impatiently. "Even when we were kids, I'd have bet just about anything that you're gayer than a rainbow, so how do you have so many kids?"

Rachel laughed, rolling her eyes. "Political marriage gave me Senna - born in a dungeon, thanks to me being pregnant during the battle and not knowing it yet. She was smuggled home to her father after she was born. I made a friend in that Hellhole, Emil, and he'd been raising Caspian; he's not his biological father, but that never mattered, just like it didn't matter to me that I didn't give birth to him. That boy's just as much my son as Kieran. We were supposed to go back to my home when we escaped, but something went screwy and we ended up on Achlys, instead, where I met my girlfriend and we all decided to just settle and raise the boys."

"So you cheated on your husband?" Rebecca's grin was teasing - and, thank god, reached her eyes at last! - but Rachel still threw an acorn at her when she said, "You whore!"

"I never saw him again! And he wouldn't have given a shit," she explained with a laugh. "I was, like, his third or fourth wife. And like I said, it was purely political; I was Queen, he was my advisor, he wanted power and I wanted an heir. Enter Senna, who boosted Raziel from random noble to father of the next Queen, and assured that there would be someone to take the reins if I died."

"So..." Her sister began ticking points off on her fingers as she spoke. "Shrewd political moves gave you Senna, you're co-parenting Caspian with a friend, we won't speak of Kieran's origins... How and why was Cassie a thing?"

Rachel shook her head, gaping at her. "A thing? That's nice, Beck. Real nice."

"Gods, you've missed so many cultural shifts, dude." Rebecca shook her head right back, trying not to laugh at her. "Just answer the question, old lady."

"Emil and I, and my girlfriend Trinity, all talked and decided to hell with conventionality; we all love each other, so we'll all be together. Em's my exception, I guess; the only man I've ever been attracted to even after seeing him naked. Our boys were grown, Senna was long gone, we'd made a whole new life for ourselves, so we decided to have another baby. Enter Cassie." Rachel sighed, staring off into space. "And now she's grown, Kieran's back in that awful place trying to turn it around, married to a great girl, Caspian's there with them to help..."

Though she had a feeling she knew the answer, the vampire asked softly, "And your lovers?"

"...Dead. Cassie - Cassie Wade, I mean - died in prison, Trin and Em were killed in the second war." A bitter smirk tugged at the corners of her lips. "Kieran and Cas are running a third."

"There's always another fucking war," Rebecca grumbled. "I've watched so many of them come and go, fought in two, myself... It never really ends."

#crossroads #claddagh #achlys #rachel o'brien #rebecca o'brien #achlys and claddagh meet

[winchester-fantasies]

I Think I Just Might Love You

Summary: You and the boys are hunting a vamp, but when Sam starts treating you differently after a routine interview with the the latest victim, you find out something you never thought you would.

Word Count: 2741

Warnings: smut, angst, fluff, possessive Sam, jealous Sam, some swearing

Pairing: Sam x Female!Reader

A/N: This was written for an anonymous request: What about Sam smut where they come back from a case where reader had to do x and made Sam jealous. Thank you for your request! Hope you like it!! ❤❤

Winchester Fantasies’ Masterlist

You and Sam walked into the hospital, pausing for a moment before heading for the reception desk. “Hi, may I help you?” the woman asked, a pleasant smile on her face.

“Yeah, uh, we’re here to see Rebecca Monroe,” Sam said.

“And may I ask what your relation is to her?” the woman asked, bringing up something on her computer screen.

“Family friends,” you answered.

The woman nodded, typing it into her computer before turning back to you with an apologetic look. “I’m afraid visiting hours are over,” she said. “Only family can visit.”

“But she doesn’t have any family!” you exclaimed. You and the boys were currently hunting what you thought was a vampire. Rebecca Monroe had been its latest and only victim to make it out nearly unscathed. You and Sam were following up on Rebecca and the attack while Dean did a bit of recon at a local dive bar you all suspected the vamp was targeting its victims. So far the vampire had only targeted single women with no known family. And Rebecca was no different.

“Well, I’m sorry,” the woman behind the desk said, more authoritatively this time. “But like I said, visiting hours are over. If you can come back tomorrow….”

“We can’t come back tomorrow!” you snapped, slapping your hand on the desktop. You and the Winchesters were on a time crunch to find this monster before he found its next victim.

Sam placed his hand soothingly on your shoulder, but you just shrugged it off. The woman opened her mouth to speak when footsteps approached from beside you.

“What’s going on, Karen?” a deep voice asked. You looked up to find a tall and broad shouldered man dressed in a white doctor’s coat, a name tag with Dr. Carter engraved on the front.

“These people are insisting on seeing a patient,” Karen said, her obvious annoyance coming through in her tone. “I’ve told them visiting hours are over….” She left her sentence unfinished as she looked up at the doctor, waiting for direction.

He sighed, shifting his body so he was fully facing you and Sam. “Listen, folks,” he said with a small smile. “Karen’s right. I’m afraid….”

“Dr. Carter,” you said, stepping forward slightly. “It is Doctor, right?” you asked, giving him a coy look. You hadn’t missed the way his gaze had swept over your body when he had come up to you and Sam and you were ready to take full advantage of his attraction to get what you needed.

He smirked and nodded, his eyes dropping to your lips as you bit your lower lip and smiled in what you hoped was an alluring one. “Me and my best friend,” you said, gesturing towards Sam, “have come an awful long way to see Rebecca. She’s a dear friend of ours and we’re only able to stay through today. So…if there’s any way….” You trailed off, looking up at him through your lashes.

Dr. Carter stared down at you for a moment before turning back to Karen and nodding once. “Let them through. I’ll escort them myself.”

Karen looked less than thrilled, but she nodded nonetheless, the doors leading to the hallway where the patients were unlocking. “If you’ll follow me,” Carter said, motioning for you and Sam to follow him.

The doctor stayed by your side the entire way, grin on his face and a litany of questions on his tongue. Sam followed close behind quietly, and for a brief second you wondered if he was alright. It wasn’t like him to be so quiet; he was usually the one talking to people. But you had no time to think about it further as Dr. Carter stopped at a door. “This is Ms. Monroe’s room. If you need anything further, I’m right down the hall,” he said, gesturing to an office at the end of the long corridor.

“Thank you, Doctor,” you said with a grin.

“Blake,” he said with a smile that told you he clearly hoped he’d be seeing you again.

“Blake,” you repeated, sending him a smile and ducking your head in mock shyness. Sam suddenly pushed between you both, shoulder bumping into Blake and causing him to stumble back a little. You frowned at Sam’s behavior before sending the doctor an apologetic smile and following after Sam as he knocked before entering.

**********

You had interviewed Rebecca Monroe extensively, and after hearing everything she could remember from her attack, you and Sam were almost positive you were, indeed, dealing with a vamp, although there were a few things that still didn’t add up. Now you and Sam were back at the motel, waiting for Dean to get back so you could tell him everything you both had found out and see what next steps needed to be taken.

It was unusually quiet as you relaxed on one of the beds, Sam sitting at the table and laptop open in front of him. You studied him carefully, trying to figure just what was going on with him. Ever since the hospital he had been silent and even moody, hardly speaking to you or even looking your way, and when he did acknowledge you, it was always with a frown. You didn’t understand where all of his hostility was coming from; you and Sam had been best friends for as long as you could remember and never once had he treated you in such a manner.

It hurt that he was acting this way, made all the worse by the fact that you liked him. Like a lot. You weren’t really sure when your attraction to the youngest Winchester had started, but you knew it’d been there for awhile.

You sighed heavily. The tension in the room was palpable, and you needed to get out. “I think maybe we should talk to the coroner again,” you said, Sam sending you a quick frown before turning back to his laptop. “I mean, I know me and Dean already did, but it couldn’t hurt to again. See if we missed something….”

Sam was quiet for a moment before he spoke up. “What? So you can introduce me as your BFF?” he snapped sarcastically.

“What?” you asked incredulously. “What are you even talking about?” You sat up in bed, your brow furrowed in confusion.

Sam huffed, turning to face you in his chair. “You know, (Y/N), we’ve known each other for a long time,” he said, agitation in his voice. “I would’ve thought I’d be more than just your “best friend.”

“Sam,” you said slowly. “You are more than just a friend…. Sam, you and Dean...you both have been more like brothers to me than my actual brothers ever were.”

“Oh, well, that’s just fucking great!” he said, throwing his hands up in the air before slapping them down on the tabletop.

“Wait,” you said bluntly, realization washing over you as you remembered you had introduced him as your best friend to Dr. Carter. “Sam…. Are...are you...jealous?”

“What?” he exclaimed, jerking his head in your direction. “No.”

“You are,” you said. You huffed out a harsh chuckle before climbing out of bed. “You know what, Sam? I don’t know what your problem is and why you’re all of a sudden so fucking jealous, but you can’t keep treating me like this! Like I’m some fucking nuisance or that you can’t even stand to look at me! Now, I’m going to question the coroner whether you come with me or not!”

You headed for the door, but just as your hand landed on the knob, you felt Sam’s hand land on your shoulder firmly. He swung you around, shoving you against the door and caging you in as he looked down at you with eyes of steel. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growled.

His dominant and authoritative voice sent shivers of desire down your spine, but you shook them off, willing the rational part of your brain to work. “You...you have no right to sit here and tell me what I can and cannot do,” you said, your voice coming out in a small whisper.

“Actually...I do,” Sam said, tilting his head as he looked at you with an expression that made you want to melt. “Especially when you’re mine.”

“I...I’m not yours,” you said as authoritatively as possible, but your voice came out so quietly this time, you were sure Sam wouldn’t hear you.

“Oh...yes, you are,” Sam growled matter-of-factly before his hand flew to the back of your head, fingers weaving into your hair roughly as his lips crashed to yours. You moaned into his mouth as his tongue pushed its way past your lips, mapping out every inch.

He shifted slightly, his knee coming to rest against yours. You instinctively spread your legs for him, his leg coming between yours fully, his thigh pressing up into the apex of your own. It was just the right amount of pressure against your core, sending sparks of desire through your body as your arousal grew.

You rolled your hips, a stuttering moan filling the air at the feeling of his hard thigh against your clit. “Yes, that’s it,” Sam grunted, you feeling his growing erection against your hip as you rocked yourself onto his thigh again. “Make yourself cum, baby.”

You gripped his shoulders to steady yourself as you continued to move, fire burning in your lower abdomen and skin breaking out with a sheen of sweat. You couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Just yesterday you and Sam were in the Impala with Dean, laughing, joking, and acting like you had since the moment you stepped foot inside the bunker. And now here you were, pressed against the door, dry humping your best friend’s thigh as he watched you avidly, pupils blown with lust and breathing becoming shallow as his own arousal built.

You suddenly jerked forward as you moved just right, your entire body lighting up with pleasure. It was almost too much, and you stilled for a moment, your legs starting to tremble with the effort. Sam grabbed your ass and dragged you across his thigh forcibly, drawing a cry from you. “Don’t stop,” Sam commanded.

You picked up your pace once more, Sam helping you to move as you chased your release. It wasn’t long before you felt your muscles tightening and the pressure in your lower abdomen building. Sam pressed his leg up into your core with more force than before as you slid across him, and you gasped, breath leaving your lungs as the coil snapped, sending you tumbling over the edge.

Sam’s mouth was back on yours as you came down from your high, possessive and needy. You hastily unbuttoned his flannel and pushed it off his shoulders. He stepped back when you reached his elbows, pulling it the rest of the way off before reaching behind him and pulling the t-shirt off his back.

It wasn’t the first time you’d seen Sam shirtless, but it was the first time you really allowed yourself to look, eyes roaming across his broad shoulders, down his hairy and muscular chest, anti-possession tattoo stark against his skin, and over his toned abdomen, finally landing on the top of his jeans, waistband hanging low and teasing you with a peak of his hip bones.

Your gaze moved upward again, locking eyes with his prismatic ones as your fingers fell to the buttons on your shirt, deftly undoing them one-by-one despite feeling flustered. You could see Sam’s Adam’s apple bob as you undid the last button. You slowly slipped the blouse off your shoulders, letting it slide down your arms and fall to the floor behind you.

Sam drank in the sight of your half-naked body, his eyes following each rise and dip and connecting every scar and blemish. You reached for the clasp of your bra, but Sam stopped you. “Can I?” he asked almost pleadingly. You bit your lip and nodded. Sam licked his lips as he stepped forward, hands sliding along your skin as they made their way behind your back. His fingers found the clasp, undoing it in one go.

He threw the bra behind him once you were free, his hands coming to cup your breasts. Your breath hitched, and your head fell back against the door as he began to knead the plump flesh, your nipples peaked and rubbing against his rough and calloused palms. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you,” Sam murmured. You wanted to ask him just how long but all coherent thought flew out the window when his mouth latched onto your nipple.

He licked and sucked until your nipples were sore and red before trailing open-mouthed kisses down your abdomen, to the top of your jeans. He looked up at you as he knelt in front of you, fingers going to the button on your jeans before moving on to the zipper. He gripped the waistband and tugged softly. You stepped out of them before he moved to your panties.

“So beautiful,” Sam breathed, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your mound. Your breath hitched, and you stroked the top of his head before he stood. You helped him finish undressing, his cock standing tall and pressed against his belly.

“C’mere,” Sam urged, taking your hand and pulling you along as he backed up towards the bed. He sat down, pulling you down onto his lap. He cupped your face in his large hands, pulling you in for another kiss.

Sam suddenly shifted, and in a whirl of movement, you found yourself on your back, Sam hovering over you. Your fingers trailed across his chest, to his belly, and up over his back, his skin velvety smooth.

“This must be a dream,” you thought, staring up into his face.

“If it is, then I never wanna wake up,” Sam said. Only then did you realize you had spoken those words aloud. Sam leaned down, kissing you passionately as his tip nudged your folds. You spread your legs wider, and he slid in, a groan emanating from deep within his chest.

A moan of your own escaped once he began moving. His thrusts were languid but steady, building you both up and giving you both the opportunity to really feel one another.

Sam abruptly halted, pulling back just enough so you could bring your legs up against his chest before he started moving again. You gasped as he hit your g-spot, and you clenched around him, his hips jerking forward and going even deeper.

“Sam,” you moaned, your eyes falling shut as the pleasure built to all new heights.

“Open your eyes,” Sam encouraged. “Look at me, baby.”

Your eyes flew open again, your breath catching in your throat as you stared up into his hazel eyes, gaze filled with desire and something you’d never seen before. “(Y/N),” he called quietly, the blissed-out tone of his voice being your undoing.

You came hard, everything around you seeming to fade until all that was left was Sam. Sam grunted as you clamped around him, and he came moments later, his warm seed painting your walls.

You laid in bed afterwards, silently staring up at the ceiling, neither of you knowing what to say. “How long?” you asked, finally breaking the quiet.

“What?” Sam asked, turning his head to look at you.

“How long have you wanted this? Wanted me?” you asked quietly.

Sam studied your face and smiled softly. “For as long as I can remember.”

“Why did you never say anything?” you asked.

Sam shook his head as if he wasn’t really sure. “Uncertainty...not wanting to put you in danger...fear of rejection.”

“Sam,” you breathed, trailing your fingers along his jaw. “We live in constant danger…. Nothing you could do would ever keep me completely safe. And as far as rejection goes…. I don’t think I could never not want you.” You smiled and traced his mouth with your thumb. “In fact, I think I just might love you.”

It was Sam’s turn to grin and he rolled to his side, arm hooking around your waist and drawing your body into his. He looked into your face as if you were the most precious thing to him, and his fingers slowly trailed patterns across your skin. “I think I just might love you, too.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[starwarned]

Day 26 - Break

Carry On Countdown Day 26 

@carryon-countdown​

What You Cannot Feel on AO3

“Pain serves a purpose. Without it you are in danger. What you cannot feel you cannot take care of.” - Rebecca Solnit 

What You Cannot Feel

It snapped. 

Now, this could be referring to a lot of things— the table underneath me, Penelope’s pencil in her hand, the butter dish. Alas, it was my fucking arm. 

I was attempting to show Penny that I do indeed know how to do the can-can (don’t ask) and in order to prove it, I had gotten up onto one of the dining hall tables. (We were alone in there — teatime in the dining hall is either packed full of students or Penelope, Agatha, and I are the only ones there. And, well, Agatha broke up with me last year and didn’t even come back to school for Eighth Year so she’s not around.) 

I was doing an incredible job of proving Penny wrong when my foot got caught in a butter dish (Betrayal of the highest degree) and I slipped, pitching forward and crashing down onto the table. I heard a loud snap and felt a current of pain shoot up my arm. 

So that’s why I’m here, in the infirmary, my arm wrapped up in a sling because even though a thousand healing spells have been cast on me in the last half hour, I’ve never taken well to magic that’s not mine. It’s not healed yet. It still tweaks when I twist my shoulder too far. 

“Well.” 

A familiar voice rings out and sends a shudder up my spine. I’m not facing the door so I have to turn over in the bed, effectively shooting searing pain up my arm. I grunt when I’ve finally turned enough to see the lanky and brooding figure leaning in the doorway. 

“Need something, Baz?” I spit. 

He shrugs and takes a half step into the room. He’s still dressed in his football kit like he didn’t bother to change after practice. His hair is all windswept (I’m surprised it’s not up in a top knot — he usually does that to keep it out of his face) and he looks more flushed than usual. Like he ran here. He’s likely just still exerted from practice. I don’t know why he would have run here. 

“Just figured I’d come gloat,” he says. 

I momentarily wonder if vampires’ bones can break. I indulge myself in a quick fantasy of standing up, walking over to Baz, shoving him up against a wall, and threatening to break one of his limbs. 

“Well, let’s get it over with,” I mutter, mostly to myself.

He’s still walking and by the time he’s gotten over to my bed, I’m on the defensive. There are professors wandering all over near the infirmary so he wouldn’t dare curse me or hurt me right now, but I almost miss the unstaggering protection of the Roommate’s Anathema. 

I expect him to immediately start jeering at me. I prepare myself to be scorned for being such an idiot, but it doesn’t come.

“Did they not cast a healing spell?” he demands. It’s not kind, the way he says it to me, but I’m also trying to figure out his angle. Why does he care? 

“They did,” I say. “But I’m not really perceptible to magic that’s not mine most of the time,” I say, which is true. Even Penny’s magic feels unusual to me, though hers is better I think because I know she has no intent to harm me. “They said I’ll have to stay here tonight. Which is stupid, but I guess you’ll have Mummer’s to yourself.” 

Baz frowns. His face is going to get stuck like that someday. Not that it’ll be a bad look on him. His face was practically designed for pouting. “You know,” he says, his frown morphing into a sneer. “There’s something to be said about you breaking your arm over something stupid like this instead of on one of the Mage’s preposterous missions.”

“Yeah, well, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say it.”

And then Baz surprises me. “Why hasn’t it healed yet?” 

I squint my eyes and shake my head a bit. “Did you not hear what I said?” I ask. “I don’t like other people casting spells on me, you preening arse.” 

He doesn’t even respond to my (really good) insult. “Let me try,” he says, taking a step in so he’s right next to my bed. 

My legs still fucking work so I throw them over the opposite side of the bed and stand up, clutching my injured arm to my chest. “Abso-fucking-lutley not,” I say immediately. If my body can’t handle my professors and Penelope casting healing spells on me, there’s no way it’ll take Baz’s magic. 

He has the gall to look offended. “I’m a better Mage than you are,” he mutters. “Let me try.” 

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” I explode. “You think I don’t see right through your fucking act? You stroll in here, all sweaty and perfect in your football kit and you don’t insult me every other word and say shit like let me try to fix your broken arm, and you expect me to be cool with it? Well, I’m bloody well not. I know your games, Pitch.” 

And then, I think, maybe I don’t know his games because he’s sliding his wand out of his pocket and getting up close to me. He carefully places his free hand on my elbow to stabilize my arm and before I can stop him (shout, hit him over the head, call him a twat, anything), he’s whispering, “Kiss it better,” and leaning down to press a kiss to my wrist where the sling stops. I can feel his lips on my skin. 

I shiver despite myself. 

Baz’s magic feels funny. It almost burns. But I also think… it’s working. And Kiss it better is not a spell that you go around using on your mortal enemies. I know that’s a family spell. 

When Baz has taken a nervous few stumbling steps away from me, I twist my arm and find that it’s completely healed. I tug the sling off and experimentally move my arm. It’s fine. It’s like nothing happened in the first place. 

I look up.

Baz is standing a few paces in front of me and I have the overwhelming urge to shove him up against a wall and kiss him. Perhaps punch him a little first, but then definitely snog him.

I reckon I’ve got nothing to lose. Baz started this with the whole family spell business and now I’m fucking soft on him. 

I use my newly healed arm and grab him by the collar to drag him over to the nearest wall and shove him up against it. He looks at me curiously — like he thinks I’m about to maim him and he doesn’t care. His eyes are wide and (I’m realizing that I know exactly what shade they are when he’s taken aback like this — a more green-grey than usual) and his lips are slightly parted. 

I’m going to kiss it better, but for real, I suppose. 

I keep a tight hold of his collar and kiss him. I kiss him with every ounce of my being. I can’t say I’ve ever thought about kissing Baz before today, before right now, but I can say that it just feels good. 

He kisses me back and I slot into his arms like I’ve always belonged there. 

And perhaps I have. 

When he shoves at my shoulder to break the kiss, I let out an embarrassing whine. I blush when Baz raises an eyebrow at me. 

“What the hell, Snow?” he asks, but there’s no bite behind his words. 

I shrug. “You cast a family spell on me, Baz. I’m pretty sure that means you feel the way I do.” 

A raised eyebrow. “And how do you feel?” 

“Like I want to kiss you again.” 

“Oh?” 

“And also punch you a bit, but I always want to do that.” 

Baz rolls his eyes, but there’s a hint of a smile playing on his lips. I never get to see that. I swear to myself that I’ll memorize how it makes his face light up. “Right.” 

“Can I?” 

“Hmm?” 

“Kiss you again?” 

“Yes,” Baz says, and before I can make good on my word, he’s sliding his arms around my waist and kissing me first.

#coc #coc 2020 #carry on countdown #carry on countdown 2020 #carry on countdown day 26 #coc day 26 #carry on #simon snow series #simon snow #baz pitch #snowbaz #fic #my fic #writing #my writing #fanfic #fanfiction #lauren's coc works

[albatris]

Wait that sounds cool tell me more about Bright and Burning Things? (If you want to ofc you definitely don't have to)

:D!!! of course, I can tell you some stuff!!! thank you for the question, I'm happy you think it sounds cool!!

this is not really a super sensical explanation, this is some rambles, as usual

so, this is a short standalone project of mine, it's uhhhh........ hm. something something fantasy comedy something. it's meant to be a bit of a light-hearted adventure, but as it is with most of my more silly stories, it takes a sharp detour into some "oof" territory c':

bits of the premise sound kind of Heavy but silliness and heaviness go hand-in-hand quite nicely I think

the central character is a ghost kid! this kid’s name is Max! the story kicks off right after they die and they’re being ushered onto the bus that will take them to the afterlife. as they are being ushered onto said bus, they’re like “holy fuck wait no” because they have unfinished business in the living world. they got straight-up murdered!  their life got cut short! they don’t have any closure! they don’t even know who killed them!! so they make a run for it and go ghost

and like, oh, this happens sometimes. the dead are sometimes quite affronted by the fact that they’re dead and kick up a bit of a fuss when it comes to Moving On. the thing is, souls aren’t really built for Being Ghosts and can’t really survive long out in the living world, so there’s a bit of a time limit on Max’s quest to figure out who killed them and solve the mystery of their own death, since if they stay too long in the living world as a disembodied soul they’ll start to unravel

related, and perhaps more pressingly, is that there’s various agents of the afterlife who are attempting to find them and bring them back and Make Them Move On. these forces take on a bit of an antagonistic role in the story, but they’re not really any malevolent force that wants to hurt Max, they’re just the folks who go after stray and panicked souls and try to bring them to the afterlife before they fade away and disappear completely

Max’s got shit to do, though, like I said

so the story follows Max over the course of one night as they piece together the story of their death and fill in the gaps in their memory, while also attempting to stave off their unravelling for as long as they can

Max becomes acquainted with various other supernatural beings who are on their own time-sensitive quests on the same night, n they form some sort of kinship over this fact and band together to help each other out on their missions

firstly there’s Daisy, stir-crazy thousand-year-old heir to the vampire throne, due to be crowned the next day, who suddenly had an existential crisis and was like “actually vampire society is dull as hell I wanna LIVE”

so she goes out into the human world and robs a pizza store and starts several fights and is like “hell YEAH this slaps” and basically decides she’s just gonna kick up some real chaos since this is her last night of freedom, basically, n she’s gotta make it count

she’s very smart! she knows next to nothing about human society and how to be a normal person though, and if you leave her unsupervised she will attempt to eat marbles

also the structure of vampire society is very convoluted and confusing and full of complete nonsense. it makes no sense to anyone but the vampires themselves, and even then the rest of the supernatural world is half convinced the vamps are just playing the long game with an extremely elaborate prank. their royalty live in an abandoned petrol station? they wear those little paper crowns from hungry jacks/burger king. they take themselves very seriously

also this is the story in which I was really drunk when I was planning it n just slammed some vodka and was like “VAMPIRES COME FROM SPACE NOW” and then sober logan just had to deal with that

ANYWAY

next there’s Hope and Deckchairs, a socially anxious uni student and a socially anxious demon respectively, and the deal with these two is uhhhhh

well, Hope was trying to be a Cool Kid and tagged along with some Cool Kids who wanted to do a demonic summoning ‘cause Hell Yeah That’s Edgy And Cool

and Deckchairs (not named Deckchairs at the time, this is a name that’s adopted during the story) was doing their very overdue demon taxes and stressing over demon finances, n then got yoinked out of the underworld because of the aforementioned summoning

(I think this is generally viewed among demons as a mild inconvenience, sometimes you get Yoinked when you’re right in the middle of something and you just have to be like “ugh fine I’ll just kick up a bit of a ruckus then come back”)

however, when the summoning actually works, the Cool Kids freak out and scatter and in the chaos Hope gets her head bonked on the side of a dresser and fuckin starts bleeding out, and Deckchairs is like “oh fuck I did not sign on for this” ‘cause they’re........ yeah, look, they’re gentle and anxious and not a very good demon, maybe. n so Deckchairs possesses the body of Hope to keep her alive

so now these two are co-piloting a body, and have to figure out a way they can split and return to their lives without Hope dying. however, they’re also being hunted down by

the Cool Kids, who are now all keyed up and paranoid and convinced they’re the heroes of a horror movie n they have to kill the demonic entity they brought into the world

the underworld, who.......... now, I haven’t figured out whether they’re pissed ‘cause they think Deckchairs is committing tax evasion by body-hopping into the human world, or they’re pissed just ‘cause Deckchairs has work to do and they don’t consider one human life to be worth all the hold up

so that’s not great for either of them, but like, yeah, if they can figure out a way to split and be done with it, it’s problem solved for both of them. yeehaw. too bad they’re both nearly too anxious to speak to each other

and that’s................................. all that

facts?

there’s a plot twist at the end that I am SUPER psyched about! and it has taken literally all of my willpower not to spoil it completely

I feel like it’s an easy one to guess, but it’s perfect for the story and the themes and it’s one I’m hella excited about

and this is..................... this is I think the only story of mine where I would say it doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending? like. it certainly doesn’t end in TRAGEDY, but this is definitely a bittersweet ending, it’s got some real sad undertones

it’s the best possible ending for the characters, but like, hey, my protagonist is already dead, y’know?

anyway if you read this far I hope some of this was fun for you :’))

thanks for coming to my ted talk I hope you have a nice day :D

#also worth noting this is the only story within this multiverse that explicitly features my Death character who i named Karen before #''Karen'' became a whole thing but like #there's a network of spirits who act as ''Deaths'' who just kinda cart people to the afterlife #with Karen driving a spraypainted minibus and she's a bit of a hippie she's v fun #bright and burning things

[thesilkenlair]

(Casey Here!)

As much D&D as I play, you'd imagine I would eventually get around to illustrating some of their most iconic monsters! Which is to say, the ones that I personally find the most iconic. Which is to say, the ones I memorized when I was reading my dad's monster manual at age nine. Purple worm - Sandworms never go out of style. I've seen a lot of rad designs for this bugger over the editions, but I favor the slightly less reptilian older takes for this particular critter. It's kinda basic, but sometimes that's what you want. It's like a shark or a crocodile: Just flat out unchanged across the ages. Hook horror - I've heard it rumored that Gygax used a small Gigan figure to represent this monster. I can't verify that, but it definitely sounds right. Hook horrors are one of the very first things you meet when you play around in the caves, and they kind of remind me of the Father Deep monsters of the Hork Bajir homeworld that way. Mind flayer - Mind flayers! Basically, take all of your Dracula conventions and dip them in a fresh coat of Lovecraft. There's that old "decadent aristocratic upper caste system who literally eats the poor, but still somehow comes across as less evil than the actual real life 1%" setup that will never stop being relevant. Though personally, I see mind flayers as the first alternative for folks who want to play that monster-who-feels-the-urge-to-eat-their-friends-but-refuses-to-do-it shtick but don't want to deal with vampire baggage. You know, the furry option! ... Slimy? Rubbery? Do we have a word for anthro-cephalopods? I'm only a casual furry. Gelatinous cube - I'm not apologizing for giving this one a slot. Froghemoth - So, back when I participated in my very first long-term campaign, I played a druid. You've met Talia before. Naturally, I was chomping at the bit for the day I finally got to turn her into a froghemoth, and celebrated the day my wish was finally granted and she was allowed to chug human-supremacist-cultists like popcorn. Yeah, okay, the froghemoth is one of the classic vore-monsters. But it's a charming design in its own right. Kind of a freaky Hanna Barbara critter, like you'd see Space Ghost fighting. No matter how many artists draw it, they can never shake that inherent goofiness that third edition tried so hard to purge. I would probably cram them somewhere onto Fronterra if I was sure they were public domain. As is, I'm 99% certain that this is what Visser Three turned into when he ate Elfangor. Tarrasque - D&D's original kaiju! Kind of just takes the name and nothing else when it comes to its mythological origins, but I don't mind. The Tarrasque is that endgame "let's test the players" final boss monster... Or at least it's supposed to be. My DM reskinned it for our final Pathfinder session, and one of the PCs still nearly killed it in a single turn. Also, he let Talia turn into one, so maybe Pathfinder is just bullshit? Regardless, the Tarrasque has one of those simple, iconic designs. I've heard rumors it was based on the concept art for Fallout's deathclaws, and like the Gigan-figure, I can't verify this in any way. With its reptilian features, twin horns, spiny carapace and grabby fingies, it has an undeniable lizardlike quality that I can't help but find charming. Kinda feels like a more refined version of Zilla? Though for an insatiable eating machine, I notice a lot of artists give it very little belly to work with. Come on, this guy eats entire cities! Give him somewhere to put it! Rust monster - An icon of icons, the rust monster! Drawing its origin from a bizarre Chinese "dinosaur" toy, later designs have made it more insectoid in appearance, but never feeling QUITE like anything Earthly. It's the four limbs. Between the four limbs and the tail, it's hard to tell if it's an arthropod mimicking a vertebrate or the other way around. I'm pretty sure this is part of what inspired my ossaderm creatures for Fronterra. Also, Ryla can turn into one in our campaign. I have no shortage of havoc to wreak when the opportunity comes. Behir - Dragons in D&D are kind of... extra. Godlike beings, paragons of whatever personality trait they represent. Whenever there's something uber powerful in D&D, it gets compared to dragons. It makes them kind of unapproachable. Behirs provide all the essentials of a dragon - Serpentine body, scaly skin, horns, sapience, breath weapon, taste for human flesh - wrapped up in a smaller, weirder, IMO cooler package. You know, your Lambton Worms. A lot easier to port in and out of adventures, a lot less of an event when they show up, but still a formidable force in their own right. I like the behir. The behir knows how to taunt me just the right amount. Bulette - Another Chinese "dinosaur" figure monster, the bulette is actually another one I associate with Talia. Whenever we faced a problem that didn't have a glaringly and immediately obvious solution, she would turn into a bulette, whether it was for beating up robots, digging through obstacles, trampling smurfs, navigating labyrinths, distracting slashers with cute dog tricks... it was kind of her signature form. But shenanigans aside, the bulette is just an excellent monster. While the "land shark" shtick may be common, there's a lot more going on with the bulette's design. It's rumored to be a mad wizard's creation, as he combined a snapping turtle with an armadillo and mixed in a helping of demon blood to taste. Personally, I always considered that to be a neat little rumor to flesh out the world, but never assumed it to be true. The bulette just feels too naturalistic for that. Like some kind of protomammal or crocodylomorph, or weird triassic monstrosity. Magic and demons and dragons and so on DO affect the ecosystem. I always figured the bulette was just something that evolved to compete in this new biosphere. Owlbear - This one, on the other hand, I fully believe the "mad wizard was bored" explanation. Another chinasaur critter, the owlbear is frequently made fun of. What makes it scarier than a regular bear? It can't fly, so why have owl parts at all? Why trade fangs for a beak in what is at best a latural move? Well, first of all, fuck you, owls are creepy motherfuckers, and that alone is enough to justify it. But secondly, that's part of its charm. Besides some improved vision, the owl DOESN'T make it more dangerous. What makes the owlbear dangerous is that it's an insane, Frankensteinian monstrosity roaming uncontrolled through the wilderness! It doesn't need weaponry, its sheer temperament is enough to make it a worthy opponent. Sure, the practical threat might not be hugely above that of a bear, but storytelling isn't about numbers. Any asshole can go outside and get eaten by a bear. The owlbear is part of this world. The owlbear is a reminder of what magic can do. Someone somewhere actually made this thing, for whatever reason, and now the world is irrevocably changed because of it. Owlbears go beyond practicality. They bring the lore! Also, bears don't have very good eyesight, so the big owl eyes probably make them better hunters. Flumph - Is that a Japanese-style martian? Do we just have aliens in D&D? Dear lord, I love them! Okay, the flumph has got a sizable hatedom. And that hatedom can eat my ass, because the flumph is precious and perfect just the way it is! Flumphs are designed as a sort of sidekick-type creature. They're not very good fighters, but they bring knowledge and lore to the table. Whether they're aliens from some far off star, seeking your aid to prevent catastrophe, or psionic natives of the Underdark eager to bask in your positivity and hopefully stick it to the tyrants they're forced to share real estate with. My group generally treats them as straight up aliens, benevolent but strange. Course, we're all pretty strange, so we get along just fine. Otyugh - Okay so, the aberration creature type implies that this is something from another world that doesn't belong. And yet otyughs, which are aberrations, are an essential part of this world's ecosystem? Okay, I can buy the idea that an alien organism adapted to our world and is now a key part of it. Fronterra's got a TON of that. It just feels like after a point, the otyugh would be considered a beast? Otyughs are great. Every ecosystem needs a decomposer, and every fantasy story needs at least one dive into the sewers. Otyughs provide both, and are intelligent enough to keep the plot moving if it hits a snag. There's always going to be garbage, refuse, carrion, decay, things that need to be broken down and processed. Carrion crawler - The carrion crawler is pretty similar to the otyugh in that it's technically not considered a beast, and therefor must have its origins elsewhere, but feels so integrated into the ecosystem that it just feels like it belongs. They usually can't talk, so they're not just reskinned otyughs, but I still consider them pretty essential. Otyughs find a singular spot where waste is dumped and shovel it down at their leisure, while carrion crawlers skulk through the tunnels, actively seeking their food. The crawler got one of the most radical redesigns on the transition from second to third edition, but I can't really choose a single favorite. The oldschool tentacle-faced cutworm looks like it could be a real animal, while the googly-eyed Halloween decoration feels like it could be from another world, merely having set up shop here. Could there name apply to two wholly different creatures? If so, then I'm not sure which one mine would be considered. I kinda mashed them together into something that doesn't quite feel like either. But I like it for what it is. Maybe I'll sneak it onto Fronterra. Aboleth - Tentacled, telepathic sea creatures who turn humans into slimy minions, who remember everything their race has ever seen, and who are always plotting something behind the scenes. Yeah, the aboleths really crank up the Lovecraft elements. Actually, between the mind flayers, the flumphs and the aboleths, even the most oldschool D&D covered quite a few essential Lovecraftian bases. The flayers are your corrupt yet still recognizable humanoids who can be considered truly evil, the flumphs are benevolent-yet-bizarre guardians who know more than you, and the aboleths are the truly unknowable, sinister intellects. The fact that they can barely function on land honestly only adds to that, IMO. They're inherently difficult for a party to reach, and they offer some nice underwater adventure seeds. Not enough adventures go underwater. There's this perception that the ocean is bad for storytelling because so many writers lack the creativity to make it work. I wanna run an underwater adventure now. Beholder - Icon of icons! THE D&D monster! The beholder! Paranoid, jumpy, always five steps ahead and twenty steps perpendicular! Beholds are fun in just about every way. Between their wacky, diverse designs, their elaborate lairs, their eccentric personalities, their bizarre powers, you're never gonna run out of fun with beholders. Remorhaz - It's always been a thing that bothered me with environment-based monsters. Why does the ice monster who lives in the cold use ice as a weapon? Aren't most of the things it encounters going to be resistant to the cold? Sure, a cone of cold will still kill a polar bear, but a lot of the monsters in the tundra are outright immune to cold. A while dragon's not going to get much use out of its breath weapon fighting frost worms and frost giants. That's one reason the remorhaz sticks out to be. We have an icy tundra beast whose insides are a scorching furnace, which it can intensify and weaponize as it sees fit. Which also conveniently explains why its design - a sort of cobra-esque centipede - invokes warm-weather creatures, despite its icy environment. It's a nice subversion of the usual tropes, plus it's just a memorable, cool looking critter to begin with. On a smaller note, the remorhaz feels like a good loophole for Ryla's "no cold weather morphs" rule. Turning into something elementally affiliated with ice is no good, but a non-magical monster that survives the cold by superheating its insides? That seems perfectly viable to me!

#RiftWitch #My art #D&D #DND #Dungeons & Dragons #D&D monsters #Purple worm #hook horror #mind flayer #illithid #bulette #froghemoth #tarrasque #rust monster #behir #owlbear #flumph #carrion crawler #aboleth #beholder #remorhaz

[grayhouse3]

SJTR is my villain origin story

So I finished Stalking Jack the Ripper.

Originally I told myself that I was going to just stick it out and read the next one (“Oh, it’s about vampires and Dracula. It’s probably more fun. You can forget all about the pain this one inflicted on you"). No. I got 12% of the way through and had to DNF. So here are my messily compiled thoughts on the book, basically expanded from the last post. Honestly, kind of feel free knowing I won’t be writing more about this series. (Also I am adding some TWs down below but don't know if I am doing them right!)

More on the exoticism, weirdness with Audrey Rose's Indian mother, and the British Empire:

In chapter 14, we read, "Dark strands of hair were piled atop my head, my eyes more mysterious somehow with the dark liner, and my lips were the bright crimson of freshly spilled blood … I thought of my mother and the saris she’d brought me to wear from Grandmama’s homeland. I felt just as stunning now as I did then, and the memory warmed me.” I am still trying to figure out why Maniscalco made Audrey Rose mixed race. Why is Audrey Rose’s grandmother from India? Literally, what did it add to the story? Was it nothing more than just a cute lil quirky fun character trait to her? I don’t think I missed any key moments where there were important conversations about race, imperialism, British occupation, etc., mostly because Audrey Rose’s father (a big fancy rich lord) is a white man and because Audrey Rose is white-passing. I can’t recall any moments in the book where she faces the realities/consequences of being a socially mobile POC WOMAN in LONDON IN THE 1880s. Honestly, if someone else can point out a passage I glossed over or explain some nuance I missed I would actually really appreciate it, because this drove me CRAZY.

(Audrey Rose and her brother also go visit a circus in town in chapter 15; of course these events existed purely for England/colonizing countries to exercise and display their power and to exoticize/exploit the communities/cultures that they came into contact with. Audrey Rose sees silks, beads, etc. that remind her of her grandmother’s saris, smells the foods of her family’s “homeland,” etc. Also in the same chapter there’s this great scene where her brother is describing their mother and father’s marriage: “Grandmama told me she’d refused him twenty times just for fun,” Nathaniel replied. “Said he squirmed like a cobra in a basket. That’s how she knew he was in love.” Uhhh … Is that supposed to be romantic?)

On the feminism stuff:

I am too *gestures vaguely* to write much more on this. Yeah, it’s heavy-handed. Yeah, it’s cringey. But at the end of the day, it’s not really that harmful, I guess. Here’s just a fun sampling of some of my favorite lines from the book:A few of my favorite bites from the book:

***“close-minded society” (chapter 21) Okay

***"Why turn a murderer of women into front-page news?” (chapter 15) Bro do you know how the media works

***"But what of her [mother’s] insistence that I could be both strong and beautiful? Surely Father had to be wrong.” (chapter 21) Yes girl you are strong and beautiful!

***"There would be no skirts or bustles to wrangle with anymore. I was through with things confining me” (chapter 22) Ugh down with corsets just another tool of the patriarchy amirite

On the violence against women, weird classism, and stuff about prostitution:

I was bound to be uncomfortable about a lot of this because I have weird feelings about true crime stuff, and this is historical fiction set around the Jack the Ripper murders. It was going to go sour somewhere.

Consistently Audrey Rose wants to be sympathetic, but is unable to connect all the parts of this situation together: she struggles to imagine the women (very real-life victims) beyond their lives of prostitution, poverty, squalor. When she does, we see something like this: "The women he murdered did matter ... They were daughters and wives and mothers and sisters” (chapter 28). Oftentimes she wishes she could continue to cut cadavers open in peace (women in science!) without having to think about how those cadavers came to be on her examination table: “I needed to get away from those women and their tragic lives before my emotions got the better of me” (chapter 25). Perhaps Maniscalco deserves more credit here, and perhaps I’m just being a bitch, because Audrey Rose is a very privileged girl and her actions and thoughts make that clear. It’s just that the conclusions she comes to in the name of feminism, justice, etc. weren’t at all satisfying to me.

Also: OH MY GOD. Oh my god. There is this one moment that is BRANDED AGAINST THE GRAY MATTER OF MY BRAIN FOREVER and I will never forget it. At one point, Audrey Rose and love interest Thomas decide the best thing they can do is go out and—yes—stalk Jack the Ripper. To do this, they know they need to “blend in” with the crowds in East End. So … like … cosplaying as poor people? Audrey Rose manages to find and wear the dress of ONE OF THE MURDER VICTIMS (long story short her medical doctor uncle was in a relationship with this woman and when she died he acquired her worldly possessions). It’s like, so fucked up, I can’t even describe my reaction when I read it. In chapter 25 we read, "The dress was a little too old, a little too ragged, a bit too big. If I were to wear this ghastly dress out, I’d look as if I belonged in the East End, begging for work to feed my addictions … It was absolutely perfect.” Oh my god. And THAT’S NOT EVEN THE WORST PART. While they’re “stalking Jack the Ripper” on this incredibly stupid mission, the two main characters just … make out in an alley. Like, okay. People are being murdered and you’re wearing a dead woman’s dress and you suspect your father of being guilty, but yeah, that kind of stuff makes us all a little horny. Super relatable. Absolutely no concept of reality or consequences or anything at all.

Another random note on class: I noticed the only time Maniscalco writes in dialects/accents, she’s writing seedy/working-class characters. Not saying this is a problem unique to Maniscalco’s writing by a longshot, but ... something to think on. (I think it’s ingrained in a lot of author’s writing habits/minds at this point.)

Weird stuff about the dad, the brother, and what justice means to Audrey Rose:

I had to add a whole new highlighting color for this stuff!

Any growth Audrey Rose might’ve shown over the course of the novel—anything about how these women mattered, and how they deserved justice as any “highborn” individual might, simply by dint of being humans—goes away when she and Thomas come to the conclusion that the Ripper murders must have been committed by Audrey Rose’s father. She realizes her moral dilemma when she contends with the harsh reality: if her father is the Ripper, can she turn him into the authorities? Audrey Rose worries how that might impact her own moral virtue: "They’d hang Father. Given who he was, they’d make it as public and brutal as possible. Just because blood might stain his hands did not mean I wanted his on mine. No matter if it was right or wrong” (chapter 24). First of all, BITCH. You have to. You have to report this kind of thing. No ifs, ands, or buts. I HAVE to imagine Maniscalco’s intended audience would feel the same? It’s? Serial murder? Second: Audrey Rose, baby, sweetie, honey. This is just a reminder that ACAB. I actually don’t know a whole lot about how the late Victorian criminal justice system functioned, but something tells me her family's public outlook would’ve been less bleak than she imagines here.

Lucky for Audrey Rose, her dad isn’t guilty in the end—but her brother sure is. He’s a mad scientist, using the brutalized bodies and souvenirs of his victims for Frankenstein-style experiments. Ultimately, he wants to reanimate the corpse of his and Audrey Rose’s long-dead mother, and he believes he can achieve this by transplanting fresh organs into ? Her dead and decomposed body? The thing is that, this moral dilemma persists for Audrey Rose—and her dad, too. He pressures her not to bring the little matter of Nathaniel’s issue—you know, his casual murder of a number of local women—to Scotland Yard: “They’ll have your brother hanged,” he said quietly. “Could you honestly watch that happen? As a family, have we not suffered enough?” (chapter 29). Nathaniel electrocutes himself to evade capture by the authorities, and Audrey Rose and her father feel relief. The book ends by confirming that "Lord Edmund covered up Nathaniel’s involvement, I didn’t ask how. One day I’d let everyone know the truth, but the pain was too raw now” (chapter 30).

((Side note: Listen. I knew Nathaniel had something sinister going on from the GET-GO (I’m not trying to be obnoxious) because he basically started some nighttime vigilante group called the Whitechapel Knights of Justice or whatever bullshit, I don’t know. All I know is that my red flags IMMEDIATELY started going off because that sounds exactly like the terrible and awful Crusader cosplay clubs from my (bad) Catholic childhood, where everyone thinks they’re a knight for Good but really they’re the bad guy.))

Overall, kind of ...

I think one of my biggest issues with this ending was … You have already stepped into a realm of fantastical revisionist history here in writing such a fictionalized version of these real-life events. (I know Maniscalco is far from the first to do it.) That means that the rules you are playing by are essentially your own—evidenced by the liberties she points out in her Author’s/Historical note (dates changed for convenience or storytelling purposes, real-life individuals changed for narrative purposes, etc.). So WHY would you not conclude this fantasy retelling of the Jack the Ripper murders by meting out some form of justice? I hear the counterargument: "Well, because we still don’t know the culprit today. This book would ring hollow if it named someone since historians, forensic scientists, etc. still don’t know who committed these crimes." My question: is that really a problem though? This is a work of fiction. Nothing in history happened the way it is written here. Is it crueler to the women who were murdered and who remain spectacles for true crime junkies and authors like this, less satisfying to readers who want some more concrete kind of closure, to not offer that up? I am asking this in earnest here, because I don’t know. Maybe it is insensitive to make up a murderer, to fill in the gaps in order to make sense of the violence that happened. But in my brain it feels almost like a responsibility at this point, since these murders served as the backdrop for the romance between Audrey Rose and Thomas, for the background to Audrey Rose’s empty feminist diatribes, and as inspiration for a book that went on far longer than it needed to. To me it kind of feels like the least an author could do, but I have no clue.

Anyways, I'm just glad I get to put this series to bed. No more.I truly lost sleep over it this weekend. Onto something better, please, for the love of god.

#mnc reads #mnc writes #stalking jack the ripper #sjtr #I dont know what to tag this as but I dont want to leave anything out! #tw death #tw suicice #body horror #violence #classism #I guess #racism #maybe #I dont know #Im sorry

[nightowlfandom]

PROMPT LIST PART 4 2021 EDITION (NON- X RATED)

It...had been a long time coming I said this was coming....last year and it just didn’t happen. Until now! 

Rules- One, If a character you are asking for is depicted as high school age, then please be aware they will be written in a style that has them being 18 or older and most likely will not be written in a NSFW sense. I enforce this rule because while I do like writing for people, SFW or NSFW it’s just...what I like to do. I have every right to deny your request, please keep that in mind. Two....there is no rule two.

Here’s how you request- Choose 2- 5 prompts (No more than 5, no less than 2) and those will used to make a one-shot or two-shot depending on how long it gets. You need to tell me who you want me to write about (and if it’s an AU, then state that as well.) Then give me a short summary of what you want it to be about. (Example- You want a Vampire AU about Levi Ackerman with 2,5, 18, 27, and 45. Boom!) If you want smut, PLEASE SPECIFY! I won’t write smut if you don’t ask. Same with if you want a certain type of au or fluff/ angst. Just let me know.

Side note- I write a lot of AU’s and am pretty much open to whatever. Yandere, Tsundere, Office AU, Mafia AU, Vampire AU, Royal AU, Ghost AU, Magical AU -BItch I do everything. HOWEVER I WILL NOT WRITE non-consent, Incest (including step siblings), Underaged readers and anything along those lines.

I write for fluff, smut, AND angst. More fluff and smut but yeah. I also ask if you could say ‘please’ when you request because MANNERS PEOPLE!

Do I do ships- YES! Not often but if you ask I’ll do it.

Link to my masterlist here!

I write for various K-pop groups, animes, Voltage games/Otome Visual Novels, and Final Fantasy/Misc. If you need clarification on if I write for a certain character just go ahead and ask

By the way if you see some repeats from my last prompt list, just hushity hush! I liked them okay? It’s our little secret alright? I will NOT take requests from past prompt lists.

... (Actual prompts below the cut) ⬇️

...

1- Have you ever just wanted to...run away from it all?

2-  I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time...

3- People like that are just jealous of you, you know that right?

4- Stop looking down, you’re too pretty to be that shy.

5- I know you’ve never done anything with anyone before…so I’m gonna make sure your first time is special!

6- You asked me to take care of it...so I’ll take care of it.

7- If anyone even THINKS about touching you, I’ll kick their asses!

8-Oh baby, I treat you like a maid because that’s basically all you are.

9- I love this new angry side of you, it’s so hot.

10- I think I’ll keep you as a pet! You’re fun to mess with.

11- Why can’t you just admit you have feelings for me?!

12- I love you. I-I said it! I just-...I love you so much Y/N

13- I’m not shy! I’m just not used to girls like you being so close to me.

14- Cute? Did you call me cute?!? 

15- Come on! We have so much to do today!

16- Do you want me to sing a song for you to help you get to sleep? Okay then...

17- Well you just kissed me and I don’t even know your name...wanna fix that?

18- Alright, alright! I’ll stop making fun of you okay? Just don’t leave.

19- Hmm, who you tryna’ look sexy for babygirl?

20- Don’t finish that sentence darling...it won’t end well for you.

21- Let’s cuddle and I’ll stroke your hair, okay?

22- I dare you to finish that sentence...

23- Is that my shirt?

24- We can’t be just friends...I’m too in love with you.

25- What. Did. They. Say to you? I won’t ask again.

26- S-so, I guess this means we’re together now?

27- I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day.

28- Shhh, be quiet. We can’t be too loud, babe.

29- When are you going to realize that I can treat you better than he could?!

30- Dance for me. I’ll sit right here and you put on a show, okay?

31- I know it seems like we’re moving too fast but I haven’t felt this way about someone in a long time...I think I’m in love with you

32- Do we have too!? I wore my comfy pants today!

33- If I cared enough to give that asshole the time of day I’d probably be in jail Y/N...

34- Do you think trying to make me jealous is a smart move sweetheart?

35- You’ve been avoiding me...why?

36- I got into a fight, not like I killed someone. Geez Y/N...

37- I didn’t know what kind of flowers you liked...so I got everything they had!

38- I bought takeout! It’s time for me to cheer you up, babe

39- I’d much rather hang out with you than those jerks, what do ya say?

40- *Trips and falls* Oh I’m sorry, I was just making sure I wasn’t dreaming. *flirty smile*

41- I’ll be the best boyfriend you’ve ever had! i promise.

42- How dare you say things about me that are 100% true! I am offended!

43- You know I can tell when you’re lying, right?

44- You know that feeling when it seems like you two are the only people in a room?...That’s how I feel right now.

45- It’s you and me, not us and them. Fuck what they think.

46- You never told me you were in a band!!

47- You’re too cheeky for you own good, kid.

48- Stay a little longer?

49- Say you’re mine! Say it, say it, say it! *Insert giggle here*

50- I think you’ve lost your mind, but okay!

51- Damn, you look good in that dress.

52- Hi, I’m your next best mistake, what’s your name?

53- It breaks my heart to see you so sad.

54- You can lay on my chest if it makes you feel better.

55- Damnit Y/N! I’m trying to confess my feelings to you!

56- I had a dream about you.

57- I know you’re shy around my friends, but they love you!

58- I hate when we fight...let’s just calm down for a second.

59- I didn’t know you liked playing Cat and Mouse.

60- I may or may not have peeked in your diary...

61- Normal? Baby we’re the farthest from it.

62- Avoiding me won’t fix your undying love for me, many have tried but all have failed.

63- Just admit you’re in love with me Y/N...maybe we can have some fun later.

64- Of all the days to be stuck with someone, it’s you...ugh

65- Please never give up for me...or us.

66- Look at me when I fuck you...(I have a feeling this is gonna be a favorite)

67- Aww! Let me play a tune for you on the world’s smallest violin!! (I love spongebob lol) 

68- You never told me you could sing!!

69- Bend over this counter. I need to fill you up.

70- Babe...Lets just calm down. You’re making that face you make when you’re about to-

71- Let’s prepare a Hot Pot today! That always makes us feel better, right? (Hot Pot on a cold rainy day...YESSSS)

72- Me? You...want to be my girlfriend. You sure? Because I am a huge handful.

73- I want you to have my children...I want to be with you forever.

74- Come here girl, let me show you how much I love you.

75- I’ll give you a second chance to fix what you just said babygirl.

76- Everytime I leave you alone, you always make a mess.

78- What’s that thing you do with your neck when you’re mad? Yeah that neck roll thing! Teach me how to do that!

79- Let’s just relax and sleep in all day.

80- You sounded very serious on the phone. What’s up?

81- Yes, I am very awkward and yes I’m probably making this ten times worse than it already is....but 

82- You’re gonna make beg for forgiveness aren’t you.

83- How are we gonna fix this? Because breaking up isn’t an option Y/N.

84- I didn’t think you’d ever love me back...I’m so happy.

85- I wanna meet your parents!

86- Looks like someone could use a visit from the tickle monster!

87- I’d rather die than admit I have feelings for you! You’re disgusting and....perfect in every way,

88- Y/N, Y/N GET IN HERE! WE’RE ON TV!!!

89- Be mine?...I’m gonna keep asking until you say yes! 

90- Okay stop it already! People are gonna think I’m bullying you if you keep sobbing like that.

91- I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong!

92- You’re acting like a four year old right now!

93- Calm down, I’m just giving you a massage.

94- It’s been awhile since...all that happened.

95- Sending memes at three in the morning is NOT productive!

96- Okay...before you get mad, just know I did it because I love you!

97- How many times can I make you blush today, I’m curious to know.

98- Sometimes it’s nice to just stargaze. It calms me down a lot.

99- I suppose this is a good time to mention that I can’t cook!

100- So...about that picture you sent me today....

101- Hm...why don’t you sit on my lap and tell me what you want.

102- I don’t have anything to hide. I’m an open book.

103- Ah! Don’t look at me! I’m not decent! No! Aaah!

104- I mean you could...come to my place! We could have a little date y’know.

105- Snail, Mouse, Pet, Underling, pick a name, Babes.

106- Y/N, I think we’re drunk. And as responsible adults, we should take our clothes off so we don’t suffocate!

107- Okay babe! Tell me all about your day....Your coworker did what?!!

108- I know you’re not asleep, Y/N.

109 - Are you crying because of me? Hm...I didn’t realize I have that effect on you.

110- That’s daddy to you, sweetheart.

ALRIGHT! THOSE ARE THE PROMPTS. GO CRAZY!

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