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anakinskywalkerog · 2 years

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The Jedi and the Loth Rat (Episode 1)

Kanan Jarrus x Padawan!Reader

Warnings: canon-typical violence, mentions of hunger/small body types (she's a street rat! she's going to thicken up soon)

Summary: This is a Star Wars Rebels AU where you, a young (over 18) female, are the street orphan discovered by the ghost crew on Lothal. The romance stuff will develop in later episodes—this one just sets up the premise. Some of these will loosely follow Rebels plots, but most will not. Also, in this AU there is nothing romantic between Hera and Kanan, and Hera is a lesbian lol (as much as I love Kanera, I also love the idea of her having queer vibes). Real talk, I wrote this because I wanted to read it. It's my own fun little innocent fantasy, and I hope you enjoy it. If you stick around until Episodes 3, 4, and 5...there's quite a bit of fluffy romantic angst coming your way :)

Word count: 4.4k

The sun shone down on you as you breathed in the fresh air of Lothal. You felt the hum of life beneath you, perched as you were, hidden on the roof of one of the homes in the outskirts of Capital City. You listened to snippets of conversation, closing your eyes, hearing the distant sounds of Loth-cats rummaging through garbage bins, feeling the vibrations created by the speeders transporting morning shipments. The hunger gnawed at your insides, but you didn't mind. You were used to it by now, the aching pangs pulling your torso apart, your tongue salivating from the thirst you had grown all too familiar with.

"You need a permit to sell here," you heard a deep, monotone voice say below. "New imperial rules."

You crouched, hiding, hanging your head over the side of the roof to peer at the spectacle below. Three imperial generals surrounded the street vendor, and you identified the one who spoke as the same one now hoisting a basket of fruit into his arms.

"These now belong to us," the general said, greedily taking a piece of fruit in his hand and biting into it, the juice slopping down his uniform.

"But—you can't—" the street vendor protested, looking at his crop mournfully.

"Oh, we can," one of the other imperials said, picking up a piece of fruit and examining it. You'd seen enough. Descending from your perch into the adjacent alley, you walked forward, keeping your head down.

"Hey, mister, spare a yogan?" you asked, pretending to accidentally bump into the imperial.

"Get out of here, Loth rat!" the general said, pushing you off him with revulsion.

"Sorry, sorry sir," you said, feigning remorse as you scampered away, back into the alley, out of earshot. Raising the comm unit you'd just stolen off the imperial officer to your mouth with a grin, you pressed the broadcast button. "All officers to the main square immediately," you said into the comm, throwing your voice into a lower register. You had a particular talent for manipulating the sounds that came out of your mouth. "This is a code red!"

"I guess it's your lucky day, Lothal scum," you heard the imperial say from the square. You peeked around the side of a building and watched as the officer dropped the large basket of fruit, taking one regretful look at it before hurrying away with his associates.

You rushed forward to help the older vendor, who was reaching for his fruit.

"Hey, what are you doing?" the vendor asked, watching you pocket several yogans. You waved the stolen comm in his face, smirking at his look of surprise and awe.

"A Loth rat's gotta eat," you said, and with that, you inconspicuously dropped the comm unit into a passing speeder, running back to the alley to climb to your safe perch above the city.

Looking down at Lothal, you took your first bite of fruit. The feeling of the sweetness and the moisture touching your tongue was both heaven and agony, the feeling of the quench combining with the burn of your out-of-practice salivary glands. You finished the fruit quickly, your stomach feeling almost satisfied, your body feeling energized. Abruptly, a current rocked through your body. You straightened. It was as if you had been pulled up by an invisible string, as if every muscle in your whole body had twitched at the same time. You felt an odd quiet that didn't fit your surroundings. You tried to listen for sounds on the wind, but heard only one—the sound of someone breathing. The string pulled your head to look to your right, and beneath you, in the square, you saw a man standing very still, as if he were waiting for something. You watched him, confused by this feeling, this tug you felt in your body. As you looked, you felt before it happened that he was about to turn around, and you quickly dropped to your stomach, peering out over the side of the roof's railing.

You stopped breathing. He was tall, older than you by a good few years, but still in many ways a young man, his brown hair pulled back into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck. His eyes were the color of the sea in clouds, green with a hint of blue. His face was beautiful, but it wasn't any of these features that gave you pause. Looking at this stranger's face gave you the oddest feeling. It was as if this was a face you were intimately familiar with, as if your body, your psyche knew this man, but your mind had forgotten. You saw him looking around, wondering how he had felt your stare on the back of his head. You watched as he turned to a passerby and tapped his leg twice.

Kanan, being well-versed in the ways of the Force, felt an odd current in the air as he walked the streets of Lothal, getting into position. The sensation made him cautious, but not fearful—this was a routine mission, after all, and he'd faced far worse threats than a few stormtroopers guarding a shipment of weapons. Still, as he waited for the imperials to move, waited to send his signal, he felt different. He breathed in deeply, allowing the Force to guide him, and suddenly, as he stood at the street corner, everything went quiet.

All Kanan could hear was the sound of his own breath. He felt a presence behind him, a presence in the Force that seemed almost to be reaching out to him, calling his name. He turned, suspicious, and though in his mind he thought he felt movement, he saw nothing. He looked across the rooftops of the city, and felt as if there were someone sitting behind one of the pillars, calling to him. Whether friend or foe, he didn't know. But this was impossible—no unfamiliar presence had reached out to him through the Force since...

He pushed the thought from his mind. He needed to focus on the mission. Sensing that the stormtroopers had begun their trek with the shipment, Kanan signaled to Sabine, who signaled to Zeb. They were in position. Sabine dropped the explosive casually, walking away as the device decimated the first group of troopers. On cue, Kanan jumped into a speeder, blocking off the second group with the shipment, using his blaster to shoot the stormtroopers from their seats.

Just then, out of nowhere, Kanan saw a girl jumping down from the rooftops, swiftly and gracefully, moving as if she slowed the air around her. Kanan sucked in his breath in surprise. The girl, who looked to be around Sabine's age, was thin, rugged-looking, and dirty. Though it seemed that she was severely underfed, her wiry muscles stood out in the Lothal sun as she adeptly hopped aboard one of the speeder bikes abandoned by the unconscious troopers. She looked up at him and smiled, a mischievous grin, and Kanan, though his mind was still on the mission, lost himself for a moment. It wasn't just that the girl's face was striking, wasn't just that he felt captivated, watching her—it was as if the universe itself had been leading him to this very moment, the moment when he would look upon the face of this girl. It felt as if he were, finally, after all these years, coming home.

"Thanks for these!" the girl said impishly, her grin widening as she sped away with one of the crates.

"Blasts, who was that?" Kanan heard Zeb yell through the comm.

"No...idea," Kanan replied, quickly gathering the rest of the crates in the shipment into the speeders. "But I'm going to find out." He waited for Sabine to jump into the other speeder.

"Get these to Hera!" Kanan told Sabine, before taking off after the girl.

Though this mysterious young thief had a head start, Kanan knew his speeder was faster than the speeder bike of a stormtrooper, and once he saw the familiar route the bike in front of him followed, he pulled off onto a shortcut.

You sped away from the city, gleeful at the day's haul, your wrists pushing at the handlebar controls of the speeder bike, willing it to go faster. You didn't think you were being pursued, but you could never be too careful, and you wanted to get this crate hidden as soon as you could. You thought of everything you'd be able to buy with the credits this steal would earn you on the black market—a whole feast, new boots, maybe even your own speeder, depending on what was in these crates—but suddenly, unexpectedly, your vision was blocked by a figure, fast approaching in your path.

"Aghh," you let slip as you clumsily skidded to a stop, your quick reflexes saving you from crashing into the figure standing by his speeder. You looked at the man in front of you, feeling, finally, a twinge of fear.

"I believe that belongs to me," the man from the square said, his brown hair and sea green eyes overwhelming you for a moment as you took in the sight of him.

"Hey, I stole this. It was mine first," you told him defiantly, setting your lip in a stubborn pout. He reacted to the sound of your voice, his features softening for a moment, but brushed it off quickly, composing his face into a glare. This confused you, but you stood your ground. "Must be pretty valuable, if you came all this way after me."

"It's not about who has something first," the man said, laughing, "but about who has it last." Suddenly, you had no idea how, but suddenly your crate had moved from the back of your speeder bike, and was hovering in front of this man.

"Look, buddy, I don't know who you—" the sound of blasts behind you cut off your words, as you turned to see two tie-fighters shooting at you. You took advantage of the distraction and jumped toward the crate, pushing it with your weight as you tried to run away from the blasts.

"Are you seriously going to try to run away from tie-fighters on foot?" the man asked, watching you, exasperated, as he fired his blaster at the incoming ships. "Spectre 2, I need a pick up. Ties in pursuit."

"Copy that," said a voice through the comm link in the man's hand. You yanked at the crate, trying still to pull it away from him, but he was too quick for you. He jumped over the crate, jumped higher than most people were able, and landed in your path, putting his hands on the other side of the crate, lowering his face to meet yours, grinning in victory.

"This. is. MINE." You argued obstinately, growing pink in the face with effort as you pushed. Unfortunately, you hadn't had anything to eat but fruit in days, and you felt your muscles strain, the lack of protein weakening them. The ties had come back around. The ground shook with more blasts.

"I suggest you come with me," the man said, holding the crate against your efforts with ease. "If you want to live."

You heard the sound of missile hitting metal, the explosion above you almost knocking you off your feet. The man grabbed you by the arm, keeping you upright. One of the tie-fighters had been destroyed—you could see it crashing to the ground in front of you—but by what? By whom?

The large, unfamiliar ship sped into view from behind you, the sound deafening. It lowered in front of you, and you put your hands over your head.

"Jump!" the man yelled back to you, jumping onto the opening ramp of the ship, lowered for him to enter. You turned back, running for the crate as the ship began to rise into the air.

"Leave the crate, you'll never make it!" The man yelled again, and you heard fear in his voice. You were determined. Allowing the crate to hover in your arms, you ran and leapt, higher than most humans were capable, and thrust the crate onto the rising ramp, clinging to it for dear life.

"Woah," the man said, surprised, reaching around the crate to grab onto your hand and pull you to safety.

Kanan pulled you onto the ship, your thin frame sturdier and tougher than he had expected. Much like your personality, he thought, laughing to himself. Hearing you speak had solidified the odd pull he'd felt in the Force when he'd first looked at you. Your voice was musical, yes, but more than that, Kanan felt your speech ring with a power he'd only known in a previous life, when he was surrounded by force-wielding warriors. When you spoke, you commanded more than the sound of your airways. It was thrilling, and confusing to him. He wasn't sure what it meant, this Force tug he felt from you. He wanted to find out.

Kanan looked you over, collapsed on the floor next to you, taking in your size, your obvious lack of care, lack of nutrients, lack of a safe place to sleep, to bathe. Where had you come from? How had you bested him during the mission? How had you jumped so high? He was unwilling to form to any conclusions as of yet. You looked so small, so weak, and yet you had already done more than enough to prove that appearances can be deceiving.

"I'm Kanan, Kanan Jarrus," he said, reaching out his hand to shake yours. You sat, huffing, glancing at him warily, looking suspiciously at your surroundings. "And this is the Ghost," Kanan continued, still holding his hand out in front of you, daring you to rebuff him after he had just saved your life.

"I'm Y/N," you responded, reluctantly taking his hand to shake. The moment your palms touched, you both felt within you that odd quiet, that hum, that feeling of thread pulling you toward one another. Kanan quickly pulled his hand back from yours.

"Kanan, who's the stray?" Zeb asked, rubbing his hand behind his neck, looking at you with a judgmental expression.

"Kanan, what's that stench?" you countered, looking the Lasat in the eyes, the tiniest of smirks glancing over your mouth. Kanan couldn't help but laugh at your expression.

"Are you saying I stink?" Zeb asked with a growl.

"I don’t see any other smelly Lasats in here," you replied, casually looking around the ship's main hull.

"I think I like this one," Sabine said, coming into the hull behind Zeb. "Kanan, can we keep her?"

"Guys, this is Y/N," Kanan replied, smiling at your bemused look. "She so very kindly helped me acquire the rest of OUR shipment from the imperials." You glared at him, looking between Kanan, Zeb, Sabine, and the crate, as if trying to decide if you could take all three of them. Kanan laughed again.

"Well, Y/N, we are grateful for your service," Hera said, walking into the hull behind Chopper. "I'm Hera. The captain of this ship." Hera turned to the others. "We're safely in hyperspace."

"Hyperspace?!" you shrieked, looking around you wildly, like you were trying to find an exit. "Wait, you need to take me back to Lothal."

"We will," Hera said, taking in this reaction with curious eyes. "We just have to leave the system first, and come back when they won't be expecting us." Chopper beeped.

"Yeah, Chop, she does look like she could use a bath," Zeb said, laughing. "Bit bold, to comment on my odor."

Kanan waited, expecting another snarky reply, but it didn't come. Where'd you gone? "Y/N?" he asked, turning to see your back as you walked toward the cockpit.

"Hey, not so fast," Hera said, rushing after you. Kanan followed.

They found you at the cockpit's entrance, standing behind the captain's seat, your hands on the headrest, gazing with wonder at the flashing blue lights in front of you out of the viewport. Kanan stopped behind Hera, watching.

"It's just," you said, unable to take your eyes away from the viewport. "I've never been to space."

Hera looked at Kanan, and he saw concern flit across her eyes.

"We'll get you home. Your parents must be worried sick," Hera said in a calming tone. At this, you turned around to face them.

"I don't have parents," you replied, your face impassive. "And I'm older than I look." Kanan watched emotions cross your face, and felt you mask them through the Force, blocking him out. "But I would appreciate the ride home," you continued.

Kanan hadn't felt someone so young wield the Force as you did since...since the time of many Jedi. He didn't know what to make of it.

"We'll return soon," he said. But there's something I want to see, first, he thought.

You sat in the ship's lower deck, arms folded around your knees. It wasn't that you were hiding from the Ghost's crew—you trusted them, at least as far as not attacking you went—but you were so used to being on your own that being in their constant company made you anxious. You closed your eyes, trying to calm yourself, reminding yourself that you'd be back home on Lothal soon.

Yeah, you thought bitterly, hungry and alone.

As you dwelled in your unhappiness, the supernatural quiet came over you again. This time, you heard no breathing, but rather, a sound like a swinging, an electric kind of sound, coming from above you. You stood up, wanting to follow the sound, to follow the direction you felt in your gut.

Climbing the ladder and making sure no one was around, you followed the feeling to a closed door. You wanted to knock, but thought better of it. Somehow, some way, you knew no one was inside. You pressed the button to open the door and entered what seemed to be sleeping quarters. Kanan's sleeping quarters, you intuited, and this thought made you apprehensive. The last thing you wanted was for this striking and intimidating man to find you snooping around his bedroom. Still, the pull of the thread pushed you forward, and you closed the door quietly behind you.

The first thing you noticed was how clean the room was—how few possessions there were. It didn't look like anyone slept here on a regular basis. There were no signs of personality, no trinkets, no photos littering the walls. This confused you. Still, the string tugged you toward a drawer underneath the bunk, and you pulled it open hastily.

Inside the drawer you found two objects. The first was long, cylindrical, and as you took it into your hands, you felt inside you a feeling of wind. Of pressure against your insides. A feeling of hope. Mesmerized, you knew instinctively to press the button near the top, and to your amazement, a long, blue light beam cut through the middle of the cabin. This was a laser sword. A lightsaber. The weapon of a Jedi, you thought.

You had heard of the Jedi, of course. Your parents had told you childhood bedtime stories about the great warriors of old who once kept peace and order in the galaxy. You learned from them that Jedi were brave fighters, and also mystics, philosophers in life and battle. Was Kanan such a warrior? But the Jedi were thought to be extinct, years ago. Surely Kanan wasn't old enough to be one. You felt yourself blush at this thought, and you pushed it aside quickly. You swung the lightsaber around, and heard the swishing sound you'd felt earlier. You pressed the button again, and the blue beam faded.

The second object was square, hard, and you took this up in your hands, confused as to what it was. It didn't look to have any seams to open, but you knew it wasn't just a trinket, not here, in this spot, next to the weapon of a Jedi Knight. You pulled on it, pleaded with it, but it remained hard, immobile. Frustrated, you held it in your hands and closed your eyes, breathing deeply.

You felt the movement before it happened. The square object broke apart, and before you'd opened your eyes, you heard a voice.

This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Your eyes opened in surprise, seeing the hologram figure rising from the pieces of the square object, now floating and orbiting each other. I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen, with the dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place.

You felt that it would happen before it did, and you moved quickly to conceal the lightsaber in your boot, tripping and sending the pieces of the mystery object back into itself, back into an imperfect square shape. The door opened.

"What are you doing in here?" Kanan asked as he stepped into the room. He spoke as if he didn't need an answer. His voice was calm, serene.

"I—" you blushed, not knowing what to tell him, embarrassment overpowering you at being caught in his chambers, looking through his things. He waited for you to continue, his calm in great contrast to your sputtering.

"I know this is going to sound crazy, but—it's like that thing wanted me to open it," you said, gesturing toward the object. Kanan nodded, his face politely curious. You looked down, avoiding his gaze.

"That's called a holocron," Kanan told you, still standing causally in the door, his presence exuding calm.

"Oh," you replied, still embarrassed. A loaded silence passed between the two of you, and though you had no explanation for it, you felt as if you and Kanan were communicating, as if you were conversing without words.

"What happened to your parents?" Kanan asked, speaking aloud. You reminded yourself that mindreading was impossible—you must need sleep. You shook your head to clear the delusion.

"I don't know," you told him honestly, looking at the floor.

"How long have they been..." Kanan tried to ask, trailing off.

"I've been on my own since I was seven," you answered, still looking at your feet, a bit of defiance entering your voice. You knew how to take care of yourself. You'd been doing it almost your whole life.

"Well, we've arrived back at Lothal," Kanan said. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but as you waited, he only reached out his hand for the holocron. You gave it to him. "We can drop you outside the city, if you'd like." You nodded, your cheeks still burning. Kanan reached out with his other hand, offering you a large package filled with freeze-dried Yala meat and dehydrated bread. You took it, your eyes widening. You hadn't ever had this much food in your possession all at once. Not since you were small, and someone else fed you. You breathed deeply.

"Thank you," you told him, looking him in the eye. He nodded. "On the southeastern side, if possible," you said quietly.

"Of course."

You walked back to your abandoned communications tower, alone, feeling dejected, hopeless, and confused. You were used to being on your own. While on the Ghost, you had felt on edge, the unfamiliar closing in around you. But now that you were back in a familiar place—now that you were walking through the grass of Lothal, and climbing back into your tower, back into the life you knew—you felt as if something had changed. You pulled yourself up from the ladder, opening the door to the interior of the tower and taking in the familiar surroundings: your trinkets, your drawings, random value-less objects you had collected over your years as an orphan. A Loth rat, you corrected in your head. Suddenly, it all felt meaningless to you, the objects having lost their charm, their power. You kneeled and pulled the lightsaber out of your boot. You sensed the presence immediately, but somehow, you weren't afraid. It was as if you knew he would come.

"What's the Force?" you asked without turning back to regard him, as Kanan Jarrus stepped through the door behind you.

"The Force is the collective nature of all things," Kanan replied. "It is everywhere. It binds everything together. It gives all of us life. It strikes a balance. And it's very strong with you, Y/N."

You nodded, understanding, but only a little, as you turned to face him.

"Why are you here?" you asked, looking up into his sea green eyes.

"To give you a choice," Kanan said. "You've taken something that belongs to me." He gestured to the lightsaber in your hand, and you blushed again, but held his gaze fiercely. "If you'd like, you can keep it, and stay here, letting it become one of your dusty souvenirs," he said, looking around at your collection. "Or, you can give it back, come join our crew—our family—and I can teach you the ways of the Force." Your mouth parted open in shock at this offer. You'd been alone for so long. You couldn't comprehend what he was offering, what it might mean for you, and for your future.

"It's up to you to decide," Kanan said, and with that, he turned away and descended the ladder, leaving you alone.

Kanan Jarrus sat on the Ghost's open ramp, looking out in the direction of your communication tower, deep in thought. He knew that his life was forever changed—that something, maybe the will of the Force, had rippled in his life, that meeting you was no coincidence. Still, he didn't have any confidence in you, in what you would choose. You, a skinny, scrappy orphan, only just an adult, stealing and scavenging to eat, to survive. He didn't know how long you'd been alone, or how long you'd been fighting for the simplest necessities on this occupied planet.

"Well, she passed the test," Hera said from behind him. "She opened the holocron." Kanan turned to regard his friend.

"She did," Kanan replied. "And now we wait."

"She'll come." Hera smiled down at Kanan, a knowing sparkle in her eye, and he felt his face growing hot, his stomach turning. He was thankful that she was not Force sensitive enough to know what he was thinking right then. He didn't want to admit it even to himself.

"How do you know?" Kanan asked genuinely.

"Because I can see her coming," Hera replied with a laugh.

Kanan stood up on the ramp and turned to see your figure walking through the haze rising from the long grass. He ran out to meet you, and you saw him, stopping in front of him, holding his lightsaber out in front of you. He smiled, took it, and put his hand on your shoulder. His Padawan you now would be.

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LINK TO Episode 2 :)

The Jedi and the Loth Rat Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 Episode 4 Episode 5 Episode 6 Episode 7 Episode 8

gif credit to @foxtrovert

dividers by @djarrex

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spidernerdsblog · 3 years

Text

BAD HABITS

A/N : Happy Halloween!!! 🦇🎃🕯🕷🕸 This was a bit of self indulgent fic. College au based on the vampire diaries and morbius from the amazing spiderman. I've included a few dialogues from the series too. Hope you like this. Let me know what you think.

Summary : in a world of super soldiers, mutants and sorcerers Peter never believed in the existence of the supernatural until he met you.

Pairing : Peter Parker x Vampire! Reader

Warnings : mature content, fluff, suggestive themes, blood, biting, violence, implied smut II w.c - 13k [longest fic :')]

Mini playlist : bad habits and shivers by ed sheeran, lost by maroon 5, take my breath by the weeknd, sinners and saints by andrea wasse, beauty of the dark by mads langer, streets by doja cat, love chained by cannons

And I know I'll lose control of the things that I say

Yeah, I was lookin' for a way out, now I can't escape

Nothin' happens after two, it's true, it's true

My bad habits lead to you - Bad habits by Ed Sheeran

Sirens of police vans wailing in the distance could be heard as Peter aka your friendly neighborhood spider man swings across the New York skyline. Another dead body has been found completely drained of blood which makes it two for this week.

He landed down in a dark alley and was about to take his mask off when he had an odd feeling as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. A whoosh of air blows, his heightened senses alerting of something or someone going past behind him with an inhumanly fast pace. He swiftly turns around to find no one.

“Hello? Who's there?” he called out to be met with an eerie silence. Then he heard crunching of gravel and staggering footsteps from behind as he turned around to find a woman in her early 30s stumbling out of the backdoor of the building. By her appearance she seemed to be intoxicated as she grasped on to the adjacent wall, struggling to keep herself upright.

“Ma'am are you alright?” Peter rushed to her aid wrapping an arm around her body holding her up straight on her feet.

“Huh?” she stared at him blankly as if she was under a spell.

“Are you ok?” Peter repeated himself and this time it seemed to work as the lady blinked several times breaking out of whatever trance she was into.

“What am I doing here?” she asked him with a look of confusion on her face.

“Ma'am don't you remember how you got here?” Peter asked with concern in his voice.

“No” she replied, holding her head with her hand and trying to think hard.

“It's ok ma'am you have nothing to fear. I'll help you reach your home safely” Peter assured her and took her to the nearby police station.

After making sure the lady is being escorted home safely Peter finally swings back to his apartment. Sliding up the window he enters his room and sheds off the suit changing into his regular clothes. He walks out of his room to find May sitting on the couch, eyes trained on whatever program was showing on the TV screen. He moves to the kitchen to get some water. The running of the tap caught May’s attention.

“Oh you’re back. How was your night patrol?” she asked, stretching her back a little strained from sitting in the same position for a long time.

“As usual,” Peter shrugged, bringing the glass to his mouth taking a sip of the water “though I did come across this lady who seemed to be drunk but wasn't and she doesn't remember how she got there...” Peter trailed off the news telecast on the tv catching both of their attention.

“The police are saying little about this latest killing. The victim, a 33 year old male was pronounced dead on the scene in lower Manhattan” the newsreader briefed out as May and Peter’s had their eyes glued to the tv screen “authorities acknowledge possible links to two previous deaths, though they discourage talk of a possible serial killer on the loose despite the severe brutality of the deaths. Investigators have combed through hours of surveillance video but still have no leads. The police chief has appealed to anyone who may have any information about this latest death to come forward to police”

“Another dead body? What is happening in this city? Is it a serial killer? Do you know something?” May turned to Peter with a look of worry on her face.

“I honestly have no idea but Dr. Banner and Dr. Cho examined one of the dead bodies recently and the autopsy reports came back normal. Nothing unusual except for bite marks and scratches on the body” he paused for a moment to decide if he should share any further details with her but went to tell her anyways because nothing is a bigger secret than knowing your own nephew is spider man “also this is a classified information which has been held back from the public to prevent any kind of unnecessary panic but all the dead bodies has been found to be missing two third of their blood”

“What?!” she exclaimed, eyes widening in disbelief.

“Yeah the blood found on the crime scene doesn’t equate to the amount of the total volume of blood found in a normal human body it’s as if someone drank it” Peter explained which got May thinking.

“Hmmm.. blood drained bodies with bite marks sounds like a vampire to me” she tried to sound funny making Peter shake his head smiling.

“There are no vampires, May. You need to stop watching those twilight movies” he said, chuckling softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Says a 21 year old who is obsessed with star wars and legos” she quipped back at him.

“C’mon they are much better than your vampires glowing in sunlight” he said in his defence.

“Ok Obi Wan whatever you say” she joked, holding up her hands as Peter rolled his eyes.

“By the way, your fall semester starts next week right?” she asked standing up from the couch to set the table for dinner.

“Yeah” he answered, following her to the kitchen to help her.

“You and Harry better lock all the doors and windows in the dorm at night” she advised.

“Don't worry May we'll be alright after all I'm spider man” he grinned cheekily.

🎃

The sky was clear blue, sun shining brightly bathing everything with an amber glow. It was the beginning of the fall season. The frigid air seeped through the several layers of clothing as Peter stuffed his hands in his pockets, a random song playing in his earphones as he briskly walked down the sidewalk past the central park.

Reaching the gates of the Empire State university Peter let out an exasperated sigh at the thought of returning back to his usual mundane life. Life has always been a struggle for him from losing his parents to accidentally being bitten by a radioactive spider and then losing his uncle as well as Gwen. It was like some ill-fated luck that he had to go through such hardships and losses in his life. And with his current financial condition it’s the scholarship that has only made it possible for him to continue with college.

“Hey! Parker!” Harry’s voice startled Peter out of his thoughts.

Harry Osborn was the only son of Norman Osborn, co-owner of the Oscorp industries. They have been roommates since freshman year and after spending six semesters with him the bond seems to be unbreakable. Peter has to admit if it wasn’t for Harry he couldn't have imagined how he would have got through the last three years.

“Hey Harry, good to see you” Peter gives him a side hug.

“So how was your summer break?” he asked as they began to walk towards the science building.

“It was good. Mostly spent time at aunt May’s” he replied.

“That’s nice. I went to the Bahamas and man it was fucking awesome!”

“Yeah I saw your instagram Harry” Peter chuckled.

“So senior year it is huh?” Harry said, exhaling a puff of air.

“Yeah,” Peter hummed in agreement.

“Why do you sound so gloomy? Cheer up man this is our last year” Harry literally shook Peter by grabbing on his shoulders “and don’t worry we’ll find you someone to get laid” he added with a wink.

Heat rose up Peter's face “I didn’t say anything like that!”

“Yeah, yeah I know buddy” Harry grinned “see you in the cafeteria after classes” he and Peter parted ways to go to their respective classes.

Peter headed towards the biochemistry department climbing up the stairs. Upon finding his classroom he went inside and slumped down on a seat near the window. He pulled out his phone to check the time to find that there’s still a few minutes left for the class to begin. So he took out a notebook from his bag and got busy scribbling chemical formulas on it.

Soon after the classroom was filled with shuffling of feet and the soft thuds of bags being dropped on the desks. Everyone seemed to be thrilled to meet their friends after the holidays. The room buzzed with the chatters of students accompanied by occasional loud laughter.

Suddenly all the noise waned down to soft murmurs prompting Peter to look up his notebook as well and his gaze falls upon you standing at the doorway of the classroom. You were dressed in dark denims and a beige cable knit jumper, hair loose cascading down your shoulders. You looked inside the room filled with students curiously before making your way to the one empty seat right in front of Peter’s.

Peter doesn’t remember the last time he felt like this but his heart definitely skipped a beat just by one glance of you. A sudden rush of adrenaline coursed through his body. His muscles tensing as he felt his pupils dilating. Watching every movement of yours as you put down your books on the desk and sat down. The light and sweet smell of your perfume was intoxicating and he knew he was fucked. Never had he expected that on the first day of his senior year he would fall hard for someone.

After a few minutes the professor arrived and the class began as he went on to give his introduction followed by explaining the course for this semester. Throughout the class Peter was restless. He couldn’t give a damn to what the professor was saying ‘cause all his attention was on you. He wanted to know your name, where are you from because you don't seem to be from anywhere around here, what are you majoring in— he wanted to know it all.

The class ended after an hour which appeared to be the longest one hour for Peter. He watched you stand up from your seat, gather your things and walk out of the class without talking to anyone.

🎃

You recently moved from Chicago and are renting an apartment near the campus because all the dorms were full. That's what you told Emma Frost whom you befriended in your astrophysics class. A lovely and cheerful girl with icy blonde hair and striking blue eyes. She had walked up to you and introduced herself asking if you were new. To which you said yes and the rest is history. In moments you became friends it looked like you knew each other for years and did not just meet a few minutes ago.

Emma took it upon herself to give you a tour around the campus before leading you to the cafeteria where Harry and Peter were already seated at a corner table.

Peter saw you walk in laughing at whatever story Emma was telling you and boy he was mesmerized than he already was. Harry followed his gaze and found it to be fixed on you, a smirk growing on his face as he whispered.

“Stop staring like that you creep,”

“What? I'm not staring!” Peter whispered back.

“Yes you are” he snickered.

“No” Peter retorted but then his heartbeat quickened when he saw you making your way towards their table with Emma.

“Hey guys! Meet my new friend Y/N” she announced with her usual cheerful voice.

Y/N, Peter repeated to himself under his breath. Such a beautiful name just like you.

“And Y/N this is Harry Osborn” she said, directing at the blonde with cerulean blue eyes. He waves at you with a smile “and this is Peter Parker” your gaze shifts to the cute guy with a mop of curly brown hair sitting beside him who gives you a timid smile in return.

“Thank you for letting me join you guys” you said, taking a seat beside Emma.

“No worries, we are all friends over here” she said.

“So Y/N what are you majoring in?” Harry asked with genuine interest.

“I’m a physics major,” you answered happily.

“Wow well Mr. Parker over here is a physics major too. And trust me he is a genius who also got to intern at the Stark industries during high school” he said, patting a hand on Peter's shoulder proudly while Peter gives a strained smile not at all liking Harry exaggerating about him.

“Oh that's cool!” you said amused.

Just then another guy of short height dropped in and hit the back of Peter's head playfully “Sup dickwad!” Peter whispered a small ‘ow’ and looked up at him with a scowl on his face.

“Oh who's this gorgeous lady?” his gaze shifted towards you.

“Don’t even try Eugene,” Emma warned.

“What? Can I not know her name? And stop calling me that!” he scowled.

“Well isn't that your name Eugene?” Emma teased grinning particularly emphasizing on his name which made him roll his eyes while others laughed.

“It's Y/N, Y/N Salvatore” you said politely with a smile.

“Cool! Welcome to the ESU Y/N. and call me Flash” he said with a wink “so you guys coming to the kegger tonight right? Johnny said it’s gonna be dope”

“Yes!” Harry and Emma shouted unanimously.

“Uh...I don’t know if I should—” you said reluctantly.

“Oh you should. Our fraternity throws the best parties on campus” Flash insisted.

“Hey by the way, is Felicia coming?” Harry piped in.

“She’s not into you Harry. Let it go already” Emma taunted.

“Shut your mouth, frosty! As if you aren’t after Johnny Storm” he retorted as her cheeks turned pink flustered.

“Parker, maybe you should give this a pass since Brad will be there” Flash said with a grin to which Peter tensed up a little.

“Stop bugging him, Flash!” Emma threw a lettuce from her salad at him and he ducks away, chuckling.

“Who’s Brad?” you turned to Emma curiously.

“Oh he’s just a quarterback of the college football team” she said with a shrug.

“And the new boyfriend of MJ, Peter’s ex” Flash added and Peter wished he could somehow disappear from there. Because talking about first impressions in front of the girl you're completely whipped at first glance he is now some kind of a loser who is still moping about his ex— which he is not by the way as the breakup was completely mutual from both sides.

“Yes and my boy is already over her so shut it Flash!” Harry told him off.

“Ok man whatever you say?” Flash held up his hands in the air casually.

You continued to eat your lunch while talking about your interests, feeling already welcome in their group as Emma and Harry shared their own fun experiences they had for the past three years. Occasionally your eyes fleeting towards Peter who chose not to take part actively in the conversation instead stayed silent. At one moment you caught him stealing a glance at you but he was quick to look away embarrassed. After you left with Emma finishing your lunch Peter finally turns to Harry.

“What the hell were you trying to do a while ago?” he hissed at him.

“What? I was just helping my very single best friend to get the girl he fell in love at first sight”

“I didn't fall in love with her,” Peter grumbled.

Harry gasped pretending to be relieved “Oh thank god I really thought you were going to leave me for her” he chuckled as Peter shook his head.

🎃

The party was in full swing, take my breath was playing as the music blared from the boomboxes. After a lot of nagging from Emma you finally said yes to go to the party. She introduced you to a lot of new people from the university including the infamous Johnny Storm apparently on whom Emma had a crush. He was a tall, handsome blonde with greenish-blue eyes and a huge flirt as he did try to hit upon you before Emma dragged him away to dance with her.

Peter had no interest in coming to the party but as always Harry was adamant and dragged him to the frat house. Now he is standing at a corner with a red solo cup in hand half filled with some cheap beer as he watches Harry try his best to woo Felicia Hardy the cheerleading captain of the varsity football team.

You on the other hand have lost sight of Emma as you were looking for her in the crowd and saw Peter standing at a corner alone. You pushed your way through the crowd towards him. Peter suddenly felt all jittery when he saw you approaching him.

“Hey, you’re Peter right?!” you raised your voice so that he can hear you above the loud music.

“Yeah!” he replied, raising his voice too.

“Have you seen Emma?!” you asked him further.

“No!”

“Oh! I can’t find her either” you said and stood alongside each other in an awkward silence for a moment before Peter finally mustered up some courage.

“You wanna go outside?! It’s pretty loud in here!” he suggested, feeling a bit unsure still hoping you would agree.

“Yeah sure!”

Peter felt a slight relief and happily led you out of the frat house to the lawn.

“Oof it was so loud in there isn't it?” you let out a sigh of relief “I thought my head would blow up with all that noise”

“I know, right?” Peter agreed. Ever since he has gained his heightened senses Peter dreaded parties, the already loud music would be amplified for him a thousand times more. But he could never explain that to anyone.

The air was cold outside but the proximity he was standing next to you had him sweating out of nervousness as he took a large gulp of beer from the plastic cup in his hand.

“So what made you choose physics? Girls are not much interested in this particular field as far as I know” He asked, trying to break the ice.

It made you chuckle lightly. “Ah well I'm actually interested in the theoretical part mostly related to dark matter and stuff. What about you?”

“Well I'm more inclined to its applications. I like to build stuff specially after working under Mr. Stark it piqued my interest”

Your eyes went wide amused. “You worked with the Tony Stark?!”

“Yeah,” he said shyly, scratching the back of his neck.

“No way! Tell me more about it please!”

Peter felt he was some kind of superhero — which he already was but not everybody knows about it. And seeing the admiration for him in your eyes just boosted his confidence as he went on to talk about his experience of working under Tony, meeting the avengers while you listened to him with undivided attention.

You had almost lost track of time when you looked down at your watch “Sorry I’ve to leave now, it's quite late already”

“Yeah sure. I can walk you if you want,” he offered.

“Thank you but I live in an apartment off the campus” you said with a smile “listen if you don’t mind, can I’ve your number?”

Peter was somewhat taken aback in surprise “My number?”

“Yeah. You are the only one I know from the physics department so I thought you know maybe—”

“Yeah, yeah sure,” he said quickly. You smiled and handed him your phone as he eagerly typed in his number.

“I’ll text you” you said taking back your phone and walked out of the lawn.

Peter stood there with a boyish smile on his face. You’ll text him that whole thing made him feel giddy as if he was back to being a teenager in high school.

🎃

Getting back to your apartment you switched on the lights of the living room and you let out a startled gasp as you were met with a familiar face.

“Nice apartment you got yourself” she commented taking a light stroll around the room examining an antique vase kept on a shelf.

“What are you doing here?” you gritted under your teeth.

“Haww is that how you treat your best friend?” she feigned innocence.

“Best friend?! This is all your fault Rebecca!” you snapped out at her.

“Oh c'mon stop whining. You should be thankful because for me you’re now stronger and faster than any other creature in this world or else you would have been dying in some hospital bed with your pathetic sickle cell anemia” she gloated with her usual smugness.

“Dying would have been a much better option rather than living with this insatiable hunger. I've turned into a blood sucking monster!” you said with a tone of accusation.

When you were 10 your parents found out you are suffering from a rare genetic blood disease with no cure. It restricted you to stay indoors mostly as a small cut will become fatal for you which began to hamper with your career prospects as well.

You were desperate to get rid of this condition and then one day Rebecca persuaded you to volunteer as a test subject to Dr. Morbius’ experiment to find a cure for rare blood diseases which led to you gaining your vampire abilities along with immense bloodlust and since then you’ve blamed her for your miserable condition.

“And now when I’m trying to live a normal life you want to ruin that too” you added.

“The HYDRA is still after us Y/N and I’m just looking out for you” her tone softened as she placed a reassuring hand on your shoulder.

“Yeah by killing people that’s very thoughtful of you” you deadpanned.

“Hey as per our pact with Morbius we are supposed to feed on people who are guilty of some crime and moreover I haven't killed anyone those were the rogue vampires HYDRA created”

“But still you can’t continue feeding on humans anymore Becca.” you said “There’s already rumors going around and people are getting suspicious”

“By people you mean to say the nerdy dude in your class with spider powers right?”

“No”

“You really think he’s gonna be there for you after knowing the truth?” she said with disdain in her voice.

“Don’t try to make this about me” you snapped.

“We both know Y/N the closest you ever could get to humanity is ripping open that vein and feed on it” she whispered into your ear darkly.

“That will never happen”

“We will see” a smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. You blinked and she was gone, disappearing into thin air.

This is the third time you have moved across cities and honestly you're tired of running for your life. After Dr. Morbius refused to hand over the serum of vampirism to the HYDRA by destroying the last of the vials they have been trying to replicate it and combine it with the super soldier serum with no success. Most of their test subjects end up dying due to non compatibility or lack half of the abilities you or Rebecca possessed. Moreover, their physical appearances change from human to more bat-like.

That is why they want to capture both of you and extract the serum from your blood. For the last three years you have managed to escape them with the help of Dr. Morbius due to his vast connections in the science community helping you change colleges without any hassle but you don’t know how long this setup is going to work.

Tired, you went to your room and sat on your bed exhaling deeply. You unlocked your phone and saw Peter’s name in your contacts. You hover your finger over it thinking if you should text him or not but eventually end up texting him.

Y : Hey it's Y/N

He replied instantly.

P : Hi

Y : Do I need to prepare anything for tomorrow's class? A head start would be really nice. Want to make a good impression hehe

P : Don’t worry you're good

Y : Oh ok thanks

Y : See you tomorrow in class then. goodnight :)

Should he add a heart emoji with his reply? he thought. No, no you might think how desperate he is so he settled in keeping it simple.

P : goodnight :)

🎃

And all of a sudden life wasn’t as boring as it used to be for Peter. He found the utmost joy to help you through the curriculum and share notes. He now looks forward to attending classes to spend some time with you, to see you laugh at his silly science puns or just to look at your beautiful face.

Weeks go by just like that with stolen glances and subtle touches as you enjoy each other's company. The tension was evident between you two but none of you could muster up the courage to say it out loud.

“So how’s it going on with Y/N?” Harry asked one day as he and Peter walked back to their dorms.

“It’s going fine, we have been talking after classes,” Peter replied with an impish glee, scratching the back of his head.

“Talking?” Harry gave him an incredulous look totally disappointed with his best friend “dude you should be done with second base by now”

“Relax we are just taking things slow that’s it” Peter huffed, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah sure until she gets bored and finds someone new” he quipped, making Peter stop in his tracks and give him an unamused look “don’t look at me like that. Girls always expect guys to make the first move” Harry added and Peter hung his head low with a sigh.

“I don’t know man, she is a bit closed and reserved. I don’t even know whether she likes me or not”

“Even better reason to spend time with her” Harry pointed out “Bro trust me I’ve seen the way she looks at you don’t mess this one up or else I’ll be the only option left for you” Harry joked puckering his lips.

“Fuck off dude!” Peter shoved him with his elbow playfully.

Later at night Peter was lying on his bed after returning from his night patrol thinking about what Harry told him earlier during the day. And he was right.

He likes you and all the time you have spent together he is this much sure that you like him too at least that’s what he hopes. So he finally decides that tomorrow is going to take the brave step and ask you out. And with that thought he closes his eyes, drifting off to sleep instantly.

A flutter of wind blew by after sometime as you appeared in Peter’s room. You would be lying if you said you knew why you were there yet every night you find yourself in his room. Peter was somewhat peacefully asleep and you wondered what he was dreaming about. A shaft of moonlight, beaming through the curtain illuminated the room dimly.

You remember the night you met for the first time in the dark alley two months ago. Rebecca had pulled you out of your bed at some ungodly hour because she had to feed. You never fed on humans but accompanied her to clear up her mess so that no evidence is left that might blow your cover.

“C’mon now Y/N I know how much you want this. Just have a taste” she lured you, retracting her fangs from the neck of the woman who was barely conscious under your compulsion.

“Stop fooling around and get done with it already!” you said with slight irritation in your voice.

“Well suit yourself” she shrugged and went to sink her teeth again.

That's when Peter interrupted after he saw the woman being forcefully held hostage by you both.

“Hey let her go!” he yelled as you both turned around letting out a snarl. Though you couldn’t see his face behind the mask, you were sure he was shocked to his bones.

Peter couldn’t believe his eyes. In his short span of life he was bitten by a radioactive spider, met super soldiers, assassins, sorcerers, fought aliens but vampires? Is that even possible? He didn’t have much time to ponder about it because he needs to save the lady first. But before he could do anything you vamp speeded and grabbed his throat slamming him against the wall.

“Please let her go, she is innocent” he said calmly.

It was something about his voice that was so calm and soothing as if he was directly talking to the part of you which was still human. Even though his own life was in danger he was thinking about saving the woman first. Then you did the unexpected.

Reaching out your hand you pulled the mask off his face. And swear to god you’d never expected such a handsome face underneath. Your eyes trailed across soft yet firm features. His warm honey brown eyes, slightly crooked nose, that one unruly eyebrow with light freckles dusting his cheeks and nose. His brown curls fluffy and messy due to the mask falling over his face.

“I don’t know what you are but you don’t have to do this” he said softly. He wasn’t fighting you as if he knew you aren’t going to hurt him or anyone willingly.

Your expression softened “Don’t worry we won’t harm her or you” you said loosening your grip around his throat “Just look at me”

You hate to do this, you don’t want him to forget about this night but you also don’t want him to remember this monstrous side of yours. You stared into his eyes with great intensity. Your pupils dilated as Peter looks at you mesmerized.

“You are going to forget about all of this. You found this woman intoxicated in your night patrol and helped her get home safely that's all you will remember”

Peter nodded and put on his mask as you and Rebecca disappeared from there. That night you returned falling head over heels for a beautiful stranger whom might never meet again. But then you saw him in your biochemistry class and you knew you were meant to cross paths for a reason. Be it coincidence or some twisted fate he was the anchor to your humanity.

With this undying thirst you’re one step away from giving in and turning into the monster you’ve trying to suppress. You were a lost soul, broken beyond repair until you met him. He is your safe haven that makes you feel alive again.

You studied his sleeping face as you reached out a hand. How many times you had wished to grab his face and kiss him but couldn’t. Peter stirred in his sleep as you pulled back your hand to snap yourself out of those thoughts and reluctantly disappeared from his room.

🎃

Last week Dr. Kissick partnered you with Peter for a project and both of you were thrilled to be working together. You had to centrifuge a few samples today. Peter prepared the solutions quickly and handed them to you so that you could pipette them out. Your hand touched his for a moment and being the nervous wreck he was, the beaker slipped out of his hand and fell on the floor shattering into pieces.

“Oh shit! It’s my fault” he crouched down quickly and started picking up the glass pieces when a particular sharp piece pierced his skin forming a big cut across his palm as blood gushed out from it.

“Fuck!” he muttered under his breath.

“Are you ok?” you kneeled down worried and the sight of blood made you squeamish. You quickly turned to look away but the sweet scent of his blood, wafting through your nostrils made your mouth run dry. Your eyes grow wide in euphoric pleasure at the coppery taste. The taste of blood. You could hear people’s hearts beating louder. Their blood pumping through their veins, hunger starting to take over you slowly.

“Sorry... I've hemophobia here... take this” you stuttered as you handed over your napkin shakily.

“Hey your eyes,” Peter's brows drew together as your eyes appeared darker than usual to him. You quickly turned your face again and blinked your eyes to make the veins disappear.

“What’s with my eyes?” you asked, pretending to be clueless.

“They…. looked different” he told with a look of confusion.

“They’re perfectly fine. Here let me tie that for you” you took his hand in yours and tied your napkin securing his wound.

“You should get it cleaned and bandaged. We can carry on with this tomorrow”

Now how does he say to you that due to his super healing he has already started to heal and maybe the cut has already disappeared by now but he nods instead.

“Um, so ah, do you wanna, uh… I don’t know um…” Peter fumbled.

“Wanna what?”

“I don’t know maybe just uh..” he paused “we could at least work on the theoretical portion of the experiment”

“Yeah sure” you said quickly.

“Ok… so where do—” he was fiddling with his hands nervously.

“My place at six” you answered before he could finish his question.

🎃

Hearing the doorbell you rushed to open the door though you had sensed the moment he stepped in the building. Peter stood there in one of his checked flannel shirts that he used to wear over his science pun t-shirts. A soft smile etched on his lips as he gave you a small “Hey”

“Hi… come in” you said breathily and stepped aside to let him in. “Sorry it's a little messy”

“What? If this is messy you should drop by our dorm sometime” he chuckled looking around your apartment. It was cozy with minimal decoration and had two bedrooms with a kitchen though one of the bedrooms is locked he noticed. “So you live alone?”

“Yeah for now. I'm looking for a roommate though” you said “Please sit down and make yourself comfortable”

He sat down on the couch keeping his backpack on the side.

“By the way how is your hand?” you asked.

“Oh it’s fine I told you it was a minor scratch see?” He showed you his palm which had a very faint line of the cut “All healed.”

“That's good. So I had already started off a little bit with the data we had collected earlier in class. I think we should just directly get into it” you proposed.

“Yeah sure” he nodded.

You set down your notebooks on the coffee table and sat down beside him. You began brainstorming ideas to incorporate in your project as you simultaneously took notes. Peter watched you scribble in the notebook completely focused with your brows drawn together. A stray strand of hair falling in front of your face as Peter resisted the urge to reach out his hand and brush it off.

He finally takes in your appearance. You were more casually dressed in a plain t-shirt and sweat shorts exposing a good amount of your legs up to your thighs. Perversely Peter wanted to run his hands across them and feel your soft skin but he had to shake those thoughts off. It’s a rush of dopamine, serotonins, oxytocin and endorphins which makes it hard for him to think straight around you. He just wants to kiss you, hold you close and feel every inch of you. You had a certain kind of hold over his mind and body that he cannot explain.

Peter falls silent, lost in his own thoughts which makes you finally look up at him to find his gaze fixed on you.

“What? What is it?” your hand reached up to your face.

“Huh?” he blinked, owlishly shaken out of his daze.

“Is something there on my face?” you asked.

Peter had no idea what came over him as he leaned over pressing his lips on yours then to pull back quickly as you sat there frozen with wide eyes being caught off guard.

“I'm so sorry, so sorry I didn't mean to do that. I don't know what came into me. It's just you are so pretty and I kinda like you, like a lot actually since the first day we met. And I can't stop thinking about you” he rambled before pausing as he realized how inappropriate it sounded “wait that's not what I meant”

“Peter” you touched his face gently, pressing your lips on his lips for a long chaste kiss “I like you too” and now it was his turn to be surprised.

Peter had always imagined this particular moment in his head a number of times. Of how he would confess his feelings to you hoping you’d tell him that you felt the same way for him too. He’d then kiss you so passionately leaving you breathless. He would show you how much he loved you. But now that you finally said what he wanted to hear he feels paralysed thinking this might be a dream after all. But the feeling of your warm hand still resting on his face tells him otherwise.

“You do?” he asked, still in disbelief.

“Mmhm” you nodded “I have always liked you Peter since the day we met but then I heard about Gwen and MJ so I thought you weren't interested in a relationship or me”

Peter scooted closer to you and cupped your face with his large calloused palms.

“God no. Y/N, you don't know you make me feel things” his soft brown eyes gazing into yours “I don’t know what it is but I always felt some kind of connection with you even if you weren’t around me I could feel you. And I’ve never felt like this with anyone before. I love you Y/N. I-I”

You didn’t even let him finish as your hand winded around the back of his neck and pulled him closer crashing your lips into his. His one hand cradles the side of your face while the other slides down to your waist, pulling you on his lap as you sit astride. Your fingers thread through his brown curls as you kiss him deeply. His tongue traced your lips and you moaned quietly letting it slip past your lips to explore your mouth.

Peter’s grip on your waist grew tighter as you grind your hips harder, feeling him grow under you. Arousal pools between your legs, the rough texture of denim jeans rubbing against your core through your thin shorts felt exquisite. His lips trails down your jaw and collarbone. You tilted your head back further, his hot mouth against your skin made goosebumps rise on your body.

Your head dropped in the crook of his neck when he nipped at the pulse point behind your ear. You were slowly losing control over yourself. You could feel the blood under his warm pale skin...pulsating, flowing. The carotid artery...right there. If you puncture it just right, you can control the blood flow. Takes practice, but it doesn't have to make a mess. You don't have to waste any. One sink of your teeth in it and you could have a taste of that sweet elixir. You were quick to shake yourself from those thoughts and gently nibbled on his skin.

Peter groaned, simply not able to get enough of you. His hands wander all over your body as he continues kissing down your neck. You softly moan his name and God was that sound better than he dreamed. There is so much more he wants to do to you but he knows he must go slow, he wants to savor each and every moment engraving in his memory.

After the hot frenzied kiss, your kisses turned slow, soft and sweet. You wanted to feel more of him as you rolled your hips moaning softly.

“Y/N if you continue doing this I don’t think I could hold back anymore” Peter murmured against your lips breathless.

“And I don't want you to hold back,” you said with hooded eyes, equally breathless.

“Fuck” he rasped, lifting you off the couch effortlessly. You wrapped your legs around him as he carried you to your bedroom.

You wake up the next morning staring up at the ceiling of your bedroom. You glance over to your side and there he is looking ethereal as the sunlight streams through the small opening of the curtains falling over his face. Peter looked so calm that you could watch him all day. His usually well-kept brown locks were a mess. His mouth is slightly parted as he lets out soft snores. He’s laying on his stomach with one hand snuck underneath the pillow, the other lazily wrapped around you.

The feeling of his warm skin against yours brings back all the memories of last night. It was slow, soft and sweet. From beginning to end. You’d imagine it a lot of times in your head but it turned out to be much better than your imagination. He was slow and gentle, taking his sweet time knowing you and your body. His lips explored your body as your hands explored his.

You try to remember how he felt, how he held you close as if you were the most fragile thing in the world. It sent tingles all over your body as you tried to remember it all but that one moment of pure bliss. You remember gazing into his eyes while he was deep inside you. And the only thing you saw was pure love and adoration he had for you. Your moans and whimpers were music to his ears as he drew pleasure out of your body. His own grunts and low hums filling the room as you fell into his arms finally exhausted.

“I love you” he whispered.

“I love you too” you had whispered him back drifting off to sleep.

It was something you’ve never experienced before. Something you never thought you would experience.

After sometime you watch him stir in his sleep and flutter his eyes open, a smile instantly spreading across his face.

“Hi” he said in his deep morning voice

“Hi” you said, smiling back at him.

“You look even more beautiful in the morning” he said gently tucking a lock of your hair behind your ear.

“Shut up” you blushed “we need to get up or we will be late for our classes today”

“I don’t wanna go,” he said, wrapping his hands around pulling you closer “this is better. Let’s stay like this all day”

“Not happening mister you’ve to finish the project the deadline is this week” you reminded him. He lets out a small huff in protest nuzzling his face in the crook of your neck. You stayed like that for a while soaking in the moment before getting ready for your classes.

Later in the day you were sitting at the cafeteria with Emma as Flash went on and on about. Peter leaned down to place a light peck on your lips as you scooted aside to make space for him.

“You finally grew some balls Parker!” Flash pats his back with a grin.

“You guys knew?” You asked them a little surprised

“Hate to break it to you honey” Emma said “but you guys weren't quite subtle”

“You should have seen the morning glow on his face today” Harry grinned widely “you finally stole my boyfriend Y/N”

You and Peter looked away shyly feeling your face heat up.

“Well we are happy for both of you at least we don't have to listen to Peter moping about how much he likes you” Emma snickered before changing the topic “Okay now let's talk about the most important matter on hand that is this week’s Halloween party. So who are we dressing up as this year?”

“Witches and warlocks,” Flash said.

“We already did that”

“How about vampires? We can go dressed as the characters from the movie buffy the vampire slayer” Harry suggested.

“Not bad idea” Emma perked up “You know I was always curious to know how it feels to be a vampire in the living world and controlling your bloodlust”

“Oh you wouldn't want to know that” you mumbled under your breath sarcastically but Emma caught it.

“Huh you said something?”

“No, nothing. I think it's a great idea we should totally go as vampires”

🎃

If Peter knew what he was going up against he would have considered calling for backup but it's too late now. Earlier during his night patrol Peter saw one man seizing a guy as another man punched him in his guts. He was quick to intervene, webbing the three muggers as the guy who was getting beaten up ran away as soon as he got the chance.

But Peter didn’t expect that was coming next as he saw the two men in front of him ripped away his webbing as they let out an animalistic growl baring their teeth. Their canines are ridiculously long and sharp along with their inhuman reflexes. He is so baffled by it that he didn’t see the fist being hurled straight to his face hitting squarely at his nose.

He falls flat head hitting the rough ground as blood rushes out of his nose. Those men assumed he was unconscious as they talked in low whispers when another man arrived informing “We couldn't find Y/N Salvatore”

They were looking for you but why were they looking for you? And what do they have to do with you? As these questions revolved in his head Peter decided to swing by your apartment at this hour in the night. He doesn’t care if has to reveal his identity to you which he has been meaning to tell you for a while now but he needs to make sure you are safe first. He laid there without moving a muscle until they left.

He hangs down your window to find your room empty. The lights were off too. You were not at home which he found strange since it was so late at night. And then something caught his eyes. As if someone was moving in the living room.

Peter slid up the window and stepped inside your apartment. He took off his mask and tiptoed to the living room but there was no one then he noticed the door of your spare bedroom open. He walked inside cautiously to find a huge freezer stacked with blood bags of different blood groups. He picks up one bag as he wracked his brain wondering what are you storing blood bags for.

“Hello bug-boy”

Peter is startled by Rebecca's voice as he drops the blood bag and turns around to find her smiling at him crookedly.

“You are not Y/N. Who are you and what are you doing in her apartment?”

Peter was about to press his web shooters on his wrists but before he could do that Rebecca vamp speeded her way and grabbed him by his throat and slammed him against the wall.

“Wha-what are you?” Peter’s words came out choked.

“Ah those same old questions, who are you? What are you? Why are you doing this?” she scoffed, rolling her eyes dramatically

“Well you see I'm a vampire and so does your precious Y/N. We’re the predatory species. We enjoy the hunt, the feed and the kill. And when the guilt gets too bad... we switch off our humanity and revel in it”

"What?" none of it registered with Peter as he looked at her even more confused. He grabbed on her hand to loosen her iron like grip but it was all in vain as she grinned baring her sharp white fangs.

“I’ve never tasted a spider’s blood, it would be fun you know” she licked the side of his face and was about to puncture his skin with her teeth. Just then you burst into your apartment your eyes going wide in shock at the scene in front of you.

“Rebecca!” You yelled vamp speeding towards her and snapped her neck. Her limp body collapsed on the floor with a thud as you ran your hands all over Peter’s body to make sure he was unharmed.

“Oh my god Peter, are you ok?”

“Y/N! What-what did you do?!” He was visibly panicking.

“Peter, she will be fine, just relax ok?”

“Relax? You-you just snapped her neck Y/N how can I relax? And-and how did you move so fast. And why are you storing blood bags?!” he rambled.

You took a deep breath realizing that it's time you told everything to him “Peter, we need to talk. Can we just sit down please?”

“No Y/N. First I need to know what's going on? Who is this woman?”

“She's my friend and whatever you saw and heard everything is true”

“What do you mean?”

“Peter, everything you know… and every belief you have is about to change. Are you ready for that? I’m not what I appear”

His eyebrows draw together in a frown “What are you saying? I don’t understand a thing”

“You will,” you said softly. Your eyes grew darker as dark veins appeared across your face. Your lips parted revealing a set of long, sharp fangs. Peter’s eyes almost popped out of his sockets in shock and disbelief.

“I can't believe this. This is impossible”

“This is what it is,” you said calmly.

“How? When?”

You both sat down on the couch. Peter listened to you patiently as you told him each and everything without leaving any minute detail. After knowing everything you had expected him to be angry with you for lying to him but he did the complete opposite.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all of this” he said, placing his hand over yours gently.

“It’s ok I’ve made peace with this life a longtime ago”

“So all those dead bodies?”

“It wasn't us, I swear we don’t kill people. Those were the new vampires the HYDRA created but due to their faulty serum they turn into savages and lose control over themselves killing anyone on sight”

All of a sudden Peter starts laughing and you look at him confused.

“What? Why are you laughing?”

“Nothing it’s just funny how I had pictured in my mind about you reacting to me showing up in my spiderman suit and I would have to make you understand but instead you’re the one who surprised me”

“That’s natural, it’s not everyday you get to see a living vampire” you snickered “Plus I knew who you were from the beginning”

“You knew I was spiderman?! How?” and yet another surprise for him.

“Well it wasn’t at the university you first saw me. We’ve met before but I compelled you to forget” you winced a little.

“Compel? You mean hypnotize?”

“Yeah, sort of. Just look into my eyes ok?” Peter nodded looking straight into your eyes and watched your pupils dilate “remember” you uttered.

It felt like a heavy fog was lifted from a part of his memories as everything started coming back again. It was the night he helped that woman in the alley who couldn’t remember how she got there in the first place. He remembers seeing Rebecca with her arm wrapped around the woman’s neck as she sank her pointed teeth on her neck then he interrupted you as you grabbed him by his throat and slammed on the wall.

“I'm sorry I hid it from you and erased your memories. I understand if you don't want to be in this relationship anymore and want to break up” you mumbled glancing at your hands on your lap.

Peter shushes you, placing a finger on your lips “You talk too much you know that?”

“But Peter?”

“I don't care if you are a human or a vampire. I mean look at me I’m a kind of mutant myself.” he cradles your face with his hands “I loved you for the person you are Y/N and nothing is going to stop me from loving you any more”

“Thank you Peter” you sniffled kissing him softly.

“I could have given you my blood to cure your wounds but you already have super healing” you said.

“Your blood can cure wounds?!” he raises his eyebrows amused.

“Yeah and also turn into a vampire if you die with it in your system” you shrugged.

🎃

“As long as I keep a healthy diet and blood in my system...my body functions pretty normal”

You wished you had rather compelled Peter to forget everything again because his curiosity knew no bounds as he badgers you with hundreds of questions.

“But how can you walk in the sun?” he asked as you walked down the sidewalk out of your apartment.

“I'm a mutated human with vampirism not a vampire from twilight or any other American tv show Peter” you said entering a bodega across the street. Last night you hadn’t much to eat after all the chaos and now you were starving. You picked up garlic bread from the rack and ripped the wrapper open to eat.

“Aren’t vampires not supposed to eat garlic?” Peter pointed out while he picked up a packet of doritos and mint flavored gum for himself.

“If I have to give up eating garlic bread I would rather prefer to put a stake through my heart myself instead” you joked.

“So garlic isn't deadly for you?”

“No Peter and neither is holy water nor vervain”

You walked to the counter as Peter paid his bill.

“Miss you need to pay for that too” the man behind the counter told you pointing at the half eaten bread in your hand.

“Watch this” you gave a sly wink to Peter.

“I’m not going to pay for this, instead you’ll be giving me another one for free,” you said, staring deeply into the man’s eyes as he nodded and handed you another packet.

“Thank you” you said sweetly and walked out of the store with Peter behind you.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said warily.

“What? He willingly gave this to me” you laughed “C’mon bug boy let’s see who reaches at the top first” you said pointing at the tall building ahead of you.

“Y/N wait” he whisper yelled looking around nervously to check if anyone was around and then cast a web to swing up the building.

“Too slow” you teased standing at the top of the building.

“Well not everybody can alter minds if they are caught jumping across buildings by people” he grimaced.

“Yeah that’s true” you sat on the edge of the building with Peter to finish eating.

“Ok last question. Hypothetically speaking if you were to have a child will it be part vampire?”

“Mhmm” you shook your head “vampires can’t procreate but you’d love to try” you winked mischievously. You swallowed the last bite and stood up, spreading your arms wide diving off the terrace into a free fall. “See you in class!”

“Y/N no!” Peter shrieked before heaving a sigh of relief when you landed on your feet unharmed.

After telling the truth to Peter you were feeling a lot lighter. It unleashed the carefree side of yours where you don’t have to hide anything, not at least around him. For the first time you are actually enjoying your powers.

Later in class you reached out for your water bottle to have your hourly fill as prof Ballinger went on with his lecture. You took a sip and instantly spit it back inside the bottle due to the weird taste.

“Pomegranate juice?” you frowned partly annoyed partly worried because you need to feed unless you want to turn into a blood sucking rage monster in the middle of the classroom.

Peter was sitting beside you as he sensed your restlessness and then noticed dark veins appearing below your eyes.

“Y/N your eyes” he whispered “is everything ok?”

“No I’m hungry”

“I have a granola bar if you want” he offered as you fixed him with a are you being serious? look and Peter was quick to realize what you actually meant by being hungry.

“It's ok Y/N you don't have to be upset” he said sympathetically not knowing what he should be doing exactly to help you.

“I'm not sad! I'm just freaking hungry!” you hissed at him.

“Ok, ok calm down” he said when an idea struck his mind as he brought his wrist near your mouth “you can—”

Your eyes grew wide realizing what Peter was suggesting.

“No Peter no. I’m not feeding on you or anyone. I just need to get out of here as soon as possible”

There were fifteen minutes left for the class to end and every minute felt like eons. As soon as the lecture ended you sprinted out of the classroom with Peter running behind you. You ran to the backside of the university so that nobody would see you leaving in that state.

“Shall I come with you?” Peter said worriedly.

“No it's fine you can go back”

And as you were about to jump across the boundary wall you heard Rebecca.

“Looking for this?”

You turned around to see her standing with a wide grin on her face and a blood bag in her hand.

“You!” you growled and went to snatch it from her “Give that to me!”

“Ah ah not so fast” she laughed enjoying your misery “You’re really stubborn. You’d die out of thirst but would never feed”

“Why are you doing this to me?!”

“Bitch you snapped my neck last night!” she snapped at you angrily.

“You were going to kill Peter!” you snapped back at her.

“No I wasn’t. I just wanted to have a little taste. He looks sooo yummy. ugh! How do you even control yourself around him?”

“Stay away from him this is the last time I’m warning you” you glared at her.

“Okay. Don’t have to get all possessive he’s not even my type”

“Well I’m glad to hear that now give me that. Now give me that!” you snatched the blood bag.

“The HYDRA are closing in” she said with a serious tone “They know our location it’s better we leave this place”

“I’m not going anywhere”

“What? Are you out of your mind?!”

“No Becca. I had enough of this constantly hiding and running away”

“Do whatever you want but I'm getting out of here”

“Yeah do what you're best at running away and hiding but I ain't leaving” you chided “C'mon Peter”

You turned on your heels and strided back to the college building. But Peter wasn’t quite done yet as he turned to Rebecca.

“How can you be so arrogant and glib after everything you've done?” he said crossing his arms across his chest.

“And how can you be so brave and stupid calling a vampire arrogant and glib?” she quipped, narrowing her eyes.

Peter’s brows draw in a frown slightly offended “If you'd wanted me dead I'd be dead”

“Yes I would”

“But I'm not”

“Yet” she sassed as Peter raised his eyebrows stunned.

“God knows what she sees in you” she muttered walking past him giving him a sidelong glance and then disappeared.

🎃

It was the night of Halloween. You made your way to the frat house to find Peter waiting outside for you outside as angel from buffy the vampire slayer in all black t-shirt and jeans with a leather jacket totally not his style, pretty sure Harry helped him but he looked good.

“You would make a really cute vampire” you approached him with a cheeky grin.

“Haha very funny” he scowled. You were dressed as Drusela in a red gothic maxi dress with a macabre choker but then Peter noticed something missing in your costume “where are your fangs Dru?” he teased.

“Sweetie, why would I wear those fake plastic fangs when I got the real ones?” you grinned as Peter gave an amused look when your fangs lengthened out.

Streets was playing when you stepped inside the house. The music thuds out through the open doors, as well as streaks of neon red light and artificial smoke.

You spot Harry and Emma near the kitchen filling up their red solo cups with the spiked red punch. As decided, Harry was dressed as Spike and Emma as Darla.

“Finally you showed up! We were waiting for you guys” she said, handing you and Peter a glass. Your fangs did not miss her keen eyes “wow those fangs look so real”

“Yeah got them on ebay this was the last piece” you lied as Peter stifled a grin.

“Cool! Ok Let’s dance now” she dragged you both to the dance floor. Though you know the real reason for her over enthusiasm was Johnny Storm. Harry spots Felicia in a sexy black catsuit and beelines his way towards her to try out his luck.

After sometime the speakers switch to something slower and sexier, with a playful, insistent beat.

Love chained by cannons playing

Tell me, baby, things will never change Yet I know the truth, honey, nothing stays the same I can feel you pulsing through my veins Just wrap me up, I'm going down in love chained

Peter pulled you into his arms, putting your hands around his neck and his large, warm hands on my hips. He easily pulls you into a rhythm. It was kind of surprising to see his confident side, him taking control and honestly you were loving it.

“I like your fangs,” Peter tells you gazing into your eyes.

“Really?” you raised your brows.

“Yeah they make you look even more sexy”

“Hmm I think someone here has a bite kink” your lips curl to a smirk.

“And I’ve no shame in admitting that” he said in a husky voice. His grip tightening around your waist as he pulls you impossibly closer to his body.

Baby, it's true Send all your love to me I dream a dream for me

You dance for hours completely wrapped up in each other, tireless as you don't want this moment to end. Your eyes wander around the room.

Emma and Johnny are still dancing, though Emma seems tipsy so it looks more like swaying, with Johnny half holding her up. Felicia and Harry have disappeared and you perfectly know where. Flash is passed out on the couch with other half-drunk students. Slowly the party winded up as everyone started to head back to their dorms.

“I think I’ll head out, too,” you said to Peter.

“Can I at least walk you out of the campus?” he asked as you gave him a small nod, smiling.

The night air was crisp and windless. Only a few lights shine out from the buildings and dorms on campus. A blanket of stars overhead glitter in the dense night sky.

“I enjoyed tonight” Peter said, lacing his hand with yours as you walked side by side.

You glanced up at him smiling “yeah me too. Felt like a normal human after a long time”

“Text me when you reach home,” Peter said reaching at the campus gates.

“I will” you nodded and parted with a kiss.

You walked down the street and turned towards your neighborhood. And a sudden paranoia hits you, your skin feeling prickly. Maybe it’s just the alcohol, but you think you heard footsteps behind you. They seem a little too quick, like the person is trying to catch up to you.

Pausing at a corner, you sneaked a glance over your shoulder and saw the outline of a tall, broad man about a hundred yards back. He’s wearing a sweatshirt, hands stuffed in the pockets and hood pulled up. You picked up your pace and decided to take a detour to get them off your back. But later you got the idea to catch your stalker instead. So you hid in a narrow alley and as the man became visible you grabbed him from the back.

“You really think you’re way too smart. That I won’t know about you following me” you gritted under your teeth winding your arm around his neck in a headlock.

He clawed on your hands trying to get himself free but you were stronger and faster than him anyways.

“They are here to catch you. You can’t run anymore” he choked out.

“Who?” you barked and then you felt something prick on the side of your neck.

A sudden sharp wave of pain ripples through your body and you drop on the gravelly road. The sedative started to show it’s effect making you feel light headed as the world around you started to fade into darkness. Your eyes felt heavy, vision going hazy as you caught a glimpse of your attacker before you fell unconscious. HYDRA.

🎃

Peter found it strange when you didn’t text back last night but he brushed it off thinking you must have been tired and had fallen asleep as soon as you reached home. But today when you didn’t show up for classes that’s what got Peter worried.

He was about to go to Emma after classes to see if she knew something when he met her in the hallway.

“Hey, have you seen Y/N?” Emma asked.

“I was going to ask you the same question”

“You don’t know where she is?” she gave him a confused look.

“No, I've been trying her phone since last night but it’s going straight to her voicemail” he replied.

“That’s strange” Emma chewed on her bottom lip with a frown.

Peter was literally worried for you now when he remembered you telling him about how HYDRA is after you and then Rebecca had also come to warn you the other day. As things started to add up Peter panicked.

“I gotta go,” he said hurriedly.

“Where?”

“I need to find Y/N” he already turned to leave.

“Shall I come?” Emma shouted.

“No, it's fine. I'll let you know when I find her” Peter ran out of the university.

Peter was panting heavily given how fast he ran to reach your apartment; he twisted the doorknob to find it locked. Without wasting a second he broke the lock giving it a hard twist using his strength and entered your apartment to find it empty.

By the look at the surroundings everything appears to be untouched hinting that you did not return home last night. The little hairs on his body stood up telling him someone is there in the apartment.

“I know you're here Rebecca,” Peter said with a serious tone.

“You're getting smart huh” Rebecca appeared from behind the drapes and this time Peter was quick to pin her to the adjacent wall with a firm grip around her neck.

“What did you do? Where is Y/N?!” he growled at her anger flashing in his eyes.

“Woah calm down I didn’t do anything it was the HYDRA. They took her” she squeaked out wrapping her hands around his arm as she struggled to get out of his hold “let me go Peter!”

“Not unless you tell me where they took her!”

“It's an isolated building in the tri state area” she choked out an answer as Peter let her go. She gasped holding her neck “next time you do that I'm going to rip your neck apart” she threatened glowering at him.

“I’m sorry” Peter said calming down “we need to save her Rebecca they will kill her and I can’t do this without your help”

“I'll help” she said softly surprising Peter who wasn’t expecting her to agreeing on helping him “I know she blames me for everything which is true but she is my best friend and I'm not gonna let her die whatever it takes”

“Thank you” Peter said.

🎃

It was almost midnight when they reached the abandoned area not a single soul could be seen around. Peter and Rebecca stood on top of a building adjacent to the warehouse you were held captive.

“Isn't this nice? Working as a team to save the love of your life. It's all so ra ra go team yeah!” Rebecca joked, quite confident about saving you though Peter didn’t find it funny.

“Can you just shut up and focus on the task?!” Peter hissed at her with a scowl on his face and activated his iron spider suit.

“Ok dude chill” she rolled her eyes and looked down at the entrance of the building.

“So what are we just gonna storm into the building without any backup?” he remarked.

“Who needs backup when you've me? I'll distract them while you get in and bring her out” she said before jumping from the terrace and landing in front of the building.

“Woo hoo anybody home? There's a big bad vampire out here” she mockingly called out in her sweet voice meanwhile Peter had the urge to face palm seeing her over dramatic antics.

And in the blink of an eye she was surrounded by a bunch of newly turned vampires as they pounced on her with their exposed fangs. Rebecca dodged them off swiftly and caught hold of one wrapping her arm around his neck in a chokehold.

“You newbies really think you can win against me?” she snarled fangs protruding as she tore down his throat drinking deeply and tossed his lifeless body away. Peter was stunned to watch the brutality with which she continued to snap their necks and rip their hearts out of their body with no hint of regret or remorse in her eyes.

“What, are you waiting for some formal invitation?!” she shouted at Peter with mouth smeared with blood. Peter shook himself back to reality and swung inside the building.

Meanwhile you slowly started to regain your consciousness, fluttering your eyes open. The first thing you noticed was the excruciating pain on your right arm. A tube was inserted in your vein as blood flowed out steadily. Your hands and legs were restrained to a chair with thick straps.

You looked around the place you were being held captive in what looked like a basement of some old warehouse. You had to get out of here before anyone came. You tugged and pulled on the restraints but it was of no use as you were too weak and needed blood.

“Look who’s finally awake?” a voice echoed through the room. You stopped whatever you were doing and sat still. You weren’t afraid as the man stepped inside the room. He’s slim, pale and dressed in formals with a lab coat over it. Behind him were two other bulky and tall men who appeared to be clearly injected with the supersoldier serum mixed with the vampire serum.

You recognized the man instantly “Crown?!”

He clicked his tongue, smiling wickedly “Ah so you still remember me good to know”

“Why am I here?! What do you want?!” you demanded.

“That I’ve always wanted. The key to vampirism. Morbius thought if he destroys all his works I won’t be able to get my hands on the serum. But he forgot that I can extract it from the blood of his little test subjects. You’re perfect... retaining all your human characteristics even after the mutation” his eyes sparkling in admiration as if you’re a prized possession.

“Release me and I’ll show you what else I’ve retained” you snarled at him.

Dr. Crown lets out a humorless laugh “even if I release you you are too weak to do anything. I made sure of that by draining half of the blood from your body”

And just then Peter breaks into the basement to find you tied up to a chair. Dr. Crown gave a slight nod to the soldiers asking them to get rid of Peter. They attacked him immediately but Peter was quick to web them up. He rushed to you and ripped off the restraints from your hands and legs.

“What are you doing here?” you asked weakly.

“Rescuing you”

“You can’t stay here, it's dangerous” just then he heard a ripping sound as he turned around to see the two vampires tearing off his webs like a piece of cloth.

“Spider man you really thought your pesky little webs could hold my two master assassins turned vampires” Dr. Crown laughed wickedly

“Peter, go away!” you shouted at him.

“No I won't, not without you!”

“You can't fight them alone and I'm too weak to help you! Run from here please” you begged him to leave when an idea struck Peter's mind as he webbed them up again shooting double the amount of webs to buy some time. He pressed the spider button on his suit and it disintegrated.

He laid you down on the floor and picked up a shard of broken glass from the floor and slashed near the wrist of his right hand as blood gushed out from the cut.

“Y/N. My wrist,” he said, holding up your head. “Drink. You need more blood” he held out his wrist near your mouth.

“I can't Peter, what if I lose control and hurt you?” you resisted shaking your head even though the smell of his blood has increased your craving ten fold.

“You won't, I trust you” his gaze was soft and reassuring as you hesitantly took his hand in your gentle grasp and brought it to your lips. Dark veins appeared beneath your eyes as you sank your teeth into his wrist.

Peter's eyes rolled back into his head. He winced and pulled you against his chest in a tight embrace, stroking your hair. The sensation was so engrossing as you drew blood from him. He felt like he was giving himself to you.

The first taste of his blood and you felt like your body was set ablaze; it was pure ecstasy. His warm blood was so rich and soothing as it slid down your throat you never had anything before like that. All you knew was you needed more of him. You could feel your self control faltering, entranced by his blood.

“Y/N” Peter groaned, feeling a little dizzy. His voice broke you out from your trance as you let him go.

Meanwhile the two super soldiers turned vampires have torn out of Peter’s webs as they stalked towards the both of you. You have got your strength back as you stood up, eyes dark full of rage and hunger.

One of them let out a roar and swung his heavy fist. You caught hold of his hand as if it was nothing and dug your fingers into his chest ripping out his heart. Peter didn’t have to do much after that as he watched you take on them single handedly snapping their necks and ripping their hearts out.

Fear gripped on to Dr. Crown as he tried to flee the spot but before he could do that you vamp speeded and caught hold of him. The veins beneath your eyes darkened as fangs protruded, hunger taking over you.

You tried your best, you really did but the taste of human blood after such a long time had you craving for more. The bloodlust mixed with whatever was going around right now seemed to do better than your self control. You cocked your head as you approached him, smirk painting your lips.

“You know... you should have ran away at your first chance” your voice was a soft purr despite the snarl you spoke with. And without a second thought you pounced on him, sinking your teeth on his neck.

Peter watched you with wide eyes slowly sucking the life out of him. For a moment he couldn't recognize you anymore. You appeared like a savage predator ravaging its prey.

Dr. Crown screamed and struggled in pain as you drained the last ounce of blood from his body and finally let go of him. His limp body falls on the ground with a thud. You stand there, blood dripping down the corners of your mouth and eyes dark blinded with bloodlust.

“Y/N?” Peter called out to you with a shuddery breath maintaining a safe distance from you. You turned around and let out an animalistic growl with your fangs on full display.

“Y/N it's me Peter. Everything is fine, just listen to my voice” Peter took a step forward cautiously “you’re safe, nobody is going to harm you. Try to control yourself” he took another step “I know you can do it. You would never hurt anyone”

It seemed to work as you began to come back to your senses. Slowly the dark veins around your eyes faded away as your fangs retracted back and you were back to your normal self again.

“Peter?” you glanced at your blood stained hands as guilt washed over your face at the fact that you lost control.

Peter was quick to pull you in his tight embrace. He pressed gentle kisses to your forehead whispering encouraging words that everything is going to be fine. You didn’t do anything wrong.

It was almost sunrise when you returned back to your apartment. Peter had informed S.H.I.E.L.D about the situation before he came to rescue you and they were quick to seize the building after a short interrogation they had allowed both you and Rebecca to leave. You and Peter sat on the terrace of your apartment building silently as the chilly morning breeze blew against your faces. Peter was the first to break the silence.

“You should join the avengers you know”

You chuckled softly “Me and the avengers? You’re kidding right?”

“No, I'm serious. You’re fast, strong, and can control minds. It will be nice to have you on the team. I can talk to Mr. Stark if you’re interested. I’m sure everyone will be happy to meet you.”

You looked into his eyes and you knew he was being serious “I don’t know Peter the HYDRA is still after me and you just saw how I almost lost control. I would be more of a threat than any help”

“Hey, you're not a threat to me” he said softly, placing a reassuring hand on your shoulder.

“Don’t lie Peter. I saw the look on your face and you were terrified of the monster I turned into, of me”

“No that’s not true”

“Then look me in the eye Peter. Look me in the eye and say that for one moment you didn’t feel scared, you didn’t feel I will kill you too”

Peter takes your face in his warm hands making you look at him.

“I was never scared of you Y/N or ever will be. I admire you. After everything you have gone through you didn’t let go of the humanity inside you. You remained strong and fought against them alone all these years but not anymore. From now on I’ll be there by your side...and whenever you feel you’re losing yourself I'll always be there to bring you back I promise” he said pressing his forehead to yours.

Tears brimmed in your eyes at his words. “sometime I really think I don’t deserve you Peter”

“And then I would kiss you like this” he captured your lips in a tender kiss “and make you realize that you deserve the world”

..................................................................................

Reblogs are appreciated ❤️

#peter parker #peter parker smut #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker oneshot #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #peter parker fluff #tom holland #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader

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jaynaur · 2 years

Text

“as much as taemin abhorred the whole idea of doing math in chemistry, he wouldn’t complain if some scientist comes up with an equation which would help him figure out what runs in that pretty little head of yours; if possible, your heart too”

lee taemin x fem!reader | 4695 words

! genres ➳ bff2l, comedy, fluff, high school au ! warnings ➳ language, mutual pining, not proofread well ! playlist ➳ love scenario by ikon ♪ i think he knows by taylor swift ♪ think of you by taemin

♡ for sarah day aka @taemin-jaemin‘s birthday !! happy birthday sarah, you insanely amazing person. who would've thunk that the girl who sat next to me in seventh grade after a random change in the seating arrangement and initiated a conversation with small talk about isabelle lightwood’s tear stricken, mascara covered face looking like a french actress would end up becoming my bestest friend :D i’m so proud of how far you've come and all that you’ve left to go

There are times when you pause what you’re doing and think about how the universe chose Lee Taemin of all people for the best friend role in your life.

You didn’t expect to stay with the boy whom you first saw diving through a dumpster in the alley adjacent to your school for a kitten. Hey, you weren’t even a cat person to begin with. And you certainly didn’t fancy talking to guys who reeked of rotten eggs and schools’ shower rooms.

Now, at this present moment, as you sit in your (read: mom’s) car in the school’s parking lot and stare at Taemin, who, stood a few pillars away from your car but still in your field of vision, takes a step back from his motley groups of friends and empties an entire water bottle’s worth of water on his head, you don’t think you’ll ever understand the way the universe functions.

Taemin jogs towards your car after the rest of the spectators move away with a grin, his hair and torso still dripping wet, and quickly gets into the passenger seat.

“Hi.”

“Please use the tissues,” you say, pointing towards the box kept on the dash, “Do not get the seats wet.”

He frowns, but reaches for the box all the same, “You’re not gonna ask about what happened?”

You sigh as you catch a droplet of water making its way across to the gearbox, “I think not.”

“Mean.”

“I’ve seen enough for one day.” You explain, corners of your lips quirking when you replay the moment in your head while busying yourself with the car keys to start the engine. You should have taken a video.

“(name)?”

You hum in response, turning to your side to face him, and almost immediately shrieking when he hugs you, arms circling around your waist, soiled T-shirt and all. Ignoring all of your vehement protests, he leaves with a cheery smile only after he decides that you’re both equally damp now.

“Fuck you”

His grin widens and your scowl deepens. You rub your face, wishing for the warmth that had settled on your cheeks to go away for an altogether different reason. It was just a hug, you remind yourself. It was just a hug, between friends, who would also like to remain friends. Everything is platonic. Everything is platonic.

“Wait till I tell you why-

-lemme guess.” You cut in, the lights in your car turning on as you finally get it started. If you knew him as well as you thought you did, this wouldn’t be that hard.

“Your head got heated from thinking and you had to cool it down.”

“Haha, very funny.”

You catch his lips forming the slightest of pouts as he fumbles with the seatbelt, and smile to yourself, then reprimand yourself mentally for getting distracted when you're about to drive. Afterall, you were still an amateur and you’ve had a bad history when it came to taking the reverse.

“You got dared to do it by Minho as revenge for the time you emptied a bucket of red paint on him.”

“Incorrect. And that wasn’t technically my fault as you were the one who filmed the video and uploaded it. We’re both in it together.”

You don’t disagree, switching gears once you reach the ramp. That’s what you were, partners in crime. Each other’s ride or die. Though you’d never admit it on the outside, you knew that if he were to commit a crime, you’d be the one clearing the evidence. You also knew from your heart that he would do the same for you.

“You bet on something, and lost.”

From the lack of response from his side you conclude that you got it right this time. Third time’s the charm. And maybe the fact that you knew how terrible he was at betting; evidence being the time he bet that Brazil would win 2014’s FIFA world cup semis when Germany was leading 5-1 (the match ended with Germany winning by a six-goal difference and Taemin losing his Brazilian jersey-with the number 10-to Kim Kibum). But it may also have something to do with how you knew him like the inside of your palm.

“How was I to know that Irene had a boyfriend?”

You blanch, “You bet on that? They’ve been going out for like, seven months.”

“I don’t have the time to worry about others' relationship statuses.” Because it’s a remainder of his own pathetic love life thanks to a long-time, one-sided crush but he doesn’t voice that out.

“They kinda made things official by announcing it to the whole canteen at lunch.”

“Still not my fault; to err is human.” He says sagely.

“You mean you need to touch some grass.”

He increases the radio’s volume and opens the window, “Can’t hear you.”

You chuckle, steering the car from the main road to a smaller side street, the wind here fresher. Taemin was a lot more ignorant than he let on and having your embarrassingly bright flame for him doused in obliviousness wasn’t all that bad. It made pining easier. It made harbouring an emotion that steals your ability to tell right from wrong and truth from wishes easier.

You, to some extent, were content with how things went by. Sunlight from the last few hours of the day brushes the car when the occasional tree bordering the street doesn’t block it and Taemin sat beside you, humming along loudly to the catchy tune playing on the radio. Doesn’t matter if your feelings are not content. It doesn’t matter at all.

Rumour has it that when God made Byun Baekhyun, all contents of the vial labelled charm was poured into the cauldron by accident. You, on the other hand, believe that he was handcrafted by a devil who accidently shipped him from hell to the human terrain.

“Please.”

“No.”

Baekhyun sits on the chair to your left while Seulgi to your right, both too close for comfort, conveniently sandwiching you in the middle to make sure you can’t escape from becoming victim to a ‘Find your ideal type!’ quiz the two had done in your free computer period. You had listened to them bounce ideas about the quiz while it was still a work in progress. The last thing you’d do is eat the food when you know that it’s poisoned.

“It’s just for trials, y’know, to see if we did the thing right.”

You turn to frown at Seulgi. Since when did she get roped into stuff like this? You thought you were a good judge of character but apparently not.

“I’m not doing it.”

“Doing what?”

Your frown morphs into a look of gratitude when Taemin peeps in, mop of blonde hair parted midway. He could get you and your pride out of here safe and sound.

“Hey” you support your palms on the armrest, ready to get up, “Me and Taemin have some chemistry work to catch up on-

-yeah about that,” he interrupts face brightening as he enters the room, “She’s given us a week extra to do it.”

“Nice” Seulgi grins, tugging you back to your seat, “(name)’s completely jobless then.”

Taemin raises an eyebrow, “Jobless for what?”

“Well,” Baekhyun gets ready to explain, stretching over the chair like a cat, his head hanging off the backrest, “We just want (name) to try this quiz we made.”

“A quiz which predicts your ideal type.” Seulgi supplies, “Ingenious, don’t you think.”

You wince a little, cheeks growing warm. There were thirty other people in your class but it had to be Lee Taemin, your best friend on whom you harboured the most massive of crushes to walk in on you and find you getting peer pressured into attempting an ideal type quiz.

Baekhyun hands Taemin his phone, from which the latter reads the dirty dets of the quiz, his expression going from neutral to the one that showed his moral alignment. Chaotic evil.

“Do it.”

You groan, “Taemin why don’t you do it instead.”

“Ladies first.” He counters. You scowl. So much for chivalry. You look at each one of them, three expectant and unwavering gazes continually fixed on you, making you feel cornered. The odds of you winning this battle are in the negatives. Plus, it was unfair to wage a war when it was three against one.

You give in, “Alright, give it to me.”

Baekhyun takes the phone from Taemin and hands it to you. You grab it and make your way to the corner of the classroom, leaning against the wall to avoid people who can’t keep their noses in their businesses.

Taemin watches you with well suppressed glee, the art of suppressing emotions something he learnt over the years he spent with you. He knows by now that biting the inside of his cheeks would stop that stupidly wide smile his lips slipped into when around you and that breathing deeply would calm down his heart rate when you let loose a peal of laughter in response to one of his anecdotes.

It’d be fun to turn the tables, to know what kind of person would make your cheeks burn and your heart beat faster. Informative too, if he were to believe in the quiz’s accuracy.

After one fine night of stargazing (more like star searching; city pollution murdered stargazing) in your apartment’s terrace he realized that he likes you-in a more than friend way. He liked lying down by your side, side pressed with yours and back against the cool cement floor. He loved listening to you talk in hushed whispers about your dreams and aspirations, about how you would love for your feet to land on moonrock, your surroundings nothing but space, the endless vast space. You had later brushed off the thoughts as meaningless fantasies but he saw them the way you did, and did not see them as mere wishes. He made it his point to tell you the same.

That realization led him to two conclusions: he’d have to keep his feelings close to his heart and risk getting the Hanahaki disease (most say it’s a myth but you never know) or tell you exactly how he feels, putting his friendship and heart at stake.

Considering the fact that he’s still single and that you’re happily unaware of his little secret, it wouldn’t take a Sherlock to tell that he had gone with conclusion #1 (and no, he doesn’t have the Hanahaki. Yet.)

“Stop doing that.”

Taemin blinks, “Huh?”

“Oh you know what I'm talking about,” Seulgi presses “That thing where you just stare at (name)-quite shamelessly too, might I add.”

“What are you-

“Even Baekhyun here can see that there’s something going on between you two. And he didn’t know that Peter Parker and MJ were a thing till they kissed!”

True to her words, Baekhyun was observing Taemin, eyebrows furrowed as if he were trying to assemble the pieces of a simple jigsaw puzzle. It was hard to believe that Baekhyun, the same guy whom Taemin once caught practising derogatory artwork in the corners of the pages in his math textbook, could be that thick.

“Hey” you interrupt them, much to Taemin’s relief, “I’m done with it but the results are still loading-” you hand over the phone Seulgi “-I’ve got physics now so got to go. Also, the third option in question number nine gets repeated twice- you might want to fix that.”

Baekhyun grins, as the three of them watch you rush out of the room, “So, who wants to find out (name)’s ideal type.”

Taemin flushes, snatching the phone from Seulgi as he waits for the page, doing all he can to not press the reload button.

Ah, there it comes. Your ideal type is-

///

Taemin seats himself at the third-last seat of the middle row as the chemistry class commences, two seats away from you for he hadn’t entered the class sooner.

Propping his elbows on the bench, he places his chin on his hand, a lot of things not making any sense, and unnaturally enough, it wasn’t chemistry this time.

The quiz had to be a sham of sorts. Taemin couldn’t even think of how that result came out. He must have some sort of a say in that matter. Hey, he had stayed by your side during those times you held a crush on Draco Malfoy and Thomas Broody Sangster. He knows something about the kind of person you would like.

It made no sense as to why your ideal type would be a ‘bad boy.’

No explanation had been offered for the output other than the very infuriatingly, italicized words, ‘bad boy’ and a picture most probably taken from the grunge aesthetic search tag in Pinterest. The creators of the quiz were of no help; they instead chose to laugh it away and had started getting ready for their math class.

But it bothered him when it shouldn’t; this whole ordeal was silly but he couldn’t help wondering if that really was the kind of people you like, tattooed and pierced delinquents who drove around motorbikes and wore leather jackets, looking like they belonged to some sort of a cult.

If yes then, unless the blonde hair he sported counted for something, Taemin didn’t stand a chance. He’d be disowned if he were to get tattoos. The motorbike part can be forgotten because he still hasn’t learnt to ride a bicycle. For god’s sake, he was a boy who visited church every Sunday.

“Lee Taemin!”

The commanding voice of his teacher, Mrs. Park, breaks his stupor, his legs standing out of their own accord when he comprehends the look on her face.

“Yes ma’am”

“What is the ideal gas equation?”

Ideal gas equation? Which one was that now? Leave it to the education system to make them learn as many formulae as possible. And as much as Taemin abhorred the integration of math and chemistry in chemistry, he wouldn’t complain if some scientist comes up with an equation which would help him figure out what runs in that pretty little head of yours; if possible, your heart too.

He stutters unintelligibly, eyes darting around the class till they land on your face. It all happens in a fraction of a second but he can see it play out in slow motion as you mouth him the answer.

‘Vivi measles ten arty?’ What the fuck does Oh Sehun’s dog got-

No wait, “PV equals nRT.” He answers hastily. Before Mrs. Park could dig in deeper to his answer, she gets interrupted by another teacher, who had strided to the entrance of the classroom holding a sheave of urgent-looking papers. With both the teachers out of earshot now, the first stage of an incoming pandemonium begins in the class.

You take quick steps towards his desk, “Everything alright?”

No. yes. Both at the same time, he didn’t know. He shrugs, “Feeling a little tired.”

You give him a soft smile, one amongst the many things he adores about you, and nod, “Today’s been a long day, eh?”

He nods back, for one wild moment, the thought of reaching across the desk and holding your hand crosses his mind, but it goes away just as quick as it came.

As if having read his mind, you nimbly reach for his left hand with your right, palm holding his, and give it a gentle squeeze.

“It’ll get over soon.” You say quietly, not taking note of the crimson building its way on his face. Taemin glances at the hand you held, your palm spread over his, and realizes that it would be nicer if the day does not get over too soon.

Taemin did not like beaches.

They were bad, what with the sand getting into the most awkward of places and the huge number of tourists walking around the place like they own it, but somehow, cleaning the rubbish left by the aforementioned tourists under the name of community service really put things into perspective.

He now hates beaches.

He drops the rake on the soft sand, the bag beside him filled with enough reason to never come back to this place and adjusts the latex gloves, its size too big for his hands. He looks past the dunes to find you perched on the heap of sand near the lifeguard tower, your lips curved in yet another one of your pretty smiles as you talk animatedly with Kim Taeyeon, a senior.

It was that same, goddamn smile and the glint in your eyes which convinced him to volunteer in the first place. A few days down the week, volunteers get a front row seat to watch baby Olive Ridley Sea turtles struggle their way across the sand to enter the sea, maybe even catch one hatching if you all were lucky enough.

‘they’re so cute’ you had gushed, spamming his phone with baby turtle pictures. He had half the mind to ask you what you thought of him. He had been standing right in front of you and wouldn’t mind being called ‘cute’ either, but alas, nothing in life is that simple.

“Slackers will do overtime.”

Taemin jumps, snapping his gaze away from you to come face to face with Kim Kibum. The latter, clad in a lazily worn linen-shirt, the first two buttons unbuttoned and khaki shorts, was cautiously sipping water from a tender coconut, a fancy pair of coolers perched over the tip of his nose as he looked over them. Kibum, as a part of some extra credit assignment in college, got into the team as an assistant supervisor and was having the time of his life sauntering from one place, doing nothing. Taemin didn’t know how college exactly worked but if they were to reward him for chilling, he would actually put some effort into graduating high-school in one piece.

“We’re friends.”

Kibum raises an eyebrow, “I'm sorry but, do I know you.”

A sharp peal of laughter ensues from him when Taemin glowers. He wipes his eyes, “I thought you didn’t like beaches.”

Taemin pushes the PET bottle that had rolled away from the pile with the end of his rake and pushes it into the bag, “Keep thinking.”

Kibum tsk-ed, “What are you getting so bitter for? Now for the tea. You’re doing this for (name) no?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.

“Act of service-one of the five love languages,” he continues, undeterred, “if anything, all of this is really sappy, I’ll give you that.”

Taemin points his rake towards the other boy, “Another word and I’ll push you into the garbage.”

Kibum wrinkles his nose, taking a step away from the pile of rubbish nevertheless, “Someone’s getting cranky. Want Snickers?”

“I swear-

-also,” Kibum cuts in, “You might wanna stand in a different place. This area is-

///

-crab zone.” He finishes, twenty minutes later, while cleaning the side of Taemin’s foot with antiseptic liquid from the first aid kit in the lifeguard tower.

Taemin groans, the inside of his foot throbbing. He didn’t know if a computer science major was the right person to tend to his crab bite or if cleansing the little cut with antiseptic liquid was correct but didn’t bother with doubting. “Why didn’t you tell it to me?”

Kibum scoffs, “Like you’d have believed me. I wanted to wait till I saw an actual crab so that I could prove it to you.”

As much as Taemin didn’t like his explanation, the older boy had a point. Their history proves that there has never been a time in which he had paid much heed to Kim Kibum’s words. If Taemin were to get interviewed a few years down the lane, he was planning on referring to this as the secret behind his success.

Kibum turns to face you, who was sitting beside Taemin on a spot you had dug out to cushion yourself, “It was a close call (name). It’s a miracle that he’s still here with us. Had I been too late-

Taemin sprays fine sand on Kibum’s shirt, “Shut up.”

“Key, he’s not going to become a were-crab or anything right?” you ask, faux worry lacing your tone, face contorted as you try to keep in the laugh.

“I'm not sure; guess we’ll have to wait till the full moon.”

“(name) why are you siding with him?!”

You tip your head backwards and let loose a laugh, doing your best not to fall back into the sand. It was ridiculous how pretty you look even while you were slandering him. Or maybe, it’s just that he’s whipped.

“And that’s my cue to leave,” Kibum gets up, brushing off the sand on his lap without regard for the two of you, “See ya losers later.”

“You son of-

-swear at me behind my back please, not in front of me.”

You shake your head, then turn your attention to Taemin, “You up for ice cream sometime later? My treat.”

Truth be told, he would be up for anything you say. “Treat? You’re being nice? This is becoming suspicious.”

You look away as the waves throw themselves on the shore, then clear your throat, “I know you don’t really like this place and, thanks for coming.”

The sound of seagulls squawking and the crashing of waves fades away. It was you and him, the only thing he could bring himself to notice the proximity of your face from his and the beating of his heart.

You clear your throat once more, shaking your head, “Consider it a good intentioned friend’s treat.”

That snaps him out of his reverie, the word friend echoing in his head till it fades into a nagging worry in the back of his mind. No matter what happens, at the end of the day, that’s who he was. A friend. It was no low position but he was looking forward to a promotion.

He doesn’t think he can stop himself from pouring his heart out anymore. Love laps gently across the seams of his heart, wanting to be felt, wanting to be seen.

“Sometime later? I-I think I’ve got some work.”

His emotions almost find their voice when he notices the drop in your smile. No, no, no, what was he doing?

“Later then.” You lie down on the sand and pull your wide brimmed hat to shield your face from the sunlight. “Wanna make a sand angel.”

The gnawing at the bottom of his chest doesn’t stop, but he’s been pretending for all these years. A few more days wouldn’t hurt.

“Devils can’t make angels.”

“Says you.”

He lies down on the sand beside you, getting to work on the sand angel. A few more days won’t hurt. Anyways, not as much as losing you as a friend and as a crush.

[17:08] you: taem

[17:08] you: in

[17:08] you: taemin

[17:08] cheesehead 💓: yus

[17:09] you: u wanna come over and finish watching stranger things

[17:09] you: i need to know what happens next

[17:09] cheesehead💓: can’t come got stuff to do :/

[17:10] you: okay what bout tomorrow?

[17:10] cheesehead💓: no cant do i gtg mow my cat

[17:10] cheesehead💓 : NO I MEAN

[17:10] cheesehead💓 : koongie needs a haircut he’s getting too furry

[17:10] you: lol isn’t he’s supposed to be furry :D

[17:19] cheesehead💓 : yeah but its getting a lil too long

[17:19] cheesehead💓 : sorry gtg now byee !!

[17:19] you: aight bye

If there’s anything you’ve learnt in the past few days, it’s that Taemin is very innovative when it comes to creating excuses to not meet you. Dry texting, missed calls and nothing more than a few words of small talk in school.

And you didn’t even know what you did wrong.

You walk into the café near your apartment, the smell of freshly brewed coffee calming your anxiousness. You greet the barista you had come to visit with a wan smile, “Jinki.”

Lee Jinki, part-time barista and full-time music major almost drops the cup of latte he held in hand, staring hard at the tray as he stays still to balance himself, “(name)! I'm at work right now.”

You shrug, following him to the back of the counter as he places it on a table in the employees only! zone, “Has Taemin been here?”

“Why thank you for asking, I'm doing good too.”

You sigh, “Please don’t beat about the bush.”

He whistles slowly, fumbling with the strings on his apron, “Please? someone’s getting desperate-and no I haven’t seen him.” he adds hastily when the sobriety of the atmosphere increases by tenfold.

You didn’t like how this was going. What did you do wrong? It’s not like you both are always together. But you are, for the most of it, and it tore you apart to be left in the dark.

“I haven’t seen him around for quite some time” you mumble, answering Jinki’s questioning gaze.

“I guess you’re in luck because he’s right there,” Jinki points to the window, the familiar visage of your best friend hustling past the café.

“Oh good,” you dash out, calling after Taemin. Jinki shakes his head, turning his attention to the irked customer he had zoned out on with a smarmy smile. Kibum was right. You both are down bad for each other. It was cute but disgusting at the same time and, in the most affectionate way possible, prays for you to not make another visit about Taemin.

Now you don’t run after boys, but if they happen to be Lee Taemin, then you’re willing to sprint. He was worth every ounce of exertion. With long strides you catch up with him at the staircase of your apartment, tugging the sleeves of his jacket to get his attention.

“Taemin there you are.”

The boy jumps, scarlet colouring his ears as he does. He doesn’t meet your gaze. “Hi.”

You didn’t know what you were expecting but ‘hi’ wasn’t one of them. You yourself pause, your ability to formulate sentences losing to fear, your resolve chipping around the edges. Realizing how close you had moved to him in your attempt to corner him, you let go of his sleeve, bringing them to the sides of your body.

“Can we talk”

Maybe it’s how tired you look or how the stars you held in your eyes look dim, worried-whatever it is- it makes him inch closer to you. He had been selfish, hadn’t he? So stupidly keen on guarding a heart that never truly belonged to him, a heart which you held in your palms.

“Did I do something wrong? look I don’t understand what’s happening but it’s scaring me and-” you cut yourself from rambling too much, still too afraid of letting your heart speak instead of your head.

“You can tell me-

“-It’s not your fault, it’s-” he trails off, looking from one side to another, anywhere but your eyes.

“What is it?”

Silence. This has waited for too long. And Taemin doesn’t think he has it in him to push you away any further.

“I’ve just been too busy thinking.”

“About what?”

“About you, a little bit about us, but you, for the most of it.”

Oh. Time slows, the weight of his words sinking in, the look of defeat he adorned becoming more apparent as another hue of red spreads across his cheek.

“Well,” you swallow, ready to uncap all the feeling you had bottled up, I’ve been thinking about us too; in a more than friend way that is.”

He kisses you. Gentle for the most of it but rushed all the same, hope and elation coating your actions, adoration brimming your eyes.

“So, you’ve been thinking about kissing me.”

“Another word and you’re under a kissing ban.”

“Two minutes into dating and you want me to go cold turkey.”

You laugh, your hands finding its way to his fingers, interlocking. This was it. The most complex questions have the easiest answers in the world and you find yours in Taemin, him in you.

And here begins your happily ever after.

#taemin #taemin x reader #taemin scenarios #taemin superm #taemin shinee #lee taemin x reader #taemin fluff #superm fluff #superm fic #shinee fluff #shinee fanfic #im literally dying inside oh gods *cringe*

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l-anna-art · 4 years

Photo

Hide And Seek - Anima!AU

A new illustration with an extract, this time! There is the english version first, and I added the french one too :)

"Not a sound," Yagi whispered.

The blond held Izuku against the wall with a strong and firm grip despite his sickly appearance. Izuku stared at him with a frown, the incomprehension clearly visible on his face. Yagi didn't give him a look. He wasn't looking at anything specific, in fact. His eyes were just wide open, frozen, pupils dilated and his body was tense.

Attentive.

Clac.

Izuku's eyes widened. If the night had not been so silent and empty of life, the boy would never have heard the clicking of claws scraping the ground. A metallic, steady, quiet sound.

Clac.

It was much heavier than Renard's flowing step. It was also farther away, out of sight at the moment when Yagi had grabbed Izuku by the shirt to hide behind one of the low walls along the street.

Clac.

Izuku had not even noticed the presence. And as the tinkling became closer and closer, clearer and sharper, he could feel the excess energy swarming under his skin, becoming unstable and painful as his anxiety grew. He regretted that Renard had disappeared in the night, because there, right away, he terribly missed the comforting presence of his automaton. Nor did watch Yagi stand as still as a statue help to calm his mind, and he squirmed under its grip. The blond turned silently towards him, a finger on his lips as he stuck himself a little closer to the wall and brought Izuku closer to his chest.

There were still steps, and a grunt resounded behind the low wall decorated with bushes. The thing finally overtook them, revealing the amalgam of flesh and metal that formed its body. It was as tall as a horse, but much more massive, and the dark body glowed in the glow of the street lamps. The paws, made of steel and other materials that Izuku did not recognize, were probably as wide as the boy's silhouette, and he had no doubt that one blow would be enough to shred him.

"It's hunting us," one of the voices said. "This one has no sense of smell, but it has keen hearing. Silence."

Izuku wanted to ask what the hell was that thing, but just the idea of opening his mouth and being noticed twisted his insides in a painful way. He suddenly missed his bed. His bed and the warm, soft blankets. And hot chocolates too, with marshmallows and cream in excess.

He wasn't sure he'd get the chance to drink one again.

The monster raised its head and looked around, probing its surroundings. What must have been its ears stood straight and high on its head, and it stood there, motionless and silent, its iron tail flapping the air.

Deep down, in a visceral way, Izuku knew it. If that thing turned around, it would find them.

But there was little they could do, each sound threatening to reveal their presence. So they stood there, paralyzed like mice at the sight of a cat. Yagi looked straight ahead, breathing calmly despite the clamminess of his hands, and looked for something in one of his pockets. Izuku, on the other hand, had his hands glued to his mouth, reducing the sound of his breathing as much as possible as he closed his eyes.

A new growl - a mixture of low rumblings, clattering, and rales - emanated from the monster before it fatally began to rotate in their direction. Izuku felt tears streaming from the corner of his eyes as the fright lacerated his stomach, making him want to vomit.

They were dead. Izuku had always had bad luck and that wouldn't change tonight. Yagi, too weak to fight, would end up in pieces by something straight from hell, and Izuku would end up just as shredded in the corner. He pitied the poor passers-by who would discover their corpses in the early morning. If there was anything left of them.

There were still footsteps, rattling and scraping, closer and closer still, when suddenly the echo of a crate falling to the ground resounded in the night and startled him. The beast's head turned around, its neck twisted in a position that was anything but natural, and stared into the darkness in search of the source of the noise.

A moment passed without anything happening and then the duo, completely alert and motionless, watched the rest of the creature move to follow the alignment of its head that fixed one of the alleys.

A white lightning bolt leapted out of the shadows, three tails whipping the air as Renard faced the monster. The metal sparkled under the artificial light, and the gold bindings that covered its body captured the light and reflected it back. Izuku would have wanted to scream, panic and anxiety roaring in his veins. Renard was so small in comparison, tiny and frail in front of the creature.

All it would take is one bad move.

Yagi had to restrain the boy and put one hand over his mouth so he wouldn't ruin everything.

The creature was staring at Renard, motionless, one of its legs frozen above the ground. The body creaked and rattled as it bent forward. For a moment, the thing was standing about fifteen meters from the automaton. The next, it was on Renard and trying to push it to the ground with its claws and fangs out.

However, the automaton, although much smaller than the monster, remained agile and fast. It managed to free itself in a fluid movement, rolling on the ground and getting back on its feet. Then, before the dark creature moved again, the automaton hurried off into one of the adjacent alleys, the one opposite where the duo was.

The thing didn't waste a second and followed it, disappearing into the night as rumblings and screams echoed through the city.

Both remained motionless for a while, before Yagi finally decided to get up, looking around for anything abnormal. Izuku was still curled up on the floor, nervously playing with his shirt while his mind wandered about what was waiting for his automaton.

Renard was fast and hard to catch. It was also much smaller and could sneak everywhere, it would find a place inaccessible to the monster, right? It could always run and lose it somewhere, but could it find his way back? Izuku didn't know the city well, and he doubted that his automaton would do better. My God, what if it couldn't find it before leaving ? What if Renard got stuck here ? Yagi could understand and maybe delay the departure, but what if they couldn't find Renard ? They couldn't leave it here! Nor could he ask for information or help from anyone, they were wanted. And in broad daylight, his automaton would not really be the most discreet thing in these neighborhoods. Oh my God, what if the monster catches it anyway? What if it's not fast enough?

"Midoriya, you're rambling."

The boy blinked, suddenly out of his thoughts. Yagi had crouched down in front of him and gently shook his shoulder.

"Your fox is an intelligent beast. I'm sure it will find us," he said.

The blond offered him a smile.

This time, Izuku wasn't sure it was true.

"We shouldn't stay here," Yagi continued, looking again at the alley where the monster had disappeared. "These things never move alone."

"What exactly was that?" asked the greenette, his face still pale as he released a shiver.

The man stared at him with a sorry expression, before tapping his shoulder and helping him up.

"One of your father's experiments."

FRENCH VERSION ===============================

"Plus un bruit," murmura Yagi.

Le blond maintenait Izuku contre le mur, la poigne forte et ferme malgré son apparence maladive. Izuku le fixa avec un froncement de sourcil, l'incompréhension clairement visible sur son visage. Yagi ne lui accorda pas un regard. Il ne regardait rien de précis, en fait. Les yeux grands ouvert, figés, les pupilles dilatées et le corps tendu.

Attentif.

Clac.

Les yeux d'Izuku s'écarquillèrent. Si la nuit n'avais pas été si silencieuse et vide de vie, le garçon n'aurait jamais entendu le cliquetis des griffes raclant le sol. Un son métallique, régulier et tranquille.

Clac.

Il était bien plus pesant que le pas fluide de Renard. Il était aussi plus lointain, hors de vue au moment où Yagi avait saisit Izuku par la chemise pour se cacher derrière l'un des murets qui longeaient la rue.

Clac.

Izuku n'avait même pas remarqué la présence. Et alors que les tintements se faisaient de plus en plus proches, de plus en plus clairs et nets, il pouvait sentir le surplus d'énergie grouiller sous sa peau, devenant instable et douloureux à mesure que son anxiété grandissait. Il regrettait que Renard ait disparu dans la nuit, car là, tout de suite, la présence réconfortante de son automate lui manquait terriblement. Regarder Yagi se tenir aussi immobile qu'une statue n'aidait pas non plus à apaiser son esprit, et il se tortilla sous sa prise. Le blond se retourna en silence vers lui, un doigt sur ses lèvres alors qu'il se collait un peu plus contre le mur et rapprochait Izuku de sa poitrine.

Il y eu encore des pas, et un grognement résonna derrière le muret orné de buissons. La chose les dépassa enfin, dévoilant l'amalgame de chair et de métal que formait son corps. Le monstre était aussi grand qu'un cheval, mais bien plus massif, et le corps sombre luisait à la lueur des réverbères. Les pattes, faite d'acier et d'autres matériaux qu'Izuku ne reconnut pas, était probablement aussi large que la silhouette du garçon, et il ne douta pas une seconde qu'un coup suffise pour le déchiqueter.

"Il nous traque," lui intima une des voix. "Celui-ci n'a pas d'odorat, mais son ouïe est fine. Silence."

Izuku voulait demander ce que diable était ce truc à l'ouïe fine, mais rien que l'idée d'ouvrir la bouche et de se faire remarquer lui tordait les entrailles d'une manière douloureuse. Son lit lui manquait tout d'un coup. Son lit et les couvertures chaudes et douces. Et les tasses de chocolats chaud, aussi, avec des guimauves et de la crème à outrance.

Il n'était pas sûr d'avoir à nouveau la chance d'en boire un.

Le monstre releva la tête et observa les alentours, sondant son environnement. Les choses qui devait lui servir d'oreilles se tenaient droites et hautes sur sa tête, et il resta là, immobile et silencieux, la queue de fer battant l'air.

Au fond de lui, d'une manière viscérale, Izuku le savait. Si cette chose se retournait, elle les trouverait.

Mais ils ne pouvaient pas faire grand chose, chaque son menaçant de dévoiler leur présence. Alors, ils restèrent là, paralysés comme des souris à la vue d'un chat. Yagi regardait droit devant lui, la respiration calme malgré la moiteur de ses mains, et chercha quelque chose dans une de ses poches. Izuku, lui, avait les mains collées contre sa bouche, atténuant au mieux le bruit de sa respiration alors qu'il fermait les yeux.

Un nouveau grognement - un mélange de grondements graves, de cliquetis et de râles - émana du monstre avant qu'il ne commence fatalement à pivoter dans leur direction. Izuku sentit des larmes perler au coin de ses yeux alors que l'effroi lui lacérait l'estomac, lui donnant envie de vomir.

Ils étaient finis. Izuku avait toujours eu la poisse et ça ne changerait pas cette nuit. Yagi, trop faible pour se battre, allait finir en morceaux par un truc sorti tout droit des enfers, et Izuku finirait tout aussi déchiqueté dans le coin de la rue. Il plaignait les pauvres passants qui découvriraient leurs cadavres au petit matin. S'il en restait quoi que ce soit.

Il y eu encore des pas, des cliquetis et raclements, plus proches et plus proches encore, lorsque soudain, l'écho d'une caisse tombant au sol résonna dans la nuit et le fit sursauter. La tête de la bête fit volte-face, le cou tordu dans une position tout sauf naturelle et fixa les ténèbres à la recherche de l'origine du bruit.

Un moment s’écoula sans que rien ne se passe puis, le duo, complètement alerte et immobile, observa le reste de la créature bouger pour suivre l'alignement de sa tête qui fixait l'une des ruelles.

Un éclair blanc bondit hors des ombres, trois queues fouettant l'air alors que Renard faisait face au monstre. Le métal étincelait sous la lumière artificielle, et les reliures en or qui couvraient son corps captaient la lumière et la renvoyaient. Izuku aurait voulu hurler, la panique et l'inquiétude rugissant dans ses veines. Renard était si petit en comparaison, minuscule et frêle devant la créature.

Il suffirait d'un mauvais coup.

Yagi dut le retenir et lui plaquer une main sur la bouche pour ne pas qu'il ruine tout.

La créature toisait Renard, immobile, une des pattes gelées au-dessus du sol. Le corps grinça et cliqueta alors qu'il se penchait en avant. Un instant, la chose se tenait à une quinzaine de mètres de l'automate. Le suivant, il était sur Renard et tentait de le plaquer au sol, griffes et crocs sortis.

Cependant, l'automate, bien que beaucoup plus petit que le monstre, restait agile et rapide. Il parvint à se dégager dans un mouvement fluide, roulant sur le sol et se remettant sur ses pattes. Puis, avant que la créature sombre ne bouge à nouveau, l'automate détala dans une des ruelles adjacentes, celle à l'opposée d'où se trouvait le duo.

La chose ne perdit pas une seconde et s'élança à sa suite, disparaissant dans la nuit alors que des grondements et des cris se répercutait dans la ville.

Les deux restèrent immobiles pendant un moment, avant que Yagi ne se décide enfin à se relever, observant les alentours à la recherche de quoi que ce soit d'anormal. Izuku était toujours recroquevillé par terre, jouant nerveusement avec sa chemise alors que son esprit divaguait sur ce qui attendait son automate.

Renard était rapide et dur à attraper. Il était aussi bien plus petit et pouvait se faufiler partout, il trouverait bien un endroit inaccessible au monstre, pas vrai ? Il pouvait toujours courir et le semer quelque part, mais est-ce qu'il pourrait retrouver son chemin ? Izuku ne connaissait pas bien la ville, et il doutait que son automate se débrouille mieux. Mon dieu, et s'il ne le trouvait pas avant le départ ? Et si Renard restait coincé ici ? Yagi pourrait comprendre et peut-être retarder le départ, mais s'ils ne trouvaient pas Renard ? Ils ne pouvaient pas le laisser là ! Et il ne pouvait pas non plus demander des infos ou de l'aide à qui que ce soit, ils étaient recherchés. Et en plein jour, son automate ne serait pas vraiment la chose la plus discrète dans ces quartiers. Ho mon dieu, et si le monstre l'attrape quand même ? Et s'il n'est pas assez rapide ?

"Midoriya, tu divagues."

Le garçon cligna des yeux, soudainement tiré de ses pensées. Yagi s'était accroupis devant lui et lui secouait doucement l'épaule.

"Ton renard est une bête intelligente. Je suis sûr qu'il nous retrouvera," il dit.

Le blond lui offrit un sourire.

Cette fois-ci, Izuku n'était pas sûr qu'il soit vrai.

"Nous ne devrions pas rester ici," continua Yagi en observant à nouveau la ruelle où avait disparu le monstre. "Ces choses ne se baladent jamais seules."

"Qu'est-ce que c'était, au juste ?" demanda l'adolescent, le visage encore livide alors qu'il relâchait un frisson.

L'homme le dévisagea avec une expression désolée, avant de lui tapoter l'épaule et de l'aider à se relever.

"L'une des expérimentations de ton père."

#Anima!AU #bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #izuku #izuku midoriya #all might #yagi toshinori #my art #at the beginning I wanted to do it in color #but the result was terrible #so I went back to a black and white version TuT #sometimes colors are hell x)#and sorry for typo or weird words #english isn't my native language

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jungwooisms · 3 years

Text

gekokujō | k.dy | official teaser

pairing: kim doyoung x female reader members: suh youngho (johnny), lee minhyung (mark), nakamoto yuta, lee jeno, kim jungwoo, jeong jaehyun genre: historical au (early 1900’s)/historical fiction, angst, fluff warnings: smoking, language, alcohol word count: 13k/? summary: kim doyoung left his home in search of himself; yet when a collection of both familiar and unfamiliar faces surface, he finds that he may just be a a part of something much larger than he anticipated.

| this will be a part of @puppywritings’ historical collab |

[1909.04.01. Boston, MA] ‘John,

I feel enough time has adequately passed to allow me to write to you. Although, there is not much news from home to tell you of.

The snow is fast disappearing now. I came across an article in the paper the other day about Boston and it said that 14 or 15 years ago bears used to roam around the northern end of the city, but there seems to be nothing around now except the wild fowl, and an uncountable number of deer.

How are your hands now? I know that the winter air dries yours as it does mine. Mine are very cut, so scattered with paper trails that I fear I should bleed ink from all the books that you left me. Have you been able to acquire any more on your travels? I find that the supply you gave me is running rather low now.

You left for Munich inquiring after Daniel Lim if I recall the name correctly, I hope you found him in good health on your arrival. I also hope he does not overwork you, you said as much happened the last you worked under him in London.

I am very pleased to say I am keeping very well, and I trust you are the same. If anything happens, know that I will gladly storm my way across the sea and give your wrongdoers what for.

I miss you, John. And I hope you return soon, you know I love to hear about your travels.’

A short chuckle to yourself as you pull the pen away from the paper after signing your name, ink stains settling into the grooves of your fingers as you aren’t cautious enough with the writing implement. Short blows over the thin paper as you try to dry the ink as quickly as possible, although this isn’t the sweltering heat of the summer you’re unsurprised the ink hasn't run but so much. Carefully standing from your seat you begin your search around the room for an envelope, fingers brushing over various stacks of papers and novellas lying around your workspace. Eventually you find a weathered, but perfectly usable one underneath a dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre. You address the letter to his newest residence, some boarding house in Germany, but you aren't sure if he was even staying there anymore. If that doesn't work out and one of your letters was stamped “Return to Sender” once more, you’d just have to wait for him to send you something first. It seemed like you were always waiting after John. Not that you mind much, you had been as thick as thieves as teenagers and that had hardly ever changed, even after he’d decided to go abroad and study, then go onto some teaching stints wherever the wind blew him.

As you return to your seat you hear a gentle meowing outside, head peering over your desk and out of the glass panes into the garden below you spot a small black and white tabby looking up at you. A sigh escaping your lips as you move to grab your pen once more, beginning to write a post scriptum,

‘p.s. Your lovely feral cat has now decided that I take ownership of her in your absence. Is there a name you prefer I call her?’

You hope he can understand your tone, it’s an issue of yours that the words you write sometimes don't hit their mark. Regardless, you’d send the letter and hear his thoughts on it whenever he has the gaul to write back. You straighten your back from your hunched position and move through the house, your fingers tracing along the smooth walls until you reach the door leading into the garden, it lay nestled in the corner of the kitchen. There’s a faint scratching as you approach, only opening it to find the same tabby waiting for you, it barrels inside once it sees an opportunity.

“You wretch,” tsking as she begins brushing up against your leg. “What am I going to do with you?”

[1909.04.30. 今出川, 京都] The ground crunches underfoot as Doyoung walks; the pavement, covered with a thin layer of grit from a small windstorm that had picked up an hour or so prior, feeling as if it’s shifting as his leather soled shoes move over it. Storm having left its mark and not going to disappear until a rain shower decides to wash it away, he breathes in the particles still floating through the balmy weather. A small frown as he fans his jacket, allowing some air to circulate under the thick fabric. Had it not been impolite, he would have shed the garment as soon as he stepped out of the train station only minutes ago. His hand still wrapped around his bag he looks to the signs adorning the tops of businesses along the road. Doyoung was never great at learning hanja, so when it came time for him to begin learning the already different kanji and further hiragana and katakana that would come along with his trip abroad, he thought he might set out to find a tutor during his time here. Hand moving to rummage around the inside of his jacket, he procures a worn letter from its depths. ‘今出川居酒屋,’ it is the only thing foreign to him within the contents of the scripture, the sender had asked to meet him there for lunch on the second day of Doyoung’s arrival to Kyoto.

Doyoung finds the bar after walking a few more blocks, north from the station and hidden away behind a bookstore in a back alley. Before he enters, he pauses. His grip on the letter tightening, the parchment creasing from the increased pressure as the slight tingly pervasiveness of guilt begins to wrack him from the inside out. A look to his left, and then to his right, a ghost of a figure in his peripheral, deterring him from running from the drinkery. It drives him closer, away from an inevitable future and towards the uncertain present.

A haze of smoke blankets the air as he enters, that of tobacco intermingling with the small fire stoking in the back of the bar. It invades his nose rather viciously, itching the back of his throat and causing tears to form in the corners of his eyes as he greets the hostess with a small ‘Hello’ and ‘A table, please.’ She guides him and he settles down at a chabudai towards the front of the building, almost with enough of a view so that he can peer past the two small curtains at the entrance and into the street.

The letter now resting atop the table and his bag by its side, he reaches into his jacket yet again to procure an almost empty pack of cigarettes and a newly bought lighter. He had run out of fluid during his journey across the sea and he thought that buying a new one would be a novel idea to commemorate his trip. Doyoung’s eyes wander around the enclosed space as he scans the faces of the patrons. Most were men but there was the occasional woman mingling among the crowd as well. Cigarette placed on his lips, lighter spewing to life and igniting the end as he takes a deep breath in. Doyoung hates smoking, hates the way it pierces his lungs with its inky black vapors. It leaves his breath smelling awful, but it is just something people do to pass the time. Fingers finding the cigarette, he removes it for a moment, tapping it against a small silver dish atop the table, the ashes pooling at the bottom as he continues to look for someone he hasn’t met yet.

“Did you want to order anything else?” A voice to his right calls out, he jumps slightly before turning, only to find the kimono clad waitress at his side. She sets down a tray of dishes, some foods he recognizes, and some he thinks to be the local cuisine.

“Oh, no thank you.” As his eyes look over the food he moves to rest his cigarette in the ashtray to come back for later.

The woman gives a short smile and brief nod before speaking again, “Please let me know if you need anything.” Even after she had walked away, Doyoung could feel her eyes lingering on him like a child seeing some sort of marvel for the first time. This is not to say that he thinks that highly of himself, just that he knows that he is an outsider in a foreign place, his accent could tell anyone as much.

“I think she likes you.” A voice speaking up when Doyoung goes to take a bite out of the onigiri on his tray.

Mouth half full and brow furrowed in confusion, Doyoung turns to face wherever the voice had come from, “What did you say?” Chewing his food and swallowing rather harshly, he almost chokes as he thinks he’s going insane after hearing what sounded like Korean. This time it was a man who spoke, he was sitting at another table across from him, a shifty grin on his face. Something about him seemed different from everyone else in the bar, but the man couldn’t quite put a finger on it in this dimly lit room.

“She’s still staring at you.” The other man answers, now standing up and proceeding to walk over to him. “But it’s not like she’s hearing me say that anyway,” He laughs, brushing his hands against the lapels of his jacket.

Now in a better light, the man can get a better view of this stranger. “Are you Korean too?” He asks in his native tongue, feeling much more relieved that the burden of speaking a different language is momentarily sated.

“No,” Another laugh as the man settles down in the seat adjacent. “Just familiar with the language, is all.” He pauses for a moment, his eyes staring into Doyoung’s as if he’s trying to memorize his facial features. “You wouldn’t happen to be Kim Dongyoung, would you?”

“Doyoung, actually.” He clears his throat. “I am,” Eyes glancing at the letter still atop the table, Doyoung comes to a realization, “Are you Nakamoto Yuta?”

“I am,” A smile as he extends his hand. Less practiced with western formality Doyoung looks at the greeting for a moment before raising his own to formally address him, “It’s nice to meet you.” After a moment they drop their hands away from each other, Yuta’s gaze shifting to watch the hostess move his food from his old table to the one he now shares with Doyoung. “With an accent like that you must be from the south, Daegu, maybe?”

“Guri, actually.” He returns to his food for a moment, Yuta taking this time to also take a few bites from his own bento. “Where did you learn Korean?”

“Did Youngho not tell you?” Youngho is their mutual friend, he’d given Doyoung Yuta’s contact information to inquire if he had any availability to tutor him. “I studied with him when we were in college, I moved back here a year after we graduated, my mother fell ill and wanted to come back from living in Hanseong.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Doyoung frowns, shifting as he sets his chopsticks down. The two must have met after Doyoung had left his schooling to return to his family, per their wishes.

A smile, “She made a perfect recovery, but now that she’s home she never wants to leave again.” Yuta reaches for the porcelain flask of sake the hostess had brought over, pouring himself a small glass then offering one to Doyoung. The younger politely refuses, still not accustomed to the savoriness of the drink, as Yuta nods and knocks back his own cup before speaking again. “When can you start classes? We typically meet for an hour or two every day if we can.”

“We?” Doyoung’s caught up on the word, he thought these would be private lessons, not an actual class. He leans forward, somewhat anxious at the thought of his abysmal language skills to be put on show for more than one audience member.

“Just a handful of other students from all over the place,” Shoulders shrugging Yuta leans backwards, hands placed atop his knees as he stretches his back. “We have a few Korean and Chinese kids, even a Canadian student as well. Not everyone’s at the same level so you shouldn’t worry too much about it.” He smiles, toothy and carefree as if there wasn’t an unhappy thought that had ever crossed him, Doyoung somewhat resents the uncertain assumption he made. “The schoolhouse isn’t too far away from here actually; did you want to stop by?” Hand motioning towards the doorway, Yuta’s head tilts inquisitively.

“I actually have to check in at the hotel I’m staying in, my parents told me to write whenever I got here and I’ve been putting that off for a while,” A sigh escaping him. Doyoung had been thinking about what to pen for the past day and a half but couldn’t muster the strength to go through with it. He’d left on rocky terms and was expecting to be hounded whenever they responded. “I’ll stop by tomorrow when you have class if that’s alright?”

“Fine by me,” He’s now searching his own pockets, finding a pen and reaching out for the letter near Doyoung. Yuta scribbles down something, a few kanji that Doyoung can’t decipher, and hands him the paper back, “Classes start at ten, when you’re in the area just ask someone if they know where this is and they’ll point you in the right direction.”

“Thanks,” Doyoung looks down to the paper, seeing in his periphery that Yuta was already on his feet, straightening his jacket as he begins to head over to the waitress.

Doyoung sees him say something but can’t make out what, it’s only when Yuta turns to him and speaks that he can ascertain the meaning, “Don’t worry about paying this time, you’ll have to treat me to lunch some other day.” And with that Doyoung finds himself alone once more in the tavern.

[1909.04.30. Boston, MA] The letter had arrived early in the morning, but you had been out in town with your mother attending some group function that you didn't want to be a part of in the first place. So, when you walk into your own little study and see it lying atop your things you race over and tear open the seal adorning it.

‘When I arrived in Munich, my work left me so urgent that I could not write in time before I left again. I thus deferred it to a point where I once again found myself with solid footing. It rains heavily in Seoul today, my travels have taken me here instead of crossing the Atlantic.

Currently I am holding a tutoring position for the American consulate’s son. I expect to hold this position for some time before I return home to Boston.

Tell my mother not to fuss over me too much, if anything I implore her to look after you. Of all people, other than your own family, she knows of the antics you pursue.

I was able to sneak out a few books from Munich, upon my return I swear to you that you will have the greatest library in all America- no, the world, even.

If I were a better artist, or wealthy enough to photograph, I would show you how beautiful my journey across the world has been. Although, so much has changed in Seoul since I held my studies here. I cannot help but have the inklings of melancholy eat away as I recall the memories and compare them to what I see now. This will come to pass, I hope.

I hear the boy calling for me now— My writing will have to cease here, I fear. Send my affection to your family, I know they miss me as much as you do.

With all the love I can muster,

x John

p.s. I think I have decided to call her Minnie, please refer to her as that accordingly.’

While scattered with his familiarities and humor, the letter seems all too short, all too hurried. Your lips purse as you read over it, brow furrowing as a small knot in your stomach begins to form. Thumb rubbing over the x marking his name the worry only grows ever more prevalent, you pull your eyes away from the words and begin to rummage around for your own writing implements and paper, wanting to respond to him as quickly as possible.

‘John,

Your letter left much to be desired. Seoul? Your mother anxiously awaits your return any day now, before you left you said you would only be gone until early May at most. I hope that nothing unsavory has happened, God knows you find yourself in trouble more than any other man I know.

Please let her know that you are safe, I fear that she may follow after you should you be gone any longer. A son should never burden his mother with his absence for an extended period, I can only keep her company for so long before her weariness sets in and she longs to see you.

She also knitted you a pair of gloves, seeing as you left your moth-eaten ones behind. I know the air is growing warmer, but it is somewhat endearing to see how doting she is over you. Please, ease her mind by writing.’

[1909.04.30.-1909.04.31. 今出川ホテル, 京都] Doyoung eventually finds himself standing at the small entrance of a hotel, the name written in cursive English on a wooden sign above the doorway. Youngho had recommended the inn, saying that it would be one of the more accepting places to stay at as a foreigner. It has a somewhat Victorian looking façade, contrasting the traditional Japanese styled buildings around it, he wonders why that is as he ascends the handful of steps to the door, struggling ever so slightly while lugging his bag behind him. As the door swings open, he’s greeted by an elderly woman with a rather round face, “Good evening,” she smiles and ushers him inside. “Did you need a room for the night? Or do you have a reservation?”

Mind fogging as he struggles to keep up, “Apologies, my Japanese isn’t—” The stone floor clicking underfoot as he follows her to the main desk.

“Ah, Korean?” It’s accented, but he appreciates it nonetheless. “Do you have a reservation?” Her hands dance along a worn leather book atop the desk, flipping it open as she looks down a list of names, some of those which are crossed out and some of which are not.

“I do,” He nods his head with a short smile, “It should be under Kim.”

Humming as she runs her finger down the list, as her head turns upward it causes Doyoung to return his attention to her, “Kim Heesung or Kim Doyoung?”

“Doyoung,” he says, shifting his weight from foot to foot, mentally hitting himself as he should’ve been more specific. Eyes scanning the list, Doyoung takes a short look around the interior of the inn.The space is smaller than he imagined, but rather cozy. A glowing fire going to warm the chill of the night, large armchairs beside it and the largest bookshelf he’s ever seen built around the hearth.

“Wonderful,” She smiles, turning her back to him to find his room key from a small drawer behind the desk. Before she faces him again fully, she shifts through a small stack of papers atop the desk, “This also came for you,” The woman reaches to pull out a thin card from the stack, it has both hangul and kanji printed on it so it was easy to assume it’d come from his homeland.

“Thank you,” He smiles back before taking the telegram and tucking it into his jacket pocket. She hands him the key and he’s off to find his hotel room. It lays up the staircase and down a winding corridor, as he passes by some of the rooms, he can hear the muffled voices of a few of the other patrons, speaking languages he can mildly understand and others that sound alien. Once he finds his room, he’s all too giddy to throw himself onto the bed. Door locked, shoes and suitcase strewn aside he falls onto the plush bed, his eyes watching the ceiling as the weight of sleep begins to take over his vision.

Broken sunlight filters into the room, the shades drawn enough only to allow sharp slants of light to come through. The city outside is bustling whereas the hotel room seems almost vacant of any form of noise, save for the sound of soft breathing as the occupant sleeps. Kim Doyoung continues to snore softly, dreaming of something sweet enough to add a slight curvature to his lips. He rolls in his slumber, the telegram received in the night folding under his weight, unbeknownst to him.

Three swift knocks awake him from the depths of slumber. He bolts up, raising a hand to run through his hair as a frown of confusing forms on his lips, wiping away whatever essence of his dream remained. “Are you awake?” A voice rings out seconds after the rapping. It’s the woman from the night before, Doyoung was too tired to connect the dots quite yet.

“Yes,” He responds groggily, moving to allocate his footing onto the floor. He hears soft footsteps leading away from his door, he supposes his wakeup call is completed. Rummaging around his wrinkled jacket-pocket he pulls out his timepiece, the clock reveals that it is seven forty-five in the morning, he has two hours before his lessons begin. Letting out a soft groan, he places the watch away and pushes himself onto his feet. His knees creaking and cracking as he rises and stretches out his arms, signaling that his sleep must’ve been docile. Once again, his hand moves to his jacket as he recalls the telegram, now crumpled in the crevasses of his pocket. Doyoung pulls out the letter, walking to draw open the shades to allow more reading light in.

“Kim Dongyoung,” He mumbles out, reading over the first, short line as the sleep is rubbed from his eyes. ‘Mom and Dad are going to kill you if you continue to ignore them. For my sake, please write. - Donyun’

An audible scoff after he’s finished reading, he can almost hear his brother’s tone. Doyoung does care about his family, but his brother is as much on his parents’ side as he is against it, it is a giant rift in their already teetering relationship.

The telegram tossed onto the bed as Doyoung takes off his jacket, he’d been avoiding his familial issues for a while now and it seems as if they’re coming back to bite him in the ass. It wasn’t entirely his fault for doing so, his father was never a good listener and Doyoung’s ideas were always pushed asunder.

A few moments later he finds himself in a fresh set of clothes, ready to face the day. In truth, he is dreading his lessons but at least it will provide some relief from thinking about the drama happening back in Guri. His shoes drag along the wooden floor as he steps out of his room, locking it with the small gilded key behind him. Once in the hallway, his posture straightens as he begins to make his way towards the staircase that would lead him into the main lobby. The crushed emerald green velvet railing runs under his fingers as he descends, swiftly moving into his pockets once his feet land on the granite tiles splaying out an ocean of deep gray below him.

A thin beam of light shines in through the slit in the door of the entranceway, the windows attached to the door are covered in the same crushed velvet encasing the staircase via curtain. It feels like he is in a black hole with how dimly lit the interior of the building is. Eventually he makes his way through the lobby, past the plumes of smoke belonging to the lackadaisical men resting in overly decadent armchairs smoking out of their kiserus.

Doyoung shuffles his way to the front desk, a younger woman manning it instead of the elderly woman from the night prior. “Can I help you?” Voice sullen sounding, or maybe tired, Doyoung still isn’t awake enough yet to dissect it fully.

Reaching into his pocket, pulling out the letter from Yuta with the name of the school, “I’m looking for this?”

The girl leans over the desk, it’s easy to tell the yukata she wears is inhibiting her from her full range of motion. Eyes reading the characters carefully, “Whoever wrote this has awful handwriting,” She mutters under her breath and Doyoung can’t understand it entirely. “It’s about a fifteen-minute walk that way,” Hand raising to motion southward, “When you see the sweets shop you should turn right, and it will be a few buildings down on your right.”

A nod of his head as he thinks he caught most of her instruction. He takes the paper back and tucks it away, thanking her as he makes for the door. The heat greets him with a gentle breeze, an inkling of warmth as to what’s in store for later in the day. Doyoung looks to the sky, to see where the sun is positioned so he is able to gauge the direction he was supposed to go. He sets off, pace not brisk or lax, merely at a stride to absorb what’s around him. It’s still early in the morning, plenty of time before the school day begins to wander the streets for a bit.

The street’s crowded, thinning in places where it seems more residential than not, it reminds him of home. Different feel, different language but it has a strange nostalgic aura about it. A sweetness hitting his nose as he approaches a small wooden building, he can’t read what it is but by the smells emanating from it he supposes that it’s the sweet shop the girl at the hotel had told him to turn at. Head tilting to peer down the street, it looks like nothing of note. As he stands there, presumably looking more confused than the average local, he feels a finger gently tap on his shoulder, “Are you lost?”

The voice comes as a surprise, turning Doyoung on his heels to come face to face with a stranger. Eyes wide as he looks the boy over, “A little bit... I’m looking for,” reaching into his pockets as the other stops him.

“Are you Kim Doyoung?” It seems as if everyone here knew of him before he could introduce himself. Before he can speak, a nod of affirmation rattles through him and the other smiles, “Yuta said that we’d be getting a new student in today.” Hand outstretching, Doyoung’s a little more practiced with the greeting now, “My name’s Lee Minhyung, I can show you the way to the school if you want?”

“It’s nice to meet you,” He gives a brief smile before another nod of his head, “I’d really appreciate it.”

[1909.05.05. San Francisco, CA] If anything were to be your downfall, it would be that of your impatience. You’d been sitting down with John’s mother, a woman you likened to your own family when the one back home was too involved in her own business, when the news broke. She was kind, offered you tea and as always had the little tin of biscuits you loved when you were a child sitting atop the tea tray, and then graciously divulged to you that her son was currently under police custody in Tokyo when the last you’d heard he’d been in Seoul. It would explain the absence of letters, or inability to write. Upon questioning her further you realize that maybe he was in far greater a circumstance than he left you off thinking.

It isn’t a matter of asking your parents to ship you off to a foreign land, it’s a matter of when and how soon you can leave. The money sitting in the dank vault of your late grandmother’s account had laid in wait for some sort of use, and she had wanted you to use it to fulfill some sort of errant dream of yours after her passing. You couldn’t find it within yourself to touch it, seeing it as too prized and too treasured a thing to take away from for some frivolous means. But your grandmother had liked John, the late one on your father’s side and not the vile one from your mother’s. She had treated him kindly whenever he had stopped by, sometimes even saying that she had wished him her grandson more than the monsters that were your cousins. You think that is reason enough to pull from your funds and splurge on a rescue mission to Japan. There were several people you’d known that had been there before, detailing it as a curious place but had neglected to tell you why; you don’t think of the language or cultural barriers separating you until you’re standing on a pier in San Francisco, waiting for your ship to dock.

The brine of the sea had never settled well in your stomach, salty on your lips and your cheeks as the coastal winds torrent towards you. Your ship doesn’t leave for a while yet but the queasiness felt on the decks of other ships returns to the pit of your stomach with a ghostlike vengeance. Perhaps it is anxiousness that riddles you instead of the fear of the sea.

“Im-a-de-ga-wa Gai-ko-ku-jin Ni-hon-go Ga-kko” words falling from your lips in strange and oblong vowels and consonants that were almost completely incorrect. John had mentioned it in the letter to his mother, detailing that should she not hear from him for another month to contact the school and ask for the aid of a Mr. Yuta Nakamoto, a friend that he’d talked about in passing a few times. Apparently, he is a persuasive sort that would most definitely help him out should the occasion arise. Or so John had put it, you aren't really sure what to think of him.

John’s mother had insisted that it had been a mix up at customs but a bitter taste in your mouth and gut wrenching feeling in your stomach told you otherwise. He was a rebellious spirit and had probably said a few choice words that had gotten him in trouble, he had said his Japanese wasn’t great but he had learned a handful of colorful phrases from the aforementioned friend in University that could definitely be taken the wrong way by unknowing ears.

If the seas were steady and your luck good, maybe you can reach him within a month. If not, a week or so longer but you’re not sure if the anticipation of it all would let you, you might jump ship and hope to swim there faster should such a situation arise. Again, impatience being your downfall you can barely stand just watching the large metal steamship land at port and empty its passengers before you were to board.

The air is salty, the gentle spray of foam from the shore landing on your cheeks carefully as you look towards the ship that is to be your dwelling for the next portion of your life. Maybe you shouldn’t have come alone, taken a chaperone or a friend with you, but you were worried, too crunched for time to even entertain the thought as you packed your bags and told your mother you were taking the first train out of town. Your face still stings with the remembrance of the slap she’d given you in her frenzy, calling you something along the lines of a girl too thoughtless to know her role. By no means a heartfelt way to leave her, but your father had said to go, knowing a little more than your mother how much John means to you.

Your bags, brown leather and worn from the days when your father was still youthful enough to travel, lay at your feet as the thin paper ticket folds under your grasp. The chatter from the crowds around you mixing in with shouts of vendors and merchants lining the docks over the squalls of seagulls overhead. It’s all too much when your mind is racing with concern, not too much though to deter you from a gentle tapping on your shoulder.

“I think you dropped this?” Deep voice causing you to turn on your heels and face the perpetrator. When you do, you’re greeted with your passport being held out to you and a dimpled smile to go along with a rather dashing face.

“Oh,” Eyebrows raised as you reach out to gingerly take your own booklet from the other, you hadn’t realized its absence since you had thought it stowed away in the depths of your handbag. “Thank you—?” A pause as you wait for an introduction.

“Jaehyun, or Jeffery, whichever is easiest for you,” he nods and then you offer your name before he speaks again. “It was really no problem,” he continues with a smile as he looks down to the bags at your feet, “Did you just get back or are you going somewhere?”

The innate curiosity of the stranger mildly perplexing, “I’m off to Tokyo.”

“Tokyo,” his tone faltering as his hand drops down to his side after you begin stowing the passport back away in the small purse slung over your shoulder. “What business is taking you there?”

You pause as you think, it isn’t exactly family troubles or business matters that are taking you across the Pacific, stubbornness, and inability to take your friend for everything he said, more like it. “A friend settled there a little while ago,” a nod after a moment of silence, “it seems that he has gotten himself into a little trouble so I am going to make sure everything is alright.” Absentmindedly patting the bag as you can see the other mull it over in his head, “What about you? Are you heading in or out?”

“Out,” The answer is almost immediate, a shift on his feet as he straightens his posture. “I’m heading to Korea; I haven’t seen my family in almost seven years.”

“Seven years?” The most John had been gone was the three years he spent studying abroad; you can’t imagine someone gone from your life for that amount of time. “What were you here for?”

“I was staying with a group of missionaries as I went through college,” Hands in his pockets as he turns to the blue horizon overlooking the ocean you were both meant to traverse, “Now that I’ve graduated there’s nothing keeping me here.”

“What will you do when you’re-” you begin to speak when a loud whistle blares from the port your ship had saddled up to. Growing quiet as you begin to hear the general buzz of the people around you grow as they begin to shuffle towards the bridge that linked the port to the steamship. “I guess it’s time,” Reaching to pick up your bags, the leather against your palm somewhat soothing your nerves, “are you boarding too?”

A shake of his head, “My ship doesn’t leave until the afternoon.”

“Ah,” the sound leaving your lips as the thought of, perhaps, having someone to accompany you on your journey was swiftly diminished. “Well,” A small smile gracing your lips, “It was nice to meet you, Jaehyun.”

“It was nice to meet you too,” smile returning, “Safe travels.”

“And to you,” You nod as you begin to walk towards the front port, looking down to your hand to make sure that your ticket is still in hand.

[1909.05.16. 今出川外国人日本語学校、京都] “It’s not kūremashita it’s agemashita.” writing on a chalkboard, the dust from the small white stick clinging to the ends of Yuta’s jacket as he scrawls out the hiragana. “Unless you’re thankful that Doyoung’s parents give him money?” A smattering of laughter echoing the room as he tries to teach the handful of students how to show appreciativeness and the reporting of it to others. “Try one more time.” Doyoung sits back in his chair and looks at a pink-cheeked Jungwoo who leans over his notes in an attempt to reconcile his verbal mistake.

There’s another try from the dark-haired man, it sounds good enough to Doyoung but apparently, the structure of the sentence needs more tweaking, as seen by Yuta giving out a small sigh before walking to Jungwoo’s side. Doyoung takes this time to look around the small, confined classroom. It was in no means shabby, but one could tell this building wasn’t meant to be a school, Doyoung thinks Yuta told him that it had been some sort of distillery prior to the deed falling into his hands.

From eleven in the morning, when the sun slants in through the two glass windows of the classroom just enough to see the dust flying through the air, to noon is when Yuta teaches the native Korean speakers basic Japanese grammar and vocabulary. It’s only a handful of students; Minhyung, whom Doyoung had met on his first day, Jungwoo, who is somewhat timid but roaringly confident at times, Jeno, a kid on some sort of exchange trip who hopes to build up his language skills before his university classes start in the fall, and of course, Doyoung himself. It is an intimate learning experience, perhaps that’s why Doyoung now feels miles more confident in his speaking ability now than he did a month prior. Hell, he could now converse freely, albeit somewhat confined in his topics, to the front desk woman at the hotel he still resided at.

There’s a knock at the classroom door, pulling the attention from the room’s occupants away from their work and now to the dark wooden door that leads out into the small foyer where the next group of students is presumably waiting for their lecture. “The next class doesn’t start until noon,” Yuta looks to the clock placed atop his desk, “You’ve got five minutes.”

The door opens with a small creak, shadows from the entranceway spilling in as Doyoung catches a familiar face standing there to greet the class. “I was actually hoping to sit in?” A voice Doyoung hadn’t heard since his university days accompanied the creak of floorboards underfoot as Youngho strides into the room. “I think my Japanese is a little rusty.”

A small laugh from Yuta as he recognizes his friend, “There’s the jailrat.” Yuta returns to the front of the room to stand in front of the taller, no doubt feeling the confused gazes of the students behind him staring past him and to the stranger. “I’m surprised they let you out that early.”

“You know I’m persuasive,” Smile lingering on his lips as his head turns and he catches sight of Doyoung looking at him quizzically. He is still caught up on the word jailrat and the connotation behind it, when had Youngho been incarcerated?

“Well,” Yuta turns on his heels to address the class, “Why don’t we end early today?”

Minhyung’s already leaned over his desk to get Jeno’s attention, Doyoung thinks he hears him say something about grabbing lunch at the nearby market, but his interest is far too deterred to be paying full attention to the younger men. The class packs their bags, Doyoung taking the longest time of all as he tucks away his books into his makeshift bag. In all earnest it was a bag he’d borrowed from the reception at the hotel, he’d neglected to bring or buy a suitable bag for school when he left home and arrived in Japan. The worn canvas of the thing almost wearing through at the bottom, he slings it over his shoulder and makes his way towards Youngho and Yuta, who look to be in deep conversation.

Youngho spots Doyoung approaching in his periphery, turning to greet him with a jovial smile. “I see you made it here in one piece?” His eyes looked tired, his face gaunter than the last time he’d seen his elder, but he wasn’t going to question, it was neither the time nor the place.

“Mostly,” Doyoung replies, “Yuta’s been a great teacher.”

“Thanks for the ego boost,” Yuta’s fingers dance on the lapels of his jacket in mock vanity, only then moving into his jacket pocket for a lighter and his infamous pack of Chūyū cigarettes. He offers one to Youngho and then to Doyoung, to which they accept, pulling their own lighters out of their pockets and lighting the butts of the sticks.

“God, these are shit,” a grit through Youngho’s teeth after he pulls in a drag. “They confiscated my Lucky Strike back in Tokyo.” Doyoung’s brow furrows as the other begins to speak again, “Let me know when you’ve got a free night. I’d love to grab dinner and catch up; it’s been a while.”

“I should have time this Saturday?” Doyoung thinks of his schedule, it’s not that he had massive time commitments here, but he was making a point to travel around the city in his free time. “If that works for you, of course.”

“It sounds doable,” A nod as Youngho moves his hand to tap his cigarette against an ashtray atop Yuta’s desk, the wood around the tray stained with the ashes of past smoking ventures. “Are you still staying at that hotel I told you about?”

Doyoung shifts on his feet, “I am, are you staying there too?”

“Yuta has offered me residence in his home until he is sick of me,” Youngho nods to the aforementioned, “I can meet you in the lobby around five then?”

“Sounds good,” Doyoung agrees, looking at the clock hanging on the wall, “I think Jungwoo wanted to go over the homework together so I should go and help him out.” It’s something of an excuse but Doyoung could feel as if there was some sort of pregnant secret looming over the heads of the other two.

“Would you mind sending Sicheng and the others in?” Yuta asks as Doyoung snubs out his cigarette in the ashtray and makes his way to the door.

Metal knob in hand, Doyoung turns and gives him a brief nod, “Of course.”

There’s something that doesn't sit right with Doyoung. Youngho had noted that he’d planned on staying in Hanseong for a while in the letter he’d sent to Doyoung a few weeks ago. It’s not as if plans can’t change or anything of the sort, yet he’d seemed vehement about it, detailing something about a someone he was going to visit before heading home to America. He isn’t one to question where questions aren’t due, if his friend was to stay in Kyoto for the time being, he’d be nothing more than appreciative of having a familiar face around.

[1909.05.18. 今出川ホテル、京都] When Doyoung ascends the staircase, hands tucked in his jacket pockets, he can immediately tell that Youngho sits in one of the large armchairs by the hotel’s unused fireplace in the lobby. Although his face is obscured by the wings, with the way his hand taps in rhythm with the song wafting through the air, the excitedness of the movements are a telling sign that it is his friend.

A glance to the victrola that lies in the corner of the room, the audio scratchy and soft as it emits a tune that Doyoung does not know. He strides over to the plush chair, glancing down to its occupant before speaking.

“Good afternoon,” the words escape him and Youngho turns to him with a jump and widened eyes before he realizes who it is.

“Dongyoung!” Youngho smiles from the armchair, rising to his feet to greet the other with a quick embrace, “Long time no see.”

“Actually I go by Doyoung now,” he nods awkwardly as Youngho steps back from him, his hand rising to scratch the back of his head, “helps me forget myself for a bit.”

“Still having family issues?” Youngho’s brow furrows as they break their embrace, “I thought you wrote that you had sorted that mess out?”

“More or less,” another awkward smile, “But enough about me— I thought you were supposed to be in Hanseong?”

“Change of plans, there was someone I was meant to meet in Tokyo, but they left during the time while I was imprisoned.”

“Yuta mentioned something like that when you first came in, what happened?” Youngho’s holds out his hand, motioning to the door, as Doyoung questions. The latter begins to walk forward, towards the entrance of the hotel as his friend trails behind him, “Were you really taken into custody?”

“They thought I had ties with Homer Hulbert,” A laugh as the two make their way out the front door, trapezing down the steps and onto the sidewalk, “Which is correct, but they had no grounds to imprison me on the idea that I know him alone or had one of his books in my possession.”

“Hulbert— is he the one that—?”

“The very same,” he nods, “But that is more than contrived at this point, let me know how you are. It sounds like things are the same with your family the last I saw you.”

“If things were okay then I would have stayed home,” A huff of heated breath leaving him in something of a passive laugh. “My father is still trying to set me up with that girl, the past runs deep, I suppose.”

“I cannot agree with you more,” Youngho agrees with a nod, “Have you even met her yet?”

“The last time I saw Seungwon was when I was thirteen, even if I saw her I cannot say I could point her out in a crowd if you asked me to.” Doyoung's hands find purchase in his pocket, hidden away from the sunlight that falls onto his head and burns the back of his neck as Youngho and he walk further down the street, through the masses of people.

The older nods solemnly, almost as if he understands the situation, "I have a friend who's nearly in a similar situation as you. Although her parents haven't found her a match or approved of anyone she's liked, I'd say her feelings mirror your own."

"Is that right?" Doyoung questions rhetorically as Youngho digs through his jacket pocket for a pack of cigarettes, "Is that the girl who you spoke so much about during our classes together?"

Youngho sputters, his hands failing to ignite his lighter at Doyoung's words, a cigarette dangling from his lips, "Did I really talk about her that much?"

"So much so I feel like I know her," Doyoung smiles and shakes his head, a familiar pang hitting his stomach once he looks back to the street before them. "Do you want to grab something to eat? I don't think I've eaten since lunchtime yesterday."

"Too busy studying?"

"Something like that..." In actuality, he'd received yet another telegram, this time from his mother, scolding him for staying away again.

"You always were more studious than me," the other nods and looks to a small restaurant they begin to pass on their left before stopping in his tracks, "What about this place?"

"Soba?" The intensity of the sun once again baring down above him as he looks to the sign on the door, he nods quickly, "Sounds great."

The pair make their way inside, settling down at a small table in the back corner of the shop as they wait for their food to arrive. Doyoung moves his hand to unbutton a few fastens from the front of his jacket to allow some of the shop's cooler air to hit him. His hands then move to rest atop the table, his long and slender fingers tapping as Youngho smokes the last of his cigarette, snubbing it out on the ashtray settled at the end of the table.

"How's your family doing? Is your father's business going well? I saw a few copies when I was in Hanseong.” Lackadaisical in question, Doyoung can hear something edging behind his friend’s tone that tinges upon suspicion.

“It’s going well,” a silent nod as a server comes to their table, the two order quickly, leaving little room for questions before Doyoung asks, “What about your family?”

“Willfully ignorant as ever,” Youngho frowns, shifting in his seat. It looks as if bitter words reside on his tongue but he swallows them down with a redemption of a smile.

“About what?” Doyoung pauses as he reaches for the pot of tea the server had brought on her arrival, his hand hovering over the handle.

“Everything.” Youngho’s shoulders shrug as Doyoung eventually pours himself and his friend a cup of tea. “Korean politics, American politics, hell- even the politics of their own inner circle. I refuse to believe they aren’t intelligent, they refuse to accept anything that isn’t affecting them personally.”

“I see…” He winds off his acknowledgement with the abating of his words, woefully aware that his parents are of the same mindset. His own father being the worst of all of them, claiming that any interaction or deals with unsavory business men were for the benefit of the family, not to the detriment.

“My father’s own brother died in ‘07 and he seemed unfazed by it at all,” Youngho huffs out, “At the hands of the Imperial Army, and yet, still, he said nothing.”

Doyoung’s eyes widen and he raises a finger to his lips as if to tell the older to lower his voice, unknowing if anyone within the shop understands Korean. “Even if he did, there would be nothing your father could have done about it. Not only is he in America, he holds no authority in Joseon.”

“No one wanting to do a damn holds any authority in Joseon anymore, you know better than me what the yangban have gone through, what everyone’s gone through.” Youngho leans in closer to Doyoung, ceding as he lowers his tone, “It may be easier said than done but I believe we have the ability to change that.”

“How would-” Doyoung begins but is interrupted when the server comes back with their food, carefully setting each dish atop the table before retreating back into the depths of the kitchen. “How could ‘we’ possibly do that?”

“There are ways, I know there are. I just need time to think of a proper solution,” Youngho nods as he reaches for his chopsticks, eager to sate his own hunger that had risen during their conversation. “If you’re interested I’ll tell you more when I have an idea.”

[1909.05.27. 今出川外国人日本語学校、京都] Doyoung’s mind doesn't return to that conversation with Youngho until a Wednesday afternoon about a week later. The sun begins to sink down in the sky as Youngho, Minhyung and himself were cleaning off some blackboard tablets in the main room of the school. Yuta was busy teaching a class and Doyoung’s fingers were pruned from what felt like endless scrubbing with a rag and vinegar ridden water.

“You know,” Youngho speaks up after what feels like an eternity of silence, brushing his hands on his pants after setting down a board onto the floor below. “I think we can really change something here.” His shoes quickly tapping on the floor in some sort of anxious apprehension, “Yuta and I have been talking and the resistance effort in Korea seems to be strengthening again.”

“What are you implying?” Doyoung asks, confused at the sudden statement. His brow wet with perspiration, even having the windows cracked open doesn't allow for much wind to travel throughout the building.

“I am saying that we can try and do something to change the… trouble happening back home,” Youngho shows no anger but a passion resides in his voice that remains hard to mask. “Do something before something more is done to us.”

“That is…” Minhyung begins, looking up to Youngho from his task of drying off the boards.

“Idealistic?” Doyoung interjects, biting his lower lip before continuing, “Youngho you do realize if someone hears you talking about that you’ll get thrown in prison again?”

Eyes trailing around the space as if he hadn’t already known they were alone, “Every one of us are sitting ducks. You know that,” a point to Minhyung and then a point to Doyoung, “and you know that. Is fighting back against that such a bad thing?”

“How do you propose we do that? Drop everything now, hop on a ship back to Korea and just roam the countryside looking for this supposed group?” Blood rushing to his ears as it sounds like waves crashing on a beach’s shore.

“Not at all,” A shake of his head. “There are ways of resisting that do not rely on fighting, think peaceful, diplomatic.”

A nervous laugh escapes Doyoung, it’s involuntary but he can’t help it. “Suh Youngho I knew you were insane, but this is another level.”

“I— uh— I’m going to get some chalk refills from the storage room,” Minhyung excuses himself from the conversation, a glance at him as he walks away tells Doyoung that he doesn’t know how to interact with the situation and was looking for an easy escape.

“Doyoung if you would just listen to me and get that stupid doubt out of your head you might just be able to make some sense of it all.” A sigh from Youngho as he stands, reaching into his jacket to rummage around for a pack of cigarettes. “Can I bum one off of you?”

Cheek bitten as he grabs his pack out of his pocket and tosses it to the other, “Do you have any idea what they would do to my family if they knew we were having this conversation? Your family and Minhyung’s are across the world and have no worries about what they say or do. The other student’s and mine are not privileged with that.” Cigarette carton tossed back, the sound of a lighter igniting and the smell of smoke pervading through the air as he tucks the pack away into his pocket.

Youngho thinks, an exhalation of smoke through troubled lungs as his outward breath intermingles with the dust thick in the air. It dissipates without a sound, quietly invading the space as Doyoung is overcome with a sense of trepidation from the other, he picks his words meticulously, trying to string them together as carefully as possible, “This is not just about you or me or my family or yours. It is the fate of a nation on the line, is that so hard to understand?”

It causes the younger pause for a moment, his hand falling to his pocket, hovering there before he pulls on the fabric as if he’d meant to straighten the coat all along. His throat clears, thinking of his parents and brother he’d left behind in Guri, what any actions that Youngho’s ideals cause may entail for them. Even if he was trying to get away from his obligations back home, he’d never want to intentionally put them in any sort of danger.

Doyoung opens his mouth to speak, before catching a bright glimpse of color passing by one of the front windows, followed by the school door opening with a large slam against the wall. Silhouette standing in the setting sun for a moment, not looking at all familiar to Doyoung. An equally confusing circumstance when the words, “John Suh,” spill from your lips. It’s a confounded expression that crosses your face, standing in the front door of the school as the taller leans leisurely back against one of the walls.

Cigarette in hand, Youngho turns at the call of his name, nearly falling over in surprise to see you standing there. No, not surprise- bewilderment, shock or some form of abject horror as you take a few long strides to stand in front of him. It’s as if a child’s been caught by his mother and Doyoung is playing witness to it all.

Doyoung watches the scene in a state likened to childlike curiosity, he understands not one word that falls from either of your or Youngho’s lips, but he can tell you’re angry and him beyond apologetic. Hand movements gesticulating, he catches the words ‘Seoul’ and ‘Tokyo’ at some point as you huff something out under your breath. Voices raising, Doyoung’s surprised Yuta hasn’t come out to tell them to be quiet, but if he were in Yuta’s shoes he wouldn’t as you sounded royally pissed. When you turn on your heels Doyoung looks to Youngho for some sort of explanation, but his gaze is solely locked on you leaving.

“Shouldn’t you chase after her?” Minhyung asks, the two others not realizing he had returned, box of chalk in hand as the three men watch you storm out into the crowded streets.

“She needs to calm down before I talk to her again or she might really kill me.” Youngho sighs, bringing the cigarette to his lips before taking in a long drag. A hand runs through his hair as it looks as if all of the blood had drained from his face upon your arrival.

“Is that the friend you mentioned a while ago? You showed us a picture I think.” Doyoung questions, somewhat relieved at your intrusion into their previous conversation.

“It is,” the answer not coming from Youngho, but from Minhyung. “And by the sound of it she’s ready to pack you into her suitcase and take you on the next boat home.” Head nodding as he looks to the space you once occupied, “You really didn’t tell her you were coming here?”

“You understood that?” Smoke leaving him he turns to the younger, “You didn’t tell me you speak English.”

“It never really came up.” Shoulders shrugging as he sets the box of chalk he’d been fiddling with down onto a nearby chair. “And I am from Canada, after all.”

“Son of a bitch, Yuta told me you were from Hanseong.” Youngho muses, tossing the cigarette from his hand and smothering it with his shoe. “But yeah, that’s her. I may have neglected to mention that but I was a little held up,” he looks confused as he pushes himself off the wall and makes his way to the door, peering out in the street. “I just don’t know how in the hell she found me.”

“She probably used the wrath of God to do it,” Minhyung suggests, “That’s how my mom says she knows everything I’ve ever done wrong.”

“Wouldn’t put it past her,” A shake of his head as Youngho turns to Doyoung. “She said she’s staying at the hotel you’re in. Would you mind meeting up with me tomorrow morning in the lobby to talk some sense into her and get her to go back home?”

“I don’t even know her though?” Hands dried on a nearby towel, Doyoung stands and reaches for the bucket of now dirty water. He walks past Youngho and into the street to dump its contents out, “I don’t even speak that much English.”

“It’s more of moral support than anything,” Youngho steps aside to let Doyoung back in, “I wasn’t joking: she might actually kill me if she gets the chance.”

“Fine,” Doyoung sighs, walking to pick up his bag from the corner of the room. His hands smell of vinegar and he rubs his still pruned fingertips together as he thinks of what the next morning would hold. “You owe me, though.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Youngho breathes a sigh of relief as Doyoung makes his way to the front door once again, this time with the intent of leaving. “Nine work for you?”

“Nine works for me.” A nod as he walks down the two steps and onto the dirt road below, the indentations from your shoes leading off down the almost empty road. He glances back to Youngho with a, “See you tomorrow,” and then to Minhyung with a question of “Do we have a quiz on Friday?” before waving it off and beginning his trek back home.

The night descends on Kyoto quietly and without noise, the stores closing long after the sun has fallen behind the western mountains in Arashiyama, lanterns aligning the street as Doyoung shuffles his way to the hotel. It’s quiet, the city typically is at this time of night, he’s learned over the course of his stay in the ancient former capital.

Before he goes inside, he stands outside of the entrance, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat as he stares up at the night sky blooming with stars. His bag lays at his feet, more worn now than it had been on the first day of class. Crumpled in his fists, buried away into the depths of his coat lies a letter, the ink that had adorned it far too smudged and water damaged to read now. Doyoung hadn’t meant to ‘accidentally’ drop it into a puddle when it had arrived that morning, so the contents lie unknown. However, on the corner of the envelope, a blurred name, ‘Seungwon’ stays virtually untouched as if to remind him of former obligations.

It’s as if there’s a clock ticking in his chest, counting down to a day, a time, when he’s meant to take up the holstered responsibility of his family and place it onto his own shoulders. A burden not yet ready to bear, he sighs out into the balmy night and makes his way inside of the hotel.

[1909.05.27. 今出川、京都] Doyoung wakes to the knocking on his door, his head burrowing into the tangled blankets and pillows from a restless night’s sleep. It takes a moment for him to find himself, writhing around the sheets before pulling himself out of his own stupor. Feet hitting the floor with a dull thud, he drags his lethargic body to the small bathroom, running his hands under the cool water of the faucet before splashing some onto his face to wake himself further. He meets his own gaze in the reflection, tired eyes and the slightest shadow of stubble beginning to darken on his jaw and upper lip. He’d have to visit the barber at some point in the coming days before he becomes totally unkempt.

He dresses himself in casual attire, a white linen button up, the most breathable thing he’d wear today, before he dons the dark blue of his three piece suit, a light gray and black one still residing in his wardrobe. He notices the threadings are nearly worn as he buttons the bottom half of his jacket, the things threatening to fall off should he exert too much force. The soles of his shoes too lie in disarray, wearing thin from endless wandering the streets of Kyoto after his classes have finished. It’s not that he’s searching for anything in particular, maybe a solution to his current situation. But he can’t find that at a merchant’s stall.

The route to the dining hall located on the first floor is a path easily tread, remembered in his first few days of arriving in Kyoto. The carpeted floors giving way to a wooden expanse the further he delves into the hotel, the scents of varying breakfast foods calling out to his aching stomach.

His hands keep busy with the morning paper, perhaps yesterday’s or the day prior to that one. It takes a while for the Korean post to arrive in Kyoto, the postage system seems to take years for important things to arrive, yet the letters from home seem to be weekly. A sigh as he sets down the news, reaching out for the carafe of coffee situated some ways away from where he’s seated. He begins to pour himself a cup of coffee, only pausing when he catches something out the corner of his eye.

A few darkened drips from the coffee pot settle into the white linen of the dining room tablecloth as he spots you stalking towards him. His eyes go wide and his breath hitches when your gaze narrows on him, almost causing him to choke on coffee he’d just brought to his lips.

The way you saunter over to his table reminds him of his mother when she’d be out to scold either him or his brother. Doyoung doesn’t know you but can easily tell that you’re not a force to be reckoned with.

“Where’s John?” You ask, standing before him, arms crossing over your chest as you look down at him expectantly. “You were one of the men with him yesterday, right?”

“What?” Doyoung asks, trying to make some sense of what you were saying. When he was a young boy, his parents had allowed him to take English lessons with a handful of the Christian missionaries that had drifted through Guri, but seeing as he understands nothing of what you just said, it’s obvious he hadn’t retained much, if any, of his vocabulary. “What are you looking for?” He sees no glimmer of understanding in your eyes as your brow furrows, probably trying to decipher what he’d just said. “Youngho? Are you looking for Youngho?” It’s the common connection the two of you seem to have, it’s his best bet on trying to figure out what you want.

You nod at the name, recalling that his mother shouts that at him whenever he’s angry. “Where is he?” If you’d taken up John on any of his invitational Korean lessons, you may have had much better luck in this situation. But you’d gone off to learn French because you were enamored with one of your classmates at the time, you could almost hit yourself seeing where it’s gotten you.

“Whe-” Doyoung pauses, lips pursing together as he thinks of the word. Youngho was meant to be in the lobby when she came downstairs, but it’s now clear he’s nowhere to be found.

“School.” It’s one of the words he can pull from memory. “He’s probably at the school,” he says again and gestures in the general direction of Yuta’s academy.

“The school- Imadegawa Gaikokujin Nihongo Gakko?” You’ve said the name of the institute hundreds of times to yourself that you think it’s the only Japanese you know. Not that you fully understand what it means, just knowing that it’s the name of the place.

Doyoung nods, somewhat surprised that you know the name.

“Can you take me?” The question falls out quickly and you see he’s confused, so you repeat it again slowly in hopes that he comprehends it. It seems that he does, reaching for his coffee and finishing the cup before rising to his feet, motioning for you to follow him as he heads towards the exit.

The walk to the school is painfully awkward, drenched in a silence that neither of you want to address. Both of you are not confident enough in the other’s mother tongue to make small talk as the two of you begin to walk the streets.

“Hey!” Doyoung hears Minhyung call out as the schoolhouse nears, “Took you long enough, you’re almost late.” When the younger sees that you’re accompanying him he gives you a small wave, “You’re Youngho’s friend, right?”

“I am,” You say after a moment, not having expected to hear English today. But with the company that John keeps, you can’t be too surprised at anything now. “Do you know where he is?”

“No, he’s not here yet,” he shakes his head and turns to Doyoung, “Didn’t Youngho say that you’d meet him at the hotel?”

“He did,” Doyoung’s lips curve into a frown as the three of you make your way into the school. “She’s been interrogating me about him, I think. Although I can barely understand what she’s saying.”

Minhyung laughs at the older and then turns back to you, “My name’s Minhyung, but you can call me Mark if that’s easier for you.” His demeanor has a lightness to it that descends onto you as something of a godsend. It’s an ease that you’d probably find with John if he were here and you aren't still angry at him.

“It’s nice to meet you Minhyung,” you offer him a smile before your eyes go wide and you turn to your partner, “I uhm, I never asked him what his name is.”

“Doyoung,” Minhyung answers, another chortle leaving him and the elder looks confused as to why his name’s just been called out. “What’s your name?”

You respond quickly, glancing over your shoulder to see if John is on his way in, to your misfortune, he isn’t. Minhyung quickly introduces you to Doyoung, probably so he has a gist of who you are. It’s hard to tell if John’s said anything about you to these men, but it doesn’t look as if he’s said much.

“We’ve got class soon,” Minhyung’s voice pulls you from your search and you turn back to him, “I’m sure Yuta would let you sit in on the class if you wanted to, although I’m not too sure that you’ll understand much, I don’t even get all of it.”

“It’s alright,” you shake your head at him, “I’ll just wait out here for Joh- Youngho.”

The man in question strolls into the school around thirty minutes later, the local paper tucked under his arm as his brow raises in surprise to see you, “I thought I said I’d meet you at the hotel.”

“I got impatient,” a frown as your gaze flickers over to him. “Jail John? Jail?” You fume, storming over to the taller, “Do you have any idea how worried I was, how worried your mother was? God- If you don’t write to her today and tell her that you’re okay, I'm stuffing you in my suitcase and taking you back with me.”

He laughs heartily, despite you glaring him down, “I wrote to her as soon as I got out. I wrote to you, too, but it doesn’t seem like you got the message.” A few more chuckles escape him as he holds his arms out, “I missed you.”

You sigh, falling into his embrace, “I missed you too.” After a moment you pull away, stepping back from him, “I’m glad to see that you’re okay, but if you ever do something like this again-”

“I’ve missed your hollow threats,” John smiles and glances around the school’s empty halls, “Do you want to get out of here for a while? I know a good cafe nearby.”

“Don’t you have class?” You question with a tilt of your head, the gentle murmurs from the classroom some ways away drifting out into the hall. “Minhyung said that Doyoung was already late, I wouldn’t want to stop you from your lesson.”

“I’m not a student,” John shakes his head, “I’m just… in town for a while and Yuta’s putting up with me for a bit.” He flashes you a grin before you have a chance to ask him exactly what he means by that, “Now come on before they run out.”

The two of you walk out into the dense heat of August, passing by a group of students as you do so. John recognizes some of them whereas you don’t, him saying something to them that elicits a laugh or two before you’re both back on your way to the city center.

“Why were you arrested?” You can’t stop yourself from asking the question as you turn onto the main road from the alley in which the school is situated. There are only a handful of people perusing the streets, but none look interested in what you’d just said. “It wasn’t serious, right?”

“Of course not,” he reassures you and looks to a few buildings ahead, “We’re almost there.” John walks in silence for a moment, his fingers rubbing against his palm as he looks back to you, “I lost my passport, can you believe it?” You recall when you were leaving San Francisco and you had lost your own passport, if it hadn’t been for the man that found it for you, you’re not sure where you’d be.

“Well, actually, I didn’t lose it, it fell between the pages of one of the books that I bought, which reminds me- I have a few for you, I wrote you about them, just remember to tell me to give them to you,” John says quickly as you approach the building he’d been eyeing earlier, walking into the opened door confidently and heading to the nearest open table.

You can tell he’s lying. You’ve only known him since you were children and he’s the closest person to you, you know almost every little quirk about him. And one of the first things you’d learned was that he talks quickly when he’s not being truthful. Yet, you don’t question him on it, seeing as you’d just calmed the tension between you, you don’t want to ignite it for the second time today. So, you just nod and follow him inside.

More oft than not, you hide your feelings behind a veneer of snark, of a bite that seems to sting but never lasts. It’s a sham way to hold yourself together, for if you let the dread of reality seep into your veins any longer than you allow it, you may just become the person you’re trying to hide. A vulnerable being who longs for the company of others but finds errant ways to keep them close instead of just outright saying it.

John offers out a seat to you and you sit, hands folding neatly atop the tabletop as you look to the menu scrawled onto a chalkboard near the cafe’s counter. You’re not sure why you do, the mix of Japanese alphabets is still foreign to you.

“I’ll go grab something, just wait here,” he says, noticing your confusion, still standing before he turns on his heels and strides over to the counter. You turn away before he begins to speak to the barista, looking out of the glass window at the front of the shop,

“How long were you planning on staying in Japan?” John’s voice stirs you some time later, the gentle sound of two cups being placed on the table making you turn in his direction as he sits down across from you.

“As long as it took me to find you.” You smile at him, reaching out for the small cup, “I guess that means I can pack my bags and leave now.” The smile placated on your lips is joking, but you hold a sincerity in your gaze as if to ask him if that’s what you should do next. He was the entire reason you were here, to find him, to make sure that he was okay and to bring him home if you could.

John’s finger traces the rim of his own coffee cup, gently lifting after a moment to tap along the surface of the tabletop. He hums, low and obstinate, as if to ponder the significance of you being here.

“I guess you could,” a slow nod of his head, “You know, you were never obligated to chase me half-way across the world to try and get me back home. I’ve been detained before-”

“You have?” eyes widening as you look from your coffee to meet his eyes, “You’ve never mentioned that.”

“I’ve been detained before but,” he continues, gaze hardening at you as you interrupt him, “I really thought I had lost my papers so I sent my mom a letter saying I may need my official documents back home to get me out of the mess I found myself in. This was a little more serious than the others.”

“What happened the other times?”

“Well, in London they stopped me for taking too much tea out of the country, I guess they thought I’d run them dry of it,” a teasing smile twinges on the corners of his lips, “and in Cairo, I tried to sneak off with a few things from Cleopatra’s tomb.”

“You know,” you lean back in your chair, a snide frown on your lips, “lying less might help you out in the future.”

John laughs, reaching into his jacket pocket to procure his pack of smokes, it isn’t until he’s got a lit cigarette dangling from his lips that he speaks again, “Where’s the fun in that?”

He suddenly gasps, the smoke he’d been inhaling filtering into his lungs and causing him to sputter for a moment. You reach for and hand him his cup of coffee so he doesn’t choke on himself. After a moment of hitting his chest and extinguishing his cigarette into the ashtray on the corner of the table, he speaks up, “You didn’t use your grandmother’s money to get you here, did you?”

“Well, technically it isn’t hers anymore,” a guilty exhalation of a chuckle, “but yes, I did.”

“Oh,” He’s crestfallen in the most faux of ways, “You said you’d take me to Italy with that.” It’s a joke, but you can see his concern wavering behind the sincerity of his words.

Your hand falls to run over the textured brocades of your dress, a wavering smile delicately tugging at the corners of your lips, “I was just worried about you.”

“And I appreciate that, I really do,” brow softening as he reaches for his coffee, voice still a bit hoarse from his earlier choking. “But you don’t need to throw everything you have away for me, I know the trip probably wasn’t cheap.”

John’s not wrong. It had taken quite a large portion from your deceased grandmother’s account to get you here, and the subsequent stay in the country.

“I had to make sure you were okay,” you shrug your shoulders with a coy smile, reaching out to pick up your teacup and bring it to your lips. It’s then you realize something, setting the cup back down and looking around the shop, eyes wide.

“What is it?” John questions, noticing your shift in demeanor.

“I haven’t ever been abroad before, I thought maybe I’d travel to Paris or London, Milan, even… Never…” A small hum as you turn to look back at him, “Never to Kyoto.”

“I’d have loved for you to see Seoul,” John smiles softly, his fingers tapping along the sides of the cup, “It’s beautiful this time of year.”

“You make it sound as if it’s impossible to go,” a tilt of your head. John had told you stories from his time studying abroad, of the antics he and his friends would get up to and of the history he’d learned.

“It would be a little difficult to go back right now,” the smile lingering on his lips looks sad now, almost wistful in a way, “I’m sure we could go in the future if you want to.”

“I’d love to,” you nod, glancing out of the window once more to watch the passersby walk up and down the crowded street.

#neowritingsnet #cznnet #doyoung fluff #doyoung angst #nct fluff #nct angst #13k for a teaser if that's any indication on how absolutely massive this'll be

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gastricpierrot · 4 years

Text

Title: Breathe fire into me

Series: Promare

Pairing: GaloLio

Rating: T

Summary:

Lio might have a little crush on the cute barista from the boba shop he visited recently.

Only there’s a catch: there’s much more to Galo Thymos than what he seems.

Note: role reversal AU, boba barista Galo, archer main Lio

Also on AO3

[Chapter 1]

[Chapter 2]

Lio, to his own disappointment, did not find the peach tea particularly special.

It was fragrant, at the very least. And the caffeine has just the right kick. It's just...a little on the sweet side? Okay, maybe a lot on the sweet side. Lucia definitely loved her drink. The bitterness from Aina’s matcha helped balance out its overall taste. The rest had some wide eyes and raised eyebrows upon their first sips.

Still, it’s not bad enough for Lio to want to avoid the place the rest of his life. Maybe he can try for an order with less sugar the next time? Not that he thinks he’ll have the chance to do so soon and—

“Lio, you’re about to miss your mug by about a mile.”

Lio’s snapped out of his daze by a sharp clap on his shoulder from Remi, and he only registers what he means when he sees that he’s this close to pouring his coffee directly onto the countertop. He quickly fixes his aim, frowning hard at his mug like it’s its fault that he almost made an embarrassing mess.

“You can always talk to us if something’s bothering you,” Remi offers, sounding genuinely concerned that Lio seems to be unusually out of it.

“No, it’s not a big deal, really,” Lio assures because it shouldn’t be. It ridiculous that he’s even getting distracted over something so insignificant when there are more important things to direct his time and energy towards—especially now knowing Mad Burnish has once again gained a new leader. They’ll have to start tracking him down soon, start paying more attention to potential target locations for arson. They must not be allowed to mobilize.

“If you say so.” Remi doesn’t sound entirely convinced, but he doesn’t pry. “The offer still stands, though.”

“Thanks.” Lio then slightly jiggles the jug he’s holding. “Coffee? There should be just enough left for another mug.”

Remi shrugs, accepting his offer. The two spend a silent moment in the pantry simply huffing into their mugs, trying to cool their drinks down enough to take careful sips. The wall fan in the lounge buzzes extra loudly whenever it turns a specific direction and sends the weighed-down papers on the desks flapping in place. It's quiet enough that they can faintly hear Lucia’s muffled laughter from the nap room upstairs as she indulges in whatever random online content she’s managed to stumble across this time.

This is the sort of tranquility of night shifts that Lio really enjoys.

He heads to the rooftop once he’s finished his coffee and cleaned up, leaving with a casual reminder from Remi to not fall asleep there again. Lio climbs the stairs and reaches the top, pushing heavy doors open to be greeted by a sea of black.

The stars aren’t visible tonight—though it’s not like they’re normally all that easy to see either thanks to the ever-present city lights. It’s the moon that Lio’s spotted earlier when he happened to glance out a window; a bright, pale yellow orb seemingly hanging low enough in the sky for him to simply reach out and touch at the height he’s at.

He takes a breath, savoring the air from the breeze blowing towards him as he casts his gaze afar. Even in this time of the night, the city doesn’t seem to sleep. Music echoes from somewhere in the distance, some stray cats are having a fight in some alley. There's a short revving of bikes. Even along the streets within the station’s proximity, where most—if not every—shop should be closed by midnight, Lio spots people walking about, heading somewhere yet seemingly nowhere.

He pulls his jacket just a little tighter around himself and sighs, relishing the moment.

And he nearly jumps when the sirens suddenly blare to life.

Lio’s bolting downstairs in an almost conditioned response, mentally taking note of all the information recited through the speakers by a computerized voice, sent directly from the site of fire via compulsory built-in detectors as part of Promepolis’ centralized fire alert system. A residential house at the south district, approximately three kilometers from base. No particularly flammable substances reported. Cause of fire: Burnish flares.

Lio would not be able to participate directly in the extinguishing part of the mission, with his Gear still awaiting repairs. They have a spare one in store but Lio, to his frustration, can’t seem to pilot it half as smoothly as he can with his own—to the point where Ignis agrees that he would be of more effective help without it.

A residential fire isn’t usually a particularly difficult job, fortunately. Only Remi, Lucia and Lio himself are dispatched, with Remi in charge of the brunt of the work while Lio and Lucia deal with support in whatever way they can.

Lucia sends out a drone the moment they’re close enough to the scene, promptly processing whatever information she can glean and giving out instructions to guide the others. The flames seem to have originated from the first floor and have spread downstairs, but fortunately not yet to adjacent houses. Most neighbours seemed to have evacuated from their homes nonetheless, just as according to standard safety procedures taught to them during periodic neighbourhood fire drills.

Things look under control—until Lucia’s drone detects the presence of two people within the fire.

Lio and Remi are leaping out of the Rescue Mobile before it’s even come to a proper stop; Remi diving right into the blaze in his Gear while Lio prepares to deliver first aid and handle crowd control.

It's not difficult to discern who had been inside the house when the fire started and who are merely bystanders. Lio hurriedly approaches the group of three covered in soot and huddled together, obviously still shell-shocked at whatever had just transpired. They’re a pair of parents with a child around ten to twelve years old. Lio tries to assure them that they’re safe, that the FDPP is here to help. Asks if they’re hurt anywhere, carefully scans over their limbs to make sure they really are fine when they respond negative.

“But our daughter,” the mother manages to stammer, voice choked with barely restrained panic. “She’s still inside!”

“My teammate’s getting her out of there,” Lio assures, noting the sporadic crystalline bursts from Remi’s ice bullets behind him as he tamed the fire. He knows he’s holding back; he has to be extra mindful about preserving the building’s integrity while there are still people inside, lest everything collapses around them. “Just give him a moment m—”

“No, you don’t understand!” The lady clutches Lio’s arms, increasingly frantic as she digs her fingers into his jacket sleeves. “There’s this young man, he just—”

She doesn’t manage to finish her sentence, cut off by the sudden roar of serpents erupting from the blaze. The hairs on Lio’s neck instantly stand on their ends, and on instinct, he turns around.

And he feels his stomach sink as Lucia manages to intercept the fire just in time, freezing it in place barely a foot away from him. Lio swallows thickly, hearing multiple screams around him. It seems that he’s not the only one suddenly attacked by the flares—but what happened? It wasn’t this aggressive before, did something—

“Someone’s leaving the house!” Lucia’s voice fizzles through his earpiece, nearly drowned out by the shattering of ice all around them. Lio grits his teeth, willing his body to move and look towards the house’s front door, peering through the flames to see two figures indeed shuffling their way out into the open.

Why aren’t they with Remi? Lio doesn’t have time to wonder. He gets on his feet and rushes over, expecting either of them to collapse any moment from the heat and smoke and having to bodily carry them to safety.

Except they don’t.

The pair are engulfed in flames that look different from the usual Burnish flares, a shade of teal instead of the bright blues, pinks and yellows. It looks completely harmless on them—almost looking protective, even, shielding them from the raging fire of the house. The young man has a hand on the girl’s shoulder as he walks her out.

It finally clicks: these two are Burnish. The girl must’ve either just awakened as one, or lost control.

Lio watches the flames flicker and dance, subconsciously mesmerized, before they abruptly retreat back into the young man’s body like it’s where they belong.

Lio could've sworn he hears the faintest sound of giddy, child-like laughter as it happens.

“Hey, you’re...”

Lio glances up, and, in a moment of what feels to him like pure absurdity, finds himself face to face with the staff from the bubble tea place.

xXx

Burnish are actually people who’ve undergone a sudden, unexplained mutation, many a result of extreme stress.

The girl was a university student, apparently just about overwhelmed with exams and papers to write and under a lot of pressure to perform well to maintain her scholarship. There could’ve been more factors building up to her awakening; Lio did not and was not obliged to pry. There are more than enough similar cases, people driven to the limits of what they can emotionally and mentally bear by their circumstances and randomly bursting into flames.

The girl sustained no injuries from the event, but she was still sent to the hospital to get checked just in case, and later on she’d be introduced to a mental help program to hopefully provide her the support she needs. Once all that’s settled, she’d be registered for classes to teach her how to keep her fire under control so there hopefully wouldn’t be more unfortunate accidents. Her family will be staying in a shelter in the meantime while they settle matters concerning their house.

The young man, on the other hand, had been in the area by sheer coincidence on his way back home when he’d seen the explosion of fire in the house. The madman had then barged right in, evacuated the rest of the family, and stayed with the girl until he could convince her that the fires wouldn’t hurt her and that the rest of her family is safe. It's after she’d managed to calm down that they’d then left the house, and the remaining flames allowed themselves to be put out.

He’d insisted he’s completely fine when asked and had slipped off soon after handing over the girl to Lio’s care.

Lio can’t help but wonder if he’ll ever consider joining the FDPP—that sort of courage and resistance to fire is exactly what they need—but he digresses.

They manage to wrap things up within the next hour, and thankfully there’s no other incident until Lio clocks off the next morning. He heads home just as dawn breaks and the rising sun colors the sky with a gradient of yellows and blues. Lio barely notices this, though, dead set on simply making it to his bathroom to take a shower and then pass out for the rest of his long-awaited day off.

He wakes up starving some time in the afternoon, and even then he’s trying to convince himself that a human being can last a solid number of days without food just so he wouldn’t have to get out of bed. He does eventually manage to drag himself up, though, only when the hunger and dehydration begins gnawing at him. Lio groans as he shuffles his way to the pantry to put together some cereal and milk.

He lets out a huge yawn before scooping a spoonful into his mouth, staring absently at his fridge as he crunches on the lightly sugared bits. He’ll have to do some grocery shopping later; the remaining ingredients he has wouldn’t last him until his next break day. Lio ponders over what he should get while he slurps up the last of the milk in his bowl, then later briefly cleaning it up and heading back to bed with his phone in hand.

He spends the next hour or so mindlessly scrolling through his social media feed and watching whatever’s on his recommended list on Y*utube. Lio used to be bothered by how he seems to only be able to laze his way through days when he’s off duty, but he’s proud to say that he's mostly gotten over it. Although being part of Burning Rescue does not necessarily mean there’s always an emergency to tend to, they must always be ready to drop everything and rush out when need be. Carrying out rescue missions and dealing with Mad Burnish when they pop up are one thing, but the constant anticipation for alerts wears them down almost just as much. Lio doesn’t always have the chance to simply let his guard down like this, and he’s gradually learnt to appreciate the quiet, insignificant moments he has when he can just pass the hours idly in his apartment.

It’s almost six in the evening by the time he works up the motivation to prepare going out. He changes out of his jammies, nearly forgets to brush his teeth, and bunches his hair into a hair tie because he can’t really be bothered to untangle it at the moment. He then pockets his phone and wallet, scoops up his keys and a couple of reusable bags from the little basket on his shoe rack, and with a final sweep of his gaze across his room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything important, he heads out.

To be clear, Lio still hasn’t figured out what he’d like to eat for the next week. Then again, it wouldn’t be much different from the usual meals he could whip up either within thirty minutes or cook in a large batch so he can just store them in the fridge and have whenever he needed. He’ll just have to get some meat, fruits, some fresh cartons of milk. He's run out of bread too, he remembers. He could get some canned tuna to make some quick snacks while he’s at it.

The supermarket is close enough to Lio’s apartment for him to walk there and back. Plus it’s the best option since rush hour is still ongoing at this point. Crowds of people gather at bus stops, the roads almost packed with slow-moving traffic. Lio spots students in uniforms chattering loudly in groups, adults in various types of work attire carrying their own bags of groceries. In the distance, a train rattles by.

Lio spends a moment to bask in the mundanity of it all.

He's greeted by a familiar playlist and a blast of air conditioning the moment he enters the supermarket. Lio eyes the growing queues at the check-out counters as he makes his way to the aisles, and decides not to dawdle too much before the crowds get bigger. He briskly heads to the usual sections and fills his basket, grabbing himself some bags of chips in the last minute when he spots the discount labels on the racks. He'd planned to look around and see what else could be on sale, but guess he’d just have to save that for the next time.

Lio walks out about forty minutes later, heavy bags in hand, and pauses in his tracks.

And finds himself going a different direction than that leading home, a slight, subconscious spring in his steps as he moves closer towards the city center. It takes maybe fifteen minutes and one wrong turning before he finally reaches a street that’s still just vaguely familiar. It'd been midafternoon the last time he was properly here and not just passing by, the sun almost too bright in his eyes and blinding when reflected off the many white-washed walls. Now it’s pleasantly buzzing with activity, the incoming night illuminated with bright lights and loud music.

Lio doesn’t plan to properly go into the shop. He’ll just have a look while walking past, just to make sure the guy’s doing okay after that fire. Just be natural, Fotia. Don’t stare, don’t try too hard. At least it’s probably a busy time now and he won’t have the time to notice every passerby and—

The shop is quiet, with the staff crouching behind the counter scrolling through their phones. By sheer dumb luck, Lio’s eyes somehow almost immediately meet with those belonging to the one with spiky blue hair.

Sees an excited grin bloom across his face.

“Mr Firefighter!”

Lio hates the way his heart does a little flip at the address.

“Oh, hey,” Lio manages to respond casually enough (god at least he hopes so), stopping to watch the guy maneuver his way over from his workstation. He's suddenly very aware of the fact that he hasn’t combed his hair. “You doing okay after everything?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t anything serious, really,” Boba boy assures with a scratch of his cheek. He then spots Lio’s groceries. “Went shopping today?”

Lio hums his affirmation, trying not to grow overly conscious of the crinkling of his bags of chips next. “Won’t be off until sometime next week after this.”

“That’s a shame. Thought I’d treat you to a cup, but guess it’s not exactly the most convenient for you at the moment, huh?”

Lio raises his eyebrows at the sudden mention of a treat. “There’s really no need, though?”

“Please, just take it as a token of appreciation. For taking care of a fellow Burnish sister yesterday.” Boba boy then frowns. “Or maybe you’re the type who considers that sort of hour ‘this morning’.”

Lio, the absolute fool he is, finds himself charmed from that statement alone. “I’ll drop by some other time, then? I’ll see if I’ll be free to visit after work tomorrow.”

“Cool, cool! I’ll keep an eye out for you!”

“Thanks,” Lio says, then realization belatedly dawns him. “By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever caught your name?”

“Oh, right.” Boba boy lets out a sheepish laugh as though it hadn’t occurred to him as well. He slips his hands into his pockets, leans his weight back slightly. Relaxed, casual. “It’s Galo. Galo Thymos.”

#promare #lio fotia #galo thymos #galolio #liogalo #pls let this show up in the tags im not gonna say much here for a change fkad;jf #fanfiction

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wordywarriorwrites · 4 years

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Chapter 9: On the Run

Masterlist: The Boss of Brooklyn A03 Link Author: @wordywarriorwrites Summary: When it comes to being The Boss, James Buchanan “JB” Barnes rules with an iron fist. For him, there’s no room for sentiment, and certainly no time for distraction, even if it is in the form of an old flame. Steve Rogers had bowed out of the life a long time ago, but a twist of fate brings him right back into the fold, and face-to-face with a man he once loved. When a game of cat and mouse turns into a matter of life and death, both will be forced to decide whether they’ll be loyal to the business, or faithful to each other. A/N: Bucky Barnes Mob Boss AU. Stucky. For: Star’s Multi-Fandom Follower Celebration & Sherry’s Fall Into You Challenge. Warnings: Language, violence, drug use, alcohol, smoking, explicit sexual content, illegal activities.

Instead of sticking to terms, Nick Fury was going for a hostile takeover.

It was a breach of contract, but from a business standpoint, it was the smart play. Hell, Bucky planned to do the same thing in the future, but the situation had gone tits up before he got the chance to put his own plans in motion.

They’d all agreed to the terms of the treaty, but as soon as Fury got back to his home turf, he unexpectedly declared Steve wasn’t the right man to handle their combined interests, and refused to work with someone he “no longer deemed trustworthy.” The Families didn’t have an alternate person who knew both businesses, and without Steve as a diplomat and go-between, the truce became strained.

In in an effort to maintain order in Brooklyn, dues were increased, funds were redistributed, and territories were rearranged. Tightening both the reigns and the purse strings helped for a while, but when people learned trade suffered because an outsider was badmouthing one of their own, they made their displeasure known.

It didn’t take long for whispers of disapproval to turn into deafening roars of outright dissent. The nature of the business had changed, but the foundation and principles had remained the same. In their world, unsubstantiated accusations still brought out visceral impulses, and after Sam went down, the gloves came off.

Bucky had Natasha and Bruce investigate and they’d both arrived at the same conclusion: Steve and Sam had been loyal and all roads led back to Fury. He’d been the origin of the treason rumors, was behind the unsanctioned hit, and wanted Steve cut out so he could wrest control and poach from their joint revenue streams.

The situation reached critical mass after the funeral. Sam had been in the ground less than an hour when another attempt was made. Steve had been ambushed and almost killed in the middle of his own living room, and not long after, Bucky learned the Families private homes had also been compromised.

Bucky knew it was only a matter of time before Fury tried again, and once the Families realized he was gunning for them all, everyone agreed to batten down the hatches and move to undisclosed, more secure locations.

The hotel suite he was holed up in offered privacy, security, and best of all, a well-stocked bar. Yet, even with the creature comforts, Bucky still felt feel like a caged animal. He really needed to get his house in order, and so far, no easy solution had presented itself, and the booze wasn’t helping.

“If you want to take Fury out, you’re going to need to do it from the inside,” Natasha opined over FaceTime. “You need to turn his crew, and in order to get to them, you have to go through Steve.”

“If he rallies Brooklyn and manages to get Fury’s people on his side, allegiances will be divided, and there will be mutiny here and abroad,” Bucky argued. “I can’t fight a war on two fronts.”

“You’ve always been stubborn, but I never knew you could be so ignorant.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Natasha leveled him with a hard stare, “Steve’s calculating, but he’s stalwart. You’re alive because he’s still in love with you, and that’s why he won’t ever betray you or try to oust you.”

Bucky sighed and poured himself another drink, “For the record, he’s not in love with me. And Steve may be steadfast, but he’s also unforgiving and prone to petulance.”

“Look, if you just apologize and set aside your ego, the two of you could--”

“My ego isn’t the problem,” he interjected. “And in case you’ve forgotten, his goon squad beat the shit out of me, and he left you for dead in an alley.”

“And in response, you had our guys torture him for a month. Then, you took away his choices, his money, and his freedom,” she retorted. “The time for posturing and tit-for-tat is over. If you don’t get Steve back on our side, our people won’t fight, Fury will bury us, and it will be your fault.”

Before Bucky could formulate a response, Natasha brusquely told him to, “get his fucking shit together,” and then, ended any further discussion of the matter by cutting off the call.

Partnering with Nick Fury had been a calculated risk, but Bucky could have never foreseen it going bad so quickly. The harsh, bitter truths Natasha voiced were difficult to face, but deep down, Bucky knew she was right. The wisest course of action would be to bring Steve back into the fold, but given everything that had happened, mending fences would be easier said than done.

Too exhausted to think about it anymore, Bucky texted his security detail, and let them know he was turning in for the night. He’d just started to undress when a response came through; thinking it was one of the men bidding him goodnight, he ignored it, but when his cell rang and one of the guards in the suit adjacent suddenly began pounding on the adjoining door, he knew something wasn’t right.

A rhythmic candace. Sharp, loud, repetitive snaps.

The sound was all too familiar and made the hairs on the back of Bucky’s neck stand on end. Instinct and a flood of pure, high-octane adrenaline made him reach for his own weapon at the base of his spine. He could hear muffled, indistinct voices; see the doorknob being rattled; feel the grip of the gun against the palm of his hand; taste the fear and whiskey on his tongue.

Knowing he was next, he bolted for the exit, and looked through the peephole. When the hallway revealed itself to be empty, Bucky slipped the chain back, flipped the deadbolt, and opened the door. Both guards stationed just outside were down, and as he continued onward, the bodies kept piling up.

The culprit had taken them out one-by-one and managed to get into the suite next to his without raising any suspicion or alarm. Everyone had erred on the side of caution and the Families hadn’t revealed to each other or anyone else where they were hunkered down. If he was being targeted, it meant someone on the inside had sold him out.

A strange sound drew his attention away from his thoughts and back to the task at hand. When he approached the elevator, he saw the doors opening and closing, but a pair of legs sticking out from the inside prevented them from shutting all the way. Bucky didn’t know how many enemies there were or where they were all located, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

A flickering exit sign pointed toward the stairwell, and he hastily made a beeline for it. Twelve flights and another door saw him out of the hotel and onto the street. Without his phone, wallet, and keys, he had no way of reaching out to anyone or getting away quickly. Exposed, alone, and with the enemy on his tail, Bucky had no choice but to start walking.

Gun low and pressed to his thigh, he crossed the street, and made it about two blocks before a black SUV, headed fast in the opposite direction, suddenly pulled a U-turn right in the middle of traffic. There was absolutely no way to outrun a car, which meant he had little choice but to duck into the nearest alley.

Sweat pooled at the base of his spine and his pulse thudded in his ears, but he remained silent, and waited. The vehicle pulled right up to the sidewalk, but nobody got out. The tinted window on the front passenger side was lowered, which prompted him to ready his weapon.

Bucky was a hairsbreadth away from firing when the high beams were flashed and a familiar voice yelled his name. As he warily approached, the back door was thrown open; the interior lights came on and revealed Bruce riding shotgun, Natasha at the wheel, and none other than Steve Rogers in the seat behind her.

With the threat of death imminent, Bucky didn’t hesitate, and as soon as he was in, Natasha hit the gas, and drove like a bat out of hell.

“How did you know?” he asked.

Bruce turned around in his seat, “Ever since Sam was killed, I’ve been monitoring all communications, but there are a lot of phones and a lot of people. Fury managed to get to one of your guards. I just didn’t see it until it was too late.”

“And him?” he prompted, nodding his head toward Steve. “Why is he here?”

“Steve knows Fury’s playbook,” Natasha voiced. “He’s here to help.”

Bucky let out a sound of frustration, “You shouldn’t have involved him.”

“You want me gone? Fine,” Steve mumbled lowly. “Pull the fuck over.”

Bruce shook his head frantically, “Bad idea.”

Natasha glanced in the rearview mirror, “You’re in no condition to be out on your own.”

When the vehicle entered a tunnel and the car’s interior was flooded with light, Bucky instantly understood why Bruce and Natasha didn’t want to dump Steve on the side of the road. The evidence of Nick Fury’s brutality was on every inch of visible skin, and the sight of Steve’s injuries made his gut twist.

One eye swollen shut and the other bloodshot. Brow and cheeks marred with stitched up cuts. Jaw extremely distended. Bruises on his arms that hadn’t even begun to heal. Steve was pale and sweating, and his harsh breathing indicated there was probably something even worse going on beneath the clothes. A lesser man wouldn’t have been able to withstand the agony, never mind be upright, but Steve wasn’t like most men.

Ram-rod stiff. Vacant countenance. The composure and comportment of a soldier.

He may have been bloodied, but Bucky knew not to mistake it for weakness or surrender, and the cold, deadly look in his eye suggested he wasn’t going to let a few cuts and bruises prevent him from getting even.

Everyone in Brooklyn was baying for blood, including Steve, and war was inevitable.

Nick Fury started it.

And Bucky had a sinking feeling Steve would be the one who finished it.

Chapter 10: Behind Enemy Lines

Everything: @jennmurawski13 @nerdy-bookworm-1998

Steve Rogers: @patzammit @hearttoearth The Boss of Brooklyn: @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @captain-rogers-beard

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notbang · 4 years

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2019 fic writing roundup

tagged by @catty-words

Total 2019 Word Count: 143,634 Total 2019 Hits: 6,692 Other 2019 AO3 Stats: Kudos: 418; Comment threads: 168; Bookmarks: 54; Subscriptions: 51.

Total 2018 Word Count: 121,789 Total 2018 Hits: 6,985 Other 2018 AO3 Stats: Kudos: 506; Comment threads: 85; Bookmarks: 87; Subscriptions: 52.

links and titles to 2019 works

[crazy ex girlfriend] don’t know what you’re carrying or how your heart is wired (77,829 words) - the body swap au!!

[crazy ex girlfriend] and we are well versed in moments (27,462 words) - collection of r/n ficlets and prompt fills.

[crazy ex girlfriend] thoughts of you subside, then i get another letter (4,265 words; of which approximately half belong to @catty-words) - the post-canon r/n become pen pals fic i’m working on with cori and should really update because it’s my turn.

[crazy ex girlfriend] nothing but time and a face that you lose (12,905 words) - the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind au!!

[crazy ex girlfriend] measure out your life in coffee spoons (9,050 words) - collection of gen/non-r/n ficlets and prompt fills.

[crazy ex girlfriend] doors (five of them) (3,007 words) - a five times (+1) fic for the rethaniel week prompt ‘parallels’, examining all the times rebecca has shown up on nathaniel’s doorstep.

[crazy ex girlfriend] heart’s never quite in tune with everything i do (5,852 words) - post-canon gen. rebecca writes a jingle, and hijinks ensue.

[crazy ex girlfriend] that cat’s something i can’t explain (3,264 words) - rebecca bunch has some feelings about cats (2019).

Favorite Fic: the fic I’m most proud of is rebecca writes a jingle fic, mostly because I really wanted it to feel like an episode of the show whilst touching on all rebecca’s important relationships and i’m really happy with how that ended up. special mentions to body swap for taking up most of my year, and the eternal sunshine au because that was just really up my alley.

Hardest Fic: probably the eternal sunshine au? it was awhile ago now but i was really stuck on it for awhile not in the writing sense but what angle i wanted it to take. also body swap, because it was canon-adjacent, so i really wanted it to get rebecca to a similar place as where she was in the finale, but it being an r/n fic kind of felt disingenuous to that, in a way? it was hard to reconcile some of the arcs since canon was still unfolding as i wrote it.

Do You Plan to Take Prompts in 2020? i’d like to get to the ones still in my ask box first!

What was the best thing about 2019? successfully smashing out another multichap after saying i’d never do another multichap. whew!

What was the worst thing about 2019? losing serious steam these past couple months :/

Any last thoughts for 2019? hmm, needed more nathaniel + heather.

Goals for 2019

finish the body swap in a reasonable amount of time, i guess? and finish another wip before the show diverges so much that i lose interest.

hmm, can’t remember what the wip was so i can’t update you on whether or not i lost interest but since i can’t see anything in my fic list it could be the answer is probably that i did kshkf. did finish body swap, though. the ‘reasonable amount of time’ is debatable.

#fic roundup #my fic #I'm here come talk to me about dumb stuff

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ellebabywrites · 5 years

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Judas Kiss 2 - Mark Lee

Type : Series // Angst // Fluff // Future Smut Gang!au

Warnings : Violence // Character Deaths // Cussing

Summary : There’s only one rule. You protect your own. None of you had chosen this life, but sticking together was the only way to survive it. When one of you dies and things start going wrong, the boy that saved you once on a whim, might be the only one who can keep you together.

Author Note : Here is the second chapter of Judas Kiss , I’m reeeally proud of it so please let me know what you guys think🥰

Wrong. It was much worse than Mark thought.

The journey back to base took a lot longer than usual because of your injuries, a sprained ankle and bruises from the fall made everything a challenge. This was perhaps the one time you weren’t so grateful for King’s paranoid real estate choices.

“How far is this place?” Mark asked after a while; the pair of you had just crossed over N.River and the lights from the city were starting to get smaller and smaller in the distance.

“It’s just through the tunnels, King’s big on privacy,” you tell him. You never understood why King was so adamant about having your base so far out of the way till Johnny died; most of the time it was a hassle coming in and out of the city, but now Bangtan were after you, it was a blessing.

“So...you’re w-with King’s crew?” Mark tried his best to keep his voice from wavering, but it failed, and why wouldn’t it? King is notorious in N.City as one of the founding families of crime; he’s known for being cold and ruthless, rarely showing mercy to his enemies and taking no prisoners when it comes to war. While that was all true, to you King was the kind generous man who saved your life and was as much a father figure as one could ask for. He had given you everything, he would die for you and you him.

“Yeah. Why? Scared?” you teased. It was always very amusing to you how scared everyone outside of the crew was of King, because you only ever saw him as the big cuddly teddy bear that read you books and taught you how to make pancakes.

Mark visibly straightened his posture and avoided your eyes, he didn’t want you to think he was weak, even if he was shit scared of King… or the rumours of him at least.

“Don’t worry,” you put your hand on his shoulder in reassurance but the bursts of electricity you feel at the contact makes you pull back almost immediately, “he’s not that scary.”

“Are you kidding!?” Mark blurted out, a little stronger than intended, “King’s the most well known gangster in the entire city! He basically built this place from the ground up! Just last week he killed a bunch of rebels from the Westside with his bare hands!” You let Mark go on his little rant about all the big bad things Kings’ supposedly done, knowing that soon enough his idea of this terrifying crime boss was going to be crushed.

With a chuckle you guide Mark through a maze of alleys and buildings, getting closer and closer to the tunnels that lead out of the city.

“What about you?” you ask hesitantly, “Who are you with?” Bringing Mark back was risky enough, let alone if he was part of another gang, you should have thought this through.

Mark looked over at you curiously, he’d never been involved in anything like this before, did you think he was?

“No one,” he answered, eyes turned downwards and walking a little closer to you, “I never get involved in this stuff, to be honest I kind of just keep to myself. School and video games is enough for me.” he laughs a little nervously, like he just realised the situation he was in.

“Are you serious?” you ask in bewilderment, mouth agape and eyes so wide it’s almost comical, “you’re not in a crew and you were hanging around in Bangtan’s territory? Do you have a death wish?” you almost shout out, making Mark giggle.

The conversation flowed between the two of you as if you’d been friends for years, not just drawn together that night by the threat of imminent death.

“Okay, okay, so you’re not some new gangster working for GD’s crew…”

“Nope,” Mark answers, watching you closely as you count more names off your fingers, questioning him.

“....and you’re not a Bangtan spy sent here to corrupt us?” you wiggle your eyebrows, knowing already that Mark was harmless.

“Absolutely not!” he answers, “and I think you’re the one doing the corrupting here, don’t you?” he teases, nudging your shoulder playfully. You like that Mark teases you, it reminds you of Johnny. It feels comfortable being with him, even in the dead of night wandering through these dangerous streets.

“Hmm, point made.” The pair of you share a few more giggles as you finally reach the tunnels that would lead to where the base was located.

“I’ve never been this far out of the city before,” Mark confesses, following you through the graffiti filled passage.

“We like being far away from everything, makes it easier,” you say with a shrug. As the pair of you keep on walking, you’re suddenly hit with a worrying thought, “um, Mark?”

“Yeah?”

You slow down your walking and turn to him seriously,

“Do you have anyone? Back in N.City I mean, a family or anyone waiting for you?” It was an awkward question, one you regret asking as soon as you see the expression on Mark’s face; but you didn’t want to have put anyone else in danger.

“No. It’s just me,” after that things are slightly more tense. Maybe it was just the fact the tunnels were only illuminated by one, half busted, green light in the center, creating a sinister vibe the entire way down. Up ahead you see the red flash of the CCTV camera Johnny had installed when you all first moved in, leading you to talk about what Mark should expect when you both get to base.

“You see that red light?” You point towards the faint blinking in the near distance..

“Yeah? What is it?” Mark asked, visibly relaxing at a change of subject.

“It’s a camera from the base, if the others are home they’ll see us coming,” you explain, waving up at the camera as the two of you got closer.

“Others?” Mark questions. While it’s pretty obvious that there would be more than just King and you in the crew, he hadn’t actually considered the fact that he was walking in to a hub full of the most dangerous criminals in N.City.

Even under the less than flattering lighting, he could see the way your face immediately lit up at the mention of the ‘others’, he thought you were beautiful.

“Yeah there are 4 of us; Me, Ty, Rikky and King. Hopefully King won’t be there though or I am definitely dead,” Mark stopped and looked at you with wide and worried eyes, making you giggle again, “don’t worry scaredy cat, King won’t hurt you,” you reach out and pull him to walk with you again, “if anything, it’s Ty you should be worried about.”

“W-what!?” Mark croaked out. You thought it was cute how nervous he got about all this, it was a nice change of pace from the usual gang antics you and the others got up to.

By this point you were both comfortably walking together down the last stretch of tunnel, after reassuring Mark multiple times that you were only kidding about Ty; he seemed to have warmed up a lot to the idea of staying at base with you.

---

Outside of the tunnels were mainly just abandoned buildings, not as glamorous as most would assume for the mighty King’s home, at least not on the outside. The base was located inside an old fire station that was hidden amongst a bunch of other crumbling buildings, unless you really went digging around it would be difficult to find.

Once you bring him inside however, Mark’s mouth drops in awe. The inside of the base is completely different; with oak wood floors and refurbished walls, decorated with a million photos; momentos and decor - it’s rather homey he thinks.

It’s just one big room really, an open space with seemingly different areas for different people. At one side, there are two couches, covered in those plushies you win at carnivals, in front of a huge tv thats surrounded by video games and consoles; on the wall adjacent there’s a skateboard rack with 4 boards hanging down, 2 of which are cracked down the middle. On the other side of the room, off in the corner, there’s an old record player beside a crate full of vinyls and a pair of boxing gloves thrown haphazardly beside them. It looks like a frat boys hang out, if it wasn’t for the extensive collection of first edition books lining one of the walls that is. The kitchen is immaculate with marble countertops and modern furnishings, the refrigerator could fit at least two bodies in Mark thinks, as you show him around.

“Do you want anything to drink?” you ask him, opening the fridge to reveal bottles and bottles of various health juices, Mark raises his eyebrow in curiosity, “oh, those are Ty’s, he tried getting us all on a health kick a few months ago but luckily Johnny got him off the idea.”

There’s no one around but from the looks of things Mark is curious as to the kind of people that are supposedly in this notorious crime gang with you, but then again just from the look of you, no one would assume you were involved in this stuff either.

“No thanks, I’m good” he answers, “um Y/N, where is everyone?” Just as Mark asks the question, you both hear the sound of footsteps through the ceiling.

“You’re about to meet them,” you tell him, an apologetic look on your face that Mark doesn’t quite understand, not until a door to the right swings open and two men walk into the open space.

“WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN Y/N!?” The larger guy shouts. He is tall and clearly built, muscles stretching the arms of his shirt; his face is unshaven and short hair is scruffy. He completely ignores Mark as he makes his way across the room, engulfing you in a suffocating hug. “Why the fuck would you go out alone right now are you crazy!?” he scolds you after releasing the hug, keeping his arms wrapped around your own to keep you close to him.

Meanwhile, the other guy makes his way over to Mark, sitting down next to him at the table, seemingly unphased by his presence. He was shorter than the first one, skinnier too; his dark brown hair falling into his face as he leaned over the counter to grab an apple.

“Hey,” is all he says, giving Mark a quick nod of acknowledgement before returning his focus back to you and the taller man (who was now squishing your cheeks between his hands), eating his apple like he was watching a show.

“Why are you so fucking reckless! Do you know how scared I was when I woke up and saw you were gone!? You know King is going to kill you right? I don’t even want to stop him this time because you deserve it for being so stupid!” The one holding you in his arms, flailing you around, was still scolding you.

“C’mon Ty, look she’s perfectly fine. She even brought back a friend!” the man beside him smirks at you and wraps his arm around Mark’s shoulders, trapping him in place and making Mark look at you with wide and worried eyes.

“Fuck off Rikky,” you yell, seeing how he was trying to stir the situation, knowing how protective Ty was over you, “Mark saved me, he needs to stay with us for a while,” you explain, not wanting to get into it too much before speaking with King, you hoped that was enough to deter your brothers from killing Mark. You say brothers; Ty and Rikky aren’t related, none of you are, but you’re all as good as family so they might as well be.

They were polar opposites. Ty being the big strong marine who was a secret softy and doted on you like you were the most precious thing in existence; while Rikky took on more of the typical annoying older brother role, who had play fights with you when he lost at Mario Kart and loved winding you up. The two of them were like Tom and Jerry, always bickering but loved each other nonetheless.

The sudden mention of Mark makes Ty let you out of his grip and turn to him, protective big brother mode activated. “You saved her?” Ty questions accusingly.

“Uh, I-I mean I was just there, a-and she was uh,” Rikky couldn’t hold his laughter at Mark’s stuttering while Ty continued to move closer and closer.

He looked absolutely terrified.

“Okay guys that’s enough,” you interrupt, rolling your eyes at the pair of them and moving to pull Mark over towards you instead, “Yes he saved me. I was in trouble with Bangtan and he got me out of it and now they’re coming for him too. That’s why he’s here and that’s why I’m going to ask King to let him stay.”

Ty’s face once again morphs into one of concern and anger, “Why the FUCK were you in trouble with Bangtan!”

Luckily before Ty can unleash the full waves of hell upon you, Rikky steps in, “Okay cupcake calm down, like I said Y/N is fine!” Ty shoots daggers at him over the nickname but there’s not time to unpack all of that right now. Rikky leans in and offers Mark his hand, “Thanks for saving her, she may be a dumbass but we kind of need her.” Mark accepts, albeit a little hesitantly, before Rikky turns to Ty with a smug look on his face, subtly urging him to do the same.

“Thank you Mark,” he said. You could practically feel the nerves fall away from Mark as the other two men seemed to relax a little.

“Where is King?” you ask, taking a sip of the water you’d gotten out of the fridge earlier and subconsciously handing it to Mark.

Ty, who was now sitting opposite you on the table next to Rikky, sighed loudly before explaining how they’d called him when they first saw you were gone, and he wasn’t happy. “He was at a meeting on the other side of the River but when he found out you were gone he said he was coming back straight away.”

“I really am dead aren’t I,” if Ty was the protective big brother, then King was on a whole other level.

“Don’t worry Golden girl, I’m sure you’ll survive,” Rikky teases, “but you have around an hour head start if you want to make another run for it with lover boy over here,” he taunts, raising his eyebrows at the way you and Mark had continued passing each other the water bottle after every sip.

“Or you could risk it,” he continues, loving the way your brows furrow and eyes harden at his relentless teasing, “sure King won’t kill you, but we can only imagine all the nasty things he could do to poor Mark,” You feel Mark stiffen next to you and resist the urge to reach for his hand, knowing it would only egg Rikky on more.

“Stop being a dick Rikky” Ty pipes in, ignoring the way the two of you were staring each down, like he’d seen it a million times before - which of course he had.

“I’m just saying,” Rikky shrugs, standing up and walking next to you, leaning his arm on the top of your head, “He could skin him alive, make him into a new suit, we all know King loves a tan blazer and Mark has such a nice glow…” before he can finish you stick your elbow into his ribs, making him double over, trapping you in a headlock in retaliation.

Mark watches unsure of what to do as Rikky and you continue to attack each other, he looks to Ty for guidance but he’s just looking on at you both bored.

“They do this all the time,” Ty explains, not missing the way Mark clenches his jaw when you cry out at Rikky pulling on your hair. “Okay knock it off! Rikky let her go before I rip your limbs out of their sockets!”

Ty’s threat working as Rikky quickly drops you to the floor and raises his hands in surrender, “Chill T, I was just playing,” ruffling your hair for extra measure before returning to his seat, “Don’t worry Mark, King wouldn’t do anything to upset the Golden girl, so you’re safe” The slight malice in his tone takes Mark back but he doesn’t say anything, nervous enough about everything and just assuming it’s more of the teasing relationship you two have.

“We take care of our own.” you explain further to him, seeing how Mark is slowly getting more and more tense, “You risked your life for me, King will protect you.” Ty nods along, giving Mark a warmer look.

“I really didn’t do anything,” Mark starts to protest but Ty steps in,

“If Bangtan saw you with Y/N you’re a target now, they won’t care if you just said hello in passing or orchestrated the entire thing,”

“Well, I wish I’d done more to help back there then,” he laughs nervously and blushing as he looks over at you watching him, not even Ty can hide the fond smile that creeps onto his face at the exchange.

“Mark, I think King will like you.”

---

While you all wait for King to get back, you take Mark away from the others to sit and talk over on the sofas. Rikky and Ty busying themselves cleaning up in anticipation of King’s bad mood.

“So what do you think of them?” you ask with a little giggle, seeing how overwhelmed Mark seemed to be with everything.

“They’re...interesting,” he smiles, looking over to where Rikky was rapidly throwing discarded clothes over at Ty who was trying, and failing, to catch them all.

“Yeah they’re definitely characters huh,” You smile at him when he turns to look back at you, shifting slightly closer to you on the couch. “They’re great, might take them a while to get comfortable with you, but they will.”

You think back to when you first met them both, remembering how it took so long for them to open up, that without Johnny you probably wouldn’t have the strong relationship you do now.

“Rikky may act like an asshole most of the time, but he’s good people, it’s just how he deals with shit,” you explain.

“What do you mean?” Mark asks curiously, to him Rikky seemed to be the epitome of confidence and happiness, how he’d teased both you and Ty, knowing how to lighten the mood.

“Rikky used to run with this other crew, really nasty guys, I’m talking worse than Bangtan, worse than anyone in N.City honestly,” that must have made it clear to Mark because N.City had some of the most ruthless crews around, “They were evil. Pure evil. Killed anyone for anything and didn’t give a shit. The bloodier the better ya know. He saw some really messed up stuff with them, it took so long for him to open up to us after we got him out, he was terrified.”

Waking up, you feel around the bed for the warmth of Johnny’s body, but he’s not there. Worried and unable to sleep without him, you get up to look for him.

The noises from downstairs tell you he’s playing games again, so you head over to join him, only to see he’s not alone.

Sitting on the floor beside Johnny is Rikky, they’re both too immersed in the game of fifa to notice your figure leaning against the door frame watching them.

“Okay so you just gotta hit this button here to the pass the ball, and then use the joystick to move around,” Johnny loved teaching people how to play his games, usually he played online against some kid from England but time zones made it a pain.

“So just like…”Rikky moved his player across the field, dribbling between players and passing the ball to Johnny’s player, “This?” he asks hesitantly.

Rikky hadn’t spoken much since he’s been at the base, you all understood of course, it took 3 weeks planning the mission just to try and get him out of there, how King found him you still don’t know but didn’t want to pry too much, not till he was comfortable.

“Yes exactly like that! You’re getting it already dude! It took Y/N so long to learn it was torture,” Johnny jokes, getting Rikky to laugh along with him. He passes him one of the many bottles of mountain dew that was lying on the table once the game is finished, clinking them together in satisfaction.

“Can I join the party?” you ask, finally moving closer to sit beside Johnny on the couch.

Rikky smiles at you shyly and hands you his controller, “You Vs Johnny first so I can see what I’m up against” he challenges, already feeling more comfortable after Johnny showing him a sense of normality amid all the blood and horror.

“He doesn’t look like the type,” Mark wonders out loud. He was right, Rikky was just a skinny looking thing, no one would suspect he would have been apart of some of the horror shows his old crew used to pull.

“I know, he’s not much for physical violence but he’s a master with a gun,”

“What about Ty?” Mark asks, drawing your attention back away from the now squabbling Tom and Jerry, “You two seem really close,”

You smile at that. Ty was your favourite person in the entire world, bar Johnny that is. He treated you like a little sister, always gave you the last slice of pizza, even stomached your terrible attempt at Christmas cake that one year, only throwing up after he’d thought you’d left the room.

“Ty came to N.City to look for his sister, he knew King somehow so we helped. He’s always treated me like a little sister, always protected me, even when I messed up,” You tell him, thinking back on all the times Ty has saved your ass over the years.

“You don’t have to carry me the whole way, I can walk Ty,” you protest from behind, Ty carrying on his back.

“You fell on your foot Y/N, walking on it will make it worse, just let me help you.” The two of you had been out on patrols by the river when you’d spotted someone grabbing a woman’s bag from the bus stop. In hindsight, maybe trying to parkour your way after them wasn’t the best idea.

“It’s another 5 miles to base Ty, let me walk!” you try to wiggle your way off of him but it’s futile, just one of his biceps being bigger than your entire head, there’s no way you would win.

“Sit still spider monkey, I’ve got you.”

“Johnny and Rikky gave him so much shit after that, but he always does it,” you giggle at the memory, making Mark smile and cheeks redden, you really were so beautiful. “Anyway a few days later Rikky fell off his skateboard and bruised his back so Ty carried him around for a week too, just so Rikky would stop bringing it up, Johnny of course carried on, but it was always different with Johnny,” you explain, looking back over to where Ty was now chasing Rikky around the Kitchen, trying to rescue one of his records.

Mark watches your face, observing the way you look at the other two with such fondness, such love. He can see how much you all mean to each other, but he’s curious about one thing.

“Y/N?” he calls, grabbing your focus again, “You keep mentioning a Johnny, where is he?” Mark sees the way you tense up and look away, but before he can take it back, Rikky yells ‘King’s back’, and you move to stand.

“Johnny died,” you say, before taking Mark’s hand and pulling him towards the door to meet King.

91 notes · View notes

ferryboatpeak · 6 years

Note

wait was there recent tom/tom interaction

Sadly, no! Tom Hardy has been busy attending royal weddings and/or failing to take a selfie with Jack in New Orleans, and Tom Glynn-Carney is busy looking like a disaffected youth forced to summer at his family’s villa in the south of France. (Harry is a similarly disaffected youth at his uncle’s villa next door. They spend the first half of the summer on their respective terraces, Tom with his laptop and Harry with his journal, each wearing tasteful sunglasses and trying to appear more disinterested than the other. One night they run into each other at the tiny local discotheque when they’re both trying to buy dubious molly from a townie. They make out in the alley and pretend it never happened.)

*** [my tomtom rambling got long so i jumped it]

Anyway, I just tag everything Tom Hardy #tomtom because that is the ONLY REASON I have any interest in Tom Hardy and I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT an au in which they are in an established relationship but just barely, like early enough that Tom has just admitted to googling Tom Hardy. “What’d you find?” he asks lazily, not embarrassed in the least because in any au Tom Hardy strikes me as the kind of guy who Owns It.

“You had a MySpace page, huh?” Tom says, smirking a little.

“Didn’t everybody?”

Tom refrains from pointing out that he was barely in junior high when MySpace stopped being a thing that anybody had. “Not with pics like yours.”

“Refresh my memory,” Tom Hardy says, and Tom fuckin’ goes for it, duck face and squinty eyes and hand shoved down the front of his pants.

Anyway if I was better at writing porn this would result in Tom recreating an escalating series of MySpace selfies, until he’s finally arse-up on Tom Hardy’s inexplicably mirror-adjacent bed like the last pic in this post.

***

also meghan, what the FUCK is that kat story, I’m dying about it, and it’s even better if you pretend the kitten is tgc. “On the way back from the internet cafe yesterday, there’s this kitten in the road, and I’m like. hey kat whssup? then I had to double take. that’s a small cat as cats go. it’s prolly like a couple months old max. so I’m like hey little fella, and I look about but no one is looking for this thing. so I stopped and turned round and said hey kat where’s your family, and he’s like I don’t know.”

#tomtom #i don't even fucking know #kat tgc

0 notes

jinjikook · 7 years

Text

pocket change | 1 | (m)

word count: 7.5k

genre: smut; supernatural AU + demon!yoongi

pairing: reader/yoongi

summary: yoongi is supposed to be exactly what you need to save your family; unfortunately, he’s a demon and you have some conditions to go through before anything can be done. fortunately? temptation isn’t that bad of a consequence, as long as it’s with the aforementioned demon.

warning(s): mentions of domestic abuse, rough oral sex, lots of sexual tension, dirty talk, fingering, marking kink, use of petnames, come eating, sex-pollen sort of situation (not exactly but that’s the closest warning i think fits the situation)

special thanks to: @honeyheonie for being a wonderful beta ♡

masterlist

Was this really what it had come to?

You shivered for the umpteenth time in what felt like an eternity but you knew it had only been about 10 minutes.

He told you to you could find him here. Namjoon said it himself that when he needed “special help”, this was the place to go.

But outside a shitty laundromat?

The back alley of one to be specific. It was sketchy enough as is, let alone adding along the element that you were here to meet someone you had never met or seen, a complete and utter stranger. All under the pretenses that he could help you out with your little “problem”, as Namjoon aptly put it.

You clutched your arms towards your body in a tight hug, the chilling wind cutting through your clothes and biting at your skin. The cold nipped at your heels and made you tremble like a leaf in the gallant winds. Another ten minutes, that’s all you’ll wait before deciding that this ‘Yoongi’ guy doesn’t even exist and all of this was either an elaborate prank or a set-up from the get go.

Checking your phone, you squinted at the too-bright light that shone from the screen as it illuminated your features in the dimly-lit and sort of musty alley. A black cat passed by, a fleeting shadow, and you snuck a glance in its direction before refocusing on your phone.

You [10:14 PM]: joon, what the fuck?

You [10:14 PM]: is this guy a no show or what

JoonBug [10:15 PM]: You gotta be patient Y/N, he kinda runs on his own schedule.

JoonBug [10:15 PM]: It’s worth it though, the things he can do.

You [10:16 PM]: you make it out like he’s a whore or something

You [10:16 PM]: namjoon please tell me i’m not meeting with a prostitute.

Before Namjoon could reply to your text, you felt a sudden chill slowly climb up the notches of your spine like a ladder, all the way to the nape of your neck where the hairs stood up from the sensation alone. You suppressed a deep shudder, not knowing what had come over you. Shaking your head free of the nervous thoughts that clung onto your psyche for the time being, you were about to text Namjoon that you were just gonna call it a night and leave.

Ahem.

A throat cleared from behind you and you swear you’ve never whipped around so fast in your entire life.

“You rang?” A low and admittedly pretty bored voice rasped between the two of you, the other person being a new addition to the scene. He was small, not shorter than you but still definitely shorter than Namjoon. His inky black hair shone with the neon lights of one of the adjacent stores, the red EXIT letters leaving a scarlet hue over both his head and his face. It was ominous almost, adding in an eerie element of surprise along with how cold it suddenly turned.

How did he sneak up on you so quietly?

Stuttering your words, either from the fact you could barely stifle your chattering teeth at this point or from the shock that still washed over you in waves and tendrils, you greeted the other.

“Yoongi, is it?” He nodded smugly, but his face still seemed to have an aura of ‘I’d rather be anywhere but here’ sinking into his features. His really, really pretty features, you came to realize.

“I’m assuming you’re in need of some help? As is my specialty,” He gestured to the backdoor of the laundromat, sending you to enter from where you stepped out from almost an entire hour ago.

As you two walked the dark corridor that led to the cheaply-furnished quarter fueled laundromat, Yoongi began to ask questions, not even allowing you to probe more about him or how he could ever help you. “So what is it exactly that you need from me?”

“Well, not from you per se. You see, it’s my father. He’s—“

“Sick? Dying? Missing? All of the above?”

“No, actually.” You gave him a weird look. Who had he been dealing with before that made those were his automatic answers? “I’m not sure how you could actually help, but Namjoon says you’re some type of miracle worker of sorts. Like, for almost any situation. Which is weird and really creepy but… I’m desperate.” Your voice slowly wavered at the end of your sentence, eyes downcast and mind already boggling with what you were going to ask of this strange man.

Finally reaching the actual store, Yoongi immediately turned on heel to the half-stocked vending machines that were haphazardly stationed in the back corner, past all the washers and dryers. He stood in front of the machine, the graphic of the yellow M&M guy on the side flickering and making you wonder if the machine even properly dispenses food anymore. You could already see several packs of snack foods still stuck between the prongs and the glass, a dim reminder of those who went hungry after spending a dollar on lost hope.

It was almost symbolic, in a way. How in this store, where you had to use your pocket change to fulfill a necessity, people would instead use it to try and stave off their hunger, cravings and desires. Only for it all to be an illusion, a siren’s song off the deep end—their money wasted and desires unsatisfied.

Yoongi tightened his lips in a manner to show he was seriously considering what he wanted to consume today.

If only you knew what he was really craving, you’d be running for the hills already.

“Um, I don’t know how much time you think I have—especially after having to wait so long for you in the first place—but can we just get to the point? My dad has been abusing my mother and little sister. He beats them, and I can’t do anything about it. I was able to get out of it all, moving out to live with a good friend of mine, but I want them out too. The police can’t help because, ironically enough, my father is the police chief and an ‘outstanding citizen’, according to the public.”

Yoongi hadn’t even looked in your direction throughout your entire story, eyes still scanning for the meager choices he had, between rotten apple slices, crumbled cheddar crackers and rock hard granola bars.

“Like I said, I don’t really get how you could ever help but, Namjoon swears you can so… will you help me?” Yoongi spared you a glance, a millisecond of eye contact before he dragged his eyes back to the machine.

“Change?”

“I’m… sorry?” Yoongi looked exasperated, despite barely speaking between the two of you. Hardly enough to be frustrated over.

“Change, for the machine? I know what I want.”

You furrowed your brows. Was he just a beggar, trying to cheat you out of both your money and time? He simply raised his own eyebrows, hand outstretched as he awaited the seventy-five cents he needed for those nasty looking apple slices in the package with the faded orange (it probably used to be red a millennia ago) apple character smiling out into the free world.

Digging into your purse, you managed to find two quarters, a dime and a couple of nickels. Handing them all over, you watched as Yoongi counted them and dropped them one by one into the machine. It felt like you were throwing the money away, but you still watched as the inevitable happened.

He punched in the numbers and the machine roared to life, the rusty spirals turning and creaking as they moved for probably the first time in years. Who actually ever buys the healthy shit in these things? Yoongi apparently.

The bag slowly whirred out until, of course, the top of it leaned forward and got caught on the glass, trapping it in between it and the swirl of silverish-copper coils. It now matched the several other snack foods that met the same fate at one point or another.

“I could’ve told you that was gonna happen,” Rolling your eyes, you grew impatient at how little help Yoongi had turned out to be so far.

“Just wait my dear, patience is key.”

Quizzically watching, you realized how… normal Yoongi looked. He was wearing a maroon hoodie, the thing clearly a size or two bigger than him, hanging off of his frame and covering over the highest parts of his thighs, which were tightly bound in ripped, stark black jeans. The tears were all along the meat of his thighs and on his knees, revealing milky smooth skin there, sans a mole or two. He was wearing sneakers, raggedy, old and a little worn down.

He looked like a regular college student, no one special and certainly not like the miracle worker Namjoon painted him to be.

“How is any of this gonna help me? You know what, fuck it, ‘Joon totally messed with me. Nice meeting you Yoongs, or whatever the hell your name was. Thanks for the false hope, keep the stale apple slices. That is, if you ever get them out of the damn—“

You locked eyes onto where the packet of apples were stuck just seconds ago, only to see nothing there. Yoongi hadn’t moved, not even an inch, and you certainly hadn’t heard or seen anything fall down into the basket below. But when your now slightly wider eyes trailed down, you saw the baggie in Yoongi’s hands, his veiny and admittedly, fairly attractive hands.

“You… How—wait… I don’t understand.”

“You think I’m like you, fleshy and weak. But your eyes deceive you, sweetheart. There’s more to me, a part that can help you with your problem. But I’m not sure if I want to work with someone with such an… attitude problem.”

You quickly shook your hands in front of you, hoping you could backtrack from your earlier outburst. “No, no! Wait, I’m really sorry! What… what are you?” Mind still warping and trying to wrap around this entire situation, Yoongi could literally hear cogs turning in your head as you continued to flicker between the bag of sour apples and Yoongi’s face.

He chuckled, used to seeing all shades of emotions from when people wondered and discovered what he is.

“Simply put, I’m a demon,” Nearly breaking the already cracked tile under your feet with the sheer force of your jaw dropping, you squinted at Yoongi. Was this all a trick, a joke?

Demons weren’t real, just a figment of people’s imaginations and delusions. Nothing but lore in shitty leather bound books and even shittier television.

“It’s a lot more complicated than just a title, but to one-track minded people like you, it’s just easier to stick with Demon. Otherwise, I might just tangle you up and lose you along the way, and you’re just too pretty to lose.”

Not sure if you should be flattered or offended, you slowly backed away from Yoongi, who was smiling almost… warmly? His gums showed, due to his slightly shorter teeth, and while on an everyday encounter, you’d find that adorably cute and probably attractive enough to make you want to approach him with sweet syllables to try and entice him into a deep conversation, you couldn’t help but imagine the malice behind such a sickeningly sweet smirk.

“I don’t want to hurt you Y/N, just want to help. That is why you asked for me, right?” You could only nod, but then it occurred to you.

“H-How do you know my name? I never told you, and I’m sure Namjoon didn’t either.” He only smiled, gesturing to himself, probably trying to say ‘Hellllooooooo? Demon?’ sarcastically.

At that point, your heart was beating erratically out of your chest, probably visible over your clothes and it suddenly hurt everywhere. Your brain was pounding, eyes suddenly all-too sensitive against the overhead lights and the washers that were previously humming lowly in the background are now banging raucously, making it feel like the water and suds that are swirling inside their heavy tin bins were instead behind your eyes, water logging your thoughts to the point where you saw spots of white dotting along your blurred vision.

Next thing you know, there’s cold fingers holding your hips as everything goes black.

The pounding and banging lowered to a murmured hum, buzzing along your eardrums and down to your fingertips. It felt like there was an energy being transferred in your body, all your nerves coming untangled as you got drained of the nervous tick that twinged in your stomach. Slowly, but effortlessly, the shivers dissipated along with the goosebumps that rose along the skin of your exposed arms.

“Y/N? Are you with me?” A voice murmured, a gentle rumble that sounded like dripping chocolate and gold. He spoke in even more hushed tones, more to himself as it was hard to pick up in your hazy semi-conscious state. “Damn it, why do I always get the ones that pass out? This shit never happens to Tae. Then again, the prick seduces people with his dick first and then seals the deal.”

“Who’s Tae?” You mumble, eyes prying open a smidgen to see that the lights weren’t as bright as they were before. It took a moment before you realized you were laying on the ground, a balled up jacket underneath your head—Yoongi’s jacket to be exact.

“Oh look, Sleeping Beauty’s finally up,” Yoongi reached to brush your hair away from your forehead, letting you see him better. He was wearing a short sleeved white t-shirt, slightly sweaty to the point where the shirt wasn’t as fully opaque as it should be. His black hair stuck to his own forehead in chunks and strands, not necessarily soaked from the perspiration but more so that it clung to his slightly dewy skin and made it look much wetter than it actually was. “You doing okay?” His voice was still low, the timbre almost to the point of a raspy growl. It was pretty hot, if your slurring brain had to say so.

Nodding slightly, Yoongi licked his lips once before kneeling more comfortably by your body while you tried to sit up on your forearms.

“I’m gonna make this quick because, while I was trying to teach you a lesson about patience and waiting and all that kind of shit, we actually lost a lot of time in-between your little temper tantrum and black out session. Basically, yes I’m a demon and I can do all kinds of dangerous and illegal shit that shouldn’t be real but it is. No I don’t have a tail and my eyes don’t go fully black, my irises just change color based on certain feelings and emotions and I can control when they do or don’t. I’m not going to ask for your soul or make you sign a contract, but there are rules and things we have to go over because, while yes I am going to help you with your problem, it just isn’t as easy as they make it out to be on TV.”

Your mind felt like mush and suddenly everything was too much for you to handle again, the familiar darkness seeping into your line of sight again as you felt your body give out once more.

“Son of a bitch! What the fuck, are you anemic or something?” Yoongi spat, mostly out of frustration because he couldn’t keep you conscious now but he was also concerned, never having seen someone so out of it like this before in all his hundreds of years being a demon.

He let his fingers rest on your temples as he tried to focus all his energy on keeping you conscious, desperate to complete this conversation without rendering you lifeless.

“Y/N, I need you to just stay awake for a little while longer, I can’t fucking stay here forever.” Yoongi picked up your body and surged enough energy in you to at least make you sit upright. Nausea tugged at your body along with Yoongi doing literally just that, pulling you up to stand and then promptly dragging you out of the shitty laundromat out to where you had initially waited for him. The night progressed to get even darker, matching the stark hues and values that Yoongi held in his hair and in his eyes.

The fresh air did you some good, along with whatever mojo Yoongi had shot into you. You could breathe a little easier, the heave that was once there slowly easing off your chest and giving your lungs room to expand. The ground felt sturdier under your feet, the pavement no longer making you feel topsy-turvy and upside down, your stomach finally calming down enough to the point where you were sure you wouldn’t release your dinner on the ground in front of you.

“Watch me, keep your eyes on me.” Yoongi whispered, barely making it past your ears as you finally focused your blurring vision on the figure in front of you. Yoongi’s face came into focus, crystal clear and crisp at the edges, in high definition. His cheekbones gleamed with the light that shone from the backdoor of another store, white bouncing off his skin like glistening marble.

Yoongi’s eyes were gray, nearly white. Specifically, his irises were values of monochrome muted grays, as if they were a life like drawing with the eyes only shaded in graphite and charcoal.

His breathing was fast, eyes darting over you cautiously. He looked over his shoulder once, twice, before finally pushing you against the brick wall that adorned the outside of the laundromat. He tugs out the apple slices where he had stashed them in his pocket.

“Are you gonna feed me 3-year old apple slices from a vending machine? Because that sounds like something only a demon from Hell would do, so I totally believe you at this point.” You managed to gain control of your numb tongue, finally speaking well enough. Apparently with enough cognitive sense to be sarcastic to someone who could probably end your life right then and there.

Yoongi laughed–legitimately laughed–and you felt the tension melt from your bones as his energy seeped it all out of you in one solid go. It felt like a gulp of fresh air, filling your lungs to capacity and letting your brain finally circulate enough blood to appreciate how close Yoongi was to you at the moment.

“Good to know you’re back with me Y/N. Now, watch. I don’t have a lot of time but we need to do this now if you want me to be able to come back and help you,” Yoongi tears open the package and pulls the slices all out. He arranges them in the shape of a standing apple, as best as he could with how mushy and rotten they were. You subconsciously wondered if this was a metaphor for something but you didn’t have time to consider it before the apple became whole right before your very eyes. It plumped with life, suddenly shiny and red and healthy beyond compare.

Your eyes were probably bugging out of your skull and your mouth gaped open and closed like a goldfish gasping for air. Yoongi smirked at your reaction, taking pride whenever he rendered a client speechless, and then mouthed at you to watch.

“This,” He gestures to the apple, “is temptation. Much like the Garden of Eden, the apple represents temptation and sin. Once you take a bite of it, there’s no going back. You have full reign of me until our deal is up, and as wonderful as that seems, you’ll learn fairly quickly that a demon is not something you want to have chained around you for very long. Because wherever we go, trouble is sure to follow. There will never be temptation without consequence, so prepare yourself Y/N. Are you still willing to proceed? We can discuss the matters of your father and family later, but I need to tether myself to you before my time here is up.” Yoongi’s ice-cold gaze bore into your eyes, your breath catching in your throat.

You didn’t have much of a choice, knowing that you just had to help your mother and sister; they deserved as much. You promised them you’d come back, kicking and screaming if it had to be that way.

Nodding timidly, you watched as the scarlet apple in Yoongi’s lovely hands as it slowly morphed into a black tube, with a band of gold wrapped around the middle. He reached with his other hand to tug at it, uncapping and slowly pushing up the product inside.

“Lipstick? Temptation is… a tube of berry red lipstick?” Musing as he finished bringing the color to full view, his lithe fingers holding it steady.

“Wine red, more like it. The apple will change depending on what your greatest temptation is; you won’t be able to deny the cravings you’ll have as long as you’re with me, are you aware of that?” Yoongi looked you dead in the eyes, conveying just how heavy the consequences were of what you were going through with.

The next moment went by almost in a blur, snatching the tube from Yoongi’s palm to turn and face the dirty metal gutter pipe that was a few feet from where you stood outside, the biting chill now faded as you slowly applied the deep red to your lips. As you made each pass, the color deepened and darkened, along with the buzzing in your brain and the hum in your veins. It felt like you got hotter the more opaque the color got, the inky red seeping into your irises as your pupils swelled with a newfound intensity that should’ve terrified you.

Instead, all you could focus on was how warm it began to feel. Tugging at every article of clothing you had on, you turned to face Yoongi and the sight nearly took your breath away.

Had he been this attractive when you first laid eyes on him?

Maybe it was because he was no longer wearing his loose hoodie, instead donning a matching loose t-shirt, the crisp white contrasting with the jet black of his hair, or maybe it was how smooth and pink his lips looked in the warm red hue of the emergency exit sign. Something about him was suddenly so enticing.

So… tempting.

In a way you just couldn’t resist, a metal wire tugging at the bottom of your stomach and making you lurch forward to be chest-to-chest with him. He didn’t seem to mind, not the least bit surprised by your suddenly bold move.

It felt like his scent was swirling around you in the aura of a temptress, calling you hither to be as close as you could possibly be with him. He invited you in, his palms grazing along your sides and smoothing the wrinkles that formed in your shirt. Every brush of his fingers brought static shocks to the surface, slowly seeping down to make your bones itch to be sore and broken by the demon’s hands.

“Take whatever you want, dear. Let it consume you, as it should.” Yoongi murmured, his breath fanning over your cheekbone and making you tilt your head to meet his longing gaze. It was matching in darkness with the rest of his attire, but something there reflected more than just the surrounding lights. Something more base and predator-like.

It made you ache.

“This,” Yoongi paused, breath fanning over your lips as he spoke, “is your temptation. Lust will consume you should you not fulfill your tasks and complete the deal with me. Now, do what you want, while we still can.” Your head felt fuzzy, stuffed with cotton as the world around you blurred and muffled in comparison to how loud, clear and crisp you could hear and see Yoongi. He was all you could focus on, the feel of his palms etching searing burns into your sides, his dark eyes swirling with hues of reds and pinks, almost unnoticeable in the low lighting of where you still were.

Everything became watered down; blending like wet gouache and turning the primary colors around you into muddled browns and tertiaries.

It was your lips on his or his on yours, you couldn’t really tell or care in that moment. All you knew was that Yoongi’s tongue was already playing at the seam of your mouth, prodding for entrance and you willingly gave it to him. He was dominant, no doubt, but you were desperate. Your hands scrabbled for purchase on the front of his shirt, surely stretching the neckline out with how hard you were balling it up in your fists. Yoongi’s own hands took a harsh grip on your hips, the gentle slide along your sides gone now with the new change of atmosphere.

Back against the dirty brick wall, you let Yoongi’s tongue take control of the kiss, your eagerness being overshadowed with just how much power and fervor Yoongi had in his mouth alone. His hands roamed, reaching back and groping your ass to bring your hips flush with his, feeling just how affected he was by the kissing.

You gasped into his mouth, relishing in just how hard Yoongi felt against your stomach, the denim doing him no justice. He nipped into your mouth, leaving sore bites along your lips that were probably going to swell slightly in the next few minutes and make it impossible to hide what you were up to.

Yoongi pulled back, allowing you to breathe, despite it being heavy and still inches from his mouth, you snapped your eyes down at his talented lips. You saw peppered and smeared tracks of red, forgetting that you had applied the lipstick beforehand.

“The lipstick looks good on you,” You murmured, mindlessly bringing your hand up from his probably destroyed t-shirt to graze your thumb across his mouth. Yoongi breathlessly chuckled, the hot air puffing against you and his grip tightened on your ass, his palms wide across the meat of it.

“If you think it looks good here, imagine somewhere else…” He trailed off, letting his eyes rake down your body before looking down at himself. You instantly caught onto what he was saying and the mere thought alone of your lipstick marks across his length made you drop to your knees, all protests gone from your conscious mind as you fought to keep sane in the heated and heady haze of lust.

Yoongi groaned from the sight of you on your knees, hands already pawing at his belt and tugging down his zipper. His cock jumped from inside his underwear, eager to have your hot and wet mouth on him already. You couldn’t wait to get him out from the confines of his clothes, stopping to mouth along his briefs, soaking the fabric with your tongue and leaving trailing dark marks of the lipstick on the navy blue fabric. Finally reaching to tug down his waistband, you pulled out Yoongi’s hard and leaking length, not missing how lean and heavy it felt in your grip while you stroked the very prominent vein that ran on the underside of it with your thumb.

“Wait, wait,” Yoongi panted, obviously affected by your ministrations on him thus far. You patiently waited on bated breath, watching as Yoongi reached for the abandoned tube of lipstick that had toppled out of your hand and rolled unceremoniously on the ground near his feet. He uncapped the product, once more rolling the color to the top. He reached for your chin, your only thought being to obey to his willing touch. The demon gripped your face gently but still firm, holding you steady as he reapplied to color to your lips, newfound intensity burning into your veins once more.

It made you clench your fingers in anticipation, dying to get your hands and mouth on Yoongi already. His cock was still out, standing tall and a stark contrast to the black ensemble he had on. You had to wait until Yoongi deemed you perfect with a whispered breath, his words slurring with the heat that surrounded the two of you.

“Now, you may give into temptation.” You didn’t hesitate a moment longer, his grip coming off your face and you went straight to jerking him in long, languid pumps. The slick that beaded at the top glistened as it grew with every upward stroke, tempting you to reach forward and lap it clean but you decided to pass your thumb over it instead, digging into the slit and making Yoongi growl.

It had to be much later than when you first arrived, if the cold that was settling around your bubble of lust-induced heat was anything to go by. As Yoongi breathed heavily, his breath came out in white puffs of smoke, the biting autumn air coming to nip at his lips.

You drank in the sight of the demon in front of you, in control yet completely at the mercy of your hands. It was a sense of power you never thought you’d ever have possessed but it was honestly such a trip, the burning need in your veins making your confidence swell and grow as you continued to work Yoongi at such a slow pace it made him mad.

“I thought you were going to put that mouth to use, otherwise I wouldn’t have wasted all that pretty lipstick.” Yoongi breathed out, hand coming to thread into your locks and tighten there, thought it felt more like he was grounding himself rather than trying to control you.

You huffed out a laugh, dark and nothing like you’ve ever sounded like before. Something inside you wrenched, its ugly face coming to rear as you finally let your temptation win. You leaned forward, ignoring the minute voice inside your head begging you to turn back, to stop while you still could. But you honestly couldn’t now, even if you wanted to.

Which you really didn’t want to anyways.

Taking the swollen head into your mouth, you gave it a hard suck, sure to press your lips into a circle around the bulb to imprint the color on the skin there. Yoongi bucked his hips against your mouth, meeting the resistance of your tongue pushing up against him. He gripped your hair tighter, trying to move you from the spot you were suctioned onto. Your eyes slid up, slithering like a smooth and slick snake coiling its way up Yoongi’s bones and settling deep in his nerves–in the pit of his stomach where he felt his resolve tightening and dissipating with every ebb and flow of your tongue on him.

Establishing eye contact, you smirked as best as you could around his cock before you decided to move down his length, sure to suck hard enough to smear your lipstick as you bobbed slowly. “Finally,” Yoongi breathed out, his grip faltering slightly on your hair. You indulged the demon, giving him the base pleasure that you needed just as badly for yourself.

One hand stayed curled around his base, sure to pump whatever your mouth couldn’t reach with the slick of the spit that slid down as you moved. Yoongi’s head rolled back, his breaths coming out in short, harsh pants that painted the air around him in spools of white cotton. Flattening your tongue on the vein that you just wanted to suck dry, you felt more than heard Yoongi’s sharp intake of breath, his hands holding a death grip on you now that you had him in the palm of your hands. Or the base of your tongue, same deal.

Your name rolled off his tongue sinfully, in ways you couldn’t even imagine in your wettest, filthiest dreams. He couldn’t help himself as he let his hips take over, rolling into you and making your mouth squelch loudly from how he fucked into it, the head bulbing out many times against the side of your cheeks.

“So fucking good–absolutely made for this baby…” Yoongi drawled, his head finally coming down to latch his inky eyes back onto your own. You had to close your own pair from the sheer intensity of his gaze; the mixture of that visual along with the feeling of his length twitching inside your mouth had you feeling ethereal, on cloud nine in some twisted sense. You knew he was approaching his climax when Yoongi began to go a little rougher, less caution for the sake of your throat as he gagged you occasionally every couple of pumps.

You let one hand travel to his balls, massaging them in tandem with his thrusts to hopefully speed up him impending orgasm. The added stimulation made Yoongi groan, a tad more vocal than he had been so far. He swiftly pulled himself out from your velvety mouth, the sound as he popped out being the epitome of lewd.

He took his length in his long digits, grip never faltering as he jerked himself off to completion into your open mouth. He watched as the white fluid coated your tongue, its watery substance causing some to slip and drip right off the tip of the pink muscle. His hand dragged with small amounts of resistance, realizing that the waxy imprint of your lips all over his cock made the slide a little tougher than normal. He rubbed his thumb and index finger in circles around the head, right by the leaking slit as he eased out the last of his come.

As he finished, you took the opportunity to pop open the button of your own jeans, wanting to relieve yourself as well. Yoongi didn’t seem to appreciate that however, growling low in his throat at the sight of you touching yourself.

“You asked for me for a reason, doll. Now let me do my damn job,” He rasped before tugging you up off your knees. He pushed you back against the wall he had you up against earlier when you were making out heavily. He watched you with hungry eyes, your heartrate rabbiting at the sudden change of control, the shift turning the world from black to white as his eyes gleamed brightly with a tone of orange, almost dandelion from how intense the color blended into the blacks of his pupils.

Yoongi tucked himself back into his underwear, not going as far as zipping up his jeans or anything else. Pushing up against you, he crashed his lips into yours and the earlier passion and turn of control was gone, Yoongi overtaking the entire kiss with anger and determination, his teeth hitting yours as he tried to consume you whole with the kiss alone.

One palm circled your waist to spread over one cheek, fingers digging into the denim of your jeans as the other wasted no time and slipped past the front waistband of your pants and underwear, leaving goosebumps in their wake as he reached where you needed him most.

His digits were skilled, expertly rubbing against your folds and spreading your slick across your molten core. He pushed you against his hand harder with the hand on your ass, forcing you to take the slight burn as he began to fuck you with two of his fingers, his index and middle fingers prodding at the bundle of nerves inside you. You tried to bite down on his tongue, hoping you could keep quiet but a harsh muffled slap on your ass made you jerk forward on Yoongi’s fingers and you cried out, head dropping to Yoongi’s disheveled shoulder.

He whispered for you to refrain from keeping your beautiful sounds to yourself, driving the point home with yet another smack to your ass. All you could do was whine at the mercy of Yoongi’s deft digits delving in deeper inside you, taking fingering to a whole new level and making you see colors just from his hand alone. You’d never felt such pleasure before, feeling like Yoongi literally had you cradled in the palm of his hand as your legs slowly turned to putty underneath you.

You gripped his shirt once more, not caring just how ruined it was from your incessant tugging alone, because you just desperately needed something, anything, to anchor you because you had never felt so much energy running through your body before and it honestly felt like you were going to either pass out or collapse at any moment from the sheer pleasure. Yoongi seemed to sense this—or maybe it was a recurring theme with his partners, he could possibly be just that good—and he used the palm on your ass to slowly slide up and cradle the small of your back, pushing you up against his body to stay upright long enough for him to plunge his fingers even harder inside you.

Panting hotly against his neck, you realized just how unmarked and unmarred Yoongi’s neck was, everything inside you screaming for you to claim him properly. After all, he was yours, in some twisted sense. You owned Yoongi, for the time being at least. So what if you left a hickey or two, it wasn’t like you weren’t leaving here a changed woman either.

Murmuring a low fuck it to which you swore you heard Yoongi chuckle to in response, you ignored the vibrations of his low growls in the pit of his throat to latch onto there and suckle wetly on the creamy column of skin, loving the slight tang of sweat that dotted your taste buds with every sweep of your tongue. You tried to focus on marking him as best as you could but you were already so close to coming, the edge drawing nearer when Yoongi did some sort of magical move where he made your insides quiver around his fingers.

“Gonna make you come so hard baby,” He rasped into your hair, taking notice how your mouth was no longer actively working his neck but instead just openly panting on the skin there, far too affected by Yoongi’s hand to think about anything else. “That’s it, come for me doll.” Yoongi’s voice drawled so slowly, feeling it was dragging up the expanse of your body, slowly and almost painfully like the rasp of a cat’s tongue on your skin.

You couldn’t contain your desperate whimpers as he practically pulled your orgasm out of you with his own hand, making you shake in his hold against the wall as your teeth chattered; though that might’ve been more so from the cold of the late night encounter more than anything else.

Yoongi encouraged you to brace yourself against him as he milked you for all you were worth, sure to drag every needy whine out of you as his fingers didn’t stop the assault on your still clenching walls. The sensitivity began to hurt, making you wince as his fingers continued to brush where you felt him the most. Shaking your head, Yoongi caught the message and kissed your hair, murmuring soft words and slowly withdrawing his fingers from inside you. The sound was wet, slick with your release and you felt Yoongi’s other hand come up to grip your chin, forcing your head up and eyes to meet with Yoongi’s own—sans color as the brownish-black that originally tinted his irises returned to replace where it was once lit with embers of a slowly stoking fire.

“Watch.” He whispered, the ghost of his breath over your cheeks making you shiver as you let your lazy, half-lidded gaze observe him take the fingers he had inside you and suck them into his slightly red-tinged mouth, tongue darting out to separate the two and clean them thoroughly of your come.

Your mouth gaped open as you watched Yoongi’s eyes shut, savoring the sweet flavor of you against his tongue.

“Do you want a taste too baby?” Yoongi asked, his eyes still shut and you nodded slowly, before realizing he couldn’t see you and you had to be vocal about what you wanted. You whispered a yes, the sound foreign to your own ears with how weak and broken it sounded. Yoongi took pride in destroying you so well, opening his eyes slowly to reveal the wine-red that swirled in his irises now, resembling the color of the lipstick you had on earlier.

The hand that was holding your chin guided you to his mouth, an agonizingly slow kiss between the two of you allowed Yoongi to slide his tongue over yours, over and over again until you were able to decipher just exactly what you tasted like in comparison to the natural taste of Yoongi’s mouth; his cheeks tasting faintly like mint and cherries, creamy and delectable like a fine wine.

When you opened your eyes, not even realizing that you had closed them to truly appreciate the collage of flavors that burst on your tongue, you were caught off guard with just how light-headed you felt. Suddenly your body felt drained, empty of any of the energy that previous thrummed loudly in your bloodstream. You registered Yoongi’s hands firm on your waist but other than that, everything was dark and you couldn’t make out anything other than a slightly bitter scent in the air, something akin to ashes and dust.

You awoke in your own bed, fluffy sheets cradling you as if you had returned home like any other night. The only indicator that last night went any differently than usual being that you saw the tube of lipstick—Temptation, you remembered—standing tall on your nightstand, next to your alarm clock that read 9:37 AM.

You jolted up, realizing you were late for work and had only a few minutes to get ready before you’d get shit from your boss for the third time that month.

After getting dressed hurriedly, you ran out into your apartment’s living room and nearly screamed at the sight of another person in the flat, sleeping soundly on your couch.

Yoongi’s eyes opened slowly, groggily almost before he squinted at you trying to worm your shoes on as you stood. He chuckled breathily, the sound a reminder of last night and it made chills run down your spine.

“So um… do you just stay with me now? Like a pet?” You asked, voice weak from how your nerves caught up with the situation you tangled yourself in last night.

Laughing, he sat up and stretched his arms above his head, revealing a small strip of skin of his stomach that you couldn’t help but peek at, for reasons unbeknownst to you. “We don’t like being called pets, but I’m a realist and I know that we’re basically like that. Minus the collar and leash, unless you’re into that Y/N.” He smirked at your anxious figure, shifting your weight between your two legs as you tried to comprehend everything with a sleep addled mind.

“Aren’t you going to be late? Bogum is gonna have your ass if you show up late one more time.”

“How do you know my boss’s name?” You eyed Yoongi warily, afraid to leave this stranger alone in your home, where you were supposed to feel safe.

“He’s one of us, living amongst the humans. It’s not usual for a demon to willingly choose a domestic life, but he liked the idea of causing an everyday hell, not so big on the whole ‘making deals and being a slave’ thing.” Your eyebrows shot up into your hairline as you drank in what Yoongi was telling you, how you’d been in such close proximity to one of his kind all this time and not even known it.

“That explains a lot, actually…” You grumbled under your breath, recalling how many times Bogum had treated you like shit and made you do terrible things for no reason whatsoever. Yoongi actually laughed out loud this time, his gums showing and reminding you just how cute he would be if he wasn’t a supernatural creature from Hell.

This was something straight out of a sitcom, and you were waiting for someone to hop out and yell “Fooled ya!” and toss confetti and for the studio audience to laugh from wherever they were hiding. But none of that happened as Yoongi motioned to the clock that was hanging and turned the hands back about fifteen minutes with a flick of his fingers, the motion making you both afraid of the power he had in those digits and aroused from how capable he’s shown they were so far.

“I’d hurry up, doll. Bogum isn’t the waiting type.” He winked at you before pushing past and heading to the direction of your bathroom.

There was still the matters of figuring out just how exactly a demon was supposed to help you with your family’s situation and how any of this was actually real. But for right now, you had been given a second chance at keeping your job with a different demon altogether and you just didn’t have the time to wrap your mind around that concept any more at the moment.

You just wanted to get this day over with, not knowing how to handle the headache that you knew was inevitably waiting for you when you had to come back home later that evening.

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