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You’re grinding up the last of your final case of artificial dried newt when the sound of the crows cawing alerts you to a customer entering your shop. It’s still early, and though you do get customers throughout the day, they’re usually fairly consistent in the times that they come to pick up their orders now that you’ve been open for business for almost 8 months.“Hello, dear,” a creaky voice greets you.There’s no visual sign of the body the voice comes from, but that’s not at all unusual and you know exactly who the customer is. It’s the old ghoul who comes in regularly to get a fix for her wrinkles. She’s a couple hundred years old and it’s starting to show on her face, so she comes in without an appearance every time she’s out of product. The unusual part is that you just gave her a fresh batch yesterday; one that’s supposed to last her two weeks. If she’s back and without a form, something is wrong.Your familiar, Augustus, and his best friend flap down from their resting post on one of the high shelves to sit next to you on their respective perches on the counter. You set the half-ground newt aside and reach out to pet at Gus’ inky black feathers.“Eudora,” you nod at the air in front of you out of habit, “How can I help you today?”“I’m sure you can guess, child. It’s your youth elixir,” Eudora says matter-of-factly.“I figured as much. Did it not work this time? Because I promise you, I used pure Italian imported moonbeams, like I always do.”“No, no. I dropped it, so I have no idea if your moonbeams are the issue. It’s all over the floor of my kitchen and its reverting the wood back to shoots!”“Oh,” you breathe. It’s a relief that your recipe is still working, though you know your gifts wouldn’t fail you in such an elementary area. “I’m sorry to hear that.”“Yes, so I’d like to purchase another batch now.”“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”“Why ever not?”“Because I can only ever make so much with the shipments of dead man’s toes I order each time and you clear me out every time you’re in here.”“Are you telling me you don’t have any toes? Because I can see a carton right behind you! I may be invisible right now, but I still have my eyesight about me.”“You’re right, I have some left,” you put emphasis on some, “But that’s reserved for other customers’ orders. I can’t use all the toes on just your orders, that’s not fair to the others.”“I have an anniversary dinner tonight. Isn’t this more important than anyone else’s order?”You suppress the urge to sigh and roll your eyes. Eudora may be difficult at times, but your youth elixir is ingredient heavy and time intensive and you charge a hefty price for even smaller samples. But thanks to her vanity, she pays for a rather large amount each time. You’re almost certain that you could pay the whole shop’s monthly ley line bill with just the profits from her orders alone. This time, though, your hands really are tied.“I can’t violate my customers’ privacy by revealing to you what products they’re purchasing, but I can assure you that some of the orders that require the dead man’s toes are quite important.”Eudora’s quiet for a moment as she contemplates her options.“Well, what about leftovers? Can’t you do something with that? Make a smaller batch?”“I could,” Augustus pecks at your long bell sleeve until you stick a hand out so he can hop up your arm and perch on your shoulder. “But it wouldn’t even take a half-century off. I don’t think you’d be happy with that after getting used to the original strength.”“When’s the next shipment coming in?”You pick up the parchment that has your list of scheduled delivery dates. Turn it over so that Eudora can see it, though you’re not sure where she’s standing exactly.“Perfect,” the scroll dents as she sticks her finger on the most recent scheduled delivery. “It’s scheduled for today.”Your eyebrows shoot up and you realize you don’t have the schedule memorized correctly. A wave of giddiness washes over you and suddenly you need Eudora out of your shop so you can clean up and get things looking presentable.“I’ll just stop by later today to pick it up. You can do a rush order, can’t you, dear?”“Eudora, you know I can’t. Potion making really is a delicate process, you can’t rush it even if you buy those new high-tech speed catalysts everyone keeps talking about. If I were to rush your order, you might experience reverse effects.”“Oh,” she gasps. “Alright, fine. I suppose I can wait. Alan won’t mind seeing my haggard face this one time.”“Allan loves you face, regardless of whether or not you’ve used the elixir. Besides, you’ve been paired ghouls for centuries longer than you’ve been using my little old mix.”Eudora scoffs. “Your little old mix is what makes Allan cough up the extra urks to take us to Cauldron Bleu tonight.”“Then, I suppose you had better go pick a dining robe.”“Yes, I really should. But I expect a batch double the size next time around, child.”“As long as you know that’ll cost you twice the amount, Eudora.”“I don’t care how much it costs as long as I look how I should. I’ll see myself off, now.”You wave goodbye, knowing she’s not looking, and tell her to have a good day. You receive no response, but you’re expecting as much.“Is she gone,” you whisper after a while.Augustus and his friend squawk an affirmative, so you turn around and immediately put the newt you were grinding in the store room. The large sundial on the north wall tells you that you have a little less than an hour to clean up the shop and perhaps put an enchantment on your skin and hair to make you look a little more put together. For professional purposes, you remind yourself. Not to make yourself more pleasing to the delivery man’s eye, of course.While you’re in the middle of trying to get your broom to sweep the snippets of rat’s hair from the last hair growth cream you’d been experimenting with, the bell rings again. You curse under your breath and wipe your hands on your apron.“Welcome to Circadian Apothecary, how may I help—oh, its just you. What are you doing here, Jolluck?”“That’s a great way to greet your friend.” When you stare blankly at her, she rolls her eyes. “You said we’d have lunch today, remember?”The wet sound of her webbed feet smacking across the floor remind you that you’ll have to mop after you kick her out. She rests her forearms against the countertop, smudging the surface with the thin, clear mucus that coats her scales when she leaves water for longer than a few minutes. You’ll have to clean that too.“Can we please take a rain check? Or maybe we could get dinner. I just…I have a delivery coming.”“Oh! With the human! I’m sticking around. I wanna see him.”“Jolluck!”“What? Is that not what he is?”“You don’t know his background.”“You’ve smelled him right? If it smells like a human and it looks like a human and it walks like a human, it’s a human.”“If he’s human, how did he cross the veil, huh?”“Humans cross all the time.”“Only when they’re screwing vampires, though!”“Or werewolves,” she points a webbed finger at you.“True,” you purse your lips. “Either way, you can’t be here. It’ll be weird if you stare at him.”“You just wanna keep him for yourself. I heard he’s not bad-looking for a flesh puppet.” She grins and swipes her tongue across her fangs playfully.“Jolluck, seriously, you can’t think about him like that if you want to be here. That’s so offensive.”She raises her hands in surrender. “Sorry, when did you become such a fan of humans?”“I’m not a fan, I just…think they’ve changed a lot since the pitchfork days.”“You’re just saying that because you went to their realm for schooling. Why did you do that again?”“I swear I’ve told you this, like, 20 times. I think they have a really interesting way of understanding the elements.”“I heard they’re kind of wrong, though.”“No, they are. But they raise some interesting issues. And they have some really nice stories and their view of history is so funny. They don’t realize half of their royalty were just warring Goblin tribes that got a little land hungry.”Jolluck’s eyes widen and she lets out a laugh. “How could anyone not know that? That’s so sad, they’re such simple creatures.”“Yeah, well, they’re still not as bad as anyone here makes them out to be. And I think you and the rest of town hall needs to stop crowding Namjoon.”“Fine. But don’t let him know you’re so smitten with him. He’ll try and burn you at the stake or something.”“I told you, they don’t do that anymore. Oh shit!” You spy him out the corner of your eye, wheeling the cart full of your new inventory towards the front door. “Don’t say anything stupid, okay?”You say a few words, an unnecessarily powerful hex, and the air crackles around your heads. A sudden gust of what seems like wind runs through the shop before circling back and passing through you roughly. When it clears everything is glistening likes it’s just been freshly scrubbed, but you’re instantly weak and visibly paler.“Are you crazy?” Jolluck runs to your side, her wet footsteps evaporating off the wooden floors like she never stepped there. “All this for a human male?”“Look, you can see your reflection in the countertops,” you smile dizzily at her.Namjoon stands politely in front of the glass, waiting for the shop’s magic to acknowledge you of his presence. Seconds later the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, though you know he’s there because you can see him. With a feeble flick of your wrist, the door opens. He rests his open palm on the doorjamb as is customary and pulls the dolly laden with goods behind him.“Morning,” he greets, with his back turned to you so he can set the boxes on the ground. His bare arms flex as they work to keep the glass jars inside from jostling. The tattoos running from wrist to shoulder are a web of black lines of varying weights. They suit him.“Hi there.”He turns quickly at the sound of Jolluck’s voice and notices that she’s holding you up like she’s carrying your dead weight because she is.“Hi, I’m Namjoon,” he takes a few hesitant steps forward until he can make out the swirling pattern of Jolluck’s scales. He gestures towards you. “Is she okay?”“Yeah, she’s fine. She was just biting off more than she can chew and now she’s half dead. Isn’t that right?”“Shut up,” you mutter.You manage to prop yourself up on the counter so you can look up at Namjoon. A large, sleepy smile parts your lips as you take in his adorable dimple and plush lips. He really is very nice-looking, regardless of what the townspeople say. You don’t even mind his smell that much.His cheeks flush and he bites down on his lip, grinning at his shoes.“Are you okay to check the inventory and sign off?”“Hmm, yeah. I just need a drink. Jolly, can you get me a drink?”She huffs, but brushes past the heavy velvet curtain to find a bottled energizer somewhere in the back of the store room. She returns moments later with a little glass flask that’s stopped with a cork. Which would be fine if you had some strength in your arms, but you’re still very much 80% noodle.“Namjoon, you can open this, right?”“Sure,” he smiles and takes the jar from you. His hands are oddly soft for someone whose job consists of heavy lifting and sorting through tons of perilous ingredients to sell to people like you.Your head lolls to rest on your shoulder and you wonder briefly what his hands would feel like against the skin of your waist or your arms or your inner thighs. He chokes a little and nearly drops the vial but manages to snap it out of the air before it can shatter.He gives it back to you wordlessly and wipes his now sweaty palms on the fabric of his pants.“So, what do you have for me?”“Just the usual shipment.”“I know, but maybe you can, uh, read it out loud for me. Jog my memory?” You’re being over the top, you know it. But you really like his voice, too. Everything about him is just so…nice.“Alright. The first thing on the list is standard toadstools, a grade and rehydrated.”“Hand-picked?” You take a shot of the energizer.“By yours truly.”“Nice,” is all you say as you eye his hands once more.Jolluck leans over to hiss into your ear. “This is disgusting and I’m starving. When are we doing lunch?”“When he stops telling me everything I ordered,” you hiss right back out of the corner of your mouth. “What else is there?”“There’s more lilac, sage, thyme, and wolf’s bane. Those are all local except for the sage. But I got you a good deal at the market.”“How nice of you.”As he lists the other supplies he brought with him, you take the time to nurse your bright green energizer and look Namjoon over some more.Perhaps you spent too much time in the human realm, but you really do think he’s loads better than that daemon boy Yoongi, who breezes through the shop every so often to show off his solid gold watch collection. Namjoon is tall and nice, and always has a pretty blush around you. You don’t even mind the way he smells, it’s actually not as bad as you remembered during your time at human college.“Sorry about not bringing the dead man’s toes. I guess the graveyards were a little empty this week. But that’s everything, I think,” he says with finality, folding his list and shoving it in his back pocket. He begins deconstructing the rolling cart he took with him, now that it’s no longer in use with the boxes having been unloaded onto the ground.“Oh.”You can’t help but be disappointed that your time with him is ending so soon. And right when you got your strength back, if the tickling hum running through your veins is any indication of the energizer’s effect. So much energy is coursing through you that some magic starts to spark out of your fingers. You quickly hide your hands behind you back, not wanting him to see the sparks and think you’re some young witch with no control over her magic. Although, wiping yourself of nearly all your energy moments before he arrived just to clean the shop sounds like something you might have also done when you were a mere teen.Jolluck emerges from the stairs in the back that lead to your apartment on the second floor. “Your cabinets are all empty. And your fridge. I’m going shopping.” She waves something that looks suspiciously like your wallet, the urks in it jingle mockingly.A thought pops into your head, so you decide to just run with it.“N-namjoon, do you think you could stick around? I’m still feeling kind of shaky and Jolluck is heading to the southern market.”“The southern market? Why would I go there when I could just go to the one by the Elder woods?”“Just go,” you give her a smile of mostly bared teeth. You turn to Namjoon again, once Jolluck is out the door. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”“I don’t mind. Where should I put them?”“In the back. I’ll show you.”You wait for him to pick up the first box, relishing in the way the muscles in his back bunch and coil as he hefts it up into his arms with a soft grunt. He follows behind you quietly while you lead the way.“Wow.” He takes in the rows and rows of shelves behind the curtain. Each one packed full with various ingredients or preserved things for rituals that are shelf-stable. “You’re no joke.”“Guess you could say that,” you lean against a wall and watch him open the box. “I was the top of my classes.”“In witching school?”“And at a human college?”“Really,” he stops to peer down at you. “So, you don’t mind humans, then?”“Not anymore than I mind the folks here. They both have their ups and downs.”“And I suppose you’ve heard what everyone’s had to say about me?”He holds up two jars of pickles hooves, unsure of where to put them. You push yourself off the wall and take them from him. He follows behind once again to move the box, and hand you each jar as you stack them on the appropriate shelf.“I mean, people definitely like to talk to me about you.”“About my being a human?”“Yeah, sort of. But probably more because you’re human. People think I love all things human just because I went to school with them.”“Well, what do you think?”“About humans?”“About me.”Before you can stop yourself, your tongue sticks out playfully between your teeth. “You really wanna know?”“I do,” he smiles down at you, another jar in hand.With a crooked finger, you beckon him closer and he moves in with head cocked to the side. You lean in close enough that your lips just barely graze the shell of his ear. He shivers.“I don’t think you’re really human,” you whisper before grasping the jar and tugging, but it doesn’t budge.Namjoon stares down at you, wide eyed, before snapping out of his surprise and tugging the jar back, bringing you stumbling with it.“How’d you know,” he says back in an equally hushed voice.“What’s that saying you guys have? The nose knows?”“It was because of my smell? Seriously?”“What can I say? I spent a lot of time with humans while I was at school with them. I know that smell anywhere. And you do smell like them, but…you also don’t.”“How do you know it’s not just because I spend a lot of time fae people?”“Is that why?”“No,” he grins. You swear it must be a trick of the light, but his eyes flash unnaturally for a second. “My dad was human, but his dad was a seer and my mom was a quarter elf.”“I knew it. You smell too much like silver to be a human. Not enough copper in you.”“Congrats on guessing right.”“Can you do any magic? I know it tends to be weaker when it’s not matrilineal, but genes are funny things.”“I can’t do much outward production. Mostly just life-force projection, see?”He pushes up the sleeve of his T-shirt and flexes his bicep, bringing the tattoos into focus. You realize upon closer inspection that they’re moving now. The lines weave together in a periodic fashion, an organic rhythm. Like the tides or another being’s pulse. He pulls up the hem of his shirt to reveal that the tattoos continue down his flanks and spread onto the ridges of his otherwise flat abdomen. Your hand itches to reach out and traces the lines. Would you feel his life-forces thrumming under your finger? Would yours expel to meet his? Were they even compatible enough to do that? You hoped so.“Wow.”“I can also um,” he trails off.“You can also what? You can tell me. Is it embarrassing?”“Not for me,” he smirks. When you squint out of confusion, his cheeks color and he looks down at the ground. “I have level 2 telepathy.”“Oh. That’s cool. Why is that embarrassing?”“I mean, it’s not embarrassing for me. But it sometimes is for other people. Since it’s combination mirrored and tactile telepathy.”You choke on an inhale and get sent into a coughing fit when you realize that Namjoon can feel your thoughts about him on his skin. It’s probably a side effect of the tattoos he has, so it’s probably not super strong, but it still means that every time you made eye contact with him and thought about how broad his shoulders looked, he felt it in his shoulders. All those times you’d lusted after him while he brought in your orders, he’d felt them.“I am so sorry,” you gasp with tears of embarrassment pricking at the corners of your eyes. “Had I known, I would have never, ever asked you to stick around so much. I hope I didn’t make you too uncomfortable. For what its worth, I am truly sorry.”“It’s really fine. It’s a lot better than what everyone else was thinking when they thought a human had managed to infiltrate town to burn everything to the ground.”“But still! You shouldn’t have to endure either of those. You could have sent your friend drop things off, I wouldn’t have gotten offended. I just… I don’t know what else to say.”“It’s really fine.”“How could it be fine?”“Because I wasn’t bothered by it,” he admits with a soft smile.Silently, he takes your hand and places it just millimeters above his forearm. Your life-force, a pale yellow liquid fire, crackles up on the edges of your skin and tangles with his own syrupy black one. A phenomenon that occurs when life force resonance frequencies are compatible.“Shit.”“Yeah,” he parrots back quietly. “Shit.”You take a chance and hurl yourself at him. The force takes him by surprise and you manage to knock him onto the floor, barely missing the box containing precious jars of dead man’s toes. But you don’t care because his instantly come to skate up your arms, down your back, to cup your butt. He squeezes appreciatively and lets out a low groan when you reward him with wet, open-mouthed kisses down the column of his neck.His hands find their way underneath your uniform tunic and press brands into your skin. You keep kissing the parts of his face in a disorganized fashion. First his chin, then his clavicle, then the deep dimple in his cheek, and finally the corner of his mouth. He turns and captures your lips with his own, startling you into submission. At first, he explores the landscape of your mouth with fervent presses and caresses, but eventually he grows curious enough to probe. His tongue sneaks out to lick at the seam of your lips and you open up for him immediately, air from your pants puffing out in between you.The feeling of his tongue sliding lazily against the tip of yours, dancing along the tender inside of your lip, has you clenching in vain. You move unconsciously so his thigh slots in between yours and begin to rock your hips against him, hoping for a bit of friction.He chuckles against your mouth before pulling away from a soft, slick sound. “In a hurry?”“Yeah. I want you to fuck me. What’s wrong with that?”“Nothing wrong with that.”He curses when his hands finally meet the globes of your breasts. They’re free in the loose material of your tunic and they make for a pleasant weight in his large hands. His thumbs come out to swipe a finely mirrored pattern over your nipples. When you respond with a high whine, he twists them roughly. Almost as if he has control over them, your hips snap against him. Your writhing over him eggs on the growing erection in his trousers, which you can feel nudging your pelvis with every inward thrust.Your life force is excited enough from the amorous activity that its flowing steadily around your limbs like a ribbon satellite. You ignoring the way thick globules of Namjoon’s life force start to raise from the tattoos to trade spots with some of your own fiery energy. You read about what that means once, but now you couldn’t give two shits about whatever class notes you internalized from school.“Namjoon, touch me,” you whine when the beginnings of your arousal start to soak your underwear.“I thought I was touching you.”You roll your eyes and redirect one of the hands that been rolling your breasts down into your pants. He hisses at the sticky coating that drenches his fingers the moment you pulled your underwear to the side for him. He crooks two fingers and traces your hole as best he can with his wrist turned awkwardly. You shift until your heat sucks him in and begin to grind your clit against him. His other hand snakes around to grab at your ass semi-roughly.“That’s right. Get yourself off on my hand.”“I don’t want to cum like this,” you pant against his neck.“How do you want to cum?”“On your tongue,” you admit. You’re glad he can’t see how hot your face got, but you let out a yelp when he shifts his palm even closer to your heat.“I like that idea. Get up here.”You scrabble onto your knees above him and slip out of your clothes as best you can without kneeing him anywhere important. As soon as you’re bare, his hands land on your hips and tug you until you get the hint and shuffle forward until you’re almost seated over his chin.“You smell good,” he says with a deep inhale. He stretches his neck out and presses an open kiss to your clit, making sure to suck as he pulls away, bringing moisture with him. He licks his lips clean before doing it again and again until you’re shaking and have to brace yourself by leaning forward on your hands.Finally, he pushes down on your hips, motioning you to sit on his face properly. The moment that you do, the flat of his tongue comes out to collect the dew and undulate against you in broad strokes. When he reaches your entrance he dips in shallowly, collecting more of your arousal, and then repeating. During the first few swipes of his tongue, you try to be courteous of his neck and face, try not to overwhelm him. But once he starts slurping obscenely, your hips move on their own accord. You grind yourself sinuously on his tongue, moaning without any restriction.When he adds a thumb into the mix, rubbing at your clit, so he can attempt to fuck into you with his tongue. Your head drops forward and you notice that Namjoon is still wearing all of his clothes. You decide this won’t do and put your weight on one hand so you can undo his trousers with the other. It’s a little fumbly and it takes a few tries, but you manage to not only loosen his pants but also push them and his underwear down far enough that his erection can swing forward. You swipe away at clouds of his life force that are happily bumbling around your hand and stroke the length of his shaft. He’s not expecting the sudden touch and jumps, bumping you a little bit.You spit into your palm before going back into to stroke him in earnest. Its doesn’t take long for your arm to get tired trying to jerk him off from your far away position. You try to inch forward without moving out reach of his mouth.“Why are you moving away,” he mumbles against your inner thigh.You don’t answer at first, so he sucks a teasing hickey on the sensitive skin there, causing you to nearly topple over face-first onto his lower stomach.“You’ll see why. Just be patient.”Soon you’re hovering over his pelvis and readjust your lower body so that you’re still positioned over Namjoon’s mouth. He tries to peer up curiously but the feeling of your mouth engulfing him instantly clues him in to what you’re doing.“Fuck,” he groans at the feeling of you bobbing the warm, wetness of your mouth over his length.The tip of your tongue nudges at his slit and his eyes roll into the back of his head. Before he gets too caught up in the feeling of you caressing the bottom part of his slick shaft, he returns to your center. He starts licking back into you with a vengeance, almost like he’s competing with you. His head moves up and down with the added force his lips parting your petal-soft folds. Your clit is still trapped in the loop of constant figure eights that he skates over the nub. You whine around him and the vibrations wring a moan out of him.He senses that you’re losing the battle with your orgasm. The way your thigh’s tremble on either side of his head clues him in as well. He pulls back briefly and you hum around him from above.“Ride my face,” is all he says before gripping your thighs and pressing you tightly against him. He flexes the body of his tongue before shaking his head back and forth against your clit.The direct stimulation short circuits your brain and you nearly forget to keep jerking him off while the quakes of your high take over your body. Short, choked breaths leave you as you climax, dripping onto his tongue and the lower half of his face. Part of you bemoans the fact that you won’t see his face when he cums, so you soldier on as best you can and redouble your efforts to make him feel good as well.Almost like a feedback mechanism, your indecent thoughts coupled with the actual onslaught of your mouth have him giving you all he still can until you sneak up on him with a well-timed deep swallow as he thrusts up into your throat and just the right amount of pressure near his perineum. His body goes rigid as he spills into your mouth, and you bob your head to milk him of every last drop. Even after muscles in his thighs stop rippling, you suckle lightly at the tip to clean him up, and he squirms under you out of sensitivity. “Please don’t touch the human remains,” he drones with closed eyes, feigning death by blowjob.“Oh, stop it,” you drum your fingers against his abdomen. “You’re not even human.”“Not completely.”“At least you’re not dead.”“No, I think I am. I think you swallowed my soul.”“Well, if you’re really dead, can I borrow your toes?”